001this it's so nice to see everybody um I'm gonna call us back from closed session it is 601 for our 4 20 23 meeting of the school board um the first thing that um I need to do is report out on a closed session item and regarding student discipline and other confidential matters at code sections 35146 and 48915 the board took action by motion Mr macelli trustee Miss Ellie and seconded by trustee Grubbs to approve the staff recommended student stipulated suspended expulsion of student number 23-020 for the 2022-2023 school year and it was four eyes and No No's um so that's my report out on that um next um I want to remind everybody silence your phones we have a busy room here so make sure you silence your phones and um we where am
002I um this meeting is recorded for live streaming And archiving on the district YouTube channel and we have that all online for you if you ever need that um next we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance and I'm just going to lead us because we have so many people so I I could ask you to stand and join me thank you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands a nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay okay can I get approval of the agenda as written do I have a first a move that we approve the agenda is written thank you may I get a second thank you Mrs Martinez roll calls please president Saida yes
003Rusty Grubbs trustee moss and trustee Miceli yes thank you excellent moving on we have reports and he made it I'm so glad which one oh oh I'm sorry I skipped highlights we have some exciting highlights here um Dr Gill can you do the first one is that thank you good evening Madam president trustees superintendent cabinet members and community members I just wanted to see a share a very exciting highlight we received a Trailblazer soon success still Trailblazer as a positive partnership from our partners from Nisha Teachers Association and California teacher Association we're very proud of this relationship and a huge thanks to our our BTR apps and president Aryan Whiting and exec bold and all members of BTA and rcta rep gray hairs and uh Mr Masali for representing us and getting this role for
004us on that day so and we're proud of this membership and we're going to continue uh continue with this partnership with BTA and CTA so thank you foreign thank you all right good evening my name is Lindsay dulski I am the principal at Benicia Middle School today I am pleased to Showcase some of our students from our technology and robotics class over the past few years BMS has been building our technology program an introduction to technology course is part of our sixth grade wheel elective and then in seventh and 8th grade students can select technology as a year-long elective next year for the first time we are offering an advanced technology elective course open to 8th grade students who participated during their seventh grade year the program growth has been made possible by the support
005of our ed services department and funding of the Project Lead the Way curriculum and teacher training in which both Mrs Pratt and Mrs ward has participated in I would now like to turn it over to our technology teachers Mrs Pratt and Mrs Ward to introduce our students foreign good evening my name is Erica Pratt and this is Jennifer Ward we teach VMS I teach technology at BMS oh we teach technology at BMS um and we brought some students here to just showcase some projects that we have worked on this school year so we're going to start with let's see what do I mean um so we're going to start with web development then we'll go to micro bits 3D printing and then some Automation and Robotics so first I have Emily here to talk about
006her website that she um created we created a multi-page personal website that can be published and shared we use HTML to structure the pages and we used CSS to style the elements on the page is sorry and next up we'll have Graham and Amelia talk about our micro bits [Music] do you want to read this part we used a pocket size computer called a micro bit that introduced us to how software and hard work together it has a LED light display with buttons sensors and input output features we will demonstrate the sound external LED and servos featured for you um okay server servo foreign will Spin and display a heart if I press a the servo will Spin and display a heart if I press B the server will stop and display a happy face
007if I press if I LED if I press a the servo lights up if I press B music will play [Music] [Applause] and then we'll have Emily back up to talk about 3D printing we learned how to transfer a two-dimensional sorry two dimensional representation to a three-dimensional solid model with technology we use computer aided design CAD to create solid models of various objects and designs so we were actually able to 3D print all the well all of my technology students a keychain so they got a little souvenir for taking technology at um BMS and then we'll have um Miss Ward's class talk about Automation and Robotics we've got Bella Kailua come on up you can all come up yeah yep come on up hello I'm Sam I'm Issa I'm Rocky I'm Tai Lua I'm Isabella
008in our Automation and robotics class we use vex vex programming and the pltw curriculum right we started this course by building gear trains here are examples of what we built you'll see the Cameron follower bevel gear yeah worm in real gear and the lead screw after the gear trains we worked on the pull toy project over there you can see some of our examples then we started work on the code HS program and right now we're working on it says bed build this is going to help us land and program the motors and senses [Applause] that's it thank you thank you thank you [Applause] kids you did a great job here yes really really well done and thanks for coming and talking with us appreciate it um and the last item we have under our
009highlights is Dr Kelly or with Willoughby Atkins I don't know thank you so much for being here thank you for having us good evening my name is ajaya Stargell I am a senior attending Benicia High School and a second year we'll be back in scholar and these are my Willie B Atkins brothers and sisters behind me I just want to start off by saying some of the things that have impacted me from the Willoughby Atkins program which have been our weekly meetings every Tuesday where we talk about current events and things that are happening around the world concerning things that have happened in the past such as W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T Washington school of thought up to current events that are happening in right now I'm concerning like bands in education and some
010of the programs that people aren't having assistance to and natural disasters are affecting low-income communities and it has inspired me to want to help those people who are impacted and help those people who are low income in low-income areas as my career nice [Applause] um hello everyone my name is Jeremy Jones Jr I am a first year really be acting scholar and I'm an 8th grade attending Manisha Middle School a few quick things that I want to talk about is was Travis Credit Union about Mad City money this uh helped us Finance different uh things and helped us um really look at what was the necessities of managing a household which I'm sure all of you guys have to do and um and another thing was the black college Expo in Oakland and uh and
011that was a very um nice way to to see my people thriving and how you know how the news views that views us but if the news was there uh it would have been a beautiful sight to see so um thank you thank you [Applause] thank you good evening everyone my name is Josiah Jones I'm a first year Libby Atkins scholar and a senior technician high school over starters One Way Libby Atkins has changed me as a person is that before I even start the program I never wanted to go to college in the first place I ended up believing for myself or any plans I have to join the program and being around these amazing young men and women it has inspired me to better myself as a person and a scholar and now
012I'm going to college it is [Applause] being this program is also helping my daily life it taught me how to take initiative and build good working habits that would transfer to my skills and I use every day whether it's me in this classroom or in the sports I play thank you [Music] [Applause] good evening everyone my name's Amari Martin I'm a senior at Bonita high school and a second year will be Atkins scholar and two things that have helped me through the Willie B Atkins Association is first with the introductions every day it really helped me with public speaking and speaking in general in front of large crowds and also through the HBCU College Tour um before I didn't know I wanted to go to a HBCU I was going to go to a traditional
013college but um after going to different campuses I realized I wanted to go to a HBCU instead because I like the community and how connected everyone are thank you awesome [Applause] good evening my name is Maya I'm a 9th grader attention attending Benicia High School and the first year Olivia Atkins scholar and something that impacted me about Willoughby Adkins as an organization is that it helped me create my portfolio which I didn't know was as important as I needed for college and for years passing after that it also helped me with building my resume and learning about how to organize my transcripts and my letters of recommendation before we'll be Adkins um I've been pushed to go to college but I didn't realize how important it was for me to stay on it every single
014day so I've been taking initiative and making myself more motivated every day um and that's it thank you thank you [Applause] um hello my name is Harrison Brown I am a junior Tony Benicia High School and a virtually biakin scholar and I would like to talk about my experience as a junior watching seniors go on college tours in their preparation for um for college as I've watched the seniors I have been able to absorb the knowledge and I've watched how they applied for college how they've gone into colleges and been accepted to the college and has been helped me better my preparation for my senior year some examples that I've learned from my scene from the seniors I'm at the program have been organization um meeting deadlines and management I know that I will be
015in this position next year and I the knowledge I've obtained from the seniors have helped me better prepare for my senior year next year thank you good evening everyone my name is Tyler Patton I'm a junior at Cinemas high school and a second really Bianca scholar and I also want to talk about my experience going to the college student as a junior so going to college a junior it really exposed me to what life was really like you know being so many miles and so many hours away from home and overall it was a really great experience I got to meet a lot of new people and it really I really saw a lot of opportunities for myself and in addition to that will be Atkins has given us me and my academic a lot
016of other opportunities such as um we were grateful enough to meet and speak to the author I mean the author the rapper ludicrous and he talked to us about things like how to build a business how to social network and um what was the last one I think like had a better business had a social network and how to utilize social media and Technology awesome thank you thank you finally we want to say a little something about our seniors again my name is ajaya starzo and I'm a senior at Benicia High School I have been accepted to 25 schools after I have been in the program and thank you I will be attending the illustrious Howard University in Mexico [Applause] sorry that's my alma mater again my name is Josiah Jones I've been accepted into
017seven schools I have I have a hundred thousand dollars worth of scholarship money [Applause] I'm not too excited huh that's awesome and I I'm undecided but I'm the schools I'm aging are either Georgia State or St Mary School of California [Applause] again my name is Amari Murray and I've been accepted into 13 colleges but I'm undecided [Applause] on behalf of the Willoughby Atkins Scholars Program we would like to thank you for your time and attention today for listening to us Scholars and now we will have our mentors and site staff speak to you all to answer some questions or any questions that you might have thank you [Applause] good evening my name is LaShonda Wallace and I am one of the site coordinators at our Benicia program and so I'm so very proud of our
