12 15 22 Regular Meeting Board Of Education

001[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign good evening calling the meeting of the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education a regular meeting on Thursday December 15 2022 to order um oh I always do this yes thank you I always start on the wrong place sorry we acknowledge the traditional ancestral and unseated territory of the Chumash tangva fernandino tatavyam and First Nations on which we are learning educating and living could I please ask now my friends from BTA Miss Lori little Carol Briggs and longtime friend Annette field to come to the podium and lead us in the flag salute or the Pledge of Allegiance excuse me it's fun thank you did your hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and into the Republic for which it stands

002one nation under God indivisible indivisible with liberty and justice for all they win good you guys were great thank you thank you especially to all the adults in the room who learned to follow the correct Cadence that's right laughs Miss Clark please take the roll call at this time member frittner president member agacanian remember agakanian is absent clerk Weisberg present vice president Ferguson present and president tabot president thank you reporting on closed session the board voted on one matter in the expulsion of student number 960022004 in a 4-0 with one absence decision uh on the motion of member Ferguson and seconded by member Weisberg based upon the board's review in closed session of the finding of facts and recommendations submitted by the administrative hearing panel the board accepts on the 401 absence vote the recommendation

003of the administrative hearing panel to expel student number 9600-22004 based on violation of Education codes 48900 A2 and 48915b the board adopts the plan of Rehabilitation recommend recommended by the panel um as is and then the board sets the regular board meeting of May 18 2023 as the date on which the board will review the student for readmission thank you and that was it the rest everything else in closed session was for discussion purposes only adjustments to the agenda I'll take that as a no nothing seven items for future agendas I'm sorry president Abbott if we can move the performance up early oh sure okay yes most definitely um items for future agendas all right um would you like to should we do that right now before uh public Communications sure on the annual reorganization

004great okay well who do we have with our let's see let me jump uh who do we have this evening with our young folks ah thank you Dr canapic good evening board president Abbott board member superintendent Hill the Burbank School community and primarily our Disney School community that is here present this evening so I'd like to go ahead and introduce our amazing wonderful tremendous Miss Harris our principal at Disney Elementary School [Applause] good evening good evening thank you for having us here tonight it's an honor to be here with all of you I am pleased to present some student performers from Disney this is a sample of an upcoming performance we have coming at our school I would like are you ready students some of you are sitting down some of you are standing up

005that's okay let's start with Miss Todd's class we have our second graders coming up to perform What a Wonderful World [Applause] right somebody don't like they will be singing What a Wonderful World with an American Sign Language and with their voices as well give me the Q this little video little video is to show you how to sign the song What A Wonderful World but first I wanted to tell you a little bit about that song unless you guys want to learn it too green red roses too hair nothing watching all the different movements facial expression is really is all right okay we're getting there foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] What a Wonderful World [Music] [Applause] the colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky I see friends [Music] [Applause] I watch them grow

006and much more and I picture myself [Music] what a wonderful [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] okay that's it for now thank you for paying attention [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and now we will bring our our brand new student council come on in [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ches uh we're gonna sing Feliz Navidad [Music] Feliz Navidad Feliz Navidad because [Music] [Music] I wanna wish you a merry Christmas I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] wish you a Merry Christmas [Music] Feliz Navidad but it's not realize [Music] I wanna wish you a merry Christmas [Music] I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas please [Music] [Music] foreign thank you [Applause] thank you so much one more round [Applause] foreign [Music] thank you oh that sounds good opinions [Music] it's over there it's okay whoa yeah all

007right thank you and thank you Disney I don't know if they and all those parents who came tonight and got to have a little Christmas spirit [Music] okay and we are time for number eight Public Communication the annual reorganization of the board and election of officers I have a few cards of people who would like to come speak we will start with Senator Anthony portentino followed by assembly member Friedman good evening board and that was wonderful to listen to Disney Elementary and apropos given that you work at Disney the namesake so it's great to be here congratulations to all of you on getting through covid in as best we could so I always have to say congratulations because it was an accomplishment and you guys were all on the front lines of a very very

008dire situation so thank you for your service we're here tonight to say thank you to Mr frittner for his years of service on the school board and so I want to give my personal feelings because you're a good friend and a terrific person and a great leader of this community and it's hard to be on a school board as you all know it's hard to be an education as you all know because and it's nothing more important than educating our children so with your permission uh Madam chair can I invite Mr fritner down to present a certificate to him and then I'm going to give one to you too congratulating you on your tenure as president of the board so would you like to do one at a time or all together so Mr frittner

009if you could come on down let's make some noise and give them a big round of applause for service so if I could read this as he's walking down here on behalf of the California state senate I joined the Burbank Unified School District in thanking you for your unwavering support of our Burbank schools and I get to say our because I live in Burbank now I love doing that our Burbank schools during your tenure on the board of education your commitment to creating a network of support to Aid student growth and academic achievement is truly commendable this recognition is a direct reflection of your leadership and service to our community congratulations on Anthony portentino and thank you for your service [Applause] foreign if you could come on down too I want to thank you for

010your year let's give it up for a short tablet as our president this year and again on behalf of the California state senate I joined the Burbank Unified School District in thanking you for your hard work and dedication to our Burbank schools during this time as president your tenure has been truly commendable signed Anthony portentino congrats [Applause] congratulations and then I had to surprise our clerk she didn't know I was going to do this but I want to congratulate you our recording secretary Kimberly so we didn't tell you I was doing this because we knew you would like me you're busy clerking so Kimberly if you could come down I just want to come commend you and congratulate you on your years of service let's give it up for Kimberly [Applause] [Music] again on behalf

011of the California state senate I joined the Burbank Unified School District and thanking you for your 12 years of dedicated service 12 years of dedicated service to our students your unwavering support of Burbank is commendable and I know you're going on to other challenges and another Great accomplishments which I'll congratulate you for at another event for that but tonight I just want to say thank you for your service to this great district and your friendship thank you and then I also want to congratulate Ms tebet on her re-election and Abby on her election to the school board so I didn't want to let's give it up to our two incoming or re reappointing an incoming board member again there's nothing more rewarding than working for the benefit of children um and it's our responsibility and

012you two are answering the call as your three colleagues are as well so thank you for your service and thank you for letting me say a few words thank you Senator it's always nice to see you our next speaker is assembly member Friedman followed by Constantine Anthony vice mayor Anthony thank you good evening I have to say school board meetings are a lot more fun than legislative meetings or City Council meetings those kids made my whole night so I want to you know thank them and it's really a pleasure to be with all of you here although it's a little bit sad because we are losing Steve frittner from the board after 10 years and you know nobody runs for school board for the money nobody runs for school board for the fame um that

013it brings you um you don't you would run for school board maybe if you have insomnia um need a place to go into late hours if you'd like you know listening to people talk for a long time if you want to do the really hard work to make sure that the budget is balanced and that kids are getting a quality education that's when you become a school board member and there is no higher calling is the mom of a nine-year-old in public school I think about her experience in the school every single day and what she's learning what she's not learning the experience that she has and the people that I entrust to make sure that that happens of course it's the teachers and the administrators but it's also the school board members so what

014you do really is a high calling and it is completely selfless so I want to thank each and every one of you for your public service it really means so much to all the parents and to all the kids and if if people don't tell you enough believe me it means a lot to Burbank so thank you and and Steve you have been an amazing public servant for 10 years someone who is modest who listens who digs deep when he needs to dig deep who's not afraid to make hard calls and who always would call my office whenever Burbank needed anything to say we need help this is what we need and it was never ever about you oh it was always about the kids and you made a huge difference so thank you and

015I want to thank all of you Char congratulations on your re-election thanks for doing it again we need you and all of you for your service and also Kimberly Clark I want to thank you and we also brought a shirt for you as well stop shaking your head you have also done a great job and I want to congratulate Abby and I'm really looking forward to working with you and you know thank you for stepping up so I have a cert for for you for Steve if you'll come down and accept it it would be my honor to present it to you [Applause] from the California Assembly thank you for your years of service looking forward to everything you're going to accomplish thank you I don't know which way I'm supposed to be looking at

016here thanks so much can I give you a hug and Kimberly yeah going on to big things congratulations to you thank you if you can spin around as well congratulations thank you very much thank you all have a wonderful evening [Applause] thank you assembly member Friedman always also delightful to see you vice mayor Constantine Anthony sir nice to see you and you will be followed by Lori little uh thank you president Abbott um great to see you all hello I don't come down here as much as often as I would like to um I do want to start off by saying uh I'm not going to thank uh Kimberly for leaving you guys because uh we get her so so bonus for us uh but you have done a great job um if you don't

017know if you don't have kids in the school district or an email address you'd know her name Everywhere You Get Enough I get enough notifications about what's going on in the school district thanks to Kimberly um Char congratulations on your re-election you've done some great work I continue to see you do good work and I hope that goes well into the future Mr frittner Steve you and I ran at the same time in 2017 for two different positions I got to know you very well and I know for a fact that what you ran on in 2017 was not what you were dealt with here and now for the last few years it is incredible to see the work that you have done to see the work that you've managed to get done and all

018of the hurdles the difficulties of the last few years thank you for having run in 2017. thank you for being on the school board I'm very humbled by your leadership I'm appreciative of your friendship I know I'm not an easy person to be friends with they all know that but I do appreciate your patience I do appreciate and all the work that you've you've done I didn't bring any certificates I don't have a staff like these guys do so but no from the bottom of my heart thank you thank you very much and I do want to congratulate Abby on getting elected now you have to deal with me so that's your problem uh thank you all for the work that you're doing and congratulations Steve on your retirement thank you so we will then

019have Lori little followed by Rosemary Morrison I had to write mine down I can't talk off the cuff like they all did they're much better than I am um good evening School Board president tabot board members Dr Hill busd staff and the community I'm Lori little and I have had the privilege of serving as the president of Burbank Council PTA this school year we represent 16 units in the Burbank schools and proudly serve the students and members in the Burbank community I'm here tonight on behalf of all of them and I'm not going to cry to thank Mr frittner for his service to our children families and employees as a board member for the past five years as tonight is his last meeting I'm going to do something he's not fond of and I'm going

020to shine the spotlight on him for just a moment advocacy is at the heart of everything PTA does so it's fitting that Steve got his start in PTA he once said that his involvement in PTA started with an article he read that stated the more involved a parent was in their child's education the better chance they had at success so he took himself to the PTA media PTA meeting at Edison Elementary where being one of the only dads in the room did not deter him but further endeared him to the group of mostly moms Steve brought the dad perspective something that was missing and needed he also had a financial background which made him even more valuable as the hardest jobs to fill on a PTA board are usually the financial ones he followed his

021children through the Burbank schools holding many different positions until he finally became our first male Burbank Council PTA President we have more dads involved and holding board positions now than ever before which was an example set by Steve Steve is also a staunch Ally for our lgbtq students through his involvement in the parents families and friends of lesbian and gays P flag organization and his work with Council PTA and the Burbank students to pass lgbtq inclusiveness resolutions first at the state and then at the national level his passion for this cause has even shown up at a school board meeting or two we have all watched Steve stand up to bigotry and ignorance from his position on the diocese his passion to educate and include is palpable Steve has also dealt with extreme budget and

022staffing issues and helped guide this district and its students through a pandemic and things no one could have foreseen and most of it was Uncharted Territory the sacrifices for all of these things were not made just by you your family has given up time with you and has had to change priorities as well to make this happen I know how proud they are of you and I want to take a second to thank Mary Nate and Carly for everything they have done and the time they have given up to share you with the community I know that you're not finished there are still things that you want to do for the community and we are looking forward to seeing what you do next in fact the PTA nominating committees are working now to fill their

023boards for the next school year just say the word and I can ask someone to give you a call I want to say thank you for your service and tell you that your PTA family is so so proud of you and one last thing to Kimberly Clark tonight being your last meeting as well we want to thank you for your years of supporting PTA not just as a community member but for being our go-to person we will miss your wisdom on all things District related and we wish you so much success in your new role as City's Clerk the city's gain is most definitely the school district's loss thank you very much [Applause] good evening everyone I'm Annette field and I'm here on behalf of myself many years ago when I started volunteering A very

024wise Mentor told me that I would develop lifelong friendships with my fellow volunteers and she was so right Steve you're one of them I value that so much and I want to say thank you so much for your dedication to the students of this district for the copious amounts of time and service that you've given to this community it's also appreciated by everybody and thank you for being my friend and Kimberly another friend it was so nice to have worked with you through the years and developed a friendship with you and I thank you for everything and wish you luck in your new position foreign thank you very much Rosemary Morrison followed by Joel slash men it's hard to come up after such a lovely speaking because you guys know I come up with nothing

025good evening happy holidays Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah you're very welcome um Steve I'm gonna miss you it's been a pleasure um every time I came up here and yelled I never um I always felt heard and these last couple of months um just being closer to you in proximity because of you know the election it just I thank you you will be missed um I don't know why I voted for Kimberly I did not know she was gonna leave um I really didn't I did not think it was a position that she would leave and I'm very happy that she's moving you know up and doing what she really wants to do and that she won but um we got to know each other a little bit more um during quarantine and I will

026tell you that your email correspondence to me through some of um through George Floyd through a lot of the stuff just so I can get my comments in I honestly appreciate that and that's something that's going to stick with me because I've I really felt heard and seen and you're trying really hard and I saw you do that for a lot of other people but I know for me that touched me and I cannot wait to see what you do um in the city I'll let that go um I know and I didn't I told um it's gonna call her Emily Emily he's gonna yell at her for the first night I didn't know I was doing public comments um before they got to swear her in but and this is not for used because

027um where is the emergency bin it's still not there I was on campus and I was like oh my gosh it's not here and it really does I don't know who else gets scared and nervous about it but this is a fear for me as a parent that an emergency will happen and my kid cannot get the assistance needed and I was told it was going to happen and I think I was here like two months ago I haven't been here a while y'all know that and it's still not there and I didn't want to wait for the new year so I'm here even though I'm like exhausted so I would like a timeline on when that's coming and if it's not going to happen tonight can I get communication about that and then I

028noticed the trees oh dear lord um who's gonna clean up those flowers of those trees that bloom um that's just who picked that actually I know who picked it did Larry pick I'm sorry um I don't know why we picked those trees and I'd like to know who picked the trees that are going to go in the planter and why did we pick flowering plants that are gonna probably bring lots of bees uh to a campus that already has a bee problem before we cut down all of our trees um that's it I did want to say that and my please give me an answer about the emergency bed I'd really appreciate that thank you have a good night thank you [Applause] no I left and my last card is for Mr Joel slossman congratulations

029um getting good evening everybody once again when it comes time to reorganization I want you to consider not advancing Miss Weisberg for the following reasons you know she doesn't give her full attention to speakers she's busy texting emailing I know it because she's I went home and sent her an email once and she answered me during the meeting and that's kind of a clue that she's not paying attention she has a history of labeling you if you don't if you say or don't agree with with uh her position on something she demonstrates that Her Mind Is Made Up you know without considering the input from from speakers and that's troubling to me you're supposed to have an open mind up here okay it should be you know advancing to vice president or secretary whatever you

030want to call it it shouldn't be automatic it should you should show ability and I think that Ms Weisberg is missing that ability um you know she took a loyalty oath to the United States of America yet she does not stand for the flag salute and she did not stand tonight for the flag salute is there a reason why we have the flag here why does the flag fly at every school and in every classroom yet miss Weisberg is a very poor example by sitting down and not Rising maybe it's fashionable now to be Un-American and unpatriotic we have the vice mayor here and he had he has said that for example you remember 9 11. Al Qaeda is not responsible for 9 11. and when I asked him in a public meeting directly he

031said I said who's responsible he said all of us are responsible so that's the kind of thing that it's troubling to me to have elected officials who are who are so blatantly you know unpatriotic now I've only got a few minutes here she's going to give you a big long spiel about how I'm wrong and how she's extra patriotic for sitting on her ass and I disagree with that you know she forgets that about 82 years ago this month a fellow named Hirohito in December a day that will live in infamy we were attacked and in the harbor over in Hawaii are still men on active duty at the bottom of the Arizona and she won't rise for this there's a fellow in Germany you know we we stopped him too patriotic Americans gave their

032lives to stop him this Weisberg won't acknowledge that today as I speak you're looking confused you always do that there's over two million three hundred thousand men in the United States military serving us today 24 7 7 days a week 365 a year and you won't acknowledge that you won't stand for the flag salute it's very unpatriotic and I'm not the only one who thinks this way thank you know I'm I've said my piece here I've said it before you know if you need a vice president give it to agaconian give it to this lady right here she's more deserving so please exclude her Miss Weisberg from consideration for any position of service thank you Mr schlossman that is the last card I have on uh annual reorganization and election of officers so we will

033move to nine uh a the recognition of outgoing board members okay uh everything Mr frittner you are outgoing uh board member at this time so the board has come with a a plaque thanking you for your terms of service to the district to the children of this District to the parents to the community working with our staff and all of us oh I didn't think I'd cry like Lori little said you have become a friend of mine and uh someone that I leaned on and looked forward to sharing thoughts and ideas with and I for one will greatly miss your um presence here and although I know you'll go out into the community and do wonderful things and help in all kinds of ways because that's who you are a kind giving human being and

