001good evening i would like to welcome you all this evening to um our first governing unit or venetian unified school board governing meeting to order i'm going to call us back in from closed session it is seven o'clock and we're going to move right on to number um well roll call please oh report on closed session sorry no we have nothing to report on closed session so we're going to move on to 5.2 the meeting is recorded for live streaming and archiving on the district youtube channel at youtube.com backlash c backslash venetia unified school district for your convenience at this time i would like to see if dr moss would like to lead us in the pledge everyone please stand i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the
002republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you for that um the next is item number seven approval of the agenda i'd like to reach out to my colleagues here and see if we have we have somebody that will approve the agenda move that we approve the agenda is written i'll second it thank you roll call presidency yes dusty moss yes and trustee macelli yes okay we're moving on to item number eight um the first item up is our superintendent's report dr young thank you very much uh good evening board and uh management team and uh some of our site leaders and department leaders are here and everybody that came out tonight to join us welcome welcome and folks that are watching online so a
003few comments from me uh we have a short agenda tonight uh we have some public comment um but we only have a couple of items so a couple couple of thoughts um school starts on thursday and uh we're excited about it thank you school starts on tuesday and so with excitement and anticipation and certainly a lot of preparation uh we're really looking forward to that day so that's a tuesday it's coming up um and as a reminder the school district is following the required guidelines from cdph regarding covid mitigation you know they include obviously getting as many people vaccinated as possible and have a little more to say on that in a minute uh the wearing of masks daily cleaning proper ventilation uh an implementation of the um possible exposure protocols and they're outlined in
004the newsletter that i sent out to the public recently there's a q a in there so it's outlined for you plus school sites i'm getting out information to you and we'll have more updates as they come to us and we'll make sure that we'll pushed out to the public and they'll be posted on the website but we're we're ready and prepared for our students to join us on tuesday also yesterday the governor made an announcement that all school employees will be required to be vaccinated by october 15th uh and if they are uh for full compliance by october 15th this 15th actually looked we thought it was five but i think it's uh and then those who are not vaccinated will be required to be tested once a week so we'll be we'll be working
005our way through that so i think that's a good thing to add obviously additional protection for everybody we had our professional development with our management team last week and we'll be having that professional development professional learning we like to call it with all staff tomorrow and it centers on our ongoing work with equity and opportunity and we've contracted with this group we've been very impressed with them so far they come with great recommendations and credentials a group called epic a couple of things on that i wanted to remind ourselves that the work around equity is reflected in the district's uh vision it our beliefs and characteristics of the benicio graduate we worked on that several years ago is approved at the board level the work with equity is one of the four goals in our
006strategic plan also known as our lcap the work around equity i was thinking about this further you know it's also reflected in the state adopted and board adopted content standards which center on preparing our students for college and career opportunities and as we do this work i believe we continue to do it in a manner that builds community that it's inclusive it's optimistic and it's forward thinking it also includes being aware of any um barriers to student success and recognizing what those barriers might be and removing them i must think about this further as well this work really isn't new to benicia and i think probably most school districts in california granted i think all school districts are getting after it with greater intentionality we certainly are it has a different feeling to it a
007different sense of clarity and that said we look forward to supporting all of our students so they can be successful and reach their potential because that's why we're here with that dear parents guardians board community please know that the staff is very excited to be welcoming your children back to school and we will in the spirit of collaboration cooperation and mutual respect navigate the challenges of this pandemic together we're still very much in the middle of it as a community on behalf of our very amazing talented and deserving students so again thank you for those of you could join us tonight and uh look forward to the rest of the board meeting thank you dr young um and now we move on to 8.2 our board reports mr miceli nothing dr moss nothing and i
008have nothing to report out as well um hopefully we'll be filling those those sections up in the meetings ahead of us because we'll be involved in a lot of different things um next up are comments from members of the public busd has moved to an in-person board meetings we ask that members of the public who wish to attend including those who wish to address the board wear a mask at all times for those who do not wish to attend the meeting but would like to submit a public comment we have opened the public comment voicemail line again comments can be submitted between five o'clock and 7 pm by calling the day of the meeting by calling 707-748-2787 one comment per person per item limited to three minutes on the day of the meeting those in
009person are asked to fill out a speaker card available at the back table noting the item they wish to speak to please submit speaker cards to the board secretary the board president will then call open session public comments um to not to not to not be on the agenda government government gov code section 54954.3 during the public comment item the comments for items on the agenda will be called during the specific item comments are limited to no more than three minutes per speaker or the board may limit the total time to 20 minutes per item by no 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
010comments respectful as students may be watching the board meeting and with that thank you um i have several comments this evening and i'm gonna um call up mark christian if you come up thank you hello is this a good mic distance yeah hello there we go hello my name is mark christian i am a resident of benicia and my child is about to begin attending joe henderson elementary tuesday not thursday it's very common for people to come to meetings like these uh to protest against something but instead i'm here to encourage investment i'm here to encourage our school board to invest in a history curriculum that accurately covers the racial history of our country including the trials tribulations triumphs and contributions of every ethnic group this undertaking would ideally begin with a curriculum equity task
011force composed of a diverse set of parents educators and community members to ensure that our children's educations accurately and honestly cover our history for far too long people have claimed that we should have a colorblind society and that discussing racial and ethnic differences is somehow bad um it's time to admit that this is misguided at best and it damages our appreciation for the beautiful diversity that our country enjoys i know some people who are listening disagree i also know there's a lot of discussion online claiming that there are left-wing radicals who are trying to teach inaccurate history to our kids to to brainwash white children believing that they're somehow guilty of something or inferior i assure you i am not a radical leftist what i am is a white man my ancestors have been in
012this country since the 1700s there's no shame in where i came from we all have our own stories and i think shame would come from failing to understand how my identity fits into the bigger picture and who else contributed to that big picture i want my kids to have the same understanding because understanding how our society works is an important part of being an engaged informed citizen and being an engaged informed citizen is a critical piece of american democracy this history is an important part of our children's educations and it belongs in the classroom thank you for your time thank you so much next up is andrew miller hi my name is andrew miller and i'm the parent of tubanisha school district children last week at the meeting i gave you a brief example of
