001mm-hmm welcome everybody uh to the uh special meeting of the board of education on Friday March 17th for those of you celebrating Happy St Patty's Day um first we want to begin uh as we acknowledge the trans the traditional ancestral unseated territory of the chumashtangva Fernandez and First Nations on which we are learning educating and living uh we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance so please join me place your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberties thank you uh if you could please take roll call at this time present member ponds for kamkar president vice president Weisberg president president Ferguson president all five board members are present so we
002do have a quorum to proceed with the business of the meeting uh uh as Dr Weisberg mentioned there are blue cards in the back if you do intend on speaking during tonight's meeting please fill out one of those cards uh and get it down to us we'll accept cards until the uh last speaker has finished speaking um with that we will go to uh item number two which is request to address the board um do we want to do virtual speakers first let's do our virtual public comment first uh okay so we'll go to um uh Elizabeth uh first and then um if folks join throughout the course we can hop back um but let's let's take uh Elizabeth uh pediata first Elizabeth if you unmute and if you want you can turn your camera
003on but you're able to speak at this time hi yes so um my I guess question or concern that I wanted to put out there regarding the school safety issue is that my my son does attend Huerta and he does attend an after-school program and at that after school program um I'm sorry about my background noise um at that after school program he um he attends I have at times been able to walk onto the campus and I'm just curious as to what modifications can be made so that you know not just anyone can walk in and uh into the campus that's all okay and just as a heads up we will uh respond to public comment at the very end so um I'll ask staff that for questions especially like that that we're taking
004those down so that we can get an answer to them okay our uh we have no other virtual public comment speakers okay thank you great uh we are going to then go to the card so I will call the cards as they come in uh the first is uh Linda Thomas followed by foreign and please come down to the front table uh and speak into the mic that way Folks at home can hear and if you have cards that you haven't turned in you can bring them over here to us whenever you whenever you get a chance I graduated from Burbank uniform one just graduated actually mid-year oh they can't hear you would you speak would you mind speaking to the mic a little bit more thank you okay um I know this meeting is
005about school safety I wanted to raise an issue about um not stranger things but about the safety of our students with teachers in particular um in the school district um my student my my younger son had an incident his freshman year at Burroughs with a teacher who was giving him back rubs I reported to his counselor concerned about that situation and was required to have a meeting with the teacher in order to get them removed from the class and place in another class little did I know until later that other incidents were occurring with this teacher and other students there was an investigation um and we were contacted last spring and asked questions about this teacher's conduct including questions around dinners at the teacher's house none of which occurred with my student but it made
006me very concerned that this was an ongoing pattern and practice of this teacher um apparently nothing occurred because that teacher went back in the classroom made me very concerned about the nature of the investigation whether things have been pushed under the rug with respect to teacher misconduct and that's very concerning and I don't know that it's been adequately addressed thank you thank you our next speaker is Irma Solorio hi there hello how are you my name is Irma I do have a son that goes to mag um Park my concern and my question is if when you have a child that's dealing with substance abuse and they go to school you pick them up from school they walk out of school Hive from class I understand that the teachers don't have control because we don't
007have school police you know I don't know if you guys allow the dogs to randomly come back into campus and check for drugs but from what I understand there is a lot of drugs on all our campuses it's so easy for children to have access to drugs and I know that because my son's you know told me um so at home we're doing our part taking our children to a substance abuse treatment getting getting them into the services that they require but when they go to school it's so easy and tempting for them you know I did pick up my son a couple weeks I did talk to the administrator we made a safety plan with him and you know whatever they could do and help they were very supportive but my concern is that
008the drugs are being brought on campus um so you know as we know fentanyl is killing a lot of children I don't hope that doesn't happen to our anybody here anywhere but that is my concern if you guys have police more present um or the dogs go check you know the sniffing dogs on campus I don't know what the rules are with that if they're implemented but thank you got it thank you very much for your comments next Kristen merker followed by Miles Gilmore good evening I will wanted to address some of you I know that I've talked to many of you over the last week in person or over VC and I really just wanted to voice one that I appreciate you all taking the time to address the school safety and the sexual
009assault instances however I do feel like more needs to be done I understand that there are things in the works right now behind the scenes maybe things that we're not privy to but also I do feel like things need to be addressed a lot quicker over the last two weeks I have heard lots of stories from young girls from families and from other residents and it is unacceptable that even two of these things have happened let alone one or 50 plus so this is not okay this needs to change something needs to change families I hope are here to help facilitate and support that change I also think that with the school safety so my daughter is a senior at Burbank High she drives every day she her ID has not been checked every day
010I checked in with her on my way here and I emailed the principal last weekend saying hey the week of the incident my daughter's ID is not being checked it was checked maybe twice in the five days um I never got a response and then I asked her today and she said it was checked some days not every day and this is through the garage which my understanding is the um point of entry for the Intruder so while I understand things are being done we have a few bullet points in our emails of things that are coming we need to act faster so this doesn't happen again so people aren't aware of these weak points and it's it's very unacceptable that there is still this happening a week later two weeks later um and I
011just think we could do better for our kids and to make sure they're safe at school and I really hope that you guys hear out the young girls if they speak tonight about their situations and really take that to heart and make sure no one else has to come up here and talk thank you our next speaker is Miles Gilmore followed by Joel schwassman thank you my name is Miles Gilmore I'm a campus supervisor at Burbank High School today my voice represents the pain and anger felt by our staff our community and myself we feel unsafe we are unsafe we are afraid we are overworked and we are under supported since the incident on the sixth there have been many messages sent promises made and perhaps a genuine attempt to analyze the situation at hand
012even if genuine the response of the district still shows a misunderstanding of the situations facing our schools and staff this misunderstanding comes to the surface when we observe our District's reaction when the community feels the need to mobilize action in their own hands rather than Community communicating that with those in the district the reaction I've felt is uh was annoyanced that those not knowing the inner working of the district would foolishly uh foolishly thought their outrage could cause change this lacks critical thought and an analysis of the district's part of the contradictions plaguing our district we must not view concerned afraid and or hurt community members as malfactors even if we disagree with their conclusions on what is to be done where there is anger and criticism there is a pool of knowledge that can
013be studied and acted upon to be more efficient and supportive for the community we serve we need more support for the community and for the staff this anger is now showing in ways that makes the board's traditional tactics of quote-unquote healing issues ineffective we cannot lie to our community and staff telling us we are safe when we are the ones that keep the school safe no Zoom training will fix the systemic issues at Play We Are understaffed underpaid and underappreciated you cannot support your community by telling us what to do what you believe is best for the district you must listen to the anger and the pain felt here today I also want to be perfectly clear that there is not a single word one of you can say or utter to fix this situation
014now is the time for action action with thought planning and coordination with employees community members and students speaking as a staff member and working a position to protect the schools and the students more training is a Band-Aid to the solution if you want to solve the crisis plaguing our district and honor your words protect the students we need more staff everywhere this cannot be done by the district listing jobs and not investigating what is needed to attract more and better employees the fact is we want more employees if we want more employees you have to pay a living wage as a supervisor currently making 17 an hour to be cannon fodder to protect the school you telling us the presence of you're telling us the presence of danger is our problem when you don't increase
015our support financially or with people on the ground and instead do an online training this is the district not taking accountability for the issues in our schools employees are tired afraid and poor if our students are to be safe our employees need to be healthy stable and cared for if our community if the community is to be safe it is time for all of you to wipe your brains of what you think is right for the community and listen to your worker is your students and your community you must not open you we must not just open dialogue but action you have no trust with your community or workers because you have given no sign that you trust them or us this just this district is not safe so do not tell us that it
016is our workers are struggling and we are not just failing our students but we are hurting them if you place the responsibility onto the workers instead of addressing the issues that have been eating away at our district for a decade or more then I wonder what what your purpose is as heads of the district I wonder why you all received the big increases if it is the workers issue and we are the ones that need to fix it then stay out of our way if you're thinking to yourselves that the issue of employee pay and work conditions is not at play in the incident of March 6th then you have failed as leaders and organizers of this District for the workers and community members here that trust the board's action please Ponder these questions tonight
017what has changed and how do you feel safer since the violence against our lgbtq plus students what has changed and how do you feel safer since the death threats against our students teachers staff and schools what has changed and how do you feel safer since the district harbored a pedophile allowing him to teach our students think deeply about these questions for the for those that already do not trust the board and rightfully expect the board to prove themselves to us where do we go from here we organize we plan and we protect our communities if the board sweeps students pain under the rug you parents and students have the right and duty to organize for justice for employees that have lost faith in the board to help us raise our standard of living and help
018us do our job I repeat it is our right and duty to organize we must hold our district accountable if they refuse to do so do not let the district villainize you for fighting for your well-being everyone must ask themselves these questions I need you to wrap up okay I understand uh how to get to everybody yeah from equal time got you thank you um uh everyone must ask themselves difficult questions like where their intentions lie I thought might that makes clear to me the intentions of our board versus the wants of USD workers and community members is the is that it is legal for us I'm sorry we're done thank you our next speaker speaker and I really don't mean to be impersonal but everybody we want to make sure everybody has time to
019to testify tonight so uh Joel schlossman is our next speaker followed by my uh Irene Hernandez good evening folks aren't you embarrassed to be here you all should be ashamed of yourselves the accountability rests right there when I ask the question where does the buck stop the superintendent says it stops with me you should resign right away if you won't resign he should be fired it's that simple you should take a vote of no confidence or confidence with all your employees a secret vote it's not the first time I've called for it right this guy's a failure for our school district his priorities are all wrong now uh I've talked about this subject numerous times when I talk about security at the school you take turns uh picking on me and and talking down to
020me and I think that's inappropriate this stuff is very predictable considering what's going on in our nation we should all be very concerned about the the state of uh and the safety of our children uh you know as an elective you should offer a class for kids where they can participate in school safety and maybe make them part of it give them whistles radios I don't know something's better than nothing somebody wrote a letter in the paper he talked about parking a police car out front and that was one of my ideas as well and I'm all for it I want plain closed armed security in our schools particularly well you know all our schools I think we should have it and I think you should do something to Foster it how about this guy
021portentino who tells us what time we can start educating our kids in the morning remember that guy how about you get him to have some legislation where maybe we can get retired police officers and not tax them on their earnings create an incentive for them to come to work at our schools because they have Decades of experience that we should not let go and that's the type of people I want guarding our schools okay see should have made notes okay please consider these things it's this is not not goof around time you know we got off lucky on this one and and that portentino guy if you want to get his attention tell him there's a mental illness involved a homosexual involved somebody wanting to grow a tomato and he'll open up his checkbook he
022just gave 150 000 for a community garden shameful to grow tomatoes when we've got bigger priorities right here thank you our next speaker is Myron Hernandez uh and I will say I don't think anybody got easy on this one um followed by Christine uh give anjian excuse me thank you good evening my name is Marine and I have um two um kids on Jefferson Elementary um and this bishop is about an after-school program my first grader is in the boys and girls club and on March 3rd uh individual came into campus and the playground and um asked my daughter my first grader and another person another child in the program if um if they like puppies and if they do to go see puppies um and he had more puppies in his car there is
023an instant report that's been done with the Burbank Police Department um I have been talking to the Boys and Girls Club Plus um principal um young about this sorry I have laryngitis um and just yesterday my husband finds the gate so code um that you enter a code open with the orange cone which I have a picture and I'd send it to the Boys and Girls Club so my whole thing is um what can we do to protect our kids and after school program because it seems like not even two weeks from that this incident happened the gate is open um and I mean I couldn't bend that if my kid would have said yeah let's go see puppies oh um there is an incident and I'm you can talk to principal young if get
024all that information Boys and Girls Club and they have all that information I can provide that for information but I am concerned for my first grader that they're small and so if we can look into the security for our elementaries as well thank you thank you so much uh our next speaker after this is Marissa ruaz good evening I'm Christine gebujanyan a longtime resident of Burbank I moved to Burbank because of Burbank schools my son graduated in 2019 from Burbank High School where I had to pay for him to be able to walk through Burbank High School um field to graduate in his own school that he finished and I didn't worry about his safety as much that I'm worried about my daughter today I have a daughter who's in eighth grade transitioning to high
025school and she's a petite young lady that I do not feel safe for her to be in Burbank High School or anywhere in Burbank at this point I want to know individually I know you guys have children do you have children in public schools and if you do do they go to Burbank schools do you do what do you do to protect your children I am sorry for all my emotions but this is not okay it should not be happening in Burbank we moved to Burbank because I feel that Burbank schools were top of the line this is why I bought a small property moved to Burbank so my children could go to Burbank schools my kids get invited to birthday parties they're all in North Hollywood Tujunga Glendale Granada Hills as far as Palmdale
026why do we let these people come to our schools we lose the sense of community when we don't have community members attending to our schools why is this happening I am sure I am positive they have told me that a District member is telling them how to cheat the system to bring their children to Burbank schools they arrive to LAX and they know how to come to Burbank schools without living in Burbank what are the plans for each member of you to protect my child in school my petite 14 year old or do I have to hey uh public school I mean private school to make sure my daughter is safe or homeschooled I know many friends of ours do not want their children to transition to Burbank High what is the plan whatever the
027email told me I'm not buying that I need individuals to tell me the big changes that are going to take place in Burbank schools for our children to be safe I know a child that the the disgusting person walked into the classroom imagine if he had a gun before he walked into that restroom he walked into a classroom a parent told me that the daughter texted her saying Mom there is a creepy guy in my classroom how is this possible are you guys parents would you let your child attend to Burbank High or any of the Burbank schools are you guys doing anything I need to know what are the major changes that are going to occur for me to feel safe for my daughter to attend that school thank you here our next speaker
028is Marissa ruellis followed by Carol Ann Baker good evening good evening my name is Marissa Rellis and I'm a 17 year old who is a current student in the Burbank Unified School District on January 22nd 2018 I was raped by Nicholas yahaman at the time I was a seventh grader attending John Muir Middle School and Nicholas was an eighth grader on January 25th I was called into my counselor Ellen heiser's office one of my peers had reported the assault to the school when I entered Miss heiser's office I was sat down with her in a male police officer I said multiple times I was not comfortable talking in front of a mail officer and requested to talk to a female but was denied my request and was continued to be questioned even though I was
029not ready to talk about the assault I was pressured to open up and tell them the entirety of what happened after answering all their questions I was sent back to class even though it was clearly not in the right mental space to be around other students I had a mental breakdown in my class and asked to go back to the office away from my peers the next day Nicholas was called into the office to talk to a police officer and administrators he denied everything he was asked to not approach me at school by the officer and administrators on January 31st I went to the Burbank police station to have my statement taken by a detective while I showed evidence of Nicholas admitting to the rape over text message I was told it was considered a
030he says she said situation by the detective Nicholas would stalk and harass me on a daily basis at school and even outside of school I reported this to my counselor and she said that they would tell him to knock to not continue that behavior anymore but he did not stop I was not getting proper help from busd or BPD so I took the situation to social media I posted about being raped and how I was still being harassed the next day at school I was called into my counselor's office where I was told not to post or talk at school about what happened to me I was instead giving the alternative to write down my feelings and destroy the paper when I was done I was shut down once again by John Muir Middle School
031Nicholas was allowed to promote on stage in May 2018 while I failed my classes from not coming to school because I didn't feel safe I do not promote in eighth grade because of my lack of attendance there was no action ever taken to protect me from Nicolas yahaman Burbank School District and the Burbank Police Department failed me till this day Nicholas stocks me and still tries to contact me Burbank School District and Burbank Police Department should have protected 12 year old me I am just one of many other children attending or have attended a school in Burbank District who have not been properly helped Ever After reporting their sexual abuse I demand that busd ensures the safety of all students who have to deal with their sexual assault trades at school every day I deserve
032to be protected instead I was shut down by my school administrators and silenced to keep from the situation getting any attention we need change finally thank you our next speaker is coralynn Baker followed by Gisela Gregorian president Ferguson can I jump in um I know this is a very emotional and raw topic I just want the audience to know that we have representatives from Burbank Family Service Agency here um if you would like to speak with someone from Burbank family services at any point in this meeting or if you can and Chris you can wave your hands Lori and Chris okay um we can have a room so that if you want to talk if you want to just um talk this is um we want to hear everyone's testimonial we know this can trigger
033other experiences so please know there's support here tonight go ahead following up with that I would just like to say before I speak if anything I say does trigger you I would request that you leave the room I do not want you to have to ruin your day I genuinely wish I could say my school district protects its students the district I was in from grade 6 to 11. but unfortunately they fail to protect my safety at the ripe age of 13. when I was in eighth grade and they still continue to fail this protection amongst their students to this day and well before me as well I was 13 years old when I was first assaulted by a fellow student of the busd school district he initially assaulted me off campus and his violent
034physical and emotional harassment continued on and off campus as well I missed so much school my eighth grade and my freshman year because I was genuinely scared to step foot on campus Because of Him I was he was a 13 year old boy James rapattoni planned out and executed drugging me and sexually assaulting me with his friends and there were two other of my classmates Ben Herrera and Hunter Siegel I was 13 years old and yet even I hadn't even had my first kiss yet I was 13 years old when my future was stripped away from me due to the trauma he inflicted on me I am 19 years old now I am a former student of the Burbank Unified School District graduating class of 2022. I was recently hospitalized due to the fact that
035everything he'd had done to me I'm now stuck in a quote-unquote trauma-based psychosis according to my doctors and who protected him you the Burbank Unified School District the Burbank Police Department protected him over a 13 year old girl the Burbank Unified School District and their teachers and their admin and their hired campus police officers protected him I was forced to report him when I was 14 years old in order to get away from him and to transfer schools I was forced to make this statement and I was scared out of my mind that he was going to find out and he was going to find me and that he was going to kill me because he had threatened to in the past all that you did was send him to another school within the district
036we went to Burbank High and John Muir Middle School together and you transferred him to mag Park the only reason he was taken off campus was because I threatened to quote unquote beat him up because he would continue these acts of abuse and that he inflicted on me on and off campus he pushed me down the stairs on your campus he slammed my head into a brick wall on your campus and he would repeatedly quote unquote call me Ray poor and he was protected and how are you as teachers admin and the people who are supposed to protect us grandparents uncles and aunts how are you as parents looking at these students that you are obligated by law to protect and you are not doing so I've said my peace but I'm here today to
037speak on behalf of thousands of students who are obligated who you are all obligated by law to protect that you are currently failing by still allowing these abusers rapists Predators onto campus how are you going to sit up there and listen to these stories and not do better I'm a 19 year old girl and I would put my life on the line for every single girl back there and you are not doing that these kids have been forced to step onto a campus school is supposed to be a safe place for students and none of them have feel safe you're supposed to protect them from these monsters and you keep excusing it by saying they're also fellow quote-unquote students teachers and admin they are monsters if you lay your hands on another person without their
038consent you are nothing more than a monster and you don't deserve the same rights as treat and treatment as innocent people I care for some of these students as if they were my brothers sisters and siblings and I will no longer tolerate your excuses you as a district as human beings need to check your morals and you need to do better for these children my abuser was allowed to walk the stage my abuser was allowed in the same classes as me and he was allowed the same graduating rights I should not have equal rights to James rapattoni my abuser James rapattoni was granted his freedom by busd and Burbank Police Department after my initial report of him in 2019. since then him and his twin brother have now 11 plus accusations of rape abuse and
