001[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] there we go good evening welcome to the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education meeting of Thursday November 17th um I'd like to invite my new friends Rudy and Finn up to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please I say new because we just met like what five minutes ago guys um put your right hand and please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance put your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you may be seated thank you gentlemen job well done uh Miss Clark please take the roll call at this time remember frittner president clerk
002Weisberg clerk Weisberg marked absent vice president Ferguson present and president thank you thank you um can we do some adjustments to the agenda if need be anyone all right seeing none we'll move on for items for future agendas okay again scene none we can move right on to presentations and recognitions 7A presentation on first robotics competition team 980. thunderbots good evening president Abbott distinguished board member superintendent Dr Hill District staff and members of the audience it's my honor to introduce a few people David brinza lead Mentor Robin Dorfman business and Outreach mentor and yogini bazarani who is the business team leader for the Burbank High School and they're going to present an introduction to the first robotics competition team 980 Thunderbolts spots thunderbots and Bots are coming thunder thing thunder Bots howdy thank you for
003the opportunity uh to meet us uh my name is Dave brinza my day job I work at NASA jet propulsion laboratory for 40 years uh principal systems engineer and uh Mission Insurance manager for Europa Clipper uh but my real passion is FRC team 980 uh the program itself involves high school students working with mentors and they design and build a functioning robot that competes team 980 this is our 22nd year that we're going into uh we've built robots basically all over the San Fernando Valley and even in Altadena we've built in 10 actually 11 different places now uh we first came into Burbank in 2011 and actually built our robot at the float Barn and we met a lot of Burbank students and that started our connection so we've been associated in the Burbank area
004as a community team for over 10 years we spent a lot of time at Walt Disney imagineering uh they provided us to build space they're also a sponsor for us uh we had been there for about six years or so until the covet bomb hit which shut down as you guys know pretty much everything including Disney imagineering so we had to vacate the building we put all of our stuff into storage we had already developed some contacts with uh the nap Academy engineering they were actually actively recruiting students for us on their website we had a bunch of students who were in The Academy on the team so we started negotiating with Allison Edge to see if we can get some space there's the steam lab which used to be the old auto shop quite
005uh used a lot for stagecraft storage of their sets at all and also storage of other items shall we say but we cleared out an area we had to put up a tent because as you know it's an open structure and the day that we moved in it was raining we figured out we had to put a tent up inside there and so last year was our first year in that build space we kind of struggled along but the students built this product here okay and and so we're very happy to be in Burbank we've onboarded a couple of people including myself uh to be part of the Burbank Unified School District so we can uh really help establish this program in Burbank Unified School District so anyhow with that I'd like to ask [Music]
006okay two of students would like to share with you about their experiences with the program Eugenie is our oh I'm sorry of course I'm sorry we'd like to have two students share their experiences in the robotics program with you our first student is yogini who is our 2022 Dean's List finalists that's a very prestigious award given in first to students who show exemplary leadership abilities for their teams and then we're going to hear from Finn who we've already heard from with the Pledge of Allegiance and he's going to talk about what it's like to be on a LEGO League team and what he gained from that [Applause] good evening Dr Hill members of the board and the bourbon Community my name is yogini bazarani I'm currently a senior at Burbank High School and I'm one
007of Team 980 student leads I can say with certainty that my time on the team has prepared me well for my upcoming College Pursuits and future in the stem Workforce team 980's business lead I take practical skills that I develop at school like writing and researching and I apply them to real world tasks such as creating a business plan writing a SWOT analysis developing business pitches and informational presentations and more I've also had the opportunity to develop my communication and collaboration skills while connecting with like-minded students across Burbank in my college search I've been pleased to find that dozens of Highly reputed stem universities across the country even offer exclusive scholarships for first robotic students ranging from a few thousand dollars up to full tuition scholarships first robotics teaches students about the importance of combining
008creativity and critical thinking to solve problems and that widely applicable skills will continue to benefit us in all of our future endeavors thank you all for your time [Applause] um just try to talk right into there hi my name is Finn lava um I'm a fifth grader at Stevenson Elementary work on robotics um is but is both fun and educational it's fun because we get to hang out with friends and there's competition and it's fun because um when we get off track or make mistakes we still laugh um mistakes are part of the process and don't avoid and we want to don't avoid mistakes and keep working on whether um whatever you're doing robotics is educational because we learn how to code even though I'm not a big part of coding it's still fun to
009see how it works coding is creating different um lines of instruction and movement bars and Sound Bars then you put them together and create actions for the robot to perform we um and since I'm in a league of robotics team it's also fun to build um the whole course with one of my favorite toys um we learned how to work together as coders or by making ideas for the robot movement building structures and learning about the annual theme While others are coding teammates like me are figuring out how out the problem for the theme the theme this year was electricity we chose to find out how to get Queenstown energy at night we discussed this in front of judges at the Lego robotics tournament this is why I want you guys to think about supporting
010a robotics program to all elementary schools thank you Finn so I've handed out a bunch of packets that I've put together for you we made a dozen of those I'm happy to make more on the right hand side is information about team 980 and this includes our brochure some of our recent award submissions first at all levels actually encourages the kids to be judged they have to learn how to talk to adults they have to learn how to advocate for what they're doing whether it's the robot or the Outreach or the program or the teamwork so I've included examples of some of our recent award submissions or sponsor package so you can see how we go about raising money or business summary which yogini talked about these are all document all documents that the students
011created we Mentor them they do the work on the left hand side is information about first robotics itself including on the one sheet which is front and back some of the benefits of the different programs and some startup costs on the back um and then a report that was recently commissioned by first in California about the uh about first and what and students who participate in the first program and how they do in school and in college we know that students who participate in first do better in school their grades are better their graduation rates are better they're more engaged they are eligible for the scholarships that Eugenie talked about they have a higher rate of going into higher education they do well in higher education we really are helping them create the future so
012a little bit I don't we're not going to take up too much time but we want to share it with you a little bit about team 980's history with Burbank David talked about building in the float barn around to 2015 we started a big business reorganization of the team where we really implemented a lot of business tools like the SWOT analysis like the balance scorecard that all of you who are in business are going yeah because it's applicable and and we actually use those things it was amazing when the threat of loss of a build site turned into the opportunity of establishing ourselves at Burbank Unified School District that was SWOT analysis in action uh we also started a major outreach program especially in Burbank which we felt was basically our backyard we uh you
013might have seen our robot marching or rolling in Burbank on Parade for a number of years and if you attended the series of wonderful stem lectures that were done at the libraries around 2015 1617. team 980 was off in there with a robot helping out uh once we got up to 2016 and team 980 for their efforts was awarded with the engineering inspiration award which is a word that recognizes outstanding Outreach abilities or Outreach endeavors um we went back to Burbank public library and we started doing more with them so we started holding robotics open houses at the Olive at the Buena Vista Branch we had our Lego robocamp which is a fabulous program that the students designed and the students ran uh teaching Lego robotics to Rising fifth and sixth graders getting them ready
014to move into Middle School we did that during the summer until we could no longer meet live and then we turned it into a virtual camp where we taught them the in the fundamentals of robot design cadding computer-aided design um and and construction so fabulous program in the post-covered world we still have to get back into how this is being offered but always a huge a huge hit and we also started running AIDS an annual toy drive with the friar department for their Sparkle love toy drive um we'll let you know where we're going to end up this year we're still trying to find a location Toys R Us was great it's not there anymore uh by 2017 and in 2017 we won the entrepreneurship award for all of our wonderful business work um we
015um we started working on our new sponsor packet and we want to get the word out to the community about this is who we are you want to support us because it's good for the community to have this kind of student I mean Finn it's good for the community to have students like Eugenie and Finn in the community so we started working on that in 2018 we won the Chairman's award which acknowledges a team that is uh the model of how first robotics teams should be it's a very prestigious award we were extremely proud to have received that and though at that point we started going okay we need to think about our future we need to start mentoring FLL team's first Lego league teams and we started creating what we call the pipeline which
016is getting students involved with Le with robotics from a young age bringing them through the various levels of of her robotic the programs until eventually they would be on team 980. where the high school level so we started looking we started looking at that Pipeline and in 2019 we um we did two things we had our for the first first Lego League team at Burbank Unified School District which was at Jefferson High School uh I do not believe they survived covid but we did have them and we also instituted a program called build 2.0 where over the summer we kind of redid the stuff we didn't like so much with the robot the first time and our students taught new students how to build a robot we had a lot of kids joined then it
017was hugely popular our older kids really got a lot out of teaching the younger kids and it uh and the younger kids learned a lot about robotics so we've fast forward to 2022 I know I'm almost there we fast forward to 2022 team 980 is now at Burbank High School well we proud to represent all of Burbank Unified School District we're really proud of this team we have a fabulous culture we are one of the few teams that have four Woody flower Award winners that is an award given to mentors for excellence in mentoring there's only about a dozen teams in the country that have four Woody flower Award winners and we're one of them we have four Dean's List finalists winners this is the award given to the outstanding students we have four of
018them um what's happening with our pipeline pipeline was tough on covid it was really hard on the elementary schools but we have the Thunder Dragons the Thunder Dragons are an amazing team because they go to Stevenson but they're not a school team they have this amazing group of parents who said we want our kids to have robotics so we're just going to do it and they meet in the backyard and our students our high school kids go and they Mentor the elementary school to students and they've just finished their competition year they did well they had a lot of fun and we're really proud of them I'm going to leave you with we're available for questions but I'm going to leave you with the question that I would always get at the end of any
