001we're going to begin in about five minutes a little world running just a few minutes behind tonight thank you let's good evening everybody welcome to the November 15th meeting of the Berklee School Board apologize for the late start in my last meeting as president my first meeting that we started late good if you want to follow along on our online agenda you can do so on your phone or you can borrow a computer from Miss Charis I want to remind everyone that our board meeting is broadcasting live on YouTube and over the radio on 89.3 FM and on TV Comcast channel 33 I'll now call the open session of tonight's meeting to order at 7:37 for the record closed session began at 6:45 mr. Chalmers would you please chair share with community members president process
002for translation bienvenidos ci alguien que des led here Salamis a direct Eva Braun tale comentario público para nosotros on english and espanol favor de hacer bullosa we're a llegar a que el frente director battery slave of color is excused tonight director ma Nagarajan Swanson here director Karen Hempfield here director Judy Appel here director Kimora Ashby's absent vice president Josh Daniels yep president Taylor I am so sorry can we verify my understanding is is that our student director from BTA resigned can we have that confirmed yes so we can stop calling your name and also I think they I heard that they were having another election in a new yes so could you just make sure that we have a resignation then we can take her name off of the roll thank you okay thanks director
003um we're now going to approve the agenda at the request of vice president Daniels we are moving items 30 14.1 which is the realm charter school fiscal update to discussion for a brief discussion and item 14 point 3 which is the California School dashboard also to discussion also for a brief discussion so we will discuss those two items after item 13.3 are there any other requested changes to be jet have a motion motion motion by director Naga run hon Swenson second second by director Hemphill on favor hi okay we have our agenda I'm now gonna report from closed session in item 3.1 3.1 the board took no action item 3.2 the board will consider after open session tonight okay that concludes the report from closed session I will now provide a brief overview of tonight's
004meeting and thank you all for coming out tonight first we're going to hear 30 minutes of public comment then we'll hear comment from our unions and district committees then we'll have comments from the board members and the superintendent then we will consider our consent calendar which is which are items that the board may vote on all in one motion then we will hear one action item which is the request for approval of the recommendation to discontinue the name of LeConte elementary school followed by five discussion items which are listed in the agenda in addition thirteen point one two and three as well as fourteen point one and fourteen point three at the end of the meeting there'll be another opportunity for public comment so if you do not get to speak at the big at
005the beginning of the meeting and we have more cards than we have time for people to speak so not everybody will be able to speak at the beginning you're welcome to stay till the end of the meeting and speak at the end of the meeting the next item on the agenda is 30 minutes for public comment the vice president and I have organized the speaking requests by agenda item we're gonna rotate through the agenda items as best we can to do our best to hear from at least one person on each agenda item and from each position if your name is called to speak if your name is called you may cede your time to another speaker and if you want to do that stand up state your name and indicate to whom you would
006like to cede your time if you see their time to someone you give up your opportunity to speak and nobody can later see their time to you to speak you can only cede your time to someone who is speaking about the same subject that you've written down on your green card tonight we're gonna limit speakers to two minutes in order to accommodate as many people as possible nobody can speak for more than two minutes even if someone wants to cede you more time you're limited to everybody's limited to two minutes so nobody concede you more time so that yet for example four minutes we limit the amount of time so that we can hear from as many people as possible in the 30 minutes that we've allotted for public comment when there's one minute left
007in your two minutes the light on the lectern returned yellow the light up here will turn yellow and the light behind me will turn yellow that means you have one minute left when your two minutes are up you'll hear a beep and the red light will go will light up please finish your testing sentence when the red light goes on and please do not try to speak beyond your time we want to try to get as many people as possible so if anybody speaks beyond their time it's just cutting into the time we have four other speakers to keep things moving I'm going to call two people at a time so that the speaker who is next can stand under the clock over there and is ready to go when the person before them finishes
008I apologize in advance if I if and when I mispronounce anyone's name incorrectly during the public comment the board does not respond directly to comments or questions made during the public comment period board members the superintendent and staff do take notes during public comment and often will follow up with a speaker after the meeting following the cut public comment period there is a period on the agenda during which board members and the superintendent have a few minutes each to make a comment about whatever they wish that is the time when board members can choose to if they wish respond to something that was said in public comment or make any other comment that they want to make we found that this process works to keep our meetings running smoothly allows for a maximum number of
009members of the public to speak during the 30 minutes allotted for public comment and it ensures compliance with the Brown Act which does not allow for board discussions about items not placed on the agenda at least 72 hours in advance of the meeting I want to remind all speakers that there are children in the audience there may be children listening or watching at home so please keep that in mind as you speak and if you have complaints about specific district employees we encourage you to take advantage of our formal complaint process rather than using the public comment process for that purpose we will now begin the 30 minutes of public comment and the first speaker will be a Gianna renew Z followed by Liam Martin's thank you as as president of the cotton aber Hood
010Association I would like to have community process so that we can participate in the naming of the school and and because I think that's important and that's what we want I was basically upset because I received an email from the community relations person to another person and she said that I had I had not wanted I could not have it on the speaker to have it excuse me I'm sorry it's hard to me to talk to but basically what I asked the commune's communications officer is that we'd have the meeting in January so that we could fully vet this important issue I also received a letter from one of you of one of the parents and Lea said he was glad that we've taken a neutral position because it would be terrible if we were
011supporting a white supremacist no we are supporting the process so this is why I got a little bit said and why I've been asking you please let's have a community process this is a very good educational opportunity I don't I'm not again I'm for changing or not changing it's fine by me but I just want the educational opportunity I want to have a voice for the people who are interested in getting the best name for the school so that's why I just don't understand it I don't like it that it when it was on the website it said that the Association did outreach no I was asked to send it to some of my Association leaders in case they might want to come so I sent it to an expanded board list and I went
012for I went just for courtesy and because I'm trying to do well as an incoming president and so when when when somebody said that only three neighbors showed up that's not community process I don't see why we can't wait so that we can have a broad program for this and I'd be happy whatever you decide but I'm objecting to not having the community process thank you thank you Leah Martin's followed by David Schroeder good evening my name is Leah Martin's I have three children in Berkeley Unified schools and I'm currently the LeConte PTA president to Aris me otro y ou C Tiago Danny RT may I go Daniel mismo si te amo we respect on Miami we respect oh you are my other me if I do harm to you I do harm to myself
013if I love and respect you I love and respect myself these are the words of a poem that capture the Mayan precept of in la cache and they're also the words the children of LeConte Elementary begin each day with led by at least two of their peers proclaiming the valuing of one another in both Spanish and English our population includes a range of races ethnic backgrounds languages income levels and other identifying factors but as the poem reminds us as a community we seek to be one as president the PTA of this school that's becoming Berkeley Unified z-- bilingual school I have the honor of watching our uniquely diverse community of parents and teachers work to support an embody a spirit of mutual cooperation and care but all that we are trying to foster in our
014school is pathetical to what our schools namesake Joseph LeConte believed in and promoted it's clear Joseph LeConte was an outspoken white supremacist who would likely not have been favored of educating many of the students the majority of the students that walk the halls of our school simply because they're children of color the children of LeConte deserve a school name they can take pride in not only one that needs to be accepted with qualification our intention isn't to erase history but to allow our schools community to help write the next chapter of it we believe this moment of transition for our school could be the perfect moment as it becomes a fully bilingual school to choose a name that's more fitting for the next chapter of this school story so on behalf of the PTA I'm
015here to say we're grateful for the recommendation of the superintendent and we strongly encourage the school board to quickly pass the recommendation to move forward with the process and remove the name LeConte school thank you David Schroeder followed by Peggy Scott oh good evening board members I just want to come up here and very briefly thank you for listening to my fellow teachers students and community members from Berkeley High School's independent study program and also our colleagues at Berkeley Technology Academy I'm up here not only to appreciate you for hearing them out but also to appreciate the thought that you put into your discussion at the previous meeting you would discuss possibly postponing the proposed changes to our to our staffing at the programs until a later date hopefully in January and so I'm strongly
016encouraging you to follow through on that to ensure that we have time to deliberate as a community and that you would be very welcome to come and speak with any of us also that I appreciate the time and effort you're putting into your deliberations about the budget so please please don't rush to cutting our programs make sure that you speak with us and that you give us time to consult all the stakeholders in our community before you cut anything especially our very limited staff at our programs thanks a lot thank you PEGI Scott followed by Marc Copeland good evening board members my name is Peggy Scott I'm on the sexual harassment advisory committee and I'm here because well because Roy Moore sent me Roy Moore sent me into a tizzy and Harvey Weinstein and Kevin
017Spacey and a lot of other people sent me into a tizzy in the last couple weeks more stories of young people who were groomed and sexually exploited by an influential adult and then I remembered two years ago two and a half years ago we begged the policy committee it was you director Appel and you director Daniels we begged you to make very clear that any sexual contact between district staff and students is completely forbidden but you didn't do it and you wouldn't do it and we thought it was really weird and we didn't understand why not and it seems even weirder now in context of everything that's going on the UC regents put this into policy 14 years ago they prohibit professors and other faculty from having romantic or sexual relationships with students period and
018their students are the age of consent our students are all younger than that because this isn't really just about sex it's about power a student who's been groomed by an adult might think they can consent but they can't and you need to tell them please make sure it goes into both the 2019 agreements BFT and classified I know miss Bradley I know that you're doing that now that you're talking to them now no one wants to hear that there's any way this could maybe sort of kind of be okay it's just not you have to spell it out sexual activity of any kind with students is disallowed in all cases period I have to say you know the world really changed this week please put it on the agenda draft it discuss it and please
019pass it there just no more excuses not to and by the way I just want to say on a completely different topic that I I support meet so I hope you'll have meet speakers up thanking mr. Copeland followed by Laura Rivas good evening I'm here to talk about the LeConte naming situation and you know it broke my heart to watch those parents that they're talking so eloquently about something so important but what broke my heart was if they weren't surrounded my neighbors and I recommended to this board back when that policy was developed that neighbors be included in the process at that early stage I was told it we almost did impossible to get them included in that process so no the only thing that would be necessary would be to do a petition of
020the population of the school and from there the district would carry it forward and that's what's created the fasco that we have today you know I don't think that there are many of our neighbors that wouldn't be moved by what those parents just said and what should have happened at the LeConte neighbor Association meeting that happened a couple of weeks ago but they were asked for time at that meeting two days before the meeting not two months before the meeting I shepherded this process for 14 years in this district I know what's supposed to be done and in this situation where an administrator actually communicated with Janet who spoke to you about that communication she communicated and suggested I won't be calling the press and telling them that I notified a parent had a parent
021notified you and it was your responsibility to get the word out to the community but you should let the press know that I did that well of course you won't notify birth decided that because it was not the way it's done back in my day of a Neighborhood Association would say we'll communicate with people and I would say that's great we'll still of course take our responsibility as a district and do that and I'm stunned that nobody on this board has pulled the item because of the fact that there was not that process I think we want to help move this item along support this item probably but we haven't had a chance to have a communication in the LeConte neighborhood because we've never been included in that and I think it's really important to
022look at that we can work with you and if the superintendent are communicated with us in this past week we'd already be meeting to plan those meetings but they have to happen it might only take a month or two but it's got to happen and I'm counting on you guys counting on you to what you on boards before you have always done when the community has not been included and we need to revisit the policy the community and earlier Thank You mr. Eva followed by Addie hopes sorry good evening BST staff and members of the board my name is Lara Rivas and I'm speaking before you today as the parent of a second grade student at Berkeley school hopefully soon to be formerly known as LeConte I'm here to express my support for the DNA
023mning of our school and look forward to engaging in a process with her school community to find the name that reflects the values of the school I ask that you please move the foot move the process along I hear the concerns that were just shared and I'm thinking about the impact on our students who have been looking forward to this have been having conversations in their classrooms with their teachers at home with their families and there's a lot of excitement about what could potentially be the name that reflects our values I want you to keep in mind that enthusiasm in our young people and and to move this process along because we definitely wouldn't want to be in a situation where we are a school with no name for a really long period of time
024that would just be awkward and unfortunate and I understand the concerns about process and at the same time I think it's really important to center students in this consideration thank you thank you [Applause] followed by Johanna Johanna staples hi my name is Aidy hook and I'd like to see my time to Yvette Phil ARCA okay that's klarka Yvette palaka representing equal opportunity now by any means necessary caucus and also a teacher at Martin Luther King middle school I want to first say that I support the teachers of color who were here to stand up to demand recruiting and retaining more teachers of color here in Berkeley I support Zahra tamer and other veteran teachers who are standing up against constant harassment and witch hunting and I also support the teachers and parents fighting to rename
025and D name LeConte elementary school three weeks ago King school principal Janet Levinson and superintendent Donald Evans informed King teachers in our staff meeting that Berkeley Unified School District received a Public Records Act request from an organization called Judicial Watch which is a racist immigrant bashing group connected to the alt-right specifically Breitbart news and Steve Bannon they've demanded be USD gather all documents and email communications between be OSD administrators and between teachers and staff at our school that mentioned my name Phil ARCA BAM and Tifa or by all means necessary and when superintendent Evans informed us that the OSD intended to comply with this there was uniform anger and distress by all the teachers present public employers cannot ask your employees about our political affiliations our opinions on whether were Democrats Republicans socialists members of
026BAM and Tifa ACLU black lives matter or the NRA doing so leaves us open to political targeting which this school district also already has a very ugly history of doing Berkeley Unified should fight this illegal public records request rather than serve up your teachers or staff who have heroically stood up against all right harassment death threats trolls and terrorists and it's time for this district to get things right we remember what you did last year not just to me but to e-l students and immigrant students and their parents and families asking them their immigration status or where their parents were born we will not accept this this district needs to reverse your position stand with the teacher against the racists not against us and with the all right thank you johannah staples I'm sorry followed
027by Zara tamer hi I'm Johanna staples acre I'm an I a student or independent study little louder okay I am an independent study student in my sophomore year for various reasons I transferred to from Berkeley High two independent study it's assumed at Berkeley high that if you got straight A's you're fine but Berkeley High was not a good fit for me at is I'm much more able to explore subjects deeply and with a lot more joy than I could in mainstream classes I'm able to manage my own schedule and pursue my own interests and the teachers and the is staff know me and value me as an individual is is a true community I'm able to connect with other students about ideas and they with me and we work together on the material and share