039sexual assault they are multi-offense rapists and you let them on your campus you let them hurt 11 other girls foreign and you did nothing after my initial report you had the ability to save the lives of 11 other girls and that is just known accusations those are just known reports we have no idea the extent of their abuse and unfortunately we might never we might never find out you failed them and you failed me and you continue to fail these kids and I ask you personally in this room if you think this is acceptable if you think this is okay and this kind of mistreatment and this misconduct is gonna be is allowed I would ask you to leave please stand up and leave if you are in support of the district continuing this type
040of allowance to these monsters you need to do better I'm no longer asking you and I'm telling you there needs to be a physical change in how you are running things and how you are responding I do not want an apology I'm beyond the point of asking for help from a room full of men and women who have failed me I'm telling you as a former student that if you don't start doing better in protecting these kids to make sure the school is safe environment from sexual abuse and sexual misconduct you will watch your District run into the ground treat these kids as if they are your own and no one and I mean absolutely no one deserves to feel deserves the feeling of being unsafe the way I have felt and the way numerous
041of students before me and after me are currently feeling I want the best for this District's growth but if I if you cannot provide it I do do not be surprised when it starts to fall apart because thankfully we live in a world where these students are now becoming more confident and comfortable in their voices and utilizing their rights to exercise Free Speech they deserve better and I'm asking you and I'm telling you you need to do better thank you thank you our next speaker is Gisela Gregorian followed by Wendy French I find it a little hard to follow them um I wasn't even planning to say this part but I I really would like to know how is it that District principles allow children to be questioned by police without their parents present they're
042minors I really would like to know what the policy is um what are we signing off when we sign them up to this District because there should be a waiver that we sign off that we're not okay with that because I'm not I would need to be called immediately before my child is questioned by any officer of any kind without me present um now what I'm here for is of course my child I have two children at Broadband High School a senior and a freshman I have one that already graduated a couple years ago and um I had some some precise items that um I think could help the situation at the moment um I think um Urban high school should not be open to the public at five o'clock in the morning it should
043open after school hours when students are gone and if it must open at five then the city needs to pay or provide for that security not us not you um we should reconsider at least open the discussion to bring back sros full-time we should survey students and staff to find out how they really feel about this not assume that they are scared or they want it or they don't survey and find out how they how they feel about it um there are doors in building two at bourbon High School that they need they should be changed modified to walls or sealed them in some way find out how that can be done we should reduce the access points at that school there's just way too many um add cameras to every site not just us
044every site and modify it and modernize them software updates the the Nikon Vision the the the people that can see the nighttime they see shadows and they can't even see a face what's the point of having a camera if they can't recognize who is in that camera um they need they need and they need more a lot more um more funding to hire additional yard supervisors and or Pay Teachers they are willing teachers and staff they are willing to walk during lunch before school after school bathrooms hallways vaping had gone down a lot when they did that and now it's an everyday thing all day thing nobody cares no not that you don't care but their kids don't care because nobody's monitoring so um we've had students jump in the pool fence to come into
045school it needs to be taller not saying barbed wire we don't want a prison but he needs to be taller cover the fence with wire mesh to avoid food deliveries they really don't care that it's not allowed to have ubereats or whatever they don't understand we don't know what's in those bags what can be brought in so cover the fence in some way and I know you've talked about changing to scanners to scan IDs but I think we need to do more because they're fake IDs kids make these ideas to get the lunch thing just wait till you're a junior and study so you have the good grades but I think Juniors and seniors should have a color sophomores and restaurants you have another predominant color so then the yard supervisors could spot them quickly
046hey you're not allowed to go out you are and the years maybe the the photo on one side or the other for certain grade levels so they can't get out should not be that easy to make an ID for a school it is and then clearly communicate the consequences for students and adults alike adults should be wearing their batch at school because kids should be able to spot them that that adult does not belong there and um the consequences should be clearly communicated my child did not know that they had lunch detention or forgetting his ID I'm like really it's it's March no I didn't know like okay well you should have been told like a long time ago and then by now you should just get the detention it shouldn't be a warning anymore
047so that they should be told an announcement a PA announcement of some sorts so that they can hopefully stay safe it's in your hands and you have a stance to back you but the first hand is yours thank you very much our next speaker is uh Wendy French followed by Linda rossoff thank you thank you so much and thanks to Zelda for those great practical Solutions I appreciate that my name is Wendy French I'm a business owner in Burbank we moved to Burbank for the schools um I'm a parent of an Ila Burbank High graduate and I'm also I have a daughter who is a junior at Burbank High School in November 2021 I came here and I addressed the board and informed you of some of the safety concerns that I had at Burbank
048High and here I am again coming before you and I'm concerned about my daughter's safety at Burbank High I'm really frustrated I'm an accountant it's tax season I don't want to be here I'm really busy I can be making a lot more money somewhere else um but I feel like I needed to come and address the board but I'm really not hopeful at this point that any change is going to happen that's really frustrating for somebody who is so invested in Burbank um on March 6 a criminal walked into my child's dance classroom he circled a classroom weaving in and out of the dancers and thankfully he left the classroom after being addressed by the teacher my mind has been swirling since then with the thoughts about that day what if my student had gone
049into the bathroom that morning what if the criminal had a weapon I can't even think or sleep thinking about all the what-ifs I'm here to present Solutions um it exposed the school's safety weakness the reality is we have three gates that on campus the main entrance on Third Street The Faculty lot on Glen Oaks on the parking garage gate my child uses all three of these um Gates but mainly uses a parking garage no one's checking IDs my daughter will tell you that she hates pulling out her ID it's hard to get out of her phone case she'll text me that day I need a new phone case if she had to check her ID that day I can tell you she's texted me that less than five times this year um she did text
050me every day last week anyone who looks like a student could easily slip on campus at 8 30 a.m when all the students are arriving on campus or when they're returning from lunch that's our weak point and with over 2 000 students I can completely understand why they're not checking IDs there isn't enough staff to properly validate each ID um we need more yard AIDS or security who can come who can be helping check with IDs at 8 30 a.m when students arrive and at lunch time furthermore I'd love to see some sort of scanning system smart badges that could be scanned in and it logs who is on campus and who isn't do we have any idea how many people are on campus and who is on campus at any given moment at Burbank
051High in case of an emergency how would we know how many students are actually there um I worked for Deloitte a large accounting firm and on September 11 2001 we realized that our company had a major flaw we didn't know how many people were in our buildings and we didn't know how many um people were in our building that resided right across from the street from the World Trade Center then that building was subsequently swallowed up by Falling debris from the collapsing Tower within weeks we had badges that we used to scan ourselves in and out of the building so that they could we could have a proper head count in emergency they were not something that could be easily replicated um they had microchips in them they still use them to this day additionally
052have you tried to call over to Burbank High this year no one's answering the phone so when I had an emergency pop up and I needed to get my daughter out of school um there was nobody to answer the phone call to try to help me figure out how to get my daughter out of Campus I just called my daughter directly in class to be able to try to figure and have her help me troubleshoot how to get her out of the school um I was hoping to have her there at the office at that time so that I could save time um but that didn't work because there wasn't anyone answering the phone I have several friends who've also tried to call and I have tried to call multiple times this week no one's
053answering the phone um I know that your next thought is hey these are all great ideas one day but we don't have the funds so I'd like to write out my same sentiment from November of 2021. it's not just a money problem that Burbank USD has we have a management problem we need to trim the fat and get rid of those people who are not doing their jobs effectively I'm sure if we opened it up to the community to be able to report the people who they feel like have not been doing their jobs who are not returning emails returning phone calls or addressing situations that have been brought up I'm sure people would be happy to give you a list of those people you can contact me privately and I'm happy to provide that
054or I can do it publicly that's fine um in my business I would never allow somebody who was not returning phone calls or emails to be able to continue under my employment they would not receive a paycheck from me if you're not performing you shouldn't be collecting a paycheck it is simple as that that's how the world works um additionally we need to stop being reactive as a district we know that they aren't checking IDs over at the school but in order for that to be reinstated three girls had to be assaulted if we're proactive we can make changes that prevent lawsuits which would also save money and furthermore we'd be preventing a tragedy we need to avoid and be more proactive in the school district instead of being reactive thank you thank you yeah
055our next speaker is Linda rossoff followed by everporta good evening members of the school board my name is Linda rossoff and I'm a Burbank resident I've taken the time to review The District's Public statements related to the sexual assault that took place on March 6 at Burbank High School while I appreciate the district sharing this information the manner in which it was presented to the public leads us to believe this was the first time these safety reviews took place in procedures initiated this is surprising to me since California Education Code section 32280 requires these safety reviews to take place yearly on each campus are we to believe that these mandated safety reviews did not take place at Burbank High prior to the assaults and if so why didn't they over the last year the district
056has become aware of sexual assaults taking place on campuses the assaults are committed one an intruder easily gaining access to an unsecured campus two allegations of students sexually assaulting other students and three at least one public allegation of a John Burroughs High School teacher sexually assaulting a student what we hear from the district are rehearsed responses that do absolutely nothing to suggest your commitment understanding or ability to take necessary preventative steps thoroughly investigate such allegations or effectively protect our children it took the district over a year to investigate an allegation of a sexual assault by a 9th grade English teacher at John Burroughs High School the result of the investigation was the teacher being put back into the classroom and leading parents and students to believe that he was exonerated last fall a lawsuit was
057filed and the district and the teacher were publicly named as defendants at that point the teacher was removed from the classroom my question is were there new information in the lawsuit that prompted the teacher's removal from the classroom if the answer is yes my follow-up question is why didn't you discover this information in your year-long investigation if the answer is no that the lawsuit did not reveal new information why then was the teacher removed from the classroom I'm guessing your answer will be that since his name was made public in the lawsuit his presence on campus would be disruptive and a distraction as a parent having raised children in the district I think it's naive to believe that parents and students didn't already know the identity of the teacher and the allegations against him his
058presence on campus was already a distraction and made many many students uncomfortable finally we have heard from the district over the last year a response of we take this seriously and will conduct a thorough investigation obviously look around this room we all take this seriously speaking for myself and I believe many parents and students in this room and the bourbon Community we have lost confidence that the district is capable of conducting any investigation how is it that the events leading up to three students being sexually assaulted in a bathroom at Burbank High took you less than a week to conclude any thorough investigation into how this Intruder gained access to the campus would include a top to bottom review of existing policies and procedures designed to have stopped this Predator from Gaining access it is
059patronizing to the victims of this crime as well as to the community to say that the investigation was concluded in a few days and was basically the same review that should have been conducted before the assaults happened we expect you to be proactive and advocates for campus safety the district's actions clearly contradict a proactive advocacy and demonstrate a reactive after-the-fact mindset you absolutely must do better our students the students in this room demand it as parents we demand it and the community demands it thank you our next speaker is ever Huerta followed by Hannah seidner good evening Mr Horton good evening president Ferguson vice president Weisberg School Board member superintendent Hill District staff and bourbon Community it's just like we saw each other last night um um I come here tonight um to speak again
060of what I talked about in my school board report um and to also thank the bourbon community that is coming out tonight our students parents and just the amazing community members um I come to speak um to raise awareness of this issue but to also help find Solutions which I think having this type of discussion and a special meeting on this type of topic will help guide us too um as for a while in my advocacy within the district I think having representation of the youth matters as a board we have failed our students seeing that we allowed an intruder on a campus which should have never happened procedures that I've taken we have failed we have failed our students our students don't trust us now talking with various students at Burroughs also at Burbank
061um it's truly concerning I come here to highlight also the concerns from um the other school board representativesian who unfortunately couldn't make it tonight but also just like to really re-iterate her points that she made last night such as both campuses are allowed and are open to the public um due to the Joint of use of facilities agreement that we have with the City of Burbank um like Serene said last night and myself agreeing um you know our campuses are open at five in the morning and I didn't know that actually um I realized that at Burroughs when we had our senior Sunrise it was five in the morning was Pitch Black I was moving tables and I felt I heard somebody walking pitch black on the football field and it was a jogger and
062I was like oh that is that is concerning a job rate is five in the morning and we're setting up for a school event for our seniors and that could have been anybody and you can't even see Pitch Pitch Black on our football fields at that hour also wanting to address having nighttime Patrol um on our campuses um as part of ASB I serve as the ASB President John Burroughs High School I've stayed after school for long periods of time and um you know we've had the fire alarms pulled when we've been setting up for homecoming night and what was really shocking to me is that there's only one campus supervisor on the Burroughs campus so I'm I'm thinking maybe is is that the same at Burbank High if there's one campus supervisor at night
063um there because when the fire alarm was pulled you know we had firefighters um police officers um arrived to the campus and and we saw our ASB advisor with with us the tech crew advisor was with her with her students um and our campus supervisor which was just one person was out in front talking with our firefighters the police to address the situation which I think you know one person for that responsibility to walk around our campus is check better everything is closed that's that's really concerning um so one solution that I I really think is important is maybe having advisory Council I think it's time that we have a youth advisory Council now who knows the ways ins and outs the the the possibilities of having um our students who know students you know
064um like one of the speakers uh raised the concern students know how to make fake IDs students know how to have their lunch passes when they go out they know how to fake the sticker get a sticker from someone else's um which was just really concerning um last year at broils before this year we did stickers we they printed out a whole different ID for the lunch passes um that you would use to show to prove that you actually had a lunch pass in this year um it's just a sticker and I've heard in the hallways while I'm walking down oh let me see your sticker and let me make a copy out of it you know it happens and it's really concerning um so I think you know a youth advisory Council would be
065really beneficial um I used advisory Council would give the opportunity for more student input students are our main priority as a school district to hear the concerns to hear the issues that they have obviously such a shame that due to this incident you know it's raised to this to the standard of seeing what what occurred um so I think working together with that would give an opportunity for more student participation more student input help find Solutions and you know really have students involved in the process of helping make decisions and see how decision making works because I think many students who are showing up and are being aware of the district don't know how it really works um they don't they don't watch school board meetings they don't attend school board meetings every other Thursday
066so I think it'd be really beneficial to have that as well um as Sarah nay mentioned last night um security cameras at both campuses at Burbank High like she mentioned bourbon Kai was not built at a time to be able to have security cameras and as well at Burroughs um the same situation last year our principal was giving a tour and he he pulled me aside and was like we're looking for investors to to have a new security system in place for camera so um that's all for me and thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is Hannah seidner followed by Bjorn bacon um first I want to read um the findings of fact on the investigation report done by a non-bias investigator named Karen Bell and this was admitted into evidence
067later for my trial on April 27 2018 respondent my abuser sexually assaulted complainant in building two at BHS during the passing period between lunch and fifth period when complain tried to avoid having sex with respondent by hugging respondent he threw her off stating I'm horny turn around she told him to not do this right now and she said she needed to go to class he grabbed her arm and waist and she pushed him away she began crying in respondent paused for up to 30 seconds while complaining covered her face from crying responded grabbed her again and said this will be quick I promise she said no but respondent made no verbal response responded push complain's body said she was face down on the stairs removed her jeans partially covered her mouth with his hand and
068held her down with his arm he inserted his fingers into her vagina and then his penis complained did not consent to the sexual activity um this happened to me every single day for over a year and a half the other times that he raped me which was almost daily sometimes multiple times a day he coerced me into sexual intercourse and I never consented during this time I was 14 years old and my abuser was my first sexual relationship when I would refuse sex during school he would visibly get upset including things like yelling at me turning away from me acting cold which was quickly followed by him trying to quierce me again there were many times where he would physically grab my arm and drag me into the second building at Burbank High which was
069not properly supervised by the campus supervisors he would then proceed to coerce me more and after a few minutes of him acting angry with me he would rape me I also want to mention that the supervisors who knew what was happening um were Janelle caresco and Kimberly Johnson these supervisors knew exactly what was going on because there were many times where they caught us in the second building stairs and elevator um this is referred to in the witness statements on November 27 2017 administrators addressed both students individually about missing class during third period and again in engaging in inappropriate activity and then a December 11 2017 both students received a one-day in-house suspension after having been found in building two during lunch after being told to stay out um after I reported this specific assault
070on April 27th I had a trial and was given a horrible lawyer who was extremely passive and unhelpful and then a small part of The credibility statements by Karen Bell are as follows complaintant which is me the information provided by complainant is credible she has been consistent in describing the encounter with respondent across multiple occasions the details she included in her diary entry on July 31st 2018 as well as what she told Brightman in 2019 and Dally in 2020 are similar in all material respects to what she provided during this investigation she has also provided information during this investigation that could be embarrassing and or undermine her claims such as her diary entries which adds to her credibility complain's narrative is not only plausible but has details that provide a ring of truths then this
071is respondent his name is Joshua Palacios um respondents version of the events is less than credible he has not been consistent in the information he has provided in addition some of the information he has provided is not plausible first it should be noted that respondent has made some admissions against his interest though he does not seem to understand they are against his interest because he does not fully understand the nature of consent that is given freely voluntarily without creation um at this point my Justice was left up to the panel which was four to five busd administrators who would decide if he's guilty and should be expelled from the district I was told after the trial that I was not allowed to know what the panel decided even after being re-traumatized throughout the entire process
072um John paramo was the Title IX coordinator and he should never step foot in a classroom again I think the worst thing is that so many girls and women remember his name John paramo and I can guarantee that he does not remember mine my name is Hannah seidner and I'm 19. our our next speaker is Bjorn bacon followed by Sabrina Feldman good evening everyone my name is Bjorn bacon I am currently not a student at Burbank Unified School District but I once was a part of it I went to Stevenson Elementary School and was also at Jordan Middle School now known as Laura suerta I'm currently at Notre Dame High School and I am the BSU president or black student union at the school and after healing these harmful stories I am disturbed by the
073lack of protection for young women and children I do not hear these activities at my school not to sound boastful but these young women and children should not have to pay to go to a private school to have the basic human right of protection at school school is a place to learn and not be fair the possibility that you could be assaulted and nothing is done you have more access and resources to protect students more than most Los Angeles Unified School Districts and I'm not seeing any results there has been a lacking of a crucial responsibility to protect your students from other students and adults on the campus there is a great Injustice when nothing is done we have seen it in our history countless times I've heard stories from people who have had issues
074relating to sexual misconduct and harassment more from 10 years ago till today now let's say these people who are accused are innocent which I do not think at all I feel like these men should be held accountable but if the case that they were nothing is being done to properly for enforce Justice for either party I am so grateful and proud of these women who got to come up here and speak their truth about these issues but if they were doing something wrong they should be held accountable from the jump there used to be a chaperone for every guest that enters schools there's no way that any adult should be able to roam freely amongst children shame on all the faculty members that fail to protect the survivors and failed to report and fail to
075report this is against the California Education Code 49090 John Primo needs to be held accountable and be better at his job protect the students protect my peers and protect the future of Burbank Unified School District thank you thank you our next speaker is Sabrina Feldman followed by Charisse the legend hi my name is Sabrina Feldman I'm a former student I graduated in 2018 I played basketball for Burbank so I really you know it was I love the school loved everything about it um so I'll just start off by reading it and then on September 4th uh 2018 three months before the 2018-2019 season was scheduled to begin Michael Bertram the former principal of Burbank High School had announced that a coach was stepping down noting health concerns and a new position on August 27 2018
