Regular Meeting Board of Education 110421

001[Music] definitely thank you i will uh reconvene uh the in open session the burbank unified school district board of education meeting for thursday november 4th we acknowledge uh the traditional ancestral unseated territory of the shumash tongva fernandinho tata vyam and first nations on which we are learning educating and living i would like to remind everyone present to please make sure they are wearing a mask and that their mask completely covers their nose and mouth i believe everyone has it thank you and at this time i would like to ask uh miss michelle hurst to please come forward and lead us in the pledge of allegiance all right uh 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

002with liberty and justice for all thank you very much uh miss clark can you please call the role member ogakanian member weisberg clerk ferguson present vice president tabit president and president printer present thank you uh reporting out on closed session uh closed session items 3a through 3d were for discussion only with no action taken uh adjustments to the agenda do we have any adjustments to the agenda for tonight from board or staff see none so thank you we'll move on to seven items for future agendas do anyone have items for future agendas mr ferguson thank you uh president brittner if we could get uh just uh updates on a few fronts one i know uh vice president tabit has been working on the street racing initiative with the police department and police chief so just

003circling back on that doing an update on on uh efforts there uh if we could get a report back on that or at least just an update um an update from the fundraising committee uh we i know they've been working for a while on on bylaws and so i just want to see where that's at in terms of the innovation process things like that that has been kind of asked traditionally of the fundraising committee and just seeing where it's going and then the last thing is is time sensitive and so just asking if we could um potentially send a letter or at least the board uh president be able to send a letter on redistricting as members of the public may know should know every 10 years we go through a census and reapportionment and

004and lines are drawn uh currently the uh the state redistricting commission has drawn the city of burbank into a district uh with sunlin tahunga sun valley uh and the city of san fernando uh these are great communities and there's a perfectly capable assembly woman who currently represents these areas having said that as a school district it puts us alone as a unified school district of a suburban community with the rest of the communities who are served by lausd and so when there are going to be legislative bills that have conflict between suburban school districts and urban school districts unfortunately we will be brought brought into a district where two-thirds of it will be lausd so for those uh this is important i think we should be drawn in with like communities the five-star district uh

005the five-star district communities we work with so well and we share similar issues when it comes to educational experiences so just asking that we send a letter before the next board meeting is too late to send a letter but if the board president would send a letter expressing interest and staying with our five star colleagues to the commission on some level thank you mr ferguson and i think we can work on that i think it is something the redistricting is something we've that's been noted especially as you mentioned the assembly district is most impactful at the moment so can work on that and the other items as well i know fundraising the fundraising committee hasn't been able to meet but will be next week so we should be able to have a update from that

006shortly any other items for future agendas not seeing any so we'll move forward too item eight reports from the board uh and we'll start with our student representatives so first up tonight is jewel reader from burrows sorry okay hello everybody i hope you're all doing well um to begin my report i just wanted to talk about asb hosted our first fall pep rally on friday october 29 to prepare the school for the homecoming football game we have participants from all grade levels take part in games such as tug of war and a water balloon toss we also recognized all the fall sports by highlighting their individual seasons and having them walk out as a team for the student body to cheer them on we also took the time to recognize the hard work that our

007clubs have put in on campus additionally we had the homecoming football game against burbank high where our football team came out victorious we are excited for the team to move on to cif playoffs against torrance tomorrow we are providing our students with a fan bus where we are transporting 50 of our students to the game tomorrow to cheer on our football team link crew hosted the freshman tailgate event on thursday october 28th in preparation for the frosh soft football game against burbank link crew had games music food and much more for the freshmen to enjoy and linker also hosted a virtual costume contest where freshmen were able to show off their halloween costumes upcoming link crew is hosting a friendsgiving where linker is offering activities at lunch on november 18th for freshmen to enjoy and

008alongside link crew leaders link crew is always excited to find new ways to recognize the freshmen and keep fostering a positive relationship between upper and lower classmen at our school the edi committee had their first meeting at lunch on october 28th where they discussed their purpose and goals for the year the edi committee always has super important ideas and discussions that are always brought to asb that really help asb understand how we can serve a purpose for everyone on our campus the jbhs dance team is hosting hip hop explosion today november 4th and tomorrow nov november 5th it is always a pleasure having our dance team perform as the dance program is such an important part of our school the college peer mentors have been hosting workshops for senior students during the academic excellence period

009such as a session to help peers with the cal state application and the university of california application they have also been hosting saturday workshops with the counselors where parents can seek help and get guidance from the college peer mentors or counselors on fafsa the mentors have been working hard to meet with every single senior before november 30th to discuss post high school plans and options asb was introduced to the part-time finance clerk miss white that is coming from burbank high to support of support us with financial needs a couple times a week we are excited to open our student store back up on november 9th and 10th to sell our ap exams next the stu school has been moving forward with school-wide chromebook distribution as all the 9th and 10th grade students have been given

010the opportunity to check out their own chromebook for the school year we are also having our food fall food festival on november 19th during lunch in the quad this this is an event where we give clubs and groups the opportunity to fundraise by working alongside different vendors such as jamba juice and yogurtland our students have many food options to choose from and support a club organization at our school simultaneously some things that asb is looking forward to coming up include our holiday food drive our asb adopted family with burbank coordinating council in our new holiday door recording decorating contest thank you so much and i'm happy to answer any questions any questions or comments from my colleagues thank you thank you so much miss reader and next up will be ishishana tur patrician from burbank

011good evening board president brittner members of the board superintendent hill and senior staff last week was our spirit week which asp was so happy to see so much participation in the dress-up days and lunchtime activities one of the spirit days was friday was on friday where students got to wear their halloween costumes and and there was a costume contest at lunch and that same day we had our first rally of the school year which was held outside on our field for the first time ever and it went really well our rallies are a great opportunity to come together and raise spirit while honoring our sports of the season and preparing for big games in this case the homecoming football game our spirit commissioners held various activities for classes and each fall sport had their moment

012to shine our rallies are optional and students can attend during our rally schedule which extends our nutrition break the football homecoming game was on the same friday where burbank didn't take the win this year but the game was a great opportunity for us to come together as a school and support our football team there was a great amount of spirit at this game and the bleachers were full during the games jules and i exchanged our gifts from our asbs alongside with our principals from our school for our arts department our instrumental music association represents jazz band swing night where there will be dinner music and dancing available on friday friday november 12th at 6 30 in our quad come out to have some fun to support our music department our advanced dance and unleash teams

013are holding a dance show called emergence from november 18th to the 20th at the wolfson auditorium at 7pm these dancers are amazing and i highly encourage everyone to come to the show to see their talent our girls soccer team is having a clothing drive for gently used clothes on november 7th from 12 00 noon to 4 pm near the corner of glen oaks and harvard in the teacher's parking lot as a fundraiser for new uniforms equipment and etc so check your closet for items that you can part with and donate it for a good cause for sports news in golf liza orianna tied fourth lowest score kiara hernandez sixth lowest score both qualify for next week's state qualifier matches at brookside we are thrilled of these athletes success and can't wait to see what they

014continue to accomplish our boys water polo team are pacific division champions and we are so proud of them they also played against cathedral today at 5 p.m for their second round of cif where they got to celebrate the seniors on their team during their senior night and news just got in that they won their water polo games so congratulations boys thank you are there any questions i can answer uh any questions or comments nope thank you very much mr patron and justin nick of time mr isaiah chill from monterey high school it's always good to make a dramatic entrance oh i apologize for being late there's a lot of traffic not a problem i'm so sorry i'm sorry i didn't mean to tease um okay um uh good evening board president foreigner members of the

015board superintendent hill senior staff and audience my name is isaiah i'm here to represent monterey high school monterey has just like just started their second quarter and we've done a lot with asb within this last week uh we six uh last week was our first spirit week at eggs at asb for asb i'm sorry um we're excited to you know start doing all this stuff for spirit week we sold uh boo grams for halloween and throughout the entire week we had different days we had a jersey day we had twin day we had anything but a backpack and then for friday we had come in your costumes and during nutrition we were doing musical chairs and a lot of students came out and they decided to participate we have also started our speech and debate

016classes and we started our photoshop class and i'm in all those classes and i can honestly say that they're amazing classes and it helps us connect with our students much much better we are hoping to build more classes and programs to help students who need more help in other areas other than math english history and all that we're also happy to report that court for quarter one we ended very strong the average student earned about 25 credits and and this is the highest credit average in monterey history where most students earn the full 30 credits throughout the entire quarter the admin team the admin team continues to work on working with burbank high and boroughs to transfer more students over to monterey that need credit recovery programs or a small school with more support are

017there any questions any questions or comments nope all right thank you for your time again so sorry for that no apology necessary i'm glad you got here we will move on to item nine request to address the board an individual or group representative may address the board of education on any agenda item or subject within its jurisdiction by completing a blue request card speakers are requested to state their name prior to speaking to the board not more than five minutes may be allotted to each speaker except by unanimous consent of the board of education the superintendent may refer the matter to the proper department for review we will start off my first card is lori little and michelle hurst they will be followed by polly stenberg hello uh president frittner board members dr hill and

018staff thanks for the opportunity to address you tonight um for anybody that doesn't know my name is lori little and i'm the current burbank council pta president and i'd like to introduce michelle hurst she is the current first district pta parliamentarian but many of you may also know her as a longtime burbank parent a past disney pta president and a past burbank council pta president first district pta provides support and leadership to more than 270 schools from burbank to pomona and every october they hold an administrators and superintendents conference this is a wonderful event that brings together pta leaders superintendents and principals to highlight how pta and the schools are true partners in doing great things for kids like so many other things lately adjustments have had to be made and this year the conference

019is being postponed to february 28th well michelle and i are here to uh deliver this invitation to dr hill we also needed to take a picture with all of you which you were kind enough to do prior to the meeting because this is not an interactive um thing i lost my word moment thank you first district is launching a better together social media campaign through november to show their gratitude to our administrators and for the opportunity to work together positively impacting the lives of all the children and families and they were asking all the councils and units to reach out to their superintendents and administrators to take these pictures and being burbank we couldn't just take a picture with dr hill we wanted the whole board so thank you all for taking the picture with

020us um prior to the meeting and his first district states so beautifully individually we are pieces of a puzzle together we are the whole puzzle the whole picture and we are better together and we just wanted to you know acknowledge that we're very lucky in burbank that our pta relationship is not just strong with our superintendent but with our school board as well so that being said i know it's not interactive but i wanted to give dr hill the better together uh sign along with his invitation to the superintendent's conference in february and and some swag thank you very much that's all i have thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker is polly stenberg to be followed by dory foster good evening everyone my name is paulie stemberg and i am a parent a

021usd parent i have two small children at providencia elementary and i'm a future burroughs parent and if everything goes according to plans so thank you for your update about boroughs i've been doing a lot of learning about burrows in the last little bit here which i'm going to speak about tonight good evening to all the members of the board superintendent dr hill all of our administrators classified staff teachers parents care caregivers and extended family who make up our community thank you so much to those of you who attended our destiny education project launch event we are incredibly motivated to continue our work together in our school district i would like to use this form this evening to address the john burroughs associated student body asb the asb executive council the jbhs school site council and

022the jbhs high school mascot committee thank you thank you thank you to every individual in each of these groups for the work you have put in towards changing the borough's mascot for preparing and executing a plan to determine a new mascot and working on an action plan for implementation of the new mascot i have come to understand that this work has taken place over the course of many years required the effort and dedication of many and is finally approaching an exciting reveal date of december 6 for the new mascot logo all of your work is so critical to cultivating a school culture and community that embodies our district anti-racism statement i understand that the full rollout of the mascot update will take time money and the ongoing participation of many people i want to express