028in the joy of understanding every year there's a waiting list of Berkeley High students who want to transfer to is but can't because of the staff and funding limits on our program independent study has about 145 students making it almost exactly the same size as small schools aha amps and casts it offers the same credits as at BHS and it's self-directed so it's an excellent preparation for college is is multifaceted it's k12 coordinates Berkeley homeschooling and runs the home in hospital program it serves different students than BTech and its students have different needs a separate administrator is necessary to fulfill my needs inherent to our any unique program I'm a proud I am proud to apply to colleges with is is my small school I will be doing so with a letter of recommendation from
029its Weber the is coordinator and my guidance counselor she's helped me greatly with the admissions process and I feel like she really knows me a connection that was not I didn't have at Berkeley high I only hope that when I leave for college students like me can benefit from the is program just as much as I have thank you thank you good evening my name is Zora tammer and I teach at Berkeley High School in the academic choice program I'm here tonight to talk about something that's been going on for a long time a couple of weeks ago in a meeting with Kathy Campbell and Felicia Phillips my administrator we were told by Miss Phillips that quote whenever any issue regarding a student arises the first thing we do as administrators is to investigate the
030teacher Miss Campbell pointed out that protocol is in place and legal interventions that ensure that teachers receive fair treatment miss Phillips took a few moments to think then replied smiling I must have misspoken I find this old English usage of Miss speak highly revealing because of its many subtle meanings miss speaking connotes deception dissimulation invention breakage of promise victimization bearing of false witness distortion equivocation etc a parent has the right at BHS to investigate a teacher as well as do students I was told by a parent earlier in the year that she knew all about me and ahead investigated me she could also tell me what I was thinking by my body language I found this fascinating special student informants at BHS are allowed to roam the school without permission or clearance from administrators to
031leave class without permission to report on teachers to administration students know that they can destroy a teacher with an accusation simply by taking words out of context if we're going to be investigated let's call in the professionals CIA FBI KGB WASC many of my fine colleagues have been removed by harassment from Berkeley hi I just want to tell you I love you and think of you Zita Salette Brian Anthony Joan David Carla etc etc I love you and I celebrate you thank you thank you thank you Steve finicum followed by Patricia Reis drew good morning directors our good evening I'm sorry sorry so I'm speaking on item eleven point one and eleven point two which is the funding for design studies for the Berkeley community theater so I'm also the chair of the Landmarks Preservation
032Commission for the city although I'm speaking here is an individual tonight not in a formal capacity as to as a chair so the Community Theatre is a city landmark and part of the Civic Center historic district which is on the National Register of Historic Places so it has formal historic status on several levels I'm here to ask you that you include an at an early day - courtesy presentation to the landmarks president Preservation Commission so we can hear about the project and comment on it before all the designs and the are in place and all the money has been spent the city is beginning a process this next year for Civic Center planning which includes a park across from Berkeley high to Veterans Memorial and the model sherek building old City Hall now is the
033time for all the agencies owning property around Civic Center Park to talk to each other about this so I would like to to ask you that you modify that item tonight to include a presentation to the Landmarks Commission early in the new year I'm fairly confident we could put it on the agenda in January February if you're willing to come do that so so that's my an individual request I just wanted to say on the console I've been a LeConte school neighbor for more than 30 years my family's been connected to the school on and off if you go to the butterfly garden there you'll find a bench that my husband built and donated to the school and he's been in the school many many times making volunteer presentations so we do feel connected to
034the school but I don't feel connected to it tonight because we were excluded from this process we never got a flyer we were never notified if the public you've been told that the neighbors were notified that's not true as far as I know so we need a process you need a process where you include the neighborhood in the initial discussion before you make a decision Thank You [Applause] Patricia we a star followed by Denise Teflon thank you good evening I am a parent of a seven-year-old boy in 2nd grade at LeConte elementary we would like to change the name of the school because as we know lakhan's philosophy was not one that embraced the diverse diversity and equality our school respects every culture and teaches our children that all human beings deserve to be treated
035with respect regardless of their skin color we're not trying to rewrite history or minimize the contribution that Joseph LeConte brought to science or education but we lived in Berkeley more than he lived in Berkeley more than a hundred years ago and our city just like the rest of the world has changed and evolved all we want to do is give our school a name that the children can be proud of and that stands for the values that we're trying to teach them at school and at home of respect and equality I do not want my child to everything that he's in any kind of decent of disadvantage with other children because he is not white which when he has heard about lakhan's philosophy he once told me I wish I was white and I don't
036ever want to him when I hear him say that or any children at LeConte which is probably the majority there are non-white so please don't delay this process because it will only hurt our children we I think there's probably still time to include the community but please don't delay it thank you Stephan fouled by Paul Kayla Blake good evening superintendent events the USD staff school board member and member of the public my name is Denise laughs no I am an ER parent at local elementary and as GC member I would like to thank PUSD for the steps that you are making to what transparency and communication this encourages me to continue to be an engaged parents tonight and I am especially grateful for our Twi program it is so important to my mind and my
037heart and I'm thankful that PUSD embraces multicultural education when challenged at our site is a lack of bilinguals substitute teacher because of that the Spanish instruction and exposure needed to further develop the bilingual academic skills of our students is not being met our press empath and staffs try to minimize the negative impact of teacher absences however when our students needs continue to go unmet we need additional resources that only the discreet can provide we urge the district uj-- the district or higher has done by binding white substitute for account based on our research this position would only incur a marginal cost to the district I will it will increase the level of Spanish instruction to more closely align with research-based requirement of 90/10 Twi model we are thankful to Maggie riddle for meeting our SGC
038subcommittee tomorrow we are happy to provide her with additional details describing the facts that support our request and estimates we look forward to working toward a sustainable solution with you thank you thank you mr. Caleb Lake followed by Heidi goldstein good evening I'm here to speak in support of give a velar calm and the I read the statement from the district it looked to me like a statement from opposing counsel in a in a trial what I'm hoping and imploring this district to do is to support the people that you represent that would be very helpful for us you are in essence supporting Bannon and all of these right-wing racist bigoted people in your statement there's another side to that I would like all of you to look at that side of the statement these
039are typical battles between fourth and ninth Amendment rights so it's not an easy answer except that you represent us you're not representing Texas you're not representing Judicial Watch you represent us I would like to hear you representing us in our rights and our fears and our striving to provide our children here the education that they really need I read in your statement that you must do what you're doing we are well known in this city for representing opposing views specifically to people like Judicial Watch I'd like all of you to please take a look at that and start representing us and not Steve Bannon I really implore you to do that it's it's not a it's not a difficult or trying position you're our representatives please represent us that's all I'm asking thank you so
040much how do you go sign followed by romona coats and then obvious Ayman will be our last public speaker good evening school board and everyone else here I'm Heidi Goldstein and I'm here tonight in my role as vice-chair of the personnel Commission as well as as parent here in be USD the personnel Commission in its November meeting looked at finalized and actually made some changes to a classification description for a restorative justice coordinator which was something that came before you several meetings ago I want to make sure that you know what these changes are because they're so important and because this is a position that I hope you will invest in many times over because the need in our school district for people with these capabilities is great at its 11 - meeting the personnel
041Commission added some requirements one is that the individual have deep experience with youth oriented programs another is that the individual have demonstrated experience with trauma-informed systems and a third addition was that the individual actually have a credential in restorative justice that is a requirement not a desirable aspect this is a lot to ask for a role that pays between 58 and 62 thousand dollars a year it's posted comes down on 64 and we hope we get a bunch of good candidates because we need a lot of good candidates why do we need a lot of good candidates I think the fire department is sort of a convenient metaphor here we know that just like the fire department no matter how much training and education we do there will be fires and we know here with
042youth no matter no matter how much training and education we do there'll be incidents that require restorative justice it's really important that we have a ready force of individuals who are trained and available right away to respond to this just like the fire department responds to fires so to that end this is a request to please as the year progresses I know money is tight but this is really something that needs your investment and we need more skilled individuals in this role thank you thank you dr. Coates followed by Abby Simon good evening I'm gonna wait to the PTA Council and defer to Mimi Pugh llege okay coach hi I'm Amy pooch and I'm here to urge the board to not enact any district recommendation recommended cuts for the 2018-19 budget at your December 5th
043board meeting nothing should be rushed too much is at stake especially at Berkeley hi there's a common perception that Berkeley High is an island that it operates without much district or parent involvement well I'm here with parents who are involved at the high school and it's very troubling to hear from administrators counselors and parents how significantly compromised student services will become if the district's current recommended cuts are enacted what we have at Berkeley high are specialized counselor and administrative positions that are unique that uniquely support the needs of undocumented students at mr. at K to 12 independent studies program and track kids in order to keep them in school these resources have vast experience and perform additional critical roles Berkeley parents want to make want the district to make data-driven decisions that align with research
044and are supported by student outcomes in this instance it means that the distance the districts process for identifying cuts and its rationale for proposing them should be explicitly conveyed and then questioned you cannot go along with the district citing a statewide average of 600 to 1 students per counselor ratio to justify cutting counselors when numerous studies have established correlational and causal relationships between smaller student counselor ratios and improved post-secondary student outcomes taking cues from statewide averages is not a course to sustain or surpass current current levels of achievement in Berkeley's schools it's never easy to make budget cuts but when it has to happen tough questions need to be asked and answered nothing should be rushed Thank You mr. Simon good evening I'm a Berkeley high school senior and I'm just here to vocalize my
045support for a meet I have struggled with mental health at Berkeley high of a lot of peers who have as well I also was introduced kind of like to the power of pure education at Berkeley High through the shift' program I was really impressed by what that did and I think you know I'm just I wish I had time to prepare a more eloquent statement because this is something that means a lot to me I think such a program could really most importantly D stigmatize mental health and discussions around mental health in the classroom and in the community and kind of make a more welcoming environment for students like me and my peers who struggle with mental health and reflecting on my time at Berkeley High I think that could have really made a huge
046difference for myself Oh couldn't you just give a little mental illness is something that many many students struggle with but despite this it's still really easy to feel alone and isolated and not really know like what to do about it and having a a peer education program I think that would tell people where to go for help and what this means and you're not alone and there's other people that are going through you know stuff like this would be not only helpful but life-changing thank you that concludes our public comment period and I want to thank everybody who came to speak if you did not get to speak again there will be an extended public comment period at the end of our meeting now we have an opportunity to hear from our unions I cbft
047and miss Phillips are you know any other union representatives okay miss Campbell good evening board members and dr. Evans my name is Gloria mignon Hughes and I'm a co-facilitator of the teachers of color Network tonight we'd like to present a number of focal points that we hope to partner with you and bringing into fruition this year the first point we present to you is in regards to our hiring timeline simply put we need to move the timeline up bft supports moving up the timeline in order to hire highly qualified teachers of color a number of neighboring districts begin their hiring process much earlier in the calendar year for example Oakland Unified begins initial screening processes for hiring in January and we are confident that the neighboring districts follow suit as a result these districts are
048able to both retain first-year temporary teachers of color and other teachers that students and families have already built relationships with as well as recruit new great first-year teachers of color many highly qualified teachers of color leave our district for other districts that guarantee a probationary contract much earlier in the spring and tonight we'd like to recognize our outstanding efforts from our consultant KC Hatcher Robinson that has made thus far in moving forward and pushing and holding this work the BFT teachers of color network and BFT believes strongly that our students and families the teachers who look like them and who don't look like them teachers who reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of their students as role models and set a standard for achievement simply by having achieved white students and families also need role
049models who are the counter-narrative a lot of white students have diverse groups of peers and are still around only white adults family members neighbors teachers this is a disservice to the white students because they unconsciously are taught and learn to accept that only white people can be professionals ultimately if B OS D is committed to recruiting and retaining teachers of color the time to act is now what are we waiting for we must act with the sense of urgency as well as priority my name is Lucero new Petzl and I am a facilitator for the teachers of color network the second point that we would like to present to you is prioritizing classified pathways in order to ensure that students of color have teachers of color who look like them and all students have a
050diverse group of teachers the current El Cap pilot needs to be reconfigured to be able to include more classified employees in this year's first round there were 17 classified employees working towards teaching credentials who applied for the classified pathways out of the 17 who applied only two candidates qualified for support from the El Cap pilot based on the current structure and criteria why only two Buist he needs to improve opportunities to a wide variety of our classified staff who are working towards bachelor's degrees and Associate of Arts degrees that are required for acceptance into credential programs B USD needs to make classified pathways a priority and long-term commitment B USD received a grant from the California classified school employee teacher training program to support 12 aspiring teachers as stated in the grant we ask that
051B of T is involved and informed about the recruitment plan finally in order to retain teachers of color support needs to be provided for all the stakeholders in a child's education including but not limited to students instructional assistants after-school teachers tutors classroom teachers and principals there need to be continuing opportunity for ethnic studies for both students and employees in the past a three-day cultural competency course was offered to all teachers but not to all classified staff in the earlier stages this Academy intentionally brought together both our classified and certificated staff and was tremendously powerful classified staff are impactful teachers for students in order to address the needs of all students in our district they also need the training and support provided for certificated teachers we ask that Berkeley Unified School District stay committed to their
052recruitment and retention of teachers of color by moving up the hiring timeline reconfiguring the AL cap pilot for classified pathways providing transparency and support for the California classified school employee teacher training pipeline and provide ongoing support for all staff through ethnic studies thank you thank you we'll now hear from our district committees I know dr. Coates is here for the PTA Council are there any other district committees okay dr. Coates you have five minutes good evening I come before you this evening to ask the board to delay the December 5th decision to cut some of our employees I'm a little concerned because I came before you earlier to ask about what what you were doing about the incident that happened on the 20th and I'm worried that if we have less fewer safety officers because
053I hear we're cutting 4 and I'm wondering does that is that going to change the dynamic dramatically where we see more police officers on our campus instead of our safety officers in coordination with our school police officer so I'm a little concerned about that because I think they serve a vital importance to our students number one and then I'm worried about the fact that we are losing a one and a half guidance counselors and you know listening to miss staples talk and listening to these young people talk about how important their guidance counselors are I mean we've lost an amazing an amazing guy discounts a college advisor and Miss Angela price she did way more much more than just advising students about their college education she did a lot of emotional social support and our