034I have so appreciated that I've also made a great new friend in Mary and she's my breakfast go downtown to buy candy friend and um I I enjoy your entire family so on behalf of the Board of Education thank you for your terms of service you always come prepared for whatever we're celebrating with your tie or whatever so your flowers now match from us as well thank you thank you thank you and best of luck to you and whatever pathway you choose to get going forward greatly appreciate and I hope that was oh thank you [Applause] um and that means now it's nine B time for your can can we also say some comments oh yeah yeah I'm sorry you're right uh thank you for reminding me uh also comments for my fellow board members

035on either way I'll I'll start um uh to know Steve frittner uh is to know a man of deep patience um deep passion and um is is certainly a dad that I I certainly hope to be like one day we have passionately disagreed um but I know and I appreciate your heart so much and um my love for you has no bounds um through it all I will never forget um how excited I was when you got elected I will never forget uh going to going to csba and you teaching me about how to adopt and that meant the world to me because that's someday how I want to build my my family um our passion runs deep for these issues and we always have but um I respect you [Music] um you have been

036a board member of consequence and as a leader who has been here your entire time I've seen how this has changed you how it's changed me um leading through a pandemic is an unspoken Terror frankly on any local leader and through how we kept kids first and you never back down in the face of incredible opposition at times and kept kid Central I believe throughout your time um I will certainly miss you up here in many ways other ways where we disagree not so much but um but but who you are as a person uh our kids were well taken care of by this man and for the rest of your life and the rest of mine I will tell that story and where we will continue to disagree we'll continue to rib each other

037in disagree um but I hope uh that we will continue to serve and take on things together outside these roles and continue to be friends for years to come uh your family uh is so incredible and beautiful and amazing and they've become a part of our broader family here in the Burbank Unified School District um they too served along with you in many different ways including Philippe uh your amazing dog but truly um a model for the kind of life I would love and I wish you the best in in your board retirement but I will be harassing you shortly to hopefully bring you back into the fold uh in one way shape or form uh and I love you very much I will keep this relatively short because emotions are the worst um so

038I think we met at P flag meetings if I'm not mistaken um and you were really gracious when I was considering running to spend some time talking with me about it um to Echo a little bit of what uh vice president Ferguson said your patience is uh commendable and a great lesson for me as is the moments as are the moments that you choose to speak up and get angry which I think are of equal import um I've learned a lot from you about what it means to be a true public servant and to put the needs of the many aheads of ahead of the needs of the few we've suffered through coveted together we've suffered through being Bears fans together which is perhaps the greatest the greatest pain um uh but through it all

039I've just learned an enormous amount from you not just about the logistics of what it means to be on board but also the logistics of what it means to be a human on board and to defend the things that matter to you even when people don't disagree or don't agree with you so I'm going to take all of that with me you're still going to see me you're still stuck with us I look forward to learning many more lessons from you um and like I said you get a card with more mushy stuff in the mail but um I'm just deeply grateful to you for the moments that we agreed and the moments in which we disagreed and I think perhaps one of the the things I'll take with me the most is um the

040strength you showed when you apologized in moments where you knew you were wrong that's a really difficult thing for anybody to do I think it's an amazing thing to model for us and amazing amazing thing to model for our students so I'm grateful for that and I'm grateful for you thank you very much for your time I now it's your turn president's habit president would it be possible here yeah yeah from the sky guys yes ever how can I help you um yes you may please feel free Mr fritner where where to start oh my goodness um I had the great honor of meeting Mr brittner uh during the pandemic because Life Is Life and life throws curveballs at us um Mr fritton at the time was board president and someone who I've as someone

041who was starting to get involved in their local community it was such an honor to be able to me I have a I have a five-year-old brother I get it you should you should hear the things he says I love it um but I just want to say thank you for your leadership uh thank you for always uh communicating here with us with our the student boards it's been super fun being able to sit next to you and be able to chit chat between a little segment and just be able to goof around it's been truly an honor I think the thing I'm most sad about is that I won't have the iconic Steve squared Duo at my graduation but uh thank you for all you've done I can't wait to see what what more

042you do because definitely we won't be leaving you alone for anytime soon but um thank you for all you've done for the district for our students I truly appreciate it from the bottom of all our hearts and thank you again thank you ever moving forward your turn now okay um jeez you know after all this I don't know how you guys are gonna go on without me frankly I uh you know after hearing all this tonight um I I made some notes because I thought I'll never um remember to say everything and then I need to make more because I I honestly and I when we walked in I told Steve I didn't think anyone was gonna be here I didn't think you know I didn't think it was that big a deal uh so

043first off to um to those who did come tonight um thank you for all the kind words uh I can't express in words how much I appreciate it um Senator portent you know we we have gotten to be very good friends and I and it's a friendship I cherish I believe you were the first elected official who endorsed me when I was running [Music] uh and uh and I greatly appreciate appreciate that and you you had uh give gave me advice on how to you know how to run uh so I I appreciate that and I appreciate all you do and everything you have done uh in service to the to the Senate District but also for our schools and we've seen you consistently both in our district and five-star uh just really making a

044difference for us so I appreciate that um assembly member Friedman thank you [Music] I got to know her more as I was going through the election process and we've also become good friends um and again another great advocate for uh for Burbank and for the Burbank schools um my PTA friends I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for PTA uh I've said that before and it's the truth uh it taught me a lot about how to work within an organization how to advocate um how to advocate for students how much how important that really is and as Annette mentioned some great and lifelong friendships and I I have to recognize and that feels she was the only official other person on my campaign when I ran she was my campaign Treasurer I had no manager

045and I had other volunteers which were mostly family members and that was the only person other person who was an actual member of my campaign so thank you and thank you Carol and Amy for being here as well that's I I uh I can't um God I'm gonna really struggle for words um thank you all so much um Rosemary I thank you for the the words I I kind words I I appreciate you and all the parents like you who have uh come out regularly to Advocate it's never it's part of being a board member you know you we need to be here and and hear what people have to say so even if it's something that is very critical of us that's you know we have to hear it and you have never held

046back on that and I I do appreciate it uh and we miss you uh at the district so I'm glad you're you're still coming to meetings we still see you and and James I I hope to still see you more in the future I think you have so much to give the community uh Constantine I'm sorry I'm just keeping around because I didn't have pendum to write down notes um thank you and uh councilman Schultz is here as well um uh we were running at the same time that you as you mentioned that's where we first got to know each other as you do on the campaign Trails sometimes you're at the same events and you know the forums and things that get held at the same time as with many friendships you know we

047go through trying times but we find a way through and I'm I'm certain we will continue to and I thank you for your service uh to the city and your continued service to the city uh and both of you also thank you I know if you you didn't want to speak but thank you for coming I I greatly appreciate it uh I hope I didn't miss any other speakers I'm really sorry I'm I normally usually have a pad here and a pen and I thought oh I don't have to bring anything with me tonight that except my phone I can read all my notes on my phone uh and I'll try and keep it short because I know there's it's a loaded agenda in December and there's a lot of actual work to do uh

048for the district so I will try and not go on too long um first off I want to uh congratulate Abby camcar on the election to the board uh I think you ran an impressive campaign uh I think you made your uh positions on issues facing the district very clear I mentioned that to you once at an event um I wish you nothing but the best as you begin your term on the board as has been mentioned it's not an easy thing but you know what we need people to step up and run and I think it's fantastic you did um I I think you know this was a good campaign season I think it was uh a very as cordial as elections can be um I think that all the candidates respected each other

049and really worked to show that to the community so uh congratulations and good luck um there's so many people to thank uh and I um I I'm sure I'm going to miss some as I go through excuse me um first of all thank you to the voters of Burbank for electing me giving me a chance to serve the district uh it's not something I ever dreamed I would do to be honest I never expected to do that I I never um until six months before I ran you I I probably still was not thinking about it uh or if I was you know this much um so thank you for electing me and giving me the chance um our teachers and our school staff are the backbone of our district uh I I don't get

050to see that I haven't gotten to see them nearly enough we try and get to schools some of us because these are not full-time jobs we all have daytime jobs that we have to deal with um I never got to classrooms nearly as much as I expected to and hoped to um and I hope that can change for you know the board in the future but um being in the classrooms with the teachers is is has always been a pleasure to me because you see how for one thing how good they are at their job and and you know and how how hard it is to do uh and just where we where we where we would be if we didn't have that kind of work so miss Ambassador as a representative obviously of the

051teachers and uh thank you to everyone for the for the work that we as it's been mentioned we've gone through uh probably the most challenging last three years ever in education uh and that was for everyone and um we couldn't get through it without our teachers and also the classified staff that are also working at the on the campuses every day uh the district office uh Personnel sorry uh there's a lot that uh of work that has to be done to run a district uh and we couldn't operate the schools and have them for the teachers without their contributions constantly of facilities Human Resources student services technology Food Services Finance payroll I'm I'm missing more but there's so many people who uh who support making the district operate and thank you all for the jobs

052you do uh Miss Clark congratulations again for your election the city's gain is the district's loss uh thank you for everything you've done certainly in my time on the board and beyond for the support that you provide both the superintendent and the board members uh I'll be looking forward to the work you're going to be performing for the citizens Burbank um the administration the the cabinet we've got fantastic assistant superintendents in this District Miss Casino Dr promo Dr Neiman Mr Cantwell who hasn't been here as long but we had before him in that position um Miss cacta and Mr James I don't think I could have had a better group of people working for this district and not just and going beyond the directions Dr canapic uh Miss Cashman Mr vonk uh Miss Lowe Dr

053Anders and again I'm missing people I'm pulling I wrote down some and I'm pulling more off the top of my head these are people that we've actually in my time on the board had to cut back on Administration and that made all of your jobs more loaded and you still performed them so admirably and um and I I can't tell you you know how much I appreciate it and then how much all of us really do uh Dr Hill um already when I was elected uh you had a couple of challenging years at the start of your tenure on the board um we spent about the first uh half of my tenure in financial struggles including obviously the two parcel tax measures that we all worked on very hard and unsuccessfully unfortunately uh and then

054Ned covert dropped on us um I can only speak for myself I thank you for your support for your dignity for your honesty your unselfishness and your efforts to make this District the best it can be um it's been a pleasure and a privilege to work with you uh and lastly my the board members um I was lucky enough I've been on the board sorry uh just let me remember Friedman only five and a half years it may have seemed like 10 years sometimes but I've been on for five and a half years uh and I was lucky in that time a lot of people have to work with many different board members over time I only had to work with five different people uh and I think that's to my benefit um the first

055I obviously was uh Dr Reynolds Dr Roberta Reynolds uh a mentor for me in both PTA and busd a um my colleague still in P flag Burbank I think it's more apparent than ever that the leadership and the calming influence that she brought to this governing body uh and and well we're we're still great but we we do miss that at times um Dr Weisberg uh as you mentioned we only got to work together for about two years um I wish it was longer I I really do uh I when you first contacted me and talked about you I was happy to sit down and and discuss the um you know what went into it because I thought you were a person who you know definitely had the makings of a good board member and

056I'm I'm happy you ran I'm I'm I'm I'm happy you won that you're serving uh um thank you for the fresh voice you brought to the board which that's one of the good things to change the board member even if things are going well it's good to have fresh voices sometimes um uh thank you for being an active voice for all the stakeholders you never hold back advocating for anyone and everyone uh and for staying true to your ideals uh that's so important uh for the district and and it represents who you are and and who you why you were elected um Dr agarconium couldn't be here um we didn't know each other very well before you joined the board uh I can safely say we've become very good friends uh thank you for being

057a sounding board for me and being and allowing me to be one for you uh certainly at least within the confines of the brown act um uh I'm sorry you're not able to be here um but I cherish your friendship I'm sure we'll see each other soon my brother um this tablet first congratulations on your re-election as I've told you I I think the voters at Burbank uh value your leadership and you're the institutional knowledge of busd and of Burbank that you bring to the position I think that the election showed that um I uh and I think they value it you know a little bit less than I do but that's how much I value it um I look forward to your continued service into our continued friendship and and yes and my wife

058probably even more so as you guys you've probably become better friends even than you and I have um Ferguson um the last year has been challenging there's no doubt uh but I also like to remember that you and I agreed on the vast majority of issues over the years that I've served on the board and we've we've worked together many times for the betterment of the district I've successfully I feel I um I also remember that it was you about seven years ago on a Thanksgiving morning in the kitchen of my house who was the first person to suggest to me that I should run for a seat on the board of education I had never even thought about it even time on the on the PTA board and that first planted the sea even

059though I at the time I thought I'll never do that you know there's no way you gotta be um but that's the that was the first you know plant of the seed so I guess the lesson is be careful what you wish for sometimes um but I I wish you well I I I wish you so much the better going forward serving in a public office is not easy um just running for office is a challenge it's a cam Carr Mr Morrison Miss tabot to have it fresh in their memories um it's a challenge just to get to that point of saying I think I'm the right person to do this right now to have the confidence in yourself and the belief that other people might have that much confidence in you um and then

060you have to go out and campaign and convince people of it and that's just getting there people run for office for lots of different reasons um I won't go into why I yeah well I ran because I believed in our district I believed I could make a difference I guess time will tell whether I did or not um but I ran because this is the job I wanted to do also I cared about our schools I still care about our schools Gravely and I know some people will run for public office looking as a stepping stone and moving up forward I can say with complete confidence in my years on the board every person who's served on this board has been dedicated a hundred percent to our district there was there there is no okay

061next I'll run for this and next I'm gonna you know this is I've got my course planned out we don't always agree and frankly honestly that's probably a good thing people have said over the years oh you just rubber Stan you know for a few years on the board they said oh you just everything's 5-0 you guys never disagree we disagreed all the time uh uh you work through sometimes and if you know that this is what the direction of the board then yes sometimes the votes turn out that way and sometimes they don't um but no matter how much we've disagreed I know I can say with complete confidence everyone who I've served with was a hundred percent focused on making Burbank unified the best it can be uh we've always been that way

062and I think we're always going to be that way uh as assembly member Freeman pointed out no one does this because of ego no one does this to get rich this uh this is a part-time position you know frankly uh it's not it's a full-time position that's treated like a part-time position um but we don't do it for fame and we don't do it to you know get our picture in the paper usually we're trying to avoid that because it usually means something bad uh often means something bad um we do it because we care and we want the best for our students and it's a challenge a challenge trying to provide that all the time and we're not always successful and people will disagree with us sometimes about our route trying to make that

063successful and that's okay that's part of the public process that's part of the governing process but no one will ever be able to say we don't care and we're not trying to do the best we can for our students and for this school district it has been my absolute honor to serve this school district to serve with these people it will always be close to my heart and I will always continue to support it and what that in the words of Edward R Murrow good night and good luck [Applause] foreign [Applause] yes I'm sure we'll talk to him [Applause] okay momentarily we'll be moving on to um administration of the oath of office for incoming Board of Education members foreign let's meet at the front and we'll wait for Kimberly she'll be just a second

064right are they here they made it are you ready I don't think we need a mic right yes can everybody hear we need a mic for people at home and and especially for folks with audio which one at a time at the same time and when I say I you're going to say your name no say your own name she says keep these people straight here all right we're ready do we have a battery okay we're here to administer the oath of office you just say your name okay so you can take a mic for your name it's a million I think so please raise your right hand and repeat after me I I Charlene tabbit Abby Panzer com card do you solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United

065States and the constitution of the State of California against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter I will I will thank you congratulations and and yours to take okay are we saying you just sign right right here it's a signature perfect you did so well I knew I had it thank goodness all night long bye okay and you got your souvenir yes you need to sign this oh I did oh sorry that's where I said um all right oh no I signed it and

066took it away right here foreign Wild um more comfortable than having a child crawling all over me though I tell you I was like you need to relax yeah okay remarks from outdoor outgoing Board of Education president which is me um it is absolutely an honor and a privilege to serve on the Burbank Board of Education it is also an honor and a privilege to be able to serve um with this governing board my colleagues over the last year um are are have been very um motivated and um encouraging to continue to work for the best for our students in this district and I'm appreciative of that um as well as the staff that we work with also has as I do has always been my my um biggest thing is that we do what's

067best for kids as much as we can in this District which means we take care of the adults that work for us we take care of families and parents but that has really been the focus the last year I feel with myself in this board and I'm really appreciative of all the work that they have done to make that happen uh are we welcome thank you uh Mr fritner stated um and and Mr Ferguson too in your thanks to Mr frittner talked about how the bonds on this board have grown uh and grow you and kind of Dr agakanian always talks about we're a family I love you and and there are times yes absolutely and and it's odd it's almost like a family where we really all have the goal of getting to the

068same place it's just we're not always on the same Pathway to get to that same place but for most for the most part the respect that we use to work together to get there has to be um at the top of that or we'll never get to that spot that we hope to go to it's important to work it as as a board as a like mind we may not all think alike all the time but it's important that we continue to move forward uh in the best interest of those we serve and I start with the kiddos um it has been a very difficult year we've been through a lot I joke sometimes that I have bored PTSD because of the stress of of being in this position the one that you're supposed to

069hold it all together somehow and when you're passionate and you care sometimes that's a difficult thing to do um but I've I've tried as facility as I absolutely could in my role and I hope I've accomplished it and if I've offended or upset anyone along that way that was not my intention and I certainly apologize for that um this is probably being on this board uh one of besides maybe being a mother one of the biggest honors of my life and to not only be now re-elected for a third term but get to continue to serve with an amazing board is truly an honor so I thank you for your support and kindness including to the community I'm not one for a big conversation you know that I basically love my community I love my