023firsthand to everyone involved in this process that the destiny education project is committed to supporting all of the aforementioned groups as well as facilities director larry cross and the entire facility's team with resources and support for implementation we will continue our fundraising efforts to support implementation at every level including in in a deepening of a shared understanding of why the mascot change must be understood through an anti-racist lens with the roughly 36.3 percent of the jbhs student body who voted to keep the old mascot there is an enormous opportunity to learn and grow together as we all continue questioning the biases negative stereotypes and false narratives that have resulted from white supremacy culture we must move together towards a shared understanding that racialized hate speech and racist imagery are in and of themselves a form

024of violence tonight in respect of the adoption of resolution 13 at the october 21 board meeting in which john paramo our assistant superintendent of educational services recommend that we proclaim november 2021 as busd's national native american heritage month in which our board acknowledged as presented therefore be it resolved that the burbank unified school district board of education recognizes the month of november 2021 as national native american heritage month and urges all schools in the community to observe national native american heritage month with appropriate programs and activities in observance of this resolution and in respect of all indigenous communities the destiny education project is extending the immediate funds to implement a temporary cover to the borough's front signage as soon as possible during the month of november the jbh jbhs front signage is a highly visible

025and hostile reminder of a violent history that dispossessed indigenous communities from their homelands and sacred sites locally and across the country and continent across burbank school campuses this november teachers are rigorously re-evaluating curriculum and activities surrounding thanksgiving holiday with an eye towards the upliftment of indigenous perspective and culture in that spirit many school sites are inviting indigenous elders and community members to speak and share at school assemblies and in classrooms about their culture history and relationship to the land we acknowledge while we contemplate these actions as president frittner you shared that we are standing on land that was traditionally chara traditionally cared for by the tongva gabrielino san fernando and tataviam indigenous communities you also mentioned the chumash we honor indigenous heritage culture and ancestors and we are committed to the ongoing upliftment of indigenous

026people in our greater los angeles community these words and actions are offered with respect grounded in authentic reflection presence and awareness we commit to covering the jbhs front signage immediately while we wait for the new official mascot logo and broader implementation plan thank you so much thank you our next speaker is dory foster to be followed by carmenita heligar good evening dr hill president prentner and all of the school board members and staff my name is dory foster and i'm here tonight representing the group together we can we've had meetings already with miss tabit so thank you for your ongoing support but i wanted to ensure that the entire board and our community uh is aware of who we are and what we're doing this group was started by myself lisa martinez and yolanda wu

027in response to the tragedy on august 3rd when we lost serene jaden and natalie a week after that these innocent that these innocent lives were taken both my cars were totaled while parked in front of my house due to a reckless driver just this week i've heard a child was hit by a car at drop off at one of our middle schools thankfully i hear the student is okay next time that may not be the case i could go on and on as you know racing speeding and reckless driving especially around our schools has to stop our mission is to promote positive changes in burbank by working together as one community as well as to reinforce that everyone's life is precious and all people on foot bike bikes or in cars deserve a safe environment

028to move about we have been meeting with our city council the burbank police department and commissioners our county officials and in a couple of weeks we have a meeting scheduled with our high school principals asb and ptsa where we will discuss driver safety and education in our schools this meeting specifically will focus on doing a week-long safer streets campaign that we can hopefully turn into an annual occurrence we are also trying to bring back the very impactful every 15 minutes program we've been informed that the district stopped doing this program because there were some that felt it was too traumatic but isn't that the point what would be more traumatic is what the family and friends of serene jaden and natalie are living through none of us here i know want that to happen to

029another family we ask you to please reconsider this program or be open to something as impactful as we believe educating our students and our community will help us get us closer to a safer environment on our city streets we also ask you to support us in our mission and goals that we have for our schools we are starting with the high schools as i've already mentioned since these are the students that are already driving or who will be driving very soon but we plan to create programs for all of our schools including including at the middle and elementary levels if you would like to keep us keep up to date with our progress or like more info on what we're doing we can be emailed at togetherweekenburbank gmail.com we'd be very happy to take you

030through everything in more detail thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker is carmadita helgar at the present time i see one card coming in but that will be the last card so if there are any others who wish to speak please get a blue card into miss clark uh now thank you miss halliger hello esteemed birth members dr hill ms caseyo today i'm talking about a hard subject on the incident that happened to me and my husband today but i want to give a quick history lesson the naturalization act of 19 of 1790 was a citizen and naturalization law that only free white persons of good character could enter into could enter into america that include that excluded native americans indentured servants slaves free black people and later on asians the immigration act of

0311924 or the johnson reed act including the asian exclusion act was enacted on may 26 1924 and it was a united states federal law that prevented immigration from asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from eastern from the eastern hemisphere additionally the formation of the us border patrol was authorized in that same act from my understanding armenia is located in asia i'm here to say that i'm here to say today that no one from armenia would have been allowed to immigrate to america without our black and brown people marching and dying so we can pass the civil rights act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race color religion sect or national origin at the height of the civil rights movement the restrictive immigration laws were seen as an embarrassment so

032president lyndon b johnson signed the 1965 act into law at the foot of the statue of liberty ending preferences of white immigrants dating back to the 18th century the law abolished the national origins formula which has been the basis of u.s immigration policies since the 1920s the act removed de facto discrimination against southern and eastern europeans asians as well as other northwestern european ethnic groups from our immigration policy i have four children that i'm raising in our busd schools and for years i've heard stories of our black and brown students being attacked by their armenian student counterparts and they weren't helped by the administration at the schools today i understand why while shopping at the sally store on san fernando during lunchtime i heard a girl scream she was knocked down my husband and i

033went over and there were 10 armenian children some of them over six feet trying to attack her and another little um bipox student my husband told them to stop and i asked them why are you attacked why is it taking 10 of you to attack the child that's maybe a hundred pounds they didn't respond my husband told me he needed to go on their way they continued to threaten them as if we weren't standing there and promised that they would get them after the student was protected she came over and really thanked my husband because she said they never helped i'm asking that dr arghakanyan other members of the armenian community and also dr hill and any other board members to sit down and have a meeting to also understand that our armenian children are

034also part of the bipark minority community as well we're in this together they have to face discrimination but for them to for years to be known as the ones that are attacking our children and ganging up on them something has to be done so that's what i'm asking for requests that we all come together to bring our children together and that they don't see themselves as separate from our bipod [Applause] community our next speaker is danielle vincent and at the present time that is again the last card i have so again a reminder if you would like to speak please turn in a blue card thank you miss vincent hi thank you for your time um i wasn't prepared and my printer wasn't working okay so um first i'd like to talk a little bit

035about my daughter um olivia that is attending burroughs high school she's a ninth grader um prior to lockdown my daughter olivia was an ap student with pretty much a's and b's distance learning destroyed her it just really had it was really really hard for her i was also going through chemo radiation and recovery during that time as well so watching me go through that while i was trying to teach her you know because she just didn't do well at all so basically she would shut her computer and not do anything for the rest of the day so i had to kind of step in and basically be her teacher that was hard i mean there were times where she went to so far as she would scratch her head until it bled so we implemented

036a 504 which was really great callie fleischman at jordan major props she's just like the most amazing counselor so cut to the second day of high school her health teacher shamed the unvaccinated which we are an unvaccinated family because my doctor doesn't even want me to get vaccinated um told them that she thought that if people that were unvaccinated went to the hospital that they should not be allowed a bed so needless to say this sent my daughter into kind of like zero respect for this teacher because that meant to her she didn't give a crap if our family lives or dies so very inappropriate comments from a health teacher that's supposed to be teaching mental health as well so um cut to about six weeks into school i received my weekly update um with

037my daughter because we were really trying to get her back on track um she's getting a an f in health class and i'm like well why is my daughter getting an f in health class so i go in and i look at the percentages and she's getting like a c in most of everything except participation she was getting an f and i'm like well why i don't even need these why is she getting an f and so i emailed the teacher and i said well why is my daughter getting an f and she said well she's not raising her hand in class and i was like that's why you're giving her an f i said you know six weeks into school have you have you asked her why she's not raising her hand have you

038contacted me as to what could else could be going on with her not one call not one email not nothing to me nothing to olivia right there in her profile shows that she has a 504 but she gave her the f i don't know she just didn't care so i was like no that's not going to happen i said did you even bother to look or ask i asked her all these questions and she said and i i kind of called her out i said this is a lack of interpersonal relationship skills and teaching skills i said especially as a health teacher that you're supposed to be helping our daughter and our children with their mental health issues that everything they've gone through for the last 18 months you know adults aside we're having a

039hard time but these are children it's our job to teach them not put your personal feelings in there about how you feel about the vaccinated so next day my daughter went from an f to having a c plus in class needless to say i had to call her out no one else is going to call out these people it's our job as our number one job as parents is to advocate for our children and that's what i'm here doing today i'm advocating for my child because no one else is going to take the time to figure out why my daughter's having headaches and dizziness every third period she's missed 10 days of third fourth fifth and sixth period since the beginning of school because of headaches and they all stem from that class she's going

040when with already with anxiety already hyperventilating in a mask and so she's getting lightheaded i mean this is all documented so cut to last friday the 29th she was in class she had missed the 10 minutes the prior the day before because she had went outside for an air break because after you know all of the talking to the doctors her doctors health professionals like we figured out she's hyperventilating and she's just not getting enough air so they all decided that that's okay olivia can go outside and have an air break great so it actually has been working wonderfully so friday during health period the the assistant teacher or instructional assistant whatever her name is which i still don't know her name which is also very puzzling to me that i've asked this question many

041times and have not been given an answer um she came over to her desk and she's like olivia you you know this and she's like no i don't i don't know what fluoride is she's like i don't know and she's like come on you know this you know this it's it's in it's in our water it's in our toothpaste you know the answer to this come on that's bullying that's shaming my daughter in front of the class at her desk not okay i have three seconds left and i'm sorry i'm not done can i have a little bit more time thank you um so my daughter cried for the rest of the class hidden um and then she went to the wellness center directly after and she spoke to a counselor for the entirety of

042fourth period and think again thank goodness for burbank family services we love them they've helped our family through so much since we first moved here in 2017. so needless to say my daughter was bullied by a teacher and the only person that's going to advocate for her is me i'm her parent and when it comes to these mandates i'm advocating you don't know my daughter you don't know the struggles that she's been through we there's a couple dangers really dangerous ingredients in these vaccines vaccines that we don't know what's going to do to them we don't know the long-term results so i am asking you to dig deep down in your moral compass and in your conscience to to not decide for my child what's best for her thank you for your time [Applause] thank

043you our next speaker is joel schlossman to be followed by virginia rios good evening everybody uh before i forget i just want to salute the group of people working to make our streets safer thank you so much you have my support and my family support president frittner what is it that we all have that you can't take away and we couldn't give away if we wanted to the answer is of course you know inalienable rates so what are some of these rates and this goes for kids under 18 too just because they're on your property to act in self-defense but that's up for debate with the superintendent i think if the superintendent went to the front of burroughs high school and saw the names of those boys who died for self-defense i think he might

044maybe give that some thought some other examples are the right to own private property to work and to enjoy the fruits of one's labor to move freely within the country or to another country worship or refrain from worshipping within a freely chosen religion to be secure in one's home to think freely and hand in hand with thinking freely to speak freely without fear of being yelled at by you without your gavel being slammed down without you saying go ahead and sue me without you saying get out people can come here including me and say things you disagree with you know you're gonna be vaccinating some kids and some youngsters and i feel vaccinate vaccinate vaccinate it's a good thing but you're gonna hear some people come and talk about and give their opinions and you