018students and I just want to say every senior has some free money to go to school like nice that should be right and so um we actually have six seniors and all six seniors have been accepted into colleges and I think all of them have received some type of scholarships as well um two had to work and one we didn't hear back from today but we wanted to highlight them and um as you see this is just a snippet all of these Youth and more come out every Tuesday night and from about well five o'clock we're still working on our study hall right but they are showing up the studying part we're getting down but from to from about 5 30 to 8 30. um they are engaged and we we have a lot of
019different things as they've talked about because we want to expose our students to much more than like not everybody goes to traditional college right so we have trade schools we have Allied Health programs and we're trying to get more and more speakers so if anybody has anybody who has you know a career or profession that they would like to come and talk to the students about we like to be able to expose them to that as well as public speaking because as Dr Kelly always says what is always in the room money money's always in the room and you cannot get money unless you're able to talk and express yourself and so if somebody says I need you to come tomorrow can you do it if you have the time our expectation is that you
020will do it and we make you say the same thing over and over again so that you get um more confident in your speaking and we also have our uniform which a couple of us have on today so we have our sweatshirts I think last year was our first inaugural year here and we had just gotten our polo so now you know we're getting it together so we um we are the purpose of being uniformed and being ready at all times and so now I just want to turn it over to our co-directors uh Miss Tiffany Jones and Dr Edison Kelly [Applause] foreign good evening trustees superintendent um family friends um I don't know what more can be said um I am extremely proud of this group of young people that we have carried over
021from last year and the ones that have come to join our program this year uh it's a testament to the work and the vision and the dream of this board to ensure that our students have the tools that they need to go to college and they are prepared so I want to say we want to say thank you so much for continuing to have us be a part of your family and we look forward to the continued partnership and just also just to let the community know you know this was a vision of Mr and Mrs Atkins 38 years ago that started in a little city next door to you guys called Vallejo and our young people benefit from the fact that myself Mrs Wallace went through this program ourselves and so we know what
022it takes firsthand to be able to be dedicated to something to show up every day to dress in a uniform so we're not asking our young people to do anything that we haven't already done and those that went on the college tour this year got to meet the founders they got to sit with Mr and Mrs Atkins and have conversations with them and so that is something that I hope that this Benicia group that was able to experience that takes away from it because not everybody gets to meet their Founders that are in their 80s that live in Columbus Georgia um and being in their home and having those very intimate conversations um I just want to talk a little bit about the seniors because my job in the program is to get these seniors
023ready to go to college I start them out as eighth graders and then I Usher them through and by the time they are seniors they have left the nest I'm really proud to say that this group of seniors this year has been very proactive with making sure that every time a scholarship is dropped in that scholarship senior Google Classroom that they have applied for it that they have reached out to staff members to make sure their applications are flawless because um I tell them all the time if I'm sending you an application for a scholarship nine times out of ten I know somebody that's on the panel or it's me yeah and making sure that they you know move through that situation uh flawlessly um they have studied hard they have completed their portfolios I
024think a few of you guys have seen examples of the portfolios and so we um we actually have them have a physical portfolio and then the digital portfolio that they take with them one little cue cards or a QR code that they could take to college fairs um our students are very professional as you can see with their business cards taking these around these are very efficient to have when you're going to college fairs um talking to recruiters because it's something that we could just keep with us the networking opportunities have been very extensive this year we're looking to build on that more so with the Benicia Community um because this is where our students live we want to make sure that we're reaching out to them and I will take any other questions I'm
025gonna stop talking and let my co-director um uh take over from now but just thank you all and thank you to the community thank you to my parents I cannot say enough about our parents in our program they bring these kids to us they stay they follow every direction that we give them they trust us with their children and I just want to say to my parents thank you so much we believe and love you because we wouldn't be here without you guys I have a few in the back into the community thank you so much for opening up your hearts to us I'm here in Benicia we are ecstatic about um continuing on with you all Dr Kelly [Applause] so hi hello everybody there's nothing else that can be said by me that hasn't
026already been said so again just you know it's been a it's been an honor to be able to work with you guys and um and serve and serve our community and serve our young people it's been a truly honor and pleasure to work with each one of these young people sitting here behind me and I we we asked we I called Leslie yesterday and I said can we just postpone this please listen no all you can't do is you gotta do it the reason why is because we have one scholar that's been in our program for five years and this is her very last time to you know be able to come to the board and express herself but she's at work so I wanted so I so if if you guys will indulge me
027I would like she want will ever make a presentation I'm sorry I could not be there with you today but I did want to say something on behalf of the Olivia Atkins program um I have been in the program for five years and I watched my brothers go through the program and over the years I became more and more inspired to go after college and then ultimately follow all of my dreams um Willie B Atkins actually provided me with multiple opportunities like they helped me uh run like start my business and I got to present it to everybody and they showed me all the holes in my business and it was actually really beneficial and now I'm running a successful business today um but overall I am really grateful for the program I know my
028siblings are grateful for the program we all went to college um I am attending Tuskegee University on a full tuition paid scholarship and I think I got into over 30 colleges maybe like 32 colleges so thank you to the William reactance program and thank you for your time what so at this time I'll just I'll take any questions if there are any I I just want to thank you for having this program and we're so glad it's now in Benicia for I think it's second year yeah yeah we're saying Tiffany too I mean really and you kids are amazing the the things that you are able to do in this program just the inspiration that gives kids you know it's not just College there are trade schools there's other opportunities available and you help mold
029and create beautiful humans and bye thanks thank you all right are there any other questions I don't have any questions but I do want to say thank you um absolutely for being here because it is definitely a great opportunity and it is it's amazing and I'm just grateful it warms my heart because it's good to know that students can have an opportunity to pursue their dreams whatever it may be and thank you for providing a foundation for them providing a space for them to speak to be themselves um and to just to grow and move forward so I just want to say thank you and I guess when it's time for enrollment again I'm sure and that'll be I guess the question is when can parents who are interested in having their kids be a
030part of the program when is a good time for them to reach out great question the app the um the application will be on would probably go live when we we usually go live May 30th of every year so the end of the month good to know um go to the open houses both and and we actually have quite a few middle school students so our eighth graders um last year I think we had about two this year we have like five so um so Dr Kelly and I both went to I think it was like a there was a DJ something we did a couple things out on campus and so we hope to do it again because we do have like six seniors graduating out and so our Rising seniors as Harrison said
031they they know what their task is and so the hope is that we can grow the program um even more yeah so if you know anyone bring them our way all right thank you all right [Applause] all right thank you um students and anybody that's here that was here is part of one of these things that were presented tonight you're welcome to stay um and or you're welcome to leave I don't know if you have homework or anything but um we appreciate you being here so I am going to move on to our next item which are our s what oh yeah okay okay all right robots are staying with us I might take one home um next up is our superintendents report Dr Damon rice students I am always like one ahead of myself
032student reports I know Nivea Avalos from Liberty High School um why don't you go ahead and start everybody uh good evening president Zeta superintendent Dr Wright fellow trustees and cabinet members we would like to thank Benicia High for hosting a wonderful prom last Saturday night we all had a great time we especially enjoyed the Galleria it was beautiful so big so many steps so many layers uh the balloon drop was so fun everything came down everybody was on the dance floor and the DJ was really good we started our state testing this week we have encouraged students to get a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast we have partnered again with Robert Semple to help tutor second grade second graders in math thank you to miss rice and Miss Golson for training Us in
033math games and strategies working with the kids is very fun it's also at my elementary school so I get to see everybody and we also get to play on the playground sometimes so it's extra extra fun we look forward to working with the young students for the next few weeks nice we want to give a big congratulations to four more seniors that have graduated early that makes 21 early graduates I know we're we are so proud of all of them our Outdoor Ed and our oceanography classes are planning another sailing trip out on the Bay next month we hope to have another batch of students attend this great experience I'm also looking at you that's right You Can Count me in every time on behalf of Liberty high thank you guys thank you so much
034I'm glad you had a good time at prom both of you and everybody else that attended um jinjin GAO it's your Europe with BHS uh good evening president Zeta superintendent Dr Wright and follow trustees and cabinet members my name is Jin Jin GAO the ASB vice president for Benicia High School last week was our first week back from Spring Break and it was it was also prom week we have spirit days all week to get students excited about prom and this year's prom was held at San Francisco Design Center and we heard nothing but positive things about the venue food and DJ uh this week Monday the 17th was senior breakfast uh where seniors are invited to join the Student Center for an enjoyable meal served by our administrative staffs um additionally this week will
035spend their passports which features food from several cultures as well as Musical and dancing performances to celebrate the school's diversity uh Monday we had a mariachi bin coming in to perform for us and Wednesday we had Philippine dentist group performance next week is the supply drive all week long with supplies donated to the staff uh Thursday April 27th is the seniors fast uh versus staff basketball game at 7 pm and in BHS gym uh tickets will be saw at the door the following week is the first week of AP examinations along with teachers and staff appreciation week and also we would like to congrat to our valedictorians and three uh yes on the behalf of Benicia High School thank you thank you thank you both for your reports and I'm sure you're up and Adam