013what i expected my chil from my children's school chief among these being teaching them math science english and history so i did my best to find out how the school was performing in these areas i got the information from a website that dr beason was kind enough to provide to me called data quest so i looked up my main topics of interest math science english and history to see how our district was doing the site didn't have any information for the most recent school year as you might imagine so the following were the statistics that i found for benicia unified school district all ages for the 2018-19 school year math 54 met or exceeded the standard english 58 met or exceeded the standard science 42.6 met or exceeded the standard i was told that there
014aren't any of these kinds of statistics for history so i tried to find out what the plan was for improving those numbers and doing so i watched more board meetings looked up more curriculums and learned some more acronyms like elpac nci and lca i read through school accountability reports in lcaps and in the lcap i came across the four goals that have been decided upon for the upcoming year after reading set goals i was struck by the fact that i didn't once see a reference to improving the student's performance in math science english and history what i did see were multiple references to re excuse me to removing achievement gaps between student groups by advancing equity practices with a particular focus on students who are black socioeconomically disadvantaged english learners latinx lbgtq and students in
015special education you apparently plan on figuring out how to do this by hiring groups like epoch education lindsey fuller and nicole anderson and associates consulting i have an alternate idea excuse me i would like you to treat the entire student body as individual human beings no matter their color gender or any other immutable characteristic they have i would like you to immediately terminate the services of any diversity equity and inclusion group including but not limited to epic education lindsey fuller and nicole anderson and associates and use the money instead to hire someone to help improve our kids learning of math science english and history and when i say history i don't mean some 1619 howard's in bastardized version i want the same as all of the other parents that i've heard address this board i
016want you to tell them the truth i'd like to end with a quote i recently came across from an unknown author excuse me in order to build up a healthy united citizenry scholars students and all americans must reject false and fashionable ideologies that obscure fact ignore historical context and tell america's story solely as one of oppression and victimhood rather than one of imperfection but also unprecedented achievement towards freedom happiness and fairness for all historical revisionism that tramples on a scholarship and historical truth shames americans by highlighting only the sins of their ancestors and teaches claims of systemic racism that can only be eliminated by more discrimination it's an ideology intended already spoken for three minutes and we really appreciate you sticking to three minutes thank you moving on to our next person um jane veronica
017lewis sorry if i said your name you did it just right okay great um i'm a 44-year resident of benicia i'm the wife of a career benicia teacher who is retired i'm the parent of two daughters who went their entire school careers through bonita unified and i'm also a retired educator myself of 34 years in public education with an additional 15 well alongside 15 years at community college level so very much uh an educator's lens on on things i think for the past year and a half it's safe to say we've all been through some of the most difficult times we've probably ever faced as families communities countries and can i pause you just one second mrs martinez can you start the timer thank you thank you sorry for the interruption okay um so i
018think the reason i i felt that i wanted to say something tonight is it pains me to see this community that i love so much and have been part of for so many years embroiled in a in a conversation about whether or not to teach the truth in our schools teaching the true history of our country should not even be up for debate if history has recorded what's happened that we need to be teaching that to our students so i asked the board and i and i asked the community would we allow for incomplete or incorrect mathematics science literature geography to be a part of our curriculum would we tolerate our doctors relying on treatments and things that are based not on factual training and good medical practice would we allow professionals in the legal
019field to decide cases based on their opinion and not based on law and and training i want to know why are we so afraid to teach children the real history of our country providing them with the whole context of our most important historical events and as policy makers for the district i ask that you resist the call to limit or curtail what trained educators know to teach instead i'd ask provide teachers and parents and community with the knowledge and the curriculum that allows them to select and can teach the truth support the equity and education task force that you've formed and do the work necessary to see the students in this system get a quality truth-based education include all the stakeholders families parents of children of color family and members of the community and teachers
020and staff in this effort and i will close with a quote as well while the roots of our historical problems may not be our fault the contemporary expression of them is our responsibility thank you thank you very much um next speaker is rosalind johnson to to let out brandon is it disha may do do what duchar would you like to speak thank you hello my name is brandon ducharme i'm a former student of busd i went there for all 12 years of my education k through 12. and i can say that the curriculum did not adequately prepare me to understand the complex racial and social relations in this country that's very problematic for a number of reasons for one thing we've seen in the media especially since the death of george floyd that people are
021nearly daily being killed simply for the color of their skin and that may be up for debate sure but the fact of the matter is the curriculum that i was taught did not reflect the diverse experience of my fellow students and of americans at large and that's again very problematic because not only do you have white students that are learning a curriculum that's very limited and caters to their needs but you have black and brown students that are getting a curriculum that doesn't cater to their needs and that actually puts their lives in danger these students may grow up and be victims of racial violence simply because schools like those in busd do not teach students the proper history and with that i ask you to please consider the characteristics of a busd graduate that
022you have on the wall there and see try to see how how the lack of truth in our history and in our curriculum in general doesn't necessarily result in those characteristics i can see characteristics up there that i can say that i did not develop ebb usd and i am 19 years old now and i have had to go back and uh sort of debunk a lot of the myths that i was taught in your schools and that has been obviously a shock to me for a number of reasons and i do not wish any student to have a similar journey and so a choice lies before you you can have student you can either create students that um will not have the proper knowledge to work against systems of racism or you can create
023students that were that will actually perpetuate racism and so i implore all of you to ask yourselves can you comfortably live with having students grow up not knowing the proper things to navigate this world and that's all thank you thank you very much now you're up miss rosalind johnson good evening and to my name is rosalyn johnson i am a 40-year resident of indonesia i believe in public education we tried to send our daughters to the schools here indonesia we started off with at robert simple then there was joe henderson the middle school and the high school we constantly had to augment our children's education because not only was the truth not being taught they were completely excluded dr young you i'm gracious dr young you said that a barrier you did not want there