045should be patient with those people and you should listen a couple meetings ago a woman came here and read from the bible she asked for an extra minute and you cut her off and i thought that was disrespectful you gave this other lady and you've given me extra time in the past i think you should apply these courtesies across the board just because somebody is saying something you don't agree with or delivering it in a manner that you don't agree with i think you should holster that gavel have courtesy to equally to everybody now one of these things that i left off on this inalienable rights they also call it unalienable rights very important life liberty in the pursuit of happiness and i think that if you talked about these things more than 30 minutes

046in a class once a year i think that you would have a group of people that have less homophobia less racist behavior the pursuit of happiness that individuals have this inalienable right to sink to seek so give that some thought please and i thank you for your attention [Applause] our next speaker is virginia rios and i can see another card coming in so our next speaker after that will be jerry miss rios good evening board meeting and dr hill i'm here to simply express my concern over these mandates for the children and ages of five to eleven i know the age range for 12 and over has been approved as a mom of a parent of an autistic child who has been this in over a decade i am now in fear for my five-year-old

047within the bourbon unified school district i am concerned because of my past experience with my son all these years i've had to go through ieps i've had a fight with the burbank unified school district for his rights they have taken away some therapies for him now that these mandates are going to come into action four kids from five to eleven now my son has told me mom make them hear you please don't let them vaccinate my sister i'm here on her behalf as well so not only do i see a dark future for my son as i have to surpass a lot of difficulties with him now i fear for my daughter i'm here on also behalf of the ignorance of other parents who don't know they're about to face a huge monster that comes

048with these vaccines i am pleading for you to consider to please not vaccinate these kids they don't know what their up against these are not long-term studies i am pleading for you each of all of you to look into your hearts and your conscience to please think about this twice i'm here for all the children and i'm very scared i'm very scared and for these mandates and the governor who i was not mention to say either your kid participates in school and has these vaccines but they won't that's lacking the social skills that's lagging on everything that's taking the rights away that is not fair i have fought and i appease with unified school numbers and i'm exhausted and i don't think i can go a decade more from my daughter now it is unfair

049for us who don't see your views to have to have to go through other options as homeschooling and to have to put money out of our pockets i'm here standing flash and bone as a parent who is exhausted of enough or pharmaceutical abuse this is all not well this is a spiritual warfare and it has to end thank you our next speaker is jerry malady and at the current time that is the last card i have so once again last call if anyone wants to speak please fill out a blue card good evening president frittner members of the school board and dr hill and staff and people here in the audience at home my name is jerry mullady i'm a teacher at john bros high school and i don't live here in birmingham but i

050feel like i do because i'm here more than i'm at home so um and i grew up here in burbank and a product of burbank schools i first want to give a couple thank yous to the school board one is i cheer you tonight for doing the land acknowledgement i was wondering were you going to do that and i i cheer you for that i thank you very much for that um i've heard a lot of things go by the last few weeks i've been here at the meetings because it's hard to come back here at seven o'clock like tonight i stayed at my classroom till 6 30. but um i don't know i think i'm not sure i was the first one but i was one of the first ones in this district to

051get coveted i got it on um march 15th so two days after we shut down and first off i want to dr hill i want to tell you that uh sarah anemia and uh lenora were fantastic for me during that time period i i can't we all were like didn't know what to do and in fact i didn't know i had it at first so uh so when i hear things i'm very uptight when people like kind of poo poo kova like it's no big deal like uh yeah it's a big deal okay and i think i'm still suffering some effects from it so um i just want to ask people to think more broadly than just then just look at just like every what again i'll say themselves but i want to thank you

052school board for having to put up with a lot for the last three months or so since you went back live um what i came up here to talk about was the diversity issue on i think it's 10 b and dr paramo i might mention your name a couple of times but i'm not mentioning in any bad sense it's just that you are part of the process i guess um we got new textbooks in uh history oh before i forget i want you to let you know that i do teach five ideals of the declaration of the penance the first week or second week of school and i go back to him each week or a lot of times in my history class so there is teachers that do teach that stuff just let's just

053did you know that's happening um anyway um is we get these new textbooks and uh it feels like of all the textbooks we were out there we were i was like the worst one to get and um in my opinion and uh in like i wrote it i wrote a letter to you folks in june of 2020 because we were you were uh not virtual are you a virtual in um and it was just kind of doctor ferdinand or whatever i think you maybe doctor ferdinand would give you a promotion that's my wife mr frittner i said that there was like water under the bridge you know that yes i understand that john would say that too but i want you to know that it was probably what was the rush and and then i

054wrote a letter to uh uh mr ferguson which i didn't get a good response to but uh about you know kind of the sp 42 issue i uh i talked to dr reynolds before she got off the board and they and basically sounded like everybody's not gonna make a decision until spring 2021 and then all of a sudden november uh 2020 you adopt a textbook and then we weren't even in class and we found out oh you need to clear your rooms out so you can put the new textbooks in on february like what the heck you know that would still be i thought it'd be still more time and now we're finding out with us this uh uh direction you folks are to want to take with diversity which i'm really for but this

055is like the worst book for and like i was trying to do some things this week and almost through the book across the room the this the ansler material is from the previous editions which don't match to the current edition um you know yes i can pull out stuff from other books which i do i did my colleague ms snowden is fantastic with this stuff and she helps a lot but i just feel like it was a really bad process and i know that all of us here and myself we're not gonna not gonna be around the next time we adopt a textbook but um i just wonder maybe dr promo that the using the cd the the let's see um downey um yeah county uh county education aleco that's at lake using their um

056their checklist is maybe wasn't the best idea because it didn't address the ideas that we needed to face especially in terms we knew this was coming up like diversity and what was the rush we were all in lockdown and now we're stuck and i see you talking about supplement materials and i got one second i'm since i'm last person i've been here for a while uh is uh is is that um uh you know that's great but we could have made some differences before or like like we talked about at least in one of the meetings that maybe we do have our own curriculum and all these things that you know now it's feel like i feel like we're doing a lot of extra work and it's i'm just saying that next time you know

057i know somewhere in the the great battles of busd that next time they adopt socialized textbooks that would be more more transparent that we would have talked about like all the books and look through them or whatever the idea is then and maybe some better checklist than what laco does because it doesn't help us and what we're doing and finally one last thing i looked at your presentation for tonight i guess the question is is there gonna be protections for us teachers because as you can see that when we start touching these issues people are gonna be upset people are gonna come forward we are gonna be attacked and uh i don't mind it but what is your what is what are you folks gonna do for us and that's my question thank you very

058much for your time thank you i see no further cards last call for anyone who wants to speak i'm seeing no one move forward so i will close public comment at this time and we'll move on to 9b which is staff responses dr hill thank you president frittner and thank you to all the speakers tonight i really appreciate your comments and feedback this evening ms little on the first uh i love this logan better together and i i'm i just i appreciate the partnership we have at pta in this district as you mentioned it's the board the superintendent staff the principals we truly love that partnership working together and i look forward to the meeting in february ms stenberg thank you and to your colleagues for supporting the native american heritage month and supporting the

059efforts that we're doing across the district around expanding our curriculum as well as the work we're trying to do at john burroughs high school so look forward to continuing to work with you all on that ms foster as mr ferguson said earlier we're going to do a deeper update at a future board meeting about the work that ms tabit's doing with dr paramo we are looking we're working with the burbank police department and looking at various programs not just every 15 minutes uh one it's the concern's not is because it's it was traumatic or it had a big impact on students the concern was how is it ingrained and embedded so that students are taking away lessons learned not for a small group of students so we're evaluating the pros and cons of every 15

060minutes but there's other programs that they want to embed in our health health curriculum that may have a deeper and lasting impact so we'll be we are we are with you of looking at speeding safe driving and finding the right program to continue now ms hello i think thank you and i'm sorry to hear about the incident that happened i'm going to ask that dr promo reach out to you and see if we can get more information about the event so that we can follow up and see if there were burbank students involved and then broader as we're doing on the work definitely we wanted to talk about students any kind of harassment bullying intimidation with any student groups is something we're working on and we'll hear more about that at the dei group so

061we'll continue to do that ms vincent a lot of the topics a lot the conversation you spoke about really involved specific for the school site and a teacher so i'm going to ask that dr prom to make sure that you're in touch with dr chambers at john burris high school so you can have a conversation with the teacher and make sure that it gets revolt resolved and we this is in the forum where we talk about personnel issues but i want to make sure that you know dr promo can assist that if you have any challenges connecting with dr chambers which i don't think you will at all and we want to get to that ms rios and ms vincent you talked about a student vaccine mandate i just want to be clear that fda

062is still emergency use and so the state mandate is only when it's full approval and so currently there is no student mandate on vaccines now we encourage all families to learn more about the vaccine and as appropriate for your family and your child to get the vaccine but i just want to be clear there's no student mandate right now at busd and then mr milady i really appreciate you coming down especially after a long day of teaching and we always welcome the feedback so we know the board wants to hear from you and you know you email text us call us as well and so we want to keep that dialogue have you raised some good points about looking at the framework on how we're selecting that and i i see ms casayo and i

063know drama we're always open to looking at that there's not a perfect textbook so we need to look at the process to find the best one that's available and have a process where people's voices are heard and then we select that and then we look at the supplemental materials that we can augment that so valid points uh i know there's been a lot of heated and passionate but productive conversation that you've had with the team so we we continue to encourage all teachers to share that with us and continue to look at the process and improve it and to your point about dei pre diversity equity inclusion as we talk about these topics and as we expand our focus in our curriculum have more diverse views and people may have concerns are uncomfortable absolutely our

064teachers are going to be protected we want to make sure that we are focused on teaching a complete history we've had this conversation a lot about it's not to say one lens of history is worse than the other is about to say what is the complete history and then have a critical thought about what's the history that's been presented to us historically and can we can we dispute some of the things that we've learned can we discuss it debate it but teachers should not be um fearful of any kind of retaliation if they're teaching uh to the fullest extent of the the historical context thank you president foreigner thank you dr hill we'll move on to board members comments and responses and we'll start tonight with dr akikonian thank you president fridner i do want

065to thank all of our speakers um to the parent uh regarding the state limit i'm sorry i didn't write your name down i know that our assembly member friedman's got a legislation ab43 uh giving the power to the cities to regulate even with five miles an hour on speeding which people don't realize what an impact five miles makes when it comes to accidents and i wanna um thank you for all your efforts you know i've lost family members very young to reckless driving so and to ms helger i condemn violence no matter race ethnicity doesn't matter i think part of the reason i co-founded the di committee was to talk about just difficult conversations that we need to have you know and i think the di committee is doing a wonderful job but as i

066said from the beginning these conversations are difficult i hear all sides i myself was a victim and when i was in high school not because i was armenian because they thought i was mexican i got jumped really bad so i think as a community we need to come together and talk about these topics and the longer we ignore him the worse he's gonna get so i appreciate you coming forward and bringing this forward and i'm very very confident that we can get a group of individuals community leaders and talk about these conversations so thank you for bringing that up um and then uh oh and and i think uh also you know talking about you know what's happening right now with our students with the vaccination i understand your concerns you know we have our

067sons going to turn 10 next week well not next week actually sunday sorry and you know we have also as friends we have concerns but i think the key should be also making sure that our community is well informed you know we're having forums i think the more we share the information you know the better it is when it comes to making a decision that really protects our children as i said said it before i say it again the safety of our children and staff is our number one priority so i want to thank all of our speakers for their comments and i also want to thank pta little thank you very much i think it's a wonderful wonderful idea what you're doing i didn't get a mug but hopefully i will get a mug

068you know but thank you very much for all you're doing it's always wonderful to see you all and thank you mister thank you dr ikani and dr weisberg thank you uh dr weisberg she her hers uh a thank you to superintendent hill and everybody for putting the land recognition into our printed agendas i'm really happy to see it uh i think it's another important addition so i wanted to say probably say thank you for that i also wanted to wish anybody who is celebrating diwali uh i don't know if you say happy diwali or whatever it might be i hope you have easy fasts and a joyful uh observance uh where am i okay uh thank you to our amazing student board members isaiah i want to tell you like speaking in front of people