019event that we did we would bring out the robot we would bring out the Lego robots the kids would be having a great time they wouldn't want to go yeah we're gonna do a demonstration but at the very end the parents would come up to me and say how do we get more of this how do we get more of this for our kids and I would say to them you gotta talk to your schools you got to talk to your teachers you got to talk to your principals you gotta talk to the board of ed it's not an expensive program it's incredibly valuable program we can offer expertise mentoring skills but we need the school district to to then take the next step and say we're behind putting a first robotics team in every
020Elementary School and every Middle School in the Burbank Unified School District and what we're hoping that tonight is the first step in the conversation about how we get that done we're going to demonstrate our robot for you and then we are available for any questions thank you [Applause] you come up in front here all right so uh this robot that you're going to see is the robot you guys get ready to uh go is the robot that we build for this year's competition every year there's a new game challenge in first and so we competed uh in events in um uh Ventura and in Los Angeles Donna Mel Segundo this year and uh we did some work on the robot over the summer we recently went to another competition in Ventura but uh this is
021the the design of this is done in CAD by students using SolidWorks as the professional quality uh CAD program fabrication was all done in that shop at uh at Burbank High School we have some small Machine Tools like a a mini lathe and a mill we have uh CNC router Etc and uh kids make drawings kids make Parts kids put it together kids operate the robot so you're gonna you're gonna get to see them operate the robot here are we good our computer's restarting real quick oh blue screen of death so anyhow uh there's any yeah does anybody have any questions about about the team or the program got it so um how much does that thing weigh uh that robot weighs 125 pounds it's limited to that weight by rule good there's a bunch
022of specifications you can only use certain types of Motors they have to be a certain Dimension has to be inside of its boundary it has to have bumpers on it um safety is an important thing one of the things I do is I'm actually a lead robot inspector so I help enforce those rules across all the robots at a competition and a typical competition event there's between 40 and 60 robotics teams they play a two-day competition really good teams get to go to Championship uh where there's like 400 teams and I'm also a lead robot inspector there I've been in the program for 20 years and we've we've had hundreds of students go through they're all successful I write letters of recommendation I just got a request from a student who was on our team
023three years ago to write eight letters of recommendation for him in graduate school we'll do that I'm not going to write eight separate letters but anyhow are we good yet right let's go ahead so this gate in this game the optic is to pick up some balls off the floor and then shoot them into a goal now the goal itself is like eight feet off the floor we're not going to shoot the ball that high here okay no so go ahead [Applause] let's pick them up okay so this robot moves around and there's six robots in the match right three blue three red they're all scrambling for balls they run into one another they sometimes get broken you have to be able to fix them at the event so we have a pit crew that
024that is able to service the robot between matches and uh there are some videos available of of batches and so forth uh that that if you want to check out I I could tell you how to find those but anyhow this is a product of you know hundreds of hours of work by high school students they get to do a different one we don't know what the game is yet on starting in January January 7th is the kickoff for the new season we'll be competing in Los Angeles in the middle of March down in El Segundo DaVinci school and at the end of March up in Lancaster at Eastside school Aerospace Valley Regional thank you you all have a standing invitation to visit us at our build site and see how we're doing as the
025season goes on we would love to see you there and talk with you further [Applause] [Music] okay guys before before you leave you passed a bag out yes we we gave you a bunch of goodies yes a light yes pens a level so but they're special pens yeah they're magic pens so the one that's a little square is actually a screwdriver handle so you see one end has a place if you open it up there's a little screwdriver heads it's a Phillips and a flat head oh yeah back to back okay so that's actually a little screwdriver no driver holder one of the pens is a mechanical pen it has a measure on it it actually has a level on it and if you open up the back of it it actually still has a
026little screwdriver in it t980 loves pens David's always finding cool pens for us to give away amazing so so you'll never forget us we want you to have our little set of pens thank you actually I think I went to visit your side when you were at the Disney campus one of my cousins was involved in she took me out or her son took me out for a visit and it was fascinating it was so I mean all the kids that were there that showed up and were busy at work and working on their own or working with you or I mean it was it was fantastic to see and I'm so glad you're here with us now and hopefully we we love the program one of the things I NASA is a major supporter
027of this program because that's our future Workforce you bet right right you know engineering and high school is the right time because they're going to make their college decisions and we want to show them that engineering is not only accessible but it's actually fun you bet and I think that that's paid off the the father of one of our past captains is actually sitting in the back of the room I'll put him on the spot his son our past Captain is at UC Irvine medical school there you go awesome so Dr okay a couple more questions don't go away yet no I just wanted to make a comment so it's funny uh timing said this morning I was teaching a class and this week today's chapter was on production and there's our chapter on robotics
028and the future of you know supply chain and Robotics and production and and I'm very happy that you know sometimes the universe comes together in an interesting way so here you are I do want to encourage all the young people to continue their education in engineering I I come from a country that engineering is you know very highly regarded my first major was actually environmental engineering then I got into the Hydraulics part of it and I was like no maybe I should change my major but I do appreciate this I think this is wonderful and I have a question what do you call 980 by the way sir those team numbers are assigned uh when you join the program so we yeah we joined in in 2002. and I actually joined the team in 2003
029and so you stick with that team number uh some teams come and go and there's you know the old numbers can get unretired by teams Etc but yeah yeah we're up to eight six eight nine eight thousand something for team numbers yeah that doesn't mean there's 8 000 active teams but there's about maybe 3 500 active teams this is an international program first robotics competition the high school level is an international program and at championships you will have teams from all over the world we love to talk about our program uh well first things first just thank you both uh for taking this on and and for the mentorship that both of you have clearly uh brought passions to this and and to see um this machine which I will admittedly you know on the
030receiving end uh was hoping and rooting for for all success I also noticed the president of our teachers union looking very uh very closely uh at how far that could possibly launch those balls so uh potentially for future use at a meeting but uh so they do get students attention there we go um but but really also to our incredible students who are part of this program uh wow um wow wow wow uh and as somebody who grew up watching a show called BattleBots who uh very much a different intention with that technology not necessarily problem solving a little more destructive um but but genuinely what I what I love is really the applied learning that's happening here um and and you're totally right you know this is an economy that's transforming uh and and
031so skill sets in this in this field more than ever are going to be necessary to to not only um to succeed um but also to really afford the cost of living frankly uh that's in this area absolutely so uh really truly just a thank you to you to our students who represented our community so well uh we are so proud um and and to see this in action uh while fearful it's amazing uh and and honestly uh my inner child's doing backflip so just thank you so cool and uh you know also I like that it's also applicable to younger ages as well um that this can start with Legos frankly right um this is how we connect young people and young minds and allow them to start really blossoming and and innovating and
032and we do need to uh create spaces for that Innovation and so where where Investments can be made I think this is the future I think this is where we're going um we'll continue to navigate Budget realities and that that's that's the truth of it but I think these are smart Investments and so just thank you again for coming I think you you're actually around thirteen hundred dollars so it is it is Affordable families do it do it but it is it is first Lego league is very very affordable and that's for students from fifth through eighth grade and that can take them up till they can join the high school team or we have other fundraising uh mechanisms in place so it is not a major uh investment and the return you get from
033it is well and and as we enter uh a time where we'll be going into our budget process you know this is something certainly that we uh should should at least consider and have on Deck um as as we talk about it we also have Foundation Partners so again where this can be applicable I think also grant funding uh more than likely could could very well exist for something like this so again just thank you for for bringing the opportunity more than anything and certainly hoping it won't get lost in the cracks absolutely you have our contact information it's on every pen but you have my business card I have reasons behind the things that I do but you have my business card we're more than happy to help um in any way to facilitate
034that moving forward Dr paramo can you and Dr canapic work on figuring out before we get to the budget season so we know what we're looking for um come up with some kind of proposal of way to begin implementing this across the district at least if you look on the left side of that folder there's a single sheet the top has it should be the second sheet in that one now if you look on the bat if you look on the back of it there is actually a cost breakdown this is a cut for fls so it's the one that looks like this it's on the left the left hand side of your folder so behind the yeah so if you look on the left that's your breakdown of what it costs to start a
035first Lego League team you know the somebody has to volunteer to supervise it but I think you will find that parents will often step in and help high school students any of them on team 980 um do volunteer to coach to Mentor so they bring the skill set um it is not and this actually even takes into account that this morning they raised the price of the spike which is the Lego Brain by 48 dollars so I actually ran and updated with that so they're now um 498 instead of 450 but yeah thank you so much I appreciate it thank you I oh go ahead doctor oh before I forget also you know we're in talks with council member Nick Schultz from the city and uh Miss Springer uh hopefully next year sometime soon we
036will be opening a new center for entrepreneurship and Innovation partnering with the city I think this would be a great idea and bringing some of the local entrepreneurs working with high school and I'm gonna if if I mean I know that we're you know I'm gonna ask questions all night so I'm gonna stop now because this stuff really gets weird you know but thank you for all you do and and I do agree this is something that's important and and I do want to again thank all of our students and you know our entrepreneurs and the future innovators here and the current ones for doing this and uh by the way how far can this thing shoot the ball if you really I'm not gonna thank you thank you we are we are always available