054guidance counselor's do that find the money to cut someplace else but don't cut our counselors and don't cut our safety officers thank you thank you [Applause] okay thank you all now we will hear comments from board members and the superintendent so who would like to speak go for it judge repeal thank you all for coming so first one of the honors that we get as school board members is to make some appointments to different commissions and one of those commissions is the Youth Commission the Youth Commission in Berkeley helps helps helps us as a city young people helping us as a city better serve our our youth and so I'm very fortunate I have in a couple years ago appointed Ruby's tonight actually tonight because both my outgoing youth commissioner and my incoming youth commissioner
055both of whom are named Ruby pure coincidence are both here and it gives me a chance to think to thank Ruby's Spees and also to welcome Ruby Lin Marino so first I wanted to say that I'm I was honored to be able to appoint Ruby Spees a couple of years ago she's a leader in our community a leader in our LGBTQ community and I'm really proud of the work that she has done together with her colleague a beast echo that they will be presenting tonight with the meat program and as we've just heard it's meeting its addressing a very very important unmet need in our high school so I'm really I think that this shows the opportunity a couple of young people really taking grasping and a whole taking hold of an opportunity that was
056presenting to present it to them and really making the most of it so I want to thank you and I'll thank you Abby too even though you weren't my appointee I'm still really proud of you and then I also have the honor tonight to appoint my to appoint Ruby's replacement Ruby Lin Moreno who is an eighth grader at Longfellow middle school and I'm really confident that Ruby's gonna really do great work on the on the Youth Commission and I'm just wanted to read a little bit to you if that's okay with you Ruby from her from her from her application she said I'm a community member who's interested in making schools more inclusive to different gender identities I'm interested in working with students that have disabilities to try and have their needs met as far
057as enjoying school and I work well with others and I'm committed to making the city a better place so I'm really proud to appoint you Ruby Lin marina to the Youth Commission do you want to stand up the Ruby's gonna go get sworn in this week and you'll hear from the other Ruby later so second I know I really wanted to make a point of saying something tonight about this tipping point that we're really seeing in the country right now as we all know the last couple of weeks have shown kind of the floodgates of women from throughout the country reporting harassment and abuse that they have been subject to sometimes 50 years ago sometimes a year ago sometimes a few months ago that they never felt that they could come forward and talk about
058because they were afraid of the repercussions to their own profusely their professional life and I think for most of us women we know that that is that persistence like sexism and harassment is is real and myself and probably many of the people in this room were participated in the me to campaign because many of us have have experienced this and so I feel that this is a it's a it's it's heartbreaking to hear the stories but it's not surprising and I think it gives us an opportunity to address here in our district to continue to address the sexual harassment and assault that takes place here like every place and I'm also very proud of the work that we have been doing over the last several years in very close partnership with our student leaders in
059Berkeley stop harassing I'm proud of that and I'll early look forward to working closely with the teachers and the staff and the parents and other stakeholders as we continue to address this real issue not just here in Berkeley but I think that's pervasive throughout our community who's next I also I just realized I think I'm I'm supposed to have office hours this weekend but I'm gonna have to cancel them because I'm gonna be out of town so I will I will reschedule them for early December so not too much this time just been going to the Martin Luther King committee meetings and I just want to remind everyone that it was always on Martin Luther King birthdates holiday itself and we expect another huge sellout crowd again this year so mark your calendars for the
060Martin Luther King one day birthday celebration it starts at 7:30 I also wanted to ask that we had a really great presentation last meeting around our current technical education program and it was interesting because this within a couple of days of that presentation I was reading Berkley side and the comments are always interesting in Berkley side but wide range of diverse opinions but it was interesting that one of the comments was that well Brooke was never cared about career technical education and is never invested in it and I thought they obviously didn't turn on to our board meeting so I really will ask support of the rest of the board to have staff do a feature in the next 8 plus news as well as provide some information for Berkley side and to put something
061on our website that really features our current technical education program I think for those of you that were able to hear the president we now have courses and everything from fire science emergency medical training robotics video technician some of that other health professions we will be breaking ground in the spring on then called a makerspace but it's also been called a fabrication space at the high school they'll include everything from 3d printers to equipment that will allow students that are interested in stage craft or or other aspects of carpentry to be able to take those classes as well at Berkeley high we have about 500 unduplicated students currently taking at least career technical education program and that includes everything from being at our biotech program to the new robotics class that's being held 7th period
062- a very popular EMT fire science class and I just think that we're doing our district and our students and our community a disfavor not to promote this program more it was really interesting to me at the current technical education advisory task force that's not the old days of VOC ed we are talking about jobs at 2 years after high school 81 thousand dollars a year working for like East Bay mud or San Francisco mud or utility as an instrument technician in the carpentry union there are 10 different trades in which again starting salaries are as a beginner as an apprentice or $27 a year and you could become a stationary engineer which does require at some point college but the road begins potentially as an apprentice and stationary engineers make 150 thousand dollars a
063year so we're not talking about dead-end jobs we're not talking about what those of you who are Chris rock fans like me scrape scrape scrape jobs we're really talking about jobs that are portable that are high-paying that will allow particularly two people together to live in the Bay Area potentially even buy a house and to build the kind of a wage earner community that we used to have in Berkeley where you didn't necessarily have to have a college degree in order to have a rewarding career but these are careers that without a college career they're very rewarding and with a college career even more rewarding in terms of remuneration so I really hope that we publicize this I would certainly be willing to also do things like chalked the Chamber of Commerce and to our
064business community I've asked also that we include our two by two community with the council update with them so they understand what we're doing and really and I'll stop here with the new facility that will be breaking down in the spring that's hopefully we'll be ready for this fall we will have the best fabrications facility other than less men danos Community College which means that we'll have a state-of-the-art facility from the entire Northern California is extremely exciting and I hope that you all learn more about it it'll be great for all of our students Thank You director nonsense um this'll be quick but first I just wanted to shout out Ruby and Abbie and all the students who have been really involved in political activism at Berkeley high it's really been an honor these past
065four years just knowing that like you guys are my peers and people like you are doing such amazing work that can really have an impact on the community also I just like to quickly acknowledge that transgender Day of Remembrance is next Monday and sort of extend an affirmation to all the trans students in BOS D and in our community especially those who have suffered at the hands of bigotry everywhere and in the USD you're not alone in your valid and I hope that in the next year we can make even more progress to making a safe community [Applause] just just quickly we will be having an item in December about potential for employee housing the district has been administering our survey or administered in October and the results are currently being analyzed and it should
066be a really interesting presentation about what is shown in that survey so I encourage everyone to attend December 6th good evening everyone I was just I was just listening to the comments around what we should cut or not cut I do want to thank all of the parents community teachers counselors that have come out over the last couple of months to talk with us speak with us at the superintendent budget Advisory Committee we are in the process making and roughly around 1.8 million dollars worth of cuts I would continue and encourage you to continue coming to these meetings it's very difficult but we do have to make these cuts we want to maintain our positive certification and meet our needs of our students currently like I said it's been very difficult but I do want
067to thank everyone for coming out it has been a it has been a difficult process but it is a it is something that we have to do for 1819 and possibly 1920 I just also want to say someone a gentleman spoke earlier I will have to meet with the landmark Preservation Commission and so that will happen very soon that's it thanks thank you I just have a couple of comments so one I guess they they they're outside but I but I appreciate BF T's presentation and I would love to hear more perhaps and if we could have this as a discussion item at some point in the coming year about our whether there are changes we can make to our practices or our hiring practices that might better position us to recruit teachers of color
068so so yeah I know that there I know we've done a lot we've made a lot of progress but I'd love to hear more about some of the suggestions that BFT made it's a it's a high priority I think for all of us I want to I'm gonna make a quick comment about the process regarding the the renaming of LeConte which I know where as soon as I'm done talking we're about to start that item so but I don't want to take up time during the item just to just make note about the the process that was brought up during public comment because I want us to save at least my time during that item to talk about the substance of the decision we have heard the concerns from from a few of the neighbors
069we've also gotten a number of emails from neighbors who are very supportive of the superintendent's recommendation I want to be clear that the the our policies and our administrative regulations actually don't have any specific requirements of outreach to the neighborhood that that that's a decision that the board made and that the superintendent made any failure on our part to adequately reach out to the neighbors is entirely on the board and the superintendent is not on any of our staff it's certainly not on this beery who has spent countless hours working on this issue did conduct outreach to the neighborhood did conduct outreach to the neighborhood we will review our processes for next time we've built into this process and a sort of moratorium on considering other name changes until we sort of learned lessons from
070this one so if there are changes to be made we will make them but I want it to be clear that this that our that when when members of the community talk about our administrator that's not where any fault lies with that we will move to that I know we have to consider the consent calendar first is there a motion to approve the consent counter motion motion by director nagarajan Swenson second second by director pal all in favor hi okay we have approved the consent counter now we will move to that item which is item 12.1 and I believe we have dr. Evans and Miss Barry so board of directors and to our viewing audience tonight we're going to provide you some of the highlights from our board document on the LeConte school name review
071and also give you my recommendation and then followed by board discussion in our next steps so the request came to us from a LeConte petition that we received in the spring of last year and prior to that but that petition the laconic laconic community had been having internal meetings prior to us receiving that and in fact they even had some of their students participate in this process as well we brought this petition to the board in June and created an initial timeline based on our guidelines and our board policy and at one point we had hoped that we could complete this process by the end of this this year but unfortunately we slowed down the process and we're bringing it back right now so that we could have received more input from the board and
072we consider what are some of our possible next steps would be and so with that I'm going to turn it over to our director Barry to explain what we've done so far thank you so the current policy and regulation requires that a school name review include meetings with the community and with the staff at the school and I'm going to go over a very brief what was included in these meetings the superintendent I went to LeConte school for a large community meeting on September 20th that was hosted by the PTA and there was also a teaching staff meeting that was held on September 27th I'm also very well attended we had a small meeting with the neighbors on October 16th for all of these meetings we followed a similar format which began with outlining what
073the USD current board policy and process is as well as the expected timeline we shared had some time for people to share what their feelings were about the LeConte school and community its values its history its strengths we also spent some time of course talking about the namesake a Joseph LeConte discussing his achievements why he was chosen in the first place what the current controversy is over the name and then we wanted to allow significant time for people to discuss what they saw as opportunities and challenges in a possible name change and at the end take a straw poll actually anonymously so people could feel comfortable with that as far as whether they were four against or undecided and any reasons why so the first thing that we did in the meetings again was to
074over do an overview of the current process which is based on the board policy and administrative regulation that paula policy and process currently begins with or can begin with a petition then the superintendent conducts a review then the recommendation to the board which is where we are now then if the board approves it an advisory committee process which requires at least three meetings one to explain the process one to solicit names and one to go over the possible short list of names then a name recommendation to the board and then board action when we shared that timeline with the school the school by and large felt that timeline was too slow many of them had this process can this can you trade mics with dr. Evans there we go better so the school community was
075concerned that this process was too slow they wanted to have things resolved by the end of this calendar in fact they'd really kind of hope things would be done by last spring but meanwhile the the neighbors who came into this process we brought them in late to this process we're concerned about wanting to slow down the process have more time for engagement with the neighbors as was mentioned the current policy and AR does not include a meeting with the neighbors however the superintendent suggested in October let's see if we can have a meeting with the neighbors and still meet the timeline we had some limited outreach we were hoping to have more people come and there's certainly room in the remaining process for neighborhood input when we talked to the school community about what they
076saw as their strengths we heard a lot of the same things from the staff from the families and from the neighbors the school is seen as a you heard a lot of this from the PTA as well a welcoming environment multilingual multicultural the value of in luck ash the Mayan saying of you are my other me is is really a core belief at that school and strongly held for there's a pride not only in diverse families but diverse staff which sees themselves as very collaborative with a deep belief in equity and and justice those same beliefs were echoed among the neighbors who also take pride in a cohesive neighborhood with a history of activism and then we moved on to talk about Joseph's LeConte the namesake and the questions there of course were who was
077he why was he chosen in 1892 we shared with people how highly respected he was in the at that time he was one of the first professors at UC Berkeley he and his brother came out from Georgia his brother John was actually one of the first presidents served as president twice at UC Berkeley he was a professor of physics joseph LeConte was a professor of geology and botany and Natural Sciences he was an expert glaciation he loved yosemite he was involved with John Muir in the founding of the Sierra Club he was believed in evolution which was kind of a radical idea at the time and was able to reconcile that with his Christian faith so you know he was somebody who was someone who in whom there was a great deal of pride in
078among the academic community at the time at the same time there is controversy about him now and even then stemming from some of his beliefs some of his social beliefs he came from Georgia he and his brother and actually several brothers and a sister I believe were raised on a plantation he administered that plantation with over 200 slaves so rice-growing plantation during the Civil War both he and his brothers served the Confederate cause with the munitions the nitrous ility making explosives for the Confederacy after the Civil War unhappy with reconstruction and with among other things the vote being given to former slaves he said that that was one of the greatest crimes perpetrated on humankind I believe something to that effect he also said the government should be oven for the people but not by
079all the people he did not believe in a universal vote he certainly did not believe in it he believed in a poll tax he was against women's suffrage as well he came when he arrived in Berkeley he spoke out on that issue Berkeley was very much in the forefront of women's suffrage in fact the vote for women came here earlier than the 19th amendment there was a one thing that I found out in researching him was that there was a chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy very active in Berkeley named for Joseph LeConte that went on I think still meeting in the 50s he and his brother had a number of honors there are still a number of places named for him mountains lodges one at Yosemite which was renamed and that's been that
080was one of the impetuses at the time for the name change is learning that the Sierra Club had renamed their leconte lodge leus they've renamed it the assembly Heritage Center once they learned about his racist statements the other thing though that we felt was important to do was to situate the choice of Lacan in time and this has been utterly fascinating and something that I wish more people knew about was understanding our history and what what we did in our district in terms of our name changes you can see that LeConte in 1892 the one that bolded names are the ones that we still carry so the school name is is one that still remains from 1892 but we began at that time with school names were often place names we started shifting into people
081names by 1917 so a hundred years ago we had a lot more people names and they were poets inventors naturalist intellectuals abolitionists three assassinated presidents Lincoln McKinley and Garfield a hundred years later the assassinated presidents have been replaced to some extent by assassinated civil rights leaders now and now we have a couple of schools named for women should be pointed out that women did not have women got the vote as I mentioned a little bit earlier in Berkeley 1906 the city charter was amended in 1909 I believe the first woman was elected to the school board a woman named Eleanor Carlyle and I don't have time to go deep into this history but this is all part of the board agenda so I encourage you to take a look at it but what we did