069is always terrifying no matter what so never apologize like we all get lost all the time we all get turned around all the time so you did a phenomenal job you always do and you need to teach me some public speaking skills because you're like a rock star it's amazing um okay it is exciting to hear about all of the credits it's exciting to hear about the clothing drive i know that both myself and miss cabot wrote that down so we'll try to get some stuff your way um thank you fabulous uh council pta i know i still need to renew my membership i'm a very broke teacher i will do it don't come for me i know um paulie thank you so much uh we appreciate so much aunt carmanita the commitment of destiny

070education project it's always good to have people there to remind you of what's important and to keep you on your toes and focus so i'm grateful for that as always uh to miss helegar um someday something good will happen and we'll be able to rejoice together but um i do want to thank you for continuing to show up when these things happen because it it's forcing you to sort of relive the moment and re-traumatize yourself i know how much energy that takes and how much effort it takes especially when it's easier to just walk away and not engage so i'm grateful to you for continuing to do that um i want to echo dr aguikanyan's comment i think miss mccoy could be really helpful in helping to facilitate these conversations with students to help get

071to the core of what's going on and how we can sort of bridge any cultural gaps or misunderstandings so thankful to have somebody here to help us do that work and i know that dr promo will follow up as well and that we as board members will follow up to make sure that we're up to date and informed on everything that's happening so thank you uh miss foster i will definitely be reaching out to learn more about together we can i'm appreciative to you as dr agakhani and said our electeds have been doing some really wonderful work on the state level and i think we can be doing some stronger work here in burbank with our city council partners um miss vincent thank you so much for your comments november 8th is our health our

072health forum is that right monday so i want to encourage anybody um to tune in we have some great experts coming to talk to us about the student vaccine to be clear as dr hill said there's no mandate at this time but it's always great to be informed and learn more so i know i'm going to be attending on money to educate myself more than i am uh to mr malay to thank you so much for for your comments i know that the textbook adoption was before my time but as a fellow history teacher i think we can both agree that history books are never good it doesn't matter where when who does them they're always hugely problematic um i barely touch mine and the amount of work that goes into finding meaningful supplemental material

073is really challenging but i know that that is something that all of us miss cuseo dr promo dr hill everybody in the dei community we're really working thoughtfully on how to address supplemental material just sat in on the policy subcommittee meeting last night and there's really amazing work and thought being put into how we can address your concerns because we all know that our textbooks are remiss even the best ones are missing things so it's good to have that reminder um and i also think you know one of the things i hope you're hearing from school board meetings is the 100 commitment to diversity equity and inclusion work unwavering so beyond knowing that i do think it would be helpful for us to maybe clarify or reiterate what are the protections in place for our

074teachers if you do have an experience of harassment with a parent if there is something going on that makes you feel unsafe because you're doing this important work i know that there's safeguards in place already it would be helpful for me to know what they are and maybe to reiterate those to the teachers so you also know what's in place for you in case you are feeling unsafe or harassed um so that's that's something that i would like to learn more about too so i really appreciate you bringing that up um i think that is all i got but thank you to everybody for um coming tonight and thank you dr weisberg mr ferguson thank you uh president printer thank you everybody for coming down tonight uh and for putting your cards in uh to

075miss little uh miss hurst thank you as always for for coming down and for your continued partnership with pta it's always a pleasure working with you but it's always fun to see what kind of new social media efforts are taking place to try and get people connected uh to parent advocacy and we've seen uh really how parent advocacy has started here and really made big changes statewide and and even triggered national conversations uh via pta so again can't uh reiterate it uh strongly enough how important that partnership is and just a great uh thank you for that um uh tim steinberg uh about signage in particular agree um we need to move as quickly as possible i have been asking uh the site principal about you know the work this it is coming down to

076a capacity issue uh in trying to track down again where arrowheads appear where every thing you know it is a comprehensive review so um appreciate you stepping up as a as an organization saying we're ready to help uh in this way and i just want to make sure that we are all aligned on what that process looks like because there's nothing worse than spending two thousand dollars three thousand dollars you name it and then only and then you know having to justify to the community why we're taking it down a month later you know and and putting something up uh appreciate it but let's keep uh as a part of the conversation going and tracking on that because i think uh it will be a good day when we can fully embrace uh what that

077mascot looks like and and all of that so again thank you for your partnership uh to miss helgar thank you for for your commentary on on what your experience has been uh you know i i think generally whether it's we're seeing it uh in student behavior we're also seeing it in adult behavior right the world is more aggressive uh than it has ever been and people are more defensive than it has ever been uh and as a result i think you know people are not making good decisions whether they are students whether they are adults you name it uh and so kind of piggybacking on dr weisberg's comments about you know what what are the appropriate escalation strategies for teachers as as teachers experience issues and pushback i also think for parents we need to

078know what are the escalation strategies for parents and talk about that um just understanding the kind of nature of the world right now that we're going to be running into additional conflict and instead of people um and and uh miss vince i i i do want to say thank you for for coming down right i i i don't um thank you for sharing i i wish you didn't have to share in such detail right um at this podium this lecture in in order to get a response to your uh concerns also very thrilled that uh that you have you are doing better personally so thank uh you know just thank you for for sharing tonight but uh it's pretty clear right we're gonna have areas of disagreement we're going to have areas and and we

079still have to get to that core function of educating right so i think just allowing everybody to see what are the appropriate paths to escalate when there are issues i think is more important than ever um and and thank you for those going through it your claims have to do with a specific instance employee i'm deferring to the superintendent on that to look for any student uh you know interpretation sometimes is interpretation that's where it gets tough but our students should feel safe to learn and and um there are going to be different views and as adults i think we're going to struggle with that but again thank you for working with us and for escalating uh to miss foster uh related to speeding thank you for your advocacy and for taking uh instead of

080sitting by right taking and and getting active uh i was uh i got involved with the mayor's youth task force that used to be an organization in burbank that that coordinated a lot of burbank resources around uh young people in 2002 it was a part of the original group that brought every 15 minutes to burbank um happy to discuss every 15 minutes with you um it is indeed a very impactful program uh the challenges we identified in using that program was that we had this kind of profound emotional moment for all these kids and then there was no successive follow-up work that was ever done so suddenly we were getting to spring break and students were making jokes about every 15 minutes and and so the scared straight approach sometimes has this really bad adverse

081reaction uh without follow-up work so having and finding some sort of program we've talked about uh i think another program that was similar to that was challenge day ironically both of these programs are featured on the oprah winfrey show at the time so uh but uh you again you have these great feel-good moments as a campus everybody's like oh this is so wonderful and then spring break happens right and then none of the behaviors or patterns change so you know i i've let miss tabit know this just based off of the history of working on this but i'm really committed to try and work with folks to find a program that we can sustain that we can reiterate that becomes kind of a constant measure you know it is a very deliberate and intentional act

082to slow down around our schools it it takes conscious effort i have been very i'm like i'm in a school zone i need to slow down right um but it takes that kind of awareness and effort and a constant culture change not just a one feel good moment so i want to work together on i'm trying to find that and and to empower that because the message is so critical but thank you again for your advocacy and i will be emailing to stay up to date on the latest of what's happening and will always be a resource if i can be helpful uh to mr milady uh you know i i remember uh you bringing up your concerns at the time and i responded during public comment so again apologizing not getting back to your

083email uh your concerns at the time were specifically related to again how lgbtq history had had been reviewed in the book um and and so my phil basically my view was is that there's no volume um within a history book that i think is going to do it justice without supplemental material and i and and at the time we were also in the middle dr aguikanyan and i were working on the ethnic studies program at the time and we were also not sure as to whether or not we would find cultural education be housed in history or to be housed in ethnic studies and if so what components of that were going to be left out and so what we would then have to pick up in the framework on the history side so it's

084a very complicated trying to cover all bases but ultimately what i found with textbook adoptions is that the depth that we're looking for the the the kind of core lessons that i think you are advocating for i don't see that traditionally in textbooks i i haven't seen that at the depth and again it does count unfortunately on that extra effort at times i wish we could adopt uh we can review process i'm very open to that uh because i i it should be collaborative and as you mentioned they say forever these books um but i i do want to say that i think philosophically at times supplemental material and a bigger deep dive with an author that may have greater experience in an issue area can give our students greater access to the content greater

085understanding and ultimately more decision making uh gets changed as a result of that just my just my paradigm on that so don't disagree with you just think that supplemental materials uh are going to play a greater role in education generally moving forward uh that are more tailored and more in-depth other than that i do want to give just quick report outs on events around the district that i've been able to get to one i want to thank the staff over at edison we were a president brittner and i were able to stop by drop off some just bagels donuts just to say thank you for a very hard uh year and a hard work so it was great seeing kiddos i understand mr frittner was blowing the whistle during rain day and helping with campus

086supervision so very excited to hear more about that um for the record you were asked back so that it went well uh when you live across the street it's easy yeah there you go so if you're having parking issues that is and you can park at mr frittner's house um so just a thank you there also want to thank uh our monterey students uh the superintendent and i were able to go and join for basketball um so i will uh disclose i think there was like 42 points we did win uh uh the team was myself a student uh the superintendent and the principal i will say superintendent hill scored about 70 percent of all baskets out of like 38 i think i scored three uh most were air balls there were more air balls

087than points scored but again the students were insanely good uh and and kept us busy so again thank you uh for the invite uh i will definitely be back when i am back it depends on when my ego recovers but ultimately again thank you for the invite thank you miss tabbett well good evening and thank you to all of our speakers who came out this evening as i've been saying for several years i i appreciate folks coming out and talking to us about what they're going through or what's happening and sometimes we're um you know what you've brought to us is is something we've never we haven't heard before so it's always good to keep us uh in the loop i appreciate that um thank you to our our pta uh leaders um miss little

088and and ms hurst uh you know we always appreciate uh our pta and the resources they bring to our students and our and our school sites and and now what you've brought to our superintendent and uh in february i'm sure i can't wait to hear about that and and what will take place there so thank you um miss stenberg it's i i happen to serve on the um facilities uh committee we meet twice a month or every other monday depending on how that works out uh and our one of our topics of conversation uh for the past couple of months maybe longer has been the indian sign out front of uh john burroughs and you know we've gone run through the gamut about what we could do about that without spending money that we really

089don't have so um it's wonderful to hear that the destiny education project is stepping up to help us cover that up until the official mascot comes through i truly am appreciative of that so thank you thank you very much i mean that's just we we love the help from our our from our groups our outside groups um and and the and not just the committees that you mentioned because a lot of them are very uh except for asb are also parent based but it's the students that have worked so hard on that committee um and on the asp on a really really tough tough topic i mean they've they faced alumni who were unhappy maybe even their own parents at home but they still uh because it was important uh kept pushing and it's great

090to see the work they've done it's really really really proud and i didn't i went to the burbank burrows game and i didn't feel like it just seemed like a natural next step we you know the bulldogs were playing the bears it just it wasn't a wasn't a wasn't a big deal anymore i don't mean to trivial trivia oh my god trivia size trivial trivial eyes thank you trivialize it but you know and that's i think what we want we just want it to be a natural next step so great job thank you um miss foster um it's been a joy to be a part of your committee where are you are you still here oh good thank you um i i didn't know when i after the accident because siren was a young person

091who grew up in an organization that i'm very involved in so to learn not you know of his passing but of the others also was heartbreaking to me and having been on the board for two terms now um unfortunately it wasn't the first accident to happen and it was amazing and awesome to meet with a group who um had similar thoughts and ideas about we need to do something we need to stand up we need to talk about this we need to bring some new rules we need to bring um the the thought of safe driving to be respectful of others on the road uh the safety of others to the forefront so that our students are talking about it and learning about it and so and also thank you to um council member nick