037for you if you have any other questions you have emails you have phone numbers I mean obviously we love to talk about it but mostly we we we're really passionate about this program both David and I had children children who went through the program the children graduated we're still here so I get that that's because there's yeah no I understand thank you for that thanks so much [Music] okay we'll move on to reports from the board starting with our student Representatives we just go from one great thing to the next great thing around here see how that works uh we will start with um ever Huerta this evening from jbhs thank you well firstly I just want to say Wow to that presentation I think it's really impressive and really important that we have these
038types of opportunities here in busd and it was so nice seeing so many familiar faces from bourbon Kai and her Burrows so good evening president Tabet vice president Ferguson distinguished board members superintendent Hill amazing District staff Burbank wonderful bourbon Community here and at home I'm so excited to share with all of you the exciting things going on at Burroughs last week we celebrated our first ever Hispanic Sabor Latino festival and we had an amazing turnout from all the members of the community it was so great seeing so many people enjoying the food dancing and seeing how they enjoyed all the performers a special thank you to everyone who promoted the event and those who attended specifically super assistant superintendent uh miss guse and miss gusao Jr as well as a board member Dr Weisberg who
039unfortunately isn't here but it was so amazing seeing everybody out and as well state senator Anthony portentino so thank you to everyone who came out and attended and enjoyed the amazing event this week at Burroughs this week at Burroughs ASB and the indigenous peoples Club partnered up to celebrate Native American Heritage Month having activities based on Native American cultures for students to learn and participate on Monday we played music by Native American artists or of Native American descent on Tuesday students participated in a weaving grass mat activity Wednesday the indigenous peoples Club hosted a indigen a native game called which was a thinking game and a team game so it was really fun seeing the students try that out and uh see how how it it turned out but they they had lots of fun
040seeing how that went on Friday ASB will be hosting its annual fall food festival where clubs will be and our ASB class officers will be selling yummy treats and foods such as Yogurtland and Armenian Club will be selling Armenian Pizza which I'm really excited for because the first time I tried it I got another one as well as getting into the holiday spirit ASB this year adopted a family through the bourbon coordinating Council which we are so happy to do as we know it's an important way for us to give back to this amazing community that has given us back so much as well ASP will be participating in its annual food drive that will be providing uh canned goods to the bourbon coordinating Council who will which we will also be helping assemble baskets
041for all the families of this year as well in the boroughs and the World of Sports are boys and girls basketball and soccer teams have started their pre-season all teams are excited to see what this new year brings for them I also would like I also would like to wish the best of luck to Isabel galustians who will be heading to CIF finals for cross country so we wish you the best of luck and fingers crossed she comes back with the w in the world of the Arts the boroughs IMA will be hosting its annual Funk night in the small gym which will occur in December so make sure to get your calendars out get your best 70s fit and warm up some dance moves because I would love to see you all there and
042bust out your best funk as well oh sorry as well uh our Burroughs drama program will be performing Hamlet this week Friday Saturday and Sunday so stop by as it will be taking place in the 70s in the Vietnam War era so come out and see the twists that our drama program I actually had a chance to stop by today on a tour that I was giving to the students to our drama class and just seeing how hard they've been working on this play production how excited they are and just how motivated and how in character they are they've really they've really busted everything that they've had to show off and also a shout out to our amazing tech crew who also was setting all the lights and stages for this place so make sure
043to stop by and watch these amazing students perform and that is all for me if you have any questions please let me know thank you ever appreciate it and our next is Serena terpetrocian from BHS okay good evening board president Tabet vice president Ferguson distinguished board members superintendent Dr Hill and the wonderful bourbon community so tonight our Burbank High instrumental music association is hosting a jazz band swing night which started at 6 pm and it's currently ongoing and it's a show with um with dinner music and dancing so good luck to them I'm sure they're having a lot of fun and our Burbank High School IMA is also hosting their Sounds of the Season performance in December on December 2nd which is a Friday at 7 pm which is their winter holiday themed performance that
044includes our concert bands Orchestra and jazz band and tickets can be bought on the BHS IMA website if you'd like to join them also tomorrow and Saturday night at 7 pm in the Wolfson Auditorium our dance program is having their annual Fall Dance Festival called iconic so the show features icons from all over the music industry and highlights messages they spread throughout their music the tickets are 20 and VIP tickets are 25 so make sure to come out and support all of our incredible arts program so I talked about it a lot as with past meetings but it finally happened so on November 4th our dancing with the staff finally took place and I'm glad to announce that it went extremely well it was fun to see so many teachers and staff get out of
045their comfort zone who have not done it previously and show off their best dance moves it was a really fun event and everybody was just having a generally great time so congrats to all those teachers and then last Thursday on November 10th Burbank High hosted its first annual Veterans Day ceremony we honored 10 BHS alumni into our bravest Bulldogs wall of Heroes and we gave special recognition and honor to US ambassador John Glassman and PFC Walter cartelier the window Ensemble played patriotic Tunes while students from our culinary arts program served cookies from the 1968 Burbank High School operation cookie lift cookbook that was used to send cookies to soldiers writing in Vietnam so miss markison our principal found in one of the storage rooms a cookbook from 1968 called operation cookie lift and our culinary
046arts program took that cookbook and took that recipe and made those cookies for the people visiting it was a really cool experience this week Burbank High celebrated kindness week by having a spirit week with themes corresponding with kindness so ASB teamed up with our student Mental Health Board to create these specifically themed days so on Monday we had be kind to yourself and to wear PJs on Tuesdays was be kind to our Earth to wear green and blue on Wednesday was team up for kindness so students got to wear their favorite sports gear today it was crazy about kindness so students got to wear their craziest hats and tomorrow to end it off is be kind to BHS so we're encouraging all students to come fully decked out in BHS gear there was also lunch
047activities every day in the middle of the Quad like Wednesday yesterday we had band performed for us we also gave our free lemonade and ASB has been selling kindness grams and um so that was really fun kindness week has gone super well we're really excited for tomorrow also this past Tuesday our speech and debate held their annual debate for students to come out and experience I didn't go but I did hear it was it was a heated debate and it was really chaotic but it was a great day and it's always fun to have that every year lots of students like to come out to that so all in all barbank high is doing well and it's still great to be a bulldog any questions thank you thank you [Applause] and our next speak speaker
048from Monterey High School is Catherine phignani hello Save The Best For Last huh a good evening board president Tabet members of the board superintendent Hill Senior staff and our audience here and at home so I haven't been here in a while um it's really hard to do school full-time and have a job so I know you guys understand so thank you for understanding um so back to Monterey Monterey we've had a couple changes over the last few weeks we've welcomed over 30 new students um in our Quarter Two And this is one of the largest numbers we've had in recent years so it took a little bit of adjusting but everyone has settled down for Quarter Two and we're getting right back into work uh so we would like to take this time to publicly
049thank Burbank arts and Education Foundation for their generous donation uh Miss Weaver put in a grant request to get another ping pong table and a pickleball net uh so this pickleball uh pickleball net arrived uh last week I personally helped set it up super fun by the way and we already have some very enthusiastic competitive games and I will just say this there is a tournament coming and I will keep you posted um uh I would also like to say that we are very excited to be starting our mural I'm in mural class and I can just say we're planning something great you guys are going to have to come by and see it um so I know many of the former students and staff were very worried about Monterey having lunch time but it's
050turned out to be a really positive experience for everyone so every day students have the opportunity to play a variety of sports board games or just have somewhere nice to relax sit down with your friends talk a little bit you know get out some extra energy and we also have a large number of students who have earned lunch passes so if you're on campus at lunch it's either everyone's playing pickleball and ping-pong or they're out at lunch so it's it's really cool to see that everyone is progressing well with our new schedule change this year and so a lot of students have been reporting that having Sports and activities to do at lunch is helping keep you know get out all that extra energy you might have during the day you know if you're a
051little antsy um so our service learning Club is hosting a canned food drive and writing holiday cards to seniors in our community and we hope to offer more service opportunities like this in the future and we're really excited for our holidays coming up and from Monterey to the Board of Education we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving any questions thank you for sharing I know there was a lot of concern over the uh schedule change among the students so I'm glad to hear that they are adjusting and seem to be adjusting well to it so thanks for sharing of course thank you Catherine I do I do have to head out I am going to my friend's 18th birthday party so I just want to say goodnight to all of you and thank you for
052having me and I hope you all have a wonderful break okay yes so uh our student board member just brought up you know something that's very real right many students have jobs and that shouldn't prohibit their participation so potentially you know if we could offer you know even recording a video uh report so that way students are again we we and the community tunes into these meetings and Monterey is such a critical part of our educational ecosystem that we shouldn't not hear that just because students are are doing what it takes uh to make ends meet in their families so if if we can potentially just offer that um I I think you know keeping them included is really important to me and I know I'm sure for the rest of my colleagues as well
053so thank you okay request to address the board 9A Public Communication so my first card um Mr schlossman I recognize your writing do you wish to be called Mr schlossberg instead you've been around too long I I know you thank you everybody good evening for a recognizing team 980. my kid was involved in it he was team captain he learned a lot he was there a number of years he traveled all over the country on these exhibitions and uh you know it really does take a village to to have a kid turn out it's your good teachers it's these volunteers who are dedicated it's parental involvement and you know you heard one heard him talk about coding my kid is presenting next week at uh something for the Imaging doctors about using artificial intelligence and
054uh uh in interpreting images of X-rays and he my kid was in Hawaii last week at the AMA uh you know presenting and it's it's all because of people like this who dedicate themselves and work so hard okay um you know I was really hoping Ms Weisberg would be here tonight because I got a lot to talk about with her but I will temper it and just give you guys some things to think about you know it doesn't sit well with me that she doesn't rise for the flag salute and she offers all kind of excuses and and you know uh ghosts in the corner and all kinds of things um I wonder you know she's she was talking about the fellow who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance Francis Bellamy and she said that he
