001go go go that for e [Music] spe for you Happ e what are I think look then take [Music] oh my e think e spe to e e e no for for e after e he e about he doesn't he you're look get it oh [Music] you're e that's you she are the mics on test test Christine Staples could you please raise your hand Christine Staples thank you really thought e spe I for e they all right good evening welcome good evening welcome this is democracy I want to welcome you all to the March 8th meeting of the zoning adjustments board just kidding uh Berkeley school board 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 chyz over to
002my left I want to remind everyone that our board meeting is broadcasting live over YouTube and over the radio on 89.3 FM and on TV Comcast cable channel 33 I will now call Open session of tonight's meeting to order at 7:31 for the record close session began at 6:00 p.m. U Miss chyz would you please share with the community members our process for translation when much gracias director bre Lea Cutler present student director Alan Keys is absent director Karen Hill here student director Petra Sylvia is excused tonight director Judy Appel present vice president Josh Daniels here president Ty Alper present okay um we're now going to approve the agenda we're going to um pull for discussion two three items that are um currently listed for information those are items 15.3 15.4 and 15.5 um 15.3
003is the plan for 2020 Bonar starting in the summer of 2017 15.4 is an update on all student restroom implementation at all district schools and 15.5 is audited financial statements for realm Charter Schools um we're going to move those to um the beginning of the discussion item so that we will hear item 15.4 which is an update on all student restrooms um as our first discussion item then here together items 15.3 and 15.5 related to the plan for 2020 Bonar and the up audited financial statements for realm um so moving those to discussion is there any are there any other requested changes to the agenda can I have a motion to approve the agenda as amended so moved motion by director hemple second second by director Daniels all in favor I okay we have an
004agenda um I will now report from closed session in item item 3.1 collective bargaining uh the board discussed and gave direction to staff item 3.2 we pulled um for a future meeting item 3 three Public Employee discipline dismissal release evaluation we discussed and gave direction to staff um item 3.5 we um pulled for a later meeting and item 3.4 um which I'm about to turn over to assistant superintendent scary in a minute um we made a motion a motion was made by director Hempel with a second from director Appel and the board voted unanimously to make an appointment um for the principal position at Berkeley Technology Academy the board voted unanimously to appoint ardarius McDonald as the principal at BTA U Mr scary do you want to say a few words about Mr McDonald uh
005just that he served as our Dean uh at Berkeley High School for a number of years uh was instrumental and made major contributions to reductions and suspension and disciplinary incidents in general uh I think this far at BTA uh he has taken that job on uh extremely ser seriously uh has done a great job and really has uh run with considering new Hands-On curriculum uh with new multimedia projects and uh is really digging into the work and taking ownership of leadership at BTA so we're very pleased to have him staying on in that capacity thank you and congratulations to Mr McDonald um okay I'm going to provide a brief overview of the meeting tonight um first we will hear 30 minutes of public comment um then we then we'll hear comment from our unions and
006from District committees and then we'll have comments from board members and the superintendent um then we will vote to consider our consent calendar which are items that the board approves all in one motion then no but wait a second uh I forgot about an important um part of the agenda I can so going a little bit out of order um tonight we are recog recognizing um several of our classified staff with Weare Awards um so I'm let's actually do that and then I will um explain how the rest of the meeting will go so I'm going to turn this over so I apologize uh Miss Cleveland I'm going to turn this over to Deputy superintendent Cleveland to award the weekare awards thank you good evening um each year we award our classified employees with um
007we care Awards We Care stands for um a custo customer service principles that we um honor in our district all of our employees are trained on the Weare principles so the W is the willingness to go the extra step e is empathy C is is consistency and services a is aptitude and knowledge R is responsiveness and E is Effectiveness um each year we only award about 10 to 11 employees and we have approximately 400 or so classified employees so these are very important Awards and so I'm going to read off um some of the recipients who are here um the first one would be uh uh Deanna Woods um Deanna is a school administrative assistant too at Oxford school you'll find that Diana Deanna is um exemplary in all regards Deanna makes the front office
008a welcoming place for parents and guard Guardians every day she assists parents who have great needs and who are struggling to get their children to school every day the office is a professional workplace where she um um where all are assisted by Deana including teachers classified staff Guardians District staff and a larger Community Deanna's systems are impeccable as her attention is to detail she is well- loved and respected by students is Deanna here [Applause] um our next recipient is my paper mixed up here okay our next recipient is Janet hton Janet is a custodian to at our district office Janice cons consistently goes the extra mile to make sure we have a clean space including bathrooms Halls stairways and offices she is always friendly respectful respectful and checks in regularly with staff she has um