092schultz for joining us some things that we know for sure are happening as you know from your committee but so the community knows and mr ferguson you had asked dr paramo and i and council member schultz and did i say dr brahma yes i did met with chief albanese and the police department with the help of dr promo and our wonderful health teachers are bringing a program to the health classes the police department chief albanese really wanted to work with smaller groups in the beginning to get the message and the point across and the program they're using slips my mind at the moment speed i can't either ah okay um but it's a program that they're going to bring in to our health classes starting as soon as that happens i'm hoping i think i

093heard next semester second semester and and it was great to have our health teachers um make room in their very impacted uh curriculum so because it's important so yay thank you and then we're working with a couple of outside groups to do uh some other work and programming um within our school communities and of course your meetings coming up with the principles and you know obviously let me know how i can help with that and and i think our principals are um happy to be speaking with you and seeing where they can take this together so i'm i'm we're getting there and of course also your work with the pta i know there's some things coming up i i don't know when but you're working with the pta groups to also bring this message to

094parents because i've also said to the group that part of my feelings and thoughts are that there needs to be some grassroots boots on the ground kind of effort at each school site so that the message gets through to the students and then travels to their parents who are either driving the cars buying the cars or allowing their kids to drive in whatever manner is necessary so there needs to be you know a little bit of responsibility on everybody's part so thank you thank you for the time and effort you put into this um oh my goodness um i'm pleased if i if i don't mention you don't think that what you had to say wasn't impactful or i didn't hear you it's just you know there's there's not always enough time carmanita thank you

095for bringing to light what happened to you and your husband today um this conversation around racial groups have been going on whether they get along or not get along have been has actually been going on long before our dei committee uh got together um so i'm it's past time that we you know put together some real effort so that those things never happen again or ever or unfortunately we know they're probably going to but the more people that are aware um of where to go or what to do when do things do happen the better off we'll be oh mr milady thank you for coming out i i miss you when you don't show up at the board meeting so it's always fun to see um and hear from you you know um let's see

096what year is it i think our our last history adoption was 20 years ago yeah 2002 somewhere along there um so i a lot of history has changed since then or taken place or yep oh you're right you're right because i was a secondary teacher at the time that we adopted it so yeah um i think we can do a lot of work towards making that process better and i know our our staff will come up with something i have some thoughts and ideas that i can share with you of things that i went through that maybe will work um or at least no that doesn't work let's go this other way anyway um uh mr ferguson started talking about some of the things that he's been involved with this week it feels like um

097i i don't you know we're still being cautious we're wearing masks etc but there's been some exciting things happen in the district where we've gotten together and i'm i'm impressed and proud of our student leaders and our administration who's figured out ways to continue the things kids have done in the past outdoors and homecoming both dances at both high schools were held outdoors it's creative it's thinking out of the box and i'm very i i love that you know change is good sometimes and i'm very appreciative of those folks who took the time and effort to make those events still continue to happen for kids or board members who love to go to uh performances i missed bob but i heard it was wonderful but i did go to night of magic and which is

098a fundraiser for the burbank high school choirs and they did an amazing amazing performance outdoors in the quad never felt like i was sitting outdoors they just made it so warm and and inviting and fun and it is extremely and i'm telling you this uh because i was in performance groups in high school and college there's a huge difference from performing inside as there is to outside so it takes a lot of work to perform outside and our students were unless and were amazing and i'm very proud of them they did a great job what else did we have football was fantastic congratulations to our um casey donato and megan burkhardt who got engaged on the sidelines at the burbank burrows game so that's that hometown feel that that's where they felt was the most

099important spot for them to decide to share the rest of their lives together so that was really neat uh and yes and congratulations to both of them that's great did you go to school with casey wonderful uh anyway and there's some things coming up that also were outside the burbank high school um instrumental music is having a where did that go a swing night next friday night so you can get out here some great jazz and you know kick up your heels a little bit out in the quad at birmingham tickets i'm sure you can get on the bourbon kai website and find that out also there's some playoff games going on as our student leaders said so exciting things happening for kids to participate in that they you know get to just be those

100kids it doesn't matter what their background is what their political ideology is what their economic status is they get to be part of a group and go from beginning to end and create something and i think that's a vital important part for kids learning so there we go thank you thank you thank you a lot tonight i'm sorry about that not at all thank you to all our speakers for coming out tonight uh as always we do appreciate hearing your viewpoints uh miss little and miss hurst thank you for coming by uh i as always we appreciate greatly the work we do with pta and especially in burbank i've said it hundreds of times at this point you know that i think we have the most active and interactive pta council pta and unit ptas

101within first district and probably within california and we've had and ms hurst is a representative of how many we've had several of our council people uh pta people move on to first district and you've spent quite a lot of time at first district and i appreciate that volunteer work as well because it's important to the organization and i love better together because we are we're better when we've worked together and we always enjoy working together so thank you uh ms stemberg uh thank you um first of all congratulations on the launch uh to you and uh miss helger and miss ostrom of the uh that's the education project i think it was a great event and we wish you well and we thank you for the outreach and the support uh towards uh trying to

102get this uh you know the signage at um burroughs cover as miss tabbett pointed out it has been uh a continuing discussion um it's not as easy as you would think trying to just find out a good sensible not too expensive solution to covering up something like that um but we think we are about there and the last discussion seems like we've come up with uh workable solutions so we thank the uh the destiny education project for the support uh towards that because like everything there will be a cost factor involved so it certainly makes it easier to move forward with that um ms heligard thank you as well for sharing the experience that you and your husband had thank you for stepping in when you did not everyone will uh and that's important and

103thank you so thank you for being an example um i i hope uh they weren't burbank students but who knows if that's the case we'll try and find out but we also want to be cognizant of the fact that they very well could be and these things could and unfortunately have happened at times in the past in our district we need to continue the work we're doing to move forward i i'm glad you were inclusive of the armenian community that they have been um attacked at times too so there is a a tendency for it to be a defensive position but we need to be able to bring all you know all those viewpoints together and discuss it out so thank you for bringing that forward and we'll look forward to continuing that discussion ms

104foster thank you for the discussion on traffic the group together we can i've been aware of it i knew miss tavitt was already working with you know with your group uh we have done a lot of work within the district in the india traffic has been a constant problem i ever since i i can remember i live across the street from one of our schools you know for 23 years now and i don't remember once that it it hasn't been a problem we've made strides we've had a lot of we've worked in conjunction with the city uh every one of our schools has uh more four-way stops around pretty much every intersection around the schools we've got wider marked crosswalks we've we've got some schools with the 15 mile an hour zone some of the

105cutouts uh for pulling over you know for pickup and drop off so we we've we've made efforts and strides but clearly there's more to do the the unfortunate accident that happened you know several weeks ago proves that point we need to also look i mean it's our nature to look around our schools to try and improve safety there we need to look beyond that also because this is something that's affecting the entire community that accident while it did happen you know basically near one of our schools wasn't you know adjacent to a school but it's still important and it's involving young people who weren't students but were recently students so we need to find a way to reach that group and try and impress the importance of of vehicle safety so i'm glad to hear

106you're talking about different options uh you know mr ferguson mentioned you know the every 15 minutes there were a lot of uh people on both sides had opinions on whether that was effective or not uh and i'm glad to hear the superintendent said wait you know we're looking at along with the city other options because we we do need to continue to try and do more for this so thank you for your efforts on that part um miss vincent uh thank you for and i think she's uh had to leave but i uh uh as the superintendent said it's um it's a mainly dealing with one employee so it's personnel thing which we won't get into details for the one thing i do want to say uh that she mentioned in her comments was that

107she was the one advocating for her student and i absolutely agree with that as a parent when my children were going through our schools and i've said before i was not always in agreement with the teachers with principals you have to be the advocate for your child because maybe you know maybe it's a communication factor maybe there's something that's being missed maybe it is a know a child out of 504 or an iep that there's there needs to be more discussion on how to handle things so i i absolutely agree that you should be every parent should be their child's best advocate because you are because you will stand up for your child and and when when no one else will or when everyone else is kind of you know may have looked at it

108one way you know your child better than anyone else uh mr milady thank you and and again as my colleague said it's always great to see you here uh and i know it's it means you're probably staying in your classroom until almost seven o'clock before you come over here you would uh you've been very vocal on the history books through the entire process and we appreciate that and there were uh there was a lot of debate uh about which of the texts was was the better text and within the uh departments there was um i will kind of second what i think mr ferguson said that there there probably isn't a perfect text at this point and by the time we can adopt them they may already be moving out of date so there will

109be you know need for supplemental materials i although i agree with you it shouldn't be nothing but supplemental materials even though dr weinsberg said that's pretty much how she's going that's a lot of work and that we shouldn't be creating that much more work for our staff so uh i agree maybe there's more that we can do on the process of adopting and i'm sure uh miss casao and and and dr hill dr promo will all work towards that so maybe we can find it uh i want to say a better way but you know a but yeah a better way that we can you know get through that process and find what's the best you know text for us to use uh well and i don't i um i think i'm not sure if

110this was in your comments because i kind of wrote my note down here separately but um i know you're concerned about the feedback from parents um you know if especially in you know as a social studies teacher you will touch on topics that are going to be triggers for some people and you shouldn't have to you shouldn't have to avoid talking about certain things as long as you are presenting it in a manner that gives everyone an opportunity to discuss and as as dr hill said historically accurate uh you should be able to do that without repercussions um uh i was at one of our school sites last week uh and that topic came up quite a bit that uh with the site principal that it's become very tough that discussions that used to be

111as i said as a parent when my kids were going i had plenty of you know tough discussions with you know over materials over if i thought the teacher was handling my child properly i don't think i ever raised my voice i know i never swore at a teacher or principal when i was in any of those meetings and that's becoming kind of the norm unfortunately and not just from parents they're getting it from students in some cases and it makes the job exponentially tougher uh and i we you know we've kind of touched on this a little bit in related contexts in the last few meetings about you know as societally as a group we need to do better we need to remember these are people who are trying to do their jobs and

112do and are working incredibly hard at doing their jobs by the way we're not always going to see eye to eye but there are ways we can communicate to try and work through it and it's important that we remember that and that we try and i don't want to say find common ground because there's some subjects we're not going to find common ground on but at least be respectful while we're trying to get there and find better ways to communicate that fact so i i appreciate what you you know i'm going through and as a district i we will stand behind our teachers you know when they have to go through those uh difficult conversations you know and we'll and will continue to do that because as i said you should be able to be

113the you know the teacher you are and and and and discuss the material that you have without fear of repercussion so uh let's see um i think i cover all my uh and regarding mandates it was brought up as as dr hill pointed out we are not under any student mandates at this point um you know the governor has said when the fda approves you know for uh the age group which uh hasn't even been for the 12 to 15 group yet uh so we aren't close to a mandate and certainly for the five to 11 there has been no discussion of it yet either at least as far as it's come to us so we are not mandating vaccines for any students having said that i certainly would encourage parents to consider it and

114educate yourselves and it is available for five to eleven now uh and i think it's something people should seriously consider uh regarding a few uh items as i've mentioned i i had a chance uh over the last couple weeks especially to be on campuses a little bit more uh i i didn't know if i could have more respect for our site principles for our teachers than i already did uh but i think i do it's uh you know it's been a real challenge for you know almost two years now uh working through this and they're just i i feel our staff is doing a fantastic job at the at all of our schools um and really working through some difficult times but finding a way to do it um as mr ferguson pointed out i