055wrote it to sell flags so has she ever heard a song on the radio you know people write it to make money to earn a living maybe this guy needed to earn a living you know does she ever read a book writers write books to earn a living so I didn't really follow what she was what she was doing she's got us on this agenda every agenda talks about Indians and Indigenous people if you will and what she leaves out is that they were busy taking each other's land they were busy murdering each other Indians owned slaves and in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it didn't apply to the Indians because they were Sovereign and they continued to have slaves long after that and she picks and chooses the things that she
056does so use caution you know right under her nose here in Burbank we have Thomas Jefferson School and he owns slaves and there's that whole thing about Sally Hemmings whether that was voluntary or not she had a he had a number of kids with her we had a speaker who works at Disney and you know Walt Disney is was a problematic man himself he was sexist he was a bigot he was anti-semitic he made movies that are so vile they can't be shown Song of the South he bastardized The Three Little Pigs so it had to be changed around you know but she doesn't talk about those things you know and she talks like I remember talking about the Dodgers well look what that organization did at Chavez Ravine to the people that were living
057there but she doesn't say anything about that I think that she's very critical and you know America is made up of individuals and none of us are perfect and she finds something wrong with with people and we one thing that we should all agree on is patriotism that's just my opinion you know and it's so disrespectful she talks about going to the pride event but you know she doesn't do anything for our veterans she doesn't talk about our veterans I'll bet she didn't go to our our veterans ceremony that we just recently had um we have kids you know at our high schools at graduation it tells you what what college they're moving on to it also says what branch of the military and I think it's disrespectful to that group but kids we do
058so much here Mr Hill for a group of kids that's less than 10 percent it's on your agenda tonight you know but we should recognize the kids who serve our country too and standing up for the flag salute I don't feel it's too much to ask you know I'm a big First Amendment guy all you guys get that I defend the First Amendment and it's she'll say it's her first amendment to sit down I say of course but it's disrespectful and she took an oath she took an oath of Allegiance and I talked about that and if you heard her talk at the last meeting she says why don't you give any reasons well I gave four reasons but she was busy looking at her computer typing I guess she didn't hear those four reasons
059why we should stand for the flag salute so let's see I got 25 seconds okay huh I'm gonna leave it at that and I'm going to save these other things for when she gets back thank you for your attention tonight all of you thank you Mr schlossman our next speaker is Anne arikelian followed by Aram aracelian hi everyone okay first off I would like to start off by stating that it was my belief that this public forum was a place of open discussion about issues concerning the schools and students of this community however that belief was mistaken based on the lack of direct response to what I spoke about at the last meeting I attended I have come to the conclusion that this is not a place of open discussion unless that discussion directly aligns
060with the views of the board personally the last time I spoke I focused on my concerns about the safety of children because of the usage of shared bathrooms the response I received was astonishing it essentially accused my family and I of being hateful whether that was intentionally or unintentionally and you cannot label someone as hateful this way especially without any proof or or direct quotes of hateful speech or action at all this is a serious accusation to make against anybody and it appears you label it as hate rather than debate any of the issues that were noted So to that I also um So to that I say that you are not only stating false accusations towards my family and I but you're also bullying I have always been an ally to the lgbtq community
061and would in no way be hateful towards anyone whether they are in that Community or not and I'm glad that the school and that the schools and the board are supportive or at least try to be of all of the students anyway I would like to directly respond to a few comments made last time such as the one about there being no history on issues concerning shared bathrooms there have been multiple cases where sexual assault including rape has occurred because of the allowance of shared bathrooms I'm going to focus on just one case that reached national attention so you may be familiar with it this was a case in Loudoun County High School in Virginia where a female student was sexually assaulted forcibly sodomized by a transgender teenager after the assault the perpetrator was transferred
062to another school where they allegedly assaulted a second female student the first assault happened after Loudoun County School Board passed a gender inclusivity policy which allowed students to use restrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity now this isn't to say that this would happen often by anyone who's using the bathrooms or facilities honestly and for the intended purpose of the policy however it is a system that can be easily taken advantage of by anybody and another response I received was that the law was very clear in this area I disagree and just because a law states one thing does not mean that we the people should abide by it without questioning its merits at all after all let's not forget that the law has been amended many times even if we only look
063at the last 100 years that it was created so it would be flawed to say that the law is always right otherwise it would never have been amended since its creation I truly hope that no one ever goes through what the student from Loudoun County High School went through and may this board never have to deal with the consequences that should arise if anything like that does happen and I hope this time some of what I'm saying will be considered rather than dismissed falsely as hate as hateful comments thank you for your time [Applause] thank you and our next speaker is aramaicalian followed by Pam Geller welcome to board members and everybody here today uh two would like to continue this topic of discussing [Applause] sure okay so I'd like to continue the topic about
064the transgender policy the bathroom sharing that and just spoke about and also have my own little response to some of the comments that were that were made so I want it to be very clear that I'm not against these children I'm not saying don't welcome these children I'm not saying you should in any way punish them or limit their access to anything I know I got some comments such as uh hate has no home in this District I'm not asking her to hate anybody I'm looking at you Armand I have not asked you to hate anybody I want you to love these children all I'm saying is that the approach that you take should be a little bit different yes you should provide a safe place quality of Education humanity and love to all children
065and there is a separation of church and state in this country and we should approach all these children with no judgment and another comment that you made was Mr Printer was that my cause statements were factually inaccurate here is this is the study that I was quoting when I told you that transgender individuals have a 40 percent attempted to suicide rate actually 82 percent of them think about it regularly and uh there was I saw other studies that said that when they are children and they feel like this 65 to 90 percent of these children grow out of it he has a certain portion of them still continue into their adult lives with this feelings and so be it but for the children you should not be promoting your your not you're promoting them to
066go into this ideology for them to think that it's okay to cut off their breasts to remove their genitals that is not okay that is mutilation that is I would say even satanic okay and I don't want our children going in that direction that's why I'm here speaking I'm speaking up for these children who don't know what to say who don't know what they're feeling their minds are very fluid as I've mentioned before and you know we should not be leading them in this direction Mr Ferguson you said that I'm managing fear and that there is no correlation or evidence of risk there's plenty of evidence of risk and I'm not here because I'm afraid of these children or I I love these children like I love my own child I just I just don't
067want them to again go into a Direction that's going to kind of destroy their lives they're not going to be able to have children even if they don't go through the surgical aspects there's the there's the there's the pharmaceutical aspects that are irreversible and does damage to their bodies beyond what can even be imagined and so I do not want these children to go in that direction I want I want you guys to counsel these children I have no problem with like let's say a boy that is a little feminine or a girl that is a little masculine that's fine I accept them and love them anyway but I don't think you should be telling them oh you feel like if you're a girl that feels masculine or that you should take some sort of
068puberty blockers to stop your periods or that if you're if you're a boy that feels feminine that you should be taking estrogen and forgetting about your testosterone and things like that this is like I said it's a multi-billion dollar industry and this is not the direction we should be leading our children towards and I want to take the last minute of my my time to speak about this concept of separation of church and state just to clarify some of the comments that uh Miss abasta made once you remind you guys that in the Declaration of Independence it is the first second a second paragraph it says these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal even our Founders acknowledge that God created us and gave us our rights and our abilities to pursue
069life liberty and pursuit of happiness this is in our founding documents and I'm not asking the reason why church and state separation is there is to not allow a certain Church like the Catholic church that was destroying people in Europe and that's why Europeans ran to America was to get away from the Catholic church and that's where that concept comes from you so the church does not take over it's not about removing God out of out of government it is about removing a certain church that would influence it greatly and so that's why I bring up God in these aspects because God is a part of our government it is when we take the oath of office we say you know under God this country is under God and that is the truth and we
070need to follow his words thank you so much okay our next speaker is Pam Geller followed by someone named The King The King The King he left good thank you hi this is my first time here um took a little bit of time to find how to get in the building so okay um my name is Pam Geller and um I'm here this evening to ask what steps are being made or to start a process to update the weight training room at John Burroughs High School I have provided or I will now provide pictures Maybe somebody could pass these around so this is the condition of some of the equipment at uh the weight training room at Burroughs High School as the saying goes or pictures worth a thousand words and sometimes pictures convey meaning
071or Essence more effectively than a verbal description can I didn't bring pens but the other presenter did their space on there for you to write any notes or questions that you may have I'm a parent of two students at Burroughs my son is in the weight training class in September 2022 my husband and I attended Burroughs back to school night and that's when we became aware of the condition of the weight training equipment most equipment is 15 years old or older and many weight benches have ripped surfaces duct taped weight machines and chipped or rustic weighted disk as you see in the pictures the weight room is an important and valuable program for hundreds of boroughs students the weight room has been part of John Burroughs High School since 1948. Mr k n o o
072p yes noop I was saying Snoop so it was noop okay Mr noop and Mr real teach the weight training classes Mr real has been at Burroughs for 30 years and Kevin for 29. uh Keith according to Keith athletic director physical education department chair and P coach at John Burroughs High School he said there are daily weight training classes for periods zero through six in addition the weight training room is used every day starting at 6 30 a.m before school and after school until 9 pm in the evening average of 32 students per period actively attend weight training classes during zero period the number of students often increases up to 80. after school sports teams including football girls and boys basketball girls and boys soccer softball and cheer typically about 40 students at a time