076once I was already an alumni I had received the call from Michael Bertram he told me he had asked the student for my phone number he wanted to know about the talks surrounding a coach and relationships he then gave me his personal phone number and said text me if I if I'd remember if I had or if I've remembered any information the principal had allegedly become aware of or had in his possession an inappropriate photo of the coach that was circulating around the school this occurred approximately one week before the announcement of the coach stepping down the Burbank High School principal was aware of the alleged misconduct as he called me in hopes of furthering his own investigation the school and District were allegedly failed to be notified of any sort of this occurrence and
077subsequently there was no investigation into this matter the coach has continued to maintain the position to the uh these the new positions she was given to this day given the lack of Investigation or knowledge of this occurrence and non-compliance the protocol the board cannot ensure that parent the parents cannot insure to parents the safety of their children until thorough investigation is conducted the Board needs to appoint a body separate from the district to investigate all of these claims thoroughly and instead of making another statement I asked the John paramo stepped down from the position of the Title IX director uh I spent a I I remember uh receiving the image when I was a senior in high school right before the season was scheduled to begin and I just remember being terrified that this coach
078would just come and try to kill me because I knew of this and I just I was starting my first day of college and then I received a call from my former principal so I don't know what happened I don't know why there is a photo like this existing I don't know how we as students got it and I don't want to make any assumptions but the board had failed in in either the school the board there's no there's nobody to hold accountable I'm just it's just how do we know that things will get solved how do we know like when the just I love the school that happened and it just fully changed my opinion and I just don't believe that this person should still be walking around I walk I go to my
079brother is still a student at Burbank and I go to his water polo games and I see him there and uh it's yeah thank you our next speaker is Charisse is it hey not here okay one more just in case Cherise okay we'll move on Ani uh chucklassian come forward our next speaker is Alicia smiles hi my name is Ani tiglasian I'm a high school senior and I was born and raised here in Burbank California I don't go to a school in busd but I first started advocating for change within busd after I heard about Brooke's story at John Burroughs High School in the beginning of this school year jbhs students work tirelessly to get Justice for the eight students who allege that a fellow student had essayed them but to no avail he continues
080to attend the school for years I was sexually abused on a daily basis by someone who was supposed to educate me he had taken photos of me that he shared on the internet so when I heard about how students were alleging that their teacher Rex Fullington had repeatedly molested and taken explicit photos of them and that he was still teaching at jbhs I was horrified the USD allegedly knew since the early 2000s that Rex Bloomington had be had been grooming male students countless young boys have come forward regarding their stories and you continue to ignore them how can you allow this monster to return to teaching today after my sexual abuse I created an organization committed to strengthening Titan only 9 and advocating for those who are often overlooked in the justice system following the
081events on Monday I posted on my social media account protect kids on abusers to bring awareness regarding the situation since then I've been posting every day and over 20 000 people have saw our post regarding victim story I want to thank everyone who started organizing with students to demand change I was flooded with hundreds of messages from students and community members expressing stories and concerns regarding help USD deals with sexual misconduct reports we are past the time of giving statements stop saying that you collectively share a deep concern for the safety and Welfare of students while students are here today sharing how this couldn't be further from the truth there are almost 75 students who have come forward this week and created written impact statements on how School administrators and busd mishandle their reports of
082sexual misconduct um when I do something wrong at work I get fired yeah John paramo continues to get paid 164 thousand dollars without benefits only to continue to fail students over and over again these students live within my community and suffer every day while you do nothing these students deserve a commitment to change not a statement the first step towards ensuring students safety and showings change starts at the resignation of current Title IX coordinator John framo and his assistant Sharon Casio promptly following a definitive statement regarding the employment of Rex Fullington with a promise that he never steps into a classroom full of students again not a six-month leave without these imperative first steps I firmly believe that progress can simply not be made in this space I look forward to seeing real change within
083bus our next speaker is Alicia Smiles followed by Lisa Darrell correct good evening um before I begin you sir I wanted to ask uh do you have any children or grandchildren that are in Burbank High School right now unfortunately I need you to address the board as it's okay I'll address you um so I was just curious because you know if he has children where are they why aren't they here why aren't they the ones sharing their experiences and also how dare he say that the police should be the ones to fix this problem when it was my boyfriend that took down the intruder and I have my own experience with the [ __ ] pigs they uh I was beat by my ex in March or June um and I ran to a neighbor for help
084they called 9-1-1 and the police arrested me and put me in jail for a full week a full seven days I never even was sent to court like then that's the people that this person wants to be responsible and apparently that's who you people want as well uh which is evidenced by them even being in the room right now there are men with guns as there's girls trying to share their trauma trying to heal and there's that intimidation in the room right behind them that's not okay and if you guys want to make it right I I don't want anybody in this room to be lost in the spectacle of what's Happening Here we are not sharing these experiences to absolve you of your sins like we're not going to share this and then you
085guys are good people now no you got to make it right I say you should tell the police in this room to leave right now I think that is your first duty to heal in your community our next speaker is Lisa Durrell or direct excuse me Darrell sorry thank you followed by Marley Tyler good evening and thank you um I I just want to say that first time first and foremost I'm a little Disturbed at hearing I want to thank the young women that have come up and spoken tonight I am very upset and Disturbed at hearing this obvious pattern that has continued on within Burbank Unified School District um I'll leave it there my goal in coming forward this evening was to talk to you about some things that you could do with these
086critical events that you have that you need to manage right now and there are some things that you can do that are free first and foremost we should have a right now today you guys should be implementing in all the schools a consent class to teach young men how to wait for a young woman to consent that is easy that is free okay um I'd like to talk about the fact that you know I don't know if you guys have had a security assessment a vulnerability assessment yet but that is something that you can do you can ask for a request for proposal from security companies you can then take those vulnerability assessments and I keep hearing about building number two that's been going on for years what are you guys doing about that but
087your vulnerability assessment test you can take that information and fill out a form on Cal OES which is California office of emergency management currently there is a grant and funding available for non sorry I'll take a second um there is a grant that is available for you guys because you're in for a non-for-profit you can use those funds for things like badging access systems every single student can wear a lanyard with a badge and they can be color coded I love that idea that is not something that someone can create a fake ID around that badging system can be worn by current students as well as faculty and staff and including any kind of Burbank Unified School District employee and only those badges can go in and out of those buildings I agree we should
088not be turning our children's schools into prisons but there are things it is 2023 and the fact that you guys don't have some of these things in place is unacceptable and is unexcusable and there are Grant and funding that you can get today to do these things so please get some requests for proposals from some security firms they will write the worksheet up for you you it is free you can put that in and you can pay for all of these things including the additional staff that these folks are asking you for I'd like to also understand where is the district's concern with the fact that we're dealing with violence sexual assault is violence being perpetrated on our children and you guys are continuing to let this happen and there's obviously a pattern I didn't
089quite understand the magnitude of the pattern until coming here this evening I'd like to also I it's a side step but I would like to also understand what your advocacy is with other City officials as well as the police department in terms of the fact that we have not won not two not three but 17 gun shops and gun ranges within a three-mile district of our schools and I'd like to know what you guys are doing about that to get those out of here because we prob obviously also have a mental health Channel challenge for our young men and women in these schools and I unfortunately that might be your next critical event that you're managing so let's take some accountability there and let's get somebody let's get some advocacy going within the city um
090lastly I'd like to really understand a couple of things Matt Chambers recently resigned a few days ago and if I look back it looks like in the last year you've had nine principals that have resigned or quit and maybe that number is incorrect but I'd like to understand why is that is that because they're not getting paid enough are you guys actually finally cleaning a house what is really going on in that situation I'd also like to understand you have this new we tip great wonderful this Anonymous tipping line but I'd like to understand who receives them and how they're processed and how the person that's actually anonymously putting in information is going to get something back because there is technology that allows you to have two-way communication so let's make sure that we we
091tip can actually do that for those people so um I want to say that you know I really appreciate you guys listening to everyone this evening but I'm really curious that tonight before you leave and I want to thank the people that I've been watching taking notes I'm a little disappointed that some people aren't and or texting while while young women are up here speaking that's a little disappointing so I'd like to know by the time we all leave tonight what is your plan because I've given you a lot of free things you can do right now thank you very much thank you our next speaker is Marley Tyler followed by Liliana Landa or la vida and writing embedded Marley yeah hello my name is Marley Tyler I'm currently a senior I do Ila but
092I used to go to Tom Bros High School this semester or this year um so at the beginning of the school year I decided to make a club called the divine feminine for victims of sexual violence to be able to speak about their story without being silenced and so throughout this whole year I've heard a lot of people tell me about their sexual assault sexual harassment and how the district has failed them um in one particular case um sorry there's a lot uh in one particular case uh the student uh he gonna use it no take your time the student she told uh everything's alleged just I'm just saying that because last time we were told that we can't say names because everything's alleged but um just because it's alleged doesn't mean that we can
093speak aren't true she told Miss Carlton about her it's that Full Assault um with the male student on campus um she did not hear anything following up from Miss Carlton even though she said that she would contact the Burbank police department and get back to her with the response that never happened so we started protesting outside of the school and um we received attention from the our staff but it seems that the only thing that they were focusing on was his name being on a poster and him and them protecting his identity instead of asking the victims um about what happened to them and then we posted a tick tock got a lot of attention and then finally the district noticed us and wanted to figure out what was going on um you guys sent
094out an email to the parents saying that you were doing a thorough investigation what wasn't true um then another incident was flexible intern he was my senior or my sorry it was my uh English teacher this year and a lot of students were complaining because she had a lot of sexual party sorry no it's good at your pace you guys want do you want somebody to sit with you good friend he's coming yeah sorry I have like social anxiety but me too talking um is more important than my comfort but um breast building time um you guys sent an email saying that no one has complained that year which wasn't true because people in my own classroom complained about him teaching and then with the incident in Burbank allowing the man to be on campus
095but to me I'm just a witness in all of this but I see that students on our campus are rapists and abusive we can't trust our teachers either and we can't trust you guys to not allow random people to come on campus it's not safe not safe we're not protected from other students we're not protected from the teachers and we're not protected from Outsiders either and I'm just wondering why you guys haven't acknowledged your faults because it seems like any time anything happens you guys stand out here now to take that the chair and not you're doing a general investigation which isn't true y'all know it's true because there wouldn't be this many people coming to you guys and tell them their stories about what's happened what's happened to them and this is only just
096a handful I know more people that have their own company and there's probably way more that you don't know about so I'm just wondering why you guys haven't apologized or even taking responsibility to recordings of the California Department of Education it is your advising duty to ensure that his campus is safe that everyone feels safe so I'm just wondering why within the first one apologizing and acknowledging thank you our next speaker is Liliana Verlanda Olivia Landa thank you very much followed by Geneva Gisela good evening thank you for having me in good evening everyone I'm here yes I have some concerns about my safety but first of all I'm gonna read something uh I think concerns every part in here and it says uh a day started with me walking to my PE class I
097worked in the locker room ready to change my clothes when to put my backpack away when people started throwing balls everywhere One landed on me so I threw it back and my and Mr Evans saw me and Rush towards me ping me push me against the wall saying that what I was doing that I was shocked so I said I'm sorry it was my bad and then he started yelling at me kicking me out of the locker room and everybody was all my my friends were looking at me with brick eyes and they and he just threw me away that happens on January 26th this kid is my song it's not his PE teacher he was just checking the locker room the concern here for me and my ex-husband is that we talked to the
098principal my son goes to Luther middle school he's an eighth grade I sent a letter to every one of you we talked to the principal he didn't know anything about it and he says that he's gonna report this laughs since that day until today I haven't heard a word so I was listening to a business I wanted to say that in a month you haven't heard anything to fire I was listening to the kids that they are raising their voices paying for help and nothing when I chose Burbank as my district school I thought it was a small community small board I'm gonna be probably protected when I'm working and my song is going to be protected and it's amazing that that teacher is still working I told the principal that my son didn't want
099to go to the school the next day this teacher is six feet my son is five two when he pushing against the wall he just lift it up and pushed them he yelled I'm a teacher too I know sometimes kids can drive you crazy but nothing Justified that do that just that power so we're talking about protecting our kids from Outsider what about Insiders you know more than 50 kids saw him pushing him and nobody do anything until now until today that's why I'm here today because nobody we are Role Models the teachers are are Role Models if another kid see that pushing another kid what do you think he's learning to be a bully to be an abuser and the school district is not doing anything I had the names of the people that
100I wrote that letter that night I was very concerned and I don't have any answer until now I don't know how are you gonna answer that today I've been told that the principal uh as a mandatory report gives us report to child abuse I was about to go and go to the police station and Report these this teacher as an abuser but I've been told that if there is no bruises nothing happened what are you waiting for blood it's not even just my word that the word of my son that wanted to be not even I mean this teacher doesn't have any punishment nothing they haven't take any disciplinary action he was with a headache next day he was very concerned and then he's going to this teenager age that he needs to show Power
101Maybe he doesn't he say no Mom don't go don't talk because my friends are gonna accuse him like that so I talked to the principal Monday I talked to the principal Please wrap up your comments okay yeah he said the same so what I'm gonna do where do I need to go to be we will responded so thank you very very much our next speaker is Geneva Gisela followed by I'm Geneva gazella I'm a senior at John Burroughs High School thank you for letting me speak in front of you tonight my main point that I want to address is safety at these schools or the lack thereof really um students attend school for seven hours a day and the bare minimum is to feel safe and be safe at school we the bare minimum is
102to be provided a safe learning uh environment we should not we should not be worried about hey am I going to need to worry about being assaulted today am I going to need to worry about having to learn how to protect myself just for that when I'm here to learn I no longer feel safe at the school because of the lack of safety at these schools case in point within my four years of being in high school I bear witness to a student who is allegedly rape who I see every day who has assaulted multiple students two of which being my personal friends a known English teacher at my school who has been relieved of his duties because of the fact that he was arrested and indicted on sex behavior of sexual assault against a
103minor and I'm sure that you're all aware of the Burbank High incident and if you're not you should be a man was allowed to walk in from off the street through an unlocked gate which remained unlocked days after the incident per report of students at Burbank High it hasn't been locked since then I don't really know because we don't get much transparency on these issues and that in itself is a huge issue um keep in mind this all happened in broad daylight this wasn't even like he snuck on campus at night or something you would think that one of the few places that this would occur is that school and that's where you stand wrong because for years this school district and I can't speak for Burbank but as far as John Burroughs goes you
104know not only have they neglected these reports of sexual assault rape and harassment but they've also allowed these abusers to stay in these environments despite knowing about what these people have done regardless of their position I.E staff teachers and students where's the accountability while I understand that there was a process that must occur there is a difference between having these processes take the time that they need and ignoring these issues completely in these cases completely this is my last year in high school and I'm going to be extremely disheartened and rather sickened if I see 5-10 years down the line that these incidents are still persisting with little to no action being taken especially for issues as major as this all of you including School staff are mandated reporters your our expectation of you and
105your job is to keep our schools safe and make this a safe environment for everyone none of these people should still be here I'm going to be extremely and I am extremely disheartened by all of this because this still happens I still see these people every day at school I the kids are not okay we deserve to feel and be safe these schools need to be safe this needs to be fixed now this is a huge issue protect kids not abusers our next speaker is he superly followed by Noel Mason hello my name is hisakly I'm a current 10th grade student at Burbank High School And in regards to the last speaker I can speak for Burbank High School students last week's incident we didn't get a response until two days later over email I
106don't remember that email saying we're sorry that someone came on to our school we're sorry for failing security it said we care and we're trying to fix it I have not seen any trying to fix it over the past week since the incident um two days ago on Wednesday I sent out over social media and Word of Mouth a survey asking students at UST to detail their experiences regarding Title IX and sexual violence and gender-based discrimination and I think you would like to hear some of the responses there were there are currently 45 responses of 45 responses 44.2 percent had experienced some form of gender-based discrimination from another student either ones that they did not know or personally knew 18.6 percent had experienced some form of gender-based discrimination from teacher or School staff 25 had
107experienced gender-based discrimination in women's men's mixed gender and gender-neutral sports 100 of respondents said that they personally knew or had experienced gender-based discrimination or sexual violence from anyone within busd nobody said that they did not know there were of 45 responses at least 150 separate accounts from someone's friends someone's classmate said that they knew someone who was discriminated against who was cat called groped assaulted raped there are about 30 to 40 people in this room if five times the amount of people in this room came here and told you that you had failed them in protecting who they are and their ability to feel safe at school would you go and tell yourself would you do nothing about it because that's what you've been doing of the 45 responses 30 said that they would not
108be comfortable reporting to District staff or School staff their experience of those 30 20 said that the reason would be because they had personal experience or they knew someone who had personal experience with USD failing to respond to their previous reports that they believed VOC would not do anything unless the situation was highly publicized and that they would protect the usd's image and not the students 86 88 of respondents disagreed with the statement USD knows how to comment combat discrimination based on gender 38 to 5. it is clear here that though busc has made efforts very minimally on gender identity and discrimination they do not know how to fix it and these are not just numbers these are real people with real experiences the respondent the youngest respondent was 11 years old and she had
109experienced rape and nothing was done about it you are in charge you are paid here to we are not being paid to be here you are you have a duty to protect boc and our students and I have of at least 10 respondents who said they had filed an official Complaint with the school district none of them had were satisfied with the response all of them said that nothing or very little was done in response to complaints they were giving an insincere or minimal response by the USD staff their situation was not resolved as in if they reported repeated sexual violence they would complain they would report they did not know if the report was received and they would continue to receive sexual violence or be a victim of sexual violence and the abusd did
110not let them know of any action taken on their part for their complaint unless they showed up and even then response was not guaranteed at least half of respondents believed that busd's concern in email in regards the incident at Burbank High School s League was not on maintaining the safety or concerned safety for their students but on maintaining appearance 75 of respondents believe that USD tried to Foster an air of inclusive inclusiveness and tried to make it seem like vuc is inclusive but I know personally know UFC students who are discriminating who are being discriminated against daily I would I would strongly urge the board here to push for required training for both students and staff on on gender inclusivity as well as how would you deal and Report with sexual violence please consider the
111impact you and the action of those who represent boc such as school staff and AIDS have on our lives thank you and good evening our next speaker is Noelle Mason followed by odelia Shaw good evening um my name is Noel Mason I'm the secretary of divine feminine at John Burroughs High School I am currently a freshman and I really appreciate you guys holding this meeting but if I'm honest this should not be we should not be having to have this meeting because this should have never happened in the first place the divine feminine Club of John Burroughs High School has been fighting for this exact reason and nothing has changed we've met with multiple administrators and they have never gotten back to us after we met with them and spoke with them and this is
112not one small occurrence this is one huge case out of many that you have definitely heard today and it is horrible to be hearing these that I was I was just distraught it was hor it was disgusting and we have been fighting for this for so long and we don't trust this district with our safety and we don't feel safe because of how you guys are handling this uh you have let rapists walk school hallways harassers and groomers continue to teach at our school and swept sexual assault cases under the rug to keep the school district's reputation when protesting for John Bros administrators to take action troycuseo and Matt Chambers were mortgage shot of a rapist name on a poster more than the fact that the assault goes that the student is a rapist you
113don't help students have been sexually assaulted and when the assault goes public you write an email that saying you care and work with a sexual assaulted student side by side being assaulted or raped by anyone is a very traumatizing experience and it feels as if John Bros and the USC administrators don't feel they need to do anything about it we talked with Tori kuseo in November in hopes of Administrators taking more action when a sexual assault case is reported but she never got back to us after saying she could see what she can do we met with John paramo as well and and he seems like he cared but didn't really help us with what he can do to actually help no Matt Chambers has never had any conversation or discussion with divine feminine he