070school district I want to do what's best for those kids and I will spend the next four years doing that even though probably will not be in the next four years in the role of president but one never knows right so uh thank you again thank you for all your support and kindness here for your um uh help for your opinions and and so forth sometimes the best things come from when you don't always agree but you need to find a path to get there so thank you all of you for your time and I'm gonna move on quickly because we've been here for an hour and a half and you've got four more years of me so you're not gonna not ever hear me again I guarantee it thank you yes you had something

071to say Miss tablet thank you and thank you for your service as president of the school board um I do want to give our new colleague uh a chance to say uh sorry to catch you on the spot but uh having just joined uh the dice an opportunity uh as well potentially with your consent uh to say a few words as well it was on before um thank you vice president Ferguson I appreciate that uh you did catch me put me on the spot a little bit here it wasn't on the agenda um but thank you um and thank you Char for your um it was really nice to get to know you during the campaign um and I'm really looking forward to working with you and working with this board and really um making

072sure that we can work together in a really functional and productive way I know that can be a challenge sometimes um and you know thank you uh of course to Mr frittner um it's been it's been just a pleasure to kind of get to know this group over the past several months um and of course thank you to the voters of Burbank um without whom I would not be here so um I'm just I'm really looking forward to this um and especially just diving in and getting to work as Dr Hill has learned I read the whole board packet and I send lots of questions um so yes exactly um so I'm sorry in advance for the next four years of 25 questions per board meeting um but yeah thank you and thank you Char

073for your service thank you okay moving on to 90 election of officers um I'm going to throw something out to the board and it's absolutely a board decision not mine although I have an opinion and get to share that um I'm thinking and would like to move election of officers 9e to the January meeting when all five of us would be here and we could have input from all five did you Oh I thought you were Reaching Forward any thoughts uh I I think that the thought is a commendable one I think we should move ahead with the election of officers only because it is such a long time between now and our next board meeting and I think it's really important for growth movement and like a seamless transition for the board that that

074process begins tonight um so while I understand that Mr Excuse me Dr agatanian isn't present we do have Quorum so it feels to me important that we take this step in order to continue moving forward on the many many things we have in the works and I I personally there's not much for the board as we go into the holiday time moving forward until we do get to January so I don't anyway but it is my opinion that I think we should move it so I don't need to say anything more any other thoughts I'm I'm just curious do we um if Dr arkanian is not here is he able to take a leadership position well he wouldn't be able to accept it if he were here right but we could still with him we

075could elect him too okay yes got it I just think uh five person vote I would rather move it um to January so that we have Dr arkanian here but I can be persuaded I would I would just say in response to what president Tabet said I actually think there's an enormous amount of work that can happen between now and January obviously not things on which we can vote but uh there's so much to be done there's so much to think about as we move into the post-holiday you know the second semester and so for me it does feel like it's some time lost um I mean you're right we don't have meetings so we're not and we're not voting on things that's absolutely true but I think there's an enormous amount of work that

076can be done um by board members during a time where for some of us I mean selfishly like me where I'm I'm on break for a couple of weeks right so um I understand I do understand where you're coming from but for me it feels like a missed opportunity um when I would very much like to move forward on tonight if if possible okay did you have something you wanted to share too uh you know I I think that there is um you know a number of of different things that require planning for members of the board who are serving in leadership uh particularly setting up times to sit down communicate and to yes be able to coordinate that with staff um Dr agacanian if he was nominated to serve in a leadership role would

077not be serving as likely as board president or vice president due to the rotation that we typically observe um and so you know isn't responsible for a gender review and a number of other factors and this would be you know extending a presidential term frankly another month which is unprecedented uh compared to most so um I I think we should stick with the tradition unfortunately Dr agacanyan couldn't join us tonight um if he was able to join via a video I think he would have um but I I think we should move forward which which we did look into wasn't possible right and not saying that was going to happen on the board agenda previously correct just for the public awareness yep um well I don't know because we're kind of at a I am

078aren't I but I still I shouldn't respond to you but alerting out like that but uh I I assume that if we don't if we if we tie on the motion that we then move forward with the agenda as planned so it just sounds like we should okay move forward with each other's place so so do I then have um a nomination for president Abbott I nominate uh vice president Ferguson to be president thank you do I have a second okay uh we have a motion for Mr Ferguson for president and a second by Mr Ferguson for uh for his uh nomination to president uh all those in any comments okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed they okay we have a 2-2 I also vote nay so we have a 2-2

079vote well so we could take we could wait we could take another nomination we could any suggestions from the board all right do I have another nomination then for president I go ahead no go ahead happy I I guess move to table at this point if we're we're tied okay we can do that we will table that until January okay [Music] um we'll just so we'll skip 9f we will move to prison nope we did that uh reports from the board starting with our student Representatives we have is Catherine here this evening no thank you we have Serena terpetrosian from Burbank High School okay um I just like a quick little thing congratulations oh okay congratulations to everyone's heart I've been sitting there for a while and um as a student who's only been here

080for obviously not even a full term yet um seeing my siblings lead I've seen the leadership that it takes especially being a student leader myself and I could just imagine how much more difficult it gets when you're dealing with a lot more people a lot more opinions and a lot of different age groups and I really respect that and I'm so honored to take the guidance from all of you guys so thank you for that okay so good evening board president tape vice president Ferguson distinguished board members superintendent Dr Hill and the wonderful bourbon community so on December 2nd our BHS instrumental music association hosted their concerts Sounds of the Season which was their winter themed concert last Thursday December 8th our Burbank High dance program post hosted their annual AMC night in the middle

081of downtown uh Burbank where our Unleashed dance team and our Advanced dance team go between AMC 16 and boiling crab and host performances for the public so that people walking by just get a nice performance of what Burbank dancers can do and I heard it was really fun also our winter sports are in full session and they're working extremely hard in these unideal temperatures and last week Burbank High got to host its first wrestling match since since we're fortunate enough to now have our own wrestling team and it was amazing to experience such a unique sport in the comfort of our own gym not to mention that our Bulldogs secured the victory against Webb high school so I was really proud also last Friday in the quad our Armenia Club hosted a dance party where

082they started off by dancing shushbar and then taught others how to turn into enjoy the traditional dances and how to learn them and it was really fun and it's it's been an honor um to be able to incorporate a lot more different cultures and dances and I look forward to keep doing that also Saturday December 3rd the senior class hosted a movie night where for ten dollars you got to come to the Burbank High Field and watch Home Alone everybody was encouraged to bring their blankets and chairs and whatever and it was a really fun experience and I think it brought the Burbank High Community a lot closer and it was really fun to experience that and there was also tons of food that you could buy tacos and stuff so it was truly amazing

083also in terms of ASB this week our ASB hosted a winter theme Spirit Week to end off the semester Monday was holiday pajamas Tuesday was World Cup day so students were encouraged to wear their favorite teams jerseys Wednesday with snow gear day where students had the opportunity to show off their best cold temperature outfits today was ugly sweater day and tomorrow to end of the week students are encouraged to western wear their best holiday accessories along with our spirit days every day of the week ASP also hosted a lunch activity in the middle of the Quad that coincided with our spirit days to help raise a little bit more spirit and make it really fun for our students also going all the way back before Thanksgiving ASB did collaborate with our rotary interact Club at

084Burbank High to donate to the Burbank coordinating Council Holiday Drive and we donated non-perishables and we were I'm honored to say that we filled a whole SUV of non-perishables and got to donate that right away other than that our Bulldogs are just gearing up for finals week and all I can say is that it's still amazing to be a bulldog any questions no anybody okay thank you and now ever Huerta from jbhs I have to say I like the name on the sleeve yeah and graduation here I like that pretty cool good evening president Abbott vice president Ferguson board member superintendent Hill amazing District staff and wonderful bourbon Community here and watching at home I'm excited to share with you all the amazing things going on at Burroughs firstly uh I actually went home and

085changed but I was supposed to be in PJs because my mom did not allow me um laughs but if if I were in my PJs that would be because I just came from Burroughs where we just had our power our Powder Puff game for the first time in a couple of years ASB as well is currently having our holiday spirit week which is as well as winter themed Monday was holiday headwear where your best Holiday Hair headwear I rock my Santa hat with Mickey ears Tuesday was tacky sweater I won best tacky sweater why because mine light up Wednesday was colors freshman was class colors freshman wore yellow sophomores green Juniors red and seniors blue today is snowed in so where your PJs and fuzzy socks and tomorrow is Candy Cane Lane so make sure

086to wear your best red and white gear this Friday as well ASB is hosting our staff and faculty luncheon to show the appreciation and give thanks to all the hard work of our staff and faculty they have given the semester as well last week our amazing VMA and IMA dance production had their Holiday Spectacular show which was an amazing hit and successful night for everyone who took part huge shout out to tech crew as well for spending countless hours making sure the show was Flawless there was a hiccup though on the Saturday night um so during the show uh during intermission a rat went through the uh through the scoreboard this score I guess the wires and bit through a wire and delayed the show 30 minutes and uh don't worry the rat was fried

087because he chewed through the wire so rest in peace the rat but the show after that continually and went Flawless ASB as well had the great honor of collaborating with the bourbon coordinating Council and hosting our annual food drive where we got so many donations from all of our student body at Burroughs with all the donations collected going to help make holiday baskets for families as well ASB was excited and happy to see it as we also filled up non-perishables with an entire SUV as well uh ASB was so happy to have uh this year to adopt a family where we uh had an amazing experience an opportunity to give back to our amazing Community that's given us so much uh the family enjoyed all their gifts that we got them they enjoyed it was

088just so nice seeing the reaction and just being able to give back especially just seeing the smiles just made it so much worth it and we can't wait to continue we participate in this amazing program ASB as well as getting ready for another collaboration with UCLA for another blood drive ASB as well as getting geared up and getting sign ups for our student body in the World of Sports a huge congratulations to our soccer team and basketball for starting off their season basketball especially to basketball who have won their last two games against Glendale and Hoover High our link crew as well for all their work this semester especially with their last event helping our freshmen with tutoring for finals Coco and cram where they were able to go get hot chocolate and as well

089as some help on some tutoring I did steal a cup of hot chocolate but I did tutor so it's okay as well a huge shout out to our College peer mentors for all this work Helping Seniors through college applications we wish our Bears a good luck on their finals and as well to our seniors a huge congrats for getting their applications done that is it for my report but moving on to student concerns remember the rat can we do something about a rat problem in our Auditorium I've had many choir and VMA students IMA students come and be like there's a rat I'm like oh that's cute um so if we could please uh see what we can do as bust to maybe control our problem um that would be appreciated and I appreciate and

090I think especially choir would appreciate not seeing rats crawling around in the dark when they're trying to get dressed but um as well moving on to another student concern which is a more serious topic um recently at Burroughs there has been a case of sexual assault that has been reported and went publicly um I would just like for this to come to the attention of the board especially as this has been an issue in the past seeing the at the next meeting whoever takes leadership um to have this as a main priority be able to uh participate with students how we how we can get students active in this situation educate what what are the possibilities that we can do um just because we we know many students have faced this problem or who have

091many who haven't been able to speak out of this issue so if that would be something that we could take a look into see how we can support our students survivors of sexual assault and how we can educate and really bring a presentation and awareness to our student body that's all for my report if you have any questions please let me know all right thank you [Applause] now we have requests to address the board I have three cards tonight my first speaker is Gerard and I'm really having trouble with the last name um do we have a Gerard here this evening last name maybe starts with a g or met some middle initial oh Geneva I thought that was an R my apologies hi I'm Geneva Giselle I'm a senior at John Burroughs and I'm

092here thank you I'm here in support of the divine feminine at John Burroughs High School and um I was wondering if it was okay if I asked two questions okay okay sorry you're just asking board members and their responses if they so choose will address it okay how much time do I have to speak okay um also there are um staff and students should I avoid names like how do I kind of go about talking about it go ahead feel free to say what you need to say okay um you have five minutes and then we respond at the end so we may not respond back and forth but we'll respond at the end thank you okay um talking about whatever talked about um there is a student at our school Named Sam Crow and

093he has sexually abused and assaulted and raped multiple people and even after being um made aware of these reports to the school they haven't done really anything um and it's just as someone who's been through some scary things like that it is extremely traumatizing it's hard to deal with it's scary it's invasive um and unlike these people luckily I'm blessed enough to not be in a position where I constantly have to see this person um but also having friends who have been assaulted by Sam um I hear just them how they talk about it how they have to relive you know what he's done and how they have to go about just seeing him every day and I think that's really wrong um and on top of that there are a couple of mandated reporters

094who have been reported to but have not done you know what you're supposed to do as a mandated reporter they've ignored Title IX an example of this is Lee Carlton and after multiple people making reports she forgot these were made or the um I guess claims were made um and when trying to just get some action and see like hey what's being done about this situation that is still happening to multiple people they don't really they don't really do anything or say anything um so I would really like to see something about that be done it's really not fair to the people who have experienced this and been traumatized by this but also um for people he could be potentially doing that too I think it is extremely dangerous and harmful and just scary to

095be an environment or in an environment sorry with someone like that and I just don't think that that's fair especially because that is a predominant issue in the world and a part of it um that also kind of bugs me is the John Burrough student body um is a huge part of a lot of things and the staff also they claim to be the voice for the student body they want to be here and uplift but what do you do when that voice is not advocating for you um they you know they say things like come talk to us about whatever that could be bullying racism homophobia or something as serious as this and a little not a lot of action has been done in my years of going to Burrows and personal experiences um

096and I just I really really do think that a lot of action needs to be taken a lot of change needs to be made for not only just the people who've been through it but just the safety of others and just it's a huge issue in the world and it just it's it's concerning and just for lack of better wording really unsettling when even these trusted adults that are supposed to be here help you with something especially with this something as serious as this it's really unsettling to see this person I see him every day in the hallway and it's scary to think that it feels like these adults adults are okay with it and a question I just wish I could pose to them or just anybody is I want not it's a horrible

097thing to think about but how would they react if this was people happening in their life you shouldn't have to know somebody like that to care about something this serious yeah that's all I want to say okay thank you sweetie our next speaker is Dory Foster followed by a ram arakilian good evening good evening president Abbott vice president Ferguson it's to uh superintendent Hill and our board members I am also here on this difficult subject try not to get um emotional about it I come here as a concerned parent who's been alarmed by the information that you've heard here tonight I learned it last week through the protest and meeting some of these girls at Burrows recently and also through then reading further information in the article that was written in the Burbank leader let

098me be clear I'm not here to inquire about the alleged sexual assault but rather to understand why a student was ignored by your staff when they came forward expressing how and why they haven't felt safe according to Title IX as you just heard and I would hope everyone's aware of it this inquiry by the students should have been reported and it wasn't and it wasn't done in the proper way or a timely manner our students don't feel safe I was also told that Matt Chambers opened this year with a video promising all the students a safe place for them and that is not happening he's not listening to our students it concerns me so much I've since also spoke to other concerned students one of them is Max Purdy he couldn't be here tonight he's

099an awesome student but he's studying for its finals his mom is here representing he told me about another situation with a recently with a substitute teacher recently there was when he was he was made aware and he has seen a video of a substitute teacher that during virtual lessons exposed himself to in the video this video was brought to administrators and they were told to delete the video because this could ruin this man's career Max has seen this video he recently went into a classroom about two weeks ago and this substitute teacher was in the class teaching we hired him again so max very quickly got out and went down to Mr Chambers office he was not available he spoke to an administrator who was very shocked and promised to relay his name to principal

100principal Chambers and as of two weeks since he reported this Max has heard nothing and I'm starting to see a pattern here and I'm I'm very very upset and concerned and frustrated we're better than this in Burbank um it always feels that things are being swept under the rug that things aren't being talked about because it's safer or you're afraid of what people are going to think versus being vocal to the community to make everyone feel safe and know that you're addressing these problems that are a lot of times out of our control but you can address them and make everybody feel safe Burbank used to be a place that people moved to because of the schools and now I know more families that are looking at private schools for their children to leave because

101they have no intention of sending them to our high schools they're willing to take loans out and go into debt to leave our school district because of these things that are happening and and I'm one of them and it's it's it's really heart-wrenching and then to hear what we've heard tonight thank you ever for being brave and all of you for being brave and getting up here and speaking speaking out and wanting to be heard and just wanting the support and I beg you to do something about it thank you thank you our next speaker is followed by Joel slash man hello board members hello everybody um so I'd like to kind of continue since my monthly speeches that I've been giving here um and today I want to kind of real briefly just touch

102on also the uh the survey that was recently done about where the funding should go I believe you have some money for funding and um it's funny I looked at that survey and the number one response from what is majority of parents responding was they wanted mental health for their kids they wanted you guys to spend more money so that they were better mentally in the schools because they notice it that there is a problem kids aren't I don't know I guess they're not thinking right and then that comes from not just you know maybe what's happening in the home or what's happening in the school but also what's happening in society at Large and this comes from confusion that they may feel about you know what they're being told and information that is being

