Azusa Unified School District Special Board Meeting - January 18, 2022

001hello and good evening and welcome to the this special board meeting of the azusa unified school district board of education on uh january 18th 2022. i'll go and call this meeting to order at seven o'clock and we will begin with item 1.2 our flag salute ready begin next we'll move to a roll call item 1.3 board member rodriguez pena here board member beau here board member cruz gonzalez board member arianis president and i myself a board member greer am here as well we'll move on then to item 2.1 approval of the agenda is there a motion on the floor question to approve moved by board member rodriguez pena second second by board member arianes any discussion then let's move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero next we move to item 3.1

002public comment on uh agenda items only this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda items only individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda item only when the public wishes to address the board on any agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in the zoom attendance and again just to be explicit and remind that during this space we have uh there are a few items on our agenda and we will be taking comments on those items only so if your comment is not in regards to

003an item on the special meeting um i will remind you of that and we'll move on to the next speaker uh do we have any blue cards or anyone do we have do we have any blue card we do and fabian you may need to turn the microphone on let's load tech one two one two three welcome hello uh thank you so much for having me my name is fabian pavon uh and i am a board member with the latina and latino round table san gabriel alley uh and i'm here to state my opposition for the continued use of the azusa aztec nasdaq the azusa aztec mascot is a misrepresentation of the mexican aztec and so for generations the aztec has been uh uh used uh uh you know inappropriately has been misrepresenting our people

004and the community of azusa has been getting a false inaccurate representation of mexican culture through that map and the it's it's unfortunate that for for generations this mascot has been used because now descendants of the masjid the ascendant of the aztec can't even tell when their culture is being misrepresented as it is with and so uh today uh we come with folks who have been uh you know have been aware of their meshika aztec culture a culture that has been passed down uh ceremonies that have been passed down through the generations i hope that you listen to those indigenous people who have been spain who have been uh who have taken the time to take that deep understanding uh to learn from people who have uh had aztec ceremonies and and history and culture passed

005down right and so uh with the latina latino roundtable we've been working with uh uh and we've been providing an accurate version and accurate representation of the mexican aztec uh uh to the community free we've been teaching them about uh dances and ceremony and things like that right they've been getting an accurate representation and i hope that you all please you know reach out to indigenous people reach out to uh you know there's no such thing as an azusa this is asu is the uh the native village that was here before azusa before the spanish before the mexicans before the u.s and we need to honor that we need to do our best to reach out to those indigenous people and have their histories and cultures reflected in the curriculum ethnic studies is going to

006be a graduation requirement in schools all over california and so i hope that you all take the time to make sure that these cultures are accurately represented please use this as an opportunity to connect with these indigenous people whether they be uh meshika azek whether they be uh uh tongva kis any of these things please use the opportunity to educate yourselves and the community on an accurate representation of indigenous people thank you very much thank you fabian next we have miguel me uh uh i introduced myself in my ancestral language which is not a aztec it's actually otomi but even the word otomi is also from the nawazu uh we actually call ourselves um the news and uh i think the representation of the azusa aztec um pushes this like monolithic idea of like oh

007just because you are mexican that means you come from uh asic ancestry which is not always the case and it really uh pushes like uh other people other indigenous communities and uh it really makes it harder for people who are not of aztec and especially to connect with their language their traditions their own like practices because um we're similar but we have different practices and traditions and stuff um and uh i just want to say that uh especially uh for me it's been hard for really to find my own language but now i've been able to uh find books on the internet and stuff and it just shows the lack of work that you all are putting into like even bringing proper representation of what asic or mashika is you know and like i'm not

008even getting paid for this so um yeah uh that's all i have to say um thank you thank you for sharing next we have julian mandu hanoi manatee vinewi in the kamehameha the shame that that sounds like gibberish to you all and it's a shame that i know so little of my own language i just said you know i extend my greetings to my friends and relatives and my name is julian duhano um in coming here you know i'd like to kind of piggyback off of that you know it's good that we have representation as someone who has had my own people enslaved i mean as a matter of fact 2022 is a hundred year anniversary of us being freed from slavery my personal tribe so i understand representation is important and it's something that

009we all crave and value um it's just the type of representation that we have you know there's other ways to do this like ethnic studies in our city it's taking a cumulative effort of different folks in the community and highs and lows and ups and downs and very hard conversations to organize certain things that you know at first may have felt uncomfortable to us i mean even myself my tribe being a border tribe from sonora in tucson arizona i mean i'm not a california native i was born here but i have to acknowledge that this is tongva land this is the one guy you know not anywhere else that we want it to be just because we want representation and it's nice that we have that but we have to look at other ways for

010us to get that i mean i've seen some of the pictures and images via the internet and it's a little strange to me i mean out of any ceremony i've been to in my entire life there's a drum that's bigger than the guy i mean i've never seen that like at all i mean i don't even know how you would make that and i make instruments and stuff like that it's crazy it's wild you know it's really flamboyant in a way like a real big like grandiose like it's like a romanticizing something and that's the problem you know we don't want people thinking that like we're these mystical beings i mean we're humans just like you you know we when you think of tribe another word for tribe is family you know so i is

011in a way it's like somebody's family you know you want to go up and ask these tribes to do things people that somebody's auntie that's somebody's uncle you know i mean we have to be more understanding of the people were actually speaking up around us you know like my other friends said i mean we're not all aztec or so-called mexican you know it's the true word like we're not all like i said tucson and sonora you know if you want real representation or things like that in march they got mexican new year that's coming up you know a lot of places have events like he said we have dansa you know i teach a beating class in pomona so you all want some culture there's ways to get it um if the only example of

012culture you have is something that you obtained in high school that's kind of sad thank you for sharing next we have linda gutierrez i've been an active dancer community member for over 11 years now and i am against this high school using us as a master being part of our regalia is very very sacred to us and it's usually passed down by other members in the community or elder so to be to see it being used as a costume very hard not only to me my community but hundreds of different natives on thank you next we have alejandro juarez please uh correct me if i if i pronounce that wrong hello and good night to everyone my name is alejandro juarez i want to acknowledge and give thanks to the tango to gabriellino the east

013the original indigenous people of this plan your board members of the sousa unified school district my name is alejandro and i am a vampinka naga mexican ancestry most commonly mislabeled the aztec for generations my family has been knowledge keepers of our culture and traditions not only in our ancestral land of mexico but as well as here in the san gabriel valley or as our indigenous gabrielino tong but relatives know it as a tangabar for 25 years my family and i have fantastic dance in the city of la puente a wingna and in pomona through our group called and represent over 50 families with this message and that i'm here today we have connected our people back to our social traditions and languages and practices that were nearly extinguished through colonization throughout the years we have

014experienced much disrespect and racism through the miseducation and the ignorant use of our culture and identity as school mascot we have observed how the astusa aztecs mascot alongside other schools that use our nation and tribe as a mascot disrespectfully make use of our ceremonial headdresses known as our kopilis our wherewits which are our drums and our regalia these are sacred objects that are earned throughout the years and earned during ceremonies and battles our communities have taken a strong stance and we do not support any entities that use our people's name and costume as mascot imagine it as of us of other cultures or mascots right as if african americans or jewish you wouldn't do that to a people people are not mascots cultures are not mascot we are human beings mascots the same thing as

015mascota right as a pet in spanish are my people animals to you no this is not it it is disrespectful and dehumanizing and plays on the offensive stereotypes of indigenous people it further adds to the collective trauma that we have suffered enough through mass genocide exploitation and looting of our lands and material objects with the current major changes happening in asusa high um district we ask that you take a step in being on the right side of history and authentically honor indigenous people by changing the school's mascot we understand that it may be difficult to some to grasp the seriousness and the effect this has on indigenous communities some people may even say that they're honoring my people by using this mascot maybe even offer alternatives like reforming the mascot by making it more culturally

016sensitive and educating people about the aspects but the truth is none of these are valuable solutions none and only prolong the dehumanization and disrespect of um that is placed on our communities the only action must be to remove the offensive mascot the time is now please make the right decision today tonight thank you next up we have clara while you're preparing to come up let me just remind everyone that we have a there's a three minute limit uh so please keep an eye on the clock because i will have to cut you off if you if you go past your three minutes hello and good night paul as an asus resident and guardian of two children that have and will attend this is a high a loud and proud mexican first but also an american

017i find it disturbing the ausd continues the u.s tradition of stealing from other cultures simply because plenty gave up their own to be more accepted by this country i from personal experience went to a middle school named after d.w griffith who filmed the racist birth of the nation two different high schools one with a sheik another with an oiler as a mascot why is there so much pride in the continued destruction of the earth and cultures of the very people that ensured some of y'all's ancestors survival in this plan it's 20 22 we've been trying to reach you um ausd since the 90s it's time to answer the community's call i asked you tonight to change the mascot of azusa high i want to thank i also want to thank the elder um who let

