001hi i'd like to welcome you all to venetia unified school district's governing board meeting for uh january 14 21 um we just completed class session and i am going to reconvene to open session at this time here's my trusty shell there we go all right so we on um uh report on closed session items and do we have anything to report i don't think we do so we are going to move on to 5.2 for an announcement and was there any announcement dr young uh nope nope okay moving right along uh item number six um dr moss would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance tonight right oh this meeting is recorded for this one right that one right for live streaming and archiving on the district youtube channel at uh youtube c
002slash venetia unified school district for your convenience sorry thank you okay so number six dr moss would you please lead us in the pledge okay with everybody please stand i pledge allegiance [Music] indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much all right uh number seven approval of the agenda do i have a first to approve the agenda i'll move to approve the agenda as written thank you do i have a second i'll second that awesome you guys thank you so much um we are moving on to highlights which there are you need to take a vote on the approval okay it's a roll call vote it's not a low call vote opposed hearing unseen none motion carries um approval of the agenda or sorry we just did that the highlight and there
003are none as far as i see um so we're going to move on to item number nine reports uh the first uh are our student reports uh for 9.1 and i want to welcome um two of our students here with us today michaela and madison um michaela do you want to go first would that be okay yeah that's fine okay awesome oh sorry that's okay um i'm actually talking about the things upcoming um and then maddie will be talking about the things we've done so far this month perfect i mean um as you know first semester just ended so we are going into our second semester um we've had i think about 60 seniors graduate nature was early graduation so that was really cool the teacher sent out a video i didn't watch it just
004because i didn't graduate early so date on that but um we also have adopt a senior which is going to be next week the students will be getting their gifts i believe on wednesday and then during that they're also having textbook pickup so all of our new classes if you do have new textbooks you'll be picking up tuesday through friday um and then we're hoping for senior sweatshirts around late uh january or early february um we just got a number when we got back from break so they're the company we're working with is working on them right now and then as far as like we have we have an elective fair coming up but that's not until february 10th so that's a little far from now but we're working on election committees for the upcoming
005leadership class um the seniors are doing that and then this is just like further in we're doing march madness in the last week of march and then multicultural week we're still trying to figure out the just of those things of course concerning stay-at-home orders um so we'll most likely those will be videos and just interacting with students virtually and then we had a talent show um planned for later january but concerning um the trap the incident that happened over break with um one of the eighth graders that passed away um we thought it would be best to take a step back and um do something more towards mental health and like for the students not just like to entertain but you know to talk to them so we're working on that right now trying to
006figure out um mental health things we're collaborating with the kyle highland foundation and we're gonna i think we're gonna open zooms with them um maybe some instagram lives where the students are like having a questionnaire with them so we're trying to figure out all the gifts with that and communicating with them we have a student liaison um communicating with her right now ongoing things we have the panther podcast still i don't know if you guys know that we do have that it's on spotify the rally commissioners are hosting that and yeah a lot of some students are getting early application acceptances for seniors that's pretty cool um i know maddie has gotten a few i've gotten a few as well so to see that um and yeah that's pretty much all i have for upcoming
007things thank you michaela that's a lot of information that's that's good information exciting exciting to hear and happy congratulations to all the students that graduated early so that's also bravo okay madison you're up hello hello everyone um as she said my name is madison pearl again and i'm here to talk about our past events sorry if there's a noise in the background um but so in december before we went on break we had a holiday rally and a holiday spirit week so our holiday rally was virtual of course and people enjoyed that we had some teachers in there we had miss k in there doing a game of unboxing with handmaidens and that was pretty funny to watch and then our um our spirit week consisted of a pj day a favorite recipe day your
008favorite holiday decoration and your new year's resolution so we had a couple of participants in that and that was fun and we all posted on social media instagram snapchat twitter and then um january we have an upcoming video coming out to all of our teachers to appreciate our teachers so us leadership students have gotten together some of the student body and we all put a video together just appreciating our teachers for all the hard work we know that this time right now it's not only hard for the students but especially in a virtual environment for a teacher and i know that students some students don't recognize the all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into them teaching us and getting up every morning to teach us so we just wanted to send them a little thank
009you video and for all their hard work and then we also did a wellness week we just ended our wellness week and um that consisted of watching movies um a yoga class with miss sanchez and then today we actually shared on social media um our favorite study habit so those are the past events that we've done and they've been pretty fun and we we've gotten um participation just not as much as we wanted to have but you know it's still participation you know we can't um it's a virtual environment so yeah well madison thank you so much i i hope we get to see a copy of the video that you're doing for our teachers because they do work really hard and we do appreciate them um but girls thank you so much you're welcome
010to leave if you would like to at this point um because i know there's homework and all that kind of good stuff so thank you for being here we appreciate it that you are taking the time out of your evening for us thank you um 9.2 our next item is the superintendent's report dr young yeah good evening everybody board a team and everybody had an opportunity who's tuning in tonight like the students said just like to thank you know all staff and teachers and everybody doing the hard work and hanging in there with the kids um you know obviously we greatly appreciate that as we continue to endure we've got some good interesting agenda items tonight uh two of them i think of particular interest to certainly all the educational staff and the and the
011community and students about our learning plans moving forward and timelines et cetera so i know people are real interested in that um i wanted to say something real quick too i just i was thinking about martin luther king day uh coming up and it's upon us and i was taking the time out i just encourage people to take the time if you can to re-listen to that speech um every time i listen to it it gives me goosebumps as some of one of the most powerful speeches i think i i've ever heard and i took the opportunity as i do try to do every year to actually read through um as he's talking i'm you know looking at the text and what i was doing it last time i was thinking you know what are
012the what are these primary themes and are these these themes are certainly still relevant to us today as a society and as a district as we continue to work on equity inclusion and opportunity what i was struck when i was listening to it about his call for urgency and that the really needing to get after the challenging issues in our country around race and i was also walking away from these powerful messages of hope um profoundly hope and the opportunity for unity for everybody in the united states to be together to to walk forward hand in hand arm and arm to pursue life liberty and the pursuit of happiness together so i just want to encourage people to take the time he's one of our seminal american leaders and thinkers and every year we take
013this time to pause and reflect on his words that were so powerful then and i'm incredibly relevant now so please take the time to do that if you can and uh switching to something a little less emotional for me uh i'd like to thank i have a thank you to first five solano and the solano county office of education and the solano county library for the donation of 300 backpacks i think this is great dr beatson told me about this earlier in the week these backpacks will be distributed to our youngest learners at each elementary school so i just wanted to point that out so thank you to that group so that's it from the superintendent thank you so much dr young um we'll move on to board reports 9.3 do any of the board
014members have anything to share from the since last month i do yeah i just i wanted to share that i was able to attend our solano county it was our solano county school boards association so it's um it's actually representatives from all of the school boards throughout the county and we come together we meet to discuss the issues that are that are happening and i'm happy to announce that we have a training that's going to be coming up starting in march and so this training is around equity and to be able to address the disparities of course that's happening in education it's really always been a part of education and so we have a we have a present presenter nicole anderson who's going to be sharing information taking us through some training and this is
015going to be open to our elected officials it's going to be open to whether it be city council school board and then i believe we're looking at inviting other members of the community in particular some of our staff at our school so um so once the flyer is available i'll be sure to share it so that everybody has an opportunity to be able to sign up and then the other thing i just wanted to say thank you because i was able to attend an african-american parent network meeting that was led by dr beatson and um i believe she'll talk about it a little bit later but i did have the opportunity to attend i really do i did appreciate being a part of that discussion um and then just kind of looking at some of
016the you know more disparities that we know that we're facing and i just also want to say that i appreciate you taking the lead on that work because it is vitally important um and it's just it's something that we have to we have to address it and and just find ways to be able to come together and do the things that we need to do on behalf of all of our students so um so i just want to say thank you for that thank you dr moss those are both things that are very important to all of us and i'm looking forward to participating i'm sure some of our other board members will do so as well um anybody else have anything diane ferrucci miss ferrucci thank you president zeta um anyways i just wanted
017to um just wanted to share it out i'll give a little bit more of the meat and the meat of the meeting that i attended at one of our next topics because it is on our topic as we move forward but i had um the privilege of sitting in on the two phone calls again this week i sat in on um the county coveted conversation as well as sitting in on the town hall meeting by by senator dodd so some interesting things to share a little bit later they talked about the vaccine one of the really good things is they're dropping the age requirement on the vaccine so i think that's going to be amazing and they'll be going 65 and over plus their special groups which are now in the next tier which includes
018essential workers our teachers um there were grocery clerks agricultural workers there were four or five other groups as well but and also people that have compromised immune systems so that is also opening up and there's going to be three veins with which you could get your shots you can get them through county public health if you're a kaiser permanente member you can you will be able to get your shots through kaiser or if you're a sutter member of sutter house you will be getting them that way so they'll be distributing them in our county in three ways so so that was good to hear finally it was that was good news it was interesting to be on that phone call as well thank you mrs buruchi anybody else have anything to share all right um
019i'm going to move on to our next item item number 10 comments from members of the public public comment uh members of the public may submit comments on it on the agenda and any item within the jurisdiction of the school district in the following manner for meetings during shelter-in-place executive order via a google form on this link and there's a link attached and i think that's on our our website and it will be open to the public from 6 to 7 pm on the day of the meeting the governing board allows speakers to speak at regular meetings on agendas and non-agendized matters under public comment comments are limited to no more than three minutes per speaker by law no action may be taken on any item raised during the public comment periods and matters may
020be referred to staff for placement on a future agenda of the governing board so with that said um i miss our dr moss and myself are going to be reading public comments this evening and um i'm just gonna go to my list it is lengthy but we've got this okay so the the first letter i have here is from laura cohen and she's referring to 12.1 which is uh equity and opportunity update uh i would like to start by expressing my deepest gratitude for the incredible and important work that jessica garcia our mental health coordinator and her colleagues are doing for our children and their families especially around the devastating loss of our eighth grade student gabe triboli jessica we appreciate your support dedication resources and the commitment to our children i would also like
021to acknowledge the district's efforts towards starting the process of engaging the community in important conversations surrounding the development of creating meaningful equitable objectives with the intent to implement however the imperative and urgent need to identify these objectives and take actionable steps towards making our busd schools more equitable for our children of color and for our children impacted by poverty has not yet been put into action i believe that it is the responsibility of white people not just to say that they don't agree with racism but to actively work against it the usd leadership has not yet followed through with actionable steps towards making our schools anti-racist our leadership has not yet stood up and voiced that black lives matter and that they value all members of their community with every day of silence and inaction
022that goes by i fear our leadership is failing to represent and include our children of color and our children who have been impacted by poverty as a parent of this community given the racist climate we are currently in right now this silence enables racism it creates an assumption of consent in the minds of both racists and victims therefore perpetuates inequality as a parent i am urging our school board and our school district leadership to share their plan to address systemic racism in our school system and to outline the concrete steps you will be taking to include the mental health and well-being of our students of color and our students who have been impacted by poverty i stand together with other parents teachers and community members to know what anti-racist trainings you will be seeking out
023as as majorly white district leaders and for our white teachers to learn how to support our children of color and our children who are impacted by poverty within our school community equity and inclusion is not about politics that is a narrative that is pushed forward in order to undermine our efforts to share power with disenfranchised or and marginalized people it is a narrative that maintains white power and privilege we want our children of color and our children who have been impacted by poverty to feel supported empowered to have a sense of belonging and have their academic needs met how long is it okay to wait and tell part of our community that their needs that their needs are are not important how long can we continue to tell our community that only some of them