073work out in the weight room approximately 340 students utilize weight training room per day weight training classes are extremely popular among students in the classes fill up quickly there are wait lists Mr real is my son's PE teacher coach for weight training class my son has autism and because of Mr Real's experience knowledge guidance and choice of great music to work out to I've heard it my son with the assistance of AIDS and peer buddies is able to participate in this wonderful weight training class I would like to propose addressing the needs of the weight training room and invite the board to view the pictures I brought to visit observe and discuss the needs of the weight room with teachers students parents and admin I propose money be allocated to purchase updated safe weight equipment
074the weight room has been a valuable and well-used facility for many years by so many students the weight room serves hundreds daily with and without special needs and also the school teams the weight program provides a model and reinforces the importance of physical fitness at all stages of our life the weight program in collaboration with the sports teams also provides opportunities for students who may struggle or have challenges academically and these are places they can Excel challenge themselves gain confidence and experience success and fun in the school setting it is time to support the needs of the weight room program and provide modern weight machines and equipment to strengthen this wonderful meaning program thank you for listening to my concerns and I look forward to working with you thank you Miss Keller appreciate that we
075we comment at the end after everyone has had a chance to speak okay thank you and my final speaker is Diana vasta good evening president Abbott members of the board superintendent Hill members of the district students and Community my name is Diana Basta and I am the President of the Burbank Teachers Association I'm also an English teacher at Burbank High School um I'm still just in awe of of what I saw and you should be happy because it's really made me speechless um but it's what we've been talking about this is what rigor looks like across all disciplines I mean you you heard about the the writing you heard about critical thinking and it's bringing all of those things together and that's what we really want for our students um I want to thank Mr
076Cantwell Mr Cross the last time I was here you know we brought up the the lack of critical systems that we're missing in management that I think everybody here can agree it was it was true and so I want I appreciate the fact that we were able to meet for an informal meeting of a grievance and um we really talked a lot about things that we can do together and today um thank you for thinking that my questions were so great I appreciate your answers because they're also great um so I've been giving that information that we need so that it's it's not just in words but these are things that are being done so I look forward to see what our next steps are are going to be um other than that the reason
077I'm here today is every year BTA donates books to our libraries and we've been doing this for years and I think it really is important to set it the record straight that our libraries do have books that are diverse and they're filled with inclusion and so I'm just going to pass these out with titles so that I think you should know the books that we're giving and they're in the library and so we purchase books for every grade level so I wanted to share some of those with you so this one is called and I'll try to talk really fast the colors of us and this is for TK in kindergarten every single Library we have 11 elementaries who will be receiving this book for our one to two we have gratitude is my superpower
078um Alicia Ortega beautiful illustrations it's self-illustrated and then for grades three to five we have Dolores Huerta a hero to migrant workers by Sarah Warren and illustrated by Robert um casilla so again all of our elementary schools will be receiving these books for our middle schools we have We Belong by Cookie iponia ever meant she is a Filipina American Born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States when she was nine years old and it's really a very cool book because it's a novel written in verse so it's rather unique this one is from the Smithsonian and it's called Nuestra America 30 inspiring Latinas and Latinos who have shaped the United States so that's for our Middle School which we have of course you know three of them and then we have our three
079high schools we have jbhs Burbank High School and Monterey we also have Ayala mag Park and Community Day School so they will be receiving foreign is called the sympathizer by vietson Wen and so it's um literary historical fiction a little bit of Espionage Thriller and part satire and then this one is by it's called the fire Keeper's Daughter by Angeline boulay who is a member of the um I want to say it's back here uh she's a member of the saunt Saint Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and so it's an excellent story and so we are sharing these with um the high schools um I've applied for a grant and I it looks like I may have gotten it for thirty five hundred dollars so our goal is to even add more books and to
080continue with our read Here There and Everywhere I know that um I'm Miss Damon read with us last year Mr promo read and I I think um superintendent Hill was one of the first who read with us at I believe at Edison so we want to keep this program growing and making sure that people realize that reading is not just something you do at school and at the library it's part of of our everyday um life and um you know that that's all I want to say I just want to thank you for allowing me to share this with you and I hope that we can continue to work together thank you thank you okay [Applause] sorry moving on to staff responses Dr Hill thank you president tap and thank you to all the speakers
081this evening some of the speakers this evening were just making comments it wasn't questions for me to respond to so I won't be responding to those but I appreciate you coming down here and sharing your views whether agree or disagree this is a place to be able to share your views um for Ms Geller Dr prom was going to follow up with Dr Chambers we're going to look at the budget and the needs that they have at the site each department does receive funding it's a limited funding for the PE department but I want to look at how they've been prioritizing those needs we're also starting the budget process one of the items that we're considering is giving an additional School site discretionary funding that can help schools with some some needs that we haven't
082been able to take care of because we've been really restricted on the school operating budgets for the last couple years because of budget but I appreciate you coming down here and sharing those based on the pictures there's definitely a need there so we want to be creative and prioritize how we can address some of those needs do I need to follow up with anyone or uh now Dr paramo uh where we're following directly with the principal Dr Chambers so I really appreciate the information and if you want uh he can grab your contact information we can send you an email afterwards and then umassa appreciate you coming down and sharing the continued expansion of diversifying our libraries which beat as you mentioned BTA has been doing for a long time will continue to reach out
083to Partners to continue doing that the more books we can have the more diverse books we support that and I look forward to the additional the outdoor reading I really enjoyed that and it's it's great opportunity for the whole Community to engage with our schools and engage with reading on our campuses and it's just on the sidewalks which is it's very convenient for everyone so thank you okay thank you and now board member comments Mr fitner thank you uh thank you to all our speakers for coming out tonight um Miss Geller um the superintendent just uh responded it it obviously is indeed um one of many at the schools but um uh you know we certainly would like to see uh possibly use of site funding or or uh some of the one-time funding to
084try and fill in uh many of these gaps so they will contact you to keep following up because obviously like you pointed out of the pictures it is a need and it's equipment that's used by you know a very large number of students not just in PE classes but pretty much every sport team has to use them at some point so thank you for advocating for this um so I'm sorry it's it's not a back and forth okay um Mr sebasta uh thank you for uh update I'm glad to hear your meeting went very well with uh with Mr Cantwell and hopefully we will continue to see progress on that front uh thank you very much for the uh uh for BTA and for the book donations uh again and and as you pointed out
085you've been BT has been doing this for uh you know a number of years and the selections are always fantastic books and I see all these um uh I think it might be the first time uh they brought the list that there wasn't at least one that I'd seen before that I was familiar with so uh but these all look like great titles you know very uh informative for our students and and applicable and and um and I Look to maybe read some of these myself so thank you again um Mr sauceman thank you for your uh past support of the robotics program and for sharing the information I'm glad to hear your uh child is doing so well um uh regarding your comments uh again as I stated last meeting uh I don't think
086Dr Weisberg needs me to defend her so I will leave that till she is able to be back and discuss whether so you know discuss the comments you have regarding her um you mentioned several of our schools you know being named after people with problematic histories and that is true and I think it's very well known in the district we you know have looked at that once already and and went through a process and and changed the name of one of our schools maybe more of those have to be looked at it's it's a process and it's got to be brought forth formally by someone and if they do maybe we'll have to look at that but I I I'm not going to deny that that's the case uh but there is there has to
087be enough of a uh a public you know calling for it and a process to go through it before we move forward on that uh and I I really don't want to get into definitions of patriotism that really means a lot of different things to do from people two uh Mr Kelly and Mr arkellion uh you both stated that you are allies to the lgbtq community I find it very hard to believe because you advocate for taking rights and freedoms away from lgbtq students particularly transgender students and if that's the case I don't that's not an ally it's just not um R Kelly and you again stated that the if if I'm understanding the way you said it if you don't agree with the law we shouldn't follow it I I that you don't have
088to follow the law well that's that's not the way laws work especially if you are a government entity Mr R Kelly and you mentioned uh the report uh that documented the suicidal ideology of transgender students yes it is very high you don't mention why that's so high it's because of how much they are bullied discriminated against heated on often rejected by their own families many are turned out into the streets so yes the suicidal ideology is very high among that group that's why we need to be more accepting of them and more supportive of them not continue rejecting them you didn't mention a survey about they grow out of it because I'm not aware of any survey anywhere by any reputable organization that talks about transgender individuals just growing out of it by the way
089in our schools we aren't actively encouraging transitions we aren't sitting there advocating for medical procedures that's something that parents have to work with their child and figure out what's appropriate and where they are and they need to work on that as a family we're advocating accepting people for who they are and supporting them for who they are you stated it when you're talking about uh whether God should be and religion should be part of the government all beings being created equal I don't think it said God created them all equal they're just saying all people are equal I'm not going to be on this board very much longer I've got this is really my last full meeting foreign so this isn't something I'm going to be able to work on actively in the district but
090I have no doubt in my mind my fellow board members and our incoming board member are going to do everything they can to continue supporting our lgbtq students especially our transgender students and as a a private citizen in Burbank I'm going to continue supporting an advocate and advocating for that those same supports thank you Dr agukkanian thank you madam president um I do also want to thank our speakers Miss Ambassador thank you for this wonderful list and thank you um for our teachers and the BTA donating these books I think it's important that we continue not only diversifying our collection but also preparing for our students you know for the future you know um I always say this I have the privilege of you know teaching to students who are just graduate high school or