018me know about this meeting and the gatekeeper of asus sagna for allowing me to speak tonight thank you next we have jenny talamantes i believe we have jenny online yes my name is janita lamantes i've come here today to discuss with you the matter of rebranding azusa high school the aztec mascot should have been removed long ago the current mascot is harmful and stereotypically racist it is cultural appropriation it is seen as offensive towards many people as a student i motioned this district give the students a choice and final decision on a new mascot versus the high school secondly i'm a part of the sophomore class at gladstone that is going to have the hardest time transitioning to new school have you thought about the current sophomores transitioning to a new school they don't want

019the generations and the alumni that hold that deep pride of being gladiators we went through covid distance learning and now you're closing our school at least spare us our pride and don't make this any harder than it already is business students aren't going to lose their teachers their campus their friends and it isn't about making them go through something it's about at least saving gladstone high school pride those making the argument that it won't matter in a couple years it will matter to me to teachers to students to alumni because gladstone lives in our hearts that is all for today thank you for your time thank you jenny next we have alex hello thank you so much um sincere gratitude to every person that has spoken tonight and thank you to the school board for

020holding this and really taking these words to heart you know i was raised mexican-american not knowing very much about my indigenous roots in mexico and i became incredibly curious about two years ago i did a dna test and i started getting really interested when i found out i was indigenous and i started going back through records and records and records and there are mishika leaders and historical figures that are a part of my family and so we're not just talking about you know this is this is not some mascot when we look at these images of meshika warriors and headdresses and and in their traditional clothing this is culture this is tradition these are things that are heartfelt and mean things to people so these are not just costumes our culture is not a costume

021and i sincerely hope that this is taken to heart because i grew up not knowing a lot about the truth of who i am and not knowing a lot of indigenous culture because i was raised and i was schooled here in the united states so these high schoolers that you're going to have to and that are going to have to learn this new content you know it's it's a complete clash when you've got kids in schools that are learning the right culture that are learning the correct history but yet we still have institutions that are using our culture as a mascot so it's not okay so i really wanted to come on tonight to say that you know as someone who is a direct descendant to some of the last mashika emperors it is not

022okay it is not okay to use our culture as a costume and i would urge the council to listen to the community's voices and choose another mascot thank you so much thank you alex next we have jackie hernandez hello good night to everyone first i want to acknowledge we are on tongue land who are still here in azusa many of the speakers today have said so much that makes a strong statement to the removal of the azusa high school mascot i believe that many of us from latino background feel nostalgia and wanting to connect to our indigenous roots but using a misappropriation of the mashika warrior is not the way to do it how many of us here know where the word azusa comes from the fact that many students from azusa don't know is

023a sign of erasure and lack of recognition from the indigenous of this land which are the tongue tribe are also leading this effort along with the indigenous leaders from diverse nations and tribes to demand changes made to the susan mascot that is image representation not only of the meshika people with the inca and of the relics i ally with them and their demands to remove the mascot let's acknowledge from the understanding of the origins of the name of our city that this aztec as a symbol of azusa also erases history not only of azusa but of also the people i recognize that some of the latino some of the people from latino backgrounds who also graduated or are still in azul high school may feel loss of indigenous and cultural connection due to the removal

024of the mascot but this symbol is not rooted in our culture and respectful teachings of our ancestors and roots but i do believe we can do better by removing the mascot while also opening the opportunity for proper education by adding indigenous teachings by tongue mashika and patent indigenous leaders who can help our latino students reconnect and embrace their indigenous roots in a usc schools the catholic knowledge education and wisdom of indigenous teachings is apparent in this discussion and which is why i find important for the inclusion of education for latino students that teaches latino and chicano studies as well as indigenous for here and ausd i hope that you all as leaders and the school board can be courageous and make the wise choice to remove the acid mascot and also seek the education that

025is fundamental in teaching our children about indigenous history and culture to reconnect with our roots have a sense of identity and feel proud of our progress as we move forward i urge you to listen to our native leaders on this matter thank you [Music] thank you jackie next we have alexander muhika uh could you hear me oh yeah um hello i am here because i was made aware that the azusa school district had a problem and that is appropriating indigenous culture in one of their schools specifically azuza high school and it needs to stop just recently a teacher was fired from riverside county mocking indigenous culture in her trigonometry class though she is held accountable it still does not erase racism in both the united states and california the united states has a real dark

026history of indigenous genocide and the erasure of indigenous culture and the continual cultural appropriation of indigenous culture azuza unified needs to stop making a mockery of indigenous culture specifically aztec culture all indigenous cultures are very different from one another they're not all the same azusa high school continually misrepresents this specific indigenous culture misrep misrepresenting the specific headdress the drum and the uniform this misrepresentation feeds into the racism and it feeds into racist stereotypes that will harm indigenous communities specifically in this case the aztec community i ask azusa unified to do better and to take down the offensive mascot specifically the mexica in azusa high i ask that azusa unified invests in native american and latinx ethnic courses in their schools these ethnic courses will help the community get educated about the latinx indigenous history and

027culture specifically here as well in the united states it is imperative that we are taught this history so that we can get an accurate lens of these people and we can understand the history we must be aware of racism and call it out as a community and protect marginalized communities because racism remains a huge problem today thank you alexander before we move on i want to remind the board of board board policy 9323 which limits our public comment on any particular item to 20 minutes unless we as a board vote to extend and so let me ask the board if if we are wanting to extend public comment on this particular item i think this is a very good motion to extend a second any additional discussion then we'll just we'll just do a a

028hand vote board member vote yes i'm also yes okay we will proceed with althea ito good evening school board members superintendent ortega assistant superintendent mitchell and other acclaimed cabinet members my name is alfia ido and i am a junior attending gladstone high school i first want to thank all the latinx and latina speakers who chose to speak up for themselves and their cultures i thank you all for your vulnerability and strength tonight similarly i come before you today to discuss matters regarding the potential reconfiguration of azusa high school's mascot azuza high school's commodification of their so-called mascot is nothing short if not a repulsive caricature of culture their use in costume in and of itself is a complete bastardization of the regalia that represents valor from the feathers to the headdress each garment represents a

029token of strength and power azusa high school's reconfiguration and manipulation to their sacred regalia is nonetheless a complete disregard to the indigenous pride and to indigenous pride and community you wish to spend money on praying for higher education when you do not realize the unintentional ignorance you are systemically perpetuating how are we as students supposed to be critical thinkers of our education let alone our lives when the thing that is supposed to be representing us poses as a complete antithesis to the district's mission statement after all is not our district that equips every student with the knowledge and skills for college and career readiness to fulfill our purpose and positively impact society what i mean to say is this is all wrong it should never be this way you say you hear us and that

030you understand but we cannot find it within ourselves to actually believe that because if you did if you truly cared you would you all would not just be talking about it we are defined by the things we do not by the pretty words speeches monologues or soliloquies you feel the need to share so no you you cannot say you understand who we are or where we come from you may be from the community but you are not the ones who will have to bear the messes that you all have made it is our teachers our staff members administration the students your children will have to pay for your resolutions we all know the district's financial decline was coming as a matter of fact we have predicted it if not yourselves the teachers and administrators who

031all lost their jobs and suffered significant pay cuts because of it so why now why do you choose to say you care now clearly your decisions say otherwise you talk about funds we have the funds from rosedale to measure k we have them they are there you just aren't simply doing enough you do not care enough and this is a fact we already know a fact that gladstone and schools all across the district are too painfully aware about maybe my coming here and speaking on behalf of my gladstone community is entirely futile considering every decision made by the board these past few months have been nothing short but of neglect but there are decisions in regards to the consideration of alumni but may i ask which alumni it certainly isn't for gladstone you cannot be

032an alumni if you do not have a home i am a junior so these reconfigurations will not affect you compared to my underclassmen counterparts but i want to be able to come back home i want to be come back home and tell my mentors and teachers that their vein has been worth it to honor and thank you for everything they've done for me thank you we have dr sanchez hello can you hear me yeah we can hear you okay good afternoon good evening everyone uh so my name is dr idena sanchez i teach um latino latina latinx studies in azusa it's the only ethnic studies class i'm also the mother of a pal panther um and i'm also a dan sante and i don't think that comes up too often because sometimes i'll share it

033with my students most of the time right because i want to give them an accurate representation of who the mashika are and what the murals mean i teach at all three high schools in azusa unified school district so i have a unique perspective walking in and out and it's been a challenging five years and what i've learned being the only ethnic studies latinx studies teacher for now is that one of the most important things i do is cultivate a sense of community and through that belongings it's ironic that i teach this class and my students this without the support and inclusion of me and my professional background the students in this community deserve respect and care for their backgrounds and culture as i teach about mexicans the land we're on and other indigenous groups i

