001speaker cards and you are allowed just to remind you you're allowed oh i'm sorry number three i'm so sorry i've been reminded that we need to do the pledge of allegiance and i'm sorry i don't have my flag here so it's right here in the corner can you grab it for me yes if you would please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance here we go begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all board members let the record show that all board members are present in attendance as is our superintendent dr de leon um we'll move on to public comment there's no action oh where am i looking
002to number three on this that's open source okay i'm sorry please forgive me um we are just leaving closed session there was report of action there there was no action taken in closed session and i need a motion to adopt the agenda so moved second i didn't hear who it was moved by moved by mrs ruder and seconded by mrs merkley by a raise of hands oh i think i need to do a roll call for this mrs reuter hi mrs merkley aye mr ellinson aye mr dr fernando and i my vote is i as well so we have a majority do you want to ask for a sound check could we do a quick sound check because i'm not sure that we can hear when other people speak can everybody hear everybody else though
003okay all right okay because i could not hear you know what we turned our we turned our stuff down earlier okay i'm sorry we'll get this all worked out before the end of the meeting um now i'm going to go to public comment and we have a discussion item at 8361 we do need to go for good grief all right a discussion action item what am i calling dr de leon yes absolutely thank you so much trustees.org um in this action item we are asking the board to approve the provisions of ab361 which is the governor's extension of our ability to hold virtual meetings and also teleconference and those were attached in all of the board documents that were posted on friday may i have a motion so moved second a second second discussion thank
004you um is there any discussion okay i'm gonna roll call the vote again then um mrs merkley hi dr fernando mr ellinson hi mrs reuter hi my vote is i as well it's unanimous thank you dr de leon for keeping me in line okay now we are going to go to public comment and i have six speaker cards and just to remind you all that the limit is three minutes and we do have a timer i believe that is going up as well so we're going to unmute mrs judy nelson showing the timer and kellen could you please show the timer for us he's getting it put up thank you who's after mrs nelson please and the person to be ready after mrs nelson is nick lacey go ahead and unmute ms nelson and then
005begin her timer i think mrs nelson i believe you're unmuted if you want to begin okay just a sec get the clock please okay here i go as many of us know and have mentioned in public comments in previous meetings we are still patiently waiting for the critical race theory curriculum study session that board member reuter requested during the august 23rd board meeting she described a study session as a less formal setting allowing allowing for members of the public and the board to engage in conversation about the subject rather than the formal setting of a regular school board meeting her request was a response to the numerous members of the public who spoke about concerns that crt is in fact in the gusd curriculum even though we have been repeatedly told that it isn't remember
006reuters request was applauded by many in the audience and those were watching virtually at home that night but we've been waiting now for almost four months for it to be scheduled i was told a few weeks ago that tonight's meeting would be the crt study session but when it was announced i was dismayed to find out that it's a workshop for the board not for the public on ab101 the board recently signed by the uh the bill recently signed by the governor that requires all high school students to take an ethnic studies class before they can graduate that certainly is not all not at all what board member reuter requested and what we asked for i'm asking you again tonight to schedule a crt curriculum study session crt is a complex subject and i want
007to hear what it means to the board and the staff of glendora unified equity is now included in the curriculum and social emotional learning will soon be for all grades in the district those approaches to teaching are considered by many to be components of critical race theory as is also ethnic studies it appears that you will not hold the requested study session because you know that you cannot truthfully say that crt has not taught to our children it's disappointing that you refuse to be transparent about this extremely important subject it's also disappointing that you're only taking public comment before tonight's ethnic studies presentation your agenda states that you welcome public comment but your actions say that you don't i ask you to reconsider and reopen public comment at the end of this meeting thank you
008very much thank you mrs nelson next speaker is nick lacy and after nick would be sabrina cosmas great thank you and good evening to each of you i have three questions for the board tonight why are we doing a study session on ethnic studies what is the outcome and what is the goal and how does that answer the specific concerns that this community has brought to your attention see for all those on the call tonight we need to zoom out a bit here and see a broader context as to why that question really is so relevant a few months ago the board said publicly that there would be a study session on crt and since that time there was some silence there was some delay but there was also some dialogue and i understand that
009tonight is considered that session but is it see a staff presentation on curriculum is far different than an in-depth dialogue in pursuit of a resolve to an ideology that has disrupted this nation and its schools or if tonight is the crt session then is this an admission by the board that there could possibly be some potential overlap in the ideology and teachings of crt and ethnic studies the people of glendora deserve a clear answer on that question two why will the board not engage in the topic of crt and take a vote you have stated that there will not be a vote nor a discussion and furthermore you have said the petition signed by over 1500 people really means nothing and yet somehow a presentation by one staff member carries more voice than fifteen hundred
010citizens you probably have been provided with examples and templates and key terms and solutions and more all in good faith in the hopes of contributing to some study session on crt and yet here we are listening to a presentation on ethnic studies third question what evidence should we expect to see that proves the board is listening and not simply appeasing making the public feel like they have a voice then moving on with a previously set agenda this is a hard question it's a fair question because if you reject petitions if you won't have public dialogue and you won't vote then what evidence can you show that public opinion matters let's be honest does it this session is not the session that we are promised but we'll make the most of it so in summary here
011are the three questions once again why are we doing a study session on ethnic studies and not crt is told by the board number two why will the board not engage the topic of crt and take a vote and number three what evidence should the public expect to see that proves our voice matters thank you all very much thank you mr lacey sabrina cosmas and after sabrina would be david kenny hi my name is sabrina cosmas i am a glendora high school alumni with family members currently in the district and a member of the community since the board has decided not to utilize the study session to address crt and is holding on to the presentation after public comment i'm going to address my current uh quick thoughts on the matter so crt is a
012dangerous ideology that has now reached our district under the guise of ethnic studies it is an academic theory that integrates the role of race in today's society and divide citizens between the oppressor versus the oppressed based on ethnic background be warned that if we allow this curriculum into our schools it will not only diminish the objective nature of academia but it will divide teachers staff and worst of all the students at play we have seen countless examples over this past year of how ethnic studies has divided staff and students in cupertino third graders were required to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and rank themselves according to their power and privilege in the name of ethnic studies san diego unified held a white privileged training in which they told the group that they were racist
013and upheld racist ideas simply based off the color of their skin my cousins attend one of the elementary schools within the district they are half hispanic and half asian and i don't want them to be graded or treated differently than any of their peers just because of this enhanced focus on their race caused by this ethnic studies course you can call me old school but i want them to be graded on their academic performance and treated fairly based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin the effects of teaching students to treat each other differently and see society through the lens of race will not only impact their ability to perform academically but it will cause emotional and social damage that may never be undone thank you and i hope
014that the board will reconsider um leaving public comment to just the beginning and keeping this open until after the presentation thank you thank you mrs cosmas mr kenny and following mr kenny is linda joras thank you members of the board uh superintendent de leon uh nice to be here my name is david kenny i grew up in glendora i went to roosevelt went to goddard went to sandberg went to glendora high school on to citrus college then to usc then to pepperdine law school i've been representing school districts for about 30 odd years and i see that you have ethnic studies on your agenda this evening i know that the governor has mandated i would just like to raise some cautions in 2014 ethnic studies was introduced at the el rancho unified school district it
015was followed shortly thereafter by the board being seized by a group of communists and then after about a year and a half they were all booted out just for not all of them but most of them were booted out just for your information in 2015 ethnic studies was introduced at montebello unified following that they they had oh el rancho had a 200 million dollar bond uh montebello introduced ethnic studies following that they had a 300 million dollar bond that's been in litigation and with the securities and exchange commission during the period between 2016 and 2020 there were approximately 60 school districts in the state of california and 30 counties that approved school bonds totaling literally billions of dollars among those in the san gabriel valley were basset citrus uh bassett citrus pasadena los angeles at
0167 billion um dewarty i believe i said i'm sorry i had i lost my notes because of the screen uh with your union and passing at a half a billion but these are all being all of these school bonds follow the introduction of ethnic studies into the curriculum ethnic studies opens the door for crt and i think it's very important that the citizens of glendale understand that and i think it's very important that the school board of glendora understand that you're you're opening a door letting in the third world liberation army that comes out of the 1960s up at san francisco state university which is you know which is touted in the literature it's nothing but one thing and you have to remember this it is all based on one fundamental principle by any means