091first class in college you know this is our introductory classes and I just love it when the students come in and they're ready to go you know and that's why I get excited about robots and but I do appreciate what you're doing and I'm looking forward hopefully again to have the books on the fences again because you know our son and I we always go biking or running so we love that idea so hopefully you'll bring it back next year again um other than that uh I do want to acknowledge the fact that I was uh I didn't attend our Burbank coordinating council's event um and the event was called where hope grows and it was a wonderful event it was great to see the honorees and uh I know my colleagues were there miss
092tabat and Mr friedner It's a Wonderful event for a great cause and I did win the gift cards to um the new fish place what is it called um yeah but it was a great event and it was wonderful to see everyone else also I want to take this opportunity you know we're talking about Patriots and my best friend is a veteran he's he's also at my wedding's best friend he served in Iraq and Kuwait and uh you know I just want to thank him for his service I know we just had the Veterans Day so Roger if you're watching thank you for your service um and uh that's it thank you very much Madam chair thank you Mr Ferguson thank you so much um first uh to miss a Basta thank you as always
093um and the Burbank Teachers Association for your continued partnership uh in expanding our libraries um I I have to admit uh being on here a few Cycles now um I I feel like every time you come up with new books uh it truly is an English teacher in action as you handle the books with such love and care um and it's pretty clear that there's a ton of work that goes into the selection kind of a ton of heart so um you know it's one of the things I appreciate most uh you know very reflectively during my time on the board is when you walk into the libraries how many generations of people have donated to create the broad collections that they are today and so thanks for being a part of that Legacy and
094thank you to the association for their financial contributions to make that happen um to Ms Geller thank you so much for escalating um that concern obviously lots of campuses lots of different things going on and and at times it's helpful to hear from members of the public when there is something like this occurring um as staff uh said there are budgets allocated to address these issues and you know when it gets to a crisis Point like this certainly uh we we are looking into what decisions have been made um so I appreciate that staff has said they're going to look into it I'll ask that the board be included in that update when we uh Circle back that way you know that your time and your evening and the time you took to write your
095and prepare your remarks um you know we're really held to a standard by the elected officials you escalated it to so appreciate that and looking forward to hearing back on that certainly makes sense that it's a high volume program and that is uh and the pictures you presented certainly isn't the standard that I think we as a the community expect having said that I think there's it's quite possible that well intentions you know and a lot of just overlooking and a lot of different competing needs uh created this so thank you for your patience and again thanks uh for for escalating in a way that allows us to address this um uh to the aracelian family thank you very much for coming down again and for uh contributing I really appreciated your comments I know
096when you have very deeply held beliefs sometimes hearing and really listening is is challenging because you want to jump to label to defend and to be defensive and as a member of the LGBT community I I really do my best to really listen and discern uh in your comments and in your commentary and I appreciate your contributions even when I disagree with them at times but I appreciate both of you in different moments uh you know saying where you do have care for members of this community it matters for people because we don't always have the right language that doesn't offend everybody to discuss these issues but intentionality helps when you demonstrate rate what you're trying to answer for here so I appreciate that um I there there is a kind of a popular belief
097or a belief that's out there that there's a lot of coercive Behavior around encouraging LGBT Behavior at times specifically within the transgender Community this is um you know I don't think anybody up here including myself supports any kind of coercive activity but what does happen is that there are you know at times really self-identified allies who push and who encourage and that gets interpreted in a lot of different ways in a moment for many students that is deeply horrifying that is deeply personal I believe for students who have identified that they are somebody who would like to transition that there should be supports in in place for those individuals I believe that those individuals as you've talked about go through incredible physical changes and that are very demanding at times on the body that require
098a lot of care and a lot of support and certainly should not be made lightly those decisions should not be made lightly they should be made as they are in conjunction at times with family and with doctors and so I'm with you in the sense that if there is coercive behavior that would ever encourage students to go down a specific pathway that doesn't reflect their needs or their intentions I'm an ally in in protecting students against that kind of coercive Behavior but for those students who have identified that that's the path for them and for those students and those families I believe is educational institutions responsible for removing the barriers to education including distractions from personal identity and issues like that that we have an obligation to serve them as well but I hear again
099where you're coming from and again for those students who need those Services I support those um when it comes to uh just trying to think of the other when it when it comes to risk and criminal risk behavior by by allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of of the gender they identify as or a non-gender Affiliated restroom um you know I I I think it's tough also because if we look at statistics the number of cisgendered heterosexual rapes versus the uh who commit rapes versus those who identify as transgender uh and or homosexual gay uh LGBT you name it it really becomes a data crunching and how you want to spin it but I will say statistically uh sexual assaults are committed you know per capita uh largely uh with again the population which
100is mostly heterosexual which is mostly cisgendered so are are there individuals who act in predatory Fashions um due to a number of causes you bet um and the reality is is that there isn't I think a legislative body or any adult that wants to create environments where those people can be successful in that predatory behavior um but I I don't believe that's a behavior class that belongs uniquely to one community over another I think it's something we struggle with as Humanity truly and that those people who engage in such predatory behavior if we look at studies if we look at that often come from very traumatized backgrounds or have encountered insane situations of their own growing up that doesn't necessarily mean I have sympathy but it does it does mean that there are other causes
101here and I think that again it shouldn't uniquely be assigned to one community over another so I appreciate your engagement I appreciate your care where language at times is is triggering you will get responses from us but I do want to say Anna as you said this is a a discussion and a forum for engagement and I hope I I hope in my comments as the only member of the LGBT community up here um Can can honestly say that I've heard you uh that I've sought to engage and I really appreciate uh at least you listening to me because I do have to say for those who are at home I see two sets of eyes looking back at me and and listening as well so I appreciate that as Neighbors and last but not
102least sorry um to all of our staff and to all of our students and to all of our families wishing you a warm and Happy Thanksgiving we so appreciate all that you do to keep the wheels moving in this incredible district and for putting up with all the turkeys that we create for you and all the situations we create for you but again from the bottom of my heart and I know deeply from this community thank you and we are thankful for each of you thank you Mr Ferguson uh thank you to the speakers who came out tonight um your thoughts and comments are appreciated this is a Basta thank you once again for the work you do for our school sites and our staffs and I greatly appreciate the list of books um it's
103always nice to have another list when you're shopping for the next book to read so I appreciate that very much and I know our our sites do too they get excited when new books arrive uh Mrs Geller thank you for coming out and being the uh person that gets the ball rolling I'm sure I have faith in the folks who work for us um that they'll do the right thing for the kids uh whichever pathway that goes so it may not happen in the next week but the ball's rolling so we'll see where it leads us hopefully uh to the place we want to be um Mr schlossman just once again thank you for coming down and expressing your thoughts with us tonight I appreciate that the arakilians the same thing um whether or not
104we agree or disagree because some statements that you could possibly make Anna or Iran I you know I'm happy to hear and some things just may not agree with my personal philosophy so but yes the the mic the time at the podium is always available for you to come and speak your thoughts I have to agree with on many things that my colleagues have said in response to you but most importantly something that Mr fritner said was uh I don't think anywhere in any place at any school are we encouraging or counseling or promoting um young people to uh transition so to speak I think that as Mr frittner says is a discussion between that young person and whatever adults that they have in their life and follow through with and it is not the
105role of the school and I don't see that happening uh in our school sites if you think it is please share that with someone privately let the superintendent know let someone else know but it's it that's not our role um today I think I got everyone so thank you for coming out this evening and we will continue now on with our meeting following with reports to the board tonight jumping to 10A diversity equity and inclusion update Dei update foreign board members staff and Community tonight we're going to give a brief update on the work that we've been doing around excuse me diversity equity and inclusion if I can get the slides please the first area we're going to have a detailed report at the next presentation right after me with from Miss Casino we completed
106our professional development with Facing History in ourselves and so we'll go through some of the reflections the findings and the next steps from that training but as a reminder that was a baseline training that we provided to all staff in the district focused on giving us five modules and we'll talk more in those details about the reflections one of the key findings from that training was that it provided our teachers and our administrators with that that knowledge and information but they wanted hands-on experience so the next two updates that I'll talk about is how we're evolving to the next phase of our diversity equity and inclusion journey by making sure that we create those environments where we can have those Brave conversations and continue our work in addition uh Miss casino and the instructional team
107are working with our teachers Lucy Bowers to continue to look at the criteria that we're using to diversify our novels and an update we have our seventh grade novels um they have selected one additional book flying lessons for seventh grade and so they're going through the process of now looking at how they can purchase those and get those into the seventh grade classrooms so so we've contracted with two individuals two consulting firms to help us take that training to the next level the first one is root wellness and that is Ebony Williams and so this training is really focused on a two-part exercise throughout the school year the first one we did was a virtual training she provided a base level of how do you look at trauma-informed care cultural humidity humility in your schools