024deserve respect and equity the time is now we can't do that we can't let this go until action steps and concrete plans are shared and implemented with the busd community i want to thank you laura cohen for your letter all right and i have the next one this is for item 12.1 and this is from krista heredia i'm a parent of two who attend robert simple elementary i want to bring to your attention my concern that the school district has not done enough to address racial inequity in our schools declaring your commitment to equal opportunity for all individuals in education does not go far enough what we need is for you to acknowledge and affirm that black lives matter without specific acknowledgement the black families within busd have at times been treated differently because of
025their race any efforts made to set goals for equitable future are essentially half measures it is my understanding that the board consulted with the african-american parent group and plans tonight to present goals for equity work to be done in busd i have so many questions about this process who formed this parent group what is this parent group empowered to do have board members spent time listening to the personal experiences of african-american families who participate in this group i mean really listen to how they and their children navigate a school system that is predominantly made up of white teachers and white administrators are the goals being presented tonight driven by really hearing those experiences and are the goals supported by our african-american families if if the first and most urgent step is not to invest in
026anti-racist learning for all the usd staff then this equity work is as futile and will never go far enough i know there are already i know there is already a large group of busd teachers who meet this on their own time to do anti-racist learning i'm also aware that there is a sentiment from the busd staff that this kind of training is not necessary because they have not personally witnessed racism in their sphere i would argue that these staffers are blinded by their own privilege and are the ones who need it the most anti-racist training for all busd staff should be a top priority and a standard going forward our nation is at a pivotal moment in history a pivot at a pivotal moment in acknowledging the deep-seated effects of systemic racism denial would no
027longer be tolerable or sustainable thanks to the efforts of the benicia black lives matter group our city will soon have its first equity and diversity manager mayor steve young has publicly declared that black lives matter i stand together with other parents teachers and community members asking to know what anti-racist trainings you our busd school board will be seeking out as the majority white district leaders and for white teachers to learn how to support our black students for the record i am white latina mother we moved to benicia in 2009 when our eldest son was entering the sixth grade he went on to attend bms and bhs with our two youngest um to our two youngest sons our tenure at robert simple so far has been five years in all that time the only black teacher
028or administrator my children have experienced is my eldest son's middle middle school p e teacher for the one school year otherwise all of our teachers and administrators have been white this fact has always concerned me should we be talking about possible discrimination in busd hiring practices yes should we be talking about the importance of representation in school leadership positions yes should we be talking about overhauling curriculum to reflect historical truth rather than our current curriculum that silence the ugly racist truth yes but these conversations yes okay so um should i can i finish i think i have a little bit left let me stop or we'll go ahead and finish talking okay all right all right where was i here we're almost done okay um so yes we we should be talking about overhauling curriculum
029to reflect historical truth rather than our current curriculum that silences the ugly racist truths yes but these conversations will not be be led to hill change unless our leadership and staff are equipped with anti-racist learning therefore i implore you to make anti-racist training a priority now i also implore you to seek partnership with those in our community who are already doing the work the time is now for action steps important history is in the making this is our opportunity to be on the right side of it thank you okay next item is also regarding 12.1 um paige ellinger is the writer i'm a parent of two children at rsc robert simple elementary following the horror in dc last week it is important that more important than ever that we do everything possible to ensure that
030all our children feel safe and supported i fear that my own instinct to maintain diplomacy i have not done enough i believe our community and our district has not done enough to make it absolutely clear that there is no place for racism in our schools or anywhere else i appreciate new steps taken but so much more is needed our silence makes makes us complicit in normalizing racism to a degree that has empowered racists and left our communities of color in fear when children were separated from their families and essentially put in cages i felt we should have released some statement as other districts did reassuring our immigrant communities that they are safe welcomed and wanted i attended protests but i regret that i didn't do more with the district now as as our children witness
031some of our leaders defending the enable defending and enabling racists in the same spirit i want our black and brown children to know really to know to really feel that white people have their back and that the schools do not condone this kind of white supremacy that has been escalating i grew up in a more racist part of the country but for most of my childhood i have the white privilege of being oblivious to racism in the third grade my teacher would or my teacher had a wooden paddle and she would take children into the closet and beat them it wasn't until i was an adult that it occurred to me that almost all of the kids who were hit nine to ten were black uh since then i've wondered if i had known about
032racism when i witnessed so many eight-year-old black children dragged to a closet and hit with a wooden paddle maybe i could have done something my point is that kids can be can be witness to racism and not recognize it if we don't educate them i wish i had known back then i would have spoken out as i did later in life becoming an activist my family meant well they wanted us to be colorblind but not in being educated about racism i didn't recognize it when i was when it was right in front of me i would like to see the following improvements to prevent racism in our schools one anti-racist training for teachers two a clear district policy for addressing racism for students and teachers three establishment of a new curriculum to educate children about
033racism in this new social climate four i feel at least we can the least we can do is pass a resolution as so many other districts have and as our own city council did last summer in support of black lives matter black lives do not just matter black lives are adored black lives are cherished and we must make this clear to them there has been an atmosphere of increasing aggression directed at the people of color in our community and i want our children to know that busc doesn't condone it that they are supported and that they have a voice our white children need to be taught sensitivity and the critical understanding that truly to say black lives matter doesn't mean white lives don't matter it acknowledges that our beloved communities of color have faced continue
034to face an unfair playing board inequity at uh inequity that our white children are privileged not to see in a diverse district with so much white leadership and so many white teachers we must recognize that white silence perpetuates racism by projecting the appearance of consent in the minds of both racists and their victims this is not about being politically correct it is about making sure all our children feel safe and wanted um thank you for your letter miss ellinger okay um and this is this next comment is for item 12.1 as well and this is from brittany major all right i'm dear members of the board i'm a teacher in the venetian unified school district and i have had the pleasure of teaching for five years this year a group of passionate teachers from multiple
035school sites came together to do meaningful work around the topic of anti-racism and equity we formed a professional learning community and got to work examining our own bias learning about white supremacy culture privilege and so much more after being inspired by my co-workers and the world around me this summer i knew that i could no longer sit back and wait for others to initiate and implement anti-racism work into our daily work many of us went into school and went into the school year with the same attitude and brought so many ideas for personal and professional growth forward to our leadership for but for many reasons these ideas never took off it was at this point that the plc was formed we have used our own time heart and money to make this plc a priority
036we believe that this work is more than important right now it is essential we believe this work has changed us as people and as educators we will allow it will will allow us to empower our students to build a better future this work that i have done in the plc has gutted me in the best possible way this work is is guiding me is guiding my every move as a teacher this work is showing me ways in which i need to better advocate for my students and where i need to sit and listen to them this work is reminding me that unless i unless i work to break down barriers that and build strong meaningful relationships with my students and their families learning will never happen thank you for taking the time to read this
037and to listen to the work that we have started and hope to continue with the district in the future i believe what i believe that what we are doing in the plc has the power to change our students educational journey for the better we would like to call you into partnering with us as we continue to take action and focus our efforts on creating an anti-racist community within our classrooms focused on student voice and growth in partnership brittany major thank you for your comment okay 12 this next person submitted regarding 12.1 andrew barrett uh dear members of the board i am the father of a multiracial family my children attend venetia schools i teach at robert semple i am a member of the venetian anti-racist plc group a voluntary group of elementary teachers was 25
038plus members we hired an incredible equity expert to train us and help us this was done because our district wasn't doing it i came from a very diverse district moving to indonesia unified i was started by the lack of diversity on staff it didn't seem possible in the bay area only 4.7 percent of certificated staff identify as african america or multi-racial compared to 80 of staff who identify as white those numbers are even wider when looking at admin data as just one simple comparison piece only 41 roberts of roberts central students identified as slowly white this year how how can this difference be the inequity of demographics on staff is compounded by their issues such as imbalanced class-making and balanced suspension and achievement data yet change is glacial i'm also reminding me reminded of the
039words of dr king in his letter from birmingham jail for years now i have and to quote for years now i have heard the word wait this weight has almost always meant never never just as too long delayed is just tonight and quote today that's uh um i think he means folks who have been surrounding alarm bells around equity and implicit racism in our district are energized by new staff and new eyes coming in we will all see that we will all we all will see the glowing inequity and need to fix it here are my humble suggestions number one demographics of our staff should match or exceed the demographics of our students two an urgent changing of our hiring and promotion practices three undergo a voluntary equity audit of our district with the help
040of an outside agency four pd and plc should run frequently with equity as a primary lens and run by outside experts in their field five set incredibly strict time limits on exceeding these goals black lives matter equity equity matters anti-racist practices matter balanced classes matter stating this out loud matters i want my multi-racial family to be proud of their father and their district he works in thank you mr barrett okay um the next item is for dressing 12.1 and this is from rebecca lind dear dear members of the board i would like to begin by stating that i am a white parent and educator in vedic unified school district recently i have had the pleasure of joining a group of wonderful educators in the district in a public learning community centered around the topic of
041anti-racism and equity we have begun examining our biases white supremacy white supremacy culture white privilege and fragility this work has this work has been on our own time our own money and efforts we are passionate about this work and have made it a priority to educate ourselves on these topics and bring our growth into our classrooms and community i believe that when we know better we are able to do better for ourselves our students our children and community i feel that it is a responsibility of our district a district majority of white administration and educators to actively condemn and work against racism as alarming events have been happening in our country and community over the past year the district has failed to take action or even take a stance against racism not only is the
042district remaining silent on the issues of injustice inequalities and racism but i feel as though i am being asked as a classroom teacher to join them in this silence i do not have confidence that this school district believes black lives matter that equity matters or that anti-racist practices matter i'm deeply saddened by this and find it absolutely unacceptable i am asking that the districts speak up and voice that black lives matter equity matters and anti-racist practices matter this is urgent work and should be and should be at the core of busd and the community of venetia as a whole we would like to call you into partnering with us as we take action and focus our efforts on creating an anti-racist community within our own classrooms and schools in partnership rebecca lind thank you okay
043the next item is also regarding 12.1 nicole derosa um i fully support equity training for staff at the usd we have to do better for our community wow that was a quick one i know all right i'm and this is addressing item 13.1 and this is from victoria greener okay dear esteemed trustees knowing that you will be reconsidering your decision from november 19 2020 to reopen venetia schools for hybrid and construction once solano county is out of the purple tier i would like to respectfully request that you revise your original motion to state that any return to the purple tier would trigger that schools also return to exclusively virtual instruction i'm sure you agree that the health and safety of our students and staff of busd is of paramount importance and if school is not
044safe to conduct now in purple tier it won't be if and when the when the county ever returns to that status thank you victoria greener and teacher benicio unified school district thank you okay next up is uh a letter about 12.1 dear members of the board i am a teacher in the venetian unified school district and i have had the pleasure of teaching here for two years this year a group of passionate teachers from multiple school sites came together to do meaningful work around the topic of anti-racism and equity we formed a professional learning community and got work got to work examining our own bias learning while learning about white supremacy culture privilege and so much more we have used our own time heart and money to make this a priority we believe that this
045work is more than important right now it is essential we believe this work has changed us as people and as educators and will allow us to empower our students to build a better future thank you for taking the time to read this and to listen to the work that we have started and hope to continue with the district in the future this work should be at the core of the usd and the community of venetia as a whole we would like to call you in to partnering with us as we take action and focus our efforts on creating an anti-racist community within our own classrooms focused on student voice and growth in part in partnership victoria greener thank you for sharing yeah um the next comment is too is for um item 12.1 and this
046is from megan carroll as dr young stated in his recent letter we are living through complex and unpredictable times as educators we play a critical role in walking through and walking through this with our students i'm disappointed with the lack of response from our district on the overt racism in our country and community our words and actions mean more mean more now than ever before our work on anti-racism should be more than a check in box during pd uh many of us many of us are already having these courageous conversations with our students and are doing work and are doing the work on our own time and in our on our own dime and our own dime sorry i'm calling the board and the district in on doing on doing this hard work and meaningful