034hear students tell me about their families and the languages their families speak and how they were so ashamed to talk about it before uh i hear students at rallies when i would go um supervise at the azusa high school rallies and i was shocked honestly the the first times i went um and i would hear newcomer students from different countries in central america speaking their indigenous languages and wondering how this fits in right because indigenous people aren't a thing of the past and that is exactly what i teach in my class right uh still very much alive the culture's alive um or else we wouldn't be doing things like like dansa um and so i want to cultivate the sense of pride but i want to put this mascot into context so when this mascot

035was chosen it was 1956. this is following mendes versus westminster in 1947 that desegregated schools in california brown versus board in 1954 that desegregated students in the entire united states azusa high school opened just two years later after brown versus born in 1956 there was a mexican school in azusa not long before this right and so the panel that picked the mascot in 1956 according to the azusa herald met uh went through three choices before settling on an aztec uh and it wouldn't take much to see what the makeup of this committee might have been uh and they didn't choose it to honor uh the mashika or indigenous or mexican culture and what i do know um about our students is that we need to give them a sense of empowerment we need to give

036them something to unite around and so i think with the schools combining it would be good to let the students decide on a new mascot thank you dr sanchez next we have keanu martinez hello hi um i'm kiana and i'm with uh can911 of san gabriel valley um thank you to everyone who's spoken today on on the topic of the the mascots and how it is you know highly disrespectful to the the people who are still um here the tangova people um it's it's long overdue and it can be the azusa uh school district that sets the precedent for the surrounding cities who many of them also have a similar uh cultural appropriation uh of their mascot and or their school name and so i feel this can be uh it's something that could be

037good for the community uh to show that we uh love and support the indigenous people here and we honor them and we want to do better to be a better be better allies um and thank you to dr sanchez i don't know you but beautifully spoken and i think that it it can be seen as an opportunity to bring the students together to come up with something that they feel represents our uh this this community that we've created or been brought into um and also of course bringing in any uh wisdom from the tonga people that we can and so i do think it could be an amazing opportunity and you know a beautiful thing to to do um to set a president uh so i highly urge you know the the the board to

038you know think about their morals and what we need to do to be a more just community thank you for your time thank you kiana next we have joe thank you um unified school district board especially for giving us more time um i want to give thanks to the indigenous people tongva of asus i'm here currently sitting in my car on aksuna and also known as el cerino shout out to our cousins our distant cousins out there who are attending this meeting and all of us who are reclaiming our indigenous roots when i was in sixth grade a student asked the teacher why why did the native americans get their land stolen and the teacher just said because they weren't civilized i want to acknowledge that the school has that much power in building communities

039and also upholding white supremacy we have a chance today and tonight to start healing to let our ancestors their deaths their silence the genocide should not be done in vain that we can honor their lives today through school through education through community so i hope that tonight we can reflect on that and that you guys as the board can reflect on how much influence you have we have a time right now where there's many of us in that diaspora who are reclaiming our roots and are dealing with a lot of challenges right now not just covid but we're dealing with climate change we're doing the economic collapse we're dealing with a lot and so i want us to kind of come together and hopefully the students especially to hear their their young hearts come together

040and figure out what does it mean to be a community you got ronald mcdonald as the mascot for mcdonald's you got mickey mouse as the mascot for disney our people are not mascots our people are not brands or logos you've already seen it with the redskins getting the the mascot being taken out so it's this is nothing new and you we're gonna see more of these things we're gonna see more of these statues of white supremacists coming down and with that we're going to see more healing and i and and and i want to shout out to all those folks out there too have been part of this effort in regenerating communities so thank you for listening and thank you for letting us share our stories and i hope we move forward and begin our

041alien journey i hope thank you joe next we have please uh correct me if i pronounce that incorrectly hello can you hear me yes we can hear you welcome hi it's theresa may chuck my first name was cut off dear assumes the unified board this is my 15th teaching high school english in the los angeles unity high school holden cougars my life has been dedicated to nurturing the minds and spirits of our youth and future generations i urge you to please change the aztec mascot for asusa high school and the other schools as it is disrespectful to the native communities and perpetuates stereotypes negative stereotypes of native peoples have been perpetuated since colonization we are at a point in history and time where we know better cultural appropriation is harmful using cultures as locals or

042mascots is exploitative as an institution of learning schools have a great responsibility to the community and to our youth someone exploited on logos and people dressing up as a school mascot that is supposed to represent a culture and people is disrespectful it could have devastating effects on our youth and how they see themselves in addition the mascot image of azusa high school and how it is represented during events misrepresents native tribes and their traditional ceremonies we are adults and our decisions determine and shape the future of our current youth and generations to come we have the power to correct the wrongs done on this continent and to make our community a better and safer place for our native youth in the past few years alone we have witnessed the devastating effects of stereotypes on many

043diverse peoples of color we could stop stereotypes listen to the stories of our diverse communities and treat people with the humanity and dignity that they deserve there is an opportunity here for a great and positive change there is an opportunity here to have a new mascot for susa high school one that is supported by the susan native community on tongva territory and led by the local native community thank you for your time and consideration in resolving this urgent matter thank you teresa next we have joanna zhang hello can you hear me yes but we have quite an echo okay great so my name is joanna and i am a concerned member of the public i'm voicing my concern and i'm urging you to listen to our community members who are sharing their lived experiences azusa

044high school should be a leader and set an example in the world we just listened to community members who trusted the board with sharing their stories their vulnerabilities and their families histories we need to listen to those who have been severely hurt and impacted by this mascot it is time to step up the world is watching and azusa school district should lead by example thank you thank you joanna next we have rhonda can you hear me yes we can hear you yes uh good evening um my name is rhonda and i am a uh actually a proud gladstone alum um sad to see that gladstone's going to be closed i'm pretty sad about that but uh i think really um i'm and i sympathize with what my the previous speakers uh have been saying and

045talking about but i think also one of the real issues is how mascots are selected even though i'm a proud gladstone alum even the name gladiator is problematic i mean it's a killer for hire in an arena if we think about that even gladstone you know so um i think there's a lot to be said for letting your students decide who the mascot is i live in northern virginia and i know about you know i was happy when they got rid of the redskins the name it was offensive it's a racist name redskins nation's capital um but i think um i have to say uh i think this is a great opportunity to learn more about indigenous aztec the culture show people the proper way i have to say when i was growing up um

046i i i noticed uh from as a gladiator you know from gladstone that there was immense pride in being an aztec there was it people felt it it was totally different than i'm sorry but you know how it was in gladstone um so teach people the proper way about the history um but um i think um that there again what people are saying truth i know people have been offended and so on by it but there's a lot of people it gave them a sense of pride and identity and community there in azusa that i never saw with my high school so um i think there's a balance i think uh definitely take the time to teach people you know the ethnic studies all of that stuff but realize that also a lot of people

047got some pride i'm not indigenous but i saw with myself with my own eyes how a lot of people were identified with being an aztec and even those who weren't indigenous or aztec or whatever could see it and and and and felt the pride uh that was there so i think there's a way to do it doesn't have to be necessarily all or nothing um but um you know i i don't there's a lot like i said there's been a lot of hurt throughout the years and the centuries i get that i understand that totally um but you know that's my say thank you rhonda next we have eater good evening everybody uh everybody can i think i see my uh mute icon uh detecting sound so so yeah good evening everybody um my name

048is edward i am uh i'm um i'm on my way to be an educator um so so i i do spend at this moment i've been spending a lot of time with youth of our grades particularly middle school and high school um and currently i'm sort of on a journey right to reclaim uh the history that you know was never taught to us that was sort of just kept as a side as a side note in our education my educational uh journey and part of that is um me becoming uh being part of the of of the of danza stika as well so so even though it's not it's not um it's not uh i'm quite aware of the genocide and all the uh the history of our people what they've what they um what

049has happened in in a few hundred years of our existence um well i come here to basically i'm in support of of this mascot being changed uh now i just and i'm kind of backing in what rhonda was saying is that um for me what i saw is basically a caricature something that wasn't treated with respect so it could have been it could have been definitely in these last 50 years it's not i've been correcting showing more respect but but um i believe like also students students also should have a say on what what should represent them as well so i definitely support a change in this uh and what we have right now with the asusa aztec as a mascot and yeah that's all i have to say thank you that next we have

050justin mendes hello okay perfect thank you uh good evening good evening everybody thanks for the opportunity my name is justin mendez and i'm here to express my support in changing the mascot and i think this is a serious issue because this is also the opportunity to create an empowering symbol for our youth in the community instead of one that is is mocking and as we've heard from people in this community that it is uh disrespectful to their heritage to themselves uh and to their roots to their indigenous families who who the land belongs to and it's it's not new right as it's been said the national football league the nfl they changed their team and they did it with swift action um you know to the the washington football team to because they understood that

