BUSD Board Meeting 2/18/2021

001hi everybody i'd like to welcome you to tonight's uh board meeting it's 703 i'm going to move us back from closed session to open session um it is 703 on 2 18. and the first thing that we're going to go to is the pledge of allegiance and guess how many would you mind leading us today okay everyone please stand for which it stands one thank you so much be seated um okay approval of the agenda item number seven let me open this up further okay do i have a motion to approve the agenda as written i move that we approve the agendas written thank you thanks diane all those in favor aye did we do a roll call vote on this one that because we kind of said we were going to be doing that

002but okay so uh roll call vote then betty i don't know if who's going to do it is it betty going to do it or um but here's the roll call vote on the um approval of agenda we changed everything due to covid stuff that we're gonna do a roll call okay that would be georgina she's still in charge of this meeting i'm just watching okay thank you georgina are you there i don't see her screen yet i don't see it either i think for this item for procedure um we're doing the roll call because we're in virtual we just want to make sure everybody's accounted for i thought so i think it's okay for you guys to do a global one and then we'll see if we can okay back on okay all those

003in favor raise your hand all right all those opposed seeing none the motion carry um we're on to number eight the highlight of this evening black history month bhs book club and i have um you know what even before we get to that um there i wanted to make a comment um and let all of those that have tuned in that we um due to some solano county office of education is experiencing some network problems connectivity issues as they lined the lot issues this live stream is being conducted remotely we want to let you know this information in case the live stream gets disconnected we are currently receiving all public comments uh if we receive any that are delayed we will play them at the end of the meeting so i wanted to let everybody

004know that is a potential we apologize in advance we have no control over it so um going back to item number eight yes number eight um i'm going to ask that hold on my screen is not being having um brianna um kleinschmidt is going to be talking about this um with us so brianna mrs clinch schmidt if you would like to share your lovely information about this book book club uh sure thank you very much uh president and trustees and everyone who's watching i'm brianna kleinschmidt the principal at venetia high school and am very honored to share a board highlight with you tonight and with our community about our first ever bhs reads event i also have three students here with me that will get to share with with all of you a little bit

005about their experience so far and i also want to extend a huge thank you to dr beetson to dr moss who's participated to stephanie rice has also participated and lots of other staff members who've taken time to be a part of this first ever event and and show a lot of support very much appreciated we are reading between the world of me by tadahasi coates and this is a work of nonfiction that was published in 2015 a letter to his son and so it's a very personal book uh one that's based on experience and so through that we've also had two book discussions so far we're holding them on fridays at noon via zoom of course and we put together some reading questions and a reading guide we've been very fortunate to have our librarian

006megan siegel and our vice principal dwight rogers who also is advisor of our black student union to help to facilitate our book talks and just guide us through the reading and through discussion of student experiences our experiences listening learning from each other and just broadening our perspectives and so we're we've just really enjoyed this first half of the month and our reading so far we have our third meeting tomorrow and our final meeting the last friday of the month and um with that i'd like to give the three students that are here some opportunity to talk and kalia if you don't mind that i introduce you first kalia is one of the officers of our black student union i also have i'll ask madison to speak after her madison is a student rep so you

007see her on these board meetings but she's also an officer of our bsu and then emma emma chess zane is here as well and she's part of our book club and our bsu and our book club those two groups of students have also joined together with this first ever reads event so kalia with that um i'll give you the floor hello my name is kalia conan and i am one of the bsu ambassadors and i will be discussing some of the highlights of in our previous meetings um for the book bye tahani um sorry coats mr coats arthur coats many things are worth highlighting about the bhs book read from a closely diverse student's perspective allowing both students and staff to obtain a collaborative understanding about the world around them is essential it is important

008for teachers to learn and understand the students they teach reviewing such a powerful book about the social disparities of race makes me feel hopeful about bhs's steps to make the venetia community more culturally aware in our previous meeting we discussed how race affects the education system how apparent the disconnect between teachers and students is when it comes to this social conflict we answered a question derived from ucla facilitation guide on how the u.s education breeds complicity and division rather than unity and progression and came to the conclusion that schools must provide safe and safe and cooperative um sorry i'm so sorry provide safe and cooperative um environments for children of culturally diverse backgrounds so we can teach them more about their histories and stuff like that so thank you excellent clea thank you so much

009um and thank you for pointing out yes we uh some of our reading guide our questions have come from ucla who had a common read with all of their students uh on this book as well so that's been great uh madison hi everyone my name is madison again and you guys have seen me menu in the past week so um yes kalia highlighted most of the things i was going to say the book discussion has been really good it's really fascinating to see some of the student body come together and talk about the racial issues and talk and have an open conversation i know as students sometimes it can be scary to have those conversations and even teachers it can be scary to talk about that but during these book discussions it's really powerful and

010fascinating to me because as a young black woman i'm like wow like other people are seeing what i you know what i see so um i i'm really enjoying these book discussions they're going very very good and i and i look forward to joining the book discussion every week and that's what i hoped would happen when miss k brought up this idea and they're going great i love them thank you madison emma if you can share with us as well my turn sorry i had to ask my house to be a little bit quieter um so yeah uh i have never really read anything like between the world than me and um especially not in a school environment and so other than the history books and in history classes we don't cover these issues in

011such depth i mean we do in english classes but it's usually you know just a unit and so i feel like now is the perfect time for um young people to i don't know listen to each other and have uncomfortable comfortable conversations because it's in such a safe environment and we get to hear from people who we might not normally hear from because we either don't know them or we don't really care to listen um and so i would say that the book club has been extremely eye-opening for me and i'm sure it has been for teachers and students who have joined into in the discussion and i know that um listening as well as joining in the conversation is really important and we have done a good job of participating everyone as a group

012so far and yeah excellent thank you thank you thank you to all three of you you were all very well spoken um and i think did a great job of helping others understand um how our discussions have gone so far and and why this has been such a special opportunity um we've had about 50 students choose to participate in our first ever bhs reads event it's open to any student um and it's been great to see the the response for this initial event we really hope to be able to do this each year grow this program include even more student voice in nominating books selecting books so that they represent our students and we can further these types of discussions and it's just spawned such such great ideas and excitement around literacy and student voice

013and so again i just i want to thank you for the support and the opportunity to do this and to to work with all of our staff and our students in in this new way thank you very much for sharing all this wonderful information mrs kleinschmidt and thank you ladies for presenting the information in such a wonderful way so that we can understand how you are benefiting from this kind of program and i think it's great i think i need to come get a book so i can i can read it as well because i'm not familiar with it so um but i thank you for doing that and save can i ask you a quick question when you're doing it yes any one of the students i was just curious um because i have

014the the experience that we have so much um social media stuff that's immediate that we can read and then the the re the experience to sit with a book is completely different and being that you're much younger than i am and and um uh and you're in high school is do you cross back and forth between those mediums pretty well or is sitting for you in this stage sitting down to a book like a whole sort of a shift in the mindset i'm not sure that they are here charles emma madison or khalia are any of you here rats they left okay oh there no here's one oh good oh here's two there you go it's kind of a complex question do you know what i mean did you have to make that mental shift

015or you read so much it's like because i have to make that shift when i read a book it's it's harder yeah um sorry if you don't mind me going first no i think it is it is a lot different especially because we are getting one perspective at all times from the author and i mean on social media and everything you get all all sorts of stories all like and you get a lot of you know comments mixed in there but then kind of the only comments or thoughts that we're having are our own and in the book club and so it is different and it's more concentrated in the discussions that we have rather than comments on social media and everything wow fascinating thank you emma yeah i agree and also um the time

016that it takes to create this book um these this is a this book is a collective of thought out process thoughts by this amazing author whereas social media it's more of compulsive thoughts like last minute you know um thinking so it's definitely refreshing to read a book that really gets down and really it's like tunnel vision on you know race whereas you know with um um on social media race can be like oh what's this so what's that so it's it's really good like it's very refreshing very informative excellent yeah thank you so much i really appreciate that thank you great great feedback great question there's something oh go ahead just from listening to the students perspective and um and it's it's been amazing actually i'm looking forward to it and i don't even want

017it to end after like two more for this one but i've really i've absolutely appreciated it and you have provided a safe space and i'm so glad that students are sharing what is absolutely on their hearts and what their experiences have been so i just want to say thank you and and the staff as well so i just want to say thank you for that nice thank you dr moss yes all right so um brings us to item number nine which are our reports first up is our student reports unless i missed it did you guys vote on the close session item um that's a good question no they did not i think you know what i think it all happened it all happened when we weren't sure where georgina was at that okay you're

018right it did so yeah did we do that so we better do that okay so there should have been a report out from closed session i asked if um we were back you were close open from closed session and nobody responded to me i had no idea the meeting had started nope no worries no worries why don't we um go back to item number four or excuse me number five and we want to report back on closed session there were no items but there was a student matter and um there was a couple of things and um let me where is my bear with me guys i'm sorry so um we want to is it we want to is there a motion that somebody could make regarding our closed session items is that yes i

019move that we support the recommendation for oah case number two zero two zero zero nine zero six eight nine thank you do we have a second all second that motion thanks great all in favor roll call vote yes so president sata yes trustee parucci yes trustee masali yes trustee grabs yes and trusty moss yes great thank you okay thank you georgina um okay now we're moving ahead to 9.1 student reports and um i know i see some of our students here um is michaela moldero i think i saw her would you like to share some information today about benicia high school yeah i'd love to um so my wi-fi has been a little iffy i'm sorry if i cut out so i'll be talking about the things that are upcoming we do have concerning leadership

020we have um elections or we have an election meeting tomorrow actually so we're pretty excited about that to see who our upcoming officers are going to be and then the last time we had a meeting it was actually miss k had her athletics info night so that's super exciting i know a lot of students that are going out for those sports and so we collaborated with her and we're planning a senior night which we think we're going to start in mid-march and we're trying to figure out all the you know the regulations we have to go around so we're meeting with her and working on that and then we have a multicultural week in april that we're planning as of right now we're trying to figure out the gist of it we're thinking of doing

021like virtual tours that we can link the students to and then getting students like from different um cultural backgrounds like we have um a student in our leadership class his name is jinjin he's from china so his mom is gonna cook like i think his dumplings or something like that but she's gonna make a video for us and then we're gonna see if we can get like um other students like maybe dancers for like a student spotlight but like not soon spotlight because that's like um panther tv's thing so we're still trying to figure that out and then we have march madness also coming up one of our students his name is riley he's going to um take a poll and basically see like who can predict the scores for the games like that the

022closest i guess and then um whoever wins will get like a prize we're still trying to figure out like exactly how he's gonna do that just because that's a lot of people in a lot of teams so um and then we have a rally also coming up it's the friday before we go um on spring break we're trying to figure out if we can incorporate this sports in it just because we know that it's going to be hard since that's just when they're starting out and we don't know if they'll have captains yet but we're pretty sure we're going to like incorporate sports in that and yeah maddie's going to go on to what we have um still planning oh i also forgot to say um american poverty aid club is also collecting letters for

023our front line like um nurses and people like that so they're gonna they're collecting those for they did that today and they're doing it tomorrow and they're i believe they're going to send them out this weekend or drop them off to like the hospitals and things like that so they were collecting those and then key club has been doing you know just their usual treat um tree planning and things like that so yeah thank you michaela it's a lot going on a lot of things to look forward to so thank you for that um we also have asb vp madison furl if you'd like to join us and share any information that you have regarding medicinal high school hi again hi hello so we are so um we have done the panther podcast that is

024still on and going um actually miss k was featured on our episode this week so go on spotify and you can listen to that it's called panther podcast and then we also had our elective fair we made leadership a couple students in leadership made a video including myself to put out there just to and encourage people to go out for leadership and we also this week had senior sweatshirts going out to all the seniors so that was exciting to finally get our senior sweatshirts um our design looks amazing that was actually made by a student and then um not regarding leadership we actually for black student union we have been doing different weeks each each week in this month for black history month and an upcoming week is um hbcu week historically black colleges and