047work alongside us all right thank you for your comment it's carol thank you the next one is regarding item 12.2 from kristen eels i don't think we should plan her return to school this year this would be disruptive to their learning as well as unsafe with cases still rising we should plan for an amazing return to school in august of 2021 where teachers staff and kids will be safe as well as fully prepared for the return rather than this rather than scrambling just for a few weeks this year thank you very much for your comment uh kristen eels okay all right and the next comment i don't have the item number but it is from um from amy and pat now i hope i said your name correctly if i didn't i apologize it's 12.2
048dr boss okay 12.2 okay thank you all right so it says please send these kids back to school my daughter is an eighth grader that's always been an honor roll student until now she's struggling and failing all of her classes because she can't stay focused and has a ton of work to do my kindergartner says he doesn't like school and zoom he doesn't like school and zoom which is super sad because kindergarten is special and supposed to be enjoyable these kids need to go back to some type of normalcy okay thank you for your comment okay next item up is 12 for 12.1 it's from maureen mcintosh as a parent and educator in busd i'm taking a stand that every child deserves to be seen heard and deserves an education that is found founded on
049truth and justice many conversations about equity have occurred yet we are still in the same place we were 20 years ago when i came to this district thank you miss mcintosh for your comment okay all right in the next comment um this is from sorry did you want me to read that one oh yes okay um the next uh it's a 12.2 comment and this is from sarah ferrucci um please see comment below let's see please read the following letter by dr gene noble and signed by ucsf health professionals calling for february 1st school reopening copy of letter can be found in the examiner dated january 11 okay long-term school closures have a detrimental measurable impact on children and adolescents while school closure is challenging for all families households which include essential workers and those
050with limited financial means are disproportionately impacted children with special needs in particular are uniquely negatively impacted because they depend on in-person learning for educational rehabilitative social and behavioral resources that cannot be adequately supported in distance learning resulting in additional stress on these families school closures have widened the achievement gap educational inequities have the potential to translate into a lifelong barrier and a staggering number of life years lost jama net open 2020 numbers item three in california many private schools reopen during the fall while a majority of public schools have been closed since march the essential societal role of public education is to reflect in article number nine of california's constitution which mandates unfettered access to education for all children children to ensure that a child's ability to participate in public education is not dependent on
051the financial means of their family because literacy and health literacy influence health status prolonged school closure is contributing to social isolation among children and adolescents it is taking a heavy toll on their mental health and well-being the emergency department at the benioff children's hospital in oakland reported a temporal increase in the proportion of all children and youth 10 to 17 years of age who reported suicidal ideation from 6 in march 2020 to 16 in september 2020. similarly the cdc reported that compared to 2019 the proportion of pediatric emergency visits due to mental health issues in 2020 increased by 24 percent among children ages 5 to 11 and by 31 for children's age 12 to 17. apart from the social isolation uh an increase in high risk behaviors among youth could be related to a lack
052of parental or adult supervision the cumulative long-term impact of trauma related to social isolation isolation educational distress family stress and the stressors and other stressors that may culminate in post-traumatic stress disorder depression anxiety and other behavioral disorders is a reasonable to expect that children who live in poverty are even more likely to experience these adverse outcomes there's also a real concern for significant but unknown drops in student attendance especially in disadvantaged communities we're slow with what sorry i need to breathe with less access to computers and the internet for uh online learning school districts around the country are reporting higher rates of students failing classes a phenomenon which has been disproportionately seen among low-income latinx and african-american children since march 2020 we have learned that young children are not the primary drivers of covid19 transmission
053we have also learned that children are generally not at risk of severe health consequences from cobit 19. indeed in the entire state of california there have been only five covid related deaths among persons younger than the age of 18. for comparison there were 15 deaths due to influenza in the same age group during the 2018-19 flu season fortunately there is accumulating evidence from the bay area and other states that schools can safely reopen in marin county for example more than 450 000 student student days i.e tens of thousands of students on school campuses over three months have been associated with just six cases of school-based transmission that is there have been only six additional colbit cases resulting from 20 000 students and 5 thousand teachers interacting on campus since september there are similarly reassuring data
054from the state of new york where probate prevalence is no higher amongst high school students and teachers who return to campus compared with the community match prevalence rates okay um then i'm going to stop reading at this point thank you miss furuchi for your comment okay all right the next item is to address item 13.1 and this is from sherry giannatti and it reads as follows thank you board for taking the time to read and consider the many perspectives and opinions of us parents about our district's plan to reopen i want to say that i have come to recognize that there are some organizing efforts to loudly voice narrative that conveys one of these perspectives however i do think that there may be an equal number of voices who may not be as loud or
055use the public comment process to feel that we do not want our district to act haste about getting our our students teachers and staff back on campus in a time when covet is spreading at an alarming rate and causing hardships on our health care system i ask that the board respectively consider that many parents like me want want what is safest and equitable for our students please consider my voice and my perspective what is safe vaccines for school staff fully implemented community resources available to test and treat covet protocols that mitigate spread of covet when more people students and staff are on campus protocols that outline how it will be handled and when students get colds flu coveted illnesses that keep them from coming to school for any length of time to avoid spreading said
056illness considerations for equity a schedule that allows access for all families to opt to send their students to school parent work schedules and daytime transportation issues are currently not considered with the current hybrid model consideration that some families may not be able to risk covet exposure in their in their households how will their continued virtual academics be equal to those who are attending how will how will a potential change in teacher school or schedule and the relationship forge between student teacher especially in the elementary school grades impact uh continuity of education for students this is especially true for students and families whose access to resources and circumstances are already challenged i have written before to say that i could not bring myself to complete the latest survey as the decisions i was being asked to
057make were not fair given my family circumstances and uh and were untimely asked the day we went into purple tear before times were as grim as they are now my hope today is to respectfully voice that decisions around reopening schools consider the dire situation of our community and regarding covet as well as that safety and equity to be in the forefront of the decision-making process i ask that you not i ask you do not act in haste please focus on how to safely and equitably get students back to school not when not when to hurry up and get it done uh let's see okay thank you that was the end of it thank you miss giannatti okay i am this one is regarding item number 13.1 this is from elise padua these have been incredibly
058difficult times for our children parents and staff we are currently facing some of the darkest days because of covid19 and its toll on our community we have five months until this current school year is complete while i know in-person learning is best for learning and teaching my belief is that it is not currently the safest i feel our kids have gone through it enough change in the school year rushing them back to into in-person learning in the winter months during global during a global pandemic isn't the safest way to go again um thank you miss padua okay and i have the next comment and this one is from rich and angela grigus and it says i hope that you please listen to what the parents and children are saying they need to go back to
059school the kids are not fine thank you for your comments okay the next item is regarding i let's see it's got to be 13.1 um kathleen smith how many times will it take for the parents voices to be heard we vote we submit mandatory commitment surveys etc all to start over again my position will not change for the health and well-being of our children our future they need to be in school learning engaging and socializing there are many published safety guidelines that can guide a reopen is that being considered other schools have figured it out a safe way as a working parent married to a first responder i am struggling to understand how the usd cannot implement and move forward all of this is at the cost of our children open up the schools okay
060all right and i have the next comment and this is from gina phillips and it says please give us the choice to send our children back to school and approve the hybrid model as soon as possible my son is in kindergarten and needs to be in class as this is a critical age for reading and writing he needs face-to-face interaction with his teacher and classmates to thrive thank you miss phillips okay nexus on 13.1 from kathleen ruiz hello my name is kathleen ruiz and i would like to and i want to address the agenda item for the timeline for reopening schools for in-person i'm commenting and advocating to open schools for an in-person education as soon as possible i really don't understand with districts around us open private schools in our town open and some
061sports dance things now open why we can't even open and hybrid in the hybrid model at least i know some feel for their children are not being assigned enough and my junior is doing a lot more than he would have if he was taking the same classes in person i have watched each meeting and there has never been a reason with actual evidence given for the no votes i truly hope our school board does the research themselves for our area before casting their vote and please include a valid article by a physician or scientist that advocates us not to open schools for an in-person education and restroom for an in-person education and resume distant learning i also encourage any who feel our school should be closed to do the same research you will be surprised
062i know i was our kids deserve more than our district is doing for them thank you very much uh miss ruiz okay and i have the next item and this is from leah mios and this is regarding the reopening as well and it says i do not think schools are safe enough to be open during this high time of infection rates it would it would be best to wait until teachers and vulnerable parents have had time to get vaccinated and for case numbers to drop i feel it would be irresponsible of the school board to put the school district in jeopardy of litigation from staff and families while i do agree that in person is best for the students i don't think now is the time for it thank you for your hard work and
063consideration thus far during this pandemic thank you next is also on 13.1 reopening of schools this is from brittany brittany sapien as a parent of three children in the district two of which are enrolled in special ed i would like to consider i would like to strongly implore the board to vote to adhere to the state guidelines provided by the district district by the department of ed allowing for small groups and one-on-one instruction to begin once the county has entered a purple tier as many districts both smaller and larger than busd already have there are services that are imperative to the learning of special education students many of whom now have several areas of marked regression due to their learning styles being incompatible with zoom with the zoom platform i have the greatest confidence and
064the professionals employed by the department of ed they are the experts in their field as opposed to some of our school board members i find it extremely arrogant for certain members of the board to seek and to seek to deviate from the state guidelines and recommendations i would like to know what it is that makes them feel as if they are more qualified to determine the district's protocols there is absolutely no reason why venetia unified should not already have a plan of reopening in place furthermore it was alarming to watch both the november and december meetings and here members of the board state that they were unclear on why they were voting what they were voting on during the november meeting dr young repeated the intent of the vote multiple times before the votes were
065cast those statements led me to question the competency of certain board members of the board lastly i would like to call on mr miceli to resign himself from the board given that he has no ability to be impartial or place the needs of the students and families at the forefront given that given that he is the spouse of a teacher within the district outlining clear conflict of interest again please please before casting your votes tonight consider the needs of the students with the greatest challenges and act and the greatest challenges to accessing their education through this pandemic do not continue to ignore their needs thank you so much uh just trying to go back mistapium okay all right so i have the next item and it's to address item 13.1 and this is from james
066farrucci it says to the school board members of busd i would like to inquire as to why we are revisiting an already approved motion if i understand correctly the board previously passed a motion to proceed with in-person learning only as approved by the state of california guidelines i also understood there was not enough data data no there was not a date set by our school board for this just a motion to proceed once approved so by revisiting such an open-ended motion dependent solely upon the expert medical guidance of our state what is the point with that said understanding there is a current spike in cases approval from the state will not be granted until that is mitigated so approval only will come when it is safe to proceed i like many members of the community
067are concerned of the hesitation to begin in-person learning clearly there have been numerous opinions from both the community and the board both for and against the area i struggle with is how do non-medical professionals override the science of medical professionals i understand we are all we all have our personal opinions and that is great but as as a board the job before you is to provide education to the community to provide a safe working environment for the employees to provide a choice for the community of of in person or virtual learning i ask you do not take away any future opportunities for the students to return to the classroom the pandemic rules have been hard enough at this point why further why further the demise of their education based on personal feelings if any of
068the board members just once has left your home to shop grab a cup grab grab a coffee or anything else that has required some level of staff to accomplish your tasks surely you can you can see how confusing and hypocritical it is that educators can't be made as safe as the supermarket checker please no personal agendas and do your job educate the children to the best of your ability following state guidelines respectfully james farrucci ii thank you mr farrucci for your comment okay the next one is on items 12.1 and 13.1 this is from leah wilson my name's leah wilson and i am writing as a parent of a simple fifth grader i have two comments the first is regarding reopening of school i continue to support the board and district leadership making careful decisions