103relayed to them and so you know I think that's a great idea to spend more on Mental Health but I would advise you to go in more of a Supportive Services you know I'd like to support their mental health give them things to look up to live up to Faith love these type of things not drugs definitely not prescriptions because you know prescription drug that they're giving to kids now to affirm their gender is the same prescription drug we give to sexual offenders to castrate them so I don't think drugs is the right way to go on that one but just more I guess support and love to the kids you know like support centers and things like that counselors things like that not psychiatrists and then also last time I spoke you know I

104usually just speak I don't really ask any questions and Mr Hill mentioned because I didn't ask any questions he wasn't going to respond so I do have some questions today and kind of lines up with what others have talked about today and so my question is do you not take action against students I'm sorry against teachers who speak to students about sexual behavior to that they can just say whatever they want and you guys do nothing about it are they allowed to just speak about how they are sexually you know what their sexual preferences are are these things allowed in this school that's my question um and so and then another question that I that I had is do you does the school in any way actively teach students uh about sexual preferences and activities

105uh that's another question now without parents permission of course with parents permission I think the parents should be the one talking about these things but so that's what I want to know is do you guys teach anything besides basic biology do you teach any sexual material to the students and also do you punish teachers that expose themselves on video chats and you know talk to them about their gender preferences which I believe is probably illegal and lastly I'd like to just end off with uh reminding everybody about the season this is the season for remembering Christ this is not Santa's season this is not a gift it's not about what you wear about Christ that's this season and that's where I believe a lot of mental health can be gained is to focus on God

106God's love for us you know to keep our minds focused on him and we will be healthier physically mentally spiritually we cannot ignore the spiritual aspects sure I understand you know the school may not want to teach these things but you can always refer to other organizations within the city and the community that can help on these aspects and this will help the mental health of the kids greatly and um and yeah so just uh keep please consider what I have said I know a lot of you don't agree with me but that's fine I don't mind I don't mind being an army of one because I got god with me and you know everything's possible with him so thank you our next speaker is Joel schlossman and that is my final card one virtual

107this is a big deal God damn it did you know about this Mr superintendent what have you been doing about it have you called 9-1-1 this is serious stuff the most serious stuff I've ever heard in this chamber oh we need a complete report of what's going on at that school it's disconcerting more than disconcerting this is against everything we stand for I expect strong leadership I had Visions right now of Joe hooven anybody remember Joe hooven he said up there and and this type of thing was reported to him and he buried it and he resigned why don't we have a name tag for our newest member you knew she was common is this how we treat our new newly elected officials shame on you do you know what this means you know what

108that means shame on you it's an insult I was all happy I want to tell you welcome I'm glad to see you I voted for you but I voted for her too so there's a lot to be done our kids need you we're passing we're graduating kids that don't meet the state standards you're going to hear about distinguished schools and oh we got this award and then you look at what it means you break it down and our kids can't meet the state standards I want to hear from you tonight what are your goals I never went to your website but I want to hear what your goals are and how you're going to help our kids because there's more than uh diversity and uh critical race Theory there's more going on we need to

109educate our kids about the basics and these guys have been failing and right now you're an equal member 20 you don't need a to sit quietly for uh you know a period of time I want to hear you strong I want to hear your leadership because we need it we're desperate for you thank you for being here thank you for stepping up I'm sorry you had to deal with this kind of stuff on your first meeting this is horrific it really is did you I mean look see this thing I got it in the mail I guess it says free and low cost classes for career and training for adults I love the adult school in you know 30 and 40 years ago I wrote down the classes I took I went to Spanish American

110Sign Language I took pilot Ground School even though I was already a pilot and I took Mommy and Me classes and I was the first one and they had to change the name of Mommy and me because of me they would they didn't want to register a dad she says what are you doing here you know yeah it's true story and I I you know I took all the kids there so um in here you got a class it's twenty five hundred dollars that's far from free and low cost and I want to know if we can help you know at the schools the kids got to go here at the Old School parent uh people adults want to go and I want to know if we can set up a finance program to help

111people who can't afford it and I read an article in the LA Times about a Furniture a guy who sold Furniture in downtown Los Angeles and his customer base was immigrants and people here illegally even and he extended credit to them and they paid they were honorable people and that's what I believe people are honorable so I think we should take a chance and take payments for kit for adults who want to take these classes that cost so much money you know if if you put together a program of money to loan to them all contribute I'll be the first one to contribute because I believe they'll pay it back I believe people want to better themselves so thank you for your consideration and let me go back to you uh Miss Posner say it

112again sponsor compar sponsor com car I'm so glad you're here foreign I hope I hope you'll rise for the flag salute I hope you're a proud American and take that seriously I heard you take your oath here and I hope you consider what those words mean Allegiance you know um Happy New Year to everybody be safe drive safe be safe be healthy thank you and and Mr agacondian if you're watching get well okay uh Steph comment oh virtual speaker my apologies just to clarify because these were all non-agenda items are you combining public comment so we do have a virtual I just I guess yeah because I just I just want to make sure the audience knows that they don't have to wait to the end too anyone else wish to address the board yes

113absolutely okay so we do have one virtual speaker so let me tee that up so we have Ms Smith I'm gonna promote you one second okay Ms Smith you may unmute and turn your camera on thank you hello actually I'm Brett Smith this is my wife Tessa Smith uh we just moved here from New York just a little bit of background about ourselves uh we have a fourth grader and a sixth grader we are new to Burbank we were excited to move to Burbank and I did want to start off by saying that the Burbank move has been fantastic the district has been amazing it's opened up our children in unbelievable ways and one of the reasons that we moved here was because of the progressive nature of the state of the area and when

114I say progressive I don't mean politics I mean that they're Progressive in their thought leaders that we're setting standards here in this area that the rest of the world will follow later on but one of the things that we do find is a bit regressive is the standard that I'm not sure everybody's aware of but in the middle school and the high schools here in Burbank children are graded on a run a timed run that is equivalent to two miles to get an A in 25 minutes and I just don't believe that grading on this standard is what we need for our children and for their future we believe that physical fitness is extremely important we did bring it up to our our school our principal and one of the things that we got told

115was it's in preparation for the California physical fitness standards which are fifth seventh and ninth grades uh however fifth graders uh in elementary school don't do this run so it does not prepare fifth graders uh one of the other things is we were told that it's a requirement it is not it's not a part of the California requirements again they do a two mile run here uh the the state requirement for the physical fitness test is a one mile run in 13 minutes or a walk or an aerobic exercise or aerobic it's a test called a Pacer exam and the whole purpose is to determine the health and fitness of the child and it specifically says on the state requirements that it should not be used as pass fail criteria yet it is comprising 25

116of our students grades and just a little bit of history on myself I was in the Navy for six years I was a national ranked Runner I was ranked second in the nation so I understand running and I was also an adult educator I taught people how to operate and maintain nuclear power plants Nuclear Physics nuclear engineering so I understand the thing about education we do not teach here how to run until seventh grade so a sixth grader that is tested every week to 25 of their grade is never taught how to run as an educator I would never test somebody on a subject I never taught them and I would never expect them to get better simply by doing it over and over without being told how to do it again as a national

117ranked Runner running is comprised of many different things there's Pace there's breathing techniques there's upper body strength we wouldn't test our kids to how much weight they could lift on a bench or how many baskets they could make in a minute I don't think that testing them on a run in time is appropriate I would also say um that the standards are while they are very important should not be utilized to this we did join a group on Facebook that is parents comprised of the Burbank students parents and we had over a hundred responses of people and their horror stories about their children and how they do not want to come to school on run days how they've asked to leave how they've been ostracized because of the way they run and then the other

118thing is we're told that how they track the children during the run is the children do a lap they stop they wait in line to tell their teacher that they've completed a lap but then they start running again if the intention of the state exam is for aerobic capacity it is extremely detrimental to get a heart rate up and then stop have to give the score and then continue on again we really really believe in this school district um and we we just believe that this is a very regressive thing we've been told it's been around forever some of the parents told us that they did it when they were children at the school district here in Burbank and that it traumatized them um so I was just would like to bring this up to

119the board I'm not sure how many people are aware that this is the standard we've talked to other parents in other school districts that Burbank seems to be unique in this that California does not require and many other districts do not I would like to add one thing at the end of my time as a six-year veteran that fought in two Wars Operation enduring freedom and operation Iraqi freedom I fought for the freedom of all Americans and standing for the Pledge of Allegiance has nothing to do with honoring your service members I fully respect anybody and their decisions to stand or not to stand and that is true freedom and that is what America is truly about not the blatant racism that just came from the last individual thank you board I appreciate your time

120[Applause] thank you that's racist thank you um now we can move on to staff comments thank you president Abbott and thank you to all the speakers this evening just uh for clarification for Mr R Kelly and if I wasn't clear last time I just want to make sure I'm clear I respond to specific questions about agenda items if it's the general comments for the district sometimes I'll keep it brief always I'll keep it brief and either direct you to staff or give you a short summary so that that was my intention of my response last time but I I do appreciate all the comments tonight um I'm going to start with the alleged uh alleged incident that happened off campus with some John Burrough students um first of all anybody any student any staff member

121that's experienced sexual assault rape sexual trauma please know that we take that seriously please contact administrator if you feel like you have not had your voice heard Dr John paramo sitting across from me is our Title IX coordinator we will investigate we will support you we want to make sure you have the resources that you need I 100 percent um we've can stay with Clarity the the incidents that we know the individuals that have had concerns uh Dr parama has reached out them to directly we work with families we work with the police we work with mental health professionals we investigate we follow our due process we do have clear board policy to address these situations we follow Title IX if there's any concerns about that again you can address them to Dr promo if

122you don't feel your concerns being addressed you can address it to a to me I know it's very frustrating to not get a detailed response when allegations arise I I am concerned when allegations are spread in public and people don't have first-hand knowledge because they are sharing information they may not know all the details and creates a narrative that may be true may not be true and it's challenging for a school district because we can't respond to each allegation when it's in public we do it with individuals involved and it's in private and I know that's frustrating I really I know it you want clear answers but in these situations we will work but please mental health the families the students involved give them the support they need so many individuals are starting to share

123names and what may be facts or Not facts I caution all of us to be careful with that let's make sure we get the information in the right hands and we can address that that is what we are doing in the district please don't make assumptions one way or not we will make sure we follow all the way through and get to a resolution to support everybody Mr R Kelly in uh you had a question about what we teach around sexual education California Department of Education has the healthy youth act it's online but feel free to reach out to me if you'd like more information on that all employees in the district are able to come with a full identity I always introduce myself as he him his people know I'm a cisgender male so

124as you're representing yourself as individual people may talk about their sexual orientation but we do what is appropriate teaching the standards and just making sure we're true to ourselves and of course when we find knowledge about indecent behaviors or someone exposing itself we take action again Personnel matters HR matters so it's not something we disclose to the public so that goes to MS Foster as well we we get information then we take action we don't always follow back up with students or the community or staff that's just not appropriate for us to divulge that but we take it seriously and we take action as appropriate and we get to the facts and we do take that action foreign taking some notes about your idea about loans we have a program actually with West Coast Customs

125we're working with Sally made to set up financing and Loans uh I like your idea of raising money for adult school so we'll take that to Mr Nogueira and Dr promo will work on that so I appreciate the suggestion Mr Miss Smith welcome to Burbank I appreciate your feedback we this has been a constant conversation in the district of how do we meet the standards around the PE standards and running Incorporated you gave some very clear feedback I appreciate that we have a PE task force and we we discuss various topics and this is something that we can agendize and make sure that we share your feedback and have a conversation with our PE teachers do we have the right balance to meet the standards but I appreciate the specific the specifics and the examples

126you gave very helpful thank you to all the speakers this evening cute I'm so sorry I do have one announcement uh we have a new director of facilities that I would like to introduce I was just going to remind you all right thank you if it is my absolute pleasure to introduce our new director of facilities Mr Dennis Maxwell [Applause] Mr Maxwell brings various years of experience and contributions in the areas of operations and maintenance to the district Dennis has served as supervisor operations and maintenance superintendent director of operations for the Crescenta Valley water district additionally Dennis has served as a construction inspector for the Department of Public Works for Los Angeles County most recently he's been an employee here in the Burbank Unified School District and the maintenance and operations Department I can say

127just firsthand day one this gentleman hit the ground running came in crackadawn introduced the team came in with inspiration and motivation and building that team communication and then a couple days later last weekend he was working around the clock so the rat problem at John Burroughs High School this man brought the team together to address that they have a plan to to move forward that we know here in Burbank we do have rad issues at times so it's a constant battle but I can guarantee that he's on top of that already Ms Morrison asked a question about the Disney storage bins uh there's they've done a sidewalk already ready at Disney there's a plan to move those bins over winter break and those are just two quick examples in less than was it been a

128week now it's been just a week one week so we are excited that a long week but exciting week and I'm I'm excited to see what comes uh with Mr Maxwell's leadership I would love to have him say a couple words if he's comfortable with that absolutely thank you Dr Hill Madam president members of the board Community parents everyone this has been an interesting board meeting I mean wow so many emotions I just was sitting back there in the corner and I mean wow this is a great board this is a great Community I look forward to really improving the communication I have some big feet to fill from Larry cross he's done a great job I look forward to picking up that baton and just running with it so you will see a lot

129of emails from me at times whenever it's appropriate and I look forward to really building up my team mentoring a lot of people around me and just bringing us all up so we're going to go to the next level and I I promise you that dedication is uh that's that's huge so I'm ready for you I'm all in thank you [Applause] okay now my colleagues who uh wish to respond normally Abby well we is that possible is that legit yeah thank you I appreciate that um okay great um thank you to all the speakers tonight um uh I want to start um with uh Geneva and Dory um thank you for coming forward um I'm I want you to know that we've heard you um specifically about this incident I'd already talked to the doctor

130to Dr Hill about this earlier this week um I think they're working with the police department to understand how to move forward but no one should have to feel unsafe at school um and I want you to hold this board accountable for making sure that you feel safe at school um the other thing I'll add is you know I've been a mandated reporter in many jobs um and it's distressing to hear that there were reports made that weren't followed up on um and that's something that you know we'll we'll look to find out what happened um and you know I I just I'm doing that training right now for my board seeds so I'm I'm doing it again for the for the second time in like six months and um it's pretty clear what the

131process is and so it's I beyond frustrating um I think yeah distressing is probably the right word um and similarly with um the incident with the substitute um you know that's it's news to me it is certainly one of the more upsetting things um that I've heard brought up to the dice um and so I'll be looking forward to working with staff to understand what's happening there and how do we make sure that processes are followed um and that uh I do is Kimberly coming for me um that processes are followed and that doesn't happen because it shouldn't um okay now the next one I've got here I don't know how you guys keep it straight frankly um the next one I've got here is uh for Mr R kellyanne does that do that okay

132um so thank you for coming as a member of the public I've seen you come and do comment before um and I think Folks up here have have I think given you the facts around what the state policies are what the state law is I think what I find um worrisome about your comments are conflating kind of teacher gender preferences with um a very real concern about The Substitute Teacher um and you know teachers have families they have people that they love and they should be allowed to talk about their families and people that they love um and I don't have a problem with that and I I think um the other piece that you talked about in terms of the root cause of mental health concerns um you know I support psychiatrists I talk

133to my own today uh they do some great work um and to pretend to know kind of what anyone's diagnosis is whatever our students need I I want to leave that to the professionals I certainly trust professionals with my own Mental Health um Mr schlossman nice to meet you uh thank you for your support um and thank you for your concerns I am familiar with our academic outcomes uh and I can assure you that I am going to focus on them um as far as my goals my website is still up um because I have not gotten around to taking it down but mainly um what I what I ran on are increased engagement with our families and communities to increase our enrollment because that's very important to us especially financially access to programs like

134we're lucky enough to participate in dual language immersion um and find that to be really amazing and a thing that brings people to our district and then College and Career and Readiness so making sure that our students are exposed to careers um whether or not they need to do post-secondary education to achieve those careers um that said um I appreciate uh that you feel very passionately about standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I personally uh don't sit or stand for your or for anyone else's approval and I hope that you can understand that that is uh my choice I didn't make that claim sir okay um but I do find it kind of disappointing the amount of uh fixation that you seem to do with Dr Weisberg um as our last speaker Mr Smith said

135um you know I think he said it best about that that's not what patriotism is about that's not what um taking you know the Constitution is about and so I really found your comment about the adult school and the loans to also be very productive and so I would really encourage you to bring those kinds of ideas here instead of the fixation with Dr Weisberg sitting or standing um to the Smith family welcome to Burbank um we're glad to have you um I think you will find it as a lovely place to be I uh am not as familiar with the PE requirements so I'm going to pass on that one but as a fellow Runner the idea of even when I was in eighth grade running two miles in 25 minutes is a little

136intimidating um so I can see where the concerns lie there um and then lastly welcome to Mr Maxwell um facilities is a messy and often thankless business and as someone who lives very close to Burrows I know we have rats in our neighborhood I see them and so um I want to thank you for stepping up into the role and we're we're very happy to have you I know that it can be a lot to be on the facility side of things especially when you're not building fancy new buildings but you're really trying to do do maintenance and make sure that uh they're working for kids and so uh welcome to you thank you board member we're present to have it and congratulations on your first response thank you uh first I just wanted to