025universities so we will be having different um graduated students from is coming to talk to the students about hbcus and what all you can learn and just like the information on them in the history behind them so that's the things that we have done you've been busy too that's great those are great um programs and things that you've shared i appreciate you you being here tonight for that um and is alicia wells here for liberty high school i do not think i see her so apparently we don't have a report this evening from liberty high school so we're um again thank you ladies and if you would like to go and do your homework or watch television or whatever it is enjoy your evening thank you for being here we really appreciate it all right

026then moving on to 9.2 is our superintendent report dr young you're up thank you very much good evening trustees everybody joining us and uh folks that are watching at home just uh i'll be brief you know we have a number of public comments tonight a pretty full agenda but i just want to start off again by thanking everybody in the system who is tending to our students thank you and that we continue to tend to one another so thank you very much for that and uh i would like to keep um messaging and broadcasting the importance of as a community as a learning community in a town and that we continue to work together in ways that that build community um build community ways that are inclusive and respectful and hopeful so i like that

027i keep thinking about that it's such a great town and such a great school district and i want us to keep thinking about how we build community together because the virus will eventually go away and we will all be here together so we want to make sure we continue to build this positive place certainly for ourselves and for our kids um i mentioned at some point about the governor's safe schools for all plan that was out there there was an interesting piece in it i made a report on it there was timelines and dates and money involved et cetera uh and then it was in the legislator for some time and i got a report today that the legislature and the governor settled and they reached a deal there's a number of pieces to it

028i don't have all the details but when we process it i'll make sure that i'll communicate that certainly with the board and the team in the community to see in what way that may or may not affect our school district and the last thing i'll try to have more information in my update to the community tomorrow about the vaccine i know all school districts and all communities are wondering about the vaccine and supply and distribution dates etc so i have a little more information on that but i want to make sure i'm very clear before i put that out i'll try to get that succinct and put that out in my communication tomorrow to give a sense of how schools are being prioritized in some sense of the timeline so i'll have that for you

029um i should have that for everybody tomorrow as such as it is where it is it's been complicated so that's it from your superintendent thank you dr young um good report um okay then we're moving on to board reports from the members of the board who would like to cc grubbs gear up thank you i i have a couple i um got to participate in a couple of things last week um i was at along with mr slater i was asked to be a a judge in a in two with two fifth grade classes to determine for a debate and we were invited to um determine which group supported their topic of either for against plastic straws or um for or against self-driving vehicles so i have to say the level of research articulation statement

030of evidence with explanations on all sides was really impressive it was clear that the students not only enjoyed their topics but were very invested in doing a sophisticated and thorough job in researching and supporting their positions it was great it was really impressive and well done and then i also the same evening i had the honor of being invited by um andrew barrett along with dr moss to sit in on the culturally responsive teaching plc led by lindsay fuller and this is a dedicated group of teachers that are exploring their own biases their own cultures and they're reading a book called culturally responsive teaching by zoretta hammond and this works takes courage and self-reflection as well as a desire to grow and make and make change so i would like to um i'd like to

031stress that ms fuller is an amazing amazing facilitator that asked some very tough questions but she asked them with grace and understanding and i understand dr beetson that you've contracted with ms fuller to engage in a five-session workshop and um i strongly just i want to just strongly recommend that to staff and principals and and district office personnel to avail themselves of these sessions it's very powerful work thank you thank you very much miss grubbs anybody else have any report okay miss ferrucci i'm just gonna go real quick i sat on el cap this week with um dr beatson and mrs rice and she's gonna be sharing that tonight so i'm not gonna say too much more but i can't what i will tell you is this team has been working really really hard and

032it's exciting to hear um the dedication and the excitement about the work that they're doing so i just like to say thank you to the team um the other thing i did is i sat in on that county call today and um what i will just say is one little quote that i thought was really exciting and it was that the code disease is improving significantly in our in our county and everybody was very excited to hear that today so that's good news i agree thank you miss sata if you're talking we can't hear you mr miceli did you have anything to share out on reports dr moss nothing i i just want to make one comment and i want our teachers and staff to know how much we appreciate them um things have been

033difficult and there have been things said and and people's feelings have gotten hurt and i just want to say from myself and the board how much we appreciate their efforts and um and everything that they're doing to educate our children in the best way possible so i just want them to know we we care so um that being said uh we're going to move on to comments from members of the public and at this time michael sharif is going to be playing information that uh has been recorded on our call in line i'll go ahead and read this in an effort for our community's voice to be heard busd has transitioned into accepting public comments via the public comment voicemail that will now be available members of the public wishing to address specific items on

034the board meeting agenda are requested to call 707-748-2787 one comment per person per item limited to three minutes on the day of the meeting between 3 pm and 7 pm please note that no anonymous messages will be played if your comment is for closed session please be sure to state that so that it can be so that it can be addressed prior to closed session the board clerk will play the recording of all open session public comments to the specific items then being discussed by the board board bylaw 9323 during the public during the public comment item the government the governing board allows speakers to speak at meetings on agendas and non-agendized matters under public comment comments are limited to no more than three minutes per speaker at which time the voicemail will be cut

035off 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 we please we would like to please remind you to keep your comments respectful and that the students may be watching the board meeting um i want to say right before michael starts to play these that we did have some calls that i was able to hear prior to tonight's prior to this moment tonight and they were from some children and i um we're gonna allow them to be played because they're actually really cute um and but i want to remind everybody that from now on in the future that you need to leave a name um as you're leaving your comment because a

036few of the the younger ones didn't leave their name and but i do want them to be heard so um without further ado uh michael if you could start playing i would appreciate that britney sapien speaking to items 13.2 at the february 14th meeting dr matthias commented that it was highly unusual for a district to have approved sports but not in person learning i wonder what it says about our district from an outsider's perspective as to why we are one of the only districts in the area to not have special education offered for in-person learning i can tell you from an insider's perspective as a parent of two children with ieps it's incredibly frustrating i ask that the board stay on task tonight do not deviate from the agenda and vote to approve the start

037of small groups and one-to-one services immediately they are allowed under the purple tier without a waiver then begin to prepare and educate our staff and families on the safety protocols so that we can begin hybrid and the red tier on march 22nd thank you hello my name is jennifer burns and i'm a venetia resident in regards to discussion items 12.3 and 13.2 i support having the 1619 project being a part of the school's mandatory curriculum as an adult i'm having to come to terms with the fact that my schooling was based on lies and cover-ups i also do not support the reopening of schools before all the vaccinations have been out this to me is extremely irresponsible thank you hello my name is kashana lee and i have been a resident of venetia for over

03810 plus years i am also a parent of children who attend robert simple elementary and volusia high school i want to bring to your attention concerns that i have with the school district not doing enough to address racial inequity in our schools i'm a parent that has had three older children go to the venusia unified school district as well and each one of them has experienced some sort of racially traumatic and scarring incident that has occurred on school ground these incidents were either not addressed or quickly dismissed with no further action regarding item 12.3 for the plan and lcat process when finalizing lcap goals i ask that all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity and worry those who are disproportionately impacted should disproportionately benefit from it i ask that our children be

039provided with access to safe and equitable learning environment when they return to school in which teachers are provided with robust anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a curriculum that is historically accurate reflective and representative to the contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of the united states i ask that the district adopt the 1619 project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculum into all our classrooms further requiring every busd teacher to utilize these curricula to successfully integrate them into their daily teachings i advocate for all students to have equitable access to mental health services this goal can be achieved by staffing each school site or were full-time mental health support services composed of school

040counselors school psychologists and teachers who have participated in the robust anti-racist training preview previously mentioned this is to help potential long-term effects of those that have or will experience racially traumatic stress within the schools regarding item 13.1 safety plan i'm eager to hear how the site and district safety plans presented this evening specifically addressed the challenges of kovic safety to those community members demanding that our schools reopen immediately for in-person instruction i ask that we first hear our district's support on the code of safety upgrades that have been implemented at each school site along with how they plan to supply all staff members with adequate ppe thank you i'm colleen for 13.2 hi i'm in kindergarten and i arrive for the board members to come to our rally and february 26th my name is brandon

041finch i live on oxford way near rose drive i am the parent of a child who attends venetia high school with respect to item 12.3 strategic plan lcap process when finalizing the lcap goals i ask that all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity in mind those who have been disproportionately impacted should disproportionately benefit we're not currently doing enough to address racial inequality performance gaps and racial trauma experienced by our kids at school a place where they should be safe i ask that our children be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment when they return to school in which teachers are provided with robust anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices i strongly advocate for our children to have access to a

042curriculum that is historically accurate please just tell the truth about what our history is i want that history to be reflective and representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups to the culture of the united states including the trauma inflicted upon those groups i ask that the district adopt the 16-19 project curriculum in all of our classrooms and teachers integrate this into their daily teachings i also want to advocate for all students to have equitable access to mental health services this goal can be achieved by staffing each school site with full-time mental health support services composed of school counselors a school psychologist and teachers who have participated in robust anti-racist trainings previously mentioned our children need mental health services kids who are branded as bad children are not necessarily bad children but if nobody takes

043the time to understand them they'll simply get in trouble and then the school can't do its job to educate them with respect to item 13.1 the safety plan i'm eager to hear how the site and district safety plans presented this evening will specifically address the challenges of kova safety in school to those community members demanding that our schools reopen immediately for in-person instruction i ask that they wait so that we can first hear from our district regarding the covid safe upgrades that are implemented at each school site along with how the school district plans to supply all staff with adequate ppe our students and our teachers should be safe lastly though it's not an item on the agenda i do want to state for the record that i oppose the current campaign to single out

044trustees sherry zada and mark macelli for recall it's simply not right thank you very much appreciate your time hi my name is nancy rodstein i live in benicia and oxford way and i'm a parent of a child who attends venusia high school with regard to discretion item 12.3 strategic plan and lcap process this is my comment when finalizing these lcap goals i ask that all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity in mind those who are disproportionately impacted should disproportionately benefit i don't think that we're currently doing enough to address racial inequity performance gaps and the racial trauma being experienced by kids at school where they should be safe i ask that children be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment when they return to school in which teachers are

045provided with robust anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices 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 ask that the district adopts the 1619 project curriculum into all of our classrooms and that teachers integrate integrate this into their daily teaching i also advocate for all students have equitable access to mental health services this goal can be achieved by staffing each school site with full-time mental health support services composed of school counselors school psychologists and teachers who participated in the robust anti-racist trainings previously mentioned in regard to discussion item 13.1 the safety plan i would like to ask that we hear or

046just report the coveted safe upgrades implemented at each school site before making decisions about going back um and i do not although this is not an agenda item i wish to say that i do not support the re recall campaign uh for recalling cherizada and mark maseli thank you rosalind johnson 433 solano drives the item i'd like to address is 12.3 please incorporate the 1619 project into the entire venetian unified school district curriculum if applied properly it not only covers american history but science the environment space mathematics language and the arts remember and underscore the importance of the 1619 project as american history not black history the removal of the contributions of african descendants of enslaved people has had a catastrophic impact on everyone in america today white students and staff need to know and

047understand the efforts of adult people and how these efforts have enhanced life for all of us additionally the curriculum must be supplemented by creating partnerships with local and bay area museums libraries businesses and consulting with african-american professionals in the education and training for social just justice equity and the eradication of white supremacist practices and judgments hi my name is elaine kichowick i live at 500 beaumont street in benicia and i'm the mom of a robert temple elementary first grader i wish to speak to item number 40.4 in the closed session regarding individual student need so along with other parents of children in our class who have opted to transition back to hybrid learning we received an email from the school informing us that in-person learning is not available at robert temple for kids in her