069regarding the appropriate time to reopen and keeping the safety of our children the teachers and staff and the community at large is top priority distance learning is difficult and not ideal for most of our kids the pandemic is a crisis with so many layers a public health crisis a mental health crisis an academic crisis a racial injustice and equity crisis i recognize all of this but public health experts agree that the time to reopen is when the community spread is low and community spread is at an all-time high i support the school's reopening when it is safe and until then i hope the district will continue to work hard and be creative in offering academic sel and mental health supports to our children especially the children who most need it i would also like to
070acknowledge the district's efforts in beginning conversations around addressing equity in venetia schools i look forward to hearing the update tonight and hope to learn more about specific actions being taken regarding things like equity and anti-racist training for teachers and staff hiring practices to attract and retain diverse teachers audit auditing curriculum and instructional materials at all grade levels to reflect cultural and racial diversity addressing systemic racism in our schools is an urgent moral necessity and i hope busd moves more quickly to do this work thank you uh thank you leah wilson okay i have the the next um item which is um item to address item 12.1 and this is from tara bonville and it reads i'm a parent of children that attend mary farmer indonesia high school i want to bring to your attention concerns
071that i have that the that the school district has not done enough to address or speak to racial inequality in our schools i'm concerned about this because my own family has experienced racial discrimination in our city as a parent it is important that our districts lay out an action plan about how they are going to address this very important issue and what steps they are they are that they will be taking to implement that action plan now with so much gratitude tara b thank you miss vaughnville and the next one is to address 13.1 robin dismuke i speak on half of most parents and believe it is necessary to bring back in-person learning my son is 12 attending bms as a 6th grader my daughter is in 8th grade i see and hear all the
072struggles they are experiencing and it is it is heartbreaking to hear that they feel they are not learning anything the technology is not great zoom fails microphone issues can't rewind to listen back to to listen back as to what the teacher was instructing these are just a few issues they encounter on a daily basis they are missing out on the crucial years of school these years determine their futures in college education it's absurd that the parents that us parents have to say have no say when it comes to what's best for our own kids own children for anyone who feels different they have the right to keep their kids home but us who want our kids in the classroom setting have no choice these kids are being robbed of their social interaction teacher interaction and
073self-confidence i see the struggles that struggles there needs to be a meet in the middle ground and a meet in the middle point thank you very much robin just mute for your letter all right the next one is to address um 12.1 and this is from krista heredia and it reads i'm a parent of two children who attend robert simple elementary i want to bring to your attention my concern that the school district has not done enough to address racial inequality in our schools declaring your commitment equal opportunity for all individuals in education does not go far enough i think our community would benefit from bu from busd policy acknowledging and affirming that black lives matter it is my understanding that the board consulted with the african-american parent group and plans to present goals for
074equity work to be done in busd i have so many questions about this process who formed the parent group what is the what is this parent group empower empowered to do have board members spent time listening to personal experiences of these african-american families who participate in this group i mean really listen to how listen to how they and their children navigate a school system that is predominantly made up of white teachers with and with white administrators are the goals being presented tonight driven by really hearing those experiences and are they supported by our african-american families if the first and most urgent step is to not invest it's not to invest in anti-racist learning for busd staff then this equity work is fruit is futile and will never go far enough i know there is already
075a large group of busy teachers who meet on on their own time to do anti-racist learning i'm also aware there is sentiment for their sentiment from the busd staff that this kind of training is not necessary because they have not personally witnessed racism in their sphere i would also argue that these staffers are blinded by their own privilege and are the ones who need it the most anti-racist training for all busd staff should be a top priority and a standard standard going forward our nation is at a pivotal moment acknowledging the deep seated effects of systemic racism denial will no longer be tolerable or sustainable thanks for your efforts for the for the benicia black lives matter group our city will soon have a have its first equity and diversity manager mayor steve young has
076publicly declared the black lives matter i stand together with other parents teachers and community members asking to asking to know what anti-racist trainings you our our busd school board will be seeking out as majority as majority white district leaders and for our white teachers to learn how to support our black students for the record i am white a latina mother we moved to benicia in 2009 when our eldest son was entering the sixth grade he went on to attend bms in bhs with our two youngest sons our tenure at robert simple so far has has been five years in all of that time the only black teacher or administrator my children have experienced is my eldest son's middle school pe teacher for one school year otherwise all of the teachers and administrators have been white
077the fact this fact has always concerned me should we be talking about possible racial biases in busd hiring practices yes should we be talking about the importance of representation in school leadership positions yes should we be talking about overhauling curriculum to reflect historical truth rather than our current curriculum that silences the ugly racist truths yes but these conversations will not lead to real change unless our leadership and staff are equipped with anti-racist learning therefore i implore you to make to make anti-racist training a priority now i also implore you to speak partnerships with those in our community who are already doing the work the time is now for action steps important history is in the making this is our opportunity to be on the right side of it okay and thank you for your comments
078mrs heredia well thank you thank you dr moss and it was just brought to my attention that that last letter we may have read um a second time so yeah i was thinking and i was like i think i read this one yeah yeah just to let everybody out there i know we got through them and i want to thank everybody for submitting their letters and comments um and we are going to move on to item number 11 which is the consent calendar so do i have a motion to approve this the consent calendar oh sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry oh sorry okay all letters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine and will be approved by the board in one motion there was no discussion there will be
079no discussion on these items unless members of the board staff or public request specific items to be pulled and discussed now do i have a motion to approve the consent calendar now that you've clarified that i will be happy to make a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented tonight thank you do i have a second go ahead cece a second all right thank you so much um any discussion no discussion so what what did you say this for to you so let's call for a vote let's call for a i'm so tired from reading um yes let's call for a vote um uh let's call for a vote do i hear are those in favor say aye hearing then saying none the motion carries okay i will get it together you guys um
080the next item we have is regarding um 12.1 discussion we're on items 12 12.1 equity and opportunity update doc's dr beetson i know you have a sad show to present and we'd love to hear from you thank you thank you uh thank you board and uh dr young for having me here this evening to share our continued work uh in the area of equity and opportunity um i know we just heard many many comments um and so i'm excited to continue our partnership let you know the work that we have done and that we have uh in the works to continue to do on this equity and opportunity journey so what i'm hoping that we can cover tonight is um as i said going a little more into depth about some of the work that
081we have engaged in over the last few years in the area of equity and culturally responsive practices um ask for your support in the direction of these proposed goals and actions knowing that they are in draft form right now because we need to continue to get more input in them uh with them and then to ask for your support and promotion in continuing to forward the equity and opportunity work that we are embarking on in the u.s so i want to take us back a little bit to how this started and why this started it started actually very deliberately and thoughtfully and intentionally several years ago with feedback from our stakeholders our stakeholders being our students many students came forward and and expressed concern and gave us really direct feedback about what was working and
082what wasn't working for them we had messages and conversations with many parents about the same the same issues around our practices and some curriculum issues and so forth we did some research on what are some best practices in the area of equity we have a lot of data that showed that um things weren't as equitable as we want them to be especially you know when we when we think about equity we want all students to learn at their very highest potential in our our mission statement and of course we're going to do all that we can to support all students in their next learning step um and and support them socially emotionally and academically but we also when we look at our data uh have pronounced groups of students that have traditionally been underperforming and
083and have been underserved and so with that lens our students who are in special ed and our students who are african-american stand out in many different areas and that has caused us and required us and have us have this imperative to do this continued work and partnership so when we look at how many students of color are in advanced placement uh classes or students who aren't traditionally taking those classes how do we open that door for future students how do we remove barriers when we look at our absenteeism rate especially when we look at chronic absenteeism when students are absent 10 or more days of the days that we're in school we have certain student groups one being our african-american group and the other uh was our students in special ed that that had a
084much higher proportion of chronic absenteeism than other student groups we heard tonight in several of our comments about curriculum relevancy and so a couple of years ago my department looked at the process in which we adopt curriculum and created a uh a pretty robust process but we will continue to go back and and look at that where we um when we do pilot material we look for lots of different factors and components and there are many factors that rely on um and point to rather equity and making sure that different races different viewpoints are pointed out in the curriculum and we use that as a tool as we evaluate curriculum that's up for adoption i also know that our libraries are really working hard to ensure that we have a wide range of material available
085and they're expanding their their libraries we actually put money in our lcap over the last couple of years to provide money right to all of our district libraries to do just that work other data that showed that we needed to pay attention to equity and and the progress and um achievement of of different student groups was our casp data that's our state testing and then our reach data which is a um a survey that goes out primarily to sixth through twelfth graders and it stands for relationships um effort achievement cognition and heart or aspirations not achievement i'm sorry cognition and heart and there were certain questions in there that for certain student groups it was clear we were not um doing all that we could and a part of it was connecting our sparks to
086learning so our passions and our interests to learning finding that relevancy in the curriculum and um around diversity and fitting in um we talked about special ed and really looking at meeting the needs of our students who are in specialized education and so over the course of last year we worked with our new director of special education and did some shifting of our model so that we could better serve our students our students who are african-american through all of these uh data points and feedback we have we have solicited solicited specific feedback from them and will continue to do so and another data point um is our suspension data and we do look carefully at that and and have um inequities in our suspension practices as well and so those are all things that have
087driven us to embark on this work over the last couple of years and will continue to propel us into the future so what have we done and we heard lots again um many things we started several years ago with smaller groups of uh administrators and staff different possibilities we did some book clubs we attended different conferences we had uh trainers come in for our administrators on implicit bias and so there's a whole list here of things that we did and slowly we started to try out different presenters different trainers who will be a good fit for us and last year before the pandemic hit we had a group of administrators and teachers from across the district attend um some a series of trainings through our county office of education that was put on by epic
088education and that is a nationally that is a an organization that's led by uh dr nancy dome um really well known that does uh profound work in this area and through conversations with them um attending those trainings felt like that epic education was a good fit for um a requirement for all staff and so over the course of this summer and then through this entire school year our entire staff and administrators and that's classified and certificated um have been participating and have access to seven different modules we know it is not uh everything that we need to do but it is where we are at this moment but i just wanted to give you some titles of the types of trainings that we have access to to continue those conversations so how to talk about
089race microaggression and action supporting student empowerment how to be an ally against lbg tq and bullying we've done implicit bias we one of our trainers two years ago we did a six-month mini course that was open to all of our administrators and teachers who wanted to attend and we actually uh paid teachers on a time card to talk to that and it was called inclusive practices academy where we did some deep dive into inclusive practices with a trainer that came alongside universal design for learning which is really about removing barriers for students and look at your practices and through that we did some work on white fragility and implicit bias so while it hasn't been um as uh we we still have work to do we are going to just put that out there we
090still have continued to work to do we have grown that practice um and we will continue to do that work we wanted to lay a foundation um with our startup like i said with our small pockets of teachers it grew to being available to all staff we've worked with different consultors consultants and then have continued with epic and one of the things that we're investigating currently is scheduling some facilitated dialogue with the trainers from epic to come virtually of course and um continue to have conversation and dialogue around the topics of the trainings that we have access to this school year the other thing that was on that list was um our african-american parent group so we started several years ago a small group of parents moms actually started meeting informally with dr young we