009unsurpassed work ethic and attention to detail taking her job to the level of professional professionalism which is truly exemplary not only does she leave every room and every surface gleaming but she is also looking beyond the basics and noticing what needs to be repaired or what requires extra attention furthermore she is personable friendly funny kind and a pleasure to be around hton our um our next recipient is our first recipient from the early childhood um Bears program um IET Rodriguez is an instructional assistant for bears at BAM Evette goes beyond and above the Call of Duty to her colleagu she's unselfish and provide support to all in the school her energy and warm smile are appreciated by everyone so this recipient is avette Rodriguez our next recipient is um Jennifer Gordon um Jennifer is a
010library media specialist from Malcolm X School Jennifer is always looking her ways to make sure the library is in supported student learning she participates on the school literacy team makes connections with the community and parent volunteers to make the library the best it it can be she has a genuine appreciation for the wide range of perspectives that are shared with her if she if a principal or a teacher is looking for a book she will find the book even if it includes borrowing from another school Jennifer is very knowledgeable about the library book collection as well as online resources so this award goes to Jennifer um [Applause] Gordon our next recipient is um joshelyn foran Joslyn Foreman works for the office of family engagement and Equity at John M and Malcolm X johnin um provides
011support to families on so many levels she helps teachers design specific academic supports for struggling students helps families complete online forms organize food drives at both of our sites she collects household items that families are giving away in order to store for families in need she is constantly thinking about programmatic ways to better support families and students in need she's committed to equity and is constantly striving to better meet the academic social and emotional needs of all students students at the two sites she serves this award our first family engagement award Joselyn [Applause] Foreman our next award is um goes to uh Rita McIntyre Rita is a satellite operator for the nutrition services department she is the head of the Willard cafeteria Rita is always more than willing to be flexible and understanding um when
012there are changes and schedules that impact her work R is very friendly and per personal human being who cares not only about her work but also about the people in which she interacts with at work we find Rita to have a great aptitude for work working with staff and mostly working with students what makes Rita great is her allaround funloving personality and willingness to do her work with a big smile every day this award is for Rita McIntyre our next award is for Brazil McIntyre um this is our first award for our after school program um she's the after school program special at lant Brazil has built a thriving after school program with a focus on deop developing the staff members she takes initiatives to grow professionally by seeking outside resources and training and is
013generous with sharing her knowledge and resources with others and it takes a lot for an uh an employee to work with students after they've been in school all day long and then they report to them for the rest of the afternoon so this is uh award goes to Brazil McIntyre [Applause] the next award um is for rodick carway a maintenance technician rodick is hardworking guy who cares deeply about doing the right doing what's right the first time around Roger has been the um hero to many schools with plumbing issues over the last couple of years Rod's commitment to We Care shines through every time he does a great job Rodney's um I mean rodrik's excellent service is appreciated by the Food Service team at Martha Luther King Middle School is Rodney carway um the next
014award is um Rodney McNab who's a safety officer at Berkeley High School um Rodney has consistently demonstrated a willingness to be a true positive presence in students lives he attends and leads mediations works with students and their families to increase positive behavior and attendance and has strong relationships with staff and students alike across the BHS campus he models the highest degree of personal integrity and professionalism on a daily basis despite challenging circumstances it's Rodney McNab here I think that's the only um recipients that are here are there any other recipients here our other other recipients was Lana Kelly from human resource she's not here David um from the high school and works in the attendance office Johnny bips our bus driver and Victor Val alvz who works in our [Applause] warehouse thank you so much
015much our classified staff are truly the backbone of our district and they serve our community in so many ways so congratulations again to all the recipients of these Awards and thank you Deputy superintendent Cleveland um thank you all so now I will um go back to um explaining the rest of the meeting um after after the um public comment period the board members and the superintendent will have an opportunity to comment and then we will move into our discussion items and like I said before immediately following the public comment we'll have a brief discussion of the implementation of all student bathrooms at um all of our district schools we'll spend about just 15 minutes on that and then we will move to um the next items which will be 15.3 and 15.5 which we will
016hear together um uh at discussion also a relatively brief discussion about the uh plan for 2020 Bonar and the audited financial statements for realm um probably about 15 minutes for that as well and then we will move to the main discussion item of the night excuse me which is an update on the Extended Learning programs um for which we allocated 55 minutes but we'll probably do in 45 um and then we'll have two action items the C certification of our second interim report report um our B second interim budget report and then a public hearing regarding initial proposals for um bargaining between the district and the Berkeley Federation of teachers for 9 o' that's that's scheduled for 9 o'clock it's scheduled for 9 o'clock but we can we can as long as we start it