082was we took a look at the evolution of our city from a very small city of our town of 5,000 people in the 1890s which is when allah conte school was named to a city that we were extremely rapidly over doubling in size in the next ten years can doubling again after that and most of our schools were named in in that those first 20 years we became we were primarily a white community and so you had really it wasn't until the 1940s and after the Kaiser shipyards and other social and and it changes that this community began to diversify as I mentioned women join the board and there was a great deal of activism by women at that time then as we became more diverse there was better representation on the school board as
083well we looked at our our segregation we began our voluntary integration in the 1960s then in the 1980s through now what we've been seeing is a lot of economic changes in our neighborhoods gentrification of neighborhoods like LeConte which were often formerly african-american neighborhoods we've also had changes in our schools many of the schools were renamed or repurposed some of them closed you know for instance hillside schools know is no longer there others have have new purposes so very very quickly you've already heard from a very eloquently from a number of the school board school members about why they want the name change I also wanted to mention that we did allow time for people to consider concerns that that might might have before they moved on to the desire for a name change the most
084common concern that we heard was actually about the next steps people were concerned about they felt like there's consensus now that they want to change the name what they worry about is where is the consensus for the new name going to come from and we by the way we conducted these meetings in both english and spanish and so sometimes the notes both languages soap when their nose they according when wave of nombre is consensus on a new name if named after a person what about when we find out something about that next about that person in the future that's a very common comment that most idols have feet of clay and what are we going to do about that the relator to that to some degree is the concern about choosing a name that will
085endure and you know people are recognizing that some with some humility that you know we are we are just in a moment in time and can we choose something that is truly endure enduring there was concern expressed not only by neighbors but by members of the school community about the neighborhood and about alumni there are a lot of strong ties the Neighborhood Association derives its name from the school how did they manage that there was also concerned expressed about the current political climate and what about possible negative attention to this name change people dismissing this is yet another Berkeley thing to do and and some of the consequent attention that might distract from our educational mission questions have been raised about the cost and the length of the process and then people people have raised
086the question about how do we maintain a sense of history and continuity one recommendation that came up a couple of times is can we you know not erase history but actually bring history more to life as it has it done it just in this process but most people did not know who LeConte was as just as you probably don't know who Gilman was or Bancroft or Durant and so people recognize that this is an important moment for us to look at our history and then note what we've done and perhaps move on alas the very last thing I'll mention it was already most of these issues were alluded to by the speakers in public comment but I would say these are really the top three reasons that emerged from the nearly a hundred comments that
087we received one is really that the it's the school community has already evolved they're not looking for the name to change them they have changed they want a name that reflects who they are that our community our city our school district and our school all have evolved and they want to have a name that reflects better that evolution and is in agreement with our philosophy and values also the mentioned about diversity as being a really important piece and the recognition that this is part of our our statement RB USD statement a mission statement that we hold high expectations for ourselves and as students and that the name LeConte not only isn't a good fit but actually runs contrary to that that LeConte would did not value and said many things about people who he believed
088were his inferiors and then last but certainly not least was a comment made frequently about wanting to set a good example for the kids being an example for our kids and actually involving the kids in this discussion so now I'm going to turn it back to the superintendent and I just want to add one more thing you're not the con is a unique school it's a two-way immersion and we have the opportunity to provide a name that reflects not only our values but that school as well this name will carry us into the next hundred years so we're in a special place in time and we can make that change and so it's with that that I'm recommending to rename the school of LeConte so what that will open it up for a board discussion
089thank you thank you dr. Evans and thank you Miss berry so I I think I would like to have a sort of take turns giving our thoughts on where we are on this recommendation I guess that's what we always do but would anyone like to start in particular and and I know that director labor Cutler wishes she was here but she couldn't make it tonight go ahead director Heba you know Julia is speaking I am NOT as much of a fan as this rush to rename all of our institutions I come from a state of Virginia where there's a lot of knowledge regarding the clay feet of many of our forbearers my family itself claims its heritage as being direct descendants of President John Tyler but the Historical Society of the role southern County where
090my family is from and I quote says there are several black families who allege direct descendants II from John Tyler much like Jefferson had his Sally Hemings Tyler at his Polly Brown so I tend to have a little bit more desire to see a full education particularly comes to our founding fathers I mean they are the founders are our country regardless if they had clay off of feet of clay however when it comes to this particular request to do name I feel that it's not just kind of the current revisiting some of the obsolete and in in in viewpoints and hypocritical viewpoints that many of our founding fathers had but we're looking at a school that has really reinvented itself and it's not the school that it was a few years ago it is now
091a cement a Spanish immersion school and certainly with now the school fully becoming an immersion school the the desire to change a name that is more in line with what the school's mission is in philosophy is makes a lot of sense to me and clearly the name that is there today doesn't meet that standard he was against public education he was an avowed racist and continued that for four years after the Civil War and for the students that are going there they're either of Hispanic descent and or are there to immerse themselves in the language and culture of of spanish-speaking people there's a disconnect there in terms of the name so I may not support some other possibilities because I do think that in many cases this educates a full education as opposed to rewriting
092history when it's particularly our nation's history but in this case I feel that it's not it is the combination of the fact of somebody who had more than just feet of clay but actually was a staunch supporter of racist and supremacist attitudes and that is not a correct name for a school that is honoring bilingualism in biculturalism so I intend to support the D naming of the school and look forward to hearing what the community comes up with with the renaming I think if they're you know if I would I think it might be a good thing maybe to have a little wider outreach when it comes to the naming but at the end of the day our policy says it's this board that decides what the new name is and I want to make
093that clear - because I was not on the board but I was aware the last time school wanted to change their name and that was not clear so just so you know that that's but I will support the the naming of the school thank you director and I have one quick question which is what do we call the school in between the D naming and the renaming formerly known as the way that the current they are administrative regulation is written is that even when the name is removed it continues to function under that name for the purposes of the internal systems until a new name okay I just want to make sure we have something to call it so that being said I agree with everything that my colleague director Hemphill said except for that
094I'm not from Virginia I'm from Pittsburgh and that related but that the general I think the the sentiments I when I found out when I first found out when I first learned really what I now see is just the tip of the iceberg of the history of Joseph LeConte nothing like the extent to which Natasha Berry has now learned about this individual but I was very you know I felt a sense of urgency at that point to rename it and they renamed the school because not only does it not reflect I think the values of a bilingual school but I think any school in our district so whereas while I hear the concerns of the neighborhood and I think that that I understand why you're upset I think that I just really don't want to
095have to wait any longer to do this and what I do think is that this is a lesson that we need to make sure to really include the neighborhood in the renaming and in the recommendations that are going to come to this board for renaming this school because I think you know the school is in its a as we want our schools to be it's an important community hub in the neighborhood it's an important landmark and an important part of the fabric fabric of the neighborhood and I want to respect that so that being said I also plan to vote in favor of in support the superintendent's recommendation Thank You director Nagarajan Swinson um I definitely support the D naming of Lacan I think Joseph LeConte legacy is incredibly harmful not just to people in
096the past but also as the parents were talking about the impact that it's having on their own students when they realized that the namesake of their school isn't someone who would advocate for even or would probably like explicitly advocate against their education and their rights I think that his legacy really isn't something that we should honor just by having something in his name it's not something that's relevant to our school district or what we stand for right now so I definitely support the renaming thank you miss berry superintendent to acknowledge the amount of history that you've put into this presentation is incredible and in really just as someone who's born and raised in Berkeley it's it's really interesting to learn about the history in the place that I've called home all my life and for
097many reasons are very proud of but also to not try to hide from the fact that you know there is redlining in Berkeley and I'm okay and Shattuck and you know just just that we like the rest of this country have a history that we we cannot ignore but you're not always be proud of so I appreciate you sort of articulating it with the clarity and the honesty that you have and for the work that went into providing it a couple of different comments and I guess I'll start by saying that I lived a half block south of LeConte for nine and a half years and I'm still in the listserve Alcott neighborhood Association and as I think you know I grew up near Washington Elementary and Berkeley high I currently live a little bit
098away from Malcolm X and if we were going to build a facility or to put up lights or change the physical structure of a site in such a way that it had a real impact on the community one hundred percent agree that the that the the neighbors are a stakeholder in that process because there is a direct impact on those neighbors from the physical change of the school site but the purpose of a name of a school site is to inspire the school community the students the the staff the families and so well I I can appreciate if a Neighborhood Association which chooses to name itself after the school is interested in that process as a policy I would respectfully disagree with the assertion that the neighbors have equal stake with the students staff and
099families of that school site and I and I and I just want to reiterate that that it was said at the last meeting that the students are transitory and the implication was that somehow they should care less or have less of a stake in the name of a school and I fundamentally disagree with that premise that we are here right now in this moment to educate our students and families and the name of our schools are part of that second point this is not something that should be done quickly and while I appreciate the urgency of the community we don't want to simply change names because there's a better name I mean you know tile per elementary school may be a better name than Josh Daniels elementary school but that doesn't mean we should change
100it let's vote and so as the policy says the renaming of existing schools or major facilities shall only occur under extraordinary circumstances and after a thorough study which you clearly have done so I just want to sort of put that in the what I believe to be the proper context which is that we can't just change a school name of every five years it's got to be done after you know thorough study and not just because again there's there's a better name I think it's important that we just quote from another portion of the regulation that talks about if a name of a school is named after an individual the review shall examine whether the individual on the whole and we'll come back to that phrase has made outstanding contributions to the community or made
101contributions of state national or worldwide significance in light of the berkeley community's values and contemporary view of history so that reflects the fact that we are looking at the inspiration from today's perspective not from 1896 not from 1956 but from 2017 and the reason why when we wrote the policy it says on the whole is that there is no perfect person and in history we tend to idolize and demonize individuals but you know they they woke up they made mistakes they had successes they married they divorced maybe not appropriately but you know they they live life right and so for example Franklin Roosevelt which many people would consider one of the best you know the best presidents of all time he imprisoned a hundred thousand American citizens for years without any due process that does
102not mean he's a demon that does not mean he's Adolf Hitler it means that he is a human being who made egregious mistakes but also accomplished many important things and so I don't want us to pretend that LeConte Joseph LeConte was this unusual person for his time or that there wasn't a reason at the time for why they named the school after him at the time the Sierra Club and John Muir were doing some innovative things but what we recognize and should have recognized them but certain recognized today that those contributions to society are more than outweighed by the the awfulness of what he said and what he did and the probably millions of lives that he directly impacted in such a negative way through a munitions etc so I just I think I think
103it's important and you mentioned this in your presentation that it's not as if LeConte was you know devil and carne but he did some incredibly awful things and therefore it's not appropriate for us to name a school after him and given the opportunity you know it completely makes sense to me that we you know it is an extra ten seconds you've done the thorough review and it does justify the D naming and at the end I have some comments if the since it seems like there's a more pejorative here about next steps and director hamper you alluded to it but we should mention those thank you and thank you to all of my colleagues for those really eloquent remarks and I just want to add a few thoughts if you'll just did indulge me for
104a minute it did for all the reasons that you all have said but particularly what vice president Daniels said about the what was built into the policy was a reflection of the idea that we don't want to be just changing schools whenever there's a whenever there might be a better name and that we don't want to do this without careful study and research and so I think it's important that we all take the time to explain our decisions to take away a name that has been on a school building in Berkeley for over a hundred years so I want to start by thinking and and appreciating dr. Evans for delegating the this process from the district and to nataschab Erie the the board document was just incredibly well researched and nuanced and thorough and eloquent
105daenerys a thoughtful you know I think that the university is going to be looking at some buildings named after at LeConte and they would do well to pick up on the research that you have already done there was a I wanted to briefly mention a concern was raised I didn't hear tonight but a concern was raised last time that we might have had the wrong LeConte I think that miss Perry you you more than adequately proved address that concern that through documentary evidence that the school was named after Joseph LeConte even though John LeConte was also prominent his brother at the time I want to also acknowledge the question about does this open the floodgates director Hempel mentioned this or alluded to this you know do we rename everything now are we are we holding
106up every person that we name something after to an impossible standard of purity director daniels also mentioned this what about other facilities or schools named after individuals who owned slaves for example what about the name berkeley itself he was a slave owner what about others who said or did things in their lifetimes that cast some kind of shadow over their legacy as vice president Daniels just mentioned I view this very similar to what director Hemphill said I view this I think we need to look at each of these cases case by case as they come to us hopefully with the same diligence and care that was brought to us that this case was brought to us with and there may be some hard cases down the road that are brought to us at a later
107time I don't know for me the key thing is that the fact that harder cases exist is not an excuse for inaction in an easy case one important I believe looking at all the factors that we're supposed to look to in totality this is an easy case one important point again director Hempel mentioned this I just want to reiterate it is that LeConte is LeConte status as a Twi school in our district when we were about four or five years ago researching successful Twi schools one thing we learned from other districts and this was research that we did also with director labor Cutler was the importance of building an identity for the school around the name around the facility itself and I have long thought before I even knew anything about LeConte that it might
108be appropriate to change the name of the school that that is not a reason alone to change it under our policies is present dana's mentioned but to me it factors into my vote tonight I want to just take a minute and read from just a few short passages of Josefa Kant's writings because I want to highlight a point that that you made in the in the board document I think others have made and it's a response to his to the suggestion that his views on race were just a product of his time and I think even as painful as it is actually for me to say these words that latter one I think it's important that sort of for the record that people actually hear some of the things that he wrote in 1892 this
109was almost three decades after the end of the civil war it was I don't know if this is coincident or not is the year that Berkeley decided to name a school after LeConte this is from the race problem in the South that and there's a link to the entire document in the board document I'm just gonna read a couple of the passages he's one thing he wrote was he seemed to have reservations about whether slavery itself in in hindsight was you know an appropriate institution but he said all will admit the iniquity the incredible horror of the slave trade but the possession and use of inherited slaves is consistent with and may even be conducive to the highest morality he said slavery was probably at one time the only natural or even possible relation between
