Board of Education Meeting - March 23, 2023

001good evening everyone tonight's meeting of the board of education is called to order at 4:01 pm. and Open Session tonight we do not have requests addressing Clos session agenda items at this time the board will recess to close session until 6: PM when we will return to open session thank you very much good evening everyone at this time the board um will reconvene tonight's meeting what's called order at 4:01 p.m. in Open Session and the board then adjourned to close session at 41 p.m. we will now reconvene this meeting at 6:03 topics discussed in close session were student matters Public Employee discipline um I'm sorry not Public Employee discipline Penny litigation anticipated litigation and those were all the matters replacement Pages for agenda item 8.3.1 point1 is on the back table we move on to

002public comment public comments agenda non-agenda items tonight we have requests for public comment the first one non-agenda item Jackie linstead would you please approach the podium members of the board members of the council I would like to reintroduce myself I spoke at the last board meeting I'm the parent of a seventh grader at Mayfair middle school and at the last meeting I talked about how my daughter was inappropriately 5150 during an autistic meltdown and the trauma that she experienced because of this I also talked about the res response from both the school and the district from the school we were told that the same actions could again happen if my daughter had a similar verbal autistic meltdown we also realized after she was 5150 that the school had lost her behavior intervention plan before the

003crisis which is a legal part of her IEP the result was the school offering the library along with the front office as a deescalation space and quickly writing up a new behavior intervention plan that was not data driven like the previously agreed upon one these actions are illegal and a violation of our IEP at the last meeting I told you that I filed for Home Hospital on February 10th the district had five legal days to start that process as of today we still have had zero instructional minutes of Home Hospital zero this is another legal violation when a parent asks for help please never think that it is the parent trying to get something from the district no parent wants to go to an IEP meeting and try to negotiate for services because no parent

004wants to see their child struggle I don't want to stand here tonight and be filmed for everyone to see me cry and beg for someone to listen to me but I'm doing it for an amazing child who deserves an education too a child who doesn't fit the mold both because her behaviors are out of sync and her intellect is through the roof and for all those other children with autism who come behind her so now I'm asking for you to imagine that this is your child please humor me pretend that you have a beautiful 13-year-old daughter with an IQ that places her in the top 2% of people in the world and imagine that you'd been working 40 hours a week with ABA therapists and psychologists with a school district and doctors with a service

005dog and with ASD sporting teams since your daughter was three and imagine that while some people don't see it and they just see the problems you still face that you have come really far that you've gotten this child talking and making eye contact and now you get to leave the house without her tantruming she's even made all A's in advanced classes for the first semester of Middle School and then someone rips a ton of that progress away from your daughter because they messed up and Confused an autistic meltdown with a mental health problem but the worst part is what comes after you get your daughter back if you had tried for four months to work with the school in the district to set up a way to get your your child back on track and

006you got nothing what would you do if you were told that the same path might happen again if she didn't learn her lesson would you send her back to school and hope that her autism just somehow fix itself if you knew the school hadn't changed and you had to rely on the fact that her autism cured itself would you just hope and pray that it would all work out the belflower Unified School District needs to fix this they have caused my child so much regression and then they try to blame her for it so really what would you do would you file complaints with the California Department of Ed would you go to the media would you sue the district would you speak at board meetings or would you just watch all your progress get

007derailed for child and send them back on a hope and a prayer the district backs parents of special needs children into Corners often that is why they have so much litigation against them since when did it make more sense for the district to pay a lawyer rather than help a kid since when was it okay to claim that we offer free appropriate public education but not really offer it safely to all kids miss LST um since when was it acceptable to have the district M be re build Futures but then spend money in courtrooms could we um get your me your uh rest of your speech please and uh Dr D can we please look into this Dr AA and um I I'll provide we'll provide an update for you and Friday member about what's

008happening with that situation so thank you um the next public comment is a non-agenda item Dr Eric linstead please come on up board members and administrators many of you know me some of you don't I'm Dr Eric linstead I'm the wife of Jackie linstead I'm also a tenured professor of computer science an academic administrator a researcher in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence a member of BD's cops board committee and and a proud product of the education I received at Esther lens through Mayfair middle school and Mayfair high school but most importantly I'm the parent of a 13-year-old on the autism spectrum who until December 1st attended Mayfair middle school and on that day as a result of an autistic meltdown the administrators called law enforcement and have had her involuntarily committed for

00927 hours and what I can only describe as an egregious and illegal violation of her civil Li Liberties and guarantee of fape but my wife has already spoken about that eloquently I won't be redundant here tonight instead I'm going to f focus on what my training as a computer scientist has taught me to do best and that's focus on the data and let that data tell a story so the story I'm here to tell you is very emphatically that when it comes to children with special needs belll unified is not only failing to provide an environment where kids with special needs can Thrive but much prefers to spend money on litigation than on the students we entrust them with so here as a data scientist are some facts 16% of the population at Mayfair high

010school and belflower high school are students with disabilities ities in the previous Academic Year of those tested with disabilities only 12.7% of students with those disabilities met or exceeded expectations on the Casp language arts tests if you go down the street to seros high school that's 32.26% regarding mathematics only 1.4% of students with disabilities at BHS or MHS met or exceeded expectations on the Casp down the street at ceritos the rat's 20% and for science 4.95% of students with disabilities at BHS or MHS met exceeded expectations on the cast science test science test compared to 12.07% at ceritos now here's where it gets interesting at belflower high school again a population 16% of which are students with disabilities the suspension rate for skids with special needs is 38% higher than their non-disabled peers at Mayfair

011High School it is 81% higher ablest much perhaps just a tad over the past half decade belflower unified has received more complaints for violations of special education than most of its neighboring districts and has involved in more litigation than Los anges County unified combined out of the past 15 cases adjudicated by the Cal California Department of Education belflower lost 14 of them yay and despite these numbers that might make you think that somehow belflower unified is struggling last year a state auditor found that BD had cash reserves up up to $83 million that seem seems to have been accumulated by systematically depriving students with and without disabilities of resources yet they choose to spend almost a million dollars per year 800,000 but who's counting maybe just a couple of ladders for the district warehouse they

012choose to spend about $800,000 a year on their attorneys firms thank you Mr linstead um we can take your rest of your comments um thank you Mr linstead that could be with students so what's the district's plan go to court weigh parents down try and wake them out but you lose all the time in all your pre-trial motions you lose because of the egregious mistakes that you make so when I talk to my attorney friends their advice is you know now it's not really a matter of beating Bel or unified in court you just have to outlast them and any lawyer in La Orange County who's been around long enough knows that it's just a matter of waiting and waiting and waiting for them to outlast folks that don't have money to front up cost

013upfront legal costs and that's not hard to do when 70 to 80% of your constituency is associated econ economically disadvantaged and your attorneys get paid either way so what do they care so I'll conclude with a very simple rhetorical question it seems that the only thing that belflower UniFi does worse than providing special education is winning court cases so maybe instead of spending your money on attorneys maybe you should invest it in something that will actually pay dividends and you can call me an idealist but maybe that should be student staff and teachers thank you thank [Applause] you we will move on to amendments to the agenda do we have any amendments to this evening's agenda yes um under information items the attachment agenda item 9.1 additional information regarding agenda items has been incorrectly sequenced

014of numbers on page one Business Services is listed as 7.2.5 and is corrected to read 8.2.5 and its corresponding items should also begin with and eight lastly on and eight lastly on page two information item is is listed as 8.3 and she'll read 9.3 uh also originally plan U um also we originally planed to have board Communications on one of the two meetings of the month in order to better streamline the meetings however uh due to the recent safety incident uh I recommend that we add board and staff communication to uh to this meeting agenda so that way you guys can um speak on uh speak regarding that or any other items you want to you want to speak to uh but um but so we may have to make these adjustments once in a

015while uh but the order currently we have right now is as because we have two meetings a month that we we threw on we just figured uh information items are going to be in one of those meetings but for today we want to just have we want to include um information items for that as well um okay yeah um and then and sorry and there's one and I guess if there's any questions on that you can ask me and then there's one other item I'm going to have Chris speak to uh yeah um Dr now yeah yeah so just for um uh this was just a personal request for me but um on on the uh minutes for meetings uh during the portion where uh there's a a kind of a blurb about what every

016board member talked about in their board board members update I just asked Dr J yesterday if just we could replace um all the Mr mendozas with just board member Mendoza just just just I just thought that would be a little more appropriate um so that's all I was ask asking for and that's a that's that's big those are all the adjustments thank you um do we have someone who is coming up with a card I think the public comment there's one parent that wanted to speak as she's did you want to come with the podium now that Myra will I mean president Garza will get your card thank you um so Aro I'm sorry Amaral and Danielle Amaral maybe U if you can't walk up to the podium there you go there you go good

017sorry a little bit nervous B excuse me you good my name is ARA maral my daughter is Gabriel maral she attends U belflower Middle School she's a seventh grader um and I just want to start off by thanking you all for um having a meeting on Monday in regards to the recent incidents that occur in 12 hour middle and high school um thank you for just bringing a panel together and hearing our concerns giving us an update in regards to the recent incidents um I do want to say that uh we received earlier a call um in regards to just a quick followup um from the principal I believe it was or superintendent letting us know that some of the um ideas that were shared right um and perhaps there's some sort of followup um

018I do want to I'm here because I'm I want to support for um kind of bringing some sort of committee together um where we can work together as soon as possible to be able to um Implement some of these ideas right that we have that our parents have shared um when can we put this committee together what will be the next followup can I participate or where do I sign up that's why I'm here just to be able to uh just thank you guys I know it's a very um it's it's a touchy subject right but um safety matters for all of us I believe and um if we all work together um brainstorm find ideas on how we can work together keep our community safe and our kids safe our staff safe um we

019will continue to kind of avoid this type of issues so that's that's all I'm here for so thank you all and just I want I want to be able to work with you guys as a parent um so let me know where I sign up and where do we get when do we get started I guess that's what I'm here thank you thank you Mr Mrs zel hi I'm Danielle amiral um Gabriella's mother and I just want to also say thank you for having the meeting put together um I feel like we need to get a committee together of parents uh board members District members students and people of the community I think that would work to help um make Bellflower Middle High School Mayfair all the schools in belflowers safe um I also want

020to say thank you to Dr Sue she made me feel really comfortable when she spoke out at the meeting that's what gave me the urge to feel like I needed to express how I feel and be a part of the committee um when you guys do put it together um so I just wanted to thank you for that but my our main concern are the children and I think if we all can work together we can get it a good solution so that the kids feel safe the staff feel safe because I know my daughter went to go talk to someone and there weren't enough people there to talk to her about it because I know she's afraid so I'm sure if my daughter who's in sth grade is afraid there's a lot of students

021out there that are afraid and they need that support and a a community group that hopefully will make them feel safe again at school thank [Applause] you thank you for those comments I just have a quick comment uh Dr A if you can make sure and coordinate with um Mich lingren to make sure students such as Gabriella will get attention when required or you know meeting other students in the also that tunity thanks let's go ahead and we'll uh pick up the amendments to the agenda again um sorry Dr Dy uh would you please restate what amendments we have this evening okay you want me to restate it yes please okay great so uh so under information uh items the attachment for agenda item 9.1 uh additional information regarding agenda items has has an has