051the mascot was disrespectful and you're hearing from the community that this is disrespectful so i i do believe that it is a a proper and a great action to think about this mascot and create a symbol that again everybody in the community can can stand behind and this is a a public school so it should be serving the the needs and the voices of the community uh thank you for the time that's all i have to say thank you justin next we have edgar montes hello hello edgar hi good evening good evening uh board president vice president board members good evening everybody in attendance tonight and everybody listening in at home or watching through zoom good evening to all uh my name is edgar montes and i'm the rialto unified school district board of education

052president i've been a school board member for 11 years now first got elected in 2010 by my community i got re-elected in 2014. i got reelected in 2018 and if god wants and if my community continues to support me i'll be re-elected this year in 2022 our district's been through many controversial uh issues and situations uh this is nothing new um many people have called in and spoken about you know the um the nfl and some other situations uh this is the year 2022 and i truly believe we're in a time in our country in our communities where a lot of changes are happening for the better um some people might be in support of the mascot but obviously there's a great deal of people in your community and surrounding communities who um i would

053like to change the name uh respectfully for for various reasons and i just wanted to call in and show my support for those people in your community and in my community in surrounding communities who believe it's time uh to change the way people thought in uh and and and really just stand up for what's right you can't have it both ways you can't you can't say it's okay to offend people it's okay to disrespect people it's okay to hurt people's feelings um and be insensitive because other people it makes them feel good it makes them proud we can't have it both ways our school district doesn't have a mascot like this nor do i think or our district would ever consider having one like this and um please uh uh take into consideration your community's

054concerns your community's desires and um at the end of the day hopefully uh the real the uh azusa board of education can do the right thing for your school district and for your students and your community thank you edgar next up we have caitlyn arianis hello can you hear me yeah we can hear you okay good evening board members superintendent assistant superintendent and the rest of the respected cabinet i'm caitlin arianes a junior at gladstone high school and i wanted to express my support for the rebranding of the sousa high school aztec mascot as the mascot stands it feels as though it is a caricature of aztec and indigenous culture mascots are meant to be a symbol of pride but how can we bear pride when we have corrupt something so sacred why do you

055claim to be for equality and equity yet turn a blind eye at real issues in our district i believe that in order to gain perspective on the subject the board should listen to the actual people of indigenous ascent who are speaking in front of you today if you choose to neglect those who are speaking out the least you can do is not neglect the people whose culture you are appropriating so please keep in mind we are watching the community which you have neglected is watching the decisions made forth today will be remembered and they certainly will be remembered on november 4th all i ask is you keep your most important constituents in mind your students the future of this district and most importantly the tonga tribe when making this decision that is solved thank you

056caitlyn next we have sharon lara alton hello my name is sharon lada alton and i have been doing danza esteca for around a half of a year and i have to say that it's changed my life i am an english teacher and a professor of english at chaffey college and i work with students that are indigenous from indigenous communities that we all service um and so what i want you to urge you today is to change the mascot the aztec mascot because our culture is not your entertainment i think i urge you to look at the voiceless in your community and give them a voice and proper representation i urge you to listen to the community and change the mascot to something that represents azusa unified that is strictly you that lifts your community up

057but i urge you to go a step further i urge azusa unified to stop the excess accepted narrative of genocide that we're teaching our elementary school youth we teach mission projects that normalizes the genocide of indigenous people the people sitting in your homes in the your communities in your schools at what point are we going to expect better from our educators than now your community is coming towards you asking you to change these things just in a simple representation of a mascot right but yet we're sitting in the classes where there be where genocide of our people is being normalized i really urge azusa unified to invest in educating their instructors in anti-bias and anti-educa and anti-racist education and to take this a step further than a mascot because it's more important than just a

058mascot thank you sharon next we have selisa loisa good evening i just wanted to say thank you for everyone who's calling in and speaking and representing communities um my i think there has been voice for tonight i also wanted to bring to the forefront the issue of longfellow i know the decision on longfellow will also be made today and i know that there are many different ways and opportunities for the early childhood education programming to continue thriving in our district i think one of the largest points i wanted to make today was the high schoolers are getting their space so that way they can thrive at their developmental milestone milestones that they are at middle school is also getting their individual space so that they can thrive in their individual milestones i would love to

059see our district also providing the unique space that longfellow offers to allow our early children to allow our babies to thrive to feel that support the community the collaboration that has already been long long time successful and standing and instead learn how we can duplicate the success and that is it thank you so much for your time thank you so lisa next we have mercedes what president it looks like mercedes has lowered her hand okay mercedes feel free to raise your hand if if you inadvertently took it down we'll move on then to rafael saldana good evening people my name is rafael i'm alan sante in the area of los angeles um i am from peru i'm native american from peru and when i at the uh as the community embraced me into this beautiful

060world dancer i knew that there was certain kind of ethics that we should follow when it comes to putin under regalia and that's that's same thing i'm going to ask the board of asusa to change the mascot well i know there's a lot of history of people being heard by like that misuse is masculine can move forward to new things to a brighter future changing the mascot because there's more than just a regalia there's a lot of history that history is not a mascot like malar my brothers have sisters say on this meeting and i asked you kindly to remove the mascot because there's a theater warrior carries a lot of history a lot of pain and a lot of history with it and therefore i asked to remove it kindly and like many of

061them say uh build awareness with a lot more educational options about what it is what an asterisk was more than just an individual with feathers and and uh in an outfit you know so i'm sorry i'm not the best speaker but i just want to be the voiceover and super all my brothers and and i understand your pain and i'm insularity i stand with you here and um i'm here to hopefully ask the decision to move forward for a better future thank you for your time board thank you rafael i do believe we have mercedes back yes good evening hello yes we can hear you just uh first of all i want to thank all the indigenous leaders and students and people who are recognizing uh their roots and also for the board to bring

062on this issue it's an issue that has been occurring it's been going on for some time and you know a lot of uh professional organizations and high schools have taken on this issue and it's unfortunate that um yes the aztecs uh in a lot of ways have not properly represented uh the the name of of that particular indigenous group of the aztecs and what we have to look also too at the demographics and we see that um there is a large number growing more and more every day to the awareness of our indigenous roots and even here in the uni uh sousa unified school district i was fortunate that for the last five years i have been given i have been given to uh gladstone elementary and center uh indigenous ethnic study presentation and um

063i've noticed that um in the last couple years that there is an increasing number of indigenous people that speak other languages and uh and uh spanish and english is actually their second and third languages and there are a lot of they speak a lot of their indigenous languages and um and they're attending uh associate unified and so the question is that how do you make that turn to properly um these these all these different indigenous nations that are rising up these people that are becoming aware of their indigenous roots and how to how to allow them to be able to um grow and and understand uh the education that they're getting in a public school district and so i think that that's the question in part the answer is um with the ethnic studies that

064have been proposed and how to how to be able to move from what the mascot has been represented as a racist stereotype and how to incorporate the different many different beliefs of indigenous peoples in the americans from the native people here where we have our name of asusa come from to the many from central uh and mexico and south america uh and north america and so that's the the question is how do then we are able to teach properly teach indigenous history in this in this country of this country and in the americas and so i think the answer is the ethnic studies programs thank you thank you thank you next we have joaquin c here we go hello my name is joaquin chavez and uh i live out here in the san fernando mission

065area on tatavian land and i live across the street from the mission and they also just removed a statue the father serra was removed and i think it's very important that we continue enriching our community with culture history of our indigenous people uh i also have a dansastica group in north hollywood with my father and we teach our children our youth our elders our community of our traditions about our culture the importance of our culture and the real representation of the mashika and the aztecas and uh having these mascots represent you know uh the aztecas or the magicas is as uh all of we all heard it's it's false information it's misleading it's disrespectful um and um we find it very you know hurtful to be uh to having our children witness these false um

066false narratives of what our culture is and so at this point i just want to extend my gratitude to the school board for extending the time to listen to our community thank you for extending the time to listen to us i also want to thank the community for stepping into this space and expressing their thoughts and their opinions and their feelings about how they feel because this is a very important issue and it's a very important turning point in our history thank you thank you joaquin next we have carlos goitia good evening um first and foremost i uh i want to acknowledge that we are on tongva land stolen land um my name is carlos goitia i'm a regional leader in the pomona valley i'm a lifelong resident of the city of pomona i am

067an elected official i am a director for three valleys municipal water district i'm calling in behalf of support of all those that are have called in in support of the name change for azusa high school um all the comments were great comments uh as one who identifies as indigenous myself uh i i never understood uh i always knew that growing up i always knew that i was indigenous but we were displaced you know being a lifelong resident of of the city of pomona finding out through uh through my dna and confirming that i my ancestry is of the apache shirakawa mascalero apaches and uh i take pride in that and doing a lot of research and understanding my culture and uh we i i just want to say to the board of education we are

