001okay um thank you for joining us this evening it is the February 4th if you can believe that already and it is we're sorry for the late start but we have some exciting people here that we're going to be sharing information about so um it's 7:17 I'd like to call the meeting for the February 4th 2021 B USD board meeting to order um and I am so glad to see all these wonderful faces honestly I haven't seen this many people in one place even just on a screen this is like really exciting so um first thing I we talk about um coming back from closed session is there I don't believe there's anything to report from closed session um so we're going to go on to our next item which is an announcement um this
002meeting is recorded for live streaming And archiving on the district YouTube channel for your convenience um next up I was going to ask um who can I ask uh Mark why don't you uh do the pledge for us please if you don't mind thank you let's stand I pledge allegiance FL United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated thank you thank you okay um so okay the approval of the agenda uh as written do I have a motion to approve the agenda as written I move to approve the agenda as written do I have a second I'll second it okay thank you um any discussion nothing so maybe we have a roll call call vote
003Mrs Martinez yes yes I mean yes yeah okay now it's my pleasure to invite this year's employee of the year recipients and we have people that are going to speak on their behalf as well so it's just really exciting this time of year is always really exciting to be able to acknowledge these great teachers and um classified workers among our community in USD so without further Ado I am going to ask um Dr Gil to lead this thank you thank you good evening Madame President trustees superintendent um our distinguished employes uh who are being honored tonight administrators community members and students um it is my honor and pleasure um to be able to lead this event because this is the most exciting thing in my job it is the most exciting thing other than our
004students is to is to recognize and and honor our employees um so we go through a process where each of the school sites uh take the time to um uh uh nominate uh a teacher or or a certificated employee uh and a classified employee um then we work together with both of our um Union leads and also some other staff members uh in the actual selection process uh to select a uh teacher of the year and a classified employee of the year who uh will uh uh who uh represent our school district at Sano County and we are also going to be uh really hoping and uh uh um sending our Positive Vibes and wishes to them that they will win the county and go represent V UniFi at the state and that has happened
005in the past few years and we are going to continue moving forward for that and and shooting for that and so um I am what I'm going to ask is typically we do this in person we celebrate the boardroom is full uh with people exciting parents family members children friends and uh so I'm hoping that Everybody is watching and uh um on YouTube the all the family members everything I'm sure as we are very proud of our employees and you're very employed proud as well and uh um so typically after honoring everybody we take pictures we take a group picture then we eat cupcakes I'm hoping that you guys have already cupcakes ready for your honor at home and uh and hopefully when everything goes goes back to normal we will have be able to
006have some delicious um desserts or something with our people as well so we're looking forward to that and hoping for that to happen um sometime soon so without further Ado I am going to be uh calling on a asking a principal or a supervisor to uh introduce uh their uh classified employee and also their certified employee um uh share with us why they are being nominated um and uh at the uh end of each person we give them a cheer and then we will go with the next school and so let's actually mix it up this time because typically either I do a secondary schools first or Elementary first or something so actually let's start with the middle school this time so miss dski we're going to ask you to um uh please help us
007honor your and recognize your teacher and the classified employee of the year okay well thank you good evening everyone uh so first I'd like to recognize our classified employee of the year uh who is Miss Fran Hosmer uh she is the face of our bonisha Middle School office her welcoming smile greets all who enter our doors during the school closure Fran has continued to be kind and welcoming to our parents and students she has taken on an important role in supporting our PBIS recognitions program every week she helps transfer the digital information submitted by teachers to postcards that are mailed home to students she then delivers prizes to the students doorsteps Fran is extremely reliable she is willing to do whatever needs to be done to support our students and staff she is always a
008rock for BMS and works so very hard Fran gives everyone her full attention she taught virtual jewelry classes for students during the closure and when a student was struggling she went to the student's house and taught her the technique in the front yard from a distance it's this kind of follow-through that makes Fran such a fantastic employee she helps those around her all while performing her regular duties calmly proficiently and quickly so a big cheer for Fran hoser all right I will move on to recognize our certificated employees the year it is uh one of our teachers Mandy winkley Harris she teaches science at Venicia middle school she has not let teaching virtually slow her down she is always willing to embrace new curriculum and has worked hard to bring engaging lessons to her online
009classroom she stepped up to serve as our Tech Mentor this year to help Provide support for her colleagues while they all navigate this new instructional world together Mandy is an incredible collab Ator she embraced teaching a new grade level this year when there was a need due to our modified 4x4 schedule she dove into the pilot curriculum for the science department to really analyze and compare it to identify its strengths and weaknesses for both the virtual world and in-person teaching and she really deserves our praise and recognition so wonderful job Mandy thank you thank you very much Miss mski and again a great cheer for our Middle School employe uh classified employee of the year and teacher of the year so thank you for your service we really appreciate you now let's go to Liberty
010High Miss Lewis good evening everyone it's so great to see every all these great faces I'm actually kind of giddy to see all these Smiles um it is with pleasure and honor that I'm going to introduce to you tonight um our classified employee Miss Rosalinda Ortiz um Rosalinda um this year has been very very um difficult but she has overcome and I'm very reliable um employee for me personally um she is our custodian um Miss Ortiz she is always there she's willing to go the extra mile to ensure that every classroom is clean and sanitized that all the workspaces that I don't see are up to certain standards and also those that don't know she only works also works our side of the building but she also cleans the district side and I'm sure I'm
011not the only one that would say that she does an excellent job um I've always appreciated Mrs U Miss Ortiz's hard work um and I truly appreciate the idea that while she it's quiet her quiet demeanor goes um always I'm sorry that she is always there and she is her quiet demeanor is always recognized she does her work efficiently in this school year especially the idea of having a clean work environment that I can walk into safely my staff can walk into safely is completely appreciated I know that she works hard she's a mother she has children of her own but yet she always is there making sure that our Liberty family is taken care of so with that I truly appreciate Miss Ortiz and all the hard work she does for Liberty as well
012as the district office okay um sorry about that my computer screen is kind of going a little whacky on me um I would like to also now introduce to you with great pleasure as well our certificated employee of the year Mr Cliff Nelson Mr Nelson Contin continuously strives to um connect with his students build trusting relationships in a time in this virtual world is incredibly important that he does he reaches out to our kids and makes sure that they know that they are important and valued and especially loved he makes sure that their voices are heard in the classroom he never stops asking them what do you think how do you feel what does this mean to you and the conversations that I've heard in his classroom the kids are amazing and I that is
013a tribute to Mr Nelson and his ability to make kids feel comfortable willing to participate and he never puts them down and always encourages them to have their voice and so Mr Nelson there's so much that you do not only for your kids but for me as as a leader that I rely on you that you are always there and I truly appreciate not only you there for myself for your fellow staff members but especially the students of Liberty so thank you very much Mr Nelson thank you Mrs Lewis I really appreciate that thank you and congrats Rosalinda okay so great cheers for our uh classified employee and teacher of the year and teacher of the year for Liberty High um thank you so much for all you do so now let's go to um
014banesa High School um Miss KMI good evening everyone um I have the honor to help us to recognize our classified educator of the Year miss Jolan Peterson um and I am lucky to do so um joln has been a special part of visha high school for a long time now she's our classified educator of the year for many many reasons she serves as the administrative assistant to one of our vice principles and as the the go-to person for our students and our parents with the last names G through o that's over 550 of Ranisha High School families and I'm G to tell you she probably knows every single one of them um she's known for her friendly greetings her great memory and that she never has a negative word to say about anyone she brings
015with her experience from the registar position the attendance office and a range of skills that make her great at her job as a result she has been instrumental in helping us run our main office efficiently and effectively even through this crazy time um she juggles helping students with their various needs she focuses on her facility needs uh all the different phone calls and can just take time and listen to a parent when they're in need or a student when they're in need and she knows just how to help them um there's a few special memories that come to mind and jolen's just always been there um I want to read one thing that one of her colleagues H shared with me to compliment her great work jolen will absolutely ensure that the staff does not
016goof off and forget anything she calls immediately for clarification and she is incredible as an intermediary for parents she goes out of her way to help with all the after school activities and uh the parents connect with her with such ease it's inspiring to become more involved to be part of the community when watching her in action we want to congratulate jolen and thank her for all that she does for bonisha high school um we know that there are many alumni and families that join us in our appreciation that have probably had their own special memories with her uh with Mama Joe and uh we just want to say we love you we love you Jolan and thank you for all that you do for banisha high school thank you Banna um I also get
017to honor uh our certificated educator of the year um often it's a teacher of the year but in this case we're gonna honor a counselor of the year I think that often our counselors um are um definitely not forgotten they are so hardworking but sometimes um not thought of when when we're doing this uh and so I'm very much uh excited to honor Megan Gunther uh one of our counselors as our certificated educator of the year um she also serves as a member of our school's leadership team and she's the department chair for our counseling uh for our counseling office she's a co-leader of our sources of strength program she works with our mental health clinician and they created and they run a grief group for student counseling um and she's just been Innovative in
018in all of our work with Counseling and as you can imagine especially now um during virtual learning and moving so quickly transitioning so many services online um Megan has so many strengths but her greatest weakness might be that she just cannot say no uh and so she becomes that go-to person for probably too many things all those different things that we need but it's because she's got new ideas um she has a positive attitude and she just finds a way to gets things done to best support our students and our staff she has been instrumental in our work to expand our College and Career Center um to implement career planning with our get Focus Stay Focus program and to work to address achievement gaps to improve equity in our uh our academic programs and we
019appreciate all that she does um I I have also for uh for Megan something that one of her colleagues contributed Megan goes above and beyond to help students get the most out of their education she's always willing and able to help her colleagues problem solve situations she's been pivotal in immersing students and staff in sources of strength and has co- facilitated the grief group to help students build community after the loss of a family member Megan is cheerful and always makes time for anyone who needs help she is a positive role model and has excellent rapport with staff and students um I also have kind of a funny story so I actually texted Megan to ask if she'd be willing to accept uh this honor and she was giving birth to her baby uh and
020so she's at home now and joining us from home and so we wish her so many congratulations as our educator of the year and as a new mom so congratulations Megan thank you so much Miss kmid I really appreciate it and it was a good distraction from labor to find out about this quite a story to tell thank you everyone thank you Brian congratulations to both of you and we really greatly appreciate everything you do um I I will say uh you know sometimes people say you can tell a school by walking into the main office if you the the second you walk into the main office if you see a smile that means that school is well run and that school really welcomes people and I will they say that for uh banisha high
021school because I every time I can't remember any time whenever I have gone to banisha high school um Jolan Peterson always say good morning Dr Gil like out loud that everybody could hear I don't remember a single time doesn't matter what she's doing even if she's on the phone she still has to say that and that goes long ways so and and I'm actually want to say all of our staff do that but jolian special quos to you because today's your day thank you yes so now let's go to change it up a little bit again um let's go to Child Development unit Miss reges oh hello everybody good night and happy thday I want to introduce to you Mala Nick and where is she there she is um Mala has been a Child Development
022um for over 30 years but she has worked for CDU for about seven years she still brings a fresh excitement and enthusiasm to her job on a daily basis she's always excited about her program at Matthew Turner and the students and the families Mala fully Embraces any new challenges that come her way last school year she introduced girls who code program to her students and among other exciting stem projects Mala quickly learned the technology system and software that was unfamiliar to her for the girls who code program she contributes to educate herself by attending a lot of professional development workshops and she always bring back something exciting to share with her students and other members of Staff Mara is also well respected by the Matthew Turner Community and the principal Mr Slater always speaks very
023highly of her and the program Mara has taken on the challenge to be a professional buddy mentor to new um teachers that we have HED by sharing her lesson plans newsletters activities and allowing them to observe her classroom she possesses the ultimate cand do attitude while taking on all tasks with a positive energy and a smile she's very organized and keeps track of all the details necessary to coordinate and run an efficient program and especially this last this past year in Co and keeping all the covid rules that we have to embrace Mala has never showed that she was scared of anything she had just accepted the responsibility and has taken on the challenge uh I and the rest of CDU are very excited to nominate her as our classified employee of the year kud
024doala thank you thank you so much I appreciate it you're welcome thank you thank you marab we appreciate everything you do for our CDU students and now we're going to go to miss Courtney food service department good evening everyone uh I'm Tim rill the CBO for the D district and oh I'm sorry is this am I is it my turn kush or is Tanya announcing it's her turn I'm sorry okay I'm sorry good evening everybody thank you um for having me over today and thank you for giving us an opportunity to um honor one of our classified employees this year we selected uh uh Food Service assistant Patricia Chavez she has been with the G 23 years and her dedication and commitment to the Department to the district and to the our our students is
025immeasurable she truly is an outstanding employee she makes sure that our students she treat our students by their names she knows what they like it to make sure we have it and if we don't have it I better run to the store to get it because her students have to have what she she wanted them to have it she wanted to not disappoint them she's also have a very high standards and the food with her food quality so she wants to make sure that they are always looking for her window um she also is a very uh committed uh to her co-workers if someone needs help she's always there to help them out and as new employees come along she take them under the wing and she Mentor them out and um when students are
026kind of struggle to um maintain their accounts she talk to them and make sure they understand that we have a beautiful program they they give the kids opportunity to have a free or reduced meals and she take them under the wing and then she make sure that they get an application that they take home and help them out as much as they need so with more further ado she is a outstanding employee and has always a positive and attitude and a beautiful smile to everybody to our management team she is one of the most indeed one the most value employees of our uh Department um 23 years with our department devoting and being there every day rain and shine no matter what it is she's there she's outstanding thank you so much for giving her
027the opportunity to be honor with this [Music] um um recognition thank you thank you Miss courney and thank you Miss Chavez for all you do we greatly appreciate you and all of our food service employees for uh providing uh food meals to students even during this difficult time on a daily basis that's really amazing so now let's start with our elementary site uh let's go with Turner Mr Slater this SL you're muted hello everyone I want to start off by honoring and celebrating our classified employee of the year ilc Cordova and as a school principal I'm very lucky and grateful to worked with an office specialist of the caliber of Ilie Cordova and I know she's there now and I want to um just thank you thank her for her just her greatness for our
028school Ilie is the first person people see when they enter the office and Every Act she does is with the highest professionalism and pride for our school Community as the office specialist she's had to deal with great challenges as we have navigated through this pandemic and she consistently has stepped up and risen to the occasion each time to do her very best for all of us ilc stays cool Under Pressure she problem solves effectively and efficiently and she is willing to go the extra mile to get us through the most difficult times with grace skillfulness and patience not only is ILY outstanding at her job um but she's also very caring kind and thoughtful il's unwavering commitment and determination to give her all for our school community on a daily and minute-by-minute basis are outstanding
029El see Works tirelessly courageously and with exceptional Integrity in her position as office specialist El's amazing skill strength and sense of purpose are greatly valued she provides us with the confidence that our school our staff and our students are looked after with great care she always has our back congratulations ELC and um I also wanted take a moment to honor our certificated employee of the year and it goes to Aaron Moore and uh Aaron Moore is a stellar educator she's honestly one of the most talented individuals I've ever come across and it shines through in her teaching and in her students Aon is dynamic in her approach and in her determination to build positive and meaningful connections and relationships with all her students she definitely creates a wonderful sense of belonging and is fiercely strong
030in her efforts to have every student feel successful her Integrity towards education and staying on The Cutting Edge are off the charts she continually Builds on her excellent teaching pedagogy and best teaching practices like Universal Design for Learning and culturally responsive teaching she also brings her colleagues along with her she's a wonderful collaborator she leads um professional learning at our faculty meetings and she is the Ultimate Team player Aaron's creativity and passion make learning fun Eng engaging and challenging for all her students she is an absolute Ace and a gift to the teaching profession congratulations Aaron thank you okay thank you Mr Slater special kudos for our um a classified employee and teacher of the year at at Turner school so now we will go to sample School Miss Moore thank you hello everybody thank
031you do a little something different here let me see if this works I'm gonna introduce you to Kelly Brown this is my uh teacher of the year and so I want to make sure everybody gets to see her so spotlights on her so excuse me for looking off to the side because this is who it's about so it is with great pleasure and honor that I have been given the privilege to speak on behalf of my amazing Robert simple staff as we recognize our Kelly Brown first grade teacher as our 2021 teacher of the year there are so many reasons why Kelly Brown is the perfect choice for Teacher of the Year beginning with the fact that she is one of the most selfless caring thoughtful organized and hardworking people in all my 26 years
032that I've ever had the pleasure to work with Kelly follows through with her commitments and always finishes what she starts with near Perfection all while doing her best to ensure others are taken care of before herself in the time I've worked with Kelly I've seen her serve on many committees including leading our PBIS team for the past two years and most recently bringing Girls on the Run virtually to our school or to our students in addition to serving on these committees Kelly produces our school yearbook to which she works tirelessly to ensure all students and staff are represented in the wonderful events that make our culture and climate of our school Community being highlighted and memorialized Kelly students receive a top-notch education due in part to her commitment to and utilization of the latest and
033greatest curriculum resources and Technologies available she is a team player and works highly collaboratively with her grade level team leaving no one out in in an effort to ensure her teammates and their students are all on the same page she is committed to ensuring her team is strong and leaves no one behind as her principal she's someone I can count on for just about anything if I need a resource a tutorial a book or even a student Kelly is always willing sometimes teachers learn best from teachers many times I've approached Kelly about presenting at a staff meeting and she is always willing and comes prepared with tips and tricks that teachers can Implement immediately making their job a little easier her fellow teachers respect her and want her to want to learn from her and
034that's because she is selfless and generous while the decision to nominate Kelly Brown as Robert simple teacher the year was a was done by vote I could not agree more that she is beyond deserving of this honor Kelly is a friend to everyone a loyal colleague and truly an example of an exemplary teacher actually she's a rock star so Kelly Brown thank you no thank you give me a second while I I change the stage here all right thank you so much I'm equally honored to introduce you to Eva Gomez gladus Gomez but we call her Eva Eva we'd like to recognize Eva tonight as our classified person of the year she is our incredibly hardworking dedicated night custodian there are so many reasons why glattus is the perfect choice for this classified person of
035the year beginning with the fact that she is one of the kindest most caring thoughtful and hardworking custodians I've ever worked with she truly pours her heart into her work glattus came to simple and worked under the leadership of our then day custodian who had been there for 40 years that says something something she proved to be a team player following his lead taking care of our wonderful school they were a great team upon his retirement and the hiring of our new day custodian I've had the privilege of watching glattus become blossom into an equal partner and now part of what we hear at simple call the dynamic duo Eva as I call her follows through with her tasks and commitments almost effortlessly and always does it with a smile she works so well with
036others and shows that she truly cares about her students staff and our school as she takes care of us all as if we were her own Eva is one of the kindest sweetest personalities that truly is contagious when she enters a room people smile are happy and genuinely feel a sense of calmness Eva is just a good human being that people want to be around our simple staff voted and the results were a landslide and I couldn't have agreed more that Eva is beyond deserving of this honor she is a friend to everyone she is loyal she's dedicated and has our little school's best interest at heart always thank you Eva thank you Kelly thank you so much thank you Miss Christina you're welcome thank you Miss Moore and and uh um the classified employee
037and teacher of the year sample school we greatly appreciate everything you do now we will go to Farmer School uh Miss Harley hello hi everybody I'm uh Melissa Harley Fierce leader and a head cheerleader for uh Mary Farmer at this point um I was thinking before tonight like how can we possibly choose which employees to honor this year because everyone has been doing the most incredible work right um and uh so many people I'm thinking all across the board at every site certainly at ours um deserve an honor like this um but it is um very um exciting and I'm honored to be able to share with you who it is that um our staff has selected to represent us so first off um Mr Edward Mard has been uh selected as the mared farmer
038classified employee of the year so Mr Mard is our day custodian and he's deeply committed uh to our school Community caring for both the buildings and the people who are in them and he strives to ensure that our school spaces are clean and in good order every day he works to respond quickly to staff needs and to um and requests and he does all of these things never forgetting that our primary purpose is to serve our students Mr Mard extends special kindness to students and staff and families through his sense of humor and his compassion and as a tradition during lunch when we were on our campuses students would look forward to Mr mallard's joke or riddle of the day and even through distance learning U Mr Mard will take a moment to share a
039smile and a joke with the families as they roll through picking up food or materials or whatever and he really exemplifies that vital role that all of our classified employees play in supporting our students he understands that his jokes and acknowledgements with students have a positive impact on them and their success at school frankly so Mr Mard is truly part of the heart of Mary farmer so I'm want to give him some love we're going to do Sparkle fingers for my staff by the way proper Sparkle fingers thank you for Mr Ed Mard so in honor little Sparkle hands in honor um of our Mary farmer teacher of the year um um Miss Megan Carol has been selected to be the Mary farmer Teacher of the Year miss Carol teaches second grade with this remarkable
040balance of expertise and creativity and love right she's able to Foster students confidence while coaching their academic progress um just seamlessly right in her classroom her students are able to speak up and ask questions and take these risks because she's authentically models that um each day in her classroom um she really creates um she truly creates a safe academic um space for all of her students and upon entering her classroom that strong sense of community you is palpable whether it's in person or virtually like you can still feel that online um and each student's successes are just celebrated wholeheartedly by the entire class they really lift each other up there um Miss Carol is also deeply committed to equity for all of our farmer students her choices of literature and lessons and projects always Center
041on fairness and kindness and Justice and she strives um for students to see themselves in all aspects of their daily life at school so students are empowered to share and listen to each other's stories and experiences and she guides them through resolving conflicts with each other um and through this her students were able to see multiple perspectives and repair their relationships and strengthen their community and the impact of her this really purposeful work really extends Beyond her own classroom for sure and so she carries this commitment um to student progress and Equity all the way across our site and she works um along multiple teams of um teachers to ensure that our um our continued commitment to the growth of our school Community she has the gift of lifting us up by her example and