115was i was at edison which on just about the worst possible day because it was the day that it rained a lot and they had a lot going on at the school that morning and uh no i wasn't in charge because i let the the people who know what they're doing stay in charge and i just tell me where you need me and where you want me and i will uh you know and i will help you know and do what i can um uh but it's great to help out uh you know and uh where we can but it's great being around our students and around our staff and seeing it's so important that we are back on campus this year and you know the vast majority of our students are back on campus

116i think it's we did what we had to do last year but this was incredibly important for us to be there and it shows the difference shows seeing students uh during the um nutrition or lunch congregating again and you know many of them even outside are still wearing masks uh but they're all doing it relatively safely but they're they're being kids again you know and also having a chance to be in classrooms one of them at luther we have a cooking class miss raleigh leads and on thursdays they will take orders from the staff and cook lunch for staff members who will eat their lunch while the students are out at theirs and they were making some great food there was a i can't remember what kind of soup it was i think it was

117a chicken i want to say not short tortilla maybe a chicken tortilla soup but it looked great i didn't have any i just i wasn't staying up but they had stations where they're making uh the sandwiches and and salads and the soup and uh and it was it all looked fabulous and the kids were so into it and and just uh doing a fantastic job so that was one of the highlights i could see when i was on campus um i must have touched on some of the performances that have been happening in the district i did get a chance to go to uh boroughs on broadway um uh again they set it up in the quad you know uh outdoor performances and it was fantastic they did a fantastic job the students every year

118it's a it's a great show but i i when you're seeing them this is not what they were used to you know where the the venue they're used to performing and they're used to being on the stage and everything's set up and didn't seem to phase him in the least and i kept thinking they're they're they're dancing and uh you know without tripping or falling as they're running across the pavement and there was the one kid doing flips uh on the on the concrete and i'm like i i had a gymnast in my family they don't they have pads down where they're doing those you know the tumbling routines and this kid did fantastic uh uh in during that routine so but it was incredible seeing them have the joy of performing for the first

119time in 18 months uh so it wasn't just great for all of us there who could watch it but great watching the students they had one number that included the choirs from uh luther and huerta middle schools fantastic um so as miss tampa pointed out there's still a lot of events performance events that are coming up i really encourage you when they come up there's uh uh shows yeah there's the jazz concert i i know there's a the drama um [Music] at burroughs has got a show coming up in the uh a few weeks so if you get a chance i highly recommend getting out to it um uh one other event that we had a chance to go to uh mr ferguson was there as well and the superintendent at uh john muir middle

120school we have had an outdoor uh classroom for a couple of years that was uh built thanks to donations from woodbury university and and cartoon network but there was a dedication uh last week of a lending library in honor of one of our former students uh the the library is called evie's escape and it was uh it's named in honor of evie swarzinski who passed away uh from leukemia about three years ago um for someone who her family moved to burbank from the east coast just as she was entering eighth grade so she wasn't she was at muir for one year and that had burbank high for really one year and one year plus um she really made an impact uh one of the several of the teachers spoke at the event and one of

121them mentioned it's very common for people to talk about when they were students and the teachers who had the greatest influence on them it's very rare for teachers to talk about students who had an influence on them a great influence on them and she was one of them yeah that i can't remember who's uh who said it but uh um evie loved to read was pretty much never seen without a book in her hands anytime she had spare chance she was you know reading and also was very outgoing and made a point of connecting with pretty much everyone but especially other students who may have been you know off to their on their on their own uh so um it was a great event it was wonderful to see um her parents again i don't

122get to see them much anymore um uh just a really nice event and we finished up the ceremony about the time the uh the bell rang for nutrition and it was great to see all these students most of whom never knew heavy i don't think any of them did but couldn't wait to come over to the the uh the new library and when we're you know what what what's what's this about and then and kids were going up and grabbing books out of the library and going to read so uh it's great that there will be uh a lasting presence there in her memory uh and i believe that's all my notes so we will move on to item 10 reports to the board uh 10a superintendent's comments thank you president brittner three three updates

123this evening i first just wanted to share that i had an opportunity this week to focus on uh the collaboration that we have with several other districts across the state we are in california education partners has a collaborative that focuses on on track for graduation as well as a early uh pre-k through third grade math initiative so both the groups that we're in were focused on math and one of the big takeaways from the group was talking about how school districts and i was talking 15 other superintendents and school districts how we shift from a crisis back to what we do best which is teaching and learning or the focus on instruction and when you're in that crisis mode you turn into a performance environment where you're quick decisions no mistakes and you're just execution

124execution and that's what we've been doing in this pandemic and you get comfortable in that and you focus on the the operations and focus on that all the topics we talk about is covet and we really took a step back it's like how do you shift over to that learning organization where it's continuous improvement and the model we're doing is around plan do study act and it was just refreshing honestly to step back and focus on instruction again so we'll come back to the board with more updates but just wanted to thank the team the teams we have two teams working on this and bringing them back to the school sites and scaling this district wide and the results we're starting to see uh with our math work are really inspirational as well so we'll

125come back to board reports i just wanted to highlight that it was a great moment for me this week uh second update just wanted to share that we talked about earlier board numbers talked about it monday night uh november 8th at 6 00 p.m we're gonna have a virtual town hall i encourage families to submit questions in advance we have a doctor from l.a county health that's going to be able to answer questions around vaccines especially the focus for students now that it's authorized from ages 5 to 11. so it's a great opportunity to learn more hear more and get some of your questions answered and you will see in your email probably tomorrow and we're finalizing two clinics for our students to be able to get the vaccine as well we want to make

126it as easy as possible for our students to get vaccinated and my third update i just want to share we've been reading about the papers for from everyone from starbucks and restaurants that there's supply chain uh issues across the world uh that is impacting our schools and i know students are probably sharing that as menu items uh we got an update today just on sporks and trays and it's a challenge out there so if you're hearing that we're modifying menus or we're short on things we're in it with everybody else and we're being very creative so i want to thank our food service team our business office for just constantly being creative and thinking ahead to try to mitigate the changes but if you do hear there's some changes happening at lunch that's why those

127are my three updates for tonight thank you great thank you dr hill we'll move on to 10b report on diversity equity and inclusion committee uh dr hill i'd like to well we met her at a previous meeting but i'd like to ask ms mccoy to come on up and give an update on our dei work our new dei consultant good evening board dr hill miss caseyo with dr brammo matt would you like to help me with the slides or if we could get the slides up and are they already up thanks chad oh yes great everyone hear me now this is great okay thank you thank you john okay so this is our first update as i've been consultant for the last month now diversity equity inclusion di committee update november 4th next slide please

128the first slide we have here is for the erg the employee resource group one of the only notes we have here is the erg facilitators will be meeting 10 28 updates will be available post meeting um matt if you want to add anything can so we had a meeting last week and so for the community the erg employee resource group our members from our classified union our teachers union our management organization as well as senior leadership last week we had a nice meet and greet with ms mccoy with the head of burbank teachers association ms zabasta our cta representative nate banatelli as well as the cta consultant that's been helping the erg and we talked about how ms mccoy could start to have one-on-one meetings which each a member of the erg of all members

129so we can hear their perspectives about where to go next and then we're going to continue to work together with the cta consultant and map out the work ahead we've been focusing on having common common definitions is what we rolled out this summer the video that we did introducing the erg next phase we want to create an employee survey and then move into focus groups with employees okay i wanted to add on just what dr hill said the employee surveys are really going to focus on just gauging the perceptions attitudes and values of our employees here what their job satisfaction is as far as equity work here if they all feel inclusive to how they represent identify themselves so just to gauge an understanding of where we are with that and if any initial steps

130we need to take to ensure that we rectify any um discrepancies and how they feel included into at the usd want to make sure we i'm touching those measures to include that and this is for our engagement update um first update is students at the high school are connecting with each other sharing best practice for di work so working at student groups such as bsu all the other students groups of how they're doing their di work if there's a standardization practice that we can use in order to incorporate and share information sharing that works best for them as far as how they're incorporating some of their work the next update students are starting a book drive that will focus on inclusivity and diversity in the book titles this came from one of our students ever

131at um john burroughs high school he's focusing on having a book drive that it's inclusive to black voices and black titles that gives students an opportunity to really see what authors are out there that they can choose from especially since the work and the schoolwork they're doing is not going to be focused really on equity and progressive learning third update here for the engagement update is discussing creative ways to showcase native american heritage month in the classroom and in the community so some preliminary conversations we were having um it's how to really have a a ceremony to pay homage to the native american community so whether that hosted at the ymca or some of our cultural events i've been personally reaching out to the native american groups in los angeles it seems like everyone is

132really booked up since this is their month and so it was under short notice but i'm still looking at ways on how we can even have classroom celebrations or classroom understanding and inclusivity on indigenous heritage month i'll discuss more on the resources we're going to give to teachers in our instruction update fourth update here is superintendent hill and myself are creating a video acknowledgement and accountability dialogue that addresses the history of racism in burbank where we are now and where we are headed this one here was kind of a matinee's idea here i think some of the consensus i've been hearing from parents and from teachers teachers parents and students really is that the trauma they experience from the lack of inclusivity in the curriculum has really traumatized them and how they're hearing information and

133how their cultural heritage has been shared and so in order to rectify that and bring reconciliation part of that is us taking acknowledgement that this has happened in the community and we're going to take initial steps to ensure that we rectify this and bring restorative justice to this um so the video would be myself and matt talking about issues of racism of burbank some of the native american history in burbank what we are doing now and where we're headed with the future of dei work lastly matt and i have started exploring the possibility of working with a trauma healing specialist to implement restorative justice killing with our students parents employees so this one here is kind of one of my favorite updates this is with ebony williams she is a consultant that focuses on racial

134and trauma healing for students and just different community groups so she has laid out some ideas and proposals we plan to meet with her on monday seeing how she can bring some of the traveling healing into our groups just meeting with students and different community groups who feel they've been traumatized by some of some of the teaching practices are some of the words that have been used during the time discussing historical cultural events and so this is our way to bring restorative justice to them and say hey we hear you we see you and we're going to bring some healing to see how we can rectify some of the emotions that have been caused by on behalf of us i'll go to the next instruction update so the first update for instruction is english teachers

135will be meeting at the end of november to begin the process of selecting novels and creating a pathways from grades 6 to 12. this one here we're looking at inclusive of black novels black literature um and looking at ways how we can correct the myths and some of the the language that we're using and talking about historical cultural events sharon miss caseyo if you want to jump in feel free thank you so the english teachers are going to be working on two parallel processes one is to address the gaps that we have now because we remove some books from our core list and then also how to have ongoing books added to our works so that's happening and um after all of that initial work is done too it'll still go to the board but

136before that to the rest of the teachers and to the community to the dei committee so everybody has a chance to weigh in and take a look at the work that we're doing before it comes to the board for approval and then also with the um uh like the the other part is looking at and i um i'm hesitating because it's so big but we are starting to address really what's going on in secondary social science as well you know so mr mullady to your point um yes there are significant issues with our social science textbooks especially in secondary and so we have done a lot of work already in elementary to look at the voices that are not heard and what resources we need to bring in and they've created a nice outlining map

137to get that work done at the elementary level and that just needs to be really um it's like starting from scratch to the secondary though and so as you know mr and lady there's a lot of work to be done there but we're all on board and we're all committed and that is part of our next phase so just want to let you know that thank you miss caseyo lastly here for the instruction update we have uh we are working with myself to design and implement new educational resources to understand and showcase the history of native americans and thanksgiving so this one here sharon and i have been working on since um last week and more so this monday um i presented some resources from the center for racial justice that provides uh supplementary material