048class due to our daughter's teacher continuing to exclusively to uh teach virtually so we've been given the option of having our first graders go to another school for the last quarter of the year or continue with virtual learning only for first graders there is a very clear benefit to having in-person instruction my daughter's teacher is skilled and wonderful but my child is engaged for a very low percentage of the time in virtual classes and is missing social skill development almost entirely there's also a clear benefit to not putting six-year-olds in the position of acclimating to a brand new school where parents aren't going to be allowed on campus and there there won't be much of a transition period for the last two months of the school year i know that the district needs to set

049up schools safely but to put much of the class of first graders in the position of not being able to attend their neighborhood school shows disregard for the extremely problematic position that this puts these kids in whatever option we choose my kids educational experience will have been negatively impacted whereas other kids will have the opportunity to learn more simply on the basis of their assigned teacher this is not equitable i thank the board for their time and listening to this need in regards to first grade students at robert temple elementary school thank you hello my name is gia quinn and i would like to speak to item 13.2 regarding in-person small group instructions i asked the board to please vote to approve small groups and one-to-one specialized services immediately it's difficult to understand why this

050hasn't been started yet even though there are multiple public schools doing this and the catholic school here in town is back in person and they're doing very well i would like to thank dr beatson for meeting with the parents a few months ago regarding small group instruction she had a lot of really good information and she seemed to understand the need and i'd like to thank her for being willing to represent tonight for further clarification so that there would be no confusion as to what is being voted on as i stated in my comments to the board a couple of weeks ago the board has yet to actively address the issue of starting small groups and special ed services moving to in-person learning please be transparent in your decision as well as in science discussion

051and thought that leads to any lack of approval thank you hi my name is matt burns i'm a venetia resident in regard to discussion item 12.3 12.3 as a person who plans to have children one day who will attend the mission unified school district schools i want to advocate for our students to have access to curriculum that is historically accurate and honest i want to make sure that my kids will be in the hands of a school system that makes equity a priority for all students that those in our community who are disproportionately impacted are disproportionately benefited when considering lcap gold i also ask that the school district adopt a 1619 project curriculum for all its schools and private and provide teachers with anti-racist training that all students have equitable equitable access to mental health

052services in regard to item 13.1 and eager to hear how the site and district safety plan presented this evening planned to address kobut's safety i would also like to publicly oppose the current campaign to single out trustees sheriff sherry zeta and mark miceli for recall this feels like a waste of time and money i also find it interesting that these two are being singled out i would like to ask the community members organizing this effort where were there voices of outrage and urgency when our own school district members report back that african-american students are failing at this proportionate rate i understand they want what's best for their children i hope the school district will focus on what's best for all children thank you hi my name is laura cohen and i want to voice my

053public comment to discussion item 12.3 which is the strategic plan and lcap process i would like to respectfully ask that when finalizing lcap goals all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity in mind those students who are disproportionately impacted should disproportionately benefit i want to strongly advocate for our district to adapt the 1619 project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculums into all of our busc classrooms it is imperative that our children 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 want to also advocate for all students to have equitable access to mental health services in which each of our school sites can be staffed with full-time mental health support services composed of school

054counselors school psychologists and teachers who have participated in the robust anti-training anti-racist trainings that have been provided by our professional learning community at this time i would also like to express my deepest gratitude to andrew barrett and allison cornwall whom are the founders of our anti-racist plc their dedication passion and endless commitment to providing these imperative anti-racist training opportunities to all of our venetia teachers and extended staff will no doubt have a direct impact on so many of our children's lives as they begin to transition back into their classrooms especially our students of color and our students who have been impacted the most during this pandemic i hope to see many more anti-racist training opportunities for our busd staff to come i would also like to acknowledge and thank our district for distributing information to

055all of our busa staff members regarding these imperative anti-racist training opportunities thank you for recognizing the need for anti-racist training in our district and i hope you will all attend these imperative training sessions as well and lastly i would like to give a huge shout out to jessica garcia for her dedication and commitment to our children and their families thank you for all the time and energy you have put into creating and providing so many incredible mental health resources for our busd school community and families i'm really looking forward to attending your next social emotional learning parent workshop on february 24th from 5 to 5 30 titled combating isolation and learning strategies on how to keep our kids connected and maintain their friendships during covis thank you for your time and thank you for listening

056to our voice hi i am an elementary school student here in venetia i want to ask if you will please come support us at the student rally next friday february 26th thank you my name is amira barger my address is clearview circle venetia california and i'm calling regarding discussion item 12.3 the strategic plan and lcap process i am a parent of a child who attends mary farmer elementary school and i wanted to leave comment and bring attention to some concerns that i have with the school district and what is being done to address racial equity in our schools particularly for our black children i'm concerned about this as a mother of a second grader who is a black child going to school in a majority white city a majority white district with teachers and students

057who don't often look like her when finalizing the lcap goals you know regarding item number 12.3 i wanted to state that i asked all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity in mind ensuring that those who are disproportionately impacted should benefit disproportionately and wanted to ask for three specific items in regards to our children returning to school safely that our teachers are provided with the resources that they need in terms of ppe and i'd like to hear about the coveted safety procedures that would be put in place this is a part of in place into the equity piece in item 12.3 i'd love to see anti-racist trainings that are not only robust but consistent and ongoing and that they include restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practices i also

058strongly advocate for our children have access to curriculum that's historically accurate reflective and representative of the contributions of all ethnic groups of the culture here in the u.s and i ask that the district adopt the project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculum into all classrooms and require that our busd teachers utilize that curricula to safely integrate or successfully integrate the equity piece into their daily teaching for all the children in charge to their care i want to advocate for all students to have equitable access to mental health services and that goal in particular can be achieved by staffing each school site with full-time mental health support services composed of school counselors school psychologists and teachers who've participated in the anti-racist trainings that i mentioned previously so thank you very much i want to

059express my support for all of our board of trustees and the work that you're doing to carry forward with your jobs and using your authority to make sure that equity is at the forefront of the school experience for all of our students and our teachers who again are entrusted with our children day in and day out thank you very much good evening james farrucci item 13.2 hi i'm a student and i would like for the board members to come to the rally and help support us getting back in school hi i'm also a student and sometimes i feel like it's unfair to see the preschoolers that get to play on a playground which we don't so i ask you board members to come to the rally and support us children to get back into school

060thank you hi my name is brandon green 227 vanisha california 227 carlyle way i'm calling in support of an equity approach to the lcat process in particular centering the experiences and the voices of black students who are the most severely of course the impact is within the district and encouraging the district to not only take a look at the way in which services are applied the way in which resources are allotted but also specifically the way curriculum is designed in school climate is implemented to make sure that all students feel comfortable and supported again with the particular focus on black students as the most disproportionately impacted as part of that culturally relevant curriculum i'm urging that the district take a look at the 1619 project curriculum and other ethnic studies curriculum that frame the experiences

061of indigenous students and other ethnic groups within the district i'm also calling in regard to item 13.1 the safety plan recognizing that there are some parents who want their kids to come back this again is a racial justice and equity issue all the available data nationwide in eastern california shows that on the whole black parents uh are not represented within the data of parents who want their kids to come back and that's because black families are discoursely impacted by the virus itself and economic consequences that come from it and black children are also most severely impacted both by the fatalities and the illness itself and so i would urge the district within their plan to make sure that there is an equity focus that specifically details what the district what steps the districts are taking

062with regard to black students their safety and the safety of their family and extended family thank you so much aaron sapien item 13.2 tonight you're deciding on whether or not to provide services to children without disabilities and kids from low-income homes let that sink in you all are actually sitting around deciding whether or not to help these kids and their parents out how many studies and individual assessments have to be done to show that the lack of services during copic will permanently affect kids with disabilities for you all to do the right thing it's your responsibility to give the parents and the teachers the choice to return to the classroom some of you say your teachers married to teachers retired teachers well how many of you are special ed teachers you how many are parents

063of kids with disabilities like my wife and i we have twins five five-year-old boys with autism who have struggles every day in june my right my wife writes you all emails you can't even respond instead we start hearing about how her how it's harassment and bullying it's embarrassing to have kids in the district and i'm embarrassed for you all let me tell you from someone who works in the field that is often criticized you need thicker skin especially when you're in a position of authority which means main jobs to serve the public so stop claiming bullying and harassment when all you get are emails from parents asking to help their kids out consider considering the public pays my salary as a first responder i don't have a choice whether or not to go to into

064work i show up put a mask on respond to calls all day in the streets as a homeowner in this city i pay taxes it's crazy to me that the board is not listening to the parents in the community when we pay for our where we pay for our salaries and elected you into the positions you have i sure hope you all find some morals and bring these kids with the greatest needs back into the classrooms thank you good evening my name is scott swaboda i'm at 437 arguello drive in venetia i'm a benicia resident calling to provide public comment on agenda item 13.2 as well as general comment for open session i have a daughter that is a junior and a son that is a freshman at dhs my son is a special needs

065student and has an iep the nishi schools are what brought us to this town 18 years ago the teachers and educators here have been fantastic and we thank you for all you've done and are doing to educate our children my kids need to return to in-person school badly i want them to experience what high school has to offer academically socially emotionally and physically as a special needs student my son is struggling mightily this is a very important time frame in life for our kid and it can literally shape the type of adults they will be and the type of career path they will take the memories they will make will last a lifetime and i want them to have positive memories of this time in their lives they are our future we need to take

066care of these soon-to-be men and women who will be our future i realize this is not an easy decision and that we all want to return to classes safely and feel as protected as we can because of that i formed a small group that we call the busd vaccine task force this group is made up of some fantastic parents who are motivated to get their kids back to the classroom positively and safely our main goal is to get a vaccination clinic here in venetia to vaccinate educators so that they may feel more comfortable returning to in-person classes i have been in communications with superintendent dr charles young venesha mayor steve young dr bella matias of solano county and school board president sherry beta they are all trying very hard to move teachers up in priority

067to receive the vaccine other school districts have done this namely napa sacramento marin and now fairfield sassoon are going back and are vaccinating their educators in doing so we are very close to being able to host a vaccination clinic here in benicia we have the probable venue a group of motivated parents willing to help and a knowledgeable mayor city council city manager fire department and police force ready to help women if needed they hosted an outstanding vaccination clinic a couple weeks ago and they can help us do it again for our teachers but we need one thing from the school board to make this happen we need you to set a firm reopening date for march 22nd dr matchas has stated that once we have a firm reopening date you will send enough vaccine to

068us to cover the teachers who will be returning to in-person teaching if you vote to return on march 22nd the busd vaccine task force will assist in whatever way possible to help our fantastic teachers return safely and protected to in-person classes not just with the option to get vaccinated but also with helping to ensure other safety measures are in place as well we know they want to return we know you want them to and i know all parents and students want to as well so please help them by voting for return to in-person classes on march 22nd thank you good evening board members i am calling regarding item 13.2 i am asking that the board adheres to the tiered system allowing for in-person learning to resume current state guidelines allow for small groups to return

069to in-class instruction under the purple tier to date venetia has failed to offer small group instruction under the purple tier even to our most vulnerable students within the next couple of weeks solano county will likely hit the red tier current guidelines under the red tier allow for hybrid learning with that being said why the delay venetia schools have been open venetia schools should have been open last fall however a couple of you chose to be selfish rather than focusing on what is best for our students a perfect example of this is a comment made by board member maseli on facebook the evening of november november 19 2020 following the board meeting just moments prior teacher laura rourke made a post regarding how the board just voted to return to hybrid learning after the holidays there