137thank Mr nogara and everyone at the Burbank adult school yesterday Dr Hill and I attended the pinning ceremony for the I'm going to mingle it but maybe you can help me out with this with the certified nurse's assistant is that right um they were amazing group it was phenomenal to hear from them they're um the two speeches that two of the students gave were like two of the best I've ever heard but it was just phenomenal to see how proud they were of their work and they're going to go on to do amazing things so I want to thank them for the invitation I also want to thank uh Jen Culbertson uh board member sponsor kamkar and I were able to go do some yard supervision uh this week and help out but I I

138I'll speak for myself but I think you'd agree that the way that that Community responds and interacts with one another is unbelievable so it was really great even though we were there to supervise that yard we did um it was really great to see how the kids interacted with their teachers and their intervention Specialists and just what a it was just a really beautiful thing to experience so I wanted to thank both of them um I also wanted to say to anybody here or anybody uh listening and I said this before in response to Mr schlesman's accusation is that I take notes on my computer to to your point I can't remember anything if I don't so anytime anyone talks I 25 pages in my two years so far it helps me stay focused and

139organized so I'm never doing anything else when anyone is talking I am in fact trying to make sure that I give you the respect you deserve by writing down your concerns um okay so miss Gisela and Miss Foster thank you this is not easy right to come here and speak public publicly it's scary and I know you're dealing with a lot um one of the things that we can't talk about right is how much work goes on behind the scenes every day and and I want you to know that your concerns and Ms Foster's concerns are of the utmost importance speaking with Dr Hill and speaking with Dr paramo almost daily about this um I know it doesn't feel satisfying but I can tell you how much this matters to them and how hard everybody

140is working to make sure that you feel heard and supported I know it doesn't feel like that all the time but I I can assure you that they care so much and we care so much and the only reason I know that is because the number of emails and phone calls that that they've had to deal with for me over the past week of like what's going on and explain this to me and what can we say and what can we not say because I mean as well you know there's so many parameters on what we're able to share in this moment but I know that Dr paramo and Dr Hill and say everybody is working with Burbank Police Department and with Council and with the individual families and the students themselves to make sure

141they feel supported but I do want to say too you know you referenced and I think um ever also referenced other things that have occurred and I want to make sure that those things are being shared because I think sometimes to your I think to your point people don't feel like they can come forward and talk about it right for totally valid reasons they don't think anybody is going to listen they're too afraid they don't want there to be retribution but I want to encourage people to know that there is a safe space to come talk with us or come talk with Dr perama or Dr Hill or miss cousaya or and I know it's again words are just words right like I could say anything to you and it's not going to change how

142you feel but I do want you to know how seriously we're taking this and I know that Dr promo is taking a look at some of the procedures and processes to make sure that we have things in place that there I know we have things in place but that they're clarified so everybody knows those steps to take um but I want you to feel like you can continue this conversation um whether it's at a board meeting or and you don't have to wait for a board meeting to shoot us an email right or to talk to any one of us we're available to you all the time so I don't want you to feel like you have to wait another two weeks or another month we're here for you whenever you need us not just

143for our teachers and our classified staff but for you more than anything so I really hope you'll continue the conversation um I if you don't have our emails I'll make sure you get it before you leave um but I I thought you know you you said something you said how would you react um to something happening to the people in your life and I feel like you are the people in my life um it's not you know I don't ha empathy isn't only caring when something happens to somebody that you're related to or you know when something happens to you or other students you are people in my life I I do care I think we all feel that way so please continue talking to us please consent continue bringing us your concerns I know

144Dr promo can has continued to offer that dialogue and that this will change and grow and um to encourage other people who you've referenced to also come talk with us so I hope at the very least you do feel heard as a board member comes uh sponsor cam car said um you have been and I hope you will continue to feel that way thank you and and Miss Foster also I don't I have no knowledge of The Substitute Teacher I'm sure we will all be following up immediately to try to get some clarity on the situation um my I think it's I teach Middle School I teach seventh and 8th grade history and sometimes it's it's hard as I as students come to you with their truth right and their and their pain and their

145upsetness to then sort of sit down and go okay that's true but what else might be true what else has been done I'm sure there have been things that have been done and I want to make sure that we get you those reassurances that we get you that information so knowing the way that our assistant superintendents and our superintendent are committed to these things I'm speaking from a place of not knowing about this situation but um I'm sure we will find out more in in short order and that things have already been done so hopefully we'll be able to share those things with you as soon as we're able but appreciate you coming and advocating tonight um to Mr arkanian um I'll simply say that you know discussing as you said um your family and

146who you choose to love uh you're sexualizing that in a way that it isn't being sexualized when someone talks about who they love and their families and their eye gender identity that's not sexual unless you make it so so when you sexualize something that's very basic if somebody told you that they were a woman and married to a man and had two kids is that sexual it's not sexual in nature nor is a woman saying this is my wife and here are two kids or a man saying this is my husband and these are my two kids so when you choose to sexualize that I think the problem lies there not with our teachers choosing to celebrate their identities and in so doing encouraging students to celebrate their own so I would ask you to

147really consider that and I would also say that while this may be a season of Christ for you it is not a season of Christ for everybody as a Jewish person I look forward to in a couple days celebrating Hanukkah and there are people who don't celebrate either who celebrate Kwanzaa who celebrate nothing so when you come up here and and you speak about that you exclude so many people which I have to assume is not your intention so I encourage you to continue to educate yourself I know that you have you know your set beliefs and you're going to come here every month and say that um but I know I speak for everyone when I say well continue to celebrate our teachers classified staff and students in all aspects of who they are

148um Mr schlossman rent is really expensive so it's nice to take up so much space rent free in somebody's head it's nice because I already paid one rent so I don't have to pay two um I did a lot of work in Yak I did a lot of work in New Orleans post Katrina for a couple of Summers and I promise this is relevant and one of the things one of the things they told me in the Lower Ninth was that they would have buses of people that would drive through to look at how horrible things were and then just keep driving and they called it disaster tourism and I want to encourage you to stop your disaster tourism you show up here and you wait for somebody to say something and then you pounce

149the amount of hours that the people here spend dealing with the issues that you suddenly seem to care about are endless there's so much work that happens that you don't give credit to or awareness of have you ever thought about emailing your questions or is it just the TV that you want do you care about our district or do you care about the attention these people work night and day as do we to address these issues so you come up here as if it's brand new information it's not to us you're not discovering anything you are feeding off of the pain discomfort uh anxiety of people who come here with real issues so I'm asking you to stop your disaster terrorism and care enough about the district to actually ask questions Miss Clark taught me

150something very early on she told me that the way that I should uh respond to you which has been very helpful is to ask you if what you're saying benefits students benefits our parents benefits the district and our teachers and if it doesn't then to stop so I'm asking you if it doesn't benefit anybody in the district to please stop to please choose to have empathy for people not selectively when it gets you some more public comment time and I know you got another card so we'll see you again shortly and that'll be fun for everybody but I want to encourage you to ask questions instead of making accusations and I know you're just you know you've blocked me out but I do want to encourage you to stop your disaster tourism and to truly

151support this district and the work that's being done you had some good ideas there about the adult school that's great I hope you bring more of those um to Mr and Mrs Smith Mr Smith thank you so much for your service and thank you so much for uh what I thought was a really powerful and succinct way of discussing uh the true meaning of patriotism and not usually succinct so you did a wonderful job and I'm deeply appreciative um of both your service to our country and your understanding of what that service allows people like me to do um I don't know very much about the graded run time I can tell you I would have failed the living but Jesus out of it um I walked all the time but I'm sure we can

152get more information on that and it sounds like it's an ongoing uh conversation but thank you so much for for being part of the community and for caring enough about busd to bring these concerns to us um and also to Mr Maxwell I hear that you worked the entire weekend just just a little bit of the weekend but I think it's been really powerful to see both Mr Cantwell and you I had a teacher say Well Mr Kent what was in my classroom at 10 pm examining some of the issues that were raised that the two of you are setting this standard for Real uh investment and hopefully it won't have to be weekends forever but that you care so much in the example that you're setting is is really commendable and I'm deeply appreciative

153to you after just one whole week so I look forward to working with you I hope you know that the board is uh here to support you in any way that we can and I look forward to Future conversation so thank you and welcome and happy Hanukkah to everybody who celebrates Ferguson thank you very much um thank you to everybody who came down for public comment tonight certainly appreciate uh all the Lively views uh that could express that our microphone um and so I will start with a broad happy holidays to everybody uh and wishing you the best um to our students at Burroughs including Geneva who's here tonight first of all um thank you so much for coming down uh you spent some time with us tonight so and it's also getting late so

154um you know again just appreciate your time with us and your faith in this forum uh as a place to get help um obviously a lot that we can't say because it's ongoing you're aware of that you you get that um but what I want you to know more than anything is that this is an institution that when things happen and when you tell people we we do everything we can to prepare people for that moment the adults who receive that information and we do all we can to ensure everybody is safe that is our mission that is our core I know that there's a lot going on and some people may disagree with that some people there's a lot of different views on that but as somebody who has been here a little bit

155longer than most of the folks here except for this one um I will tell you we work really hard on that um and so your concerns aren't falling on deaf ears and if anybody's ever in trouble and um they need help they can go to an adult and if that adult doesn't help you can go to another adult [Music] um why because you shouldn't have to shop around I'm not saying that but what I am saying is that that's our job and we love each of you and feel inherently responsible for that uh you get one one shot at growing up right and so we've got to do everything we can to remember that whether we're up here or whether we're on a School site um sometimes we need to be reminded by that about

156that and your comments tonight remind me of that and how precious this is either way everybody involved they're going through a lot of pain right now they're really suffering and lives are changed forever right right yours is even ours are in terms of how we are able and what we're able to do in response to this moment [Music] um everybody that needs to be focused on this is promise you that and we will continue to hear more behind the scenes but in the meantime I hope you feel heard um I I think if there are lessons to be learned we will be able to walk away from that but I think there isn't a person up up here who isn't committed to that okie doke um again thank you for your time tonight more than

157anything I can see how much you're committed into our parents in the audience as well who are concerned about this fundamentally as we work our way through this this is going to take a process this is inevitably everybody I think understands that but again if there are lessons to be learned we will learn and we will demonstrate how important it is that we are responsible for people's safety and and why people should trust that we can handle that incredibly uh High responsibility um looking at my notes the first thing that pops out is disaster tourism so thank you Dr Weisberg um you know I again this is a forum where it's hard at times to to accept the different points of view it's hard at times um to hear it um even though things aren't

158personally said about me at times there is language that's used that really impacts a community that I I certainly represent and it makes me feel less than human that happens and we do that to each other rather commonly that's part of the human experience is dehumanizing one another making us feel like even though we all burned our place in this world that we don't deserve a seat at that table but we rise past it because that's one of the fundamental lessons in life right is to be seen despite it so whether it's in the guise of religious views or in attacks of a board Member's Choice to display patriotism differently I think we gotta love each other a little bit more and accept that we're all a little weird and we all do it in

159our own way and at the end of the day we're better for it when we don't excuse me here's the deal it also involves us listening respectfully you had your time and and I appreciate that you've always given me that that time back as well but we express it differently at times and I don't always feel that the attacks as elected officials we have to put up with a lot and we should otherwise what are you doing here um but sometimes it crosses a line and in a new responsibility in a new job that I have which I'm very excited about because I earned it um with only frankly the formal education of that has come from these institutions I sat with my back to screaming protesters people on the edge of certainly emotional harm

160and that's in Los Angeles City Hall and never in my life have I felt unsafe physically in a Civic Forum before and that has happened multiple times in the past week multiple times in the past two weeks where my physical safety has been a serious question and that comes from rhetoric getting too hot feeling like it's okay to disqualify certain voices and to not just say I see you and I hear you so again I want to hear you as a leader I promise to struggle even if I don't agree with you to hear you but the rhetoric's got it toned down a little bit because just because we can trust you to stay Beyond some guardrails doesn't mean somebody at home isn't motivated to jump up and over those guard rails and I would

161hate for any one of my colleagues to get hurt it is possible when I started my term on the board of education I was at one of these board meetings and my car window was knocked out it's real they wanted me to stop they wanted me to stop talking I think my colleagues showed you tonight I haven't stopped talking [Music] but we've got to stop we've got to be better than that in this community of all communities so even if you disagree I think there's a way to register that but our voices are powerful and and we've got to love each other enough not to help people get up and over the edge as a point of personal privilege um I used to work for a man named assembly member nazarian who worked actively on

162behalf of young people in this community and across the state of California part of his legacy includes opening College savings accounts for 3.4 million California children helping them to establish a pathway to college savings and ultimately college and higher education I'm very proud to have been able to work for that man he also worked to pass State funding to help with plant-based meals to offer meal Alternatives in this past budget so that school districts could both observe religious observances when it comes to diet as well as just frankly health and nutrition needs um he lost his father this past week and so uh as a point of personal privilege I would like to ask that we adjourn tonight's meeting in uh honor of Alexander nazarian who um brought into this world a young man who

163came here on a plane at eight years old from Iran and change California history and and certainly made an impact uh in my life um and I'm here now uh and also in the lives of Burbank unified Youth and that we prepare a certificate to that effect to communicate our condolences thank you very much and last thing to all of our employees happy holidays and thank you thank you Geneva thank you for coming down tonight coming down by yourself most high school students do things in groups and here you are waiting stood up at that microphone and broke your mind and uh quite Brave and so thank you for doing that and as my colleagues have all said please please know that there are many many caring adults who will listen who want to hear

164what you have to say including this board including the counselors at your school site including the mental health facility at your school site admin team teachers um please don't stop sharing and saying what you need to say so that you can come to school to feel safe I think that's really important and I'm pretty impressed that you're still here and came down to speak um sometimes though it doesn't speaking up doesn't always necessarily mean that well adults will be working to do what they can and what we can share so that you can feel safe sometimes it the process takes a while or you may not see big changes happening right away but just know that adults are working on things so that these situations change or the so the situation changes okay um quite

165the yeah Mr R Kelly and thank you again for coming down and speaking your thoughts is he still here okay uh sometimes I I choose to respond and sometimes I don't and I don't want anyone to think that by not responding to someone that that I'm necessarily in agreement that couldn't be farther from the case and while Mr R Kelly and seems like a very kind man uh our thoughts do not agree at all so um and I think Mr our doctor excuse me Dr Hill uh answered both of his questions that he asked so I don't need to go further there I just wanted to be clear that I didn't necessarily agree um to the Smiths thank you for your uh your um input I had I don't remember as a student number Bank

166unified doing any runs in PE but that was a really long time ago so uh the change may have come after that but my three children certainly complained um about the run and they went to mirror and mirrors field is on a hill so you're running down and back up and down and back up and they also did another run around the outside of the school where they really ran up and down a hill so yeah they couldn't see the benefits of that either but so I know Dr Hill talked about the the PE committee that works um on what goes on in in our classes and to make sure that the um assessments and the things that students do each day are uh aligned to the standards so hopefully the committee will be looking

167at that at the runs and and I see Dr promo shaking his head so it it's like I told Geneva change is slow but people are talking about it and working on it so hopefully we'll get to that uh well your students are still to dismiss well your students are still in our schools and will benefit from whatever the decisions are made um and uh Dory thank you again for also coming down and sharing your thoughts um it's important that the students also know that there are parents who pay attention and listen and that are making sure um that their students are safe for all students or schools are safe for all students not just their own and I know you don't even have a student yet at Burrows I don't believe right but you're

168paying attention and you're listening and making sure that the adults in the room are doing what they're supposed to be doing too so I thank you for for being that watchful caring eye it's important um I also also want to say which I haven't yet to say a very very huge with a lot of love thank you to Kimberly Clark for the nine years I've been on the board you have been the go-to person who makes our life on the board easier you've taken care of us you've arranged trips to csba you've shared with us how to get things accomplished where to go what to do how to do it and all with a smile and graciously and I'm so excited for your next journey I think the City of Burbank is extremely lucky to

169have you in that office across the way and downstairs and anybody who who um the phrase well you know the loss of the district lucky City uh to get you yeah but you know what we all know where you're at if we need you we're going to come find you you're not out of our Lives you're just in a different location and so um the board brought you some for your service and a sense thank you all thank you and congratulations again thanks [Applause] and also a welcome to Dennis Maxwell um I Dennis you know as a big fan from your first day what six months ago maybe a year a little over a year see how time flies when we're having fun um we Dennis was on a break a couple of times we

170met at a bagel shop and we met at corner Cottage no you're allowed to take a break and grab something to eat it's okay uh and always always Pleasant and kind and um knowledgeable and is going to bring a lot to that position and we're extremely lucky that he chose to come work for us so thank you very much and looking forward to you expanding on what Mr Cross has already started so greatly appreciated all right enough talk about impressive yes sir can I ask that um uh I I know you did the flowers but you know when Rose Garcia retired we did a little bit of a plaque and a thing can I ask the superintendent to prepare a certificate in a plaque for Miss Clark for her years of service to the board

171and and dress this up a bit I appreciate the flowers but uh it's been a long time and and it just doesn't align with uh what we've done previously thank you okay thank you thank you for thinking of that um moving on if we can everyone's probably like yes please reports to the board 13A District legal counsel presentation on the California Voting Rights Act and the process for transition to by trustee area elections foreign superintendent Hill staff members of the public that are still with us um you're pulling up my presentation okay thank you so I am here to do well later on your agenda you have an action item for resolution of intent to transition to buy trusty area elections and this presentation will be the first of many you will get over the