042she serves as a representative on things like site cancel and PBIS and that goes on and on so through all of this Megan really brings this in U true joy and creativity to marry farmer she comes up with all sorts of fun Innovative projects and activities for our whole school um and she also with great humility recognizes the incredible work um that all of our teachers deserve these accolades right through the challenges and she would never ever want to elevate her own work above any of her colleagues but um she really plays a really vital role both at a grade level and across our whole school and really deserves the honor to be the Mary farmer teacher of the year for 20202 one Sparkle hello honor of me you gotta do the sparkle hands thank
043you Melissa and you know I'm GNA say that I don't deserve this and that every single teacher at our school has stepped up in amazing ways in the past year and have inspired me every single day so I accept this on behalf of the incredible staff that we have at Mary farmer you guys are amazing and that's Megan thank you so much Miss Harley and we really appreciate um both of you um Edward and and Megan thank you for everything you do at for Mary farmer and for our students so now we will go to um Henderson School I left I saved Henderson for the last because at Henderson School we're going to honor and recognize the classified employee of the year for Henderson School we're also going to honor the teacher for the Henderson
044school are you ready now drama roll please and the teacher for bisha UniFi School of the year so um so miss Buck please give us the honor of helping us recognize our not only your classified employee but also bisha unified teacher of the year thank you Dr Gil man that was a great introduction um hi everybody I I went on to YouTube to make sure that um our our classified employee of the year was on the YouTube channel so what if you're watching YouTube um check it out he's sitting in front of uh the banner that would be Mr Patrick Pat Escalante he's our night cast not only is he in front of our Joe Henderson Banner but Pat has uh what is it it says uh Kelly Hughes for everything and then he has
045Mr Martin who's the second part of the dynamic duo he has him on there too so thank you Mr Patrick for H giving a shout out to our teacher of the year and your um your counterpart so what can I say about Mr Patrick everybody loves him I mean he's just a great guy he's our night custodian and he walks around and makes sure especially during covid um that the health and safety of all who enter the building are intact um he has had to Pivot and change and jump through hoops and he's he's done an amazing job so I just wanted to thank you Mr Patrick he also comes to me with Innovative and creative ideas like hey Mel what if we did this or I was thinking about that or I mean he
046you guys he's he's really really ready and on it to uh to get everybody back on campus I know you're missing all the kiddos and all the staff so he's he he has us ready along with Mr Martin um he does his service with a smile he's always asking how he can help uh student staff and parents um and sometimes he shows up during the day and I'm like what what are you doing here you're you know you're a night custodian and there's a project to be done or helping out with Mr Martin um it'll be a Saturday and we'll have an event you know pre-o and he shows up with his his with his wife and his son he's got a little um a little hound pup in the making he's two I think
047two or three maybe three right now um so anyways and then he ends up working on a Saturday um he even joined in when we all created a bit emojis and he there's Mr Patrick with his goatee um and oh he there's the kiddo thanks tat um and even created a bit Mo bitemoji for Mr Martin which was great so we're just beyond lucky to have uh Mr Patrick on our site he exemplifies everything hound and I just wanted to say you know Pat you're a great guy and um a hard worker and I just want to thank you for giving spirit fingers because that was above and beyond but that's what we do so so in true Hound Henderson Hound style let's raise the roof for Mr Patrick please congratulations Mr Patrick thank you
048Miss Mel you know Mr Martin and I are always standing right behind you and our teachers as you go through all of this we'll figure it out that's right we appreciate that and now it is my great honor and great privilege um let's see Mikey if if we're not showing on page two we got to show Miss Hughes to um introduce Kelly Hughes who is our fifth grade teacher not only is she our Henderson Hound teacher of the year but as Dr Gil said she is our bonisha Unified School District um teacher of the year who's going to go to County and I just know she's going to go to state state so we're putting all our all our eggs in Kelly's basket um as a proud Henderson teacher of 14 years Kelly May truly
049bleed Hound blood I mean she embodies the spirit of Henderson um like no other she Bridges together the community and our school by doing all kinds of these huge um huge activities and assemblies and rallies she'll invite the mayor she has our shining stars um of the bisha police department show up she spearheads the most amazing things she is our permanent Hound cheerleader and any at any time you see her ordering anything in our great orange and black colors I I think she's probably cornered the market on everything orange or black or that has you know a Hound print um promoting uh literacy and a reader life and coming up with anything enthusiastic that's all things fastic um she's my go-to person and we're texting all into the nights and in the weekends on the
050next big big thing uh Kelly is always learning and has remained Cutting Edge in her practice in years past she consistently provided new information and strategies to her team but this year you guys during Co she has knocked it out of the park she's like techie Tuesday here's what you need to learn and I've truly learned a lot from her and I've taken it to other districts and I know other teachers and and staff have so she's you know her her knowledge just continues on throughout the land it's really cool to see um and she facilitates 21st Century Learning for the greater good of Education she she has sat on every committee imaginable to advocate for students and schools um and she is just a superstar in that and of course I would be remiss
051if I didn't mention the real reason why we're here which is her teaching um she loves her students with all her heart she truly enjoys getting to know each and every one she is tirelessly planning um sometimes I will knock on her door and be like all right sister let's wrap it up let's go um last one out of the parking lot um and if her students struggle she takes it to heart and she really wants to meet all of their kids and all of her Endeavors to ensure that her students Reach for the Stars it it is no wonder you guys Kelly has attended every bonisha High School graduation to go cheer on the students and watch them and she writes down their names and like oh yeah I remember that one it's really
052cool to see so anyways um Kelly is an amazing teacher an amazing human and I just love you to a million pieces to the stars and Beyond couldn't be more proud and I couldn't be um more excited to present our teacher of the year manisha's teacher of the year let's give it up for Kelly Hughes thank you so much Mel I'm thank you everyone I'm very so truly honored um and I just want to um kind of piggy back on what Megan said that everyone is so deserving especially during this year I'm just so honored that I can represent all of our amazing Educators um in BD so thank you so much aome thank you Miss Miss buck and uh um uh and Patrick and Kali and Kelly best wishes to you at the county
053and the state we are going to be cheering you and supporting you and helping you in any way shape or form please know we are there for you um when you are competing at the county and the state level and maybe National who knows let's keep keep our dreams big and high right so um let's see now a another great honor for me uh I work with this person a lot um uh because not only as the employee of the uh in our district but also as uh the president of CSA Union and uh so I am going to request uh Mr rero a director of uh maintenance and operations to introduce not only maintenance Department's employee of the year but also bonisha Unified School District classified employee of the year so drum roll for
054our classified employee of the year Unified School District also so there you go Mr rero all yours thank you thank you Dr Gil uh good evening ladies and gentlemen um thank you for the introduction it is my sincere pleasure and honor to introduce to everyone Mr Andre Finn as classified employee of the year uh Mr Finn works in the maintenance department as a maintenance technician and he's dedicated employee of 16 years during the course of uh his employment Andre has demonstrated nothing but the greatest of work ethics and he creates a team mentality everywhere he goes Andre regularly shares insightful and cost-saving ideas that in turn allow our budget to further support the school sites and the students Andre is stoutly engaged with our safety culture and he contributes to the organization as a whole
055um the difficulties that we have all shared this year um specifically in the maintenance department was made a lot easier by the contributions Andre makes on a daily basis and specifically uh one in one instance where he brought in the idea of using UV lights inside of the HVAC units now Andre not only brought that idea to the table but he made the planning and and found the correct UV lights to install and install them single handedly uh throughout the district in the isolation rooms as we plan to come back to school which was no easy feat um Andre is always respectful and approachable and as his supervisor I regularly receive emails and phone calls from site administrators teachers contractors of how helpful polite how smart and intelligent Andre has been um and helpful and
056at a time in our world where most of the faces that we run into we've grown accustomed to you know they're behind the mask it's always a pleasure to hear a genuine salutation from Andre um along with the list of long list of HVAC and electrical duties Andre performs regularly and pretty much solely um is long and exhausting and I can be here all night to discuss all of them um but for these and many more um I feel like his nomination for employee of the year should be many times over but his ability to work above and beyond expectation is what warrants this recognition aside from him saving the school district thousands of dollars each year by performing highly skilled task Andre has also assisted in the research and planning of new technologies brought
057into the district such as the digital and remote control thermostats that we all have um you um LED lighting um the ovens that went in at the central kitchen and and much much more I find myself lucky to work with an individual with a great work ethic and true caring so strong that I cannot help but come to rely on it and with that being said he would never say so as he demonstrates an abundance of humility for these reasons and many more I'm more than happy that Andre Finn received this distinguished honor as classified employee of the year um and lastly off of what I've read honestly when I was reading this I'm thinking to myself um although he is classified he should be certified because he teaches us all in the maintenance department
058things every day and it is a real true honor um to work and beside Andre so thank you Andre for all that you do thank you guys I really appreciate that thank you so much thank you Mr Mayor and Andre um being the classified employee of the year for Bish Unified School District um he's also going to be representing our district at the county state and National level we're looking forward to it the pressure is high and we're going to be cheering for you supporting you assisting you in any shape or form um I have been emailing him he knows I I bug him every so often by emailing him texting him and uh so KY and Andre guess what the the uh employees of the Year especially the district employee of the year um
059when they get recognized and they get this honor they also have to do homework so this year I thought you know what I'm going to be nice to them so what I did was I told them you're District employee of the year and then I waited for a couple days to send them the homework of a 50 Page Long application and saying okay now get to work because they have to submit a huge application with lots of letters of recommendation and other things but please know Kelly and Andre U we are there to support you U I have been bugging Melanie and miss miss buck and Mr Miro already to help you but I I we will also help you I will also help you because we really need to make your applications the best
060in the state and in the nation not only in the county so I'm going to really put lots of pressure on that and we're going to make it happen go get them tiger so thank you so much now um one more honor we are going to do to a very special person and uh um by recognizing our administrator of the Year each year in bisha we also honor and recognize an administrator of the year uh the way that works is our management team um actually selects the person through through a survey um whoever receives the most votes and that person gets to be the administrator of the year and in this year the person who has been working tirelessly uh all summer we everybody has been working tirelessly let's say that right this has been
061the most difficult year um in our lives we know that in this profession or any other profession we all know that but this person actually had to do in person physically at 5:00 in the in the morning she is actually at work and uh so I am going to be requesting our wonderful money guy CBO Mr ahel to recognize our administrator of the Year good evening everyone it's my pleasure um to be here tonight to recognize um you Tanya Courtney our food service director you're a wonderful person and uh you provide such great quality uh food program to all of our kids every single day um Tanya has led her her team um since day one since covid started way back last March and been been there every student day uh recently has expanded to
062um breakfast and um always lunch and snack um added uh when she heard uh we could now provide meals for kids uh for the holidays um they added um care packages for the kids to pick up um so they could take it to the holidays and um just just very um concerned about the kids and um providing for her team um making sure that Tanya you always do a great job of of looking out for your team too to make sure they're equipped uh uh PPE protective personal equipment is a term in covid and she wanted to make sure her staff had the appropriate year to to come in contact and deliver those um hot meals homecooked meals uh uh to our to our kids so we really appreciate that you're a a great person
063Tanya to build the relationships with your vendors as well to get good quality food and we're just so fortunate to have you um your business sense is amazing she knows she knows how to run um a great program she she had some her her start in many many things she worked at Olive Garden in her past and she brings all of that great um business sense to um our food service program so we're in good hands I'm you know ananya it's it's just my honor that um to honor you tonight and we're just so fortunate to have you thank you so much thank you thank you everybody it's a great honor to be part of benisha um leadership uh leadership um team and I want to thank you all the leaders of benisha for supporting
064me to through all this time to be there with us like we I Le and a lot of you to um give the support so we can be there for the kids to provide and to be able to give the energy and the positive attitude to our uh employees to make through every day um also I would like to um special thank you to our custodians they're there with us every day to our campus monitors to our technology that um helped me put the letters to the parents to the maintenance department that come and fix certain things when things get broke the tents fly away you know without all this great teamw workk we're not going to be able to make it but you guys are there for us and then we love you guys
065thank you thank you so much thank you Mr Rael and thank you Miss cordney um huge thanks to you for um doing everything you're doing on a daily basis for our students so and our families so uh before we um end this uh uh really great um ceremony of highlighting all of our wonderful employes um I just want to take a moment to thank everybody who um helped with this process because even though we're doing this virtually there are a lot of people who play a role I want to help Miss Georgina Martinez for making all the certificates I also would like to take a moment to help um thank my HR team uh Miss Kathleen Zuli uh Maria Silva and Cynthia bogar for helping to pass the certificates out especially M Miss Kathleen Zuli
066um so what we have done this year is a little different because typically we give the certificates in person as we recognizing the board meeting right so I had to think about and saying how could we do this everything has to be done like differently and think out of the box basically so what we have done is communicated with every single PE person here I have been personally communicating with them via email and saying would you be able to pick would you would like to pick up your certificate or should we mail it to you so most of you have responded to me if you haven't responded to me please let me know what your desire is we will do whatever you wish and if you are picking your C certificate please email Miss Julie
067um she will arrange a time uh uh for us you to pick up your certificate from the HR office if you will rather have US mail it to you we will mail it to you we are at your service whatever your heart desires we're there for you we will do whatever you you tell us to do and again thank you so much everybody I do want to thank Dr Young because he kind of helped me make think out of the box with this because when we got the email from the county and I said how will we do this should we do this I mean because County kind of gave us the option this year they didn't really say do this they said if you wish to participate here's the email and he really encouraged
068me he said no we are going to recognize our people and we are going to do whatever it takes to honor and everybody's working so hard um so Dr Young thank you so much being for for being a great leader and encouraging us to encouraging me helping me to recognize and honor our employees so thank you so much everybody and thank you for all of our leaders and board members thank you do putting that all together thank you thank you to all of our um everyone that's recognized well done yeah exactly thank you everybody for the work that you put in um to make our district shine and we really really appreciate you I it's hard to follow up to the next item on the agenda when this was so fabulous so thank you again
069very very very much okay um I um and I guess do our guests need to they can kind of sign off if they don't want to continue to be online right now um it's it's going to be a long meeting and you can join on YouTube if you can't you know if you want to get more information about what's going on so but thank you everybody for being here for sure um right now we're going to move on to um our reports and first up I have our our um students um from Liberty High School is who's here for Liberty today is Alice Wells here Alysa Wells I got it I I spelled your name wrong it's elisia Elicia sorry I totally messed that one up sorry welcome and and what would you like to
070share about Liberty today hi well for first of all I'd just like to say good evening to board president Zeta and the fellow trustees and superintendents and cabinet members and my name is Alice Wells and I am Liberty's High School Liberty High School's board representative and we here at Liberty have had a great start to the second semester we have had three more students graduate early with few more close to the finish with a few more close to the Finish Line we would also like to welcome the new students that have transferred and we wish them great success with great exit at Liberty High School has selected or was selected by Solano County Department of Education and finding back partnership as one of the six School sites that will be able to nominate students to
071be a part of their new youth L social impact initiative entitled El Elevate youth salano starting next month February 20121 through Elevate Elevate youth Solano their goal is to strengthen the voices of solo youth of color by training and certifying them to become leaders of community change and advocating against systems policies and environmental conditions that historically harm them and their families through the form of art additionally we hope to have Liberty students participate in a 10-month youth Le social impact in which will incorporate leadership and communication skills development and training adult and peer monitoring and an annual countywide youth Summit an art showcase applications are due this Friday as luck haveed in community college cour classes with classes beginning being offered online many Liberty students will have access to college credits for the first time
072in their academic career and advises have set more one-on-one time with them and with Valentine's Day right around the corner we will be creating and sending virtual Valentine's Day grams to all the students at Liberty and we want to spread a little love and let everyone know that there's someone who cares and someone who loves them there thank you so much for that report I really I that's a lot of good stuff I'm excited that our students will be able to start possibly earning college credits so that's really exciting so thank you and then we have from bisha high school is there Michaela moldero there she is hi wel hi um I don't know if any of the teachers or staffs are still on but just want we can't hear you are you she's Frozen
073I think Michaela can you say anything let me see if we can hear you there you go I hear you now I think sorry am my back my you're back you you you yeah you're back go right ahead sorry about that um I'm talking about the things we have upcoming we still have our ongoing Panther podcast which is our rally Commissioners and then next week we're going to be giving out senior sweatshirts on Wednesday and Thursday so that's really exciting we're excited to give something back to our seniors and then we have the elective Fair coming up and where leadership as a class is creating a mental health video just to raise awareness during this time and then we also have S sports are going back I don't know if Miss K is still on
074here as well we are planning we're trying to put together a senior night for them since we know they won't be able or most likely won't be able to have crowds and things like that uh oh we lost you again Michaela can you hear me Michaela we can't hear you okay I'm sorry we're we're having some technical difficulties um oh there you are I'll wrap this up hold on student history month so we we do have um sorry Black History Month um so we do have our black student union putting together um events for the whole month and then we have a multicultural week in April that's all for me that is amazing and I'm sorry if we missed any of the the talking points that you had but have a full schedule there of
075wonderful things that are going on or coming up so I want to thank you for all you're doing um to represent bisha high school and do we have your um is there the ASB vice president Madison's here hi yes I'm here oh where are you I'm trying to oh there you are hi hi well welcome yes thank you so I will be talking about the events that we have um done uh in the past weeks so we actually just put out a You Are Not Alone video U me and Michaela put that together and um leadership students in the class we all just made a short clip of saying you are not alone or you matter or we care about you just to know that during these times they are tough and so just to
076let them know that they are not alone and other people are going through the same things that we're that they're going through and then we also did um we passed out the um the senior gifts and we had a little bit over a hundred seniors I I'm pretty sure yes and those were very exciting I got my gift and I loved it so um that was like the best part of my week getting my senior gift so I'm sure all the other singers loved it so those are the two events that we've done terrific thank you thank you so much for all of you for sharing and I know it's a it's a school night and you might have homework that you want to get too so um I thank you for being here tonight
077we really appreciate it and you can go ahead and exit stage right and get on with your day thank you so much this time um I will turn it over to Dr Young for the superintendence report very good thank you president Zeta uh good evening everybody just a few comments from from me so good evening board team and uh viewers everybody who's decided to tune in I think uh every board meeting I'd like to start off by thanking everybody um you know we continue to live in a very different space um for all of us so I just like to start off by thanking all the groups Food Services CDU maintenance and operations all secretarial staff all management uh and certainly um uh our teachers so thank you I know um for a fact that
078each and every one of you is showing up every day uh on behalf of our kids and uh giving it your best effort and as your superintendent please know that um I greatly appreciate that and I know that the board does too and I also want to thank the board uh for showing up uh um every day uh interacting with me and making the hard decisions and thinking about uh this wonderful school district of ours and how we continue to make it better together um just a quick um maybe a quick comment that I was thinking about this journey we've been on together you know and in the district like coming on March it's like uh what Happ like a year so this new journey of ours started almost a year ago and uh I
079think in it there's been certainly a number of challenges and a number of successes um and I know that uh you know we're navigating some challenges right now and I just want to put out to the community and to all of us um as your superintendent I I know that the board would agree with me that I think it's really important that we continue to promote um you know a culture of inquiry certainly and then also a culture where we model civil and respectful discourse with one another that even when it gets challenging uh even when we don't always know exactly what to do uh we're working through things that we can agree to disagree in ways that are always respectful uh and that build that culture together because every day when we come together
080what we're doing whether or not we know that we're building culture together and so this whole district has had this beautiful culture that I know we're all aware of and we need to keep tending to it in ways that's that's respectful that elevates everybody in the system uh and and that takes you know mindfulness uh every day to really think about those interactions and how we communicate with each other and certainly thinking about that we think about our kids right because the only reason any of us are here uh is for the students it's our sole purpose and I know they look to us as adults as Role Models um with so many things and so certainly around civil discourse and supporting one another even when times are challenging so I just wanted to highlight
081that with you um another thing I wasn't sure I was going to say it but I'll say it my wife uh and I always um CH need my the love of my life and uh we were talking the other day actually we're talking today about Facebook and how interesting Facebook is and she said yes Mark Zuckerberg wrote something today um talking about Facebook is it's 17 years old because I was wondering how old is Facebook and the reason I bring it up is that when you talk about civil discourse um Facebook and social media is a place that can be so powerful for Humanity and it can also be a place that we have to be you know very careful with the way conversations take place uh in that space and I can't think of
082another technological invention that's that young that has had that kind of an impact on society I think we're still figuring out what it means uh social media's effect on the brain so I just call all of us to continue to be thoughtful stewards about that powerful communication Tool uh and how we want to use it in ways to to elevate the great work that we do for kids so um that's it just wanted to say that and again thank you for all of our great classified and certificated staff got this amazing team and we we will get through all this uh we are going through it obviously and we get to choose how we want to go through it so we do it in ways that are respectful and that we're we're uplifting and elevating
083all of us in the system even when it gets challenging so we can do that so thank you so much um president Zeta and Bor you're welcome um thank you Dr Young for your thoughtful words um it's appreciated by all of us on the board so thank you for all you're doing um during this time um NEX is bard reports for our board members anybody on the board have any reports Dr Moss anything nothing to report um let's see um Mr Meli Mr grubs Mr grubs oh my gosh sorry so sorry CeCe grubs Mrs grubs nothing um myself and Diane um Mrs f she anything to share just real quickly that I sat in on the um curriculum committee recently and um we were we are the elcap our elcy ttimes that's which one it