022an incorrect sequence of numbers on page one Business Services listed is listed as 1.2.5 and is and is corrected to read 8.2.5 and its corresponding item should also be begin with an eight lastly on page two information items um uh if is listed as 8.3 and she read as 9.3 also we originally as I mentioned we originally planned uh to have board Communications on one of the two meetings uh in the month in order to better streamline the meetings however due to the recent safety incidents I recommend that we add board and staff communication to this meeting agenda in order for for you all to speak to that and for me to also address the community at the same time and then lastly there were some corrections that that Christopher mentioned to switch his name

023to miss um board member uh Mendoza instead of Mr Mendoza thank you for that recap uh do I have a motion to approve the amendments to the agenda motion second roll call call please board member Mendoza I miss Armstrong I Dr Al hen I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I um we now go on to the flag salute and presentations um for the flag salute director of facilities maintenance operations and transportation Mr Buffington will be leading the flag salute this evening welcome Mr Buffington for presentations Dr Dr we have two presentations this evening the first presentation is on Arts music and instruction materials block grant I'll turn it over to Mrs Carter to uh to do the honors thank you this evening I'm presenting the Arts music and instruction materials block grant okay technical difficulties

024all right we're going to start with this timeline so that um we can see where this grant came from it started with ab11 uh June 2022 um when Newsome approved that within that bill there was the establishment of this grant art music and instructional materials discretionary block grant then later September 2022 ab85 was passed and that revised the Arts music and instructional materials block grant then in January 2023 um during budget proposal times uh new had a proposal that would reduce the this grant uh from $3.6 million to $2.3 billion um May 20203 is the projected receipt of all of the funds and it's also when um we'll know whether it's being reduced or not so I'm sharing the timeline for you to see that it started off in June of 30 with a certain

025amount and by may it may be a different amount and I think that's important to just keep in mind when we're looking looking at this grant because typically we think we have a grant we have a certain amount of money and that's it okay but this one is pending okay so the grant as it stands right now is 3.6 billion BD's allocation of that is 6,249 ,000 there are are five things that this grant can be spent on this is one of those funding sources where there's allowable costs and it's these five bullets here so standards aligned um instructional materials which are textbooks uh professional development for school culture um culture uh diverse and culturally relevant book collections operational costs and then covid um protective equipment so before I go to this are you clicking

026for me will you click that on please before I go to the next slide um we're going to be spending this grant funding on bullet number one and bullet number four and I'm the next slide is going to explain why we're not spending the money on bullets 2 three and five so uh we're going to spend this uh funding on textbooks and on operational costs next slide the reasoning behind that is not that we don't have needs in professional development or culturally relevant books or PPE it's that we have allocated funding and services in those three areas in other budgetary areas so we already have um allocated professional development for school culture and our supplemental concentration funding and our educator Effectiveness and in the future our learning recovery block grant that is a grant that

027it's going to be in the future 2728 would be its ending expenditure and um it's an upcoming fund okay the diverse and culturally relevant book collections we have allocated that in supplemental and concentration funding this year we have um allocated for our school sites to be able to update their libraries our dual immersion is also updating their libraries and so our sites already have access to um take care of that section covid personal protective equipment um that PPE our erer funds have been covering that um for a couple of years and we still have Sr funds to cover that next slide so in instructional materials the grant says that we can spend the funds on these subjects so um I won't list them out for you you can see them on the slide so we're

028allowed to use this funding to purchase these textbooks the planned expenditures are to utilize the funding this year for our history social science uh adoption you see the total there next year we're looking to um Implement dbqs and mini Q's which are basically a supplemental resource to our our um social studies adoption which would provide for um project based learning to tie to the the um curriculum we're projecting that we would be looking at a World Language um textbook adoption in the 2324 year and then mathematics the framework has not yet been adopted the state is working on that um framework and they're projected to adopt it May June which would then mean that a committee would come together at the state level and uh look at textbooks and then provide a list to districts

029of ones that could be adopted which means that we wouldn't be projected to do our Pilots or purchase materials until the year next Slide the other bullet that we're going to allocate the remaining funds to uh which would be about $937,000 would be allocated to um operational costs and this is the list of operational costs that that could be allocated to and um we're going to be specifically allocating it to employee benefits next slide that's the end of the presentation I'm going to go ahead and open up the um floor for questions or comments we'll start with um board member Ela um so the um Grant is specifically for Arts music and instructional materials it seems like um we'll be focusing a lot on the instructional materials um portion um of the funding we receive

030so I understand that some of our Arts programs um on our campuses are looking for some more support I know some of our um Performing Arts definitely um uh you know like color guard and and and programs like that could use some assistance I know students a lot of the times pay a lot of fees upfront in order to participate in those programs um so I understand that you know things like textbooks when core subjects such as social sciences are probably priority um but the point of this grant is to assist the district in these particular areas so with this new funding for um social sciences and other textbooks math um will we be looking at using our uh normal you know uh discretionary funds as a district to support those programs uh those Performing

031Arts programs Visual Arts we'll continue to utilize our supplemental concentration funding for a good majority of those um Arts programs for example we have some Arts programs excuse me that are in the elementary that are for um younger students and um materials and supplies for Arts programs are paid out a supplemental concentration as well okay yeah I just um wanted because I I understand that this grant is is supposed to be helping us cover these costs and these are things that are essential but I got excited when I saw Arts and Music because I know that's a space for growth always um so I'm happy to hear that we will be looking at expanding those programs there is it's not a part of this presentation but there is good news out there I don't know

032if you all know this but you you guys the voters of California voted for proper just 28 uh which will is supposed to go fun fun to go strictly towards um uh towards arts and arts and music so so I think we're getting the final details of how much each district is going to get from the governor but there are funds dedicated towards exactly what you're talking about where we wouldn't have to and and it's and and those are funds that would be long ongoing whereas this is as you can see one time there's a deadline to these These funds here so what what we always have to understand is that when we are implementing a um a program um we have to recognize whether are we using onetime funds or are we using funds

033that are going to continue so uh so instead of getting people excited with onetime funds also going to pull them to plug away a year or two later is best to always thinking that way so but but but the point is there are funding that that is coming towards to support of arts arts and music yeah it sounds like I just fundamentally misunderstood the difference between the Grant and the proposition because I was thinking about the proposition so um thanks for clarifying that thank you board member monosa um for member El hessen excuse me so when will you you not sure when we're going to find out the final cost for the the allocation for the for the grant we won't know until um May so could we ask for more no there's a formula

034so because I know that we were looking at upgrading our um our band uniforms and our um I also got a request from another teacher in regards to um instruments but this is not in this area when I looked at the criteria so I guess we'd have to wait to see in regards to the proposition if that would be inclusive of that process right okay thanks thank you board member hessen um board member Armstrong um I kind of thought it was pretty clear um as far as like how you're allocating the money it's going to be sustained like the history and social science that should sustain us up into 25 26 um I see we're planning on doing the fight pilot phase I mean those are some of my questions but they were answered um

035and um I I was and I I was actually the same thing you know if are we able to sus you know will we be able to sustain it and will we be prepared to increase the funds if we needed that was one of the things I was going to say too but it it's clear to me I'm good thank you B morr for member critchfield thank you madam president um so it looks like the proposal would bring it the uh possibly 3.6 billion to 2.3 it's about 32% difference so we would expect uh possibly hopefully not um from the 6.2 million to downwards of 3.9 does that sound about right yes roughly Yeah we actually yeah we get 50% now and then we're waiting for the next so got it um and that's why

036you're not seeing more than 3 million in the first year because the 50% we should already have so we already did get the 50% of it so now it's just a matter of if we get an additional 12% or an additional 50 right so we're covered in the first year and then we'll wait to see what the actual allocation is going to be and then we might have to modify the plan and then as far as priorities we would be prioritizing as far as how we use that those funds for the uh for the books for the instructional materials that' be Priority One we would awesome thank you you're welcome thank you board member critchfield um anyone else want to make an additional comment or question staff have any additional comments or questions perfect thank

037you uh for that presentation now uh let's go ahead and so do I have a motion to conduct the public hearing I'm sorry there's a second um there's a second presentation so second presentation all right great I'll I'll go ahead and yeah we we'll practice the transition next time the SEC the second presentation is on people transportation services uh at this time I'll turn it over to uh uh to Mrs hjin so she can uh take do to do the honors thank you Dr Dr um so tonight I will be sharing with you information uh regarding our consent agenda item 8.3.5 point2 which is our Pupil Transportation Services plan um so that the district is able to get reimbursement for some of our transportation cost uh this is a new requirement as part of the

038legislation that was passed to increase transportation funding for school districts the plan has to be adopted by the board prior to April 1 of 2023 and the first year's plan which is why you see 2223 and 2324 is intended to address both the current transportation and the subsequent year after this adoption it will need to be approved prior to April 1st for the subsequent year so we're really looking at in 2024 making some changes for the next year um and again because of the newness of this requirement and timing this will only time when when the board is asked to approve a plan for both the current Transportation program and the next year so here we can go to the next slide let's first start with the student transportation requirements which are based on Ed

039code so Ed code states that school districts are required to provide transportation to students with individualized individual education plans known as our I IEPs that require transportation and students experiencing homelessness under the mckin vent act and outside of those requirements school districts do not have to provide transportation services and can provide additional if they choose to belflower currently offers home toschool Transportation which is based on our board policy uh which is incorporated into the plan for tonight's approval which is part of that consent agenda item and so before we get in the plan and the requirements um I wanted to provide the board with some background regarding transportation funding the funding before was a separate categorical program um and funding was based on participation in miles then in 20134 with the uh incorporation of lcff

040funding it was folded into the calculation but the base entitlement was based on 2012 2013 and that funding increase has not changed since then so currently that fixed amount that was established back in 20 um 1314 based on 2012 13 is uh 48,5 36 when we get to our actual cost as part of the information for the plan you're going to be able to see that that amount has not uh been sufficient to cover our annual cost and because of our requirements to provide transportation over the last five years the general fund has contributed approximately 6.2 million to our transportation costs which includes services to our General ed students and also our special education students slide so here um this is a slide that's provided from school Services of California and it provides information regarding

041the state enacted Budget Transportation reimbursement program um and the requirements based on the legislation as well as the guidance we use to develop the program so with this plan we will now be able to be reimbursed up to 60% of our costs due to the funding increase of about 637 million from the state and that's Statewide um that at this time is slated to be ongoing um in order to do so the board is taking its first step by adopting the plan tonight that's a requirement and in creating the plan the district had to look at making sure it contains a priority for plan services for students in grades TK through six and lowi income describe how the transportation will be accessible to students with disabilities and homeless youth and describe how unduplicated students May