172next few months by me and a district demographer if the board adopts that resolution and this was a powerful board meeting I didn't expect this experience but this conversation tonight about voices and being heard um I think really kind of ties in to this conversation we're going to have about the Voting Rights Act and transitioning to by trustee area elections because you talk about voices vote is your voice and what this transition is about is about making sure people's votes matter that their votes are heard and that their votes count so thank you so are you going to flip for me or would you like me to I could definitely do that all right let's do this as a team so what we'll talk about first is kind of the election method you're using um

173what are the options to elect board members for school districts in California we'll talk about what is the California Voting Rights Act what's its purpose intent and that's what kind of brings us here tonight and then we'll talk about the process for moving to your current election system to a buy trusty area election system then I'll note some other considerations and obviously I'll remain as long as you want to ask questions but as I'm going through the presentation if you have questions or want clarification please ask me okay next slide so like I said um buy California statute there are three election methods that can be used to elect board members for school districts um and for decades the predominant method of election was the at-large election method which is what the district currently does

174the other two is what's called a hybrid election system and we'll talk about what that is and then there's the district based or by trustee area election system so you'll hear it referred to both ways District base or by trustee it means the same thing next slide so what is the California Voting Rights Act it essentially prohibits the use of an at-large election system that results in racially polarized voting and racially polarized voting is essentially voting in your jurisdiction that essentially prohibits or precludes race color language minorities that are in protected classes from either electing candidates of their choice or to otherwise influence the outcome of Elections and this can be your Board elections it could be ballot measures anything that gets on on the um the ballot next slide so I think we all

175know what an at-large election is you just have that congratulations to new board members and those who are re-elected but essentially that's everyone every voter in your jurisdiction gets to vote for that seat all right next slide and then you have the buy trustee area elections which is the jurisdiction of the district doesn't change the boundaries remain the same but it gets divided up into seats so you're a five-member board so it would be divided into five trustee areas and in that system you have to be a resident within a particular District and you only get to vote for candidates in your district and the candidates also have to live in your District so in my example here if you're a resident in election District Five you can't vote for the candidates that are running

176an election District One right simple as it gets next slide hybrid is a combination of the two thus it's called a hybrid and in that system you still have the trusty areas but you still have at large voting so you as the candidate would have to reside within a particular area um but everyone within the district would still vote for you and still have the chance to elect you so those are the three methods next slide and essentially what the California Voting Rights Act does is it creates essentially a preference for and an incentive to transition from at Large to buy trustee area because it creates essentially it says you can't be sued for a violation of the California Voting Rights Act if you have a buy trustee or election system and the California Voting

177Rights Act treats the hybrid system and the at-large system the same for purposes of whether or not there's potentially racially polarized voting and whether or not you can be within a Safe Harbor and the reason they get they're treated the same is in both of those systems right you have the at-large voting which is what the legislature has decided it doesn't want to promote um and what it what it's created is a plaintiff who was anyone within a voter within your jurisdiction can submit a demand letter that says you use an at-large or hybrid system we believe that violates the California Voting Rights Act because it creates racially polarized voting and unless you transition to a buy trustee area system we're going to sue you okay and if you receive a letter like that you

178have two options you can either agree to transition within the safe harbor and there's a particular timeline and process for that we'll talk about in a moment or you can say we disagree and potentially face the lawsuit I'll tell you in probably the decade two decades that this has been going on no public agency whether School District City special district has been successful in one of those litigations and most most have settled the only case where there's been a at Lisa a winning decision has been for the city of Santa Monica on appeal but that's now before the California Supreme Court and who knows how that's going to come out all right so it really has high cost many times the fight has been millions of dollars in attorney's fees I think in the Santa

179Monica case the plaintiff's attorneys fee demand was about 22 million dollars so there's some practicality to transitioning all right uh next slide so what is the process well you receive a demand letter which the district's received you have 45 days from receipt of the demand letter to adopt a resolution of your intention to transition and that's the resolution you have on your agenda tonight so you're well within that 45-day requirement period next slide and the process is pretty simple on his face um once you adopt the resolution of intent then you hold what are called two pre-map hearings we said we're going to hire a demographer they're ultimately going to draw some sample maps for you but before any maps are drawn you have to have these two hearings where I'll present again the demographer

180will present and give you a lot of data about the rules for drawing the maps they'll talk a lot about things like communities of interest and compactness and other parameters on how you draw the maps and you'll hold a public public hearing where you'll get input from your community about what should those Maps look like what are our communities of Interest what do we want to preserve where do we want the lines drawn for what reason you'll have the first one you'll have another pre-map hearing within 30 days of the first you'll get more input and then after that your demographer will draw a first set of maps and usually they'll draw three to five sometimes it's more depends upon the community and District and then you'll publish those Maps and you'll hold what's called

181a post map hearing the first and what what will happen there is the community will have had a chance to view those Maps uh the demographer will likely do another presentation so you're going to hear a lot from your demographer and you'll hold another public hearing and community members will say we like this map we hate this map what about this line what about this line demographer will take all that information in including information from you and go back and either retool Maps draw new maps and those will be published and we'll hold another public hearing and we'll take more input ultimately resulting in a final map that this board will approve along with the map you have to have a sequence of elections in the new trustee areas so when we when those maps

182are presented to you we'll also work with staff and the demographer to put together some sample sequences of election out and you'll get more data about this because there's many things that go into that right this is the first presentation um and then you'll adopt the map you'll adopt a sequencing schedule and then all this will be presented to the county committee on reorganization who ultimately has to approve that right and so they'll hold a hearing and representatives of the district will present members of the public will be able to speak and once that process is done you will have successfully transitioned to by trustee area elections just like that next slide okay so I talked about this um next slide so some important basic information is this does not affect the terms of current

183sitting board members you will serve out your at-large terms where it becomes tricky is what happens for example if you're in a district your term is up in say 2024 but you haven't sequenced the election for that District in 2024 right and so we'll have to talk about those things or you could be in the same district yeah yeah depending upon where people live and how those lines are drawn and like I said earlier the external boundaries of the entire District don't change at all okay next slide so um this is a team approach it takes a Village to move from at large to buy trusty area elections and so you'll have legal counsel you'll have a demographer we'll work with the superintendent his staff for notices and agendas and all the things that go

184into this and as part of this while you know the the requirements are minimal in terms of the meetings there's a there's a great push for community outreach and the county committee is going to expect to see that we've had a robust community outreach so many things that that districts and Boards consider are Community input events beyond the required public hearings you know getting this out on your social media multiple languages maybe partnering and reaching out to different interest groups within the community I mean those those are things that we can talk about but we should be intentional about that Outreach in in your community next slide so best practices track track our efforts right let's be intentional about that plus we're going to want to package all this to the county committee so that

185they know we did a great job we're we're a model District um consider all feedback from the community and have multiple streams and mechanisms that they can provide that whether it's a survey it shouldn't be just you know they need to come to our public hearings or they they need to submit a comic card or whatever it is um and creates one in one place where they can get information so typically it's on a dedicated page on the website and we'll post the schedule uh we'll post prior presentations you'll post your Maps obviously sequence of Elections oftentimes they'll do a question and answer that's on that website so people can go there and get that information next slide and that's it for tonight and I'm happy to address any questions uh not not so many

186questions uh as a request one you know uh thank you first of all for for the presentation um I uh would like us to potentially explore in the course of this conversation expanding the number of board members from five to seven there are districts of similar size and population uh namely Santa Monica Malibu who represents roughly the same in population and they have seven council members seven in Santa Monica and seven Trustees for both uh both cities um and and I think burbank's big enough to do that uh there I think there are benefits to that it also allows for more localized accountability for board members so roughly 15 000 people per District Etc so uh I would like us to consider you know what could potentially be prohibit that kind of conversation whether that's

187uh whether it needs to be a charter Amendment meant or whether or not we can do that independently by resolution I think this would give more voices at the table which I think is fundamentally what this process is all about and and kind of uh frankly prepare and build this institution for the long-term future we've had roughly the same system of government for about 80 years as a school district and I think a part of our responsibility of Trustees is not just to draw lines that secure for five more people to take our seats but frankly uh to think about what's good for the future of this community I think with increased density and you name it in the area I think seven makes sense and it may be time for our Council colleagues to

188consider the same uh even if it involves some Kicking and Screaming so thank you yeah um thank you for that suggestion and speaking of our Council colleagues um my understanding is that they will be going to a similar process is there any way to collaborate with them obviously not on the maps themselves but at least on like the demographer sharing any of the data around demographics um because I know this is not exactly a cheap Endeavor but I'm very supportive of it yeah there definitely can be some economies of scale there from the data that the demographer is going to have to use um so if if certainly if the city's pursuing that we can have that conversation and can you just remind me um what what do you think is the total time frame

189of this to like get all the way to Maps accepted yeah great question so once you've adopted the resolution of an intent say tonight um the timeline for the Safe Harbor requires it to for our final step to be done within 90 days I mean we can't control what yes the with the County Community Committee does there is a process by which with the agreement of plaintiff you can extend that by another 90 days for a total of 180 days um but the legislature was very intentional in requiring this to be done quickly just kind of responding uh to Ms sponsor chem Carr it you know one of the considerations I you know I think we can work with our city colleagues as you know as best as possible on this front because of how

190district lines I think one of the major concerns with districts especially at least that from my my Paradigm is we've got uh two Comprehensive High Schools uh Community Day School Monterey you name it and we never want to be in a situation where you have three board members because population is concentrated on the hillside uh potentially directing funding and making funding decisions that then impact uh frankly the outcomes on Flatlands where you know we live um or vice versa right uh and so one I think expanding the number of seats answers for that by creating smaller districts which inevitably would you know break up uh and kind of create shared Destinies more uniformly uh and then the second component that I think is important about it as well uh is that there may be schools

191uh that we want to draw into certain districts so that way nobody over represents elementary schools versus middle schools versus so so that's where I just um I I think there would be it would be lovely if we could draw every line the same I think also less confusing or or at least you know try and match pitch or match process a bit or share uh share costs as we go through this process I think that's possible but I I will say I think as we're we're drawing and I don't see disagreement from you um that that we were inclusive of you know those those factors as we draw lines yeah my proposal is really just that we have the same data that we're starting from not that we have the same lines because we

192have very different interests perfect awesome okay great thanks question when districting are we required then to represent the only the districts in our our only the school sites in our district can it continue so that we may be elected by a district but we still represent all the schools yes the the statute doesn't address this at all so you're elected to to a particular District by the residents of that District but from a governance standpoint you're still representing the entire District that makes me feel a lot better well kind of though I have to I have to say this though like so in that scenario yes trustees should look out for the interest of everybody in the district but if you have a thousand fifteen hundred people who are motivated let's say by a theater

193program um this is not an unfamiliar example and that program is potentially cut but the program across the way at Burbank High let's say is on the line as well your voters may vote against you in that next election if you don't get that theater program and cut the school across the way so there are impacts and so that's why I think you know again creating districts that are smaller potentially frankly breaks that influence up a bit um and so that's that's a part of the motivation for me proposing expanding the number of board seats in total um I I don't I have to say I don't love expanding board seats either it weakens the board uh in its checks over the superintendent Administration I don't love that um clearly but I do think that

194you know this is a city that's growing and when we're the an eighth the size of Wyoming uh in turn in population uh we need to put this in Paradigm and understand I I hate saying it folks I got more votes than people to judge did for mayor uh when I ran for school board the first time that's the reality so in our population we need to understand we're bigger than we think but I if you are from this area you are conditioned to see population differently I have lots of questions about this but um so I'm curious does the statute um limit you to kind of having mutually exclusive districts right so I know we talked about the hybrid model right where all the trustees have to be from different places but people elect

195um as a group uh but is there a way to like do kind of overlapping districts essentially where people are voting essentially in every election but then I've got two Representatives as a voter rather than only one yeah um as far as I know we got three options okay fair enough and that is why I asked yes okay thank you like this I'm sure we'll have I'm sure more questions will come up as we go through this process so thank you thank you and certainly as as you go back if there are particular questions that you have and I'm not here for a presentation or whatever communicate them to the superintendent and we can certainly address those thank you for staying all night with us congratulations thank you all right moving on to 13B Luther

196Burbank Middle School enrollment and Staffing plan Dr paramo good evening president Abbott distinguished board members superintendent Hill District staff and members of the community my name is John paramo I'm the assistant superintendent of ed services my pronouns are he him um tonight I have a presentation and a plan to present to the board to address Staffing and enrollment at Luther birthday Burbank middle school and I think that in order for me to get to the last slide where I'm actually presenting a plan I think we need to understand the situation within a context and I think that requires us to look at some data so I have some data to share with you so this slide is looking at a four-year trend of enrollment for all three middle schools so this is total enrollment and

197you can see that in 2019 2020 we had much larger enrollment than we have over the last couple years and that it is has continued to decline with a couple of bloopers uh to be honest but if you look at Luther exclusively uh 2019 2020 they had 931 students and they dropped down 2122 to 818. they've gone up a little bit this year but it was definitely not what we had projected and so their enrollment was lower than what we had hoped that it would be um but you can see that trend is similar to our other middle schools as well next slide I want to talk a little bit about Staffing and if you look at this chart I think the most important thing for me to point out is that this includes all

198Staffing all teachers include special ed so we are looking at every single teacher and again you can see that with declining enrollment our staffing has declined so four years ago Luther had 43 teachers they have 38 now um you know mirrors enrollment has been pretty steady it's got It's Gone up this last year so four years ago they had 60 teachers they had 59. so uh you can you can see where the disparities are uh Huerta is has had a a decline in teachers um probably more so than Luther they had 47 teachers four years ago and they dropped down to 40 this year so this is the slide that the teachers at Luther really want me to take my time and explain it because the data doesn't necessarily It's Tricky data if you look

199at it so what this slide is trying to represent is how many intra-district transfers are at each of the three middle schools so if you look at the third column and you see total permits it looks like Luther has the most at 122 but in actuality they have more kids leaving so if you look at it in terms of well how many are they actually gaining minus 16 Puerta minus 12 Mir is getting 28 students so one of the things that I need the public to understand is that when you see -16 and you see minus 12 it looks like there's a negative impact to their enrollment but we don't automatically move all the kids that want to leave at the time at the beginning of the summer at the time that we normally let

200everybody go what we do is we hold on to those so at Luther we would hold on to these 16 kids this minus 16 kids until the end of the summer and we would look to see how many inter permits come in and if we have 16 or more inter permits come in then we'll let the 16 in trust go ahead and go to the school of their choice so we are trying to stabilize and not create any negative impact to any of the middle schools and that same goes for Huerta as well we're doing the same process enter permits um we have 85 active at Huerta 143 active at Luther and 95 at Mir a community wants to know what the feeder schools are for Luther um so these are actual numbers based on

201this year's fifth grade class so they typically get 51 percent of Edison 100 of heart 100 of Providencia 25 of Roosevelt 10 at Stevenson that's that's a little high it ranges from five to ten depending on the year and Washington about 50 percent so when we I look at current 8th grade I'm sorry current fifth grade classes these are actual numbers so these percentages match up with the number of students so um 254 is the total for their sixth grade class So based on the data we have been working with the staff at Luther over the entire fall semester we've been meeting with them with the exception of one date that we missed because we were doing interviews for the principal at Luther but we've been meeting regularly with them and what we are proposing

202is something that we have talked about it's been vetted with their staff and they feel good about this one is to guarantee Staffing levels with supplemental or other ongoing funding even if enrollment drops further so we'd like to restore the full-time art teacher we'd like to restore a full-time assistant principal that has been missing for a few years and right now we have 3.6 PE teachers it should be four so we're trying to put the other 0.4 in so they have two female pte teachers and two male PE teachers I'd also like to change feeder School patterns so that all Washington families will go to Luther except for siblings and dhh students the dhh program as at mirrors so the kids that are need dhh Services would stay at Muir continue to outreach and promote

203Luther during enrollment season continue one for one intra District enrollment practice and also to continue to brainstorm ways to attract inter-district permits I would be open for any questions you might have uh just a clarification so when we're talking for number one the guaranteeing Staffing levels is that just one two and three or is it the Staffing levels as is and additionally arts teacher AP PE teacher it it's maintaining what they have now and then adding those three back so it's okay and the first one uh just so you know funding sources prop 28 is the new Arts grant that would be the arts teacher uh you'll see later in the one-time funding the recommendation for the assistant principal and then we would look at the general fund for that 0.4 for the PE teachers

204okay hi um so on solution number 2 around Washington Elementary um so is that is that final have you heard from parents at Washington Elementary about that decision tell me a little bit more so we had a zoom town hall meeting with the Washington families we were able to ask get questions answered the questions and then we we sent out a letter to all the families so that that is final we've had that dialogue with that Community we had a family talk about just Transportation issues going from your to Luther so we asked them to follow up we haven't heard back from that family okay thank you we also have a great cheerleader at Washington Elementary with Laura Vineyard being the principal and former assistant principal at Luther something and this helped yeah either um

205thank you for this report I you know I will say you know if I'm a member of the Luther community and I'm looking at these numbers 20 21 to 21 22 look suspicious it's a big drop right it's a classroom and a half of kids that just miraculously you know drop out of the way um and it meets with a lot of narratives out there that Luther has forgotten that you know maybe somebody said something you know what happened here um and so I think that this is the first report but I think we need to continue this conversation as there's an entire Community frankly of professionals who you know again are looking at Charter Schools uh frankly uh as an option because they're worried about the decline of this school and this institution um