017after nine o'clock we're okay um okay the next item on the agenda is the 30 minutes for public comment vice president Daniels and I have uh organized the speaking requests by a agenda item and we're going to rotate through the relevant agenda items so that we can do our best to hear from at least one person on each agenda item from each position um we have a lot of cards here tonight um and I can uh guarantee you not everyone who turned in a card is going to get to speak during this public comment period um we have another public comment period at the end of the meeting which will probably be about 10:30 so you're welcome to stay and speak at that time um if your name is called um if your name is
018called you can seed your time to another speaker to do so just stand up when your name is called and state your name and indicate to whom you wish to seed your time by seeding your time you give up your opportunity to speak and nobody can later seed their time to you to speak we have so many people here to speak tonight we're going to limit the speakers to two minutes um so that we can hear from as many people as possible in 30 minutes as the president of the board it's my discretion to allow for extra time for those who need translation um or who have speech needs um when there's one minute left in your 2 minutes the light on the lecturn end up here and behind me will turn yellow and then
019when your time is up it'll turn red um and you'll hear a beeping um if you're still speaking when your time is up please finish your sentence and then conclude we really want to try to hear from as many of you as possible tonight in the 30 minutes that we've allotted and we will hear from as many people in that 30 minutes um to keep things moving I'm going to read two two names at a time so I'll um the second person uh can if can wait up uh by the year of the Reader sign so that we can keep things moving um and I apologize in advance if I mispronounce anybody's name excuse me during the P during the public comment the board does not respond directly to comments or questions made board members
020the superintendent and staff do take notes um and often will follow up with speakers after the meeting a couple people have emailed the board recently um asking about our practice of not responding directly to public comment during the public comment period following the public comment period there is a period on the agenda as I mentioned before when board members and the superintendent each have a few minutes to make comment about whatever they want um 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 they wish um we have found that that process keeps our meetings running smoothly um allows for the maximum number of uh members of the public to speak during the 30 minutes we've allotted for
021public comment and it ensures with ensures compliance with the brown act which does not allow for board discussions about items that are not placed on the agenda with at least 72 hours notice in advance of the meeting um all right we will now ready we'll now begin public comment again we'll have 30 minutes and we'll hear first first from bless you Coran Escalante bless you Coran Escalante followed by um Genesis Rodriguez okay Miss Kong okay Miss Kong and then um Genesis Rodriguez if you can if okay um I'm being joined up here by fellow parents from lant good evening happy uh International women's day again my name is Grace Kong I'm a parent of a fourth grader at Lan Elementary and on behalf of other Lon parents many lant parents I'm here out of deep
022concern um we have learned that the district plans to cut lon's 6 FTE 345 combo teacher next year so my whole comment is about this I'm going to just repeat that so it's about our 6 FTE 345 combo teacher who um is there to help manage uh too many kids in the classroom so this would be a huge disservice to all of our students and especially our struggling students as we enter the final year of the twi consolidation this position is important to ensuring all our students have an equitable education by mitigating large class sizes and allowing regrouping of students to learn throughout the day and I know this District values Equity but how could you plan to defund this combo position for the last year of the transition our students have dealt with the
023collateral impact of the consolidation for years for the good of the district and for students and for our school um this is included instability and uncertainty combo classes High rates of teacher turnover um feeling marginalized long large class sizes and new students being added all year long and all the while being one of the most diverse schools socioeconomically and racially in the district having this point 6 position has been a key part um of the solution so tonight we're here to ask you and our district to stand by our students in equity we thank you for standing with us last year by agreeing to Halt enrollment of more students into our fourth and fifth grade classes this year and it has had a very positive impact and a stabilizing impact for all our up grades
024um and we hope a similar agreement can become come can come to this year um now we ask you to please continue to stand with us to keep this point 6 combo position limit class sizes and take positive actions to support our students in the final year of the twi consolidation thank you thank you Genesis [Applause] Rodriguez followed by uh Brooke pessen WBY is Genesis and then Brooke go ahead all right so the so the reason that I think that realm should stay in Berkeley is because many people come from Oakland and Richmond it's the hood is where it's where people are trying to get out of you know it's where a bunch of kids suffer it's where you see a bunch of violence a bunch of gangs it's where people people just want to