138that discusses the native american history so i know before we've been talking about pilgrims in indians and how this was a kumbaya ceremonial event and we know that this that wasn't the correct history so here this talks about the genocide and the colonization of native american lands and how really the american people came about and bringing in their own culture and heritage into america and so i think at different levels of grade levels we're looking to be more rudimentary and more culturally sensitive and as the grade levels progress we make sure that we are being very blunt but in the same way being sensitive about the information that's being presented um i wanted to also address um i'm not sure what your name is but i think that your statement that you had earlier was

139had really profound impact i think as we're moving towards his dei work it's it's impaired that the teachers themselves feel protected and i think part of that protection is giving them resources that they can really use i think some of the conversations been having is the trainer of trainers how can we train our teachers with our new resources our new curriculum that we plan to update in some way that they have the resources they need in order to present information i think if they're having hard textbooks without the supplementary materials it does a disservice to how much they can teach i think if we give them some kind of rubric and culturally sensitive training on how to teach some of these issues that we can really bring justice to the teachers and to the students

140we're learning we can move on to the policy update and dr palmer will jump in as you wish the committee is adding school board language about supplementing materials into existing policy our next meeting will review the policy with additional language and work through the process of editing and revising members of the committee are researching open access policies adopted by our districts we will review these at our next meeting and start to create language for burbank unified school district assistant superintendent pramaro shared the district advanced placement data by race and ethnicity the committee will review the data that to help create the language for an open access policy i think it's clear-cut but if dr pomero or uh dr hill all right that pretty much summarizes the beginning work but our the key thing on our

141open access polls we haven't had open access policies we've had open access practices and so we want to get it we have them embedded in policy happy to take comments and questions concerns ideas thoughts no concerns quick question just a clarification point so when we're talking about um introducing new literature both to supplement but also to move into some of the novels that we removed are we focused on black literature we focused on biplock literature that's a great question i think if we think of bipac go ahead sharon i just i don't know the answer to the question yeah the answer is by pocket yeah okay yeah point of clarification thank you and thank you for the report yes thank you uh well welcome to your first month uh so uh you know it's always

142great to be like welcome to the district please do a report for the board of education um you know so uh great work and just thank you and welcome uh i you know a lot of this work is really all over the place right it hits so many different wheel houses um and to me i really because there is so much focus on this i want to make sure that we are driving towards outcomes uh that we can widely say we're working towards etc so in future reports if we could get what by the end of the year is our goal to accomplish that that would be just helpful for because some of its policy work and some of that may take longer some of its hr work that that you know i get all

143of that my concern is and the reason why i'm bringing this up is that we are now headed into budget season again um and so you know these considerations as we head into december january need to be made for possibly future appropriations and future uh budget allocation so i want to be as mindful and to structure our resources in a way to fund this work because it is so critical but i need a roadmap uh and and what we're trying to accomplish this year and next year so we can start getting those funds lined up at least with policy makers along with the staff so we're all moving together but thank you for the work i'm excited to see where everything is going and where it will all land but i want to make sure

144that there's resources in place to keep doing the work so thank you yeah great comment i have a question can you kind of expand for me uh in us open access policies and how that affects our students especially i'm assuming at the secondary level most most especially so for the last five or six years we've had a practice in place in burbank for our students who want to challenge a honors or ap course and what our practice is is that if you have an a or b in a previous course so for example you have a's and b's in english eight then you can automatically go and choose to go into english nine honors and so on um if you have a c you can still get into the honors or ap course but what

145we want to make sure is that the students have a meeting with their counselor to understand what the rigor of the course is what they should expect not to discourage them it's to just mindset them give them a context let them understand what they're committing to if you have a d or an f what we feel is that you're you're not ready and we don't want to set you up to fail a class and so if you have a d or an f then you cannot get into an honors or an ap class so that has been our practice but it's not something that's written down so it's really important as we move into the future that this gets codified in a board policy and that's what we're working towards our committee is looking at

146several different models some of which include allowing students with their dnf to get into an honors or ap course with some caveats in place we just started that conversation last night uh it was our first one and there was a lot to process but it's it's on it's on the table and we're talking about that and and we're trying to work through that to do what's best for our kids did i answer that did i answer that question question ms david well okay yes you did well all right we got three who want so dr again hasn't had a shot yet so i'll go in thank you and thank you for your report i also want us to start really talking about immigrant communities and what the challenges are especially when it comes even the

147history and i think you know i would use my committee as an example the whole thing has been so round up just about the genocide issue but i think it goes even more in them just the fact that we have three different dialogues just the fact that you can find armenians everywhere just the fact that if you ask an armenian one will tell you our origins are middle eastern ones asian one will say european because this is a country that went all the way from asia to you and i think those things are topics that we need to talk about but also at the same time we need to talk about the facts that you know when we talk about protection i receive calls why you know people whispering on the phone telling me what

148their concerns are including facts that you know teachers asking students to write about certain characters that historically are the predecessor of the armenian genocide yet in the curriculum they're considered as part of the 120 leaders you know exactly and i shouldn't go to a birthday party on sunday and hear it from a teacher telling god you know heard about this i know we addressed the concerns but then came the first amendment why dare you tell us not to write about this this is our choice why would you bring that individual forward knowing how sensitive it is and i will tell you this and i've said this before it is very difficult for some of our students i being one of them when i came i was almost 18 coming to a country you don't know

149anything about the customs you don't speak their language yet you have this commitment to your culture and your past and you at one point become you know a powder you know all you need is one little button to be pushed that individual will go up and it's difficult and for our students it's causing a lot of issues simple things as just your last name alone and why is my lesson difficult why can't i change it and i think with the focus has to be also shifted toward you know the immigrant family coming here facing these challenges and not having you know even staff coming and whispering i've been teaching here for so many years i'm just telling you because i'm afraid i can't come to the podium and cultural differences as well addressing certain things

150just in open is not sometimes part of some of our culture we come from countries that we don't believe in government because the government was so corrupt you come from a former soviet country you think you're going to trust the government so i think those are the little things we need to address little things that that does make a difference but there are no studies about it and i think the more we we talk about this more we bring this forward and just get certain communities out of just bigger issues like they've talked about the genocide being one of them i'm speaking again my right yet our people are still being slaughtered as we speak by the same you know individuals and and you know you talk about redistricting you know that's becoming an issue

151as well and it's becoming politicized because maybe certain communities are trying to be broken up but at the same time talking about the next generation who for them the issues are very similar but also it makes them in a very awkward position when we bring certain communities out of himself and saying well i think and i did look in 1999 when the big fight happened at grant high school i went in as a young person to help the whole thing was about latinos versus armenians it was actually two girls an armenian and a latina fighting over the boyfriend the media made it into this cultural war front page news 200 people came abroad when we got to the bottom of it it was about a bull and i think we need to understand that certain

152individuals feel comfortable around their surroundings so if i'm sitting at a certain area at burbank high school hanging around with my people right that's i'm comfortable with that but how do you break that up when you you make it more as all-inclusive and i had personal experience myself during a silent protest when a certain student grabbed a flag and started running around the crowd chanting and i think those things concern our students it does leave them also you know psychological scores and it brings it back to them and it makes it difficult so i think what we're trying to achieve also we need to look at even at the smaller parts of it as little as why is it for a parent so was it so why did they come to me but it's so

153difficult for them to come in front of a podium and talk about their conservative issues how do we empower them where they can and it's a big challenge it's a challenge in glendale with with such a high army population because it is difficult to have these individuals come forward and it's not just about the cultural differences it's a long history that we need to address at the same time thank you and and you know there are community organizations and i know we've done a great job but i think once we also bring this round but also celebrate the differences and also celebrate the culture itself we're talking about rich culture with heavy literature a lot of you know past you know something's even a sim someone asked me do you guys know what classical music

154is i mean i was laughing i said have you ever listened to the operas written by some of our individuals and i think we bring that whole perspective forward and educate people about the differences i think it will also help us thank you thank you thank you i you know i want to acknowledge that but i you know first of all she has been here a month um so that's again step one but i i think you make a good point right because i'm sitting here as a member of the queer community going what about me what about me right and this work can not necessarily as the people who are responsible for moving this work forward be about taking inventory all the time of am i seeing am i seeing am i seen this

155is about building the institutional machines mechanisms and processes so that all of our communities can be seen within our systems um and whether it's the communities of today or the communities that you know are 20 30 years down the road that demographically will look vastly different than today so i i want to do that but i want to be mindful of not you know always looking for ourself in this moment but instead trying to build the best institutional mechanisms to ensure that we are not perpetuating systems of of supremacy and and moving forward so i want to support that work and and that discovery process as we go through i don't think that's fully understood the scope of that yet and so as we build that out i want to create capacity for that i

156did want to mention specifically on open access this is um a very you know i i will say i was personally impacted by this as a student and um and very same and i wasn't i wasn't traditionally motivated by school and i i i wish there were alternative structures it's a part of why i do the work that i do to try and provide alternative structures because i think education so matters right but it's how you connect with it uh that that counts and i was denied an opportunity to take a class i know that i was passionate about and and arguably one of those anchor courses right that would have kept me focused in the other classes right i would have had to drop the class if i drop below a 2.5 or whatever

157right and and and again this is a just a crazy time um i disengaged at that point and i know a lot of students who share that story and who frankly dealt with it a lot worse than i did and there are also so many moments when it's so dependent on a personal relationship you have with that instructor and and so yeah at times unconscious bias uh really plays a role in this and and that's not acceptable so i do believe that there should be a policy that comes back that is a strong policy that protects this access i do believe in preserving i think with appropriate steps access for students with these and apps especially if it's an interest area for them that's keeping them connected to education i think we need to just

158be wise and flexible in that way but really excited to see that policy brought back and would like to see if we could get it in place uh before next year thank you steve for your words i definitely agree um i think some of the preliminary conversations we were having yesterday is that okay if there's students who are having d's and f's part of the policy that if you're having a c you can talk to a counselor and see how that conversation works and then you go and proceed to the ap classes if if that's how the conversation ends same with the d's and f students even for myself as a child here in burbank unified school district i wasn't challenged intellectually a lot in these classes and i withdrew mentally and so i didn't

159show up the way i should have showed up in classes because i was an intellectually challenged now when i got to advanced courses i was able to show my true colors i was able to show that you know the teacher who i was working with engaged with me differently the learning materials were a bit more challenging and i excelled so it wasn't that i was any kind of deficiency or i had a learning disability i just learned differently so when we think about dei work we think about inclusivity with inclusivity we have to give everyone access to it regardless if we feel they qualify or not they have to have access to it and the teachers must have the conversations to everyone and be you know given the access to everyone and saying hey these

160classes are available let's see how we can work it out but i appreciate the comments dr weisberg i just wanted to briefly add something that i thought was really powerful at the policy subcommittee meeting oh twofold one um miss mccoy spoke about the idea of making sure that our teachers are really kept up to date and involved when it when we make the changes to open access one and if so that it's not like surprise things are different but that they feel bought in and part of the process which i was really appreciative that you did and additionally one of the things that we also discussed was making sure that our parents and students are really well informed about the options that are available to them in regards to these ap courses so what are

161my options can i go see my counselor if i have a c if i have a counselor who says no is that the final word what can i do next so i was i think it's nice to see the sort of holistic approach of like the policy is one step but the integration and implementation are other really important steps so i was really it was really inspiring to hear that last night and really motivating and i think um it's going to help make whatever changes come forward uh everyone's going to feel hopefully ideally you know no one's gonna not everyone's gonna love them but they're gonna understand why the changes are there and i think examining open access is part of real authentic dei work so i just wanted to thank you for for that

162focus during last night's subcommittee thank you dr weisbach i agree thank you dr thank you and i also hope that the areas that i was talking about they themselves are so great because they're so new this was a challenge also with the state when it came to cultural studies ethnic studies yeah but you know burbank is changing that right you have communities from api coming in now it's going through the changes as well and the same challenge so i hope that what we're doing also within that maybe we can really start also doing some studies about these sudden differences that you can there's no books about it right i mean if someone's doing their dissertation maybe this is a great idea for them because we're also dealing with for example a large mouth moving in