110the two races and was therefore right the evils were not in the institution but in its abuses he wrote some form or degree of control by the white race is still absolutely necessary in a passage that discusses other races he says in regard in this regard the inferior races may be divided into two groups those which are inferior because undeveloped and those which are so because developed the Negro is the best type of the first group and perhaps the Chinese of the second group the Chinese are a highly developed race but exclude extremely rigid under the influence of other races the Japanese are far more plastic the Negro has many fine and hopeful qualities he is plastic docile impressionable sympathetic and therefore in a high degree improvable by contact with the superior race and under
111suitable conditions in response to possible objections to his views that all men are born equal he explicitly rejected that premise he said the higher race must take control there's not a civilized community in the world that would not demand this he said if there's conflict between his views and the Constitution and the recent amendments to the Constitution the Bill of Rights he said I hope not but if there is so much so much the worse for the fundamental law and the constitutional amendments for it only shows that these are themselves in conflict with the still more fundamental laws of nature which are the laws of God someone reference really more earlier tonight but it's reminiscent of some of the worst worst things we hear in our public discourse today if there's ever a case in
112which the doctrine of a higher law was justifiable surely it was this and then finally race prejudice or race repulsion to use a stronger term is itself not a wholly irrational feeling it is probably an instinct necessary to preserve the blood purity of the higher race to me these quotes demonstrate that LeConte was a man who used his considerable intellect and power and authority to spread vile and far from universal views about the inferiority of races other than his own I've never experienced what it feels like to send a child of color to a school named after someone who held and disseminated these views but others have in others have spoken eloquently I'm almost done but I want to quote from an email that I received this morning from a woman named Monica bi let's
113key this morning she she has family in Berkeley she lives in Los Angeles and this is what she wrote LeConte owned many members of my maternal great grandmothers he was a brilliant but unkind and racist Confederate who made ammunition for the Confederacy in his chemistry labs in the slaves who were his assistants were forced to help him make explosives against the Union I have documents showing the prices he bought my family members for between 25 and 500 dollars it has made me sick to my stomach to see his name on schools there's a middle school here in Los Angeles I am half Jewish and half black seeing his name glorified to me as a kin to seeing Nazis glorified and we would never name an elementary school after a Nazi that he was a man
114of his time the argument that he was a man of his time rings false to me since there were many abolitionists and Union men at the time as well his writing on the beliefs of the inferiority of black people are revolting and don't reflect the spirit of inclusion of Berkeley I know how hypocritical his views are because Woodman's to implantation in riceboro where he lived and owned two sides of my family was a plantation that has one of the two preeminent botanic gardens in the United States the lakhan's used the free labor of my enslaved ancestors to cultivate some of the most exotic and new specimens of trees and flowers and had a rice farm that was engineered with the help of the enslaved people it took very intelligent men and women to assist the
115lakhan's with the science produced there my great-grandmother was born there and later moved to Philadelphia with her husband who was also born on LeConte land they lived in poverty as did my grandparents and father in four generations I got into Harvard and graduated with honors just like the lakhan's who owned my family I will never know how many how many of my family members who were contemporaries of Joseph LeConte might have also been known for great things had they not had they been allowed to read and were able to work with pay and go to college rather than being trapped working for the LeConte against their will for free for at least three generations in Berkeley it's a privilege to send your child to a school that is not named after someone who did not
116believe that your child had a right to be educated in Berkeley it's a privilege to send your child to school there's not named after someone who believed that your child was inferior to other children because of the color of their skin it's a privilege but it should be a right and tonight we are taking a step toward that ideal I'm a proud graduate of Columbus elementary school but even prouder of the fact that the school is now named after Rosa Parks that is not a racing history it's not white whitewashing the past it is progress toward a more inclusive welcoming and just public education system the superintendent's recommendation in our vote tonight represents similar progress in my opinion thank you would someone like to make a motion I'll move that we adopt the superintendent's recommendation
117to dname LeConte school I'll second it can we do a roll call vote director Hill yeah director Powell vice president Daniels yes president albert yes the [Music] recommendation has been approved I know Bryce Bernardino's wanted to make a couple comments about next steps just just very quickly and it this is eluded this is described in the [Applause] this is described in the memo but just to highlight a couple key things there's an advisory committee that the superintendent will bring back with information 3/4 of the advisory committee room members must vote to recommend a name they can recommend more than one name but every native they recommend three force need to support it you have six months from today and just as a reminder this is a recommendation that as director Hempel I think can talk
118about that ultimately the board has the authority to decide what the new name shall be and obviously we want the the committee recommendation but that the authorities still rests with the board and I think there was some misunderstanding about that the last time this process occurred and just want to clarify that that is the fact thank you anything else either if you want to add I just want to say briefly first of all to the point about the LeConte on campus it's the other brother that is john lecarre very briefly this has been as one would hope in a school district and educational process for all of us we've learned about LeConte we've learned about berkeley history and we've also learned about the process and this really is the first time that we've done this
119particular process in and one as you know I came to the board policy committee meeting a couple months ago and said could we include in this process a review of the process itself because it's we're learning as we go along and one of the things that I think we're learning is that building more space and more room for neighborhood and others who are interested is a good idea and I look forward to partnering with the board with the parents of staff and the neighbors as we go into the next steps of talking about possible new names that we can be sure that we have a very positive and collaborative and unifying experience together Thank You director Pehlwan yeah I just want to you know you did so much research and which I know you so
120I know you you're such a nerd you loved it yeah but I really and it's still it's still really great and I was wondering if there's a way to make it available at least to the community at LeConte but also just in general it's really interesting not just I mean even the history of the naming of our schools I found fascinating so I just would love it if there's some way that we can you know and maybe somebody would be willing maybe Berkeley side is Berkeley side here maybe Berkeley side wants to do a piece I hope and on the names of our schools or something like that sure I think that would be great and I also have to say that as much as I've you know enjoy delving into this I'm no expert
121and you know we have we have an expert right here in this room with Steve finicum the Berkeley Historical Society we have lots of resources here and I think this is a beginning we can build on and but in the meantime sure we can share what we have and hope to make it an opportunity for more learning thanks so much okay we're now moving to item 13.1 so miss B's and Miss deco so I just want to say I'm proud to see Ruby and Abby again Ruby and Abby had the opportunity to present at our two by two meeting which is a partnership between the city and ourselves the district in talking about what we can do with mental health at the high school mental health actually is a rising issue not only in our
122district but across the nation and to have them present and what they want to do is pretty amazing coming from our students and you guys are pretty amazing I must say that as a director pala stated earlier unfortunately we only bring in this piecemeal we'd like to come back to the board at a later time as we talk about mental health and more in a comprehensive way so but tonight we're bringing a proposal actually and that will bring back as we talk about mental health overall so with that I'd like to turn it over to Abby and Ruby wanted to say thank you for sharing all the LeConte history and that was a inspiring vote so we have ten minutes to do this that's right so yes we're talking about the mental and emotional education
123team thank you for inviting us to present tonight so this is a proposal coming from the Youth Commission for a mental health peer education program at Berkeley High and Berkeley Technology Academy all right so just a bit of background about why we believe that this program is necessary we know from the National Institute of Mental Health that 20% of youth ages 13 to 18 live with a mental health disorder and 50% of lifetime mental health issues begin by age 14 essentially upon the entering of high school at Berkeley High in particular there is no formalized mental health education most students will receive at most a few lessons about stress management from a teacher with no background in mental health the mental and emotional education team or meet which is modeled after the successful sexual health
124information from teens shift program would train a cohort of students from BHS and Berkeley Technology Academy to teach lessons about common mental health disorders coping skills ways to get help and participants with service leaders in reducing stigma and breaking down barriers to serviço service access currently there exists a climate of silence and isolation at Berkeley high around mental health there is no type of open dialogue you can see that everyday being in that school out of 242 BHS students that we surveyed last spring 60% reported having experienced mental emotional health struggles at some point during high school 58% of those who self-identified mental health means said that they had never accessed care in addition seventy-five percent of African and male quote african-american males with mental health needs did not access care as they are one
125of the groups who faces more stigma in doing so speaking on the impact of this climate at Berkeley high actually another student mental health advocate did a smaller survey of about 150 students and found that more than half of them had missed one or more days of school due to mental health issues so that's a pretty striking statistic 32% of that group had self medicated for stress depression anxiety or other mental health issues with marijuana and prescribed adderall or others alcohol and other substances and so we know that for students who already are facing educational barriers mental health would certainly be another one that would contribute to the achievement gap so why we think peers are an appropriate resource to address this issue we already have trainings like Mental Health First Aid for youth in
126Berkeley and that are teaching adult employees of the USD to identify students in crisis and connect them to services but we don't have that type of resource for students and actually we checked in about the Mental Health First Aid for youth training and you have to be 18 to take it so but we found in our survey that 51% of students said that a friend or other student would be the first person they went to if they were having a mental health issue but most students or it was a fifth of students said that they were sorry only a fifth of students said that they thought that their peers would be comfortable fielding that kind of concern so we think that if we can train students up that'll really help them support their peers additionally
127when we did survey social living teachers all of them expressed an interest in peer educators as a resource as something they would be much more comfortable with having they themselves have not received training or curriculum on how to teach this but they expressed that even if they had they would still prefer a peer education model so at the 2x2 this is you so the so the Berkeley high school health needs assessment was a study done recently by Alameda County and UCSF and they finished it this summer and so a couple of the findings that we thought were really relevant to the meet proposal one is that services right now are really focused on intensive intervention and crisis response although the goal is to do more around prevention and early intervention so we know that something's
128kind of there's a something missing and the services currently also stakeholders that's students and parents were unclear on what services are available at the health center and or how to access them and then also that there's cultural tensions and service provision students especially students of color don't feel like this services are super relatable so the recommendation that came out of the needs-assessment or some of them were to build relational trust among stakeholders and service providers to conduct regular outreach to increase awareness of available services and how to access them and then to create youth leadership and peer mentorship opportunities and we think that meet fulfills those three recommendations yeah and I was at the budget review committee meeting yesterday and I think it's widely recognized at this point that academic counselors are having to kind
129of shoulder the burden of a lot of mental health work because the health center isn't able to provide all of those resources for a variety of reasons mainly due to the city funding with the potential cut of some counselors the Health Center will be even more kind of overwhelmed with students who some of which are like if we just talk about the amount of students actually going to the health center that's only a fraction of the students who need who need care because most are not accessing that care we believe that giving these skills to students directly can put more power in the hands of students as well as reduce the load on the whole center so just a brief overview of our proposal our objective is to train a cohort of peer educators to
130execute two-day presentations focused on well which would be in all freshman social living classes in the spring presentations will include an overview of mental health of storage and symptoms coping skills what to do if someone is in crisis how to reduce stigma and how to connect with existing resources this will require a licensed clinician or trained AmeriCorps pursue graduate student intern who would be preparing curriculum interviewing and teaching peer educators and providing support during presentations educators would receive a stipend equivalent to that of shift students and those numbers are outlined on your paper educators are participating by weekly two-hour trainings for the first semester and why weekly one-hour trainings for the second semester will they will focus directly on presentations presentation skills and more leadership training meet would be a graded class with the required
131attendance and assessments to ensure educators are knowledgeable and accountable and our total estimated cost is about 93 thousand which was number generated by stadium boys would be a City of Berkeley 0.5 FTE health center employee which costs about 78,000 with benefits the nurse applies information technology and other materials which can cost up to five thousand and stipends for participants totaling about ten thousand additional funding would be contingent on a review of the first year pilot program in terms of that review a program assessment possibly another survey as we've conducted in the past will be incorporated into the responsibilities of the trainer and educators just a brief timeline about where we've been so far so last November November 2016 the Youth Commission established a mental health subcommittee it's been began work on the proposal which Abby
132and I both spearheaded and in February we administered a survey which we went over earlier of 240 s to students we also serve at all student social living teachers and yet received unanimous positive feedback in April the Youth Commission approved the meet proposal and requested joint funding from City Council and the school board in June the council referred the proposal to the 2x2 and agreed to consider funding in the meteor budget and then just recently in October we were presented to the 2 by 2 so that essentially concludes things and we want to open thank you both so we can I think we have ten minutes for our discussion now um I have a couple questions yeah thank you that was great and and the whole thing is just impressive and and I'm really deeply
133grateful for all the work that you've done so the stipend the syphon is for the students who are due the shift students get a stipend they do yes if ship students get paid about seven dollars per hour and are they do they also do it as a graded class yes they get credit for it so it which we think is a really positive thing because then they're like getting this class credit as an incentive to kind of bring more diversity of students into the space as well as to kind of show that there is value in this work and that it can actually be rewarded both monetary and of academic value okay I totally sold on the class part of it I would it seems like and there's a number of different student things that
134students do that they don't get paid for sure that if if we if we were short on funds which we obviously are certainly yeah I wonder what you thought about what how important that part of it is and that you have to commit to anything I'm just wondering yeah originally we had been thinking of lower stipend certainly and then reviewing this like when comparing it to the shift program definitely how is and then is shift how is shift funded I don't know if you know they surf do you know shift is funded exclusively through the city through the Public Health Department okay yeah it's a hundred percent from the city in terms of who so is it the same idea where there's someone a professional who's training the students who were trying to then go
135out into the classes turn the mic towards you I love it because it's an established program I think and they have their curriculum all set up like they do some edits every year but it's like basically done they train the AmeriCorps interns to do it and so there's I think like one or two American for interns who teach the students the class they meet they actually meet a little more often than we were planning to meet and they do every week but so obviously that's like a little bit of a different situation cuz we would need to develop the curriculum but there's a teacher how they didn't credit the interns the AmeriCorps interns are the teachers they like have tests that they do in terms of like receiving class credit when we were talking to