070were a few comments by other individuals expressing frustration and anger and then board member miceli commented quote let me see if we can fix this end quote then at the very next board meetings on 12 10 and 12 17 board member miceli asked for a revo as he didn't know what he was voting on clearly this was board member miceli's way of delaying our students from returning to in-class instruction enough time has been wasted you continue to fail our students every single day you refuse to allow our schools to open small group instruction needs to begin immediately and hybrid learning needs to begin once solano county is in the red tier board members this isn't rocket science schools have been proven to not be super spreaders it is time to follow the science and guidelines

071provided to us by the medical experts state leaders and health departments no more excuses our children's education and mental health is suffering at your expense thank you hi my name is nimac shakur grantham and i am a bonisha resident and i want to speak on um let's see item let's see well i i have a child who um attended the venetian middle school and high school and i want to let's see i want to talk about the item i think 12.3 and let's see um yeah 12.3 um so again uh i i want to bring your attention concerns that i have that the school district has not done enough to address racial inequity in our school i'm concerned about this because when my son was a student there in junior high school and high school

072he went through quite a few racial incidents um that were not addressed when brought to the attention of the teachers and the principals and i had to take action on that because it just wasn't right and to my knowledge these children are still dealing with racial issues in addition to um a disparity in um in uh being suspended um and other things that are not good for their education so definitely something needs to be done and i just did find out about the teacher i guess there was a teacher at the school who uh had them read a classical book i don't know it was um to kill a mockingbird didn't want to say the n-word and then uh the teacher uh just wasn't sensitive to that and um the child was basically ridiculed and

073just wasn't listened to my name is sarah westmoreland i live at 827 wainwright street indonesia i am commenting on item 12.3 the strategic plan um i am not a parent but i am a community member who's lived in venetia for 14 years and i have been very dismayed at the racism that exists here in indonesia and i think that we need to combat this on many fronts and one of the main areas that we need to focus on is the school curriculum our school curriculum is not really representative of what really happened in american history and i think that needs to change in order to better educate people on racial injustice and inequities and i ask that you would bring the 1619 project curriculum into any other racial equity curriculum that you may have thank

074you hi my name is gene walker i live at 88 danbury way indonesia my comment is not an agendaized item this is recall regarding the recall first i would like to state that i oppose the current campaign to single out trustees sherry zada and mark miceli for recall we call it a waste of time and money particularly now when we have neither to spare i understand the motivation behind this recall is a parental concern that their children's education is being neglected in distance learning i would ask the community members behind this recall campaign where were your voices of outrage and urgency when others have been telling us for years that our african-american students have been failing at disproportionate rates data collected by our own district leadership proves an inequitable experience for students particularly our african

075american students and students with special needs how can we as a community claim to care about student success without first doing something about two particular populations of students who are clearly being left behind we don't have the resources or time to be engaging in a recall process when there is so much other work to be done to ensure academic success for all of our venusia unified school district students in closing i would like to express my support for all of our board trustees as you carry forward with the job of using your authority to ensure an equitable school experience for all students keep asking each other the hard questions and working for the greater good i applaud the courage and commitment it takes to carry out your role thank you very very much hi my

076name is nimat shakur grantham and i might um i'm a vanisha resident and i would like to address item 12.3 um so i asked that in finalizing the lcap goals that all of the resources be developed and administered with equity in mind to those who are disproportionately impacted they should basically benefit i ask that the children who truly need to benefit from the lcap process be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment when they return to school in which teachers are provided with robust anti-racist training and administrators as well and this includes restorative justice practices racial equity trainings and trauma-based interventions and practice i strongly advocate for the children to learn from the 1619 project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculum i feel this benefits all students and i feel

077that this curriculum needs to be implemented throughout the venetia school district with access to all the grades the grade levels thank you good evening my name is caitlin kozak and i am a venetian resident calling to provide public comment on agenda item 13.2 code 19 has led many of us to become unqualified epidemiologists in planning school reopening i am fortunate to have a masters of public policy degree from johns hopkins university which included graduate coursework at a school that has been consistently rated the number one public health school in the country despite this background i do not claim to be a public health expert instead my graduate degree has prepared me to listen understand and agree with the conclusions of our nation's public health experts that we can safely reopen school today i urge our

078board to also listen to our nation's public health experts and a to approve in-person small group instruction if you do not approve small group instruction this evening it would be a statement that you disagree with the current guidance from the national centers of disease control the california department of public health and the california department of education in my last public comment i quoted guidance from the cdc on school operations i was dismayed to see one of our board members shaking their head disagreeing with the cdc's recommendations i would like to respectfully ask the qualifications of our board members who disagree with the cdc's recommendations and how their background enables them to come to differing determinations what backgrounds or degrees in public health epidemiology or medical research do you have that is superior to the leaders

079of the cdc to the leaders of the california department of public health this evening i would also like to ask the board to affirm their previously approved reopening plan which begins to incorporate in-person learning on march affirming this plan will enable the solano county department of public health to prioritize their educators to receive program 19 vaccinations i stand ready and willing to support our educators in receiving vaccinations to feel safe in returning to in-person instruction i've joined with over 40 parents and volunteers known as the busa vaccine task force we are ready to organize and administer a vaccination clinic for our teachers as soon as possible by reaffirming this reopening plan we can join other districts in our county and vaccinate our educators i was overjoyed to learn fairfield society unified school district has elected

080to return to in-person instruction and that they are now coordinating with the solano county public health department to operate a vaccine clinic for their teachers let's join us let's listen to our public health experts and pave the way for our educators to be vaccinated let's join napa marin and sacramento county districts in embracing the guidance of our nation's public health leaders fascinating our teachers and beginning to reopen for in-person instruction thank you caius case 929 rose drive hi my name is please open our schools and go to the valley next week hello my name is kathleen ruiz i am calling with a comment for item 13.2 my address is on barton wing i am calling yet again to ask to please start small groups and special education as soon as possible after watching the presentation

081by dr matthias and watching the presentation of the mou back in november i know our district will keep our children safe there is absolutely no reason that we have not started this yet other than fear after watching the workshop on february 4th that i am so glad all of you are a part of i can tell there were many things that needed to be learned i was extremely saddened by the facebook post that i have seen continuing after this meeting by mr miceli jokes about our children returning to school and the social well-being of our children i do not find funny and i believe that that is him speaking for only one group of his constitutes and that is not okay with me by any means so to the rest of you i truly hope

082that you listen to science and put our children's best interests first please allow small groups and special education to start as soon as possible our most critical children are counting on you robert crowley i live over on eaton court i am calling in uh in regards to discussion item 12.3 the strategic plan and lcap goals i wanted to speak specifically about the implementation of the 1619 project curriculum i understand that the district is going through some trainings and webinars in order to find ways to get it implemented and i think that's great but i think parent voices are going to be really important especially from african american parents and parents of african-american kids and finding a way to implement it not only in high school and middle schools but really k through 12. talking to

083parents in our community they find it really important that uh you know kids at the elementary school age are getting the correct education and understanding um you know the true history of our country and what's going on um and so i i just wanted to call in and make sure i reiterate the importance of the 1619 project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculum and i hope that the board and the district is really looking at ways that that we can implement it and be a leader within our state within our country in updating a curriculum that's well outdated in a way that that's uh true honest supports everyone and is fully inclusive thank you for your time good evening my name is christa heredia i live on east k street here in venetia

084i'm the parent of an adult son who attended venetian middle school as well as vinicia high school and i have two more children are currently attending robert trump elementary we love our school go dragons i'm calling in regard to discussion item 12.3 the strategic plan the lcap process when finalizing lcap goals i ask that all programs and resources be developed and administered with equity in mind i encourage us not to get hung up on services and structures needing to benefit all students in order to be valuable there are times when it's appropriate for students who have been disproportionately impacted to then disproportionately benefit i ask that all children be provided with access to a safe and equitable learning environment when they return to school with teachers who are provided with a robust anti-racist training module

085i advocate for those trainings to increase things like restorative justice practices racial equity awareness training and trauma-based interventions and practices 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 ask that the district adapt the 1619 project curriculum as well as other culturally responsive curriculum into all of our classrooms then require all of our busb teachers to utilize these curricula to successfully integrate them into their gaming teaching lastly i would like to state that i oppose the current campaign that singles out our trustees cherie zada and marc macelli for recall a recall is a waste of time and money particularly now we have needs of those to spare i understand the

086motivation behind this recall is parental concern that their children's education is being neglected in distance learning a tough question that i have for those community members behind this recall campaign is where were your voices of outrage and urgency when others have been telling us for years that our african-american students have been feeling a disproportionate rates data collected by our own district leadership proves that there has been an inequitable experience for our students particularly african-american students and our students with special needs so how can we as a community care to claim about student success without first doing something about two particular populations of students who are clearly being left behind we don't have the resources or time to be engaging in the recall process when there is so much other work to be done to ensure

087academic success for all of our students in closing i would like to express my support for all of our board trustees as you carry forward with the job of using your authority to ensure an equitable school experience for all students keep asking each other the hard questions and working for the greater good i applaud your courage and commitment that it takes to carry out your role thank you hi this is sarah ferrucci and i'm calling on item 13.2 at the february 6 board meeting carolyn finders advised the board on roles and responsibilities of a governance team she noted that quote many of you spoke about teachers that's an awful strong sentiment to listen to your teachers here which i would just say to you i'm going to be friendly enough with you to say be

088mindful that you're not so loyal to one voice that others maybe like parents and others think that you're not being heard because you are responsible for hearing from all end quotes it's obvious that most of the members of this board forget they have a responsibility to represent the parents and the students i urge you all to keep them at the center of your thoughts tonight consider the science and believe in your staff and teachers ability to implement the safety guidelines and protocols we're not asking for things that can't be accomplished whether you're willing to face it or not it has been proven that throughout the entire world and in small towns all the way to large cities from private to public schools that it can happen science the cdc and pediatricians all agree it's time

089to reopen schools it can be done safely we're asking you to join the other bay area districts and open our schools we ask that you vote to start small groups now and allow for hybrid to open as soon as possible and get venetia unified back on track as the board has indicated and i have mentioned the focus has been one-sided with that i formally request the formation of a citizen advisory committee specifically commissioned to the safe opening of schools in accordance with all applicable laws and guidance i request this be done within the soonest legal timeline afforded thank you bye that concludes all of our public comments okay is that better okay um i just want to thank the members of our public for taking the time to make those phone calls um we really

090do appreciate when you do share um the information that you feel is important to be shared so thank you again for that and i want to kindly remind everybody to make sure um from this time forward that when you are leaving a message to be played during our open session meeting that you do leave a name i think one uh got through without us and um we want to do better let's make sure it's all uniform so again thank you very much it's miss ada yes um we uh we don't enter into cover uh a dialogue after public comment but i did want to have dr gill make a quick point of clarification because it's related to the safety plans that many parents talked about and to differentiate the covid safety plan and that mou

091with what mr thompson is going to talk about so dr gill if you just take a second to do that because it's important to note the difference thank you um good evening thank you dr young um good evening everyone so the 13.1 where mr thompson is going to be talking about the safety plans those are annual school safety emergency plans uh that's what he is going to be bringing forward not covert 19 safety plan covered 1916 plan is a totally separate document that was a document that dr young sent in his emails communicated um and uh we are in the process of finalizing their document uh it uh will be consists of two different uh components it will be co is for called cover 19 safety plan uh we'll have a checklist and a prevention

092program covered 90 prevention programs so we will be finalizing it and posting it on our website fairly soon thank you dr gill sure thank you okay at this point we're going to move on to item number 11 the consent calendar um 11.1 or excuse me all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and 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 request specific items to be pulled and discussed so um we have 11.1 the immediate the minutes for the meetings of february 4th 2021 and february 6 2021 and 11.2 approval of the personnel action list do i have a motion to accept the consent calendar as written jerry i'll move