017necessary and that is not the american way so i'm going to caution the board to be very careful with ethnic studies and to understand that it is the door through which critical race theory enters the curriculum enters the hearts and minds and you lose children that way on a daily basis thank you for the time thank you mr kenny uh mrs i hope i'm pronouncing this right jealous and then mr jean lopez [Music] hi my name is linda galeris should i press the blue button when i'm ready okay my mother is a refugee from a foreign country where 12 of her family members were executed they were the wrong ethnicity at the age of 17 having escaped the horrors of war and given the opportunity to live in america she worked hard learned english and
018met my father while working as a hostess during the night shift during my junior year of high school i'm sorry during high school my family lived in puerto rico i embraced the language culture and people so much that i minored in spanish and eventually taught spanish at the high school level in my classes i made a point to teach my students to put themselves in other shoes and not to judge others based on their ethnicity there are too many examples to list but one time certain students were making fun of others suddenly we had a fire drill and everyone had to walk outside to the football field one student was recounting her family's journey to america after great turmoil in her country it was traumatic her family spent time living in a refugee camp her
019father and her brother died there our whole class listened to every word with tears in our eyes and sharing her tragic experiences she offered a solid glimpse of another world her world my son was not a good student my husband and i struggled to find ways to motivate him nothing worked on our 25th anniversary we took a trip and had a great conversation on the airplane with a chinese man who did not speak chinese he said it hindered him when he traveled for business immediately a light bulb went off in our heads and we decided that our 15 year old son should learn to speak chinese he did it and he has a perfect accent too we sent him to china for two months during college for language immersion and to grow up i suppose
020he was 19 years old in a foreign country all alone thinking about it reminds me of my mom at his age my son eventually married an immigrant she moved to this country in her late teens like my mother she is not a citizen yet but as soon as she is eligible she will pursue citizenship my best friend is an immigrant we've been friends for 36 years we have different ethnic and religious backgrounds we have tried and failed to articulate our mysterious bond we marvel at all the coincidences that brought us together and at the depth of our mutual love that we both feel for one another i have a master's degree if i told you some of the theories that i needed to master in my research papers and for tests you would think i
021was joking there is so much nonsense in the academic world the problem is some of these theories get taught to young whatever children naming it this week crt ethnic studies or whatever it's another way to re-segregate people into groups wherever it has been done this has ended tragically with people killing each other the truth is no one chose their nationality or their skin color every person is responsible for his actions and attitudes it's wonderful to see that skin color no longer determines one circumstances or ability to thrive in our society of immigrants all children should be taught to value love truth hope unity and acceptance and to reject lies hatred despair and division somebody is making money from the selling of crt curricula what good does it do for people to make money off of
022hatred and division and lose their soul thank you mrs jealous our last speaker tonight god dr lopez mr lopez i'm sorry mr gene lopez how is that did you not hear anything i just said we did not please start over okay well i was [Music] happy that i was being acknowledged as a doctor and of course i'm not sorry about that i am not but um so uh my my name is gene lopez um my wife and i have two daughters in uh at uh glendora high school catalina and carly and i was saying that i really align myself with the previous speakers and i applaud their i applaud their their their comments um [Music] and i don't have a three-minute um prepared um talk but i'll do my best to get this done then
023in the next two and a half minutes and and so while i applaud those and um um councilwoman nelson i i do have to say that um there have been some uh outreach by the board and looking at creating a uh community committee on ethnic studies and and and that can be worrisome um but but it is a law i mean it it's assembly bill 101 that was adopted earlier this year um and nowhere and i would cautiously nowhere does it say that we have to adopt the critical race theory curriculum but we do have to we do have to create a ethnic studies curriculum and and within this ethnic studies curriculum it doesn't it it doesn't begin until um uh the year 2025-26 and it also says commencing with uh pupils graduating in the
024year 20 30 school year students have to take this ethnic studies for one semester and and the assembly bill goes on to describe a lot of other things that we have to do to meet the requirements of ethnic studies and so um it's while it's several years away i think we're i think the the board is moving in the right track to work with the community um i you know i think that absolutely we should absolutely not introduce crt to our students but i think there's some room for ethnic studies within our community um and with the with a community committee i think we can reach um mutual respect and mutual purpose when it comes to teaching our children and i also would like to say to the to the school board that that you
025know we've already created some goals um through the elpac earlier this year we probably ought to go revisit those goals because nowhere does this say anything about epic studies thank you for allowing me to speak thank you mr lopez moving on to item six on the agenda is the study session presentation i will turn this over to dr de leon thank you president borg i really appreciate it uh we are thrilled to be able to present this study session tonight this is a curricular study session um crt will be addressed during the study study session um it will it will be defined during the study session we will talk about glendora's approach to that and and um during the study session so um just because we didn't title the study session crt doesn't mean it's
026not part of it because really what we have to address is is ethnic studies it is a state mandate through ab101 and what we're trying to do is involve the community in that hence the development of a community committee so at this time since this is a curricular study session i am very honored and privileged to hand it over to our assistant superintendent of educational services who will be leading uh the curriculum study process um throughout and will be leading this study session tonight dr kelson thank you dr de leon could i thing if one more thing if everyone could please turn their cameras off because it what it does is it slows down the uh internet and then we have problems um throughout the meeting typically you just put stop video at the bottom
027of your screen we would really appreciate it thank you all right okay good evening thank you dr de leon and welcome is steve community members trustees and and colleagues here in the room my name is virginia kelson i am honored to serve as assistant superintendent of educational services here in glendora unified my team and i'm seeing i may need to do another mic check dr ferguson i see you there can you hear me okay thank you sir um my team has been instrumental in preparing tonight's presentation and we look forward to this being the beginning of of a long conversation around the local implementation of the new state requirements with that said the handouts included in my comments or my presentation this evening as well as the slides will be posted on the glendora unified
028website by 4 pm tomorrow in a folder with today's date we will go ahead and post also the slides from the presentation on the initial graduation requirement given at a previous board meeting and that is in an attempt to be fully transparent and to continue to engage our community thank you to each of you who made public comment this evening and please know there will be many other opportunities to participate okay i will be making uh i will be stopping as often as i can to enlist comments from the trustees and or questions representing um our community with that said [Music] okay with that said we'll go ahead and and i will um speak to the preparation um that that we've done please understand our purpose this evening is to inform the community including our
029trustees on california's ethnic studies model curriculum standards to address some of the complex nature of perceptions in the national state and local forum we share something in common we share a commitment to the children of glendora unified we share a love of learning even when topics are difficult or controversial we share a love for our country and a willingness to talk together as i heard in a public comment this evening to engage in a dialogue about where we hope to and plan to go what is key as an outcome of this conversation is that we have allowances in the law to interpret ab101 at the local level both to represent the local history especially specific to indigenous populations as well as um serving the local the demographics of the local community with that said there
030is an an important bit of history let me see okay kellen are you going to be advancing slides thank you one more so one of the important things to remember as we go forward is a tradition in glendora unified um and some past practices that are significant and i would dare say in my 30th year in this field that especially bullet one is a paramount aspect of how schools work best and that is in a family's trust in their own children many of us in this meeting remember when we would arrive home and an adult or maybe even a sibling would say what did you do in school today and having the opportunity to share about what happened at school and how things went i anticipate that our children and the adults around them will
031continue to do that sort of casual um and very significant sharing of what is happening in classrooms across this district um and on a larger scale as well we have invested in the through the staff here um our teachers over and over and over and over again are recognized for the trust that the greater community has in them and in their professionalism as well as that of our counselors and administrators two paramount aspects of how to navigate this complex landscape well um avoiding whenever and wherever possible the division that some of the folks who've expressed concern about and public comment um have offered thank you as an awareness third is the accountability of relationships between students and the educators who serve them those relationships are paramount in the learning process and they are built through
032time through relational interaction and through trust between the people at home what happens in the classroom and each individual involved finally we must ensure that we engage as a district with the families and students we serve in order to continue to see to it that outstanding learning outcomes are brought about in glendora unified i will pause if there are comments or questions from the trustees at this time i raise my hand i don't know how it works um the other thing that i'd like to talk about can you hear me hang on mrs reuter we can't hear you i heard you just fine thank you i think in the in the room where they are they um turn their volume down to avoid the echo so i just want to make sure that the presenter
033can hear me okay now there you go yes okay so the other thing that i want to talk about and these um bullet points dr kelson thank you are super important and relevant locally here in glendora um but another thing that i wanted to ask about because i kept seeing the acronym while i was reading through the curriculum is the process that the curriculum took getting up to us and this instructional quality commission and if you might be able to explain what the job of the quality commission is to to get when you're talking about building trust and processes and and things that have been in place for a long time um i think that this instructional the iqc people see the acronym um in paperwork the instructional quality commission is relevant so would you