091grew that group and it was a little bit of word of mouth where they invited different folks and we started meeting on a more regular basis and really did a lot of listening and uh and listening to their experiences what was working what wasn't working struggles they were having where they saw things were inequitable and so we did that for a couple of years and over the course of all of that uh listening and dialogue we came up with these areas and we're calling them i had them listed as goals earlier and it was pointed out to me that there weren't really goals but they're more areas of focus for us to do work um so that was really in continuing to engage parents as partners as bring in the parents to the table um
092looking at our curriculum making sure that it is relevant inclusive and engaging and from multiple perspectives another one is really getting to see and know our students for who they are and so really looking at that idea of cultural identity and bringing that to the table and and making that um really about who we are as a district is getting to know and see students and understand who they are and and making sure that they see themselves as part of our finish unified school district increasing african american staff in busd that is a goal for us it's a goal actually across the state is to increase african african-american staff in education and it's not it's we are looking at ways of how do we continue to draw and um and uh uh get applicants to
093come to busd and so that is something we're having a lot of conversation on and then another one is to build and enhance partnerships with the benicio police department and our community and we heard that as well we have school resource officers in our school and we have a great relationship with our police department and we want to continue to find ways to partner so that it is a healthy relationship um in all directions so from those areas of focus that's down the left side and this is draft it should say draft on it and i don't have draft written on here yet but um the middle column are some suggested action steps and then the whole right column are the metrics so how do we know if we're meeting these areas of focus or
094these targets what is like how can we turn those pieces into the actionable goals how do we see increases in our test scores and in our survey feedback and in uh forums uh that we have um on our reach data in our attendance on our suspension data so we're looking at all of those and this this is um as i said a draft our intention is that we will continue to bring this back to get more feedback we did that um i believe it was last week or maybe it was the week before with our african-american parent group we had over 30 uh 33 folks in attendance and we started bringing by putting folks into some breakout rooms to really do a deep dive into those areas of focus and the actions and the metrics
095and give us some feedback um and here are some of the themes that came out of that feedback um we need to go back and realign those focus they liked the focus areas they thought they were the right focus areas but we need to align the focus areas the actions and metrics because uh there was some confusion about how certain things measured certain actions and why actions are linked to focus areas so that will be continued work that we will need another piece that was pointed out was we need to continue to get more student voice in this work and so we will look at ways to do that um african-american staff representation we had some conversation about how do we do that and how can we make that actionable and i know that um
096dr gill um who attends those meetings as well and is very much in support of this is looking at reaching out and has already started to uh historically black universities to try to get folks to apply to benicia we identified a need to communicate this work and so and i and i think that's loud and clear that we have to find ways to communicate the work that we're doing and to continue to be receptive to feedback and that outreach and again then looking at our curriculum and ensuring that teachers have the tools that they need to engage in curriculum and conversation that's inclusive and representative of the african-american perspective so those are themes that we will need to weave back in and go back in to revise those um areas of focus with actions and
097metrics and so then where are we heading and what are some of the this is not completely inclusive by any means um uh not inclusive that's not the word i want comprehensive is the word i wanted to say it's not completely comprehensive but here are some next steps in the work that we're doing um we are working to create an equity and opportunity district-wide team um that would have representation from the different groups so we have our african-american parent group that um one of the other actions on here is formalizing that so that it is sustaining um into the future and that's that's one of the things about doing this work is we want to ensure that we put down roots that are deep enough and lay a foundation that is strong enough that it
098continues into the future and it's not something that is just the next um kind of work in the moment but that it continues on and so with this district um equity and opportunity team we're talking about making sure that we have representation on that from our different parent groups and and staff across the district and student voice as well of course continued and focused professional development we need to examine policy and practices that perpetuate barriers for students especially our african-american students but for any students we're looking at how do we bring together a strategic planning and lcap process that is really robust and has both long-term and short-term goals and actions and that equity is a core of the work that we're doing one of the things that we did a year ago before we
099went out on the pandemic was our [Music] our stakeholder engagement around an lcap that never fully got implemented because the state shifted the requirement but our primary goal was to create a sense of belonging for all students to feel connected to their school community and that came out of the feedback especially feedback from our african-american students in um and then the data that we were looking at that they did not feel connected and um and so we set that as a broad goal with very specific actions underneath and that will continue to be a goal as we move forward and then finally um uh miss rice has worked really hard with a few other folks to write a grant to the state they have some mini grants that came out and they gave us about
100a two and a half week turnaround uh on equity for equity purposes to continue equity work in districts and so um miss rice wrote that grant and submitted it and we want to use that funding should we get it to create a position um um equity and opportunity liaison position and that would be somebody that would really help really focused on this help us keep focused on this work and do a lot of communication and outreach and help us continue to move this work forward um and so hopefully that will be able to come to fruition so that we can continue to move in this direction and hopefully at a faster pace but we do know that we are in this and for the long haul we are committed to this work it is the
101core of the work that we're doing um it is our charge and our imperative as educators and so um what i have linked for you on this end uh slide are several documents there's a video there's a wonderful history of public education timeline that really shows the history of of uh education and focuses on african-american experience but not solely on that um and and we're and where we are today um and i would encourage you to take some time and go through those that water of change uh water systems articles is really pretty powerful the second link on there is epic education modules the link is actually a website and what i would like to do is register you school board if you are interested in um in the epic education modules and what would
102happen is you would get a um you would get an email from epic education and it would show you how to log in and you would have access to the seven modules that our teachers have had access to this school year so you could say inside of that there are articles and there are videos and there are all kinds of things that you can explore there's reflection questions and so forth and so um i can do that for you and i just wanted to let you know so that before we signed you up so you didn't see things showing up in your email and you weren't sure what that was and so i will get that going and you'll have access to that information as well and so i would love to open this up
103for a discussion questions comments and to really get a direction from you that this is the work that you would like us to continue to move forward thank you so much dr beatson that is wonderful information that's being shared and it is so important that we make sure to do better than we've been doing regarding equity and um i i think that the epic um i look forward to being part of that community with the epic um so i look forward to getting that email i'm sure the other board members will as well um but let's open it up to discussions everybody have anything they would like to say okay diane for richie yeah i'd like to make two comments first i want to say thank you because i i really do appreciate the depth
104of all the work going on but with that said in reflecting on all the comments today what i'm wondering um dr beatson is you know how we do regular updates and communication regarding our outcap work and we talk about our data and we bring all that forward i wonder if in fact um we can better communicate our regular work on what's going on in our and with our equity work within our district so that in fact we know the equity and opportunity work we know it's going forward but we need to know what's going forward if that's making sense and i think as i think it let's let us communicate with parents that let us confirm the work that's happening so um i we don't often hear about all the other plans we have going
105on on a regular basis but it is part of our lcap it is part of our district goals it was part of our strategic planning then and i assume as we visit again it will come up again i i'm just wondering if maybe we could have more regular updates here as new things are coming forward and other things are happening um i think i'd like to throw that out there as a request that that happens if everybody is willing to to agree with that and then i also want to acknowledge that i think the idea of a grant and bringing um a person on board to support and help all the equity workers you're right i i think it would make it um more powerful and and i think it would be great to have
106someone who is in the district that can be working with us and supporting that as well so i applaud those two things and i'm also going to request um more regular communication i think that will help us to reach our community because they're not hearing it absolutely absolutely and about the equity liaison i was thinking you know we're thinking when they have a singular focus right um it's going to really help even though that work touches everything someone that can really help us pull those pieces together right oh okay i'll go after after you miss grubs i was just wondering um we heard a lot about um first of all thank you for all the work that you're doing it's certainly needed and certainly appreciated and it is a tough job going forward but i
107was wondering about this about the plc that we heard about and i'm wondering it sounded like they didn't have any they were asking uh the district to join them and i'm wondering if you have considered that or if you would consider joining this teacher plc equity group so my unders so my understanding is they um they wanted to meet outside of school hours which we applaud you know growing professionally uh is is wonderful and and when and we know that teachers do tons of work around that and so i applaud this group for or meeting they had one of them had a connection with um a facilitator and they're meeting outside of school hours and my understanding is they wanted to just meet with teachers first before they brought in administrators to sit around the
108table that was the feedback that we had gotten and so we started some conversation and i think miss rice has now set up a meeting with um that facilitator to kind of learn more about the work that she's doing so i think they wanted to sort of get grounded as teachers themselves with that work and have create their own safe space to have those conversations oh maybe i misunderstood them because i i i thought i heard them say they you were um that they would like to have uh more uh input from the district to and asking you to asking for some uh just uh collaboration right input thank you thank you all right and then i um i just wanted to say thank you for for your efforts and what i would like to
109know is in terms of transparency and participation has this been presented as something as as being optional or is it something that has been um you know just really kind of i know that there's pd days and things like that but is this something has this been in like an effort that that has been like you know this is what we're doing and i asked that because i know that as a as a former parent of the district um and as one of the mothers who who came early on a few years back to have start having these conversations and then just looking at you know especially like the data trends i know that over the years that african american students have not been doing well at all in our district and in fact their
110scores have been going down like year after year so i know that that the data has really driven um you know part of this conversation as well um has it been you know has it been like a just i mean is it just an optional thing and i do i'm glad that with the comments that we heard heard earlier i definitely appreciate the work that i know that that some of the teachers are doing but but is it is it has it been just an optional thing for for folks because i think the modules are great to have access to but if it is it kind of like here they are if you want to do it you can and so it kind of opens up that window of you know for some maybe you
111know just if you don't have time then it's very difficult to take on another thing so so great question thank you for for um bringing that up so we built um because our all of our professional development days were virtual this year we did not we were not able to come together in person we had these grandiose plans of doing some of that work and when we couldn't do that we built uh basically a google classroom and we had several different topics and epic equity was one of them um with those epic modules and then a lot of other resources and teachers had were required to they had we wanted to give some choice because people are entering the conversation at different places um and so they uh had to spend they had to do
112at least three of the seven modules so that was a requirement now not everyone did all of the same modules and we just received the information from uh epic actually so we can see who's done which modules which were the most relevant but i can tell you that our principles are continuing to use them either in part or in whole with their staff so christina moore with some of her staff is um they're doing some continued work so they'll all decide on which is the next video or portion of a module to look at and then they come together and they have more conversation about it i was just on the phone with uh brianna kleinschmidt our high school principal um and she was talking about um digging into that not wanting to be repetitive
113if teachers had already done that but finding ways to facilitate it and then as i said miss rice is in conversation with epic to say okay we've given folks about half a year to really dive in they had to do at least three and and people did and we opened and they had to write a reflection so they had some things they had to turn into their administrators after they did that work and then bringing to the table epic again to um open up some facilitated conversation and that um we're in we haven't actually even uh talked with our administrators about that yet and and when that would happen if we would do it on some fridays as some required pd that's a possibility and then potentially some after school time which would be some
114optional pd um so we're looking at how to fit it in within the confines of the school day and you know unfortunately we don't have a lot of pd time but um so it was both is the answer to that question all right thank you and then i i do appreciate what mr uchi said about is just about having that information like i guess like regular updates so that so that folks really know what is happening so that there's not you know there's not a mystery behind like i think they're doing equity i think they support it you know i think they're addressing you know all these things and so that that would be really helpful and then in terms of curriculum what are you um so is that just something down the road that