093to accept and approve the calendar as presented tonight thank you do i have a second oh second thank you cece uh can i uh um you have a roll call mrs martinez thank you yes trustee grubbs yes justin miceli yes trusty moss yes and who am i missing trusty ferrucci sorry there you are that's like i'm like where is my people thank you i'm hiding all right so um all those in favor aye all those opposed nothing so we go ahead and the motion carries we're now moving on to 11.3 consideration and approval of resolution number 20-21-14 the resolution of the venetian unified school district is request requesting the treasurer to make a constitutional advance to the district uh approval of resolution 2021-14 to transfer we're requesting the uh the county board of supervisors to

094authorize the county treasurer to transfer approximately 13 million 660 891 in one or more loans to the venetian unified school district to cover one or more cash shortages caused by delays and receipt of revenues from the state which the district is lawfully entitled do this this one qualifies under the same first and second so we can just do a real call president's data thank you very much roll call vote please president zeta yes trustee grubbs yes trustee masali yes trustee moss yes and trustee ferrucci yes thank you thank you miss zeta did we uh do the personnel action also that was um yeah that was 11.1 and 11.2 yeah i said both oh okay i'm sorry i think thank you um moving on to discussion items number 12. um the first item up is measure

095s citizens bond oversight committee's annual report and um let me see here and um roxanne egan our bond director is going to provide some information for us and i believe also david sells will be sharing some information so mrs egan if you'd like to go ahead thank you president zada um we have a couple of discussion items with updates for bond projects on the agenda tonight the first one is an annual um presentation with the report that's provided by our bond oversight committee chair and that um new chair that just got elected or appointed is david sells so he's going to speak to the first item and then the second item is a it's a quarterly update for our most recent meeting that we had after we have those we always bring the same information

096shared and discussed at those meetings out to the board so the first one's annual and the second one um is reflecting the quarterly stuff so with that i'll turn it over to david and we're really pleased to have him as our new chair and also um just their ongoing commitment to the oversight committee thank you roxanne good evening and as roxanne said my name is david sells and i'm the chairperson for the uh citizens bond oversight committee for major s as the chair of this committee it's my privilege to present the annual report for uh fiscal year 2019 and 2020. but before i do i'd like to thank the other committee members that take part in overseeing the proceeds from the bond measures and that they're spent in accordance with the the laws of the

097state of california joining me on this committee are the former chairs scott burford todd blatler and andre lewis and we'd also like to welcome our newest committee member mark hughes that will join us for this coming fiscal year um we'd like to thank chief business official tim ray hill and bond director roxanne egan we're grateful to both tim and roxanne for their strict attention to detail and incredible management of the bond funds and the reportings associated with it we'd also like to thank superintendent dr charles young for making time to be at our quarterly meetings not only to share his updates but also to ask for feedback as well the purpose of the citizens bond oversight committee is to inform the public on how the funds are being used review bond expenditures and present the

098annual report to the school board so that being said the committee reports that the fiscal year 2019-2020 that the benicia unified school district has spent measures bonds proceeds according to the bond project list contained in the ballot measure and is therefore in compliance with the requirements of california's constitution article 13 a section one the committee held three quarterly meetings uh this past fiscal year we held one in october of january of 2020 and again in august of with the third quarter meeting being cancelled due to the onset of the coven pandemic uh the third quarter information was presented during our fourth quarter meeting however at our quarterly meetings the committee met to receive bond project updates and to review the bond expenditures list and so for fiscal year 2019-2020 the committee reviewed uh bond expenditures

099of 7 million 226 000 plus the 2019-2020 bond expenditures were spent on technology and infrastructure at 357 000 middle school campus modernization at 3.6 million middle school seismic updated 242 000 high school performing arts building update at 426 000 mary farmer modernization design at 000 fire alarm upgrades throughout the district at 1.4 million project management at 173 000 hvac upgrades at 365 000 tennis court upgrades at the middle middle and high schools at 513 000 fencing at various locations for 41 000 and lighting and upgrades and and other expenses at 55 000 so there was nine 19.2 million in major s funds remaining as of uh 30th of 2020 to be spent on measures bond projects and to be reviewed by the committee at our quarterly meetings during the 2021 fiscal year so in closing

100it has been an honor to work with this amazing team of committee members and the staff at busd i am proud to be part of this community that works to make our children's education a priority and i'd like to thank the board for their continued support of the major s bond projects we have seen a great deal of improvements to our facilities this year and look forward to more to come in this next fiscal year thank you thank you mr cells i'd like to find out if anybody has any questions or if there's any discussion regarding the um the s the s quarterly bond update or the s citizens bond oversight committee's report nobody okay then um thank you again uh mrs egan and also um mr sells i appreciate all that you're doing to

101make this come to fruition it's great thank you okay i'm going to move on to item 12.3 which is um dr beatson um we'll report on the strategic plan lcap process the purpose of the report is to inform board the board and public uh of the requirements components process and timeline for the development of the 2021 through the 2024 strategic okay plan l cap so without further ado dr beatson if you would like to take it away i would thank you so much thank you president zeta members of the school board i'm here to share with you the process which we are embarking on for our strategic plan lcap for next year let me get this up and going here okay so tonight um i want to share with you and um that uh we're

102developing the strategic plan lcap for our district accountability plan for student success and the local control funding formula spending we'll talk a little bit about that i'll revisit how this current year we had a one-year learning continuity and attendance plan that replaced the three-year ltap and that we are in the process of writing a new three-year lcap which will be a 2021 through 2024 lcap everything we do uh is grounded in the foundation of our district's vision where all students will achieve at their highest potential in an engaging inspiring and challenging learning environment several years ago dr young took our community through a process where we developed these organizational beliefs and desired characteristics there's a lot of information in here and as part of the stakeholder engagement process which i'll talk about in a little

103bit i will share with you how we are soliciting feedback on these as well so the strategic plan lcap was put into law in 2013-14 when we shifted our funding and budgeting in the state of california to the local control funding formula so accompanying that shift in budgeting processes we needed to create a an accountability plan which outlines our goals actions services and budgets um and there are several compliance pieces that go along with this as well and and there are um also a set template that the state gives us that we have to use uh for this um plan a couple of years ago um the school board decided to also use this local control accountability plan the lcap is our district strategic plan and so we make it really broad and robust in

104order to have it really drive the work that we do and use it as a roadmap for continuous improvement the document when it's written in its entirety is probably close to 180 pages it's quite robust and i just wanted to remind everyone about what is in that document so the document starts with a three-year plan summary i always think of that as the cliff note so if you don't want to read all 180 pages you can get a pretty good just what will be in the plan in that summary the annual update is a section in the new template that we'll be using this year the annual update is built right into the goal section instead of having it be sort of a standalone chapter if you will and that is where we talk about

105what we planned to do and what we actually were able to implement and what we plan to spend and what actually happened and so um when i present to you in may um our um lcap for approval the annual update will be for the 2019-20 lcap because we did not implement one this past year due to covet or this current year rather due to cope the annual update will also be presented in may for the lcp the learning continuity and attendance plan which we did implement this year in place of the upcoming another section of the entire lcap document is a robust stakeholder engagement and so by um edcode we are required to consult um uh with several stakeholder groups and i'll talk about that in a minute and in banish unified we actually go

106above and beyond that and have a whole team that is put together with our union leadership and parents um and district leadership to um really look and and collaborate on all the information gathered that goes into the lcap there's also the section on budget the budget is aligned with the actions that is a new uh way the lcap will look this year instead of having in the past the the goals the actions and services were on some pages and then the budgets were on uh the following pages this time they will all be aligned which will be much easier to read the other thing to note is that there are eight state priorities that must be addressed in the lcap everything from implementing of state standards course access achievement in terms of the state test

107and el english language proficiency ap pass rate parent involvement attendance chronic absenteeism so we have a lot of pieces that we have to report on and there are um 23 metrics that that we have to address as well another component of the lcap is the identification of concentration funds by um action and so the contrib excuse me the concentration funds are the funding that we get for our english learner foster youth homeless and socio-economically disadvantaged it's a small bump in funding that we get for those student groups and this time we will be able to identify which particular actions in our lcap are addressing those student groups that is a requirement by edcode we have some changes there's a whole narrative section in the lcap and that sort of tells the story and so there's

108some changes in the questions on there and then we have to give a description of how the needs of the el low income foster youth and homeless were considered first before selecting each action to be provided school and district wide so there's a few changes that you'll see in the lcap this coming school year in addition to the lcap document itself there will be an lcap parent budget overview that will be uh brought to you in may and then the lcap federal addendum which is another component and it's a bridge between the federal funding that we get and our local funding state funding rather so what do we need to do currently we need to write a new three-year lcap which will be our strategic plan we need to consider the impacts of covid we

109need to solicit some additional feedback and use and we will also be able to use our prior stakeholder engagement and data with gathering this new information so what did we already do i have to bring you back to just a little over a year ago in january we held some robust stakeholder engagement all of our staff had the ability to do that at our january 19th pd day where they went through and really analyzed our data and gave feedback on all the actions and services and goals and did prioritization we did that with our students and we had forums with our families um we also sent out surveys then we created an ltc lcap task force made up of uh staff and families our parents rather where we looked at all of the priorities and

110all of the data and sliced and diced it and then came up with a strategic plan that we brought to you um for the 2020 to 2023 school year well we were going to bring it to you in may that was not implemented due to coping but it was um we had all of that data and feedback the priorities that we identified last january were really around social emotional learning technology and intervention and then increasing pathways for our students and so we brought this information to our lcap um we call ourselves the el capitans it is our staff and our our parent group that meets monthly to to work on the lcap and believe that these are still the right priorities but we had some additions which i will share with you in a minute

111the other piece that we need to consider even though we have all of this robust feedback from a year ago is this commitment and focus to equity and opportunity and that needs to be a very clear through way through all of the work in the lcap we also need to consider that potentially our students will have been learning from home for almost a year and what is the impact of that another piece is that when we can flip that over and say what opportunity do we have because education has looked relatively the same for hundreds of years and so as dr young likes to say our system is unfrozen for the first time in a lot of years and so it's an opportunity to stop and think about how do we want to reset as

112we come back on board and another piece to consider because we saw technology in the previous uh priority is that our teachers and staff and students have had to really significantly expand their tech skills over this past school year and so that is still a priority but the priority has shifted a bit we have some new data that we considered as we looked at what we at what areas we wanted our goals to be in and what we need to do for actions and services i reviewed this data with you a couple of meetings ago so i'm not going to go through it again but what it did continue to highlight for us is while we have some areas of celebration we also have some major disparities that we need to continue to address through

113an equity lens so i bring to you just where we are right now we have expanded we've always had three goals in our lcap and based on feedback and data we are uh proposing that we will expand to four goals one will have a major uh standalone equity goal at some point we really want this goal to be the foundation inside of every other thing that we do and we're striving to do that but right now we as a team felt like it need to be called out on a goal of its own we also have a social emotional goal um and this goal was uh developed previously but we've expanded it a bit and then two academic goals one that really focuses on literacy in the humanities and one that focuses on math and

114steam and steam is science technology engineering art and mathematics and so these are just draft wording we uh expect them to change and shift as we collect stakeholder engagement but as we said the first poll is on equity it's really about opportunity access removing barriers and really getting to know um our students for who they are and especially our students who are black socioeconomically disadvantaged english learners lgbtq so particular groups that have been uh historically underserved and underrepresented and so that's the focus of that goal the social emotional goal we're really looking at um creating that sense of belonging for students in our school community so that they feel challenged in an environment that values individuals and is accepting respectful safe and supportive the two academic goals the components that we added in in these