042access free transportation and consultation and as we look at some of the components in the plan you're going to be able to see that some of these things we already had in place um and so it was just now putting it into a written documentation so now let's start to uh look into the content of the plan so here the plan addresses that our transportation services are provided through hemt and other service providers they may contract with and we actually have received contct confirmation um Hemet was not sure if they were going to be able to provide services for 20 23 24 and they have now stated that they will continue to be able to provide services for us for one more year uh so they um will continue to provide transportation services for our

043students with disabilities based on IEP requirements and which will either be transport and so we I'm sorry we will also continue to provide um transportation services for our students with IEPs and also uh continue our reimbursement services for parents if they transport them we're going to arrange transportation for students experiencing homelessness and we will discuss more of those details in some of the upcoming slides and we're going to continue to offer free Transportation based on our current board policy so additionally um in order to provide some of the services we provide there are times where we may work with case managers at our schools that will help identify students in need of Transportation so part of that plan is having something in place that identifies those students who may need it we operate 20 Bellflower

044owned buses and offer 13 routes that are managed by Hemet which include transporting any of our students that participate in Cal apps these services are utilized by roughly 600 students in our buses and in 2122 year they traveled about 95,000 miles additionally in in this plan thanks to board member Mendoza part of the plan and the addition that you are also approving as part of the annual contract listing is that we are forming a partnership with goass with Metro uh which will provide transportation alternatives to all our students including adult transition um this pass will allow students at no cost unlimited rides and transfers on 12 Metro Bus and Rail systems and because we are starting it so late in the the year Metro is actually giving us a reduced year a rate for this

045year so after tonight if it's approved in the consent agenda we'll get going and we'll be able to offer that pass for all our students for the remainder of this year this Academic Year and then next year um it will be $3 per student part of that plan is that we do pay for all students whether they take advantage of the pass or not and that is that so Metro can offset some of the costs that they are contributing to provide the service because normally it pass is about $40 a month um so we're talking about 30 I'm sorry $3 for the whole year and the year starts July 1st to June 30th so again thank you board member Mendoza for bringing this opportunity to us and helping enhance our services and it's also now

046part of our plan um we also had to request um input from stakeholders and the district created two surveys one was directed at parent and students and the other at staff uh we provided uh the draft of the plan to our regional local transit authorities that which was also a requirement and we're going to be sharing the survey results with our current provider Hemet and also looking internally at some of the requests to upgrade the plan or policies as needed based on the up um the requirement to upgrade the plan annually um as needed and then finally um CDE also provides a calculation funding so that districts can use this estimated reimbursement for planning and budget purposes the reason um that this is estimated is because again this is fairly new but it is also

047subject to audit so especially um looking at ensuring that all the costs that we are saying are um in transportation are actually costs that are allowable to be part of that and so we are excited that the state is recognizing that our transportation costs have risen um because as you see here our expenses are much higher than the 48 1,536 we currently receive as part of our lcff add-on you can see there at the top that our current expenses are over three million in terms of our our transportation so we are thankful that the the state is recognizing that and giving us some of this additional funding of course it requires a plan and um you know and that approval so that we are able to get that reimbursement the first um allocation of that

048reimbursement for the the current year will be in June and then there's looking to do it again for the next year okay and that's it thank you I will go ahead and open it for questions um thank you for that report so board member Mendoza um I haven't had I don't have many questions that was a thorough presentation I'd also like to comment that uh some Metro Bus fair is 175 for a oneway trip so for the entire for the rest of the Academic Year 150 I think that's a pretty good deal we negotiated thank you board member mosa um board member Al Hassen yes I think it's a great plan and thank you again for your efforts and initiating it and moving it Forward board member Mendoza I wanted to find out how can

049we make sure students are notified and get the information so that they can participate and know how to you know access the system systems especially for some of our students um who may have some cognitive disabilities or other visual disabilities um so I just wanted to find that question out how are we going to get the message out and make sure that they maximize the use of our program so in in terms of the Go pass once we get the contract signed our plan is to put it through our bosd news but also put all of the information uh on our website under our transportation section and also letting our schools know because we will be giving giving a certain amount of passes to each of our school so that they have there so students

050can access them and they will come with instructions on how to access that pass is there any other student groups um I'd like to pose that question to board member Mendoza that you can help Advocate or get the message out to yeah so um this is something I thought about um when um I saw this was on the agenda for for this um week I I was wondering like when this would come into play um like how soon after the board voted on it if if we passed it um like how soon students would be able to access it um and so the the other part of my thought process is like well how are we going to let people know about this I think it's a great opportunity um but you know today we

051had our our first student cabinet meeting over at Mayfair and we had really low attendance so we had definitely have a communication problem um on our campus and I think you know the other campuses share that so as far as getting the word out about goass I understand that our uh Environmental iance Club president nor Al Lee has been a Relentless advocate of public transportation on campus our club is relatively large there's about 60 people so I could contact that club uh um president Nora and ask her to probably lead a schoolwide campaign and getting the word out with that I can only speak for Mayfair in that sense um as far as BFFL High School Somerset and Los Flores um I'm not sure I I think I'll do some research into how to do

052that I know I wanted to use my social media that I have to try and put out a small campaign but there's only like 80 people on there so no one's going to get the word um also as far as um uh getting the word out to students uh with disabilities or students who may not you know uh get you know be able to access that information through the newsletter um um that's another place where I think I'm going to look into I will say that a lot of the times the transit agencies that are included in this which by the way it's not it's not just LA Metro it's also Long Beach Transit Norwalk Transit pass it's like all a whole bunch of local agencies their act their Fleet is pretty accessible more accessible

053than an Uber in most cases um so you know they they especially would benefit um from this you know after after school hours so I actually think yeah I think we should be putting a lot of energy into getting the word out to those people because they'll benefit the most so I'll I'll do my homework on this I'll see what I can do let me know how I can help you thank you um thank you board member hen um board member Armstrong I think it's a great plan I'm glad we're getting uh uh more funds to help uh you know pay for transportation because it could it is very expensive and um a thank thank you again Chris um you know sometimes is I I brought this up a while ago before Dr D came

054here uh because monabell uses the Go pass and it's in conjunction with the cities and we're not going to have any problems because like even for my students I have preschoolers I have three three year olds they have a Go pass so when this plan comes comes through fruition everyone will get a card and it's linked to like their um emails and there the instructions are there I have I have a stack of them you know and you just give them to the kids everyone should get a card with the way it goes and even three year olds okay so so that's GNA that's going to be great so thanks for bringing that up again thank you board member Armstrong board member Stuart forgive me if this has been asked this is an awesome plan

055and I'm glad to see that this is happening if a parent had a problem with buses who would they call so we have a direct number that is actually connected to hemt um and a hemt representative would answer that call um if they're not able to get a hold of a Hemet we do have our own in-house people uh in our transportation department so they would get a hold of one of our um individuals there so they would call the district and ask for transportation that is correct thank you thank you board member Stuart board member critchfield board member Mendoza thank you thank you awesome work bringing this to the board um I do have a couple questions uh one you mentioned uh identifying our on housee students um and making sure that they have

056access do we have a plan on how to identify and make sure that they do have access so usually our child welfare and attendance office uh is the one that gets the referrals for those students and then they're again uh connecting them with our case managers and whatever it is that they need currently some of the things that we do is give them tokens um in different Serv but we will also put them on a route if that is what needed so um our child welfare but it and it also starts at the school site especially if that we notice that child's having an attendance issue and then a referral is made great um and I know we said it was about a150 this year and then $3 next year per student but with the

057stipulation that we had that we have to do it for all students right that is correct and what what would be the total cost um we have 10,138 so times $3 um so say 30,000 is yes 3138 something um and with this you mentioned you did some surveys is there a way we could get the results of those surveys we can share them with you and out of those surveys how many identified that they would uh their students would be interested in using the goass so the survey didn't address the Go pass um information it address more of our current um transportation practices questions with that and so it was more specific to what currently do we have in place that you feel could be enhanced or looked at or what would you want to

058see more of and the area that for our parents identified more was communication especially when the bus routes are running late being able to get that communication um more quickly um and so with that one of the things we've talked about are looking at apps and maybe apps that parents can download that we have to be able to get that communication uh with them it was pretty similar also with the staff um in regards to um them being on time um and not delayed um and that is something that because Hemet is a provider we're sharing that information with them okay and do we have an idea of how many students would be or are we going to like like Dr dty said sometimes when we we make these uh commitments whether it's for one

059year or two years you know we need to have data on how effective it was how much it was used uh is that something we're looking into as far as capturing that data as uh students use the Go pass so Metro actually does that for us um and so forth because as U Miss Armstrong was saying there's a card that they get and that card has a number and identification um and so they're able to take that data when they swipe the card as they're using it and Metro will be able to provide it they have shared with us that on the average most districts have about 15% of their population that actually use it so even going back to that cost of 175 or 4 um dollars a month even if you're paying for

060all of the students it's still a savings in regards to students based on that discounted rate so that's why they you know it's a very it's a discounted rate but however they have they charge for the whole student body population to offset some of those costs that they're eating to be able to provide these Services it actually started at the community college level and then it's it it came down to um and it's more of your high school students that are using it but they've extended it all the way as Miss Armstrong was saying to all of your student body population the other advantage to it too is that the parents of these students are actually also able to get a pass at a discounted rate you know what rate that would be 50% discount

061of their of their rate I don't know exactly the amount of that but all of that information will be part of the information we share and they'll have a link to access that information great um thank you if if you don't mind um yes please go ahead parents love it parents when they have children and they don't have cars these go passes serve as their way of getting around and being able to take their children to places that they would not normally go to and for this amount for uh this is minimum to the impact that this goast will have on all of our families so this cost is minimal this is going to be they're going to love it trust me thank you bar member critchfield and Armstrong um I'm very very happy that

062this is coming to our district um as a child with no car bus was our car we walked everywhere and the bus took us the rest of the way so I'm very happy uh that we're going to be having this thank you so much board member mza for bringing this to us um I do have a couple of questions with regards to to um a reimbursement option to parents um for our District transportation contracted services do we have um once these students are identified um that they need this type of Transportation do we have like a a contract or something with parents saying that this is going to be provided for them so that is something that we use uh with our students with disabilities that have IEPs and yes um they do sign a

063contract and that's handled by the special ed Department um we also have done it with our homeless and it's pretty similar to what it is that we would do with the special ed students so it's not for our general ed students it is um because of the requirement to have to provide transportation for those students okay thank you um my next question is if these buses um the ones that we're from Hammet become late for X reason is there a way that we get this information to the school and then to the teacher so that way they understand that they're running late that they're going to it's not going to be held against them so that was also in terms of the staff them wanting to have that information as well and that's part of

064what we're discussing with he Hemet in regards to finding a way currently right now our transportation department gets it and then forwards it to the school office but um if we know who these students are rostered to and so forth that we have that information in there maybe um just like some apps that are out there remind and so forth an an app like that using it for Transportation as well so that's something that we're going to be looking which is what the survey was looking to um provide us where are the areas of of communication gaps in terms of getting us and what are um really going to enhance our current Services thank you uh so that app would be coming out through the district no it is something that Hemet um would look