114has merely gone to the John promo meeting we had and barely set a word to show that he cares the Burbank Unified School District has to stick to their word and take this seriously Patrick nazarian should have never been able to get onto Burbank High School's campus and you should be taking suggestions right now such as having sex having um sorry having just self-defense classes during PE it's something that is that seriously has to be done instead of running and it's necessary but self-defense is really needed and yeah you for for me you have failed your chance to do better and I feel that you that you just how do I say this sorry that I keep getting these emails that my mom is getting she follows them to me I would really appreciate that
115the emails from from Matt Hill and Matt Chambers are also sent to students because I'm only receiving this for my mother and if she wasn't sending these to me that I had no idea what's going on and I've really had it with everything that's been going on in my first year of high school I was really hoping to have a better experience but it's horrible hearing all of these stories and knowing that the district administrators have done nothing to help and and hearing so many things about drugs beeping assault rape grooming groping all of it is disgusting and it does not it should not ever happen at these schools again and you guys have to do something now and not just because it's been going public and how it's starting to cause a whole Ruckus
116or whatever it has to be done now because you care thank you our next speaker is odelia Shaw followed by Will Robertson evening good evening my name is odila shop and I am a mother in the USD since 2008. um I am my mother I am a teacher and I'm abuke I'm a feminist and I'm a volunteer but out of the Brave Girls is standing at the entrance of this room when I was approaching this evening so sad I am very very sad to hear all these stories of aggressions towards them my son goes to Luther middle school he's a sixth grader I've been in the busds since 2008 I just have a son that graduated and he is a freshman in college I volunteered Timeless of hours I am I was a parent at
117Roosevelt Elementary School timeless bringing funds to booster groups that doesn't exist right now etas I mean hours to cover items that be USD Corona for I did my part as a mother what are you doing to protect my child my friend's child my neighbors child my nephew Mrs Landa that just spoke when she told me the horrible story that happened in PE you can imagine as a mother of a Luther sixth grader I was horrified horrify have a teacher can do that and trust me if that happened to one of my kids trust me you will not I will not be sending emails I will be in front of your house with the newscast I help Mrs Landa in every way possible way as an advocate to fight for the child's right it's not fair
118that she is still not safe can you imagine my nephew is going to high school next year High School what's gonna happen what is the trust why do I have my husband and I to teach my son all of her self-defense classes why why to be ready we're not talking in school ground appears why when a teacher approached to him and tried to raise him by the armpit and put him against the locker is this the type of school we have in Burbank I don't have a daughters by birth but I have lots of daughters my blood nieces God daughters friends of my sons neighbors I am here for them because as a woman that's my duty for the district to hear my voice on March 8th 1978 the year I was birth recognize the
119world recognized around the world the importance of women that's why we celebrate the women's day my question here and I'm gonna leave it in here why are we still marching in front of buildings why are we thinking it's okay to abuse to touch girls without their permission why still us are protecting abusers why why are we yes feel it knowing women thank you our next speaker is Will Robertson followed by Brandon r I have one more card after this so if you do have your card still with you please make sure you turn it in uh thank you guys for letting us come here and speak tonight uh make this quick as um I've been in the community for 18 years I have three boys who are in the school district my wife is a
120teacher in the school district as well and uh several years ago before the pandemic my oldest son uh came to me he was he was alarmed and he had said that a teacher was uh putting in very uncomfortable situations uh as a parent to boy I probably thought his imagination was getting the better of him we let it go it happened a few more times um there were weird things where the teacher wanted my son to stay after school it got to a point where then I called for a meeting with him and with a vice principal at Burroughs and we met and we talked and I felt very uncomfortable with the meeting because I ended up saying to him at the end of the meeting I know what your jam is I know what
121you're about and he looked at me and said I don't know what you're talking about I met with the administration after that I was basically discarded as a you know hysterical parent somebody who was making false accusations I told my son hey man we did the best we could nothing's gonna happen um he's a teacher you know we're complaining big deal this year we all know what happened with Mr Bullington I know you guys have heard it here tonight as well I know everybody pretends to care um especially when you're the father of a son people take it a little less seriously um when it happened this year at the school once again we said oh look it's happened we found out there was complaints going back 20 years and went back to the administration
122I'm asking questions is this ever going to be a real thing do you guys even care do you have kids in the district does anyone have any compassion the fact that people in positions of power look out more for Predators than they do for our kids and when we try and tell our sons and daughters hey people like that they get caught in the end they get busted in the end you want to know why because there's adults that care about you and it happens year after year after year to boys to girls and you guys send out email after email after email and you say we sure do care but you know what we care more about the Predators rights than the innocent children whose entire lives are being affected because reasons and that's
123it and you never give us good reasons if you had a kid I don't know if you were not but if you had a kid you might think differently you need to think about creditors being protected over children it's not just something that a bunch of crazy people are saying out there this is really happening in our district and you'll go home tonight and you'll forget about what we said but these kids that deal with this 20 years from now like the other person that came forward after 20 years 20 years from now these boys and these girls who are touched by these perverts these groomers and these Predators they won't forget you will but they won't that's it our next our next speaker is Brandon R followed by Kai 15. I'm Brendan I am
124a freshman at Burroughs High School um a newer member of the staff here at busd uh I was in a conversation with them earlier this year uh halfway through the first semester and they said that in 15 plus years working in a different District they had not seen nearly as much controversy in 15 years as they had seen in half a semester working at Burbank USD and that has continued to grow overdoses Intruders assault cases going back years and years and years and once again all of you pretend to pretend to care um sending out emails saying that you'll put a pin in it that you're gonna get at this time but you never do every day I go to school for 10 plus hours wondering if today's the day that me or one of
125my brothers or my mom or one of my best friends who I've known my entire life will be assaulted by one of our own staff members who could easily get away with it with your principles or an intruder who could walk right onto the boroughs campus by the door that is made out of glass could easily be taken down or unlocked and once an intruder does walk on campus they can simply walk by the campus supervisor there's absolutely no security at our school our doors lock literally from the outside it would take an intruder minutes to get keys from the office to go into any classroom that they desire um and this is such a problem uh it's just disgusting but as well you have time and time again done nothing and out of the
126countless cases that I've already heard I've learned so many new cases of assault on on our grounds tonight and it's only getting worse and you as a board have just done nothing and I fully believe that each and every one of you will go home tonight and forget about this because it's not your District you don't have kids in these schools and there's nothing that you were doing absolutely nothing you send out apologetic emails and it's disgusting so our next speaker is Kai gifty followed by Linda bitto I'm just gonna have her sit next to me my name is Kai um first of all this is disgusting it's hurtful I have been beat up and sexually assaulted by boys at school I have gone to my class with cuts for Roses believing obviously not looking
127the best only for teachers and other peers to tell me that I look like I'm a drug addict and prostitute after I just got sexually assaulted relaxed imagine how that feels just imagine do you guys know what it's like to wake up from sleep because you have a dream about things that have happened to you I'm praying that you guys don't but like that is I don't get sleep at night I go off of two hours of sleep I'm in a hospitalization program because of things that have happened to me it's an awful feeling to know that I'm I don't feel protected I am not protected you guys haven't shown any sign of protection to not just me but to her and to a bunch of people in this room and hundreds of other kids
128that are out there right now I am one too many she is one too many other girls back there are one too many it's one too many this has happened too many times and it's been brought to your guys's attention and we have asked for help and nothing has happened rapists sexual assaulters groomers are walking free you guys hate a literal sexual offender and a groomer while he was doing what he was doing and that is disgusting and that is hurtful they might be able to get away with it they might be able to go to sleep at night but we can't I will not forget what they have done to me she will not forget what was done to her none of us can forget that you need to understand how hurtful that is
129and we are asking you to help us please just help us like that's it's the bare minimum we're asking you guys to help us we need protection because we obviously cannot protect ourselves we are all a Target and you guys were all Targets at one point your children are all Targets my future kids are targets how do you think that makes me feel that I have to worry about what my future kids like what's gonna happen to them is this gonna keep going on is anyone going to do anything is anyone going to say anything because right now it doesn't seem like it and the only like no words can fix what happened and I honestly think that the best thing that you guys can do is just give us an apology to all of
130us earlier Arden Marley spoke and she asked you for an apology and I did not hear a single apology out of any of your mouths I want to hear an apology I did have my time to finish her comments and then we said at the beginning that we respond at the end we are asking for we are asking for an apology from all of you all public comment is done okay don't leave thank you absolutely but that's how the moving forward thank you that's all I have to say thank you very much our next speaker is Linda Betto uh Linda bitto excuse me followed by Deborah David Gilmore good afternoon everyone okay my name is Linda biddo I work at Burbank High School all of you know that I've spoke to you before about the
131safety at Burbank High School um I'm on the Safety Committee there and the what I want to add now miss French and all the rest of the families that try to call Burbank High School the reason we can't answer our phones is directly related to three different full-time positions that have been cut from our offices which require that then maybe six staff that we now have to be spread over their jobs and our own jobs I'm there from 6 30 in the morning till 4 30 or 5 in the afternoon I can't get to all the phone calls the ones I can get to I hear all these complaints about why aren't you answering the phones on the Safety Committee the things that were highlighted at our safety committee meeting we want our SRO back
132you were directly related in removing our sros from campus we want them back on campus a vast majority of kiddos want them back I know there is a certain percentage that get anxious when they see people with guns men and women with guns but a vast majority of us feel protected because of that next we want to increase the amount of cameras we want those cameras updated they need to be night vision cameras and they need to be all over the place I have cameras on my computer they won't even load two other people have cameras on their computers they won't even load we have one person that I know of that can load all those cameras it's really outdated we need to limit the public access or because we're part of the City of
133Burbank the City of Burbank needs to step up and pay for security over there those Camp it's wide open there we have homeless people that have jumped into the pool we have homeless people defecating in the stairwells that our camp or that our custodians have to clean up that's disgusting they're urinating there all the time okay let me finish this list um are other teachers and staff they're willing to cover at lunchtime in the morning time A nutrition after school if you can give them a stipend to do that they're willing to do that there's a lot of people there we need to convert our ID cards to like we've mentioned scannerball or tappable you can make them real distinct these people have and it's scannable these people have lunch passes these people don't change
134the colors of it do something because right now they're all the same and they show these little things to us and we can't even focus on it to see it quickly enough and the kids can go on Amazon and they can get the machine to make those cards it's crazy so March 2nd the board voted well the vote board put up this piece of paper that says they want to cut these classified positions there's over 40 of these positions they want to cut including two four six eight ten of them that are security and they say why because there's lack of work there's a total of 24 hours I believe I added up correctly bring them over to Burbank High School you need to pay these campus security a living wage and we need to
135have every single one of them in all these accent points you were talking about having people scanning these kids at eight o'clock well I'm there at 6 30. the gates open at six o'clock everybody's walking on campus we have a lot of kiddos that come in there because their parents drop them off early and they're just sitting there because that's what they have to do eating breakfast or whatever they're doing there needs to be people there early in the morning late in the afternoon we need all those bases covered also our newest newest campus security that was just hired she's the one that was actually this Intruder that we had she's the one that was actually following him and Kate kept track of him until the police showed up she also yesterday she found two
136adults from Glendale on campus during lunch time that shouldn't have been there she's the one that found them and brought him into the office also this morning no this afternoon there was another adult with her daughter that don't believe don't belong in Burbank High School on our campus she's the one that did it today she received this letter that says notice of recommended layoff uh I'm not kidding you I made a copy of it the issue that constantly comes up to us is you don't have enough money but yet there was money for all the admin to get raises our superintendent this has nothing to do with personality but our superintendent is paid more than the governor of California who oversees 39 million people that's insane you have the money for these raises you need
137to put the money into the security it could all be done now we could get the cameras now every one of these teachers if they want they could have ring cameras on their on their classrooms it's it's cheap technology nowadays thank you for your time thank you Deborah Gilmore and that's the last card I've received at this time in person for in-person comment okay this was a hard decision for me to come up here because a lot of these people are my friends and colleagues and I've worked in the district for 15 years so I do feel a certain obligation to support my colleagues and my co-workers and such but I also have a son who was on the campus at Burbank High during the event that happened last week on March 6th he's a
138campus supervisor so he was also one of the ones who apprehended the Intruder he spent the time with the Intruder scared for what he might have had in his pockets because the young man kept fidgeting with his pockets he didn't know if he was going to pull out a weapon or anything like that he was very very afraid of that they kept their distance from him and then when Burbank PD came he witnessed what he felt was some excessive force on this young man who they had subdued and had gotten him de-escalated this is something that my son works very hard with to de-escalate people in large groups and he felt very successful in that although he was very frightened by what he might have had in his pocket let's face it if someone has
139a weapon you can de-escalate all you want if they've got a weapon you're in trouble so he was terrified by this whole experience it has left him very triggered with issues related to some other things that he's dealing with so right now he's on a leave of absence because he can't come back to school and the thing is he loves his job he loves those kids he feels like he's part of a campus that needs him but he also like you said he makes 17 an hour and he's putting his life on the line every day for 17 an hour that is not comfortable that doesn't feel good as his mom I don't want him doing that but I also love the district to a fault and to to my own fault as well that
140being said I also left my job in June July and took a job with Ila because I didn't feel safe at my school I was in the front office of Dolores Huerta a sitting Target every day of my life for five years in the front office behind some glass anybody could have walked in at any time and we did have people walk in who were very threatening and I was terrified and again I'm a mother I'm not going to lay down my life for the salary that I'm grateful for but is not enough to lose my life for so I made a decision that I had to for my mental health change jobs and thankfully something came up that was the perfect solution I see no one at my job my campus is a completely
141locked campus people have to text me or call me from the gate and say I'm here to get a book I'm here to get a computer whatever and I let them in so I feel perfectly safe at my job and I'm so thankful for it but my son not so much my daughter works at an elementary school we're at Burbank High we're a Burbank USD family we've all worked in the district at one time or another all of us my husband included so I do I have so much love for this District my kids got amazing educations in the schools thank God neither of them ever suffered any kind of the horrible stories that I'm hearing tonight and I am shocked to hear these stories and as a school administrator working in the offices I
142would often tell parents who would call and say their child was bullied their child was this that and no one did anything and I would just listen very politely and listen I say I'm really sorry that that happened to your student I'm so sorry that you went through that and I say with all due respect you don't know what's happening you don't know what our admin is doing at school and we wouldn't you wouldn't want us to talk about your child with another parent so we're doing what we can I mean I had them enraged and yelling at me and screaming at me how we were doing nothing we were doing nothing and I could just listen and then pass them off to the administrator and say this person is upset they say we're doing
143nothing but now I'm hearing story after story after story from these these young people who are coming forward and I have to know as a woman there is no way that some young girl is going to put her vulnerability on stage like this if it didn't really happen and if it didn't really occur no why would any person do that if it wasn't real because it is traumatizing so thank you for listening to me okay with that we will close uh in-person public comment and we'll move back to online public comment our first speaker is Brooke uh hi um I've prepared a quick statement so it won't take too long um I will use allegedly for legal reasons but it is all my true because John paramo and Lee Carlton failed to take me seriously
144regarding Sam Kroll a student and my allegations against him more people allegedly got raped and beaten and impregnated many of the survivors experienced drug or substance abuse now you all sit here uh seemingly unfazed you all failed us and each one of you sitting here should never work with children again I don't know if I will um I don't know if I will uh ever forgive you for destroying the enjoyment I had for being at school with my friends um y'all get good salaries for doing no important work with essay or rape you are all responsible for hurting kids with your lack of action or advocacy and trying to push real problems onto BPT who almost never sides with the victim or will follow up you have no idea how much I miss going to
145school seeing uh in research that Sam Cole's mother is a teacher at Lee Carlton's kids school and I believe was their teacher makes the fact that she never reported Sam Crow make perfect sense to me now um I don't hate any of you I think that you've hired some amazing people my coach coach noop was one of the kindest men who has ever been in my life he was um like a father to me during my time in his care and I wish the victims of Perry Rex bowlington could have had access to a teacher as amazing as coach knew but I hope that none of you ever work with children again uh there's nothing you can do I don't care you have to figure it out it's your job I just can't believe uh
146you did this to us you heard us just like these perverts did and you are all the problem you should all resign and if you really want to save us admit you were all wrong um I hope none of you ever work with children again because you are all a disgrace thank you thank you do we have any other virtual public comment speakers okay uh we will close uh the first period Then a public comment um I will ask that uh there are two more speakers who have asked to speak Aries and Gabriella um who uh Cindy's aware of so if they do pop on at some point um just let me know thank you um with that we will go um to stop response excuse me what okay if I think it's probably important
147that everybody's here for staff responses so I'm gonna do a three minute five minute recess and then we'll be right back thank you John yeah yeah foreign thank you okay I've got something I'll let it come out thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] I worked for him [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] and I was expecting money that's good still it matters to me I'm like because I don't know it does not go to me anymore yes yeah at the beginning at the end yes two periods hey Andrew we could get it we're good to go okay excellent thank you everybody uh we are going to resume uh the the special meeting um so we've just concluded Mr ellman and others thank you
148um first things first so we have obviously we've just taken public comment there is a second period of public comment at the end uh if you would like to make additional comments please feel free to submit another card and we will call through that at the end um I'm going to go to staff for their response uh for to the superintendent for his response um and I and I want to start out um uh tonight easily um it is absolutely devastating um to hear as an educational leader in this community um these stories um we deal with very real challenges as it relates to finances systems You Name It We are always working to improve those those are recurring conversations uh hearing the stories uh from those young women who offered it today uh we're
149fine to hear it um and it breaks my heart that you guys are holding that and and managing that in this moment in your life um we have to do better uh without a doubt uh but there are layers to all of this and I want to navigate that and communicate through that as clearly as possible tonight was not just an amalgamation of all things chaotic and crazy you know that we have several issues we have a Burbank High School situation which happened last week we now are hearing uh your stories being elevated uh in new ways both on social media and others some of those investigations were handled by this District other parts of the investigations were not so in some situations were we the Arbiter of Justice maybe and others were we not
150we weren't other jurisdictions take hold law enforcement Etc um we have an obligation to ensure the young men and the young women of this District feel safe in school I think for many folks who are here tonight I don't think there's a thing we can say to be honest to restore any face in the safety we attempt to offer uh through a number of moves that we commit significant amounts of time and energy and resources too um having said that tonight we are going to do our best to start this conversation we are not running from this conversation there are additional Town Halls that we will be having um so I want you to know that um there are clearly next steps that I think we will get into after the staff uh after the
151superintendent answers a lot of what we're dealing with uh and and a lot of the responses that we had I I will also say some of the information offered tonight either was not inclusive of the full picture or was not accurate and that's not to go after specific stories or anything um but I will say this that this is a pretty terrifying world and more happens every day than we know and it is a large part our privilege as a community in particular our suburban community where we don't get exposure to this all the time this board other jurisdictions other elected officials get some glimpses of that world and it is horrifying in very real ways we are also constrained by systems established both by the state and locally that ensure due process for all
152involved those systems often feel cold detached and don't feel in many ways responsive to what people are experiencing in a moment especially after something like Burbank High School I can't even imagine if my friend had shared a personal friend of mine had shared a story like yours how I would react in that moment the Justice I would want in that moment um I I can relate to that I can understand that um I can understand the hatred rage you name it when somebody says great can you take a statement now I I get that and I don't think there's a person up here who doesn't get that system's not perfect in a lot of ways we can create more compassionate systems we can do that uh unfortunately at times it takes experiences to educate Us