115two goals that would be different from what we were where we were last year at this time was um a piece around closing the performance gaps so that they're virtually non-existent so while we want students to have a mastery on grade level literacy and humanities standards we added humanities in there as well because we know that we need to look at the historical perspective across all content areas we also need to really focus that on closing the achievement gap and then the same is true for mathematics and that application of mathematic standards in those other areas and so that we don't have the disparities between different student groups so that's where we are with goal development at this point again they're proposed in their draft we are posing those to a variety of of parent

116groups and students and staff to collect and solicit more feedback before they become finalized so right now we're in the midst of stakeholder engagement um uh we're meeting with all of our teachers through staff meetings reviewing the data the process getting their feedback on questions and on those goals we will be meeting with district curriculum council next week we've sent out surveys to parents there are parent groups that are processing this as well at the school sites our administrative council has looked at this work as well our parent advisory for the lcap next week we meet with our dlac which is our district english language arts committee this past week we met with our african-american parent advisory committee and they gave some feedback on these goals we have a meeting next week with our special

117ed parent group and we will be bringing this to them too to get their very specific feedback uh through that equity lens our unions and our students we will be collecting feedback from them as well through focus groups and parent surveys and staff meetings so the next few pages really are the questions that we are soliciting feedback on the first few are really about thinking about the future of education what things did we learn about in virtual learning that we want to continue as we move back to full time in person um what things did we get to stop doing during virtual learning that we said you know what these practices don't need to continue anymore when we come back in person and then what other new and innovative practices should we consider and this

118really gets to that point of unfreezing and thinking about the future of education and busd then we have a series of questions around equity and cultural identity because we really want to hear the voices of our different um cultural and and racial groups in our district about what their experience has been so that we can better meet their needs we've talked about barriers and what kinds of supports interventions and supports do we need to provide excuse me that do we need to provide for our students who are struggling and then um trainings what trainings do our staff need and then the next are a series of feedback about how well are we implementing and achieving our vision our belief statements and our characteristics of a patient graduate because we really want to lean into those

119and find out where we're doing well and what areas we need to continue to grow in so i just talked about the work that we're doing in february is is really about stakeholder engagement and i will be working with our business office to write the annual update for the local uh control accountability plan from 19 for the 1920 year and then the learning continuity plan for this school year next month we will be working with the el capitans to synthesize and analyze all the stakeholder feedback revise the goals as needed based on that feedback direct draft some actions and services align budgets and then we'll be compiling all of this uh into a draft lcap in april we need to send that draft lcap to the county office for feedback and um and then if

120there are any revisions that need to be made we'll make those during april in the end of may i will bring you the lcap uh to a public hearing and then we bring it back in june for adoption and then it goes to the county office for final approval in july and then they send it off to the state for the final final approval and that is where we are with um the lcap process and and what you can expect over the course of this year and i'd like to open it up for any discussion or feedback that you have in what you've heard tonight thank you i have a question for you guys okay yes a little bit right here like i really will feedback um sherry i don't know can you can everybody

121else meet maybe i don't know if that's what it is yeah no i'm definitely hearing something behind you i was muted yeah okay um so i wanted to know um in terms of curriculum does um is it the district curriculum council that you guys have the discussions around curriculum or was it like around looking at the goals does curriculum ever come up in terms of um you know because you shared about making sure that we're addressing the needs of all of our students so does curriculum come up in those conversations or has it or is there anything that is coming up around curriculum uh you're muted leslie dr beats in your music thank you um so yes we we look at curriculum and i can ask stephanie if she wants to miss rice if she

122wants to address any of this as well we had what we thought was a pretty robust process for looking at curriculum and we are looking at even coming up with a new and improved process as well based on feedback that we've heard so when a department wants to or needs to look at curriculum we look at a variety of state approved that's usually on the state list curriculum that are standards-based they review several of them we choose a few to pilot and we have an evaluation a document that we use and a big portion of that has been around equity but we're looking for some additional tools as well we do bring that information to district curriculum council and review it with them but the uh department and the teachers have a lot of say

123in what what that curriculum is and how it meets their needs and we always test out a few and we also put it out for public view so that parents can come in and review that as well and we put that information out in typically the school newsletter for whichever school department is looking at a particular curriculum um one of the conversations yes i was just going to also add on that actually our next district curriculum council meeting is next wednesday and um our main focus is to re-analyze our protocol for evaluating or adopting curriculum um it does we did rework it i guess it's been about a year maybe two years dr beatson and we definitely have a lens for equity and uh universal access but we're going to bring it back to the

124table with the team um we also pulled the tool from learning for justice for formally teaching tolerance as a lens to evaluate curriculum so we're going to bring that to the team and see if what we have in place is robust enough with the lens of equity as well as looking at then how to reevaluate the curriculum that we have so that will be our next meeting as well as looking at um and reviewing all the professional learning that we've been doing on equity and looking forward to the future so you were reading my mind uh dr ma so then it sounds like you you have some some curriculum in mind but you're going to use a lens to evaluate it to make sure well first you're going to use the lens to evaluate the

125curriculum that we already have in place to see if it fits this equity lens that you're looking through and then you're is it and then do you also have other curriculum that you're looking into or you're just going to wait and evaluate what we have first and then and then with that being said are you taking recommendations or only these our own these recommendations are only coming from it sounds like staff is that correct all of the above what you said so you know we have certain processes where we have to use you know state recommended curriculum depending on what grade level so we have some of that in place but we know that curriculum is always a tool so always reevaluating to look and see if there are other resources or tools that can

126always add to definitely to what we have so all of those things looking forward to adoptions and also looking back at what we have in place currently okay and then on that curriculum meeting that you have next week there are um are is that a um a community kind of like community members teachers is it a combination of you know parents or is it like that i'm just trying to get a feel for that committee like what is that what are who are the bodies on that committee that would be contributing to that conversation so currently district curriculum council we always have well we try to have representation from every site i actually um uh this evening i just uh sent out an email we're trying to recruit some more teachers from some sites that

127we don't have representation for but we also have uh mrs brucie and miss data also our representatives on our district curriculum council as well as administration okay all right thank you you're welcome absolutely anybody else have any comments or questions okay dr beatson thank you that was a lot of work and i really really appreciate the effort that you put in to giving us all the updated information we really do appreciate it i think i was so excited to hear your presentation that i skipped over a whole uh 12.2 and um that's the measure s quarterly bond update and so i'm going to invite um roxanne egan miss egan if you'd come and talk to that us about that i was so excited about mrs er dr beatson that i went right past you sorry

128please no problem please president thank you thanks for having me back and really it's just a continuation um so david shared with you the annual report which is an overview perspective of the entire year and then what i have to share with you is from our quarterly uh meeting that we had on january 28th with the citizens bond oversight committee you have the entire packet that was shared with that committee in your packets and so i'm just going to kind of touch the highlights and then if you have any questions we're happy to delve into any detail that you'd like so um one of the big things on their agenda was that the prior chair who is scott burford he turned out in october so he was great and we appreciate him but he is

129no longer the chair since he kept me on the committee anymore and so their first action that they did was to elect scott excuse me to elect david as the new chair and then his co-chair or his assistant chair is todd blatler so that was great we're glad to have them on board we also had this was the first meeting with our new meeting member our first committee member meeting mark hughes so we were really grateful to have him joining our committee and kind of getting him in engaged in that conversation in the process so the annual audit report and expenditures were reviewed and they were unanimously approved and then we also reviewed the project list which i would like to share my screen let's see if i can do this can you guys see

130the the agenda now are you looking at that great so i'm going to um this is the full packet but what i'm going to would like to do is to just quickly bring up and look at the project list so we have this as a running kind of progress report for projects that we've completed and where we are on the left is this first column is our completed bond projects down below that is our bond projects currently in construction and then on the right hand side is a column showing our approved bond projects that are funded and they're in our prioritization but they're they're you know up and coming next they're not quite in planning yet because we have too much other stuff going on the items that moved from being in construction up to

131the completed for this current update are the middle school modernization phase one and then the liberty high school and do fire alarm so that completes the fire alarm upgrades across all of our district sites so we were really pleased to get that done the next projects that are coming up is the high school marquee which is actually in construction now we're going to be doing some landscaping around the marquis and then we have window replacements at liberty high school and we are definitely making good strides and progress on the mary farmer campus modernization we had a meeting with the site users and and just um right now we're in dsa for hvac improvements at that site so those are really the the biggest highlights that i was gonna share out i i went into a

132lot of depth on some of the mary farmer design um upgrades on our last meeting so i was gonna keep it short and sweet and just let you know where we're at if you have any questions or want us to go into more detail we're happy to thank you missy again any board members have any questions or comments no okay now i i would let you leave thank you so much you guys have a good evening bye okay now we're going to move on to um item number 13 are non-consent action items first one up is 13.1 consideration and approval of uh the site and district safety plans and i am going to have um sean thompson the vp at venetia high school would you be able to share with us of course good evening

133i'll get back is everybody able to see that okay yes all right uh so uh thank you president zeta uh trustees board members and of course our stakeholders and parents watching at home um so today i have two things to discuss with you uh the first uh being the presentation and some highlights from the conference of school safety plans uh as well as providing a district safety report as i started doing last year i want to kind of continue that uh as a yearly trend so you can know what's going on in the district uh with my work and the work at the sites um so in regards to the comprehensive safe school plans i always want to remind everyone that these are now a standardized format uh that doesn't mean just visually once you're

134within them um you know we worked to make sure the organizational format is uniform and all of our crisis response protocols are also the same there's two reasons for that one is that uh you know safety experts and our partners at uh venetia police you know really want us to be able to do that it also is good for our students knowing that a majority of our students start in our elementary schools and then later graduate from vinisha high school or liberty high school um so you know as they progress having a consistent understanding of what those protocols are are great for our students because it allows them to kind of keep increasing their practice and their knowledge and hopefully get more comfortable with crisis response um some notes for our plans this year um

135there are no major updates reflected in our school safety plans this year but i want to stress that's a that's a huge positive this is the result of a lot of very hard work at our sites with our principals and our site councils and school safety teams and the volunteers and teachers there that are helping with those as well as our partnership with secure educational consultants uh from back in 2018 that provided some really excellent feedback to our district site safety meetings i held those actually right before covid started with all of our site principles and information from those meetings also helped inform them the safe site safety reviews were conducted by site administrators they do that as part of the annual plan updates and so anything that they found in those reviews would be

136reflected in their individual site plans the best way to kind of summarize all the plans this year are that general updates were done to format there was some removal of redundant information some outdated language that increased readability and just kind of reduced the document size for each file and then just to reinforce what dr gill said earlier uh it's important to note that our comprehensive safe school plans are part of edcode and focus just on crisis response that our coveted safety plans are separate documents that as she said will be available on the website when those are completed soon so for the uh safety update the first thing i wanted to make sure everyone was aware of was an excellent opportunity uh we went through a tig training with a group of our administrators as

137well as campus supervisors this opportunity came through solano county office of education from the ongoing work with the county level uh safety and emergency team that i represent benicia at uh myself as well as representatives from other districts in solano county you know were gave feedback to deputy superintendent uh tommy welsh as well uh as some of the other sonar county office personnel and they responded um by bringing this opportunity for the consortium on trauma illness and grief in schools this seven part series started in october of last year and went through this past january and focused on a myriad of issues uh and subjects including trauma support supporting families threat assessment which is an ongoing goal of ours um and also concluded with a two-day intensive um pd that allowed the opportunity for uh

138certification critical incident stress management which i'm happy to say i was able to accomplish uh and then there were some really good opportunities on developing network support resources with all of our neighboring districts so it was just a really fantastic opportunity so i want to make sure i thank sonal county office of education for making that available to us sorry i feel like i dropped off and came on my live again okay thank you so uh for our current safety work um you know understandably coveted 19 safety support uh took up most of the time since the pandemic began and so i've been assisting maintenance operations director romero it's been a great partnership uh to be able to uh work through those plans and and continue to build those plans we of course continue uh