036you're welcome to leave unless you want to stay for the rest of the evening but thank you again for all that information we appreciate it and we know it's getting down to the end so that's exciting for you guys too so thanks all right now we're going to move on to the superintendence report doctor Wright all right good evening uh April is a Autism Awareness Month uh it's an opportunity for us to just celebrate the progress that we have made thus far in understanding the autism spectrum and also um our the way that we're providing a more inclusive environment for those who are identified with autism but it's also a reminder that additional learning is needed and growth in order for us to fully uh Embrace autism spectrum and inclusion of all of our students
037in our school programs night of the Stars the district welcomes back night of the Stars this is an event in which we honor our employees of the year and this year we're going to honor our employees of the year for the last three years because of because of the pandemic we're unable to host this event so it's not also an opportunity for us to honor all the great work of all the staff members within our district and celebrate them for the contributions that they're making in our in our organization and also in our community so on May 26 we're going to celebrate together as we mentioned it is State Testing time we just want to encourage our parents and students to make sure that they fully participate and give maximum effort this is important to
038the district and it's important to our community the assessment results will help us better understand our instructional program and if we're in fact meeting the needs of our students so we're looking forward to getting the results and and where we need to go from there it's recruitment season I think at every board meeting I share our progress I think right now we're in pretty good shape in terms of our hiring for next year but we do still need a few special education teachers along with every other District in California um I want to thank the board for honoring the years of service so if you are a veteran special education teacher and you want to come to Benicia Unified School District we are offering your full years of service credit we do have a couple
039hiring fairs left in this season on the 28th we'll be at Cal State Long Beach on the 29th we'll be at Cal State East Bay and we are going to host another hiring Fair here at our district on May 24th so um gear up and get ready the first one we had this year was successful and we're anticipating a second successful Fair here as well um and I just want to close with thanking our three candidates that expressed interest in our uh area five trustee vacancy that we had Dr mansuri Miss Martinez and Miss Hirsch the election concluded on April 11th um the registrar voters uh we believe they're going to have the votes certified by April 25th while the count is still unofficial Miss Hirsch appears to have a commanding lead over the other
040two candidates so it's our plan to have our fifth board member join our team at our next board member our next board meeting which is on May 4th we have a lot of important work to do in our organization and we're looking forward to being whole and working together to accomplish a lot in our organization so that's all I have today thank you thank you Dr Wright um does anybody have anything that they would like to share on board reports um just really brief brief um I had my community advisory council meeting last week so um and it was basically you know a meeting with Valero and the community and um so there will be some upcoming sessions to really kind of help educate the community about um you know Valero and their role and
041that type of thing so um so that was basically it very brief so I'll keep you posted on the dates great thank you um okay I have a long list this time um at first like during uh Spring Break um some teachers got together with some students and they gathered at the corner of military and first um to discuss not to discuss but to discuss show support against gun violence and so I attended that with them for an hour and we got a lot of people driving by Hawking their horn and being real happy about um that and it just keeps coming up because of the continual school shootings and so it's something that there's going to be more to come in the future and um I'm sure whoever's interested will be notified um secondly
042on the 11th um there was a wonderful let's see one second oh I was at an equity meeting there you go Dr beatson um was there leading us and it was great to see the good work that's being done by our staff and teachers and admins so it was it was really great to be there thank you for that um let's see um Mrs Fleming from Mary farmer and I uh they had walked excuse me a walk to school day last week or the week before on the 12th the 12th yeah and I met them and I walked up the giant giant giant Hill to Mary farmer with the kids and parents and and Mrs Fleming who's the principal there and that was fun I got my exercise in for that day so that was
043good um the kids are always excited to participate and have Community involvement with that so it's nice to see them out there walking um on the 13th I attended Joe Henderson's fifth grade argument presentations along with parents and local officials and it was do you think plastic straws should be still used or do you think they should be banned and to be honest with you both sides made some great points of whether to keep them or whether to get rid of them so I'm always pleased and it's always a pleasure of mine to attend those events and and be there with the students um the 14th we were able to celebrate our employees years of service and also those that were are retiring from the district each retiree had folks speak on behalf of their
044work and dedication to the district and to their career and um I love seeing a better picture of these individuals while I attend those and you did such a good job putting that together I appreciate that and the 15th I'm it's a lot of stuff it was books and blankets at the city park it was the second um one that they've done successful beyond beyond I mean Leslie you did such an amazing job and where's Stephanie yeah you did too I appreciate everything that you did and just to glance around at the children sitting on blankets with their parents and either reading a book they were given free books if they wanted and they were sitting there reading it each was like a little pod of activity happening and so besides the tables that were
045set up around the perimeter um that were for free books they had snacks they had different activities for the kids it was just a wonderful event and we had great weather and it was it was just perfect so that I am done with my report so okay um so we are going to move on to comments from members of the public members of the public May address the board skip foreign at a regular scheduled meeting on any item within the board's jurisdiction speaker cards are available on the entrance table please note the item you wish to speak to and submit a card to the board secretary the board president will call all the Open Session General comments during public comment item comments for items on the agenda will be called during the specific item comments
046are limited to no more than three minutes per speaker or the board May limit a total time of 20 minutes per item with the timer displayed on the monitors by law no action may be taken on any item raised during public comment periods and matters may be referred to staff for placement on a future agenda of the governing board please be reminded to keep your comments respectful as students are often or sometimes watching the board meeting we appreciate that so I do have a couple of comments and those are going to be on on this particular one it's not on a specific item so the first person I have is Janet Roberson Roberson is a Roberson or Roberson Robertson thank you hello I'm Janet Roberson I have three children in the district elementary school middle
047school high school at the last meeting my time to speak was cut short and there was so much to say about the new sex sexual education curriculum I realized the curriculum has already been approved I also realized that Miss rice who I incorrectly was referring to as a doctor last week or last month explained that only three families out of 4 500 students in Benicia voiced concern about the curriculum our family has also been told that we can simply have our children opt out of the sex egg classes if we have an issue with the classes but I would like to say to you who are entrusted to represent and make decisions for our children and to the community that may be watching this video that we have a big concern with what is now
048being taught to children as young as 10 in Benicia such as children are being asked to identify their pronouns and this is now part of the 10 year old curriculum this forces a gender discussion beyond the scope of the state requirements and complicates an already overburdened classroom environment we are alarmed that gender identity is now being discussed in math classes this takes time from core learning and does not benefit the students or our community teaching kids that there isn't any standard or truth and that you can believe anything you want to believe is not scientifically accurate or medically correct for example the notion that a girl can decide to be a boy or a boy can decide to be a girl is not true and should not be taught the new curriculum teaches that individuals
049can decide if they're male or female regardless of anatomy does not explain that a boy cannot menstruate and a girl cannot impregnate someone this is not scientific or medically accurate our 10 year olds will now be taught that they can receive puberty blockers to prevent their body from going through changes that make them uncomfortable all humans are uncomfortable during adolescence to teach vulnerable children that a lifetime of dependence on Medical Care is a viable option is completely unacceptable and evil frankly the new curriculum encourages gender confusion not gender clarification all parents should question how this is helpful scientifically sound or medically accurate 12 year olds will now be taught about oral and anal sex 12 year olds so I get a little emotional about this because I think that's wrong um the Ed code 51933
050requires that instruction and materials should be appropriate for use of pupils of all Races gender sexual orientations and ethnic and cultural backgrounds teaching children about oral and anal sex violates this law since several cultures would not find this teaching appropriate when we asked we were told the reason the curriculum removes the idea of male and female was to be more inclusive but no longer include or no longer identifying females as having ovaries and males is having testes is not scientific not medically accurate and not true it's nonsense it's not a choice people are not gender fluid and to teach our children this is not okay we're appalled that the school district has adopted this curriculum thank you thank you if anybody wants information on where to find this information in the curriculum I've researched it
051very thoroughly I'm happy to provide that thank you um and our next speaker and I'm not sure if I'm gonna pronounce the last name right here Jeffrey is a pickerel welcome thank you and good evening um members of the board and members of the public who's here and also might be watching um I moved to Benicia about a year ago a little more than a year ago and very a very good friend moved here and I fell in love with it and uh she moved here to get her kids out of the very oppressive Piedmont School District at that time and they did much better here and it was a much better environment for them even though it was a mid-year change and it was it was traumatic in that way so I have a
052special heart for Venetia I have a special heart for the school system here and but I do want to talk about that over the course of the past three years many novel measures were taken as attempts to slow the spread of covet 19. um you know most they we had masks social isolation mRNA injections and they were all experimental but all you know all of the media Outlets were telling us in the health departments and the regulatory agencies that this is the way we should go so people trusted that now there's a growing body of evidence that shows that no one really knew if they would work and that the dangers were being covered up and hidden so masking in particular um as the son and brother and cousin of doctors I knew that it
053didn't make sense that masks have never been used to prevent the spread of viruses reps any virus because viruses are orders of magnitude smaller than the holes and masks and in 95s so it didn't make sense and it seemed and then universally masking kids it just it seemed like bad judgment to me um in addition I'm I work in the trade so I use mass in OSHA regulations require you have to have a medical examination before being told to wear a mask you have to monitor blood oxygen levels and you have to take them off from time to time because you do go hyperox you lose oxygen so this is a study that was published by Frontiers in health in public health and it this organization it's a medical database and it's referenced in virtually