034mind telling everybody a little bit about the iqc and what their role is in this process thank you for asking i wouldn't mind at all so essentially the state board of education convened nearly a decade ago to look at some potential changes to the history social science framework as well as some early results that were coming out of a study that was conducted in 2011 not to mention some of the feedback that students in some school districts around the state and across the country were providing and it's interesting to me that even 10 years ago this was on the minds of the children who are served in our schools so the instructional quality commission the state board of education began considering what the um adjustments to um at the time what were at the time
035the existing state standards in history social science and also in english language arts they did multiple is putting it mildly iterations of documents the model curriculum standards and countless considered countless thousands actually thousands of comments from citizens across the state of california prior to the adoption of ab101 and this graduation requirement in march of this year there was conversation back in 2016 uh five years ago how time flies um about what the ethnic studies um inclusion of or the including of um topics about ethnic studies or bringing about parts of this curriculum that i'll talk about in more detail might look like five years ago it was a conversation simply mandating the consideration of bringing this content into the curriculum and um about six months ago in march the state has mandated this graduation requirement
036starting in the class of 2030. so the process that was modeled for us i would dare say by the state of california through the state board of education through the legislature is one that will be mirrored here in glendora in that feedback from the community feedback from students from teachers from people on this call i would imagine whether part of a formal committee or through feedback provided in public comment at board meetings through letters to our trustees or our superintendent this is a feedback based process that is very input driven similar to what i understand is what the instructional quality commission has done other comments or questions from trustees okay next slide so with that said in addition to those the significance of trust of the accountability that is shared by students families and staff
037there are some other important policies to note in terms of parent rights and responsibilities they are contained in board policy 50 and they will be the trustees have a handout that details these that will be posted tomorrow for anyone else on this call rather than delaying by doing a screen share of the document i will simply say um that you will see a document that looks like this that is posted in the folder tomorrow for this evening if you were interested you could go to the board policies posted on the district website and find um board policy 5020 and the relative related administrative regulations with that in mind these regulations and policies are not new they were adopted in 2013 and um they are fairly consistent um and aligned with the accountabilities of educators um
038mandated in state law these parent rights are in what we call shall language not may or might so these are mandates for us as partners with the families we serve among those mandates i've highlighted here parents have the right to meet with teachers to build rapport and relationship it is in those critical moments if you will where trust is um decided upon and it is my expectation uh built because that trust is so significant between the educators who serve the children in this community and the families who entrust their children to us the second important parent right is one of discernment so we have modeled this year in terms of a survey that went out that was another statewide mandate the california healthy kids survey we will model in the spring when we look at
039the california healthy youth act and the curriculum there that should a parent or other guardian want their child to be removed from a particular lesson with absolutely no penalty the teacher and the site administrator are required to honor that request and to provide an alternative assignment for that student those accountabilities are paramount for how people can decide what is best for their own student there are some additional uh items that are important to mention in terms of um word policy that exists in the district uh next slide and after this slide trustees i will pause again for comments or questions uh we also have a number of board policies and administrative regulations in the district specific to graduation requirements first i thought it would be interesting to point out to our audience that the state
040board of education through california education code as listed there um determines what the high school graduation requirements are in the state of california they set at the state level what i would call the floor of high school graduation requirements the minimum most students in the state of california will want to go beyond that floor and aspire to attain a higher standard of preparation to include the meeting of the university admission requirements we call those in common language the uc a to g requirements they are mostly some are similar but not entirely the same as what the california state university would require of a prospective student as well as the requirements of many private colleges and universities around the state some of those requirements not only benefit students who are wishing to attend a four-year university
041there are requirements that students can meet on our high school campuses that would transfer to the community college system and no matter a student's post-secondary trajectory or plan if you will for their own adult goals and dreams there are also ways for students to take courses here to prepare them to go right into a career or trade with that said the state board of education's role in defining the graduation requirements in two sections of board policy you can see there where we have the courses of study clearly defined in 6143 and what our grad requirements currently are in 6146 we will as the committees involved and there will be six which i will talk about in a few slides we will be considering and eventually proposing some changes to the graduation requirements in response to
042this legal mandate given in ab101 and to any other mandates that could come down within the next five years or i suppose two years it's up to the state legislature to make those decisions and directions give the direction to school districts as always our our district staff and our community play a vital role in supporting students in ensuring that they have access to a rigorous curriculum that will help them meet their goals and dreams and that will continue to be represented through the work of the community committee i will pause and take comments or questions from the trustees at this time on behalf of the community okay hearing none i'd like now to speak to policies specific to the selection of curriculum um you're starting to see as we go through this um just to
043recap briefly long-standing policies and laws related to the rights and responsibilities of parents how graduation requirements and courses of study are established at schools in california and in glador specifically and also how curriculum is selected it's important to note as our team was preparing for this presentation that in 1852 as part of an act in the constitution the state determined the responsibilities for selecting curriculum and i wanted to point that out it is reflected in current education code sections listed there those mandates again are not optional for any school district in the state we are absolutely responsible to them not only in terms of the community who elects the trustees but also in terms of the accountabilities that educators have in ensuring that students are meeting the standards that they are assessed upon not only
044in standardized testing but also in their earning of grades and completing graduation requirements to advance to a future of their choosing locally we have board policy and administrative regulations in um in sections 61 41 and it is important to note here that this is the first place in tonight's presentation where we see an alignment with assembly bill 101 and what our community committee and teacher and student committees will set out to do assembly bill 101 allows school districts to make local decisions based on their population in other words we do not have a choice about whether or not we will implement this graduation requirement in the class starting with the class of 2030 so we have to give them opportunities to do that during their high school career however we do have provisions in the
045law that allow the local community not only to represent its population but also to honor specific local history with that said i would like now to direct the audience and um anyone in the community this will be posted tomorrow you cannot yet find this on the website this is a handout called um well it's an excerpt from a book called curriculum foundations principles and issues i would like to address this with the community briefly this time because i found it fascinating um to revisit it is a set of ten considerations that educators must make um taken from 1976 about how to consider uh curriculum and it it holds us accountable to attaining the goals of the school district the impact of technology um the attainment of the quote good life and that's when we think
046about what we want for our students as community members in the future how we will ensure that all students have opportunities what steps we can take to ensure the integrity of our political economic and military systems what might we have to adjust in order to implement new curriculum that is a very popular question i will say in the minds of our teachers you will often hear them say i'm willing to do this what might we take off of our plate because that those folks work very very hard on behalf of our students and um what honorable this is a drug quote what honorable compromises and solutions shall we make as we contemplate these questions in preparing for this presentation this evening um the team honors that this is a complicated conversation and it was reassuring
047to us to go back um nearly 50 years to realize that some of the content of this evening's presentation um is not new in terms of debates that have gone in on an education for a long time with that said i will pause after this slide i'd like to talk briefly about the role of teachers and staff in the selection of curriculum if you would advance for us please kellen um i realize there are many words on this slide i'd just like to point out a few of them um as our committees work together um it is our obligation to look at what is really working analyzing the effectiveness of the curriculum align with california law district policy ensuring that students are are achieving academically and engaging in learning we must be responsible in implementing
048programs that are cost effective we must ensure that our staff and our students have the resources to meet the accountabilities given to them and that we review consistently the instructional materials and the implementation of the program itself to determine whether or not it is effective that will come through generally in an educational system such as glendora unified through feedback from staff in trainings or in conversations as principals or district administrators walk around campuses um to get feedback from our staff um there may come points in five seven ten years down the road um when various community members want to talk about particular aspects of the curriculum and that review process can and is part of long-standing practice here so before we transition to policies related to the teaching of controversial issues i'd like to pause