024to be a barrier to a student's success and one of the largest barriers is not being seen is not being heard is not being recognized i know a lot of people think that what we're talking about is crt or critical race theory that is not what i am proposing that the schools teach i am proposing that the schools teach the truth to include all children and in every aspect because it is not just history it is in the math the sciences the arts the beauty of california and especially of solano county with vallejo being so close to benicia the diversity here it is not celebrated it doesn't show up at all within the schools my my youngest daughter who was a graduate of benicia hai who was in all of the honors classes from freshmen
025through her senior year actually was told that obviously black folk had never done anything in this country because it wasn't reflected in any of their studies and because she was always bringing in information to refute that she was finally told rashida we're not talking about you you're obviously an anomaly again to break down a lot of the racism that we have in this country a lot of racism that's going on right here in the city of benicia that comes from educating people that comes from showing people that everyone has contributed to this country to this city and we have all done things to make this a better place for all a place that everybody wants to come to so again i implore you to keep working with epic i've done a lot of research on
026epic they look like they're really good uh i was happy to see something like that and happy that you guys took it upon yourselves to do something to train the teachers but don't stop there please put in some kind of accountability excuse me miss johnson i'm sorry three minutes are uh thank you so much um our next speaker is greg horton good evening um i'm a parent here in benicia sending my child to kindergarten for the first time in an unprecedented time to be starting school but we're doing it um i'm a lifelong california resident i was put through the california public school system one part of the public school system that um that i learned about was the california mission system who here knows about the california mission system oh yeah got some california
027history in here so i was there you know we went there we built adobe bricks and they were like the native americans made these i was like okay that sounds cool you know just get to hang out at the mission later i learned that those native americans were not there willingly they were slaves to the to the conquistadors to the spanish colonizers who were here and that the mission system was a combination of military installation and religious conversion i didn't learn that in school you know i didn't learn that dark history and we still don't let children know this dark history and we think that we should hide it from them that people were enslaved in this state yeah we were a free state on paper but ishii of two worlds did anybody know him
028he was a native american he was kept in a cage for the rest for the end of his life by a professor at uc berkeley progressive berkeley i think our children need to know that we are on native land and we need to be teaching them diversity and equity here and it sucks this this history is not good you know we need to get through it so we can get on the other side of it because we are facing unprecedented wildfires too because we have given up native management of land in this country we have grasses here that were planted by settlers to feed their cows that is no longer eated we we have to hire goats to eat it you know we don't have cows anymore but light's on fire every time pg e
029screws up that's it okay that's all i have i appreciate your work please continue to do more thank you so much for your comment um we have another speaker namat shakur grantham if you would please come up to the podium yes so good evening everyone um the board and um dr young dr beatson um so you know there's this song uh i don't know i mean some of people are too young to hear it know it but it was called the some lyrics uh i can feel it coming in the air of night oh lord the guy i think his name was peter collins or paul called peter collins bill phil phil collins okay phil collins see people say he was people my age here so i just say that because um teaching the true
030history in the schools i'm just saying it's going to happen anyway i'm not saying that critical race theory is going to be taught in the schools k through 12 because i don't believe critical race theory was ever meant to be taught in the schools that's a college level that's college level curriculum but the true history is going to be taught in the schools um it's just like you know people who were against slavery ending no slavery is going to end it's like people who wanted to keep jim crow as the norm no that's going to end it's going to end it just is so for some people that's good news and for some people not so good news um if indeed busd is going to uh value diversity of the students then it's going to
031value the diversity of the students so it's not going to just teach white history in minimal sprinkling of other history is going to teach the history of the true history of people of color in america and teaching of the true history of people of color is not meant to shame blame or demonize white people just like teaching the overall white history the intent was not is not the shame blame or victimize people of of color i'm not saying that it didn't result in a lot of that but i'm saying that wasn't the intent benicia teachers are capable of teaching the true history without shaming blaming and mentally harming students i don't i believe that there are are laws and checks and balances in the school system period that will not allow for that period no
032it is is counterintuitive that the schools are going to actually teach something is going to mentally harm students or oh if you teach the true history of people of color it's going to bring my students grades down or it's going to bring down the grades of of the student body i i don't i don't uh i don't agree with that so thank you so much for for your comment um we also have a number of call-ins that we're going to be playing live uh well they're recorded um and michael in the back is our guru and he's going to play those for us thank you hello my name is gene walker and there is no item number that i am speaking to as a resident of phoenicia my tax is paid to fund venetia schools
033teachers and the curriculum that is taught to our students i am calling to strongly advocate for our students to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of the united states i am hopeful that the current curriculum audit that our district is undertaking attempts to achieve the goal of opening our students minds in order to improve our society when they graduate from venetia schools as a taxpayer and as an advocate for teaching the truth from kindergarten through 12th grade i request that an equity curriculum audit task force be created the task force should be composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members ensuring that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of their collective life experiences i hope the
034superintendent and the supervisors will address the topic of creating an equity curriculum audit task force at future meetings taxpayers parents and educators want assurances that truth is being taught to all students in our district thank you public comment i owe you evening my name is virginia jimenez and i work for the cityu child care department at robert temple i thank you to you this evening because there's an issue of inequality that i need you to be aware of it is something that is hurting me and other dedicated 12-month employees of the district as a 12-month employee i worked for the summer at robert simple and at the cdu summer camp from the first day of summer break on june 7th through august 11th i worked side by side performing the exact same duties with co-workers
035who happen to be 10 month employees they've received the bonus pay and i did not and the difference was to start 10 months employees received a 61 premium on their wages and 12 months employees this is nothing i love working with my team but that type of inequality does not fit well with me and that is why i'm speaking to you this evening we felt forgotten by the district sure i understand the need for an extra incentive to recruit summer school employees but what about those of us who have been here all along what is the recognition of our courage and consistency i am petitioning for all of the summer classified staff for all departments who work through the summer from child nutrition to custodians and maintenance from the cdu to clinical staff to receive