084was and we were talking about looking at our goals and revisiting some of our goals to make them more reflective of all the work that we're doing now so and I see that um Dr beatson is going to share that with us so I'm saying nothing else excellent thank you for sharing that uh Mrs fuchi um I just wanted to let everybody know that um during this time and trying to get students back into classrooms is of utmost importance to every single one of us um but in an effort to try to get things rolling I have reached out to Sacramento and I have contacted um The Honorable Tony Thurman of he's the California state superintendent of Public Instruction I've contacted the California state Senator Bill Dodd I've reached out to um our Solano County
085Superintendent of Schools leet Estella Henderson and Mrs Monica Brown who's our count County supervisor in Solano County that uh represents our district um all in an effort to open communication about how we can go about getting our teachers vaccinated how can we get us moving up in the line and uh guess Dr Moss or Dr yeah Dr Moss her are planning a trip down to Sacramento as soon as these appointments get scheduled and we're going to go meet with them um in person hopefully and be able to discuss different options because we're at a Crossroads here right now and um I'm doing what I can to to reach out to it's not just in the district I'm trying to reach broader section of people and they are the ones that that can make the changes
086so or help us along the way and and I think we're faced with um we're faced with a lot right now but I I just wanted you to know what I've been doing in the background um trying to get this done the last couple of weeks I've been working on it so that's all I had to share you're welcome you're welcome all right then um moving on um okay we're at comments uh from the public and I just want to remind everybody in an effort for our community's voices to be heard BD has transitioned to accepting public comments via the public comment voicemail that will now be available members of the public wishing to address specific items on the board meeting agendas are requested to call 2787 that'll be one comment per person per item
087limited to three minutes on the day of the meeting between 3: p.m. and 7:00 p.m. please note that no anonymous messages will be played if your comment is for closed session please be sure to state so that so that it can be addressed prior um prior to Clos session the board clerk will play a recording of all the Open Session public comments to the specific items then being discussed by the board by board bylaw 9323 during the public comment item the governing board allow speakers to speak at regular meetings on agendized and non- agendized matters under public comment comments are limited to No More Than 3 minutes per speaker at which time the voicemail will be cut off by law no action may be taken on any item raised during public comment periods and matters
088may be referred to to staff for placement on a future agenda of the governing board please be reminded your comments should be respectful and that students may be watching so we want to be really careful when we're submitting our comments so we're hoping that this is going to allow you to have your voice and and we were happy to make this happen and I want to thank our um it department for working really hard to to get this up and running so um without further Ado I I'm going to turn this over to our public comments uh Miss Martinez we're ready is Kaitlyn KC and I I am calling to give public comment on item 13.2 I am a bisha parent and I support the return to in-person small group instruction not a single student
089in banisha including those with severe disabilities has seen the inside of their classroom in nearly 11 months I know our teachers are amazing and dedicated Educators but unfortunately online learning is leaving many of our special education students behind since the start of the pandemic I have agreed with the CDC Dr fouchy and Governor n on social distancing and maske wearing to mitigate the impacts of covid-19 today I still agree with these same experts that we should reopen schools for in-person learning in the CDC summary of guidance published on December 4th they schools should be the first to open and the last to close why I support every effort to prioritize teachers to receive the covid-19 vaccination CBC director Dr relle wsky recently stated vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools Dr
090fouchy has stated I would back to cgc recommendations because that is really bed on data we need to try and get the children back to school it is less likely for a child to get infected in the school setting than if they were just in the community Governor Nome has stated we have many many districts that have schools open and have been able to do it safely we can safely reopen schools as we process a prioritization of vaccination to our locally most of Marin County's Public elementary schools have been opened since October with no Co outbreaks tied to those schools even during the winter search Marin County Schools have been in session for 91 days now with an average of 17,000 students there has been zero transmission of covid from student to teacher this is
091according to County data and reported by ktbu I urge the Nisha Unified School District to follow the guidance of our nation's Public Health leaders our experts and support best practices for neighboring counter that have reopened please support the return to inperson small group instruction at this time thank you hi my name is Andrea Schneider and I'm a bisha resident and a parent of the child in the bisha school district who also has special education services I just wanted to State for the record that my husband and myself are appalled at the attempt to recall two valuable school board members it appears that a vocal minority of bullies has attacked them online on different social media platforms this attempt at a recall is a complete waste of our money and our time as taxpayers and as
092residents of gisha we should be looking at returning to school when it's safe to do so not on the whims of a bunch of science denying entitled and rude people I appreciate and my husband appreciates the thoughtfulness of the Schoolboard members who wish to return to school when it's safe to do so and by following scientific guidelines and again taking a very firm strong anti-bullying stance that is inexcusable and it is no justification for recalling these two fine members of the school board hello my name is Kelly beran my address is 413 Arbor Court in venisha and the item number is 3.1 public comment dear Schoolboard members my name is Kelly beran and I am writing to you regarding the possible recall of trusty melian president Zas I am the kindergarten teacher in venisha and
093I am taking this opportunity to urge you to do what is right for our schools in our community at this point spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and investing the time it would take to remove them is not in the best interest of students teachers and families I am flabbergasted as to why there is even a recall in question this seems like a way for community and possibly other board members to retaliate against Mr melli and Miss data who may have differing political beliefs despite these beliefs all five board members voted unanimously to keep students home until March 22nd how have the two board members in question jeopardized our students wellbeing any more than any of the other board members I must say that never in my nine years of teaching have I felt less
094appreciated this overworked and More in fear for my safety throughout the pandemic Mr Meli and Miss Z both have continued to serve as a voice for teachers they have considered the medical advice from the Solano County Public Health officials have generously listened to the concerns of Educators and have stood up for what is right for all despite loud and even violent protests from members of our community I wholeheartedly agree with all who would like our children to return to school teachers did not sign up to be virtual instructors we thrive on the interactions and relationships we build with our students in person however we are only prepared to do so when it is safe for all trusty miselli and president Zeta you have my support in this difficult time thank you hi my name is
095Steve Dale and what I want to do is I want to and I live in Venicia California here at 489 rine at place um I want express my opposition uh to the recall efforts for Sher and Mark vaa there's three items I'd like to address one is my support for Sher and mark the second is my hope that the board will commit themselves individually and as a body as opposition to this recall and the third is a thank you to the board uh while I'm more familiar with Sher than Mark I suppose them both absolutely in the unlikely event this recall goes forward I will pledge my complete Court to write this wrong I know the Sher is passionate about the children and false accusations and this poorly written notice of intention of recall couldn't
096be further from the truth there is recklessness here but the recklessness is for the folks who put this poorly thought out recall effort together and not the least of which is the cost of $300,000 that would come out of the board I also want to support uh Sherry because of her um her support of the mark for our lives effort to try to to have rational gun control so that our children can be safe My Hope Is that the um so my number two is my hope is that the board will unequivalently commit to a clear opposition for this first I want Assurance from the board that the board is working as a team and even when you disagree you're going to work together secondly this Behavior needs to stop it's a terrible precedent so
097anyway lastly I want to thank you as board members for serving under difficult situations these are my expectations nobody including every board member wants our students have spend one day more than necessary at home rather than in person learning and even though the probability is that um we will not be able to open up the classes until the fourth quarter to inperson learning I know that if there's an opportunity to open up sooner I'm sure the board would do its best to adjust accordingly anyway thank you very much um here and thank you for all that you folks do Sarah Jensen Matthew Turner teacher agenda item number eight congratulations to Aaron and ilce our fantastic employees of the year for Matthew Turner we are so so lucky to have you and to work with you
098every day working with Aaron every day as my grade level partner is truly a dream come true she is just one of the most collaborative and engaging um thoughtful teachers and grade level Partners to work with and I'm so thankful for her especially as we have worked through virtual learning this year and ilsa is truly just the Jack of all trades of our school and she keeps us running with a smile on her face and always a little bit of grace and patience when things are crazy so we are incredibly lucky I am so thankful and no one is more deserving than these two lovely ladies thanks my name is Nancy Rothstein at 873 I'm calling with response to item number 12.3 equity and opportunity update I'm Nancy rosstein I'm a parent of a child
099that attends Denisha high school I want to bring your attention to concerns that I have that the school district has not done enough to address racial inequity in our schools I would like to advocate for a district wide racial Equity goal to be created in order to prioritize equity for our children of color 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 anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices race and Equity trainings and Trauma informed teaching I would also like to strongly advocate for our children to have Equitable access to a curriculum that is reflective and representative of an inclusion historical lens I asked that this District adopts the 1619 project curriculum and creates a plan to
100provide our V USD teachers with the training and support that is needed in order for them to successfully utilize and integrate this curriculum into their daily teachings thank you hi my name is Cara bitman I'm a visha resident and parent of a Matthew Turner Elementary School student I'm calling you in regards to open session agenda item 13.2 consideration and approval of inperson small group instru instuction my comment is more of a simple ask for the sanity of the parents involved in watching please be more open and transparent about the data and science that informs your decision provide a full and honest accounting of all facts information and context essential to ensuring an informed and Equitable decision-making process as I'm certain you all know given the Decades of experience brought to the table leaders who open
101their process and make it more transparent build credibility and enhance trust with their constituents this seemingly insolar nature of what's Driven your decision making thus far has left far too many free to fill in the narrative and narrative as we have seen take on a life of their own parents deserve better staff deserve better but most importantly our students deserve better thank you hi my name is Cara baitman I'm a Venicia resident and parent of the Matthew Turner Elementary School students I'm calling in regards to open session agenda item 13.2 consideration and approval approval of in-person small group instruction my comment is more of a simple ask for the sanity of the parents involv in watching please be more open and transparent about the data and science that informs your decisions provide a full and
102honest accounting of all facts information and context essential to ensuring an informed and ex hello my name is Excuse Me Katrina Monro uh from 366 East Second Street in Bia I'm calling in regard to the recall petition for Sher Z Zeta and Mark Meli um we all want our kids to go back to school all of us as a u mother and a grandmother a former educator I I'm so sad that the kids are not having quote normal experiences quote like they seem like they should be entitled to I'm also a mentor at Liberty High School and I'm seeing firsthand what these very fragile kids who could not make it in a regular High School what happens to them when they have no in-person support outside of school so I do want the kids to
103go back but not at any price and I think it's very um shortsighted um to rush this decision when we are taking risks and we're not just taking risks with the people that are in the school we're taking risks with the Community because kids move outside of school and back into their homes the um the petition itself is troubling um I understand that people want kids to get back to school but they've targeted two of the most honest hardworking people on the board when in fact the board decision which was not an easy decision but it wasn't a controversial decision in the sense that the board voted unanimously five to zero to keep the schools closed so why are we targeting two people on the board well the answer seems to lie outside of the
104issue of the actual vote just to return kids to school this is um has some connection with um other types of events and who they look at these two members and what they see in them that has to do not at all with their work on the school board so I really don't want $300,000 of my tax money to be going to this effort there are way better things that we can be spending that kind of money on which will benefit all of our students when they get back into school and hopefully that time is coming very very shortly thank you I support all the hard work that all of the school board members do but here in particular I'm referring to the dedication and the ethics and the honesty of Sher Zeta and mark
105melli thank you bye now hi my name is Shelby Delaney I live at 213 eaten Court IND Denisha I'm here to discuss item 12.3 equity and opportunity update um I like to start by saying that I am a bonisha resident um and although I do not currently have children in B USD my husband and I are planning on starting a family soon and raising our children here in venea however I am hesitant to send my children to bisha schools given the troubling history of racism within bisha schools and the fact that the USD is composed of primarily white teachers administrators and other staff and they're teaching our children incomplete curriculum that helps uphold white supremacy what is even more concerning is that USD has done very little to address racial equity and schools and this
106needs to change immediately I'm here to Advocate that there be a districtwide racial Equity goal created to prioritize equity for children of color in ventia teachers and administrators should participate in ongoing anti-racist trainings including race and Equity training in addition I strongly believe that the district needs to adapt the 1619 project curriculum which which will provide a much more inclusive historical lens for our children when implementing this the district should create a plan to help teachers successfully integrate this curriculum into their teachings across all subjects this is not a problem we can wait to address changes need to be made immediately the future of our country depends on it thank you so much hi my name is Celeste Monet um and I live at 941 Elaine Way in visha and I am calling regarding the
107current recall effort of our two um are two trustees so um hello my name is Celeste Marette and I'm calling to make public comment as a mother Community member and former School Board member in support of school board trustees president Sher Zada and Mark melli and the thec governance team as a whole as a former School Board member I know how challenging decisions can be when it comes to our children's education during normal times and I can only imagine how challenging the work has been for our governance team during this pandemic I want to acknowledge and appreciate every trustee regardless of how they've chosen to vote on past measures as well as our superintendent and a staff I also want to acknowledge our teachers and the rest of the District staff who have worked hard
108to adjust to an unprecedented time which is required great flexibility in the face of challenge I want to also Express concern and disappointment at what seems like a misguided and Reckless attempt to recall presidents um Zara and truste melli I through various conversations and through reading the petition I have not been able to get a cohesive or substantive argument from those promoting the recall and as to why they are charging these two specific trustees with gross negligence with lack of any reasonable argument it is reckless and irresponsible to go forward with this recall effort and I encourage any of you presented with the opportunity to assign this P petition to decline should they receive the designated number of signatures it will trigger a special election which will cost the district $300,000 and our children desperately
109need that money this effort is divisive and harmful to our already struggling community and overwhelmed School District as a district and Community we have the responsibility to care for the health of our community which includes teachers District staff and children we have to enable our teachers and staff to get vaccinated so that they and their families are protected and by extension all of us are ultimately protected I advocate for putting this recall energy into action in working to get our schools back open this recall will not do that instead it disrupts and distracts our district from being able to do the work it desperately needs to do to get in person learning back up and running I am a parent and I have seen my children struggle and suffer as so many of our kids
110have and they continue to struggle and this continues as well to be a personally challenging time for me but the struggles that result from this pandemic are complex and the blame does not rest on in two of our trustees so in closing I would like to reiterate my support of Trustees Sher Zada and Mark melli who are volunteering their time in order to serve our community they have been they have demonstrated professionalism and integrity and do not deserve to be targeted and I would also like to express again my support and encouragement to the governance board our teachers our district administrators and staff I may not always agree with the decision or vote but I do believe that everyone is working in the best interest of our children thank you hello my name is Laura
111Cohen and I would like to voice my public comment towards the discussion item number 12.3 which addresses the equity and opportunity update I am a Jewish mother of two children that attend Robert simple Elementary School for the past three years I have been an active member of our District's lcap team our Robert simple site Council and our Robert simple ptg it has been my privilege to be an active parent in this educational system on behalf of my children and other children who attend bisha schools today I would like to speak to the imperative need to open up our schools with an equitable and anti-racist lens for our children of color I would like to advocate for a districtwide racial Equity goal to be created in order to prioritize equity for our children of color I
112ask 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 anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices race and Equity trainings and Trauma informed teaching I would also like to strongly advocate for our children to have Equitable access to a curriculum that is reflective and representative of an inclusive historical lens I ask that the district adapt the 1619 project curriculum and create the plan to provide our buusd teachers with the training and support that is needed in order for them to successfully utilize and integrate this curriculum into their daily teaching thank you to the board and to the district for listening to my voice along with many other school Community member voices this evening hi my name is Christa Heria
113address 645 East K Street in bisha I'm calling to comment on item number 12.3 on Equity I am the parent of a grown son who attended bonisha middle school and banisha high school as well as two few more children who currently attend Robert Temple Elementary I listened very carefully to Dr beatson's Equity presentation during the January 14th board meeting what I heard was the district has done lots of research but has not taken much action according to Dr beaton's report this research period has been a few years long it has included seeking feedback from students and parents while also collecting data points there was an admission that the collected data proves an equitable experience is among our B USB students of color as well of our as our students with special needs so you've researched
114best practices regarding equi you've researched curriculum relevancies you've sent some staff to trainings on implicit bias and have spent those years quote trying different trainers and presenters to find a good fit unquote it seems that you've now spent more than an adequate amount of time in research and so as parents are now demanding that you put actionable steps into motion now we heard plans for the hiring of an equity and opportunity liaison and additional plans for school sites to have their own site Equity teams this all sounds promising but again it's just a bunch of research and planning but not much action yet I was disappointed to hear that the only tangible professional development resource in regard to equity that is currently available to our teachers and staff is Seven online learning modules staff were
115only required to complete three of those modules Which is less than half and only some of our school sites are doing an all staff engagement regarding this learning we have some phenomenal teachers in this District who have formed their own anti-racist professional learning community in which they use their own resources and on their own time invest in training themselves to be the teachers our black students need them to be this in and of itself should serve as conviction that the professional development resources you are currently offering your St staff are deeply inadequate I ask you make it an urgent priority to provide teachers and staff with robust anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices race and Equity trainings and trauma-informed teaching I would also like to strongly advocate for our students to have Equitable access
116to a curriculum that is reflective and representative of an inclusive historical lens I ask the district to consider the 1619 project curriculum and create a plan to provide our teachers with the training and support that is needed in order for them to successfully utilize and integrate this curriculum into their daily teachings thank you for your time hi my name is Patty Hayes my address is 445 Vis supp court and um I'm speaking to the covid item so earlier this week I sent letters to Mrs Z and Mr melli and copied superintendent young but I wanted to share what I told them in my letter here I'm a m of two students at Mary farmer I want to thank you for your dedication and hard work on the school board I'm grateful for you and the
117other members of the board I'm so sorry you've been the target of unfair and unfounded criticism and what appears to be harassment during a very trying time for all of us I do not support the recall effort I watch the board meetings regularly and I thank you for your thoughtfulness and strength in doing what we've asked you to do work on behalf of the students families and all of B USD including our wonderful teachers please keep it up thanks hello my name is Kathleen Ruiz my address 776 Barton Way and my comment is for item number 13.2 my comment is as follows I am during the December meeting I wrote in and asked every board member to do some research for our area before casting their vote about inperson instructions I was pleased to see
118the votes were unanimous the problem I see is that does not that does nothing for our most critical students if you did the research you would know that most of the districts around us have already started small groups and special education students are getting time on campus why have we not started this it worries me that I'm hearing more and more children that do not fall into the small group category continuing to struggle and even with the March 22nd date most of the kids won't see a classroom this year this past week even our governor said that it is time to start bringing kids back will you listen to him I need small groups I think we need small groups to start as soon as possible so we can get things moving I support our
119teachers School staff and District employees and I think it's time we let them start the plan that Dr Young and his team came up with it seemed they had the means to start they just need your approval so please put your personal fears aside and do what is best for our children they are depending on you please show that you care about them gavor Newsome said CL I am very concerned about the equity lens in terms of this conversation because so many private schools are open he said I believe when we can safely reopen public schools to inperson instruction with the appropriate level of safety support and accountability in terms of enforcing the rules and we are committed to doing that in partnership with the legislature if he thinks we can do it then we
120should be starting to do it please bring small groups back immediately thank you my name is Brandon green my address is 227 carile way in Venicia I am the parent of a Elementary schooler at Matthew Turner I'm also a member of Pisha black Liv matter and the African-American parents group I'm calling in support of the equity opportunity update discussion item both as a professional um as a lawyer who works on racial and economic justice issues including education and as a parent in Venicia uh I'm in support of District um putting forth all U necessary investment in equity and opportunity uh particularly at this time where the covid crisis is disproportionately impacting black families both the virus itself and economic consequences and particularly in this District where there is disproportionality as it relates to disciplined and
121educational outcome um given the unprecedented uh protest and demonstration um and uh other sort of events um now is time for the school district to be bold and take bold action uh towards ensuring equity for all students thank hi this is Rick small I'm um assistant coordinator of the mentoring program at benisha middle school bisha high school and Liberty High School um in case it's um it's new to some folks it's been around since 2001 at Liberty High and for the last five years at the middle school and bonisha high school we usually meet with kids during the week and of course with covid we haven't been able to meet in person uh we would like to meet um virtually but my question is this um we'd really like to know if there's at least
122one classroom at East Campus where a mentor could meet in person with a student with mask obviously maybe six to 10 feet apart but um it's it's been our experience over the last few months that um the students are just burned out on zooming and it's really time for them to be able to meet someone in person uh we've lost one middle schooler to Suicide this school year and almost lost a high schooler so um this is a problem that's going to rear tuy head again so I'm really urging please let's work on opening at least one or two classrooms where a live Mentor can meet with a student physically distant and wearing a mask thank you much for your time and your consideration Robert Crowley 213 Eaton Court Venicia California 12.3 equity and opportunity
123update my name is Robert Crowley I'm a bonisha resident and I live over on Eaton cour I don't currently have kids within B USC but my wife and I are planning on starting a family and started looking into the school system we had a few concerns that we wanted to address in front of the board in order to make change within buusd I am here to Advocate that there be a districtwide racial Equity goal created to prioritize equity for children of color within Venicia teachers and administrators should participate in ongoing anti-racist training including race and Equity trainings I also strongly believe that the district should adopt the 16 19 project curriculum which will provide a much more realistic historical lens for our children the district should figure out a plan to implement the 1619 project
