001Okay. All right. All right. I know. We're going to have, like, so much. Good morning. Good morning. I am now calling to order the May 8th and 9th meeting of the State Board, and we will begin by saluting the flag. Would you all please rise? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. I want to begin with a very happy announcement. I am delighted to announce that our student board member, Hema Cardenas, has been accepted to attend. Drum roll, Stanford University. And as a Stanford professor, I'm particularly thrilled about that. Please join me in congratulating Hema. We did. And Hema, would you like to say a few words? I'm just super
002excited. Thank you so much. I mean, Stanford, like it's in the Bay Area, never thought I would get accepted. So it was one of the biggest honors, especially being a first generation low income student. You know, it was a it's a great honor to be attending such an amazing school on a full ride. And so I'm just super excited because something I want to study is political science. I want to be a civil rights lawyer. And so I'm just ready to go into those steps and get involved in that school community. And yeah. Woo-hoo! Hema has been a terrific contributor to the board, so we'll miss your voice there, but we'll look forward to seeing where you go. We know you'll be an education civil rights lawyer. And then I would also like to very
003happily acknowledge all of the teachers in California for Teacher Appreciation Week. We have some of the most committed and dedicated and wonderful teachers in the universe And we appreciate every single one of the people in our classrooms. Thank you On to more mundane tasks we have changes in the agenda which include item W 15 was withdrawn by the California Department of Education on April 26 2019 I want to be sure that everyone knows that Spanish interpreter services will be available today for item four. Headsets are available and can be found on the table just outside the boardroom. We've designed room 1103 for translation services during the proceeding of item four only, and that is the health education framework for California public schools where we're having our public hearing and adoption. There are three public hearing
004items on our agenda. One will be heard today. Two of them will be heard tomorrow. Item four, as I noted, is the health education framework. Item 15 and 16 are petitions for the establishment and respectively the renewal for two charter schools. The first of those, the petition for establishing the... Eagle Collegiate Academy and the second the renewal petition for the International Charter High School There is a handout on the table in the lobby listing the proposed regular consent items which are items 5 through 14 and waiver items w-01 through w-11 w-13 and w-14 And then moving right along we're gonna look at proposed waiver consent items And I want to remind the board members that any members wishing to remove items from the proposed consent calendars should advise our executive director, Karen Staff Walters, by
00510 a.m. tomorrow. Today, not tomorrow. Right away, you should let Karen know. And we will take up waiver consent items later this afternoon, and then regular consent items will be covered tomorrow. Letters from the public on matters before the board were aggregated and are filed in an electronic folder sent to you by the board staff last week. I'm speaking to the board members now. We appreciate the public's continued cooperation in emailing all meeting-related correspondence to the SBE office at sbe.cde.ca.gov by noon on the Friday immediately preceding the board meeting. The SBE meeting can be accessed via a fully electronic agenda. There is one full print copy located in the lobby if you need to see it. Speakers should sign in at the table just outside the room. Binders are on the table with separate pages
006for each item number. Signing in on the page that identifies the item number on which you would like to speak will help ensure that we keep track of all the speakers for a particular item. Item 18 is the general public comment item during which members of the public may provide comments on items that are not specifically listed on the board's agenda. Public comment will be limited to one minute per speaker. In order to ensure that everyone gets their one minute, there is a timer at the podium that will flash a red signal to each speaker when the one minute time limit has been reached, and we will give you a reminder as necessary. If anyone wishes to submit materials at the meeting, they should provide at least 25 copies to Amy Babico with the item
007number that it pertains to clearly indicated. Please do not get information directly to the board members. All speakers, who may be members of the audience or the staff, should introduce themselves and the organization they represent prior to speaking. Brevity is greatly appreciated, and please do not repeat comments that were already made. You can state that you agree with the previous speaker or the comments made by so-and-so, and that will be understood and noted. There is additional seating with TV monitors available in room 1103, right around the corner and down the hall on the left, and in room 1801, around the corner and to the right, inside the personnel services office. Room 1103 is designated for Spanish translation services, or alternatively, members of the public needing translation services can access those services here in the boardroom.
008Board members, turn your microphones off when you are... on when you're speaking and off when you're not speaking. Please be sure to speak into the microphone so your comments can be properly recorded with the proceedings. And if you need to recuse yourself, please do so before any discussion on a given item begins. And we're going to move then on to item one, which is the, it's got a very long name, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress System and the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California. And I think we're going to begin with Michelle Center presenting for the CDE. Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, President Darling-Hammond, members of the board, and Chief Deputy Cortez-Aquilette. Good morning. I'm Michelle Center, Director of the Assessment Development and Administration Division. First, I would like to start off
009by acknowledging and thanking my high school science teacher, Mrs. Bryant. Mrs. Bryant made sure that I found a pathway to college. I didn't come from a family where my parents were college educated. And I had a struggle in high school. My father was very ill, and she was there for me, and she found a path. And that's what our teachers do. They have these personal relationships with their students, and they make a difference every day. So thank you, Mrs. Bryant. We'll see if I can make her proud today when I present my item to you. No pressure. So the item that I'm going to present is both an information item as well as an action item before you today. I'm going to start by going over the recommendation that you have before you. Please note
010that there is a small change before that is between what's in the paper item and what I will present to you today. The department asked the board to approve the test design recommendations within the proposed high-level test design for the transition of the initial and summative English language proficiency assessments for California. to computer-based test that is described in sections 1G of attachment 2 with the revision of extending one-on-one administration from K1 to kindergarten to grade 2. Additionally, the department asks that you approve the test design recommendations and general performance level descriptors within the proposed high-level test design within Section 1F and 2D of Attachment 3 for the development of the computer-based summative and initial alternate ELPAC. Finally, we ask that you approve the proposed revisions to the summative ELPAC blueprints as described in Attachment 4.
011The department also asked the board to authorize CDE staff to make technical edits as necessary to the documents that you are approving today. This item will also provide an update to the CASP, or the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, as well as our ELPAC programs. But before we dive into the action and the recommendation that I just mentioned, I'd like to take a moment to welcome our new board members and provide you a brief overview of the work and the assessments that we're responsible for in my division. And I will, at the end, also go over the action and provide you more details. And when I return to that topic, I will also ask my invited guest, Dr. Martha Thurlow, who's behind me, to join me. So the Assessment Development and Administration Division,
012I just like to call it the Assessment Division because that's really long, provides administration for quite a few assessments in California. In every aspect of the work that we do, we're focused on delivering meaningful measures that serve to promote high-quality teaching and learning in our state. At the forefront of that is our CASP system. The CAS system is composed of seven different assessments. The Smarter Balanced Assessments for English Language Arts and Mathematics, the California Science Test, the California Alternate Assessment in ELA, Math, and Science, as well as our California Spanish Assessment. The implementation of the CAASPP was significant in our state. It shifted the primary focus away from accountability and toward promoting high quality teaching and learning. The goal is documented on this slide. This is wording taken directly from our education code here in
013California. As you will see, I hope, in my presentation, our division really strives to place our assessments meaningfully within the teaching and learning process. The starting point of this transition to our new assessment system really began with the adoption of the Smarter Balanced Assessments in our state. These were developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, a state-led partnership whose goal is to provide world-class leadership and resources to improve teaching and learning using a balanced assessment system. Currently, 12 states, one territory, and the Bureau of Indian Education are members of that consortium. Since its inception, California has played a key role and a key leadership role in the governance of that membership. I am currently the Smarter Balanced Executive Committee Chair-Elect, and Carolina Cardenas from the California State University System also serves on the Executive Board.
014We have numerous staff that sit on advisory committees as well as professors throughout California who also provide a direction to them. With me in the audience today is Executive Director Tony Alpert from the Consortium in case you have questions regarding Smarter Balanced. It's also important to note that not only do we give our time to this consortium, but we give our resources as a state. We've made an investment in this comprehensive assessment system by ensuring it is available at no charge to districts and we have financially supported professional learning opportunities in support of that system. The Smarter Balanced Consortium created a balanced and comprehensive system of assessments that include end-of-year tests, referred to as summative assessments, interim assessments to be used as periodic check-ins during the school year, and a digital library of instructional resources,
015professional learning, and formative assessment tools and resources. Each of these elements work together throughout the year to support our teachers and students. The Smarter Balanced Assessment accurately measures what students know and can do. For ELA, students are tested in the following claim areas, reading, writing, listening, and research and inquiry. For math, students are tested in concepts and procedures, problem solving and data analysis, and communication reasoning. The Smarter Balanced assessments are computer adaptive tests. That means the test is customized for each student for a more accurate measurement of what they know and can do. Simply put, if a student answered a question correctly, the next question is more difficult. If a student answers a question incorrectly, the next question would be easier. A recent addition to the CASP system is our California Science Test or CAST.
016The CAST is also an online test. It measures the range and depth of the California Next Generation Science Standards and provides models of high quality items that reflect the fidelity to those standards. The CAST measures the claim areas of life science, physical science, and earth and space sciences. Each of the claim areas reflect the three-dimensional expectations established within the California Next Generation Science Standards, and those three-dimensional expectations include disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, as well as cross-cutting concepts. The California Alternate Assessments are available for ELA math and science. They are designed for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Only students with an individualized education program that designates the need for this particular assessment will be eligible. Our alternate assessments do provide students with developmentally appropriate ways to demonstrate what they know and
017can do as it relates to adapted grade level content. Science is the most recent addition to that and it will be operational next year. One of our new tests this year is the California Spanish Assessment. The Spanish Assessment is an optional test and it allows our LEAs to measure a student's performance in Spanish language arts. The assessment measures Spanish literacy in three claim areas, reading, writing mechanics, and listening. The Spanish assessment is a computer-based test with the following three goals. To measure a student's competency in Spanish language arts and provide student-level scores, provide data suitable in the evaluation of local Spanish language arts programs, and provide a high-quality measurable suitable to be used in part for the state seal of biliteracy. All students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 take the Smarter Balanced
018Summative Assessment unless a student's IEP designates that they take the alternate assessment. Students in grades 3 through 8 in high school can opt to take the California Spanish assessment. Finally, the California science test is taken by all students in grades 5 and 8 and once in high school, in grades 10, 11, or 12, unless a student's IEP designates the California alternate assessment for science. Sorry. Do you guys have wood to knock on? Okay, we're gonna read we happen to be in the middle of our peak testing time for casp Yesterday we hit now's the time The record I'm positive it was a world record Over six hundred and eighty three thousand concurrent users were on our system without any down the systems remain up so We're pretty proud of that. Tom Adams keeps pointing out
019that's more people than live in Wyoming, I believe. So we're very proud, and we thank our contractors, ETS and AIR, for developing systems that we can rely on and that our schools and our districts know that they can rely on. Now in addition to our CASP system is the ELPAC system. The ELPAC system consists of the initial ELPAC and the summative ELPAC. The purpose of the initial is to determine the English proficiency of students entering California schools who have a home language other than English. The purpose of the Summative ELPAC is to measure a student's progress toward English proficiency. This annual test helps determine whether a student is ready to be reclassified from English learner to fluent. Both of these assessments play important roles in identifying and ensuring that students receive the supports they need
020to do well in school. The initial and the summative ELPAC measure a student's English proficiency in four claim areas, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The ELPAC is in the process of transitioning to a computer-based delivery approach. The initial ELPAC is given to eligible students in kindergarten through grade 12. This is done within 30 days of enrollment in a California public school. students will take the initial ELPAC only once during their educational career. The summative ELPAC is given to students in grades kindergarten through grade 12 who have been identified as English learners based on the results from either the initial ELPAC or our prior test, the CELTS. Each of the CAASPP and ELPAC assessments are carefully designed to be accessible to our students. Our comprehensive system of assessment resources sets a national standard. They provide equal
021opportunity for our students to demonstrate what they know and can do, and this is definitely an area that I know we are proud of in our state. And I know that that seems like a lot, but it is not enough, right? So our division also supports work for several other assessments that are listed here. Some of them are things like our physical fitness test, NAEP, as some of you may know, and several others. So we have a lot going on. It is never a dull day in the assessment division. So the written item provides you updates on many things that are going on in the division, specifically related to CASP and ELPAC. And I will not go over all of those updates that are in your item. But I do want to give you an
022update on just one of those. And that is the launch of two new websites designed for students and their families. On April 25th, the Department, in collaboration with Smarter Balanced, HCM Strategies, and ETS, launched the Starting Smarter websites for CAASPP and for ELPAC. These websites are dedicated to helping families become familiar with our assessments so they can better understand their child's score and have easy access to family resources. They have sample student score reports with an explanation of the performance areas, sample test questions and practice tests, and they have a guide for parent-teacher conferences that was supplied by the California PTA. And they also include resources that are no cost to support their child's learning at home. And both of these sites, both the ELPAC and the CASP, Starting Smarter Sites, are available in both
023English and Spanish. Just last month, Lupita was interviewed by Univision talking about the Starting Smarter websites. And I wish I was bilingual, so I... could have listened to it but I know you did a marvelous job. The Starting Smarter website is a multi-year project and will include resources for our science tests and our Spanish tests as well as our alternate assessments as they become available. Now I'm going to circle back. to the action items before you, which include the approval of the recommendation for the transition to a computer-based initial and summative ELPAC, revisions to the summative ELPAC blueprints, and recommendations for the development of the alternate ELPAC, including the general performance level descriptors. We are fortunate to have one of our national experts, Dr. Martha Thurlow from the National Center of Educational Outcomes, who will
024join me in a little bit up here. And if you have technical questions, particularly technical questions that are difficult, we will ask UTS to come up and answer those. So in preparation for the development of the computer-based ELPAC high-level test design, we're fortunate that we received advice from national experts, such as Dr. Kenji Hakuda. He wanted to be here just to see you, member Rucker. Unfortunately, he was traveling. But that is why you all received a nice letter from him. I know, I know. And I specifically told him that you really wanted to see him. But we will get him up here in the future. We will work on that. And Dr. Diane August also, I know, wishes she could have been here and also sent you a letter of support. These are specialists in
025the fields of language development, bilingual education, and policy and research related to second language learners. We're also fortunate to work with national experts for the development of our alternate ELPAC. Dr. Megan Carvinan, Dr. Lucretia Santabeneas, Dr. Adin Sato, and Dr. Martha Thurlow. These experts are specialists in the fields of special education, policy outcomes, and assessment development for English learners, particularly those with the most significant cognitive disabilities. I'd now like to invite up Dr. Martha Furlow, who's the leading national expert on students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, to come up and explain her involvement along with other national experts in the development of the two high-level test designs, including the guiding principles and the benefits of computer-based assessments. Thank you, Michelle. Let's see if I can figure out how to work this. Assistance needed. Which
026one do I push? Enter? Enter. Okay. What a national expert, right? I cannot figure out the max. Thank you, Michelle. I'm really pleased to have been invited to kind of share my perspective on my involvement with the assessments that Michelle has been talking about. As she described earlier, I have several roles. I serve as a national expert to the alternate ELPAC program. I also serve as a member of the ELPAC Technical Advisory Group, as well as the CASP Technical Advisory Group. Through these roles, I have provided CDE and its testing contractor, ETS, with direct advice and guidance on the design and implementation of the assessments. CDE and ETS, I can say, used a really thoughtful, deliberate process to come up with recommendations for the ELPAC and the alternate ELPAC programs. The process for developing the
027recommendations for the two was similar. So CDE and ETS convened national experts over the course of several meetings. So it was not a one-time shot. We had lots of input. We considered and discussed. several key documents such as what the federal guidelines are, make sure we're consistent with those, the ETS report from 2017 about transitioning to a computer-based assessment, and we looked at what other English language proficiency assessments were doing, including WIDA, which is one of the consortia of assessments, and ELPA 21. So we reviewed a lot of things. We also reviewed and discussed best practices for assessing English language proficiency and for the alternate ELPAC, best practices for assessing English learners with significant cognitive disabilities. And our input recommended, our input resulted in the development of the recommendations that you all are considering today.
028We had several guiding principles and we had lots of discussions about what these guiding principles should be so that we were all in agreement on them. And we wanted to make sure that the recommendations focused on what was most important in support of the students who took these tests. So we developed and followed a set, this set of guiding principles that you see. The assessments had to measure English language proficiency. The assessments had to be accessible by providing the testing supports that students needed and by requiring that the test questions considered linguistic and cultural fairness and sensitivity. And then finally the assessments needed to consider the testing time and experience for the students and the test examiners. So we needed to keep thinking about those as we thought about what the assessment should be like.
029So I'll talk about the transition to computer-based ELPAC first and then talk about the alternate ELPAC later in the presentation today. So the 2000, I think Michelle said the 2018-19 ELPAC is being administered as a paper-pencil assessment. The recommendations before the board today include the transition of ELPAC to a computer-based assessment beginning with the 2019-20 summative ELPAC. So there are several benefits that we identified of a computer-based ELPAC. Score report turnaround is a major challenge for educators of English learners who use the data to make critical decisions about EL classification and decisions on providing support. instructional support to their students. Currently the results of the paper ELPAC administration are going to be available to local education agencies about six weeks after they return the answer books to ETS for processing and scoring. So that means
030if a student completed the summative ELPAC today, May 8th, their results would not be available to their school district until approximately July. after taking into account the return time and the processing time and the scoring time. So results of a computer-based ELPAC test will be available to local education agencies within four weeks after the student completes testing. If a student completed the computer-based summative ELPAC today, their test results would be available to their school districts by June 5th, when many schools are still in session here in California. Another benefit, the computer-based ELPAC provides an opportunity for more engaging tests with authentic tasks. The 2019-20 computer-based summative ELPAC will include full-color visuals and interactive features. The CDE and ETS can introduce more authentic, engaging task types in the next administrations. The computer-based ELPAC helps support students'
031familiarity in interacting with technology in the classroom. The devices can be used for administering computer-based ELPAC are generally the same ones that are used by students every day as part of their classroom activities. Another benefit, the computer-based ELPAC provides improved accessibility resources. I think this is a really important one. ELPAC delivered in an online platform promotes greater consistency with the accessibility resources commonly used across the other CASP content assessments. Enhanced accessibility resources promote greater flexibility and opportunity. for the IEP team and the test examiner to use the resources to best meet the students' needs at all grade levels. And then the computer-based ELPAC provides a streamlined test administration process. So students and educators will now interact with a single assessment platform, ensuring technological parity between the ELPAC and the other California tests. Accessibility and universal
032tools features will be more consistent across all the California tests once ELPAC is moved online. And then finally, the computer-based ELPAC provides standardized entry and exit procedures. So using a single platform will help reduce the burden for educators and students to deal with different testing systems or materials, which also allows content and language or ELD teachers to better communicate with each other about EL students based on one single testing platform. Those are a lot of benefits and I'm going to turn it back to Michelle. Thank you, Martha. Based on the deliberate process that Martha just described, we're proposing three recommendations for the computer-based OPAC. Those are described in Section 1G of Attachment 2. We are revising the recommendation documented with Attachment 2 from recommending a one-on-one administration in K1 to a one-on-one test administration for
033K2. The recommendation is for all domains where the test examiner interacts with the student device interface to both navigate and enter responses. Next, to address developmental needs for students in kindergarten through grade two, we are proposing to maintain the writing domain as a paper-pencil test. Finally, the CDE recommends that the test design increase accessibility resources for all students, including resources to assist with computer navigation, such as allowing test examiners to help students navigate through the system during group administrations, to conduct one-on-one administrations in any grade, and lastly, to print items based on student need. Prior to administration, test examiners will have access to a screener that will help identify if a student is ready to independently interact with the computer. This will be beneficial for our educators as they make decisions on the most appropriate
034supports to ensure accurate measures of English proficiency, including the supports I just recently mentioned. Finally, training and practice tests will be available for students to try out the items and try out those accessibility resources. The department and its contractor on this, it is ETS, are committed to getting this right. Data has been and will continue to be collected to further inform the development of the computer-based ELPAC. Currently, ETS is finalizing a usability pilot study that gained insight on how students and examiners interacted with the online test. The preliminary findings are providing us with usable information. Some examples of that information are that most students were able to navigate through the various screens. don't speak much when the examiner sits right next to them. That didn't work, but when you put the examiner on the other
035side and they are face to face, they opened up and they spoke. So those are the types of pieces of information that we were able to gather. We also value the input of our educators who participated in that usability pilot in terms of providing us with information that could make the job of administering the test easier. Based on that input, ETS is making adjustments to the directions for administration. As we look to the future, take note that this fall, two studies will also be conducted. The first is a mode comparability study that will allow us to compare the performance of the computer-based test with that of the paper-based test. ETS will also conduct a field test that will allow us to select items for the operational computer-based ELPAC. Findings from these activities will be evaluated
036to inform any recommended changes that we might need to bring to the board for your review and approval. California is not alone with assessing English learners using computer-based assessments. We are proposing a thoughtful approach and have done so after taking time to build a comprehensive assessment technology platform that would be able to successfully support the inclusion of the ELPAC as well as our other assessments that are coming online. The department has leveraged the lessons that were learned from the other states that were implementing computer-based English language proficiency assessments. Some of the takeaways that we learned looking at what those other states were doing was we want to provide that simulation or screener to determine if students are familiar enough with a computer in order to test independently. We wanted to keep our writing domain paper-pencil
037for the lower grades. That was based on other experiences. We wanted to also keep speaking as a one-on-one administration with scoring in the moment by our examiners. We will be using voice capture for the speaking, but that's a means of calibrating our scoring and ensuring that local scoring for a select sample is appropriate. As shown on the map, 48 states and Washington, D.C. have made this transition to computer-based tests. It gives us confidence that as long as we put students first in our decision-making process, we can do this and we can be successful at it. After the first operational administration, the results will provide information to make... I'm sorry. After the first operational administration of the paper-pencil test, let me make that clear. It provided us with information so that we can make targeted adjustments
038to the distribution of task types in the summative test blueprint. We are recommending that we do that at this time as we're making all of our other transitions. The proposed changes are being recommended in order to improve the measurement of student proficiency across the full range of English language proficiency. Our blueprint changes are described in attachment four and include making minor changes to the speaking section where we replaced items with those that provide a more accurate measure of a student's readiness to speak in an academic setting. Similar adjustments were made in listening, reading, and writing. Now we're going to present our alternate ELPAC recommendations, and I'll start by inviting Martha Thurlow to join me once again. Thank you. I'm really excited about California's work for its alternate ELPAC because this is a student population that
039is really near and dear to my heart. I've been encouraging attention to assessment of the English language proficiency of students with significant cognitive disabilities for several years now, and I think... One of the benefits is that we'll be able to attend to their English language learning needs that often have been ignored in this population before. I've been involved in the development of the alternate assessments for both WIDA, one of the consortia, and ELPA 21, another of the consortia, and believe that the alternate ELPAC brings together the best design to assess English learners with significant cognitive disabilities. It strikes the right balance between meeting the technical requirements to provide consistent measure of English language proficiency. across California and meet the needs of a very, very diverse group of students, including students with a wide range of
040individual communication modes. The alternate ELPAC allows California to comply with the requirements of the federal law, which is important. But if you have questions about that, I'll let Michelle respond to those questions. The alternate ELPAC provides for a consistent state measure of English language proficiency for all students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Currently in California, it's up to local education agencies to determine how they assess these students. When alternate ELPAC is available, they will no longer need to rely solely on locally provided measures. The alternate ELPAC is designed specifically for this population to include the use of individual communication modes, extremely important for this population. So, Michelle. That was very firm at the end, wasn't it? So, let's... The department's proposing the following recommendations for the alternate ELPAC that support the test design, which
041may be found in section 1F of attachment 3. The proposed changes request that the alternate ELPAC be administered in grades and grade spans that are consistent with the summative ELPAC. That would be K1 and 2 would be individual forms, 3-5 would be combined, 6-8 combined, 9-10, and then lastly 11-12. We would recommend that it be administered one-on-one for all students and that we provide accessibility resources including universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. We also recommend that we use local scoring for the constructed response items similar to other California alternate assessments. We recommend using a single blueprint for both initial and summative alternate ELPACs. Based on discussions with national experts, we recommend the use of integrated tasks. For example, speaking and writing, which are both expressive modes of
042communication, could be combined into a single assessment task. Integrating task types provides students the opportunity to receive and express language in their preferred communication mode, ensuring meaningful participation for students using various communication devices. There are many opportunities for us to gather data and information along the development cycle. And as we always do, we will provide you with updates based on the reports from the studies as well as the field test. As part of the development of the high-level test designs, CDE and ETS staff visited the Sacramento County Office of Education Schools on the campuses of Rio Linda Middle School, Rio Linda High School, and Dry Creek Elementary. A shout-out to Principal Eric Crawford for facilitating that visit. One of them was the Friday before spring break, so it was very impressive that they actually allowed
043us into those classrooms. Our primary focus was to observe students with the most significant cognitive disabilities interact in their learning environment with a goal to inform the development of the alternate ELPAC. Students of various grades and abilities were observed on two different occasions in 11 classrooms. Some of our observations were that students engaged in classroom activities using instructional and communication supports. Teachers were intentionally focused on developing students' ability to use their individual communication mode as a means of increasing the students' ability to not only access the content, but also engage with their peers. Students in the inclusive programs in the lower grades were independent interacting with the devices. And the images here are images of students at that field trip that we took. They just happened to all be on their devices that day. That
044was not something we set up for a picture. I just saw it and said we should take a picture. So another action before you this morning is the approval of the general performance level descriptors. These are short policy descriptors that convey the degree of student proficiency in English. They convey to educators, parents, students, and the public the meaning of assessment results. With input from experts and stakeholders, the CDE determined that the descriptor should include three levels of performance. The CDE recommends approval of these three general performance level descriptors as seen in Section 2D of Attachment 3. As we continue with our test development, We plan to bring several actions before you. This is not the end. We are not yet to the end. In July, we'll have proposed regulations, assuming we have action today, in
045support of our recommendation. In July, we'll come forward with regulations. We intend for those regulations to cover both the computer-based assessment as well as the alternate ELPAC to the best of our ability. Included in the July item will also be the proposed accessibility resources. As many of you know, we do that as part of our regulatory process. The summative ELPAC student score reports will come to you in September 2019. You have not in the past had authority over the ELPAC student score reports, but the transition of those within our ETS contract puts that in your realm, so we will bring those to you for the first time. The initial ELPAC student score reports will come to you in spring of 2020. The alternate ELPAC test blueprint will be brought to you in May. 2020, followed
046by the threshold scores and student score reports in spring 2021. So as you can see, we are still in the beginning of this journey. The slide shows the board approved high level timeline for implementation. This timeline was approved in November during the approval of the CAASPP ELPAC ETS contract. As you can see, the first computer-based ELPAC will be administered in February 2020, followed by the initial ELPAC in the following school year, beginning in July 2020. The 2015 ELPAC contract required all of our ELPAC items to be written for this specific transition to computer-based platform. So we're well on our way of having a bank of items that is ready for transition. The first operational... Alternate ELPAC will be the initial in July of 2021, followed by the summative in February of 2022. This timeline and
047recommendations given are consistent with that board-approved action in November of 2018. Can that be right? Goodness. So now I am here, as well as all of my lifelines behind me, to answer any questions. Thank you very much. And first I want to ask Ting Sun, who is our liaison, to respond. And then we're going to go to public comment. And then we'll get to questions from the group. OK, very good. So again, Michelle, commending you and your team for just such a the fantastic job you are doing in the assessments. And I think I had mentioned in our last meeting that assessments was the first piece that went out in our new system of assessments and accountability. And we're at a point where we're refining lots of the components of it. But then there are
048other components that we're still building, like the ELPAC. And so I know that this has been highly anticipated in the full implementation of our ELPAC to make it consistent and to be online. And I think what you said around as we are implementing all of these different assessments, we have to keep the students in mind. And as we move forward with the pilots of field tests, we will be gathering data. And as with every other system, we will be refining it and continuing to look at. what we might still need to do or what has been working etc so i just want to again commend you on the work and looking forward to us moving forward again on the assessment pieces great and i think we have some public comment which we'll take and then
049we'll get to our other questions and discussion will the following speakers please line up at the podium martha zaragoza-diaz marlene batista annie duong carol gallegos jan gasafson correa angela duramos and sheila whitley Good morning. My name is Martha Zaragoza Diaz representing the California Association for bilingual education and Californians together Significant concerns were raised by our teachers regarding their proposed CBA such as the impact of the CBA and newcomers and pupils in kindergarten and grades one and two with little or no experience with computers The majority of our concerns have been addressed by CDE and ETS However, there is still a lack of complete acceptance of the CBA by many of our teachers. But because the ELPAC is a very significant assessment and the field has been waiting for this, we support moving forward with the
050CBA as reflected in the high design field document. However. we request assurances that teachers and districts be given opportunities to provide further recommendations and suggestions before the final administration of the CBA in February 2020. Time. Thank you. Good morning, Dr. Marlene Batista from CABE. Again, CABE does support the transition of the CBA ELPAC as reflected in the proposed high-level test design. As the CBA enables better implementation of the standardized entry and exit procedures for ELs and as new requirements under ESSA and a quicker turnaround results for our teachers. However, as Martha said before, there was a lot of expressed concerns. by teachers about the maneuverability of the computer that may be problematic for our newcomer students who have little exposure to computers, as well as our K through second grade students. We want to ensure
051that the testing is testing the language acquisition and not the ability to use a computer, since we know that a lot of students may or may not be able to handle that. We do understand and appreciate that it's been recommended that the CBA be one-on-one for K-2 to address some of these concerns. But we also have to consider that this may not, although it seems that this reduces the time constraints on school districts, it may actually impact them because right now a lot of districts are paying extra money to have teams come in and test the one-on-one speaking portion for all grade levels as well as the one-on-one K-1. So adding another grade level would be a big concern for a lot of districts in these budget times that we're in constraints. So thank you.