054every credible uh medical publication in the world so it's reliable information and it's called physio metabolic and clinical consequences of wearing face masks so they took 50 studies and they compiled them and did meta-analysis and he found absolutely nothing conclusively proved that mass prevent the spread of viruses they do however create numerous harms so much so that there's now a name for a syndrome which is a mask induced exhaustion syndrome and it has lots of really not good um elements to it that that are creating huge problems for kids may I read a little of this because anyway I just I'm asking the board to consider a resolution to ban the use of face-offs on children in light of new information and I think it would go a long way to restoring the public trust
055and teaching kids how to correct mistakes you Mr pickerel I am happy to email this to all of you and thank you I would like to see this for Publications thank you okay um we're going to move on to item 11 approval of the consent calendar background information on these items is provided to the board prior to the meeting a common motion takes place without discussion on a roll call vote unless discussion items our request is requested by a board or member or members um May I is there a motion or can I get a motion I'll move to accept the um to approve the consent calendar okay second day thank you roll call please president Zeta yep Rusty Grubbs trustee moss and trustee Miceli yes thank you okay and then uh still in that
056area we need to um do a separate roll call on item e 11e uh resolution number 22-23-14 authorizing the Hewlett Packard Enterprises lease agreement pursuant to public code or contract code 20118 so I need to get a roll call vote on that President Zeta yes trustee Grubbs yes trustee moss and trustee Masali yes thank you thank you okay so we are going to move on to item number 12. this one f o and maybe oh okay okay I now I understand what was written here okay sorry um Dr Wright you're up all right before I uh introduce our new administrative hires um I I just wanted to just share some information that I've received from parents they're very thankful of the governing board for listening to concerns uh expressed by parents with special needs in
057their transportation um concerns and I think that we address that with 11 D so I just want to share that because we don't always get to hear the good the good news Okay so tonight um we have the pleasure of welcoming our new principal and new vice principal for uh Benicia Middle School we're fortunate enough to have a strong candidate pool in a climate where finding qualified applicants is quite challenging I believe the strong interest in busd is a reflection of our district and community after a very rigorous process it's my pleasure to first introduce Mr Mark Nelson as principal of Benicia Middle School I'm going to read uh share some information regarding Mr Nelson yeah you can come up to the podium and then he'll have a couple of words to share we welcome
058Mark Nelson as principal of Benicia Middle School with great pleasure and enthusiasm Mr Nelson served as a principal of Fallon Middle School in Dublin California for the past two years before that he served as as assistant principal of Mill Valley Middle School for 10 years and taught history in English in San Diego for eight years Mr Nelson graduated from Gonzaga University with a bachelor's of Art and history and a secondary teaching credential in English and history he also earned a masters of arts degree in administrative credential from the University of San Diego as a school administrator Mr Nelson feels it's his role and responsibility to support teachers students parents and community members and to empower people to be their best selves he lives in Cordelia with his wife a special education teacher in Mill Valley
059and two boys ages nine and six Mr Nelson is excited to begin his next chapter at Benicia Middle school and work a lot alongside the BMS team we are excited to have Mark Nelson join the school district and look forward to working with them welcome Mr Mark Nelson thank you uh thank you superintendent Wright uh trustees and cabinet um we I am just absolutely thrilled to be here and to be part of this community Benicia has long been um a desired spot for us and it's extra special for us because as Dr Wright said we live in Cordelia just over the hill with our two boys who go to Cordelia Hills Elementary School right next to the uh the land the landslide I'm sorry we've taken your drinking water but I apologize for that they're
060working 24 7 to fix it I can guarantee you um and we have family and friends here in Benicia my wife grew up in Vallejo and I'm just thrilled and honored to be able to serve the community of Benicia and the capacity of principal at the middle school I look forward to meeting the students meeting the parents and getting to know the teachers and the staff and all the good work that lies ahead so thank you all thank you [Applause] I am now honored to introduce our new vice principal of Benicia Middle School Ulysses Oliveira [Applause] and I will read share some information it is with great pleasure that I introduce Ulysses Oliveira as the new vice principal of Benicia Middle School with over 12 years of experience in education he is dedicated to creating
061a positive and supportive learning environment for all students Mr Oliveira holds a master's degree in educational leadership from California State University East Bay and has worked in a variety of educational settings including 7th grade history and Spanish dual immersion and Pittsburgh Unified School District Morgan Hill and Aurora Colorado in these roles he has demonstrated a commitment to Excellence fostering academic achievement and promoting a love of learning Mr Oliveira is an active member of our Benicia Community a place he is lucky to call home having a son in Elementary School Mr Oliveira participates in school events also volunteers as a soccer coach for the Benicia Arsenal as vice principal Mr Oliveira will work closely with students parents and faculty to ensure that all students receive a high quality education and are prepared for success in college
062and Beyond Mr Oliveira looks forward to serving the Benicia Community and helping us build a bright future for all students as we look forward to having him join our district welcome take a Super Nintendo right thank you Board of Trustees I'm just really excited to be here um I live in Benicia just on Rose Drive and I'm just happy to be here happy to be this dessert thank you we're happy to have you both of you so thank you so much for being here I know your time might be busy you might want to duck out if you want you're welcome to do that without feeling bad so okay all right thank you so nice to meet you look forward to working with you all right um now we're going to move on to um
063item number 12 a um Mr Romero and Miss Eagan will you please join us and um you're going to be talking about the roofs and the bathrooms at a couple of our sites I think um so we're going to share some information with you on the roofs and the bathrooms on the district we had a facilities steering committee meeting a while ago and the question came up of what is the state of our roofs and bathrooms across the district and it was a good question um I think that it was likely prompted we have gone through a lot of rain and it was not a good thing for our buildings our initial Bond was passed back in 2014 and at that time they did an assessment and we've done assessments periodically since then with their
064facilities master plan but and we're working to update it again so as a we Alfredo did a great job of putting together some initial um data that we're going to share with you we are also having a formal assessment done that will list the age of all of the roofs what their life cycle is when they should be targeted for replacement and what that will cost so that will be a very good tool in looking for our funding and asking for future needs and requests um I'll turn it over to Alfredo in just a minute here he's going to talk about the bathrooms and then I'll share information behind him about the roofs um before we do that I just wanted to share a small blurb of just how grateful we are of all the
065projects that we've gotten to do with the major s Bond money and being supplemented with all of our prop 51 Grant monies so we've done a lot of really good things we're going to look at more work that needs to be done and just how we look to continue proceeding with that you're welcome um good evening everyone so happy to see you all um unfortunately this isn't a highlight from maintenance disclaimer this is more of uh just for transparency purposes right we want to give an honest assessment of where we are and where we're headed um so um this is a report um both Roxanne and I compiled we went around um so which one is it that one we went around to each school and surveyed all of the restrooms um starting with Robert
066Temple so I found the overall condition of Robert Temple restrooms in good condition I found them in operating order cleaned regularly some have recently installed hand dryers um originally the thrust was very loud on those hand dryers we were able to turn those down and also add additional paper towel dispensers to give an option in those restrooms we have had sewer issues there at Robert Temple um last year we replaced the major section of the main line this year we're scheduled for uh the second half of that unfortunately last Friday there was a backup that we couldn't resolve our teams were out there our local contractors came out there and we were unable to resolve the problem so on Monday my team went in and we found the problem we isolated it we dug it
067up so now it's in repair the restrooms are back in order and we should be good to the end of the year which we again we plan to replace that entire section of pipe in there um and you want me to read the bond stuff so in the bond notes the student restrooms closest to the playground and also the staff restrooms near the office will be upgraded in the summer of 2024. sorry I should have been doing this at the same time projects DSA first things that's prioritized is bathrooms um and instead of just the Ada upgrades might say move the toilet over four inches and the handbar and you can end up with some pretty unsightly mismatched tiles and still dated bathrooms when you finish those upgrades so we have taken it as kind
068of a standard that when we do those to also do the aesthetic upgrades for the restrooms with new tiles and everything so that we're having a finished end product that looks good um so that there are more coming that are in the in the works so I'll move on now to Matthew Turner and try to remember to switch so you can see the condition so Matthew Turner overall condition of Matthew Turner are good all restrooms were functioning and operational clean with the mix of hand dryers and paper towel dispensers um and there are some pictures of them they're a little dated looking but um definitely cleaned and working Joe Henderson unfortunately um is probably the one that needs the most Improvement found the restrooms in need of cleaning and support um the floors here you
069can see in the quads uh in the quad boys restroom are in need of repair which is scheduled for this summer um in the original construction I don't I'm not sure why but there's a metal band placed around the Cove of the entire room and the acids from urine and the cleaning agents have had a effect on That Metal and it became corrosive and damaged the floor and the urine Finds Its way into that and so we're in a process now of using um some enzymes to get us to the end of summer and so there is already an improvement but hopefully over the summer we won't ever see that again and no more metal in the floors Mary farmer I should have brought my glasses overall condition were are good found them clean and
070functioning well the modernization assisted in the larger restrooms we're going to reseal the tile over the summer on the primary Center restrooms are clean and functioning staff restrooms were also modernized and functioning well uh BMS Benicia Middle School overall Fair um I found these restrooms in somewhat good operating condition but there is evidence of excessive graffiti and vandalism as you can see by the photos um recent vandalism to the newly remodeled restrooms include the cutting of wires let me go back a little bit cutting of wires on the touchless faucets and removing the cover on the sensors of the touchless urinals stuffing pads and the urinals creating backups throwing food and drink um all over the restroom so this is something we deal with uh regularly there um recently there's been more damage to the