163the korean same things traditional right a lot of history but also i hope that what we're doing also will encourage the new generation to not only not forget their past but at the same time create this mosaic of the community i think we have a lot of work to do but at the same time some of these challenges are very difficult within our own communities how do we address that how do we empower certain community members to come forward and speak yeah and i think that's part of also something that i hope we can accomplish yeah thank you i take your comments why i think um i hear what you're saying as far as di doesn't just include black voices i think um when i think of di work as far as we first started

164one of the first immediate orders of business is some of the pressing things that are happening right now and so we're focusing on racism that's happening here we're focusing on black issues that are happening here but di is so inclusive to lgbtq to human rights to immigration to sexual harassment to disabilities so as we continue to do the work we're going to continue to press on and touch on all the issues that focus under the dei umbrella i really appreciate the work but it's going to be challenging but you know i think we're off to the job thank you did you have a comment no no no yes go ahead i don't know i was just starting to hearing some of the things that dr kanye was saying change is always difficult for folks and

165then you're you're and i'm not saying it's wrong i'm just saying that this is uh it's good but it's a big uphill battle you're going to have to combat the the wevas which means we've always done it this way why are we changing now you're going to have to combat those who have some crazy my my opinion uh interpretation that their classes will will suffer because they won't be teaching to what they i their idea of you know the the top they'll think that the students and i mean i mean the list goes on and on and on and somehow you are gonna have to figure out a way to get the message through and overcome this that's a daunting really rough task and uh whatever we can do to help support that i'm in

166um it's it's it's going to be i i hope we document it well because um it's going to be a fascinating watch and i know the outcome will be the right outcome but the pathway to get there gonna be an interesting journey so yeah i i agree i think um my own personal experience with di work beyond bus state it's it's a high emotional capacity job it's emotional labor and i think it takes a person who takes it personal to do it and i take it extremely personal i think everything i'm speaking about and implementing and working with leadership team on is something i've experienced and so for me it's almost like a no child left behind there should be no child who has experienced racism no child who has to experience sexism no child

167has to experience any form of discrimination and if i myself i know you say you which is me however i see a whole team of people here who are well capable and have helping me along the way and i see a whole community including the destiny education project who has been assisting me along my journey so i know the task can look daunting but i see the uphill battle as a challenge that we're going to work together and we're going to climb together and we're going to get to a resolution reconciliation that's going to really help everyone out and i really believe that but i appreciate the sentiment i and i thank you for sharing that because it is emotional emotionally tough but good thing for meditation and yoga um and i think of everyone's

168got their comments just thank you for your report uh for the very detailed report as mr ferguson said we will on the future want to uh have like goals you know where we want to wind up because it can it's a very difficult very dense you know subject you know thing to to get through and um it can sometimes seem like nothing's happening not you know no progress being made so this really helps because you are very detailed on you know on all the areas that we're working on uh also i appreciate that you talk about the you know dealing with what's happening right now not just you know the overall you know big picture item but you know knowing that certain things are happening with certain groups right now that that need more direct

169attention so i appreciate that but i i do really appreciate the report i thought there was a lot of detailed information on you know where we're starting and what and what's going on thank you thank you thank you for the board and dr hill and with marissa leadership thank you thank you we'll move to uh tennessee the report on facilities and technology projects miss kutka good evening president frittner board members staff and community i'm here tonight we have one item on the consent agenda that's facilities and technology related and paid for with bonds if we can get the powerpoint so the one item is just an amendment of the approval of the additive change order number two facilities that was on the october 7th agenda just correcting the amount not to exceed to 305 thousand

170seven eighty seven that was for hns electric on a scope change for some undiscovered uh under un uh lines underneath power low voltage and data lines so any questions awesome great thank you move on to new and unfinished business item 11a the approval of proposed revision of selected board policies and administrative regulations president fratner mr ferguson i'll move the board approved selected board policies and administrative regulations from the california school boards association gamut tool as presented governance and management using technology before i get in trouble moved by mr ferguson seconded by dr khanian uh dr hill can you give us uh a load on as usual this is an update from the california school boards association this packet update is based on recent legislation or other minor updates all right thank you any discussion i

171had a quick question yes sorry um i was reading through it and i wondered how i think this this one yeah it is um so i was reading the changes in red does that differ the the policy we have in place for how we help students the laundry list of like foster youth homeless et cetera is that different than other districts no on this one the california school board association it's a statewide policy template okay so you just add in your own thing got it the red the red highlights are the it's good for the community you know the red highlights are recommended changes that they have made that we have accepted thank you and some some of those policy components are legally mandated some of those are are optional so that's that's where ms

172clark and others through the process really goes through and says and discerns between us no that's a great question yeah thank you we've been doing it for years already and no one's stopping us any further discussion sorry all those in favor say hi hi hi motion carries 5-0 11 b the approval of california department of education career technical education student organization ctso agreement uh cn210231 president brittner mr ferguson i will move the board of education approved the california department of education career technical education student org organization agreement number cn210231 effective november 5th 2021 through june 30th 2022 is presented second it's been moved by mr ferguson seconded by dr weisberg miss caseyo this information thank you president brittner yes this is a contract with the state with cde to develop the career technical education student

173organization in the area of arts media and entertainment which for us is digital media and they came to us because we have such a strong recognized program in digital media and so we right now because student organizations are required elements for career technical education programs in schools and right now we have a very robust skills program which we will maintain and continue however they would like to develop one specifically for digital media for arts media entertainment and they came to us to help them develop that so that's what this is for yeah thank you any discussion questions seeing none all those in favor say aye aye motion carries 5-0 uh item 11c the approval of california department of education arts media and entertainment amy uh oh that's the one we just read no no no

174i moved up one here and i didn't move on here sorry it's just a second let's start this again 11c approval of california department of education cde arts media and entertainment leadership institute contract cn210183 president frittner mr ferguson i will move the board of education approved the california department of education arts media and entertainment leadership institute contract effective november 5th 2021 through june 30th 2022 as presented been moved by mr ferguson and seconded by dr agar khanian uh miss casaio once again yes so again this is another contract with cde and again it's for arts meet and entertainment and they want us to manage the annual institute that they put on in arts media and entertainment that's statewide for all the school districts and their programs to attend and so we're happy to do that

175wow great that's where my congratulations came down that's a big one in the middle of a pandemic just you know any further discussion besides congratulations and great job uh all those in favor say aye aye motion carries five zero item 11d the acceptance of gifts president printer mr ferguson i will move that the board of education take formal action accepting the following gifts to the district and that the board president respectfully convey appreciation to the donors as presented second it's been moved by mr ferguson seconded by dr aguikanian any discussion hearing none can i just say one thing dr peramo a i feel like when he reads a that we've accomplished a goal that's been um a difficult journey over the last four or five years so i'm really proud and happy to see that

176one report in the gift report yes let me be clear in the gift report a i know he was shaking his head he knew what i meant because it was it was quite the journey otherwise it was a very passionate speech about the approval of minutes yes nope they're the right place so any further discussion saying done all those in favor say aye aye aye motion carries 5-0 uh the board accepts the following gifts uh item a bhs baseball boosters club wishes to donate to the district 7 500 to be used for coaching stipends for october through december 2021 at burbank high school minim productions incorporated snowfall season five which is to donate to the district three thousand dollars to be used as needed at john muir middle school thomas edison elementary pta wishes to

177donate to the district five thousand dollars to be used for the art wheel materials and supplies at thomas edison elementary school the black bowed giving fund wishes to donate to the district 384.62 cents to be used as needed for mckinley elementary school uh vimalan mahadevan and belinda sunu and i hope i got the names correct which is to donate to the district 500 to be used by the counseling department and ms marzigar as needed at burbank high school casey scott valvo wishes to donate to the district 30 to be used by room 21 at bret hart elementary school bret hart fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district 900 to be used to purchase 80 mice for bret hart elementary school hopefully they're these kind of mice theodore roosevelt elementary pta wishes to donate to

178the district 600 to be used for the ballet folklorio dance assembly at theore roosevelt elementary school theodore roosevelt elementary pta wishes to donate to the district 22 995 dollars to be used for education through music la for general music instruction for third grade students and band orchestra lessons for fourth and fifth grader students at theodore roosevelt elementary school theodore roosevelt elementary pta wishes to donate to the district three thousand dollars to be used for yoga and mindfulness instruction for tk through fifth grade students at theodore roosevelt elementary school the thomas edison elementary fundraiser committee cool i used to remember what those stood for and i can't remember anymore wishes to donate to the district 19 907 and two cents to be used to pay for booster thon at thomas edison elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising

179committee wishes to donate to the district two thousand dollars to pay for fall mindfulness instruction by heather beltran at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district 3055 to pay for fall short-term pe coach christy chase at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district four thousand seven hundred sixty dollars to pay for full year curriculum assistant amy mcguire at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district 13 650 to pay for steam lab instruction and videos our bliss uh llc joe reed at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district five thousand six hundred ten dollars to pay for percussion lessons by andrew grushau at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas

180jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district two thousand three hundred fifty nine dollars and ninety four cents to pay for coachella expenses at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district 815.83 to pay for office paper shredders at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district eleven thousand eight hundred twenty dollars to pay for choir vocal music assistants amy mcguire and aaron mcguire at thomas jefferson elementary school thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district 4 326 dollars and 18 cents to pay for spirit wear at thomas jefferson elementary school and thomas jefferson fundraising committee wishes to donate to the district four thousand eighty dollars to pay for steam lab classes by dr dorothy wynn graf at thomas jefferson

181elementary school we thank all our donors for all gifts large and small they are greatly appreciated always uh we will move on yes it was uh move on to the consent agenda president brittner mr ferguson i'll move all right the consent calendar items 12a through 1200 except for items which board members wish to pull it's been moved by mr ferguson seconded by dr agar khanian items 12 a through 12 0 are there any items anyone sees need to pull seeing none any discussion also seeing none all those in favor say aye uh we have before we move on two three four five retirements to announce tonight uh first of all uh at the adult school who began service to the district uh in 2004 uh next uh less buckowski and miss clark you gave me

182the phonetic one and i printed i have the wrong one so i think i pronounced it correctly uh is a glazier carpenter and facilities uh began service with the district in uh 1997. mary kelly was an instructional assistant at the children's center uh began the service uh in november of 2001. gloria lera uh an instructional assistant special education uh began working for the district in 1989. wow good for you and finally cindy simons a discrete trial facilitator and special ed began service to the district in 1998. we wish you all the best in your retirements and and goodwill uh we'll move on to item 13 request to address the board and i see no one left in our audience so i will presume there is no one to address the board mr ferguson can i

183just ask for a special item just uh next meeting if we could do an adjournment in member in memory of uh john leosis uh for those uh john is the patriarch of the coral cafe family which is so long been such a community supporter and small business that has supported so many high schools so many schools and so many students and so um that family has lost their patriarch and who was always such a fixture there and was so warm and welcoming and inviting so if we could uh bring an adjournment motion uh next meeting just to again honor um that family uh who's done a lot in this community so i agree and they have been very supportive of uh both individually and you know our students and and uh our um volunteer organizations

184as well as uh some of our schools so i think that's a very good idea and a great place to go after a football game right so after and after a concert and after pretty much anything because they're open all night so i was gonna say it's pretty much the only place opening no uh any other comments from my fellow board members if not uh i will wish everyone a happy diwali i think that's the first time we mentioned we i've ever received a happy diwali card so happy diwali to all those who celebrate it and we'll adjourn at 9 43 p.m you