052Please note your name and association as you begin speaking. I'm Dr. Carol Gallegos. I'm with Hanford Elementary School District, the district that hosted a handful of educators for the recent usability study. While I appreciate that K-1 will be unchanged, I witnessed most 3-8 students struggling with the computer because many don't have daily access yet. Paper materials must be ordered months in advance. How will the tests given just before testing allow timely access to paper forms? Will it only be one-on-one testing, making it impossible for us to financially exercise? the option for paper the requirement to record violates biometric privacy laws leaving districts open to lawsuits a new student may be erroneously identified as an el but even more devastating will be students with poor computer skills who cannot be reclassified in a timely manner this
053affects students lives Fast scores doesn't equal accurate scores. Some other states are going back to computer due to lowered performance on computer. The fully developed test and the computer skills test both need more wide-scan testing, input, and validity confirmation before implementation. I understand the monetary cost, but please consider the human cost. I urge you to speak for English learners today. Good morning. My name is Annie Duc Long Yung and I am on the board of Cal Bay California Association of Binaural Education and I am representing Region 1 which is our region here like my colleagues have said we are in support of the CBA ELPAC. However, we would urge CDE, ETS, and the board to consider, careful consider for the K-2 and the newcomers. Because when you look at the K-2, we have about 150,000
054kindergartners, and they are the ones who take the ELPAC initial on computer. And you think about the first 30 days of school that they have to do that. And then newcomers coming from all sorts of different parts of the world that they may not have access to computers. And so, again, please reconsider or carefully consider as we go on with the pilot test in October. Thank you. Hello. Good morning. My name is Jan Correa. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of CAVE. We're well represented today. I'm also here as a former principal. a director at the San Bernardino County Schools Office, and most importantly, a former fifth and sixth grade teacher. And so I think as we're speaking, I know that we all are speaking with our children at the heart of what we're thinking and
055working towards. The administration of the ELPAC, as you've heard, is of really high interest to our CAVE over 4,000 members and really to the field. And that's been well demonstrated by the comments of Carol Gallegos and my colleagues as well. And so while we're very appreciative of the work that's been done in the department, just really thorough. thoughtful and just the deep I think process that we've gone through we appreciate also the intent that there will be considered consideration come continued consideration after the field test hearing from the field what they're thinking what they're feeling how it's really being implemented really does make a difference our teachers care so deeply about this and they want to see our students really progress time so their progression we know language is a human process and we thank
056you for keeping that at the heart of the work I'm doing as well Thanks very much. Hello, I'm Angela Duramos on behalf of CTA. And as always, I want to get the little reality of what this looks like in our classrooms. The piece that we're concerned about is that this is one metric. There's so many more metrics when we're actually doing the work. The input from the parents, the input from the teacher, and most importantly, the input from the students matter. So parent concerns, what the teachers... anecdotal information or take on it and then also where the student is academically in other areas relative to the ELPAC has an impact on the the scores the use of computers as mentioned before is a concern it doesn't match always our teaching conditions so using the computer
057for testing conditions already implies some bias right there and finally Please talk to teachers about the professional development, the impact, what the real reclassification that districts are implementing now, so that it's not a singular use. Thank you. So I assume that is the end of public comment. We'll start some discussion. I'd like to launch us off with a couple of thoughts. And you can hear the concerns about whether kids are ready for computer, et cetera. Ideally, we would have a full pilot year to figure this out and develop the strategies. But I do want to reinforce several things that Michelle said about California's cautious. although rapid approach to bringing this online. And I want to applaud the CDE staff for their creativity and how they're thinking about addressing it. And Michelle may want to add
058on to this. The staff has, as you know, added the notion of adding. second grade to the K-1 for paper and pencil administration or one-on-one administration. And as one of the speakers noted, there are some states, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, are kind of looking to going back to paper and pencil because they had had some challenges with computer. But the other thing that is on the docket is a screening tool for all students, which would allow, and I'll ask Michelle to say more about this in a moment, so we can get a... better understanding of it before we start our discussion, which would allow the educator, the teacher, the test administrator to figure out with a little, probably a game-like thing that kids do on the computer, whether they're ready to take, whether they can manipulate
059the computer to take the test. And then for all grades, not just in K-2. So newcomers, students who do not have tech access could be administered tests with by paper in small groups or one-on-one in a variety of modalities that fit the needs of the student and the context. So I'm going to ask Michelle to say more about that in a moment. I think that's a real big advance in thinking about computer-based administration of tests. We will have pilots in the fall. There will be other analyses by mode of. taking the test with comparison groups that we'll get the benefit of, maybe not for implementation fully in the spring, but we want this to come back to the board for ongoing development and revisit, as many of the speakers asked, continue to get input from
060the field, continue to pilot test, and continue to revise and refine the way that we would approach this. And we're aware, too, that there is kind of a mega issue with respect to test-based processing. computer-based processing of text. And I'll just mention this because this is a long-term issue for everyone in every state, including California, as testing is, for many good reasons, moving to computer-based administration. But there has been a growing body of research on the way in which people process text from print and from digital. There was a recent meta-analysis that looked at all the studies over the last about 17 years, which found that there's almost always an advantage of performance and comprehension of reading on paper versus on machine and that that advantage is increased in time constrained reading rather than self-paced
061reading so that has to do with whether we time tests or whether we allow people the time they need on those tests it's consistent across text but it there's less of a paper advantage for narratives versus informational text so that's another piece of the puzzle and then the advantage of paper-based reading increases over over the years so this is like a mega issue that we're all dealing with and i think the CDE staff have been extremely thoughtful about how to give access. These issues are going to be greater for folks who are less familiar with the computer, have had less access and experience, and also by age sometimes. Although I do have a grandson, whom you'll hear about frequently, who isn't manipulating the computer at 20 months, and there are kids like that too, who
062will, you know. take to it very easily but we want to be responsive to all of the children in our state in all of the communities in our state and to the concerns of teachers so i just wanted to frame our conversation around the way in which the department is approaching this complicated issue and michelle do you want to add a little more about that innovation that california is absolutely yeah I also want to just acknowledge CABE, Californians Together, and CTA that came up and made comments. I'm so lucky that I meet with those organizations once a month and we have conversations, and I want them to know that I am dedicated to ensuring that we continue those conversations and we talk about this transition in those monthly calls that we have. In the usability
063study, which was mentioned by many of those presenters, some of them brought up concerns that they saw in the usability study. One thing about that usability study was it didn't use the screener. So we definitely had students interacting with devices that were not ready to do so. So our screener will provide our examiners. those that maybe are not using devices every day so they don't know whether or not a student is literate in terms of using the device. It would provide them an opportunity that doesn't look at content but looks at whether or not can they scroll, can they click, can they navigate a mouse or a touch screen and that type of thing. That quick screener, which we are developing, will allow our educators to make a decision regarding tiers of support. That's how
064I am thinking of them. The first tier of support is those students that you could still give an administration within a group setting, but you might need to do some little quick, this is the click. Very little need. Then there are students who need a one-on-one administration where that adult is interacting with that device. Our screener needs to give our examiners information so that they know that that student needs that. The other piece of information in the last tier are those students that need the print-on-demand option. So these will not be forms that they have to rely on they will be able to print on demand Locally so that they can provide our students with the access that they need to this high-stakes test That is high-stakes for our students. So we are dedicated to
065getting it right. I know that there were there were some who pop participated in the usability study that some of it was frustrating. We were trying a lot of new things out and some of the things worked and some of them didn't. But we also recognize that there were students who definitely would not in a normal testing situation have interacted with that device without using one of the supports that we hope and are ensured that you will act upon in July when we bring those resources back for your action. Thank you very much. And Michelle, you might want to stay right where you are for a moment. Maybe we'll begin with clarifying questions so we all have a level playing field in our understanding and then go to any deeper discussion that we need. So
066I think, okay. Eileen, did you say you want to make some comments? Okay. Any clarifying questions first? Kim? I just wanted to ask if you could address how districts are compensated or if at all for the additional work that's required for the one-on-one administration that would be extended to K-2. So our apportionment system is the process by which we compensate our districts for the work of administering our tests. We bring to the board annually. I can't remember now which month, those apportionment figures for you to act upon, those rates. And so we can definitely take into consideration the process by which we're recommending that we test. What exactly will come back to us in July? Because I think we heard some concerns it would be great to get reflections post-administration of the assessment. Also, right
067now what we reimburse is, I believe it's $5 for student. And so... That's not on is that on us or the legislature to up that if we feel that it actually requires Why are we smiling in my purple in my crossing some ones here? Got no money is always a problem. But I do think that it would be good for us to have an accurate sense of what it takes to administer this. And also, if you could tell me a little bit about the training for the screener, because I know that in some schools, the counselor will do some aspect of the assessment, and then the classroom teacher administers another aspect of it. So how does that training work for the screener in particular? Several questions there the first about the process of the apportionment
068so the five dollars is not set in law So we can come back to you with recommendations on what the apportionment rate should be The process by which we get money is annually I send over my request and I say this is what it's going to cost for our contract as well as our apportionments and historically I have not had any issues with working closely with Department of Finance for getting the funding that we need for that for tests for which there is a required apportionment and ELPAC is one of them. So I don't anticipate there being issues with that. Of course, we'll come back to you with suggestions and recommendations. Your next question was on training. So training for our ELPAC is actually different than our training for the CASP assessment. That is, you're
069required... to be trained. We actually require that because there's some live scoring that's going on and there's calibrations that need to be done. So there's actually more training with ELPAC than we have with our CAASPP examiners. The training that we do for them in the past has been very focused on scoring and administration procedures. We obviously will need to add to that this idea of administering the screener for those students that need it. There currently will be no mandate that they give the screener. There are definitely teachers who are working with a student all year long and they know the student's ability to interact with the device or not interact with the device. And so we want to make sure that we give guidance on who should you give this to? Almost everyone. but there
070might be some instances where it is unneeded. We want to make sure we give advice on what to do with the results and how you would use that as part of making those decisions. We are currently looking at our accessibility framework, which is a draft document that our contractor produces for us. We use that document to develop our proposed regulations to you, which includes... ideas about what supports to use including these supports for navigation of the device. We've also provided that draft document to the organizations that spoke earlier so that we can get their feedback. One of the things we're looking at is wanting to make sure we provide the examiners access to resources for students that are not necessarily IEP or special ed students. So that's one thing we're looking at are there support
071center and accommodations that we can move down to all students and making sure that everything is appropriate. So when we come back in July, it'll be mostly focused on that process of building out those supports. I also always have an update item. You will notice that ELPAC is now combined with our update item that we normally have for CAASPP. I'm happy to also report out on any other conversations that we've had and how we are responding to feedback during that presentation. That's helpful. So first, Michelle, thanks to you and your team for bringing this as far as it is now. And particularly, I so appreciated the update about the field trip that you took and that you're actually, you're watching it in action. talking, you're listening to staff, and I think we'll get your commitment
072to getting it as good as we can get it, and the input that you're taking and adjusting to your recommendations and to the process is just much appreciated by the field, and I think we heard from our public comments today that we want to continue to take the input. So just a thank you for the thoughtful, thorough way you're approaching it. I so appreciated the tiers of support that you're talking about and how you're going to assess or how your recommendations are to assess whether students are ready. I mean, we are in transition statewide. We know to computer-based much more in instruction, but there are places to have kids actually write, and I just really appreciate that. I did have a question about the Getting Smarter website that you... talked about and sort of what
073the resources are. I know that was just a few slides and that's an additional resource, but I think helping people and parents understand what we're doing and what the resources are, I think just would be helpful. So if you could just highlight just a few minutes on that. Okay. Sure. We... We know working with our parent community that one thing parents need is sometimes less, more targeted information. So we intentionally are not overwhelming on this site. We provide a few resources. So for example, on ELPAC, there is a document that our English Learner Support Division created. And it is a document specifically for parents. And it provides them with... suggestions on things they can do at home to help their students. So in terms of ELPAC that is the support that is there. We also
074link to the Learning Heroes site in reference to our English language arts and our math and the Learning Heroes site is developed in a way that is very accessible and parent friendly and understandable and that provides them with pointers. I also think the document that California PTA created for us specifically for this site really helps parents. Have that conversation with their teacher. They may not have known what questions to ask their teacher, but it's a very approachable document with questions about, you know, what are my students strengths? Do these assessment results match up with what you're seeing in the classroom or are they different and why might that be? What can I do at home with my child in the evening? So those are the kinds of questions on there, very practical, if you will,
075and very approachable. HCM strategies along with Smarter Balanced did quite a bit of research and focus groups with this site to make sure that it was something that parents understood and found and they wanted to go there. It was one of the things that when we talked to parents they want information electronically. They really do. They want the reports electronically and they want to click on something that gets them right there and so we're going to be able to We're going to be able to do that. So we look forward to continuing to look for other resources. We struggle a little bit for our students with significant cognitive disabilities and struggling a little bit finding resources for parents in that particular area. But we are providing things that have already been vetted, if you will,
076within our department. Michelle, thank you. You and your staff have done a great job. I'm uniquely sensitive to the transition of computer adaptive assessments as I've lived it with you for since what, 2013? And you have done an incredible job, I must say. So thank you to you and your staff. I have two questions. I greatly appreciate the last two comments from board members around the cost associated with districts. And one is related to the double scoring of consistency in the alt, ALPAC. There's a... There's a requirement of double scoring for scoring consistency. Is that requirement in the initial and summative ELPAC? No. So when we look at scoring consistency, right now we send some of the scores that are done locally, we also send to our contractor for the double scoring. And then we
077are providing our districts with information. The scoring consistency is extremely high. I mean, it's in the 90th. percentage but for those districts if they need Extra assistance or feedback on the scoring that they are doing we do provide that information to them we do I'll packs a little different now because we do have to send it through our federal peer review Which does require that we have this scoring consistency as part of what we're doing and so we do know that some districts are providing a Second score in the room and they are doing that that for us, which is helpful But we're happy to take a look at all of those things when we come back to you with the apportionment rate. Yeah, I'm glad you said that. So my understanding was that the
078district had to supply or had to provide a second score for scoring inconsistency, which would make— For those things that you can't capture that are in the moment. Okay. Right. And so that would expand into the K-2. As you expand the k2 would it would it create or increase the requirement for that? You don't see it now because we are using For speaking we're going to use the voice capture for that And then for for writing that will be submitted in so I don't see a need to to have that okay Thank you the second question was around capturing the users voice and the feedback has there been any thought about how the CD might capture the user's feedback in regards to making improvements to the tool or the process. In relationship to the feedback
079from the users of the ELPAC, those in the field, the comments is reflective of those that came to the podium and were asking for feedback. Sure. So we conduct many different surveys and feedback sessions throughout the year. Some of them are formal. Some of them are informal. For those that are more formal, we provide reports on that feedback, and we do that after our... post-testing sessions, if you will. And we provide a document, and we post that on our website that talks about users' experience as well as any recommendations for change. We are always looking to better ourselves. We are not static. My staff probably... wishes we were, right? But we do act upon those things. The other thing that our contractor does is we have some informal ones. So in other words, if you
080agree to come to a training, we might also say, hey, we'll buy you lunch if you stay over lunch. And we're going to do an informal kind of focus group on whatever topic we need to get feedback on at the moment. And so we are always looking for those kinds of ways to get that feedback. And we do act upon them, as well as having our organization. that work with me on a monthly basis for our stakeholder meeting. And so those include not only those organizations that came up today, but SELPA, AXA, AXI, and many other acronyms that I can't think of at the moment. But those are also opportunities for them to give us feedback. So I believe that we already have many avenues in place to receive that. Michelle, I wanted to go
081back to this resource here for parents. So do we have any, in this website, will there be a section for parents who have their students in DI programs and the students are taking the S-BAC? And I asked because, as you know, my children and my son is a first-timer S-BACer. So he's taking the S-BAC and I told him, I said, you cannot answer in Spanish. And he said, that makes no sense, mom. Because he's in a program where 80% of his day is in Spanish. And so for him, he did not know that, right? And I said, and a lot of the parents of the school are saying, well, there is a Spanish section. I said, not in this test. So there's a lot of confusion about what the SBAC is actually testing when you're
082in a DI program. And then we mentioned, you know, there's, we know that there's an optional California Spanish assessment, but some sites also use Apprenda. and which is not aligned to Common Core in Espanol. And so I don't really know why we would have that as an option to be used. We wouldn't tell the school you could use SBAC or STAR, right? So I think that there has to be a portion where it is designed for DI schools so that parents really know what is the SBAC. And if your student is in a Spanish speaking program, what are some optional assessments that he or she may be? may be also taking during this window of time because I think there is some confusion out with parents one thing to clarify you can't answer in Spanish
083if you are on the writing I mean on the map sorry not writing but in the mathematics section we do have Spanish scores so just to clarify that that is acceptable It's good information for you to provide us. We'll go back and have a conversation about is this the right website and what is the information we would provide. I do want to let you know of a study that our contractor is doing. It's looking at... What resources might our examiners, our schools, our districts need when they are provided results on both of our Spanish assessment as well as our English language arts assessment and they are offering a dual immersion program? right what what is it about those assessments how might they analyze them do they have the resources to do so what are the
084questions that they might want to ask about their local programs when they have that information so we've asked our contractor to start on that and they've started that um that study now and we'll happy to bring that back or provide that in a memo once we've finalized that but i think that will also address your need I've got Patricia next in the queue and then if you could put the motion up that we're going to be considering because we may want to get to that relatively soon. Thank you, Patricia. Okay, so Michelle, I absolutely want to thank you and your staff for the work that you do. You always come to this board meeting for this agenda item with a very comprehensive and very expansive collection of information to share with us. And so I
085want to thank you for that. I have been on this board from the time that we started overhauling and... putting in the trash heap our previous assessment and accountability system and started building this one. The five pillars of the work that has been characterized not only by the conversation you have guided us through, but on the decisions we've been tasked to make have been about funding, the appropriations and those things you talked to us about, the culture and the purpose of our assessment system, the architecture and the infrastructure of the assessment system, and what it would take to norm what our conversations look like. And so what we're faced with on the decision we're asked to make today on the ELPAC really takes a look at where we have gained some traction in all of
086the previous work that occurred. With Board Member Ortiz-Lacone's question concerning how students can respond. I was sitting in this seat on the day this board adopted the SBAC. Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond was standing at that podium with the SBAC contractors. And Eileen Strauss was also on this board. And at the time, Sue Burr was the executive director. We had two alternatives in front of us at the time and one of the pivotal questions that I asked both vendors was about the option and the ability of providing an assessment where students would be able to use primary language either as part of the assessment and as part of the response. One vendor said no, that would never be an option. The other vendor said yes, that's something that they were contemplating and that could be down the
087road. And for that reason, that was the reason for that response that I was able to support the recommendation to adopt the SBAC assessment system. And it's important to say that it was a system. So there's always been some intentionality to look at primary language assessment. There's always been an idea about ways to create particular accommodations for students to be able to participate in that assessment using their primary language as an accessibility tool. So we have this conversation that's continuing and clearly as you're seeing in the work that's happening and making the decision about ELPAC, this is not an area we have gained some traction on. There are some issues about local practice with all five of those pillars that come into question as well about the decision we're about to make concerning adopting the
088ELPAC. There is the issue about the accessibility tools. Whether we're talking about the ELPAC or the regular SBAC assessment, the issue of accessibility and the use of those tools is an issue. We still have districts telling educators that if you recommend the use of accessibility tools, it changes the type of information that's reported about students. They're erroneously making that statement and purposely choosing not to make accessibility tools available to all students. So the issue about accessibility tools for the ELPAC becomes even more important, not because of whether or not districts choose to make them available, but the second issue on accessibility tools is, Are teachers and students being taught how to use them and what they are? And the answer of many local practices is no. I've sat in classrooms and watched students do the
089attest, and they don't know how to do something as simple as get the dictionary. Or for 11th grade students, and you know this has been an issue on the calculator, figure out how to find and then use the calculator on the 11th grade assessment. So then the things that we're trying to fix here with ways to create not only accessibility but create specific accommodations for the different types of users, whether it's expanding the grade levels that use the paper and pencil assessment or if we're going to look at what the tiers of supports are or the conversations with teachers, what the stakeholders are saying about what's happening with local practices are very important. I'm going to support the recommendation from staff today, but I'm going to trust with everything that you've talked about concerning the
090refinements and improvements that the staff continues to make, these are the reasons why we are still not gaining the kind of traction in appropriate local practices and the culture of assessment and why we have locals still hanging on to their old 20th century thinking, not only about assessment practices, but what the purpose of assessment is. and the role in supporting the conversation on continuous improvement should be. That's the culture we have embraced, but because we're still using an assessment, people are still hanging on to these very old ideas. So the conversations and the issues that are being raised about the ELPAC today, those are not conversations isolated just to the ELPAC. These are some of our continuing issues and some of our continuing problems, not because there isn't clear consensus at this dais about what
091we're trying to do and what those five pillars are, but because when it trickles down to what local practice looks like, we're not seeing that same uniformity. or consensus of purpose on what we're attempting to do with implementing each of these new assessment phases. So I think we have to be aware of and think that through. But I, again, want to tell you, I'm a fan. But in preparation for the July-ish item on the accessibility tools, one of the most important data pieces that I would like to see is a report on usage and what's being reported. Because I still suspect. It's lower than it should be, and it's still not, and there's not going to be a great deal of variation given all the types of tools that students have available to them. I
092don't believe the general population is being allowed to use them in the ways that we're hoping could be useful and would address some of the concerns that Board Member Ortiz-Lacone has raised as well. Thank you. Okay. With that statement and seeing no other hands up, I think we are ready to look at the motion. Which is before us CDE recommends that the California State Board of Education approved the following proposed items test design recommendations test design recommendations as described in section 1 F as well as 1 G general performance level descriptors revised summative ELPAC blueprints The CDE further recommends that SBE authorized CDE staff to make technical edits as necessary to the documents listed above I think we all recognize that this motion comes with the understanding that there will be these studies and pilots
093and we'll get a very full report with the opportunity to refine and continue to revise in July based on what we learned this year. So with all of that, do I have a motion? I will move staff's recommendation. Thank you. Board Member Sun? Second from Board Member Rucker. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed say nay. Any abstentions? We are good to go. Thank you very much, Michelle. And with that, we're going to take some time with our State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Tony Thurmond is here. We're delighted. And we're ready for your report. Thank you, Madam President. And I assure you there'll be a break after Tony speaks, just in case people are wondering. I'll only be about 45 minutes, and then we'll take a break. We will keep it brief.
094Madam President, Madam Vice President, members of the board, to those who are here, on behalf of our Deputy Superintendent, our Chief Deputy, our deputies, our directors, our 1,500 staff in this building, I bring you this report in greetings and welcome. To our new board members, I want to welcome you. You joined a great board. I promise you, you will never be bored. In five months here, I can tell you it's always riveting and interesting, but it is really a great opportunity to serve students in some of the best ways. You know, a board member, Patil Brownson, it's great to have you here. We've worked together on early education stuff. Your expertise, I think, will be valuable to much of the work that we do here. I know that we share. work together through the Andy
095E. Casey Children and Families Foundation's fellowship, and it's great to be able to work with you in this capacity. Board Member Nava, your reputation precedes you as a teacher, as an administrator, as a champion in special education, that you get these issues, and we look forward to your work here on this board. We've been busy. and want to share with you some of the things that we're doing that we think align with where the conversation is going. For example, the robust conversation that we just had on assessment. And just this week, the department hosted a conversation about assessment as it relates to college predictability and all the controversy around which measures are the best measures. for how you prepare success in college. Now, we firmly believe that our students are more than a test score.
096But we think that if our students are being assessed, that there should be considerations around equity and thought given to what is the best way to do that. And so we brought some of the greatest researchers in our state to share their research and their data about which measures have what benefit, where there needs to be an improvement. And we have... a work group that our assessment team and others will be helping to follow up that we think will point to some very clear policy recommendations going forward. As you know, we've made our conversation about closing the achievement gap an ongoing conversation. We do not want that to be a one and done conversation. We don't want that to be something that happens in one month out of the year. We are taking that on
097as one of our top priorities and in that respect. We've also hosted a roundtable that talks about how we build a pipeline that brings male educators of color to elementary school. And as a result of that group, we are now working with a number of foundations, with other folks in government and education, to look at how we can bring more African American, Latino, API, and others who will be teachers in elementary school working with our students. We know that when students see someone who looks like them, research has shown that has a tremendous benefit as it relates to closing the gap. We know that students, regardless of their background, when they see diverse educators, everyone benefits. And so we've made this a top priority for us. We have laid the foundation for what we hope
098will become a statewide literacy campaign. We believe that there are many opportunities for us to support our students. I hear this phrase from colleagues all the time that when our students learn to read, they read to learn at every level. We're interested in what we do to make sure that kids can read by third grade. We're very interested in what we do around intervention for our older students who continue to struggle in their literacy goals. And so we have much that we want to report to you. We have a dozen bills, including one bill that calls for greater professional development to support educators around literacy, around pedagogy, around how to support our students. We have been very actively leading the conversation with the governor's statewide task force. on charter reform and anticipate some recommendations that
099will be coming forward very soon. As I mentioned, this is an exciting time and I think the next two days will be very exciting. And to those who are joining us today for public comment or to observe, we welcome you. We think that the conversation is riveting and we think that all perspectives are welcome. We think diversity of ideas is good. and that it is okay when we disagree. In my humble opinion, it's okay to disagree. but not to be disagreeable. And in my experience and in our experience, we have found that these meetings go the best when everyone is given an opportunity to speak, regardless of their perspective. And so we ask that if you're here today for the first time, that you adhere to the guidelines set by our president and the board
100around time limits. And if there's something that you really feel you didn't get to say, or you're not happy with something that comes up in the presentation, please let... any of our staff or myself know we will be happy to work with you going forward so welcome to the meeting we look forward to a great two days and this submits my report terrific thank you very much and we'll take a 10 minute break see you back here around 10 15. okay we have a lot to do this morning so i want to be sure that we can get going again thank you we are um Going to take up item two, approval of the California State Transition Plan for Strengthening Career and Technical Education for 21st Century Act. And I'm going to ask Russ Weichel
101to come to the podium to present for CDE. Oh, yeah, before you start, can we quickly do a mic check around the... semicircle here and I'm going to start with Pat because there's a concern that not all the mics are working. Meanwhile, you can figure out how to get your mic working also. Just say testing or hello or something into your mic. Hello. It was turned on. Will you let me? Hello. Hola, buenos dias. Mic check, mic check. Hello. Can you hear mine? Hello. I think mine is working. Microphone check. One, two, one, two. Good morning. Good morning. Microphone check. Microphone check. Check, check. Testing on this mic. We are good here. Test. Good? Okay. Great. Good morning, President Darlene Hammond, board members, and Superintendent Thurman. I'm Pete Callis. I'm the administrator in the Career
102and College Transition Division. I'm here to present this item. The item is an action item. The department is requesting board approval of the 2019-20 California State Transition Plan for Perkins V, strengthening career and technical education for the 21st century. Russ Weichel is also here with me for the presentation. He came in and assisted our division in finishing up the transition plan and looking forward to what we have to do in the next year to complete our Perkins V plan. Also included in this item is the request to extend the waiver of Section 132 funds distribution formula of this transition plan, which deals with adult ed. The Federal Perkins Improvement Act of 2016, known as Perkins IV, was reauthorized July 31st, 2018, and then renamed to the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for 21st Century Act,
103which is now known as Perkins V. As part of the transition to Perkins V and to qualify for federal funding going forward under Perkins V, California must submit a new state plan for career technical education. The U.S. Department of Education gave us two options for completing the state plan. Option one is for the state to submit a transition plan. for the 19-20 year, followed by the submission of a full state plan starting in 2021 year. Option two was for the state to submit a full plan for 2019 through 2024. California is elected to submit a one-year transition plan in June-May 2019 with the full state plan due in April of 2020. The 19-20 transition plan was developed in collaboration with CDE staff, California Community College Chancellor's Office Board of Governors and their staff, and State
104Board of Education members along with SBE staff, office staff, via the Career Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Council. The Advisory Council had monthly meetings where they had the opportunity to review several drafts of the transition plan. The Advisory Council also received and reviewed public comment regarding the transition plan. We also received some very wise guidance from this gentleman standing next to me, Russ Weichel, who's our retired Career and College Transition Division Director from two years ago. The transition plan will move the state from Perkins 4 to 5 with the planning year of 19-20. The State Board of Education has received two memos regarding the State Transition Plan. The first memo was in August of 2018 and it included a side-by-side comparison of Perkins IV and Perkins V. The second memo, April of this year, 2019, included
105an update on the progress of the Transition Plan. The attachment in this item is the full state plan document that with all the questions need to be completed during the planning year. So some of the questions that we needed to complete for the transition year were completed. Some questions were left blank because they were not needed for the transition plan. The transition plan is due to the U.S. Department of Education by May 24, 2019. Any questions or and Russ is here to provide updates on the work that was done with the Joint Advisory Committee and the transition plan. Did you want to add? Sure. Thank you. Good morning. Russ Weichel. I'm the former division director for Career and College Transition Division, but my career at CDE really began in the year 2002. and I started
106working as a consultant with the Carl Perkins Act at that time, which at that time was Perkins II, or Perkins III, rather. And then we transitioned. I was here and one of the primary writers on the full plan for Perkins IV, and now I've failed retirement and come back as a retired annuitant to work on the transition plan for Perkins V. So Perkins V. or Perkins IV was actually reauthorized this last July of 2018. It was renamed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education Act for the 21st century, but they keep Carl Perkins' name in there and they call it Perkins V for short. But as Pete said, as part of the reauthorization of the act, states actually have two options. They can submit a full four-year plan that begins really this next year and goes
107through 2024, or they also have an option of submitting a transitional plan for the single year 2019 through 2020, and then a brand new four-year plan beginning 2020 through 2024. California, as most states, has elected to submit a transitional plan for that one year. Transitional plan uses the same guidance that is used for the full plan, as Pete described. And we wrote this plan using all the questions that are required for the full plan. And as you look through this plan, you'll notice that some of the questions said this response is not required in this transitional year. But we wanted the board and the public to see what's required for our full four-year plan. And then we're only required to answer certain sections of that. California receives approximately $130 million for Carl Perkins funds. Those
108funds are used for secondary and post-secondary education. California Department of Education is a primary agency responsible for those funds, but we do share those funds with community colleges, both administrative funds, leadership funds, and what we call local assistance funds or funds that are sent to local agencies. The way that works is about 5% of the money can be used for administering the Perkins funds, 10% for leadership activities, but 85% of the funds must be used with local agencies. One thing that we're also asking for in this transition plan is you approve or notifying you that we're submitting a waiver to the federal government. for the distribution of 132 funds. 132 is the section of the Perkins Act that defines the use of post-secondary funds. In the federal act, it actually describes how those funds are
109to be distributed by states. defines that as being distributed through Pell Grant recipients, the number of Pell Grant recipients served by those agencies. California learned a long time ago. that if we use that distribution formula as described in the act, we have an unequitable distribution of funds throughout our states, particularly in adult ed, where most adult ed agencies don't have Pell Grant recipients or have very few Pell Grant recipients. So we have applied for a waiver since Perkins II. to allow us to distribute the funds based on prior year enrollment of economically disadvantaged adults in career technical education. So we collect data from both Adult Ed here at CDE and the post-secondary enrollments at community colleges and each year that number fluctuates a little bit based on each agency's proportional share of that enrollment. We
110do have Within our agreement our MOU with the community colleges. We have a 3% hold harmless agreement So if one agencies or the others Enrollment either goes down or goes up quite a bit then the other agency isn't hurt by that inequity so we we still believe that using economically disadvantaged enrollments in our programs is a Fairer way to distribute the money rather than based on Pell grants. So that's what that waiver is about So we're just asking for your approval on the transition plan just as our liaison Thank you. So first of all, thank you, Russ, for coming in and stepping up and working on this transition plan for us during a time of transition in the CDE staff. And so what I want to say is, as Russ has said, this is a
111one-year plan. And so because it is a one-year plan and the year is almost over, you're not going to see a lot of changes. But what we are looking at doing for the full plan for 2024 is to incorporate a lot of what the recommendations from our Workforce Advisory Committee has provided in helping to shape CTE workforce pathways and making it more consistent across K-14. So we're hoping we will be starting immediately on that, the full plan after the passage of or the approval of this. one-year transition plan and again you'll be seeing some i think broader and more changes than you will see in this current transition plan great um so i think we want to see if there's any public comment and then we'll have a fuller discussion there's no public comment for
112this all right we can have a fuller discussion so are there any other comments or questions from members of the board all right a little bit of wait time Seeing none. Do you have a motion that we want to restate for the board or is this? Move the staff's recommendation to approve the transition plan. All right. Any further discussion? Actually, the motion as it is written here, I'll just read the whole thing. Approve CDE staff recommendation, make any additional edits as deemed necessary, and authorize CDE and SBE staff to submit the Perkins V transition plan to the Federal Department of Education by May 24th. Yes. Thank you. Did you move it? Yes, I did. Okay. So moved by Ting and seconded by Patricia Rucker. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?
113Any abstentions? Motion carries. Very efficient. Thank you very much. And we're going to go on to item three, which is the approval of the California Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan. And we will hear from Barbara Murchison about the plan. All right. Good morning, everyone. Morning, President Darling-Hammond. That has quite a ring to it. Superintendent Thurmond, also a great ring to that one. And board members, I'm Barbara Murchison, Director of the Educator Excellence and Equity Division here at the Department of Education. This morning, my colleagues and I will present to you the California Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan, or CSIP. This is an action item. The CDE recommends that the board approve the CSIP today. So California Education Code requires the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop and the State Board of Education to consider
114adopting a computer science strategic implementation plan on or before July 15, 2019. Code also requires the Superintendent to convene a computer science strategic implementation advisory panel to develop recommendations to inform the plan. The statute, which is relatively detailed, calls for a two-part process. First, the development of recommendations by an appointed panel, and then the development of a plan based on those recommendations. To review... Statute required the Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan panel to develop a set of recommendations for a computer science strategic implementation plan that addresses at minimum the following topics. Broadening the pool of teachers to teach computer science. Defining computer science education principles that meet the needs of pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 through 12 inclusive. Ensuring that all pupils have access to quality computer science courses. The 23 panel members were
115appointed by the governor, the board president, Senate Committee on Rules, Speaker of the Assembly, and the superintendent, and were selected based on their expertise in computer science education. Once the panel was appointed, the CDE convened three two-day public meetings of the panel here in Sacramento in March, April, and June of last year. To inform the work of the panel, the CDE invited experts to provide presentations on various topics. including sessions on the draft computer science standards and the status of credentialing requirements for computer science educators. These were public meetings, and the CDE and CSIP provided opportunities on each meeting day for public comment. The CDE presented the panel's final recommendations to you as an information item in September 2018. Also in September 2018, the CDE presented to the Instructional Quality Commission a draft plan based
116on the recommendations of the panel. The IQC recommended that the plan be put out for a 30-day public review and comment period, which took place in October and November last year. The plan was posted from October 1st, 2018 through November 9th, 2018. Much of the comment requested that we update data and statistics in the plan and to be more explicit around our computer science definition. We analyzed all of those public comments and made recommendations to the IQC regarding appropriate revisions to the plan at its meeting in January 2019. At that time, the IQC analyzed public comments and unanimously approved all of the CDE's proposed revisions. All of those revisions were incorporated into the document that I presented to you all in March. So when we presented the draft plan to the board for potential adoption
117in March, we heard loudly and clearly concerns regarding unfunded mandates. After the meeting, I know I just caught Member Burr out of the corner of my eye. She's very good at reminding me about unfunded mandates. After the meeting, we have a long history of unfunded mandates together. After the meeting, we revised the document, streamlined it, and removed any language that could be misinterpreted as a mandate of any kind. There are no shalls, shoulds, wills. As with all state board adopted standards, however, it is really important that we all just recognize that it's going to take very many years to implement computer science standards. It is my understanding that the board will not be adopting. curriculum framework for computer science or adopting instructional materials for computer science and districts and policymakers will really need the implementation
118guidance provided in this plan to further implementation of the standards that the board adopted last September Right, so we have this set of standards that you all adopted in September of 2018 and to date we don't really have implementation guidance for those standards and we will not be bringing you curriculum frameworks or instructional materials. So the plan is really important for districts and also policymakers to be able to think about as they're working to advance equitable computer science education here in California. So even though the document does not require LEAs, local educational agencies, to do anything in particular, we believe that the guidance developed by those computer science experts over the course of those months last spring is really important, and we think districts are really seeking the type of information that is in this
119plan, as well as a signal from the State Board of Education that furthering computer science education is important. California's vision... is to ensure that all students develop foundational knowledge and skills in computer science to prepare them for college, career, and civic engagement. So much more information. regarding the development of the plan, the recommendations developed by the panel, the composition of the panel, all kinds of information, and a brand new computer science resources webpage, which has lots of great resources for folks. The panel and part of their work. They pulled together a set of resources that they thought were really important. We thought those would be more appropriately housed on a web page, which is a much more fluid, flexible way of communicating than in a plan because we don't really like to update plans very
120often. So we built out a web page full of great resources. You can link to all of that at the web page on this screen. So again, as we state in the plan, California's vision is to ensure that all students develop foundational knowledge and skills in computer science to prepare them for college, career, and civic engagement. In the revised draft before you today, equity is front and center. I've invited... to join me today at the podium, three computer science experts, although they'd probably go, oh, please don't call us that, but they are experts, to share with you information about the importance of this document and how it will help the field moving forward in ensuring that each one of our kids, all California students, has access to quality. computer science education. So first we'll have
121Dr. Julie Flappen. She's the executive director of ACCESS at UCLA Center X. ACCESS is the Alliance for California Computing Education for Students and Schools. The mission of ACCESS is to advocate for equitable access to high quality computer science education for all K-12 students in California and for the educational reform in California to reflect the importance of computer science in educating students in 2020. 21st century skills. Julie also leads CS4CA, a diverse group of stakeholders who are working to further computer science education in California. Following Julie, we'll have Dr. Alison Scott. She is Chief Research Officer at Kapor Center. The Kapor Center is committed to making the technology ecosystem and entrepreneurship more diverse and inclusive with particular interest in positive social impacts for communities that have historically been on the periphery of access to opportunity, participation,
122and influence in the United States. And batting cleanup will have Brian Tuareg, otherwise known as BT, who has the distinction of, well, that's what he likes his friends to call him, so I think you can call him BT. He has the distinction of having chaired the Computer Science Standards Advisory Committee and served on the Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan panel. So he brings that perspective of both the standards development and the plan development. He is also, his day job is to serve as computer science supervisor in San Francisco Unified School District, and he'll share information about their journey as they've been implementing computer science in that district. And I think at this point we'll just invite all three of them up, and we will share more information about the importance of the plan. Good morning,
123esteemed members of the Board of Education. My name is Julie Flappa, and I'm really happy to be here and share with you a little bit. about computer science education equity in California. As Barbara said, I'm the Executive Director of ACCESS and also leading the CS for California Initiative and the Director of the Computer Science Project at UCLA Center X. And I was honored to be appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to help develop this strategic plan. And probably most importantly, I'm the mother of two... high school students at Hamilton High School in LA Unified. So what I'd like to do is describe a little bit to you about the who, what, why, and how of computer science. CS4CA is a multi-stakeholder group of computer science teachers, educators, administrators, industry representatives, researchers, higher ed professionals, and we
124are all working towards advocating for equitable expansion of computer science education that is scalable, sustainable, and equitable. Our work is grounded in research that keeps equity at the core of computer science education in California. Research was done by my colleague Jane Margolis at UCLA, along with other colleagues who worked with LA Unified to answer the main question, why are there so few Latinx girls and African American students learning computer science? And they really... found through their research of talking with teachers, with students, and with administrators, that there was this complex web of three interlocking factors. One was biased beliefs about who can do computer science, who looks like a computer scientist, really uncovering how it is that those decisions based on our biased beliefs informs the decisions that we make about how we structure schools.