049and entertain comments or questions from the trustees representing our community dr kelson i just i just want to make sure that we understand the teachers will receive professional development for this correct they won't just be thrown in it will they be required to have a certificate in ethnic studies or will their regular history teacher be able to teach this thank you so for now we are in the very early stages of engaging our community and i'd like to talk about some of the timing of this process because it's very unique based on the direction of the board we would entertain teacher volunteers meaning people who are interested in studying the model curriculum specific to ethnic studies to join a committee and begin to talk about those the model curriculum if you will and the implementation
050of it at this time there isn't a specific certificate in teaching ethnic studies in school districts where the curriculum has been implemented it is implemented in one of three ways that is as an elective in either the history social science or english language arts high school curriculum uh and i would anticipate just because of the uh the nature of teacher preparation and training in our state that that is likely to continue there are additional opportunities that have been um in existence since 2016 at to the earliest knowledge i have where teachers who were interested in learning more about the predicted school curriculum that we saw come about in 2021 were probably beginning to prepare to learn about so at this time trustee merkley nothing official for our teachers other than the than the announcement of
051opportunities to get involved for those who would like to do that welcome other comments or questions how about now um i guess i just want to understand so they might not need a credential per se but um is it um sort of recommended towards any type of sort of specific i mean are we looking to have history teachers engage as far as this is concerned are we looking to pull our history teachers sort of out of history and start teaching ethnic studies classes is it you know i i there are options as far as is it a standalone course versus integrated into regular al already established courses that have to be reworked but what's the what's the target um or is it defined thank you right now it is it is undefined in the sense
052that we are out of the gate a bit early with a requirement that we we would need to put in place to pilot a course probably in the fall of 2025 for full implementation to help our students meet that state mandated graduation requirement upon entry in high school in the class of or in the fall of 26 by the time they graduate in 2030 um i have talked with some teachers about this new mandate however our process is unique because we're engaging with the community first in every other curriculum adoption that i have seen or been a part of generally groups of teachers anticipate a change in a state framework and the adopted curriculum provided by the state board of education and then the next phase is that teams of teachers get together look at
053the framework talk about how to approach it and then the com the curriculum goes on view usually through the form of textbooks um and the community would weigh in that is an additional accountability provided uh for students and their families through state law in this case the reason i can't give you a more succinct plan for professional development of our teachers is because um humbly this board in listening to our community has directed us to engage with the community in an earlier part of this process out of respect to the feedback we've received and an acknowledgement to it so that is the first part of this process and i would anticipate in realistically it will probably be summer of 22 at the very earliest to involve teams of teachers to get together to discuss this
054our teachers are doing a fabulous job welcoming students back after a year of many many weeks and months of safer at home there may be some who are interested in meeting prior to summer or next fall however at this time i would anticipate that that will be on on like a second or third phase of this project so i just want to follow up with a comment um about that i had received an email from a community member expressing dismay that we also heard in the public comment regarding the the interactive portion of this um of this evening in this in this study session um and that i promised that i'd be listening very closely and trying to answer the questions or ask the questions throughout the course of the evening and uh mr lopez
055made the comment about this not being in our lcap for this year that he had participated in the lcap committee and that the developing of the ethnic studies curriculum was not um in that process and that maybe we needed to revisit it and i just want to say as a board member that we are starting with this right now um not because we're required to we could wait a couple of years until it was actually time to start integrating into this curriculum required by the state as far as the dates are concerned but we we really do we really have heard community members on both sides of this issue expressing interest of understanding more and getting the process started right now and so um while i appreciate that it's not on the lcap it really
056isn't a direct response to community members on on both sides of the issue wanting to get started wanting to understand this being such an emotional topic for a lot of people that we have started this process already thank you and we we have uh begun earmarking funds for the adoption of of curriculum where of textbooks excuse me where this the timing of the state frameworks require that of us and when the district and the teachers are ready to spend time on that we have made the adoption of curriculum a priority specifically looking at returning to our next generation science standards adoption which the district was in the middle of conducting right before um schools were closed due to the pandemic so we don't anticipate doing that right now however we are in need of finishing
057that process immediately so um probably summer convening that group as well just as a related note and thank you miss fakar for that information with that said i'd like to go on and talk a bit about the teaching of controversial issues and um this is handout three trustees and community and for those of you who are interested in seeing it this evening you will find this in gamut under board policies as well it is board policy and the administrative regulations 61 44. uh it's important to note this information because um these policies were adopted in 2013 they were revised in 2017 and they provide accountability and assurances again mandates in the verbiage shall not in the verbiage may so we must ensure that we are following these policies and the related laws we must present
058topics in a balanced manner addressing all sides of the issue without bias or prejudice and without promoting any particular point of view that is guideline two we must ensure that students are given factual information we must follow all state and federal laws etc i won't read all of these to you however i would suggest to our community that the topics of instruction must be relevant to the course of study as adopted to the curricular goals to which students are held accountable and which are included in previous board policy related to courses of study and graduation requirements and our educators must and that includes everyone in administration as well as our teachers counselors support staff must exercise sound professional judgment so briefly we are also required to see to it that our students are when participating
059in curriculum that can be seen as controversial provided opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills to learn to differentiate between fact and opinion to show respect for others and to demonstrate understanding and tolerance of different points of view this is significant to mention because in the complex landscape that we are living in um i would dare say that some might wonder why why take on content that could be perceived as controversial and with these legal mandates with the board policy with the expectations of a well-rounded educated citizen who engages in civic processes as an adult perhaps these laws and policies suggest that one must consider additional points of view under the tutelage of a trained professional and with the accountabilities of the parents and guardians who send students to schools in order to formulate reasonable
060objective opinions wanted to point this out as it is part of a conversation um about what what might be our approach as the various committees get together so i will pause here after after a brief discussion about the teaching of controversial topics um giving kind of closure to an overview of the history of policies and laws related to curriculum and bridging to some information about where we are today um and also trying to blend in some of the public comment content that we heard to open this meeting so are there comments or questions from the trustees dr kelson i've had comments from the public asking how we would know what teachers were actually covering in class and is there accountability for their presentations to stick with the curriculum and not share personal i don't want
061to say it personal didn't come up but i think we know what we're talking about thank you for that question the the number one accountability that and i'll speak from personal experience just for the sake of example um the number one accountability that a teacher feels that i felt was that every student sitting in front of me would have full opportunity and and really could go home and tell their parent or guardian everything that happened in my class that day and we teach most of us from the time we are taught to do the work that we do with that accountability in mind i had a wise professor who once said everything you say could be quoted on the front page of the newspaper with your picture directly below it and uh that accountability is
062hard to watch much more so in addition to that accountability there is also the accountability of relationship so if a parent or guardian went to a teacher and said for example um when you get to this unit on this particular topic um whatever is controversial in the eyes of that particular family um the parent or guardian might say could you please let me know when you're going to be talking about that because i'd like to talk with you about how that is perceived by my child it could be something as simple as something from a family history that we may not know as educators or it could be something as complicated in traditional school practices as some of the content in our health or biology classes related to human reproduction and any other thing and
063it is an obligation of the teacher and the site administrator to set a time to talk with that family what we've added in addition is plat learning platforms that give our families many many opportunities to see what is happening in our curriculum through canvas through google classroom lots and lots of technological advances that have added to that accountability i think most of our teachers dare i say all but most if not all of our teachers would absolutely um be devastated if they felt that they had lost the trust of the adults who send students to school so i think that accountability is important to us that that relationship is vital and our staff will want to continue to maintain that you're welcome thank you for asking other comments from our or questions from our trustees