124into the curriculum so teachers can successfully integrate the topic across all subjects this is not a problem we can wait to address changes need to be made immediately and the future of our community depends on it thank you my name is Sarah fuchi and I a parent of two children in this District along to an ant of many other students and I am calling in regard to open session agenda item 13.2 consideration and approval of in-person and small group instruction the prolonging of in-person Education where mainly those that are on IEPs are suffering new himself States just young kids foury old not learning online not talk about Zoom schools not working for not working for his parents trying to get them off these devices go he just not paying atten he's he's not learning additionally
125since October you have listened to the adequate and safe plan to return for small groups yet have not allowed the return to in person you have all watched the numbers of schools even schools around us open for an inperson education as well as the science from even Dr fouchy himself just recently Dr fouchi States the CDC researchers put out research this week that suggested it is safe to have schools open as long as we continue masking and social distancing so what is your messaging on schools knowing that it changes from Community to community I understand that but broadly speaking should schools be open you know I we back the CDC recommendations because that is really Based on data additionally he continues to add it's less likely for a child to get ined into school in
126the community so for that reason understanding that this is not an easy issue and you got to understand the concerns of nature because they obviously have a concern and understandable concern putting all that together we need to try and get the children back to school and I am for the board tonight to please vote on this matter using the data and the science with interest of the students and the parents of this community begging for an in-person education for their children please open the schools immediately for small groups and please discuss a plan for how we can open the schools even sooner than desired based on the science data and recommendations from the CDC numerous doctors and Gavin newon thank you hello this is Andre Stewart I'm a bisha resident and I would like to
127speak on item 12.3 equity and opportunity update and I would like to offer my support to the teachers and the board in keeping the schools CL in order in order to maintain safety I think you're doing the right thing I thank you for doing it you're making the town and our children's safe and please don't let anyone tell you otherwise you're doing the right thing please continue thank you hi my name is Gia Quinn 828 door set way in Venicia and I'm calling regarding Open Session agenda item 13.2 consideration and approval of in-person small small group instructions I would like to request that special education services small groups and one toone Services be brought onto campus for in-person sessions my son has been having his speech therapy sessions via zoom and he's not getting much
128out of it the speech therapist that he had prior to maternity leave was amazing and her replacement is equally wonderful so I know that the lack of progress has absolutely nothing to do with them I know that they're doing their absolute best to engage him they're very animated and kind and friendly and I appreciate them more than words can say these speech therapists are a big part of my son's growth they write appropriate goals to help him with social skills they monitor the progress on these goals they submit reports a few times throughout the year they do assessments when necessary but it is too easy for him to mentally check out from a screen when my son is in person he feels more engaged therefore he participates more more these pragmatic language skills are not
129something that we can afford to not prioritize I have emailed the board about this and I thank Diane fuchi and CC grubs as they were the only two board members to acknowledge my email the board has yet to actively address the issue of small groups and special education services moving to in-person learning so I am feeling hopeful about tonight's meeting please be transparent in your decision as well to science discussion and thought that leads to any lack of approval there are so many schools successfully doing this surely but she can as well thank you my name is Britney sapen and tonight I'm speaking to item 13.2 small groups and one toone Services I am the mother of three kids in our district and our twins are in kindergarten both are autistic and have active IEPs
130I asked the board to approve small groups and onetoone services please put yourselves in the positions of parents with children with disabilities and allow parents the choice to send their kids back to the classroom small groups and onetoone services are designed to serve Children of the greatest need these are not just academic Services these are Medical Services as well such as occupational therapy adapted PE speech therapies how can you all continue to postpone providing a place for in-person learning a place where these Services could be adequately provided and receive many of the teams that work with these children have admitted to the parents as well as others and stated that these Services need to be provided in person for them to be best well received the children need to be in person the board has
131been shocking to us um with your decisions how many more Studies have to be completed and professional speaking publicly in favor of returning students to the classroom for their voices to be heard please follow the science listen to Dr fouchy as he's quite literally the authority on this subject it is time to open schools and it's time to follow the laws of Fate idea and the Rehabilitation Act please be transparent in your decision making this time round base your decisions off science and facts whether small groups and onetoone services are approved or not parents have a right to know why and how you reach the decisions and lastly it would also be very appreciated if board members returned emails when their constituents reached out to them thank you good evening my name is Taran Dylan
132I'm at 929 Rose Drive venisha and I'm calling on the agenda 13.2 I'm calling to advocate for the children in need of small group instruction as soon as possible I reviewed Dr Leslie beatson's presentation and respect the opinion reported for returning in-person instruction during the purple tier I hope our board members can focus on opening structures for the 4500 bisha students and not the PO politics of other personal issues they might want to highlight on please focus on the students like Mark melli stated in an interview with the bishan heral I quote it seemed to me that the decision- making was made on one end the administrative end and the teachers and parents and other groups were being left out of the decision-making process end quote I urge the board to listen to nome's own
133words I quote you find whatever you look for if we want to find reasons not to open we'll find plenty of reasons MIM added if we want to start building on ways to strategize to find ways to getting where we want to go we'll figure that out as well end quote please make the right decision in this meeting and advocate for our children thank you for your time Jimmy fuchi item 13.2 good evening bisha school board and members of the public my name is Jimmy fuchi a parent of two children in our district this is in regards to the agenda item 13.2 I simply ask to reopen the schools immediately for our children within the guidance of the appointed Health officials State local and federal laws without wasting time quoting numerous sources of respected Guidance
134the summation is schools can safely open I desperately ask you to remove the date deadline for school reopening and B it solely on when you are legally approved to do so I would rather see and would respect more another revote than see this push down the road any further understanding your date is designed to correspond with the breaking instruction but realistically one two or three extra days of education can and will make a difference science is dictating it is safe to open for instruction with the proper safety precautions there's been ample time for the district to be prepared to which I am sure you are please be an advocate for all the individuals under your direction equally in regardless of your personal agendas thank you for your time uh my name is David sells and
135I'm leaving a public comment for item number 12.3 um I'm a parent of a child uh children that attend both Robert simple and visha middle schools and I just want to draw attention to the racial inequity in our schools today and in support of a districtwide racial equality goal to be created in order to prioritize equity for our children of color I would like to see anti-racist trainings which include restorative justice practices race and Equity trainings and Trauma informed teaching for our teachers and staff along with this I would like to advocate for all of our children to have Equitable access to curriculum that is reflective and representative of cultures in our community I ask that the district consider the 1619 project curriculum along with a plan to provide for our teachers um with the
136support needed to bring this into their daily teaching thank you so much uh for listening to my comment Andrew Barrett Bill Prest Avenue I want to speak to say that I support Venicia school board members Mark Meli and Sher zard we the recall would rise time energy money that could be used for our students and staff hello my name is mariao I live on Hill Crest and I support bisha board members Mark Meli and Sheri Sada thank you hi my name is Jennifer lli peted and I live on Military East in visha I wanted to comment in order to give my support for school board members um Zada and Missi I do not support the recall I think it is costly and unnecessary I would rather see the money and the energy go towards finding
137creative ways for us to be able to get the kids back into school um as soon as is safe um I'd also like the consideration for small groups to include a consideration of what our existing and possible resources are to be able to do this to keep our students and our families safe um thank you very much my name is Leah Wilson my address is 480 vont Street and I have a comment addressing 12.3 and 13.2 my name is Leah Wilson I'm a simple parent and it has been my privilege to be an active member of the simple Community I love our little school first I would like to express my support for the two board members who are being targeted for recall I believe a recall will be a waste of time and money
138when we have neither to spare and I have heard no reasonable explanation for why these two are specifically targeted second regarding reopening of school I hope the majority of Trustees continues to make the safety of our kids our teachers and staff and the community at large the top priority in calling for Rapid reopening many people bring up the recent CDC report but we shouldn't be sloppy with those references the report stated schools may be safe to open and listed very specific mitigation measures so here are my questions is the district advocating for or organizing teacher and staff vaccination is there a large stock of high quality masks available to staff and students what measures have been taken to improve ventilation and air purification in school building are there plans to make regular covid testing available
139to all students and staff to quickly identify asymptomatic infected people and are there adequate contact tracing plans in place for when someone tests positive everyone wants our kids back in school when it's safe everyone beli they're acting in the best interest of their children most families are struggling in some way in Virtual learning my family is struggling but the pandemic is a reality schools do not exist in a vacuum teachers and staff deserve to be safe and I do not believe going back before it is truly safe is the answer last regarding equity I would like to voice my support for an lcap goal related to racial Equity I ask that you provide our teachers and staff with subsi of anti-racist and Equity training including both restorative justice and Trauma informed teaching practices this must
140be done to ensure a safe and Equitable learning environment for our students of color however restorative justice and trauma-informed teaching practices will in fact benefit all B USD students especially as all kids have experienced different levels of trauma due to the pandemic and will need support when they do return to our school building thank you for your time yes my name is Joan Westerman uh I live in Venicia and I'm calling to speak on a non- agendized uh matter uh I will begin uh my comment uh right now thank you to all five members of our school board for making the decision in January to not bring students back into the classroom until it is safe for them their families and staff special thanks to Sher Zeta and Martinelli for the extreme courage you've had
141to muster to protect us all students parents grandparents teachers and staff in the face of a cancel culture that seeks to silence voices with whom they disagree we are all very unhappy with this covid world in which people are dying losing their businesses and jobs having to learn in an online school unable to be with our friends and family due to the risk I teach te seniors who want their prom pep rallies and a large celebration on the football field for graduation which sadly won't be possible unless the spread is slowed enough to take us down several tiers from our current purple tier fears of given way to anger and truste Zeta and M have inequitably been singled out as scapegoats I am sorry and sad to see this happening with NR family town that
142it's always been a place of Safety and Security venisha has been spared the many death and other communities do imp part to your efforts to keep the spread of this deadly pandemic to a minimum thank you I understand fears that your child may not be keeping up with the children in private toools that have more resources and safety protocols that it appears uh we have to keep everyone safe St Dominic is able to follow CDC guidelines of having stable cohorts because children kindergarten through 8th grade have their own classrooms and don't miss their teachers use no touch instant read thermometers to take temperatures of each child before they enter the classroom every morning something we can't do additionally uh sacred hearten Atherton has two nurses testing students and staff weekly for covid pre kindergarten through
14312th grade with the test cered over to Stanford it seems very inequitable that the wealthy can afford the safety that allows them to choose to learn in the presence of a teacher rather than their online presence how will we address the issue of equity for demographic groups of black africanamerican Hispanic and Latino that the CDC says are 2.8 times more likely to die from the virus some nationally parents of Black and Hispanic children are 19% and 8% respectively less likely than parents of white students to choose to send their kids back to full-time in-person instructions when it is safe H can we return in a way that keeps all student safe so we do not exacerbate educational inequity lastly but not leastly how can can we keep teachers in all staff safe so that we
144can safely return to our school buildings and get off online classes can you facilitate getting us vaccinated like Napa has done for all of their teachers and staff teachers even young teachers have been getting covid some are fine While others have disability have died or brought Co home to atrisk family members with similar outcomes we're all afraid of negative outcomes from Co albeit different negative outcomes instead of channeling our fear into destructive anger and itive and expensive recall effort can we not work together in love to do our best to keep everyone learning safely sincerely hi my name is Paige Ellinger I have two children at Robert Temple I wanted to say first uh that I support um 123 equity and I wanted to just continue to show my support for hoping that we adopt
145anti-racist trainings for teachers and the um 1619 project curriculum and um anything else we can do do I hope we can move it along a little faster and last I wanted to just show my support for our board members Mark Meli and Sher Zeta and I'm very grateful that they've worked so hard to try to protect our students and I just think it's unforgivable and unconscionable the attacks that have been happening against women criminal and um and I hope that we can protect them and stop this because this illness has been ize to a degree that's just insane and um and I'm grateful for our board members who have worked so hard to protect our children and to be a voice for them and create a shelter thank you all the public comment we have
146thank you so much for for making this happen Michael um and thank you to everybody that took the the time to call it looks like this uh method of of being able to share your thoughts is worked really well in my opinion um and we'll continue to do that in future meetings so thank you all for your your you know thoughtful words or your just anything that you had to share we are listening thank you so much um with that um we're going to move on to consent calendar action items all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to your team and approved by the board in one motion there will be no discussion on these items unless members of the board staff or public request items to be pulled and
147discussed um so I'd like to see if we have a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented I'll move to make a motion to present to approve the consent calend us present it that's a mouthful do I have a second I'll second it okay thank you um all those in favor say I oh no we're gonna do a roll call vote we're gonna do a roll call vote sorry it's a new thing here you're muted Georgina yes yes yes um and we need to also um share some information we're accepting some gifts to the district and I have that right here um which is item number 11.3 um bonisha Unified School District received from Bish's Heritage Presbyterian Church uh a gift of $250 to Robert simple's Giving Tree to make sure that all the
148families that needed meals at the holidays got one so we want to really really thank them from the bottom of our hearts for helping um support our families in need really thank you so much from from all of us to all of you all right um we're going to move on to Let's oh yes the resolution now um do I need to read this whole thing or or no okay I'd like to make okay um I'd like to find out um the resolution number 20- 21-12 of bish Unified School District is authorizing competitive negotiations for E rate priority One data circuits public contract code code section 2018.2 so do I we need to do a roll call we're ready yes yes thanks everybody um we're going to go ahead and um move on to discussion
149items our first item and I'm really pleased to um have him here I reached out to Dr maos um and asked he's the salana county health officer a deputy director um he's been very um instrumental on our Thursday afternoon meetings and so we really uh welcome him to give his information that he feels iser you know the the important things that we need to know right now he's an expert in his field and I would like to welcome Dr Matos thank you for being here thank you very much um I don't have so much comments to make unless you want me to as much as question I'm willing to answer questions and that that's good too I I wondered if you could just share a little bit of what you stated today in our um
150that would be wonderful and then I'm G to open it up for questions okay thank you so as I assume you all know for the past four months we've been going through a very substantial covid surge in the county uh but over the past couple of weeks we've seen a very very significant reduction in the cases we've um about two weeks ago three weeks ago we were running at about 360 to 400 cases being reported per day uh in the last three days we've been averaging about 110 cases reported per day so our most recent 7-Day average for cases is about 140 per day which is about where we were before Halloween um and so we are certainly not back at a where we can go from the purple tier to the red tier uh
151but we are doing substantially better and in addition to having um substantially fewer cases being reported we also have a much lower positivity rate we had peaked at around 30% and we're now down to about 12 12 and a half percent and in terms of hospitalizations about three weeks ago we were um even two weeks ago we were looking at at uh over 175 people being hospitalized each day um with covid and now as of today we're at 104 so that's come down as well and our ICU availability has gone up uh it's about 30% roughly today um and so all of those metrics are indicating that we are emerging from this most recent Peak and are coming back down to much more reasonable levels I don't know how long it's going to take before
152we get down to a level that allows us to go back to the red tier that requires that we have fewer than 30 cases occurring per day I don't see that happening imminently um but you know the the passing of the the passing the threshold of 110 cases per day has an impact for your board uh because at the current time the way that the state has structured return to school small groups cohorts can occur at any time um but they have limitations and requirements the limitations are 16 people maximum between instructors and attendees um and they're intended really for children with special learning needs with children with disabilities Etc and the idea has been to permit uh this sort of environment of small group education and tutoring the opening at this point of TK
153through six however does require two things it requires you as a district to have submitted and had approved a plan that conforms to the states guidelines the OSHA guidelines the cdph guidelines doe the doe guidelines um there is a template but it does require um thoughtful consideration on your part about a whole host of issues about how you would reopen and how you would ensure safety in the reopening of the TK through six cohort the um the threshold the second issue related to that is that the threshold that that you that we have to pass as a county is to get below 110k per so we're we're pretty much um we're pretty much almost there I mean you know the last three days would certainly qualify but we have to have a five-day period of
154of being in that range um you know we've seen a lot of ups and downs uh in the numbers and I would be U I would probably be uh very uncomfortable stating to that we are there because I think we have Super Bowl weekend ahead of us and it's anyone's guess what that's going to do to the numbers uh the good news is it's going to be delayed by about a week to two before before we really see anything so it it is going to give schools an opportunity at least a window I think in the early part of next week uh to be able to qualify to reopen TK through 6 assuming that you have an appropriate plan and that you implement all of the requirements Faithfully uh the um the next threshold is
155going to take much longer to reach and that's to get down into the red tier and be there for a week uh which means we have to get down to below 30 cases per day we need to be at that level for two weeks before we can even go to the red tier and then for a week in the red tier so realistically uh even when we first get to that point you're looking at three weeks before you would be able to reopen above grade se you know seven and up in terms you know middle school and high school so so again you want to think of it in three groups of opportunities one is small groups you are permitted to do that at any time the other is TK through 6 we are on
156the threshold of reaching that um opportunity uh and then finally um the middle school high school which honestly I think is unlikely to occur before early March just because of where we are we're you know we're already weekend to February we're still at 100 plus cases per day by the time we drift down to 30 and are there for three weeks it's be what so the um you know those are so in terms of the numbers in the county those are what they mean to you uh it it is also very helpful that in the county we are um decompressing our Health Care system so that it can be more responsive um that has been threatened for a period of about a month really and and now we're beyond that which is really really helpful
157um related to all of that are um all kinds of other things that are happening in a very Dynamic fashion um with respect to sports that's a moving Target it's really hard to know what the story is with that different groups have different opinions and at the moment it's just outdoor Fitness but as you all know uh you know that can change at any time in terms of the return of team sports it would be very weird in my opinion to have team sports and not have in-person education but that is not an impossible scenario to have evolved the um the other news related to all of this has to do with vaccination and um the truth about vaccination is that it's very different from what's being reported um it is really not a haaz
158messed up system it's actually operating very smoothly here in salono County uh and in part that has to do with the fact that we have extraordinarily good relationships with our hospitals we're actually relatively unique in that regard maybe a handful of other Counties have the kinds of relationships we have with the hospital CEOs um and uh we are working with them in tandem on the distribution of vaccine and on vaccination campaigns you all were witness to that last Tuesday when you had people from Kaiser the County and a multiple other um entities working together to vaccinate a large number of people in Venicia we're going to see the same thing happen this weekend in Vallejo so we are actively working in the county with our Hospital Partners to make sure that the vaccine is delivered
159as quickly as is reasonable to the right people and that has proven to be very tricky uh and and the biggest the biggest story that I think is being misspoken is the issue of of holding back vaccine I think it's very um easy to forget that this is the two vaccines that have been approved are TW dose vaccines you need to get the second dose at the right timing or you don't the benefit of the vaccine that we are intending for you and the state and the federal government have been exceptionally bad at maintaining constant flow of vaccine and what they're telling us is oh trust us use all the vaccine you get in three weeks you'll get the the vaccine for the next dose but then it never happens it has never happened that
160we get the right amount of vaccine for the second dose so the hospitals are basically not trusting the distribution system and they are holding the first and second dose for people so that they can make sure that people are actually vaccinated properly in my opinion medically that is the only correct thing to do and I realize it it's being Mis misreported as hoarding and and not taking advantage of vaccines that are available but you have to realize it's a twood doos vaccine and if you mess up on the timing you have essentially wasted the vaccine and so I actually think the problem here is that the expectation messaging by the governor and the FEDS has been extremely inaccurate and so you need to know what's happening in your community in your community healthc care is
161trying to be smart now to be fair we don't hold back one vaccine for each person we hold back one vaccine for each two or three people because we know we'll get some second dose vaccine but we also know we'll never get the full amount so it's essentially when we get um say 10,000 doses of vaccine we'll probably vaccinate 7,000 people with that if we were to vaccinate 10 then two or 3,000 would go unvaccinated for their second dose and so that that's the reality of how vaccine is being handled so when I say that we are putting out vaccine as quickly as we can that is a true statement recognizing that we have to also allow for second doses for those same people now keep in mind what the groups we've been vaccinating so
162far are a combination of critical infrastructure healthc care and First Response and those people who are most likely to die of the disease so to me it's completely unethical to not make sure that that latter group gets two doses and it's completely wasteful to not make sure the first group gets two doses because what we experienced in this surge was very high absenteeism in the Healthcare Community we had four or five nursing homes almost have to shut down because so many of their staff were ill that they couldn't operate safely so to not have those people be properly vaccinated and to not have the residents of those facilities properly U vaccinated makes no sense at all and so that's why the pace of vaccination in our county is what it is we get a lot
163less vaccine as a County uh per capita than other counties do because a lot more of our vaccine goes directly to the hospital systems that operate in multiple C so there's something called multiple County entities and these multicounty entities are those hospitals with um hospitals in more than one County I mean you know sort of a simple term when you think about it uh so Kaiser and Sutter are mcees they get their allocation directly through their Corporate Offices so the county of Solano um gets a lot less vaccine than the public health Departments of YOLO Marin Contra Costa uh Napa they all get way more per capita than we do because they have such poorer coverage of Health Care by the mcees than we do in Sal County some 80% of our residents are healthare
164covered by the mcees 80% so that only leaves 20% to give to me uh in Yolo there's one hospital and so probably 80% goes to the health officer uh in Marin and in um Napa 80% goes to the health officer they've got one Hospital each so so the the and and the ones in in Marin and Napa aren't even MCE so that means is that they're they have more control at the health officer level with distribution than we do in our County now that sounds like a bad deal but it's really not because Kaiser and Sutter are Faithfully vaccinating the same groups of people that we are you know so they are using vaccine wisely and appropriately um but what it means is that when we try to set up a a campaign in benisha