108and in your classrooms that was you could participate in a live virtual training as well as looking at that recording training so all of our schools are going through that right now when our staff complete that training they're able to submit feedback questions scenarios that they want Ms Williams to work with them through the second part of the the training and we've concluded a couple of those already well she'll take that and she'll customize it for a School site and so a teacher can come and say this happened in my classroom I handled it this way should I have looked at this where this went well this didn't go well I think that's came from a lot of the feedback that we had from Facing History in ourselves and it was really about okay we
109have the theoretical level of how we do this work but what's the Hands-On level and so Ms Williams is bringing scenarios that she's seen in the classrooms and she's also looked at how do you identify bias in the classism racism what do you do what are their restorative practices as well as culturally relevant classrooms and one of those conditions we can put in place the next consultant we're working with is Miss Florence Culpepper and she's from rooted leadership and she's working with our principals and um as well as diversity Equity inclusion leads at each of our school sites and what we've gone through a process we created criteria where teachers could nominate or apply to be diversity Equity inclusion leaders at their sites each School site then voted on those candidates and they've been selected
110at each each site and what those uh diversity Equity inclusion leads or they're working with the admin team at the school sites to identify actionable goals one or two for this school year and then they're developing an action plan and what rooted leadership and Ms Culpepper leading that she is working with the principals through all of our all principal meetings this year to focus on those action goals implementation plans what we call a litmus test of coming up with key essential questions what all staff should be asking as we're looking through a diversity Equity inclusion lens and then looking at the communication strategies as they roll out their action plans how do you spread that to our students our staff and our families and so that's a process that we're working on right now and
111then she's alternating each month by working directly with the diversity Equity inclusion leads and this is allowing them to refine their thinking create an affinity group with each other share best practices share problems of practice and they're going to be working together so one month's going to be with the secondary diversity Equity inclusion leads the next month is with the elementary leads and the final update is the work that we're doing around our hate speech policy unfortunately we will continue to see examples where hate speech is happening in our schools the rest of the work we're doing around diversity inclusion and Equity should be able to address some of this by greater education training and culture on our campuses but when we do have cases of hate speech we want to make sure that we're
112balancing Progressive discipline with restorative practices and you can see on the slide that you can see how we're combining that and so it includes education it includes making sure that the parents are involved and then appropriate discipline that progresses if a child continues that behavior in the district I know we've been getting feedback on should we just suspend first and we looked at the research we've been working with consultants and Justice spending is not going to change the behavior we need to make sure that we're focused on that education the bringing in we're working with the victims to make sure they're they are supported in the case and also giving them the ownership and the power of how they want to see the resolution so some of our students have asked for letters from the
113perpetrator others have had restorative circles where you have face-to-face conversations but it's a way that we're protecting the victim but also making sure that the person that committed that that hate speech is learning from it and having the discipline at the same time with that I'm happy to answer any questions um uh I think it was requested I want to say by Dr Weisberg but so uh that when the Dei leads at the schools were chosen that the board would get uh notified of those is that coming or that will that be coming to the board at some point there was an email I forward to the board was an update with it was a link in there but I can resend it to make sure that my bed I might have missed it when
114I saw that okay um on the um addressing hate speech uh aspect is this um you know we've been following PBIS you know previously is this a further adjustment from that because I know it's I could agree that's you know just the discipline aspect hadn't been working in the past and that was all idea of trying PBIS but that also isn't satisfying for those who are still experiencing hate speech so is this intended to try and you know at least you know move somewhere in between those two right so PBIS is creating the cultures on campuses so we have you know acknowledging and recognizing and positive behavior uh our our teams have been working on PBS there's also an aspect of that that's included in the training focusing on how to address this but this
115this also goes above that so we've been we're finding our practices to make sure that again that balance of discipline but also restorative practices so it it's it's in addition to PBIS is the short answer those two questions all right thank you very much moving on to 10B report on Facing History professional development this is caseo thank you president Tabet members of the board and our Burbank community so this is a continuation and an additional information from superintendent Hills report so this is specifically the professional development that we did with Facing History and ourselves which is an organization really that focuses on being honest and looking at the history of our country and all of these issues and then causing or asking teachers and staff to really reflect personally on what they carry as well
116into the classroom because if we don't acknowledge it it's going to be hard to change so that's our whole Focus we had a whole year of workshops there were five of them the sessions started in August of 2021 and finished in August of 2022 and we had a approximately 500 busd staff members go through the training there were 474 who took the pre pre-test before the workshops and 296 that took the post-test and we had a group of 186 who took both so those are the ones that we really are looking at our findings because it is a significant and valid statistical Mark of 186 of those teachers so from that our findings our key findings and if I could have the slides the next one please let's see where is it oh here it
117is Okay so if you look at the first key finding we had the participants related that they had a high quality Workshop experience and that they would recommend it specifically what that meant and what they were referring to was 89 agreed that or strongly agreed that the workshop objectives were clear 87 percent agreed that the workshop topics were well connected and 84 percent agreed that the workshop provided a wide range of opportunities for their participation and 87 percent would recommend to other Educators so overall it was pretty high marks in terms of Staff satisfaction with the um Workshop the second implication is that particip participants grew in their own self-awareness and the key points in that I thought were pretty significant because the first one which had the highest level of growth was the ability
118to understand Eugenics and its impact on education specifically and that just grew astronomically in terms of understanding the next ones were understanding of the role that race and racism have played in the whole education system understanding how their own identity as a teacher affects how they approach racial inequities and awareness of stereotypes that shape how teachers view their own students so all of those areas showed significant growth for teachers after the workshops because it just gave them opportunity to Talk Amongst each other and reflect on their own beliefs and responding to some of the prompts the third implication was really about the um worship Workshop itself and really they were talking about how they wanted more Elementary specific examples how they wanted less time in lecture and more time to work together and that of
119course makes sense and an ability to maximize engagement and to learn more about the how to's like how do we make a difference in the classroom which goes right into what Dr Hill was talking about because we got this right when they were done before all of the results were collected into this report to be able to plan for this year and how we were going to support our teachers and so right away we started with selecting the Dei leads and having the sites and staffs work on their goals so that's what we're working on so we'll have another report at the end of the year about the work that happened in terms of the action items of the staffs any questions I just want to thank uh you know the district and all of
120our you know faculty staff teachers everyone is going through the process and and uh you know what is the average uh some of these classes they're taking you know what's the average timeline for taking some of these you know training or or the questionnaires I'm just curious how long it takes to take a questionnaire no like the the how long are the when you asked you said there's a test and a pre-testine right oh the pre and post test yeah I don't know how long that took to take those uh they're pretty rapid I think it was like five minutes after each session so we had to make sure thank you thank you any of my other colleagues have a question or thought okay thank you Mrs gazelle of course Tennessee report on facilities and
121Technology projects uh Mr Cantwell [Applause] foreign vice president Ferguson board members staff and Community this evening we have four Bond items in our agenda one is a notice of completion two are change orders and one is an award of a contract first one is notice for completion this actually came to you last meeting as an approval item and it has now been completed the fire alarm device removal for the least Portables the next two are change orders you'll see that they nearly cancel out uh monetarily first one is actually a reduction in cost this is due to a change in the curb cut saved us just under four thousand dollars at Disney it's like we lost the PowerPoint oh there we go um the next one's a change order uh increase of twenty six hundred
122dollars for landscaping irrigation this was due to a supply chain issue with the actual um irrigation controller that we were initially planning on getting not available and so we went with a Rain Bird that meets the needs and the last one was an Warden of contract for uh 10 clocks to the new again two-story brilliant Disney this work also has been completed if you have any questions on these Bond projects okay looks like we're good thank you oh I'm sorry go ahead just uh a quick commentary thank you for your kind of proactive Outreach we're already getting positive feedback on on trying to address some of this I know uh you and I are gonna go visit some sites together so um I just want to thank you for your responsiveness uh in addressing this
123and and uh for your report tonight thank you thank you okay moving on to new and under finished business 11a adoption of resolution 11 recognizing December 10th 2022 is Human Rights Day Madam president yes sir I moved at the Board of Education adopts resolution 11 recognizing December 10th 2022 as human rights day as presented second thank you for the motion and the second Mr fritner any discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed say no motion carries 4-0 do you wish to read the resolution or I would I don't have my reading glasses on so thank you that's why I had to go Mr freightner go ahead you know uh Burbank Unified School District resolution number 11 recognizing December 10th 2022 as human rights day whereas on December 10th 1948 the general
124assembly of the United Nations adopted the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaiming that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and whereas since the historic Declaration of 70 years ago December 10th has been recognized internationally as human rights day and whereas the Board of Education strongly supports efforts to promote human rights through education and programs that promote equal rights tolerance understanding and the recognition and appreciation of human diversity and to encourage Community dialogue concerning issues of Tolerance and respect for human rights and whereas the Board of Education supports the activities and achievements of the commission on human rights in advancing human dignity and promoting tolerance and understanding of our differences in our community now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education and support part of a day