064um i just have a just a short comment because as i was looking through the curriculum i was really impressed that um they're teaching they want to teach us the um students how narratives are formed you know who's telling the story um who or what they choose to highlight what they what they choose to leave out and also they want to teach students how to identify and critically evaluate the dominant narratives they encounter in our daily lives and i just think that's so important because we read so many different um sources and we need to know who is who is telling the story from what perspective and i just really was impressed with that thank you for that mrs merkley this is uh it's important to to touch back to uh part of the opening
065introduction which is um every person that i have talked with about this um and there have been many values there uh [Music] the country they've chosen to call home values this community values the learning that our students do and those narratives that you're mentioning in places where they are [Music] empowering and beneficial for all of us um and in some places historically where maybe they haven't been um at times for some groups um it is our opportunity to consider those at the local level and figure out ways to keep our community together when if that content becomes a part of any course that we currently teach it can be as simple as something as who is chosen for a particular team in a physical education class to as something as complex as what it is
066that um happens when somebody is put on on trial without representation and everything in between um so really wanting to ensure that we manage those difficulties and the narratives of a country with one very proud democratic narrative while considering the experiences of some others um in our history and in our current reality with that said um i would like to go ahead and bring us to some information about the local population because the content of ab101 allows us to consider our local population this is from the american community survey in 2019 the government is updating some of the data from the 2020 census and we will continue to stay apprised of this so this is citywide and i realize there are two school districts represented in the city of glendora there are ways to pull
067the data apart for both for a specific district and we will be working on that for now um nearly a quarter of the population of this city is under the age of 18. um 47.9 percent of the city is white 52.1 percent representing all other ethnic groups 19.4 of which are foreign-born uh it's also important to note as we talk about some of the um the terminology that we're going to talk about at the end of this presentation that um causes concern um that um we have to as people who serve children in an educational educational system consider the economic trajectory of our population through educational attainment that is our responsibility and with that said as of 2019 91.47 percent of residents over the age of 25 have a high school diploma and 37.4 percent
068of that same group of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher in uh years to come we anticipate following these data very closely reporting out on them to the community and measuring our progress in serving each individual in partnership with their family to see to it that our students have access to opportunities and advantages because they've attended glendora unified school district schools we're well aware and we've spoken briefly about the information on the next slide i will pause after this for comments from the trustees if you would advance it briefly we've mentioned already i've mentioned um the creation the mandate to create a model curriculum starting in 2016 following that instructional quality commission's work i've also mentioned um and a previous board meeting as well as this evening the portion of assembly bill 101 which
069mandates this graduation requirement so any comments from the trustees before we briefly review the uh timeline that we're working with and for those interested posted on the in the folder on the website will also be a brief recap of the census data it is publicly available on census.gov for those who would like to search it this evening you can look at the american community study or educational attainment in the city of glendora and you will find um the statistics that are there listed in this handout with that said um it's been mentioned a couple of times this evening i will touch upon it briefly that our process is early because we want to engage our community in this project um with that said we will be working to pilot a course in the fall of
0702025 and working with the community committee as well as teacher committees student committees in order to do that work we will also be accountable to making adjustments based on the reviews of the curriculum mentioned earlier this evening with that said if you would advance how will this impact students in glendora unified i thank the trustees for their comments on behalf of the community about this process and um historically as i mentioned teachers would normally get together take a look at the expectations in a framework including new standards and then put the curriculum on review as is required by education law for the public in this case we are taking a different approach we've heard you our board and our superintendent have directed the staff across divisions here in education services as well as in business
071and in hr to begin to look at the implementation or consideration of these new laws specific to ethnic studies to carefully consider local priorities while also engaging high school and middle school students and teachers interested as part of the process with that said i can pause here for comments or questions i have a question um we've heard several times that this process is beginning early does it mean that if the plans are completed that gusd will plan to start the course early great question it could it could happen that the teachers the community with their input the students express interest through course selection and decide that they want to register for a course in ethnic studies as an elective just as they could any of the other electives on the high school campus that would
072while i always want to do what our students want to do as quickly as we can with the good discernment of the staff we support i would not anticipate being ready for anything like that in the next school year if things go really well in terms of teacher committees having time to work together to get a curriculum in place that is reviewed by the community could a pilot be ready as early as follow 2023 i suppose that it could and if we had uh 35 high school students who wanted to take that course and a teacher who felt prepared to teach it and had the professional credential to allow them to teach that we certainly could um i would comfort everyone on this call who is going wow that's awfully soon because i know some
073of our teachers on this call might feel that that's an obligation or direction of them by me it is not that it is merely an openness to um what the community may want at this time that we're only beginning to learn thank you for asking i heard mrs merkley had also commenter question i did i really just wanted to to reiterate that we are going above and beyond what is required because as i was looking through the model curriculum there were little things you know it looked like it took maybe a year and we are really going having the community having a lot of input and i appreciate your staff doing that thank you very much thank you so um in the model curriculum standards some highlights briefly if you would advance the slides what
074is the purpose uh of an ethnic studies course and um in listening to some of the public comment this evening and in previous board meetings there is um a real responsibility to acknowledge the complexity of um what is happening on the local state and national level in terms of conversations about what happens in classrooms and um with that acknowledgement i thought it best to quote contents from that instructional quality commission as well as uh how the document stands an ethnic studies course is meant to cultivate empathy as you can see self-determination and the well-being of all participants that includes um not only students who might not have found themselves represented in the traditional teaching of united states history but also students who are looking for potentially hearing more of the story stories of people who
075look like them more and considering um what that means to them in terms of the home values that that their family has instilled in them um we are obligated to do that objectively and professionally it has also meant an ethnic studies course to celebrate and honor all people by providing a space to share stories of success community collaboration and intellectual and cultural wealth um so with the purpose of ethics studies clearly in mind um this the next slide is one that the community saw before thank you when we talked about um the grad requirement we're good thank you um wanted to just bring it back to the top um it is intended to build greater understanding and communication uh it is also intended to reveal underlying commonalities and um i am very aware of the
076accountabilities of doing this work with our community committee with our staff with the students and um that is something on behalf of our team that we take very very seriously i will pause and see if there are questions from the trustees or comments representing our community hearing none this body is aware that we will have six committees considering the implementation um of ab101 there will be two teacher committees one in history social science one in english language arts that is significant as we look at the local options that ab101 has provided our district in terms of where the course might fit to serve the needs of glendora families and students we have the community committee which we've spoken about briefly a number of the people who've applied to be on that committee are on this
077call i thank them for already engaging and welcome further engagement from them beginning actually wednesday evening when we will start the interview process we're also looking to talk with high school and middle school students about the um the curriculum and their experience locally as well as because currently i heard one of our public commenters ask about funding and the expenditures involved in many schools where an ethnic studies curriculum has been um brought on board if you will most of the curriculum is available as part of public documents that are online and completely free through open sourcing we need our partners in higher education um not from a particular university or or college community college whatever it might be but across um various universities colleges to provide us information about those historical and other primary source
078documents many of which i had the pleasure of learning more about and reviewing the entirety of the model curriculum standards to prepare for you this evening we also will be strongly committed in each of these committees to serving the unique and specific needs of our local population with that said i will pause after the next slide i just have a quick question dr kelsey yes you talk about the teachers from um history social science i don't remember the correct language arts the the is that at all levels are only at secondary as far as those teachers are concerned great question we would welcome participation from teachers who are interested in participating i have heard from some teachers in elementary and middle schools who are interested because there are social studies courses there are um excuse
079me components of the language arts standards that look at even just the research that research skills that we're training students to have or the critical thinking skills that have been a long-standing part of a well-rounded education so at this point we would open it up to teachers who are interested from any level and we want to keep the groups between 10 and 15 participants so that we can be productive however i anticipate that even if a teacher isn't on one of the working groups or committees that they will continue to be part of this process um through presentations in their staff meetings through um some of our teachers are on this call this evening they're always welcome in board meetings however it really trustee reuters short answer it will depend on a teacher's um time