068the leaders of today it's incumbent on us it's our responsibility to make the decisions that reflect us i i i know that your board is is diverse um whether you identify as latino mexicano indigenous african-american you have a diverse board i take pride in being the first indigenous uh indigenous person to sit on the board at three valleys uh there are hard decisions that i have to make there is one that recently i have made i was the lone opposition uh vote to offramp a study and a project of drilling for water in in the mojave bonanza springs area uh these are hard decisions but as as electeds it's incumbent on us to make the right decisions so i implore you i ask you to to do the right thing and make the right decision

069and making that name change and respecting the cultures the tangva people we in pomona are are are realizing the original name of pomona which is which is which are sisters of the asus kanga uh people um we we're bringing awareness to that so thank you and thank you board for allowing me to speak thank you carlos next we have michael we still have michael in attendance uh yes we do michael you may and mute your mic hello can you hear me we can hear you yes how much is going to cost about 2 or 3 million to change the name can you hear me we can hear you uh we you're able to speak freely for three minutes but we do not respond you do not respond okay all the money they're gonna waste for

070this when they can be put in for the education for the children since the coroner virus is keeping the children back and maybe we're behind now all the children all the school districts we should be focusing on that then just going to focus on the name and all these people who are focused on this hey let's get all the city to agree with it forget about all the outsiders all the ones that went to school here should be the ones voting get the aztec warriors to vote albert sanchez larry shooting luna all them guys and let's see let's see everybody have a vote like that instead of getting these outsiders who'll come around they don't live out here even if they the ones who are speaking i don't think they even went to school some

071of them probably went to school here they just want to come put their two cents in i honestly think we should go ahead and put all this education money all this money they're going to charge to education our children better i don't see what's the reason why we're worrying about this name you know to me i think it's just a lot of waste of time and money it's just like when you had i mean when we had that 20 million they put their conditions they should have put the solar out there save the school's money i really don't understand why they're complaining too much about a name i mean it's a name it's been there for years should stay there for years no one's never got offended from here until now he's trying to start

072whining about it say hey leave it alone keep on going just be the aztec warrior they already changed the the mural complaining about that they should put the old mural back then the one that they have now then after that you're gonna have to change that too and there you go wasting money again but i'm really disapproved on everything because we're over here sitting watching this wasting time and money to me when it should be saying hey we're gonna get the education for the children get the pool for them so we could get some trophies and stuff from people out there swimming and stuff but that that's not gonna happen either because why the coronavirus but i hope the name's just a because she's been there for years i don't know what's a hold up

073on this thing it's just downfall waste money again that's all i got to say and hopefully our mirror gets better and healthier and all the children who need help you guys should be building a program for them to be you know going for assistance for math reading writing social studies science something that they need helping out the single parents that are struggling that money could go to that too instead of this you know change a name thank you michael thank you next we have mazatsin azteca yolo kali please correct me if i pronounce that incorrectly yes uh you pronounced it correctly can you hear me yeah we can hear you okay thank you very much and uh first of all uh yeah first of all i want to say that i agree a lot with

074uh what michael had to say i could i could i could feel him i feel like i could feel he's coming he's speaking from his heart and uh and many people have a lot of connection to to things the way they are uh and and also i also have to say that i resemble the remark i am an outsider i i do not live in the area and however as you can tell by my identity here that i'm presenting it means uh massaging comes from the aztec word that means deer and it means either venerable deer or it's a term of endearment uh little deer and azteca locally means azteca yolo cali meat house of the aztec heart so it's very uh serious situation uh to understand the meaning of some of these words that

075we have here and that is part of the culture that now is um as we know uh one of them i think it's the majority uh what they call minority cultures that that exists here in this country and um but my dedication has been to to teaching people to become aztec as the aztec word comes from two words one is astli and it means instrument to harmonize and the other is tikka which means a person so a nasty is a person who becomes an instrument of harmony and that is the culture and the tradition that many and most of the people that preceded me were talking about in their presentations that i agree also with all of them that spoke before me very honorable and very respectful and um so being an athletic is it's

076really not impossible and and i i i heard uh some people have said that not everybody can be a nastic well it it's not really a nationality or a place of origin it's actually a way of being right an instrument of harmony and right now i believe that i will add my voice to those who are asking you to take this name aztec or take the mascot concept of aztec off of uh of the school district in order to create that harmony you know and maybe maybe maybe little by little we can learn to become aztec but at the moment you know we need to have the harmony so i add my name to removing the the mascot draftkamati thank you very much on this beautiful day of the read uh eight read and the

077reader is called and guided by tesca and that means the consciousness and the memory so thank you very much next we have alex munoz uh can you guys hear me yes we can hear you okay so um i'm currently a senior at azusa high school and um basically what i agree with what michael said that it's going to be very expensive to change and there's already numerous expenses that we have to cover for high school like we can't even get our pool fixed and we want to change the aztec mascot like where are your priorities at um and not just add to that it's just sure we can change like maybe the song you know the the way we dress the the spirit day spirit rally whatever it is we can we can do that

078easy it's just like out of all things we're prioritizing right now doing a pandemic changing the mascot is one and and not like providing better education for students and uh i just think that it's you have your priorities are mixed up and that uh the priorities should be the students and not the image that they portray out to others that others might get offended um okay and i do hear the side of it being indigenous people they want their dignity they after so many years of of just stealing their culture and i get that and that's why i want uh i support uh making the aztec more accurate or whatever it can be so uh that's it thank you very much thank you alex lika do we have anyone else with their hand raised we

079have no other hands raised thank you then we will move on to 4.0 general functions and specifically 4.1 discussion and decision of reorganization school mascot and colors for azusa high school i i believe to start things off mr mall you would have for us some some information and some some details on uh some of the intercosts associated with this change yes thank you for president um so we did um receive information from legal counsel which identifies which are the recommended and preferred funding sources it was concluded one as we all knew general fund would be able to absorb any not absorbed meaning we have financially but it is a fund that has the most allowable expenditures we have our developer fee fund which is fund 25 in which those funds can be used for modernization

080to be used to identify going to our schools due to school closure or reorganization where we are projecting an increase in enrollment we have our fund 40 which is the rosedale fund that is funds that we use for capital expenditures such as 10 tangible items that'll be affixated to the building modernization pool we did also talk about how we possibly out also the turf overlay we have our fund 21 which is our bun bond funds for measure k which we can use for any modernization project that we have currently on the list so we have four funding sources i'm sorry four funding sources in which that we have available before the topic of rebranding i'm fun one is the main one but we can get some rebranding expenditures out which would be like redoing a

081turf painting if you wanted to redo the pool the basketball courts but for items such as new uniforms um for our different sport events those would not qualify for those funds beyond the general fund i have a question my question mr mall is um i don't see anything on this list that shows um the grant writer if the grant writer um from i heard in the past your if she wasn't about look for grants that had to do with uniforms or is there any grants or i'll take i can take that one uh we have contacted uh our grant writing company to see if there was any if there are any grants to help with any of these associated costs um there's one grant that they definitely have identified they keep looking and so we

082can definitely continue on that route uh to apply for uh potential uh grants uh but nothing concrete we haven't been awarded anything or anything like that right now it's just discovery and an application if that's that's where we want to go do we have a sense of the potential timeline on that uh not all grants but most grants do come with timelines on when they are [Music] announced and when deadlines are the one grant that we are currently looking at is not one of those grants that actually has an open just an open timeline and so we can move forward with that particular one and again we'll they'll continue to look for grants that match up to this and i have another question also regarding we did receive a list regarding the uniforms that the

083students that is is a high um from you know volleyball tennis softball cross country and so forth um for boys and girls and i noticed that a lot of these um the track they haven't had a new office for 15 years you know everything's five years or or more you know eight years six years um well how often do they change uniforms or where they get the funds and when they're going to change their uniforms i can take that question so the uniforms are purchased with an athletic budget which is part of general funding that the sites receive and also with funding from fundraising from the uh teams and then um just one more question regarding i know that we did use the all cap in 2017 for uniforms for the mariachi program and also

084ben that's correct right so um what what uh gold was that and what action was it that we used in there in the alcap i want to say it's um i'd have to look at it um board member rodriguez pena but yeah we do have as a matter of fact in our lcap we do have under our music budget uh for the lcap we do have um uniforms as part of um of that funding that we have a built-in any any of my colleagues have anything to add questions to ask comment i would like to introduce myself my name is gabriela arellanes and um i i want to thank everyone who has showed up tonight in person and online i appreciate for all of you guys that are watching we received over 30 email 30

085emails and support of this mascot change all of them comes down to one thing there's so many issues right now as school board members that we are addressing one of the students from gladstone high school said this was a long time coming miss althea theo we knew this back in 2019 before we even spoke about all this when i brought it up at a school board meeting we talked you know i said let's talk about the elephant in the room this the whole change of the mascot is the elephant in the room and it has not been since 2019 it's been for centuries we need to address morton yes we do need to address more important issues but but it is the mascot issue among others that prohibits people from seeing indigenous people as people