125and how we structure our classes and who has access to what kind of learning. So for example, they found in schools that served mostly low-income students of color, classes that were called computer science were no more than rudimentary word processing or typing skills. But in classes that were serving upper-income students, mostly white students, were actually studying the deeper learning of computer science. Structural inequalities is definitely influenced by those biased belief systems. But the third level is there are also policies and regulations that can either inhibit or promote these kind of high-quality computer science teaching and learning opportunities. And what's interesting to note, because our work is really grounded in this research, this is how we've made recommendations in the plan. that address these three interlocking factors. So let me address a little confusion about what
126is computer science. Oftentimes we throw around the term computer science, but we get it confused with is it digital literacy? Is it educational technology? Is it coding? And when we think about computer science, we think about the deeper learning, the critical thinking, the computational problem solving that goes with technology. So we're equipping students to become creators of technology and not just passive consumers of it. Coding is something we hear a lot about coding. The plan does not... tackle coding as its own discipline, but coding is one tool in the computer science toolbox. So it's integrated in computer science, but it's not its own thing as far as this plan is concerned. So why is computer science education important? We often hear about the need for jobs and fulfilling jobs and that is certainly important but
127I'd like to really begin with equity as a rationale for why computer science education is important. If we think this is foundational learning then it should be foundational learning for all students. And when we think about having people at the table developing technology, we need all voices represented. Computer science also helps develop 21st century skills that helps prepare students for college careers and democratic participation. So there's collaboration, there's critical thinking, there's creativity. It's really not your old style way of thinking about computer science of just sitting behind a computer and entering data. It's really taking all of these different 21st century skills and how do we apply it? How does that help prepare us for college, for careers? And thinking critically about social media and about how we participate in our communities. See us for
128who? CS for CA is part of a national movement for computer science for all. And when we talk about all and we talk about equity, we are certainly talking about low-income students of color. We're also talking about other students who... often get marginalized in our education system and this plan really addresses and is mindful about what is a systemic approach that responds to individual needs of individual students and what resources and opportunities students need in order to be successful. Interestingly, the majority of Californians want computer science in our schools. There's about 85% of voters that were surveyed by EdSource that indicated that they felt offering more computer science was important in their schools. And this survey reflected national data by Google and Gallup that indicated nine in ten parents want computer science in their schools.
129But there's a real disconnect because When principals were asked, only one in four principals said they actually offer computer science. So this plan helps provide guidance for instructional leaders to say, this is what we need to do in order to meet the demand that is out there among Californians and among the parent and communities. So how does the strategic plan do that? We do that, and the recommendations that we thought about in the plan are how do we develop a systemic approach that scaffolds equity, quality, and sustainability over the long term. Oftentimes, we get intrigued by the next shiny new bullet. and we want to implement a new great idea, but we don't have a plan of action that says how are we going to get there and how will it meet all of our
130students' needs. So the plan is really a comprehensive approach to provide guidance for districts to provide equitable and high-quality teaching and learning opportunities. So, for example, it lays out funding priorities. How do we meet the needs of our... most underrepresented students? How does the plan integrate the computer science standards? How do we provide culturally responsive professional development opportunities for teachers? And then we even talk about working, articulating between K-12 and higher education, what kinds of incentives are in place for students to take computer science and to make it eligible for admission to UCs and CSUs. We provide incentives and guidance for schools of education to integrate computer science and teacher preparation programs. So it's a real long-term approach that looks at the entire system and what needs to be in place in order to accomplish
131our goals. So to close, we really believe that in the plan, equity shouldn't just be this berry on top. But how do we bake it into this system? And that is a real long-term approach. And I know all of you are so committed to equity and really thinking about how do we plan ahead in the long term so that we have equitable, scalable, and sustainable computer science. Next is my colleague Allison Scott from K-POR Center, who will give us a bigger picture with support and data. Thank you, Julie. Good morning, Board President Darling-Hammond and board members. My name is Allison Scott. I'm the Chief Research Officer at the Kapor Center. And our work has examined access and equity in computer science education for about the past five years. So what I'd like to provide is
132a quick overview of where the state currently stands as it relates to both access to computer science and also equity gaps. So across California, about 39% of all of our high schools offer a computer science course. So that means about 60% have no computer science courses. And only 14% offer AP Computer Science A. 5% offer AP Computer Science P. We've seen that the availability of courses has increased over the last couple of years. But when you look at the distribution by county, this map here demonstrates that AP CS courses are concentrated in specific counties. And other counties have very little access to AP Computer Science courses. We also looked at rural versus urban schools and found that rural schools are seven times less likely to offer AP Computer Science A than urban schools. And then
133when we look at disparities by school demographics, there are significant equity gaps. So as you can see from these graphs, the more low-income students and the more students of color at a school, the fewer CS courses are offered. And just to articulate a little bit more what's on the screen, the high URM schools are schools that are serving predominantly black and Latinx students, and the low-income schools are schools serving predominantly students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. So high URM schools are two times less likely to offer any CS courses, and they're three times less likely to offer APCSA. Low-income schools are four times less likely to offer APCSA. And at the Kapor Center, we've been researching these gaps since 2015. And again, despite growth across the state, the gaps have remained. So this
134severely impacts the opportunity low-income students and students of color have to participate in computer science education. And we think it also further indicates the need for statewide change. The next slide walks us through trends in computer science enrollment. So course access is just one element, whether schools offer the course. The next data point to really pay attention to is the composition of students that actually enroll in the courses. When we look across the state, just 3% of our roughly 1.9 million high school students were enrolled in a CS course. Black, Latinx, and Native American students, who comprise 60% of our student population, comprise just 50% of the students in intro CS courses, and the gaps grow as we look at advanced placement computer science courses. Similarly, female students comprise 50% of the student population, but
135just 29% of the students taking intro courses and 27% of the students taking APCSP and 33% of students taking APCSA. Another really interesting trend graph looking over the last few years, we've seen actually promising growth among Latinx students in APCS participation, which is a promising trend going from 610 students in 2014 to roughly 6,000 students in 2018. So that's promising growth, but Latinx students are still underrepresented relative to their high school population. So we're looking at roughly 53% of the population and 15% of those enrolled in APCS. So we're growing, but we're not really closing the gaps in the ways that we'd like to see. For black students, I wanted to call out that the number of black students has grown. but very slightly. So we're not seeing the same level of rapid growth among
136black students. And again, this is another point to pay attention to. And finally, I just want to talk about one indicator of performance or success. And APCS exams, again, they're just one indicator that we have. We currently don't have other standardized assessments of computer science performance or achievement. Across California, about seven in 10 students who take an APCS course pass the course. But there are significant equity gaps in passage rates. So just 40% of black and Latinx students pass the APCS exam when they participate in the courses. So overall, these data indicate that there are significant equity gaps in CS. And we really think that we have the opportunity to approach these challenges at a statewide implementation level to ensure equity is at the core of CS implementation. And we firmly believe that we have
137to understand all of these trends and understand where equity gaps are and where they've been persistent in order to prioritize policies and funding strategies to address them. So four of the strategies from the strategic plan that I think... explicitly address equity. One would be the strategic plan itself, which is intended to help guide legislation to increase access overall across the state and also to address equity. The second is around teacher preparation and providing incentives for schools of education to look at how to rigorously prepare computer science teachers, how to also focus in on culturally relevant responsive pedagogy and equity-focused CS education. Then funding priorities to attract prepare and support teachers who teach in low-income underserved districts similarly at the implementation level we have the opportunity to prioritize funding for Low-income districts and districts serving students
138of color to develop CS pathways close equity gaps include CSX and also includes CS access and equity in our data collection, tracking, and accountability. So we have to be able to understand all of the gaps and whether they're closing and where they're closing in order to prioritize resources and strategies. And then finally, the infrastructure is also included in the plan and prioritizing high-need districts who need the basic infrastructure in order to execute computer science education. So again, the recommendations as I see them in the plan are intended to provide guidance to policymakers, to agencies, to communities, to advocacy organizations, philanthropists, to advance equitable access to computer science education. So at this time, I would like to transition to my colleague, Brian Twarik, who will discuss implementation at a local level in San Francisco Unified. Thank
139you. Hello, good morning. My name is Brian Tworek or BT and I am from San Francisco Unified School District where I manage our computer science programs. And I want to give my perspective not only on our own local education agencies implementation of computer science, but also my role on both the computer science standards development as well as implementation panel development. So as you know the State Board adopted our first ever computer science state standards last September and they were written by an expert panel of about 20 educators under the leadership of Stephanie Gregson and we worked off of existing national frameworks to Define what we want the learning outcomes to be across our state It's the the goal is to provide a consistent baseline of learning expectations In the standards, they focus on more than
140just coding, as Julie mentioned earlier. It's a more comprehensive look at computer science. These standards are vertically aligned, and they're coherent across grade levels. The standards are written in grade bands, meaning there's a K2, a 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12 band, not individual grade-specific standards. The standards are designed for all students and there's an additional specialty level of standards at the 9-12 level that are elective standards. Those are the CTE or the AP level of standards. There is significant guidance for interdisciplinary integration and it enhances what's already happening and sets a vision for the future. Those standards are just about to be released with an interactive display in the coming weeks. So I'm going to walk through how the standards are developed. We began with the K-12 computer science framework, which is a national
141document. And the framework has these puzzle pieces, two sets. The first are core concepts, and that's what we expect students to know. Those are things like algorithms and programs, but that's also computing systems, networks, data, and impacts of computing. It's also what we want students to do in computer science classes. That's computational thinking and collaborating, communicating, and fostering inclusive computing culture. Standards put those puzzle pieces together in measurable, demonstrable ways. We worked to refine and improve the CSTA standards that were based on the K-12 computer science framework. And the California standards worked to fill in gaps in those CSTA standards to improve clarity and consistency, to align to CTE and industry. and to align to other state adopted standards and to build in connections. We believe the result is a gold standard of standards and
142having both been on the CSTA standards development process and knowing what other states have created, I do believe ours are the best. I want to walk through one example of a standard. This takes two puzzle pieces. One is the concept is algorithmic programming. The practice is testing and refining computational artifacts. The standard is compare and refine multiple algorithms, the same task, and determine which is the most appropriate. This is a third through fifth grade standard. An algorithm is a stepwise set of instructions for accomplishing a task. So students learn that there are multiple ways to address a problem and reach the same result, but they compare those to decide which is most appropriate for a scenario. The standards work to guide flexible implementation and interdisciplinary implementation. So there are three examples in the standards that
143show how this could be integrated within math, within history, social studies, and ELA. So our math example is students could look at how to decompose a fraction into a sum of fractions. In history, social studies, they could model the early land and sea routes for European settlements in California. In ELA, they could talk about how to get to school and how to get ready in the morning and write an opinion piece about why one algorithm is the most appropriate. So the goal of these interdisciplinary examples is that computer science doesn't have to be one more subject to push in, but can be integrated into existing studies. And that LEAs should have flexibility in how they implement. Now I want to focus on what we've done in San Francisco Unified over the last five years with
144computer science. In June 2015, the San Francisco Board of Education adopted a resolution committing to expand computer science to every student in every grade. You can see in the graph on the left side of the screen that since then we've seen dramatic increase in participation through... with over 25,000 students in the current year, up from 701 in the 2013-14 school year. But I think what's perhaps more compelling is that we've seen a dramatic increase in the representation of students traditionally underrepresented in computer science. On the graph on the right, we see a contrast where in yellow, the tech... industry or the computing workforce in San Francisco shows, does not look like the diversity in the city or the enrollment in the school district, which is shown in the gray bar. When we began work with
145computer science, the orange bar showed how our district participation in computer science looked like. It mirrored the tech industry, not the students who are in our schools. But over the last four years, we've worked to dramatically improve that. And now we see an over-representation of traditionally underrepresented racial groups. And the reason why we've done that is because we have focused our limited resources on the schools, the teachers, and the students who are in those groups. So with limited resources, we've focused our efforts, and we've seen that success. So I believe that this plan is important because it provides implementation guidance on two levels, both for the local agencies as well as at the state level. As you know, we have lots of innovative work happening in San Francisco, but also well beyond. But as Allison
146showed, we have lots of equity gaps that exist, and those will continue to exist without more guidance. I believe that this plan will give some guidance for both people at the... local level like myself as well as folks outside of that the broader system for how to adapt and gives the guidance. An example of something that I would like to see but have little influence at the local education agency level is around the teacher preparation system. This plan gives some guidance for movement in that rain and encourage that further growth. All right, so you can see I brought the big guns with me today. They know what they're talking about when it comes to computer science. So the recommendation for this item is on the screen. The CDE recommends that the board adopt the California
147Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan pending final approval by the State Board Executive Director of any revisions proposed by the board today and any technical. edits um one of our writers yvonne cow is also with us today she and julie and allison and vt and i would be happy to take any questions that you may have at this time great i'm going to ask eileen as our liaison to offer some comments then we'll see if we have public comments and then we will come back to the discussion Thank you. So first, Barbara, thank you so much for shepherding this, bringing this back to us and really listening to the board about our recommendations for edits. I have to thank Dr. Julie Flappen, Dr. Allison Scott, and Brian Twork for coming today. You really added depth and
148context, and your information that you shared really does. paint a really clear picture of where we are in computer science, what the equity issues are, and what we need to address. And I have to say to my fellow board members, this was Trish Williams' baby. She really shepherded it the whole time she was on the state board, and I am just filling in on the final meeting of it, but I just want to honor her commitment to really supporting this work statewide. But with that, I just want to highlight a few... comments and just appreciate the slide deck that really does show some clear research implications and first the panel has been working for more than a year this is a guidance document but one that I think addresses and gives some guidance to local
149education agencies of what to do the IQC has been involved with this all along the way so be aware of that And again, the issue of student participation in computer science doesn't reflect the diversity of our state. It's not. I thought that map was pretty impactful when you take a look at where it is around the state and who's involved. I think. I think the Silicon Valley area and San Francisco had the yellow if I got the chart right. And so when you think about where our population is and what the diversity is and what the population of involvement and really what the skill set for schools to offer computer science, I think we need to think about educators being, and we've talked about that at credentialing commission as well. The occupations for mathematical and
150computer occupations are fastest growing. They're very lucrative. We know kids in... who pursue after college. really do quite well in that sector and also that computer science is integrated throughout so many of the things that students face today. Even the assessment that we talked about in our earlier item is so critical. So I think I want to reinforce too that there are no mandates. I was really clear from the board at the last meeting. So this is a guidance document and I don't think we could underline enough the statement that Barbara Murchison made which is this is going to take time. I appreciate BT's comment about the integration. I think that's the worry of local educators like one more class one more that we need to show how our frameworks integrate how you can teach
151literacy and computer through science through history that it is connected we've talked a lot about it but I don't know that that's fully embraced and understood about how these are not separate single periods but it's a tool So there are a lot of multiple entries into this, but this does support the standards that we adopted last September with a guidance document, which we do need to submit. So those are just my separate comments for it, and I'm open to further board comments, and I believe public comments as well. We're going to do public comments first, and then we'll go to the board discussion. So are there any public comments? Yes. Would the following speakers please line up at the podium? Alex Torres, Cameron, Dimitri, and Robin Hines. Good morning or afternoon, President Darling-Hammond, members of
152the board, Alex Torres on behalf of Code.org. Thank you for taking the time to consider the adoption of the Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan. The plan provides opportunities for California students to achieve greater access to computer science, a foundational skill that every student needs to be able to harness. Code.org is a national nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities. We work with state education boards across the U.S. to support their plan to and their work to expand CS with the adoption of the California Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan. California will take its place as a leader in the U.S. with K-12 computer science implementation. We stand ready to support your next steps. Not only does computer science provide every student foundational knowledge, it also
153leads to the highest paying and fastest growing jobs in the U.S. economy. There's unprecedented interest in action from... government, industry, and education advocates aimed at expanding science in our K-12 system. Look forward to working with you and thank you for your work on giving education. Thank you. Good morning, Madam President and board members. My name is Cameron Dimitri, and I'm the Deputy Executive Director at TechNet, the voice of the innovation economy. TechNet strongly supports the recommendations made in the Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan. The plan will help ensure opportunities for both teachers and students with rigorous, scalable, and equitable computer science education across California. Our member companies believe that computer science is a foundational skill for K-12 students. Computer science helps develop students' computational and critical thinking skills and teaches students how to create and
154use new technologies. These skill sets prepare students for college, civic participation, and a variety of careers, including the tech industry. However, there are still challenges to accessing computer science education, as we heard, and this plan is a critical step towards addressing these challenges. Only one out of 4K through 12 schools teaches any computer science, leaving 75% of students today with the opportunity to develop essential skills. Thank you for your time. Hi, I'm Robin Hines with Microsoft. We submitted written comments, so I'll be short and sweet. On behalf of Microsoft, I just want to say that we really think that expanding access to computer science education expands economic opportunity for the next generation. And I just want to emphasize that point. I think it was emphasized by the speakers earlier, and we urge your support. And
155seeing no other public comment, we're open for discussion. Patricia, and then we'll go to Hema, and then Sue, and then Ting, and then Kim. Well, first of all, and I specifically saved this moment of personal privilege to this item. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day and week, I would like to do a shout out to Angela Tolson Rucker. She may be related. Most Ruckers are. She was my high school civics teacher. She was an African-American woman, a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. The most important advice she gave me and is the advice I heard for the first time in my life from a professional educator. other than my own mother, was not to worry about letting people know you're African American. That's obvious. Surprise them by also showing them that you're smart.
156So I want to appreciate her for that. And again, I'll just tell you all, it's not my fault. It's all their fault, so you can appreciate them. I also want to give a shout out to Katherine Johnson, to Dorothy Vaughn, and to Mary Jackson. These were also three African American women. three members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. And they were the reason why John Glenn got off into space. And so it's important to recognize the role not only of computer science, but the role of all of this technology. and what the changes in computers mean. These were women who at the time when they did their work for NASA, not only did they deal with segregated bathrooms, but their computers filled this room and they were tape-to-tape machines where the data storage was. When
157I was in high school with Dr. Tolson Rucker, the computer science classes were vocational education and students were taught the important skill of being a key punch operator. So by the time I got to college at Davis, we were still doing computer punch cards, but all the students had, okay, get your mind out of the gutter before I say this next thing, easy access cards. So all the computer science majors took all the girls out on date to get their easy access. Because get your mind out of the gutter. So I appreciate what these standards represent and the advances that we have made, not only in technology and not only in the conversation about what it means to advance computer science and integration of computer science across the grades, but also what it means about
158our understandings about instruction and the sustained effect. But having said that, it's at moments like this when we're sitting in rooms like this when we can talk at the 5,000-foot level about the promise of this work. Again, we need to deal with some realities. Earlier this year, the California Legislative Black Caucus sponsored a day-long conference on the state of black California. And in the technology panel, there was a lot of discussion about the role of STEM and STEM training. And there was a... The expert panel did talk about the fact that while there has been a significant increase in access to computers and computer science education, the fact is they are not being hired. into the workforce. They are not being recruited actively by the large employers like in Silicon Valley. And the they I'm
159talking about are African-American candidates who graduate out of college with degrees in computer science. So we can talk about the promise of what these standards mean. And I do support that promise. But we cannot legislate the morality or the obligation of the workforce and of employers to not just look at people like me and know the big secret. is not that I'm African American, but that I'm smart. So we have other work to do in this area, and just simply adopting the standards, which I am supporting today, will not in and of itself address that alone. I would like to say thank you so much for this. So I come from the Bay Area. I'm from Oakland. And many people know that one of the biggest things that's impacting communities like Oakland, San Francisco is
160gentrification due to tech companies. And so I'm saying this because people don't understand that the access of community, I mean computer science, has an impact on sustainable communities. You know, when students have access to computer science, we're able to go into those fields. And the truth is that we could go into computer science and we won't be into those fields. Like there's people who will look at a black or brown face and be like, not really. And so the conversation, I remember going to the My Brother's Keeper event in Oakland and one of the panels talked about. Giving access to computer science does not only help students get into that field but create our own organizations, our own companies, so that we are able to hire each other and build this and become sustainable communities
161because this will make a difference whether or not black and brown folks stay in our communities. And you know, it was very alarming but not surprising to see that only 497 black students have access to computer science because you know, one of the first communities that get pushed out in gentrification are black families. And so, you know, I really want to make sure that we are targeting black folks when it comes to giving access to these classes because, you know, coming from a community that was mostly primarily black, I want to make sure that they're able to come back because they have access to those jobs in the future. So I'm very thankful for this because, you know, it's going to be a step forward, but... as board member Rutgers said, is not going to
162change the bias, but how do we build our own companies so that we don't have to rely on those primarily white institutions? So thank you. Thank you. First, I just want to give a shout out to Barbara and express my appreciation for the revisions that you made from the last time we saw it. You definitely took them to heart. I think the document is strengthened because of that. It really does point to local funding and local priorities in addition to sort of laying out this framework. And one of the speakers, I think, talked about that it also gives a direction and policy recommendations to the legislature and to the governor should. they decide to invest more heavily and the directions in which that would go. And that makes sense to me that that's what we're
163trying to get at. So I just want to express my appreciation to you and to all of the speakers. I do want to just do, maybe I'm a little bit of a Luddite here because I do think that computer science. Although very, very important, it is a little bit of a shiny new object. And if we had other disciplines in here and we looked at the data, for example, around AP on visual and performing arts or on mathematics or pick your discipline, you would see very similar kinds of representations. So I think we have to be aware of the struggles that... Board member Strauss pointed out that we're asking our schools and LEAs to do an awful lot and we have to be cautious about adding yet another thing So I want to also underscore
164the examples that were provided about how to integrate within our existing standards I thought that was fantastic and providing teachers with that opportunity I think is really critical My comments are almost exactly the same as board member Burr. So yes, thank you Barbara for hearing our feedback and for incorporating those. I also feel that the document is strengthened. I think I had alluded to just from the field having read the other drafts. there was a sense of pressure to, oh my gosh, this is yet another thing that we must do. And so I think reading this version of the draft, it really does provide nice guidance and allows locals to decide if that is what they want to implement. It's a great guidance for that. So appreciate the work here and appreciate your taking our
165feedback. This is maybe more on the clarifying question. One of the slides referenced looking at disaggregated data and trying to prioritize funding for high need districts, which certainly I agree with and think is a right-headed set of recommendations. Can you also speak to sort of driving priority within districts because obviously the homogeneous composition of schools within a district could mask if funding was going to the more affluent schools within a district. Thank you for that question. I think really, again, it's incumbent upon the LEAs to figure out how to prioritize their funding in a way that best meets their local needs. But we wanted to be true and consistent with really the top priority of the panel, which was to make sure that our communities that have historically been the most under-resourced maybe got a
166little bit first in line for this one, that we didn't just sort of... have it happen for everyone. So ultimately, the plan as written really leaves it to the LEA to decide how they prioritize what across their district. But I think the panel felt very strongly because of the equity gaps that were described during the presentation that we wanted to give LEAs kind of a little bit of a nudge when it gets to that point. Think about your schools and communities that have been under-resourced first. Sorry, the related piece on that, I think, is part of what's so impactful about the presentation. And I want to thank the presenters who are, I think, hiding behind a pillar over there. The data is really stark and not terribly controversial because it is so clear when you
167go from single digit numbers of African-Americans taking CS courses. And it is, you know, percent change growth is a fantastic way to sort of look at a delta percentage and make it seem like tremendous progress and an invitation to declare victory. However, getting to 497 is so far from victory, right? I think part of... And this is not an amendment to I'm happy to support this plan, but I do want us to start thinking about what it means to actually also build in recommendations around ongoing data disaggregation and reporting back so that it's not just point in time snapshot data that says we had inequity in 2015, say, was data collection, and we're going to assume that we're good for the remaining two years of implementation because those are. access gaps and achievement gaps are
168stubborn and persistent and I think especially because we are we are putting so much onus on the LEA to Do the right thing and I think most leas do want to do the right thing, but there are there are competing interest groups within every LEA to be responsive to the squeakiest wheel and oftentimes the squeakiest wheel will be your more affluent parents and the PTAs in those groups and God bless them for their advocacy on behalf of their children but we need all kids to actually have access to this and clear data and consistent data reporting rituals I think is one of the cleanest ways to start re-prompting that conversation on a regular basis. I also want to thank the presenters for their work, their commitment, and their passion. I also appreciate that the language
169is a little bit more recommendation versus mandate. And I think we've heard a lot about the concerns that maybe this is the it thing now. But one of the things that we have to understand that this is the it thing now, and we do have to be responsive to it. The reality is that if you disaggregate data by visual performing arts, by computer science, we will see that there are structural inequalities, and it's always the same student groups, African-American, Latino students, English learners, that will be underserved. That is the reality of our system, and that is the system that I hope all of us are here to make sure that we can rectify. There is implicit bias. There's going to be implicit bias within the school system. There's going to be implicit bias out there.
170outside of the system. I think that the best thing we can do is to focus on our influence, our sphere of influence here. If we are training our teachers on implicit bias, if we're building a system that is based on equity, true equity. If we are educating our students to believe that they have the power, the access, the intelligence to do what they have the potential to do, then at least we're building up students who will hopefully challenge those systems once they leave our educational systems. And that's all we can do because we cannot control if employers are going to employ our students, but our students will make sure that there are systems in place and policies in place that could hopefully challenge that in the future. So that is the hope. Also, you know,
171I was going to say exactly what Board Member Gardena said. I think that so many of our communities that are being gentrified are low-income communities, are the same communities that don't have access to computer science and some of these tech fields. In Boyle Heights, there's this new concept called gentrification, when it's Latinos who come back to their communities but have been educated and are now part of the same fabric of their upbringing. So the goal is to have gentrification when it's... our own people that are coming back to their own communities and hopefully building up those communities. So that is the hope here. I have one question for you. And then, Eileen, were you also wanting to make another comment? OK. So I understand that we're not legally, by law, authorized to do standards and
172frameworks in computer science, et cetera. But I'm wondering, as many people ask for guidance, what kind of guidance particularly around this question of how to integrate the programming and so on, your contemplating might be possible. Right. So the board has already adopted standards for computer science. Back in September, you adopted. some of you who are here, adopted a set of computer science standards, which actually do model, those standards do present an integrated structure. So for folks to kind of dig into that document, it'll become more clear on how to integrate computer science throughout the disciplines. Right. I guess that was your slide about the framework. The framework piece, yes. We are not authorized. Obviously, the board builds things as the legislature requires. The legislature says we need a computer science framework, then that'll be a
173different story. At the moment, we are not building a computer science framework or adopting instructional materials. And I think part of the thinking was that this field is evolving so rapidly. By the time you finish a lengthy framework development process, it'll be time for a new one right away. But we do believe that the guidance in this plan, which talks about how you would begin to implement the computer science standards that were adopted in September, can provide useful guidance to districts who are seeking to move the computer science education ball a little further down the field. In terms of the pedagogy pieces that I think typically come with a curriculum framework, like what does instruction look like, we don't have that in here. There are recommendations in here that the Commission on teacher credentialing take
174up credentials and obviously that would have to be authorized through a legislative process as well again, I think we're very much at the start of This journey to implement computer science at least as a state we are I think many districts are pretty far along down the road already We like the State Board the CDE would need to have authorization to build that, as would the commission. So all of us are kind of dependent on the legislative process to figure out what additional guidance would be needed, who would be the folks developing it, and in what time frame. And I would really encourage us to think about guidance that or Exemplars or examples that allow people to see how some places are taking an integrated approach I think that will be very helpful as we
175move forward in that regard Patricia you want to make another comment? Looking at Stephanie and she and I have been trying to read lips in this before I say this I think that if the if the goal really and truly is about integration We're about to as the liaison that's going to be working with the math framework committee as they undertake the goal the role of Revising and updating our math framework. I think the opportunity to make this document that we're going to adopt a living piece of Information and guidance that we look at how we integrate. What are the recommendations in the stand? into each of the frameworks as we do that work. And so the first opportunity would be with the math framework to develop the type of exemplars and those discussions that
176you're already talking about. I'm hoping that's what Stephanie was trying to explain to me as I was... Maybe we'll let Stephanie speak for herself. I'll just add we're also doing that with our California Arts Framework and our World Language Framework. And also the standards, the computer science standards document was written with the intention of we knew that we could not take three years to develop a... framework because the technology would be outdated when we were halfway through so we wrote the standards document with that in mind and so there's plenty of guidance around instruction and pedagogy within the standards document itself any other questions or discussion before we move forward I'm ready for a motion. I'll make a motion to support the CDE recommendation that the State Board adopt the Computer Science Strategic Implementation Plan
177and pending final approval by our Executive Director of any of the revisions and technical edits. We have several seconds. Do I need to designate or will somebody? Okay. Matt, we'll give you that second. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. The motion passes. Thank you very much, Barbara, for all your wonderful work. I ask that we push forward on something that I hope will be fairly quick, which is for us to review the waiver consents, which is usually a pretty... Quick item, yes. We're going to do this in three batches because individuals need to recuse themselves at various points in time. I know that Patricia Recker is recusing for this first one. So we're going to the first waiver consent vote. And is there any
178public comment on the first waiver? It's waiver one. Waiver one, yep. Waiver 01 is there any public comment? No public comment. All right. Do I have a motion? I move adoption Thank You Sue a second second Thank You ting all in favor say aye any opposed nay any abstentions, okay Yeah, hope you didn't get too comfortable out there All right, moving ahead to the second waiver consent vote. This is W02 through 11, 13, and 14 together. And again, is there any public comment on any of those waiver requests? We have one public comment on waiver 8, Wendy Orlandi. Okay. Hi, I'm Wendy Orlandi with Maple Creek Elementary School and the superintendent. And I want to really express my gratitude for the work that you do for the children of California. It's really important, and I
179appreciate it. And I came here over nine hours with all my lovely students to express my support of approving the waiver item number eight for Maple Creek Elementary School. We have a rich history since our opening in 1878. It's the center of the community, and it is the only public building for miles. No post office, gas station, anything. I can tell you that we're fiscally sound. We're expecting four new students next year. We serve a majority of low-income students. A majority of our students are minorities. 50% of our population has an identified learning disability. But what's most important to me and my reason to keep our doors open is each community member, from our youngest to our oldest. And I just ask that you keep that in mind, these individuals, as you make your decision.
180Thank you very much. Oh, it's great to see you all. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the waiver consents 2 through 11, 13, and 14? Aye. Second. Thank you very much. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Any abstentions? Okay. Now we're going to do one more for individual action, which is waiver 12, and I think someone probably needs to recuse. Oh, okay, we have a presentation on this. All right. Ah, yes, this is the two LEAs. Thank you. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you. My name is Kristen Wright. I am the director of the Special Education Division at the Department of Education. This is my esteemed colleague, Heather Carlson, who's the associate director, who has been working directly around the issues related
181to SELPA and the waivers in particular. So I have her up here with me today as my expert witness and partner in crime. Also, a special thanks to Alexis Slater on our staff, who has been really... carrying the the SELPA torch over the last 10 years in the department, keeping track of all things that are happening, so all the data that you're getting around what's happened over time has come through one person, which is very rare. So thanks for her great work. We're here today to present a waiver request by two local educational agencies to waive education code regarding size and scope requirements to be a single district SELPA. And so we're here specifically about this waiver, but we also want to give you a little additional information today per some requests, just about some
182background around SELPA so that you are able to have all the information you need. I think you all received a SELPA memo last month laying some groundwork and foundation. around what SELPAs are and sort of the current state of the land with SELPAs. And so I'd first like to provide you with an overview of the waiver and then discuss some of the broader policy questions to get a little bit more guidance from you in the future. So this particular waiver is a SELPA that is two districts and it consists of Hacienda La Puente Unified and Roland Unified which currently make up the Puente Hills Service Area Special Education Local Plan Area which is SELPA. And both educational agencies are proposing to dissolve that SELPA. and each pursues single district status. So we reviewed that request,
183and as part of our determination, we've determined they do not meet the size and scope requirements that were set by the board decades ago and haven't really been updated since, and we'll talk about that later. And so these items are being brought to you to determine, sorry, my allergies and my allergy meds are acting up, to determine whether or not they are granted single district status through this waiver. And so... At this point, that is for you to decide. And so our recommendation would be to approve with conditions the waiver set forth using the current criteria that we have established by you, which is really just size and scope. So I'd like to also talk to you a little bit about... what's happening in our current system related to this. And I want to make
184it clear that this is separate from whatever your decision is about today's waiver. but it sort of bleeds over into a larger policy question for consideration moving forward as we start to get more and more requests for single district SELPAs and that you ask us for our opinion. And we want to make sure that we are being fair and neutral around how we give you feedback to hold everyone with the same measures. So we've seen, so in our current accountability system, as you know, we hold our LEAs accountable for improving outcomes for students with disabilities. And we've really seen the majority of our districts identified for differentiated assistance be those related to the students with disabilities population and improvement of that. So as part of our statewide system of support, we've been up many times
185talking to you about how we've sort of brought in SELPA as a key player in that statewide system of support. So As we're thinking about our larger system, I just throw it out there because we are counting on SELPA to be that advisory role, to be the expert, and that next level of sort of regionalized special education support. And we work very closely with them at the department. So when we receive a request from a district seeking to become a single district SELPA, and we look at your size and scope policy, and then we look to the broader accountability system, there's sort of a disconnect. in that we don't have really any other criteria established by which to judge whether we think that's a good idea or not. And so you ask, should we approve
186them? And we say, well, it's sort of this rhetorical, you know, circular question. Well, they don't meet size and scope, but we have never judged. single districts like that before. So we request your support for this particular one, but we also say to you, what else would you like us to think about? We need some more guidance and direction from you. We're happy to do whatever work you'd like us to do for this process moving forward. But again, ask for your approval with conditions of this set of waivers. And then we'll go to public comment, and then we'll come back for discussion. Well, first of all, I want to thank you, Kristen, for the work that your staff has done, both with the districts on this concern and also in taking a look at our
187SELPA waivers. I hope all of my colleagues on the board have had a chance to read the information memo that was prepared by the staff concerning the history of SELPAs and the purpose of it and intent. SELPAs are very unique in the system that's provided in California and our expectations about the work that SELPAs are supposed to do. to do. The policy that this waiver is related to was crafted back in 1987. So I think it's time for an update because there are things that that policy does not consider. Students with disabilities in Hacienda La Puente are currently performing in the yellow. orange and red categories for graduation, chronic absenteeism, and suspension rates, as well as English language arts, mathematics, and college and career indicators. Students with disabilities in Rowland are on the dashboard are
188performing in the yellow red categories for graduation chronic absenteeism and graduation rates as well as math english language arts and cci nothing in our scope and policy nothing in our current policy addresses whether or not the selpa will the students in this selpa will be well served by the district but there's clear data in our new accountability system that says currently and clearly they are not And so we do need to give our department and we need to give ourselves greater and broader discretion on how to consider waivers like this to make sure that when districts make the request to become their own SELPA that the work that they're being expected to do and that they're going to be tasked to do in their SELPA really will be. in the best needs of the students.