025be they want to be free they don't want to be you know they don't want to go to a school where they're going to be influenced by people that don't want the best for them and well I think that Berkeley should stay I mean we're should stay in Berkeley because Berkeley is more much more of a positive Community there's more like you know it's more safe out here en richment and and and Oakland and other places that people are coming from it's not it's not good you know it's like people people are going through a lot of things and not only that but the schools are overpopulated and it's just it's just too much for the kids and well here at real it's very different like there's there's teachers that really care you know and
026there's like out there there's many there's like real stuff you know there's real bullying There's real things There's real problems but over here it's more of like a different Community where people feel safe they feel like they feel like a family and I feel like that should be all schools but unfortunately that's not the case and well yeah that's it thank you thank you Miss Rodriguez thank you um Brooke p and w be followed by hos MC manasian I'm going to seed my time to Kristen stangle to say it again Kristen stangle okay Kristen stangle and then hasme get after that go ahead good good evening I'm here with families from the gender inclusive schools Alliance and the welcoming Schools teacher leaon I'm a parent at the a of an agender seventh grader at King
027and a gender fluid fourth grader at BAM and we are so so grateful to have a school board that supports gender expansive students through policy and a District administration that is truly committed to acting on that policy all student bathrooms are a vital piece of that policy my agender child August is often forced to choose a gender box that does not fit with who they are like when they have to choose a girl's locker room or bathroom every time it's like a slap in the face so August often comes home from school emotionally black and blue we were really fortunate that principal levans had already designated an all student bathroom before August transitioned and while we appreciate that designation we urge you to please also consult students and teachers on whether these bathrooms are truly
028accessible and meeting students needs particularly at the larger schools just yesterday at King August needed to use the bathroom during the 4-minute passing period it took 3 minutes to exit the main building cross the courtyard and climb a flight of stairs to reach the one all student bathroom on campus then they had to wait 5 minutes while somebody else finished in the B bathro and then it took another 4 minutes to get back to their class so August ended up being over 10 minutes late to class missing instructional time and getting yet another tardy by contrast later in the class it took August's cisgender classmate only three minutes to use the bathroom and return to class as you move forward in comp completing this important work of establishing all student bathrooms in each school I
029urge you to consider the size of each campus how far do students have to travel to reach those bathrooms are the number of all student bathrooms reasonable for the school population please include our students and their teachers in the decision so we can be sure to truly meet student needs I'm confident that by working together we can make our schools truly welcoming safe and inclusive for all the students especially on the larger campuses like King and Berkeley High thanks thank you h and then Jennifer Knight my name is H manasian this is my 16th year as a teacher and teacher leader at Berkeley High I'm here in support of the partnership between the students and the sexual harassment advisory committee and BHS stop harassing as well as the Berkeley High Administration in their management of
030the very complex issues we are facing at the high school it's important to me that the larger Community understand that we the staff see this as a community issue that impacts all of us and we're working diligently to protect the rights and safety of all students EP Perle high in the past I've had survivors of sexual harassment seated side by side the students who perpetrated that harassment and after the young men had their due process and served their punishments they had the legal right to return to school and we had the legal obligation to allow them access to their education similarly the survivors had the right to feel safe as they too had the right to access their education we could not kick the boys out of class any more than we could ask the
031girls to stop coming until they felt safe I feel like no one has yet set out loud that the two laws we care deeply about and are obligated to follow are in direct conflict with one another and we at the school are working hard to reconcile these two issues of safety and access I see strong and hopeful efforts in place right now at Berkeley High to both educate students around these issues and repair the harm that's been done to so many this has being done in partnership with sha and BHS stop harassing with Schoolboard members with District administration with affected but it's taking time way more time than it should be taking and every day a student feels unsafe or is not getting their education is a day too long for those students and those
032families it is a day too long for us too so I have several requests from this board first see where you can reduce or eliminate the red tape that is slowing these processes down second continue to commit ample resources both legal and social emotional that will support a clear step-by-step plan to resolve our current crisis and prepare for a future one and finally all of this needs to be communicated clearly and succinctly to the public as soon as possible which I appreciate that you did earlier today and look forward to seeing more regularly thank you thank you okay um Miss Knight followed by um uh I'm going to call three students in a row for two minutes each Kira Norwood Emily levenson um and then one more there's no name but it's from BHS stop