086it is so easy to say oh it's just a mascot oh we can spend money on other things but according to 538 analysis hundreds of schools across the country still use native americans as their team mascot monikers widely seen as racist and demune dehumanizing to the native american community there are people who will downplay the importance of the issue and say oh gosh don't you have better things to worry about your priorities are mixed up well the humanization is i think the very root of all the other issues that we face for decades advocates for native american rights have been working recklessly to convince the teams schools to change their names filing lawsuits to protest and applying the pressure on teams and their sponsors right now we at susa unified school district are re reconfigurating

087and have the opportunity to make this happen are we gonna wait for the lawsuit are we going to do it now that's our choice that's a choice we're going to have to make tonight bar sharp president of the national congress of american indians who leads the country's oldest and largest american indian and alaska native tribal government organization the widespread of black lives matter protest ushered in a national debate about race and racism in america one that finally finally included the rights of native american native americans we all know that this day would come this should not be a surprise to us the moment has just been an incredible sacred moment bringing this country together to advocate for the rights of indigenous people and to be an ally and partner with others that are disenfranchised the

088continued use of naval amen native american mascots and education has a long and harmful history these mascots perpetuate racial stereotypes and culture misappropriation negatively impact the identity and psychological development of indigenous children and create a negative learning environment for all children for these reasons teach for america publicly opposes the use of native mascots and supports the removal from k-12 schools now we here in asusa have a partnership with the western justice center we went through the training what the western justice uh center envisions this is their vision they envision a world in which communities are healed united and transformed through conflict resolution education and restorative practices rooted in equity justice and opportunity how can we say that we support something partner up hire consultants to be teaching our we're starting that right now teaching our

089teachers right we have one class in each of the high school we have one teacher we need to do better because we know better it's about education or the lack of education that makes it so hard to adapt or change this is not about oh i i'm monastic or i'm a gladiator this is about doing what is right tonight i humbly and strongly request we find the funds which we now see that we can do this to repair and do what is right for our children and future generations asus school board members the time is now if not now when thank you i have something to add remember all right so um i also um thinking back on on statement the and radiance i think the best way to honor the tradition of both high

090schools is to equally move forward with the new beginning it is difficult enough for us to experience change let us not choose a school let us grow one school as one by merging into the name we would send a message that we have not chosen one school over the other the um aston azusa aztec mascot is culturally insensitive to the native american community we have many speakers here and well thank you all for being here and people on zoom it was over almost hour and a half but um it was real really good really interesting and it also educated myself and i really appreciate that regarding the change um the aztec mascot and the logo for the following reasons it is disrespectful and racist to the native americans the heads the headdress is a sacred

091object that is earned throughout the years of battle the outfit they wear they use it as a costume the young lady that comes out as a warrior yet she has a short skirt on and she comes out now what are we saying about the native american women that is disrespectful even for myself i am 59 native american and i also did my studies so i i don't appreciate that we are stereotyping indigenous people schools and teams have changed their mascots such as warriors rays indians redskins cheese tomahawks for the same reason we're in the 21st century why are we acting like we're back in the 60s i'm from the 60s i went and feel like i'm fighting for the same lucha all the time it like never ends well i feel myself as a board

092member can make a change and can end things that i was not able to do back in the 60s um now's the time to unite the gladiators and the aztecs as one let's make that change now thank you um i'm okay with changing the name i think i came into this meeting um and i know people watched the last meeting i'm feeling really feeling that we could um find ways to be um i would say multiple sensitive with using the aztec um mascot um but i think dr dr sanchez's comment um really resonated with me really thinking about you know when azusa was a very different place when it was when in 1956 when we created it and knowing that i can only guess as i mean obviously we can't know that what they were

093thinking in their minds about who was who were the decision makers at that time who was sitting on this board um thinking about the systemic racism that we've all talked about on this board and talked about how we're going to address um really make i think um help me come to that conclusion that it does make sense even though it is it will be an expense and it will be coming out of our general fund most likely i think it's important for us to be able to have um even our outward-facing icons our messages reflect the internal ethic that we want all of our community and our students to present so um i agree board member bo do you have anything to add thank you board president just a few comments um i can say

094that all each of us and as a as one unified board we have a lot of responsibility we have a responsibility to our stakeholders to be fiscally responsible we have responsibility to our students and families to provide a rich rigorous education and there are always they're always going to be a variety of competing priorities but i think when i think about education i think about the responsibility we have as educators to apply a very deliberate critical thinking lens to everything we do and for me the the how and and the why is just as important as the what i think we've heard from the community tonight both in person online and in the variety of our email communications that there are a lot of ways to approach what we're doing in terms of consideration of

095renaming the mascot for azusa high school and i think that there are some really interesting and innovative ways to achieve um achieve what we want to achieve and promote an inclusive environment that's respectful of a very rich pan-ethnic native american heritage there are very lot of ways to continue to improve and strengthen our liberal arts curriculum in the k-12 spectrum and i also think that um as mr mall's team has put together there are ways that we can be creative you know with our with our budget and be fiscally responsible so i think what um you know the approach that i'm championing is that there are ways to do you know say yes and and not instead of either or and so i i'm hoping that we can work together tonight to find ways to

096achieve that yes and compromise that's going to enable us to reach our goals and really fulfill our mission as a district excuse me and and the other dynamic that i wanted to bring in onto the table is um identifying the actions we're going to take as well as the timeline right and and perhaps decoupling the actions from the timeline and and deliberating on those as separate items will allow us to have greater clarity about what we're doing rather than feeling pressured that it happened that needs to happen tomorrow of course it needs to have a specific deadline and we need to hold ourselves accountable to that deadline but i offer that to the group as a tool to help us parse out not only the what and the why but the how and when thank

097you thank you board member bo i will add a couple just a couple comments um a good a good friend of mine kind of stated a proverb to me and and said that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago the second best time to plant a tree is today and i and i can't help but think about that when we when we think about the the situation that's in front of us now um yeah hearing uh dr sanchez you share and talk about just the the realities and and the history of how those decisions were made and uh and when that was and the makeup and and even looking around this table and seeing and and with board member bow online seeing the uh the expanded representation that i can that

098i can only imagine exists as compared to back then um i think that there has been continued learning and continued understanding of of uh the the impact that these types of decisions have on on people and on and on culture um and so with that um i i also um look at what's in front of us and recognize that yes we need to continue to be fiscally responsible we need to look at how we utilize our funds to ensure that we're we're using those funds for um our uh our students and and their education and and their resources and and and what they have available to them and in their environment and um kind of going along with that um environment and their education i i see this i would also agree that um now

099is a time for us to look at and address um this matter last thing i'll say is these types of conversations can somehow be controversial and and i want to say i think it's always important that we we look at the the individuals who are impacted by these decisions and we consider the impact on them as as opposed uh above and beyond uh higher and louder than the voices of those who um are are not as directly affected and their their culture is not being um uh appropriated or or or misrepresented who who speak on behalf of those whose culture is and so um i i think just kind of hearing what my colleagues have said um i'm i'm grateful to be a part of a of a board who has has learned and has

100listened and is continuing to learn and listen any additional questions comments um i will note then we'll we'll entertain a um emotion here then in a in a moment uh i will add that it does call for uh mascot and colors um for um azusa high school so um i didn't hear anyone really speak on colors but but that's that's also worth worth noting one of the things that um i have comment on that that i heard tonight was you know to to get the community involved and especially the students i heard the students that spoke tonight they want to get involved making them be part of this decision and include them to be part of this decision um would would benefit um would benefit them so are you saying the timeline should be this

101school year since those they're seniors right is this juniors and seniors junior's been senior well i would i would ask um so arthur if we were gonna rebrand right how much lead time would you need to be able to do all that work like let's say for our target is fall of 2023 right that's our target date of consolidation so how much lead time do you need so i think um if we're um hearing some of the the the comments on uh balancing and being fiscally responsive but also making the right decisions um and i think i echo the sentiment that this this can be a community involvement um a type of [Music] process that really gets voices into into this and i think that if we if we have the mindset of as an

102example just hearing that if the vote is tonight yes we're going to change the mascot and the colors of zozo high school um and we have the mindset of uh implementation uh that is phased in we can we can accomplish the fiscal responsibility uh because we we will have uniforms right now we will have stuff that have azusa high school that don't have the mascot and so the things that do have the mascot right we can move a little bit quicker um so i think that if we if a decision is rendered tonight we can uh get right on a process uh lay out a process share that with the board of education uh in terms of how we think um i believe we have a couple of products or software things that are coming

103up that can help us to get community involvement and so we can we can come back with what that what that would look like uh to the board of education but i think we have we have uh some time the the big ones really like the the big big ones uh here are going to be um the turf um we believe depending on the decision uh we so let me clarify what that means let's pretend we kept the colors but only change the mascot as an example if the community said that then that actually um gets a get gets a quicker turf uh versus we're changing the colors and the masa and which which is all fine but that's really the the big one uh some of the murals and then the um the gymnasium