165we got to limit it to 1500 people because we only got 1,00 doses that week and you know that means I can't do a 10,000 person campaign this weekend at the fairr because we don't get that kind of a volume so so there are some Downs that come with it the up is our Health Care system in our county is is incredible you know we have five hospitals that provide care to our residents that's a very very high hospital per capita ratio and that means that most of the time we're benefiting tremendously from having those assets but right now when it comes time to vaccine distribution unfortunately it has an impact on us so um so the pace of our ability to vaccinate is slower than is the case with some of our neighbors there
166was a press release issued by the Bay Area Health officers I think um either today or yes yesterday I can't remember um I wrote it yesterday so I probably went out today um and and what you'll find in that is half of the Bay Area Counties are vaccinating 65 and up and the other half are 75 and the ones that are 75 and up are the ones like us where we have access to less vaccine per capita than those other counties do so you know it makes it seem like it's unfair uneven but not really because we had way better Healthcare throughout this pandemic than the than those other counties those counties that that are doing 65 and up were sending their patients to us because they had nowhere near enough when they were having
167a surge we never had to send patients out of County so you know the upside is better health care the downside is a slower pace of vaccination now that affects you mostly because of the desire to vaccinate the Educators right so that you know where we are right now in our county is Phase 1 a tier three which means that we have vaccinated the majority of the healthcare workers and the residents and staff of the long-term care facilities in our County unfortunately we still have one very large group of healthcare workers that we've only barely touched and the IHSS Workforce the inhome support services Workforce of which we have 5,000 in our County and we've only vaccinated a couple hundred so that that is still a group we have to reach out to and vaccinate
168in tier two of phase 1A in tier three three there are a couple of groups we have not yet touched we haven't touched Pharmacists and we haven't touched Mortuary workers and you know when you think about it what if you look at the um the specifics in the tiers you see a lot of politics Mortuary workers is a great example of pure politics they deal with dead people dead people do not transmit covid there's absolutely no rational reason for Mortuary workers to be in Phase 1 a tier three it's it's an absolutely inappropriate decision based on risk but politics is powerful and you manage to get themselves up there so do the dentists so do the pharmacists again none of these being critical infrastructure and none of them being um high risk so having said
169to appreciate that we have to still deal with that it's there we're obligated to follow the tiers as uh provided to us by the state um and so we don't get so 75 and up we put up into tier three of phase 1A most other people have left it in Phase 1 B tier one and we did that because 75 year olds are much more important to me to be vaccinated than the IHSS workers so this way we're doing them in parallel instead of having to finish one before we go to the other now the phase that we are preparing to enter Then is Phase One tier one phase 1B tier one is a nightmare it's a nightmare because it contains multiple groups that are extremely large it contains people 65 to 74 with underlying
170health conditions 65 to 74 with no underlying health conditions that's about 50,000 people it includes agriculture workers it includes the food industry workers that's about 60,000 people and then it includes teachers and I don't know how many how many teachers we have in the county but I'm G guess it's a few thousand oh might be 10,000 I mean I don't even have a number in terms of what we're looking at when we're talking about uh teachers so we have to find a way to vaccinate all of those people in some order that makes sense uh obviously we'll be taking more than one group at a time but I need you to appreciate that I am being asked to weigh the value of vaccinating 65 to 74 now keep in mind in our County 80% of
171the people who have died are 65 and over that's where our deaths are occurring so that is a very highrisk group of people um and we are seeing increasing numbers of deaths from this most recent Surge and they're in that age group and so that is a very high priority if the goal of vaccination is to protect people from dying um and then we have agricultural workers which makes no sense to me at all there's there's no spread in the fields uh this was again driven by anecdotal problems that occurred earlier among Farm Workers on Vineyards and in a few other situations U but we're not harvesting right now and those Farm Workers aren't present and so what we would be doing is vaccinating Farmers themselves who have not been at higher risk nonetheless they're
172in that a work group and we have to do it if we Embrace that group um and then uh you know we also have uh teachers and teachers are many in number now the the good news in vaccinating teachers is that it's probably very feasible to do it by identifying a handful of schools to house the vaccine clinics something in North something in central something in South County I mean I think that that's a logical way to do it I I imagine you guys don't have so much trouble with fans that you wouldn't be able you know willing to have have both of you being vaccinated at the same site and you know Fairfield suon Real Vista can be at a site and then Dixon baville Etc so I think that that we can probably
173set up multiple clinics to try to get at the teachers but the problem is I don't know that we're going to get enough vaccine to do um even one school district if I'm also having to distribute it to people 6 5 to 74 with serious underlying health issues so again those people number about 30,000 so it's not a trivial number of people and we still haven't done the 5,000 IHSS workers who are in hired here and then we would be asked to be doing the thousands of teachers and so I you know I think we want to be as helpful to the to the um to the community as we can be in terms of helping School get back and Educators the unions have made it clear to the governor that they refuse to reopen
174unless they are vaccinated okay fine um I understand I understand where they're coming from this is not really a problem that comes from a bad place it's actually really really wonderful that so many people want to be vaccinated I I actually think we have to remember that that's a good problem but it's just logistically it's hard to actually be able to implement a solution for it so in any event we're going to do the best we can we're going to coordinate with skoy to try to figure out how to do this the problem we're going to run into is that we're going to have to prioritize among the school districts because we there's no way we can do all all of them at the same time and I have no idea how that's decision is
175going to be made I'm going leave that up to the superintendent to fight with each other um and then tell us what that you know what makes this the most sense for you guys um and you know and so so we will I think try to be doing some school districts at the same time as we're doing the 65 plus I believe that that will be our plan I think what we can try to do is hold Mass vax clinics and have the hospitals cover the 65 to 74 cohort and then Public Health can actually while we're doing the long-term care facilities and the senior housing projects um also be able to do some clinics with the schools I I think logistically that's what probably is going to make the most sense but the problem
176is doses we got 5,000 doses this week we're giving away 5,000 doses this week so like we have extra um and until that that Supply increases just going to be looking at week by week as to what we can do and I appreciate that that makes your planning extremely difficult I get that and I'm not trying to suggest otherwise I I think that this is a real problem for all of us but I need you to understand that if I'm holding back on doing a school district it's because I'm putting it into the arms of people who I believe are at far higher risk of a bad outcome and they have to be prioritized from the standpoint of saving lives and so I'm sure that we're all going to um be frustrated at the pace
177but I also just want to make sure we're transparent about how we're going to be making these decisions so um anyway that's sort of that's sort of I think where we are with vaccine right now um it it all comes down to to volume of available doses the more we have the more we can get out the venues don't bother me so much features are not going to be hard um and we're negotiating with with Safeway Pharmacy so we can use them as an outlet for like IHSS workers that's closer in their community and use that for catch up on 75 plus uh we'll try to probably do bigger Mass vaccination type clinics like the fairgrounds and like venisha in order to catch the people 65 to 74 I think that that probably is the
178just the most efficient way to do general public um and I and I think that um you know everyone's going to do the best they can um but I I think we're gonna have to be patient no I I I totally hear you and I've listened in on the calls and I know how much work has been going into the the progress that you guys are making even though it's little bits by little bits um so it doesn't look like we're get to be able to vaccinate teachers anytime in the near future it it will come but it may not be as quick as we would like to see happen and the other thing you need to know is that the governor in the governor's people when they talk with us Public Health in um
179cohort vacillate almost daily I know on what they're going to put into phase 1B tier one I know it's so hardily I can't tell you how many times I flip-flopped on oh yeah teachers first oh no 65y olds first oh no these people first or those people first and it's extremely difficult for us to do any kind of planning with that much um of a dynamic uh set of instructions and you know they keep promising that they're going to make an announcement and then they don't and so then we have both groups angry at us because you know they promised something so we started getting ready for that and then we have to back off and then every Angry I'm sorry I'm sorry you guys are faced with that um it's not that I'm not
180I'm not asking for sympathy I just want you to appreciate that we actually if we could have would have vaccinated the whole County by now you know that certainly was always our goal yeah well again we we thank you and before we don't want you to leave because I know our board members I'm sure have questions but I got know where to go I'm already home so okay that's good thank you um I know that uh Mrs Martinez had said we're gonna probably be running over the 10 o'clock Mark since we're 9 minutes yeah 210 so what is it that I need to do as a as the president do I need to just request that we could we okay okay I'd like to make a motion that we continue our meeting this evening Beyond
18110 o'clock do I have a motion or do I have a a we're doing a roll call sorry we're doing a roll call you're muted oh do I have a first I'll make a motion that we continue the meeting past our 10 o'clock limit do I have a second I'll second thank you all the uh we're going to do a roll call Vote Yes yes okay so now I would like to open it up to members that are here online that have questions for Dr Matias he's a specialist you know he's he is one of the lead people in Solano County knows his stuff so let's um ask him some questions I know um Dr Gil you had some questions earlier I remember that would you like to yeah yes thank you um thank you
182Miss Z pres Z and thank you um Dr marus for joining us and that was actually really helpful information and uh we are we I'm very um happy that we got a chance to hear from you and learn lots of detailed information so a couple of questions because we are working on our uh covid-19 prevention plan program right now as you mentioned as part of the CSP that's one of the requirements for kosha and uh there were a couple questions that came up that we were kind of thinking about but not really no exact answers responses to um so I I'll share the first one with you the first one was testing of employees so if we uh uh with CSP and we were looking at the Cs cdph um guidelines uh that booklet that
183came out I remember exactly even on page 39 it talks about testing of employees and students and uh I do remember seeing something where uh in a table that if the cases are over 14 um 14 or higher in 100,000 uh the testing needs to be uh weekly the PCR testing or twice a week antigen testing um so is that correct that if we open school let's say for 3K through six while we are still in purple for inperson learning that we have to do weekly testing or um um or we don't I mean or or is it like every other month because that's where the confusion is some people are saying you know it's supposed to be encouraged or it's supposed to be every so often but also some people are saying no it's
184supposed to be weekly that's a really interesting question um first of all my read of that requirement is that it's optional so I don't believe you're required to do any testing but if you accept money from the state for testing you must follow that paradigm okay it's up to you whether you want to seek money from the state for testing right now there's no money that's been made available there's the promise of money it's all tied up with the legislative um discussions uh to my knowledge no decisions have been made so I don't even know if money will be available uh but the idea is if they pay you to do it you got to do it their way okay so let me note a a something that I view as a significant irony in
185that your teachers refuse to come back until they're vaccinated they're vaccinated they're immune why are we testing what would be the point of testing an immune population so I'm not really tracking with that that seems very ironic to me and I if you were to ask me for my advice I'd say why would you waste your time testing people who aren't going to get sick uh that leaves the students but the students are a whole different problem because now you need to get consent from their parents all you got to do is send them home if they're sick and oh by the way the students really don't seem to pass it around very much and they hardly ever get sick so if your only problem is spread among students then and you don't have a
186problem with the teachers the point of testing has greatly diminished value are you saying though that the asymptomatic aspect with students isn't even an issue I mean the concept of them taking it home you hear stories all the time about them infecting uh family members yeah you do but you know what schools have been closed since last May 11% of our positive cases thousands are students how do you think they're getting it they're not getting it in school right but would it be worth worse if they were in school that's well they weren't in school and my point is they still got it in very high proportions and that's just the ones who were sick enough to get you know who had anything so we even bothered to test them that you know it could
187be that half the students in your school system have already been exposed and what if they're asymptomatic they might not get sick they might not be an outward thing but without testing them finding out they have it you can't warn parents can't warn grandparents that they might live with that you know they could be carrying it my point is they're already spreading it and the school environment is unlikely to do anything to modify their transmission risk they wouldn't be positive if they weren't already spreading it they're spreading it among friends they're already spreading in families they are just as much victims of the holiday season as their parents were and the idea that you would own responsibility for protecting the family by testing a school is what you are raising that's an ethical issue that
188I think you guys should talk about because you know that that has some Merit uh but the the the whole point is you're not supposed to reopen if you can't assure safety and if you assure safety you shouldn't have spread and the question is what does it take to ensure safety because that that was my question Nome seems to change the goal you know line in terms of what it takes the numbers have changed per 100,000 in terms of what's safe to go back and not go back and I've heard him say oh well it's sayfe you can go back but he's not saying you know these are the things you need to do directly like testing on a weekly basis six foot uh social distancing in classrooms between people uh the quality of the
189masks that are being worn I mean if people want to complain about science what is okay you know I don't it doesn't seem to be Nome I get the CDC I get fouchy and that but it doesn't seem to me that Nome is making his decisions based on some scientific aspect as much as it is political and the push to go back well and I I can't really respond to that um because I think it may have political implications and it's not appropriate for me to respond to that okay what I will say is this we have had in our County 10 schools open throughout this period through the search and not a single one of them had a cluster not a single one of them had spread in the school environment so they knew
190what to do to protect their students and staff because they were all unvaccinated from from spread so my response to you is it's actually quite straightforward what you need to do the OSHA guidelines and the doe guidelines and the cdph guidelines are very clear and when implemented our evidence is that it works I will in fact note that I'm not aware of any school system in the Bay Area that had an outbreak in the school environment and so I do believe that you can operate your schools safe safely if you adhere to the social distancing requirements that are in that CSP and it doesn't come from new it comes from OSHA and it comes from the State Health Department and it comes from doe so um so if you if you want to to do
191it safely you have the opportunity if you want to use the possibility of failure of the system as a reason not to reop you can certainly do that as well I completely concur with the essence of what the governor said which is that we all have confirmation bias and it is not difficult to look for evidence to support our preconceptions and I am not going to talk you into anything that you don't want to do it's not my place to do that to inform you and I and I'm telling you that if you want to operate safely you can we have proof of that by virtue of TK to6 10 schools that have been open um well going back to to October November December and so we well November December and so we know that
192even in the first of it they were able to operate safely um that's that's sort kind of on you guys as to what you're willing to do to operate safely um but you can also make the argument that um that you know until you have more certainty that you don't think it's a good idea to reopen and and I think that's a valid argument too you represent your community and the community is different from other communities and you have to clearly be mindful of that I I think that the other thing that I'm finding somewhat ironic here is that teachers are insisting on vaccination before return the soonest we're looking at return is probably March don't you guys have finals in April how hard would it be for them to then say well why don't
193we just wait till next school year and then why did I bother vaccinating 10,000 people now that I could have waited until August to vaccinate and I could have done the 65 plus year olds so I need certainty about the reopening of schools if I'm going to go ahead and take vaccine away from high-risk elderly and give it to teacher and and you know I don't know how to obtain that certainty it's not my place to talk to the unions to get it um but I do think that it's important for school districts to to be very honest about your willingness to go back if teachers are vaccinated and you know and what does that mean for the community well I'll tell you this by the time your schools can reopen not only will all
194of your teachers be vaccinated but all of your students elderly grandparents who wanted to be will be vaccinated too so this argument that your school is going to be a um you know a breeding ground for germs that kids take home to their grandparents that's not an accurate statement because those very grandparents will have already had the opportunity for vaccination and if they're not it was because they chose not to when so when is this time period that you're talking about that all the teachers are vaccinated and the grandparents I mean when you're talking I think we're looking at mid-march right which would be the earliest that we be feasible to reopen the the schools because think about it by the time I can start vaccinating your teachers right we're probably looking at mid-February at
195the earliest it's not going to be next so we're looking the third week of February right if that's the case then I have to wait a month for the second vaccine we're talking about mid-march before they're vaccinated and okay I will have had vaccine out there widely in the community for people 65 and over so realistically the parents and grandparents of your students who would be considered high-risk will have in fact been vaccinated by mid-march you're saying yeah by the time you could feasibly reopen based on what the unions asking for sure now not every parent and grandparent will be vaccinated but that's by their choice right you can't do anything and people refuse it right right and I don't know that you want to ethically own the responsibility of kids taking it home to
196people who didn't want to be vaccinated and so you know I think if you if you work through the various pieces of this puzzle um you're going to have a vaccinated cohort you're going to have kids who live in families that if they want to be vaccinated have been what what is the point point of testing so but so I'm not saying don't do it I'm just saying you don't need to no but what I'm saying is once everyone's vaccinated I would wholeheartedly agree with you but if we're being asked to go back before people are vaccinated I think testing becomes a very important aspect oh I agree actually prior to vaccination you've got a susceptible cohort right agree that you want to be vaccinating and I'm sorry testing and I will tell you that
197the schools that are open that we have helped um provide testing for um have used it and have found it to be very helpful uh the dases for example operates multiple schools here uh and many more in Sacramento uh and they've been testing very aggressively and they have had tremendous success at preventing any spread by virtue of regular testing so agressive testing has a role in um in a situation where people are not vaccinated right that's yeah that's what I was getting at in terms of Dr marus I I just got a question from one of our staff members who's asking um is it only teachers or is it other staff members to because we do have question other staff members who work at school sites um and with the entire it's the entire education
198system it's not just teachers okay so all Educators basically it's the education system so it would be all Personnel who are in the schools would be considered part of that cohort that's why the number is so large got it Dr matz can you just clarify something that when you're talking mid-march you were referencing our seventh through 12th graders before when you broke down the the three break right okay so there are two things in mid-march one is you can submit your plans to open TK through 6 right probably as early as next week okay because we're below 110 but I believe your union has made it clear that they will not come back to teach until they're vaccinated so even though you could in Theory start next week I don't think you'll be able to
199start next week because I don't think you're going to have a teacher Workforce willing to do you know personto person teaching or you know in in school teaching and then if they're actually asking for vaccination as a prerequisite to teach then you're looking at mid-march just because of the logistics of getting that many people vaccinated at the same time you are going to find yourself by mid-march probably being able to reopen for middle and high school but the teachers will already have been vaccinated because we're you know I don't know teachers what grade our plan is to vaccinate everybody at your schools we have a readily vac an already vaccinated Workforce for the higher grades and the lower grades probably at about the same time so saying is it's not infeasible that around mid-march late
200March you could reopen all of your school now that creates a lot more headache for you because the requirements to operate safely for middle middle school and high school are different from the TK to 6 and you have to all of those social distancing measures uh across that spectrum and then you also have to pay close attention to your um office Workforce and barriers and and x marks and all that sort I mean you're talking about the entire School environment having to conform and there would be that many more schools that you have to retrofit to be able to conform in that way so suggesting your burden is Trivial I think it's actually quite significant um but but it's a good point um ma'am that that by mid-march in theory you could be reopening all
201of your school roughly the same time if everything goes well now the thing for the higher grade level says that the disease rate has to drop and and I think it'll but I can't be certain it'll drop you mean the the for the high grade level 7th to 12th grade we need to be in red at least for two weeks well no we have to at Red levels in purple to go to Red okay be in red for a week got it means we have to actually sustain fewer than 30 cases per day for three straight weeks got it and and I don't think that's impossible I mean we were there before right we were there before this most recent surge we were in red for six weeks so we easily could have reopened at
202that point um but we have to get back down there and we're not even close right at 110 cases per day um at the rate that we're dropping it's going to take a couple of weeks at least and then it' be three more weeks before you can reopen so just mathematically you're looking at midmark and you had brought up the fact that um that Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend which could could possibly ruin it and not only that we've got spring break coming up and that's going to be another potential issue that we're going to have to face um I I have one question about um the new variants that are in California now what are your thoughts on that like how will that well they spread much more efficiently that's the problem um
203but they still spread the same way so the if people are not getting together with family and friends and partying on the weekend it's not going to make any difference whether we have the new variant or the old variant uh but if they do what it means is it we'll jump high much faster okay so if we had widespread new variant now with Super Bowl weekend it would be really really bad compared to not having Super Bowl weekend it wouldn't matter so the problem is we do have these periods of time when people spend more time with each other spring break is a problem um and then if it lingers and we're back to Mother's Day through July 4th we're going to have another Spike because those are periods of time when people get together
204and if the new variants are present at that time and we don't have enough people vaccinated spread will be much faster than it would have been otherwise okay thank you for answering that uh lesie um hi doctor thanks for being here um question about secondary you know through 12 education or 6 through 12 education I know the recommendation is cohorting um that gets really tricky with secondary schedules where groups of kids uh go to first period and then they go off to a different class they're not together what is the um can you talk a little bit about like on a scale is that really high that we need to try to do that for secondary to get them back um that to me is one of many examples where I wonder if the people
205making the recommendations just emerged from a bubble Society like in their whole life that is so completely weird the whole point of middle and Senior is that you're moving in non fashion across a range of of of class types that suit your educational needs I mean like that's the whole point of even having a high school so no you should not even contemplate that as an option I don't see how that can possibly meet your educational goals right but isn't that part of when people talk about oh the CDC said we can go back the study in that rural District in Wisconsin that they looked at that they were cohorts the kids stayed in cohorts yeah so to say I mean we talk about safely going back but then we're saying oh well yeah but
206that's something that would be too hard to do to go you know if we go back I mean I don't know how you do it safely without following the safety guidelines that's the so the thing they did in Wisconsin is one example what they did in Singapore in Finland in in Denmark and in one other country was to not do cohorts and they had no outbreaks either because the reality of children in that age group is that they click they do not interact with strangers they have friends and they have enemies interact with friends at school and out of school so they're going to have the exact same spread Dynamic whether you cohort them or not even though they talk about that being one of the main you know ways that the places here that