036that same premium i ask that the board authorize the district to make that deal thank you good evening my name is brandon green and i'm calling first to give comment with regard to the comments and discussions that have happened relative to the district providing a holistic historically accurate and inclusive curriculum in these social and political times it is necessary and vital for the education of our children if they fully understand the history of the country in which they reside understand the ways in which that history over time has been hidden or taught in ways that are inaccurate so as to not give the full perspective and history of the contributions of various communities in this country i find it offensive that this conversation is seemingly being centered around critical race theory as an attorney who
037took critical race theory in law school critical race theory is not something that is taught in elementary middle school or even high school it is not well understood by those who oppose it and is being used as a catch-all to prevent school districts to teach a history that is accurate recently the guardian did a report about the curriculum that happened in mostly christian private schools that characterize things like slavery as black immigration these sort of examples the example of the tulsa massacre and countless others the ways in which native american and indigenous people's history is taught or not taught in schools are examples of why we need a broad robust inclusive and historically accurate curriculum i also want to give comment on item item regarding independent study this is very important as the coronavirus is
038still upon us families need flexibility to be able to put their kids in or take their kids out of in-person learning particularly parents like myself who have children that are too young to be vaccinated this curriculum needs to be robust the children need to have access to all of the same things that they would if they're going to school in person and parents and families need the flexibility particularly those families that have been disproportionately impacted by the um to make decisions um on the fly apparently myself um who is extremely concerned about protecting my children she's going to be vaccinated needs this option and it needs to be uh flexible so that parents can make real-time decisions thank you so much for your time hello my name is ashley bartlett and i'm a venetia resident
039as well as a parent with two children at the usc i want to bring to your attention concerns that i have that the district has not done enough to address racial and inequity in our schools this is a concern of mine because we all have biases whether they are intentional or unintentional there are many solutions to this issue but i will name a few first i believe all teachers and staff should be provided with anti-racist training including restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices this is work that must be done in our community to be truly effective in providing our children with a safe and equitable learning environment secondly would be to hire some more diverse staff representation matters and it's important for all kids to have a staff to look
040up to that look like them the lack of diversity and our bosc educators is continuing to do a huge disservice for all of our students as they are only received receiving a limited perspective and representation of all the beautiful cultures in our country this lack of diversity impacts our students social emotional growth as well as a substantial amount of undue stress there are now multiple positions open in our district and i would like to know what specifically is being done to be diligent in hiring black and brown educators and staff lastly i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of the united states i am hopeful that the current curriculum audit our district is
041undertaking produces a classroom experience where our certain students are learning the truth through a diverse range of lunches as a parent i would like to continue to request that an eckenstein equity curriculum audit task force be created composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members to ensure that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of the truth through their life lenses and life experience like i said before representation matters and it is so important thank you my name is jeffy mueller and i'm a venetia resident i want to address racial and equity in our schools uh first off i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and resent representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups for the culture of the united states i'm
042hopeful that the current curriculum audit our district is undertaking produces a classroom experience where our students are learning the full spectrum of our nation's history through a diverse range of lenses as a parent i would like to continue to request that an equity curriculum audit task force be created composed of diverse educators diverse parents and diverse community members to ensure that our curriculum is culturally accurate and reflective of the truth of their life experience as a parent i would like to know what steps the district has taken with regard to putting together an equity curriculum audit task force in order to ensure that we do better for our children and our nation the racial gap between educators and students in busd is frightening black and brown children are faced with a damaging reminder of how
043much they are underrepresented on campuses in this city the lack of diversity in our busd educators is continuing to do a huge disservice for all of our students as they are only receiving a limited perspective and representation of all the beautiful cultures in our country this lack of diversity impacts our students socio-emotional growth as there are now multiple positions still available i would like to know what busd is specifically doing to be diligent in hiring more black and brown educators finally i ask that our children be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment in which teachers and staff are provided with robust anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices this is work that must be done in community to be truly effective online learning
044modules that are optional will never produce effective results in staff behavior and school environment anti-racist professional development needs to be required of all staff and needs to be done in school site teams the professional learning community that some of our teachers are participating in on their own time is a great example of how to do anti-racist work effectively and i applaud and thank them for their efforts thank you this is a non-agenda item hello my name is susan ortiz-horton i have been the proud the pleasure of being a proud venetian unified school employee since august of 1999. for the past seven years i've worked as a full-time cdu staff member i've had the pleasure and enjoyment of working with both preschool and school-aged children i thoroughly believe working with our future population is such a
045fantastic opportunity for not only myself but for those children this past summer school i participated in the latest summer school program from june to august 4th i worked from 8 30 to 315 i worked an assistant as a teacher assistant with five different teachers with various age groups from k through fourth grade this was such a organized and fun activity for all the students there was so many activities throughout the day it was very enjoyable for the students and all the staff the last three weeks i was given an additional position i was given the position of assisting and aiding a special needs child in a fourth grade mainstream class it was very challenging for her but also very successful for her with my guidance and training with special needs children in closing i would
046like to address this large pay incentive that was given to all benicio unified school staff who participated in the program with the exception of five cbu employees that did not receive that incentive i would like to believe that i am valued and respected the same as my peers to receive that large pay increase i was one of the five cbu employees who did not receive that incentive that tells me i was not treated equally as my peers were doing the same duties and i am not valued the same i was did the same or more duties i was also given an extra job the last three weeks of aiding a special needs child also i want to let the board know that all cdu employees was given this the duty of being yard duty at