071dispensers the toilet paper dispensers but overall our custodians have unfortunately grown accustomed to this so they spend a lot more time in there get it ready for the next day and then there's evidence of there Benicia High School restrooms are in fair condition most of the girls in gender-neutral restrooms are clean and functioning although the boys restrooms do show signs of a little bit of negligence and slight vandalism in the form of excessive trash and graffiti both the boys and girls locker rooms could use a little bit of tile repair and fresh paint and throughout all the stainless steel mirrors have been scratched thoroughly so we've reordered those so we will be replacing those as soon as they come in and here at Liberty High School we found the conditions Fair the restrooms are clean
072sinks and toilets and urinals functioning well we will paint and replace we will paint the restrooms and replace some of the toilets and toilet seats so before we move to the roof are there any questions can I can I ask Alfredo can you talk a little bit when you find um graffiti and vandalism in the bathrooms how do you communicate with the administrators on campus and right that's usually I I get the message from our site custodian I will call the um administrator on site make sure they're aware of it we document with pictures um if there doesn't seem to be a concern if it's not threatening in nature or whatnot we have a policy to remove it as soon as possible so we have different types of graffiti removers that we're using now we
073no longer paint over or anything because that paint just comes off in the long run so we did find a couple of really good products that we're using that are not damaging the the metal surfaces now um but we do have a policy graffiti typically gets taken care of within 24 hours if not sooner um again unless it's a threatening nature is there any way we can uh limit the amount of bathrooms especially middle school and be a middle school teacher we see this in our district too uh is there any way to minimize the amount of bathrooms that are you you know have better oversight because for the life of me I don't understand why these kids ruin everything then we replace it then they ruin it again then we replace it and nothing
074ever happens and they did these kids they don't fear anything because I mean if there was some way I'm not even saying there is a way but it's very frustrating obviously they don't care about the equipment to be able to track you know somehow I don't even know if we can who's doing it because if we don't find a way to stop this it's going to keep happening and it seems like you know we're banging our head against the wall just keep replacing stuff over and over let's just sorry I had to get off my chest okay how often is is this like a weekly thing where you guys are spending every week using time of custodian custodians or people to answer your question the graffiti happens almost daily um the vandalism where they do
075that is is not it's maybe every other week to be honest with you and it comes in Trends there are Tick Tock Trends where um you know it's a thing to vandalize the restroom and put a video on it and post it and get likes I suppose um and so we're victims of that but it's it's not just here in Benicia it's it's everything yeah I understand that but that what a waste of time kind of to go over it lightly uh I don't have all the details but yes the middle school has the Administration has done a really good job in in isolating which restrooms um they're going to open and it has worked with them as well to make sure they have uh camera positioning in the right way so they can at
076least try to determine who might have done this kind of stuff and um it's it's helped with the vandalism part as far as the physical damage not so much the graffiti though one of the things that we're going to do next year that we're purchasing for the middle school is a program called five star student where um students will use their badges to get scanned in and out of the classroom to go to the restroom and they can limit how many students are in there at one time it's a whole program so the teacher can scan the student out they can see how many students are out at one time and then we also have a record I don't know if we'll be able to narrow it down enough but it's another way to really
077know who was in what bathroom at what time for how long that's great [Music] sounds great do they do they scan into the bathrooms as well or just out I think it's just out of the classroom not into the bathroom okay okay but it has a destination I think it has a destination where the student's supposed to be going yeah I'm trying to work it out the issue is when kids come back in that's a lot for them to do another thing that we can't they scan themselves back in no why yes they won't do it because it's like I mean you do attendance that way and scan them in and scan them out and I'm sorry good question what I appreciate your input but we're really supposed to stick to the agenda but thank
078you I can stay after and talk to you okay all right thank you okay thank you um okay I just um Ken I don't know if you're gonna talk about this in the future too but as so we have our bond projects and our renovation projects so can you guys talk or just generally uh maintenance too as we replace things with um uh touchless or automatic turn off switches and stuff we're trying that out and I think we've had some success with that yeah we've had a lot of success with that and um you know that that's the direction we're going in now is the touchless urinals and the um touchless sinks um the faucets I'd say 90 of all of them have have been upgraded already to the touchless um we're still working on
079a few you know orders have been backlogged and whatnot some sinks didn't match up and we couldn't put some in in some locations so we're waiting for summer switch the entire sink out to get us there thank you then you're going to talk about the room yeah can you run this thank you um you can do his presentation please yeah um so on the roofing Alfredo's team does this original uh initial start okay I'll wait for some graphics they went school by school they started out with Matt Mary farmer um and the existing Portables are in fair condition the main building including the office NPR Primary Center Library classrooms one through 14 as part of our bond work had a new coating put over the top so the main building at Mary farmers in pretty
080good shape the modulars some of them had leaks maintenance did provide repairs on them and then just as a side note as part of part of our bond program we're in the middle of a major modernization there which includes replacement of the modulars between now and when that happens because we have some funding but not full funding but between now and when we trade them out we'll just continue to maintain them and provide roof repairs as needed the next school is Joe Henderson um Alfredo noted that it needs Improvement the main building including the e-wing has what appears to be asphalt sheet and roof coating of about 20 years old or so there are visual fissures and crafts throughout and the d-wing is one of the worst buildings there um you will see later on
081as an agenda item we did go ahead and bid the roofing on D to replace it this summer so I'll be returning in a few moments to ask you to approve that so um they identify the Portables are fair and the Ewing Portables are constructed of metal roofing and do not have any known leagues the f-wing Portables are a mix of both metal and asphalt sheet no reported leaks at this time on just sharing out here that we already talked about the Deep building and then we will include the other buildings in our roof assessment and try to plan them in and listen budgets and when they will be expired so we'll incorporate all that in and bring it back to the facilities during committee and then eventually back to you guys for your input
082thank you you're welcome there is what is the lifespan of a roof that's a flat roof like that uh flat asphalt roof is typically 25 to 30 years um if you're doing shingles if you do standing seam what else you can get up to 50 years than if you have um there's like slate roofs which are very very expensive so the longer the lifespan you get the more expensive your roof is if you do slaves you can get like 75 years but we haven't even reached the the lifespan of that particular roof based on the number at Joe Henderson um it looks so if he said it's he was guesstimating it at 20 years old and so um kind of like if your car needs repairs you get your oil changed you get tune-ups and
083you do maintenance on it and at some point you say now it's time to just get a new one right so I think that on Joe Henderson that we will look at what the assessment says but it may not be time to replace it yet but we still want to plan it and look at the budget so that we know well in about five years we probably need to do some work and and it could be a fairly expensive piece thank you Mr Speaker you're welcome um Robert simple so their main building is in fair condition um it's comprised of tar and Pitch at an estimate of over 20 years and in need of an overlay within the next few years there are two known leaks which maintenance repaired so that's good and the Portables
084they say needs improvements they did provide repairs on the leaks that were there we do have a plan overall for three new buildings at Robert simple they're probably a ways out right now more than a year and so in the interim we know that we're just going to be providing I um maintenance on the existing roofs and doing what we can to keep them functional Matthew Turner so we know that Matthew Turner was not in good shape it got a poor um it's been like oh it can go a little bit it can go a little bit more and then with drought light stream flooding and torrential rains it really yeah it did so we are looking to replace it's almost all of the roofing up at Matthew Turner and that is on your next
085item for your bond agenda for tonight so we're pleased that'll get upgraded and pretty much that whole campus will be in good shape after that um the Middle School main campus when we did seismic work there we did a lot of new Roofing um the gym the admin office building B the 3C buildings all got brand new Roofing we're in really pretty good shape with the Middle School um Alfredo notes that the pewing is fair so in the master planning the pewing is eventually planned to be phased out so right now you just keep those roofs from leaking provide maintenance on them so overall Middle School is pretty good um Liberty is fair they had a couple of known leaks and they replaced them and similar with um it CDU and maintenance we go on
086to the high school and there are some spaces there identified that had known leaks maintenance did provide repairs on them um obviously the stadium and all of our buildings up there are brand new so they do not have leagues so I think that the high school is probably one of the bigger sites that the assessment will really shed some light on for planning and what we should prioritize we are working on PAB upgrades that are a ways out but part of that planning does include new roof over the pav so that would be something that's in there yes yeah we did electrical on the inside and Sound and Lighting yeah and then the roof I know that historically has leaked on and off and maintenance has just provided repairs and it's you know it's not
087so you're welcome only if you make me okay okay great okay yeah B this is rice would you join us um oh wait where oh gosh darn you are I see I I read that ahead of time I knew that yeah facility General obligation Bond measure s program citizens Bond oversight thank you can you go back to school facility General obligation Bond measure s program and citizens Bond oversight committee cboc and you're going to be giving an update sure um so we had a meeting um with our citizens Bond oversight committee on Tuesday the 18th I don't know right there thank you um and it was a good meeting we have some new members um Stacy holquin whom you all know and Diane ferrucci have joined the committee we also have Mark Batista a new
088member and then Mark Hughes is our um most longest on the term members so it was had very good conversations with them Mark Hughes was voted to be the new chair and Stacy holquin is the vice chair we shared with them a clean audit for the bond 2122 expenditures I'm gonna um you have all the details of their packet in your information instead of going through all of the expenditures what I thought we would do is there's a couple things one um we have an annual report to share out is going to have Tim lead that and then I was going to focus on our bond project updates so maybe Tim do you want to go ahead and do the annual report information you can if you want you don't have to it's all right