080in their day and um interest or willingness and participating we have science curriculum to finish adopting um we have a ton of other initiatives that are part of a teacher's day um but we will welcome participation from people who are interested would be our general stance my question on the last slide is it possible to reference the previous slide before this all right hi sorry i had a question regarding um one of the previous slides is it possible to go he's muting her i just i i just had a question as in regards and this is going to take it off the topic of the committee's per se um but i have had community members that are interested in understanding that while this is a graduation requirement and the reason i asked about the primary
081teachers um was if um if some of these philosophies and some of these uh ethnic studies um how do i say this the the lessons plans etc um can be brought down into the primary levels or can be taught through the social studies as it comes through elementary and middle schools and not necessarily just the um graduation requirement class thank you for that so right now in the approximately 500 pages of course outlines that are part of the model curriculum standards everyone is presented at the high school level they are connected in some cases to standards that are taught in the the elementary grades and i'll give a good example in order for a student to understand a standard in world history or in american government they probably need to have knowledge of geography at
082least in terms of what the continents are and where north america is in relationship to the other continents in the world that is a long-standing social studies topic taught in the early primary grades so for now trustee reuter i would simply say that i would recommend that we begin the conversation aiming for a high school course as part of our implementation and if we have teachers in the middle elementary or preschool level who want to uh consider the standards in their curriculum which is adopted by the state of california to align with what is taught at the high school that that would be a topic for the future um first i believe we have to go ahead and look at what is required of our high school students in the near future dr deleon what
083does that sound like to add i'm going to mute when you come to the end of your slide are you yeah i noticed that on this particular slide dr kelson that you do have a section that is quoted from the model curriculum standards and you also had some quotes on previous slides are we to understand that when you're quoting you're quoting from the model curriculum standards i just want to make sure that we know which documents we're referencing when folks see quotes throughout yes thank you unless something is called out as a work policy or in the case of the standout referencing curriculum selection from 1976 um yes these quotes are directly from the model curriculum standards and thank you for that opportunity to offer that so yes my question pertains to the six different
084committees yes um it seems like a lot a lot of different committees where they could benefit from each other's knowledge the community could benefit from hearing from teachers and students could are the teachers could benefit from hearing from students and the community as well is there going to be a time when the groups will be together are these subcommittees of the larger committee or um how will they get to share their information and their concerns their ideas their their perspectives yes thank you for that so the um the website the district website will have on the news and events for those of you who've joined us since um this presentation began we'll have folders by date with materials or notes that the committees use as part of their discussion i would like to humbly say
085that the notes may be brief as i will probably be one of a few common participants across committees even just to see to it that there are connections made on the community committee though i will not be a voting member um with that said should the board ask for updates on what the teacher committees are doing or what the student committees are discussing in addition to what is shared in our meetings with principals or various teacher meetings that happen in a normal year certainly we would be providing those updates very very transparently so is there a time when they're going to be collaborating together [Music] i suppose there could be sure we haven't designed it all to the full extent yet but i could see where the community committee or one or both of the
086teacher committees might want to hear from a student who or a couple of students who prepare a presentation on their perspective and what they hope to see sort of a summit about what students have learned or what our teachers have learned that they want to echo to our students or questions from the community committee that those are echoed to the teachers and to the students and maybe i know our community committee are all volunteering their time but i would envision maybe a member of the community committee being able to come and talk with um the high school students or one of the teacher committees to stay engaged in the process so it could be overwhelming to think about all of that socializing and interaction um as we uh [Music] come back together and yeah i
087think that is absolutely paramount it's also going to help with trust uh and i would say that's important so and if i made just one personal comment here i think there's so much to be learned from each of these groups to share with the other groups to understand it's almost like it's their own little microcosm of ethnicities here you know we have the ethnicity of the history social science teachers the ethnicity of middle school students that we can build some understanding amongst these groups of why they feel the way they feel so i think the collaboration piece in my opinion is really valuable thank you i also um would offer briefly as we go to the slide on what is ethnic studies it's one or two after this one that um that feedback process and
088the transparency are part of honoring the local priorities and um the perspectives there right um in order to teach students to engage in the community we need strong adult role models from their homes from um various aspects you know pockets of groups in our community to be able to show students how adults do this work and continue to honor the traditions that are important to them so with that said a number of public commentors end in preparation for this evening um it's important to acknowledge some perceptions and um this could in fact be the most um potentially controversial part of this evening's presentation so i will do my very best to honor multiple perspectives with that said um some constituents believe that critical race theory as it is officially called or potentially not officially called
089is taught in our glendora unified classrooms i would like to suggest that while there is some press and conversation in some circles about that possibility um our teams are going to stay with the technical definition of critical race theory which if um the committee is interested there will be posted a handout of educational terminology tomorrow by 4 pm um trustees it's called handout 5 and therein is a definition of the technical term critical race theory it is traditionally used in legal scholarship and many of you will remember the on the minds of many document that attempted to define um the difference between ethnic studies and critical race theory there are some important important things that have um come about and i believe that these ideas lend to some of our community members perspectives um and
090that has to do with in the model curriculum standards there are some districts not glendora unified we don't have a published ethnic studies course outline there are some school districts who are in fact going to use a critical race perspective as part of their conversations in their local implementation of the ethnic studies curriculum as it says here on this slide um that is not planned for any of the committees that will be um part of glendora unified's work in implementing ab130 so um with that said sure i will briefly share some information that is in um the educational terminology in terms of how terms are commonly used in k-12 education this handout will by the way have a list of sources cited which include um not only some dictionary type definitions but also some definitions
091uh from various peer-reviewed research sources and some others um so briefly from the ucla school of law um excuse me school of public affairs from critical race theory was developed and this is a direct quote critical race theory was developed out of legal scholarship it provides a critical analysis of race and racism from a legal point of view since its inception within legal scholarship crt has spread to many disciplines crt has basic tenets that guide its framework these tenets are interdisciplinary and can be approached from different branches of learning it goes on to say in the middle of the second paragraph crt identifies that there are existing power structures that are based on and please forgive me for those of you for whom this term is offensive white privilege and white supremacy which perpetuates the
092marginalization of people of color um there are and the the definition is one two three four five six seven paragraphs long it quotes the work of two scholars bell and freeman um who seem to have begun the conversation or defined the term critical race theory i believe um they are out of harvard there is also a scholar and a conference named from the state of wisconsin so i wanted to acknowledge that um request for information about critical race theory knowing that we serve uh we serve many many populations um and and people with multiple perspectives um in this public school district with that said i have a [Music] with the definitions um uh i i certainly am not going to ask you to go through all of them it's quite a lengthy handout um but
093i do want to clarify for the group um that these are um there are a lot of definitions floating around about a lot of different words depending on where you're getting your information where you're getting your sources and you've sourced all of the material and all of the definitions that are in that handout and i just want to make sure that i understand that moving forward that those definitions are the framework that we will be using or that the glendora unified school district that those are the terms and the definitions of those terms that we will be going forth with if i'm if i'm if i'm explaining myself correctly that our intentions are transparent that those are the definitions and we will use those words the way they are defined in this document thank you
094for clarifying that that is correct i think it's important to highlight some examples um there are there are and i don't mind reading the terms that are defined um critical race theory uh culture culturally responsive teaching and that's a citation back from 2002 discrimination disparate outcomes diversity equity identity inclusion inclusive inequity microaggression multicultural competence five more narrative normative perception prejudice and social justice many of the terms listed here were sent to us by um one of our constituents who has asked us to be mindfully aware of the uh potential impact of the terminology so as you've asked us trustee reuter the accountability for the committees as they meet will be to refer to these terms they will be part of early meetings of each of the committees um to ensure that we are respecting um