115you're you're going to work with with a team of folks to to start exploring curriculum or how is that what's going to happen with that well i think we have to have some conversation and maybe that's with the equity team or we do it at by the site level and find out specifically what it is that they're looking for so for instance we just adopted some new history curriculum middle school and miss rice leads a very robust process and i can share with you our um our evaluation tool that they use as they look at different curriculum both in trying to decide which curriculum to pilot because we always try to pilot at least two different curriculum and then the evaluation tool that they use at the end where they start to really identify um
116what different components uh and then there's a whole equity lens in that evaluation tool as well that said we will go out and continue to look and see if there is some a better way to evaluate curriculum that we're missing for sure and then maybe one of the processes that and i'm you know kind of thinking about this on the spot but one of the processes we can do is lay it up against some older curriculum that we have and see where we are you know we always have a cycle of when we re-evaluate curriculum but if we if we aren't in a position to purchase a whole new curriculum for a particular subject better matter we can definitely find some support materials um to to bring in until we're ready to do that all
117right thank you yeah thank you thank you so much dr beatson anybody else have any questions okay thank you again also stephanie rice thank you for your work on this as well um we're going to move on to just item number 12.2 the learning plan update and governor nuisance california safe schools plan that would be dr young thank you very much uh you're welcome let me share my screen here leslie uh dr beasley i'm sharing right no i practiced mikey mikey worked with me [Laughter] he gave me a little session here so all right so um i'll try to move this along i wanted to provide a quick summary of this new proposal that governor newsom unveiled on december 30th uh and i wanted to go over it this evening so trustees there's some attachments
118to the board and the public you know that as well that describes you know the rationale and the science behind it and kind of a summary of the way that this this works so i want to point out the fact that um it still needs to be passed by the legislature so there's a number of elements in here that need that involve money and timelines and safety elements uh that that are still being uh wrestled with at the legislative level and uh they just start talking about it in session i believe on monday so let me go through this with you um to give you an overview and again this is a summary of the main points in governor newsom's new plan for public schools uh quickly while california schools continue to address covid covet
119surge uh his point is it's never too soon to get kids back in the classroom again these are uh positions coming from the the governor and his science team uh he likes to say learning is not negotiable but he points out the fact that obviously neither is safety we spend a lot of time on uh you know mitigation practices that are reflected in our safety mousse the i have a question dr beetson you see how everybody's faces are on the side of my screen and i can't see my whole text yes so if you hold your cursor up towards the top of where their faces are click on the one that only has one line it's going to just hide everybody there's going to be there's if you hold up your cursor at the very
120above the person who's on the top you're going to see a box a two line a one line and then a skinny line over to the left click on the skinny line everybody will disappear for you thanks for everybody for being patient i'm not showing technical skills am i the bar at the top pause annotate remote control more nope what about view do you see a view sign a view maybe a speaker view you have view if you just look at not on the the bar going across the top but the i'll just i'll work with it um because my cursor is not showing up do you want me to you want to want me to share yes okay so you stop sharing and then i will share sorry everybody thank you okay there we
121go okay it worked when i practiced i'm not sure what happened okay get back back to the plan it's in the legislature we already talked about that safety mitigation measures he points out the fact that they they can't help the mask the cleaning the six feet uh all those things do make a difference obviously his point in the research and i know there's lots of conversation around that and the research is emerging talks about transmission among or from younger students is not common particularly at the elementary level go ahead uh the cdc uh cal study of kids with positive and negative cobit tests across two states going to school was not associated with a higher risk of getting covid 19. and again i'm pointing these out because these are the data points that he shared
122and i know there's lots of debate around the emerging data but this is what he is pointing to thank you uh lowering transmission safety mitigation you know he talks about how these things do work that masks physical distancing we talked about that stable groups washing hands ventilation screening all of those things are represented in the two mlus that we passed earlier in the year talks about each of those layers provides additional levels of protection and that bottom line is interesting schools that have not required these measures have seen 2.5 times more outbreaks than those who do okay health benefits of in-person learning i know we've been reading about these things i think you know the raviolis as we continue to support kids as best we can but bringing them back to school the thoughts about
123helping to decrease anxiety and depression lower rates of undetected child abuse and neglect higher rates of immunizations and other positive indicators of public health and well-being state measures that are currently in place so as you know and you guys are going to talk about that in a little while we have the our hybrid learning model in the timelines and it's all linked to safety measures but those four tiers so he just points out here about the safety guidance that's been helping us work through that initially schools can apply for waivers when they're in the purple we did not do that but that is an option available to school districts but we didn't do it i don't think any public school district in solano county did that i think some of the private schools did if
124i got that right uh then the bottom one talks about creating uh school safety plans posting them online etc thank you goes on to say uh current state supports just as a reminder schools have been given substantial amounts of dollars to buy the protective equipment cleaning masks plastic shields average amount 645 000 per district average half of above half is below so an average number uh schools have received also you know two months his initial plan from the governor two months at ppe but he's since realized that that's not enough schools need more support around that thank you uh now this is what's different i think in what he's proposing he is emphasizing a few things here he's emphasizing focusing on the little guys uh if you see that first bullet there starting with elementary
125he talks about you know phasing it in uh that second bullet while you phase it in with the hope uh and i'll tell you what that measurement is if the if the data says we can do it that we have you know kids back in in-person learning by the spring and then that bottom bullet there distance learning will remain an option for parents and students okay new state measures that are in place elementary schools may reopen if they submit a covid 19th plan to both the local and state officials and then the local health department can disapprove or approve within five days once open local and state officials will monitor and provide support and reinforcement that that second bullet there is interesting i would like to point out to the board and the public um
126that this information that is coming in i'm not making a criticism but it's voluminous it changes um daily sometimes by the hour and i think that's a function of a society doing its level best to try to figure out what is the safest pathway forward in trying to utilize science and look to the emerging data i say on that in particular context of the last bullet that if you adopt this new pathway which focuses on early elementary he also focuses on the importance of cohorting which is keeping the same groups of kids which is much easier to do at the elementary but he talks about counties must have a seven day average case rate of less than 28. that number changed today it's actually 25 uh per 100 000. so that's an interesting number for
127the board of the public if you could see that's quite different than the numbers that are delineated in the four tiers that we've been working with that number's that number's um it's different okay uh california state schools plan is there's four pillars to it the funding piece the safety mitigation the oversight and assistance and the transparency in communicating out to the public thanks and schools use these funds to implement safety plans obviously if you look at that first bullet the governor is proposing putting a total of two billion dollars towards this effort for public schools with the desire to see if he can start phasing in at the elementary level starting in february and in march the second bullet talks about the importance of having these safety plans in place uh we have our two
128mouss we need to wait for the legislature to pass this bill because there are some other elements in the safety plan that we need to make sure are in ours some of them we know that we would need to modify around um testing is a big one um and there's there are some others but look at those dates i don't think those dates are going to be met i think those dates were received you know some criticism regarding the timeline that if you wanted to do this you'd have to put your safety plan together bargain it with your unions get it approved by the board and submit it to the county and the health department by february 1st and if you achieve that goal uh you would get 450 per student if you didn't meet
129that goal you could try for march first and you'd get 375 dollars and 50 cents it'll be interesting when you watch the news to see if they modify those dates i think the superintendents throughout the state said those are those are challenging dates for folks uh and it talks about funds will be weighted based on low-income families english learners foster youth uh and disproportionately impacted that is the focus for getting those groups of kids support sooner than later and it talks about 58 of the students would be supported to get these services paid for through medicaid and then utilize continuing to utilize those dollars at the bottom 1.47 and 5.3 billion dollars to you know support the effort around safety safety needs and support materials to have in-person learning okay i won't go into too
130much on this but this is a safety and mitigation measures for classrooms it gives you a delineation of how often you would test so you could see as you go from yellow which is the least amount of infection through purple you increase the testing more often so take a look at red and purple there see that every two weeks asymptomatic testing so that is language for instance that we would i believe we would have to modify in the m safety mlus that we've already passed okay safety mitigation measures for the classrooms i think we've um done a lot of this all students are required to wear masks all staff should wear surgical masks uh that that's different than what i think is in our mou dr cush can weigh in later if i'm wrong schools
131will receive more surgical mass from the state at no cost i was talking to mr romero our director of maintenance and operation he says he has been purchasing the surgical mask level for for staff and he's got boxes and boxes of them he's been very forward thinking and ordering them contact tracing state contact ratios will be deployed to focus on improving coordination so that's something we'd have to see what that effort looks like and how we would interface with that that feels a little bit new contact tracing is not new we have a plan in our safety mlus but what they're suggesting there we want to know more details about that vaccines are something everybody is thinking about and we can there's two trustees that sat in on a session today they can talk about
132that later if they if they would like to that's a big part of this i think everybody's waiting to see when that would happen what is the availability and certainly in the mou's that we have now we were not able to put that in there because when we did that i don't wasn't sure the vaccine was being distributed at that point was still in development okay um hands-on oversight there's a person there dr naomi barduch and there's elements in there where school districts can get support for uh working with this effort uh and i'm glad that they have that in there this uh state department has developed a website uh dr gill might be able to point it out uh we'll get to it later because i asked her to earlier it's it's about a
133hub and you could click on it and has all of this information in one place which i think will be very helpful for school districts because it's been information in lots of different places so they're the governor's office is trying to be organized about where people go and they're getting consistent information so that slides on support for schools uh and the last one is i think this is the last one transparency that whatever we do we make it very transparent to the public reopening status our safety plans level of available covered funding in-school transmissions uh a web-based hotline so all of that and that that's different than what's in our safety mlus as well that's good news i mean that information should be available to the public in a timely and accurate manner and california
134safe schools for all plan will help ensure schools can provide safe in-person instruction so we open it up for uh discussion or any questions you have based on what we know and again this is a pretty down and dirty summary for you we're still unpacking the details in it and we have to wait and see if the legislature passes it so if we can spend a little bit of time just getting your nod or your thoughts about any board direction around it uh do we want to consider you know working with the unions to explore some options because what we could do if we were can i see that last bullet if we work with unions we can explore some options and see to what degree the elements in this new plan feed or influence
135whatever we do in the plan that we've already approved and also we need to talk about the feasibility of submitting plans by the required dates as i said earlier i think that those timelines are tough so i open it up for questions and thoughts and i think the big thing is just um your your thoughts board about um our efforts and reaching out to the union and spend some time exploring what this coder could not mean for the district thank you so much dr young welcome that was a lot i was like i was on uh fast fast forward that was so any of uh well actually i was just gonna ask mrs ada if we can talk about the information we learned today about the vaccines please because i i think okay so i
136think what's really important is the good news is um i we both mrs aydah and i were on the county email today and i was very pleased that they've got they've got the teachers in the rank order that we've been asking them to make sure that they do to get the teachers the vaccine so they are currently opening up that 1b category which is teachers essential workers so the vaccines will be available they're claiming they will have teachers vaccines for teachers and should be able to get to staff um through the month of february they will need to make sure from what i understood today that there are three ways that they can access the vaccine there is the county public health branch that will allow them to access the tax the vaccine if they're
137a kaiser permanente member they need to contact their provider their doctor and they'll be able to get an appointment that way through the system to get in or otherwise the sutter house but that was good news to hear um their big change happened because i think it was monday afternoon the federal government cdc made the announcement that they were opening up the vaccines to 65 plus plus other essential workers which up until monday was 75 and older so they've now broadened the band and they've better explained the vaccines that they have there and their what their intent is for so i think that's really good news and i think it would i don't know i i find it a bit of a relief to know that our teachers can have the vaccines and that we
138can feel that we've added another layer of safety because they can reach out so i'm kind of happy about that my concern with the governor's plan though is the fact that it hasn't been voted on and what other criteria are they going to stick in there to be done in short order i mean i think that's a question we need to we our piece of information we need to be listening to um and also the 25 to 100 000 i i need to understand are they saying we can't open until we get there i think it has to be that number and below okay so sherry today we heard that we are averaging 330 cases per hundred thousand right now so that's where our county or region is because they were kind of getting muddled