189And so part of what we have to do is think about not only how our system has evolved and much like our county offices of education, we also have to address the fact that SELPAs have a role in providing support to LEAs in serving their students with disabilities, particularly when they have been identified as a district that needs particular types of targeted support. So, our single district cell size and scope policy doesn't encompass those new concerns at this time. So, any revision to that criteria needs to look at those issues and it needs to look at how well LEAs are meeting the needs of their students with disabilities. So I am going to recommend that we do support the staff's recommendation to approve this waiver. But notice there is a change in the timeline for
190the waiver that's recommended rather than the full amount of time that the LEAs have requested so that eventually it can become a permanent waiver. We're recommending for a year so that the districts can look at what they're doing. And there's an expectation that districts in developing and addressing not only their plans for their students with disabilities, but they come to. understand the full requirement and breadth of the work that they would have to do not only as their own SELPA but as a district in addressing the needs of their students with disabilities. So the proposed motion that I'm offering is to approve with conditions the request from Hacienda La Puente Unified School District and the Rowland Unified School District to waive the size and scope requirements. for one year. Separate from that, I'm asking the
191staff to work on some recommendations for ways that we can improve and enhance and broaden the scope of our waiver policy in this area, knowing that we will have this. This is not going to be the first waiver that we will see. Is there public comment? Yes. Would the following speakers please sign up at the podium? Julie Mitchell, Michael Tincup, Cynthia Colfer, and Judy Fancher. Unified School District and I'm here this morning should you have any specific questions for our district both Michael Tincup our director of special education and myself are here and happy to answer any of your questions we also very much appreciate you taking the time to hear this waiver request thank you Just under good morning. My name is Cindy Perlin Colfer I am the superintendent from Hacienda La Puente Unified
192School District as my colleague. Dr. Mitchell has indicated we were happy to Respond to any questions. This was a very well thought-out process We spent three years Identifying how to do this so we did not simply turn in a waiver when we wanted to we actually worked through as pair of school districts working together to ensure that we were each serving over 99% of our students separately within our districts prior to having this as consideration by the board. Thank you. Thank you, that's helpful to know and just to pick up on where Patricia kind of left off with her comments About the need to revisit a lot of these questions. We are this is not the only request we've received for secession from SELPAs and so I think there's a big set of questions to
193take up and understand about the ways in which special education may be best organized and what the criteria and issues are that should guide our decision making in this sphere writ large. Yes, Sue. well first I wanted a second board member Rutgers motion I think she made a motion on the waiver so I would second it but and also concur with you I think it is definitely time to look at this and wanted to suggest or maybe ask Kristen this a little bit I think most of you know that through the collaborative we received funding last year to develop special education leads and we have two sets of them we have content leads and we have SELPA leads as I recall And first of all, it seems apparent that it would be helpful to do
194a data analysis of students with disabilities performance by SELPA, because I think that's what you did in this case with the two districts that we were interested in. And there may be, in fact, bright spots, like I know we're going to hear about soon in research for districts. But the same thing with SELPAs. Are there SELPAs that are doing a particularly good job with the districts that... exist in their boundaries. But more importantly, whether or not the work that is being contracted for through the collaborative, can we use those folks, that expertise, to develop some of this criteria about size and scope and what successful SELPAs look like beyond those two categories. The answer is we can definitely work with our partners. We are working very collaboratively with the CCEE around the CELPA leads, Carla
195Estrada and I, you know. directly interact with them and meet with them regularly. So it's certainly something that we can talk about. And then outside of that, we can also have some additional partners come in to help us work through and present back to you some ideas and look at some data in different ways, cut it in different ways so that you can sort of look at it through different lenses if that's helpful. Okay. Thank you, so a couple of questions so One of the purposes for fiscally for self as it's like an insurance pool so the more you have in there the more you are kind of insured for Huge contingencies and things like that and so I read that under this item that the two self as had are both districts are experiencing
196declining enrollment so they're going to split apart and then they're also having declining enrollment within each of their districts as well so that's a little um you know a little shaky i'm um and then the other question i had was I guess the recommendation for approval sounds like it's based on the memo and also just your discussion. It's because there's an absence of real criteria that you really have no basis to say no. So that's kind of a larger piece. In 1987, I graduated from high school in 1987. That was a long time ago, guys. So, yeah, so I do agree that we do need to look at our policies, improving SELPAs overall. And with this particular one, I would support the staff recommendation, but just wanted to highlight that. The declining enrollment piece, I
197think it's good to have a one year so that we can take a look at what's happening. And that's also true of SELPAs that were maybe at one time met size and scope, but there are many, many districts and SELPAs that have been in declining enrollment. So when you look at it overall, it's not just those that are coming forward, but we haven't really looked at it in general because once you're a single district, you never lose that status. Matt? I agree with your recommendation and with board member Burr's second on this. When a district decides to exit a SELPA, they're basically saying we can provide a better service to our students with disabilities than our SELPA can because it's a financial burden for them to do so. It's a financial burden for them to
198do so. It requires that they're going to open classes. And most often than not, the SELPA is serving specifically designed instructional programs, specifically designed instructional programs where they don't have critical mass to fund. So when a superintendent stands up and says, we're going to be a provider of service, I think we have to honor that local request. But we also, I agree with you, it's a perfect opportunity to develop some criteria. that says beyond scope size and scope what are the necessary minimal components that you must be able to have to ensure to us that when we give you that opportunity to exit you can provide the best quality of service to students with disabilities because right now as it stands it's just the size of the district and based on what the school district
199believes they can do and that is a as a fine line you walk as a superintendent when you say that and then find yourself in a position where you cannot financially provide the services because at the end of the day finances don't matter. So I think if we could also include locals in that conversation about the development of a criteria that would be helpful too. I'd just like to add to that point that I think we need in addition to thinking about exit criteria a broad conversation about SELPAs about how you know that old structure is operating and how the framework for getting the right services to kids in California, you know, should unfold. So criteria for how we're doing this work more generally. Seeing no other comments, I think we're ready to take up
200your motion. So I'll restate the motion. The purpose of the motion is to allow us to use our existing policy to grant, as Superintendent Navo and Board Member Navo said, We're going to trust that and believe that the districts think that they can do a better job. The data currently says they're not, but they believe separating and becoming their own CEPA would give them an opportunity to have some flexibility to do their work that they cannot do right now. This recommendation is based on our current policy. The recommendation says to approve with conditions the request from Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. and the Roland Unified School District to waive the size and scope requirements for one year. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Any abstentions?
201All right. The motion carries. Thank you very much. And with that, I'm informed that lunch is in the hallway. We are going to work through lunch, so we're going to take about a 10-minute break for you to get your lunches. We're going to go right on to item number four, which is going to be a fairly long item, so you can be prepared to sit for a while. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. We are going to commence the public hearing on item number four, the health education framework for California public schools. And before we begin the conversation, I just want to flag a couple of things about the process. reiterate this as needed we are going to listen to a presentation about the framework we'll have quite extensive public comment there right now 181
202people signed up for public comment We will ask everyone's indulgence as the board eats its lunch at the podium because we want to facilitate everyone getting a chance to speak. And we're going to not have any breaks. I don't think we'd take your own individual break as you need to, board members, as you feel the need. As I noted, there are many people interested in providing us with public comment today. In order to ensure that there's time for the board to deliberate and take action, we're going to ask everyone to cooperate and adhere to these practices. Members of the public may sign up using the binder in the lobby to address the board during the time allocated for public comment. Members of the public may only sign up to speak for themselves and may not
203sign up to speak for other speakers. or may not sign up other speakers to speak. Speakers may not allocate their allotted time to another speaker. We expect speakers to refrain from using profanity and conduct themselves in a respectful manner, to abide by the one-minute time limit, and everyone in the audience to be respectful of all commenters and refrain from clapping, cheering, booing, or making any other loud expressions. Remember, this is a workplace, and I will... reiterate the speaking rules when we get there and we will begin with stephanie gregson who's going to present the framework thank you Chief Deputy Lupita Cortez-Aguilar. My name is Stephanie Gregson, and I serve as the Executive Director of the Instructional Quality Commission and Director of the Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division here at the Department of Education. It
204is my honor and privilege to be in front of you today to present the health education framework for California Public Schools kindergarten through grade 12. With me today is Jennifer Wu, the chair of the Health Education Subject Matter Committee of the Instructional Quality Commission and a National Board Certified Health Educator. I'd like to give a big shout out to my first grade teacher, Nancy O'Connor, because she solidified for me that I wanted to be just like her, a teacher. And also to all of the teachers that I've been able to work with throughout my entire career. It's an honor to be an educator. As my 14 and 17-year-old go off to school every morning, my hope for them each day is they are entering their school feeling valued, respected for their differences, and empowered to
205make good decisions for themselves. Basically, I want them to be healthy, happy, and kind human beings. And I understand it takes a community to help me with that endeavor. Quality health education is a part of that, as it helps our students understand how to make healthy choices throughout their lifetime and encompasses physical, mental, emotional, and social health. For our new board members, I'd like to start our presentation with building background knowledge and providing context around standards, frameworks, and instructional materials. Let's start with the standards. Standards are what we want our students to know. understand, and be able to do at the end of every grade level and the end of their K-12 experience. For teachers, it is the what for instruction. We have standards in many different areas, like you heard around the computer science.
206We now have computer science standards. The health education standards were adopted by the state board in 2008. And here is one example of a health education standard. The standard comes from kindergarten, the mental, emotional, social health standards. This is 1.1M, and it's identify a variety of emotions. Once the standards are adopted, it is important to help our educators and administrators understand the standards and how to best provide instruction for each and every student to meet the standards. We provide the support through curriculum frameworks. Curriculum frameworks include guidance to teachers and administrators on how to deliver high-quality instruction to each and every student. Frameworks are developed by... developed by educators for educators. They are based on current and confirmed research of best practices. Frameworks provide guidance on how to meet different education codes, but there are
207no mandates or policies in a framework. Frameworks are used as a tool for professional learning and a guide in developing instructional materials. Frameworks are not a curriculum. instructional materials and each content area has a curriculum framework to support teachers and administrators we also have parent brochures for our most recent frameworks and standards After a curriculum framework is adopted, we move into the world of instructional materials. Instructional materials are tools for teachers to use in their classroom to help students meet the standards. Instructional materials come in different forms such as textbooks, worksheets, and digital formats. The state provides an initial review of kindergarten through eighth grade materials. This review is based on alignment to the standards and content of the framework. The state review and adopted list provides a starting point for school districts. Each local
208education agency will go through their own review process and choose the materials that best meet their students' needs. So in summary, standards, curriculum frameworks, and instructional materials are all key supports for high-quality instruction for student success. So let's talk about the health education framework our journey for the development of the health education framework began in November 2016 with my staff and I conducting focus groups with educators across California The input from these groups became the foundation for the instructional quality Commission recommended and state board adopted guidelines During this time, we were also recruiting for educators and other content area experts for the Curriculum Framework and Evaluation Criteria Committee, otherwise known as the CFCC. After the CFCC was appointed by the State Board, they met six times, each time being two-day meetings, where the committee diligently
209revised all of the framework chapters. Each CFCC meeting was publicly noticed, open to the public, and had opportunities for the public to make comment each day of the meeting. Many members of the public participated in these meetings. Once the CFCC completed their work, they forwarded the draft document to the Instructional Quality Commission, also known as the IQC. The IQC approved the framework for the first public comment review period. After the first public review period ended, the IQC reviewed the public comment, made edits and revisions, then placed the framework out for another 60-day public review period. At their March 28, 2019 meeting, the IQC made additional edits and revisions, and that brings us here to today. I'd like to acknowledge the work of the CFCC. This group was comprised of many experts from kindergarten through 12th
210grade teachers to school site administrators, university professors, nurses, health education specialists, and public health specialists. This committee volunteered many, many hours to the development of the health education framework to ensure the framework met all of the state board adopted guidelines. We are grateful for their passion and dedication to providing quality health education to the students of California. As mentioned previously, all of the meetings were open to the public, and public comment has been welcomed during the entire process. We had a dedicated email to receive public comment from the beginning of the process. We heard from many organizations, associations, and individuals who provided input on many different topics addressed in the framework. There were two 60-day public comment and review periods. The first began in April 1st, 2018 and went through June 30th, 2018. Over a
211thousand comments were submitted via online survey, email, regular mail, phone calls, and verbally during the Instructional Quality Commission and Health Subject Matter Committee meetings that were held in September 2018. Among the comments received, the Health Subject Matter Committee and Instructional Quality Commission approved over 200 comments to be included in the second revised draft. These changes and edits are highlighted in yellow on the posted draft framework. During the IQC meeting in September the IQC requested that CDE emphasized the interdisciplinary connections throughout the framework in a more prominent manner. We highlighted each of the interdisciplinary connections in blue and during the final editing phase we'll work with our graphic designers to create an index that will serve as a useful resource for our teachers and administrators. The second 60-day public comment and review period was held between
212November 1st through January 11th 2019. However, CDE has continued to and is still receiving public comment. During this time, we received over 2,000 comments through email, regular mail, phone calls, and verbally during the IQC meetings in March. Among the comments received, the IQC Commission approved over 300 edits from these comments to be included in the second revised draft during their March meeting. All of these additions are highlighted in green on the posted draft framework. I'd like to highlight four themes prevalent in the public comment we received during this process. First, we received many comments in support of the framework highlighting the inclusivity of the document. Other themes include the California Healthy Youth Act and parental opt-out, religious diversity, and language choices. As I mentioned, much of the public comment we received was focused on the
213California Healthy Youth Act, also referred to as AB 329. I'd like to provide clarification on the differences between the California Healthy Youth Act and the health education framework, as I believe there is misinformation that may be confusing for some. The California Healthy Youth Act is a law that took effect in January 2016. This law requires school districts throughout the state to provide students with comprehensive sexual health education, along with information about HIV prevention, at least once in high school and once in middle school. The state legislation also allows districts to offer age-appropriate sexual health education in earlier grades if they choose to do so. But parents can opt out of comprehensive sexual health education and local districts choose which curriculum and instructional resources they will use to teach comprehensive sexual health education to their students.
214The law makes it clear that parents can opt out their children out of comprehensive sex education. According to the language in the California Healthy Youth Act, the legislature recognizes that while parents and guardians overwhelmingly support medically accurate comprehensive sex education, parents and guardians have the ultimate responsibility for imparting value regarding human sexuality to their children. As mentioned above, parents or guardians can excuse their children from lessons about comprehensive sexual health and HIV prevention education, as well as research on student health behaviors and risks. However, as stated in Education Code, the opt-out provision of the California Healthy Youth Act does not apply to instruction or materials outside the context of comprehensive sexual health, including those that may reference gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, discrimination, bullying, relationships, or family. For example, the opt-out rule associated with comprehensive
215sexual health education would not apply to a social studies lesson on the US Supreme Court's 2015 ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. School districts are required to notify parents and guardians a minimum of 14 days prior to the first day of comprehensive sexual health instruction. To opt out of this instruction, parents, guardians must request in writing that their child not participate in the instruction. If the parent guardian does not request in writing that the child be withheld, the child will attend the instruction. Now the health education framework which is why we are here today is a guidance document for teachers and administrators on how to provide quality instruction on the health education standards. The framework is not a curriculum or instructional materials. It provides resources, tools, and guidance on the California Healthy Youth Act and
216other education codes such as tissue and organ donation. There are no mandates in the framework, and it is used as a professional learning tool for teachers, administrators, and other health educators. The California Healthy Youth Act offers parental opt-out, as I've just mentioned, and the IQC had an extensive conversation on how to address providing clear guidance in the framework on the parental opt-out information. The commissioners added additional language in several chapters providing clarity and additional guidance for teachers and administrators. Specifically, they added additional language in a new section titled the California Healthy Youth Act Notice and Parental Excuse and language on parental review and notification for instructional materials being used to teach sex education. Religious diversity was another theme threaded throughout our public comment. The IQC heard public comment related to being inclusive of all religious
217beliefs and made edits to include the term religious beliefs and religious backgrounds throughout the chapters to be inclusive of all people. The IQC also replaced the term religion with the term spiritual beliefs in a discussion on the different types of abuse in Chapter 6. Another public comment theme addressed during the IQC discussion centered on language choices to ensure clarity of guidance. Public comments provided a need to have clarity on the gender identity in the younger grades. An additional sentence was added in the kindergarten through grade three chapter. The sentence states, the goal is not to cause confusion about the gender of the child, but to develop an awareness that other expressions exist. I'd like to now hand the presentation over to Commissioner Wu for her to take you into the content and organization of the
218health education framework. Thank you. As Dr. Gregson mentioned earlier, the content of the current draft of the health education framework is based on the 2008 California health education content standards. The standards are written through individual grades K through 6 and grade band 7-8 and 9-12. The health framework includes transitional kindergarten, but the preschool learning foundations are used instead because California does not have health standards for TK. Within the health standards and ultimately the framework, comprehensive health education includes six different content areas which are represented in these colorful bubbles. Nutrition and physical activity, growth, development, and sexual health, injury prevention and safety, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, mental, emotional, and social health, and personal and community health. I do want to point out that the growth, development, and sexual health... Content area is actually split in
219K through four it is growth and development and Sexual health is only added in grades five seven three and nine through twelve The health education standards also include eight overarching content standards and rationales which describe essential concepts and skills and are taught within each of the six content areas. The overarching content standards provide scaffolding for students to develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to be healthy individuals. Examples of these include things like goal setting and decision making. The health education framework begins with the introduction and supporting health education chapters. These chapters serve as a resource for administrators at the school and district levels and school board members for supporting and improving health education in their districts and schools. A few highlights of these chapters that are... are that they include the importance of
220health education, suggestions on making the school and the classroom a safe environment for all students to learn, provide guidance on professional development, and discuss the role of parents, legal guardians, families in health education, as well as the role of the community and how to engage with community-based organizations to support health education. Chapters three through six are the grade span chapters and are written for teachers. These chapters follow the structure of the 2008 health education content standards and are written in a manner that is teacher friendly practical jargon free and easy to read the content in the grade level chapters provide suggestions for engaging students and connecting health education to real-world situations while also connecting learning from one grade level to another grade level to show the progression of skills and knowledge in all six of
221the content areas included in California's comprehensive health education standards Opportunities to make interdisciplinary connections are highlighted throughout these chapters. Chapter 7 provides guidance on designing instruction that is universally designed to be inclusive so that each and every one of California's diverse learners can have equitable access to a standards-based, high-quality, comprehensive health education. This chapter reinforces that instruction must be free of bias and affirmatively supports all students regardless of their disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or living situation. Chapter 8 focuses on assessment and provides grade-level examples of multiple measures, assessment tools, and techniques for assessing students' skills and content knowledge. Chapter 9 provides guidance on the selection of instructional materials and includes evaluation criteria for the SBE adoption of instructional materials for students in kindergarten through grade 8. The
222chapter also provides guidance for local districts on the adoption of instructional materials for students in grades 9 through 12 and information regarding the social content review process supplemental instructional materials and accessible instructional materials The sex trafficking appendix was written due to legislation and was written by content experts who represent the organization women escaping a violent environment or weave The purpose of this appendix is to provide information regarding sex trafficking as it relates to schools in the community and is meant to be a tool for educators school staff administrators district staff parents and community members The standards-based instruction appendix serves as an additional resource for teachers and administrators because it provides examples of standards-based instructional strategies that can be applied in a variety of educational settings and formats. Here are some highlights of the framework that
223further helped meet the State Board adopted guidelines. On the left side of the screen you will see a wheel which is the Center for Disease Control's whole school, whole community, whole child model otherwise known as the WSCC model and it is the CDC's framework for addressing health in schools. The WSCC model is student-centered and emphasizes the role of the community, including the whole school and students' families, in supporting the connections between the health and academic achievement. The current draft of the California Health Education Framework is grounded in this model. Highlights of the framework are the age-appropriate and standards-based ideas for projects and events provided in three distinct sections that appear in all of the grade-level chapters for the six different content areas included in comprehensive health education. These sections are partnering with your school, partnering
224with your community, and partnering with the family. Instruction on developing and keeping healthy relationships with others is scaffolded through the grade level chapters. In the primary grades, there is a focus on how to recognize feelings and the needs of themselves and others. In the upper elementary grades, there is a focus on teaching students to analyze how expressing emotions appropriately may reduce conflict and promote safety. The secondary grades focus on understanding the key elements of healthy relationships and healthy ways to respond to unhealthy relationships. Finally, the current draft health education framework promotes bias-free and safe learning environment for each and every one of California's diverse students. Phrases such as differences are respected, and teachers should affirmatively acknowledge the existence of relationships that are not heterosexual by using examples of same-sex couples in class discussions and using
225gender-neutral language when referencing gender identity and relationships are used throughout. Thank you, Commissioner Nitt-Wu. So what's happening now and what's happening next? Many states across the country and even other countries are enhancing their efforts on providing comprehensive health education for all students. So we're not alone. Most recently, the Colorado Senate passed a bill to update the sex education curriculum for school districts, adding instruction on sexual orientation, consent, and sexually transmitted diseases. The federal government is supporting comprehensive sexual health education through the proposed bill's Real Education for Healthy Youth Act and the Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act. Additionally, Great Britain is expanding sex education with the guiding principles of keeping children safe, fostering respect for others, and for differences. However, California is leading the way in providing health education to all students and providing
226support for our teachers and administrators in providing high-quality health education. Last year, California designated $5 million in Proposition 98 funds to provide professional learning and resources for teachers and administrators based on the draft health education framework. Through this effort, health educators across the state have been collaborating on the development of these professional learning tools and resources based on the draft health education framework. framework and we thank our partners at the Orange County Department of Education for leading this work. In 2020 we will conduct the state level K-8 instructional materials adoption process to support districts in their own choosing of instructional materials and based on State Board action today we will begin the editing and design of the health education framework. So after listening to and hearing public comment regarding specific resources over the past several
227months, the California Department of Education recommends that the State Board adopt the draft 2019 health education framework for California public schools, kindergarten through grade 12, with the changes recommended by the IQC on March 28, 2019, and the removal from the framework of references to the following specific resources. My Princess Boy. Who are you? The kid's guide to gender identity. Changing you, a guide to body changes and sexuality. What's happening to my body? SEX, the All You Need to Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties. The CDE further recommends that the State Board authorize CDE staff, pending State Board Executive Director approval of final revisions requested by the State Board, correction of any typographical errors and any non-substantive technical edits necessary for publication. The above resources that I mentioned will be
228available on the CDE website for any references for our teachers and administrators. I'd like to end the presentation on this quote from a public comment made by a former high school student now pursuing their medical degree. As a gay man who grew up in the Bay Area, information on LGBTQ plus health would have been so helpful to have seen when I was in high school. I was questioning my sexual orientation at the time, and just knowing there were others like me would have made me feel included and respected. The foundation of the health education framework is to be sure our teachers have the support necessary to create inclusive and welcoming classrooms. I look forward to answering any of your questions after the public comment. Thank you. And I would like to see if our liaison,
229Lisa, has comments at this point. I do. Thank you. I want to begin by stating that our students are the school system's greatest asset. I believe that all our students deserve to be honored, respected, and properly educated in welcoming, inclusive, and responsive school environments. Every classroom should be a safe, healthy place for students to learn and thrive. Every student should have access to the knowledge and skills they need to grow into a happy, healthy adult. Making sure our teachers are guided towards health instruction that is age-appropriate, medically accurate, and inclusive of all learners is the right thing to do. Given that, I appreciate the hard work of staff, the Health Subject Matter Committee, framework writers, and the IQC in developing this comprehensive and inclusive framework. Besides sexual education and gender identity, this framework includes things
230like obesity, violence, drug abuse, trauma, health disparities, how those disparities impact communities, and in particular, communities of color and low-income communities. The framework teaches about consent, the growing issue of sex trafficking, and diseases that are real threats that confront today's youth. And it puts their success in life and school. at risk these threats. Equipping our students with the tools they need to protect themselves from these challenges requires honesty, accuracy, and thoroughness. It's still important to emphasize that this framework is not mandatory. The standards are optional as well. The framework is not a curriculum. It's a guidance for districts and teachers as they develop a health education curriculum that suits their local community. In our direction to staff and the IQC, we requested that the framework include resources that districts or teachers can use when partnering
231with their local communities. As a result, there are references to books, videos, worksheets, and curriculum throughout all the sections of the framework. Unfortunately, a few of the books have generated a lot of misinformation and controversy. This has taken the focus away from very important areas of the framework. Misinformation about these books has created panic that California is mandating the use of certain books, which is not true. The proposed motion removes some of the books that have created distraction and contention. It is important to note that the board is not trying to ban books. We're not saying that the books are bad, but the removal will help avoid the misunderstanding that California is mandating the use of these books. I look forward to hearing from our stakeholders and their respectful public comment. Thank you. Thank you
232very much. So I'll let you take a seat for a little while as we start public comment at this point. And again, I will... I need to bang the gavel in order to do this properly. I am opening public comment. We are ready for speakers 1 through 15. Numbers 16 through 30, please line up. All right. And I'm going to remind folks to please try to abide by the one-minute time limit. There's a light on the podium that will flash orange when speakers have seconds remaining to speak. when there is a signal to speakers to finish their sentence. When the light turns red, your time is up. Please stop speaking immediately and leave the podium to allow the next speaker to begin. We expect everyone in the audience to be respectful of all the commenters,
233and please remember that this is a workplace. Thank you, and please state your name and affiliation as you begin. Hello, my name is Kristen Heiler. I'm a mother of three kids, also a Kids Church Director of Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego. I would like to start this time of public speaking in a word of prayer, if you don't mind. Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you that you love us all so much. I thank you that you love each of these board members so much, God. I thank you that you love all of the people that are coming to express their concerns or if they're supportive, Lord. I just thank you, God, that you have a heart of love for each one of us, Lord. And I just ask for your wisdom to be poured
234upon each of these board members. Would you show them exactly? how you want them to vote, Lord. And may your will be done, and may each kid in California be able to grow to their full potential of who you've created them to be. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Kelly and I'm from Monterey County and I'm here today as a parent and just wanted to share with you. I'm glad you are taking this book by Heather Carina and you're recommending that that come out of the framework. You have a piece of paper here that I've provided. On chapter six of the framework, it went into BDSM. It goes into other topics like sex toys, body fluid or blood play. whole slew of other topics and this is not
235something that encourages professionalism among our students. I would also say when Planned Parenthood came into my high school health class, they introduced themselves and they said, if you haven't had sex yet, you will while you're in high school. And I don't think that belongs in our schools. I had a very negative impression when they came into my high school freshman health class. And I would hope they wouldn't be so heavily involved at this California Department of Education because the message that they gave me was a disservice. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Donna, and I'm from Monterey, California. I previously was a science teacher, middle school science teacher, and then ended up teaching biology at high school and became a high school counselor. But more importantly, I'm a mother of a five-year-old and
236a seven-year-old daughter. And I just come humbly asking you to please just consider to leave so many of these issues that, so many of these issues. My son and daughter, they just want to play. They don't know. They don't know and understand. They don't even have the comprehension to even understand so many of the things that are going to be presented into the kindergarten level. I mean, I know my son and daughter. I know high school students. I know middle school students because I've taught and counseled so many of them in the United States as well as in London. And kids are kids. We're all over the world. And the United States. They just want to play and just let their innocence stay. I just come humbly asking you to honestly just reject the framework
237and just leave. Let us parents be parents to teach our own children about kindness and respect. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Mary Perry. I'm vice president for education for the California State PTA. Our organization represents 750,000 members throughout the state. Half of our units are in Title I schools. And we support the adoption of this framework as presented and its approach specifically related to gender identity. Research shows that LBGTQ plus youth are more likely to be the victims of bullying and harassment, which has negative impacts on their educational experiences, but also on many, many other aspects of their life. Research also shows that education about those issues, about sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in a school setting has a positive impact for all students in terms of their respect for diversity. This framework...
238is consistent with the department's goal of providing guidance, not mandates, and we urge your adoption. Good afternoon, Madam President and Board. I am Kathy Hall. I'm the health advocate for the California State PTA. Our tagline, Every Child, One Voice, indicates our support for diversity and inclusion so that every child is best served by public institutions. In 2015, our members at our statewide convention adopted a resolution, LGBTQ Youth Plus Health Education in California. We previously, our members, adopted HIV STD prevention education in schools. The framework supports the ideas and ideals in these resolutions. School health classes are the one place where the curriculum is focused on the student themselves. The framework addresses many aspects of youth health and sexuality. gives students age-appropriate, medically accurate information that students can use to act responsibly, prevent disease and pregnancy,
239and affirm sexual orientation and gender. Time. We support. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Dan Prout, Nevada City, California. I appreciate the board taking this time to listen to those of us who are gathered. Most of us are not used to being in the political realm. and I would judge that most that you're going to hear from today are people who have taken time from work and home to be here. All political issues are based on social issues, and all social issues arise from values issues. And my position on this framework is that the majority of the values of the people of California are not reflected in the framework. Thank you so much. Good day. My name is Sean O'Brien. I live here in Sacramento. I was raised Irish Catholic, so of course I've
240been confused about sexuality for 67 years or so. I taught in the Catholic schools for 30 years, and because of that, I'm an atheist today. The only reason that I was able to deal with my son coming out as gay at 18 was because I worked in the theater all my life. It was surprising, but I dealt with it. But I didn't have anything to... That I own to deal with it except that I had known gay people in the theater There are too many lies in this world. We're just awash with slander and ad hominem attacks all kinds of perjuries We need honesty when it comes to sexuality It's 400 years since the Enlightenment. It's 200 years plus since since Darwin. We need to evolve Thank you. I adopt the framework Good afternoon. Tammy
241Martin with Equality California, which for 20 years has led the Golden State's fight for full LGBTQ equality. And we were a sponsor of the California Healthy Youth Act and are working to implement that critical law. Our students need to be equipped with medically accurate, age-appropriate, and inclusive programs and instruction. Our schools are diverse, and when every student is acknowledged, all students are safer. Better school climate means better educational outcomes, less bullying, and healthier youth who become more successful adults. Only 6.7% of LGBTQ students report ever receiving LGBTQ inclusive sex ed, yet 89% of California parents support comprehensive sex ed, which will help their children protect themselves and engage in healthy relationships. And while many schools recognize the value of the requirements of the California Healthy Youth Act, they will benefit from your detailed guidance, which
242is why your work has been and remains so important. So thank you for your ongoing attention to these important issues and your work to make health education inclusive for all California students. We would like to ask the speakers who are finished speaking to leave the room, the boardroom, in a group rather than opening the door repetitively, which makes it very difficult for people to hear. Sarah will help you with that in the back. Good afternoon President Darling-Hammond and state board members. Thank you for the opportunity to comment today. My name is Clell Hoffman. I am the chair of the state superintendent of public instructions child nutrition advisory council. known as CNAC. The CNAC is a legislative council charged with advising the state superintendent on school nutrition related issues. The CNAC had the opportunity to provide
243comments on both the first and second drafts of the California health education framework, specifically in the nutrition sections. We are proud to report that the Instructional Quality Commission favorably received all but a few of our comments. The health education framework provides educators the opportunity to help their students gain knowledge and awareness, practice, and ultimately master beneficial behaviors and lifestyle skills so students can be healthy, productive, successful members of society. Research clearly shows that hungry children, children with poor nutrition, and children in poor overall health are not ready to learn. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Laura Jimenez, and I'm the executive director at California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. We're a statewide organization by and for Latinas and Latinx persons in California, and we are in strong support of the draft framework. As a parent
244of two teens, I am distressed by the number of teens with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideations. And because of this, it is important to note the higher rates of suicide attempts by young people who are members of the LGBTQ plus community. I am outraged at the opposition to a framework that is inclusive of all genders and sexualities. In my opinion, this is one of many ways that adults should be supportive of young people in our communities. Latinas and Latinos are often perceived as a monolithic group that is not supportive sex ed, but that is not true. Findings from a survey we conducted revealed that the vast majority of Latina and Latino parents overwhelmingly support access to comprehensive sexuality education at school. We understand that just because young people are learning about sexuality doesn't mean they
245will choose to have sex, but it does open the door for whole families to be equipped with facts and engage in honest and open conversations. Thank you. Greetings. Hello, my name is Sherry Grevin, and I'm the Public Affairs Director for Planned Parenthood Marmante. I would first like to thank the Framework Committee for providing the guidance administrators and parents are asking for. Our Planned Parenthood health educators see and hear this in the classroom every day. Feedback often received from teachers includes, wish we had this when I was younger. This is so needed. Thank you. This is especially needed for students who won't hear this at home. And at a parent learning session just last night, a father of a sixth grader said that this instruction helped open a line of communication between he and his son.