207did stay safe stayed safe with stay in cohorts well that's because the ones here weren't High grades the ones here have to be cohorts because they're the ones TK through six they didn't have a choice but to do cohort TK through six is a cohort B environment no I no I get that obviously but these districts that the CDC used in their uh study are you telling me that they were all elementary districts well those the only ones open hardly anywhere in the country okay so then we're talking about just with secondary you're talking about you know you well all right I get it you just you can't look at that obviously you can't cohort in secondary everyone knows that and we're not saying just throw caution to the wind and go for it but
208no no no you're still doing social distancing in that group I'm not saying that they have to wear masks they have to be seated with proper distance you have to have controls in the hallway controls in the bathroom cafeteria absolutely have to do what the OSHA plan requires the point is cohorting as an additional protection is a relevant in that group because they already self cohort in their clicks the problem is that those cohorts don't correspond to your classrooms right they're in different group they hang out with different people than they would be in classroom with right so you're GNA end up having this right so the situation you're going to run into is that you will have with a case contacts on multiple classes and there's not going be any avoiding that but that's
209true with pertusus Menin every disease you've ever had in your school environment we deal with that all the time with you in public health that's never been a problem Dr Gil I saw your hand raised yes I actually it's actually interesting that as we're talking and and and I'm getting text message from staff to ask Dr questions so so I am going to ask a couple more questions Dr marus I apologize for that that's okay I appreciate that you're actually joining us from Paris I think that's really sweet of you pretending to be happy in Paris right now so um so one of the questions is that there was guidance us be guidance at one point that if there's a positive case in a classroom so to speak or office or anywhere that the place
210needs to be closed for so many hours we used to think it was 72 hours uh before we can send the cleaning crew or to disinfect and so on then we found out that guidance changed to I believe 20 24 hours that it only has to be closed for 24 hours before cleaning crew can grow and and disinfect and clean now we are hearing that it doesn't need to be closed at all and uh so if there's a positive case uh people can go in and clean then the same day and it's safe uh even the clean the hpsc is safe so so could you please help us out with that because we trying to figure out will be the best thing to do because that is something we have to write in our Co
211prevention plan well so yeah I think you look at the oosha requirements I thought that they were pretty clear about that timing you just followed their their requirements and their requirements it has to do with the the time from the person who was Ill having been in the environment and the the reality is you're not going to know that they're ill when they're in the environment all you're you know you're going to do a test PCR test is going to take two days so 24 hours from two days in the future means you don't have to worry about cleaning at that point you see what I'm saying now if you had rapid antigen testing in every room and you tested a symptomatic person in the room and they were positive you'd probably want to wait
21224 hours you know clear the room out for 24 hours but that's not a realistic situation so the the point is that the environmental cleaning um can begin as are aware because time will have elapsed between the time you become aware and the time that the student was last in that setting God so so it's so if we if a student didn't come or an employee didn't come to the classroom uh two days before they before you found out it's okay for us to just leave it open and clean unless you said like antigen test like that day we find out and they're there um right then it's a different story so perfect okay the second question uh is being asked is there was time when it was said that touching surfaces is not safe
213so be careful because it spread through surfaces so is it only spread through air droplets now or is it spread through both surface surfaces and um and a droplets so the truth is that as a droplet born disease it can be spread through direct respiratory and through intermediary objects it you know the virus gets onto your respiratory secretions if you cough or sneeze or spit when you talk then there is a direct personto person transmission you know in the form of droplets but if you cough or sneeze onto a table as long as that material remains wet it remains a transmittable surface the most common way that these diseases spread is not coughing into each other's face it's your hand touching your face shaking a hand or touching them and then them touching their face
214that's by far and a way the most common and so the hand is an intermediary fomite so surfaces can function is an intermediary fomite where I think go crazy is that they don't recognize that the likelihood of spread is based on dose and the the highest dose is when you actually have a water spit that you just sneezed onto the table and if you clean it up or it dries out there's just not enough virus left to transmit but people get pretty wacky about this and they insist on cleaning everything that they ever touch you know with a disinfectant before they touch it cool I don't have any problem with that I think schools are wickedly dirty the more you clean them the better there's like no downside to cleaning the school um but in
215terms of does it actually pose a risk of transmission no the most if you think about it almost all of the disease that has been transmitted in the past four months was in people's homes and when it was in workplaces it was with people who were hugging and kissing and sharing food it's that level of close interaction that is effective at transmitting the virus now I'm not saying that you cannot have transmission through Airborne in rare situations I think you can and I'm not saying you can't have transmission from a table or a door knob in rare situations I think you can but 95% of the cases are spread exactly the same way every respiratory disease is spread and there's no s no rocket signs there that's just plain old every day what mom and
216grandma told you you know from the day when we were children it it you know it's the it's the passage of respiratory secretions from person a to person B and that happens much more frequently with close contact than with not close contact so um I think that the the whole thing around cleaning surfaces and cleaning rooms is far more about perception than about real risk of transmission but perception is very important have to make your staff and your faculty and your students feel comfortable and the concept of cleaning makes people feel comfortable the smell of bleach and Lysol makes people feel comfortable even though the chemicals that they're inhaling are far more dangerous for them than if they had never cleaned in the first place but the point is perception is valid and the perception
217of cleaning is is important so you do what you need to do to be to be able to demonstrate that you did something but I certainly wouldn't put any worry into the cleaning or the lack of cleaning as being a mod of transmission thank you um any of our oh sorry Dr Gil um Mrs grubs did you have any questions no not at this time um I appreciate you you being here doctor it's fascinating absolutely fascinating thank you well I work for you guys so for Dr may have missed it because I gotten kicked off um but I just wanted to just to clarification so for the younger students say you know TK to third grade or fifth grade for students who do come back into the to the school settings is it recommended for
218temperature checks at all or is it are we just kind of relying on um you know the parent and the teachers observation um to make sure the students are okay that's a good question temperature checks have not proven to be very helpful because you really only get a measurable temperature in as little as 5% of cases and uh and the temperature has to be high enough that everybody pretty much knows they have a fever at that temperature so you'd really have to have someone who's actively avoiding the the guidance to stay home when sick um but you'll probably also notice it I mean you know 100.4 is not a trivial temperature and people are going to be um they're going to be flushed they're going to probably um show some evidence of being unwell so
219most places have not found it helpful to do temperatures now having said that a temperature is of the symptoms right I mean certainly above 100.4 would be an indicator that a person should not be in that environment um and there are probably some people where the temperature is all that they're going to manifest right and so I don't want to say that um that there's no value in in doing temperatures as a way of identifying cases I would say that it has an incredibly low yield and that you will miss 95 for every five that you find and so you cannot rely on temperatures as a way of weeding people out who shouldn't be in the environment because it's definitely not effective for that thank you um anybody else yeah I uh you talked about
220studies in Singapore and various other countries what is the deal uh if we want to look worldwide right now Europe uh Britain shut down their schools part of other parts of Europe are doing the same schools that were open what is the situation there did they not follow this these specific guidelines or I mean I know that's a question out of the left field and if you're like dude it's like Britain it's doesn't have anything to do with us I get it but if we're going to look at studies from other parts of the world I'm wondering what is going on there and how do we avoid the opening up and then having this big rush and then having to shut it down again you're asking a really good question and it's intriguing because uh
221it's clear from your question I think that you're associating the opening with transmission but I would I what I would um what I would uh caution is that that may actually just be an appearance and not a factual reality because they all experience disease for the same reason we did holidays holidays where everybody's getting together with family and friends and not social distancing is when we have all throughout the world experienced very high rates of disease and if schools are open at that time or businesses are open at that time it's tempting to blame them but it had nothing to do with them it had to do with home with family um not too many places have had the ability to case investigate all of their cases and try to figure out where people get
222sick we've been much better at that in Solano than most other counties uh because we've intentionally put a lot of energy into it and I can tell you that um the the very vast majority of cases in both surges were people getting together with family and friends in their home not restaurants not bars bars weren't open restaurants were requiring people to sit six feet apart Etc it wasn't happening in those environments and it and it wasn't in schools because they were closed it was very tracking with family and and U friend events and then the sick people would take it to work and then they'd have workplace clusters um and so the starting point was the event and okay no reason to believe it's any different elsewhere in the world I think that it's also
223event driven elsewhere in the world um and what you'll notice is the family Dynamics differ by culture and in some of the countries of the world where there is more inherent social distancing they did not experience the same degree of spiking than that was experienced by cultures who have less social distancing when they get together with family and friends so it's an observation I don't you know it's easy for me to say this I'm an epidemiologist I look for d for Trends I look for patterns and that's what I see um but I guarantee that there are a lot of people who will adamantly say that it was the open schools that caused spread in those countries and um and so what's to say nothing the only the only thing we have that's different going
224forward is that we're vaccinated right we weren't vaccinating people then I almost guarantee we'd have another Spike Mother's Day to July Fourth like we had last year and have another Spike between um Halloween and New Year's like we had this last year those two periods are when we have our holidays that's when people get together in masses and that's when people spread disease so the key the key is vaccin well so vaccination is what makes it controllable right I mean like have a flu season right that's when the holidays are that's when people spread those diseases why do we um have some semblance of control over flu because we have vaccine right with covid vaccine we enter into a realm more akin to flu where we have tools of prevention um that help us now
225that vaccine is not going to be perfect right even in the best case scenario it's 95% and not everyone's going to get vaccinated so we're still going to have spread there's we're going to avoid having um you know periods of time when there's more covid um but the hope is that those people who want to be protected will have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and they can protect themselves and those who are more nonchalant about it are taking their risk well that's okay you know I mean it's true a flu vaccine as well yeah thank you well in in in in closing this is a tremendous amount of information um if if the board if they if they made a decision to go back in any capacity before everybody's vaccinated you'd say you could
226do that but you need to have your safety plans in the ocean all that stuff and a big piece in that if you did it is the testing I would recommend testing if you did it under those conditions yes that's is the big part that I heard if they did okay just wanted to be clear on that yeah well and again it's not a requirement it's optional but I do think that it's hard to justify the expressions of concern you have given and not want to test to maintain some semblance of knowledge right right and I and I I think that you could do it school districts are doing testing while open it's dual it's very expensive um but it's just part of the cost of doing business you know I mean that's what you
227have to do now you also have assistance from skoy and from us in terms of monitoring disease clusters outbreaks Etc I mean that's that's part of what we're here for so you know we will work with you train in-house people to do contact tracing and and and initial case investigation work with us when you identify clusters we'll work with you to try to stop out breaks before they can can spread all of that we do with you with every disease including covid you know if you choose to to reopen um but yeah for the schools that have reopened prevaccination the testing has been an important part of what they have been doing Dr Mar that is specifically for TK through six not well those the only ones open so far yeah not the upper grades
228upper grades we have to wait until we go to Red tier oh yeah yeah you're not able to open until we get to the red tier for the upper grades and even then if we haven't vaccinated this consideration becomes real there too it's very hard for me to believe that we will experience that given the position that the unions have taken um but it's not impossible I guess and so yeah then you would want to be testing more broadly Dr M we go ahead no I was just I was I was just going to thank you so much for joining us this evening this was a complete pleasure to have you um I know there's a lot of people tuning in watching um as our teachers have been sending notes to our staff and and
229things are going back and forth where we um I think this was really eye openening for us and really wonderful to have you here and that you took the time to do that it it makes us you know wow wow so appreciative very happy to help very on behalf of all of us in B USD and in our bonisha community that have tuned in thank you so much for all your hard work thank you so much you're welcome hey Karen good luck with your decision thank bye bye bye bye well that was amazing that was really good okay so stretch stretch um we're going to go on to item number 12.2 um the governor's January budget proposal for 2021-22 and um I'm gonna turn it over to Tim Brill are you there Tim you're muted
230there you go yay good evening yeah thank you so much I'll just uh spend a minute or two here highlighting the governor's January budget proposal um as the governor does each year uh he comes out in January with a a budget proposal for the following uh upcoming year and that starts a 6mon uh budget cycle at the State of California and so uh the governor did announce that in mid January and U the highlights from that um are um providing um a cost of living allowance that um is included in the budget each year and that is uh proposed by the governor at 3 84% uh so just under a 4% Cola um he is backing off of cash deferrals uh like uh currently that they do exist um in order to um make good
231on its obligations for the current year the state of California had to uh is issuing IUS uh to school districts and we won't receive a big chunk of our funds until next year uh but in the governor's proposal uh for the upcoming budget uh he only has one of those cash deferrals and that wouldn't be until uh June of 2022 so we're happy to hear about um kind of a proposal um on a decent cost of living allowance at 3.84% and the minimizing any need to issue uh IUS the um we have um join our Solano County and our special ed group funding's a little bit different there it goes through um special ed um the governor is proposing only a 1.5% increase on special ed funds and uh as we uh continue to deal
232with the impacts from co9 um we will look to see what type of funding um both the state and the federal government will provide to our banisha school district right now it appears um that the federal government um they've come out with their uh round two of uh Federal covid funding um it's part of the what they're referring to as the Esser Federal funding um and it could be um it could be up to about $475,000 for the bisha school district um but we are you know waiting to get hard confirmation on on those federal dollars which would probably come to us um next year the other um pot of money would come from the state and uh the governor is uh proposing a pretty significant one-time funding uh which is he he's titling it
233ex uh expand uh learning in our schools uh it would be one-time funds it could be upwards to of about $600 per student which is um significant dollars for our district uh recently um there's been um commentary on that on that on those onetime funds um the legislative analysts office has um issued some comments that um to use some of those onetime monies for some other purposes like um paying down uh the pension obl ations in the state so we're going to um keep our eyes and ears open on the co monies as we get more information over the next couple of months like I said it's here we are in February um the governor proposed his budget it has to go through um the state legislature um over the next few months he does
234come back in May with a h a May Revis budget which gets voted on by um the state in June for a final budget so we'll keep you update on um his proposal and any changes that that come in over the next few months we will start um be working with Dr beatson and um our lcap committee um talking about um next year and uh potential one-time funds from covid we would be required to incorporate that into all of our plans so uh we will start um planning uh and we probably will be getting some onetime funds to continue the efforts and uh address the needs uh provided by by covid um so we will start to work on that we're just not sure on the the final number and those are the the highlights
235from the governor's uh January budget proposal thank you Mr rill anybody have any questions okay we're going to move on to the next item 13.2 um consideration and approval of inperson oh sorry I skipped ahead um 12.3 equity and opportunity update um Dr beatson you're up okay thank you so much um uh what I wanted to do this evening is just to give us a quick update in terms of the work that we've done in the area of equity and opportunity uh since we met last a couple of weeks ago so as you know um over the last few years years we've engaged in uh Equity work uh it's looked a lot of different ways we've had Trainers for professional development days we've continued work with our administrative Team every time we meet uh twice
236a month we've done book clubs um we have uh been meeting with um our our African-American parent group listen to their stories and we're working with them to create areas of focus and formalize um them as an advisory group so that it uh takes hold and stays as a priority for us and through all of that um we are making a big Focus to scale up this work um by using some systems thinking to get to some systemic change and so um I know that uh sometimes it feels like things aren't moving fast enough but we have lots of pieces in place and we are working to do this so that we're all rowing in the same direction and we've had some great work we met last time um so just a reminder of why
237why are we embarking on Equity work and have been looking at this for several years and and taking uh the steps we need to put in place to make really systemic change um we look at our data and we listen to the stories I'm not going to go through we have got a few links on these slides um and I'm not going to click on all of them you can uh do that and I'll just tell you a little bit about what you're seeing so this is some of the newer data which quite honestly has been more difficult to gather in the era of covid so doing reliable assessments via um the internet and through distance learning has been tricky but we do have some data points I want to share with you um significantly
238up uh in the top left corner it talks about chronic absenteeism so chronic absenteeism as you know is 10% of the days uh 10% or more of the days that we've been in school when we pulled this data we looked at students who were absent or more days uh so far this was a few weeks ago and um we have a a quite a big uptick in absenteeism from what we typically see for chronic absenteeism and I will tell you that our students with disabilities are and our students who are Hispanic um range from about 25 to 36% of them are chronically absent but our students who are white are 29 to 44% um chronically absent um across different School sites and so we're seeing a range of that and we're digging into why and
239with the help of um Miss Corona our director of student services they're putting in place a a re-engagement system so as kids are falling off we are really working hard to to bring them back so that's one uh big data point another that Miss rice shared um a couple of meetings ago was we looked at grades and um for our elementary schools we looked at student report card grades um in reading and math kids that got a one so they do a one to four scale um and then uh at our secondary we looked at D's and Fs and of significant note we had um third grade was uh uh striking with um 11 to 27% of the students um receiving a one in in third grade in reading and other areas were um eighth
240grade reading seventh grade math and 10th grade reading in math had had most more significant um Ds and Fs but what I will also say is it's not um a major increase from a typical year for the data point the high school did a deep data dive at one of their last meetings and noticed while they had some more FS it wasn't significant but they also had many more A's which was interesting and they're starting to look at what what is behind all of that um and uh also on your screen you're going to see graduation rate we typically have a really high graduation rate but we do have some discrepancy with a couple of our student groups our disabilities um and our students who are Hispanic quite different from our overall student population College
241and Career Readiness that is an indicator that the state does that we um report when we do the lcap um College and Career ready was one of the very complicated indicators it had many different um uh buttons If you will to be deemed College and Career ready so you could pass the Casp test um and um uh you know get a three on an AP test so there was lots of you could do this and this or this and this to be deemed College and Career ready so we have a very high uh College and Career Readiness 68.7% versus the State at 45.8% um we we attribute a lot of that to our CTE programs because that's one of the ways kids can be uh deemed College and Career ready but you can see some
242um big differences in students that are deemed College and Career ready so we have students with disability only 24.6 of them on this one particular measure um students are socio economically disadvantaged and then we look at the other end of the spectrum our students who are Filipino and Asian really high on the other end and so we have some discrepancies we need to keep um figuring out what are the barriers for for our students um the last uh data point on this side of the slide is BHS course participation and so we looked at um students that are taking AP classes higher level math so that would be math three and Beyond and um um missing out my last uh oh science I think it was science I'll have to look again um and uh
243we have um students um 42 to 50% of our white students are taking higher level classes in those three areas where 0o to five% of our students with disabilities are e our English Learners or our black and African-American students are taking those classes um and 2 to 12% of our Hispanic students are in those classes so again access and opportunity to uh higher level classes we have some big disparities among our groups that we you know we don't have prerequisites so we we don't have Gates if you will to get into AP classes but we have to do a better job of um Outreach inviting kids in so that everybody feels like this class is built for me on the right side is just some um demographic data of of interest and so when we
244look at our soci economically disadvantaged um percentages as a district we're at about 24% and then we have our one Elementary School Robert simple 38% close to 40% of their students are socioeconomically disadvantaged Liberty High School almost 42% and Community Day School 71% and so when you stop and ask the question where do our students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged you can see where pockets of students um go or or flipping the the um information around when we think of Community Day School which is a school where students who have been expelled end up most of those students are students who are um socioeconomically disadvantaged and it makes us stop and say where are we losing our students along the way um English Learners again you can see the percentages there and then just sort of
245some enrollment numbers and so I think it's important for us to continue to revisit the data um as we look at equity and an opportunity for our students and where do we have barriers in our system that we need to break down so what did we do since the last time we met um we have had uh a another admin council meeting and that's with all of our directors and uh site leaders and we did a study on microaggressions and we used a protocol from epic uh for Education which is an organization that we've contracted with um and it's called the rir protocol and it's about recog recognizing um where there is um uh racial Injustice interrupting it and repairing it and so it's a really good protocol to help have those critical conversations and
246so as an admin team we've been using that every time we get together with a different lens around equity and racial Justice um we have been engaging in some collaboration and Partnerships um so we have kind of honed in on a few um trainers and uh facilitators that are going to help us deepen this work um so we've met with uh our teachers that have been doing the PLC we've heard about them a couple of times and we've met with them a couple times heard about the great work that they're doing um how they've created this this uh safe space with teachers and the trainers to really dig in and push and pull on each other in in this hard work that they're doing and so then um we met with the trainer that they're
247using and we're going to work with her to offer another round of plc for other uh teachers within the district that are interested we also um are offering um a couple of more three more sessions with epic um for education and so you heard uh from one of our parents this evening we did um uh purchase seven modules from them that we're continuing to work through this year and um trainers from epic will meet virtually of course and do facilitated conversation around those this spring and then we're also um working to unify this work so we know that a lot of this work has happened organically across the district um some of that was very intentional and some of it has continued to take hold and and become a movement which is excellent and we
248want to support that work um but we also want to unify it and bring it together and so we're talking with um uh another facilitator to help us really look at all the different pieces and H that we have going on and help us organize them in such a way so that we can continue to scale up this work in an organized systematic way so that people can see that bigger picture and then finally uh since we met a couple of weeks ago um as uh Miss frie said we met with our lcap group and our lcap group is made up of our um Union leads uh some district office staff and our uh a group of parents that are our lcap parent advisory team we Revisited the goals that we had written a year
249ago for our lcap that never got to get implemented revised them some and talked about how to uh focus them even more on ensuring Equitable practices and closing the achievement Gap and um the group uh came to a consensus to add an additional goal around equity and specifically calling out uh particular groups of students that we see some um uh that have been traditionally underserved and we see uh larger gaps with and so we have a draft of that that I'll be putting back out to the group to get some feedback on and then um before we engage in stakeholder engagement um so that has been happening so kind of what's next um we're working and we'll bring together uh bring back to you sort of a a bigger plan to put all these different