065at but that's why we're sharing this information with their with contract and that's just something we're looking at right now we don't have anything final but that's what this survey um was to get us where where right now do we need to look at where the areas of need um thank you so that covers the transportation that we would be providing but um for you know the public transportation if they're running late is there any way that we can get and and I don't know maybe this is just a question that we just don't have an answer to at this point um but how would we tell teachers that they're going to be late and that it's not to hold it against those students yeah that would not that's not something that we would control

066um just having using metro and so forth they do have apps that show if if transportations are running late and so that would be more of a students communicating with their teachers that they're writing public transportation if they choose but that's not something that's uh we this is this is an additional the Go pass is an additional um transportation service should kids want to use that instead of our our primary is what we provide but this is just additional should they choose to okay so then um if I'm understanding correctly if a child uh student decides to take the public transportation that we are additionally providing then um they need to keep in touch with their teacher in the morning and let them know the bus is running late so is there are we thinking

067of a system to be able to put that to connect those two so in terms of the Go pass um that's just an additional resource for students if they want to use that it doesn't mean that they will not use our current Transportation it's more looked at for like if they wanted to go to museums or different things outside of school as services or yeah if they wanted to take the bus to school but that is not something that the district controls it's an enhancement and because it's a transportation resource you can put it into your plan as something supplemental that they would be able to use yeah I'm just thinking about the logistics of what that would mean for us um it'll be very difficult to try to triangulate who's absent who took a

068bus late who you know so um it's a it's it's I guess I would treat that as if you're a parent running late what would you do dropping your kid off you know same kind of concept you just taking a bus l so what would you do is how I see that okay and and if I may uh I'm a frequent yeah I'm a frequent Rider and so I I know what it's like to to be late sometimes I think so sometimes I'm on a I'm on a bus and then the bus driver just stops I can think of one instance when I was in Downey the guy just got off and went to the donut shop and you was like there for like 20 minutes and I was the only person in the bus

069so it happens I hope that doesn't happen in the mornings when you know during during those school hours what I can say is and I know this isn't going to work for all students because not all students have device on them like phones and that kind of thing but I know on Google Maps and stuff you know whatever app you're using so whether that's transit or like Go Mobile or something I think it's what it's called um you there you can take like screenshots of like when it says bus is running late that kind of thing I know schedules are also available online um so that's I guess some kind of solution for students with devices but I agree with students who who don't have devices that can get a little tricky if you're trying

070to take that in the morning but again I I would kind of Def back to what Dr J said and that it would be similar to just like if you hit traff like if if a parent hit traffic or something like that happened um so we could we could communicate uh with we could have students who utilize goass uh to actually get to school to have them communicate with the their their school administration let them know that way there's a little more leniency um but yeah I'd also like just to comment before we move on for this item um something that came to mind meanwhile uh during during uh board member Armstrong your comments about um like those younger kids on the bus um I I do understand there's kind of like a like a

071stigma sometimes against public transit and that it can be kind of unsafe sometimes again I'm a frequent Rider I've seen a lot so what I can say is pro I I hope during our our promotion of this we we encourage students to to use this responsibly you know bring a buddy if you can um ask if you're with if you're a younger child you would need to have a parent with you um yeah so I think just that rolling that out as we get the you know the word out about having goast also you know teaching our students some safety tips about when writing public transit um I think there was one other thing I was going to comment on but I can't think of it now so that's it for me thank you B

072president one other thing I just want to make sure that the Go pass is not a substitute for district provided Transportation whether we have goass or not we have a responsibility to get our students especially in special education to to and from school so the go passes is is actually it's it's nothing compared to what we really have to have to provide so go pass is really just a plus it's an extra you know in working in conjunction with the city and other Metro uh companies this is just an asset but it has nothing to do with our home to school transportation yeah it helps with those with school clubs I remember when I first pitched this to I think Myro you're the first person I called all the way back in December and I

073spoke to Dr about this in January um but it definitely helps those clubs uh that want to have weekend events Service events I know environmental science club the club I'm a member of our club president takes which bus R is it I think it's like 90 no it's not the 91 which takes a Long Beach Transit bus down to the seros wetlands and that's where we have a a Service events a lot of the times and we have so many club members say they can't make it on the weekends because they can't secure a ride so I think it definitely helps with that too especially because when clubs are planning field trips if they want to book a school bus that could be really expensive for the club um so I think this would be

074another that would be like like you said it's a supplemental thing but when we're looking at primary you know home to school transportation it's it'll be our services mostly Madam president if I if I may just one comment and uh and one question um uh just for my own knowledge uh I know callapse uh does a lot with Transportation with Hemet um you mentioned is that part of the 3.5 million is the calabs because I I think I remember and maybe Dr alus maybe you could help me out I I think it was in their budget as well could you uh just from my own knowledge like where that comes from yes so we actually pay for our students that participate in calabs so that they can receive that transportation to attend the calabs program

075as a reimbursement to calabs corre correct great um and secondly I think this is a really good so over to the Go pass uh it's a really big thing and I think that sometimes when we when we do things like this that really do affect the uh community and is a positive thing it's something that we should really uh let people know about and also get press on it and let people know that these things are happening again thank you board member Mendoza um I totally agree this is a great way to promote uh equity and also access uh in our community so we have to let people know and I think that's something that we've talked about in the past of you know having our our new Pio and and really working with the

076newspapers and making sure the word gets out so again thank you and I think this is a great thank you for member crfi um I do have a uh one more I actually have a suggestion um could teachers possibly be part of that dissemination of information in their classes so that way um you know including maybe coaches so that like after school talking to their teams um extracurricular activities uh because I see that as um maybe those stud students need that Transportation after you know when it's 5:00 they need to get home um so I know I you know having been a student at one point um I used to get a lot of my information from my teachers so that would be a really good place to maybe start um if you have already

077thought of that thank you so much um I just kind of uh want to uh make sure we don't forget so I believe those were all my questions but I I'll just summarize just one one additional comment before unless you there you want to talk more about that piece there uh no we done uh in terms of the Go pass I think I know Mrs cter is probably here tired of me saying this district has good bones to do some wonderful things this is one of the bones uh because uh the way I'm looking at this is in the future I'm going to be uh asking the community to see if they want to really intill some um engagement strategies in terms of uh uh like for example having students doing internships and things like

078that before they graduate so that is something I'm going to propose in the future uh one of my one of my angs about that concept was well how do we get the students there if if that comes to fruition so this is just lay of ground for us to be able to tackle that so I'm excited I'm excited in that for everything you guys have mentioned but on top of that what to come uh for the district thank you it just jogged my memory I do have one more question um if we do have some of those internships coming in here before uh the end of 2024 um would it be possible to amend that or um to include those internships and the transportation of our students there we haven't discussed it yet but there's

079a my reason for bringing that out is just to say at some point if we if that is going to be something that the community accepts and you guys are okay with uh then then and it won't be in 22 it'll be we have to establish a a timeline but the the goal is we have X amount of high school students we're saying that they can get engaged in internships externships during the summertime or even some articulation programs at the colleges uh the question will be how do we Hammet won't be able to deliver the students that'll be impossible because some of the activities will be over the weekends uh it could be over the summertime so having this this is be a powerful process to be able to get students that don't have cars

080so so I think U like I said it lay in the ground for some wonderful things for the future thank you Dr drny um any more questions or comments I just like to make a comment that most of the internships that are now being worked on with cabs and Miss Saito um so she's been instrumental in coordinating that so I really think she should be involved in that discussion thank you anyone else yes I have one more I'm sorry go ahead um uh Dr Alon just reminded me so the the contract that that cops has with hem is that separate completely from the contract that we have with hemt or are they tied together um how does that work well K Hemet will have I'm sorry kaps will also have a contract with Hemet because

081they need to you have them provide services not only for Bellflower but also for lywood and Paramount because they have those other districts also participate um so they'll do part with them but then they we have to reimburse them for those costs that they're paying okay thank you any other questions comments perfect thank you so much for that presentation and your thorough responses um we're going to go ahead and then now I can go ahead and ask for a motion to um sorry motion for yeah so that was it that was informational yes thank you so um let's go ahead and go to appro hear the approval of minutes actually we are public hearing yeah the one the one right before in the script there so we have a public hearing this evening do I

082have a motion to conduct the public hearing on the public disclosure of proposed collective bargaining agreement so moved second are there any members of the public who wish to address this item is there any discussion from the board staff do I have a motion to close the public hearing you have that motion second oh sorry for member Mendoza thank you um roll call or member Mendoza hi Miss Armstrong hi Dr Al hessen hi Miss Stewart I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I the next item of business is approval of minutes do I have a motion to approve agenda a 0.1.1 so moved second questions or comments roll call please board member Mendoza I miss Armstrong I Dr Al h i Miss Stewart I Mr kitfield I Mrs Garza I next item is the contract approval

083of legal firm to represent B USD the next item um we have uh to presentation by Dr drty yes uh yes I'd like to brief the board on the proposed legal firm contract uh but before I but I'm going to have I'm going to invite the subcommittee of board members uh Dr Su suel helon and Mr Brad chrisfield to talk about the process so that way you guys you guys can deliberate on on with they we're going to propose a recommendation and then you guys are going to ask questions after that I I I don't know which one you guys are going to speak so have to let we know Dron okay um I'll be glad to kick it off so I'll just give you a brief overview we had 11 firms that submitted rfps

084and we interviewed six and part of that deliberation included um areas of expertise that the district was looking for and specifically we were addressed issues of special education um we also addressed issues in contracts based on our facilities and what we're building um we also wanted to have someone knowledgeable in regards to public records and understanding and working with the dis with the board on um addressing issues as they come up in regards to that and also other issues other um areas that we were looking for or training and sharing expertise with board members as as we're moving forward anything else you want to add to that yeah first I'd like to add just uh Madam president thank you for having us on the subcommittee I think uh the work that that we did with

085Dr D and Dr sah I think having those committees are a great way to engage board members together and uh I mean I think we probably put in um it was long long interviews in a few days of work and I think it's just a great way for the board to engage in that work and be able to bring uh a clear recommendation to the board uh I think it's something that we should probably do more of in the future I think it was very productive um the entire process I thought was really great again thank you Dr hessen for all the work that you did um and I just want to thank all the firms that did put in rfps and and did go through the time to interview uh we asked a lot

086of questions um one of the things I've really focused on was uh how Community oriented they were and uh really focusing on building trust in the community and being able to work with a litigation budg and be able to really decide what our um values are as a dist district and how we pursue uh cases and uh always uh weighing the the pros and cons and making sure that we're doing the right thing for our students um and just being responsible fiscally as well so it was it was a great process and I'm I'm happy with the recommendation we're making tonight thank you so um are you gonna do some more yes I was going to but I didn't know if you had a question I'll be happy to hear what yes I just had

087a question of how did you guys come up with the questions to ask them okay I'm sorry I could um so I had asked our previous legal council what questions would be good for board members to be aware of and to ask um in regards to making sure that we're covering all our bases and what our needs were um the other questions also came from Dr D so we had a total of five questions and let me I mean did you want to hear the questions that we asked or no go ahead oh okay um and so we really traded off in regards to who was asking the questions um but Ben was really thorough on making sure we rotated the questions but uh my nature and being more inquisitive I always dug a little