139to foster our valuable relationship with binisha police uh fire and the city of benicia uh and also want to make sure i thank the maintenance operations department again they've been doing a really great job of working on our sites especially with students being gone to make sure they are as safe as possible uh when we return and then um john you're not sharing your screen anymore i don't know if you have more oh i'm sorry yeah it's dropped me off and on twice so let me reshare i apologize is that working again yes okay i'm sorry about that you've been able to hear me though correct okay thank you uh and then finally uh just for future safety work uh we're going to continue to work towards our goal of forming a busd wide threat

140assessment team uh something that unfortunately kind of took a backseat with the pandemic but as we start talking about you know in-person schooling again we'll come back up into the forefront as well our drill development um once in person school resumes uh and then of course just continue continue plan updates focusing on um some improvement of maps um i've had some excellent conversations with principal harley at farmer uh where we both recognize that while we're two separate uh you know schools you know in a lot of crisis situations we need to be on the same page as far as being able to communicate with one another so we're working to get those into place and then finally working on elementary specific crisis response language uh some feedback was offered uh some very good constructive criticism

141from our elementary staff and stakeholders uh that it would be good to kind of work on some more specific language and supports for them because what we have tends to be for focus more a little bit more on secondary all right with that uh that's kind of what i have for you tonight i appreciate uh the audience it's a it's an honor to be able to work in this position thank you so much uh for the information i know it's a lot of effort that goes into doing this and thank you mr romero also for participating in um in working with you together to make this uh available to all of our staff and students and parents everybody um anybody have any questions or discussion regarding this item no okay mister if i could just

142say that it is a real pleasure to work with sean he is very organized and safety minded and so it's a pleasure to uh be able to combine forces and and get this work done it's been waiting for a while so thank you sean of course you're a good team awesome thank you so much thank you for being here um with that uh we're going to move on to item 13.2 and that is consider or consideration and approval of in-person small group instruction president we need to take action on his items oh i'm so sorry you are right um do i have a motion to approve the approval of the site and district safety plan i'll move to approve the site and safety plans as presented tonight by mr thompson i will oh yeah go

143ahead thank you thank you both um we need to do a roll call vote yes president yes i didn't hear her did she say yes yes oh thank you um trustee masali yes trustee grubbs yes and trustee ferrucci yes thank you okay now we're moving on to 13.2 consideration and approval of in-person small group instruction and at this time i'm going to invite dr beatson back to share with us information regarding this absolutely thank you it's my honor to bring back um small group uh in-person small group instruction plans um based on the request from the last meeting we have some additional information to share with you let's get loaded up here um so tonight uh what i want to really focus on are two possible structures for in-person small group one is targeted those

144would be students that we have identified as meeting district criteria to receive ongoing small group instruction and the other is based on teacher choice and that would really mean if a teacher has a student who's struggling with a particular concept they may call that student or a small group of students in or if a teacher wants to have students demonstrate a particular lab in a science class or things like that so it would be really teacher choice where teachers would identify who the students were when they would meet with them around what topic um what i did since we met last time was sent out a survey to staff asking them for questions three of which you see here on your screen and i'll walk you through this chart in just a minute the first

145question was and and remembering let me back up for one second that in our return to school in-person mou that was ratified and approved by the school board back in i believe october or november in for the small group portion of that mou it was for teachers to volunteer to do small group if we were to do that in in purple before we went back in hybrid so the teachers had four choices and they could choose as many of those four choices as they liked but one was that they were willing to volunteer to do small group instruction with students from their own class monday through thursday who met who meet district criteria and i'll talk about the district criteria in just a moment another choice was um that they would be willing to volunteer

146to do small group instruction with students from their school monday through thursday who meet district criteria so that would be if a particular teacher or or um counselor didn't have particular students in their own classroom but wanted to work with other students who were struggling in the school that is what that second choice is the third choice is um that teacher the other teacher choice choice one where teachers could choose to work with students from their class that they're identifying on a schedule that they create for whatever purpose they would need and then the fourth choice was they were not able or willing to volunteer at this time so we had 109 responses to the survey so not everyone responded and out of that we have 14 teachers and two counselors who have volunteered to

147work in some way shape or form with small groups and so as you can see here this is elementary teacher number one this person has said that they would do any of these three options so elementary teacher two says they will either do students from their school or students that they choose from their own class when they need to do that and then you can see we have elementary teacher 3 would do students from their own class monday through thursday based on district criteria so that would be basically we would be working with them to set up those groups or students from their own class so that's kind of how you read this chart and as i said we have 14 teachers nine elementary school teachers for benicia high school teachers one teacher from lhs

148and then a counselor from venetian middle school and a counselor from lhs have also volunteered and then the other piece of information you asked for last uh time we met was how many students um meet the criteria and so right now because of code we haven't been able to successfully implement large-scale assessments and so we have a variety of things that teachers are using and then we work with them and that feeds into their recorder transcript at the elementary level and so what we looked at for our district criteria in consultation with our with some of our teachers and our intervention teachers was that we looked at the reading or ela grade on the report card so for elementary it was trimester one they haven't completed trimester two yet and that means they got a

149one because the elementary report cards give a one two three or four and at the secondary level it would be students that were in english that received a d or an f um and that was as of their current grade of february uh 10th was when we had pulled these this data and so you can see we have um uh students at every grade level that meet that criteria some more than others interestingly i'll just point out at indonesia high school they did a pretty deep dive into their data at one of their recent staff meetings and they had um not significantly more f's than they've had in the past it's still more than we like to see and we're still having conversation about what do we we need to do something different uh about

150that um anyway but it's not significantly more than what they've had in the past and they've had significantly more a's and so while that's a good thing it's also showing that we we continue to have that that achievement gap there so we have more students than we will be able to serve with the numbers of teachers that have volunteered uh for a small group then that's a small group in person so i just also want to remind the board that many of our teachers are pulling small groups or meeting with students individually virtually as well so if if you approve this evening that we can move forward with small groups in person what i will do next is meet with our principals and share the data of which teachers and which students would be working

151with small groups then the principals would in turn meet with their teachers who volunteered and set up that schedule and time so and then the schools would contact the students and make sure that they are interested in coming in for small group instruction and then the principals will also review with teachers and families the required safety protocols that need to be in place in order to have the students on campus and so i want to take just a minute to review with you what those health and safety measures are so over the next couple of slides i've pulled out of all of our memorandums of understanding and the work that our amazing team has done to put together all of these things because we are really prepared to have students and staff back on campus

152so um under health measures for protection all tk to 12 students um and all staff must wear masks that is an expectation and a mandate if a student is unable to or a staff is unable to for a medical reason they need to have a verified medical note and then we would provide them with a shield with a neck drape tucked in and if students refuse to wear masks and this is put out by the california department of public health is that students will be excluded from coming to in-person school if they refuse to wear masks we have set up six feet social distancing in all of our classrooms the desks will be six feet apart the teacher's desk will be six feet apart we have training protocols set up for all staff are that

153that they've completed and then the other piece is that we would be providing as needed individual supplies so there wouldn't be supply sharing or equipment sharing among students it for hygiene hand washing and or sanitizing upon entrance of the school site before and after recess entering any new space all sink all classrooms that have sinks will have um we'll have soap we'll have no touch paper towel this ways to get paper towels and all spaces will have that sanitizer as well in terms of wellness we are asking our families when they come back in to do daily self screening at home and we will send out weekly reminders to them that is actually once we're back in hybrid so all of this applies to hybrid as well so we will ask them to do a

154daily self screen with all of the symptoms and then the school will send weekly reminders to families to be doing those we are requiring folks to stay home when they're sick we have a separate isolation or sick room so if a student is at school and becomes ill we have set up separate isolation rooms where students will wait until their their parent or guardian can come and get them terry dean our our amazing school nurse along with our hr department has been working on contact tracing and notifications we have all of those protocols set up and those have been in place since august and nurse terry has been part of the weekly covid liaison meetings through solano county health department and they provide contact tracing updates and support um and we have all the the

155documentation that goes out if uh there were to be any sort of exposure or case um so we also have you know if there is a positive case the folks would quarantine and then any close personal contacts that have been exposed to a positive case will be notified and self-isolate for the county regulation the other uh piece is that before any in-person hybrid would start and then before any in-person small group would start um there is a parent consent form which goes over all of this information as well it reviews all of the um the signs and symptoms and all of the expectations that we're asking parents to do and the requirements and they have to sign off on that um in terms of safety measures um our amazing uh uh team admin team has

156been working together to create individual site safety plans so we have the memorandums of understanding what you all have copies of as well and then they've taken those and they're working with the individual sites to say what does this look like in action at say robert simple elementary school when it says multiple ingress and egress sites so with mr thompson they've walked the sites they've looked at how families will enter and exit schools and they've got all of that planned out personal that's a hard one personal protective equipment ppe will be provided for staff every staff member will get i believe it is uh five cloth or daily uh three-ply disposable um masks and students will receive masks as well so we will have those for them they'll have to bring them to school but

157we will also have extra ones there should someone forget any our our custodial and maintenance team will do daily cleaning with disinfectant they will use electrostatic fogging hold on my thing is in the way here uh for a thorough application of that disinfectant social distancing will be um enforced there will be marked walkways throughout the campus all classrooms will be marked with the total capacity so that everyone knows that there's this many uh desks and students can be in there six feet apart if the teacher requests we will provide clear dividers for their workspace and another change especially at the elementary school so in in the past students would arrive at school they would gather perhaps on the playground until the bell rang when the teacher came out and picked them up on their their

158lines to go in right now uh and again some of this is a hybrid but the students would go right through and head right to the classrooms where the teacher will greet them so there won't be that gathering or mingling out on the yard we're not requiring any in-person meetings and we have our upgraded filtration system and ventilation system for person small group we will not have any recess or lunch on the sites so that won't be a factor if we come back in hybrid at some point or i should say when we come back in hybrid recess at the elementary school cohorts um so every classroom will have a designated space and teachers and staff will go out and supervise the equipment will not be shared and at this time we're not using play

159structures though that is allowed through the new uh cdph regulations so um and there won't be really long extended breaks at the secondary level uh and then lunch at the elementary when we're back in hybrid there will be no lunch on campus it will be a grab and go and at the or at the middle school or at liberty at the high school at venetia high school they will have lunch during hybrid but the lunch period is longer they have identified more areas for students to have lunch so that they will be six feet apart and there will be supervision with uh staff and campus supervisors out monitoring students to help reinforce that as well um i i think i talked about this already uh we have ingress and egress plans multiple entrances and exits

160so that we don't have congregation of students there's no touch sanitizing stations upon entrance face coverings are required we have directional route so a lot a lot of work has been done by our amazing team to ensure that we are ready um um i'm trying to think if there's anything else i wanted to kind of say with this and i talked about contact tracing um uh at this point for um any sort of weekly testing or testing we are working on the best ways for our district to meet staff testing needs based on the cdph and osha guidelines and we'll provide you more information and when a formal decision is made though we are always reminding staff that free covet testing is available through the county health department and um and their personal uh health

161care providers and so that was a lot of information and so i'm happy to answer any questions or if you would like to have discussion um around this topic any further and that we're hoping that you approve small group instruction for teachers who volunteer as presented hey i'm getting reverb okay there we go yeah i really appreciate that leslie and there i had a lot of questions that you answered and i really had a few more questions if you don't mind um with the small groups these questions are all very specific to the small groups when because those teachers are still going to be doing their distance learning with the rest of their kids so when are they fitting in this small group time i was just curious about that yep great question and so