033harassing okay go ahead Miss Knight my name is Jonna for night and I seed my time to Scott Blossom Mr Blossom go ahead can you Liz can you start the time over to go ahead great thank you I'm here um on behalf of my daughter who's part of the um harassment investigation that's been happening at Berkeley High and in the process of that it's just really my statement is that the investigative process created a lot of needless stress tremendous emotional stress that really damaged her academic performance as well and so really the I just got my determination like a about 10 days ago and it was two weeks late which was actually a breach of the policy without any notification of that and basically I'm appealing the uh the determination because the um it's based
034on an inadequate investigation of the text messages and relies on a hypothesis of text tampering not validated by forensic in invalidation so basically I'm being asked to just trust the investigators conclusions when they're making a counter claim that's a very serious claim that texts were tampered with by my daughter's friend who was the first one who Lo lodged the complaint and so this is completely unsatisfactory it's totally opaque and you know it's ath I feel like it's unethical um the second thing is that in the absence of issue management or a safety plan during this period as I mentioned it's had a significant negative impact on my daughter's emotional well-being and academic performance she is considering leaving that Berkeley High a as a result of the incident and I feel like the way it's been
035handled has had a big impact on that you know it could have been done much differently and I want to make a statement to that Marlene Sach who was the principal Council and investigator was a major part of making this into a truly negative experience I felt like she was biased in the way that she dealt with me um the um the determination that there was no need for a safety plan is what she told me in in the in the determination that I received and I have actual text references of physical threats to my daughter into our home so that's what I'd like to say thank you Mr blon thank you who's okay Emily um hi my name is Emily levenson and I'll seed my time to um Talia CER and the girls who
036are going to speak with her okay and then um my milicia Henderson um will be next and so these three students will have a total of six minutes so two minutes each go ahead hi my name is Renee um and each of these flowers represents one of the survivors that we've worked with over the past three years um and I will begin Talia koga's story when the team8 group chat text incident was revealed it brought up a lot of stuff that happened to me last year instigated by one of the boys who was a part of the group I had three classes with him last year in class he would touch my hair touch my hair and make orgasm noises in my ear he sat near me in class he told me he wanted to
037come to my house and have sex with me while I was sleeping he said these kinds of things to me every day I didn't tell any of my teachers about this because I knew that they would go to the administration and not do anything but tell him that I reported him or suspend him I worried that if that happened when he came back it would be worse for me I was scared of him because he threatened me when I asked him to stop he called me a spoiled brat and an effing if you look at my absences from last year you will see that most of them are in the three classes I had with him the worst was my first period history class where he was most aggressive and because of him I missed
038the most class time there was a group chat for a project that he was a part of with other students and he harassed me in front of them he would say things in the chat like he loved me so much he wanted to marry me and wanted to have sex with me he talked a lot about oral sex too I got really anxious at night I didn't want to go to school and I felt like I didn't feel like anyone could help the situation I told my mom she said she wanted to talk to my teacher I begged her not to because I knew if this got reported to to the administration he would come after me non-stop the way he worked was to Target me for several months and then I would see him
039do the same thing to another girl in the class I came forward this year because I don't have classes with him and I knew he wouldn't be able to retaliate like he would have been able to last year I also came forward because when the girls who were hurt by the team1 18 incident came together I had support and I knew about resources that have my back like BHS stop harassing and NRI from Impact justice so in December I decided to file my complaint talking about these issues in the complaint I told the names of my friends in the group chat and the name of the teacher who I asked to move my seat because I told her he made me uncomfortable when I filed my complaint Miss Fiero my vice principal asked me what
040I wanted to do with it she didn't explain what this meant and I said I wasn't sure and that was it I didn't even know the school was investigating my complaint until I got the results on February 24th the district's letter to me included findings that said in this case the district retained the services of an outside attorney invest instigator to review the facts and render findings in regard to your factual allegations the letter also stated relevant Witnesses were interviewed by the site Administration for the most part Witnesses could not recall the incidents alleged Andor denied that the incidents occurred the boy in question himself was interviewed and could not recall Andor denied the scope or severity of the allegations hi my name is t Koger and I'll be continuing my story I went to