088bit deeper um in regards to um follow-up questions and how they address previous litigations and most importantly I wanted to know what did they know about us did they do their research because as when I used to coach students I always make sure they knew the organization that they were going to interview for so that was one of the things that um I was looking for in regards to how well do you know us do you know know our demographics do you know um what are some current litigation issues that are on hand and things like that and just to piggyback on that one of the things I was looking for is uh really asking seeing which firms could clearly identify uh their general counsel uh so we can um build that that that trust

089and be able to have that person uh available to us um and uh close session when when appropriate um so that was one of things I I focus on making sure that they're available and responsive um and like Dr H said that their familiarity with the district was really important um and and each firm gave a you know uh great presentation um but there was a lot of variances within the firms any other question um no I think for now you can please continue and then we'll have them at the end thanks so um like I said we interviewed six make sure I have that six so we interviewed six and of the six um in our previous board meeting we had already approved a a LR um and that's um Atkins Anderson Loya R

090rude and Ro Romero Romo Romo sorry about that um and we're also recommending omo that stands for ola's madugal law organization so probably yeah so so the before the board today would be the approval contract for the uh Alo uh contract um because the ALR aalr was already approved so it' be the one today and that would be for um general counsel let me uh let me make a correction we actually interviewed five instead of six so I I know we did this in several days so I believe it was five five excuse me um can I have a question yes okay so my question is um what made this particular Law Firm stand out all right well I'll start out by some of the things I thought that were so they support 14 school

091districts that special ed based and they're collaborative with parents and um Advocates and 30 they have 36 uh attorneys on staff they assign councel based on a needs and um they're thorough in regards to the brown act they're HR proactive as issues arise um they're keen on Ada policy training on being proactive they're change agents in regards to shifting culture and political climate which I thought was important in regards to hand handling political issues as we're moving forward um and also support facilities and contracts excellent thank you and all of that um I'd say for me uh personally it was the clearly identifying general counsel um they had I would say out of everybody the most knowledge on the district and what we doing with the district um so they were very well research very

092invested um and also they it felt like the right size uh for us not too small and it it didn't seem too unavailable as well like very um appropriate for what we need as a district well to my colle colleagues my board members I want to thank you so much for doing that diligent work for me okay take it over president I'm I'm I'm I'm happy thank you board member Armstrong um for member Mendoza any questions comments nope I trust your guys' judgment for member Stewart I don't know if this is the time to say this but I'm going to I trust their judgment too but just for point of order is this how it's normally done where a committee makes that decision for us and we don't get any advanced notice to research ourselves

093is that kind of how this works because I'm new yeah it it's done in a lot of different ways um I've done it where sometimes a board says superintendent you pick the you pick it um sometimes you do you do it when com in a subcommittee like this uh I haven't seen I I haven't seen it where the deliberation is done at the board meeting where uh you're doing you um where that interviews actually occur in front of the public uh although can it happen yeah but I've never seen that so A lot of times what happens is is I like this model best uh because the the the the law the law fir represents the district uh and and not the staff not the staff they represent district and the board and all that

094so so in order to have we need to have voice voice over it but the only other way to get everybody involved is if we have a meeting and publicly I don't know when you asking those questions and things like that it's just not it's not a good environment so the subcommittee process is I think is the best I just wanted to add that every U firm that we interviewed reiterated strongly that we're here for the board we're working for the board so I do have notes on the other ones and there's any questions you'd like to ask me um board member Stuart I'm I'm okay because there are other ones I they were all great please don't get me wrong I also was leaning on another firm that and I have to be honest

095I was I lean towards them because of our current situation and because they emphasize trauma and formb based practices and I like I kind of like that I like that I don't say kind of I did like that and that's um Orbach huff and Henderson and they also um same same areas of expertise um in regards to some of the other ones they worked additionally with community colleges which is um something that was added and there's really nothing else different but that was the only one that in regards stood out to me in regards to that one I don't know Brad did you want to add to to that I I again I think all of the the fir had something unique about them um I would say I'm an advocate for this process because

096I would I would say over the course of three days uh we met and I would say three day probably 13 14 hours of of work whether it was meeting via Zoom or sitting through the interviews so when it comes to like the the sensitivities of brown act like really committees are a great way to be able to do the work as a board and and build uh you know a strong recommendation for the board um when without us sitting through say like an open meeting and having each uh firm coming because then you're going to get like what a 20 minute you know uh presentation and have to you know go off of that I I'm a big advocate for like the the committee process so I thought it was really good and we

097I think we're able to generate a lot more work hours uh from a board perspective and I'm not disagreeing with the process but sounds that way well you're asking us to vote on something that's very important and we're just basically trusting whoever's on that committee with no information prior to this meeting so that's a little bit hard for me totally get it okay board member I mean president can I just speak just on that because I understand my colleague I understand what you're saying but there are a lot of times uh within Robert's Rules of Order to where when when something like this happened it is well within um the rule to where we can um get a sub committee to work and you know really just just do the work for us and not

098only that it's building relationships within the board too and and trust me um our time might come where we may have to do the work and the hours and stuff and it's it's it's it's actually healthy it's actually very healthy so but I understand what you're saying but see I know what the issue is um we had these request for proposals long before you came on board we just never acted on it because we had so many other issues and and and and so that's the thing we had these now Brad I'm sure you you should have gotten a copy like Brad did am I correct yes or no you talking about all the different law firms and all that yes do we not since I was here to distribute it to the rest of

099the board I haven't uh but uh I never received a copy of all the law firms to look at my your yeah I think when we established this uh we know we put the the RF came out and I think it came down to then selecting out of out of the list of the different law firms and all that which one we going to interview I mean we could have sat there and interviewed all of them but but I'm just looking at the time spent on five and the confusion that would have been there okay who did we talk to last time and what it becomes but so we picked based on what was written uh we picked the ones we thought had the breath of information and and that we wanted to get a

100second ear on so um there are others that like I said you can you can use all of them you can you can you know remember they're on retainer so it's not as if they are salary they salary employees or anything we use them when we use them and some people have more than one like say in Santa Monica Malibu I dealt with a bunch of lawyers law firms but uh but we're not in Santa Monica malib we're here but right and we and we um we felt that too is was manageable and um for our district in regards to handling issues as they come up um and I I did spend a lot of hours going through notes and creating um kind of like a chart of looking at overall pros and cons as

101we debated amongst ourselves and and part of the problem solving and also um looking at gaps of of assessment gaps in what we were looking for and what we wanted to see and the other thing too was cost honestly the hourly rate and um so that was another factor in consideration and and also if you think about not down reflecting on where we've been um we have to move fast things were moving fast and furious you know we had negotiations we had this we had that and so many so many you know and we need a legal counsel we deal with some stuff that we were uh we've been dealing with you guys are fully aware uh of so to set to set idle trying to figure out which law fir is going to represent

102us will put us on harm weight you'll notice I quickly acted on one of them because that we needed help and then now that we we have that secured now and now I guess the conversation around general counsel and all that is that we took the time to to to get this done so had had it been if the what was the need the need would have been we would have had somebody in place about a month ago it's just it took this long to get to get through five and had we added you we could have done it by this semester and that would put us in further harm way and if I if I can just add real quick I I 100% understand uh what board member Stuart is saying and and trust

103me when when there's a committee and I'm not on it I'm gonna probably say the same thing I'm gonna have a lot of questions and I think that's one of the benefits of having the committee system is you know we you know Dr Su especially took a lot of notes I took a lot of notes I think this is a perfect time to ask those questions like that and as long as we don't go over 13 hours of questions we save time by having the committee and just having us do that work um but again I think committees are a great thing and I think that you know again there is a camaraderie uh that is built by by engagement with board members on on those committees and I think that there's a lot of

104opportunities for the things that we want to push forward to have multiple committees two or three even on some of the things we want to get done um and and I think that it's good to have this conversation of how we address this process because I think this is a great time for those questions and and do as be as transparent as uh physically possible and I agree and I know that we needed this lawyer right away I'm not opposed and I think president Garza did a great job appointing you to I'm just concerned that you're kind of at the mercy of the president whoever she puts on those committees and then we just trust those two people without information that's tough for me to vote on so that's my only concern on on that

105and I understand and we can work on in future conversations and all that I think um um yeah there has to be a level of trust if we follow the subcommittee model there's going to have to be a level of trust now could we have established a process in between there to say you guys weigh in on something you wouldn't even be able to talk to each other anyway you would have to everything through me you know so um so and I understand that but if I had the five lawyers I could have done my own research as well I didn't have that information so that's all yeah I don't know if that's appropriate though for individual board member to go out and interview we're going to go ahead and um now yeah I don't

106mean go interview but I mean you can research and go online and things like that with just a name I'm not saying talk about it or yeah no thank you for clarifying that um okay so I make the motion to approve contract legal services to be provided by olivarez madruga law organization LLP so moved I second roll call please board member Mendoza I miss Armstrong I Dr hen i m Stewart I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I excuse me Madam president um they um the committee interviewed more than one um um um Law Firm um would it be in order for me to um make a motion to U vote on another Law Firm oh and at this moment we can't because it hasn't been agendized and we've taken roll call but but it it

107would it would it would be too different it would be two different votes because it would be two different um um uh uh law firms you want to introduce a different motion because it's not on the agenda for that law firm we have to mean you can you can make a point of order for me to for us to bring back another okay I want to make a point of order Madam president I I want to make a point of order um that we bring back um to the board a a recommendation to bring on um the or Orbach and Hoff the other one that you guys said that was pretty good that that you thought was pretty well so can I I point of order you bring that back please um so I don't

108know if that's how Point order Works um well he's a he asking me he's asking me to tell him which firm that I was referring to and it was the the other firm that you all thought that was pretty good so why don't we do there it won't be able to happen right now so so let me I'm going to do we can take action here unless you guys want to reject this one if you take action here um if you want to if board members after talking through me want want to bring on some I can I can do my homework to figure out whether that's the will of the rest of the board or not uh to bring back a an additional firm but I think we Haven not agendized that yet so

109so I don't so there might not need be a point of order at this point I think we just need to note that some of you might have interest in looking at the other law firms also so yeah Madam president could I just make a comment yes thank you uh I think that that's one of the again the benefits of having this time to ask questions because I I would have uh before we even took the vote like elaborate on why we're only presenting one um you know Dr Dr was actually uh wanted to present multiple uh firms the board and actually through the committee process we uh decided that one uh was going to be best for our district right now um I think and and again it was with the uh idea that

110in the future if we want to bring another contract to the board if there's uh a need to have another firm that we would go that route and maybe start the committee process again or just bring that firm in and vote on it there but I think that uh and if I may the the reason we we went there was because of the transition in law firms and being able to get control over what's going on with one firm at a time as they come in and as there's that transition having three new firms with a deep bench you know sometimes it's hard to just get answers on billing for one you know Law Firm or lawyer so having you know two or three come in all at once I thought that was problematic as