136Lisa Stern about this I think she might need that person who makes that happen she had suggested that we find a academic teacher who would be willing to sponsor this then like have be reported to by an inch or whoever was doing the trainings about attendance and assessments and stuff like that who could then kind of run that illuminate page okay and just one last question about shift I know this isn't a proposal about shift but because you're modeling it on check um you refer to it as successful like can you say a little bit more about why either you the two of you think shift is so successful or have any what surveys their evaluation has been done of shift it so demonstrates its successes I just because I know shift from my time
137at the California school based Health Alliance because I think it's recognized statewide as a model for peer education and reproductive health and the program itself has been very intentional in who they select as the shift educators so they are largely like they make sure that they have a lot of young men and they have a lot of young men of color and they really really try to reflect the student body so I I don't actually I don't know what formal evaluations have been have been done but I know that the reputation is very positive and I know adults who did the shift program you know many years ago it's been going on for a really long time and the impact that it had on them and the school I feel like the students really know
138about the shift I don't know what they call them the ship the shift workers or the shift students which is I think pretty impressive so they're pretty pervasive I I do I I think that this is a great idea and I appreciate all the work that you went that went into it but I guess the question that I have is we're gonna get the money from in a year that we are looking at cutting 1.8 million dollars of existing program including support staff at Berkeley high that it's hard for me to see unless it's grant money this would add another hundred dollars a hundred thousand dollars of cuts someplace else and so that's kind of you know the the issue that I have now I don't know if this is something that could be funded
139through beefs up for example as as part of our enrichment funds if it's a class that you get grades for if you get credit for that might be a possibility you know as a one-year pilot with the caveat that then it has to be grant funding I mean somewhat like you know that I mean I think that those are things that I'd like to explore which we obviously this is a discussion area not an action item but I don't think at this time at least for me as much as I think this is a great program that I can see where else I would cut another hundred thousand dollars where I think there's going to be a very difficult discussion on this board around the cuts that are already proposed so that's really where I'm
140coming from is you know if there's a way that we can do it one time maybe be some money as a pilot and I would think that there would be grant funds at the county level or the state level for this kind of work particularly since it's modeled of modeled on a very successful program so I'm supportive I just I'm going to be happy I'm gonna have to be making some difficult notes as it is that I'm not going to want to have to do and I think I'm gonna put this in that category that unless we can figure out a funding that wouldn't deepen the cuts so you already have to make I think it's a great idea but it may not be the time but I am open to hearing Polly and I
141don't know that you can answer this now but you know this comes back and you know is there be sub funding you know is there one-time funding that we could do it on a pilot basis with the caveat that's not ongoing I could not make an ongoing general fund commitment just because of where we are fiscally in our district has nothing to do with what I think with the merits of the program of the work that you put in I think that's really I think that's a point that that come up and I'm curious because I know that dr. Sadler said that she thought that she had some funds to cover this and I also know the city has offered to pay for half of it so i'm but i i'm very i'm not i
142was curious also when I heard that Pat had identified some funds do you know what those are we haven't talked about those directly but I know she does have some flexibility and in her state and federal funding that we don't have but as we go down that huge hit lists of a hundred 1.8 million there may be other things that we could fund with that money so you know to me it's part of seeing it as a whole as well probably is not just looking at theirs what are the possibilities but when we get that list are we choosing this program versus another you know I mean that it's it's gonna we're all so we're talking trade-offs here so I also think in thinking about it further I probably like to see this program in
143the context of all the budget decisions were going to be making and I I hate to snow to sound like a debbie downer but it's really is nothing to do with the work that you've done or what I believe that this program could do it really has to do with you know a very difficult fiscal year I want to know what's on the table what are the decisions were making as a whole before I make specific commitment and it can be I mean we can have the discussion as part of budget priorities which would be it was just I think you know kind of what you're saying and I do think it's significant that if the city is willing to pay for half of it obviously that makes a big difference but but I would
144also I mean I agree with with with your concerns and share them too and and it would also like to see it in the context of other mental health needs and I know that we're I think dr. Evans mentioned this but and you alluded to it which I appreciated the report from the county that that highlights needs sort of across the whole field of Berkeley high mental health needs and so I think a question for us too is if we have if we've identified funds that can go towards mental health at Berkeley high where the where should we where they best spent this would certainly be everything yeah and I appreciate your saying that because this isn't really a question about the the proposal which I've heard before I and I think is really well
145done and and I think would really benefit a large number of students what I what I would like to see is a request from the superintendent just to say it publicly I've told you privately as well as that I really do want to have a presentation from UCSF and County of the mental health assessment that was done of Berkeley high much like we had a report back from of the one that was done K through 8 and I think you know in the context of making our decisions that might be that you know we should be aware of what the kind of the the quota the deficits that were that were identified I think in that in that in that assessment and yeah and I was also I mean I was also wondering well there
146we go I was Ella made this finished that this thought is I was looking at your proposal and I was actually wondering given the amount of students how many students are you proposing 10 to 15 yeah I'm not sure that would actually take a full-time person to manage that program oh it is 0.5 at 77045 so that was the estimate that was given to us by the city about what they currently paid their health centers uh-huh but I wonder if for example it was like contracted out for 90 days to somebody to create curriculum or if that was something that was suggested test before like if there's ways to kind of change that number of it right or if we were to have another mental health counselor that the city was gonna pay that one
147of their duties could be to lead this program we are so up for cutting costs wherever that's possible we've just been wanting to kind of cover all of our bases good any pot of money we don't care where that money really comes from but I will say we are both seniors we are so eager to begin work on this I would love love love to you know develop curriculum and be able to do that kind of work and create some type of longevity and put that into place I will say that wherever be USD and the city is investing money and mental health right now it's really severely insufficient something needs to happen I think this would be a wise step if it's not this it needs to be something else because it's the needs
148are not being met director and I can answer um really quick just last note I think that regardless of what the board ends up deciding on this policy IBM Ruby you guys have done we'll work this is definitely something that really needs to be addressed within the district and within the Berkeley high community and whether or not it's with this proposal which i think is a great idea but it definitely something definitely is a big question you guys are really all inspiring and it's really humbling to know that I like go to school with you guys and you're doing such amazing work so great job you too once fangirling you I I guess just to put in a pitch for this particular proposal and I hear you caring about the funding I definitely obviously we've
149got some big tough decisions to make but I just think it's also this is the first time in five years that I've been here that we have a really comprehensive well thought-out student-generated proposal like this and I would like to give it a try because I don't think we do enough of that and so I just I didn't want to leave the meeting without saying that I mean there's I think there's a lot of value in the fact that it came from students and you did a really comprehensive and responsible job and putting it before us so thank you are when we mentioned budget priorities that's a process that starts in January or February where we review all the different things that are on the list for funding both one-time and ongoing so that will
150be when we probably bring this back for further discussion about whether we were able to fund it for next year thank you again thank you for your time now we have dr. Evans item 13 point 2 which is our state of the district so I I don't think I've been down here this many times in the last couple of years this is the most I've been down here at this seat so the connection seems to work for you and it doesn't work for anybody else them does I have it close to my mouth so thank you for allowing me to present on the state of the district in the past I've always presented on our priorities and our initiatives but tonight I get to present on the state of the district and that's really looking
151at what we've done what we're currently doing and what we want to do for this year you know we have an amazing district just what you've heard tonight and our incredible students that represent us it really embodies our mission and values of what we believe and they're all encapsulated into our four ease excellence in terms of teaching and learning equity for all of our students and outcomes our finances engaging our families our students in our community and our enriching activities and classes our music all these things make us special and unique and be USD when I looked at the state of the district I looked at our local control accountability plan as a guide as a map for how we're doing and what we want to do and I looked at the three goals and
152so I looked at data points in terms of what we're doing and and what we can improve upon to make this district a better place for our students and for our families and our L cap goals really looks at the high quality classroom instruction culturally linguistically responsive systems and how do we create a safe and welcoming inclusive environment and so I looked at some data points and I chose third grade because third grade is a good predictor of success for our students when we look at the L cap goal number one I looked at our TC rwp which is our Teachers College reading writing project program and that's our district assessment and we look at when we look at the number of students proficient or above proficient it looks like we're doing quite well in
153fact you'll see double-digit growth for African Americans or Latino students as well as their socio-economic disadvantage students and our unduplicated students but when you look at our smarter balanced assessment which is by the state for our third grade students there's it seems like here there's a difference between the students who are proficient and granted our district assessments looking at just reading and this is looking at English language arts as a whole and you can see where we our scores have declined we've gone down in all of our categories which is something we can look at when we look at the data and look at those skills but what it does tell us is that and in it I just want to say to the board this is just one assessment that's given you know one
154day or during the course of a week a one-time thing when we when our district assessments are or something that we give several times during a year and not only we give in district assessments we're also giving weekly assessments to really guide what we're doing when you look at math we have our statewide assessments and here's an area that we have been looking at not only third grade but eighth grade and 11th grade but when you look at them eighth grade math assessments you can see where we've improved in actually we've had double-digit growth with our students with disabilities and our Hispanic students but all of our students made our increase their performance over the last year except for our white students so as we address K through 8 in what we need in terms
155of academics we are looking at strengthening our coordination of service teams looking at that tier one was happening in the classroom but also those additional support and resources that our students need outside of what we're providing you know at the at the tier 1 level we're looking at aligning what we're doing in summer school with we're doing in the classroom and the administer we're spending for English language learners what are we doing to increase the student success with the LD instruction when I look at the high school particularly 11th grade the assessment that we that we've given in particularly last year we've seen a decline in the number of students participating the tests and we ask ourselves you know what happened here why are students not taking this test and when you look at it's
156about the time when we're giving our advanced placement tests our IB tests and when we've talked to some of our students while they're not participating in its test many of them say you know here's the reasons and one of the reasons that we're preparing for other tests and some of our students have said they don't take this test seriously and from those students that have taken the test we can see the results are not very good in fact you can see by the red in these cells where we've gone down quite considerably in math as well as English language arts and so these numbers are very disappointing and again this is one test one measurement but we are doing other things at the high school to monitor our success and one example of that is
157our writing program for our 9th and grade 9th and 10th grade students we've been working on constructive meaning we are providing a pre and post assessment and you can see some of the skills that the teachers are working with students on throughout the year from thesis to cohesion reasoning and we know that these skills will help them as they become college and career ready I'm also proud to say that we've seen gains in terms of the graduation rate for all of our groups you can see the biggest gain has been our English language learners with 7.8 percent growth and the number of students that we have you see CSU eligible you can look at the green cells and see the positive change that we've made from 16 2016 in 2015 with double-digit growth for right
158and latino students but what's concerning to me is our african-american students and really looking at why this is the case and really drilling down to why our kids are not being UC CSU eligible and really looking at how school how they see school how school is perceived and making it more meaningful to these students over the last couple of years and since I've been here I believe the way that we can make change in this district is really looking at how do we build the capacity of our teachers and our administrators to do this work because research shows that the biggest impact on student achievement is going to be the teachers working with our students and there's three strands to the professional development that we provided not only this summer but that we're providing this
159year I've always talked about how important collaborative teams are professional learning communities because they really stressed the four critical questions which is around the goals what do we want kids to be able to know and then the intervention how do we know what they've learned what do we do how to respond when they don't know it and how to respond when they do know it those four critical questions really drive teaching and learning and makes a big difference when teachers are able to collaborate in a meaningful way because it has a powerful impact on students and so we providing been providing additional training around the professional learning communities we've also provided a lot of training around effective teaching practices giving teachers more tools in their toolbox to be able to do the work but last
160year the board adopted English language arts program at the middle schools and here's talking about a lot of educational but it's really naming a vital part of the curriculum which is this idea of inquiry or questioning and not only are we building the capacity of our teachers we're also building capacity of our administrators and this year I'm really proud to say that we've been taking our teachers through as well as our administrators to the art of coaching and and why this is important because our teachers are facilitating many of the initiatives that we're implementing at the school sites and I wanted to share with you an excerpt from me enables us to focus on the world or the schools which is encouraging students and empowering them a successful student because we are leading teams of
161teachers just as teachers are leading students and I think that having the opportunity to learn and grow with them is very important and I'm also really understanding that once we give a PD for teachers and for administrators it's really important that we revisit that PD and we get multiple opportunities to practice just like you would if you're learning a new skill you would need to be able to practice that skill over and over again so I'm really excited about the art of coaching and the work we're going to be doing as administrators as we build the capacity of our teachers and administrators to do this work it's really important to understand that and I know that there's been questions around the amount of money that we spent in professional development but we know that building
162this capacity will make a difference for the outcomes for for our students over the last couple of years especially the last two years we have hired a consultant to really help us attract and retain teachers of color in fact we have increased the number of teachers in the last two years as a result of this effort we're also looking at a new program that will help us look at our classified employees in providing a pathway so that they can become teachers as well we've expanded equity strategies this is really important when you saw the results for some of our students of color you know these strategies will help engage more of our students of color and bring them into by really looking at valuing what they bring to the table their culture and how that
163is important in understanding the world as it is we promote a cultural competency training as well as providing restorative justice training as well when I look at our third goal value safe welcoming inclusive environments I look at some of the data that we have provided for us in terms of what we've done and how that has impacted us reducing the absentee rate for many of our students and you can look at the green cells and see the change and where we made a difference in chronically absenteeism looking at the dropout rate and again the green cells indicate the change in a positive direction and when we look at secondary suspensions again we made a positive difference in reducing the suspension rate for grades 7 through 12 and what I'm most excited about is the work
164that we're doing this year as we prepare for our ninth grade Universal program and we're looking at about seven houses with about a hundred and twenty-one students or 120 some students that we're going to be implementing next year we really believe that this will address some of the issues that we're experiencing at the high school we know it won't address all of our issues but it will address some and for the students to be able to come into to the high school having the same group of teachers that can collaborate together this will make a difference in how our students are experiencing high school for the first time we're working on our intervention class which is our leap class currently right now I know the next couple of weeks we're looking at staffing who those