047all recesses and lunchtime so i am asking all board members and dr kush to please look it thoroughly into this to please reimburse the five cdu employees that worked over the summer from june to august 4th and did the same job duties if not more as our other as our peers and give us that large incentive that we so greatly deserve please look into this matter i respect all of you and i appreciate you listening to my message thank you selma bentley equity pay for summer school employees hello my name is darma bentley and i am the enrollment office technician for the child care department the cdu staff participated in the summer school from the first day june 14th till august 4th cdu also had one pre-trade classroom at robert temple two red henderson and
048one at matthew jenner city you switch staff between all three elementary schools when staff was sick vacation so as not to let the summer school fail as 12-month staff worked side by side with co-workers who are nine months yet they got bonus pay and we did not summer school had their own enrollment through ed services led by dr beason from the inception through planning stage dr beeson counted on the cdu staff and cdu campus to be included in the summer school program during the nine weeks of summer school our cv staffing team assisted the certificated teacher in the classroom from 9 00 am to 3pm along with sari's team i love working with my team but i feel sad that the 12 month employees did not get bonus pay even though we did the same
049job side by side this creates a division resentment and discrimination when we are an equal experienced labor force and rely on each other irrespective of our contract status we did a union petition asking for bonus pay and collected 45 signatures today i am requesting the board to look into this inequity today i am the voice for all summer classified staff from all departments nutrition who fed our students the maintenance department and the custodians who did deep cleaning every day for our camp and summer school tdu has been operational since july 2020 till present while the older grades were in virtual learning the team provided crucial child care services to employ parents expertise and dependency through the pandemic we are requesting the equivalent of bonus pay authorized for classified employees we're asking the board to consider
050the pay inequity when we were side to side with our co-workers from the kitchen to custodians to maintain them i heard that fairfield and vallejo classified both received a bonus pay it is very sad that the district has excluded the labor force when we were all side by side with the mission of robert temple summer school thank you to the board for hearing about this inequity thank you hello my name is nathalie christian i've been in venetian residence for more than two years i'm not going to share my address tonight for reasons i'll go into in a minute but i will say that i have a four-year-old daughter entering tk next week and the 18 month old plan at home uh my husband and i work from home one of the large the main reasons
051we moved to benicio was because we know it has an excellent school district that's well supported by the community and the board um but the experience i'm going to relate to you kind of threw everything into question and i'd like to share it um for this reason um a couple of weeks ago my husband and daughter were outside enjoying beautiful fun i was coming by and somebody yelled black lives don't matter that my four-year-old child um this was probably in response to our black lives matter fly but i would like everyone here to take a minute and and really examine the the origins of of that type of event and and i think that we could safely say that education matters in how we relate to each other and how we relate to our country's
052history and i'm calling therefore to strongly advocate that my children that the children in the community are going to curriculum that is truth-based inclusive historically accurate a curriculum that welcomes the reality that we are not a melting pot that the things that make us different are as beautiful as the things that make us similar whether those differences be class well skin color gender sexual orientation all of that these things are beautiful and should be celebrated there's been a lot of discussion about critical race theory recently and i'm not honestly very sure why i don't believe that the board has suggested that we introduce that to our classroom it is a graduate school level uh level of uh education so i i i'd like to take a minute though and guess i think the reason people
053are really into crt and hating crt right now is because we are trying to erase the truth among our classroom we are raising the truth from our history the truth that we have a sort of painful history that we all have to look at and examine and reflect on together and only then can we heal from it together and i do believe that as a parent as all the parents here should want their children to have classroom experiences that teach them the truth um regardless of how painful or you know concerning that truth is otherwise we're bound to relive it i would like that truth to be taught through a diversity of lenses and i would like that truth the curriculum to be audited regularly by a task force the diverse educators diverse parents diverse
054community members i advocate strongly to you tonight to the board that you start work on this you examine the curriculum you develop an auditing task force and we work to heal a community that has the low-level crates in it that my daughter had to deal with a couple of weeks ago we don't we don't want that anymore we deserve better at these i thank you for your time hi there my name is robin mahon and i'm a certificated credentialed as well classified teacher in the school district i just finished teaching summer school working half day to a tk kindergarten class over at robert simple which was wonderful but also a bit challenging at times i had a wonderful teacher support staff in the cdu teachers which helped me tremendously they were helping me plan curriculum
055teacher guidance and working full days which i only worked half days they worked they worked full days in the classroom and that was exceptional so with that being said we were a good team teacher unit and i'm calling on behalf of those teachers which are my fellow co-workers that were overlooked for the summer bonus pay i truly feel they deserve an increase in pay because they work hard to do so every day all year round these teachers may not be credentialed but they are teachers and they should be treated equally with the pay increase like the rest of the credentials and the 11 month employees thank you very much heidi black first i would like to discuss part of the mou that you plan to approve this evening as noted in the mou 3.05 states
056no information gathered from live streaming shall be used in the evaluation of any unit member states no information gathered from live streaming shall be used in disciplines of any unit member so i guess are we now giving free passes to all unit members to basically say and do anything they choose teach anything they want without being held liable for inappropriate conduct let me remind you of just one of multiple instances the gay porn video that was shared by a teacher this past school year to a sophomore class that was completely unacceptable and nothing was done about it my child has been instructed to inform me of all instruction he has taught in class each day and best believe i will be asking many questions pertaining to the instruction also any virtual instruction my child may
057receive i will be recording the way i see it if the district isn't going to do anything regarding inappropriate actions or behavior i damn sure will and it will be known loud and clear how disgusting you are for approving this mou with these stipulations as for masks in the classroom comical we have all read the boxes these maps come in which state the masks will not prevent the spread of illness or infection nor will they protect you from illness or infection let's circle back on this subject in a few months once cold and flu season kicks in and you start sending every child home with the sniffles a sneeze maybe a cough for drinking their water too fast or a little headache caused by classrooms being too hot finally critical race theory if you want
058to allow it for our schools fine make it an elective crt is nothing more than a divisive curriculum that teaches our children to judge others by the color of their skin rather than content of character which in turn pushes racism even further crt only divides people into a press and oppressor groups which urges intolerance our schools are literally indoctrination camps what our children learn in school pave the way for their future for our future what happened to equality for all within our district crt is exactly opposite of what our district is wanting to accomplish i refuse to allow any educator to make my child feel guilty because of the skin color how about teaching our children respect rather than racism my child was raised with respect morals and love for all my child has been