246You are making this a reality and the framework that was so diligently created enjoys widespread grassroots support and the past week alone Planned Parenthood affiliates in California collected nearly 1,800 signatures from students, parents, teachers, and providers across California in support of the framework. Sex education is essential. Children need it to make healthy decisions. Together we could make sure all California students get the sex education they need and deserve. Thank you. Hello, my name is Monica Miranda. I'm the regional program manager with Plant Parenthood Marmonte. Thank you for your time. I'm here to advocate on behalf of the youth and the teachers and the parents, but especially for the youth who not only deserve medically accurate information, but developmentally appropriate and culturally specific. Such education at all levels. Youth students, they have questions. They want to
247know about their bodies. They have questions about their health overall, and they need to be supported. They need to have knowledge that's provided to them in a safe and inclusive space. I've been working in this field for about 10 years and I can say that parents and teachers alike are supportive of this information as well. They're looking for tools. This framework is going to be a tool for them. It's going to be a guide for them in navigating and creating those spaces that are going to be safe and inclusive and based off of knowledge. I'd like to thank you for your time again and ask that you vote in favor of... Time. Thank you. We'd like to ask speakers 16 through 30 to please enter the boardroom and we would like speaker numbers 31 through
24845 to line up Young Californians deserve education that will keep them healthy and safe. This statement should not be you tell us your name, please On behalf of Planned Parenthood affiliates of California, Elizabeth Wells, thank you to the State Board of Education for your work to provide inclusive, evidence-based, age-appropriate health education for educators. Sex education is education. As you'll see in our letter of support, it is essential to young people's health, relationships, and life goals and will empower California students with the education necessary to make healthy decisions about their relationships, their health, and their futures. Sex education is supported across California. We've seen the successful passage of the California Healthy Youth Act. And in the past week alone, Planned Parenthood affiliates collected over 1,800 signatures from Californians in support of the framework. Sex education is
249crucial in California schools, especially when we're faced with an STI epidemic in California. In support of the work done by Planned Parenthood health centers and educators, we urge you to support an inclusive framework for students statewide. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Cindy Cruz and I'm the Director of Education for Planned Parenthood California Central Coast and I'm here in support of the health education framework. Good sex education covers a wide range of topics including healthy relationships, communication and consent. gender identity, birth control, and sexually transmitted infections. Young people have the right to access the information that they need to be able to stay safe and protect their health. This is especially important for low-income and communities of color who experience inequitable access to health care, health disparities, systemic discrimination, and poverty. Sex education is
250essential for young people to be able to become healthy human beings who can make well-informed decisions about their health, their relationship, and their futures. Having experience an unhealthy relationship myself. I know firsthand how important it is to talk to young people about the warning signs of unhealthy relationships. These are experiences that stay with you for the rest of your life, and having access to this information at a young age would have made a big difference in mine. The framework will empower our young people, and I urge you to vote in support. Thank you. Linda Cohn, retired teacher, 32 years, former debate coach. I fought Common Core, but you were too powerful, plus we had the race to the top monies. I tried to stop the data mining, but with ESSA and MTSS now, there's just
251too much money to be made in education. I'm trying now to stop CASEL and the framework that it has of the victim-oppressor philosophy. But that's their agenda, and that's intersectionality for us. And now we have the framework. What more can I say? I know you're probably going to adopt this and nothing I can say will stop you. But I can tell you with the agenda that you have, the power that you have, and the money that you have, the only thing that is going to stop you is the power of the voting public. And if that won't stop, we still have one trump card. Trump card. Our children. Thank you for your time. She wants to make her statement in Spanish. She doesn't want interpretation. Quiero mi tiempo. Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Sara Garcia
252Paez. Trabajo como educadora de salud. Quiero expresar mi apoyo para el Health Education Framework porque puedo afirmar la importancia de proveer educación comprensiva de salud. Cada día que tengo el privilegio de enseñar a estudiantes californianos, recibo comentarios de agradecimiento. Ellos siempre tienen muchas preguntas y curiosidad. and Les urjo que voten por el Health Education Framework. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Rachel Henry and I am the outreach and training Institute director at the Sacramento LGBT community center I'm here today on behalf of the center and in support of the health education framework for California public schools all Students have a right to accurate inclusive and representative health education and several studies show us that far too often LGBTQ plus students do not have access to this education This leaves many of our youth feeling
253invisible in the classroom and without the knowledge to make informed decisions for themselves. I know I myself would have greatly benefited from education like this when I was in high school and when I came out and experienced bullying. Not only would this health education framework address this disparity for some of our most marginalized students, but it would also provide all students the opportunity to learn within an inclusive and diverse classroom. Thank you for your time and your commitment to ensuring that all California students have access to the health education that they deserve. Good afternoon. My name is Rick Acolto and I am the Education Director at Our Family Coalition, a statewide nonprofit that serves LGBTQ families with children. We believe that every family should have the right to determine for themselves what is appropriate for
254their children to learn about sexual health. As Director Gregson said earlier, the provision for opting out of any material concerning pregnancy, the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, and the function of sexual organs already exists in the California Education Code. If we are to be the land of the free, then we must be the land of the educated and the informed. Any true convictions would not waver at the mere prospect of more information. Only fear and doubt produce anxiety over knowledge. Just as any student and any family has the right to say no, we must be responsible in giving those families and students who want to be better informed about their health the ability to say yes. Our children are not made safer by ignorance, and we can no longer afford the consequences. Thank you for
255the provisions about LGBTQ health in the framework and ensuring that every student and family has the information they need to keep themselves healthy. Good afternoon. My name is Denise Persha, and I think it's kind of an oxymoron. Let me explain. Stephanie Gregson says that parents have the ultimate responsibility for imparting their beliefs. And then Planned Parenthood says, and I quote, but children won't hear it at home. Well, maybe children won't hear it at home because their parents don't want them to know it. To me, that sounds like an oxymoron. Page number 61 of 119 of your frameworks lists a book called S-E-X, The All You Need to Know. Let me list for you just some of the topics in that book. so that you know what we're talking about. Not only you, but the public
256at large. Kinky sex, bondage restraint, body fluids, and sex toys. I want to know who recommended that book to be placed in the frameworks. Time. Time. Rejected. Good afternoon, Madam President and Board of Education. My name is Mary Chavez. I'm a parent, a grandparent, and a school library media assistant in Montebello Unified, which is in L.A. County. I was school age in the 1960s. I thought God made a mistake. I thought I was supposed to be a boy. Why did I think that? Because I like doing yard work. I like that push mower. You pushed it and brought it back and it would spin. And it was, to me, it was a great technology for that age. And so based on that, I... thought I should have been a boy. But under this framework, I
257would be encouraged to take hormones, which are known to cause infertility. I would not be able to be the mother of five wonderful children and four awesome grandchildren whom bring such joy to my life. Please listen to this verse. Time. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon, honorable board members of education. I am Alexandria Aguilar from Long Beach, California. I'm a mother and an aunt and loving friend to all, and I'm here to speak against the health framework. framework being implemented after reading the instructional materials. Because it made me sick to my stomach knowing that perverted instruction materials were going to be taught to our children. But I just heard that they're going to remove these books. So I thank you for moving those books. I just thank you that because they were very explicit, explicit and
258pornographic and we had a lot of graphic sex acts in there. So I just want to thank you for your time and for giving me the time to speak. God bless. My name is Linda. I'd like to address the framework, Chapter 4, Grades 4 to 6, page 62. The topic of masturbation is introduced. This topic is not appropriate nor necessary to teach at school. Page 78. Again, Grades 4 through 6, teaching children online resources to learn about gender transitioning. These are 9 to 11-year-olds. Chapter 5, grades 7 and 8. Page 33 talks about barrier method demonstration using condoms and dental dams, showing examples and then students' practice on a penis model. It discusses the uses of dental dams for anal or oral sex. Framework is indoctrinating and normalizing sexual behavior beginning in TK. You are
259sexualizing minors The recommended books which thank you that they are being removed Good afternoon. I'm Rick Loya executive vice president of the California Association of school health educators And I urge you to adopt the health education framework The current framework is dated 2003, albeit contains a content of the 1994 framework. It's so old, many sections are inconsistent with current law. A quarter of a century is just too old for a framework that is mandated to have the current thinking and knowledge, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of health instruction of LGBTQ students. I've been a Methodist for over 60 years, and it seems to me that effective school health education is what we find in John. I have come in order that you may have life, life at all its fullest. The Western
260jurisdiction of the Methodist Church has said, we believe in the diversity of the whole human family with all its cultures and sexual identities. We believe we are made better with greater diversity. I urge you to adopt the framework. and also the health ed requirements someday. Time. We would like to ask speakers 31 through 45 to please enter the boardroom so they can speak. And we would like numbers 46 through 60 to line up. I'm Jerry Lieberman, director of the State Education Environment Roundtable. I've had the privilege of working with the State Board, the Department of Ed, the IQC over the last 16 years as California's environmental principles and concepts were adopted and most recently placed into Ed Code so that they could be taught to all students. The health education framework includes a good section
261and raises many of the issues that are really important in terms of access and equity in regard to where students live, the water they drink, the air they breathe. So I urge you to include the environmental principles and concepts, support the framework as has been done in the history social science framework and the science framework. offers a great opportunity for integration of education for all of our students. Thank you. Hi, I'm a public school teacher. I fear this controversial framework. What's your name? I'm sorry. Brenda Lebsack. Thank you. Can I start over my time? Okay. I'm a public school teacher, and I fear this controversial framework will jeopardize thousands of teachers' jobs. I teach in a district that is decreasing in enrollment. This framework could cause an exodus out of public education. I have shown
262my educational peers the book Who Are You?, which says kids can be both genders using the pronoun they, them, or theirs, or neither gender. Teachers are shocked and appalled when they see and hear this. They are also afraid. They are afraid that they may be forced to teach concepts that go against their conscience because they believe these concepts are harmful to children. They are afraid that if they refuse to use non-binary neutral pronouns suggested in the framework, such as they, them, or theirs, they could be accused of discrimination and lose their jobs. Reject the framework will save teachers' jobs. Thank you. Stephanie Yates, mother of three. I'll just get straight to the point. I don't think any single one of you is fit to have any say in a child. You should not have any
263contact with a child. Why? Child pornography. Can you show them, please? Child pornography, adult pornography. You think it's fit to teach our children fisting, where you insert your fist in somebody's anus or vagina? You think body fluid and blood play. Some people enjoy any number of body fluids sexually ejaculate vaginal fluids menses, which is periods, urine, or blood. They may simply enjoy tasting, feeling, or smelling them during sexual activities. Maybe you guys want to do that, but not with our kids. You think it's funny? We don't think it's funny. We have a whole group of parents out here that say it's not funny, and that's why you're even talking about removing these books. But the fact that you even decided to have these books and think it was okay for our kids, that's not okay.
264We reject the California... Time. Matthew McReynolds, senior staff attorney at the Pacific Justice Institute in strong opposition to the framework. I would direct you to the letter that we sent to the state board in January, which has extensive quotes and citations of what we oppose. Two points in particular. One, don't give free advertising to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood in our framework. Two, don't confuse students and teachers about the important concept of abuse by lumping spiritual abuse, technological abuse, and financial abuse in with physical and sexual abuse. Thank you. Hi, my name is Thomas Cota. The Healthy Education Framework is a document of indoctrination into sexual education, not education. At a time where California schools, K-12, or K-12, are ranked in the lowest in our nation in reading, writing, math, and science, we're going to
265be the leaders in sexual education? We failed our children in educating them to read and write. We need to do that first. The Institutional Quality Commission failed to address thousands of parents' concerns about the framework, about the material in the framework, about the content. They just omitted it, but yet they accepted a lot of the LGBT comments. Please do not be a party to committing to our students to failure, to sexual indoctrination, and to promoting unhealthy choices. Time. Good afternoon, board members. My name is Linda Cota. The proposed framework is not medically accurate because it does not address all known health risks. Like the increased risk of suicide. the failure rate of condoms, and the lasting impacts of STDs, parents have a hard time getting kids to wear other protective gear, like bike helmets. What
266do you think kids will do if they don't have what Chaya promotes as protective gear? The proposed framework is not age appropriate. Does drawing cartoons in a children's book make pornographic images age appropriate? No. It triggers curiosity and what they're being tempted to do is illegal at their age. Chapter 3 for the TK through grade 3 in the framework states that students are targeted in ants for breakfast foods, particularly breakfast cereals. The advertisements are often make the foods look fun and look like they're good for them. That's what this framework is doing. Chapter 4 for grades 4 through 6 is on the dangers of smoking. People know that smoking is harmful, but many still do it. Time. Sex is a different... Hi there, my name is Sarah Hyde and I'm the Youth Services Coordinator at
267a domestic violence agency that's based in Fremont called Safe Alternatives to Violent Environments. I'm in Alameda County public high schools and middle schools every single week and specifically I work on a federal grant to work with queer and trans students to prevent dating violence. I'm also a certified sex educator. I wanted to say thank you so much for your support of the health framework and tell you a few anecdotes. So just last... week a student left me an anonymous note thanking me for including examples of queer and trans relationships in my presentation and they said they didn't get enough of that in their class from their teacher. A teacher told me on Monday that I'm the most open presenter that her class hears and I can't teach every single health class in our state. That's
268why our teachers need these resources. For them they're feeling a little bit overwhelmed. They might not know how to answer all students questions about gender identity. And this is a framework that will provide the support they need. Thank you. Good afternoon. Sheila Whitley speaking on behalf of the California Teachers Association. The California Teachers Association has long supported the work of the Instructional Quality Association. to draft curriculum frameworks which will guide instructional decisions concerning what students should know and be able to do. CTA members reviewed the draft health education framework. Two CTA committees, both curriculum and instruction, and civil rights and education, reviewed and provided feedback to the IQC about this framework. CTA appreciates that the framework reflects the state's expansive definitions of the foundational elements of health literacy. Comprehensive health education teaches fundamental health concepts,
269promotes habits and behaviors that enhance health and wellness, and guides efforts to build healthy families, relationships, schools, and communities. Thank you. Hi, my name is Michelle New. I just first wanted to say that this framework I'm asking you to not adopt it, that this is early sexualization of our kids and is bad policy. It's a state-sanctioned exploitation of our children, and it's about marginalizing people. We're not trying to, but it's just defending and trying to get rid of this bad policy that you have. You guys keep mentioning how this is for everyone and that this is what all students need to hear. But I'm not understanding why, whether it be LGBT or any other group, would need to hear about masturbation. And I'm looking right here at a recommendation that Planned Parenthood made and you
270accepted, saying masturbation should be included in the curriculum to be addressed in a straightforward manner instead of waiting for the possibility of masturbation being brought up by a student. And so I'm asking you. Why is this a healthy subject for you to bring up to a student? What makes this framework so wonderful that you need time? Hi, my name is David Allibrand. I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I've done gay affirmative and gay corrective therapy for over 25 years. And I can tell you the only people who support this are people in the gay community and trans community. All your other medical experts and everybody outside that field do not support this. For example, Michelle Crotea, president of the American College of Pediatrics. wholeheartedly against the sex ed and social emotional framework program. She
271states as one of the top experts in the country, institutions that promote gender transition affirmations are engaging in nothing less than institutional child abuse that can afflict untold psychological damage on children. Paul McHugh, Distinguished Chief of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine says, transgender is a psychosocial problem and not a biological problem. There's a mental illness that needs to be treated as such, and you're not born in the wrong body. And there are tons of transgender people that say, I got screwed over by all these institutions that supported this instead of helping me straighten this stuff out. Time. Time. Hello, my name is America Figueroa. I'm a mother of five. Chapter one of the framework states students will explore and discover their identities, gender expression, and sexuality throughout their education and into and
272beyond their high school years. I'm a Mexican immigrant and my culture holds strong moral and family values. We teach our children to only explore sexuality with their spouse. This framework claims to be inclusive, but in reality it is exclusive to a small community and it is inclusive to a small community and excludes those of us from cultures with strong values. As a taxpaying citizen of this state, I respectfully ask you to please reject this framework. Today, you have the opportunity to go down in history as the war who stood up for children and sided with families, or as the war responsible for the sexualization and corruption of an entire generation. Thank you. Muy buenas tardes, mi nombre es Rodrigo Montenegro. Good morning, I'm Rodrigo Montenegro. Vengo de una distancia de nueve horas de camino. drive
273through for nine hours. But I think this is very important to be here with you guys because I'm representing my grandsons. I have sons and daughters that I married. And I think that this framework is a mistake. It doesn't have any common sense. It steals the identity to our daughters and teenagers. It steals the principles and values. And I consider it is a big mistake. at least how you're managing it. I hope you consider my opinion because this is far away from bringing a healthy society. Anything that is not normal, anything that is not correct brings bad consequences to society. I hope you take in mind my words. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Heather Gibson, and I have a seven-year-old child. The paper that you received is a book that was recommended
274for removal. It's called Changing You. But this book, it's not the stork, was not recommended for removal. This shows a picture of a man and a woman on top of each other, and it says, the man and the woman get so close to each other that the man's penis goes inside a woman's vagina. Why does my eight-year-old need to know that? She does not need to know that, especially from school. Here it shows a girl checking out her own genitals. This is pornography. I do not approve of this. My daughter does not need to see cartoon pornography. Here is another picture of a boy checking out his parts. It shows an uncircumcised penis and a circumcised penis. This is not okay. My children should not have to be subject to these kind of materials in
275school. I can discuss things with my children when they're ready. And I feel that as a parent, that is my right. Sex should be taught at home. Time. Doctors, psychologists, politicians, parents, and the public at large cannot agree on these complex issues that are addressed in the framework. So it is wholly unreasonable to believe six-year-olds can or should be expected to. We as adults can take in information and process it with the ability to decipher what we agree and disagree with. Their brains are not developed enough to process this information in this way. One of my four children is almost six and will believe just about anything I or his teacher tell him. He cannot be expected to understand or make decisions about information like this, especially when there is information given to him that
276has no scientific basis to support it. This is why it is my job as a parent to protect him. It is the job of every parent, no matter your beliefs. Beyond this, at a more basic level, the government does not have the right to force any of its citizens to accept beliefs or live their life in a way that they do not agree with. This is the basis of our Constitution. This is not education. It is not within the boundaries or responsibilities of our educators. This is a political agenda and needs to be rejected. Thank you. Hello, my name is Yuri. I'm a parent of two, and I'm also a registered nurse. I just want to bring up two points. First, the book for first graders, It's Not Distoric, includes graphic naked body parts of
277girls and boys and describes what sex is and how babies are made. Why does the state of California think that it is age-appropriate for parents to read this to their seven-year-old children? I think it's too much and too soon, so I recommend remove this book from the framework. And another book, Who Are You?, is a book that introduces seven-year-olds to the concept that there are over 11 different genders, including trans, genderqueer, non-binary, genderfluid, agender, and two-spirit. This is not age-appropriate material. This book goes against my deeply held religious belief that there are only two genders. The state must respect my religious beliefs. Remove this book from the framework. Thank you. Hello, I'm Vicki Stanton from Orange County. I have a question for the board members. Have you read the entire framework? Have you seen the
278suggested books? Here's an example. Color the tip of the clitoris blue. This is an actual lesson for co-ed seventh graders in the Twin Rivers District. I personally know taxpaying families that have either left California or are considering leaving because of this framework. As a former California teacher, homeschool resource teacher, and especially as a grandmother, I promise to help as many people as possible begin homeschooling if you choose. to promote this early sexualization, grooming, and child abuse. Hi, you have before you a printout of a recommended book, What's Happening to My Body for Boys. And I saw that you recommended to remove these books, but I'd like you to say the book for boys and the book for girls. There's two of these sexual books. In Chapter 4, Grade 4, you say in the framework that
279teachers should normalize sexual feelings, and you actually added... When the topic of masturbation is introduced or arises, meaning you want to teach masturbation to 10 and 11-year-olds. The teachers can explain what masturbation is and that it's safe and it's not mentally harmful. This book is introduced on page 61, and this book says that many boys engage in some form of what we call sex play with other boys as they're growing up. You may have had such experiences, and boys can masturbate with other boys. This is not appropriate material for 10- and 11-year-olds, and you need to take out masturbation from the framework and remove all of the books. I reject the framework. Thank you. Time. Hi, my name is Alina, and I'm a mom of two, school-aged kids. I disagree with the framework and that
280the school board is trying to implement. I know districts use the curriculum, but this framework. Will influence publishers on what to put in the future textbooks. These are radical culture changing ideas that go against most people wishes and beliefs Please reject this framework and remove all the recommended books from the curriculum and respect the parents rights. Thank you We would like to ask speakers 46 through 60 to please enter the boardroom and speakers 61 through 75 to line up. Thank you members of the board My name is Rick Wortman and I rise in opposition to this proposed framework. Please reject this framework. You've seen the examples. I've read the framework. Have you? I've read recommended works. Have you all read each of them? I have. CSE encourages acceptance and exploration of diverse sexual orientation and
281gender fluidity. It promotes high-risk sexual behavior, including anal and oral sex, and teaches them that they are safe. CSE promotes sexual pleasure and promiscuity as a right for children. CSE promotes condoms to children without informing them of their failure rates. CSE promotes disrespect for parents and religious and cultural values. CSE promotes sexual counseling and information or services to minors without parental consent. CSE trains children to advocate for their sexual rights. CSE encourages peer-to-peer sexuality education. In the words of the Lord's prophet Samuel, stop acting so proud and haughty. Don't speak with such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows what you have done, and he will judge you for that. all to please update the adopt this updated framework. I'm one of the many examples of how our education system lack of framework
282to include necessary information about LGBTQIA plus identities can be detrimental and failing us if not engendering us. The environment during my formal education years was insidious and hostile against transgender people like myself. My high school principal James Sefton looked at me in my eyes and said people cannot shut off the disgusting thing that you want to do like it's an NBC TV show what I wanted to perform in drag for the talent show when where my Spanish teacher told me that gay people are going to hell and that they are not normal it had it not been for my supportive parents I wouldn't be standing here with you today as a self-actualized person as a transgender woman who has been marginalized by this education system that has overcome a much indoctrinated enmity and animosity from
283my peers and educators. I don't hate them. I pity them because they are ignorant of such necessary education. Time. Hello. People say I am misinformed, so I researched the framework and the advice. Please introduce yourself. Oh, okay. I get my time over again? Okay. Okay, hello, my name is Mindy and I'm a concerned parent. People say that I'm misinformed, so I researched the framework and the advised curriculum. Opting out is not a wise option because kids will be talking about everything on the playground. The framework requires information to be unbiased, but the curriculum advised by the state by this Ed Code is biased. I cannot sit back and let my kindergartner be taught that they can be a different gender, which is what the LGBT and their agenda is trying to do, sexualize our children.
284My heart is with the LGBT children who are bullied. But if your son grew up with this ideology and wants to cut off his penis, would you be okay with that? I'm not. That is what is being encouraged by this framework. You have the power to stop this. If many people object this framework, it is best to look over it thoroughly and not just trust the presentation. The presentation of the framework says that there are many hearings that people are not being informed about this. There are too many objections to this framework to be passed. I'm a taxpayer and I urge you to reject the framework and come up with a more agreeable one. Time. Time. My name is Jenny. I'm from Orange County. LA and Orange County has the highest Korean population in the
285United States and here I am to represent all 305,000 Korean Americans who couldn't be here. We understand that health framework is just a guideline and are not ones creating the graphic curriculum being advised by the state. But this guideline is opening the doors to teaching highly sexual graphic curriculum that is advised by the state. Have you seen the state-advised curriculum like book is perfectly normal? You are just helping the spious companies to bring in big bucks by sexualizing pure and innocent children. Please, before you pass this framework, consider having parents, teachers, variety of religion background of people to create and come up with an agreed curriculum to offer to the district. Because right now, they only have a small pool to choose from and those are curated by LGBTQ. Please reject this framework. Thank you.
286Hello, I'm translating for her. She's going to be speaking in Korean. Hi, my name is Eunsil Kim. . framework A guest speaker from Planned Parenthood came to our schools in Anaheim and pulled out a dental dam and explained to children how to perform sex on a penis model. They also showed a blurred video of a girl getting raped and explained how to get an abortion. This happened in junior high and high school. How do we trust that this explicit curriculum won't be taught starting kindergarten due to the framework? Please reject the framework. We asked Superintendent Tony Thurman to meet with us to translate the framework into different languages, but he just got into his car and drove off. Is 60 days long enough to review a thousand pages of the framework? This is discrimination. Please
287do not exclude minority communities in the process of the framework. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Maura, and I'm a concern parent of California. As I was reviewing the framework, Chapter 5 allows educators to use examples for spiritual abuse, using religion to justify abuse, insisting on a rigid gender role. Last card. created men and women to expand creation and as the foundation of error. If framework gets adopted, we'll bring confusion to the minds, hearts, and souls of our future generations. Please reject the framework. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sarah Stevenson, and I'm a parent. I'm going to read an excerpt from one of the books that are recommended for third grade. It's called Changing You, A Guide to Body Changes and Sexuality. When a man and a woman love each other and
288decide that they want to have a child, they will do something called sexual intercourse or having sex. This is when a man lies very close to a woman and puts his erect penis inside her vagina. It feels good for both of the man and woman. They will also hug and kiss and cuddle. This is a very special way of expressing how much they love each other. This is being taught to our seven, eight, nine-year-olds. Why are you teaching about sex in school at that young of an age? You do not need to be teaching this in the classroom. That is my job as a parent. This is pornographic, and it's wrong. Please change these books. Reject the framework. It is not appropriate, and it goes against parental rights of deciding when it is time to
289teach these things to our precious children that we have known since they've grown in my belly. I know them individually, and I know when it is time to teach these things. Hello, my name is Heather, and I'm a mother of four. On page 59 of the Health Framework for Fifth Graders, it suggests several books to first initiate dialogue for a class group chat. One of these books is titled, What's Happening to My Body? Book for Girls. This book includes male sex organs, orgasms, erections, penis size, ejaculation, homosexual feelings, rape, child abuse, and G-spots. On page 83 of that book, it reads, men usually ejaculate when they have an orgasm. Females don't ejaculate in the sense that men do. However, some women report releasing a spurt of fluid at orgasm. Experts are not sure where this
290fluid comes from. It may be a small amount of urine or fluid from the slit-like openings of the glands near the urinary opening. These topics are not age-appropriate for 10- and 11-year-olds. I have a 10-year-old, and she does not need to learn this information right now, especially from somebody other than myself. I support the recommendation to remove this book from the framework. Thank you. I'm Susan Beery. I have five kids, TK through 10th grade. I support recommendation of removing these recommended books. SEX, All You Need to Know, Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Those Teen Years by Heather Carina specifically. I have a son significantly bullied in kindergarten. He had a friend in kindergarten with gender dysphoria. He was exposed to teaching about gender in kindergarten by teachers and students without parents' awareness. This did
291not allow my husband and I the opportunity to support our son when he was upset, confused, and as a result, hating kindergarten and school, and to which he still goes to therapy three days later. I am an inclusion specialist. I also have a daughter with Down syndrome in general education setting, fully included. I understand how important... I understand discrimination and how important inclusion lessons are. I do not talk about sexual topics or political when discussing inclusion, such as how 23 chromosomes came from mom and dad and how that happened, or how 95% of people with Down syndrome are aborted. I protect K through 5 from further controversial information. Time. Hi, my name is Amanda Salvatierra, and I'm a parent, and I'm way out of my element here. So give me a second. I support and
292I appreciate the fact that you guys are adopting to not choose this book that you have chosen here for ages 8 through 9-year-old. For the Changing You, A Guide of Body Changes of Sexuality by Gail Stultz. I'm Not a Stork by Girls and Boys, Babies Come From and Babies and Families. This was my main expert on page 119 of the book. It's very confusing for the child when it says the female reproduction organs, but some people who identify as a male have these same organs, confusing the children. I think these topics don't need to be discussed at such an age of second grade. A man's penis goes inside the woman's vagina. This is not appropriate. And I think that these subjects don't need to be taught by the teacher. We need to be learning about
293reading and writing in second grade. Children can learn about all these different topics with their own families. Super important that these books are not adopted. Thank you. Hello, my name is Jennifer Lindsay, and I'd like to read to you chapter 6, page 64 for grades 9 through 12. The California Health Framework promotes a school-wide read featuring the book SEX, the All You Need to Know Sexuality Guide, to get you through your teens and 20s. In the section of bondage restraint, it says, what is it and how do you do it? Bondage or restraint is the practice of having one partner or less often. Both partners were restrained in some way, usually with ropes, cords, other types of fabric or cuffs, and other restraints during sexual activity for the purpose of increased pleasure. Bondage can be
294used to allow a partner to be selfish in terms of being given all the pleasure, being unable to reciprocate during... During a given sexual activity because they can't use their hands or mouths. Why does my high schoolers need to know this? obscene and graphic material my boys do not Hello, my name is Jennifer. I come from Fontana, San Bernardino County. Chapter 1 talks about exploring gender identity. There's only two sex, male and female. Gender identity is whatever your mind says. Our feelings change every day. And we are, what, 20, no more than 30 years old. You can imagine a 5-year-old, they change their mind every minute. Not because it's legal, changing your mind or gender means it's more right. Now my question, is your kids, your grandchildren going through this curriculum? No. No, because you
295know that this new curriculum will bring chaos to this society. Without marriage between men and women, how God mandates to be, you don't have a family. Without marriage, family, and now God, if you take him out from the equation, we'll be puppets in the system. We the people of the United States of America ask to reject the education framework. Thank you. Hello. First, I want to acknowledge that some transphobic and homophobic comments were made and I want to tell wherever the camera's at to the little babies outside, if you're queer, you're here, you're not going, and we love you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Carmen and I'm from East Los Angeles and a core leader at GSA Network, SoCal. I'm currently a senior and my junior year I stumbled across a sexologist YouTuber. The
296next day I barfed all of the information onto my friends. I binge watched all of her videos. I basically taught them all about inclusive sex under 40 minutes during lunch. Looking back, it was the first time my Catholic girlfriends heard it was okay to say no. And my gay friends learned that their sexuality was normal. The lack of comprehensive sex ed has led to many youth finding other mediums to gain this knowledge, sometimes even dangerous. The framework can help teachers teach comprehensive sex ed. Please prioritize youth and please keep supporting the framework. Thank you. Hello, my name is Amber. I am an 18 year old student from Long Beach, California and a youth leader with the GSA Network. I am here to explain why we need to have inclusive LGBT sex education in public schools
297for LGBT youths. Without the passing of this framework, the curriculum will exclude LGBT youths and remain gender biased. Thanks to the California Education Code and myself and LGBT allies, we're able to learn about STIs and how they are contracted and how to prevent it using condoms or practicing abstinence. It's important for everyone to know about the LGBT community because every day LGBT youths are taking... their lives for not being accepted by their families or simply for being who they are. As an LGBT youth, having to have little acceptance from my own family or friends been really hard. That's why we need this framework to pass in public schools. The lack of inclusive LGBT sex education in our schools throughout California will not allow cisgendered people or LGBT folks to understand and educate others about practicing
298safe sex, whether you're cis, trans, non-binary, etc. So please pass. My name is Phoenix Ali Raja, and I came with the GSA Network from downtown LA. My school shows us a musical every year about STIs and how to have safe sex. This year I saw the musical, and leaving the theater, I heard someone say, I'm a lesbian, so none of that was for me. We never had any LGBTQ... inclusive sex education of any kind at school. So some kids don't think the rules for straight sex apply to them. What people need to realize is just because they aren't taught sex, it won't stop your kids from knowing about sex or even having sex. All this will do is leave your children in the dark and make them forced to find out that information themselves, which
299could be inaccurate and even dangerous. The lack of LGBTQ plus sex education proved to be an issue for me once I came out as transgender. From that moment on, my relationship to sex and romantic relationships was going to be different. Not having this kind of information at school made it so I had to come to terms with this fact on my own. A lot of trouble, anxiety, and hardship could have been saved for me if I knew I had an open, safe space at my school. Thank you for your time, and please continue to support the LGBT inclusive sex education at our schools. Good afternoon. I'm Karen Ruiz Roca, a high school student from South Central LA and a youth leader with GSA Network. I'm here to discuss the value of having safe sex education
300be fully inclusive and integrated in the health framework. As a student myself, I see what needs to be done and the struggles of uninformed youth. As a career Latinx woman, I have felt the discomfort in being in a place where my identity and choices are undermined and disbelieved. The school should be a place where I'm comfortable and I'm given the tools to grow and be safe. Every student comes from a different path of life and deserves to have their safety and health acknowledged by being inclusive and welcoming. The benefits of representation of LGBTQ youth in sexual health education and other subjects is astounding. This normalizes these identities, making allies more common and queer folk more accepted and comfortable. It's a creation of a more united community where questions can be asked and answered so young
301people are making informed decisions and are able to act safely. I commend you for putting in an effort to improve education in this great state of California. We'd like to ask that speakers 61 through 75 please enter the boardroom, and we would like speakers 76 to 90 to please line up. Hello, my name is Kathy Chu. I'm a staff member with the Genders and Sexuality Alliance Network or GSA Network. We are here today with youth leaders and we thank you for your hard work to prioritize LGBTQ inclusivity in the health education framework. In my role, I hear stories from youth throughout the state of California. Just last month, I heard a story about a young gay cisgender man who had sex with another young gay man. They didn't use a condom because they figured they
302couldn't get pregnant. A month later, he was tested positive for HIV. This is not an isolated incident. For some of our LGBTQ students throughout California, health education may be the only place in their lives where they're receiving positive messages from educators and crucial sexual health information. When I was in the ninth grade, I literally thought it was not possible for a queer person like myself to live happily and have a relationship. The sexual health framework and health framework provides guidance for life-affirming education, and I urge you to listen to LGBTQ young people who are directly impacted by this guidance. Thank you for your work, and I hope you will continue to work. Tom. My name is Greg Burt with the California Family Council. I handed out a thing I'm going to read from a part
303of the curriculum. It's called Sex, All You Need to Know, Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, recommended for high school. Body fluid or blood play. What is it and how do you do it? Some people enjoy any number of body fluids sexually ejaculate vaginal fluids menace urine or blood They may simply enjoy tasting, feeling, or smelling them during sexual activities, or they may engage in activities specific to enjoying these fluids, such as golden showers, being urinated on, or having a partner ejaculate on them. Some enjoy this because it feels taboo or naughty. to have intimate contact with body fluids. For others, fluid play may be enjoyable because a certain intimacy or sacredness is experienced in body fluids. Time. Time. Sylvia Bond, important title, Mom. We are being told the purpose of
304this framework is to ensure the safety of the children. Let me give you a scenario. When we were youth, peer pressure to have sex was something like, don't worry, everyone is doing it, and that was hard enough. Here is an example of the new pressures our youth will face if this passes. Don't worry, everyone is doing it. Don't worry, our schools taught us how. Don't worry, our schools showed us other ways to be sexual. Don't worry, if you do get pregnant, our school taught us where to go to abort it. Don't worry about telling your parents, our school taught us we don't have to tell them. Don't worry, our school also taught us that there are other adults to talk to. Please open your eyes. This is not going to ensure the safety of our
305children. It will only take away parental rights and ensure future customers for Planned Parenthood and other authors of this framework. If you don't think that this is what is going to be taught, you have not reviewed and researched the suggestions of what is to be taught. Remove those books and any books that are like it. It may not be curriculum, quote unquote, but it does drive curriculum. We have already seen it in our local districts. The parents are being informed. We will not back down. Time. My name is Rachel Crutchfield and I'm a parent. According to the National Center for Health Statistics in 2015, only 3.1% of California high school students reported being sexually active before the age of 13. Yet the health framework suggests comprehensive sexual education in grades K through 6. If we
306expose our children to the explicit sexual content suggested in this framework, there will be many more children experimenting with sex at younger and younger ages. In the first grade suggested supplemental book called It's Not the Story, describes sex and I quote when the woman and man get so close to each other that the man's penis goes inside the woman's vagina this is not appropriate for eight-year-olds please remove this book from the framework Please remove also the book What's Happening to My Body. In this book for fifth grade girls, they learn about the G spot and 20 different slang words for their private parts. On page 83, it says, some experts claim there is a specific spot inside the vagina that, like the clitoris, is super sensitive to sexual stimulation. They also claim that stimulating the