250pieces together in an organized fashion to sustain the work over the next few years we're going to continue to learn together and offer these PR excuse me additional professional development opportunities this spring and then we want to continue this idea of future planning and so when we when we need to do work as a system it's important to do those organic pieces but it's also important to put them together into a bigger plan um that connects the Bots for all the different pieces of work that we're doing in the system people can see how it all gets together and finally um just a great just a great quote it's uh Equity isn't just a slogan it should transform the way we educate kids and so we're looking at how do we also have this opportunity
251now where the system has been unfrozen for almost a whole year and we can seize that opportunity to do things even better and then I leave you with um a few resources um that might be of interest to you um a couple of Articles and a couple of videos if you are interested in deing your own work in this area and you should have received an email from epic education um if you wanted to do some of the work in those modules that our staff are doing and if you did not um please just reach out to me and I will um get you your contact for that and that was just an update on um on uh equity and opportunity are there any questions um yes I have a question um first I do
252want to say thank you um Dr beatson because you do provide the data and the data is really you know some of the like really important for the work that you actually do um or that we do as Educators um so I just want a clarification are these these trainings that you had mentioned is it still going to be is it still going to be optional like it's going to still be an optionable optional offering is that correct right now it is going to be optional because we don't have any professional learning days left um and we we actually had a conversation with the teachers that are doing the PLC and talk about should we pay teachers to do after school um and their feeling at this point was um let's offer it in the
253school day so we we're thinking we'll do them on Fridays in the afternoons when teachers have time to engage in professional development and the idea is if we can get a couple of plc's up and rolling we're going to create a bigger momentum and movement simultaneously we will identify with these trainers and the people who are going through it so out of all of this what are the key essential um frame Frameworks constructs Concepts you know learnings that we then say when you become a member of B USD everybody's going to get these five these 10 uh learnings and so right now we're getting more people to go through that system so that they together we can identify what are the most important things that we need to um make sure that everybody has and
254then it becomes a a non-negotiable right so it's it's trying to get more people so that that ship tilts and then we have a momentum to then say okay the rest of you you've all got to go through X Y and Z okay and then the other question that I had was um you talked about the goals so um looking at um the lcap goals a little bit differently are any of the teachers who've been participating in this PLC are they part of this conversation the process as well um not at this point because the elop ton group came out of uh negotiations a couple of years ago and it was with the BTA and CA leadership um and then so typically what we do is we we do some of that work and then
255we put it out to all stakeholders to get feedback and on the goals and so we've got some very open-ended questions about what kind of barriers do we have in our system what kind of how do you define equity so those types of questions will be going out so that we can then bring that back excuse me and refine the goal so usually we start with a smaller group send it out to the big group and then bring it okay I um I'll just I'll email you I have some other questions but I it's it's it's like a it's overall so I'll but thank you for that update I appreciate it no problem um I had a quick question and that was um I understand that during covid of course everything is virtual but going
256back to gon's point or her her comment was next year next August September when when there are professional development days would this training be offered as as a training day that requires all teachers to participate you know that's a great question and well first of all let's hope that we're back and we can do this in person um right absolutely you know I think that that's a good question we have a lot of different pieces of things that we need to look at um a couple of morning meetings ago you approved us going out to purchase the Aries to get the Aries contract and so we've got some training in that we have to look at how do we map this out the other thing that I've been doing a lot of thinking about is
257how do we one of the the things that's worked with the PLC group because we met with them to say so what is it that caught fire here when we've done all these other things and they haven't necessarily caught fires we really wanted to understand and it was this idea of they had some pre-work they got together in a trusted group where they felt like they could really be honest and open and share with each other in a more of a PLC format that was ongoing and so I've been just bouncing around in my brain um what could what could professional development how could it look differently so that it's more ongoing and not like you're going to go and get a One-Shot deal because we have one day to do everything in but I
258think those are decisions that we would typically have uh those conversations with District curriculum Council and say okay here's all the things that we need to cover how do we do it how should it look um well one of the things that I've really noticed is that um how many people are speaking to uh the racial Equity um problems in our schools um it comes up every every board meeting and it's been coming up for a long time so it one of the the pro one of the things that's important is understanding unconscious bias with and it the term unconscious is true it's unconscious people don't realize that they are exhibiting bias one of the things that I feel is very important in the educational Community is to address that directly and have those um
259those trainings and the um um the in-person learning and examples and and role playing I think that those are so important and really I think our parent Community is speaking speaking out they're they are concerned um so that's my input for that excellent I agree and I thank you for saying that Miss grubs that you're absolutely correct I I feel like the numbers are great because and like I said we definitely we need the data but I think that there's so much that's loss all I could think about is those kids that are behind those numbers and it's like we have to keep peling back the layers and having the conversations but we have to do that with the adults too because I mean that we I think there's I mean there's probably so many
260stories of our PE our staff that we don't even know and so until we take the time to really build those relationships it's the same thing that we want to happen for our kids so that they can feel comfortable they can feel accepted they can see themselves in the curriculum but it's like we have to take the time to do that because we you know I hear the numbers I hear the data and I get it but it's like there's so much more I mean it's there's like so there's like there's it's all kind of surfaced and it's like we really got to peel back the layers a lot more and what Miss grebs was saying about unconscious bias we all have we all have and until we have those conversations then we're going to
261still keep just spinning our Wheels because we're not I just don't feel like we're really um we're not really taking the time to do that part and it's and it's voluntary and and I I know that some because I've had conversations with with people um even some of the staff and there is this feeling of I don't have a problem I this is and it's not to attack anybody it's to say that we have to we got to do something about building a community where all of our students feel welcome and that they can Excel but we have to also do that for the adults so if the adults can and then the adults can model it but we got to take them through the process first including us as a board I think we
262all need to go through the training so well and I think that unless the adults can make that shift because certainly what we're hearing is that that it's out there and that shift isn't being made so all adults s need the training anybody who is around kids and they need to be able to exhibit that and just have some self-reflection and to grow and and I I do I agree with Gethsemane the the data is great it's needed but it's time to move from the data into the classroom into reality okay it's my thought he uh one thing I wanted to bring up uh that numerous of the parents talked about and I think it's something that maybe we could bring back and really look at is the 1619 project curriculum and I've seen some
263I think it it's the way to go I mean it really gets away from a eurocentric view of this country and you know really gets into a a more uh view of things and looking at history in a whole different way and I think it would be a very valuable you know if if I was King we'd be all we'd be implementing it like yesterday but it's good that people brought it up I think it's something we should definitely look at you well and and I can tell you that um while we're on this call I believe that Miss rice has signed up for a webinar to even learn more about it so it's good it's very solid I think it's you know I've looked at it as well and if yeah M rice if
264you could bring that back it's some future board meeting and like so that people can because it was referenced so many times and if you're able to bring it back can really talk about it I think I don't think you'd find a lot of people against it absolutely thank you and I have to apologize Dr Moss I got kicked out my internet went down so I got kicked out at the last part of what you were saying so I don't know if I missed anything you know it was just that I I I I I was just I appreciate the data I don't if I said that part but I really appreciate the data I just felt like I there's so much more behind it and I and I believe that we as the adults
265we have to provide a a safe space for all of our adults who teach in our community and you know include the parents as well because I mean the kids are having the conversations it's just it it seems like there's a fear from the adults and I think it's because of maybe the way the message is being communicated it's not an attack on anybody to say that you know you're this or you're that it's just that we all as as Miss grbs is saying we all need to go through this process of really like uncovering like just learning and being aware of the unconscious things that we that we carry in Harbor that we don't realize um and I think until we can do that then we can really start you know looking at these
266individual students and their stories and really you know be able to have deeper level conversations because right now it's still very surfacy so I I agree and I think that's what we were learning when we started to unpack um why this PLC like how did it get such a movement because the the people who sort of started it said we thought it was going to be like a little book club with a handful of people and every time they meet it's grown which is terrific one is the teachers really wanted a safe space with just teachers so that they could be open and honest and not feel like their Supervisor was sitting next to them and I think that's really valid similarly though we also have to be able to support the work so we
267need to know that work and go through it so we're talking about what that could look like and then um really rethinking what the PD looks like because going again for one day where you go from a session to a session and it's in you know we've got a few 100 people there feels very different than a a PLC cohort of 20 people that shows up for five different sessions and you build that relationship like you were talking about so we're we're starting to think about how could how how could we do this more equitably what could it look like for the adults in our system and and then I also want to say that's part of some of what takes time right you've got to build those relationships close enough engage in those conversations
268hear the stories from all different stakeholders so thank you for that thank you Dr beatson and thanks to the board that brought in some uh great information and shared with you and with the rest of our team here um on how important it is to actually not just do the talk talk but get it active you know and make sure that that that we're using art the tools that we are now trying to get um in order to help uh the parents that I mean with everything that the parents were saying um earlier and in the last meetings it's it's clearly evident that there's an issue and and I'd like to see us be able to move forward from that um so I I thank you and and and Mrs Rice too as well so
269um thank you for being here um and sharing all right we are going to move on to um non-consent action items um the first item is uh regarding minimum hourly wage compliance and consideration and ratification of revised cssea chapter number 1096 2020-2 20 21 salary schedule and um I'm going to turn this over to Dr Gil good evening thank you again trustees and uh M and superintendent um so uh as of January 1st 2021 the minimum wage has been increased to $14 uh for ourly employees uh in our district there is one cell in the classified um salary schedule that was below uh uh $14 and usually when uh something like this happens uh we actually and there are employees in there because if we increase the salary schedule uh that kind of sell then
270we have to do a full br negotiation and so on uh in this case because it was only one cell it was in range 20 uh step one uh fort Ely uh no employees are in that cell that means Us increasing uh we of course we consulted with the Union I met with them we talked for over an hour and so on and uh but because in Us increasing it is not impacting any employee salary uh so we did not have to negotiate we didn't have to do any of that but we did make a commitment that we will review and think for next year because because our understanding is that that in January 20 January 1 2021 it's going to go up again sorry 2022 is going to go up again so we will
271keep that in mind when we do negotiations later in the year so we were all in consensus uh uh our union leaders as well that it's okay to increase that sell by itself by 56 cents to make it a whole $14 because it is not uh impacting any employee salary so I'm bringing that as a request to you so that we're compliant with the law of $14 minimum wage salary well thank you Dr Gil um do I have do I'd like to make a motion um no I'm not going to make the motion I'm GNA ask you is there somebody out here that would like to make a motion to uh approve 13.1 um to move up the salary schedule to the correct amount of the $14 I will make the motion to approve approve
272that 13.1 to move the salary schedule up to 14 bucks thank you and do I have a second I'll second that thank you um we do a roll call vote on this okay yes yes okay thank you for that um moving on to the last item of the evening um it is the consideration and approval of in-person small group instruction and um I'm going to welcome Dr beatson back to share information about this okay thank you very much um at our last meeting um it was requested that we revisit our timeline and the possibility of bringing back small group instruction um I don't have a lot of new information for you at this point um I did include a slide the same slide that you saw in the last presentation um around data and how
273our students are performing and again this is a snapshot of how things are going now if you have any further questions on this I'm happy to answer them and to remind you that in our it does say that small groups um are voluntary for teachers and so that they can choose whether or not they're comfortable uh coming in to do that and we had come up with a variety of different ways that small groups would work for us one would be very targeted so um we heard Dr Maus talk about uh students who are in special ed students who are really struggling we s looked at some data around that so we could provide very targeted intervention groups for students um that meet certain criteria um another possibility is we have students uh we saw
274our attendance data who are just not attending um they are disengaged from the virtual learning aspect and so another way small groups that workers because we could identify those students which we have and invite them to come in and still do their virtual learning but from the school setting so instead of sitting in their room and maybe rolling over not going and going back to sleep and not logging into classes they actually have to do their virtual learning supervised from uh the School site campus and then a third possibility would be teachers choice I all of it is teacher choice but teachers if they had a particular science lab that they wanted to call in a small group to do something with they could choose to do that or offer a particular kind of study
275session for groups based on their own content and that was happening then so that was another idea of of the variety of ways that um small groups could work and again it is written in our that for any of them to happen it would all be by teachers who would volunteer to come in right now I can tell you that many of our at least our elementary teachers teach their a lot of their primary core in the morning and then um pull small groups of students that needs ex extra support through the afternoon and um so some of that if they chose could be in person instead of more virtual and so then I open it up um for discuss discussion and questions um for you to revisit the possibility of bringing small groups back
276uh soon I have a question for you um do do you have any idea how many teachers will volunteer to come back to do these small groups if they're not vaccinated I do not we don't no I've heard from some that some people want to but I don't have a a figure for you so we could potentially be in trouble if a lot of teachers don't want to fill those spots to bring those students back right well we well I mean we would still continue so we're offering small groups virtually right now now so our special ed services and our intervention services are happening and as I said um at the elementary school um we have some teachers that teach everything in small group so I have a teacher who's doing probably 10 small groups
277a day instead of calling his you know whole class on the screen he does everything in in small groups and I have heard from some uh uh teachers that they are interested in doing that I just don't have a figure for you we haven't done a poll okay I didn't mean for an exact number I just wanted to be certain that if that was the how we were moving into that direction that we would be sufficient you know with teachers that are willing to take that on um because it is volunteer to go back into the classroom um that was my question anybody else have any questions is this oh go ahead no I was just going to say that's a great question and because that's really what I wanted to know do we have
278a feel for how many teachers would be willing to go back into the classroom to begin the small groups because I really am concerned with some of that data with our students and you know the The Chronic absente gism the fact that we've got so many third graders that are in a one right now with readings you know our our our groups that are falling further behind we certainly have the comp I think compelling data to really kind of get this moving but I want to know if do we think we have teachers that we can make it happen I think we have I don't think we have 100% by any means but I I I do believe we have uh groups of teachers that are interested in doing that but I I don't have
279a figure for you so when we talk about going back safely as Dr Maus was talking about we do not have a weekly testing program in place so if people were to go back into the classrooms testing students and staff on a weekly basis are we prepared for that or are we not prepared for that at this point we haven't established that protocol um my understanding was that was for uh return in person for hybrid when we had more students so this would be small group we haven't had that conversation for small group yet the funny part to me a small group doesn't seem super small you're looking at what do you say 15 or 16 that's what they said you could do up to 16 people in a room that doesn't seem super small
280to me either yeah know and you have to have I mean if you're talking about six foot social distancing how many people you know what is the average size of the average Elementary classroom you know and how many people can you fit it just it seems like a nice idea but it seems like we're not ready we don't have numbers down I don't I mean when I think of small group and when we're talking about small group like this I would think it would be a you know a handful of students and the teacher so maybe five students um to do small group because when we get to 15 and 16 that's our hybrid model really exactly but yet that is by definition considered small group I think well but Mark wasn't it also including
281the adults yeah that was including adults how many adults are you really looking at on a regular basis in a classroom I think that might have been from oh I'm sorry go ahead I was just gonna say isn't it too like well in the younger grades it could be two two adults to however many kids um and it couldn't be more than 16 total and I think some of that was also for special education where you have students that have more significant complex needs and so you'd have a teacher and maybe a few AIDS and a few kids so it's right and so I think that's where some of that came from okay uh Dr Moss go ahead and I just want to say we said up to so we didn't say that we had
282to Max it out I mean I think that I would hope that we wouldn't be you we wouldn't do that but I think that up to is just the range but I'm hoping that that's not I wouldn't want to see that many in there to be I don't leave anything to Hope in a so I just I mean I agree with you I mean if you're doing if you're providing intensive intervention we're not talking 16 kids at a time that's that's not even realistic how about Dr Young did you have something you want to say uh no I was just uh U wanting to have Dr mossby called on she was Raising her hand there yeah it was my question was answer I just wanted to confirm you know the the range I just don't
283I don't want to I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing a situation where you know we're packing people in but I but I realize that there's a that's a maximum and so so you know we can work around or or when you look the numbers especially if it's either a one-on-one situation or if it's three students and that type of thing so I just wanted to make sure thank you good question oh go ahead CeCe so how I I'm wondering how the um number of kids with the teacher would be determined would would the teacher have um have a say in how many kids were in her small group or her his his or her small group how would that be determined because we can say that oh it would be less than 16 right so what
284do you think well so think if it's teacher the if you think back to the slide where it was intervention so typically in our intervention classes with a reading specialist at the elementary school we don't typically have more than four or five students anyway that's what they're seeing now virtually because it's diff when you have to do that in intensive intervention you as you know it it's better with small groups so I wouldn't see that changing and we would definitely talk with them about what that schedule look like the rest are teacher options of if if you were still in the classroom and you wanted to bring in a group of kids you would you know we would support you in in how many that would be so I think um you know we'd have
285to stay within that guideline I wouldn't recommend teachers bringing in big groups but if they wanted to bring in a handful I think that would be up to the teacher and then that that handful would be for the for the whole day that those students are in class no I don't think so I think it would be um you know after they've done some of their major instruction or if they chose to do it on a Friday um and have a a study session type of thing depending on what the teacher Choice was is there any um specifics in terms of the mou with the small groups in terms of what was agreed upon in terms of size in terms of how many times a week in terms of any of this or is that
286just open to whatever people want to do I think it was open I can't remember I can't recall um any specific Dr Gil you might want to weigh in but great question Mr when we went through that my recollection is we we followed all those numbers that they gave us and you couldn't go over the 16 so any any we didn't make any numbers up at all as I recall we used the numbers we were we were directed to make to put in there can I add something as well sorry mie I no go ahead I was going to say um it would probably depend on the space as well because we would use social distancing with a six feet apart um I would see doing small groups again typically we don't do over five
287six group six kids Max in a small group but if we're spacing them out six feet it probably would be less right when you're working with those small groups but I also can see the scenario if we decided to move forward with the um group to support our students that are not showing up to school like Dr and said instead of them rolling back over in bed and going back to sleep and not getting on class that they're physically coming in they may be able to be in a bigger space say a gymnasium spread out six feet apart we just couldn't Max over 16 people within that space so I think it would depend upon um social distancing and the the purpose I guess too right well said confirming um so the teacher who who
288volunteer to parate will they be creating their own schedule for this right it's going to be and then they're going to have to give you the schedule and kind of just work it work it that way or right yeah we would they would work with their site principal on what that looks like they have to do there's a whole protocol for safety on signing up to be in and um we have all of the um protocols for the onetoone testing that we would look at for the not testing I'm sorry when we did one onet toone assessments with students as they entered um we would do follow all of the things in the safety guidelines for that okay I do want to clarify something like Dr maang had mentioned uh there is it does say
289in the teachers in-person mou Anderson learning mou I'm looking at right now that no more than 16 people combined students and adults in each group and uh uh rest of it is some of it is like know it could be um teacher choice but definitely teachers if only teachers who volunteer second piece I also do want to comment on the second choice we have where the students come in but the teacher is virtual and we hope think thought is that maybe some other employees will watch them most probably they thought might be maybe some classified employees along with maybe admin or somebody whoever uh we have not negotiated small group instruction piece with classified staff we did negotiate the health and safety and inperson learning for hybrid with classified staff but not small group so
290if we are going to be expecting classified staff like AIDS and so on to be our campus supervisors to be monitoring students uh um as as we have certificated staff there which means an administrator or somebody needs to be present because legally classified staff cannot be monitoring students by themselves I need that that be clear on that so let's say if we have an administrator or or a certificated staff member uh in the vicinity and there but also classified staff we will need to go to classified staff and specifically negotiate this piece for small group because with me we talked to uh classified staff the focus was hybrid learning not necessarily small group instruction there is a piece in there about it but we did not talk about will they volunteer or not volunteer anything
291like that at that time okay is this primary and secondary or just primary uh for classified staff anybody because we didn't uh have that because this conversation that we had with the volunteer non here was in the inpersonal learning model not in the health and safety mou for the classified staff we haven't had that conversation with them because we did not meet with them regarding the in-person model OKAY partially because inperson model is specifically for teachers if the if teachers are going to come back for hybrid classified staff will come too and and but the specific piece about there's one section in the inperson model mou for um small group instruction that section is not included in the classified mou okay Mr uh I'm always used to calling you Mark Mark call me whatever you
292hey I've been callot of things nice I just want to get back to your question so uh Dr Gil thanks for that Clarity I thought you meant tell me if I'm wrong on like if you do any small group with certificated did you did we mean yeah that's what I meant is are we looking at small group group secondary and primary because all this discussion has been about primary but I'm assuming small groups in special AED you have secondary kids in the same situation so you're I'm assuming you're talking about all grade levels not just Elementary yes thank you any other questions well I guess I just want to go back to the other one again because some of the other districts are doing um kids are coming in in in pods or whatever there