059taught that we are all equal the actions of her children are a direct result of those who raise them and what they learn or are failed to be taught at home no educator will make my child feel guilty for something he didn't do that i promise you thank you for your time hi my name is nancy robstein i'm a venetia resident and the parent of an entering junior at venetia high school and i'm calling to voice my support for urgently needed action around equity in this school district we need to be doing better tonight there's no specific item or an equity that i'm addressing but i believe that there should be a regular equity item on every agenda i am requesting that an equity curriculum audit task force be created to assess what is being
060taught taught through an equity lens i am requesting that new hiring prioritizes racial diversity among the usd staff and i'm requesting that there be anti-racist professional development resources for all staff as a parent equity is my number one concern i believe that equity is the key to raising generations of young people who are empathetic compassionate analytical empowered and ready and willing to build a better world thank you hello my name is robert crowley i am a benicia resident and i live on eaton court i am calling in um to ask as there are now multiple positions available what is busb doing specifically to be diligent in hiring more black and brown educators and faculty members within the usd i think diversity is of the utmost importance especially as most of our teachers staff and faculty
061are white and that doesn't give our students uh um of color and an equal opportunity and the comfortability that they need in an educational setting when they see more faces like their own again i would love to know as there are now multiple positions still available what the usd is specifically doing to be diligent in hiring more black and brown educators faculty and staff members thank you for your time have a good day good evening this is kara bateman call in regards to item 12.2 bta return to full in-person learning mou specifically section 3.0 live streaming while providing in-person instruction sub-section 3.05 no information gathered from live streaming shall be used in the evaluation of any unit number subsection 3.06 no information gathered from live streaming shall be used in discipline of any unit number
062now while i understand that this language has been pretty excusing previous iterations of mlus that doesn't necessarily make it right we're here to support students and teachers equally as this is currently written students aren't supported at all teachers are 100 identified from anything that they say or do and while i understand and fully support them being provided some protection from something being taken out of context or manipulated something that it's not i don't see how leaving students and their families completely under empty-handed with no recourse whatsoever is the answer thank you yeah i was calling to voice my opinion and comment about the critical race theory agenda i would like to oppose it please keep it out of our public schools i can be reached at 707 853 thank you hi my name is shelby
063delaney i'm a benicia resident and i'm calling to strongly advocate that venetia schools create an equity curriculum audit task force made up of diverse educators parents and community members to ensure that the curriculum being taught in venetian schools is culturally accurate and reflects the truth through many diverse lenses not just through the lenses of white people especially white men as it currently is so what steps has the district taken to create an equity curriculum audit task force such as the one proposed thank you and that concludes our comments from the public i thank you all for sharing your information with us um before i go on i just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for wearing your masks above your nose and you know below your mouth i just check there's a
064few people that may not have that correctly put placed and if you could please place it correctly i'd appreciate it thank you we're going to move on to the consent calendar action items all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and will be approved by the board in one motion there will be no discussion on these items unless members of the board staff or public specific requests specific items to be pulled and discussed um at this time um i want to see if there's a motion on the table to accept all consent agenda items um as written i move that we approve the consent calendar is written second okay thank you there are two items that are resolutions that we need to do a roll call vote separately
065item 10.3 approval of resolution 21-22 regarding the education protection act at this time do i have a motion to approve or we do a roll call vote we need to do a roll call first tonight consent calendar as a whole and then we'll gotcha okay roll call vote on the consent calendar as a whole please thank you president zeta yes dusty moss yes and trustee miceli yes thank you thank you so now we can go to 10.3 and ask for um we don't need a first or second we could just do the roll calls okay so can we get a roll call vote on approval of resolution 21-22-03 regarding education protection act yes president seda yes justine moss yes and trustee masali yes thank you okay can we get a roll call vote in our
066approval of resolution number 21-22-05 declaration of obsolete books yes president zeta yes trustee moss and trusty masali yes thank you thank you we're moving on to item number 11. uh communication and informational items it's a we're talking about a summer school update and i'm going to introduce dr bietsen to to all of you and um she's going to be sharing some information about this excellent well thank you very much uh president zeta and school board i am actually going to turn this right over to miss kleinschmidt and mr slater who were two of our three summer school principals we couldn't have done this without you and so i'm going to turn this celebration over to you thank you thank you good evening to our board president trustees and everyone that's here tonight and watching from
067home i think i speak for the team of the three of us who served as summer school administrators that we were very lucky to be a part of this and um to support the many teachers and employees and staff members who worked very very hard and and i hope that really we're able to acknowledge them tonight and all of the work that they did for our for our students so um have some information and lots of pictures for you so that you can see everything in action our students experience learning and growth specifically in math reading and also in steam lots of hands-on activities physical education and also social emotional skills we really want to thank cdu our partnership with brickspace and of course food services our maintenance staff everybody really played a part in
068this so our summer school this year was very different in that we had everywhere from our kindergartners all the way up through even our recent uh 12th graders who were maybe completing some courses for graduation so the full spectrum and so for our k through eight summer school program we'll we'll start with that um we had four sessions we used imagine math and imagine literacy um they were in the classroom they were out on the playground um lots of activities throughout the day for me it was lots of fun and very different to be with the elementary kids and the middle school kids i'm usually at the high school and so it was great fun to get out of what i do every day and and into the elementary world we had 307 students participate
069in grades k through 8 um and then also 36 students in our extended school year program and also in grades k through 8. um and i put up their thousands of bricks so in our partnership with brickspace uh lego-centered learning to really bring it to life and for students to be able to create design engineer the different themes for each week anything to add great um i would that was just a perfect intro with all of that and it was an honor and really want to thank the board and our admin team and our teachers cdu brook space everybo everybody certificated classified employees it was a robust program and we had this opportunity to pull it off and our district really went for it pulled out all the stops you know we wanted to accelerate