153in these moments and we are doing our best to proactively listen um I learned a lot here tonight um and we are empowered to yes ask detailed questions but we also as five of us don't lock every gate at night we entrust others to do that we entrust systems to do that we do our best to hold those systems accountable um tonight you may hear about resources I don't want you to scoff and say this is just baloney and they're just trying to say we don't have and we we don't we we struggle there is one-time money here one-time money there that allows us to like fire extinguishers respond to things but it doesn't allow us to say the whole thing's on fire that's why we've gone for partial taxes that's why we've gone for
154additional Revenue so we could address some of these issues our our employees paid enough heck no can we attract enough of them heck no we don't have the money to do it and that sounds insane because it's not again we're talking about eight different scenarios here tonight between campus access to security cameras to ID fraud to write like there are so many different issues here so when you think about the dollar and cents amount to respond to each of those it is significant it is there is a dollars and cents but personal safety creating an environment where people can feel safe to report where people know that they will be that their claims that their that their experiences will be seen by somebody that is something we absolutely have to Endeavor to do um it
155doesn't guarantee Justice in every moment but we have work to do on that front so with that answering eight different scenarios of concerns um we there are conversations that were had as a result of the Burbank High break-in um wouldn't even an intruder on campus we also have found in this whole process that language is insane uh to navigate as we communicate uh what happened on campus um we have a local newspaper or online blog that had to issue a statement then retract quickly because they use language too quickly we've heard from student leaders including at our board meeting last night who talked about the trauma that that caused and the fear that then creates more fear and keeps building on fear Within These campus communities we've been on these campus communities I have seen
156young women recoil when they see us on I I very much am living and understanding what people are experiencing right now not in the same degree but I see it uh and you bet I feel accountable for it you bet I feel responsible for it I don't know what's happened in each one of your stories um when I see you come here today when I see you offer it I see human to Human somebody I would never want that to happen to so I have an obligation as a policy maker and all of us will talk about and we'll ask questions further to create systems where I don't ever either myself or anybody coming after me has to sit here and hear stories and hear young women who should be enjoying this young time in
157your life because it goes quickly and instead are here on a Friday night sharing some of the most traumatic experiences of your life so I cannot apologize for the things in each of your scenarios in each of your stories and each of what you've offered but I can tell you I feel responsible to do more to ensure that there aren't more of it um if there's enough trust that you can work with me or work with any of us we'd appreciate the help if you're in that place if you're healthy enough to do it if you're not we're going to do it anyway but your perspective clearly counts and that's why we are taking the time that's why this meeting happened so wanted to set that tone and thank you for everybody because all of
158you have lives that you're going to return to um and by the way I will not forget these stories tonight and I live with these in very real ways um so that I I will just quickly respond soon so with that we'll go to the superintendent again some of these responses are going to sound about facility upgrades things like that okay just anticipate that but we this is clearly the beginning of listening on a lot of different fronts um and and we will continue to engage in that process after spring break it looks like we have three different town halls set up again we're not running we feel responsible to do more and and by the way the staff who are here today they feel responsible too so this is our community we can run
159from this and clearly what are demons within our community including a culture of harassment just generally in this country we can run from it or we as a community and honor the pain that people are experiencing now and work our way to improve systems so it doesn't happen further I feel responsible for that okay Dr Hill thank you president Ferguson um as far as this process tonight so we're in the place where we all will have an opportunity to do responses um and then we're going to do a presentation some of the reflections and actions that we've done based on what we've heard before clearly tonight that will continue to revise and be updated um I'm going to take the time right now and not get into the technical aspects I'll do that during the
160presentation um first of all 32 powerful stories tonight and I know there are many more and I know these formats when we have a horseshoe and an audience and a microphone it it takes away from people's Humanity humanity and their personal stories and I know the system of justice does that as well through the police system the court system school districts it turns into processes and questioning and first of all I just want to acknowledge that I know there was doubts and questioning do we believe your stories do we believe your truth that is your truth that is your story that you brought forward to that microphone yes you listen to that we hear that that is yours and I know through the process that there's other stories and truths on the other side of
161that and then we get to a justice system and it doesn't always feel like you're getting Justice or giving heard and the number one thing I took away from this listening part of tonight we have to do a lot more of that it's like we have to make sure we're all truly listening and we hear each other's truth you may not agree with me you may not agree with the decision but we have to hear each other and acknowledge the trauma and I I can see it I can feel it I heard the trauma from each of you that's not me trial is not made up now how we restore that trauma and work through that trauma first we have to look at the processes using the systems we have in place and make sure
162it's trauma informed we have a great partnership where I keep mentioning Burbank Family Services because they are trained experts in trauma and we want to make sure we continue to build that partnership which is decades that we have that partnership but my reflection is we usually after the incident we say go call FSA or go call a therapist or a counselor get that help but president Ferguson vice president Weisberg and I've been talking about is like how do we bring FSA to look at our processes how do we make sure that are there biases are there ways that we can make sure it doesn't feel as cold it doesn't feel as responsive we everyone had the opportunity to be heard and supported throughout the entire process that is clear that has to change we've already
163we've been talking about that how to do that so I want to make sure we focus on it we are listening we're hearing at the site level at the district office level at the board level in partnership with the police department we are doing that but the justice system sometimes makes it feel Cold and you may not receive the Justice you feel like deserve and sometimes it's lack of evidence where they we can't conclude I just want to reiterate your truth your story there's your truth your story and that process is not always perfect and that process has that coldness that we have to work through is how do we improve that I do want to comment though is we have to remember the aspect to humanity some of the comments tonight dehumanized others um
164I will be specific I I get it I know I get paid for that you can attack me you can question if I have kids you can question if my kids go to private school or public school why does that matter I'm a human I have taken a responsibility to serve every single child and staff in this District I think all of us can do better than that we do not need to dehumanize each other I heard that about Dr peramo Ms Carlton you may not appreciate the way they came up with a decision or the process or the outcome give us constructive feedback myself included all of us need that but let's not attack and dehumanize we can do better we will resolve these issues and these challenges if we hear each other's stories
165we acknowledge that we acknowledge we may have differences but we have to truly engage in dialogue and hear that and work through it to get to a better system and better outcomes and better support so that we can get through the trauma and heal and move forward so that's one key aspect so as I hear if I break it apart on the sexual harassment and assault we have to make sure that it's more of a caring and compassionate process and we want your feedback and we have to listen more about where did that not happen where can we improve that second whether it happened on campus or off campus how to provide those supports so everyone can get through that process and be stronger through that how do we do that and third is really
166about the restorative practice and making sure we're stronger and we work forth we have a lot of work to do together um president Ferguson talked about having additional listening sessions um I'll talk about it later but we're going to have it after spring break and if we need to schedule more we're scheduled more we need to do smaller focus groups or do that I want to hear from people watching and people here how do we get to that part of this didn't work let's do better how do we get the feedback so we're working together for a better solution uh some of the comments earlier were absolutely correct like we're doing based on what our intakes are and how we resolve that and here's some ideas it's not the end of improving so how do
167we continue to do that so someone talked to a couple speakers like are you going to apologize I am so excuse me I'm sorry so I I I appreciate your passion your frustration your anger this format is not a back and forth so I do appreciate that hearing the stories I'm so sorry what happened to you and your experience we all are if the system failed we want to review that and see how the system can be improved if individuals did not do what they should we do we will investigate that but what we can't do is post partial information and not the whole truth on social media we can't take Snippets of examples you did that tonight to me you posted fake information but I'll Consulting me that's not okay now it just was
168not a back and forth I just since you're recording this I just want to be clear you have to be very careful and thoughtful about how we move forward we have to validate the facts we have to validate Instagram accounts we don't make allegations on people as we have the truth so I think it's critical otherwise we're causing more trauma and we're not healing moving forward so the pain and the suffering yes I apologize for that if it happened on the campus if we weren't able to help restore and heal that is serious we will do better if it's something that wasn't out of our control or the judicial system did not give an outcome that you felt was appropriate that's a separate process and we need to talk through that I know there's a
169lot of frustration when we talk about examples and people say I heard this but you won't tell us what happened that's part of that cold system where we have to work with individuals involved we we partner with the police department we partner with the courts we work through that process and not everybody not all of us are privy to that information but there are checks and balances balances along the way to make sure it happens regarding the safety concerns on campus uh comments where are you going to look at after school are you looking at Gates these are the things we want feedback on where do you see weaknesses and vulnerabilities how do you get onto campus specifically about Burbank High that door needs to be open because it's a fire code can we look
170are we going to look at can we look at can you redesign the parking structure can you put more Safeguard absolutely I like a lot of the ideas I came up we need to prioritize that which ones are going to give us greater system and security faster and sooner but to come onto campus there are campus super business to check those IDs and I heard that tonight that should be an expectation if it's not happening that's a problem so how do we support the humans individuals who may make mistakes with technology to help be that Safeguard so having both of those so I appreciate the specific examples on that how do we look at when our schools are open when are they closed what do we want the school to look like and feel like
171so that we have safety but we also have a a learning environment that is conducive these are struggles that we can't solve alone we need to have the feedback I'll go into more of this the initial details and specifics that we're thinking about doing later and have that feedback but I just want to let everyone know we're listening we're hearing we're acknowledging this this is not something that there's no incentive for us to do a cover-up or a PR statement or to just not think about it every single employee in this District thinks about how to protect students and staff all the time almost 24 7. I guarantee that I'm a father but it doesn't matter if I'm a father or not an employee of this District I am the leader of this district and
172yes the buck does top with me and I make sure that I hear from our students our employees that what is working what is not how do we improve how do we do better and put those changes into place and it was mentioned earlier that anything I say tonight doesn't matter and I hear that I absolutely hear that but the reason I'm speaking so long right now is I want you to know that I was listening I'm reflecting I am thinking about how we can do this better and I am hopeful that we can continue an honest productive dialogue with support to do better as a community you don't have to trust me yet I'm not asking that you don't know me I'm trying to share a little bit about who I am and how
173I think in process through this so you get to know me but I'm hopeful that we will continue to work through it because that's the only way this is going to get better I again appreciate and I am pained and I'm going to struggle to sleep at night listening to stories I know many of the stories that were come that came up here tonight I know there are many nuances to that but I do not want anyone to walk away and say I'm discounting your truth and your story something happened that was not okay for you that's what you share tonight does that mean it's something that we can discipline at a school level does that mean something that the police can discipline or the courts that may be different but I don't want anyone
174to walk away that we do not believe in your story is it's clear there's trauma and there's pain that Justice aspect of it that's a very complicated aspect of it and there is another story on the other side and that that can get messy and ugly and I hear the frustration and pain what we can do is how do we ensure more that doesn't happen the ideas about more education more awareness what is consent how do we treat each other as human how do we have safeguards so the opportunities don't happen those are all things we can work on so we can prevent that from happening so people don't feel that way or experienced events that they experience that's what we can do together thank you with that I will go to board colleagues for
175their responses um we'll start with Miss tabot this wasn't the meeting I was expecting tonight I was expecting to hear and talk about I guess you would call it physical school safety what we were going to do to make sure our campuses uh relatively safer from Intruders possible situations that could take place should we wear badges ID base ID badges or not you know what could we put in and and instead I see moms dads young women who've come in to tell us a different kind of story tonight about their safety and their thoughts I have two daughters and a son and most of the time in raising my two my three children my biggest fear for them was being bullied and harmed in such a way from that bullying and I wanted to protect
176them from that never in my life did I worry about my daughters being sexually abused or um attacked well on a school campus by a fellow student or by a adult that was that is just way beyond my ability to understand and and feel but yet when you ladies were talking I was picturing my own daughters and what would I do if they came to me and said Mom you know and told me their story and like some of those moms yeah you bet I'd want to stand up and fight and and do what I needed to do to protect my girls and even my son because it there's protection there too to make sure that they didn't have to feel like you feel and I'm I'm sorry that you have to feel that way
177and I'm sorry you had to go through this and I hope nothing like this ever happens to you again it was really hard it was really hard to sit here and listen to you tell your stories I'm it has to be hard also to be the adults the school Personnel who also has to listen and try to figure out how to go about I think Mrs Gilmore you you stated that fairly well it's not easy it's nowhere near what you went through I get that and and probably my sorry will not ever take away your pain my sorry won't ever make you maybe feel completely whole again but I hope you find a way by talking by you know whatever works for you to feel uh better and a stronger human being at the end
178of this I I really hope that and I hope that we do what we can as a school district as a community because there is a whole community that needs to take um a portion of this and talk about why this even happens and and where do we go from here I really I really wish it was just about campus security and not the security and safety of human beings and you deserve to feel every day our constitution guarantees it for you to feel safe for you to be happy for you to be able to pursue your dreams and your choices every single day every minute and that was taken away I'm not a big crier but I look at you and I see my girls and it hurts and I sorry I see my
179children and it hurts and uh I hope you never ever ever have to go through anything remotely close to this again and I I hope we're here to help you or a Community Resources here to help you to make sure we get you there and I hope it never ever happens to anybody else going forward I have a new grandson and and it's president Ferguson said it correctly it's an ugly world most of the time we live really really uh in a in a happy place you know where we think everybody's good and safe and we have an amazing Police Department that if we call them we know we'll be there in less than three minutes and I'm thankful for that every day and thankful that a lot of times they don't have to call
180them uh in my home in my in my space you know so uh I I promise you that I will listen and where I can do what I can to help and to make sure that I can't guarantee you anything in life I can't that would be a a bold-faced lie if I said I'm gonna make sure this never happens again I I can't do that but I can listen and we can talk and we can Advocate and we can have instructions classes we could we could do all kinds of things to hope and pray that it doesn't happen to another human being male or female in any way shape or form um so I I thought as you were talking what would I say to my daughter or my son if they came to
181me the story and I I still don't have an answer but don't think that I go home and I'm not thinking about it that it's not going to be a conversation I have in my head as I'm at work and doing and taking care of things and listening to other people who maybe have some advice and experience in this for us so thank you thank you for being so brave tonight and coming out that's that's a step isn't it thank you uh Miss sponsor cam Carter thank you president Ferguson um so we know that the goal of this district is to teach kids but we know also that kids can't learn if they don't feel safe and I am sorry you don't feel safe you haven't felt safe and you haven't felt hurt it truly
182breaks my heart I'll get back to that I'm gonna do a couple of like um okay so on school side safety um I do want to thank you for the suggestions um I think there's a lot of things here to work with um at one of my first board meetings we approved School site safety plans um now these are public documents so I would understand why principals wouldn't put every single risk in them but looking at them reviewing the ones at least for Burrows and for and for Burbank High it's pretty clear to me that there's more work to be done there um because we weren't ready for this looking at them in retrospect which is always much easier obviously um Mrs Hernandez um uh the story that you told about what happened with your
183child at Jefferson is my literal nightmare um I'm furious that it happened I'm furious that we didn't hear about it we hear about a lot of other things that are um that happen on our campuses and that is it's awful um to our victims that bravely came and spoke today thank you I did not understand the pattern of this until tonight I think many of us were hearing these stories for the first time that we may have only heard in hearsay or rumors and so it matters that you came and told your story please know that um chroma purely systematic point of view we are all mandated reporters every School site employee is a mandated reporter that means that these reports should be coming in and we should be able to know how many of
184those reports are coming in how many uh get referred to the police uh what the results were that's at the very least what I need to be able to look parents and students in the eye and be able to say that we're doing everything we can in our power to keep things safe um even if this is something that we have to look at in closed session I understand but I personally need to know um when those things are happening we get a notification every time that police or paramedics are called to a school even if it's like um pretty minor and from a school removed from a school yes um and that we didn't know about some of the things that have happened here is is upsetting um so um I like Dr Hill's
185point about um it doesn't it shouldn't matter whether we have kids in the district um I do have kids in this District I have a daughter in Kinder and a son who will be a boc student in the coming years what that gives me differently than some of my fellow board members is just a different perspective it doesn't mean that they have any different stake in this these are people who care deeply about our kids I've only known some of them for a few months and I I do truly trust that um this isn't a well-paid job as many of you know this is a basically unpaid job um they wouldn't be here on a Friday night trying to do something better if they didn't care um please know that I hear you see you
186I join you in wanting action and answers I'm sorry that this happened I'm sorry that we are here um I've not been here long before getting elected I knew like school systems and how the finances worked and you know enough to be dangerous in the classroom uh from a I had a lot of pedagogical sense um but I didn't become a UFC parent until this last fall um I know that your trust has been broken over the past years and I don't blame you frankly some of my trust has been broken tonight and hearing your stories um but I hope that we can take that forward and as we repair make it stronger That's My Hope and I know it might be uh an aggressive hope given where we sit today but um thank you
187for all who spoke thank you Dr Aga kanian commence for president so some of you have shared my story before um I come from a war-real country for two years from age 12 to 14 every day I went to school we got bombed I didn't suffer from PTSD and I've lost friends Neighbors just the fear of going to school the way to the school but yet the school was my safest place a country that was getting bombed every day so hearing these stories brings back all this trauma to me because that should be the safest place for you to go I'm sorry because I know what it feels because these stories come back to me people ask me why don't you like Fourth of July so because every night growing up when they were bombing
188us it was Fourth of July it's called anti-air artillery when playing is going over you in the light call it the shadow of death it passed you that means you were okay and I know these emotions and all the things we're talking about the the what you've suffered from it's not gonna go away and it comes back and it's difficult it needs a lot of healing I'm still going to that process right so I can't even watch some animal dying on the side because it brings back the memories of people who died my own friends would survive bombings and some of them died it's unfortunate but I'm sorry to hear these stories this is very very disturbing to me and I we do have an 11 year old that goes to the schools and I
189should not be worrying about his sake and if some of you know I've been out there protesting against all the gunshots we have in Burbank and also the issues because I know what a gun does to a person I know what a gunfight is a lot of people don't I hear a gunshot I get I duck I automatically duck because that's what we did so thank you for coming forward and bringing these issues because it's very difficult because I rarely talk about my problems what I've been through because it comes back and again and again little things triggers it so again and sometimes I've I come across to be serious not showing emotions because I have to oppress sometimes and it's a mechanism so defense mechanisms but I can tell you that as someone who
190also runs a large organization if people don't perform I will terminate them it is important because if you get paid to do a job and you're not held accountable you should lose your job it's the reality of the world and and sometimes I can wear that hat if I want to but I think there's a lot to talk about but also you know the questions of sros was brought up look I mean the reality of it is also sometimes certain students would not do what they're supposed to if they see that there's law enforcement presence I think we've been having this conversation over and over again I want us to seriously look at that as well because you know sometimes that is that's what it takes but I think having these conversations tonight hearing some
191of your stories worrying about my own child's safety that concerns me and I think again my colleagues here we have the best interest but I think we need to more hear more some of the suggestions I really liked you know but also I have to remind people sometimes we talk about locking down and you'll hear people saying well we don't want our students go to prison right or sometimes if we say we want law enforcement I think the conversation and that we've started already it's great but at the same time I do agree with you it shouldn't take one incident for everyone to all of a sudden get old right and I think what I can tell you and I can promise you is that that for me this is very personal trying your stories