104floor are really latasha those are really the big ones i don't see the marquee as a as a big time time one the big ones i would say are the turf the floor in the gym and any not even painting just the the logo work so i don't i don't see a big time constraint i just have a question regarding when you mention the colors so i thought tonight our vote is to to decide on change of mascot and colors uh correct but we don't have to right and that's what that's what we can defer but we can defer that to a process i think what i heard arturo you say is that um if we give you direction to move forward this is this you can we can give you direction to go and

105develop and and develop a proposed process correct right how we're going to do community engagement what kind of committee's going to be have the makeup of the committee and then you would bring that back to us correct i'm i'm good with that can you clarify what she just said please yeah so so if we voted tonight that uh we we are fine with changing the mascot and the colors of azusa high school right uh we would right away get to work on a process and a timeline of how we're going to involve our stakeholders to give input and voice we're just talking about a committee so correct the committee to be the stakeholders in the community like like chamber or who are we talking about um right now i don't know but i'm thinking it's

106not a mock committee it's a it's a big it's a big input and voice um and just to further let's pretend that if we're not deciding today what that mascot is and those colors are correct right so i'm what i'm suggesting is that once we hear the voice it could turn out to be that the mascot has changed to x but the colors like we like the the the voices like the colors so they want to keep the colors but they just want to change the mascot and that we should honor that and be okay with that unless the board's saying no definitely 100 percent know that the mascots must change and the colors must be but but um right here at stacy we're supposed to change colors and masks i mean just i mean

107that's what i'm reading and i thought that's not our discussion but now we're saying that we're allowing the community or whoever committee did students i disagree with that i think that we're going to have that vote today for mascot and colors that we stick to it and that we change the mascot and colors and do not give that to the community and give only the um the choice of color it's a different color we're going to change the color and change the mascot just just to be super clear maybe carlos looks like you you'll want to lean in as but looking at 4.1 says discussion and decision of of in essence school of mascot and color so so that invites a discussion and a decision of two things school mascot and colors so we may

108whatever the board decides we may decide um that we we do not want to send that out to to be considered or we can say that we do want it to be sent out to this committee for for consideration but i but i see that we have we have a couple options in front of us carlos did you have i agree i think the board can do one or both so the board can act to just change our to change the mascot today and defer the issue of the colors the board could also take action to change the colors and then through the process it may be that the original colors are re-adopted by before so there could be an opening that the board could say we want to move forward with an open process

109for a brand new mascot and an open process for brand new colors hit community input and then ultimately it may be that the original colors are pre-adopted but the board has a lot of discretion however carlos if i could ask for a clarification right just to to continue on this on this conversation uh the board may elect to say we vote to change the mascot and the colors and we will leave it up to the stakeholders and the process to determine what the mascot is going to be in the colors are going to be correct they can also just based on this conversation that just happened right now they can say everything i just said but through that process the the mascot must be changed and the colors must be changed we will not accept

110the the current colors that exist right now yes the board can take that action as well and those are the again those are the wishes of the board so i'm happy to make a motion with the first scenario that you just mentioned right where we would vote to change the mascot and then defer to you to develop a pro or um and then give you direction to develop a process for for a community either a committee well a process that we would ultimately adopt as a board so not saying do it go go off and do it um that would have have whatever vehicle it is look at options for and recommendations for a mascot and the color but if we as a board want to separate the votes i can do it i can

111do a vote just on mascot just for the sake of clarity would you would you mind concisely restating your emotion so my motion is that we uh my motion is that we um take action to change the mascot of azusa high school um and and then how would you say it and create a process for community engagement to determine what that new mascot will be and and corresponding color that is my emotion there's moved by board member cruz gonzalez is there a second i will i will second that motion is there any additional discussion i would like to challenge the motion with a different motion and and if you're looking to amend the original motion yes there would be a motion to amend motion to amend the original motion i would like to go ahead

112and since we've gone this far and we've spoken and been able to reconfigure i think it is justly that we must change by motion to that we must change the mascot and the colors together there's something new second so this amended motion then is on the floor any any additional discussion for the amended motion uh um i agree with that for for the following reasons you know if you know we we're speaking about merging the schools merging the colors so it is a new beginning so it is going to be totally new you know because you stick with the colors and there's still some there i mean i'm telling you as a board member 10 years if i go to azusa high and i'm wearing red they're like oh my god why are you wearing

113red okay i mean i'll go to blossom high and i'm wearing blue you can't wear blue i have to see what i'm going to wear before i go to school so i think the color is very very important uh all right i mean for staff and for students my two cents that i'll add is um i see us again we're with this we're having a conversation and we're making a decision on behalf of of individuals that we're inviting into a conversation that can make decisions for themselves but we are the board he's before president but we are the board i recognize that and in the process that that was one one process that we can that we can look at is saying to our community what do you want it's what what we are saying

114is as the board it is we are allowed to engage them on what what does our community want and what makes sense and what is feasible and provide parameters that say using the aztec as a mascot is is an unacceptable option but as far as colors if our if our community comes back and says we and um that we do not want to keep the same colors then the the original motion not the amended motion gives the gives that option for uh to be considered if they say that they i forgot what i said whatever the opposite of that is then they also provide that option i see this motion as as eliminating choice and and eliminating options that our community has to decide for themselves and so that's why i would be in favor

115i would i would not be in favor of the amended motion board member beau did you have anything to add not at this time okay so then we will we'll do a if i'm not mistaken we'll do a hand vote on the amended motion um which if if that passes it becomes the official vote that we'll we'll take online um board member um rodriguez pena yes board member bo no board member um cruz gonzalez no board member arianes yes and i bourbon mcgregor i'm also a no so the motion fails um three uh two three knows the two yeses uh which brings back the original motion that board member cruz gonzalez stated which is that we are defining that the mascot correct me if i'm wrong here but the motion that was on the floor

116was the finding that the mascot must change but um kind of allowing for a process that will that that could include the community and our staff uh determining that the colors could remain the same or that the colors could change i would like to go ahead and amend them the first motion again and then as i would like to go ahead and have two separate votes i am not comfortable voting the mascot and colors since the first uh amendment was not carried on i would like to go ahead at this time and mend that and motion to go ahead and split the school mascot and the colors and two separate votes so it's easier if i just retract my motion as long as my second agrees and i'll just um i'll do an initial motion

117just motioning that we take action to change the mass thought at azusa that's so is there a second for that motion my second so we'll we will uh the second will be board member rodriguez pena and then any additional discussion i would like to go ahead um and vote online for the mascot back up just one second here where i think we had a motion to essentially bifurcate the original motion board member uh cruz gonzalez was correct that she could withdraw her original motion and and her second agreed so in the way i'm looking at board member cruz gonzalez your your original motion involving two issues now on i withdrew that motion yeah right right so we don't we don't need to jump into the discussion on that original main motion i believe board member

118cruz gonzalez could have before and now make a new motion i think i already made it and i was already second by yolanda so now we're voting on that and then i would only include the mascot with the the with voting online the reason why why we won't is because the we we're taking one item and we're splitting it into two but our computer still has it as one item so we'll have to take a hand vote on the first one and we'll have to take a computer vote because we because we split it up or we could take a either or but we can't take the we can't take the online vote twice and then it's just clear it's it's reflected in the minutes right regardless of which order and so what i'm i'm

119asking is that we take the mascot vote online and that we do the colors by hand vote if that's okay mr president thank you who's gonzales second by board member rodriguez pena and who is the second on the new yolanda thank you we'll call the vote and the motion passes uh five to zero which leaves us still with the the matter of colors uh that is that is in front of us is there a motion on the floor what is emotion well i would just suggest that we don't take action on the second item or do we need to take action to send it to the committee i think i think it's implied right it you can the board by consensus and also direct staff for the board president can direct staff to come up

120with a plan to bring it back to the meeting or the board tax vote okay i'll make a motion i'll make a motion to direct the superintendent to include in the process of renaming the mascot to also include what in whatever that process stakeholder engagement process um um recommendations on the colors of the school can i please ask that they also be divided that is the motion is just the colors of the school you said mascot right now no no i in what i said is in the engagement process of renaming the mascot also include the color i would like to go ahead and separate that i believe the matters are already separated okay so i'll just i'll just rephrase it so i also my emotion is that the committee that's put to the committee

121that's convened or the stakeholder engagement process convened that that commit that that stakeholder engagement process also include recommendations on the colors of the high school of azusa high school moved by board member cruz gonzalez we have a second so i have a clarifying question board president so as the motion stands this gives the um the committee or the process right um discretion to propose colors they could be the same colors they could be wildly different is that correct that's my understanding [Music] foreign second any additional discussion then we will move to a hand vote board member rodriguez pena no board member beau yes board member arianes no board member cruz gonzalez yes and i am also a yes and so the motion passes three yes the two no before you guys leave we invite you