162it would be um it would be different at different levels the the the monday through thursday small group uh at the elementary many of the teachers right now do the uh bulk of their instruction in the morning and many of them right now are calling small groups or individual students all afternoon so they could instead choose to do that in the afternoon instead of doing it more online um at the secondary it is trickier because they teach all uh they follow their schedule so most likely the teachers at the high school level that volunteered would do it on their own schedule they might call students in on a friday they might call they might call students in perhaps while they're zooming if they want students to demonstrate a lesson that would be up to them

163about when they could fit it in but it would be within their work day but that's why i think the the high school would work best with the um kind of on the teacher's choice yeah let the teacher choose when they want to do it yeah that the elementary does seem to lend itself a lot better than secondary to that um with the amount of kids that did uh and i'm sorry guys if you anybody else has questions please i'll you know back up uh with the amount of kids that did qualify for the small groups under the criteria obviously like you said we're not going to be able to get to every kid is there going to be like a pod of kids that will work you know let's say a teacher didn't say

164necessarily i only want to work with kids from my my classroom or my you know my own kids is there going to be a pod where we're going to be able to control the amount of kids that a teacher that volunteered sees so i mean you're not going to try to cycle all the kids that need help through now the way that great question the way we worded it was that they would get to see one group of students so it wouldn't be you know on mondays one group on tuesdays another group it would be that they'd work with them and on that note too what we did discuss this back on the fourth if i'm not mistaken have we made any decisions in terms of the size of those groups and i do really

165appreciate uh so many people have quoted the cdc this the cdc that the sciences the science that and those six feet apart is a major part of it along with the mass and i really appreciate the fact that a you said hey masks are going to be required and if a kid refuses to wear one they go back to distance learning and that all the desks set up are set up six feet apart i really appreciate that so with that have we i talked about um how many people are going to be in these small groups uh we have not at this point beyond the conversation that we had last meeting in the mou it does say and in the cdc guidance it does say up to 16 and that is including the adults and

166the students of the classroom that said um especially for our younger students who are really struggling in a particular academic area we know that smaller groups um when we have intervention teachers or our reading tutors working with small groups typically it's five or six students but not 16. and yeah no i appreciate that and just structurally i don't see how you fit 16 desks and rooms six feet apart i mean i don't know how many classrooms are that big we can and i think mr romero has already measured that because when we come back in hybrid if there are 30 students in a class and we can take up to 50 percent of them that is about 15 or 16 you know depending on on the grade level they can fit i think um i

167think mr romero you've gone in and measured the classrooms that that is correct um from where the child sits or the student sits to the next chair where the next student would sit and we measured all four directions right now like a certain yet we can get a six foot distance now the i would think that the classrooms throughout the district are not uniform in size so generally they are i mean there are a few that are um unusual maybe um a couple of the older buildings but generally um the classrooms are standard we we did have to move some furniture out and and in order to uh accommodate the six foot clearance um and then some of that furniture was big shelving and whatnot we were able to to get it out okay thank

168you thank you uh yeah i just wanted to um open it up to other board members um that may have some questions or anything is there anything from dr moss doctor or i don't know i don't really have any questions at this time i i do just appreciate you bringing back the additional information that we wanted and so at least we have some idea around numbers and then i appreciate of course that you know folks have choices so it's not it's a choice so i appreciate having the information so thank you my pleasure thank you mrs grubbs or who was i'm trying to see who was talking i um i really appreciate your coming back and answering all those questions dr beatson what i'm wondering about is the it is the small group number i

169think that at the last meeting we and i think it was diane's motion was to um have a small group not larger than five was that correct diane yeah yes it was but you know also i have since gone back and reread the mou and saw that it was already clearly negotiated in but i think i believe that was for hybrid right and identified so number's going to vary but there really was a negotiated set already for the group which i hadn't read anywhere yep it is it's under the small group section of the hybrid of the yeah the in-person hybrid mou because the the hybrid part says no more than 50 of the student contacts that the teacher can have and then the small group part says no more than 16 i believe and

170that includes adults and that includes adults yeah yeah i'm with cece though i'd like to i'd feel really good about this i don't feel good at 16 at all but i would you know especially still in purple but if we could set a number you know like what we were talking about previously i i'd feel really good about this for the first time i'd feel good about anybody going back on campus i um diane please go ahead thank you i the only the only thing i have with that mark and just hear me out a second is for us to arbitrarily set that when in fact they are already identifying it i think we should i think we should trust that they're going to be able to determine how many students a it's going to

171be effective to work with and that they're going to be able to work with you know because then all if we say five and a teacher says i really need these six then she's all of a sudden violating what we're setting so i really don't think we should they've already identified it in their mou they're going to be working with their principal and with leslie to identify those children and i think we need to leave it up to the discretion of them to decide that that makes sense no i it makes sense for those teachers that chose hey i'm going to decide who i want to work with but the ones who said they'll work with anybody within the criteria i just have a really bad feeling about it's going to because there's obviously we

172have way more kids that need help then we have teachers that volunteered absolutely so i would assume then what they're going to do is pack out every class any teacher that volunteered to uh assist kids that were struggling and not you know if every teacher had said that had chosen three which was hey i'll decide how many kids i want and what i want and then i'd be diana i would be totally with you but but i wonder uh for those teachers that chose you know just say hey i'll help anybody that's struggling you know i i really don't in purple feel comfortable with 16 you know does that make sense what i'm saying at least you disagree or not you know does that mean i guess where i'm coming from is i i really

173have a lot of faith in our professionals and i want to say i know they're going to make the best decision i don't think we should handicap them in any way let's let them make the choice based on the students that they're presented with they're going to know who's going to mix together you know that's part of it when we're putting groups together they need to know personalities are going to get together they need to know students that are going to work together i i really don't think that that's our decision to be made i think we need to leave it to the professionals and i think that's why they're the professionals so who's going to make the decision the administrator or the teacher in terms of i would say it's a combination of both

174well that's what i was going to ask yeah that's never a combination that's an administrator just a second mark um yeah i i was going to ask that as well wanting to know because the amount i was i added up the students in their reading category were it was 529 and in the math it was 456. and i bet there are some that are in the same student might be in both of those columns correct so we might have some duplicate um duplicates you know extra numbers in there but we only have 16 teachers and counselors to be able to provide this service that we're hoping to be able to provide how do we determine which of these 529 students or 456 students um how do we determine which ones are going to go in

175are we going to is it going to be special ed first like how do we determine that and and then make it equitable that we're not leaving somebody out i'm just kind of curious how we are going to handle that because it's a huge number for not that many teachers and we have right 200 200 teachers right about 250 i believe 250 okay and we only got 100 where did you say 109 109 responses that concerns me too so to answer your question sherry um what we would what we would do is we would be collaborative we would we would meet with the principal say here's your data here's your teachers that are going to come back and here are the students who meet the criteria all of those teachers have also said that they

176would work with students in the classroom so they're going to be able to say okay here's the five kids in my classroom who meet that criteria so i think i only had one teacher maybe two that said they would work with kids across the school so it's really going to be kids from their own classroom okay so how how do how is it fair for all these other students that are falling behind to not have that opportunity does that make sense it does and and as i said not not all teachers but many teachers are doing small group online and so special ed students who are on special ed are getting their special ed services online um their speech online um so that would continue that doesn't go away so they would still be getting

177small group it would just be that some would get to come in person and and it will also be dependent on if the families say yes i can get my student there or yes i'm comfortable with this so there would be those other criteria um i'm hoping that as people start doing that more people will say oh i'm gonna i want to do that too and that it kind of you know i can speak for myself when i go into you know the very first time i went into the office i was nervous but now i go in you know you get you get into your routine and you know how to how to do all of that so i think that may happen as well and i really look at this as hopefully a

178bridge until we can open up and hybrid yeah what's go ahead mark what's the time frame in terms of uh getting this up and running the small groups i think we could do it in the next few days we know the students we know the teacher so it's really going back and say hey let's look at your class okay here's your your five year six students that fit that criteria let's let's call them see if they're willing to come in and then we go up the list teachers are going to be able to help us when when they look at their classroom and say here's the students who fit your criteria you'll know okay these are the ones that i really need to get to come in so there's nothing about the two week excuse

179me there's nothing about the two week to give the teachers two weeks to plan for that that was to switch back to hybrid got it thank you any other questions i uh just a comment i think for me uh i would be comfortable with this if it was the teacher making the decision about how many kids they felt comfortable with and there wasn't that ability of the administrator to say no i need you to take you know four more five more or whatever i need you know you know i've been the you know person i've been against the in person but you know leslie answered all my questions that'd be the last real tipping point for me is uh you know having been a teacher and i know the balance of power when it comes

180to your job and administrator you know not downplaying or knocking any administrators but i think i'd feel more comfortable with it i'm not even setting a number i'm not saying five or six but i'm saying that the teacher uh leslie keep going back to it about how the the teacher knows who they need and the teacher could say you know i i these are the five or these are the six i'd like to see the power rest there they were good enough to volunteer to come back i would not i'd like to see them not have anybody piled upon them uh above and beyond what they felt comfortable with that's just a comment i you know and mark i'm gonna really disagree because the person that really is going to be responsible at that site

181is the admin so they really need to be working together and i think it's a great opportunity for that to happen we know that the teacher is reviewing the site i know you don't agree and i don't agree with that comment either so it's okay we can we can do this but it's you know you you can't eliminate the person who is responsible for the entire site they have to be working collaboratively together so and i and you know that i and i know having worked both sides of those jobs that that's going to be something that you're really going to depend on and need to listen to but you can't say i'm sorry you don't have a voice and that's not our position to say that what we need to say tonight is we're

182going to open up our small group instruction and that's the thing that i need that we need to start moving forward with because i believe what leslie is saying too i think as we begin to feel comfortable and we get our toe in the water i am going to bet that there's going to be more people coming forward because those numbers sherry you are right to me they are overwhelming i am concerned about the number of children that do meet that criteria i'd just like to jump in that i think between uh uh trustee maseli and trustee ferrucci i'm very confident that the teachers can work with the administrators and make that a collaborative process absolutely and then if the teacher felt that they were uncomfortable with that imbalance of power that existed they could

183they would let us know but i knowing the the site leaders and the teachers i think the relationship we tried to develop mark you know trustee mustard great point i'm confident they can do it together can i add one more factor on that we want you know we know that groups work better for academics especially for the the younger kids when they're in smaller groups my worry about limiting numbers is if we're able to bring some students back in special ed that have aids and um the classroom teacher in the room and then a few kids that's where the number starts to creep up they'd have to spread out we couldn't do more but oftentimes we'll have um special purpose aids that will work with a small group of students and so if you have

184a couple of those little groups going your numbers higher what yeah now that you bring that up that's a great point uh what is especially going to look like since uh i don't believe any of the swiss lead teachers volunteered so what are you going to end up doing with those special ed kids if none of the you know i mean obviously it's sdc would be the only special ed kids that would be you know have one teacher but you know you're talking about the one-on-one age when i think one-on-one aides you know it's special herbicides i often think about stc um what what's going to happen there are they going to be fit somewhere else or what are you are you well they'll still get their services so they still get small group services

185whether it's if we can get them back in person or virtually or virtually so that doesn't stop um and then depending on when we look at teachers classrooms and how the kids uh shake out maybe some of them would be in some of the small groups in the class depending on need you know what we know about small group is we target we need to we have a group of students that really need x and so we target some small group around that so you know it depends on when we sit with that teacher and say okay here's the students or who do you have and then we work from there okay thank you dr beetson for all the information if everybody feels comfortable at this point i'd like to put it out there and

186see if there's a motion to be made okay mrs ferrucci i would like to make a motion that we move into small group instruction in venusia do we have a second a second okay um do we have we need to do a roll call vote excuse me president say see that sorry yes okay trusty loss yes trustee miceli no trustee ferrucci yes and trustee grubs yes thank you okay then that concludes our our meeting of february 18th it is 9 48 and i am going to adjourn us out thank you all for being here thank you you