095the work of our [Music] of our community and the the traditions and values here so we wanted to provide what is our operational definition of each of these in k-12 education a good example when we think about the word inclusion that could be problematic for some however when you go back to the um 1970s and you think about how um athletics for women were not funded because uh there was not law that mandated that when we in k-12 education include students who are male students who are female in athletics we are following the legal mandate to do that it's difficult for for my team to think about an educational system in in that would have to go away from talking about the significance of providing those opportunities a second example wanting our children who graduate
096from this district um which is my focus specifically but in reality i would hope this and work toward it for all children in the united states that our children would have a an economically viable future ripe with opportunities and this having the skills they need to pursue whatever it is they want to pursue um in order to do that we have to talk about how our our work day in day out connects students with advantages by a result of attending this as a result of attending this district in order to attain that economically viable future so two examples of why these terms and a um reasonable definition of them at least as a starting space is here i do need to say for those of you who are eager to um participate as part of
097the community that um the community committee will be taking a look at these terms we have not discussed these um with anyone in the community on a broad scale yet but they will be posted on the website and certainly part of our ongoing conversation and dialogue with that said i i've covered the next slide kellen i can pause for a moment if there are questions or comments from the trustees hearing none so what is required of school districts and specifically of glendora unified as we move forward again these mandates are quoted from the model curriculum we must this is a kind of a beginning of a recap and looking at next steps we must include ethnic studies as either a standalone elective or as part of as you've heard history or social science and excuse
098me or english language arts um my prediction having worked in education for a while is that the state letting districts decide um involves not only what is realistic for them economically many school districts have various graduation requirements above and beyond those set by the state board of education and it will be up to teachers the students and the community committee with their input to influence how glendora unified adopts these mandates the course must be written in a way that includes multiple users again this is a shell not a may we are mandated to get input from the community from the students we serve from the teachers we we must reflect people demographics in the community and that's part of why those census stats were there and we must include according to the law the voices
099of local indigenous populations in planning courses another important reason to have our local partners in the historical society and others who can help us consider that mandate in the law why ethnic studies beyond these legal mandates i mentioned to you that we are committed to seeing to it that glendora has a highly skilled workforce that of adults who can choose their occupation and express their true purpose in a way that inspires them we want to be certain that we maintain connections to the local community that our parents and families who continue to be such a vital part of influencing the work of this district um have the opportunity to do that and realistically that our students have greater advantages to attain what it is they need to attain to thrive as adults ethnic studies research
100though relatively young in terms of its application in k-12 education has shown some improvements in academic outcomes for all students that includes an increase in those things listed on the slide attendance graduation rates improved problem solving and critical thinking skills and academic motivation as the committees get together to read the model curriculum standards there is quite a bit of research and inquiry-based learning for students teaching them how to interview leaders in the community their own families looking at multiple historical documents filtering with their own background and experiences to make sense of what it is and they see in the community and in the global society around them so what are our responsibilities as district staff we will keep the board and the community updated on our progress we will define ethnic studies locally we will
101ensure that resources such as time and primary source documents are available and right now our educators would tell you that time is at a premium we will also ensure that our staff is consistently professional when approaching the teaching of any controversial topic and that we honor the requests of our families as they relate to individual students or children that's that acknowledgement of the parents rights document in board policy 5020 in the related regulations we will also support and involve our teachers as they begin to explore the model curriculum standards i will pause for comments or questions from the trustees representing our community i guess i'd say that um as it pertains to your first bullet point and a point that trustee borg mentioned earlier in regards to the collaboration between the committees etc and the
102um potential for updates from those committees that i certainly as a board member would like to see whatever the appropriately agreed upon updates would be um from those committees doing that work just because it's um i i i'm interested and i it seems that the community is interested as well and i'm not asking you to define what that regularly scheduled interval is right here and now but i you know when as you get the ball rolling um maybe you could give us an update on on what would be appropriate that way but i certainly i personally would be interested thank you that is duly noted and i once we complete the presentation and interview process which we aim to do um again starting wednesday and then finishing in 2022 early 2022 january is my ultimate
103goal i will get the rest of the presentations and interviews scheduled when the community excuse me when the selection panel gets together with all of their calendars on wednesday um i'll be happy to update the trustees very soon after that with what those dates are and then certainly yes we can honor that request by keeping our community updated are there other comments or questions from the trustees so what are the next steps um i mentioned that interviews begin this week and we'll continue i would like to get them the presentations and interviews done in the month of january however i would like to say we will complete those at the end by the end of february just to ensure that we deliver what we promise uh we will be televising the presentations as and part
104of an unmonitored zoom link and each community committee applicant has been advised that that may occur when i reach back out to them after this evening i will tell them that in fact that is going to occur student committees and teacher committees as mentioned previously are slated to begin in the summer or fall of and we are committed to as requested and directed to ensuring that the process is transparent uh after these materials are posted in the file under news and events on the district website i will include their my contact information for anybody who would like to reach out set up a time to talk um set up a time to go over something after you've seen the handouts you want to ask or talk about anything um our team and i specifically am
105here to serve the local interests while upholding the mandates of state law and war policy um as we go forward to serve the best interests of all of the children in this school district so that concludes the formal aspects of this presentation i welcome comments or questions from our trustees am i the only one um i just wanted to give a little bit of my own personal perspective as far as ethnic studies is concerned so far i've read the preface the first chapter the second chapter and i've um done it let's say deep skin on the fourth chapter which are the lesson plans it's a lot it's it's thousands of pages so i'll just own up to that's what i've read so far and um it's extremely comprehensive it's extremely thorough and the state has
106done um i think a really great job uh laying out uh what their expectations are for this and i just wanted to say you know i've had a couple people in the community ask me my personal feelings on this so i think it's fair this is the study session i asked for it so um i don't not i don't know who knows this about me but i think i've lived in maybe 11 states growing up i studied abroad in spain in college and when our kids were two and three we moved over to abu dhabi in the united arab emirates for five years and my life has been dramatically enriched by all of those experiences being in um sevilla spain for the fourier at easter time being in abu dhabi during ramadan and being invited
107over to other people's houses for iftar to break the fast we were there during the arab spring we were in abu dhabi during the arab spring so to get the perspective of the middle east and the members of our community while we were there versus what we may have heard while we were in america and listening to american news or talking to other americans were two i'm guessing completely different things and so when i look at ethnic studies and when i read the curriculum that's what i'm excited about for our students i'm excited for our students who are of different cultures and nationalities and religions to have a platform where they will be able to be excited and and and tell their classmates who they are and where they're from and what their um and
108what their traditions are and i'm excited for um my my kids or kids in general to learn about those other um cultures and traditions that way will controversial topics come up yeah i'm sure that they will i'm sure that they already do um you know kids are curious and inquisitive and it's all part of what we here in glendora teach them as far as critical thinking is concerned um i feel strongly about teachers receiving the appropriate professional development so they know how to manage those conversations so that they if things do start to get controversial or um confrontational um that our teachers know how to help manage those those situations and talk kids through how to respectfully navigate those kinds of conversations but i'm going back to your very first slide i think i do
109trust our teachers i do trust our teachers to um to handle this in the appropriate way and um i look forward to and have been a big proponent of the community's involvement the teachers involvement the students involvement makes me super excited so i thank you for this opportunity to hear about the process i understand that it might not be exactly what everybody on this call was looking for i do think that we'll give people certainly the opportunity to send emails in for any sort of follow-up specific questions that they might have and i thank you and i'm sure your staff for putting all the effort into not only this presentation but all the supporting documents um thank you elizabeth uh i would like to echo miss reuters comments to the t and i would encourage
110everyone community teachers students even please take the time to look at the curriculum i know it's lots of pages you don't have to read it verbatim you can skim over the i would encourage you to read the preface chapters one two look it over but skim over there's hundreds of lesson plans there are tens of tens of unit plans um there's probably i'm going to say three to five thousand pages and i have it right here yeah it's it's a three-inch notebook binder that i'm sitting next to here um please take the time to read over some of this and find out what it's really all about then evaluate it i'm asking now for the district to put the links to all of this just the same thing we all got earlier please include that