111a committee we talked about and agreed that's why we have the one contract but I think it it would be a a different board action on on a future agenda that's fine that that's fine I I was it was just a consideration and and in my way of just recognizing that I know you guys did the work so anyway um I'll just bring it up later okay Dr drty would you please um talk to get together with yes I'll I'll do my homework on that yes perfect thank you thank you um so let's go on to the next item of business does the board have a request to withhold an agenda item tonight yes if I may Madam president I'd like to uh pull um let me see uh 8.3.2 point1 any others anyone else

112want to withold an item hearing none um I will move with the motion I make a motion to approve the consent agenda and withhold agenda items 8.3.2 point1 approval of the 2223 through 2223 24 agreement between the district and the balar Teachers Association do I have a second second questions or comments board member kitfield questions or comments oh I think I think we got to give it I don't think I can give a second yeah the second has to be I think uh one of you guys I'll second perfect thank you um so let's go ahead and have questions or comments so on on that item the one that was pulled yes on item 8.3.2 point1 okay um okay I think you would you would make a motion can we get a roll call on

113the consent agenda and then move on to withheld sorry roll call or member Mendoza I miss Armstrong I Dr Al hessen i m Stewart I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I now we can go ahead and have comments uh questions or comments sorry point of order one more time can we get a motion in a second before we get to the questions and comments I make a motion to approve the consent agenda and withhold um I'm sorry make a motion to open for discussion um the consent um sorry Mo um item 8.3.2 point1 so moved second questions or comments all right uh so one of the things I I believe as a a Schoolboard memb is sometimes things on the consent agenda um is great but other times there's times to give opportunity to speak

114on something I think this is one of them because I think it's a great thing for a district and I think it's uh you know the the way things were handled uh by by all accounts were great and I just want to take an opportunity to say thank you to uh Dr Dr and and everybody in the bargaining units and also our teachers um and I hope that this is a step in the right direction for our district I think over the next couple years we're going to get a lot done and I feel that it's about time we we value our teachers and the people that make education happen uh and I just want to say I'm proud to support uh this agreement and I'm really looking forward to what we're able to create

115uh in both our Unified School District in the years to come so thank you everyone involved and uh that's it any other questions or comments yeah I would also like to agree with vice president um critchfield I feel like you guys have been fighting very hard and you weren't comparable to our neighboring districts for quite a long time so we've been speaking about it for a long time so it's nice to see that happen and for that to come to fruition and I thank all of the teachers you guys do amazing work and I'm really happy that you're getting valued so thank you board member Mendoza well I would Echo that sentiment but um I think you guys said it pretty clearly I'm really happy this is happening I know right now uh Los Angeles

116Unified is having their uh their te their um Union is having a strike right now so I'm really proud of uh the way things happened here I know it took a while I know students uh teachers were frustrated you know at a point in it but I think I think you know we got it done so I'm immensely grateful because this is going to ultimately benefit students just as much as the benefits teachers thank you Bo member Mendoza um um board member Armstrong yay BTA yay BTA um you guys know I'm I'm really active with my Association which is MTA and California Teachers Association and um you know if if the work if it's if it's worth us doing the work just compensate us fairly so I I understand the the sentiments that I that

117I've heard and been hearing from from my colleagues um we have a I'm sorry that I'm well I'm very glad happy to say that we have an excellent uh CBO and they work those numbers and you know every everybody's happy and I'm just hoping that we can really Forge continue to forge this you know relationship as we go further so that we can you know give what we can as as far as what what you guys deserve in compensation and I just hope we can continue on and continue you know compensating as needed so congratulations yay thank you board member Armstrong board member Stewart you gave your comments thank you so uh yes board member hessen thank you um I reiterate my colleague sentiments and I'm very happy it was a positive agreement and um

118welld deserving of our our teachers and I'm looking forward to the saying with our csca uh Union and making uh sure the equal smoothness and rewards for their support and acknowledgement for how they support the district and support our teachers so thank you and I can't say better myself I for my colleagues um sentiments thank you so let's go ahead and get uh roll call please board member Mendoza hi Miss Armstrong I Dr Al hen I Miss Stewart I Mr crvi I Mrs Garza I thank you um informational items do we have any questions regarding the informational items this evening hearing then we will go on to board student member staff comments and we will begin with Dr Dr thank you uh president Garza over the past month we have experienced several incidents that have

119uh caused concern fear and uncertainty including including the arrest of two students for possession of a loaded gun on the on the belf middle and high school campus there was another incident that was a lock down at the Ernie pile campus due to police pursuit uh another incident where there was a police car chase near Steven Foster in Mayfair middle and high in an incident at the district office where a former student broke windows and then attempted to enter Somerset High School uh we understand the frequency and severity of these incidents and we want to make it clear that uh we take these uh matters extremely serious the incidents at belflower middle and high involving the loaded guns were particularly serious and traumatizing to address this incident we immediately held a town hall meeting on

120March 20th where we had a panel of District officials law enforcement and school administrators present to provide uh present to provide information and answer questions we receiv received many suggestions for improving safety uh protocols including the use of metal detectors uh increased security guards canine dogs to detect gunpowder and drugs installment of larger fences to deter students from climbing clear backpack policies securing a resource officer uh more education on lockdown drills uh workshops for parents to better understand safety protocols intervention supports for students implementation of monthly assemblies for Behavior expectations and and consequences parent volunteers for supervision and establishment of revised Safety Committee to incorporate more voices we want to assure you that we take all suggestions seriously and they will be considered while while uh belfar Middle High School reviews and enhances current safety

121protocols we understand that some uh some ideas being considered may be highly intrusive and could upset some constituents therefore uh principal will be organizing a community input group that will provide their the bell flower middle and high school Community an opportunity to debrief and discuss options for multiple uh perspectives including those suggested at the recent town hall meeting uh we're going to solicit input uh from the larger also in larger ba uh belflower Middle High School community and we plan to sub and they plan to submit the information to me for further discussion with the greater bu USD community we also recognize that the voice of all members of the greater BC community of students staff and parents will want to provide input if some additional measure will be explored I will be I will

122be working with each principal to establish a similar process and conversation uh around some additional safety enhancements to be considered the timeline for these conversation will will take place during the month of April May with the goal of taking my uh my recommendations to the board for approval for a board discussion and approval on May 25th on the May 25th and 20 and June 15th board meetings so details of how uh of all this process will come out soon uh but um I wanted to just address the community that that something did happen in the community uh particularly the last month a month and a half that that has got to everybody very concerned rightfully so um so we're not going to ignore it we're going to we're going to engage Community a lot of

123ideas were thrown out uh I just know that some of those are going to cause are very controversial so we have to get voices uh not only Bellflower middle and high but overall Community if we're going to make some of these changes so so that is coming and and I'm hoping to have something the last in may end of May and June you'll have to take two meetings you can't do something like that big in one meeting because it requires discussion and then possibly an action if we're going to make some uh substantial Chang es uh principal lren sent out message to uh belfar middle high already today uh following my my message to the community about some of the stuff we discussed at town hall meeting and then tomorrow there's a message coming from

124me um to the entire belfar unified uh community and the BD um newspaper uh news weekly news paper that will um will explain everything as got through saying here and and and so I'm hoping people are able to read that and understand that we're not ignoring this we're we're going to lean into it and try to see how we can make this thing better we are living in unprecedented times and I'm just kind of watching the news myself watching what's happening in the entire country and the states so we're in different times now so we have to we have to kind of understand that and operate within that and um and this thing is going to have to be where we all work together the parents students community staff all working together on this so

125anyway that concludes my my report thank you Dr D uh we'll go on to board member comments um board member Mendoza all right good evening BD um this Monday although late I attended the town hall over at B High School on school safety and gun violence prevention I only got to be a part of the last half hour of the dialogue but I saw enough to tell that it was really personal um uh meeting and everyone in attendance took the topic uh really seriously um because I wasn't present for the entire meeting I like to give my colleagues a chance to speak more thoroughly on the event um what I will say though on the topic of school safety is that I believe students are willing to sacrifice um minor Comforts and Liberties if it

126means their classmates are safe but all I ask is that new measures are not simply forced onto the student body um without first some thorough EMP empath empathetic uh dialogue between leadership and those who are going to be most affected uh by the changes so I assure you that students will be less likely to oppose drastic changes if they understand that we as a board don't take any pleasure in implementing you know some of these pretty drastic uh policies so as long as we have that talk in the community um and we make sure everyone moves forward knowing that these measures are being made only out of a our moral obligation to ensure student safety uh then I think we can preserve a positive learning environment I know that's a concern you know with metal

127detectors and dogs the learning environment will will be hurt by that the the atmosphere on campus might change but I feel if everyone gets that talk and they understand this is kind of a necessary measure we'll be able to to minimize that impact um I'm happy to report that the superintendent's advisory council is a place where some of that conversation uh has already you know happened um on Monday we we we had conversations although brief um about potential security um improvements moving on from school safety though I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the other work the council did earlier this week um this spring for the second time in District history students will be voting for representation on the school board on Monday morning the council which is a delegation of

128students uh from each of the four main secondary campuses uh we met to revise our District's policy on student board members uh the students and administrators present all made valuable contributions to improving the ways in which the position operates So Yesterday Dr johy and I met uh to review what the council had drafted and we confirmed the process the council had developed with essentially no changes from what was discussed um on Monday uh credit must be given where it's due um assistant superintendent Bonnie Carter at that meeting was more of a champion for student representation than I was uh and she pushed the council and I uh to our final and most inclusive structure when we were shying away from making big changes so I'm excited to get to speak on that structure now um

129um so as because the election process for next year student board members will be taking off in a few weeks because of the superintendent advisory Council work I am delighted to announce that for the 2324 school year we will have three student board members one from belflower one from Mayfair and one representative that students from Los Flores and Somerset will vote for to represent both campuses we're also opening up the position to Juniors so our current policy only permits seniors to serve um but because of the obligations of senior year such as College es sorry college applications you know writing scholarship essays uh you know being in club leadership positions it's often seniors who lead those clubs uh it's it's difficult for seniors to to at least I had a hard time with the position

130um so the council agreed that the position could benefit from participation by 11th graders um taking the load off of just one person will increase the quality of student representation in this body um this year one of my biggest challenges was getting the public plls from belfly from Somerset from Los Flores I had a hard time I was limited to Mayfair um I often relied on student leaders and teachers um to research what issues could be worked on uh the issue is with that the priorities and concerns of some are not representative of what's on the minds of everyone um so I believe that three students uh serving as members will result in better service to to all students districtwide to assist in accurate polling of the public pulse on each campus the role of

131the student board member will also be accompanied by the development of student cabinets um at each campus modeled after the system uh Mayfair Jr Alysa Klein developed with principal Diaz earlier this year that being said in the next few months an entire new system for student representation um uh in District governance will be developed and implemented to ensure student voic is protected and expanded as we know student board members bring a student perspective to solving District challenges um but the cabinets will compliment the student board members and that they can allow for student perspective in solving issues uh man I shouldn't have I should have formatted this with double spaces I uh so yeah the cabinets will host student town halls and present reports to their site principles allowing for the democratization of our campuses