041my friends who were named in my complaint and asked asked if they were interviewed they were not I asked my teacher if she had been interviewed she said she got a call from an investigator asking if she' been asked by me to move my seat and she asked in response was this about and said the name of the boy who had been harassing me the conversation ended abruptly and there was no follow up by the investigator I cried when she told me this because I felt like bosd didn't care I felt wronged and hopeless when I came forward with my complaint I was kicking myself for not doing something sooner because maybe things could have been better for me last year but my feeling about the administration had been right they wouldn't have done anything
042when I got my response from the district I went to Rebecca levenson and she helped me with my appeal to the district saying the investigation was not impartial but biased and that it was in violation of Title 9 and created a hostile environment for girls at school I appealed my finding with with the district and I've asked that an impartial outside firm with expertise in investigating sexual harassment cases be brought in I want to say this out loud I didn't want him to be suspended or expelled I wanted him to stop and I want him to get help he has done this to numerous girls and if we let him keep doing this in high school what is he going to do in college I want this process changed I want girls who are in
043my position now to help while the harassment is happening to them no one should have to be sexually harassed for 6 months straight in school and know that no one from our district will help you when I got my complaint response it was clear that you only talked to the boy about my story I was not even interviewed it feels like I don't have anyone at school who has my back you said that he said it was a joke it was not a joke do you know how that made me feel it made me want to scream you need to know this is what happens to you if you a girl at Berkeley High School your practices give boys free reign and you see it in every class and every hallway we need to have
044a process that is not biased against the victim and helps these boys see the harm that their behavior causes bu USD knew its conclusion before they even started the investigation of my case just like you have done countless times with countless other girls I was not looking to punish him I wanted him to stop the harassment and be able to see me as a person and not just an object to hurt this will always be the story of my junior year the Year my pain and fear didn't seem to matter thank you Miss Henderson hi my name is milisha Henderson and I get my time to at farara okay Miss farara followed by um Mimi cook IET palara teacher in Berkeley and with equal opportunity Now by any means necessary Ian bam cus I'm calling
045on the school district to issue an unequivocal statement condemning the racist and misogynistic cyber terrorists who have been sending threatening emails and calling me my school in this District as well as terrorizing the mayor and the city council of Berkeley and to defend our right to speak out and protest against Donald Trump and his racist movement some of the emails I've received in my email at work include statements calling me a slant eyed c n emails that say to me I hope that you're raped by the KKK for a week and then strung up by a tree I've already uncovered fascist and alt-right message boards that have the email addresses of the staff of my school posted on them to facilitate their supporters deranged attacks on me and others the perpetrators of the campaign are
046a small Fringe of cyber bullies and self-described trolls who have routinely targeted activists and public figures including myself and the mayor they organize on websites such as 4chan and 8chan they targeted myself and the mayor and in fact sent thousands of death threats to him but the mayor has rightly responded to these threats by declaring that he will not be silenced I also will not be silenced and nor should this city or anyone who gets any of these threats or terrorization this school board should stop validating these terrorists by blaming the victims and instead stand unequivocally unequivocally against them Judy Appel Karen hemple Donald Evans Ty Alper Josh Daniels Beatrice Lea Cutler do you stand against this racist and misogynistic campaign by white supremacists or don't you it's time to end your silence and stand
047with the community rather than the racists thank you Miss Cook followed by uh Denise Denise daflon Miss Cook I'm Mimi cook and I see my time to Dina tassini I'm sorry to who Dina tassini okay thank you good evening and how appropriate that this is women's day my name is Dina tassini and my daughter just spoke Talia Koger and I'm not sure I can do any justice beyond what she did but I'm going to give it a chance tonight um I came be I'm coming before you tonight to tell her story of how you the board failed her did not validate her claims and did not investigate properly I actually was not aware of a lot of the things were going on and had to become educated through her process I feel the need as
048a mother as a daughter and as a sister to come before you and ask the board to conduct a full and complete investigation I feel that this is a teaching moment a time you can say to the students and these young women that we want and will protect you and you can say to the young men that this is certainly not acceptable behavior allowing these boys to behave in this way to harass and Bully our daughters is simply supporting the rape culture we find so prevalent in our society oh they were just having fun she laughed it was no big deal these are the common statements and the threads of exchange of communication that I hear over and over again these are excuses for unacceptable Behavior by not dealing with this today for our children
049and for the children to come we are simply kicking the can down the road making it someone else's future problem at work or at school we are setting the stage for the next Brock Turner remember he was just having fun 10 minutes of fun this is not the message we should ever send to women and our children so please find the moment not to be afraid of the truth conduct the investigation and bring change bring change to the unacceptable rape culture that we live in today thank you very much thank you m ston and then um and then Victor Diaz I'm Denise dlon I'm speaking on behalf of L elac and the brother parent Community we are very pleased to have a bilingual secretary and I appreciate that the board and District support and to