307spot, which they call the G spot, will cause the release of fluid. Hi, my name is Heidi Gimness. I'm a mother of two, and I'm an ICU nurse of 17 years. I address the board and our only elected official here today, which is seat is empty, Tony Thurman, our superintendent of public construction in California. I'm here to say that I think there are two separate issues that are being conflated, the LGBTQ inclusivity, which we do want them included, of course, and also when you describe historical figures, perhaps maybe when you describe Thomas Edison, he used a straight white male. if you're going to start including everyone in their sexual orientation. I do think that the two items being conflated are the inclusivity of the LGBTQ and the debut of the sexual dialogue with our most
308vulnerable population without boundaries and without regard to the developmental age and the appropriateness to this vulnerable population. With this newly mandated framework, one can reasonably forecast a substantial disruption to our elementary schools across America. Sexual dialogue with... Time. Time. My name is Erica Knoll, and I am a parent of seven children who are in public education. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and family is central to God's plan. I warn you that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. I call upon each of you as responsible citizens and officers of government to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society. You will be held responsible before God for the
309decisions you make regarding this framework. Some of the teachings in the framework are in direct opposition to healthy family relationships. In the book, Sex, All You Need to Know, Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, that you recommend for a school-wide read in high school states that love is not always required for enjoyable, healthy sex, and one can have sexual partners outside romantic relationships primarily or purely for sex alone. That is unacceptable. Time. My name is Jaymen Banks. I'm a mother of five and a grandmother of three. I'm very concerned about this new framework, and I've been careful about what I've taught my children and what they've been exposed to, because I know that what you teach a child becomes part of who they are, their identity. In the book George, approved
310for fifth graders, This book promotes pornography and hiding the truth from parents. Not only is pornography in this book, but in every other approved book, grooming our children for the pornography industry, which will destroy family relationships. Please reject the framework. Thank you. Hello, my name is Tiffany Coleman. I am a parent of five children, two of which have graduated, one graduating this year and two still in our California public schools. I share my voice today with you to ask you to delay the adoption of this framework. I appreciate the time that has already been given to it, but we still need time to rework this framework. Teaching correct biology surrounding reproduction and basic sexuality is very good when taught with medical accuracy and at an appropriate age. It is also very good to teach kindness
311and respect for all. However, this framework moves far beyond biology and also far beyond teaching kindness and respect for all. This framework aggressively advocates and affirms a social ideology of sexual and gender ambiguity, fluidity, and exploration at a very young age. Just as other ideologies should not be taught as right or affirmed as correct in our public schools, neither should this ideology. I believe this framework diminishes families, abolishes gender and gender roles, and celebrates sexual... Time. Good afternoon. My name is Joe Miranda. I grew up in a small town of Brawley, California, and I was a single parent. I had single parent growth. graduated from high school, graduated from a junior college, graduated from a university, went on and got a master's degree in counseling, educational counseling, counseled at Whittier, did the rest of my
312years there at LA Unified, where kids couldn't even tell time, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, even if I offered them five bucks, they still couldn't tell time. But long story short, you know what? I went on, I did well, I never had a doubt of my... identity if i ever did i just looked down below and i knew who i was and what i was thank you very much and also one of my highlights of my life is my daughter america figueroa right there and watch out for her she'll be on you all the time thank you well i'd like to start by thanking those of you guys who are actually making eye contact and paying attention to us makes us feel heard this is a book you recommended i'm just going to read a
313few lines from it You can give yourself an erection and make yourself cum by touching and rubbing your penis. This is known as masturbation. Masturbation makes your body feel very hot and tingly and excited. These feelings get stronger and stronger until you ejaculate, and then they fade away. Sometimes the feelings are so powerful, a huge wave of pleasure crashes over you. This is called having an orgasm. 4 play includes mutual masturbation rubbing and stroking each other's penis and clitoris it also includes oral sex when one or both partners use their mouth and tongue to kiss and lick the partner's penis or clitoris and I'm not going to go on this goes on and on this is recommended for fifth grade the fact that someone thought it was good judgment to put this book in your
314framework makes us question the whole framework There's got to be something wrong if someone thought this was okay who was overseeing this who was supervising this We've had our eyes closed for a very long time thinking we can trust time. Yeah time we'd like to ask speaker 76 to 92 please enter the boardroom and speakers 91 to 105 to line up Good afternoon, State Board members. My name is Amy. I'm a supporter of comprehensive sex ed. I'm also a parent of two young daughters who attend public schools. I'm here today to thank you for supporting this health framework that will serve as a support tool for teachers that they can use to accurately and effectively convey CHIA-compliant information to their students. The resources are robust. The activity is carefully created so that we can trust
315our teachers to use and adapt the content to match the comprehension level of their students. A strong health framework will provide educators with guidance on how to create an inclusive and equitable learning environment. environment in which students of all abilities and gender identities are included and welcomed. Sometimes opinions get in the way of facts, but studies show that science-based comprehensive sex ed helps students become healthier and more successful adults. Studies like the 2015 National School Climate Survey found that students whose curricula included positive representations of LGBTQ issues had higher GPAs, higher educational aspirations, and were more likely to have classmates who were accepting of LGBT folks. Thank you for your time and attention you have given to this health framework and for all your efforts in making our schools more inclusive. Good afternoon. My name
316is Brooke. I'm a teacher and... I have four school-aged kids. I would like to speak on the purpose and outcome of this framework, as well as a teacher's civil disobedience in regards to not promoting the values of this ill-fated social experiment. It appears the purpose is to subvert religious beliefs by indoctrinating our children without the knowledge or interference of the values of the parents. It appears that the desired outcome is to confuse our children and encourage early sexual experimentation to discover the obvious, their gender. It appears that the state... is rising above the will of the people. What do you hope our children will become, and who do you think you are? Last week, the gender-bred person was taught in my son's health class. I spoke with the health teacher, the principal, and the counselor
317that night. They told me they have to teach it. When I hear we have to teach it, I'm as inspired by Schindler and his list, and how teachers are free to stand up for morality. Our children's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at stake. I protest these teachings. They are subversive of my Constitution. Time. Time. Hello. My name is Solina. I am a mother of three and CSUS student and child development major. I strongly oppose health education framework for California public schools starting from K-12. I have a book with me that's already in school library. It's not appropriate for the age provided for an app. Only parents know child, their individual characteristic for this kind of topic readiness. I talk with professor at CSUS, many of them say the same. That
318health education framework that's adopted now not age appropriate. When children will learn this kind of things as... early in kindergarten, they will start sexual activity more early. In this case, their intellectual development goes down. Please don't put our kids in this dangerous situation. As a future teacher, I should be between parents and students. And I'm ready teaching for eight years. My name is Deviki and I'm a student and also an early childhood educator. And I didn't want to say these things today, but I will. I'm a member of the LGBT community and I'm also a survivor of sex abuse. And I want to say that healthy sex education is not abuse. What is abuse is not knowing what consent is and then being forced to... Be in these sexual situations and not know anything about
319consent and not be taught otherwise and I think that and that's why I support the healthy education framework because if I had known these things about consent earlier it would have helped me at those times and I also support the fact that this curriculum is LGBT inclusive Because it would have meant the world to me at that age Hello, my name is Taras Sisko, parent of four healthy, beautiful children. I quote from the framework, page 66. Fifth grade students will have an opportunity to learn that gender is not strictly defined by physical anatomy or sex assigned at birth. Rather, students understand that gender refers to attitudes, feelings, characteristics, and behaviors that a given culture associates with being male or female, sometimes labeled as masculine or feminine. Moreover, a person's gender identity refers to their sense
320of self, while gender expression refers to their outward gender representation, including physical appearance and behavior." This opinion about gender is not scientifically backed. You should not be teaching young, impressionable children about theories of gender. This goes against my religious belief that there's only two genders, male and female. Remove this framework. We as parents know best what's right for kids. Reject the framework. Thank you. Hello, my name is Marinara DeSoto. I work with GSA Network in the Central Valley, and I'm here to ask for your support in this framework. As a queer mother to a four-year-old son and also working firsthand with trans and queer youth throughout the Central Valley, I see the need for this framework. Many trans and queer youth do not know that they can contract an STD because in school, it's just
321taught like male and female sex. This is very important because many students can live with STDs without knowing because they never go get tested. It could cause long-term effects for their mental and emotional well-being. Also, they're house. Teaching all our students how to engage in healthy relationships is important. And yes, I just started kindergarten. Teaching them what consent is because they do have control over their body. If somebody's doing something to them that's inappropriate, they should be able to speak up. And you teach them at a young age to do that. Teaching them also teaching them inclusion and removing gender stereotypes and norms and I thank you so much for supporting this framework and I urge you to please continue this and move it forward so our teachers can have structure and know how to
322teach our students and if you don't like this framework just up your child out but don't take it away from other students who will I'm Hello, my name is Dominic Salmoniego and I am a student and youth leader with GSA Network from Fresno, California. I ask you to pass this framework. If not passed, the sex education curriculum will remain gender biased, providing unfair opportunities for LGBTQ youth. As a gay youth, I had to educate myself how sex with all genders and sexualities worked. I learned that I could not only... contract an STD through sex with the opposite gender, but sex with the same gender as well. I ask myself every day, what if I had never been able to educate myself and proceeded to have same-sex intercourse? Could I too be standing here right now
323with an STD? The sex ed curriculum was biased when it was first taught to me. Fortunately enough, I was able to educate myself. That does not mean that other youth are able to educate themselves as well. LGBTQ youth and students should not have to teach themselves. They should be taught like every other heterosexual cis male and heterosexual cis female are taught in school. It is only right to give students relevant, accurate, and non-gender bias information about the changes their bodies go through. Please continue to give your attention to these topics and issues throughout your final revisions. Thank you for your time. Good afternoon. My name is Kylie Engelman and I am a senior in high school as well as a GSA Youth Council member from Fresno, California. I would first like to thank you for
324allowing this framework into your consideration to benefit as many students in the state of California as possible. I would also like to thank you for taking a huge step towards ending bullying, harassment, and negative gender stereotypes. I'm standing here today to show you that today's generation has a voice and a plan for the one that follows us. We want future generations to be free of gender stereotypes and homophobic tendencies, but full of acceptance and understanding for people who are exactly like us. them but are discriminated against for who they are or who they love. I stand here today as an ally alongside my friends and family who have not been properly represented within the educational system and aim to make that change so that soon everyone can be educated about their right to safe sex
325and relationships. Thank you for your time and consideration. Hello, my name is Bailey Barriessa and I'm a sophomore in high school from Fresno and I'm a youth leader in GSA. I'd like to thank you for your hard work in prioritizing, well prioritize LGBT plus inclusion in the health education framework. In school for sex ed, the teachers should have more knowledge when it comes to LGBT to help you stay safe and healthy. If you don't want your child to learn about this, you can up your own child, but don't take this away from other children. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Nico. My pronouns are he, him, his. I'm a health educator in Fresno, California. I ask that you adopt this framework because it is very crucial to our LGBTQIA plus youth that they feel
326inclusive and that their voices are heard and that they are not silenced. When youth are judged and shamed for their gender or sexuality by non-accepting parents and peers, they are put in situations where they do not feel safe in their environments or in schools. And me as an instructor, I have occasionally come across slurs against my sexuality. And if I'm coming across this, imagine what our LGBTQ plus youth are going through day to day at school. So I ask that you do consider adopting this framework. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Daisy Cruz. I am a health educator from Fresno, California. My pronouns are she, her, hers. And I thank you guys for taking an initiative and prioritizing our LGBTQ plus inclusivity in the health framework. As an educator, it is enlightening to
327see the action taking place for our students. All California students deserve the right to medically accurate information, but most importantly, the right to feel safe and be treated equally. Many neglect the high rates of bullying and harassment within the LGBTQ community. No youth deserves to be excluded or ridiculed for who they are. And I speak on behalf of my students who come to me to express their fears, worries, and tears. And I ask that you guys consider all of our youth when making the decision. And thank you for your efforts in creating a more inclusive and safe environment for our students. Thank you. Good afternoon, esteemed board members. My name is Michael Dominguez. I'm a health educator with Fresno Bales Unidos. Pronouns are he, him, his. We provide comprehensive sex ed for high schools and
328middle schools in Fresno. In every class that I visited, the underlying theme from many of the questions dealt with relationships. What do I do if my family is not supportive of LGBTQ? Is it abuse if my boyfriend or girlfriend always makes me feel bad? Where can I get protection if I need it? Am I a bad person if I masturbate? Some questions more innocent and some so terrifyingly raw, but all of them begging for the honesty of someone who cares and knows. Unfortunately, some of these youth with the questions like these are youth who feel like they have no support wherever they turn. And for them, this framework provides a space for this kind of relational learning, reproductive health learning, and answers the questions they've been holding onto and have nowhere to put. So it's
329for these reasons and so much more that I support the framework, and thank you for your support. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jennifer and my gender pronouns are she, her, hers and I am a health educator with Fresno Barrios Unidos. How can I get out of an abusive relationship? Is there a chance an abusive relationship can get better? What if things never get better in abuse? My partner hit me recently. It's the first time he has ever done this. I have no clue what to do. Those were the questions of 14 and 15 year old students of Fresno Unified School District and what my fellow health educators and I deal on a regular basis. Intimate partner violence affects everyone regardless of sex and gender. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, one in five
330women and one in seven men who experience IPV in their adult life. first experience it between the ages of 11 and 17. CHIA has allowed middle school and high school students to recognize the signs of abuse and has given students community resources to create steps towards healthy relationships of all genders. That's why I wholeheartedly support this and I hope you do too. Thank you. Hello, my name is Ashley Rojas. I support the Health Ed Framework because for 10 years I have seen it save young people's lives time and time again. All people deserve safety, love, and inclusion. And as a victim and survivor of childhood sexual abuse, this information would have saved me from years of self-harm and thinking that it was my fault. James Baldwin said, we can disagree and still love each other
331unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. And so I urge our young people to be vigilant and cautious when any adult attempts to lead you by inciting fear, shame, stigma, or hate. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Marisa Corpuz. My name is Marisa Corpuz. For the past two years, I've been able to hold individual appointments at Fresno State to have students get education on birth control and STIs. And these appointments call students to share their worries and concerns about contracting STIs and or having an unintended pregnancy. Many students come in not knowing anything about protecting their health or that being a sexual human being can be a problem. can be a part of life. Sharing how their school did not have sex ed, the
332sex ed did not cover these topics, and or their families share negative shame and stigma and or false facts about sex or never have these conversations at all. Many people believe sex ed is common knowledge and college students should already know this, but from what we see, we have middle school and high school students still not receiving this information. So it's important young people receive information at the right time before college so they are prepared to engage in healthy relationships and practice safer sex when they are ready. Thank you. We would like to ask speakers 91 through 105 to please enter the boardroom and speakers 106 to 120 to please line up now Good afternoon. My name is Stephanie and I'm a student from the Central Valley and I strongly support this framework and there's
333nothing I can say that hasn't already been said but I would like to mention that regardless of whether we support this or we don't support this, our children and anybody will continue to be curious and continue to be sexually active so it's better safe than sorry. Thank you so much for supporting this. Good afternoon. My name is Jennifer Chow. I am an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, one of the sponsors of the California Healthy Youth Act. We support the health framework and thank you for your commitment to health education that is inclusive of all California students. Our state has strong protections against bias and discrimination and laws that affirmatively require schools to ensure that LGBTQ students feel safe in their classrooms and are reflected in the education they receive. These are long-standing laws
334and the California Health Youth Act has been in effect for over three years. Even so, we still receive questions from schools about how they can make the promise of these laws a reality. for their students. The framework would provide much needed guidance about how to deliver this critical education in a developmentally appropriate way and in an environment that is safe and welcoming for all students of all genders and sexual orientations. We commend you for your work on behalf of California students to ensure they get the health education they need and deserve. Thank you. Good afternoon. I appreciate the time. I implore you to continue to be the light of knowledge and enlightenment of California's children. I also commend you for taking the steps to prevent bullying, discrimination, harassment in our schools by ensuring that students
335learn about sexual orientation, gender identity, and harms of negative gender stereotypes. Our schools are diverse, and every student deserves to feel safe, welcome, and acknowledged at school. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students thrive when they see themselves reflected in the content that they receive in school, like most people do. Okay, I hope that your choice to maintain the important guidance for teachers on how to incorporate LGBT exclusive material in the curriculum so that all children can benefit. I implore you to choose love. Thank you. Thank you board members. My name is David Buddha long. I'm from Fresno, California. My pronouns are he and his I'm a part of the LGBTQ community. I'm a Buddhist. I am allow I also work at Fresno Barish News where I am the health Education program manager and we
336provide comprehensive sex ed for the entire district in Fresno It's, you know, much more about than just preventing pregnancies and STIs and birth control. It's the bigger picture of things. There's consent. We talk about boundaries, the power dynamics between people, healthy relationships, mental, social, emotional. issues and also body autonomy so they can make the healthy decisions for themselves. I want to leave you with one thing that a student from Sunnyside High School wrote to me in a comment and it says if, this is verbatim, if an LGBTQ teen is discouraged by their family and friends then persuaded into a heterosexual relationship. Time. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you though. Hello, my name is Sarah Summers and I'm from DeVisadero Middle School in Varsala, California. I would like to thank you for providing guidance to administrators to
337support programs and instructions that provide the medically accurate, age-appropriate, inclusive sex education students want and need at my school. But I found that not all schools or classes are receiving all the information that I did. Young people need to receive the right information so they aren't caught off guard by their changing bodies and minds and are prepared for healthy relationships and safe sex when and if they're ready for those steps. I thank you for your work and trust this is only the beginning of your efforts to improve health education for all California students. Thank you. Hello, my name is Claire. I'm a health educator at Fresno Barrios Senos. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. We teach comprehensive reproductive health in all of Fresno Unified's middle and high schools. I support this framework because it
338is valuable to California's youth. It can be a stepping stone to actually create conversations at home to get parents included in their child's and student's... physical and mental and sexual well-being so they can actually be a part of that process and that journey. It can also be so incredibly valuable to people who do not have a home environment that is conducive to their education. It's also something that not only empowers young people to know how their bodies function and how they can protect them, but also how they can be more inclusive and understanding of their peers. In all the schools we visit, we ask for student feedback, and overwhelmingly that student feedback has been positive. They typically thank us for providing information in ways that they can understand and also for giving them the tools
339to help protect their bodies and their futures. I want to thank you all for the hard work that you do, and I hope to see many more steps in our futures to help make sure that this inclusive, empowering, and comprehensive education is taught. Hello, board members. My name is Jessica Geyer, and I am a resident of Orange County with two middle schoolers in the Capistrano Unified School District. I am here today to show my support for the health framework, especially the aspects of the framework that are inclusive of our LGBT plus students and the California Healthy Youth Act. Comprehensive sexual health education is essential for the health and well-being of all of our young people. Our young people deserve factual information on anatomy, STIs, pregnancy prevention, and the use of contraception and condoms before they
340become sexually active, and also focusing on healthy and unhealthy relationships and consent. Break free of shame and stigma and power through education. I commend you for your work and hope you continue taking... taking steps to promote and ensure inclusive sexual health education in schools. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Lita Esposito. I'm a seventh grade science teacher at King Middle School in the Oceanside Unified School District. I'm excited to share with you all the good work we have done in our district in regards to our sex ed, health and human development curriculum, rights, respect, and responsibility. After highly publicized opposition, we were able to create a committee of stakeholders representing diverse opinions, peel through the lessons, and move forward with our secondary level with implementation due. this month. Later this month we'll
341begin similar work with our elementary school curriculum. Our leaders were committed to CHIA, the FAIR Act, the health framework, and careful not to fall down the rabbit hole of junk science. This progress would not be possible without the professionalism, support, and commitment of our district superintendent, Dr. Julie Vitale, associate superintendent, Dr. Mercedes Lovey, and curriculum director, Vicki Gravlin, and are grateful for the tireless quality work and forethought of the IQC and the CFCC. Thank you so very much. Good afternoon. My name is Michelle McNutt. I'm a parent from Orange County and currently have two children in Capistrano Unified. I'm here today to express my gratitude for all of your hard work and to thank you for integrating LGBTQ inclusivity throughout the health framework and through comprehensive sex ed. This will be valuable guidance for teachers
342and administrators who are striving to create safe school climates so that all students can feel included, accepted, and valued. As a member of my district's sex education task force, I feel fully invested in ensuring students receive medically accurate, age-appropriate sexual health information that they want and need. When kids are given unbiased factual health instruction, they are better able to make informed decisions about their own health, their bodies, and their safety. My hope is that you maintain the LGBTQ inclusive language in the framework, which will help to make schools a welcoming environment where all students can thrive. Thank you so much. Hello, my name is Michelle Rivera. I'm a health educator from Dinuba and serve all of Tulare County. I would like to thank you for prioritizing LGBTQ inclusivity in the health education framework. As a
343health educator, I have witnessed firsthand the benefits of LGBTQ. inclusive curricula. It is known that LGBTQ youth are at high risk of suicide, homelessness, violence, and so forth. Providing education on gender and sexuality not only breaks the stigma, but also creates a safe environment for these students. They deserve comprehensive education that reflects their identities and experiences for these factors, this factors on their well-being and life expectancy. Also topics on consent, boundaries, values, pregnancy options, and reproductive health access are inclusive to all genders, which everyone benefits from. Comprehensive sex ed saves lives. Again, thank you for your time. Hello everyone, my name is Samantha Castillo and I'm a part of Visalia California's Act for Organization Women and Girls. I am here because I believe in the value of education and knowledge. I believe that everyone should
344be afforded this value by being taught adequate and accurate comprehensive sex education, no matter their sexual orientation and or gender identity or expression. The teachings of sexual education go beyond more than just sex, but STI prevention and awareness, current up-to-date contraceptives and its access, destigmatizing sexual behaviors, promoting sexual health and responsibility, how to foster and communicate the intimate relationships we have with others and other tools that we need to be implemented in the standards of our sexual education. There should be no place for ignorance, exclusion, and indifference in our classrooms, let alone the curriculum we teach our young adults. Our young adults look to teachers, instructors, and families to be able to normalize and provide these conversations that we do not stop needing and learning about, even in our adulthood. I support the health framework
345vote, and I thank you in your efforts to make sexual education inclusive, accessible, and accepting of everyone. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for your time. My name is Julie. I'm a parent. Just a week ago, I saw some samples of the curriculum that is supposed to be included in this framework, and I want to speak out against that, just very simply. When I look at sexuality and morality, the two topics are inextricably linked, and it needs to be that way. And if you take the morality out of the topic of sexuality, which I think a lot of this curriculum does, then we'll reduce the status of just barnyard writing, which is not really what we want. want sex to become. So I just ask, please give us a chance to review all curriculum. I
346reject the framework, and I'm sorry. I know you've worked very hard on that. And just listen to the parents as we say this. This is our responsibility to raise our children, and many of us take it very seriously. Thank you very much for your time. Hello, my name is Natalia Bullerbrook, and I have three beautiful children. I want to talk about the new kindergarten framework. It has a book that's called My Princess Boy. This book is not age-appropriate, and it goes against my Christian values and beliefs. I removed this book from framework. It's unacceptable for the five-year-olds and six-year-olds to challenge their gender stereotypes. Remove all gender identity teaching from the kindergarten through sixth grade framework. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Michelle. I'm a mother of four children. I also have a
347degree in sociology. My knowledge and understanding of human behavior is expansive, and I do not plan on limiting or sheltering my children from valuable information about what the world and society is. When it is age-appropriate for them to learn it, I expect that they will. You want to protect LGBT youth from bullying and discrimination? We now have laws and curriculum in place to support that already. We already have comprehensive sexual education in our schools that meets the law and is inclusive. The content in this framework will absolutely confuse an entire generation of children, especially considering how young instruction on gender, sexuality, and sex is being given. You say that the goal is not to cause confusion about gender, etc., but to provide information. My six-year-old will believe and be curious about anything I or her
348teachers tell her, because that is the stage of development that she is in. You put this pornographic content in the workplace and it would be a time. It would be time time Hi, my name is Chelsea Erickson and I am a mother of a student in the school The public school system here in California. I have future students possibly in the coming years I understand, as it was stated at the beginning, that the framework and the law are separate and that the school districts have the ability to separate those things. The problem that we are facing is that our local school districts are not separating those. And they are telling us that their hands are tied. They are telling us that they cannot work with us because of that. They are telling us that we
349need to come to you. But then we come here and we hear, no, you need to go to your school districts. We're feeling a little bit like a ping pong ball right now. And it's not very fair to us as parents. Things need to be made more clear of what is and what isn't law and what is and what isn't framework for these people. I know that. There's a lot of good information in this, but there's a lot of bad. And if I were to offer you some brownies with a little bit of... Time. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Amanda McAllister-Walner. I'm the director of the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, and we're in strong support of the framework before you today. I spend, in my role, a lot of time looking
350at health disparities faced by LGBTQ people, high rates of depression, suicide. STDs, HIV. Last week I had multiple lobby days on the subject and next week I'll be talking about mental health disparities again at the Capitol. And this framework presents an opportunity to do some real prevention work and to address the... to address the disparities that LGBTQ youth face and that LGBTQ adults face because they didn't have access to comprehensive health education as young people. This is an incredibly important step in reducing LGBTQ health disparities. And I thank you for taking the time to put this framework together. We'd like to ask speakers 106 to 120 to please enter the boardroom and speakers 121 to 135 to please line up. I'm just waiting to know if it's okay to speak or you want me to
351wait. My name is Mandy Taylor from the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network. I am also a parent of a child within the California public school system here in Sacramento. And I want to thank you for really taking a lot of time and energy to look through this curriculum. A lot of the materials that you recommended are actually things that I had already purchased at home for my child as they were getting older because that information wasn't being offered in school. And when I asked her, what kind of sexual health information are you getting at school? She said, none. I said, well, what kind of information? are you getting at home?" She said, oh yeah, way better. Until they actually had an educator come into their school using this curriculum and she came home
352and said, oh they actually did a really great job and I felt really included. And so I just want to thank you for that. Her peers deserve to have access to the same information. Having access to inclusive and medically accurate sexual health information should not be dependent on your parent. Every child has a right to that information. Hello, my name is Irene Karkat. I'm originally from Ukraine and I'm a mother of two children. And it's discrimination against our people because the framework was only available in English. And this is against the law. There's hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians too in California. Please make this right. Who recommended these books? It's too visual and pornographic for all children. It's psychologically abusive and not age appropriate. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Michael. I'm
353father of two children. I'm extremely against the health framework because when I saw the books and the pictures, I was shocked. It is visual pornography. I'm sorry. It is against the family values. Thank you. Hi. My name is Charisse, and I am a mother, grandmother of 21. kids and foster parent to about 50 mostly high-risk teens over the 32 years. This is one of my concerns, along with many already presented. As you know, victims of sexual abuse is staggering in girls as well as boys. Most end up victims and the others the perpetrator. The perpetrator many times was unsupervised with smaller children and when they had been watched, or when they should have been watched, thus protected. Think how this can play out. Opportunity presents itself to a child, and he engages with whatever was
354presented in class. Then we're all mortified on what occurred. They end up prosecuted and labeled. And I know this to be true because I've met them. I'm very concerned with this curriculum that ideas are being embedded in these children. This material should not be presented to any child. Please teach reading, math, history, science. Let them engage in sports, art. Time. My name is Carla. I'm a retired teacher and grandmother of two. I'm disgusted and reject the implementation of sex in a health framework in school. You're trying to normalize something. Sex and porn, and we don't want our children, grandchildren exposed to sex at such young ages. Tolerance, yes. Sex, no. This is porn. Many schools are... are failing our kids in reading, writing, math, history, and civics. If you can't get it right in the
355basics, what makes you think showing pictures of sex or anal sex is going to make it right? My granddaughter came home after being exposed to this, and she said, I'm marrying a girl, and she's only nine. Sheriff John McGinnis says, you don't have to teach kids to like ice cream or sex. Instead, teach character acceptance. tolerance and respect. We don't need a manual. Let our children be children. Thank you. Hello, my name is Torianna Schaefer and I'm from Fremont now attending UCSC. I want to thank you for your hard work for LGBTQ inclusion in the health education framework. I never learned about trans identity in K through 12, only hearing slurs and confusion about transness in the halls. I had it I knew that I was non-binary when I was seven, but repressed this until
356I finally was exposed to a broader community and ideology when I started at UCSC. I'm now taking a course on trans theory and the environment is noticeably warmer. Discussion of not only trans people, but the diversity of and epist- Epistemic violence toward this community has made me noticeably more comfortable with both my identity and myself. All students deserve this positive self-concept. So I commend you on your work towards a more inclusive curriculum and society and I look forward to seeing it in the future. Hello, my name is Natalia Romaso and I am against this framework. I came from Ukraine to a country of freedom. Thanks to God, US government and people, I have a chance to live in a free country. High morality is a foundation of our successful life. This moment is not new.
357We know the empire of Alexander the Great and the Rome Empire, those great empires disappeared because of moral degradation that ruined those empires. from inside. Another example is Soviet Union where indoctrination of evil was done on a government level and there was no place left for people with other beliefs. I am a patriot of United States and I will do everything possible to make you as strong, prosper and a free country where parents can make decisions for their kids not the government. Please oppose this framework and know that we rely on you to make a wise decision for the future of our time. My name is Ala Marchak and I oppose the sex education framework. Let kids be kids and don't make them adults too soon. Introducing body parts, inside and out, sexual desires, pleasuring,
358feeling good, masturbation, telling kids that your body may feel good, warm, tight, excited, telling kids it's okay to do that, telling kids what love is, telling them how parents act in their bedroom. Sexually explicit for third graders in chapter 3 on page 119 is not acceptable. Okay? These books are not acceptable. This book was found in a public library. It talks about sex. It talks about everything. And it talks very explicitly. Do you want your kid to be in your bedroom after your... Home and they learned everything and they're gonna know what you're doing and you are going to be responsible You're gonna be teaching them sex in third grade. This is not appropriate it will this is porn and it will make time time time time Alex Timchik, firefighter, paramedic, father of one. In
359George by Alex Gino is an age-appropriate book and resource for fifth grade students. Teachers should be mindful of personal bias and use gender-neutral language and discuss peer and romantic relationships to be inclusive of all students in terms of gender, identity, gender expression, sexual attraction. For example, they use they instead of he or she. This book, George, is not age appropriate. This book promotes dishonesty, pornography, hiding truth from parents, and all boys are evil mentality. This book also talks about looking up girl skirts in dirty magazines. This book is not appropriate for children to read. Why are we pushing this upon our children? Remove this book from the framework. This type of material is against my religious beliefs. Please stop this. Hi, my name is Jennica. I am here as a concerned parent of two young
360boys. First of all, thank you for removing the resources you have done since the March meeting. I'm concerned about the health framework and the early sexualization of our kids. Stephanie Gregson has commented to the press that we are... that we as concerned parents against this curriculum are misinformed and that we are misrepresenting the power of the law i personally had a meeting with the superintendent of san juan unified school district kent kern who said to take our concerns to the state when we went to get a few feedback to our district as they were piloting controversial materials for history social science, it was too late. They chose California state approved curriculums to pilot and adopt, even though not mandated to use them. While Stephanie has said this framework is not the curriculum and that it
361only recommends instructional materials and that California leaves it up to districts. San Juan Rockland and Elk Grove Unified School Districts do not operate in the gray areas although not mandated mandated They have shown us recently that they want to conform to what the state recommends so it starts here here. We saw I'm eating time We'd like to ask speakers 121 to 135 to please enter the boardroom and speakers 136 to 150 to please line up Am I good to go? Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Rebecca Huey. I'm a mom of three beautiful, curious, feral boys, all under the age of seven, who are currently enrolled in California public schools. I've had the opportunity to research the new health... education framework proposed and I have some grave concerns. I understand this is simply a framework
362for California schools to provide resources for teachers, parents, and the community. However, I also understand that a large majority of California schools will follow the suggested framework as well as the suggested readings and resources with fervor. Although I have severe concerns regarding the framework as it pertains to sexual education in grades 7 through 12, which are unnecessarily overt and overly sexual in nature, since my boys are young at the moment, I was going to address my concerns with the suggested readings for grades K through 3. I am now so thankful you've rightfully chosen to remove a lot of the controversial suggested readings from the framework, and I ask that you also remove the It's Not My Stork book, which is sexually explicit graphics depicted in a cartoon fashion. Reject the framework and remove them from
363the suggested resources section as of now. Hello, my name is Alma and I am a mother of eight. I believe that a sex education without the dignity of the body, it's pornography. And unfortunately... I am afraid that you maybe don't even see that clearly. I am afraid that this framework is going to be accepted and the consequences that not only my children will face, but also the whole society. I'm here to implore you to really answer the questions and the questions I have for you that I have made to myself constantly. Who are you? And what is the purpose of your life? If you answer these questions, I'm sure you will be more careful in deciding on this framework because the purpose of your life will make a difference in my children, in this society,
364in our America, in our California. Thank you. Hi, my name is Maria. I am a mother of 10 children. I am against the health framework. I am here today to defend the innocence of my children. I believe they have the right to a healthy and safe environment. I think that this health framework is a physical and mental abuse to my children. And if I have to take them out of public school to protect them from the perverted minds, I will do so. Thank you. My name is Teresa. I am coming, I am noticing that the framework says it is an inclusion program. My name is Mi nombre es Teresa Vera. Estoy escuchando que el programa de Framework es para inclusivo. Pero están incluyendo a la comunidad de LGBT, que yo no tengo ningún problema con
365ellos. Pero nos están excluyendo a todos los demás niños. So it's not as inclusive as you're presenting it. Entonces, nos están mintiendo a todo California. Tengo varios en mi familia que son maestros y nadie sabe nada ni en las escuelas ni en los distritos. Entonces, ¿por qué están escondiendo todo? You're using our taxes with our children. And this is our responsibility, not yours. What are we going to do with this nation? We're going to destroy it. I ask you, please, to include everyone. But not with pornography and based on lies. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ophelia. I'm a mother of 13 and nine grandchildren, and I totally oppose to this framework. To me, as for many parents who are not here to speak, it's an injustice to our children. It's sinful, and it's corruptive,
366and it's against the human nature. And it will expose our children to sex trafficking. And it is not your concern to teach them, but it's ours, in my concern, to teach them what is best for them. And because they were made to be happy, to live eternally happy. And this framework is doing the opposite. So I really encourage you, I really urge you to reject this framework, please. My name is Maria Carlos. My name is Maria Carlos. I'm a mother of five. I'm a mom of five. And I'm very worried about their education. My husband and myself take care of their education. Sexual education and everything that has to do with their bodies. Thanks to God and to church that teaches us how to treat our kids. I think that sexual education should be done
367by the parents. That parents need to talk to their kids about this. and that what school teaches should be math and other things that they need for life. I implore you not to put dirt in their minds because they are too young. It's not too late so that you please change your minds because you also have kids. And you would not like your kids to have their minds filled with garbage. Thank you. Hola, buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Nancy. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Nancy. Yo soy maestra de secundaria en mi país de origen, en Mexico. I am a teacher of high school in my nation of origin, Mexico. Y aquí estoy trabajando como asistente de maestra de kindergarten. And here I work as an assistant teacher for kindergarten. And I'm here today because
368I'm very concerned about our kids and their future. I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that schools should teach about sexual education. I think it's an inappropriate way. instead of teaching academic content that is what's going to serve them for their future and their lives. Honestly, I think that the rights of the parents are being violated. They are the ones that decide how, when, quieren enseñar sobre sexualidad a sus propios hijos. So when, how, and what intensity to teach about sexual education to their own kids. Por favor, les suplico. Please, I beg you. reject this framework that only is forming confused youth. Thank you. My name is Libby Leopold. I'm married 29 years and mother seven. I'm here to say I do not agree or accept this framework. Let us the parents teach about sex education.