132and increase student leadership board members uh will help their cabinets by providing a district perspective to solving those site issues and the cabinets will help their board members by providing a site perspective to solving District issues uh there's so much more to say on this system like for example we were looking at the superintendent's advisory Council seeing an increase in its responsibilities um but I'll have to hold on to all of that because Dr J and I are scheduled to meet with each of the secondary level principles to talk more in depth about our proposed system of student board members and cabinets so I will have more to share on that soon uh because that system is not fully implemented for the time being I have been personally interviewing students and teachers to investigate which

133issues uh folks want to see the board work on one issue that was brought to my attention was in regards to the eligibility of English language Learners to attend Somerset High School last Monday I met with uh El teacher Laura Ellis at mayfer high school she informed me that she had discovered that e students classified as level one and two Learners are not eligible to transfer to Somerset High School to make up lost credits even if they are not on track to graduate due to the lack of e instructors on that campus students must make up credits through Credit Recovery which has so far been proving largely ineffective as the program is asynchron and it's a zero period so when you have El students who need the most one-on-one support having an asynchronous class at

1347 in the morning isn't isn't the best solution uh to helping them uh the issue has apparently existed for a long time and it's only now you know garnering attention because of pandemic learning loss uh elel students were not effectively instructed during the during distance learning and so when they've returned to school they're behind on essential credits to graduate the number of students in this position has historically been small but because of the pandemic numbers have now surpassed over dozen students this news was alarming to me especially after I learned that reclassification the only pathway for students to gain eligibility to attend Sommerset is such a lengthy process that it's likely that you know they won't reclassify in time to be on track to graduate um I immediately began planning a meeting uh with Dr

135jty and assistant superintendent Bonnie Carter but before I contacted uh the both of them I wanted to make sure I understood the E program here in belflower so I did call board president Garza and Mayfair teacher uh on special K McDaniels the two were very helpful and gave me plenty of information on what it's like at school for El students so after speaking with them I was confident in my meeting with uh Dr uh d d and assistant superintendent uh Bonnie Carter so I'm happy to report that those two were on the case um they're working to make sure that every student has a fair shot at graduation and so I spoke to them earlier this week on Monday um I'd also like to recognize Julie skorka Laura Ellis and Caren McDaniel uh for uh

136taking initiative as El teachers and standing up for for their students by bringing this to the board's attention so thank you to those three earlier earlier this year one of my priorities was ensuring that every BC student had access to Chromebooks to take home and use for homework that battle lasted two months but it concluded with the news that my campus would be catching up to belflower and offering a 2 to1 ratio of Chromebooks uh our campus received a shipment of 1,000 new laptops so I assume that the issue was said and done but today the personal Chromebook that I cariously broke like it's a touchcreen the screen cracked so it started freaking out um so I went to the library to check out a school Chromebook but I was informed that our campus is

137short on devices again and I was put on a weit list so the weight list is pretty long u fortunately the librarian Mr Evans was able to temporarily lend me a dispair device uh he had from a chrome cart he uses for his credit recovery period uh but I felt pretty guilty because he was making an exception for me when there were probably another there was probably another student that day who went home without Chromebook and so I felt that I I might have been like favored and I I felt guilty about that uh but I reassured myself that I would make good use of this Chromebook by using it to add to my board members update before this meeting the news about our our reemerging technology W so students should always have access to

138a device to use at home especially given that today virtually all of our assignments are through Google Classroom um so I am recommending District staff look again at all of our campuses to make sure that we don't regress into that same issue we we had seemingly re resolved in the fall uh to wrap up my update I'd like to speak on two initiatives happening outside of belflower but still relating to the world of Education our state legislature is currently considering assembly Bill 275 uh a piece of legislation that will require districts with student members to compensate those students for their work I fully support this piece of legislation as I believe that it will encourage student participation in governance I know that during my time in the this rule I had to choose between having

139a job and serving as a student rep I quit my first job at SIMS Park um earlier in my early in my term and then about five months later I calculated that I'd have to work at the lumo railroad museum in order to afford to pay for college so student board members should not have to worry about having three do jobs they shouldn't have to worry about going to school and then having their job and then being on the board um so this piece of legislation will improve student representation Statewide and I sincerely hope that it passes so that next year's reps are fairly confid ated for their work and to my colleagues if you're interested in supporting this piece of legislation I spoke with the California Student board member Association which is kind of

140an unofficial group that of all the State student board members and one representative told me that uh a district can pass a resolution in support of the bill in order to on the actual bill have that District's name be listed under like the support category you know bills have like groups that support it so right now currently it's Long Beach uh in San Diego Unified um who are listed as sponsors of that bill and so if you guys were interested uh we could pass a resolution in support of that bill um that's assembly Bill 275 and then when we pass that uh our name B Unified School District will be the third on there to support that piece of legislation so I believe that passing the resolution will be a great opportunity for our district

141to affirm its commitment to student voice and it'll also help the legislation pass I think it's a good idea uh to conclude my comments tonight uh I I wanted to bring to your attention so everyone's attention an issue that is of great importance to me so tonight we've heard a lot of great news uh teachers will be receiving salaries that reflect their hard work students will have free access to uh public transportation our arts program just receive critical support um form the form in the form of that Bond not the bond the the uh the grants right um uh the number of student board members is tripling Juniors will be eligible to serve members may be paid next year year and the new student governments are beginning to form on every secondary campus so that's

142all great news I'm immensely proud of our district because of these things and I'm optimistic that belflower is on track to become one of the most Progressive School communities in the region so I recognize that much of this is possible because we have the support of the State of California well right now on the other end of this nation students are under attack from their own state government I'm referring to Florida Governor Ronda sanz's move to have the Florida State Board of Education vote on expanding his parental rights and Education Act Beyond kindergarten through third grade which how it stands right now to prek through 12th grade I'm alarmed by this move for a reason critics of the parental rights and Education Act have dubbed it Florida's don't say gay law since it bans public

143schools from discussing issues of sexual orientation or and identity for grades kindergarten through third the legislation has already been harmful to Florida students young kids with two parents of the same sex feel alienated and teachers fear for their jobs when questions relating to to lgbtq plus uh Community when that Community comes up in their classrooms so they feel free they are fearful of retaliation um and with the governor's proposition now students my age are going to feel targeted at school think about that's going to senior year um if this move passes many students will actually literally be hurt um uh rates of self harm are already high among lgbtq plus people my age uh so what happens when it's illegal for a person to be open about something that's fun Al as their identity at

144school this move I can't consciously ignore even though I'm sa safe and supported over here in belflower but it doesn't stop there however hb1 1223 uh is another piece of legislation that is threatening students if past it will make it illegal for Public School staff and students to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person sex that says teachers and students I'm infuriated by this if I wasn't forced enough to live here in California I wouldn't be allowed to sit up here I it would be illegal for me to show basic human dignity to my peers and refer to my friends the way they wish to be referred to so this isn't political this is not up for debate this is the most open and deliberate attack on literal miners

145imaginable so it's seeking to erase a community and I'm not sitting idly by on this so last night I contacted my fellow uh California Student board member Association uh members and I requested that we would put together a letter to send to the Florida State Board of Education requesting that they reject the governor's proposals so as of now me and a few of my colleagues from across the state are drafting a letter which we're all going to sign and send over before the uh board takes its vote in April so board president Garza the first line of your president's message is a quote from uh uh yeah from Dr Martin Luther King um whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly so we here in belflower we can't ever take for granted the freedoms and culture

146we enjoy here um we we can't sit idly back while students like me are being attacked under the same US flag so I'm requesting that the board at our next meeting takes initiative by passing a resolution to affirm our commitment to protecting lgbtq plus students in our schools there are so many injustices in education in this world I understand that and I wouldn't ask the board to pass a resolution speaking out against every one of them we would pass so many resolutions but what I've spoken about today is literally the most deliberate attack on students I've ever seen in my life so the only way for Injustice to be stopped is for people to speak up and resist so if if we don't then we've just chosen the side of the oppressor so with that

147that's that those are my comments for uh tonight thank you board member Mendoza um board member Armstrong okay um well I'll talk about the gun issue in a minute but um I did participate with my fellow board members um first of all thanks for being here tonight you all it's only 8 o'clock 8:05 but that spring up is still getting me so but anyway thanks so much for being here um um I I I was um I was with my colleagues as we toured the Bellflower high school with uh with Robert Garcia and um had our little photo ops and they were really impressed with our campus um and our students um and our and our some and our programs and uh I continued um I did my normal uh laxa meeting as LA County

148uh LA County uh schools truste Association we had a meeting we're trying to uh put up a Leadership Institute again we did it last year but for some reason we're we're uh behind on planning so but anyway uh we're working on another Leadership Institute for our Port members um I'm continuing my uh water education classes and I'm not going to give my board member garsa the clues you're going this this water education is not all about water but um um uh learning Lots so I'm just extremely busy if it's not one thing it's another um and I'm loving every B of it um I also um met with the um I attended the meeting with the LA uh County Supervisors and they had a lot of things on their agenda oh my goodness but I

149was there because um to I was there in um in in in support of the LA County Supervisors um because of the gun violence you know uh in it's a it's a national crisis and we do really need to take action and um they've been working hard um I'm trying to figure out how they are going to approach it from a national level but I'm glad we at belflower we're going to approach it um from our local level so uh because enough is enough we it's I am so glad that we didn't have to mourn any of our students over the past two weeks and I do have two children that attend Bellflower High School um back in July or June July I um read a whole statement um because of what have happened what

150happened in uh in Texas um I was in Houston at the time and and my children was uh was afraid that I was there uh where they were where they were having that parade it was it yal day you Texas yeah so so so because usually if I'm I'm out sometimes we're protesting or we're marching or something like that but I wasn't nowhere near so so they were afraid for me because they knew I was in Texas I just wasn't there but um you guys we really do have to work together it's all of our responsibilities and again mental health we cannot ignore the mental health issues that go along with it and I'm glad Bellflower has things in place and and those things that are in place can be improved and I'm just glad

151that com we've we've called the community to help that's that's the biggest thing we call the communities because it's their children we can't control what happens in their house so we need to provide uh uh support for our parents um and we we have a good core parents that are ready to uh they're rearing to go and hopefully with that we can engage more of the community uh in in the future so that's it for me thank you bour Armstrong for Memorial hen thank you um I had a busy week I also was in with uh Robert Garcia Congressman Robert Garcia and and was happy to um be with my fellow board members and discussing issues that are related to education he asked a lot of great questions he visited the classrooms and students were

152engaged in um asking him questions I brought up the issue that one out of eight students through um have a disability throughout the state and that special ed is needed more funding which would help support all of our students because as we're um the encroachment of funds that a special ed also uh prevents other students from participating in other services and programs that we can have more funding for I also participated in a csba legislative week I was on a zoom with um actually she's Senator Lena Gonzalez was was representative and I was on with Lynwood board members Paramount U board members uh talking about issues that are coming up and supporting um legislative bills as you had brought up board member Mendoza and specifically we were looking at cyber attacks which I know we