070learning build in uh using that equity lens throughout brickspace and uh you know the dynamic fariko and her exceptional uh young people that ran the program and just our uh staff classified and teachers just coming together from throughout the district to really do um an outstanding job and you know you think about i grew up in the 70s you thought about summer school as like something you had to go to and it was like okay let's just get to 12 o'clock so we can go to the pool or something but you know these kids were here 8 o'clock 3 15. they were engaged and they were accelerating learning targeted instruction hands-on learning critical thinking collaboration doing presentations something to be very proud of and as a as a as a principal in the district it
071made me really uh just think wow you know benicia really went for it for its kids so um again the community here what you're seeing this was uh some of the activities at lunch so uh you know the students had their their core curriculum and then prairie co led it with uh with different groups through and out our city um with dance hip-hop yoga nature theater drama kids had a half an hour going through these different stations and i rotated each day and then in the afternoons it's really exciting because uh you know they had these these problem-solving activities with legos where they had to uh you know build and create and engineer and it was a lot of fun i mean it was buzzing until until the end of the day so um that's
072what that slide is there the last line i'll jump in with the middle picture um it's one of our younger students i think he was in first or second grade building a maze a marble maze um and just to watch their creativity come to life actually built a covered area so that it was secret so you had to figure out how to get the marble through and the other young student um he actually was touring some classrooms with us to get some ideas for his own building and was just drawn to this and they just started talking about the engineering and how it was done and so i you know community being that these were students from all of our different schools and they came together robert simple made new friends had an uh you
073know an experience together that they wouldn't normally have had and uh being led by not just our staff but also through the partnership with brickspace most of their staff were our current or former students as well and that was really special to see our students there working with those younger generations to lead their learning accelerated learning we had group activities we had individual activities the students would get up and present to one another their group projects and explain what they were doing explain their thinking and so that's great communication skills even as young as second grade they were doing that developing their ideas and then also throughout the day reading writing and math the younger students were able to practice handwriting they did that during distance learning but a teacher wasn't right there to make
074sure that they were necessarily doing it right and so a lot of the skills were being reviewed re-taught as needed and some of the skills were just learning again to be in a classroom raising a hand or being part of that school community wanted to get some data on you know how the kids were you know their their feelings and their experiences so we asked them a couple questions it was pretty straightforward are you enjoying summer school and we had our tk second grade uh 79 of the 150 students surveyed that they uh said yes they enjoyed it and then 13 just okay and we had eight percent um that didn't like it so third through eight again 67 yes and just okay 29 and then um four percent um you know didn't like it
075so overall i thought those numbers were pretty positive uh considering and and honestly it was a fair thing i mean anything out to the kids i mean they they truly authentically and generally um enjoy the program and are you learning important skills and finding summer school helpful with your academics and again this was important too i mean we wanted kids to come together and have a sense of community but we also wanted to learn something and to you know work on their skills um to help them right now coming into into into this school year and again pretty positive you know like a tk second grade um you know 92 percent of our kids um we're we're with it there you know hanging in there and enjoying it learning something and then our third through
076eight um eight you know eighty nine percent there or four sixty nine percent yes which which is pretty proud of you know the first day we came out there we had everybody come out to the playground and we had t tk students all the way up with to students going to ninth grade and um he was really proud of our older uh students for just their engagement and being so involved and having such winning attitudes about it and again brick space uh phenomenal uh in the in just the the people the staff just so uh so sharp compassionate thoughtful uh dedicated it was amazing and they worked so well with our teachers um classified certificated you know anderson in our cdu program as well so well and so here again you can see the different
077themes that we had built playgrounds mazes uh and then there's a class there in the afternoon that was doing some jeopardy a lot of fun and go ahead i'll jump in on the secondary part since that's my specialty usually um so at the secondary level we also ran extended school year that was held at the high school a little bit smaller group about 13 students and then we also had online credit recovery and i have some numbers for you on that as well for students who are maybe needing to make up a course and catch up over the summer and then also we were able to run two special programs this summer for athletics and academics one for our high school students which we've done in the past but this year we also added a
078middle school program both were run by our athletic director craig holden and focus not just on uh fitness aspect and and doing exercises and calisthenics but also talking about nutrition uh talking about academics in terms of eligibility and and maybe setting a goal that they can work towards 55 of our high school students participated in 41 middle school students and one of the things that was neat is some of our high school incoming seniors would stay and help and be leaders to the middle school program unasked they just stuck around and did it which i thought was pretty cool so for online credit recovery we had 187 students enrolled and they were enrolled in 314 active courses so some students maybe took more than one we also had 22 students do an online get focused
079course they could catch up on that requirement if needed i won't read through all of that data for you but it breaks it down by grade level by school site we included our liberty high school students and community day students as well and then also some of our demographics um we do have students that did not complete their classes but that's not for lack of trying this system sent a daily email to parents every student who signed up a parent also was signed up and so they got a daily update of their students progress so did everything we could to continue to remind them and encourage them to to keep going with the class a few just short videos you can kind of see them in action here middle school fitness program doing some stairs
080um this was an organized game of kickball up on the field and then we have two quick videos of our high schools students doing sprints that's always fun and planks um but we definitely just you know to sum it up want to say a big thank you thank you for the opportunity for our students to get them again ready for this new school year an opportunity to catch up on some of the learning that may have been lost to reconnect make new friends um and uh have you know the opportunity with new trusted adults that could be part of their educational experience overall um so thank you very much that's great thank you so much for sharing all that information um we really appreciate all the staff and teachers that and everybody that worked in
081summer school to make it work as well as it did so again thank you so much and thank you to fairy co and or far eco and brickspace for collaborating with us it's awesome so thanks again for sharing we are going to move on to item number item 12. first up is the 12.1 second reading and approval of the following board policy bpar 6158 independent study um i am going to pass the the information or pass this on to mr dr young the baton that's what i meant thank you thank you for that this is a second reading as you said of the board policy that school districts are required to approve because we were required rather to offer independent study which is a modification of the way that we've offered it in the past