192it was very difficult for me to listen because but I think we're we're we have board at understands the whole process and yes there is a little bit of the other factors with the legal stuff but you know what I don't want us to also get too technical or someone who studied law it's not you should it's not as compassion can always overcome and as someone who believes in Justice Justice brings you happiness all of you are here in pursuing Justice and as in Plato's Republic what is the pursuit of happiness it is about Justice so thank you for your you know you pursuing Justice we will get there thank you very much Dr Weisberg thank you I'm too short um I want to sort of break up my comments two ways I'm going to
193talk a little bit about personal and I want to talk to you about uh some of the things we've been doing since in the past week and a half two weeks I think both of those things are important um I want to thank everybody who came out I think almost everybody in this room is here with a genuine caring concern for themselves and the people that they care about in The District um I think there are also people in this room who are the term I use is trauma vultures or trauma vampires who often show up to feed off of the pain of others um excuse me Mr schlossman it's you again you know this you're a routine attender of our meetings you understand the board has a time to speak then you have a
194time to speak okay your time has concluded for now there will be an additional period of public comment at the end you can register that same expletive at that time but in the meantime I need you to set the example for the young people in the room and allow Dr Weisberg to speak and stop interrupting her thank you go ahead so again thank you to everybody who's here who is looking authentically for Solutions um I think it's really easy to lose the personal when you've experienced so much trauma and you see this sort of divide between the people that are responsible and then the lack of help or care and concern and I wanted to sort of echo what I think everybody up here said to some degree which is that um you know I
195probably don't know very much about us right because that's irrelevant in a lot of ways and I don't think empathy should be um connected to having shared the same experience but I do want to share that when I was in high school I was also sexually assaulted and abused and now as somebody who is in her 40s I understand what it's like to carry a lifetime of that and how you process that now my experience is not the same as anybody else this year nor will it be right but I can tell you that on some level that that process that experience is something that I that I understand um so listening to the stories for all of us is hard right but that didn't need to happen to me for me to feel empathy
196for you and to be able to say to you how sorry I am that that happened High School is difficult enough Middle School is difficult enough life is difficult enough and I know how re-traumatizing it is to come up here and tell the story again especially when the first however many times you told it you didn't feel blue and you didn't feel heard that's Monumental and I'm I'm deeply thankful to all of you for doing it you shouldn't have had to but I'm thankful that you did um uh Ani came to I think she left he's only here anymore she left so um Annie came to the office hours one of the things that I did immediately following up office hours every week you're open to anybody I hope you'll virtually join me um Dr
197Mr Ferguson and I held them and Annie came and it was really great I had never met her before um and one of the things that she said that she would convey and I hope she had to all of you is that I would love to sit down with any of you at any time uh and talk so hopefully that was communicated um by Ani to all of you and I'll say it again now just so you hear me say it we're here you can reach us via email you can reach us via phone I'll give you my phone number um this should be a constant conversation uh Mr Huerta brought up having more student involvements and then Mr Ferguson and I are going to be starting at the beginning of the next year is
198the student advisory Council where we get more direct input from students consistently so I hope those of you who aren't graduating please be part of it we want to we want your voice we want your Insight Nobody Knows the school better than you um I I'm I will be asking Annie about those impact statements that she received the 75 impact statements there's not a lot that we can do unless we know what's happening um and I will tell you a share uh well my colleague said the majority of the stories that I heard tonight I'm hearing for the first time that's not an excuse but that's to let you know I have a lot of work to do to better understand where the system worked and where it didn't and what we need to be
199doing differently um that's just the truth but I wanted to share that with you um so I think there's sort of two issues that I'm hearing and I and I hope you'll tell me if I'm missing the Mark here um issue one is we need we're talking about increasing safety as it relates to things like Intruders and people on campus and making sure that everybody feels safe and then also increasing the the meaningful ways in which we provide support when people are reporting something that happened to them and those are two different things they they equal a deeper level of safety but they're sort of two different things so one of the things that we've been talking about is how we get trauma-informed professionals to work with us a lot of the ideas that people
200said talking about like how can we evolve involve independent groups to help us when people are reporting there's so many good ideas that were shared tonight um wrote them all down I know he's sitting with them for a long time um other specifics so in relationship I can't remember and I asked about the gun shops um if you're here okay so uh four years ago I spoke to then council member Sharon Springer and Gable Letty about uh Sunset laws which means that if a gun store leaves you can't put a gun store back where it was nothing has come of that yet however we have a really fantastic current city council that is really invested in addressing this so we've been been in lengthy conversations with um vice mayor Schultz and mayor Anthony about how
201we can because some of this the gun stores are within the sort of like safety right so we are talking about this and have been for a long time I don't have a solution for you which completely sucks but I do want to let you know that it is a conversation that has been had and will continue to happen we're doing a joint meeting at some point um with Council that we please come um the mayor oh no oh we're meeting with him on Monday I thought it was canceled but it's not which is awesome we'll we'll send out information it's virtual join us please um also city council is a great place to go you can do I don't know if you can do it virtually anymore or if the comments are now all
202in person but talking to them about increased support for um with our joint use agreements talking about when the campus is open to the public how we can provide more Safety and Security for people that was a really important point that people brought up um hold on hold on hold on um just to clarify Ms biddo's comment about sros we didn't eliminate sros we have two sros um now we have now we have one but not because we fired the SRO so I just want to be clear that I mean and we could have we can have a much longer conversation offline about whether or not I think sros are effective models but I want to be clear about that I also want to um highlight the chief Albanese who is here and I had
203a really great conversation and a really informative conversation about the gun stores and the ways in which they sort of check people who come to buy guns and so I do I do want to highlight um we have a very responsive Police Department I'm not talking about when you call them up and you and something's wrong I'm talking about if you ask for a meeting or you asked to sit down and you ask for information um I know we all varying uh feelings and relationships with the police but I do want to let you know I mean they're here they're here today not to um be an oppressive presence they're here because they're active participants and they're here to answer questions as well so I know for some people it makes people uncomfortable and I
204absolutely understand why that is but they're here because we asked them to come to provide information and insight if needed um so I wanted to say that as well um speaking a little bit more about Burbank hi and I know that Mr Ferguson is going to get into it in more detail but I do want to share that um I know that Mr Ferguson and Dr Hill they did a really thorough walk through I did the same with Mr Ferguson at back to school night already so much conversation in the works about ways that we're going to look at different safety issues a couple of the of you brought up some really important points and I know Mr Ferguson has brought it up similar which is to say that like students know the campus kind
205of best right like you know where the doors are that get propped open you know where the sort of the fences are and Mr Ferguson went to Burbank High so he was pointing out to me as we walked around like all the places that he knew to get there and they haven't changed um so one of the things that I know Dr Hill Mr Ferguson are going to do is do a walk through and a conversation not just with students and staff but with custodial and with maintenance because everybody kind of knows the ins and outs a little bit differently and we know that we need multiple perspectives to understand truly the changes that that we need to make so what you what I think that's really really important so it's not just our thoughts
206right like I don't know Burbank High the way that students do or or Burrows or Monterey or anywhere right I know because I visit but I don't know because I go there so please know that we value your opinion and your Insight in a meaningful way and we'll be looking to gather it if you feel comfortable sharing um hold on I'm just scrolling apologies apologies um a lot of the specifics I know we're going to get into with the report so I'm gonna I'll leave those till later but I want to go back again to everybody who shared their story tonight and and let you know how much it meant and um encourage you please if you feel comfortable reach out again um I'll give you my cell phone at the end of the night
207our emails are accessible all the time and I want to say I know sometimes it feels like the only way to really get something to happen is if you come and speak in front of a mic I get that feeling but don't wait until the board meeting I'm not saying don't come to aboard me come say hi but but don't wait if there's something right now in the moment that you want to talk about that's scaring you that's upsetting you that you want answers to you don't have to wait um we're here to respond to you so I just I want to say that again and I know for some of you it doesn't maybe it doesn't feel safe to reach out to us maybe it doesn't feel uh genuine that I'm saying that and
208I understand that as well um but I'll say it again because I mean it and it's and it's true um so I hope you will reach out I hope you will continue to have conversations um at our Safety Town Halls at my office hours whatever it is it's available to you and if those times don't work we'll find something else um and I and I say that for the parents for for the Allies in the room for people who are for everybody who's been here tonight um think I think I think that is all I have for right now um sorry yes so thank you okay um thank you Dr Weisberg um so uh we we've gone through board responses there are a few um we are going to go into the presentation right now
209that is specifically dealing with Burbank High School and what happened in terms of Campus access recommendations um that are kind of the initial phase before additional listening is occurring before that happens though um I I do want I'm looking to my colleagues for um consent to do a few report backs relatively soon um so first things first I will say I've reached out to mayor uh Constantine Anthony as president of the school board um Dr Weisberg has joined me in reaching out to vice mayor Schultz um so we won this is not just an issue for schools and education this is an issue for our community so we are working together to basically put on a summit a one-day Summit on sexual harassment and assault in the City of Burbank to review both government agencies
210and their approaches to sexual assault claims reports you name it um there's a lot of good work that happens to bring people to Justice at this moment in time but we can always work to make sure our systems are more informed and more compassionate and that's pretty clear tonight um so we are going to be working on that starting on Monday it is not a public meeting so it just the the two on two meeting is not a public meet but there will be a full joint meeting that we are looking to schedule likely in the spring or early summer um so that will be out and about um I would like uh as we did talk about uh we have trauma-informed uh professionals frankly who can come and review our procedures not just on
211reporting but also on um on how staff manages these claims including who they share the information with how they talk about it with others I think all that's really important um I'd like a report back in probably the next 30 to 60 days specifically on campus supervisors and where we're at with hiring on that front um and I would like an audit of all sexual assault claims in the district for the past three years and the impacts on whoever was claimed to be perpetrated against on the attendance and GPA of those individuals which are usually traditionally methods by which we can determine success in a school environment after those claims are filed how many of those situations are administrators coming back with one determination over another that's all within our capacity correct and Dr Weisberg
212um along the lines of reporting I don't remember how long ago this was it doesn't really matter but we had talked about having regular reporting to the board about any time a student um reports an incident not just the emails that we get about what police are or paramedics show up but that'll it'll give us the ability to sort of monitor Trends along with you and see what's going on um obviously with any and all confidentiality measures that need to be put into place I think that'll be really important for us to continue being proactive not reactive and and I will say the look back for three thank you Dr Weisberg and and the look back for three years is anonymized data I do not want specifics I I want us to to handle that
213with you know the utmost care but this is what is being spoken about is a trend and if it sounds like it so if we can uh provide additional data on that front I will say Let's Do It um also I do want to explain that the Board of Education in certain moments acts as the final appeals body or students and for staff in different situations expulsions firings you name it terminations so there are moments where information does not come to us immediately it goes through a process and then comes to us so that to say it's not surprising that we haven't heard about some of these things um it's terrible now that we do but it is also a part of the process so this step to bring information at least for the past
214three years will allow us to elevate the stories as a whole and understand what's happening here um I think there's likelihood that we're going to need additional Outreach just on sexual assault and the claims around that I want to make sure though that if we're putting that on that we're doing so with clinicians and folks who can offer care in those moments to take care of these young women and men uh who have reported as well and who have reached out okay with that we'll go so that concludes for tonight there will be additional period of public comment at the end we are going to go to now the presentation on the Burbank high specific a lot of these again are going to be facilities related so we just wanted to give kind of forewarning
215so we're not shocking anybody with that Dr Hill and just a brief comment on just the sexual assault and the reporting there was a couple comments and I've seen it just going around social media is like I don't want to report because nothing will happen I I think we all have to reinforce if it's not reported action can't be done so the the email I sent out and I post on Facebook earlier if you heard there someone else had a bad experience and they said don't report report to the police department report to the school district we talked we tip people asked about we tip that is a it is a website that you can put in my email so you can learn about how that it's a third party they make the information Anonymous
216back to us so that we know that the claim so you can report to us with your information you can report to Police Department everyone has to report please continue to engage as we as president Ferguson just talked about if there's better ways that we can do our process to hear the story we want to look at that and the last aspect of the hardest is discipline and justice and I want us to focus on reporting and make sure people know they get the care and the support for a lot of us we don't realize we're in trauma and shock as we go through this and we don't think we need help mental health and support is still taboons for some people we need to rely on our partners but FSA is an amazing partner
217we have to have that support and then we have to go through the judicial process and I feel a lot of this is focused on the outcome of Justice wasn't granted but we can't ignore the first two steps so I just want to keep stressing that so for it's changing gears completely I know this is a hard night to keep changing yours now we're going to Burbank High and we want to talk about what did what happened what did we learn what are we doing and I greatly appreciate Chief Albanese for being here with his team it's been a very long night but I absolutely appreciate Chief if you don't mind coming up and just giving us a debrief of Burbank principal in the incident by wave introduction my name is Michael Albanese and can
218I kind of face these folks yeah you want to come sit up here instead or talk to uh I'm the chief of police of Burbank some of you folks we have not met um so um this is going to be conversational as far as what happened March 6th so there was the incident at Burbank High School and understand that there is an ongoing investigation you had a collaboration with the District Attorney's office there is pending criminal litigation you have victims that are protected because they are juveniles so I can't and we can't talk about them and and there is due process associated with the incident unsettling for all of us um and But please understand that we are doing everything that we can I have uh Sergeant laufer was here who has oversight of the
219investigation and her boss is here lieutenant losaco and there's there's not much that we can talk about because it is confidential and if uh you're the victim you're the friend of the victim you're the daughter of the victim that's confidential and protected so um that's where we're at on the investigation and if I continue on uh uh superintendent Hill if you're a victim let me reach out to us please please please and and if you have a friend of a friend I understand that it's hard to believe but one time I had hair kind of look good now now look what happened if you have a friend of a friend do the friend a favor just do a recap our folks are skilled at doing confidential investigation and I know it's tough at times to
220trust adults trust law enforcement I get all that but please reach out to us and and if you are passionate about victims and passionate about the process think about law enforcement criminal justice or education as a career or even counseling so uh we have the director of FSA here so um I tell you how I got into law enforcement I hated bullies I hate bullies and uh that's why I got into law enforcement so does that help or do you need more what I want to do is if we could open it up to five questions from folks in the audience who are here tonight um we can do that you may not be able to answer all of them but I have lieutenant losaco and Sergeant Lafayette here will pick me up right excellent
221uh why don't you go ahead and select Chief thank you yep go ahead you pick foreign problems what we do uh is almost every case is a question before the end of the day certainly at the conclusion of the investigation for that part if we will follow the parents and let them know why you're doing this and here's kind of where we're at again be mindfulness to the part about your students whether people be a suspect or a victim is going to be shared from our protective but we do not have a return if I want to see that so we do does that help yeah answer your questions well uh what I will tell you about the school is that they they don't have the ability to tell us that we can't talk to
222somebody thank you we're conducting with criminal investigations not a civil investigation if you don't do that there's a criminal investigation that's our ability if I lost you guys in this body for the teachers of the staff they have no ability to tell us um for uh maybe something I can talk about as I can deposit all educated that they have the ability to have an advocate experience that most of the time are the students want another piece thank you okay we've got four more questions and I do want so if we could limit the back and forth so it doesn't become just on those I want to get specific to the incident uh miss little in the back and if I could there are individuals that are watching at home and they cannot hear unless
223we're at that microphone so if you can come out okay thank you ma'am go ahead foreign so it depends how about that yeah uh it really depends on uh you repeat the question sure thank you the question was is this this lady says that if she has instructed her children that if they're called to the office to be spoken to by someone of authority uh she's instructed them to tell the person if they're uncomfortable to instruct that person that they are not to talk to them until they have an opportunity to call their parents the answer that is really truly it depends on the situation each circumstance is going to be different uh there are some cases where that might happen and we are obligated to stop there are some cases where we may not
224be obligated but it just sounds like or feels like the right thing to do but there are other circumstances quite frankly where the law allows us to continue doing something and we will consider doing that depending on the totality of the uh circumstances right here [Music] so the question is is her child her child was uh assaulted by somebody at school and she's asking if she can report that now by a teacher by a teacher so the answer is absolutely you can make that report anytime we're more than happy to take that report and fully investigate it if I feel and then foreign if you don't mind coming to the microphone and just on the last question I just want to be very clear is that if there's any incident that we feel that could
225be suspected child abuse we are mandated reporters we file a report with the police department we investigate we work with them and we do discipline action what can be frustrating with the process is people don't know what the discipline action is and I know there's been email correspondence with Mr Hubble I've been copied on some of those so I just want to make sure that we're clear it's like we do have a process we follow what can be frustrating is you don't know what our investigation determined with the police but I want to be clear on this Mr Burlington and other examples when we work with the police and it is determined that is a criminal crime that is public information that is released and so if it's not released so Mr Bullington does not
226have criminal charges against them that was stated earlier that is not factual so I want to make sure we're stating facts with Mr Bullington it's a civil case and in civil cases not criminal not going to jail it could be two disputing parties disagreeing on what happened and they're working through the judicial system with lawyers so I do want to draw that line on sexual abuse claims rape claims if it's criminal it's a it's it's charges pressed and it's public and that's that process a lot of examples tonight are talking about criminal charges those are not filed those have not happened it makes us easier on us as a school district to expel a student they're expelled if it's criminal charges employees are fired criminal when it gets to civil and that's why I was
227talking about the that's where Justice people are disputing on that and they don't feel like they were heard in the judicial system on the Civil side does not give an outcome for the one but criminal absolutely we follow through that process I just wanted to show that draw that distinction because I've heard a lot of stories tonight that Blended the two so sir if I can restate your question you were asking where where it kind of shifts over between a school investigation versus a police investigation is that accurate okay so there are a couple different prongs to that and I will try try to address this um as as superintendent Hill mentioned the school has their part of the investigation when it is alleged that a crime occurred that's when it falls into the police
228Realm that's when we need to be notified if there's allegations of child abuse sexual abuse sexual assault any other type of criminal act in which the police need to take action that report needs to come to us and that can happen a couple different ways that can happen either because the student disclosed it to a counselor or teacher and the school calls us directly and we go from there or it can happen because the student may have um told their parent or someone in the family or that student themselves calls the police and notifies us directly and then we will address that that allegation from there that being said no one is forced to be a victim and what I mean by that is if we get a report and someone says my friend told
229me that this happened we're going to investigate that we're going to make an attempt to talk to that person and try to investigate that allegation but I'm going to tell you that there are times when when people will tell us I don't want to talk about that I don't want to I don't want to be involved I don't want to talk to the police and I'm not willing to go any further at that point the investigation stalls there's also a different scenario where someone may make an initial report to the police and we begin an investigation and at some point along the way they they decide hey I'm done with this I've had enough can't take the emotional stress or whatever they're going through and they decide that they're done as our investigation continues I
230want everybody to be clear that we do not make the determination on whether the crime happened and whether punishment will be extolled what happens is we are just fact finders we're gonna we're gonna talk to people we're gonna we're gonna document their statements we're gonna try to collect any evidence that is available and then our job is to present that to the district attorney's office or the cities the city attorney's office depending on the level of crime that we believe the elements have met and it is it are it is those uh jurisdictions that make the decision on whether criminal charges will be filed unfortunately that's not that's not our job and that's the way our justice system is designed right so that you have the checks and balances okay does that answer your question