089Tim yeah it's in their packet and Tim has it it's just informational thank you you could go to the next page how's the project information yeah each year with our um citizens Bond oversight committee um they we meet regular regularly throughout the year and we provide them the detailed expenditure lifts lists for all of our bond projects so we just approved that um at our meeting on Tuesday and uh once a year uh they put together um a annual report and just summarizes the activities for the year and it agrees to the audited financial report as well as all of the expenditures that they've looked at throughout the year um once it comes up it is in your packet it's uh it's a one-page report and uh it basically confirms that they're complying with the
090law as the citizen Bond oversight committee and they are reviewing the expenditures and taking action to receive and file them um they uh are making a compliance statement that the expenditures are following with in the language of measure S as approved by the voters and you have some highlights there of the dollar amounts and some of the highlights of the major projects that were invested in in the 21 22 school year I know when I was reading the information at home there was a dollar amount of 239 000 for project management who who is that that we pay that to yeah so um as Allowed by measure s um we employ our bond director and so part of that would be the salary and expense for our bond director to do all the bond work
091there's also some uh other just general administrative supplies and copies and blueprint Express costs that would be part of that as well um probably yes and like the audit cost um that would be that so then we're gonna um thank you you're welcome I just um I'll just shortly the projects that we have in um construction right now for this summer and you guys know most of them but just it's uh Joe Henderson Elementary School Ewing restroom replacement we've got Robert simple MPR HVAC upgrades Mary farmer elementary school modernization phase one Matthew Turner Elementary School Roofing replacement and Joe Henderson d roofing replacement if you guys choose to approve them tonight so those are just sharing out a few updates from our projects and construction list thank you so much thank you thank you see
092um our Equity update Dr beatson you're up thank you good evening uh board and colleagues and folks viewing I'm excited to bring to you tonight just some quick updates about the equity work that we've been up to in our district and thank you Miss Ada for attending our last meeting what I'm hoping that we can go through tonight is I really want you to know the work that we've been um working on as a district Equity team celebrating some of the equity highlights that have happened across the district over the course of the year and then really talk about another task force or committee that's beginning kind of recumbing together around grading practices and and I did a presentation back in December on that and I want to give you an update as to where
093we are with that um as always we uh ground everything that we do in our District's mission and vision and a couple that are particularly important tonight for this presentation is really under our organizational beliefs in valuing the diversity of students staff and the community and safe and welcoming schools that help students and staff reach their potential and then really thinking about how do we fully prepare and equip students for College and Career in the 21st century and as always our Equity statement ensures that we are really thinking about how do we value all students voices cultures and identities and how do we look at our system and find uh places that there may be barriers to Student Success or keeping them not being able to meet their full potential and start to remove those
094barriers by advancing policies and practices and of course all of those things led us to our four lcap goals which you are really familiar with to on academics literacy and Mathematics and social emotional learning and sense of belonging goal and equity and opportunity so what have we been up to all year um what I'm really excited to say is our Equity team has grown all of the folks listed here are unable to attend every meeting because we meet um once a month for two hours but they come on a regular basis and so we are up to many many people that are committed in some way shape or form to doing this ongoing work and then there are other people who are not able to attend the equity team but they're still doing work back
095at their site so I'm really proud of our staff for their commitment in this work foreign all the work that we're doing on the equity team is grounded in a process called Improvement science and it's really called a plan do study act cycle and what that means is we've identified many areas that need some investigation and typically what we do in education is we find something and we try to fix it right away because that's what we do and this process asks us to slow down a little bit and really understand what is at the root of that problem and so we had we spent a lot of time on step four in this process really looking at our identified uh areas of concern and trying to get a better understanding of what that was
096about by looking not only on what we knew and what we brought to the table but by going out and collecting more information from students from staff making sure that we had almost a 360 understanding of this and then coming to say out of everything we learned what do we think the root cause is and then identifying a way to um a change idea so we're going to try something and the other thing about a pdsa cycle or Improvement science is oftentimes we try to do things district-wide or school-wide right away and hope that it all works and so what this process asks us to do is start really small so maybe one classroom or one small group of students and you Monitor and say is what I thought was going to work making a
097difference and if it is then you tag a friend and say hey let's try this and you get enough evidence that yes this is truly making a difference before you scale it up so the process takes a little bit longer and sometimes you sit and as you're going bringing people through this you're hoping that it's really going to work and we're really seeing that happen which is exciting um so we have three projects that we're working on or three areas of inquiry one is really around how do we communicate and get all of our stakeholders to really understand the equity work that we're we're working on and getting everyone to buy in and be invested in that that team did a lot of work with surveying staff with talking to staff to finding out what
098their understanding was and what they came up with the root cause uh for not every not everybody understanding is that people have really different understandings of what Equity means and what it looks like in practice and so we're going to start to do that work there so that when we talk about Equity our whole district is talking the same language another area of inquiry was really around our systems and structures and how do they affirm and support each individual or create barriers for them and what that team identified after uh really getting all of their stakeholder voices in was that not all students had a sense of belonging and they really narrowed the pinpoint down where where one of the issues was was when they changed from elementary to middle school or middle school to
099high school and so this team really narrowed it down and they said we're going to really study and look at the elementary to middle school that fifth to sixth grade transition and so one of the things that they're going to do their change strategy is they're identifying a sixth grade class and a fifth grade class and they're going to start almost like a pen pal where the sixth graders write they're going to do an initial survey with the fifth graders to say how do you feel about going to middle school you know what your nervousness level if you will and then they're going to have the sixth grade students start writing to the fifth grade students to say here's a tip about Middle School here's something that you should know about Middle School here's something
100to be excited about and start this back and forth to see if that helps kids get excited and feel a sense of belonging and then they'll be able to continue with that as they move to middle school so that's that change strategy um that they're going to try there and then the third area is really looking at instructional practices and curriculum and as that team dug in what they what they realized was it's it's difficult we're jumping to the conclusion we need to look at instructional strategy but the team identified we really need to know exactly what it is the standards are asking us to teach so that we know then what strategies to employ and how to better serve the students and so that team is really looking at using our standards intentionally to
101identify exactly what it is we want students to know and be able to do so then they can bring in the correct strategy if that makes sense so that's where that team is starting um over the course of the year I'm not going to read all of these but we've done a lot of things to really highlight and celebrate diversity equity and inclusion in our district and so here is a uh and a probably not a comprehensive list but a list of of achievements that we're really proud of and then um one of the new groups that is forming under this Equity umbrella is a grading for Equity task force I brought this to you as I said in December and I really wanted to just revisit that um and take you through very quickly
102these next few slides just a reminder what our current grading practice is is pretty traditional at the secondary level and at the elementary school many years ago we went to a standards uh aligned that should probably say grading scale on a one to four basis um I brought this data to you back in December and now we can I think that was second quarter and so now we're looking at third quarter um data and how to read this is um if you look at the first the farthest left-hand column and I always include D's in this because as we try to get students prepared for uh College and Career we know that in order to be eligible for a UC or CSU they have to get a c or above and so when we think
103about how do we remove barriers and I want to I'm going to actually pause for a second I had someone say we don't want to lower standards this has nothing to do with lowering standards I want to make that really clear but it's about aligning our practice a little bit more so that we have more um uh consistent ways to know what kids know and are able to do from class to class from school to school and so um we have a lot of students who are struggling as you can see between the the percentages there I think of 10 to 15 percent of students um in that yellow column that's kind of like let's pay attention what's happening how do we support them better up to kids where we have 20 or more kids
104failing in particular classrooms and so we want to really pay attention to that and really start to say how do we learn from each other how come kids are successful in one class and not in another what do we need to do how do we look at that differently so on this chart is this a the total 10 to you know 15 whatever is that in one specific class or is that in any class so what the the data that I have right now is is by teacher and so it's all of a teachers courses that they would teach so if you look at that first column uh and I'll just use BMS that 20 so it's really ten percent of the teachers at BMS first quarter had 20 or more of their students getting
105a d or an F so it's a little bit twisted because I wasn't looking at exact student data but it was by teacher so okay it says 10 of teachers in this category have more than 30 percent of students oh I'm just reading at the bottom what it says but so I'm sorry maybe I'm not nope is by teacher or is this the total amount of kids that are this is by teachers that have the teachers that have students receiving DS or F's so if you look at quarter three at uh BMS in that first top row 12 of teachers at BHS have um oh this is the teachers okay right that makes sense well it looks to me that 12 of teachers have 10 to 15 percent of their kids getting yes 12 have