082so ms corona gave a thorough presentation at the last border meeting about all the elements and the requirements of independent study so we bring that to you this evening for your approval okay and at this time i um i'm going to ask if there are any comments from the public on this particular item and if you would like to make a comment you need to fill out the blue card and bring it up on item 12.1 okay i don't see anybody racing for those blue cards so i guess we're good um so at this time did any of my colleagues have anything okay so do i have a motion to accept the second reading and approval of the following board policy bpar 6158 i'll go ahead and make the motion that we accept this policy
083thank you for independent study thank you second motion thank you um can we have a roll call vote please mrs martinez yes vst yes and trustee masali yes thank you okay our next item up is 12.2 consideration and approval of the bta return to full person full in-person learning mou during the 21-22 school year um are there let's see who's oh dr gill dr gill passing the baton to you this time good evening good evening trustees this is dr young a cabinet community members um we met with the teachers union uh over two meetings um it was very positive meeting the whole intent was student safety and staff safety from safety and health perspectives we follow all the protocols that cdph is asking us to follow which is also written in our cpp we will
084be publishing that as well and a few others were the same things that were left from before and for example a couple of the things that we thought about may or may not need for example if there is hvac issues or something so some of the things are written in the mou that we may not even need or use uh but they were just resolution as a precaution but in just uh the all the health and safety guidelines are being followed that we have in the cd ph if cdph goes changes their guidelines we will be meeting with them again and change the language again on here we go thank you so much for that report um and at this time um i will ask i do have two speakers to speak on this item
085and if anybody else would like to speak on this item 12.2 to let me know by filling out the card and handing it to mrs martinez um i'd like to ask heather healy to join us at the podium here hi i'm heather healey i have three children in the bosd and i'm also a health care worker i work in a local hospital so i just want to thank you for your work i want to thank terry dean's work i want to thank the school board's work for um keeping our kids safe i work with uh coveted positive patient patients directly and i can tell you firsthand that you do not want to meet that beast um it is it is scary so again i just want to thank you for keeping our kids safe with
086our with the masks and everything that you've put in place my question is um so because my husband and i do work outside the home we were probably the typical parents that said okay so tylenol and my question is if and when my child is sick with a cold or whatever has to go the doctor get get cleared by a physician to come back to the school does do my children have the option of doing the online learning and also i don't want them to be um marked as absent because last year at the spring you know my child had a cough for 10 days 12 11 days i didn't want to send her back to school because she's you know having this cough and but i didn't also want her to miss out on
087learning and the teacher at the time uh said she couldn't be marked as present so that's my comment and kind of question as well but i think it's an important one thank you so much for your comment um we can have staff reach out to you if you stay just after the meeting and give us your email address on your phone number we'll be happy to have somebody reach out to you with those answers okay you're welcome thank you um the next person up is i'm gonna push that one aside is leah wilson hi i'm glad i thought i was forgotten i'm glad i wasn't um my name is leah wilson i'm a noon duty at simple and the parent of a sixth grader that starts bms next week i did want to say i
088also support what the bblm members have said about diversity equity and inclusion in our district and teaching truthful history but regarding covid's safety i am grateful for all the steps that the district has taken obviously the state is mandating masks and other things and i fully support it i think it's just purely common sense i did find the presentation at the last board meeting helpful but i do have a few questions about ventilation and testing apologies if i missed further details but from what i know at this point merv 13 filters were installed in all classrooms and doors and windows will be kept open as much as possible regarding the merv 13 filters will schools and classrooms run the hvac at all times so there is a constant filtering of the air the cdph ventilation
089guidance recommends multiple protective strategies they recommend outdoor air ventilation and portable air cleaners while doors and windows remain open regardless of temperature the bta mou uses words like encourage and when possible which seems to leave room for interpretation which classrooms and student spaces will have portable air filters will teachers who want a portable airflow purifier have to buy their own my second question is regarding testing some districts are doing weekly or bi-monthly screening testing of all students and staff or a portion of students and staff for the purposes of catching asymptomatic cases early therefore avoiding transmission and disruptive classroom shutdowns and quarantines can you please explain why busd is not engaging in a screening testing program weren't there federal and or state funds made available to cover costs like these could there be at the
090very least a district testing location for symptomatic and exposed students and staff this could increase equitable accessibility to testing and possibly get students and staff back into the classroom more quickly after an exposure i'm not trying to be negative and i'm in no way advocating for closing or limiting schools my child very much needs to attend school in person i'm so excited for him to return but i am a parent and parents worry my child is too young to get the vaccine and i do worry about sending him to a crowded school as numbers rise to the more infectious delta variant again i appreciate all that you've done it just feels as if there are other mitigation strategies available shouldn't we employ them thank you thank you um can staff reach out to you after
091you know in the next day or two with some answers okay so stay stay behind and leave us your email thank you so much um do my colleagues here have anything to say regarding this last item okay so do i have a motion to accept that is to accept the consideration and approval of the bta return to full in-person learning mou during the 21-22 school year i move that we approve the mou as presented thank you roll call vote please presidency yes trusty moss yeah and trustee masali yes thank you okay okay um we have one comment from yes i um i want to ask that um superintendent um i i'd like to ask that we figure out a way to engage our parent our families and parents and community members um there seems to
092be a lot of misinformation in terms of what the district is or what the district isn't doing so i think one of the ways to address that is to provide maybe some forums maybe like four forums coming up um so that families and community members can come and actually have a real conversation about curriculum and address some of those areas because it just appears that this situation is escalating and i don't think we want it to escalate to the point where it can escalate to so i think it would be a good idea to to go ahead and put something in place so that families community members can come and have a conversation so whether that is creating a task force whether it's starting off with some conversations but it just i i believe that
093it needs to be something that has to happen as soon as possible whether it be virtual or whether it be in person you know however you have to figure that part out but i just think in order to to have a real conversation so that the issues can be addressed so that real information is shared and so that all questions can be asked and answered thank you dr moss and we'll get back to you on that um and at this time i um want to just congratulate and get all everybody all excited for the new school year because it's starting tuesday for in-person classes and we're really excited to see the littles and the bigs back at school in person um just remind you to stay healthy and well and wear your mask and and
094keep taking care of yourself and i thank you for attending tonight's meeting thank you at home also for joining us at this time i'd like to adjourn our meeting it is now 8 24 meeting has ended thank you you