122to come to our high school i know you guys have done i know the kind of work you're doing in pomona i helped co-found the latino roundtable come over to azusa you guys are the san gabriel valley pomona valley latino roundtable not just the pomona round table um yes we'd love to have you guys host you guys over here moving on to item 4.2 discussion and decision of school reorganization school mascot and colors or gladstone middle school are there any questions um or any information requested or is there a motion i'd like to go ahead in motion 4.2 second what is your motion to go ahead and change the mascot and the colors together second a move by board member adianas second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion uh my discussion is if it

123passes are we gonna go to the same process as including the community and they would be working the same committee will work on both of them um i will request a little bit of time um but i think similar i think mostly yes i'm just wondering out loud like again don't hold me to this but i'm wondering out loud do we involve middle school students in the in the middle school process uh you know those kinds of things i'm just thinking out loud right now but mostly 100 yes part of the stakeholders though in the high school you would include students initial initial thoughts absolutely yeah so why not can i get a point of clarification from board member arianes i just want to make sure if if the motion is to change the mascot

124and seek recommendations from the same committee i'm going to be looking at that i want to make sure that is correct thank you any additional discussion um although i appreciate the comment by rhonda about what a gladiator is i think i think i'm i'm a i would be okay keeping it as the gladstone gladiators i think um alumni that have gone there for decades are losing a high school but at least they'll have they could still have a space with a name attached to it and i don't think it hurts us at all to have our middle school called the gladstone gladiators so i'm okay with keeping it the way it is even if even though we're treating it differently in the high school and i think clearly tonight show that there are there are

125many multitude of reasons to change the mascot at azusa high school so i that's that i would be comfortable just keeping it as a glutstone gladiators that that is not the motion right i know but i'm just giving my discussion and um in addition to that um i'd be happy either way but we will save money we do not have to um do both high schools um that funding is a big thing right now board member beau did you have anything to add not at this time thank you i also would be um i would not be in favor of this motion and would uh would vote no so that the uh mascot and colors remain the same at glasgow then i if there's no further discussion i will call for the vote and the

126motion does not pass it fails two yeses to three notes so maybe misunderstood so what was the most was the motion to keep it or okay so i'm you can ask confusing i was promotion thank you for that board member cruz gonzalez so the motion was basically to decide to change the mascot in colors and now that board member greer shared as board member cruz also also shared that they were not in favor of changing gladstone high school gladiators mascot or colors and so they opposed it and so what this means is that um that they do not want to chain the majority there's three of them that do not want to change flatstone high schools mascot or colors they would like to keep them such as and it would be gladstone the only thing

127that would change what would be gladstone middle bull instead of glass don't hide so i'm sorry then i misunderstood and i changed my vote oh no i think i misunderstood let the record reflect that the emotion failed one yes the four note um actually carlos in a situation like that if she misunders she gave a second he seconded emotion here's here's what i want to wonder does that just is it does the fact that uh board member ariana says motion failed does that seal that because there still wasn't a decision there was just a there was just a no given and the fact that board member rodriguez pena said that she misunderstood and she was the second does that nullify the the vote to even begin with i don't think we need to go back

128to nullify the vote in its entirety of the bottom line here is that we've had a practice here at on the diocese of both changing the vote after it's presented on the screen and so i think the simplest way to go about it is a board member rodriguez pena said he wants to change no the motion fails and so you can kind of move on um so therefore we we will take that to mean that the mascot and colors remain the same at glaston middle school correct thank you then moving on to item 4.3 discussion and decision of school reorganization longfellow school i i will i'll ask um staff if i know this was something that the preference was back in december the preference was that we wait until the the new year to make

129this decision and so now that we are on on the other side of christmas break um is there any infirm can you provide us with some information and and thinking in regards to um longfellow yeah i can share some some data on longfellow to help with your conversation and decision right now at longfellow school it is a preschool through tk school the tk that exists at longfellow is a dual immersion class room there are eight teachers at longfellow school currently and among those and among amongst those eight teachers there are 12 classes that are taught because um preschool uh is a.m and p.m okay um at gladstone high school um there are some programs longfellow sorry yeah at longfellow school uh there are some programs that are not funded by uh california state preschool program

130uh so we have our dual immersion tk that is not funded by cspp we have our special education preschool that is not funded by cspp and we have our dual immersion preschool that is not funded by cspp the cspp sections and teachers those have to be in licensed rooms and even though the other ones don't have to be in licensed rooms we definitely work towards ensuring that they are in license room although they don't have to be if we were to move in the direction of closing uh longfellow um the we would have to ensure that we have uh licensed rooms at um at our other sites but right now that only pertains to hud hodge is the only school that doesn't have currently a licensed uh room where we can put preschool that process

131can be anywhere from three months to a year depending um but if we look at the two-year timeline that still can can set us up for that uh in addition to that uh if we were to move in the direction of movement just some things to consider all of the other schools um that currently house preschool which is all of them except ellington and hodge um they are not at capacity so there is room at all of our elementary schools to house uh more preschool students in addition to that we have five schools that have licensed classrooms that we are currently not using for preschool so that there's there's a there's an there's a built-in expansion there if we wanted to uh to to do that uh just for uh just to to ensure that

132we're moving in the right direction we would engage with licensing just to say okay we're going to move in this direction we're actually going to put students there now um but we don't we don't see that as a as a as a big thing we would also have to engage with the state to ensure that we have moved our programs to the correct locations uh and that they are aware of the locations uh that are currently being funded uh and and and where they are uh where they are at um so um that's some some data points uh in terms of of long fellow we can answer any other questions that you might have board member vote thank you board president i'd like to make the motion to table this item can i see i

133was going to ask board member beau for clarification whether or not you wanted to postpone this matter yeah i guess the specific board meeting or to the discretion the board president to bring the matter back i'd like to have it tabled to uh be brought back at a at the discretion of the board president okay so that'd be a motion to postpone and is that that is up that is not up for discussion does that require a second and discussion and vote he's making it as a motion so i would ask for the second you you have not formally adopted robert's rule so if there needs to be some discussion about the motion i think that's acceptable within a zoo so so um motions to table postpone are non-debatable and i and i was hoping

134we could have a conversation about the sabrina i'm wondering if you're willing to withdraw your emotions so we can just have a quick discussion before you do your motion again or if you want a second i'll withdraw the motion for the sake of discussion thank you so i think um for for me to understand i mean as it i mean traditionally right um the really hodge has been has been um impacted by space right and if we think about it they don't even currently house their own tk one of their tk programs because you have the dual emerging tk program um that used to serve feed into two schools but now we have that we have valley dale tk dual immersion so that really is the dual immersion for the for the hodge program um

135compounded with the fact that in my mind there is room for expansion so we we've been able to create preschool programs at all our elementary schools yet also keep a valley deal i mean longfellow going to me speaks that it doesn't make sense to close it um knowing that we don't have any full day preschool programs in our district um and the state is incentivizing that we i i know personally people who don't come to our preschool programs because they need full day and they can't live in our community but have to go someplace else often maybe a poor quality program because we don't offer full day so i would just so knowing that would take up more space right because then one class would take a full day knowing on top of that that

136the state is looking at expanding cspp since we have we're going to have universal tk and i'm i'm appreciative that we're ahead of the bandwagon on that one right so we're way ahead on that um that they're even thinking about for csvp starting to allow districts to enroll two-year-olds right which i think first would be i mean it's a big thing to do right but knowing that and knowing that there's places for us as a as a unified school district to really eventually become a birth to 12 district right i would just i i'm not in favor of closing longfellow because i think it sort of closes opportunities for us board member rodriguez pena yes my question is dr latasha if i recall before the pandemic either we had an application or something out for

137a full day and then um i never heard about it anymore just i'll take that one ms rodriguez pena yeah um yes we are keeping our ears and our eyes and everything close to the ground we will be at the moment that that is announced as a funding opportunity uh we are ready and able and and willing to employ we we have that desire uh to open up a full day full year uh program uh in our district thank you for the confirmation uh board member bo is your hand still raised from uh your previous motion apologies i lower my hand okay any other conversation discussion i would like to vote on this today because we do have it on the agenda other i mean other if there's like an urgency why we should not

138but um that's what we have it on this agenda today so sabrina i'm just curious why you um why you thought it'd be why we should table it i mean i'm open to that i just want to know why i'm i'm happy to have a one of my colleagues you or another colleague make a motion for a long fellow um you need a motion motion that she's not going to do it she's not going to put her to motion out the table yet one of us can make a motion so for us to make a motion to um keep longfellow open all second so moved by border rodriguez pena that we that longfellow remain open second by board member cruz gonzalez any additional discussion then we will move to a vote and the motion passes

139five to zero which brings us to 5.0 and specifically 5.1 adjournment is there a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn second move by board member rodriguez famous second by board member adianas any discussion then we will vote and the motion passes five to zero and so we are adjourned on 9 14 p.m thank you everybody have a good night