125to promote personal and community actions which Advance human dignity tolerance and Harmony among all people hereby recognizes December 10 2022 to be a human rights day at the Burbank Unified School District thank you consultant services for project glad guided language acquisition and design program from the Orange County Department of Education as lcf f l cap supplemental Grant funds Adam Price I moved that okay oh looks like tomorrow at least yeah I was gonna make a motion they're just cheaters no I can see actually I made it bigger now so all right I moved that my reading glasses or something new so I'm getting used to it I keep forgetting them but I can make it I have like 10 pairs everywhere I'll take two um I moved at the Board of Education approved the consultant
126agreement between Burbank Unified School District and Orange County Superintendent of Schools operating as Orange County Department of Education to provide professional development services to training materials to teachers administrators and support staff for the 2022-23 school year not to exceed 17 150 effective November 30th 2022 through February 28 2023 and the authority to sign the contract to be exercise pursuit of uscr AR 3314 as presented second thank you for the motion and the second any discussion okay all in favor say aye aye aye opposed no motion carries four zero 11c adoption of amendment to the Declaration of Need for emergency cross-cultural language and academic development the clad permit emergency bilingual cross-cultural language and academic development the bclad permit and general education limited assignments permit for certificated staff Madam chair before I uh I have a question
127can you explain uh what this is about Dr Neiman because the word emergency I see though yes so when we hire somebody who comes from out of state or who has not completed a certain requirement for their credential where you have the ability to apply for an emergency waiver through the commission it's usually a year and so this authorizes them to work in the state of California while they earn their supplemental authorizations thank you madam chair I move that the Board of Education adopt the amendment to the Declaration of Need for emergency cross-cultural language and academic development clad permit and emergency bilingual cross-cultural language and academic development permit and general education limited assignment permit requested for certified staff as presented second thank you for the motion of the second Mr frittner all those in favor
128please say oh any further discussion sorry all those in favor please say aye aye opposed say no motion carries four zero eleven D re-ratification of 50 Child Care fee reduction for unduplicated students paid by expanded learning opportunities program for around the bell and Boys and Girls Club of Burbank from October 1st 2022 through June 30th 2023. Madam president yes sir I moved to the Board of Education ratified a 50 reduction in fees for unduplicated students in the roundabout Child Care Program and agreement between the Burbank Unified School District Boys and Girls Club of Burbank to provide child care services at a 50 rate reduction paid by the expanded learning opportunities program not to exit one million dollars effective October 1st 2022 through June 30th 2023 and the authorities signed the agreement to the exercise pursuit
129of Burbank bus Dr ar3314 as presented second thank you for the motion on the second Mr friedner um any discussion questions okay all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed say no motion carries 4-0 moving on to 11e acceptance of gifts um go ahead you can doesn't have it yes I move that the Board of Education take formal action accepting the following gifts to the district and that the board president convey appreciation to the donors as presented second thank you for the motion and the second all in favor please say aye aye opposed say no motion carries for zero and I get to read the gift Report with appreciation and thankfulness in this time of Thanksgiving for all of those who do extra for our students here at Burbank unified it is greatly
130appreciated we have from John O'Neill Jr who wishes to donate to the district 250 dollars to be used for AP advanced placement tests for economically challenged students Burbank Arts education Excuse Me Foundation baef which is to donate to the district two thousand dollars to be used for playground yoga at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School Burbank Arts Education Foundation baf wishes to donate to the district two thousand dollars to be used for flexible seating at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School Burbank Arts Education Foundation baf wishes to donate to the district 474 dollars and five cents to be used for stem bins at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School Burbank Arts Education Foundation baf wishes to donate to the district 460 dollars to be used to purchase materials and supplies for room 38 at Joaquin Miller Elementary School Burbank Arts Education
131Foundation wishes to donate to the district four thousand dollars to be used for an instrumental music coach at John Muir Middle School Burbank Arts Education Foundation wishes to donate to the district one thousand dollars to be used for diversifying the library and classroom libraries at John Muir Middle School Burbank Arts Education Foundation wishes to donate to the district 324.94 to be used for reading is fundamental at John Muir Middle School permit cards Education Foundation wishes to donate to the district 2 350 to be used for physical activities during lunch at Monterey High School Thomas Jefferson PTA wishes to donate to the district um 4 259.82 cents to be used for outdoor Science school bus transportation at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School California Community Foundation wishes to donate to the district a thousand dollars to be used
132as needed at William McKinley Elementary School wks Pizza Corporation wishes to donate to the district 75.25 to be used for the student council at Thomas Edison Elementary School Smuggler Inc wishes to donate to the district 2 500 to be used as needed 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 a blackballed giving fund wishes to donate to the district 576.93 to be used as needed in Dolores where to Middle School parents wish to donate to the district 3288 dollars to be used for outdoor Science school at William McKinley Elementary School thank you again to all the donors it's greatly appreciated benefits the kids so thank you um moving on to consent agenda do any of
133our board members have an item to pull otherwise president Abbott I move that the board approved consent agenda items 12 a through 12 s uh except for any items that need to be pulled second thank you for the motion in the second anything nope okay others in favor of approving um consent agenda 12a through 12 s please say aye aye anyone opposed please say no consent agenda passes with a 401 thank you now we have I know before we had sorry um just said anyone who wishes to address the board could do so at the beginning but we have one who has stayed till the end and wishes to speak again Mr Joel srossman it's on the agenda it is we're fine I'm I'm called you up out like they're doing me a favor well
134we have in the past so people didn't have to stay moved everyone up okay so I'm taking advantage of your air yes thank you it's good to see you all again Mr Kent well you know you're stepping into some shoes and Miss cacta who was terrific and I think you're doing a good job so that's a compliment okay um you know the speaker that was here earlier and I you you took it if you took umbrage of what he was saying and I kind of think that he was talking about equal rights which we all agree on but he's talking about maybe special rights so I'm going to give that some thought um Mr agaconian thank you for talking about the word emergency because I thought about that as it applied in this context as
135well um I want to say to all of you the three of you will still be here use caution when you respond to the speakers because we're invited here and we're we're sharing our thoughts and you don't agree but it's important that you temper your responses with a decorum and politeness and it's easy to use words that I consider obscene and some of the an example of these words would be uh uh homophobia and racism and these types of things it's really obscene far more than those other words that everybody thinks of and people have different opinions I think I came here one time and I said the word [ __ ] and the superintendent ordered that the minutes reflect that I used inappropriate wording and that's a conclusion it's his personal conclusion to me the word
136was appropriate to use at the time so people come in there you know they go to the effort to come here and there's a disagreement but it should be done with a certain amount of decorum and you folks say things that are taken out of context too and I'll give you an example at the last meeting Mr Ferguson used the word tribe and he used it several times he said groups in your tribe and we just changed the name of a school mascot to get away from that and that word itself is offensive it's offensive if you referred to Jewish people as people in that tribe I'd be offended people of African ancestry they may be offended and Indigenous people they may be offended but that doesn't mean you're a bad man but nobody said
137anything about it nobody corrected you it's you know these micro trans transgressions these macro transgressions it doesn't mean you're a bad person if you say something you disagree with so um um Mr frittner you talked about er no it was Mr uh agakani and Veterans when I was 17 years old I was working at Radio Shack at Laurel Plaza and there was a policeman sitting at the restaurant next door and I said can I sit with you and I did and we had a meal and that was 44 years ago it turns out this fella had a long career with the Los Angeles Police Department he was a Vietnam veteran a marine and I asked him what do you think about this board member who won't stand for the flag of Allegiance and I talked
138to a number of other veterans about it too and it was all Universal the same what they said they are adamant and they they said you know um this country was made for her by people like them so for her to suggest and for you to suggest and that veterans uh they take it serious they really do so she's in another another land and uh she's not in her right mind really that's what I think uh Mr fretner you know there's something about you when I speak you look right at me and I really like it I really thank you for your attention over the time you know I know you're paying attention and I really like it so thank you for your service and I wish you well in whatever you Endeavor um I'm
139really grateful for that uh and uh Mr Ferguson congratulations on your position here as president I know that you're going to do a good job so all everybody have a good evening and drive safe thank you very much anyone wish to respond yeah I didn't know if you were pointing to him first go ahead um Mr schlossman thank you very much uh for pointing out you know where I fall short I'm I'm certainly learning um and you know to anybody I I offended it with that I I own that and so I'm going to slow down a bit and and where uh those those pieces of language creep into my vernacular thanks for pointing it out uh I I need to be accountable for that so thank you for that um and and I will
140say uh you know thank you for uh for the early congratulations uh I'm not sure yet we'll see uh the votes are definitely uh not counted and who knows probably wouldn't win it tonight but uh just letting you know um I appreciate just the call out and and the confidence thank you go ahead Mr frittner um thank you for I I've made an effort in my time on the board not just with you but any speaker I feel I owe it to them to pay attention to what they're saying uh and to focus and and try and not look at you know either you know what might be on my screen or you know anything else they're they're here for a reason and we owe them the you know they've made the effort just as
141you have to come out and speak to us and we owe them that time even people I don't agree with I try and focus on what they're saying so I appreciate the notice and thank you for your well wishes thank you nothing all right um I apologize I skipped over superintendent comments and responses did you okay thank you um thank you once again for staying and sharing your thoughts with us but that our meeting tonight is a oh yes and I had them right up here thanks Kim appreciate that uh congratulations to our retirees we have David Reyes lead custodian at Luther Middle School who began his service in 1982. so that was some 40 years ago because I was still in high school so thank you to him for the many many years of
142service and that is all I have this evening before we end I think we missed the land acknowledgment would you be willing to read the land acknowledgment at the beginning of the meeting is that the um just want to make sure we yeah hit on that thank you especially this month right we acknowledge the traditional ancestral and seated territory the chumashtangva fernandino and First Nations on which we are learning educating and living thank you you're welcome and with that our meeting is adjourned at 9 12. [Music] foreign [Music]