369Let the kids be kids. Thank you. Hi, I'm Jennifer. As the timeline was reviewed, it's obvious that it's been worked on for a long time and that this opposition you are seeing is coming late in the process. But that's just because the parents and concerned citizens have just been learning what the framework actually looks like. I've read through it, and 80 to 90 percent of it's fine. Most people agree that bullying and discrimination in any form is inappropriate. However, there is a difference between teaching to not bully those with different... sexual orientation and teaching gender fluidity. Scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists and counselors do not agree on this topic. Yet, the California education system is recommending it be taught as fact starting in kindergarten. I thank you for removing most of the controversial books. However, there are
370still changes needed to make this framework agreeable to most. Obviously, it will never be agreeable to everyone. But I request that you table the growth and development sections of K3, growth and development in sexual health for the older kids, and pass the rest of it. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am registered nurse Nellie Tucanco, and I'm here as a very concerned parent. The sex education curriculum goes way beyond expectations outlined by AB 329. It contains sexually explicit and graphic material content, and it's not age-appropriate or scientifically accurate. It teaches kids detailed sex acts. This is mental rape. It teaches topics like gender identity that should be a parent's job, not the school's. Gender fluidity is not science-based. Your chromosomes don't lie. Remember your chromosomes? XX, female, XY, male. Also, including pedophiles like Harmey Milk is
371not okay. He had sex with boys, one of which ended up committing suicide. So this curriculum will also increase human trafficking and STDs. There is no way that this is going to decrease it. Abortion giants want to target the youth so they can have more abortions and sell more aborted baby parts. I'm not kidding. Time. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Amy. I have three children in the California public school system. The Center for Disease Control states in their literature that delaying sexual activity in youth reduces the risk of physical harm. California Child Protection Services standards states that intentionally exposing youth to pornography falls within the parameters of child abuse. Yet this framework introduces porn to our young impressionable kids behind the false label of sex ed. I keep hearing proponents of this repulsive
372framework use the phrase, our kids have the right to access this information for their health and well-being. So their message to children is that they may not have lost all their baby teeth yet, they're years away from being legally able to drive a car, and they cannot see an R-rated movie without an accompanying parent or adult. But it's okay for this public school health curriculum to promote and encourage deviant, promiscuous, and often dangerous sexual relationships, ideas, and acts, along with pornographic images. and reminds kids numerous times of all the birth control they can obtain and abortions they can have without their parents' knowledge, dangerous, life-altering decisions that will change their bodies. Reject this framework. Good day to you, fellow members. My name is Victoria Parkupchuk. I am an informed and concerned parent of seven children.
373I have allowed all my children to live. I strongly oppose this new so-called sex ed framework. It is mind-boggling how pedophilia can be a part of a classroom curriculum. I would like to state a fact known to all humanity. The very first history of the LGBT known to man was Saddam and Gomorrah. Schools have the obligation to teach kids reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and history. Everything else is our parents' job. They are my kids. I'm the boss. I am their advocate. And today's health ed curriculum, this mama bear has become the mama grizzly. Thank you. We need to ask speakers 136 to 150 to please enter the boardroom. And speakers 151 to 165 to please line up. Okay, hello everyone. My name is Tatiana and I am here as a concerned mom and a concerned
374educator. I teach young children and I believe that my job is to teach them to write, to read, and to do math. Our children are not reading. They're not writing. They're very low in California and that disturbs me. And now we're pushing some kind of curriculum that I will not teach and I think it is wrong to teach it and I don't want my children. to be a part of it I don't want to teach it I also um I also heard some of the people over here saying that they're going to use this money to educate teachers and do personal development. We need to use that personal development money to teach teachers how to teach math, science, English. Those are the things that we need to be teaching. Leave the rest to the parents.
375That's their children. It's their right. Protect our children. Time. Stand out. Time. Hi, my name is Taras and I'm a father. In the book, from the kindergarten to the third grade, teachers can introduce the concept that ginger doesn't always match biology. In the book, Who Are You? for the first grader, teachers can tell the kids that ginger is not only a boy or a girl, it's somebody else. At seven years of age, statistically, children, they just... finally learn what is left and what is right. They don't need to know gender, they don't need to know all this about sexuality from such a young age. They still learn how to separate good from bad and this is what they need to concentrate. They need to concentrate on the toys and how to play and how to
376grow up, how to make a good decision in life, healthy decision in life, not how to make, not how about sexuality. And in book from Be good be really be real be ready it promotes how to make sex it doesn't promote Anything about sexual just promotes how to make sex and time Time hi my name is Alina and I am mother of three soon to be four and I was told not to mention anything about religion, but I Just basically say that I am against this framework. But for me, I can't go that way. I do have to mention something about God. Because God is the beginning and he is the end. And he needs to be in the center of this. And I don't care if you believe in God or if you don't,
377but he is 100% real. And he will judge this nation, and he will judge California. And we as parents, we are prayer warriors. We're not concerned about our kids. We're concerned about your kids and about your future. Please remove this framework. Thank you. Hi, I'm Nancy Romo, and I'm a single mother of four. I have been dealing with the school for the past two weeks about all this, and they had me bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball, not telling me what's going on, not wanting to give me information. Yet the teacher tells me that if I don't let my child attend these classes, that she was going to report me to the state and tell them that I'm not being compliant. And I was also told, and this is at the Twin
378River School District, and I was also told by the counselor at the elementary school that I have no religious rights. Everything is just crazy. When I seen the material, my mouth dropped. To show kids a picture of a woman's vagina and have them all color it and tell them, color the clitoris this color, outline the vagina this color, and color the anus any color you like. What is that putting in? You're going to have a room full of perverted little children. That's what the school is going to do. This is crazy. I've been having panic attacks and anxiety for the past two weeks. And I just can't believe. And I object. My name is TC Prince Woodleaf. I'm 17 and I'm from Berkeley, California. I'm here today with the GSA Network. So I transitioned in
379fourth grade and that was before I'd had any puberty so I never had the chance to be normal in this way. In fifth grade they split us up into groups, boys and girls, and I went with the girls. We talked about periods and tampons and pads and I was just thinking like none of this applies to me. I never saw myself reflected in sex ed and I still never have. Because of this, for the longest time, I just thought that I could never have sex. I thought that I could never be in a real relationship. Since then, I've realized that this is not true. I can be in a relationship just like any straight cis person can, but I'm still affected by my miseducation. I have a deep-rooted insecurity about relationships and my ability to
380participate in them. If I had had good sex ed that reflected my identity and my experience, then I would be so much more comfortable in my skin and I would have been saved a whole lot of pain and self-hatred. I think this framework can help provide that for me and countless other trans and queer people. Thank you so much. Good afternoon members and everyone present here. My name is Tatyana Kowalczyk. I am an informed parent of four young children and I'm very concerned. I have spent countless hours studying and researching this framework and I'm here to stand against it because from What I see, this is not a safe education. In fact, it's not an education at all. It's a spiritual, emotional, sexual, physical abuse to our children. The pages of these books, these guidelines,
381recommendations are opening the doors to the darkness of sexual abuse, violence, destruction in community, and drugs and imprisonment down the road. I have been given a blessing and responsibility to raise four children in this country for the future of this country, and hopefully for God's glory. I don't see how this framework saves or protects individual rights at all. I see how this framework takes... Framework takes away parents proper right time time time My name is Yulia Spinova. I'm mother of three 21 13 and 11 years old I'm against this framework And I just want to say you words of God. For this reason, God delivered them to degrading patients as their females exchange their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural. In the same way, their males also abandoned their natural sexual function toward
382females and burned with lust toward one another. Males committed indecent acts with males and received within themselves the appropriate penalty for their deviation. Thank you. Hi, my name is Patty Reyes. I'm an 18-year-old college freshman from Orange County. I think all views should be respected. I'm a Catholic, and I firmly believe God created us male and female. We should not be shamed for our beliefs. This is America where speech and religious beliefs should be protected. But myself and many other students like me are afraid that this freedom may be at stake. Please don't rip away the beautiful innocence and childhood that these children deserve. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Carlos Reyes. I'm from Orange County. I'm married to my wife, Patricia. We have six kids. We've been married for 20 years, and I'm
383Catholic. I just want to say when I came in, in the walls it says it was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn. Mary Shelley. And she's talking about heaven and earth. And these are the things that we want to learn. What is in heaven and earth? Heaven that is brought from us. And it mentions heaven? God. And earth? Something from us, humans. And it's very important for me to teach healthy sex education to my children. We can teach it in the house. and it can also be taught in the house, in school. But it's mostly started in the house. If I don't bring pornography into my house at all, never have, am I gonna start bringing it inside the house to further teach my kids with their health education? This
384is something very important and I am against the framework. Thank you. We'd like to ask speakers 151 to 165 to please enter the state boardroom and we would like speakers 167 to 180 to please line up I reject the framework. Hi, my name is Priscilla Reyes. I'm 12 years old and I come from Orange County, California. I'm in sixth grade and I don't want my friends and family to get confused about their gender. This will not make us more safe. It will confuse us. Just let us be kids. I want education, not sex classes. Thank you. Hi, my name is Carlos Reyes. I'm in 10th grade and I reject your framework. I believe all students and their different beliefs should be respected. I'm a Catholic and I believe God created us male or female. By
385teaching gender as open-ended as this tells me my beliefs must be false and brings shame on me and other students whose beliefs are the same. I am not a social experiment. Thanks. Good afternoon. My name is Jonathan Clay. I'm here to support the health framework. Given the time, I'd like to associate my comments with those of the state PTA who spoke earlier and the many youth that have come here to share their stories today. Sometimes it's a little hard for me to get there, so bear with me. My wife and I have been on an interesting journey, and we're the parents of a child that doesn't fit the typical norm. And, you know, we appreciate the embodiment of the diversity and inclusivity that's represented here in the health framework. This is not a journey that
386we thought we'd go down that path of and it doesn't have anything to do with our beliefs what we were taught in school or You know who we associate with it. It was because this is who our child is It makes me sad, but I do remember the first time my child became aware of other people like himself. We started on this path at first grade, and when he became aware that there were other people that were different like him, I just remember the joy that he shared with me in learning. Time. Thank you. Hi, my name is Rita. I'm totally disgusted. I reject this framework. How highly educated people that we put in place. could submit pornography and teaching them at such a young age. Sodom and Gomorrah did fall. You are setting America
387up to fall. Are you going to create more prisons so in 20 years by the time you've educated these kids with this porn and they go and commit the crimes, you're going to lock them away? That's all I have to say. Please reject the framework. My name is Donna Goulart, and I'm a teacher of 28 years, and I do have grave concerns about this framework. One of the greatest pleasures in life is seeing life through the eyes of a child and the innocence they exude. This framework and its early sexualization and indoctrination of impressionable children robs them of that innocence. It would only be confusing and harmful to their psychological well-being. This framework and the CSE are not. healthy for students and it would be untenable for myself and many other educators as well to
388teach. I do teach third grade in a recommended book. It's not the stork. Please remove it. explicitly described sexual intercourse along with pictures and is recommended in the writing state standards 3.1 informative explanatory to write a three paragraph essay on sexual intercourse we're talking seven and eight year olds and as far as bullying in any sort it should not happen and I teach my students every day to be kind and to help others Most teachers and parents aren't even aware of the CSE that's coming. School is a place where parents trust their children to be. And if the lawmakers are not going to respect the rights of parents, then they're going to be... Hi, my name is Carolyn and I'm a concerned parent. Motherhood has been my greatest joy. I have two amazing boys. They're
389kind, God-centered, loving, and thriving. I was blessed to be a stay-at-home mom. I was very protective. When they were young, I taught them about stranger danger, monitored their TV, computer, phone. I knew their friends and the families of their friends. Sex was to be cherished in a marriage relationship. When I started going through the framework and some of the books that were recommended, I was just horrified that they would teach such young children graphic, sexual, implicit materials. And in high school, just horrified by the, just anything goes. the horrific sex ed books. I do appreciate that you've taken some of those off the table, but you did say that it's not because you disapprove them, because they had caused some controversy. I disagree with the over-sexualization of the children, especially in kindergarten. When do they
390get to be kids and get to play? Good afternoon. My name is Ippolito Fernandez. I'm a retired deputy sheriff. I'm a grandfather. I'm a father. I'm an uncle. I know a lot of... youngsters. This bill will take our kids innocence away. This bill is creating a problem where there is no problem. Sexual education at this young age has no business in our children's lives. That's not the role of government. This is trying to destroy the future of our generations. You have real issues after. High school dropouts, it's at its highest. High school grads that can't read and write. Those are issues that our education department has to address. I dislike and disagree 100% with the health education framework because of our children's future is at stake. Time. Hi, my name is Olga. I'm a mom
391of three kids. I'm here for them. I'm here very concerned about the framework which takes away our rights to make our own decisions about the books which endanger our children's psychology and health. For example, one of them, grade 9 to 12. Sex, the all you need to know about sexuality guide to get you through your teens and 20s. It teaches step by step about body fluid, body play, cutting, piercing. This is insane. Please protect our and your children. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mila Ignatieff and as a parent of two kids, elementary students, I want to say thank you for providing free education for my kids. And when I send my kids to school, I want them to learn about American history, how to solve math problems, and this is my responsibility how and
392when to teach them about sex according to my beliefs. And so I strongly believe that this health framework is the sexual abuse of little kids and that's why I oppose this curriculum. This is not a healthy education for little students, like elementary students, maybe high schoolers, but not for innocent kids. Thank you. Hello, my name is Valeri, and I'm a parent of elementary and middle school kid. And I strongly oppose current agenda and health framework that's... And if it will pass, it brings a lot of risk in kids' development. For example, if proposed health framework, chapter 6, page 64, promotes a school-wide rate of the book sex, all you need to know sexuality guide to get you through your teens and twins. This book talks about topics like bondage, restraints, body fluids, blood play, sex
393toys, oral sex, phone sex, and kinky sex. These topics are not appropriate for children and should not be explored in school, but parents should teach and explain at children's appropriate age. Current framework and current framework. Dear State Board of Education Committee, thank you for hearing all of us. My name is Mila, and I'm a concerned parent of five kids, and I strongly oppose this framework, and I sincerely ask you, please do not adopt this health framework education. The health education framework contains sexually explicit and do not age appropriate material. It promotes... Kids to sexual experience from a young age therefore posing big risks for their health and development Many people before me showed concerning examples from suggested books in the framework such as changing you it's not a sort Who are you what's happening to
394my body book for the boys then book for the girls? Please remove these books from the framework these type of books bring confusion harm to children and youth This type of material do not promote healthy lifestyles. Reject the framework. Thank you. Hello, my name is Oleg. I have three kids. And as we know, we are people and we are God's creation. God created us and no one in any generation for thousands of years go to school having a sexual education, but no one failed. How God created it it works by itself. There is no need to have it in school Unless there are some guides like to take care of body of organs or how to avoid Sexual if our girls Start learning this and they decide to change the gender They won't produce babies
395and so people in 40 to 70 years will die and there will be nobody on earth. Time. We'd like to ask speakers 166 to 180 to please enter the boardroom and for speakers 181 to 195 to please line up. Hello, my name is Kevin and I'm a concerned dad of three young children in public education. I'm here today to state my opposition to this framework. Curriculum aimed at sexualizing and confusing our children is unacceptable. My wife and I have a hard enough time trying to figure out and explain math, English, and science to my fourth grader. And I can't imagine trying to explain to her when she asks what gender reassignment surgery is or when my third grader asks why a boy would put his penis in her vagina. If the media were in here,
396they would be required by the FCC to bleep out and edit the very content in this curriculum or face huge fines. Millions of families in California reject this framework and this attempt at stretching our children's minds in such a detrimental and perverse way. Please reject this curriculum. Hi, my name is Irina Olashuk. I am a mom of two. I oppose the sex ed framework. Not only is this framework age inappropriate, but it also goes against my religious beliefs. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, yet it is being taken away from us with this morally corrupt, sexualized content that will traumatize and confuse our children. That are too young to comprehend sex and gender identity. This is indoctrination. For example, the book Changing You for third graders shows pornographic images and intimate detailed descriptions about
397what it means to have a romantic relationship. I don't want my eight-year-old daughter learning about sex when the statistics show that only 3.1 percent of children reported being sexually active before the age of 13. This book will traumatize my child's innocent mind. I am the parent and I want to decide with my husband, I want to teach these topics in a nurturing, loving environment. As Christians, we teach to love all and be kind to all. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alina, and I'm a concerned mother of two. I reject California health framework, first of all. Thank you for removing many of the books from the proposal. We are grateful for it. We send our precious children to schools to learn math, history, language arts, just like we've done, and not our babies to be
398sexualized at such an early age. The books being proposed are not age-appropriate and more like pornographic comic books. I came to this country in 1992 from the USSR to the country of freedom and hope. I believe I deserve the right to talk to my children and decide when and where to teach my children about sexuality. Parents are being robbed of that. Please look into it more thoroughly and remove books like it's not historic. It's not only going against our religion, but against our rights as parents. And to be clear, we are not misinformed, and our number one priority is to protect our kids at any cost. Thank you. Hello, my name is Timofey Ignatyev. I'm a father of three children. Please understand that I'm here today not because I'm against LGBT or healthy sex education,
399but I'm against teaching children what is inappropriate for children. Some parts of this framework might be good, but others, they go much further. than just creating a safe environment for children with different views. I believe it creates age-inappropriate environment for children, displaying different sex toys, teaching girls at early age how to use carrots and bananas and stick them into their vaginas. By introducing this sex subject too early to our children, we are almost promoting this whole sex subject and approving early sex and abortions and masturbations and mutual masturbations and all kinds of wrong things. Instead of telling our children to stay away from sex until later age, we try to make it safe for them by offering abortions. But we don't tell them that abortions is killing babies. I feel like this framework is a
400mental sexual abuse to our children. Time. Hello, board members. My name is Maria Sanchez, and I'm a mother of two and a student at Fresno State University. And I'm just here to share my experience. Growing up in a traditional conservative family, sex was not something that we talked about. my only source of sexual education was from school, which could be limited and not always accurate. This left me with numerous questions and nowhere to get the answers. My first real sexual education was my first semester in college. Knowing that there could be other individuals in the same situation that I was, it's... In a similar situation, it just proves that having offering inclusive medically accurate sex education to students is very critical. Thank you for your time. We'd like to ask speakers 181 to 195 to
401please enter the boardroom. And for speakers 196 to 211 to please line up. Hi, I'm a student and I hear conversations people have on campus. I understand what people talk about and sex is talked about daily in every conversation I've had with people. What I don't understand is why we need to talk about sex and tell them different ways to have sex when they're this young. It's not okay to go into detail and then tell them not to do it when they're forced to not do it at home. I don't think this is okay and please do not. accept this. That I don't understand. I strongly implore you to consider the long-term effects of between minors, sorry, excuse me, long-term effects on society when adult sexual behavior between minors is referenced in such detail. Sexual
402behavior has adult consequences and kids are not mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to reconcile those encouraged behaviors with the unintended consequences. Are we teaching children to inform or to perform? Ariel and Will Durant, who wrote 11 large volumes of history covering thousands of years, declared, Excuse me, in chaos, both the individual and the group. Hello, everyone. My name is Julia Pislar. My parents are Russian immigrants, and many of my relatives are not fluent in English. Why did the California Department of Education discriminate against my people by only providing the framework input? providing the framework in English during the community input process. This is very wrong. This method is not what our country stands for. I hope the Office of Civil Rights will bring us justice. Thank you. My name is Lilia. I'm a concerned parent.
403I strongly oppose the new sex ed framework. Schools have to teach our children the basics such as reading, writing, math, science, and history. The rest is parents' responsibility. Parents are the ones who decide when to educate and how to educate their children when it comes to sexual education. We will not let this new framework put sinful ideas in our precious children's mind. They are our children, and we are responsible for them, not the schools. Please do not poison the virgin minds of our children. Please do not take away our parental rights. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mary Doering. Sorry, you're tired. Good job, though. You stuck it out. Anyway, while I was being informed about the California health framework, I can't help but see the parallels this framework has with the Zionist-Communist... blatant takeover
404of America with its 45 declared goals, which are almost accomplished. In number 17, get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of the teachers' associations. And put the party line in textbooks. And then I have number 26, present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as normal healthy behavior. Then number 40, discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and ease divorce. Good afternoon. My name is Jessica Peral. I'm here on behalf of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. We are the largest providers of direct services to the LGBT community in the entire world. And a huge portion of that is through our incredible sexual health education program. Our staff sees clients every single day who would have benefited from this framework. We have clients in
405our 40s and 50s who have no idea how HIV is transmitted. Clients who have nonconsensual sex because they don't have the language to assert their bodily autonomy and for many clients far too many they still feel shame about their orientations and their identities so on behalf of them I thank you for your work to ensure that our next generation receives inclusive sex education and as someone who personally spent a large part of my adolescence and early adulthood feeling shame and that I was a deviant and a pervert from my own sexuality I want to thank you personally and urge you to stay strong. Good day fellow members. I'm here for my kids. I have two beautiful daughters aged eight and five and I'm very concerned about my kids education these days. Handbook like it's not
406the historic is mind-corrupting including graphic naked body parts of girls and boys and describes what the sex is and how the babies were born. My kids are too young for this. Information like this is going to hurt my kids since they're too young. Why does the state of California think that it is age appropriate? Parents must have the right to protect their kids. So help us God to do the right decision. Repeal AB 329. Thank you. My name is Ivan Gushko. I'm a father of four, child care provider. I would like to ask you to please do not adopt this framework. One fact that I would like to state that we don't give the children guns or driver license because we know the consequences. We parents know the right time to educate them because all
407children are different and learn at different rates. Who else would know the right time if not parents? Therefore, I tell you, parents should teach their children, not schools. Another statement I would like to bring forward is that this framework does not require parental consent. Why? Why is this not up to the parents to decide? Therefore, I assure you we will protect our kids to the end and won't back till the end. And please take time and read this curriculum yourself. If you have kids, I ask you, I'm begging you, spend a couple hours. Hello, my name is Margaret Glushko, and I'm a student at Bella Vista High School. Today, I see how public school sex ed classes ignore individuals' differences among children and break down the natural modesty of boys and girls. When children are
408taught academics such as math and science, they're given material suitable to their level. Yet, when it comes to sensitive topics like gender, all children in the same grade level are given the same material, regardless if they believe it or not. Sexuality involves more than plumbing the birth control pills. The school sends the wrong message of how to do it and how not to get caught lessons. When public school sex ed says kids need to know more, what do they really mean? How to remove innocence and purity? So I urge you, please reject this framework. Thank you. Hello, I'm Dan Tarasov. I came from a family of eight. I have two beautiful children. And I'm very worried about their school and education. This is really embarrassing what they put in their books and what they're trying
409to teach our kids and my kids. And I would like to tell you, please stop the sexual framework. And our children need to hear from their fathers and mothers the correct things and the right things. and about the gender and sexuality. This is a big curse coming for schools and books, and this is very embarrassing. Please don't stop this. My name is Artem. I'm a seventh grade student. I was born in Moldova. My parents came here. My family came here for freedom so we could practice our religion without persecution. Teaching kids that unlimited genders and unlimited sexual orientation is in fact not inclusive. It excludes kids like me who do not believe this. My parents taught me to love and respect everyone, but that does not mean we must be forced to believe and affirm
410things that go against our culture and religious beliefs. Thank you for listening. Would speakers 196 through 211 please enter the boardroom? Hello, my name is Anatoly Tislenko. I was born in the Soviet Union. I came to the state for more freedom. This framework has sold my cultural value. I have eight kids in public education. Why did the California Department of Education discriminate against over 1 million Slavic in California by only providing the framework in English during the community input process? This is not true democracy. This is communism. I thought I escaped this. Please reject it. Thank you. Hello. My name is Daniel, and my name is Krishko, and I came here to say that you have to reject this. framework because it violates parents rights, it violates the rights of children, it emotionally forces children
411to think negatively and causes cognitive negative abilities on children. We as children should care for our parents and let our parents make our decisions and have Faith in our parents we should follow our parents and our parents should make the decisions not some sexual education or anything related to pornography or Pornographic information because it discourages our minds Read the Bible and understand what God says to you make the right decisions. Thank you my name is Joseph dunka and I'm a god-fearing Christian and I'm actually a 75-year-old white, a black, Asian woman who is 4'7", who here would believe me with a hand raise. No one here would believe me. You would say you're out of your mind. Why are we normalizing people who have mental issues? Someone who's born a woman, a female, is a
412woman. X is woman. XY is man. We have lost our mind as a nation California you have lost your mind and the Bible actually says That the problem with our nation is that there's no fear of God before your eyes. There's no fear of Jehovah God The God who made us is not some grandfather in the sky. He is a consuming fire. He is a holy God who will judge the world in righteousness. And I plead with you to repent of your sins and your evil ways and turn to Jesus Christ while there is time. He died on the cross for your sins. Time. Time. Time. Hello, my name is Elena Epifanov. I'm a mother of three children and I'm against this law. Please do not accept them for the sake of the future and
413the community of our children. Please don't. This is not a freedom. This is discrimination against the traditional families. This is not traditional children and this is discrimination. And please take our talks for normal. education math English and other good things thank you my name is Tatiana I am mother to children I come here I a post health framework do not adapt thank you hello dear panel I am Igor a father of two boys and You heard a lot of things and one thing that was good for this framework, they were saying that LGBT community weren't informed about the sex and the precautions they have to take. This framework, it will not... If it is passed, it will not prevent spreading of sexual diseases, but it will sexualize our kids in early age, which will increase
414in child stress, and it will lower student performance. And suicide rate will go up. We can see it and observe it in our university communities, within the LGBT communities. You know it. You know those digits. And yes, not exception. It's not the full blame for the suicidal rate. Time. Gender confusion. Time. Hello, my name is Olisa. I'm the mom of three children. And I highly, highly oppose this bill. Thank you so much. I'm going to close pub. Oh, there's one more. I was just told we were done. Okay. Didn't that mean to cut you off? Sorry. No, they didn't get to my number. Sorry. Awesome. Be successful here. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. I come to you today as a concerned grandparent. I don't think saying that Sally Ride was a lesbian offends me.
415What I do think offends me is on page 246 where you tell students, I want to read it. It says, generally, sex toys aren't available for purchase by minors and are sold in sex toy shops through catalogs or on the internet. Some people also make their own sex toys out of household objects for sex toys. Use electric toothbrushes, plastic bottles, socks, pillows, and all sorts of other objects. That offends me. I have a five-year-old or six-year-old grandson and a four-year-old granddaughter. They don't need to know that in the second grade. On the other side of the page, It tells them some people enjoy any number of body fluids, sexually ejaculate, vaginal fluid, menses, urine, and blood. They may simply enjoy tasting, feeling, and smelling these during sexual activities. And my eyes are going. They may
416engage in activities specific to enjoying these fluids, such as going to the shower. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. All right, I think we are done with public comment. I'm going to close public comment, and we'll take about a 10 or so minute break. And I closed the hearing. All right, and we'll come back at quarter of. Thank you. Okay, we're going to reconvene. I'm going to ask our liaison to the committee, Feliza Ortiz-Laconte, to kick us off. And then I'm going to also, in a moment, ask Stephanie Grayson to answer a few questions, and then we'll begin the discussion. Sure. Thank you. I want to thank all the parents and community members who came from near and far to express their support and even opposition. I think it's important for us to have diversity of
417thought when having these discussions. There was a couple of things that were raised, and I want to briefly address them. I know that we'll be asking Stephanie to give us further clarification. The translation of the framework was one thing that came up, and I know that it's something that came up during the IQC. The CDE is not, unfortunately, required at this time to translate these frameworks, which can be upwards of 700 pages. This is something that would require legislative action. So I just want to clarify that that is why. the frameworks are not translated. The frameworks are geared towards educators in the classroom and they speak English. And so the frameworks are in the language that the educators would be able to implement. Now, if somebody submitted a comment in Spanish or another language, then
418that question was answered in the language that it was submitted. So we were responsive in that way. I also heard a little bit, a lot of confusion or confounding the framework and the materials and the resources. As mentioned, if maybe some folks missed it, we did have a long public comment period. The motion that stands is asking to remove certain books, and many of those books were referenced during the public comment. You heard... pieces or abstracts of books that's not from the framework. What was being cited was actually from the resources. So as somebody who read the 700 pages, I could tell you that there was a lot of back from the framework to the resources that was happening. And so we will have that. We want to clarify that some of the citations actually
419came from the resources that are on the motion to be removed from the framework. They were not direct citations necessarily from the framework. And also there was a lot of asking to repeal the law. We are a board. We're not the legislature. And so that is not something that we can do. Not that some of us would be inclined to, but that is not something that we can do. I think that there is also a lot of questions and fair questions about where. the authority for this because I go to my local board and they send me to you and and now I'm here and you're saying that this is a local board I do think that we need to clarify it's fair for us to clarify that to parents because they do deserve to
420know where to go and and have their voice heard thank you I'll just add a couple of additional thoughts before we ask Stephanie to add some clarification Some of the comments we heard suggested that the that they had experienced something already in their districts that was Presumably from this framework that would not be the case because the framework is not yet out in use So what they might have experienced was sex education that might have been associated with the implementation of the California Healthy Youth Act That was not this framework And I think this framework might actually help with some of the concerns and problems they may have experienced from local districts where they were told, no, we have to do this by law. The framework itself is not mandatory. The standards are also optional.
421The framework is not a curriculum. It's guidance, as Felisa said, for districts and teachers as they develop a curriculum that suits their local community. There's nothing in there that has to be taught. And 90% of the framework is... nutrition, physical activity, injury prevention, drug abuse prevention, emotional health, and so on. I went back into the document and reread sections as I was hearing things noted on certain page numbers that just weren't there. So, I wanted to be sure I hadn't missed anything. It's a big document. I was reading quickly. But, in fact, many of those things were from the resources, some of which we've already identified to be deleted from the motion. In all of the K-3 parts of the framework, there may be one sentence that deals with gender identity. 99.9% of that. content
422is all about wear your bike helmet eat the right foods and don't run across the street without looking both ways and all of the other health and safety things that we'd like to have kids learning and doing I would like to give Stephanie an opportunity just to respond to some of the questions they came up about you know what so that we have a base of understanding about what's accurate in our consideration of the framework. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'll start with the California Healthy Youth Act because that seemed to be quite a bit of topic for public comment, especially around the instructional materials. So this is a law that's about what the school districts need to implement, that the school districts need to provide comprehensive sexual health education in middle school and once
423in high school. So if they choose to do so at a younger grade, then they need to make sure it's age appropriate and they need to follow all of the guidelines outlined in the California Healthy Youth Act. That means that they need to make available all of the instructional materials that they would be using and provide 14-day parental notice for the parents to review those materials and parents can opt out of that instruction. So if you're in middle school and high school the same thing they need to have provide 14 days worth of notice for the instructional materials that this is going to be taught Parents can opt out by writing a letter saying I do not want my child participating in the comprehensive sexual health education Course then their students would not have to
424attend those classes. This is once in high school once in middle school Along with the comprehensive sexual education. It's also HIV prevention now the districts choose the curriculum that they will be using. The state does not choose that curriculum for them. The districts choose because the districts understand what their students' needs are, what their demographic needs are, and they are the ones that are in the place to make that decision for themselves, the best decision for themselves. So the districts are encouraged to go through a review process and adoption process on their own to choose that type of curriculum and include the parents within that process. So that is about the California Healthy Youth Act and the comprehensive sexual health education some of the pieces that were referenced as President Darling-Hammond noted some of the
425page numbers were actually from the resources not from the actual framework Especially are one of our the grandfather at the last comment that was reading that is actually from a resource that we are recommending being taken out That is not in the framework nor is it in second grade as he noted. So there is some misinformation around there, some misunderstandings around what is actually within the framework and what are in resources. And our resources within the curriculum framework are just that, they're resources. They're not instructional materials. They're not a curriculum to adopt. They are a tool, a resource, because our teachers need those tools and resources. They are the ones that are going to be asked these types of questions. They are the ones that are going to be presenting all of the different topics
426around in our health education framework, around injury prevention, around identifying safe... safe decisions that our students need to make about themselves and others. They are the ones that need the tools and resources. So that is what this framework provides, our tools and resources. It's not curriculum and it's not instructional materials. That is the decision of a local school district. So something that we're doing to support our local school districts, as I mentioned earlier, is providing professional learning modules and resources, including a communication toolkit for our administrators around the draft. draft healthy educate health education framework and that includes around California Healthy Youth Act and so that is the proposition 98 money that has been dedicated for that and that's Orange County Department of Education that's leading that effort and they've been meeting several times they
427have separate pieces for administrators and separate pieces for teachers that are completely aligned and cohesive and so this is a community of health educators coming together across the state providing this information to all of our local school districts. So this will be coming because we understand that this is difficult for our local school districts and we want to make sure that they have the right information and the tools to be able to provide accurate information to their parents and their teachers. The other piece that was mentioned that I want to clarify is the gender identity and in kindergarten We, you know, our foundation starts in our early years, zero to five, and then in TK and kindergarten. And so I'd like to read one of the sentences in the framework around gender identity in kindergarten.