10610 to 15 of their students getting these are F's 33 have 20 or more of their students getting D's or F's so if you look at the the third row down right okay now thank you now at least I understand I know it's a chart okay and the concept behind this would we what are we to glean from this that we have um and when you I didn't put any teacher names or data on here right so when you look we have there are some classes where students and some teachers that they're being really successful so we need to learn from each other what's working in some classrooms that's not working in other classrooms for students and obviously the same subject matter same subject matter you know compare right and your math to math and
107a couple slides later I think we have because we have a diversity and a big range of how teachers grade in classrooms so some give lots of extra credit some let students do makes up makeups and redo some have what percentage of class uh what percentage of test counts in a Grade so everything from 20 percent of a test counts towards your grade to eighty percent of it it's not uniform by level no and so that's where there's this wide range of practice um because we have what equals an a b or c you know 90 to 100 is an A but we haven't gotten to a place where we say this is the um consistency with what we expect so there's it's showing up here in that we have a wide range that's not
108good yeah it makes sense now it makes perfect sense thank you and then the next slide is by subject and you can see that um mostly kids are struggling in mathematics at the high school level um 25 percent of students are getting a d or an F in math at the high school level I'm sorry I would say gfsf uh get focused stay focused sorry thank you one of those great acronyms I need to remember to spell out on these slides it's all it's all good so we have some work to do because we have a lot of students who are when we look at it this way and I know a d is still passing so they will graduate but they won't be eligible for College and Career or for UCS or CSUS and
109so when we think about opportunities and wanting every student to have an opportunity to make that choice we need to look at our system to say what do we need to do so that we can create that opportunity is is the lack of consistency and Grading both at the middle and the high school and I don't that's not even just Misha that's very much a pretty widespread practice and so that's why we're going to study it right we want to study and say what do we need to do differently so that we have more consistency and so we have a current board policy um I actually just sent it out to all uh staff again as they're getting ready for fourth quarter grades and um its grades should be based on Mastery of content and
110work they should not include other factors I have to be uh transparent and say that's not consistently followed across the district and so that's something that we need to study as well and then all missed assignments shall be available for makeup and so those are practices that we need to really study and and work on about almost assignments excuse or underscues should be available for makeup with full credit what about um assessments tests Etc yep I think that's that I think that's coming slide and but uh but in one of your slides it's not it's it's also not consistent right okay absolutely um so this is so when we have inconsistencies that way here are some of the potential I'm not saying these are all happening but I'm saying here's some of the potential impacts
111oh I'm sorry I'm a slide ahead of myself so here's some of the range of practices that I talked about some teachers accept late work some don't uh some give extra credit some don't they have different weight exams different numbers of exams so in some classes there's only a couple you know if you have a really high percentage of what your test weight is so it's 80 of your grade but you only give two tests that's really different than if the my next door neighbor teacher gives six tests and so being the opportunity to show what I know has changed so these are just some of the ranges of practice that are pretty common and then this slide really talks about what are some potential impacts of that um what classes kids can take because
112they're eligible based on how they did in the class before are they eligible for academic Awards graduation and promotion additional supports um College admissions scholarship qualifications are they on academic probation so all of those kinds of things can be impacted when we don't have a system that's set up that is more consistent one of the things you know being a teacher a couple things um number one would be as a secondary teacher when I taught math the homework is very specifically tied to the you know whatever percentage that is that's tied to you prepping for the test now if we've given the test and you're turning in the homework three weeks after the test you've kind of it's practiced for that event and if you turn it in later it loses a lot of its
113value because you're doing the homework after the test is already finished so uh in working with that and I know that one of the issues with test retakes um I'm not against him my wife does it but is what to me as you're studying and I'd like to know if I was a teacher and I was asked to do test retakes what proof do I have that that child went back and re-studied and did everything because I know you get that I'll just keep taking it and taking it but they don't do any more studying to get better and I mean I've seen it where okay if you retake it and you get a lower score the second time because it's not the same exact test right you're covering the same exact subject matter but
114there are different Pro you know math you know so you know how do you know and and that those are some of the conversations that this task force will grapple with is so how do what is going to be our practice right if if that's something that we decide that if the team says we're going to we're going to try this let's give retakes and redo's and what's the accountability on the student side so how do you prove you know what's going to be your study plan so there's a lot of different ideas out there for saying you have to have X amount of time in between the first test and the second test you have to show what was your study practice how did you do it did you come into math lab did
115you do the Kudo works you know what what did you do to show that you practiced from the last time and you're ready to take it again so it's not just this I'm gonna just keep doing it yeah I'm Gonna Keep and that happened you probably wouldn't give the test over and over and over and over again right you wouldn't give an unlimited amount of of retakes or reduce from experience I'll tell you even if you do it give them two or three chances there's some that take advantage and say okay I didn't study I mean the idea would be you look at what you missed on the test and you go okay those are my holes let me go back and see if I can fix those so when I retake it you know
116and there are some students that do that but there are some students that go I'll just try again and there's no effort made to find where were my holes I mean in a perfect world anybody that's going to do a retake is going to say what did I miss where were my mistakes let me study those aspects so that I can do better on the next time you don't give unlimited redos so no but even with a few redos you're just all I'm looking for is some as you said accountability on the students part to say okay what are you showing me that you did you know to prepare for another opportunity well and there's a value to it for the kids right and I think it's it's looking at it from two perspectives one
117is exactly what you're saying is how many you know those are the conversations that gets to where we're consistent how many times are we gonna do reduce is it unlimited what's the accountability system what do we expect students to do but on the flip side I think the other thing that we have to do is when we look at a class and we have given an assessment and if we have a lot of students that did not do well on it I as the teacher has to look and say what do I need to do differently because something didn't click right so it's it's looking at it from both angles of course yeah yeah we would meet in departments and we now we had to give the same test standard when I taught math and
118we would get you know in our department I mean say okay look you your kids had a lot more success on this part than mine what did you do so I can go back and redo it exactly I don't know if everyone does that but we have that happening in pockets and teachers that have had um some pretty high uh some kids that are struggling a lot a lot of kids struggling in their classes have they're working together and they're saying what are you doing in your class because you're not having the same issue and so that's good and that's the practice that we want disappear I hate to keep but I mean for me this is something that um is there any level where by subject matter we have common assessments because if you're
119going to compare you need common assessments do we have that yes we have to in some not in every area but in some for sure and that's gonna in somebody's time position for for having to sit in on these students having to prepare the test you know another option and sitting and having them yep and that's part of what they use access for at the high school and at the middle school The Advisory period is where they can go and get a pass to say okay I didn't do well on your test I need to retake it or I was absent so I can get a pass and go to uh Mr macelli's class and retake that assessment are they are they able to do the Middle School when I was there Friday I was
120asking about that because we were talking about the advisory I know access to no access at the high school and I I don't believe what they were telling me that there's a lot of that I think they used to do it but currently I don't think it's practice okay I'll look into that for sure um so the next few slides are just examples of types of things that we could look at so part of it is um and I shared this last time uh the the zero to 100 scale versus a 50 to 100 scale so that there's even increments between each letter grade that is uh a particular grading practice that people are looking at um other people are looking at work that's given later in the quarter is weighted heavier to account for
121accumulated learning so that it's not just all averaged but as I get better at this practice that counts more than when I was a novice at this practice um standards-based grading so really instead of just throwing everything into a pot and having one grade to say you get an A in math these are the things I can do really well and then this one I'm going to really be still working on so it's not um just a single grade so these are just examples of practice I'm not saying we're doing all of these sorry go ahead on the grading uh I've seen a lot of discussion about it I mean obviously you rarely does anyone get a zero if they turn something in I mean the zero is not doing anything and I've seen people
122say giving a zero for something that's not been done at all puts a kid in a huge hole but I think you know you're gonna get pushed back if I was a teacher here I'd be wait they don't do anything I'm not giving them any more than a zero so you know it'd be interesting to see how that goes you know that ask that sort of 59 yeah this um grading takes so much more time um there are so many more grades and uh there has to be some sort of of Common Sense around common around standard based grading in that you're not putting every single standard in there because it's almost impossible as a teacher as a teacher it changes your um not only the way you grade but the you have you reset
123your um your grade book there's a learning curve and and I just want to be really clear on how um I think as you know that that standard based grading is a good thing but what I've also learned throughout the throughout my experience with standard based grading is that too much gets put in and it takes so much time so um there has to be a way to kind of mitigate that and balance there has to be some balance no I agree I think that if you're going to go to that and we're not even saying we're going to that yet but uh if you did that within the current time structure there'd have to be time set aside for teachers to do that as opposed to just figure out find time on your own
124you know that's our technology can help with that as well and as I said these are examples of types of shifts that a lot of school districts are starting to make because they're they're studying the same exact thing I have one more question I'm sorry but um how would colleges and universities accept this type of grading well one of the other things you can do is it's a standards-based so some are but standard space can also convert to a letter grade especially at the secondary so so it's who would be do that conversion for that so just think about it all these kids of blanket does in um the Aries system but oh okay I think so um so just where we are in our study process we started in 2019 uh we took us