165teachers might be we're securing the fund it's going to cost about cost us about five hundred thousand dollars more to fund this program and to sustain it and here are some of the other things that we are doing this year to engage in and create the safe environment for our students I just want to highlight our mental health services and expanding that as you heard from Abby and Ruby tonight this is something that we really have to seriously look at our kids are experiencing school very different than ten years ago and they're coming to us issues that need to be addressed and if we don't address these issues it makes it very difficult for them to access the education that we have before them providing a lot of training for a student leadership around green
166dot which is our anti-bullying sexual harassment curriculum we feel that this will make a difference in how kids experience school so when we look at our finances and organizational systems I can't but help bring to our attention the budget we've been having quite a few meetings with our budget Advisory Committee and we've been meeting for the last June in order to do many of the things that we want to do we have to look at our budget we've had we've had a positive certification for the last since I've been here and that basically means that we can meet our financial obligations and actually the subsequent two years but in the past couple of years we've been deficit spending and due to a variety of reasons stirs and purrs in a host of other things but
167we do have to make budget reductions of about 1.8 million dollars for 1819 it's been a very difficult process for some but we know that this will help us remain solvent within the district we are planning on bringing a recommendation to the board in January and I just want to throw in the fact that we our bond rating is double a-plus which helps us and actually saves taxpayers tons of dollars and it helps us with our bonds as we look at our facilities we've actually changed how we view facilities and looking at our educational program driving our facilities plans more specifically as when you look at our career technical education program and looking at what those needs are and having facilities [Music] provide a program that meets our students needs right now we have identified
168several major projects we have about a hundred and ten million dollars but we have about 260 million dollars of projects and so we have a Facilities Committee that some of you are on really looking at the scope of many of these projects and we hope to bring to the board a recommendation so we can narrow this the scope of this some of these projects last year our voters voted for measure e this is the first year of measure e and just to remind our viewers that's 20% of our budget that 60% of that budget supports smaller class sizes as well as technology music libraries in addition to that we are able to increase our site discretionary funds and also this year is the beginning of the balanced class size and starting kindergarten in our elementary
169schools and this measure also allows us more release time for our prep teacher for our teachers in grades 1 through 3 and it gives teachers more time to collaborate so that's where what we've done where we are now but as I look at what we've done we've engaged the community we've talked to parents we've talked to our community but I feel like we've not done enough to engage our students you've heard from our students over the last couple of years but more recently the last couple of months and I really feel that this year we need to make a big difference and I have actually engaged our students in several conversations in the last couple of weeks on how do we make a difference for our students I'm here in the USD how can we
170change that experience one of the students said to me you know being in be USD has been good it could be so much better but what does better look like and so these conversations will help me make a difference in improve be USD in a meaningful and relevant way and this is just the beginning and what we're trying to do is document change and how change happens through the lens of the students and I think that will make a big difference and the last thing I want to say is is not only very engaging our students more but also our community and looking at the 20/20 vision and as we look at the 20/20 vision and even though many of those goals are aligned to our local control accountability plan but we're also looking at
171the Berkeley promise which will provide funding for our students to to go beyond the height their high school years we're also looking at our classified employees and as well as our partners to strengthen our CTE programs we feel that all of these things will make a difference and change the state of the district and making a more meaningful and relevant place for our students thank you thanks so much succulents that was I was wonderful are there any thoughts or comments I know we're at time but is anyone want to it's great thank you so much and maybe we can edit you know cut that and put it on the website so so people can view it as a standalone presentation and that'd be great so now we're now we move to item 13.3 Nutrition Services
172assistant superintendent follows be can you introduce this item for me okay so good evening this we're going to be hearing from Marnie and Bonnie giving us an update on program as well as fiscal implications in the nutrition services program okay sorry we're trying to get this oh there it goes there it goes it's working yes yes first I'd like to introduce myself morning boozy director nutrition services and Bonnie Christensen she's the executive chef for the department we're here to just give you an update on the current standing of the nutrition services department and provide you with information that we feel will shed light on the directions we're heading and ask the board for your continued support of our program I know last year we had some issues with some of our funding Oh some of
173our funding so we wanted to bring to you what we have done to kind of correct that and I think that we've actually moved in the right direction overall just as a revenue history overall that nass budget is 3.8 million dollars our salaries are about 61% benefits 18 food and supplies 30% operating expenses 9% Universal breakfast maximize the amount of meals for needy funding subsidizing the lunch program and UB was rolled out gradually between 2004 and 2006 school year 1314 meals for need for needy is no longer a line item in the budget and needs to be calculated from the a da L cap tiered funding based on free and reduced and paid in the past meals for needy was determined by rates of participation versus the L cap which is a flat rate in
174both school years 1415 and 1516 the district withheld a thousand dollars from the entitlement to support the general fund school year 1617 Nutrition Services Department experienced loss of revenue breakfast revenue in addition to decline in participation and staffing challenges in school year 1718 projections reflect changes to UB which is on the next slides based on current predict projections this number is expected to decrease so breakfast in 2017 process and projections breakfast revenue was at eighty nine thousand two hundred and thirty in September of 2016 this year 2017 breakfast revenue has risen one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the month of December we have an increase of revenue of thirty five percent the breakfast revenue comparison it it shows you what was happening in the 16 and 7 versus 17 do the changes that we've
175currently made this school year to breakfast service and accounting we are collecting thirty five percent more revenue fed on state reimbursements could combine September 2016 total breakfast revenue at eighty nine thousand versus total revenue for September 2017 and one hundred twenty thousand for an increase of thirty five percent or thirty one thousand overall increase from last year so this is what we're doing differently breakfast service all brands are breakfast items are distributed to all students present in the classroom it's placed on their desk in front of them breakfast meal accounting is linked to attendance now the students that are there the students that are fed previously students came up and grabbed their choices from the breakfast bin they may or may not have grabbed a reimbursable meal this is a chaotic and difficult to control
176and monitor and record teachers had to check out participating student names from a breakfast sheet really difficult these had to be updated regularly and Nana's nutrition service employees had to input each name ID number into their computer system it took a lot of time for our staff to do this oops did I go too far sorry yeah yeah cuz I have more no because breakfast reimbursement is determined by attendance this is a reliable method for projecting future revenue is an accurately captures reimbursement for actual foods being served so that was the reason for the increase of 35% we're actually capturing every student that's eating instead of kids being served meals and not being accounted for for bait so basically we weren't getting reimbursements and we were also giving away food for free so it was
177a double hit to us so a look at our lunch program and what's happening with our lunch program we have some projections from four to seven 2017 September of last year at lunch revenue was at 73,000 September of 2017 our revenues at 63 we have a decrease overall of 14% September lunch revenue at 73,000 verses total revenue for September of 63,000 for a decrease 99 it's about nine thousand nine hundred seventy eight dollars and decrease there's reasons for this and we've actually yeah we actually I'm sorry the budget breakdown kind of explains where the money is going to and why it's so hard for us to continue the expenses the salaries alone out of our total budget are forty three forty three percent benefits are 17 almost 18 percent food and non-food supplies are at
178twenty nine percent and operating expenses are at nine percent our salaries are really high and did increase because of our staffing challenges the contributing factors to declining participation rates we have more stringent nutritional requirements ruled out starting 2012 through 2018 recess is after lunch in all cases causing drop in participation up to 50% classroom pizza parties before and during lunch is causing problems incentivizing incentivizing students with junk food rewards and eating outside the cafeteria is also a decline in participation our records show a decrease in participation for example at LeConte when recess was changed from before lunch to after students want to get outside as soon as possible it takes time to line up get their meal sit down and eat it when LeConte was doing recess before lunch our participation was 50% more when
179they stopped that a few years ago it decreased has a lot to do with part of this decrease in the in the meals we see Domino's around Table Pizza being provided for school parties something we can do in our in our kitchen we can provide the pizzas it's healthy fits within our longest policy having contests that use outside food as rewards during lunch and eating outdoors away from the cafeteria this draws attention to students also who are unable to bring their food to school or unable to provide their own foods and they have to they they rely on our program other considerations are staffing challenges we had a lot of vacancies we have a we we don't have a sub pool the reorg allowed us to shift hours to lengthen some positions in order to
180attract and retain more personnel do the increase cost of living in the Bay Area specifically housing we are no longer able to find substitute employees who cover who cover when staff are out nutrition services experience about for absence on average a day Berkeley's Democrat demographics are changing changing due to the cost-of-living increases which I know you've all talked about with the housing issue food security Hep A last two months on kitchen counter and doorknobs norovirus last six weeks we serve a high-risk populations it's imperative that we minimize risk of exposure to these types of food and boardin illnesses Santa Monica Malibu you know Unified School District just had a problem with a food borne out outbreak it is all in our best interest to limit the district's liability there these the kitchens that we have
181are commercial kitchens that if not used properly can cause injury to the user improper use of school equipment can lead to damage exposing department to costly service and repair fees so all of these staffing challenges the reduced percentages of free and reduced students from 42 to 31% food security and safety we really need to limit access to central kitchen a district personnel we need to require Nutrition Services chaperones whenever nutrition kitchens are used after after-hours these all are are things that we have experienced over the past years and are asking for support from the board for we also want to talk about the benefits of your Nutrition Services program and what we provide to the students breakfast and lunch nourish our children for the hard work of learning additionally it supports an environment for learning
182hungry students are disruptive improves conscious cognitive function students are exposed to a variety of foods throughout their learning career which broadens their palate and encourages healthy eating habits that are life for me sustainability green waste less packaging better utilization seasonality we have more control over cost we eliminate the middleman control actual volume of the food produced based on orders ability to use overages food is more nutritious it's fresh is more nutrient rich than processed or frozen less less sodium less preservatives no food dyes we have greater control studies show that students may consume less after school when they eat a healthier school meal so school lunches can potentially play an important role in addressing the high obesity rates among children work with local businesses to customize recipes that feed our students and support local businesses
183our bagels that we serve every Friday are from fourth Street bagel and we worked with them very closely years ago to get a bagel that would meet our Wellness Policy all of our breakfast items that we have all of our baked goods we've worked very closely with those individuals to create these recipes that meet within our Wellness Policy because our Wellness Policy is so stringent that we it's hard for us to find products to use so we have to reach out to these companies we have received proposals from private organizations recently that want to eliminate the National School Lunch Program and the UV guidelines we feel this would cause a district to lose all government well it would cause a district to lose all government funding for all food programs including childcare after-school snacks Universal
184breakfast and the National School Lunch Program we follow the guidelines and in fact exceed them securing continued funding from state and federal government agencies our hope our program has been lauded by CDE and other organizations for its quality innovation and compliance we have passed our audits with additional scrutiny paid specifically to our program one audit we had in two and seven with six auditors come including one from the USDA rather than the usual single Auditor surpassing all expectations as a result of our food program serves as a model for public schools all over the country CDE sent school districts to be USD for guidance on how to adapt their programs to incorporate more fresh cooking with fresh ingredients doing away with the state and federal guidelines with result loss of all government funding to replay
185to be replaced with donations putting the district at risk for financial liability donations are neither reliable sources of funding nor are they sustainable our next steps the support that we are requesting from the board we'd like the board to support our desire to have recess before lunch I have passed out I think I think they passed out the information so there's some information there about recess before lunch in them and and how it is supports the children so we're asking the board for support moving recess before lunch at all elementary schools comprehensive district-wide adherence to be us DS food policy in order for the Nutrition Services Department to remain in the black we need the support of the entire district community around our districts food policy nutrition services department is required to adhere to this
186food policy strictly when other departments are selective about interpreting the following following and following the food policy we're at cross-purposes we need to be an agreement that the district's food policy applies to all and it is all a responsibility and best interest to support this will increase our participation and support our mission one more thing there's a couple more things but something that has come up just this last week regarding new microwaves and the reason why we're so strongly trying to encourage new microwaves in classrooms one of my supervisors just what this last week to a school site and viewed seven kids waiting in line to use the microwave unattended and unsupervised we all know what can happen if a child BRE heats anything to a certain temperature you you there's food dangers there's dangers
187in heating there's dangers of being burned and we see microwaves in every single cafeteria in our district in 2005 when Ann Cooper I don't know if everybody remembers Ann Cooper was here she went through to every single site and removed every single microwave and put them in her little Prius car and drove them to our warehouse they're back microwaves are a safety and foodborne illness hazard well not user clean correctly microwaves and student cafeterias are not moderate cleaned or used properly microwaves encourage poor food choices for example we see kids eating cup of noodles we're looking for the board to send a clear message in support of the Food Policy and the district's meal program we also would like to encourage all of you to join us for lunch at the King Dining Commons so
188thank you for the presentation and so we I just want to remind the board that we brought this item to the board because of looking at ways where we can reduce the contribution from the general fund and so I want to open this up for discussion I know you have mentioned a couple of things but I think it's important around when we provide lunch and how that's made a difference in one of the schools so I'll just leave it at that and we can look at some of the other things as well in terms of microwaves and everything we don't want anything to compete with the lunch program thank you for the presentation it was really helpful and I think I have a sense of trove and the specific sort of concrete suggestions on potential
189next steps I want to sort of if we can just understand a little bit more so I'm looking at on slide two the interfund transfers over the last few years and definitely recognize that in one year the board decided to since there was a ongoing structural surplus and a ending fund balance and the cafeteria fund that the board elected to not transfer transfer hundred thousand dollars less in order to help the general fund situation in the Great Recession exactly but as we see from 1516 to 1617 there was a large increase in the interfund transfer and I'm curious to know did the D was there a a sudden spike in the structural deficit or is that reflection of the fact that there was a previous structural deficit that was sort of being that didn't require
190the general fund to help because of the ending fund balance that you carried over and then after a couple years it ended and that's when you see the spike is is that so yeah we we had been covering the loss of the breakfast program for a long time and then when the ending fund balance ran out this is what ended up happening we've been talking about the breakfast being an issue for breakfast one way about five years ago and then we changed that and make it easier to no avail that didn't work out either so linking breakfast to attendance or accounting for breakfast through attendance eliminates that whole process altogether and what we're trying to show is that that is me the effective okay yeah assistance we didn't want to add anything to her I