139between region and county so just to put that out there i listening to all that was said there it was uh interesting that the studies are you know first of all when we were talking about the call that you guys were on i know that uh we discussed the fact that one person said the teachers would get it by february others by march it's like the left hand at the county level the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is really doing so we have to take that you know into effect and for newsome has gotten a lot of blow back on his studies per se i mean if you were to go on and google yourself i did today a person study harvard study webmd cnn's uh all showing that uh kids can
140be spreaders also so there's not a definitive line of science saying and i i miss grubbs i believe you you know had seen some stuff too if you want to add in a moment that oh no kids aren't spreaders i think that there's definitely a political component in this with governor newsom i think he's getting political pressure but the science is not just obviously in one direction you'll see things on both ms grubbs did you want to add anything or i can i i i read a number of different studies one of the more interesting ones was national geographic on december 10th 2020 put forth uh a study that they reviewed um for it was a 40 000 person study and that um children under 15 were half as likely to spread the virus to
141adults however they do spread it as compared to adult to adult also in american k-12 american k-12 schools have reported more than 313 000 coveted cases as of december 10th one of the other things that i found interesting was an ed source that was published on the first of january this year was their los angeles district testing data showed that um about five percent of adults with no symptoms they were asymptomatic or exposure um and nearly 10 of children tested positive um in that week from january 1st to january 8th or the 7th and as we all know um the rates in los angeles are are going up and up so the latest data means that one in 10 kids being tested in schools in los angeles have covered 19. and also so those are
142are some of the the ones that the some of the research that i found most interesting of course this is being seen go we have oops sorry let me come back so um the cobot is throughout the world um you know in germany they schools were open and uh they've just been shut down they're on a serious lockdown so i you know i think it's just as um there's there's lots of conflicting data it's really it's really tough but i think that um you know there is certainly evidence to show that children do spread to adults at about half the rate as adult to adult but still yeah they still spread i mean and you see the different variants of kobit coming out now that are even more you know spreadable and that they look
143at britain they had to lock down too with the schools and their variant of covet has been found here in the us too so i think newsom you know there's that aspect to it and the science is not definitive in one direction or another and when you're talking about people's lives i mean you wonder why the us and california why we've had so many more deaths in so many other countries because we're taking chances and believing what we want to believe instead of you know as if the science was just conclusive which it's not you know you can find it for every article you find on one side you can find on the other side now i guess my question is do we really want to take a chance with people's lives based on oh
144well who know you know i could find one thing where you find another well and even as um [Music] mrs furuchi and ms zeta were saying is that even the the experts within our own region don't don't really go they they're not going hand in hand either no they are not they have conflicting data so it is it's difficult so i'd like to recommend uh just throw this out there um just as a reminder you know his thought about phase in start with the little guys you know k2 35 the cohort piece so i think a lot still has to happen at the legislative level so i would just suggest that uh staff and i uh continue to watch it closely uh let's see what comes out of the legislature let's see uh to what
145degree the elements of the plan that passes influences what we wind up doing going forward i mean it could wind up being uh its own pathway or it could shape you know what we've already approved is that does that make sense to the to the board i don't yeah i don't know what else we can do it other than let's explore let's engage the union let's have some conversations and see what what are are there any possibilities for us in what is coming out of it and then we'll come back we'll come back and report uh at the board level i think it's important that we do plan ahead at this point that staff have have those everything in place with the vaccine hopefully rolling out yeah don't sound very hopeful today but with the
146vaccine rolling out maybe you know we can get moving and back into school as soon as as soon as we can so it'll be important going forward to have everything in place dr gill i'm not to put you on the spot if you don't have the answer that's perfectly okay did you happen to find the website for that's called the hub it's dr young it's called california corbin 19 response hub california coded 19 response hub i think they launched it very recently uh with this week and i went on it and it's pretty good website it's so uh an organized place for all they're trying to put all the information for school districts okay more to come on this so hey welcome thank you i just wanted to add to mrs zeta you know one
147of the things they did say today you know they we saw the big surgeon numbers and they said it was because of the holidays they're feeling the search this week is because of the new year holiday so one of the things that they were very positive about was that they felt that we should start begin to see the decline that they've anticipated seeing in the cases because we are now past those big points that they were talking about so i think with that in mind if the numbers in fact are dropping and the vaccines are rolling out as they should be i think i agree with you cece i think we need to start planning ahead and start getting ready just kind of getting ourselves set um i i'm interested to see how the governor's
148plan rolls out i think the piece of it i like is getting the little kids in there first but i i think we should pursue it let's let's start you know get the information for us well we can only hope to see better numbers and everybody wear their mask and do what they need to do to be safe because we as a board and i know our teachers feel the same way we want the kids to be back in school and it is very hard to go through this and i think one one thing that we did have was that with the meeting today um that we kind of got pushed back down as far as the teachers and educators getting um the vaccine because they added in the 65 and 65 and over and
149that just kind of pushed us down one level so we're gonna get there and let's uh just hope for the best um okay um thank you dr young welcome appreciate it um we're gonna move on to number 13 non-consent action items and our first item is 13.1 the implementation timeline for reopening of schools plan for in-person hybrid learning i um i'm sure we have a lot of people watching and um i you know we welcome you to be part of this uh and i want to turn this i guess over to dr young thank you miss martinez do you have that presentation that was attached to the board agenda no i have um oops i don't think we attached anything dr young but i have the last one where the teams came and presented what
150the plan would be if you oh no my mine was just it was just three slides oh i'm sorry that was attached to the agenda okay that'd be great and then leslie could you dr beetson you could pull it up um i don't think i have that one okay okay as she's doing that i mean i could uh take us through this so tonight um you guys uh as a board are going to spend some time having a discussion uh thinking again about the decision that uh the motion that you passed uh a couple of board meetings ago and before i you know rephrase that just to remind everybody that i was talking about it earlier that we passed those safety mous uh for the classified and certificated staff early on in the year just
151as a reminder that those are in place and we've been going through this process um doing our our level best working with the unions and putting together this hybrid plan uh lots of input lots of tons of great discussion at the board so just a reminder of where we've been uh and then you voted on it you had a motion where you um the motion was we would do one-on-one and small group instruction in purple and that would just be if teachers volunteered to do it and then we would implement the hybrid learning plan which we presented in detail dr beatson did a few times uh for k-12 if we were in the in red so that that's where we landed that's right you had to be you have to be in red for two
152weeks then you could implement it so it was really those two pieces what we said we'd do in purple and what we said we do in red we never we moved away from picking a date which i think was smart because it's hard to pick you know a date with this because we were looking move forward with the data so tonight um you're going to have a conversation about do we move ahead with that do we reconsider that and that that's your that's your task that's what this action item is did you want us to go forward and start discussion on this background yes i apologize for the presentation it was two it was two slides and i just articulated that that's okay no worries um so at this time i'd like to open up
153discussion on the implementation timeline for reopening a school plan for in-person hybrid learning and personally i just want everybody to know that we are all struggling with making these decisions um it is not easy it it really is difficult um to make decisions in to make sure that everybody is uh well taken care of and and i appreciate all the families out there that have worked so hard with their students and the teachers that have worked so hard putting together virtual uh education pieces together it this is not an easy time um but with that said i'm going to go ahead and open it up for some discussion it would anybody like to start yeah i'd like to start um i think i have a unique position not only being married to a teacher but
154being a teacher myself this is my 27th year and i have friends throughout the state and one of the things that i've seen is that districts who when we were all out in spring the numbers were better districts were starting to go back and their numbers spiked and you have to ask yourself has benitia been so great have our numbers been so good because we have stayed out and we have played it safe you know that's something to look at and the thing i didn't people make the comparison of going into a store well if you're going to a store you're hypocritical if you don't open schools in a store you have contact with a person for maybe one minute at the most in a school you are in a classroom if you're elementary you're
155there for you know four hours or whatever in hybrid three hours and secondary is there for one hour with um you know multiple changes in terms of the kids and as i said earlier you have the new strains of the virus coming in if this was not an issue people would not be dying you would not see teachers dying if you look it up there's you know hundreds of teachers dying you know even in california thousands across the country in places where it's opened up and i think that you know we have to be safe on that my feeling and when we're done i'm going to make uh the motion that we look at uh the vaccines as the key getting all school staff vaccinated my district where i work in pittsburgh made this decision
156in december to wait until the end of the third quarter march 12th with the hope that teachers would be vaccinated by then that is in contra costa county the third quarter here in benicia ends on march 19th my suggestion is that we would stay you know make that a date because that's also a good date because it's an end date and as a teacher myself i could tell you teaching distance learning is entirely different than teaching in person and there needs to be time for a change for a switch from one to the other and i think that used in that date and saying okay this is what we're gonna look at and you know as we get into february we look at the data and see if we're getting to the point and plan
157for that date now uh as the discussions were back in november if things go exactly as we thought they would word numbers spiked you know we might have to look but the key is if the school staff is vaccinated it takes care a lot of these issues in terms of red and purple and everything else and i really i think that is a solid way to go so at the end here i am going to make that motion obviously we have to have discussion first and i understand that it could be voted down and i accept that but because of all these reasons i think it would be prudent for us to look at doing that waiting until the end of the third quarter and shoot for the beginning of the fourth quarter be back
158if you know the numbers align and with that we can do all our pre-planning and be ready thank you for uh giving me that time thank you and then i just i just can i just wanted to say for me and it is definitely a difficult you know as you said um it is a difficult decision to make and we definitely want to do the right thing for you know for all of our students but health and safety is absolutely important and i realize that for some you know for whatever reasons we all have our own views but but the bottom line is that health and safety is a key factor i've read different reports over time we have more data than now than we did back in march and so all of the oh
159kids aren't spreading i know that that's not true um because i've read other reports as well so i know that we still have to be considerate of those of those things but i'm i am happy i mean i do feel like i still i see a little bit of hope because now the vaccinations are you know they feel like it's it's more accessible like we're getting close to to being able to have that as an option and i would feel safer knowing that our you know ours our staff would you know be able to get vaccinations even you know in a timely manner because it appears that if it's going to be in february that would be awesome um and so at least i know that we have some time frame hopefully even if it's
160like the beginning of march but at least we know that they're on the way um and i know that you know folks will have to work with their healthcare healthcare providers and things like that and um and so i i feel a little bit better about that um i do like what you said um uh mr misselli about at least you know if we if we can look at a date because i know that for you know for our families it's like okay when is it going to be what's the date you know is it going was it going to be in december was it going to be in january and so to at least now have you know to kind of um feel like it's more tangible now and like i said because of
161the vaccinations i do feel a little bit better about that um so i you know i i would i would like to have some time you know more of a concrete time um that we can have in place and say boom this is you know where it's going to be we know if we have the vaccinations um that it should be it should be better my i do have a concern about the strands because those strands have been been spiraling and i know that there's still stuff that we just don't even know we don't even know yet um and so you know so that's kind of that's kind of where i am thank you thank you dr moss um anybody else mrs furuchi well you know i've been very vocal about this all along right
162so um obviously mrs farrucci is not short on a conversation again um all right mark no laughing at me um you know i actually do want the kids to get back to school you know that i have not been hiding that it's i've been very upfront about that um one of the things i will say is i really like the idea of picking a date i like the idea of giving parents a target and this is why that when we when we voted we said when we hit the red we have to stay in red for two weeks and then we could pick a date to start school which is keeping everybody on okay i need to make plans with my job i need to do this i need to do that so if we're
163not when are we pulling the trigger on opening the doors um i liked when we made the review when it was coming up to the end of the first quarter in october because i thought okay i was praying that we could have opened the schools then but i really would appreciate giving families a day and saying okay third quarter it's clean to do it at a quarter the same argument that we picked for october 14th or whatever the october date was was for the same reason it was clean you're finished with one you're moving on to the next segment and that makes so much more sense for everybody kids and teachers so i would like to say we're gonna shoot here it's a good time of the year to be opening i know it's only