293there's a name name for that group when they've disconnected from the the district Le distance learning so that in fact we're not finding them just not engaging at all so um I but that wouldn't be we wouldn't be able to capture those kids is what I think I got from Dr Gil right now because we would probably be using campus monitors or or um instructional AIDS well we might the teacher be online doing distance learning and the student would just be parked at school so that in fact we're getting them going again that's what I was think we can do that but we do do have to make sure one two things one that there is is certificated staff around could be an administrator or somebody who is around in the vicinity to be monitoring
294kids because the classified staff member cannot be responsible for monitoring kids by themselves in rooms that's one part second L just that little portion small portion which is the small group instruction Fe to go and negotiate PCA Union and once it's negotiated um we don't know what the end results will be once it's negotiated yes then we just haven't had that conversation with them regarding the volunteer part I but but it could be counselors or um admin too that choose to do choose to do that I for me I I don't know if we're ready to I I think this needs to be fleshed out more like you said you got to go back talk csca it's nice I the numbers that were you know you have a maximum of 16 not a fan I'd
295like to see that down you know if you're talking about maybe five you're talking oh well we wouldn't but the contract's a contract go ahead Dr Gil I'm sorry no no problem I just want to clarify that that that's the Cs we only need to talk to if if you're going to be expecting the classified staff to come in person and monitor students uh do small group if uh that's not the expectation if the expectation is that um classified staff can come if they volunteer and teachers can come if they volunteer then we don't need to negotiate but if we're going to um require CL classifi staff to come then we will have to go negotiate that with them Dr Moss I just want to clear because I know that that's like these are like
296the you know the options or the scenarios but I think right now as I look at what the the item is we're talking about a small group of students who are who are struggling and teachers volunteering to be able to come in offer oneon-one support or if it's in a small group hopefully no more than three or four I think Miss rice indicated that with the the Intensive group um students who need the help that's what we're talking about so I so this whole thing about classifi coming in to watch the kids over here that I don't think that's what we're talking about right now just to be clear we're only talking about teachers volunteering to be able to come in to work with small students small groups of students I don't think that we
297should be throwing in the wrench of um oh if if more kids come in and um and then now we need the classified to go watching because that sounds very uncontrolled to me yeah because I weren't we just talking about trying to capture those kids Les mentioned the kid that would roll over and go back to sleep but might stay on if they had to go to school so I mean those are the ones we're talking about it just it seems like it's not you know really super fleshed out yet I think we're talking about two different things here right right and I think what we need to do is separate them because we're talking about um I I feel very brain fogged at the moment but oh come on it's only 11:30 I know
298got all night man so we're talking about um teachers volunteering to come in and have a small group like Leslie said three to five correct you're saying that but that's not written down in the agreement that that's one um one part the other part is capturing the kids who are having a difficult time with virtual learning and bringing them in not with a teacher because they'll have their computers so not with a teacher in the room but with a classified staff in the room or an admin um or admin so I think that we need to separate those two right they both fall into the guise of small groups though that's actually lesie had three examples on her sheet but that piece hasn't the only piece that that has been from what I understand has
299been cleared is for the teachers the only the teachers and them volunteering right right right so then the rest of it so all the other extra stuff maybe that's the part that as as CCE was saying we need to like because right now I think we're only look we're only focused on or we should be only talking about the teachers who said yes who who say yes I'll come in and work with these small group of students right well and that would be for all of this because in this virtual one in the so this was just ideas because small groups can look a lot of different ways and we had conversations about how do we determine which kids is it only academics is it kid are is it kids who are just not showing
300up um so for the virtual it could be counselors who are under the BTA contract would volunteer to come in I don't know to to oversee uh at the the secondary level um kids who are just not showing up that's a potent I I would see more of that middle one probably at the secondary level um perhaps or admin could say I'm gonna you know pull in five these five students who are just they're just chronically not showing up and let them do their virtual learning while I sit here um but but that's not realistic either I don't think because as We Know if the kid I mean if if you're sitting at a desk and you're not and you're doing your work right and then and a kid who is not engaged in Virtual
301learning is trying to do virtual learning but but that kid doesn't have any support to keep them on track we know that they're just not going to be engaged in the class in the classroom in Virtual learning unless there is support right that's been my experience right and that's probably true for for some of them I think some of them I could say well he's sleeping I could say my son would do better just 100% if it wasn't here by himself just having to be some right and so not that he needs help it's just it's too easy to you know be in Miss Fields English class with a guitar in his hand and I'm thinking when I walk and what are you doing you know so it's it's just being in a school setting
302um makes you feel like you're back at school yeah but but we're not reaching I mean like you just Ed the analogy of your son and the guitar and English class it's not your son necessarily that that we're reaching to with trying to get back right away it's this right or am I not understanding not no that yes you're right right it wouldn't be my son but that was an example of kids who are just they they're they're not working in class or they're just sure not even attending because they've got better things to do but being in the school setting for this particular so it's not necessarily that they need intervention with necessarily with help but just showing up and coming they've got distractions in their house they don't have anybody home whatever it
303is so it was that idea of the kids who are chronically absent that just need to show up in order to do the work and we also want to keep in mind our our special ed kits absolutely yeah so that would be in that first group that targeted group can we find out which teachers would be willing to do this put it over till the 18th well I I I I just at some point I mean I I think having each various groups there's a lot of validity to it we already know that and we know that kids will benefit from it what I what I'm saying is we're we're trying to figure out as gethe was saying a few minutes ago who would do it how do we find out who the teachers are
304so what I'm saying is why don't we find out I mean some have talked about it and there's there's Merit to various kinds of clusters that that are being offered and we don't know unless we ask yeah I and I and I'd like to and I'd like to see us move forward but I and I think the first step at least in my mind is let's ask Y and I think that it's going to look drastically different between primary and secondary because absolutely what what Dr beatson brought up with uh you know an elementary teacher says okay during the morning I got all my kids we're doing our thing but then in the afternoon I'm going to pull these four or five kids in in you know to they have one class of kids and
305they can pull those four or five kids in whereas a secondary teacher that you just can't do that you know so what is that going to look like we haven't fleshed that out we don't know what small groups would look like right and I'm still going to say I think we need to ask because I think Mark a lot of what we're learning with the kids that are disengaged is it's it is the example that lesie was saying these kids are home alone and they've just decided I I can't do this by myself in the house by myself anymore and parent were losing those kids so if if four or five or 10 of them could get into a school setting in either in a classroom or in a gym wouldn't it be worth trying
306to have them do it there in a school environment versus nothing at all who's gonna watch them I mean I think well again it's getting a volunteer from someone that's what I'm saying go ahead what about this you guys so do you want to so um do you want to vote on it tonight and and so it could go either way if you vote to approve it that means staff we would Leslie Dr nson and the team would go out it's voluntary right say dear dear teachers here's the way that we would like to do this it's delineated in theou we want to do these small group it's voluntary we know we know these categories of kids that we would like to assist and then if you if you do that you give us you
307give staff direction to go out and see where people are with it if if you don't vote to approve it and say well bring back a list of like a percentage of people who want to do it then I wonder do we have another discussion about is do you only approve it if you have a certain number I don't know I mean I don't know what that sweet spot is so I'm just wondering how do you how do you want us to move forward one one of the ways like I said earlier to say okay you guys go figure it out and it's voluntary so we vote for you if you do that we vote for you to explore this option and solicit input from teachers and see if they would like to do it
308that's I I think that makes perfect sense because we don't have that information so I I I would think we should say go out and explore it see how many people we have yeah but I'm not voting for for anything that we don't have fleshed out I'm not going to say oh yeah let's bring them back in small groups just figure it out I want it figured out before we vote to do it you know I want to know that you know there's going to be a certain you know no more than five kids I want to know how it's going to look differently between primary and secondary I want to know when we're talking about testing which goes back to what Dr mati has said that those districts where it's worked they've been doing
309very stringent testing for covid I mean these are all questions I I just feel it's really willy-nilly to say well yeah we worked on you know we've got a good hybrid plan when it comes down but in terms of the small groups there's too many things that haven't been fleshed out yet and I get it there are kids that are struggling I'm not opposed but I want those questions answered before I'd be willing to vote Yes I mean it to me I'm not going to vote Yes then after we vote Yes go figure it out and make it work but that's just Mark isn't some of it gonna come from the teacher when she said I've got I want to do this and I've got these four kids that absolutely need this and it'll look
310this way for me and my group right but we could say today we're not voting yes yet but bring all this back have these teachers that are will you said it Diane yourself you know you want to know the teachers if you come back to us and say these are the teachers that said yes this is how they want to do it then we have a lot more to go on as opposed to who knows who knows if it's a suggestion here it is now 11:35 we have been meeting since 6 yes I think that everybody is tired we've had a lot of information um I don't know that we have a meeting on Saturday maybe we can discuss it then but not agendized oh it's not agendized all right yeah I I am and
311I just feel like you know I was I was okay until I heard that oh well we didn't talk to classi we didn't we might have kids over here in the in the gym and you know somebody needs to watch them admin and so that part to me is just is too messy I was thinking that we were looking at a small group of kids who we knew we knew they were struggling um you know our our young you know K through through K through third grade K through five and that's what we're looking at but now it's like a whole different situation so I just I I personally I mean I it I don't and I what I also don't want is to have a situation where all of a sudden we know that
312we have 100 kids that need to be served who are really falling through the cracks and then we don't have enough teachers who say that you know I can do this and then we try and we try and try and you know yeah exactly versus a voluntary situation because we really have 15 but you said would take five can you take these 10 it just right we've all been around we've all done the job so we all know how it works man Dr G Dr Gil I was just wondering um after listening to everything what if we the motion is very specific saying uh no more than five students only with teachers who volunteer or classified staff who volunteer um and that's it that's what we if if the if the motion is just that
313and uh um because obvious viously like Dr Peterson said we do te you have to provide instruction to their entire class in the morning so this will be more like in the afternoon for half an hour to 45 minutes to an hour or something bringing a small you know five kids if if theemotion is something very specific like that instead of all the other things like Dr Moss was saying that are not really uh detailed and and specified so but but can we can start with something so we if the mo motion is very specific saying you know um only with teachers up to five students per teacher in person and classified staff only comes in play for special education kids I want that spelled out before I agree anything well that's I think that's
314why she's saying if think that's emotion is that way if if we but back yeah if but can we change the motion or somebody could say the motion similar to what Dr Gil was saying instead of this blanket statement um in person small group um if that's too wide it's too wide can I try one for you Sherry go for it okay let's we I would like to make a motion that teachers who volunteer to do small group instruction not to exceed five students that we would we move forward and let that let that happen for students in need how do you define in need and then is it primary and they' got they've got data and it has to be by the data it's not just I don't know what other basis they would
315use I mean in my mind we're using our data are we gonna be is it going to be fair uh to certain students that if we only have have X amount of teachers and we only have limited a group to five people plus the teacher we may not have enough to go around so how do you pick and choose which is worse so we have we have criteria now that we use to identify students who receive intervention supports like they meet these different thresholds on on different assessments so we would start with that for sure we don't want to leave anybody behind you know right and and partly it will on how many teachers volunteer um one of the conversations that I was having with the teacher was there could be a possibility that um
316at each school there were enough pockets of teachers so that you could look at who were the most struggling students and so maybe people would volunteer to run those groups even if those kids weren't necessarily right in their classroom but they would volunteer to do that when you look at the whole so it's not like everybody gets five kids but who are the most struggling five kids so we would have a uh the criteria and then look at the teachers who are willing to come in and maybe they just want to do their own class and that's part of the volunteer um and you know it's it's not perfect you know perfect would be we could bring everybody back we can't do that right now so right yeah but I there's too many Mayes to
317me and possibles and this could happen or that could happen I just I don't see what the harm is in but just for me yeah I'm just wondering thinking about what you're saying Mr melli is if if we go back I don't know if teachers will be ready to make a whole plan if they don't know if they're going to be able to do I I'm trying to think about it's sort of a chicken and an egg right which is either they know they're allowed to and then they start saying oh these are the five kids I'd bring or I'm going to go back and ask them who wants to come in and what would it look like are we doing Special Ed Too in this one because we're trying to pair this down if
318we're going to look at anything and like I said I don't see how it works with secondary but you're asking me to agree and approve something that would include secondary in it I see how it could work with primary I could see I have my whole class together in the morning and then on this day I'm G to bring these five kids in this but not you know and what about those kids that need secondary you know secondary is is is trickier 100% because we don't have intervention teachers like do at the elementary school um but we do have um some Support classes and so those class those classes could choose to do a small group in person um we have El classes that teacher might choose to do a small group in person so
319one period And I okay short and I wonder if the parents if they're working are going to have trouble getting their kid to school for that short amount of time that they would be there um if that's going to be an issue as well there's yeah there's a lot of questions in this um I um okay so Diane was going to make a motion um but I'm hearing a lot of different opinions here uh so I'm going to put it back out there um there's a motion on the floor Sher no I understand with your motion is there a second did you finish I don't think you finished did you she she or did can you repeat your motion can you repeat your first you want M to repeat that huh yeah well WR you
320if you don't remember who wrote it down okay go Lesley uh what you said was uh teachers would volunteer to do small groups not to exceed five students uh in Need for for what okay so do is there a second all those oo uh in favor say I don't you have to get a you don't there's no second so okay so no second then it just it dies right here right um and we yeah let's I we definitely need to bring back I mean I think with having an opportunity to know how many teachers we have and maybe what how many students would fit into those categories that we're talking about would be really helpful um information um I I we want kids back I mean there's no question about it um but we have
321to do it the right way and be um be careful with how we're doing it and that we're Equitable all across the board and making sure that all students are taken into consideration I don't want parents to come back and say well what about my kid and you know that they're not in so I guess we'll bring it back to our next meeting which is going to be on um February 18th we'll put it back on the calendar or on the agenda um and you know we had good conversation here and I appreciate everybody's input I think we all learned something from each other's thought process as we are talking it through um and at this time uh okay do I have a motion uh oh I don't understand what what we to be withdraw
322to to with to be to this item to withdraw 13.2 I moved it we uh uh remove 13.2 withdraw 13.2 for today and bring it back on February 18 do I have a second a second thank you uh roll call vote Mrs Martinez uhhuh yes no uh I could forget about me no yes no don't I get it all the time I'm easy to overlook no you're not so before we close this out if you guys have 90 seconds of more brain power um what information do we want to go collect and bring back on the 18th just let's just State them so we know staff knows what they're going to do so who's so who a dear teacher who wants to do it so we have a list of volunteer teachers right what what
323what what else do you want and how many children we are trying to have you know to bring back I think we that would be a good number to know also of so can I ask just a clarifying question uhuh course um we gave three scenarios one was that targeted group of kids in need another was the middle group of students who are not attending virtually so it's more about an attendance issue and then that last one was teacher choice and so getting the number of teachers we can easily do that I think the number of students depending on which scenario we're taught first two scenarios I can get that like who fits the criteria in both uh what we're looking for that last one could be more flexible because if we truly were trying
324to um make this voluntary for teachers and and to have them look at their classes and look at their grade level within their site and determine um that could be a there could be a variable there I guess is what I'm saying well can we just be clear on so so that we have we know the students be will be identified and then it's the teachers will be identified okay but you guys also mentioned all this other stuff about classified and you know and so is are they going to be in this equation this time or is it only going to be the teachers because that second group is where the classified were those kids that aren't showing up that's where we were identifying that you might need classified people to uh supervise at a
325site because you don't know if admin's going to be available all the time for certificated so that's something that you know would have to be worked out for that second group so I guess we'd have to pull the classified staff as well find have to be negotiated yeah if they're interested I mean I think can I can I make a bold statement we're we are spending enormous amounts of time on this and it's complicated Dr Monty has said either way you go it has Merit do we want to just name it and claim it with ourselves and say we're not coming back until everyone's vaccinated I I feel like I If if we're there and there's nothing wrong with you saying that he told us that but I'm kind of feeling like if that's where
326we are let's just say it because if if we don't do that then we're going to spend a ton a Time gathering this data and then we're going to bring it back and it it's sounding like me like we're not comfortable as a group to do it to the vaccine and that's valid too but but I I think we just need to name it and claim it because I feel like we might collect the data and come back and we'll be right here where we are again what about this what about that we will we won't I'm off for people I I I feel like people need to have a choice and so I know that there are people who who will be okay with volunteering to do this but I know that there are
327people who won't and so for me I just feel like I I mean if it's if it's just going to be the teachers then let's just work with the teachers on you know who's who's volunteering to come back but it was just the whole fact that we threw in all this other stuff all the classifi have the admin and people wondering I just to me that's messy so it's like we need to be able to give people a choice is really kind of where I am um and I don't think that we've really fully done that because now if we're bringing in other groups into the equation then it's it's just a mess to me and so it's like you know who the kids are and I I I agree I agree with Dr Moss
328here I you know I would like to see small groups back um especially those kids that I mean there are kids that really need to come back sure of course but again it I agree with you it all of a sudden it's classified in this and that got a little cloudy when we were doing small group I thought it was okay so the teacher has that option to say hey why don't can you you and you come in and and let me go through this let me help you with this but all of a sudden it's gotten and then we went into this 16 so I I got a text from a couple of teachers that said see if it's going to be maybe five but all of a sudden now 16 is coming into
329it which is not a small group is that a trust issue maybe so okay so CCE but the motion was just teachers not to exceed five so we cleaned up because I agreed with bed we started talking about AIDS we started talking about everybody else coming in which is why the motion was very specific to teachers and we said no more than five students and I and I wanted to give them permission I wanted us to vote and give them permission to go make it happen to go get those teachers to have those teachers identify those students I'm kind of feeling like and maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's just that we're really tired because have we hit midnight yet I don't know okay all right so but I kind of feel like we're trying
330to do their job we need to give them permission to go do their job and their job is to go ask the teachers who want to do it on a volunteer basis and ask them with the criteria that the district has identify those five students that one teacher may only come up and say there's three but we needed to say yes go we could even limit the motion Mark and say up to k6 I mean I fine with that I but what I'm thinking is at some point we need to take the leap of faith and say you know what guys go do your job that's not our job to do to put the groups together and identify The Who and which children that's the district job and I guess that's where I'm kind of
331feeling like we're getting too bogged down in the details oh the details mean everything but Mark our job is not to pick the teachers and the kids our job is them do that and that's why I limited it to teachers and no more than five Diane we we were not asking to pick the children personally or asking to pick the teachers we were just asking for a figure if we only have five teachers that are willing to do this without being vaccinated it's a moot point there's we can't even go forward I don't think so at all Sher I think it's a great step because you know what I'll feel better and I'll feel more successful and then you know what the teacher next door might say oh it's working out great let me do
332this with my kids but until you put your toe in the water we're never going to go anywhere Dr that's my personal feeling yeah so I just really um for I guess for hopefully we can um it'll be we'll get it back on the agenda for our next meeting but if we can just focus on just get you get the numbers for the teachers who volunteer you already know the students how many students possibly already Dr beatson you have that number already and then just take it from there but I I do believe that the people who say yes they want to do it they need to be able to do it and I am about I am worried about those students the ones who I know need right need extra help and so I
333just I just want to at least kind of move forward in that part and then after you get the teachers who said yes I'll do it and then you know the number for sure then if there's some overflow then after that then we can have that conversation about oh you got to get the classified you know the admin but I what I in just kind of do it from that point is that is that is that clear I mean that make that makes sense to me I I also want to know very specifically how Special Ed's going to work because a lot of the parents you heard you know I want to know what that looks like I want to know grade level uh how many kids what it's all going to look like because
334like you said Dr beatson you had very three very specific groups you had the group of kids hey teacher says these guys are struggling they like to pull these in then you had the group of kids that are just not engaging and they're not taking place and those are different problems and different groups of kids so I want to know how we're going to attack all those groups get you know not just willy-nilly I want to know what that so the special ed and I want to know the plan for you know getting to each of these three groups for the next meeting okay so it sounds like um I appreciate Dr Young saying are we just going to wait for the vaccine um yeah thank you uh but we can't really vote vote on
335that we could we could talk about it but I don't think um I think we're little premature in saying that if we have some teachers that want to go back um and the vaccine isn't available yet so we still have things to work on up to that point we'll have the next meeting it'll be before it's available anyway so can we just um hope that the vaccines come in faster and faster and our teachers get up on the list and in the meantime um bring this back for our next meeting it's not you know we do need to do something and we need to take those steps as Dian said we do we just want to yes let no go ahead never mind I think let's close there that's a good close let's not add
336anything everyone becomes a pumpkin in three minutes man okay Miss Z what you said that that makes clear it's clear to me and it it aligns with what Dr Moss said so it's clear when I'm working with the team here what what we need to go and figure out and bring back so you guys can we can talk about it again in a couple weeks okay I mean yeah yeah the teachers get the numbers and then we see what we have from there and then then we figure out okay we need you know classifi we need admin or whatever but I just want us to do we have to we have to we do have to move forward so have to all right I want to thank everybody that's here yeah for hanging in for
337the longest meeting I've ever been in attendance Miss Miss say that this is my six years is your superintendent the this the longest board meeting since I've been here I'm sorry I'm sorry for my I I need to stretch man um so without further Ado I'm GNA adjourn our meeting good job you guys thanks so much Saturday bye everybody Saturday