191think he summarized it correctly we we initially looked at changing the way we we accounted for a breakfast program because we realized that that was a program that was generating generating the loss in the in the in the nutrition services program and we have just looking at one month we did see an increase in participation and and then actually we looked at October we just we just got the October numbers and we the trend is maintaining and it's essential that we um we meet our requirements because in the one of the recommendations on the budget reduction list is a reduction of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the program in 1819 which is also shown on this slide on slide two so in 1718 we're proposing to contribute eight hundred and eighty two thousand
192but in 1819 you could see we have a reduction a reduced amount by a hundred and fifty thousand to the seven hundred and thirty-two so it's important that we continue to monitor the program and to make sure that it it will be self-sustaining with a reduced contribution from the general fund and I think if we continue if it continues to the trend even with the breakfast decline by 14% the breakfast revenue is increasing by 35 and historically breakfast funding has subsidized the lunch program so yes even with lunch declining however we want to increase lunch revenue that is a significant aspect to our program and certainly it is our mission right it's to feed students a healthy nutritious lunch it's a significant meal so yes we do believe that if we continue at the rate
193of 35 percent based on attendance which won't change that's not going to fluctuate that should get us out of the red do that I mean there's a quick question on that did the October numbers for lunch show continue it's a 35% it was 34 low back over lunch okay so just so I understand we're talking about the bottom the bottom line there because we are in the 1718 school year so so as much as it would be fantastic to have an improvement in 1718 what were sort of the reason why were interested in all of this is because of the 1819 school year NBI so if if the 33 or 36 percent give or take for breakfast can increase continues and the 14 percent decline in lunch continues give or take and we're talking you
194know you know for the whole year do you think that putting or ignoring for a second 1718 would that create a situation for 1819 such that the contribution would be as listed there 730 mm or do you think that we need to do more than just what we're doing right now to hit that number so the contribution mannan when we said it was meals for needy money the the district had always provided that money to the Nutrition Services Department so if we're looking at getting completely going to zero on that if that's well I'm so I'm the question would be based upon what you see right now mm-hmm without any making any of the changes that you've recommended on slide 14 so just the just the improvements to the breakfast attendance and recognizing the reality
195of the lunch declines is do we think we will be in a position for next year where the interfund transfer is approximately 730,000 or do you think we need to do more beyond that to hit that okay so so the additional recommendations on slide 16 would strengthen our confidence that we could get there might be good practice in general and could potentially result in whether to carry an ending fund balance that would be good to generate just because things fluctuate well that well what would happen is the the extra money that we would have would go into the food that we provide to the students it would be more organics but hopefully you'd also set aside a reserve as well because we may we may be here in five years yeah I mean I I'm
196all supportive for strengthening the program itself and that's why we're doing it but we'd want to make sure we build up a safety net of some sort okay and and I'm sure there are our monthly fluctuations you know and in meals just because of you know and that you know that well at what point in this year do you feel like we could safely say we're on track I mean one month does not a trend make and so when we look at three months six months eight months at what point would we confidently be able to say like we're pretty confident that we're gonna hit that 35 percent is gonna continue at what point would we say well and I guess I asked because just a you know the background we need to make budgetary
197decisions in January my sense is that that's probably too soon to see a trend I don't I don't think so yes but then there's the lunch the you know if the lunch goes down right I mean I'm just I'm just making sure that that it's great to have the breakfast revenue there and that's we can be confident but I I just don't take anything for granted right I think it would be beneficial actually to show up our lunch program as well it doesn't sound as if it's a huge commitment we made this slight change in our breakfast program that proved to be pretty beneficial for the program so I think if we started looking at the lunch program we could possibly save even more than a hundred and fifty dollars okay that's in the car
198targets I think we should look at all the methods that we can show up this way so I guess then I would ask when the recommendations from the SBAC come back to the board and the superintendent ations whether if they're different come back to the board if this is included in that that we don't need a presentation I think we this has been great we get updated numbers on both Rev on on breakfast and lunch so that we can be confident as much as we can that is a reduction that we believe we're gonna hit and then I just want to say that in terms of the other recommendations on slide 14 it's great to have these these are staff decisions that is you know too detailed for the board to get into and it
199may be simple as doing it there may be other nuances but that's between staff and determining you know how to make it how to make it work but for our purposes we're looking at what we would budget for purposes of the contribution and it sounds like we're on on our way there which is which is really fundamental which is really great to hear so I mean it's all I got thank you checked out but I just want to remind people we have two more items hi thank you so much for the presentation I think this is the first time at least in a while that I've we've had this so that's really great I have a couple of questions you know last year my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong but in part because
200of the staffing shortages there is an impact food that the kids were getting so there was a more pre-prepared meals and that were being heated up and it was it was a prepared meal so it was meals that we were it was the same meals that we were providing to everyone Madhu was we were packaging the meals that we were cooking from scratch because we didn't have enough staff to cover the school sites where we could serve them family-style like we currently do great so that's really helpful to know for whatever reason I think I guess my question is so that you're not doing that anymore now we're yeah so yeah that's what I thought so just wondering if you think that maybe one of the reductions maybe some of the dip some of the
201dip is is obviously because we have less free and reduced lunch students but I'm also wondering of some of the dip is also recovering from that you know there was a little bit of a moment there where there's a little bit of a bad rap and you know kids were complaining and so parents don't got it so you think that's the demographics got it okay [Music] so when we did those packaged meals yes you could see some dip and I have look at the numbers on a daily basis over the course of years and I have this on my desktop I study those regularly and so you can see that there is some dip but it's not significant when we had to go to single service and then when we went back you know that
202has recovered itself when we did the single service that's when a lot of the microwaves appeared and then so students start to bring more of their own food and just stopped participating and those my grades we see even more this year so I think microwaves are an issue I think demographics are an issue got it all right it's that was my only question I think Josh covered the rest of the financial questions I had I would just strongly urge staff to look at implementing the recommendations that you lined out I think that if you look at our food policy the encouragement of classes having kind of junk food for for for treats and and bringing in pizza as opposed to having a new a nutritionally sound lunch is definitely not consistent with the policy to
203have our kids eat healthy every day so you know just as we don't have vending machines in the schools and we shouldn't be encouraging unhealthy snacks particularly that are around lunchtime I also agree that this issue around recess I think is is is this is definitely a question and quite frankly I think as a rule we should not have microwaves I think having I would say what I call outside appliances are not a good idea in general you know most offices you know have policies against microwaves against refrigerators it increases your carbon footprint you know you have the issue of who's whose job is it to keep it clean if in fact it's not a district facilities if it's not a districts microwave you know who then keeps it clean not to mention the the
204possibilities of unsupervised kid youth and microwaves are not necessarily always a good idea so I really think that that definitely should be something that there should be a crackdown upon it's it's I get from it's nice to have those at work but we're adults but you know to have them in schools when you're talking about not necessarily the most responsible people and using them not to mention keeping them sanitary even if our staff is cleaning them every day after the fifth person I can only imagine and lastly the fact that it takes a long time I can imagine if you're waiting to get that five minutes or whatever that that's gonna that's gonna cause issue with everyone getting to it so I would really would encourage staff to it and I would like maybe an
205update that brought back because if this is in fact things that can staff can do in a minute on an administrative level I would like to know that they are happening and when they're being put into place for a couple of reasons one is we may get those emails those phone calls from from parents so you always like to know it's happened as opposed to oh I didn't know about that and also I just think that if we're looking at the budget I think that you know part of making sure that we're adequately but but but fiscally responsible in terms of our nutrition budget I think putting these kinds of things in place as part of that conversation that we've done what we can to maximize revenue and participation and ensure good healthy meals thank
206you thank you be quick it's just it's a I wanted to make a pitch which I meant to do which is that we really it is time I think for us to update our Wellness Policy and so I think so of that the items that you brought up could potentially be folded into our wellness parts and we had it the last just to respond to that on at the last policy committee me we had a that was briefly on the agenda and jezzer came and presented and so it's it's on the agenda and whoever's on next response the committee will bring to the board and January a board item yeah okay thank you thanks so much all right briefly item fourteen point one which is realm charter school fiscal update vice president Daniels pulled this
207for discussion please let's give him give us off three minutes two minutes so I'm just pulling up some some notes on this so I think it's important although it's just quick that we mentioned that we have heard a number of different presentations and discussions around the financial situation of our two realm charter schools this item is for information because as it says in the item based upon staff's review there has been no improvement in the fiscal condition of both schools and we continue to have serious concerns about their solvency and their ability to meet their financial commitments in the 1718 budget year and subsequent two fiscal years and then in the event that there is insufficient improvement in Rome's financial position at first interim which is January of 2018 staff may recommend initiating the revocation
208process in January 2018 so this is that would begin a very serious step in that process and we really do need to see something significantly change in realms financial position to feel comfortable at least for me not expecting that there will be some initiation of that process it would if that were to happen at that time we talk about the timeline but it would there were to happen and things were to proceed as and nothing were to improve nothing were to change we're talking about probably a six-month timeline from when that initial action came before the board there's a couple of of hearings and interim steps a couple of board votes but then revocation vote would occur probably by around the end of the current school year so justjust just borrowing appeals and anything like
209that but yeah and obviously this is not what we want to be in the situation of but we have a responsibility as the authorizing entity to ensure the fiscal solvency of the charters of the charters and frankly if the Charter were to stop paying its bills and go under mid-year that would be absolutely disastrous for the employees and for the students both that would be we would be obligated to support but also our neighboring districts so this is good stewardship and what we need to be doing even if it is difficult for realms administration to understand thank you yeah one of the things we we have been getting some updates about realms fiscal situation and I appreciate the work that that's been done by staff as well as our County board our county superintendent who
210also has been reviewing their fiscal status as part of their due diligence so we're not the only agency that has concerns but one of things I didn't see being addressed in the communication so far is that we did receive a email from a caz a former board member from Rome who seemed to indicate that there's been a change of who's on the board of directors and I know I would like to know just who was on their board of directors and whether or not their Kerr and what if any has changed from the administrate the the governing body an administrative management that was presented in the original proposal and in their extension as opposed to what actually exists now because that to me is part of our due diligence that that you know part of
211financial solvency is oftentimes somewhat wedded to having good internal oversight and I this point just don't know what that oversight internal to realm is because of that communication that seemed to indicate that there's been a lot of turnover on the board and I'd like to know then who is in authority at realm and who is on the board of directors so I've actually reached out to Victor last week to notify him to let him actually 11 know about the meeting tonight I have yet to receive the new names of the members on his his board but as soon as I get those names I can let everyone know the board now whoops okay okay all right moving on to item fourteen point three present emails give him one minute and his last act as president
212so this was something that we flagged a couple meetings ago this is the local indicators of the California school dash board we are required to administer a self-assessment you sort of use a self-assessment tool self-reflection tool on four areas the Williams areas teacher teacher assignment making sure have proper credentials instructional materials and good facilities there's also one on implementation of academic standards in our case Common Core parent family engagement and school climate local Climate Survey and staff has done and used the appropriate self-reflection tools oftentimes the allow allow you to create them and this item is being presented to us for our information I would encourage the board and the thousands of the public who are watching to take a look get this item and and because I do think that it well we have
213met the requirement to use the selection tool presents of the Governing Board a regular governing board meeting and posted online the the real reason to do this is to see what those measures show with the self-reflection tools show and so to the extent that staff fumes are appropriate you know coming back with more in a more in-depth presentation with recommendations if there is a need to change anything it would be appropriate and if not we want over pretty good at isn't none of the data and there indicates we should be changing course then you know that's fine too but that's that's the real value it's a tool to help us make better decisions in addition to inform the community about about what the self-reflection tools show so president Alper thank you for my minute you're
214welcome is anybody here for public comment okay great anybody else just okay you've got three minutes three times as much as Josh got when there's no cheese well since I wrote it I said I'm just gonna stay here and read it now thank you very much for your vote for the name Lacan school I had prepared this to read it in English and Spanish but I'm just gonna read in English it's almost eleven o'clock my name is Isabel perón I'm the grandmother of two beautiful girls had a wonderful Lacan elementary school I am also the spanish english translator for the district and so i have a perspective from both inside and outside the school that I hope is helpful I attended October 16 meeting at Lacan where the neighbors had been also invited and I
215thought that it was very it was a very positive experience we sat around the table together and had a very good discussion with dr. Evans and Natasha very that meeting was an eye-opener for me as it was for all of us this night thanks to Natasha berry we I learn in a well-prepared PowerPoint point person station about the world process to rename a school we also learned about Joseph LeConte and about the history of Berkeley schools and then there was a lot of time to talk about possible name change the parents and in my case the grandmother had a chance to talk about what they felt it was important to change the school name we did not talk about the name but the lengthy conversation was about the process and then the neighbors had a
216lot of opportunity to talk about their questions and concerns to ladies who came from the neighborhood association were welcomed and included very respectfully however I noticed that one of them was very quiet and the other lady kept talking about new names for this school she said that she liked the sound of the name LeConte it sounds French and she didn't like the sound of the name the lettuce wealthy I believe she meant dolores huerta everyone kept repeating this at this meeting I'm sorry everyone kept repeating that this meeting was not to talk about the name but about the process and whether to discontinue using Lacan and that no new name had been chosen and there will be later meetings to talk about selecting a new name but not a bad meeting I know some neighbors
217when the process to slow down and include more neighborhood discussions but I also know that parents guardians and his school stuff feel this process has already been going for a long time well this is what I brought before - right I know that dr. evens Evans and Natasha berry have integrity in the way they follow the requirements of the board policy and the process and I am proof of that after translating every single document that they have worked on I have seen firsthand how they had been thoughtful in leading community conversations I met witness of that I hope that you all agree that is it it's time to put the name of Lacan aside as I thank you very much for that I look forward to choosing a more appropriate name for my granddaughters who
218wonderful wonderful school a name that truly reflects who they are and where are they and what they can become thank you so much thank you and have you miss power we don't have much we don't usually have an opportunity to have you here so I want to take the opportunity to thank you not only for your comments but for everything you do for the district thank you the translation is just so critical and we wish there were ten of you but we and we know how hard you work to being the translation out as quickly as you do so on behalf of the whole board thank you so much for 10 believe me I'd read every single word of all before you do thank you