153received um an email from our Tech saying that there was an email coming out to The District in regards to a Cyber attack or similar to that and so she's going to be taking um it to heart and looking at passing that legislation um also I wanted to share that I was part of our my as my work as a commissioner with um supervisor Janice h i was part of the public Social Service Commission and I bring this up because we had an issue on our homeless Youth and also supporting them there's great programs through DPSS uh that provides support and students transitioning from high school if they want to go to college they pay for books they help pay for tuition and even look at some possible housing um accommodations so I wanted to

154bring that out um as part of my role there I also wanted to share my sentiments in regards to our ESL students in regards to equity and I think that's really important um and I agree with you that it was brought to our attention to support our students from that perspective is is really critical as far as the safety um town hall meeting I've been receiving a lot of feedback from parents specifically wanting to get involved in the um Committee on Public Safety and they I thought it's a good way to look at empowering our students so they feel less threatened in regards to training them to be safety ambassadors and that's just something we can talk about as a board of supporting our students and moving forward and part of that process would be

155providing them training on to handle issues or to also provide peer-to-peer counseling on times like many students were saying that they were going for support and they weren't able to get to see a counselor and they got discouraged and left um I hate to see that happening especially in a critical situation where there's such fear and threat coming to them um so I really was hoping that we can look at this sooner than later and also engaging our city I think it's really important maybe we can have Public Safety representative join as part of this um Safety Committee to partake and supporting I think it was brought up by one of our um Law Enforcement Officers about a program that currently exists in belflower not sure what he called it right now some sort of

156quality control or safety I I I I'm sorry I don't remember but I know it was something in partnership with that so um I'm looking forward in supporting our district State I know um City our district but also specifically r now at Han belflower High School um considering the threats that came down back to back and I think um that's what was most shocking to me as as a board member but also um parents and staff were very shocked and um principal Lunden came up to me and he said I've been a principal for 30 years and I've never had this before so times are changing and us being proactive in doing what we did I think was a good thing and we're receiving um as you heard tonight positive feedback for bringing up the

157public um the town hall meeting on and I know there was a lot of angry parents too which is normal behind um fear is anger behind anger is fear excuse me so that's um I understand and it's hard for someone to think that they're sending their kids to school not knowing what's going to happen so um I'm excited and look forward to be part of that process all right thank you thank you board member hen board member Stuart good evening everyone wake up um before I talk about what I did the last two weeks I want to start off my board report by talking about what our teachers do this is an amazing night for our teachers and I want to start by talking about them our teachers do the little things that have big

158impacts on our kids and their lives they keep the chaos somehow organized and they're pros at multitasking they speak life into their students they counsel guide on top of um teaching they Model Behavior and set examples they create materials they plan they collaborate they organize and they work on and off the clock they differentiate these lessons they analyze they input data they adapt they manage technology even when it's not working they're figuring it out they help Shake shape a sorry they help shape academic goals and are dedicated to getting their students to achieve those goals teachers are confident patient and Innovative caring resilient perceptive passionate inclusive dedicated to our communities and they love their students and families and I could go on and on about how I feel about teachers but we don't have enough

159time in this board report to truly explain how I feel but I thank all of you guys um I thank all of our belfar unified teachers for everything you do and congratulations on your negotiations and your race you deserve it and on April 26 um there is what we call the who award we honor our own and I just want to say congratulations to Dr Robinson for being that who Award winner and you totally deserve that so congratulations to you as well now for me what I've been up to um I attended a retirement lunch for US Representative Alan lenthal um congratulations to him on 30 years of service and his impact on our community I was able to talk with many local and state leaders I had great conversations with Adam Schiff and speaker

160Ren Don and both of the lenths about just education and how we can partner with them at a federal and a state level so that was really amazing and I look forward to continuing those discussions I'm meeting with speaker Randon in a few weeks to follow up on those conversations I attended the belflower high school um visit with Congressman Garcia along with my colleagues this was another amazing opportunity to talk about federal and state funding what we as a district want from our partners and need and how we can work together for our students we discussed Wellness social emotional health absenteeism learning loss and safety amongst many other topics special education is my colleague said and so it's just really important for us to communicate and to work with our local leaders in our community

161I attended another meeting with local Partners the City of Lakewood president Garza introduced the new board members board member um Crisfield and myself vice president pitfield and myself and Dr jty um to the council so I look forward to collaborating and partnering with Lakewood to get value valuable input on how we can work together to create the best educational experience for our students and I attended the town hall at belflower regarding our safety I've also gotten a lot of feedback from that one thing that I was taught a principal taught me very early on in my career that I think has helped me so much is She always reminded us that if you're going to write an email or you're going to come and you're going to present a complaint or a concern to have

162Solutions in fact she would turn back some of our emails if we didn't have a solution and I'm very solution based so I think it was really good to talk with our families and to listen with them there are a lot of opinions in a district over 10,000 students so we need to continue to talk about it we need to work together and we need to find things that we can agree on and we need to analyze data I've asked for some data in my last um requests and we need to look at that data and try to implement solutions that the majority of our families can get behind and support so I love that we open up the conversations um with our educational partners and I hope that we do more of that in

163the future so thank you thank you board member Stewart board member critchfield first of all I just want to draw your attention to my new suit I was really excited about it and I was like it's one of a kind No One's Gonna wear this and I walk out here I look at the front row uh but it's okay it's okay um I first before I go over uh what I did over the past couple weeks and also uh talk about the the Safety Town Hall I just want to say I think we're really fortunate here at BD because every one of uh my colleagues on the board on on the dis uh are very very engaged not only in the community but at the regional state and federal level and I think that's something

164that's pretty rare for an entire board to be engaged in that way so I just want to say thank you all of you for for making those efforts because I think they really do matter uh especially in the big picture when we we're doing things in the macro two three four years out too so thank you so much for that um to kick it off uh Dr Robinson does this really cool mindfulness training and I I went to see my uh daughter's uh she made a leprechaun trap it was really cute and I went to see the presentation and before it began I I got to watch Dr Robinson's mindfulness uh session with her her students and I have to say it was super super impressive just everything like that I think it was like

165five or six minutes of it in the morning and you could just see on their faces that it really does shift them out and one of the things she was saying was you leave uh you know everything at home at home you're here you're in a safe place and I think it would it's really powerful and just even see my own daughter do that and like it just it it really warmed my heart and it really drives home the fact that uh we have to stand by that and make sure it is a a safe and secure place for them too I'm the king of Segways um so you know speaking of the Town Hall I think that that's really where that matters uh for all of our grade levels and I know we're talking

166about the high schools too and I know that conversation is going to grow over time right now it's at belflower high we're going to talk to to mare high and I know Dr Dr is working on that communication plan and that timeline to let the entire Community know um and I want to applaud those efforts from you and the staff I mean I think that was what two days you you pulled that together and you engage a community and uh yeah there were a lot of emotions in the room but uh you faced it head on and I just want to say thank you for doing that um and I think it it is a great start and I love to hear about the Committees and one thing I'll say about the Committees I just

167hope that they're intentional and I and I I want to see where the board is going to have input on those committees as we go forward and make sure that we know exactly what's happening and and be able to uh have a hand in that process um so speaking of which I know we've talked about having a study session on that and I would I would really love to get that on the agenda uh so we can have that study session because uh I don't think a regular board meeting is going to do it for that big of a topic uh that's going to take that much of our attention uh Robert Garcia uh Congressman Garcia's visit was great again I think those relationships are really important um we did get introduced at the Lakewood

168city uh council meeting uh with my uh colleague uh clerk Stewart and uh president Garza and again those relationships uh the mayor's prayer breakfast Dr Dr and I went to that uh at Lakewood and we there was a great speaker his name is John from braver Angels was that right and he talked about Unity community and like the uh the harm of political polarization and uh it was very powerful just his pre I mean I was sitting there and I I was messaging somebody I was like man I just want to be able to talk like this guy it was like watching like a young like Barack it was like is so just like captivating and I would love to see how we can incorporate maybe him or a speaker like him to uh maybe

169kick off an event I know we we kind of talked about a couple uh things but I think those messages are really important and uh they they're valuable for our district um see leprechaun trap um let's see oh and and one more time I just want to say thank you uh to uh president Garza for forming the committee again uh I think it's a great process and I hope that for a few of the issues that we've been talking about in board means that we've been talking about spending more time on that we can go that route um I'm going to be a proponent of that and I hope we can do that oh and then also last thing promise uh the abilities awareness assembly at Mayfair was phenomenal um I cried a little I

170cried a little um I think that those educational opportunities for all of our students are really important um there was one student who spoke and I talked to her afterwards and uh she was talking about her experience as a older sister uh of uh her younger sister who has special needs and I couldn't help but think of my daughters right and it it really makes you understand and feel that in caring for somebody um a lot lot of people are affected by it and those stories are powerful and I think that we should be telling more of them and inviting more people and I know those bleachers have been out for a while but I know that the capacity was limited for that event and I think that's unacceptable and I think that we got

171to fix that because just even that one event I wish we could have filled that place five times over um so facilities do affect uh our education in our on our campuses so hopefully that's something we could do thank you thank you B member Crisfield um yeah I think it's my turn um so thank you everyone for coming out it's um you know we're happy to have you um anytime that you are able to come and join us uh so I did join all my um my fellow board members with Congressman Garcia um I did introduce our new board members and our new superintendent to the um sorry to the Lakewood city council and um here soon U we will do that as well for Sero city council um so get ready please um so

172thank you um to our staff and our superintendent for definitely um like board member chrisfield pointed out getting that town hall meeting ready in very short amount of time um and having that turnover quickly so that way we can address those very important issues for our community um thank you for that timeline um we're looking forward to having a little bit more details about it and exactly like our my fellow board members said when would we be able to get involved in that you know um process appropriately and also um want to say just um congratulations to our teachers thank you so much for all the work that you do um we um you know we value you a lot and um I hope that uh we you know continue to work together to give

173the best that we can for our students um I know that both you know the district and our teachers and our support staff keep their students in their hearts and in the center of their decisions um so it's great to be working together again um so also I want to say thank you so much much or congratulations to Dr Kirsten Robinson um so we've known each other for a while and I am so so excited and happy to see you win this award um you're amazing like my fellow board member of chrisfield says um yes absolutely you just radiate that you know enthusiasm and happiness for our kids and um I know that there's not just you know Dr Robertson but a lot of our teachers who do that too so thank you um for

174all of you that you do um I also wanted to give you an update on our the talks with JPL um I did sit down and talk to um Dr Oda Lutz the director of curriculum and instruction for with JPL um was it I want to say a day ago um I will be connecting Dr Dr so that way he can have his own conversation with her and start having those preliminary talks as to Logistics what do we have to do on our end when do we start that um but it looks very promising um I'm very happy to report that um the foundation is set and it's just um going forward we'll get those details ironed out so that way our students have those internships over the summer to be going to um experience

175this for J with JPL um so uh thank you so much for um helping and um going forward with it in the future I believe that it um any other comments or from the board or staff hearing none I close this meeting I adjourn this meeting at 8:29 p.m.