050make that possible we also we are also thankful for our language lab design where every child has language development in English or Spanish at the at their level during the same block of time this is in contrast to other schools where kids may be pulled out of regular class to have English development po potentially causing the students to feel labeled as different or inferior as loac parents we have the support of deac parents concerning the following first lant elak expresses its concern about the scarcity of certified bilingual teacher with strong Spanish language skills we hope PD will undertake broader and more aggressive recruitment efforts reaching out Beyond Berkeley and the Bay Area to reach potential teachers across California to address this need because the current situation have an adverse impact on our students academic achievement
051second L elac is also concerned about the scarcity of certified bilingual substitute this is particularly important at lant elementary when a certified teacher is on temporary leave for instance for maternity leave then it is a challenge to find a bilingual long-term certified substitute in several instances since the was Consolidated into a f dual immersion school children have had a substitute who was not biling and it creates a real disruption in their language acquisition process both in Spanish and English third as we approach the summer L elak expresses his concern about the summer slide and would like to see the district offer a bilingual option during summmer school to support students in the twi program at lant or in the bilingual program at Thousand we understand the challenges with finding bilingual teachers for summer school and
052we offer our support to finding a solution to this challenge thank you so much Mr Diaz uh followed by Megan Bates thank you uh my name is Victor Diaz I am the executive director of Realm um I just want to First say I'm in awe of The Bravery um behind me so thank you for speaking up on behalf of my daughter and who and my son who are here um from the previous speakers my name is Victor Diaz I'm the executive director of Realm charger school as you know we under are under a lot of pressure to resolve our facilities needs however I'm also aware that in order to get to that conversation and explanation of the financial health of the organization needs to be addressed I also want to state that on the onset
053we will continue to work closely with the deputy superintendent jeta to address all of these concerns that were raised in the notice of violation uh before I address the financials I want to State clearly Berkeley Unified School District and the board of directors are not the reason that realm is without a facility for the of 1718 and the district does not have any obligation to provide a facility to realm I've been communicating that clearly to our community last year when we asked the district for a one-year extension we had every intention on finding a suitable location for one or both of our schools in the letter that I presented to the district I laid out all of the steps that I've taken to find a commercial property in Berkeley in October of this Academic Year
054I started communicating with the district's leadership that I was not having success securing a building in Berkeley that was suitable for educational purposes and I began asking about an additional year extension at that time the conversation I don't think that there were concrete plans for the 1222 University Avenue the conversation continued through December it wasn't until just before the winter break that i' heard that there were comprehensive plans for the site and that it was unlikely we would not be allowed to remain so these were newer developments for us all the while I was looking for property in the commercial property in the surrounding area regarding our finances our budget is running a negative ending balance this is an accumulation of having more expenses than Revenue over the past six years over our first years
055of operation many of the expenses were attributed to the our operating costs I just want to say that for just want to finalize the say that over the last two years a contributing factor was not having a sufficient Admissions and registration policy and connecting that to Staffing we'd staff folks based on projections and not on ual enrollment that's one of our learnings over the next two years and that's something we're going to correct are in the process of correcting now I just want to ask the board to reconsider our scenarios that we presented and hopefully have an opportunity to discuss those um at your upcoming board meeting thank you thank you Mr Diaz Miss Bates Megan [Applause] Bates followed by Kate Weissberg and Megan Bates with the gender inclusive schools alone I'm the parent of
056a first grader at Malcolm X who defies expectations in a number of ways in the middle of kindergarten Year my kid who has been a gender Rebel since being able to choose their own clothes told me that the word boy really didn't fit and neither did the word girl among all of the other daunting concerns that preoccupy the parents of gender non-conforming kids bathrooms are foundational when a child is unable to use public facilities because of the way they look or their gender expression it means that they can't really exist in public spaces my child was fearful of using restrooms labeled with the boy symbol or the girls symbol fortunately for us by January of 2016 Malcolm X had designated a single stall gender neutral bathroom on campus and our welcoming Schools teacher even arranged