164the last few months of school but those few last few months of school are so powerful for connecting together connecting with your friends there's so much that goes on at the end of the school year to know that they were going to lose it again this year like they did last year was really heartbreaking to know that you have to tell kids again sorry you don't get that closure with your teacher with your classmates again so you know i i would say let's pick a date and let's say this is our target date and then whatever the district personnel needs to do to figure out if we could work into and get some extra support from the governor with this plan once they decide what all the hoops are great if it all worked together
165thank you so much mrs ferrucci and mrs grubbs i would just like to weigh in and and support the idea of having a date to go back in order for everyone to plan if we're going back in a hybrid model everything has changed because of the vaccine so but transportation planning for parents is so important um as well as for the teachers and getting back into the classroom being able to do their planning have everything that they need and bringing the kids in they'll need to make sure that they have all the pe the ppe that is required going forward how are they working with the kids do they if if the there will be questions that come up which is why it's so important that we look at those steps way ahead of time
166so that parents and staff are prepared and understand exactly what these next steps are so i really look forward to to hearing about those plans and i really look forward to having everyone back in school we all want our kids back in school that but we all want everyone to remain safe as well this is a very tough time and those poor kids they need to be back in school they need to be safe and staff needs to be safe thank you so much mrs grubbs i i actually feel like i see a light at the end of this dark tunnel finally i'm i'm relieved that the vaccinations are coming i know that from what i've heard and read that they're not coming as fast as we need them and things keep getting juggled around
167but i i do know that they are coming and hopefully we will be able to offer all our staff an opportunity to get these vaccinations and remember that in some of those vaccinations there's two vaccinations you have to have to be they both are a double shot exactly so they're both a double shot within three weeks of each other so there's a stretch of time that we're going to have to wait but i think if we can get teachers and staff vaccinated i will be the whole side of relief because then we can do it it'll be different problems but i think we can work with that um we never wanted it to go this long who would have thought from last march that we would still be out of school really i it's just
168unbelievable i wanted to point out real quick depending where the legislature lands on those dates we could wind up having an opportunity where if it what with your motion there that if it lines up with the march dates and if if we're able to get some kind of a plan submitted it might sort of line up and we could wind up getting access to that money it wouldn't be 450 it would be like 375.50 just i just wanted to throw that out there there might be an option don't forget the 50 cents here's a two billion dollar allocation and then this 50 yeah so that would be ideal that would be ideal um if that could happen i'm not looking at it in a sense of the money early though i'm looking at safety i
169have to put what's paramount first um oh i i totally agree with that i'm just saying that if it lined up and we and the winds of fortune blew in our direction and it lined up with the safety piece and then and we was like a win-win and then we had access to money that'd be great absolutely go ahead diane well i'm just curious charles you had mentioned in the plan he said surgical master are we talking the n95s absolutely i believe so and what and when i talked to um uh mr romero he said he has been ordering that level of mass for teaching that's great i was just wondering if that's what we're talking about that's what he's referring to but there are the ones without the valves from what i understand and
170even if i was reading today on that website that dr gill mentioned that and that's a whole section in there about vaccines it's really nice informative that even if you get the vaccine it keeps you from getting sick and mr mitchell and i talked about this uh earlier in the week that it doesn't necessarily keep you from spreading it yeah so you have to still wear the mask apparently right right yeah that's not gonna end when we go back i mean they'll still be the issue with the mask be in a better position once we get the vaccinations done to our staff that's right dr gill yeah dr gill yes i'm sorry hi i wanted to clarify a surgical masks are not n95s okay here are the masks that i mean on my screen i
171can quickly move to you right now oh they're a higher level dr gill no they're not they're these kind of masks these are called surgical masks yeah okay i got boxes with those too i got a whole mess of those yeah so thank you for for showing us i appreciate that um i want to be make sure that we are super clear in how we make this so that we don't have any uh issues with i don't want to have to revisit this like we aren't like we are now because things have changed but i want to be sure that each of us is clear when the emotions put out and then we re-read it that we're clear i want to be really really clear in our thought process as we're putting it out for
172emotion so um is there any other discussion before we move into that section okay so we will move on so um okay do we have emotion i move that we remain in remote learning or distance learning through march 19th which is the last day of the third quarter with the uh desire to begin in person learning uh for the beginning of the fourth quarter which would be the 22nd of march uh state permitting state rules permitting okay um do i have a second okay thank you thank you we got two seconds that's awesome um so what i'd like to do is have someone um reread it in its entirety and then we vote on it correct yep okay so um does georgina do that is she the one that would read that what we just
173said i want to show you you just want to make sure yeah you you can do it or georgina you can do it the the motion was to remain in distance learning through march 19th with the desire to return to in-person learning on march 22nd which is the first day the fourth quarter state rules permitting right okay and that state rules permitting's got to be in there that's important okay a um and we have oops we have a second correct so um that being said i'm in favor i are opposed seeing that and hearing then the motion passes and i i really truly hope this puts some of our parents to some at ease regarding the future of with kids in the future getting back to school so with that in mind we're going to
174move on to item number 13.2 which is the consideration and approval of resolution number 20-21-22 of venetia unified school district awarding the online student information system contract pursue it to public contract code section 20118.2 and with that i'm going to welcome mr padawan and miss stephanie rice um i appreciate you guys hanging out for so long this was been this has been a long meeting so i guess uh mr padawan we welcome you and um ready for you to share thank you um president uh thank you and um dr young um thank you for having us back here and we are very excited to present this this recommendation that with all the work that we did for the past couple of months it is a very big pleasure to come here and present it so
175while we're here we want to remind you why we're here we wanna uh for you to understand the process that we uh follow to achieve this point and we're gonna show you some uh highlights of the wrapping the system and we're gonna seek for a recommendation for the approval of the contract um as you remember uh on november 7th uh we came and asked for permission to go up for a bid for our um sis the student um information system um we have currently uh using school uh powerschool for the last 17 years we are the only uh district in solano county using this this sis um powerschool has very inconsistent performance and data um the customer support was inadequate for our staff and students the system lack of a lot of capabilities we have
176a lot of frustrated users starting for from the school office managers to the district office and for example for the honored enrollment for the last two years we did not have a clear data coming from their system that made a double contacts and very ecosystem data for our students so um calling back um families was very uh challenging and um and also we went with the performance matter on that was one of the products that they purchased with the promise that was a great addition for us and again for the last two years we tried to make it work but we were not successful and now because we lack on our part because we worked a lot of people hours to make this happen and did not happen um so here's the process that we
177follow after the um november 7th board meeting we went out for b and we put our rfp on our website for 28 days also on the um on the newspaper we had three rsp coming back and we moved forward with two of them we interviewed them for a two hours slot with 24 members and part of these members were elementary middle and high school teachers special education staff psychologists office managers administrators from all levels health services student services technology education services business and ceo as you see we had the entire department and the entire um schools represented on these 24 8 members panel we so we interviewed the two companies and the team would have to move forward aries um and here we are presented to the board the motion and um also after those
178two days we um we call back aries the four of us dr bitson um mr rahil uh miss rice and myself and and we went and we asked other questions that came up with the 24 members and we were very satisfied from their answers i also call around other districts and they were very impressed with aries and they're the they say that they are the best sis in california and i want to thank um our team as you see all the names here i'm not going to stay here and read every single one but i we are very very thankful for them to come and um and spend their time for improving our sis our sis for student and staff i wanna um now i'm gonna pass the ball to miss rice that's gonna highlight
179she's gonna highlight the rest all right thank you um so as mr padawan shared we looked at several components of of the systems and when we debriefed with our team we came up with several highlights from aries um as can you go back one slide please mr madeline thank you um as he pointed out um it is supported throughout california and strongly also supported in solano county this is really important to us as they already have the california common core state standards integrated into its system our current system does not that's something we as a district had to load ourselves also they have a very clear implementation plan and timeline they assure us that we'll be ready to go for next year um they have a clear system of how this happens and how they'll
180support the professional learning um for all the different components in our district aries also has a mobile platform both for our families and for our teachers and as we looked at the different platforms they were very well organized very visually pleasing speaking on the teacher's end and on the administrator's end you could manipulate it to where you could have as much as you wanted viewing and as little as you wanted and that was really important to our users another piece that was exciting to see is it's google compatible so we use google classroom to assign our assignments to our students especially now in virtual learning and the teachers within that system grade assignments and then currently they have to go into powerschool into the gradebook and re-enter the scores here they can be directly imported
181into our ares system so it's not a double job for our teachers also we dug into the scheduling features um this really affects secondary in creating those master schedules and aries was really open to already supporting um our district if we move forward in this um in preparing our our administrators um in this feature and then we also looked into the integration features so we had representatives from you know our food services and our health and the the systems they use currently nutrikids care docs etc all integrate um with aries meaning that it's more of a seamless process not a clunky process as i would say and then the um assessment platform that we are looking into utilizing next year nwea map it also integrates with aries and a comment from one of the members
182on our team who came from a district that used aries prior to binicia she also used nwea map and she thought that testing system was a product of aries not a separate system because of the ease of use through their aries system so that was that was really exciting for the team to to hear and see so with that those are just a few highlights from this really large uh system so we come to you today with um the recommendation to move forward as a board to approve the contract with aries to be the banished unified school district's student information system thank you well thank you mr padawan and miss rice uh i appreciate all the effort you've gone into to check the different things that were available to our district and to find something
183that is going to be making it a lot easier for our staff uh it's really important to lessen the workload that they have on their shoulders and it sounds like this is going to be a great uh opportunity for everybody so um thank you for bringing it to us so at this time i want to find out if we have an approval of resolution dash or 20-21-22 regarding the errors contract the student information system contract um do i have a first well before we do that i want to say i have been in pittsburgh i've been using i've been using aries for 16 years and it is seamless the grade program is great the google classroom which i started using this year in the remote learning it's best to do one assignment at a time
184moving it from google classroom into aries as long as you do that it does move seamlessly you don't have to reintegrate grades twice the website is good the uh home page we do our attendance everything else i uh i could not speak more highly various it's great so i just wanted to add that in from personal you know usage for a lot of years awesome mr miceli does anybody else have any comments dr moss i was going to say i did have that i've been using aries for a good 15 plus years and um it's definitely a great system and then with the as mr macelli was saying the google classroom connection makes it just so much doable so so good oh awesome mr ferrucci anything oh you know what i'm just gonna echo miss
185moss and mr miscella because i actually used it in my previous position and it was a great program and i i've worked with the nwea so i would pull them off together and it was a great piece and if they still have the notes section too i don't know because they do they do there you go that was also a really invaluable piece so i think it's a great choice oh fantastic we'll have local people that we could fall back on too as well so i'm sure that that was part of the connection oh that's great bravo guys yeah that's good um mrs grubbs did you have anything to add nope well she's not familiar with it i don't think miss gill or dr gill oh doctor i will say that um it i i'm
186happy to see power school go okay good doctor girl well there you go everybody else's voice because i used aries as a teacher as a parent and as an administrator for 25 years almost power school so it was amazing every single time even as a parent i loved it fantastic i think we're moving in the right direction seamless right all right so um at this time i would like to find out if we have if there's a motion on the table for approval of resolution number 20-21-22 of venetian unified school district awarding the online student information system contract pursuant to the public contract code section 20118.2 do i have a first all right promotion i'm sorry go ahead and make the motion i know i moved that we approved aries is the new student information
187system for benitia thank you thank you uh any this is a roll call vote so um i guess yeah yes yes yes that is awesome i'm so excited i'm so excited and it looks like we've reached the end of our very long evening um together as a board i appreciate everybody's time and effort and all that we do every day and um i think we can adjourn our meeting so with that being said here's my trusty shelf we're gonna adjourn this meeting thank you everybody you