428It says, dispelling myths about gender expectations in kindergarten can lay the groundwork for acceptance, inclusiveness, and an anti-bullying environment in schools. Gender nonconformity and physical characteristics are often at the root of many forms of bullying. Students learn to accept differences and unique characteristics of others. They also learn about the characteristics of bullying and how to avoid being a bully. This is very important because it matches the standard for kindergarten that says name ways in which people are similar and ways in which they are different. So it's laying that groundwork for that safe, inclusive environment in our classrooms and providing guidance to our teachers on how to do that. The other piece that I'd like to clarify is for fifth grade. We had the term masturbation coming up in the public comment, and so I want
429to clarify that for our public and for the board members. So in fifth grade is where our sexual health standards begin. It does not begin before fifth grade. So we do not have any sexual health standards in K, 1, 2, 3, or 4. So in fifth grade, we do have, let me make sure I'm on the right page. growth, development, sexual health, and specifically we have 1.3, identify the physical, social, and emotional changes that occur during puberty. So in our guidance to teachers, if they are discussing social changes, physical changes around puberty, and a question arises around masturbation, there is guidance for if that topic arises. This is not something, this is not a topic that we want teachers to necessarily introduce. It's not in the standards. But if it does arise we want to
430make sure that our teachers are armed with the knowledge to be able to approach that topic in a way that is inclusive and understanding for all of our students. And I think that is about all of the kind of the themes that I got from the different public comment. I do want to say that All of the content of the framework is aligning with our state board guidelines that were adopted way back in 2016. And one of those guidelines talks about describing the components of an effective health education program, including the support of district and site administrators and the involvement of parents and the community. That is why we have partner with the family, partner with the community, and partner with the school throughout each of our grade level chapters. So we are helping. our
431teachers and administrators understand how they can best partner with people. And so it's the STORC that was brought up a lot is a part of a resource that's in the partner with the family. So it's not a resource that we're saying use in the classroom. It is a resource we're saying that you can use with your family outside of school around this topic. A need or a question? Yes, exactly. Because teachers, they encounter all types of questions. I'm a former fifth grade teacher. I had to teach sex education. I had a parent community that was very nervous about that. And so they had a lot of questions. And if I had these resources, I could have pointed them to that. Instead of me being their sex education teacher, I could have said, here's a resource
432to use with your kids. Read them out loud together. Okay, I think we want to open up discussion among the members of the board I think Let me just leave it at that and allow people to start Emma First and foremost. I want to thank all the students who came out who came out today, you know, it's a school day So I really appreciate students who came out to really speak about their truth and what they believe in and expressing who they are And so, you know, I want to remind those and also tell people who weren't here in November of 2018, a group of students, the student advisory board on education actually presented on, you know, sexual education, how to make it more LGBTQ plus inclusive. How do we teach students about safe sex
433and consent? And so I'm really happy about this framework because a lot of students want this. And so I'm. When I'm like hearing everything, something I referred to a lot was the Student Advisory Board of Education. And so I just want to tell you all that even though there could have been more students, there are students who are in support of it. And, you know, there are students who have contacted me before this talking about that they've always wanted the framework and sexual education to be more inclusive for LGBTQ youth. You know, and I'm really supportive of this. And I'm really excited to see this because I feel like all students should have. have access in those resources accessible in a way and that teachers are able to pull these different resources because it can
434be helpful because unfortunately not all teachers know this information and it's a learning experience for everybody. Eileen? I had several areas of comment. First, I just so appreciate, Stephanie, you and the leadership that you've provided over the several years process to this. And I just want to remind people that it had a very long process with two public... comment periods and 3,400 comments of which if you haven't sat through the Instructional Quality Commission, every comment goes through line by line and the Instructional Quality Commission decides which ones they're going to accept and incorporate, which I think was over 300, and which ones with the rationale on if they didn't think they needed it or not. Secondly, the standards came from 2008, and in the 10 or 11 years since then, we've had a lot of
435legal legislative processes that required things needed to be included in addition to what standards we already had. So I think the committee worked really hard to incorporate legal requirements from the Healthy Youth Act, but there were other ones, I am assuming. And I don't know if that's something you want to kind of summarize. I have a couple other comments, but I think it's important to know that. we had to put some things in by legislators. There was a whole hearing process that went through the legislator. They then get sent to us to incorporate. So could you do that first, and then I'll go back to a couple of them. So I'll just kind of list off the themes within the education code that we're required to include. Inclusion and equity, organ procurement and tissue donation,
436nutrition education, sexual harassment and violence, lifelong health, aging and financial literacy, of course the California Healthy Youth Act. Sexual harassment and violence was also to be considered. And then sexual abuse and sex trafficking prevention education, sexual abuse and sexual assault awareness and prevention education, and healthy relationships and mental health instruction. Thank you. So my understanding is this is an update in that 94 was the last health framework. Is that right? I believe so. So that's a long time. And things have changed and there are new requirements. Just as we know, we took almost 20 years to update our science framework. We know a lot more about science. We provide this as a resource to local districts. So my next question is, I understand working out in local districts that local county offices and also, I
437believe, CDE are providing guidance to educators now in the field, talking points, resources. So I'm interested in you sharing. what you're aware of or what the funding provides. So what resources can school districts expect to have as they do the work going forward? Again, I'm not, I just think it's important to clarify that people are out there, they're getting some talking points. So are you aware or are you in the process of providing that? So we are, and we actually have Doreen here from the Orange County Department of Education that can speak to that. I think that'd be helpful. I'll let her tell you about all of the work that the Health Collaboration Committee is doing with that money. I would have worn a nicer jacket, not just a cardigan, if I knew I was
438going to be coming up here. But we are really, really excited for the rollout implementation project of this framework. We already have a Health Collaboration Committee. It's a statewide committee that has representation from many agencies, statewide agencies, but also our County Office of Education. the 2018 National Health Education Teacher of the Year. So we have master health education teachers that are part of that. Higher ed, of course, all our CDE content experts. Let's see, we have representation from the State Board of Education, and we also have PTAs on there. So it's a really, really diverse, great group of folks who are guiding the process. And we are working on three distinct pieces. One is definitely support for administrators. So we're looking at online professional learning modules. So we want to make them easy to access
439and to meet the needs, the diverse needs of our administrators based on where they're at with supporting health education. They're going to be available online and they could also be available for in-person professional learning and professional development. In addition to that, we are going to, of course, have some professional learning programs for educators. And our goal is to do that at different regional levels so we can build the capacity of our counties. So we're going to bring county offices of education together. at regional communities of practice, build their capacity so we have ongoing support even past this project. So it's not just about a project that just ends and everything goes away. We really want our counties to feel empowered that they can continue supporting health education. We're going to build their capacity, give them
440everything that they need, resources that we're building together as the statewide committee. County offices of education come back and they provide local trainings for their districts and their schools so that they could help support again building also a networking community. Can districts talk to each other? Oh, how did you do your parent review nights? Oh, that's a great idea. We could adopt that. What do you do for your professional learning? Can counties, maybe smaller counties, come together and co-train their districts and teachers? and provide that ongoing support. Then the last piece is we're going to build a website that we're going to house everything on, house all of the resources, the online professional learning modules for the administrators, as well all of the training materials and the resources that we're providing for teachers. And really,
441the goal here is we're building in an evaluation process. Our goal is to glean information from the field. We want to get information from our county offices. We want to get information from our districts. And most importantly, for our... from our teachers so that we could continue to improve this process, continue to meet the needs because ultimately our main focus is student outcomes and we really want to make sure that we're impacting our students in the best way we can around their health knowing that that's going to make them college, career and life ready. And that's the quick summary. Thank you. Thank you. So my last comment to both of you is I think it's really important that the public know that this is a resource that we provide for each of, that we do
442for our content areas as a part of the statewide process. But it's a resource and that now it translates. to action at the local level, which I believe the county offices provide support to local districts, but I think it's important to clarify what processes local districts must and will go through to actually translate this to professional development, to training, to guidance, to materials, to course guidelines, opt out. What happens now? Because this is a resource that we have spent a long time through a process, which I'm sure we're going to continue to talk about. But what happens now is the process going forward to districts for the parents who have children, who came and spoke and want to know what's going to happen to their children in the classroom. Could you translate that, Stephanie? And
443is that possible to think about just sort of what happens next? So with the work of Doreen and Orange County Department and all of the health educators within this collaboration committee, as she said, we're building the capacity of the county offices to provide that local support for our school districts. So in helping and being a resource for them for any questions that they have around the California Healthy Youth Act, around instructional materials, around the content of the framework to provide the professional learning that they need. But it's really up to the local school districts in how they implement. all of this. And so it is, they do have to provide the comprehensive sex education in seventh or in middle school and in high school. That's not a choice, but how they do it is their
444decision. And so our job is just to provide them the resources and the support and able to do that in a high quality way. Can I just add a quick piece really? Currently, the county offices are doing that with our districts. And I could speak, of course, for what we do in Orange County Department of Ed. But of course, also across the state, I have colleagues that we talk all the time. And we are providing those services. We'll come out to districts and consult and really support that process, make sure that they have a really good understanding. Here are some tools for how to communicate parent opt-out. Transparency with parents is so important. Parents feel so much better when they have. when they've had an opportunity to dialogue with administrators and even teachers. Teachers have
445been doing a great job of explaining, no, no, that's not what we're teaching. We're actually teaching this. You have the right to come and view all of the curricula that we're sharing with your students. So we're definitely doing that. And I want you to know that our intention is to also build that into the rollout implementation project, ensure that we are providing that support. There is so much happening also around family health education. A lot of our districts and schools provide a ton of services on family-based health education. They do parent nights all the time for, you know, around, especially around like nutrition and how to be an active family, how to protect your kids, what you need to know as a parent around human trafficking. That stuff is happening. So we're really hoping that
446definitely guidance for educators, but because the framework also has that great family and community partnership piece. We really want to highlight that and engage families as partners in supporting the health of their children. So we'll definitely be intentional about that. Thank you. I was so engaged in the conversation, I wasn't paying attention that my turn was coming up. I'm sorry. Well, first of all, I want to thank Stephanie as well as the representative from Orange County for coming and talking to us about this work and about what is going on to support the rollout of the framework and to support districts in doing this very important work and engaging in these conversations. I heard a lot of parents asking us to read the framework. did and I read the framework probably with a different lens
447than a lot you guys are accustomed to me do having all these different lenses so thank you very much but I read it probably with a very different lens because I've seen the development and the implementation of a lot of other frameworks as I read the framework of the health framework draft I couldn't help but think about the English language arts framework because it changes the conversation that we can have with students about books like The Scarlet Letter or Huckleberry Finn, The Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe, The Lord of the Flies, and even Romeo and Juliet. As I read the health framework, I went back and looked at the history social science framework. The history social science framework was particularly important and personal to me because when I grew up, I had a history book
448that said the Ku Klux Klan just rode around at night on horses scaring black people. And so when you, there's this there's a soft racism to willful misinformation that leads people to believe things like we don't have lynchings anymore in the South. And the fact of the matter is last month, the state of Texas just executed the second brother who was involved in the lynching of James Byrd Jr. So we have to understand the purpose of the framework is not to narrow the conversation, but to give guidance on the best practices. for having very hard conversations. And that was the intention of this health framework. And the conversations that this health framework gives guidance to changes the frame that we can have conversations in a lot of other subject areas. And I think it's very
449important to remember that. Stephanie, you did a really nice job with this today in a very complicated... Hard to understand topic. I'm sure for many that are coming into it. I'm coming in late to the dance so to speak on this framework and I read the the framework as well from a parent's lens and I think which most of us probably tried to do and I think that there are there are portions of that framework that are very difficult But in 80 to 90 percent like one of our speakers said it's pretty it's pretty reasonable. I think the issues are with the resources And I'm curious as to if you could talk a little bit about should a district, so one, they can opt out. The district can opt out of the framework. They don't
450have to implement any of the health framework, correct? So I would say that is correct. When we use the term opt out, we're saying opting out of comprehensive sex education. The framework is just guidance. So there's nothing to opt out on. It's whether or not you read it. Correct. And you use it. Correct. Totally optional to implement any portions of the framework. Correct. If I'm a district and I choose to implement some portions of the framework, I can do that. Yes, if you choose your K-3 teachers. Sure. They are doing a study session and doing professional learning around health education and the standards. This could be the professional learning tool that they use. And so I'm a district, I adopt, I institute the reality that we're going to adopt the K-12 health framework. and I
451utilize resources that some of my community are having a difficult time with. What are the opt-out provisions for parents with regards to that? So the resources are not instructional materials. They are tools. So it is up to the local school district and how to utilize that, those tools, and how to communicate those tools. I would highly recommend that they communicate very clearly around what they're using, why they're using it, and make them available to the parents to preview. Would there be any guidance for a district who chooses not to use those resources in terms of how they choose their resources? Yes. So we do have a chapter within the framework that is around instructional materials and what criteria they should be looking at when reviewing other different types of curriculum or instructional materials. And would
452it be relevant for the board to consider the STORC as part of the resources that we... remove? I would say no. I would say because it is a resource for, it's in the partnering with the family piece. It is about if you have a parent, a parent community that needs a resource to engage in conversations with their students, here's one that you can do that with that's perfectly age appropriate and medically accurate. Thank you. I agree with that characterization that 90% of it I think is just very uncontroversial and actually brings to a fore and puts in one place for districts to easily access things that I think have been wanting to happen. Things around hydration, sunscreen, sort of breaking down decision making in ways that I think are sort of digestible. Are really I
453think incredibly well done and for the most part I think are really uncontroversial certainly based on the comments we've heard today Actually, I want to thank both you Stephanie as well as all the folks who came out for public comment regardless of whether We all end up in agreement and I suspect we will not it what it is also very clear is that there are a lot of parents who are looking to do the best that they can for their kids and We, I think all school systems need parents to be advocates for their children in all forms. And so we will end up in different spaces, but I think making sure that that is sort of the guiding principle that unites us, I think is really important to lift up. I think there's also
454a lot of sort of new planks that I just want to lift up and offer some celebration of that haven't traditionally been a part of the health framework that haven't gotten as much airtime that I think are pretty fantastic. The idea of there being a curriculum around consent and refusal is certainly not anything that was part of my California public education, but I think is a really timely and smart thing for California to do around boundary setting. around inclusion of all families so that children feel whatever family structure they come from that all of their parents are welcome at family night be they grandparents parents extended family foster family whatever that might be I think the the list of books here certainly I think goes through a process of addressing, I would say, most of
455the concerns that we've heard raised during public comment. So I have... Maybe I have a couple of sets of comments. One is, as a new board member, I would just love to hear more about what the process for the recommendation of resources looks like to know, and I don't know if this was covered in a previous board meeting, but how some of these resources came to be recommended resources and whether we should expect to see these appear or not reappear for instructional material hearings in the future. And then I have a, so I'll just bracket that and I'll just say I have a couple of small but I think surgical sort of amendments that I would like to propose. Should I pause and let you process first? Yes. So let me, first by saying thank
456you for bringing up the sunscreen piece. We had a... public comments submitted by a high school student around skin cancer and wanting to include a lot more guidance around applying sunscreen. And so that's why you see all of those pieces within the framework is because we had a high school student that did our research and submitted it through public comment and the IQC recommended those edits. As far as the resources were concerned, these resources were compiled in several different ways. One, through the public comment process during the CFCC meetings, we had, I'll give you a example the sexual health roundtable the curriculum framework and evaluation criteria committee Thank You board member Rucker we had the sexual health roundtable provided public comment as expansive public comment and had listing of resources that they would like to
457have seen included so that's where some of the resources came from some of the resources came from the CFCC members themselves As far as educators and health education specialists, they knew that these were resources that were going to work and were medically accurate, and so they wanted them included. So that's where the resources come from. They come from either the CFCC members or through public comment. And then they're vetted. So depending on where they've come from, they are vetted through the CFCC members. They go through a vetting process to determine if they should be included or not. And then the IQC also goes through that process as well. Recommended resources come back for instructional? No, they will not. The instructional materials adoption process is different. So it is about a comprehensive curriculum that covers 180
458days of instruction. So it's a complete curriculum. So we're talking textbooks, worksheets, you know, those type of things. These are books. These are songs. These are poems. These are videos. Those are resources, not instructional materials. That's very helpful. Okay, so on the surgical side, chapter four, which is the third grade curriculum, you had made reference to it, and several speakers had as well. So chapter four, page 62, one of the public... Yes. Oh, okay. So chapter four in my printed version is grades four through six. And I have it on my version as page 62. And this is one of the, there were several written comments submitted on this as well as a couple of speakers who addressed. raising issues in fourth grade or fifth grade around masturbation. You addressed it in your comments at
459the top. The language that I have in front of me printed is when the topic of masturbation is introduced or arises. And I think the comment that we heard was why would it be introduced? And I think your clarifying comment at the beginning was if it arises to address it as opposed to is it the... independent responsibility of the teacher to raise it and introduce the topic if it's not raised by students? It's not the independent responsibility of the teacher to raise it, but if it comes through discussion, through a video that the district has adopted around sex education, then we want to make sure that the teachers have the knowledge and understanding of how to approach that topic in a meaningful way for our students and in an age-appropriate way. Mean to your earlier
460comment that sounds like if it arises if it is raised from someone else as opposed to putting the onus on the teacher to have Today's unit will begin with this which doesn't strike me as terribly age-appropriate for fourth graders if it comes up I get the idea as to why it would Make more sense. I also thought the explanation that you provided for it's not a stork It's not the stork as being a family resource was incredibly helpful as a standalone book sort of for a child to explore on their own I could see that being problematic for younger children particularly but with the Proviso that it would actually go to a family and for parental discussion. That's a very helpful caveat The last comment that I wanted to raise for the board's discussion, this
461is Chapter 5, which is... Grade 7 through 8, so I think that's 11 to 13-year-olds. There's a recommended activity in groups to talk about how to, about oral sex and sexting, which again was page 30 in my version of Chapter 5. And I apologize, I was flipping through. Making little so are you looking at the classroom example of sexual health and healthy relationship scenarios? Right and I part of I think what we heard from public comment as well as some theme that recurs throughout this Document is that in California? We know that it's less than 5% of kids who are sexually active until they're 13 And so introducing concepts around oral sex and sexting before they're 13 in some ways I think sort of puts a conversation in play before we have kids who are
462in play. And I think prompting that discussion among 11 and 12-year-olds in seventh grade strikes me as premature. So I would direct you to on page 29 of that chapter. You'll see the standards that this is aligned to. And one of the standards is talking about explain the immediate physical, social, and emotional risks and consequences associated with sexual activity. It's a decision-making standard. So this activity is aligned directly with the standards that are covered in middle school. I think there are lots of ways to implement those standards. Yeah. So I think in the spirit of surgery, which is where you started if you wanted to you know Make any specific proposals. Those are things we can consider So my my two surgical proposals or motion would be on page 62 of chapter 4 to remove
463the introducing language around the masturbation paragraph and to on page 30 Sorry 33 30 excuse me. Oh the page 30 of page 30 of chapter 5 for grades 7 and 8 And the line numbers on the side are 8 11 around questions around Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate them. I think this is a necessary conversation. I know it may feel premature, but I feel that since students start having sex like 13 years old, you know, if they have those conversations earlier, they are ready when they are 13 to understand if I do choose to do it, okay, this is how I could protect myself in a way. And I feel like... it's an important conversation that a lot of students need to have just to know and understand because you never know
464what's going to happen and you know it's just you know i got sex ed when i was 10 years old and i feel like i learned a lot of valuable lessons they probably were not in play at 10 years old but i carried them when i i'm in high school when i'm in college i'm gonna keep carrying those you know i learned about things when i was 10 that my peers did not have access to until they were freshmen or in probably until they were college. So I feel that when they learn this information early, they'll be able to carry it on in the future. Or like, let's say they forget it and they relearn it in the future. They could be like, oh yeah, I learned this in the past. I know how to
465do it, you know? And so I just feel like this is important conversation to have at this age. You know, it's just, yeah. And I would like to remind that the Comprehensive Sexual Health, the Healthy Youth Act requires comprehensive sexual health education to be taught in middle school. And this is middle school. I'm going to add a comment and then go to Felisa. I think that having comprehensive sex education in middle school makes a lot of sense, and I respect what Hema said. I think the question is whether for students who have never experienced any of this, introducing the notions of oral sex, of sexting, of other specific sexual acts that are not in the context here of... general discussion of what sex is and and sex education is the is the question is at
466what point should the school be introducing students to particular sexual acts that and at what point should they be giving more of a fundamental exposition of nature of what sexual activity is. So I think that's the question. That's a question I appreciate too as a parent of three kids that we're on a careful trajectory here not to be introducing things as though they are endorsed in some way. Can I just, because you talked about sexting, in the California Healthy Youth Act, there is language around providing education regarding the potential risks and consequences of creating and sharing sexually suggestive or sexually explicit materials through cellular telephones, social networking, internet websites, computer networks, or other digital media. So that is part of the Healthy Youth Act, otherwise known as sexting. Yeah, I just want to say that.
467You know, I happen to have a lot of educators in the family and in my circle of friends. And even though I want to preserve the innocence of our children and I want to believe that this is not happening, it's happening. It's I mean, we may want to, you know. protect and I heard a lot of parents say we want to protect our innocence none of us here would want to sexualize you our kids before it's the time happens but a lot of this is happening and I think it's important for our students we're in a whole different age now social media uh sexting happens and it's happening as as young as fifth grade it's happening in elementary and guess what happens when a little when somebody uh sends an inappropriate picture now it's sexual
468harassment and maybe this person thought that they were just being playful, but there is consequences when you also send a picture that's unwanted to somebody else. And as a parent, I would be sure to walk to that school and make sure there's consequences. But it's important for us to educate on both ends. One, you don't send it and why it's inappropriate to send, but also realizing that this is happening in our schools. I appreciate the comments that I have heard made on this. This is why this is such a sensitive topic, because the question is not what it is we should be teaching about. I think there's an agreement that we have to implement the statute. I think that there's an agreement that there's an urgency to some of this content, because there's a lot
469of dangerous activities that are happening around. Our children and around all of us as a matter of fact I think the point that's being made and what parents who came here today to object to the framework They're not objecting to the fact that we are implementing a mandate they're objecting to in the ways that the content is being presented that we in some ways seem to be endorsing some kind of conversation that they are not happy with or that they are uncomfortable with. So I clearly heard that and I understood that. I think that what board member Patio Brownson is trying to suggest with her surgical edits is to identify ways to write out these scenarios in a way that frames what the issues are without actually endorsing a practice or a specific subject matter.
470Here's the concern with that. My mom was a classroom teacher for 45 years, and if you wanted to look up the word conservative in the dictionary, her picture should be next to that. Having said that, however, she would endorse every single thing that's in the content of this, primarily because she knows. particularly for girls, they are at danger when they don't know or don't understand these concerns and these issues. And as she retired as a classroom teacher in sixth grade, the same year that I started teaching the sixth grade, and there was this word that I heard growing up. The first question I was asked when we did our sex education unit is, Ms. Rucker, what does it mean to be fast? See, everybody who started smiling, you heard that expression. And so I said,
471well, fast is being sophisticated. Well, what does that mean? What we're trying to do is give, what we're trying to do with these scenarios and what we're trying to do with developing this curriculum is to help our students understand. all the information they're already being bombarded with. And there are people who will say we have an obligation to do this. The legislature has already identified the things we have an obligation to do. We can't really implement the FAIR Act. in the history social science framework without trying to address some of the concerns that people find objectionable in this framework. So we do have to do this and trying to be surgical, it's like are you going to take the bandage off slowly or are you going to rip it off? That's the sensitivity that parents
472are trying to express in their objections. They are not saying that we're all fascists or that we're doing... horrible things. Yes, there were a few people who said that, but that's not what their great sensitivity was. They feel like the framework is endorsing a behavior or endorsing a content that they don't feel that they're ready to see. If we're going to take the danger of what we're about to do now and sitting here today to try to edit this content and do this surgery is that we'll start going through every single chapter and every single page. I want to remind you of what the actual recommendation says. We're going to adopt this framework. We're going to include the changes that were made by the IQC. We're going to remove some very controversial content, and we're
473doing those things with the intent of creating some guidance about how to move forward with the conversation. It's not an endorsement of bad behavior, but it will accomplish the one thing that I think my very conservative mother, who taught school for 45 years and went to private Christian college in Texas and in Mississippi to get her teacher preparation credit. so that every girl would understand what it means to be fast and that they would understand what it means to cope with that and do things in ways that all of the parents who were here concerned about, they would learn as an outcome the behaviors that these parents already want to know that their children will have, retain their sweetness, their kindness, their innocence. I think that's what we're trying to do with the work in
474the framework. Thank you, Madam President. And I would also echo my appreciation to Stephanie and staff and the consultants and to the board liaison who helped frame this and really the thoughtful approach that the board members really took to hearing from the speakers today. I think one of the things that it reflects is that no matter how many periods for public comment you have, these are complex issues. It is hard to communicate across the state. And by way of example, I would just say many of the speakers I heard reference at least two of the resources that were being recommended to not be included. They mentioned in their comments because it is hard to get some of the information across. I also appreciate the folks who spoke in public comment, whether you were in support
475or in opposition to the frameworks. I think the board heard you. I think we, the staff, hear you. And one thing that I heard, I think there's an opportunity for us to even do a better job of educating school districts. Because what we heard today from many of the speakers is that their school districts said some things that are not completely accurate, like go to the state and tell them they're making us do this, we have to do this. And the clarification that was made is that as it relates to what is required, the only thing required is the California Healthy Youth Act. and then even there there are opt-out provisions. And so I think that there are opportunities for clarification with our school district partners about what this means. But I think it would
476be very helpful if you would, Stephanie, Take it one step further of a train of conversation that Vice President Strauss started. She asked you to break it down, and I thought it was really, really helpful to break it down. What's going to happen next? Because not all of us use the language of frameworks and standards and guidance and guiding. Some of us sometimes think that once something gets passed, it immediately becomes a lesson plan that gets taught for a student. I thought that. And I think it's helpful to explain what this really means for teachers in a classroom. Because if it's going to get taught, if a resource is going to get used, it seems to me that requires a lot of training. These are not easy topics to talk about for anyone. But could
477you say, just take it just a step further, what will happen? Help to dispel the myth that... Should this framework be approved today that it goes immediately to a curriculum and a lesson plan that is being taught? If you could just give us a scenario of what will happen in say the average classroom or an everyday classroom scenario. To be honest, there's a lot of teachers that probably have no idea that the health education framework is being talked about right now. I believe that. So once the state board takes action and we have the draft that's posted now, that stays that draft posted until we do our final publication. And then the final publication comes out. But in the meantime, there is all the professional learning that districts can engage in. So this is their
478choice. They get to choose to reach out to their county office and say, I need professional learning on this. So the California Healthy Youth Act has been in effect since 2016. That's three years. So already comprehensive sexual health education has been being taught once in middle school and once in high school for the past three years. Some of the teachers are now understanding what kind of guidance that they need, and that is what you see in the framework. So you will see health educators at high school and I can ask Commissioner Wu who is to come on up She is a high school health educator She can talk about the professional learning that it's in her district and what her teachers may be doing now She probably has a little bit different perspective because she's
479been involved in the development of the framework for three years So she may be a little partial to it and I'm sure Her colleagues at her high school are also involved in it. But this is to give you one perspective. And to do that, just so we amplify it, no one, after all those steps take place, is going to go into the classrooms of any school and say, you have to use these resources that were in the framework. You have to use this framework. And here's your lesson plan and the topics that you have to cover. Correct. Thank you. The truth is across our state that most of our students are not getting health education, and that's K-12. What we're hoping is that with the release of this, more of our students will, and that
480teachers will understand how to do it and how to put it into their existing curriculum. The California Healthy Youth Act has been officially law for three years, and schools, districts are slowly rolling it out. My district has a health course at high school level that is a graduation requirement. It's only a semester long, so we only get to teach about half the standards, but we absolutely cover the California Healthy Youth Act. And at the high school level, we're doing a pretty good job. I can tell you in my district, the junior high levels hit and miss. It's we know it's out there. We have we've tried to train the teachers in doing it We've we've got a curriculum that was adopted by our board and I have been part of the training for those seventh
481and eighth grade teachers to get that information out there But it's hard for them because it's they're not health teachers there Science teachers and PE teachers that are trying to teach that that curriculum and and this is a tough curriculum to put on a PE teacher So it's it's really tough and so there was a lot of question as the CFCC was going through this that they wanted it to be more balanced like 1 6th of it for each of the six subject areas sort of thing and We kind of had to talk them out of that it is it's how it's a little heavy towards the sex ed stuff because that's the California Healthy Youth Act. And that's where our schools need the guidance the most because one way or another, that's getting taught.
482The rest of it, if it's going to get taught, and we really, really hope it does, but it's most likely going to be taught by teachers who are trained and have a credential in health, and therefore they don't need quite as much guidance. And we came very close to being curriculum in a few sections of this framework because we understand that these teachers are out there and they need something. And so we gave them as much information as we could to allow them to get this. And teachers know about frameworks. Teachers talk standards and frameworks all day, every day. It's what they do. And so they've had the standards since... 2008, giving them a framework to actually help them fulfill these standards. Hopefully that will allow those standards to start to spread down into those
483younger grades and those kids will start getting the information that they need to protect themselves. And so that sex ed isn't quite as much of a shock when they do get it in eighth grade, because if they're getting the little bit about relationships and stuff like that, that happens at kindergarten and third grade and fifth grade, then when we're talking about it later. it will be easier for them. They know the standards are there. The teachers are aware of them. They're overwhelmed, especially those K-6 teachers. They're overwhelmed by the number of standards they already have. And throwing another set at them, it's not going to happen unless we can give them guidance and curriculum for how do you do this along with kindergarten. It says things grow. The kids become adults. That's one of the
484health standards. It's also a science standard. And so we put that link in. This is how you tell things are alive. And so they can put that together with what they're teaching. And the framework allows them to do that. Thank you. So put another way, would you say that this is not a you must do manual, but rather a training manual or how to if you are called upon to lead these conversations? Right. Especially for the people who are being told, oh, guess what? You get to teach sex ed at the junior high and the high school level. Thank you. So thank you very much. I want to note that as we get close to 5 o'clock, Stephanie's 17-year-old son is having a birthday this evening, and we actually want her to be there for
485the birthday party. So we're going to begin to move along towards making a motion. And just to sort of add another point to what our state superintendent was noting, it is intended to be useful guidance to teachers but it is there's no resource resource that a teacher must use or a district must use and they can use other resources that are not here it is intended to provide information about how all this breadth of topics can be addressed there's as much in here for young people about how to say no what consent means how not to harass how not to be harassed as there is about how to be safe as they encounter sex. So we understand now the framework. I think we understand the way in which it's intended to be received. And I
486think we're ready to begin to propose a motion, perhaps. Yes. I would like to move the department's recommendation to approve the framework with the removal of the following specific resources. My Princess Boy, Who Are You? The Kids Guide to Gender Identity, Changing You. What's happening to my body and sex. And the remainder of the motion. I'm sorry. I don't have it here. Authorized CD staff pending the state board executive director approval of final revisions requested by the SBE, correction of any typographical errors and non-substantive clarifying edits. And then I think we could get maybe a second on that motion. If there are revisions requested by the SBE, we could take it up as a separate motion. I would like to second the motion. Okay. So understanding that, if there are other revisions requested, we'll take
487that up next. We'll go ahead and vote on this motion so that we can keep things clean. Sure. The third grade framework that we were discussing earlier, your verbal clarification was very helpful. Would it count as a typographical correction to actually clarify that you're not asking teachers to introduce the topic? You're talking about fifth grade? That is in fifth grade. Sorry, no, it is four through six. You're right. Yes, I do have it marked to take out that. So that would count as a type? Yes. Okay, great. My microphone is, oh, there it goes. It's been cut off. Let us go ahead. Is there any other discussion before we vote on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Any abstentions? The motion passes. And then if there are any other
488final revisions requested by the SPE, as in the last bullet, we'll take a moment to see if everyone is content with where we are now. It says if there are approval of final revisions requested by the SBE. So if there are any other revisions or any technical non-substantive clarifying edits, et cetera. I think we already took care of the question that Kim raised. Yes, do you want to? More confident in my understanding of child development in the zero to eight space Many of you are much more content experts in the junior high and middle school space So I would welcome any discussion that you want to offer beyond what has been offered, but I I think it's much more There's much more literature to support that young children in the zero to eight space oftentimes
489would have no idea what masturbation is and until you have that conversation and it would be introducing it something that is largely unknown in the middle school years I think That may be something different and I would defer to people who are more experts on middle school And my children are not yet in middle school This is Judy Saez. We want to clarify that the motion does include the IQC edits as well, Felisa. Is that correct? Okay. Is that everyone's understanding? They voted in the second. 347 to be exact. But who's counting? But who's counting? All right. Are we? Yes, Patricia. I need to be clear of the two edits that were recommended by Board Member Patil-Brownson. The first one was the edit that she spoke to concerning the change in Chapter 5 in the
490grade span for 4th through 6th grade. So it's Chapter 4. Chapter 4. Grades 4 through 6 on page 62 to take out the two words is introduced. And so the sentence would read, when the topic of masturbation arises, teachers explain what masturbation is and that it is safe and not mentally or physically harmful. So it actually is introduced or that would be removed. And you're saying that that's a technical change and it doesn't require a motion? Correct. That is approval of final revisions requested by the state board. It's been requested by the state board. So that is included in the motion. Okay. And then the second change that was requested. Was in which chapter? That I was inviting discussion on for people who are middle school experts. And this was line 811 at the bottom
491of page 29? Correct. Okay. And there was no revision. That's also a technical change? No, there's been no revision for that. Okay. So we only have the one revision requested by the State Board. And I'm just leaving a moment to see if everybody's content with where we are with any requested revisions. Any others? Okay. So I think we're, unless anybody wants to take that up, we'll leave things as is based on the responses. Matt, do you feel comfortable? All right. All right. All right. I think we have concluded this item, and I think we can leave for the day. We are not adjourning because we are, oh, we have to vote. No, we voted. We voted. You voted. Okay. You're good. We have to applaud the vote. We need to continue the meeting for closed
492session. Okay. I will. Yes, I was about to say that. It will be continued at 8.30 tomorrow morning. I was about to say it before I was interrupted to be told to say it. Excuse me. The meeting will be continued at 8.30 tomorrow morning. We know all of you will want to join us, and the board will be meeting in closed session at that time to discuss or take action on the following case, Thrive Public Schools versus SPE. All right.