206and look you know frankly charter schools are very motivated to see numbers like this uh in our community and and those who have worked in the charter school industry know uh you know that that's quite possible uh in this community so I I want to be cognizant of that that fact because I think we do a good job and that we provide a robust public education that shouldn't require additional options for parents like that but when you see numbers like this and they frankly fluctuate so so in such a big way again like pretty small campus to lose 50 kids like you're going to notice that so I I think for members of the community who are out there who have these concerns they're well founded and and I just hope that we can continue

207to monitor this and especially towards the end of the year as we're starting to talk about enrollment projections that we put Luther at the top of the pile and that we talk about what that's going to look like not the problem thank you I also am losing a principle apologies all of this together it doesn't look good anyone else okay moving on then to 13c one time funding recommendation can can I ask uh we we delayed the election of officers uh because Dr agacanyan isn't here can I ask that we delay uh the one-time funding presentations and then the committee assignments item as well to the next meeting yeah second yeah makes sense are there any impacts if we delay the funding recommendation piece no impacts it's a two-step process this was just to collect

208board feedback this evening but I can bring it back for the vote at the next full board yep good all right that that puts us to report on facilities and Technology projects 13d we didn't vote on the tabling oh sorry madam president I won't run the machine that's okay sir um both at the same time we'll move both to the November meeting all in favor please say aye January meeting to the January meeting thank you thank you the only January yeah we only have one yes all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay the board has decided listen okay uh good evening thank you good evening board members uh Mr Cantwell is ill this evening so I will be doing the facilities update we have two items this evening the first item is

209uh the expansion of the portable hand washing stations at Disney part of the project so you see a change order on that of Thirteen hundred dollars and then the second one we heard earlier is about the trees that are going to be installed on campus these are the same trees that are in the front of the school as well as in the the yard of the school so it matches those Mr Cross did work with Mariposa the tree company that we work with to recommend trees they do drop pods but they felt like that was the best solution for where we're putting the trees and then uh Miss Morrison asked who's going to be responsible that's part of the custodial on the grounds crew to make sure that we're maintaining the blacktop any questions thank

210you okay 14 new and indoor and or unfinished business uh 14a adoption of resolution 12 initiating a transition to my trustee area election system commencing with the 2024 governing board election President Abbott yes I'll move that the Board of Education adopt resolution 12 and waive the reading initiating a transition to by trustee area election system uh to a by trustee area election system uh commencing with the 2024 governing board elections as presented thank you for the motion and the second if I could also clarify exploring potentially expanding the board to seven as well in that in that motion I'm okay with this okay okay great so we have a motion and a second by Dr Weisberg was that you all day every day okay did you um get Mr Ferguson's including the exploration of that

211yeah I know I I want to be clear that you know we're not committed to that just yep it'll give legal counsel to be able to look into it great yeah okay any discuss all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries four zero 14b approval of memorandum of understanding with oh I'm so sorry to zackle Community Development Corporation close enough Dr Hill we actually have our partners in the audience here today and they would like to make a brief presentation on this item so that the community is aware of this exciting partnership after you make the motion I'll also be great to I would love to learn how to pronounce the name correctly please let me see the presentation in the motion sure great and it's a it's a verbal presentation but if

212I could have Mr rivers and Mr Aguilar come on up and thank you so much I estimated 10 o'clock as at the end and we're gonna we're gonna have some words later yeah I owe you some Starbucks Coffee okay Madam chair and members of the a board thank you very much Mr Hill and Mr pomero thank you very much for having us my name is Shannon Rivers I'm director of programming for the native ways to college and this is Mr Aguilar and allow him to introduce himself my name is Marcos Aguilar good evening brothers and sisters I'm the executive director of uh we're a charter school in East L.A I've been around 20 years we're the only indigenous peoples charter school but as an expansion in order to support indigenous students across Sally County we

213partnered with the office of Indian education the U.S Department of Education to provide College access pathway programming and so we're here to reach out to your District to see if we can support American Indian students that are eligible for the programs in your district and and see how we can help those amazing High School graduation rates turn into amazing college preparation rates and so what you have before you is the memorandum of understanding between us and the Burbank Unified School District and in general it is an agreement between us that and you that we have uh the support from the superintendent in your office regarding Native American students here we know that the population may look low here but in Los Angeles is the the home to over a hundred and seventy thousand Native Americans

214in Los Angeles County we also notice the largest community or member of Native Americans here in the United States that live in Los Angeles we also know that some of the numbers do not add up and we want your help to find those Native American students and so that we can offer them the culturally relevant services and basically that's what the mou is asking you to do is pretty simple pretty straightforward and we think the superintendent for allowing us to be here tonight so thank you very much if you have any questions we're here can you help us with the pronunciation before we butcher it once once again the name of one of the smallest ants that we have and so we represent this work as the work of the ants you know just helping

215helping to move us along with that ancestral wisdom we say that the Quran was brought to us by the ants ancestrally and um and we know that we are in our territory wherever we see our people grow corn thank you but I I do want to acknowledge and thank you for the land acknowledgment at the beginning of the meeting I saw that written in the agenda as well so thank you all very much for including that um you know any other way we can support as well uh ourselves and other members of the tribes that we work with and and the indigenous education now Coalition in L.A county and across the state of California I'm sure would be willing to help thank you thank you thank you okay with yes please do I have a

216motion I'll move I just have to go back to the agenda would you like it right here uh I move that we approve the memo of uh or the approval the memorandum of understanding with the hold on I wrote it down zika it's a community uh Development Corporation uh do we can we waive reading we don't need to do it right no great it's presented or no I only do that on resolutions as presented second thank you for the motion and the second any further discussion any questions for our guests just thank you this is an exciting partnership thank you very much thank you thank you superintendent thank you okay all those in favor presentations on an amazing meeting [Laughter] all those in favor please say aye aye opposed great motion carries and our partnership

217carries thank you uh 14c approval of board represent oh nope that's one removed yep 14d approval of amended consultant agreement for child care careers and the Education team agreement president Mr Ferguson I'll move the director of Elementary education or I'm sorry I'll move to the Board of Education uh sorry Peter um Dr kanevic uh I'll move the Board of Education approve the amended agreement between the Burbank Unified School District and child care careers to increase funding to provide substitute coverage for child care centers not to exceed 300 000 out of the designated account strings effective July 1st 2022 through June 30th 2023 and that the authority to sign the agreements be exercised pursuant to be USD ar-3314 is presented thank you for the motion do I have a second fight okay okay second by um

218miss ponzer cam card I'm gonna say that several times uh any discussion all right all those in favor please say aye aye opposed motion carries for zero uh Fortini approval of first interim report for 2022 2023 fiscal year president Mr Ferguson I'll move the Board of Education approve a positive certification of the first interim report for the 2022-2023 fiscal year as presented thank you do I have a second second motion um by Mr Ferguson second by Dr Weisberg any discussion do we wish to we have a presentation okay I know it's late no good evening we're president Abbott board cabinet members and those left thank you um I'd like to present to you the first interim report for the 22-23 fiscal year before I start I do just I know I do this each time

219but I really have to thank my team um I would not be up here before you presenting this without the amazing support and hard work that they did and so I really just publicly want to acknowledge our awesome fiscal and accounting and purchasing team thank you and so before you is um the next cycle of the um of the budget year so we brought to you back in June the budget to adopt and now we bring before you the changes that have happened in the budget since July through October 31st and if you recall we did bring to you some of those changes that might be potentially happening in first interim at the 45-day report back in August there were significant changes to the budget that the governor made by way of one-time Revenue that

220we'll discuss that you'll see the effects of that and are officially in our first interim report this evening and so yes we do um have a positive certification where um by Ed code we are required to present the budget in front of you um that we make we are able to meet our fiscal responsibility our fiscal um obligations for the current year and the two out years and so we do we do meet our reserve for economic uncertainty for the current and two out years and so refer you what you see is just a great visual of the revenues that we receive from various various ways various from the state from fed Federal and from our local lcff our main revenue is what we receive where you see the big blue part of the pie

221is our state local control formula where we receive that funding now the biggest change that we had from adopted to First interim was the one-time not one-time funding alone but the recalculation of local control forming formula oh my gosh I've had so much coffee too I'm so sorry the lcff formula where the governor and I'll explain in the next slide um the governor augmented the lcff calculator for us to receive additional funding through a three-year average so ordinarily we are funded through Ada but in this year and in the subsequent years we now are able to receive our funding through a three-year average so in the next slide I'll go ahead and I'll show you that the several different augmentations so we have Arcola our cost of living adjustment of 6.53 percent but for this

222current fiscal year we also received an additional Cola an augmentation of 6.7 percent which affects how we receive our funding for this year only not the two out years and so you also see down below the average daily attendance what that entails is on the next slide our lcff revenues so I mentioned the cola that we have an additional benefit from ongoing provision allowing the average of three prior year average daily attendance in the calculation of how we receive our state funding the governor saw and heard our cries for help to the base funding we kept receiving all this one-time funding and but we kept saying we are rehab declining enrollment we need more ongoing funding and he saw with the declining enrollment how if we took it by an average the cliff that kept

223that everybody kept seeing and we kept projecting now is no longer going to be such a massive Cliff it will be just sort of a softer Landing that allows us some freedom to be able to sit here and look at the budget more thoughtfully rather than reacting to the budget and looking at the cliff and seeing what needs to be done reactively or now we can be more thoughtfully with that and the significant changes also in federal and state funding that you see the differences from adopted to First interim um is the covet funding that we receive we had anticipated that we would be receiving and spending that at the end of last fiscal year but we anticipate still receiving about eight to nine million more dollars in covid funding that will can that will

224also be spending in this fiscal year additionally significant one-time funding that we will have a report now in January on is the learning recovery emergency block grant and the Arts music instructional materials block grant um about 1.6 million and 8.8 million dollars respectively in additional State funding and then with each interim you'll see we do receive wonderful generous gifts from our community for our school sites and you see that in our local Revenue and here's a breakdown of all of the coveted funding that we've received over the last couple of years due to the pandemic the state and federal government have provided additional funding almost to the point of 50 million dollars in additional covid funding for our our district and for the rest of this fiscal year we have um we already have a

225plan in place that we've been working through that we have about 8.7 million dollars left of that plan to spend and so as you see those revenues come in you also see those similar those same expenditures going out any questions so far and so now we hear our we are on the expenditures so you see the differences from unaudited actuals to adopted we adopted less expenditures because we anticipated receiving less revenue and then now with our additional one-time funding and with additional gifts as well as the covid funding that we're due to receive you see our expenditures go up from adopted and so these are some of the typical expenditure drivers that you see you have our purrs and our stirs you will note it's interesting that pers goes is up for this year and

226then it starts to go down just a little bit with stirs plateauing there are Actuarial studies that will be happening and so as those new percentages if they change we will bring that to your attention as a conversation piece yes ma'am uh thank you yeah so working under so with stir sort of saying where it is through 24 25 is the assumption that that's what it's going to remain it's going to remain that way like we've cat right now right no so more surprises to come right and so we have the governor's budget coming in January um I haven't heard anything I'm changing quite yet but with each Actuarial study that they have those changes okay we'll bring those to you thank you yeah that's a great question another expenditure driver are um is California

227CPI the cost of um the Consumer Price Index as you see in 2223 it's 5.75 with the cost of inflation going up we try to make those accommodations with that percentage in the materials and supplies and the contracted services that we um that's how we project with that percentage and so here's some details about the expenditure changes since first and are since adopted to First interim um a lot of the certificated and classified salary changes are due to one-time funding you'll also see additional hourly and daily sub costs that went up um to help um with various different programs and with the additional funding that we received for transitional kindergarten you also see that we have vacancies now for TK AIDS I think what is great about Capital outlayed um this time at first interim

228we received some wonderful gifts for Miller and Bret Hart and Edison Miller's redoing their Auditorium right now and they're working through refurbishing and replacing their seats Bret Hart received a kiln and Edison is replacing their Marquee so I think that's so exciting any questions and so as part of presenting a first interim to you is also to show you that in the two out years um that we are able to continue to have our three percent reserved for economic uncertainty and we don't quite make the board economic uncertain the additional three percent of the board um requests um however as this is what the great thing about a multi-year projection is we can look at what our income is coming in and our expenses going out and how we plan and adjust those accordingly in

229order to reach that additional three percent some of the challenges with that multi-year projection that you see before you um is the one-time funding does go away and so we have to look at looking at how we can plan our budget um in alignment to the um the continued Revenue that comes in and we also there's something that we have been putting out on our social media and I know that we've been talking with our director of Food Services is how to um educate the community on every about the meal applications it is an amazing thing to have Universal meals for all of our students however there's so much funding that is tied to the application that families provide to receive um that to receive free and reduced meals and so the education of being

230able to say that it's more than just a meal it provides additional Federal funding for technology and other supplemental funding to the district and so that's a challenge that we're seeing is that our unduplicated count is going down although it's it's a catch we're having we have that wonderful Universal meals now and then the final challenge that we have are just Staffing shortages that we're seeing where we are our agency costs are rising in special ed in order to fill the vacancies until we're able to hire permanent positions for those vacancies any questions thank you for your patience with me you were wonderful thank you um a couple of questions yes have you heard gossip rumors you know all those other things that we all hear the T as my daughter calls it spill the

231tea okay um and of course now I can't find it uh books books books books and you've called it something else materials and supplies yes yes funded by Lottery funds yes so there was some gossip conversation okay about our recent um increases in in the lottery people buying exorbitant amounts of lottery tickets would increase funding or would increase what schools were getting you're not seeing that not yet but that adjusts annually okay and so it's a per pupil amount that we receive for unrestricted and restricted Lottery and that hasn't changed yet but as that changes we'll bring that to you please absolutely that was kind of that's a great question kind of a big deal yes um I had another question of course and went out of my that'll be good to see because I

232know we have some need yes I know we're in textbook adoption season right now yeah and uh yep who knew we meet again I'll think of it I know where to find it that's okay you know where to find me that was a big one yeah uh thank you you're welcome any other questions no you're welcome and congratulations nice to see you yes amazing wonderful team okay so we still need to vote um yeah I just can't remember which ah 14i uh do we have a motion did we do that thank you all those in favor please say aye aye uh opposed great motion carries four zero approval of minimum wage increase president Abbott yes sir I'll move the Board of Education approve the minimum wage increase to 15.50 per hour as mandated by the

233state of California effective July 1st 2023 as presented second thank you for the motion Mr Ferguson the second Dr Weisberg any discussion see none of those in favor please say aye aye opposed motion carries for zero acceptance of gifts president Abbott yes sir remove the Board of Education take formal action accepting the following gifts to the district and that the board president convey appreciation to the donors okay thank you to all of our donors this is our second oh I jumped right in second all those in favor of approving the gift report please say aye aye anyone opposed motion carries for zero thank you very much now I can go thank you very much to our donors it's greatly appreciated our donors this month include the black bow giving fund who wishes to donate to

234the district 384.62 cents to be used as needed at William McKinley Elementary School the black bowed giving fund wishes to donate to the district 576.93 to be used as needed at William McKinley Elementary School a black bad giving fund wishes to donate to the district 384.62 to be used as needed at Dolores were at the middle school the black bad giving fund wishes to donate to the district two thousand dollars to be used as needed at Dolores where at the middle school jmms PTSA wishes to donate 500 to be used to purchase PE School equipment at John Muir Middle School ER Waters Productions LLC wishes to donate to the district four thousand dollars to be used as needed at John Muir Middle School Sean Monahan and Heidi Wilkin wish to donate to the district 250

235dollars to be used for the cross country and track and field teams at John Burroughs High School Burbank High School baseball boosters wishes to donate to the District 1 650 to be used to pay coaches stipend for Robert Hart Anthony Ciccone and maxidad at Burbank High School Burbank High School baseball boosters wishes to donate to the district three South three thousand seven hundred dollars to be used to pay coaching stipends for October for Melissa Sanchez and Daisy beltrum at Burbank High School Burbank High School baseball boosters wishes to donate to the district three thousand seven hundred dollars to be used to pay for coaching stipends for November for Melissa Sanchez and Daisy beltram at Burbank High School Burbank Arts Education Foundation bef wishes to donate to the district 674 dollars to be used to buy

236graphic novels at Burbank High School Burbank Arts Education Foundation baf wishes to donate to the district four thousand dollars to be used 6th through 12th grade English ncte district-wide Pali Institute Inc wishes to donate to the district 8859.37 to be used for materials supplies field trip fees and school supplies at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School gohar stanboyan wishes to donate to the district ten dollars to be used for field trip at Ralph Emerson Elementary School Burbank employees McKinley staff fund wishes to donate to the district 150 to be used as needed at William McKinley Elementary School Boone Supply wishes to donate to the district 4 206.10 to be used as needed at Thomas Edison Elementary School Miller Elementary FRC wishes to donate to the district sixty thousand dollars to be used for materials and supplies at