231sir okay last question up front okay good morning um and told no body else there was as you can okay you don't have enough people but I was not allowed to believe that really because it's something that happened I was I was a 12 year old boy and I you say I I used um one of these things that I have an advocacy therefore I asked for my mother to do this being forced by the male police officer to talk about something that happened to three days as well something very dramatic but because I I felt business for a very long time so to restate your question you mentioned that in your situation you had a situation in which you were called to the office and a male police officer was there and you were
232essentially forced to divulge your information tell your story to that police officer and that you were told you could not leave until you said something is that is that accurate okay North that you asked to have your mother and you were denied okay I'm not aware of your specific situation and I will tell you that as you've heard tonight the system is not perfect law enforcement has come a long way I've been a police officer for almost 16 years and the way that policing was the way that we were trained when I first came on versus how we operate now is vastly different that the training and personal skills that we have developed along the way have grown tremendously and I'm very sorry for the situation that you went through as a 12 year old
233young girl I can't go back and and fix that again I don't know your specific situation because I wasn't there but what I can tell you and what I can assure you now is that we do have systems in place our police officers are trained we have we have specific child abuse officers we have one SRO and one child abuse officer but our investigators are trained extremely well to not only document the report and investigate it but also to show empathy and to treat everyone with that respect and also to follow the law because that is the law that an advocate will be offered and if you request one that that will be given to you okay as far as it goes with you speaking to a male police officer yes there are times when
234we just don't have a female available I'm sure you can appreciate that this is a male dominated um job our department is working hard for that diversity to have more females and have more people of different uh different cultures to be available for people in these situations where they might feel comfortable with someone different but there are times when those people aren't available in those instances it would be best if you were told hey I get it you don't want to talk to me if you feel more comfortable and you want to go talk to your mom and maybe come to the station or hey I can arrange a meeting with you on this date and time that would have been my my option to tell you at that time so I don't know what
235happened in your specific scenario but I'm sorry that happened to you and I can assure you that that would not happen now I want to thank uh Begin by thanking everybody from Burbank PD for being here tonight to support us in this moment and for arriving on scene uh to manage the situation that we were dealing with obviously last week um and frankly I think the level of empathy you just demonstrated is exactly the kind of healing we can enter into as a community when we have good conversation when we create safe spaces to have it thank you for doing that in this moment really um it's an example and we needed it so thank you for that and for being part of that tonight anything else you would like to say to yeah it's
236been a long night so thank you uh everybody thank you thank you thank you uh for giving that conversation a shot that was a big deal on your part two so yeah thank you um Dr Hill through the presentation thank you the there are a couple of slides that I'm going to walk through at a high level this is the same information that was emailed out to you earlier this week um again this is a framework and a summary of all the work that our employees have been doing for years that was a question earlier we do safe school plans every single year and site walks so the safety walks on campuses safe school plans if it came across as confusing my email I want to clarify that that is a process where we have
237school site safety committees that quite frankly we have very low participation in attendance please get involved at your specific School site committee they review this process they raise concerns they look at it they do the walks we do audits of the plans Miss Ponce or kamkar has suggestions and I appreciate we want everyone to be critically looking at the safety plans in the email when I mentioned the president Ferguson and I did a safety walk is after each event whether it's here or nationally internationally we look at our campuses in a different way and so we since we had a real-time event our admin team our district office team School Burbank Police Department they're doing safety walks as well and they have a routine president Ferguson and I wanted to do it from fresh eyes
238as a former student and as someone that I'm not familiar I'm familiar over the eight years but I don't live that campus every day so I'm going to see different things he's going to remember things and see different things he and what we picked up on probably 90 percent are things that staff at the campus and students have brought up before but it's important that's why I'm just encouraging people to be part of our safety committees get involved and to ask those questions and do that some of the other bullet points I'm not going to go through all but I just want you these are things that we've constantly been looking at continued lockdown and shelter in place training how to reduce Ingress egress out of the school campus we didn't do on each I
239know at Burrows it's a big long-term conversation how do we move all the Bungalows onto that that's a longer term facilities master plan but we need to look at that when we hear about incidents we have to reduce the risk on campuses you hopefully can see tonight the partnership we have or Burbank Police Department FSA the med team I can tax call the chief at any time any of our staff can work with BPD it is a unified approach and we are reflective and we want to get better so your stories are important that helps us I just want to highlight some of the things we do we tip is not new we've been doing that stop bullying is not a new email address but people don't know about it so that's why I wanted
240to highlight that we need to be pushing this out and promoting it so it's a the question was can you speak to where the weed tip goes we're just making sure so few people at home are watching go ahead so we tip is a third-party outside organization yeah they get the information um they then send a report back to the district that's Anonymous of saying here's a tip or a complaint if the person wants to be on the record they can follow up with that individual and have that back and forth and then give us contact information as well we're kind of yeah so I hold on one second let me finish then so we're going to take this one question and then we're gonna get through this presentation if there's capacity in time for
241additional questions I'll do that I just don't want to set us up on a weird path here and not get to what we need to get and if we don't get to all your individual specific questions there are going to be more Town Hall formats with Mr Fergus Brown Act is the only time we get everybody together Mr Ferguson are going to have Town Hall where we can have more of a back and forth or you can follow up email and phone calls if we don't fully answer your questions tonight all right thank you so much and I appreciate it um I had asked earlier about we tip and I specifically wanted to understand who it comes to in the district who's vetting it and what happens with those tips that's what I'm trying to
242understand so depending on the nature of it it's either going to go to HR if it's about an employee if it's about uh we have we have it can be used for covid compliance it's going to go to director student services if it's a like assault it's going to go up to my my desk if I get something like that someone goes to we tip and it's something like the sexual assault that will get routed to me as well so it depends on the level of the category the subject so it's going to the district's senior Administration is the short answer on the next slide some of the changes that based on the recent events that we've done is like I said we've done additional safety walks not just for the first time just to
243see what else we can look at student IDs is a big thing we gotta we've talked about it earlier we got to make sure we do print student IDs different colors each year but they can be we hear from students well we do lunch passes we do others so the combination of technology and the actual checking of IDs we need to do both so we're going to look at that if we're limiting how you get onto campus we have more supervision that can look through that this culture and I'm going to keep stressing again we all if you see something say something report it report it report it even if you think the system's broken reported and then let's work through that system and improve the system and then we need to make sure that
244people don't like to wear the badges when I go onto campus and people's it's the hairstyle people like oh that's the superintendent I'm still wearing my badge if I can do it and people recognize me everybody should do it we all need to be worrying about just students included I know it doesn't look cool and you have to have a lanyard sometimes but it keeps us safe so let's make it cool give us a great ideas to do that but we I we shouldn't have how people don't want to do it we have to do that other thing about culture and habits you heard it tonight people don't want to use the gate code or walk all the way around so they prop the door open so that's around the Bell it's I see we
245saw on the walk I see it when I go Burbank High somebody puts a backpack in the door so someone can get out and in easily that's good for your friend but it's also good for anybody that wants to walk on that campus and I'm at we're at any building around town I was at a chamber of commerce meeting they propped up a door because it's the closest parking lot we don't think twice of it if we want to make sure our schools are safe we all have to take responsibility if we see a door open close it Mr Ferguson and I were walking campus trash cans in the doors sorry I I remove those trash cans so if you couldn't get out into your uh where you were going that day because someone moved
246the trash can that was me you try again in this building and the doors propped open I'm closing it we all have to model that it's all of us doing that and and we are also as a part of that conversation as well based off of what psych capacity is trying to get to a regular check of all entrances and exits from a campus so every hour every 30 minutes what is it but each Campus Community will need to come up with that and report that back so that way we're routinely talking about that we're routinely looking at entrances and exits um and and identifying that you know as as a way of mitigating moving forward um I had a quick question right now but students it's something suspicious on campus who should I go
247to First you're an immediate adult that you see it's a supervisor it's the custodian it's the teacher it's the administrator we're all trained on know how to get that information to the right person at the right time how do they identify the adults are because you know especially we should all be wearing our badges so I'm gonna go to the long-term things and we heard some of the ideas today and this is where we want feedback how do we prioritize these long-term ones we're we've kicked off a facilities master plan which is a longer term plan we've had those kickoff meetings this week actually clearly they came to me as like safety is important yes we've had we've done all the suggestion about audits we have audits some things we've been able to prioritize with
248the funding we have we've done it we haven't been able to do everything so we need to feed we need the feedback of what are the simple things that we do immediately and then what are the bigger things about redesigning structures and uh having architecture plans we need those suggestions you see on this page these are some of the longer term suggestions that we need to work through that we'll continue to work through and then finally I just want this is just the start of the conversation so we already set up your C uh March 28th after spring break we're going to set up a zoom Town Hall the link hasn't been sent out yet we'll make sure it's sent out uh your habit before you get back from spring break you can put on
249the calendar as well another opportunity if you prefer in person which will be on March 30th six o'clock at Luther Burbank we want ideas on how do we improve all of this you heard president Ferguson earlier talk about in addition where the sexual assault of partner of the city to have more of a summit focused on that as well if we need more we're going to have more we have to continue that we want to have broader discussions but we also want to do what everyone's talking about take the words into action and that also that goes there's District things we can do but I'm going to reinforce the School site safety level we have to make sure we're participating that because your school site is where we're going to get a lot of action
250there so work on that prioritize it get to the district and we prioritize as a whole what can we as a whole what can we do with our resources now where do we have to get more resources and we want feedback do you feel like we're not spending money on the right things tell us we may not always agree but at least we're having the conversation and then we can talk about and we must justify how we're prioritizing our funding and again we may disagree but at least we're having that dialogue thank you thank you um questions on RN will be done kind of that so apologies uh one of the things we we've had early conversations about but I want to bring forward tonight so we can continue talking about it is establishing communication
251standards so this would be a a one sheet two-sheet document sent home with in enrollment packets at the beginning of the year that are very specific about after an incident happens on a campus where a campus is deemed where it's deemed necessary to put the campus on lockdown you will receive as a parent a notification 30 minutes after that fact happens so everybody knows what communication is coming and how the communication is coming whether it's via email or via text message even if it is the school is under lockdown we are working with law enforcement and cannot disclose additional information at that time parents felt that communication was inconsistent or that they didn't get it and so by guaranteeing that we are going to communicate at a certain point at certain choke points I think
25230 minutes to an hour I think is reasonable we should see what which one's most feasible and then a follow-up that would happen that evening this is in addition to campus-based conversation campus-based communication so if the principal's doing that that's great but the district will also be sending out Communications either 30 minutes or an hour after a lockdown has occurred uh and again and I I leave that to stop to come back with the hard timelines but there should be an evening that includes instructions about accessing the campus the next day if there are any special instructions to be included in that moment and then 30 minutes to an hour after any lockdowns occurring so that way we also don't have Instagram accounts things like that that are frankly again telling the story in a
253way that produces additional fear we've had that happen um you know different principle different time ago you know but where we where students walked off uh walked off campus so uh because of the fear that kind of built there so definitely that communication standards being one and then uh we had also talked about uh doing what's called an after action report so uh making sure that um after the conclusion of an investigation is completed that there is a public version of an after Action Report that's delivered uh and a confidential one uh that is more detailed that goes into the situations the protocols Etc and that also in these moments assign somebody to take notes so that we know Moment by moment and we can evaluate the decision making as it happened uh in in
254an after situation so that way we can make sure that we're learning um from these really I mean again the world is absolutely not in the challenges it's presenting us with the least we can do is again take stock of what decision making looks like in a moment that that intends uh and support our Educators our administrators who are forced to make these decisions who again went to school to educate not to lock down campuses but to give them the tools to better respond in those moments and us the tools As Leaders to understand what the decision making looked like in those moments so we're not guessing so if we could add those uh as as additionals um I also want to reiterate a little bit of your point about heard from different folks tonight
255about the ID cards you can go to Vons you can go to blog you know and get one of either the magnetizing guns or anything like that that can replicate the code so that way you can access key card entries that's intense there's not a lot we can do on that front um having said that what Dr Hill said tonight was something both of us encountered both of us heard from administrators both of us heard from campus supervisors that there has to be a human and a technology component together it's not enough to have humans checking IDs because guess what they go hey I remember you come on it right and I will tell you as I was entering those exits you know after lunch after the lunch bell rang when I was a senior
256in high school yeah I mean there were campus supervisors giving me a high five on the way in as long as I brought him a burrito you know like that's real hey that's real um so but I wasn't considering in my 18 17 year old mind the impacts that I could have potentially had on others I I didn't have enough life experience I understand that leaving a door up let me tell you both of our skins were crawling when we saw the doors propped open to the parking structure now make no mistake about it there were two campus supervisors outside so on on that path so okay but yeah trust me so this is the first round of a walk initial conversations we've been to open house you name it uh the superintendent and I
257in particular just so we can keep it small concise we're not triggering public meeting laws and all the different ways that we are can go out and engage more proactively and we will bring back members of the board can rotate in uh to attend the different ones but this is not ending uh in terms of the listening because we need to be accountable uh but more than anything if there are good ideas out there we welcome them anything else for tonight if not we're going to go to the final period of public comment s yes I have a couple of comments right that garage door is locked from the inside of Campus the Panic bar is on the inside of the garage correct so anybody coming into the garage could get in but you can't
258always get out which is right which is why the door gets propped open so we need to take a look at that and see if there's a better alternative plan right people have been asking why is that unlocked the fire code said on each level of a parking garage you need to be get to be able to get out on that level so when you're on the second and third level the only way is is to get onto campus so we have to then look at well can you do you can get out of the garage and I want to work with Architects can we put a fence so that then it takes you right back out onto the sidewalk so you can't get through to campus or do you lock that that building so
259that you you can get out but then you got to push that so we have to funnel people back out the way that that structure was designed we have to make sure people are safe in a fire but also safe given the reality of society today and I've talked to several staff at Burbank High and they're like yeah we gotta redesign this whole thing because for years it's just it's fire code we must do it that way but now we know that we have to redesign it and so we can accomplish both keep people safe and keep people safe on fire as well no because right there's there's also additional problem with the Ada access there too okay so yeah that's really awesome oh okay and that's a good point when we talk about changes
260you're going to hear us talk vague because I'm not going to say these are all the things we found wrong in the site so it's all about we're going to look at facilities you're going to hear terms like Ingress egress doesn't mean we don't know the specifics we just aren't going to publicly talk about it and the last thing that stood out to me because I've been on that campus in fact the day of and the day after and requiring enforcing that staff wear ID outside the classroom or office is fantastic but I think it should be that staff and students are required and enforced I I not that it it may or may not have changed anything that particular day but hopefully if a campus supervisor as they're you know asking kids to come
261in and they're holding up but they're wearing it and this one person didn't have one that would have been a huge red flag right there so I think and and yeah and we also talked about exploring the option of having a digital version too so that it can't be like lost and that's also an easier way to to keep track of it too hold your phone up or something yeah yeah because I know it can be I mean if you lose it you lose it but you have it on your phone um and the other thing we all I think we also talked about too is how we're tracking them if they have to be reprogrammed every year so you can't just hand your Pat your ID off to somebody else who then uses it
262the next year to get on campus right when I was there they were asking for some like if a kid said I don't have my ID well what do you have to show your student here do you have your you know something along those lines so part of our thinking there was we're going to have at any one time we could potentially have 1500 to 1800 students flowing into a campus in that moment so again how do you make sure again both Tech in technology and human support that we can get students in in a very real and organized fashion um also getting students out right limited lunchtime everybody's doing a Mad Dash they've got a limited 45 46 minutes-ish um to go get it run you name it so kids are breaking the and
263they're using those push bar doors to get out um and to get out faster so this is where I think again inevitably we're going to have to have additional campus supervisors and a conversation about that it is hard with hiring all those things that's why we'll get a report back on that but you know absolutely missed habit Dr Roger connian um I also want to want us to talk to some students I have a friend with kids goes there she said I have so many ways of ditching food if I want to I think I don't want them to be the snitches but at the same time it's good to hear from the students because you think you know all the exits you'll be surprised you know so maybe we talk to our students too
264and say look this is a concern tell us you know of any can I um do we take that we're going to jump to public role every class period and turn it in or is it only in the morning and every every period well it takes a while for office staff to well if through that I'm sure well it's actually just scanned in It's relatively quick um but a student just flagging a student may or may not know when a teacher has taken attendance because sometimes it's done quietly by seating chart right so that's the other thing so it's not the same as a reported uh it's just kind of scanned in by each person it doesn't go to the office it does go to the office but it's a Scantron basically I recall right
265no now we've updated I was taking attendance on the computer 20 years ago in my classroom no great see oh it's not on paper no yeah that's like doing the little monitor to come in here it doesn't happen anymore yeah see that's good yeah we've evolved some things okay with that any further questions if not I meant we do have folks who have turned in cards again so we want to make sure to get to those okay um yes this will be a three-minute public comment it's not as long as the first one so um uh we'll begin with Geneva Giselle um okay can I call my like notes real quick okay cool um so the issue that we're having again is because this has been such a repeated um for lack of better wording
266I want to say I guess pattern of behavior and just you know um again there is a lack of trust there is a lack of feeling secure and safe Within These schools so I want to know what what how are we to feel more comfortable and not again especially as a female at these schools there is a lot it's a different playing field than with guys you know and it's I just it's not something that we should be thinking about kids deserve to feel Scapes or sorry safe and I just want to know what's to be put in place and what can we expect from the board how do we yeah I guess feel more secure and safe within that especially with any um as you know I forgot who said something about it but
267they were saying to go to report adults but again that's also hard when and I'm sure this isn't this isn't directly at you especially when you know on a daily School admin or who we deal with yeah and if we are going to trusted adults that are not um doing their job and reporting that are not giving you guys that information it just feels very frustrating it feels hard to know where to go in these instances so yeah yeah we will we'll respond at the end like we did last time but um we I took down and not we'll get you an answer okay um I think that was like my main point thank you uh next is Camila Matthews Matthews Mathers anybody Camilla oh left okay Liliana Landa left as well Marley Tyler come
268on back um um I just wanted to clarify with some of the board members here I've heard board members say this phrase and to be for people who have visited this phrase or man and woman girls and boys I wanted to know what is being done about transgender and people who are non-binary how are they being included because I know personally we do not have gender-neutral restrooms we do not have gender neutral locker rooms those who are transgender are having difficulty changing in a locker room they feel comfortable in and using restroom that they feel comfortable in where they're not attacked they're attacked from both sides if they go into a woman's room they're told like that they don't look like they they're asked to basically verify who they are and the rest I've had
269several incidents where teachers are asked asking students what's underneath your belt what's in your pants and that should not be happening sure um secondly um I remember when I attended John Muir Middle School um there was a sort of end-of-year report where you can Adonis anonymously write a report about your teachers and that it would be sent to some higher-ups and that seems to have disappeared in recent years and I think that would be greatly beneficial to come back if we could just have a card at the end of the year to talk about our experiences with teachers in the school because I know I remember those reports and I was waiting for one an opportunity to be given um and honestly I want to I want to thank the board for being here I