125um a group of staff and administrators Mr Miceli I think uh Carlene was with us to sco to do a grading Workshop then the pandemic hit we picked up uh 21-22 school year we did a study group we read a book together by Joe Feldman we had a guest speaker we implemented and shared some practices and adjusted as necessary but it was a pretty it was informal it was just getting our feet wet then we had a team that did that work and then this year we've been reviewing our grades we've met with the superintendent and the principals principals have reviewed some of this data with their Department chairs having those conversations there I did a board presentation in December to start this conversation again with you our superintendent has shared some grading articles with
126all staff there's one linked here um he puts them out in our staff newsletters I didn't link the last couple that he put out and then one of the things that we're thinking about doing is working with our County office I had the fortunate uh time to talk with um a former superintendent of Long Beach and he is now on the board of the CSU of the UC system and he took Long Beach through a process where they really studied their grading and then he also worked with Santa Monica on that as well and one of the things that he said was super powerful was he had you have your quantitative data your grades how do what are the practices that teachers you know put out in their syllabus that they're doing but then they
127also heard from kids what's working in the class what's not working in the class those are called empathy interviews where you'd have a panel of students come in and you could talk to them about what that is and so we're we're thinking about working with sco to do that with students and then we've just re-initiated our task force and so we've had our early adopter so everybody that was in that um book group last year is coming back and then additional staff are participating on up to about 18 folks who are interested in doing this work this year we're going to have a couple of meetings this year and then throughout next year to really understand what's out there will provide some professional development we'll re view current practices um people are going to implement
128things on a small scale so that pdsa cycle again and hopefully our goal will be to make a recommendation for some potential policy changes by next spring for implementation the following year so if we have to take longer we'll take longer because we want to do the work right but that's what we're hoping to be able to do and I won't go over the next two slides but they are really some some examples again they're just examples of of empathy interview questions things that we want to collect from students both either in a survey or through interviews and so with that I think that was all I had for you any further questions no I the empathy questions is as a teacher I would that that's a great idea it'd be that stuff you could
129really glean if the kids were honest about it right and so nice so so we're looking at doing that that's one of the new practices that's out there which we should be doing all the time right is talking to students about what's working for you what would what would make it better for you yeah so I'll leave them in the conversation is that right um thanks Dr beatson for this report thanks for all the great questions um we are going to move on to action items 13A this is Egan um can it'll be for the consideration and approval of Matthew Turner Elementary School and Joe Henderson Elementary School on the roofing upgrades which she talked about a little bit ago hi again thank you um so this is a request for consideration and approval of
130Matthew Turner Elementary School it's a re-roof for really 99 of the campus and Joe Henderson we work for building D um we took this to public bid there is definitely a need for it the bids came in um actually a little bit under the engineers estimate the low bidder was Bobo construction who's also doing other projects for us that we've been really pleased with them so um the recommended motion is approval of the award of contract for the Matthew Turner Elementary School and Joe Henderson Elementary School Roofing upgrades to Bobo Construction in the amount of 1 million 777 701 the construction would be completed this summer um substantial completion before school starts and they could finish up punch list items in off school hours but the buildings would be weathertight foreign that's great any questions
131okay can I get a motion please I move that we approve the bid for the Matthew Turner and Joe Henderson we're looking up please thank you can I get a second um let me get a roll call vote president say that yes tea Grubbs yes trustee moss and trustee Miceli yes thank you thank you so much um next up is consideration and approval of the adoption of curriculum for AP statistics now you're up I was gonna put you on the spot a long time ago sorry all right thanks Mrs Rice you're welcome my name is Stephanie Rice I'm Director of Education Services and I am here for the consideration and hopeful approval of the adoption of the curriculum for our AP statistics class at Benicia High School the title is the practice of Statistics sixth
132edition updated that's important uh by Bedford Freeman in worth and our High School AP Statistics teacher along with her math colleagues went through our adoption protocol that you're all familiar with and that they have recommended that we bring this forward this curriculum uh ranked uh the two highest marks for just to recall is the highest mark and um three uh about three-fourths of them were fours and some threes 3.5s the highlight of this curriculum besides it being AP and college board aligned and aligning with the exam which obviously is crucial when you're taking an AP course that the kids are prepared and have the option to take that exam and get college credit um but what which was really important was the engagement in real world scenarios that they were able to apply statistical analysis
133to and a difference that they noted from our current curriculum that we have to this curriculum today is our past curriculum the roles were very much uh CEO was a male secretary for female it's a very much more up-to-date as far as different uh roles also um uh names and representations of um uh different types of people in in the textbook itself um another uh highlight is that it aligns across curriculum so our AP biology uh Concepts as well as AP Psychology uh match with scenarios that they're doing for data and statistical analysis in um there is scaffolding available for students as well as options to use the curriculum digitally and paper and pencil so the math department was really pleased with the updates and its alignment not only with the AP exam itself preparing
134the kids but also the engagement piece and it being much more up to date for our students so I'm here to bring forth this curriculum recommended by our BHS math department to bring forth four AP statistics any questions I don't think so um so can I get a motion please I'll move that we adopt the curriculum the practice of statistics um for uh Benicia High School yeah get a second a second thank you real call please president Zeta yes trustee macelli yes thank you I'm glad you stuck around because you're up next um regarding the adoption for the non-ap BHS LHS and BMS Spanish courses from Vista Higher Learning yes thank you so our BHS Spanish Department took the lead looping in uh LHS but our high school teachers took the lead on this but
135it is also um if adopted going to be utilized for BMS for Spanish one this is a non-ap as early in the earlier in the year we adopted tennis for AP um this curriculum is titled cinderos and it's also by Vista Higher Learning which timis or AP Spanish is from as well as our French courses that you adopted earlier in the year um the Spanish Department was really pleased with this curriculum because it addresses the world language standards in all three modes which are presentational interpersonal and interpretive it's very Hands-On for the students so they are immersed in hearing the language um speaking the language reading and writing while doing that through learning Spanish they're exploring the different ethnicities and cultures in Hispanic countries they really highlighted the Scaffolding in this program to be able
136to narrow down just what's on a page if too much there could be overwhelming or distracting for students as well as having extended projects that students that want to go deeper in their study of the language and that's something that we've seen from the other two curriculums from this company and their their really pleased with the engaging and interactive component of just being immersed in the Spanish language so um they followed the protocol as well everything scored the highest Marks here um and they recommend you adopting cinderos by Vista Higher Learning for all of our Spanish courses other than AP thank you Mrs Rice any questions okay can I get a motion please I am we approve the Spanish non-ap Spanish courses for BHS LHS and BMS thank you may I get a second I'll
137sec thank you roll call please yes trustee Grubbs yes and trustee Miceli yes thank you thank you Mrs Rice um next step is consideration and approval of resolution number 22-23-15 or the release of certificated uh probationary employees and I believe we need to amend is that correct or need to amend this by taking off taking off one zero nine yeah we want to yes we're going to remove one zero nine three one two from the record here and um we are going to ask if there is a oh would you please share good evening this is the um uh ad code where operational employees can be released provisionally to employees if they have works in the district for two years the deadline is March 15 but originally one employees that operation is zero employees can
138be released until the end of the school year so we have these two employees that the recommendation from staff is to do a non-relection of these two employees at the end of this school year thank you are there any questions you got some please we don't really get into that here so um can I get a motion to um on the table for resolution number 22-23-15 with the removal of ID number um is there a motion on the table I move that we approve resolution 22-23 drives 15 with the amended part thank you and can I get a second on the second thank you and we need a roll call please because I don't say that yes yes trustee Moss and trustee Miceli yes it's for yeses and no no so that's and then um
139our last item up for this evening is also Dr Gil's going to present consideration and approval of the speech-language pathologist assistant job description thank you um this is a request from our special education department currently we employ a speech pathologists in our district we do not have a speech solid assistance and the request is to meet students needs with the speech therapy especially uh one to one small group sessions that we have these positions as a systems as well and so we are bringing this job forward to job description forward to increase approve we also worked with our CSA because this will be a classified CSEA position and they agreed to have it placed at range 50 range 5-0 um I this so this is specifically for the sped Department that's correct speech speech rights
140or speech for the sped student that's correct okay and then is this a brand new position we actually this year the there is an assistant but that's on contract a contract is pretty expensive but also there are our employees it's important to hire own employees so that the students have their relationship with also longevity within the school district so since there is a need the thought from the Department is why not have our own assistant so who can be at the sites and work with the kids yeah if you can hire because the amount of money contracted out to you know a lot of money in the actual employee I mean it's better for us if we can get people under the district it's also better for the employees yeah and for the students yeah
141absolutely okay can I get a motion is there emotion on the table I move that we approve the speech and language pathologist assistant jobs coach hold second thank you roll call please president Saida yes Dusty grabs yes and trustee myself yes so with that that brings us to the end of our meeting I want to thank those of you that came or that are watching at home um have a great couple of weeks we will see you on Thursday May 4th thank you and good night it's uh the end of the meeting 808.