111in your web page on the it's going to be on the front page of the district website is that correct yes it's going to be easy for you to find again take the time i know you you've taken the interest here please take the time and go look at it and and read it with an open mind anybody else any other board members something to say if i could can you hear me okay okay um dr kelson i just want to thank you for your comprehensive presentation uh really appreciated all of the different uh contours of the presentation that i think clearly articulated the various elements of how we're going to go about planning for implementing and enacting the ethnic studies curriculum i also really appreciate the way that you differentiate it clearly and with
112clarity some of the concerns related to critical race theory and ethnic studies and i think one of the key things that's missing in today's world is that people do not read people tend to scroll they tend to click but they don't tend to read and i'm just going to encourage the public to actually read the documents that have been provided by the california department of education they are comprehensive they are actually well done um i think there is a good element and stream of local control that is embedded into this curriculum development and i think the district has done an excellent job of engaging the community to create this community committee that i believe and i hope will represent a diverse array of opinions that are already uh expressed in glendora those that have not
113been expressed on this zoom call but are also very present based on my conversations with families in glendora who are uh excited about this potential curriculum development in our community um but i think this level of diversity of opinion is good it is part of democracy um and i hope that we can move in that process with civility as opposed to with combativeness um but i think this is part of why we uh live in this country where we can have an education process where heard but also unheard of voices are brought to the center um and that so we can broaden our understandings of history of identity of of people's realities that people experience not only in our community but in communities elsewhere so thank you very much for the presentation mrs borg yes
114i just wanted to add my gratitude to um dr kelson and dr de leon and everyone that worked on this very thorough very detailed very high level very educational i appreciate it very much it's very thoughtful the way that you went through everything and broke it down dividing up and linking us to additional information and resources that us as board members can continue to use to educate ourselves and the community can join us in doing that yes this is you know a very sensitive topic and one that can't like many topics we teach in our schools can go very well and be very enriching for our students and can you know frankly go badly and be taught wrong but like mrs reuters said i trust our teachers to do the right job i trust them
115to handle and navigate sensitive topics like this and many others that we've been teaching for years that they have successfully navigated appropriately for years to do it right with the right professional development the thoughtfulness and extent to which you're going into detail here is very much appreciated we just got back from california school boards association annual conference i don't know of many districts if any that are going to this level of depth in terms of their efforts to be transparent informative and engage board members and the public far beyond what's required of us to do it i thank you for that um you know i know that the petition of folks that were very concerned about it was only which doesn't is less than 5 of the over 37 000 people that we represent and
116that this call never got over 75 but we say that every voice matters right every constituent voice every employee voice every student voice matters and this workshop and all of the efforts that your team is putting into this really demonstrates that so thank you please continue that i really look forward to receiving updates on all of the committees and all of their extensive work that needs to be done appropriately extensive on a topic like this and i have every confidence that at the end of this glendore unified is going to have curriculum and textbooks that are very appropriate and very enriching to the educational program that we offer in lindor unified so thank you very much for all of that ms ward i'd like to say something too first i really want to thank those
117who applied to be on this committee it was a lot of work i mean i don't know all of the extent but i know they had to write an essay and it was it was extensive so all of those who applied thank you so much we appreciate it we will appreciate your input we are looking forward to that dr kelson i did have one question you said it was going to be in february i thought we would be able to choose the committee would be chosen this week is it thank you uh i [Music] initially thought that we could get everything done before break however we have seven adult schedules to match in the selection panel and 29 applicants um thereabouts i might be off by one in terms of the number or two in
118terms of the number of applicants and as i humbly tried to coordinate those interests which are wonderful to have we've had to extend the time involved slightly so you have my commitment that we will get it done as expediently as we can um and yet it is the holiday season so briefly what we've what we will do we have an alphabetical list of everyone who applied the first half of the alphabet will for the most part be interviewing this presenting slash interviewing this wednesday the second half or anyone who wrote back and said i cannot be there at the time you've given me and it was all randomly assigned in a very sequential transparent manner those folks will be invited back as soon as the selection panelists can find a common block of four to
119five hours of time so i i wanted to get it done more quickly to begin the process of widely engaging our community and it will be done quickly it's just going to take a little extra time i think december is a busy month for many many families and i honor that so um i just was curious what is that what is expected in the presentations um thank you so um the first part involves a recap of uh one of the research studies it's an article um about a program that stanford researched that was part of the application essay and um a highlight of the california department of education's web page about the curriculum and ab101 so it's maybe a thousand words of reading from cde and the article from stanford where somebody to print it
120is no more than [Music] 2 000 words so we're asking that people prepare a presentation on those two texts giving an overview of a basic introductory knowledge of ethnic studies in a minimum of four minutes and a maximum of five minutes there will be a transparent timing process similar to the one used in our presentations or our public comment this evening somebody will be holding up a sign and giving people a one minute warning and the same rubric um covering not only content key aspects of both of those the stanford and cde article as well as you know did the person stay within the time limit simple things will be a part of the rubric and when the zoom link is prepared and posted it will be on that news and events page along with
121a common place someone is going to tell the community about in terms of submitting questions or comments on the process people will see that that is what's happening as part of this first round if we have need to host a second round of interviews then we will develop questions on two of the chapters of the actual model curriculum it's quite a bit of reading so some folks would say it's good that that part isn't required of them until january or early february um and if we decide that when we the the selection panel talks this wednesday i anticipate being able to pin down the dates for that second portion as well so that we can plan ahead and get it done you're welcome thank you for asking this is board can i have another question
122if i may yes please thank you um this is sort of long-term um thoughts here dr kelson um i wondered if as you've read through all of the curriculum if there are options related to experiential learning um so things like um a civil rights tour things that will can be done in the summer where high school students can experience what they're learning in the classroom to this ethnic studies curriculum that they can go just like we have taken students to you know europe and other places if that is something that might be an option for us as a value add for our students i know many colleges and universities do civil rights tours they're tremendous life-changing events they give a different picture to those students about our country so just a thought in terms of
123as we move forward if there's any ways to embed experiential learning i think that would be something that would be a positive thing thanks thank you for that dr fernando the inquiry-based approach that the curriculum the standards require us to implement will allow for students to consider questions that are meaningful to them and to look into them as they relate to local history and to honoring their backgrounds as well as the backgrounds of others so certainly i could see where some teachers may want to incorporate experiences of all kinds into the curriculum and i um knowing a few of the people who have who have reached out to us there's a ton of local history that impacts the potential for this course that i hope students will be inspired to learn more of so yes
124i believe we can explore all of those possibilities with the committees as they work together anything else board members i would just like to add one thing that um all of us have tried to represent the community tonight by asking questions and if you if the community has other questions that we did not address we are going to make available the b m p c at glendora dot k12.ca dot u s email as a way for you to submit some questions and hopefully there'll be questions that can't be answered by looking at the website in the presentation but if you have other questions that you didn't feel got asked tonight i'll repeat it again b m p c at glendora dot k one two dot c a dot u s and i two would like
125to add my thanks to dr kelson and her staff it i think she's ready for a gallon of water after all that talking it was it was very well done i think you added the pertinent information on a very touchy subject but it is all factual and i i'm grateful for that because i've been in the community and i've heard so much misinformation about so many things that the facts are so valuable to all of us thank you again appreciate your time tonight and i'm going to move on to the adjournment tonight i have the sad news of announcing that i had received word over the weekend of the passing of katie mendoz and i'm going to ask dr degrassia to just give a little background of katie who is a teacher and the president
126of the gta association thank you so much president board yes ms katie mendoz unfortunately passed away this past thursday she'd only been retired three years from our district she worked for our district for more than 25 years retiring in 2018. she was a teacher at la phaetria for all of her years of service to glendora unified she was a stalwart there and started the feature foundation as well as the pta and the feature as a parent when she first came to school as a parent and then a teacher she of course was a gta leader her executive board member and for several of her last years the gta president so she's an esteemed colleague and a dedicated individual in the district she'll be greatly missed and giving thoughts to her so in memory of katie
127mendoz i would like to adjourn the meeting tonight may i have a motion so moved it has been moved by mrs merkley seconded by dr fernando although let me call out the roll call uh mrs merkley all those in favor aye dr fernando i mr ellinson mrs reuter hi and my vote is i also the meeting is adjourned at 8 26 p.m thank you all