270want I would just lastly like to you know I I'm hearing that a lot of new um help and support is being brought in I want to know what is being done internally how are we educating students and staff and higher-ups so that this did not happen again [Music] I realized that this is a lot to ask for coming just from one student of thousands but I just want to say that steps like these that may be a lot of work to sift through thousands of like student reports but I think that's like those that take heart out which will prevent meetings like these that we don't have to have them thank you Marissa ruelas hi gipty Caroline Baker Joel schlossman there you go huh I like the way you took the question at the
271name of the process um look at this comment amount of emotional vampire to suggest that somebody's coming here and taking joy in what's going on here that's beyond [ __ ] that's [ __ ] up and that's all on you to say say that to the most terrible word you've said them before Miss Weisberg I heard the attacks on Mr paramo and I used to have Mr promo way up here and now he's down here when he started admitting that he destroys texts him and Mr Hill entered into a conspiracy to destroys text texts and you folks have done nothing about it the light bulb went off in my head now I know why we must maintain records of communications it's the law it's the brown act and I haven't heard anything from any of you about my concerns
272I had no idea of all these assaults going on on the campus it's the this is the most disturbing meeting I've ever been to and it's affected me and it should affect you Mr Hill you should rethink allowing self-defense of these students if somebody attacks one of these kids they take their fist and Pummel them in their face and without the fear of being suspended get behind our kids all these testimonies were very moving to me tonight Mr agakani and I find you disingenuous I saw you looking at your watch when speakers were speaking tonight cameras on campus record events they do not prevent them why are kids allowed to stay in this District when they are done terrible things you transfer them all to a special school one school within the district you put
273all the bad eggs those kids should be sent out of this District I've talked to you about it before I want a public crime report for all these schools not just you make it public if there's events of crime let the parents know about it my three children I have four children three of my children were affected by one teacher when I talked about it over at Muir the principal said he's like that with everybody and he summarily dismissed me your your bully line was [ __ ] I reported it and I was out of that office your threats these threats and your these threats these events these terrible things going on you need to be thinking both external and internal we've got problem employees here and because of the mous with your union Mr best is
274here to talk about it you can't get rid of the bad employees it's got to be overt you can you know you've got some slugs working for you and you know who they are parents know who they are there's no correlation between gunshots being close to schools and the threats get off of that the Second Amendment is Paramount in this conversation that people are able to defend themselves I've got one quick thing how can kids read okay listen you gave other parents 30 seconds give me 30 seconds simmer down now I'm sitting here just trying to let you know I'm gonna give you a little bit more thank you thank you yeah okay kids please thank you go ahead how can kids report a threat if no one answers the phone I've called the Burroughs
275High School many times push this button push this button how can they do it how about call boxes how about if we go back to the days of 70 years ago when they had call boxes around school that's another idea for you to consider thank you thank you to get you don't have to tell me that I get emotional too but I appreciate it try not to make people feel though always unsafe in that moment so Gavin Quinton hey there yeah I just have a question about Gavin Quentin Burbank Leader newspaper Matt I've talked to you never met you in person I just want to know you know a lot of these students have reported that they'll go to classes with abusers um and I'm not sure what the process looks like after they've reported
276uh do they still have to you know is is it an option for them to move classes take classes from the library over Zoom is there flexibility there when there's a Title IX report too if we can talk a little bit about the process of what that looks like from the administration side and how it gets up to the district um I think just with a lot of the cases that it sounds like it's a student who's done something terrible another student is meant to kind of face the consequences of of being the victim in that in that situation so you know not just talking about resources but you know if they're there in class how do they how do they deal with that and what's their report you know once they've made the report
277what happens thank you uh all good questions the last speaker is Bjorn bacon one more sorry one more one more sorry about that well again everyone thank you so much for your vulnerability in the beginning of when you guys first started talking I feel like that's really effective on healing and going together moving forward with this um like I said I'm not part of USD but I still live in Burbank I think it's very important to invest in some kind of way and um I think you have these opportunities and I would like to come to more town halls and such um uh I was thinking about um if there's a possibility of having maybe more specialized people in mental health I know you mentioned that before maybe I understand like there's two available maybe
278like one or two more because I understand you have a lot of students compared to my school and I know it's a whole different ball game with different things um a suggestion for like a parking structure I know my like I said my school is different money different income but if it's a possibility our school has a system where you have to contact the security guard to open it and the only way to get out is through an automated door but there's no inward wave there's only an outward wave there's two separate Gates if that's available and also on the side we have like a bigger entrance but that's always close off after entry is like school's like 8 30 skates closed the only way this goes to the very front or to contact the
279school I've seen that's been effective um another thing I know it's kind of a vague area between criminal with the police and you guys but when we hear reports about you know certain students um and allegations is there a way to not necessarily like because I know it's not your place to punish them but is there like a way to regulate and like Bloom accountable in a certain way I don't know what would be the best direction for that but I was thinking you know like these girls feel uncomfortable with them being present but at the same time you can't make a final decision because I know is enough evidence proven is that fair to take them out because we can have those instance words boy cried wolf and is unfair I just want to
280make sure Justice is universal in both sides and I was making sure that could be mentioned but um other than that I thank you guys for this time and having this meeting thank you guys thank you uh last speaker is Linda bitto apologies I I didn't mean to skip your card and that's the last card I have at this time warnings thank you one thing I wanted to mention we do have two agenda neutral bathrooms in the office of the nurse's office and then right outside the Student Center there's also a gender Nation so we like I don't know about the recipe yes um Emily thank you um yes I know that you didn't get rid of the sros completely but you did take their office away at the school site which means they're not
281on campus during lunch time they're not on campus they're in nutrition they're not there all the time they're at least cars not out front all the time they're not there before school they're not doing after school when there's all the case of releasing kiddos so they don't they're not physically on the campus any longer permanently they are there if we call Burbank PD is wonderful they come really quickly but they're not they don't physically have an office any longer which is really sad um let's see what else did I write down um I also want to mention I don't think I mentioned it before I know it was briefly mentioned putting mesh up on the gates because yeah those kiddos are handing through lunches but we also don't know what else is coming through is
282it fentanyl is it guns is it knives there's a whatever but they're constantly coming through and it would be a one-time cost to put mesh up on all those on all those Gates Evie mentioned um if there's a lockdown to contact the families within a half hour I'd say once you know that there's the lockdown send out that notification now because the kids have airdrop and those families were not within a half hour we'll be inundated just like we were last time so I would say do it as quickly as possible um checking the IDS how can we do it we can do it if we have more campus security again these kiddos come on really early in the morning if there's nobody there you did ask about if the kids don't have their ID
283they send them into the office and we check on Aries are they are they a current student are they a dual enrolled student are they supposed to be at this time or on later we do when we withdraw a student we try to get that ID card so they can't come back on campus but it's not always successful because the kiddos aren't always there when we just enroll a student they might be disenrolling for a reason instead you know they don't live in the area but they still want to come back on campus and hang out okay and this one's gonna make you feel like it were dropped in a polar ice bath but I really like those officers on campus or some people that have anxiety over it I get that but I feel
284and many many other people feel more protected when they have people there with guns that are trained to have those guns I also want to go one step further with the teaching self-defense I would like to see teaching gun safety too like many other campuses around this country do they can have a combination gun safety and um self-defense when people know how to handle guns safely it's a tool for safety measures that's what it is um I'm glad that we have these stores in Burbank the gun stores in Burbank you brought that up I'm glad that we have legal businesses for people that want to protect their second amendment rights so people that can go in there and my time's up thank you thank you so much better okay staff responses thank you president Ferguson
285and thank you to the speakers I'm going to give very quick responses I know this is ongoing dialogues but so if I'm I'm not dismissing your comments I just I know it's late and I mean more conversations Geneva help emails feel safe at school we need to continue the dialogue we talked about having uh Burbank Family Service Agency their trained trauma experts to facilitate conversations with our students I wanted them to facilitate the conversation with students hear from students have the experts give us recommendations on how to do that we're receptive for that feedback we'll keep working through the uh it was mentioned briefly for transgender students they can work with our administrators for uh if they're transitioning or they're transgender or how or they can work with each administrator and we develop a plan
286so we have gender neutral restrooms as mentioned there's other things that we can Implement so if you're hearing from your classmates that they don't know where to go or there needs to be more please have them contact any administrator on campus and we'll make sure our plan is developed for them um the comment that you said I would love to follow up offline if you know who the teacher was I want to investigate that that's totally unacceptable and it's appalling so I want to get facts on that new investigation um end of year report great idea I'll bring that back to the principals in my team after spring break and see how do we implement this we do an annual School satisfaction survey there's a comment box I read all those I get thousands of
287comments so but having specific School site ones for I think that's very important and educating you know we have to keep talking about all the things we do have and continue to share what we're doing um just uh police reports they are public crime reports they are available if there's ways we can publicize that even more we'll do that um yeah I'm going to talk to the school sites about I just need to understand more if someone can't answer the phone is it rolling to a voicemail what's our response time uh I'll talk to staff more about that um Gavin real quick on the so when students have allegations or claims about abusers we start the investigation we actually have a protocol sheet that we work with we work with students based on the conversation
288we keep revising this what we're focused on but we get the information immediately they're notifying the principal and district office Title IX and then as we're collecting them the administrators initiate the incident at a razor level we have to bring in the school resource officer usually that's right away they're with us lockstep to do that they complete a report DCFS report about child abuse or based on the allegations that's submitted immediately then we notified or notifying parents and Guardians we document into our student information system and we're working with a family the student in the family of saying we say okay if someone had an allegation to someone else we first talked about not the victim the one that's alleged and say okay we may need to change classrooms right now because of this sometimes
289the victims say I want to change because that's more comfortable me but we don't want to move them victims we want to move their own allegation and then it's just protection for both as we go through investigation and come back if there are missteps or people feel like that wasn't the experience they have I want to hear that we want to learn from that and make sure that we're following through on um and so that kind of talks about the Title IX and then based on the allegations and the police reports and investigation we go there's a very formalized process that we do that I know there's been comments about what was reported or not I just remind all this we weren't in the room when conversations happened we don't know us that we investigate
290after the fact so someone makes a statement and said I said this other says I heard this or I said that everyone acts on the information they have and they understand that moment please for this whole process let's not jump to conclusions on what's that I keep hearing that we're we are trying to trial people in public that is not okay I don't know there's passion we need to speak Our Truth and tell the right people but there's processes to do that when we do it like this we're assuming we know all the information we don't the people in the room or where the event happened and the people involved know the information and then we have outside people look at and make sure what is the bottom line um you want to thank you
291for the suggestion um mental health we do have student Care Centers We are continuing to expand our partnership with the city and Family Service Agency so we have more Mental Health Resources but we see we need more and more I love the ideas that you suggested about the garage and um uh you're just your comments about Justice making sure it's Universal that's kind of why I alluded to the comment like we got to protect everybody involved until an investigation in the judicial system plays out and we have to keep doing that um Linda the office on campus that was my decision sros we have one for 22 campuses I did not see why we had a dedicated office at our high schools where they could they're so busy they're around we don't see them on
292camera because they're going to all the sites we do have one vacancy we need to talk about the SRO model but the goal is not to have them on our camp if they need confidential space our administrators will get that to them every single time but it wasn't to set up an office where they can sit there and do other work we want them interacting with kids working on scar reports making sure we're doing investigations um and thank you for the other suggestions and so we'll make sure that we review those and vet pros and cons on those thank you thank you responses from my colleagues thank you um Miss Lee thank you for your thought about uh report card on teachers at the end of the year great but if you're really having an
293issue with the teacher don't wait till the end of the year speak up find an adult Advocate get them to contact Administration something and get that resolved sometimes get that resolved sooner as opposed to waiting to the end of the year um I made the rest I think that was the one thing I wanted to say thanks for the comments am I right oh um suggestions about having mesh on their phones I think there's an opportunity maybe we can get measures with advertisers that would support the school maybe support our security system cameras but if you're going to put mash up I think it will help maybe get some of the local businesses answered because it's very easy to print their business I've seen it in some of the schools but I think that we
294can certainly bring it back for a conversation I'm struggling a bit I I don't want to see Pepsi uh when I well Pepsi is not gonna show up I said that so the local government parent businesses I hear you okay anything else sorry no that's inside okay Dr Weisberg a few things um Miss Lee you bring up some interesting points doctor is there a way that we can sort of work proactively with administration because I know that for some of our transgender non-binary students they're not going to feel comfortable going to Administration and saying like hey I'm not okay with what's available so I wonder if there's a way we can troubleshoot like how do we do that proactively either but and I don't know the answer to that yet but I think we want
295to make sure that students aren't feeling like they have to if it's new if they don't feel comfortable how can we help them navigate that on the front end I just wanna part of the reason we're using Pro pronouns more and more so that we identify based on the pronoun then we are proactive so either if students are telling us they're transitioning or tell us by their pronouns then we can say these are the services available but I'll make sure I'm right remind you that they're doing that that's my understanding that when when they hear that they make sure do you know about these resources available but okay yeah okay um so thank you for that that's a really important thing to be thinking about um the feedback survey as a teacher it's always really
296helpful slightly scary but always really helpful um and you know I think you made a reference to like you're just one person but the things that you're suggesting that everybody's suggesting helps every single student and teacher and staff member that everybody said tonight um your my school also has like the automatic gate things and it's great I imagine it's expensive but it's a great thing to think about just the sort of mechanics right right um and I really like your question about how we hold students accountable with the parameters that we have um and I have no idea but I hope that we'll continue to talk about it um Miss bito thank you again I'm glad that Dr Hill clarified that one of the self-defense classes Miss Marcus in it at Burbank I told us
297at Baptist or at open house that there's already a parent there who's offered to do self-defense classes and I think it's a fantastic thing for us to look into at our other campuses it's just a great skill to have period As you move through the world um the only other thing I did want to say was a comment from the first round but I I would feel bad if I didn't say something somebody referenced um students coming in from other areas as sort of the undertone of like those those people and I I work at a private school and um we have students from Palmdale North Hollywood into hunger I mean like it doesn't we are lucky to have the students that come in from outside it helps us run it helps with our budget
298it helps keep our community diverse and thriving there's absolutely to me it was a little dog whistly and I just wanted to to highlight that we are why is the dog whistle we are so happy to have our students who come to us from other places um especially because often those students like really want to be here and that's awesome so I wanted to say that there's no that that's a false equivalency that's very dangerous and I I forgot to say it last time but I did want to say it like thank you to all of the students and families that choose to make Burbank Burbank USD their home you're really important to us awesome thank you uh uh I I really want to thank you for looking out for our lgbtq community I I
299um I'm gay uh so I I appreciate that and think they're yeah why what um but I but I but I definitely think about that and you know one of the first conversations Dr Hill and I had as we were quite literally reacting but also in very real ways trying to move resources right and as X you know I was like you handle systems we'll handle legislation let's go um and and one of the things that was a real conversation that really hit us was a part of the intersectionality of security right of of how necessary it is to do deep Dives with your culture um because you often find that you have to confront a lot of bias um especially on the human systems um and we don't like to admit that we are
300part of that but it was an example for instance when I said a little bit earlier when I came in late from lunch and those campus supervisors would let me in without question right without batting an eye um who am I in the world what do I look like in the world yeah that's a different experience than what other students are having who are told take off your hoodie as a first response to seeing them Okay so we've got to have that layer of conversation as well as we go about this a part of our town halls are again about really trying to lift up as many issues as possible Geneva who's left us tonight I have to tell you it's the second time I've seen her at a school board meeting and both times
301um she has been such a terrific student advocate in so many ways and she has made me think and I know that just interacting with her I know I'm a better leader um she asked us tonight before she left you know how do we know we're going to feel safer um the answer is not overnight yeah um the answer is and again like we have to bear with this right this is what doesn't get casually wiped away at night if you understand what you're responsible for we have an understanding based off the testimony we received tonight from a lot of young women that their daily experience which we require which state law requires of them uh is an uncomfortable one that they live in that discomfort daily um we may be able to answer some
302of that we are likely unable to answer all of it but for me and I know I know for everybody up here that's a burden that we're happy to talk about at 10 30 at night um that we are happy on a Friday night to break it down uh and to stop looking at your watch um but in real moments demonstrate because we signed up for this it's not just that we love you because this is a good political moment to love you 10 30 nobody's watching nobody's watching um but I hate that young women in this and and young men too feel uncomfortable um and that I you know all of us are very committed to working to change as expeditiously as possible that comes with listening because one set of experiences we heard
303eight different sets of experiences tonight all emergencies on some level but we've got to be leaders and a part of our responsibility as Leaders is to take out of all the voices and to escalate and to prioritize and if you don't like how we prioritize you vote differently in the next election right but but that is and and we prioritize through our values so our values tonight are we here you that there's a lot of work that has to do with everything from the systems that take care of these young men and women who are reporting or don't take care of them to the physical infrastructure of our school sites and our campuses there's a ton of work to do um for those young women who came forward last tonight if you are in a
304healthy enough place and you have the capacity I need your help um and if there's trust that can be built there or a way that we can work together that you feel safe to do so that would be huge um I'm not saying it answers all pains I'm saying it could prevent somebody else's um and the president of the school board's asking for your help um end of your report I think that that's good for informational purposes um Mr slossman you don't hear me necessarily I'm responding to you so you don't necessarily hear me respond to you on Personnel issues because they are personal issues but I hear you um and um when it comes to suggestions regarding the tip line I I want to understand these tip lines how we're you know checking in
305it's a part of that conversation so I appreciate that uh and then last but not least Miss bitter uh I was I was raised in a family uh that and I grew up around guns um I realized that that is an approach for many uh in terms of there's in terms of expressing and exercising their second amendment Second Amendment Amendment rights I don't demonize them for that I grew up around this community I understand that I'm not sure I want to do that in our school sites uh I don't want to do it in a world where I see constant shootings and I don't think the answers are adding more guns to a campus more bullets potentially flying it folks I I think we understand that there are folks who can be trained my grandpa
306was so good at training and so careful and and I bonded with him and I respect him more because of how he taught me to operate a firearm uh you know I don't go hunting he would only do target shooting and he said you never Point your gun at anything you don't want to destroy um so don't send any mixed messages here um made me practice for three years with blanks before I ever got to any hard ammunition so again I respect this community and culture I just don't think that it has a place on our campus in today's world I do organize self-defense classes uh as a part of my my job um uh my former boss assembly memorizarian organized over 400 classes uh in his uh throughout his like lifetime of service as
307both an employee and as an assembly member and over a thousand uh primarily targeted women but the truth is the whole Community can benefit from self-defense classes so where that's a possibility great but I think we to again look at this through a spectrum and for students with disabilities or Mobility challenges how do they exercise safety in those moments if we're going to provide that we've got to be understanding this through an intersectional lens so with that you have all been here with us a lot tonight I'm not running away they should everybody um thank you to everybody who continues to send their young people to our schools it is the privilege of a lifetime to educate them um and we appreciate more than you know the trust that you put in us uh even
308when there are doubts you should know that our commitment is so real and is so genuine to get it right so we're going to continue this conversation but for now we are adjourned and thank you for coming