237Joaquin Miller Elementary School Edison Elementary FRC uh wishes to donate to the district 16 000 to be used for outdoor Science school at Thomas Edison Elementary School and that is all our gifts thank you very much greatly appreciated to all of the donors now um consent agenda we had one to pull president habit thank you sir I will move items 15a through 15 C whole 15D and then move 15 e through 15 a b thank you so basically everything but 15D right to make it simple thank you very much for that I appreciate it second and a second by Dr Weisberg so all those in favor of consent agenda 15 a through 15. C and 15E through a b yes please say hi hi those opposed great motion carried for zero now for 15 c

238d D thank you 15D I will move approval of the minutes of the regular Board of Education meeting of November 17 2022. thank you for that now I guess I will consecond because I was here and neither of you were actually then if Miss uh if excuse me if Dr Weisberg is not participating then we don't have a majority to vote on this you are correct so we'll have to move it to the January oh I totally got Flack for that a few meetings ago Ferguson do that then I don't feel comfortable so could we could we please move that to this January yeah consent agenda that that did come from Miss Clark trying to be helpful so don't okay who's there okay no Devil's all right uh request to address the board are you

239um I I heard uh there's one more uh someone who Mrs abasta wanted to address the board the second time so this is that spot is there more than one nope oh Mr Schlessman so we have three technically you're the only card in my hands the rest are just got turned in and are coming down you know districting is coming is coming here is coming for the city and when I heard about it I was the first one to volunteer to be the lead plaintiff because I feel ignored here and particularly during that tax deal by the superintendent boy I was really ignored and I found out that repetition it works so that's why I talk about the things I do over and over if you do the things over and over again I'll talk

240about them over and over again that's my prerogative okay and I think I have a voice here that should be heard I'm a taxpayer okay got four kids and because of the spacing of the four kids and the participation in the facts program I'm involved here for 20 years and I think that this districting thing you know it's expensive to run for office I know you didn't spend a penny but it is expensive for whether we're talking about city council or we're talking about the district it's expensive to run and I think that this will lessen that burden and we'll get better representation Miss Weisberg you know I think you use your position as your as a kind of like your personal Soap Box really for the things that are important to you and I

241think it's it's it's it's not appropriate I mean we're here really for the kids and that should be the focus and you've taken that Focus away with your with your little things so somebody called in and said you know that that me talking about your sitting for the flag salute is racist now I'd like to talk about that a lot I'd like to be educated a lot because I don't get it how there's a Nexus a connection between those two things I'm talking about patriotism that's all talk about patriotism and being a good example for the kids that's all you know it's bigger than me it's not it's not me and okay well we'll get to that we need to know who's who and I'm guessing that you've been following what's going on here in

242the past meetings and a number of months ago the board members did a dirty trick not to you personally but to whoever was elected because what they did is they extended the superintendent's contract before it expired and gave him a retroactive pay raise and that's a slap in the face to you you should have been part of that decision who or whoever got elected I mean it's not they we don't know who was going to win obviously but that's who it's Miss Tabit did it Mr ragakanian did it and the person you replaced frittner did it and I thought that was just horribly out of place okay disaster tourism I learned so many new words here you know you're the one doing this kind of stuff yeah I learned woke I learned a dog whistling

243from the I had to go home look these words up I admitted I don't know everything I don't know these words and you talk about being being on TV and liking to see myself I don't have Twitter Facebook or any of these other types of things it's just me and I do not talk about you behind your back I stand here and I tell you my feelings okay it's my right to redress my grievances with my elected officials do you get it I feel something's amiss and I'm talking about it that's all I mean I'm not you're giving yourself grandiosity you are not in my head but I'll talk about it over and over believe me I'm not focusing on you I'm focusing on these actions that you do that are horrible horrible examples for

244our kids okay you know that veteran says oh do what you want no the veterans I talked to you weren't here for the meeting but I'll bet you watched it on on on the video I talk to Veterans yeah I talk to Veterans and they were the exact opposite of that and I said well will you please come down here and talk to her and tell her how you feel about I said no I'd rip her throat out I said that's a bad idea we don't want to do that but that's what they they were adamant about that kind of stuff they said this country was made for you that's what that's what one fella said this country is made for you by guys like him so people do take it seriously this guy I

245don't know I don't know anything about this guy okay these speakers the ones the fellow that was sitting here the student representative and the young lady that was here I heard what they said and I heard it in the first person I didn't hear that they were talking about rumors are repeating it that's what I heard maybe I heard them wrong and if I heard him wrong I'm sorry but I'm I'm thinking to myself call 9-1-1 this is a big deal that's what I heard so I wanted you to know that that's what I was thinking that I heard it so and you talking about me speaking four times again it's okay what's wrong with me speaking four times you know you don't want to hear me that's on you I don't know what's funny

246about it I take I take I take this potent Podium very seriously and you should too you don't have we don't have to agree you know I'm not I'm not giving it much more thought beyond that so good night thank you Diana avasta followed by Eric Carter oh my apologies Eric Carter before Diana Basta good evening president vice president Ferguson board member staff um I just want to speak about the Electoral changes that are coming around that were that have been in discussion um I started in 2018 with some of you who may remember I know Mr Ferguson I talked about it about changing our voting system here for our school district and we're looking at a ranked voting system um instant runoff voting which is the term that you'd be used to use it's

247called preferential voting in Australia which the entire country uses Ireland uses it as well um at that time we were talking about single transferable vote which is used for at-large districts and I think I sent many of you videos of examples how they use it in all these different countries around the world um now that we're talking about districts I want us also seriously looked at doing an instant runoff voting or ranked Choice voting system for our district elections since we're probably moving that way I've already started a discussion with the City of Burbank and have been referred to their Charter review commission just recently the city of Ojai just passes it's one of the first in Southern California however they went from a district system to now an at-large system using ranked Choice voting

248so they kind of went the reverse direction for whatever reason and I just got the uh the actual law from the city clerk of Ojai which I'll be passing on to the new city clerk of Burbank so that she will have that so she can reference it and also the charter Review Committee but it's just something I want to say keep in mind it's by far more democratic system of voting right now if we go districts um and if a candidate gets 40 of the vote but it's more than the rest of the candidates you know 60 percent of people didn't vote for that person so we want to look at a fair more democratic voting system than a winner take all which is a system the United States inherited from the British their first

249passive post system which we Implement everywhere many jurisdictions throughout California have switched to a ranked Choice voting system and a lot of jurisdictions in other states have been doing it as well it's been a gradual change we had a conversation with Dean Logan the registrar for uh of Voters for L.A county in 2018 and he said he can do it as long as there's a role that the jurisdiction says this is what they want so um Ohio's has now done it for Ventura County and I think Burbank would make a great example of how this can be done for the rest of LA County be one of the first year just jurisdictions in L.A County to do it um so it's something I want you to keep in mind and whoever that message has to

250go to for the Burbank School District to put that as part of the consideration along as long along with the possibility of doing seven members as well as going to districts um with my two minutes left uh Dr Weisberg just uh a story to share with you um and some of you you may not know I come from a very strong military family I was born on a military base in South Carolina I was raised on a military base in Texas temporary transfer in Ohio to Wright-Patterson back to Texas and I was on Military basis until I was 21 when I moved to California my mom who married a military man her sister is all married military men so all my uncles were all military men my dad sisters all married military men so all

251my uncles and my dad All Veterans as well so when I went way down on a family trip because he's from a very small rural town in Western Ohio where everyone there were all veterans so I was 21 I was now legally able to drink he said you're going with me to the VFW because this is where all the men go during to the VFW and the con the topic came up about people standing sitting saluting putting their hand over their heart and so forth and I asked my dad what he thought and of course we're sitting at the bar with a bunch of vets all with their beer and cigarettes um and I'll clean up the language that that they use because um especially for my Uncle Ray who was on a battleship in

252World War II my dad said you know your uncle Willard which is my dad's oldest brother died fighting the Nazis and he said you know do you know what those people made their citizens do they had to prove their patriotism they had to stand when they were told to in salute and do their chants and so forth my dad fought in Korea and Vietnam he said I fought those damn communists and do you know what they tell those people to do they have to prove their patriotism all the time is that that is not Who We Are that is not who we are you have the freedom not to do those things that is a Democratic Society a free Democratic Society and he reminded Us in all these veterans there at the VFW all agreed

253with him at the moment that people start questioning patriotism in this country is the moment we start losing our Democratic Society and our free Society so Dr Weisberg you do you you owe no one an explanation whether you stand or sit because it's none of our business at all and if someone has an issue with that they can talk about it with their therapist thank you thank you Eric and finally Diana Basta good evening please bear with me this has been probably one of I don't even know like free I I have no words from Elation to starting off with our young people you know it's nice to see that Classics withstand the test of time you know you have Jose Feliciano Feliz Navidad Louis Armstrong and What a Wonderful World I I cannot get

254enough of that and so as Classics we understand the value of literature music plays and so forth but then it became one of disgust and disappointment my name is Diana best and I'm an English teacher at Burbank High School and I'm also the president of the Burbank Teachers Association and thank you for not having to go over the one-time funding because that's the reason why I was here is because through rep Council there are some major concerns regarding positions that are being asked to a secondary uh I can't even think of it and an HR director and so you know these are the things that come up and we never have money for anything else it seems like to our members that it's easy to fund these positions and right now we're in negotiations and

255so um I know that I spoke to uh Laura Bellman from csca and so I'm glad to hear that you know things are are going well we're hopeful that custodial instructional Aid and Food Service wages will reflect competitively for these employees so I was glad that that was pulled because I'll just email you and let you know what the members are saying regarding these positions I know sometimes everybody's overloaded and worked and who wouldn't want an assistant I know that my special ed teachers want time and every time we ask for time there's not enough um Miss tabot um as a leader myself I have to say how disappointed I am you set a tone we were looking for something new A New Beginning a refresh and I just found that to be a little

256self-serving on your part and it was a lack of respect for the colleagues these people there's protocol I'm a Believer in protocol an institution and this is how we have always done it and so I also hope for Ms Camp Carr who I welcome you today that you're new but there is such a thing of respect for protocol and institution and I hope that if things like this come up maybe we need to have some board policy regarding what would happen if that seat was not filled um and so I would like to see this be laughs I I just I cannot believe that this was something that happened today and all the times I've come we've always had this meeting where the next person became president and vice president and it was a great

257way to end the year thanking everyone for their service and a new breath of fresh air which is what we so badly need I think you heard from A to Z the things that we need to all um address so I'm hoping that in January um that we will start and that you will recognize and hopefully better judgment on your part um I want to thank Mr Cantwell for spending time with us he came to the BT office and went through the first interim and so the only thing I want to point out and maybe this is something that you will explain is um the money that's been assigned that really isn't going to be spent like on roofs and textbooks and Technology that's seven million nine hundred dollars so maybe that can be explained

258so that you understand you know just with the ramifications of that are um I want to thank Mr fritner for his years of service of course I want to congratulate Kimberly Clark I mean the city is definitely going to win and also Ms Cindy caterio who is going to be stepping in I don't know if you know Cindy in her story but she is an amazing woman and maybe sometimes she'll she'll share her I'm very proud of all that she has done jbhs graduate Mr Maxwell I want to thank you this man is amazing I don't know why he gave me his number and said I could call him 24 7. but I took him up on that and immediately we had um rooms that had no heat and the kids were were cold and

259and so forth so I called Mr Maxwell and right away we had a Mr Ogawa was a part of the conversation and we started to sort of brainstorm and it's like well the manufacturer's not returning the call where's the manufacturer what can we do in the interim get some heaters oh I can sort of jury rig it sorry to get the heat to go on and in the meantime did all of that and so today it was just so I appreciate it so much because our members and the kids it was just such a such a good day and I know that we do have other issues I know you're gonna um I'll send to you regarding heating so maybe during the break I'll ask Mr ogawo if he can maybe do some checks at

260other sites I know that Dr nappick is saying that you did some sight and and so that way when it comes back we don't wait until the kids are in the class um so um again I just wanted to thank you and I wanted to thank Ms caseyo we have four new Educators going to a conference this coming weekend uh I mean like I just got to give it up for these new teachers because it's it's a long year and they ride that wave so we have four Educators two from jbhs one from BHS and one from Edison um going to this new educator um it's a weekend um and it's it's so great because they get to be around other new teachers who've been teaching like one to three years and it also shows

261how we want we value and we want to retain and we want these new teachers to become members of our community I mean there is something to be said about teachers in Burbank I mean they amaze me they their whole career has been here and um you know 42 years that I have been teaching and I've observed everything that you can possibly imagine in and out of the classroom and I just I have to to say that my colleagues are some of the most and I'm not just saying that selfless people who if you go by on a weekend you're going to find cars in all the parking lots with those teachers in the rooms working giving day in and day out so I'm sorry I know that I rambled I appreciate you just giving

262me this time and I wish everybody every happy healthy um holiday thank you okay oops I packed that too soon um tonight's meeting yeah I was just ready to go home wasn't I I was gonna adjourn and and Mr nazarian's name yes uh all right Alexander yeah I wrote it down I will make sure I was looking for my sheep too have it out in front of me thank you Miss Abby I can respond to please do okay thank you I think he must have it uh thank you to the speakers uh to address uh Ms abasta's question about in the ending balance uh if you if you recall for the public when we adopted the budget and we did our 45-day adjustment to the budget we went over the 10 uh ending balance threshold

263that the state had so we had to assign some ending balances so you see in the multi-year forecast of the slide presentation 7.9 million dollars was there someone that was for HVAC repairs technology as we did the first interim we went to that third year out in order to meet the three percent and partial now we'd even get to the full uh six percent of the board went there we had to take those the items out so you're seeing every year one and two but if we spend them in year one and two that third year out goes lower and so that's what you say they're there now if we're having an emergency in the next two years we'll do that but we're gonna have to address in the out year uh thank you to

264Mr Carter I know that I think Mr Ferguson told me that uh council member elect Perez and council member Schultz have been talking about ranked Choice voting so it sounds like the conversation is already being had and I think most of us who followed Burbank elections over the past a few Cycles are are excited about the possibility um thank you to miss abasta as always and a huge thank you to miss Clark I look forward to seeing you in all of the different places and a big well welcome to miss hiterio is that right I'm gonna work on it so it doesn't sound so awkward but um Mr Ferguson had some really lovely words to say to you but you know we're here to help and support and we're pretty grateful to you for what

265we know is a very difficult job and you have big shoes to fill um but luckily she's right down there if you need her so thank you and welcome that's all they got um thank you to the additional speakers um thank you Miss pasta nice to meet you um I am looking forward to hearing from you on the one-time funding I'm interested in hearing what you have to say on that um and uh thank you for the comments about Ring Choice footing um I'm very excited about the report that we got from uh council tonight about the move uh to districts I think the more we can make this a more democratic like process the better uh it was hard to run a campaign that was Citywide um and I don't know that it was

266the most democratic way to do it right so I'm looking forward to these changes myself thank you thank you um thank you to everybody who came down uh Mr Carter yes I remember those conversations and it looks like we finally hit the threshold uh to do that so you know uh I I think it's a fantastic thing uh for us to explore um I think though that if we're doing ranked Choice voting frankly and with five people uh representing uh you know a hundred thousand hundred and ten thousand people um I don't know how Democratic it's going to get even in districts um you know if we want representation we've got to commit to it and it looks different it feels uncomfortable and more most importantly it's going to require education and real connection to

267this community so appreciate it um Miss abasa thank you and thank you to the teachers I'm thrilled to hear more positive feedback coming about coming out at a facilities in particular um you know we have an oversight body for a reason uh specifically assigned to facilities but it seems like it hasn't been working in the right way so it's good to to hear that staff is at least becoming more responsive and I think it's important that as we move forward into the New Year we're having conversations about appropriate oversight that allows us to make sure that this is not a reactive occurrence but instead once again a proactive way of doing business in the district that we are proactively anticipating these things that there is good management and good oversight I believe in a system

268of shared governance which the community college system is structured by it's uh it's one that you know is they they quite literally talk about it is called the Noah's Ark model we have two from the academic Senate two from uh from classified staff to from uh the teachers union to from admin and two from teachers in order to get anything done you have to build consensus right now if you look at our board agenda there are eight nine ten different committees one committee meets in the morning one month in the evening another month and and how is the public supposed to follow any of that we need to simplify this uh also most of these are superintendent appointed committees so uh if and and there's no Brown act requirement with it and there's no public

269notification of it so um for those who don't feel that their voices are part of the decision it's they don't feel that they're going to get appointed to these committees it needs to be board run uh we're a big enough 200 million dollar institution uh to be publicly accountable and you know uh it's going to take courage and from time to time bringing up these things yeah it's going to ruffle some feathers uh it's pretty clear uh where relationships stand we'll see what happens in January when we have a full board um but uh you know we're all here in service and at the end of the day uh we've got to prepare this institution for the for the future and if some folks are kicking and screaming about it oh well uh these kids

270are worth it thank you for all of you staying to The Bitter End it's greatly appreciated it means you care it means that you think a great deal about this district and the kids we service every day it's very much appreciated thank you and with that we will we have a couple of retirements we have Annette riojas um who's retiring from the district my kids went to school with Annette's kids so it's always nice to see a familiar name uh and Elisa Freeman also a teacher at John Burroughs High School who um is ending her service a fabulous teacher um who also had a son who substituted for us for a while maybe it became a permanent Adam yeah okay yeah good family so think thankfully and um it's always good to keep up with

271folks on what they're doing so it's appreciated and at the request of Mr Ferguson we are joining tonight's meeting in the name of Alexander nazarian thank you