057a private opening ceremony that included several other gender expansive kids initially this just meant a photocopied all student symbol taped over the old gendered bathroom sign but still my kid came home from school that day carrying with them the knowledge that their school was an accepting and compassionate place and a place where it was safe for them to just be in January of 2017 a second single stall gender neutral bathroom opened in the same location now both bathrooms have an official all student sign that indicates that everyone is welcome no matter where they are in the gender Spectrum I am immensely thankful for the work that BD has done in recent years to make its facilities more inclusive and I hope that the momentum keeps up to meet the Urgent needs that remain to be
058addressed the addition of all student facilities in multiple locations throughout each campus is a necessary and pressing concern this week my child is suffering from a bladder infection after holding it for too long every single school day because a recent construction project in the size of the campus meant it took my first grader 10 minutes to get to the bathroom from their classroom Berkeley unified has been as welcoming a community as I could have imagined as a parent and as a parent I urge the district to continue making a safe healthy place for vulnerable student populations to exist and to learn thank you Miss Bates Kate Weiss bird followed by Melanie green good evening I'm a BD parent as well as an attorney at the East Bay Community Law School at East Bay Community Law
059Center and we represent young people throughout the county including BD facing expulsion from school and I've listened to the public comments about sexual harassment for the past few meetings and I know and have appreciated working with several of the adult advisers to be just stop harassing and I've listened with sadness and compassion to the stories of the young people who've spoken and I also know the students and the families on the other side of the story um the students facing expulsion and other forms of discipline and these students can't speak publicly but it's important to not forget about them and to remember that the district has a legal responsibility to them as well as the victims and it's not my position that students who engage in problematic Behavior face zero consequences indeed most of the
060young people we work with want an opportunity to talk about what happened to learn from their mistakes and to address the harm caused these cases are really hard and there's no easy answer but one thing is certain caring about victims of sexual harassment does not need to be at the expense of the accused students we can and must support both students and exclusion from school can't be the answer it's also critical to remember the racially disperate impact of these cases every single student that we have represented facing expulsion for sexual battery have been African-American and these disparities are true for suspensions as well although African-American students make up just 19% of the body they make up the vast majority of suspended students I work in many different districts here in the county and I've been
061impressed with BD's attempt to navigate the responsibilities under the Ed code to educate all students and its responsibilities under Title 9 to keep all students safe I'm excited about the new title 9 coordinator and the new investment in restorative justice and as you continue to work to improve School climate please continue to keep them keep in mind the rights of all the students thank you so much thank you Melanie green okay Miss levenson um followed by Nelly thank you I want to say first that I'm I am deeply appreciative that folks have been listening so that's where I want to start and I think it's apt that I end up following um a wise lawyer who I know is helping us grapple with a number of things and I think what I'm here tonight to
062do and and it is international women's day and I have had the opportunity to listen to every single story that's come forward I have had more girls cry in my kitchen than I can I can tell you and I am thinking about them right now and one of the things I want to ask of you as a board is to go back and open up all of the sexual harm sexual harassment cases for all the students who are still enrolled in school because I think we didn't do it well I think that talia's story I think Scott Blossom's story I think it represents years of doing it this way and I think that we owe some students apologies and I think we owe some of the students who cause the harm help right it's not
063helping them if we engage in bad investigative processes so that's what I'm asking you to do tonight is to take a step back think about the harm that's been caused and how we can take this opportunity with Dana Clark coming on as our new title n coordinator and nerri coming in doing restorative justice and how we can make sure that we start writing the wrongs that have been in the past thank you thank you m lenson we have um two more time for two more speakers Nelly Nelly followed by um I I'm not going to get this right AA nrom go ahead Nelly I give my time to Lori okay Lori thank you Nelly my name is Lor Nixon and I'm a staff member at King Middle School I want to first day I here
064in solidarity with all the students from BHS stop harassing we're fighting for you also so I would also like to commend the board for their statements they put out recently supporting transgender and immigrant students but I would like to say that that is not enough to put out statements our students our staff and our family are becoming more politically active in the face of racists and misogynists and transphobes in our community people had the gall to show up outside of Berkeley High this weekend and Berkeley High students stood valiantly against those people the board has not spoken out against the harassment that King Middle School staff are receiving and that is not okay it's not enough to acknowledge the calls as you have you have to publicly condemn these calls being silent effectively has a
065chilling effect on the rights of your students and your staff to organize and to express their own free speech as more people realize that it's not just our right to organize but it's our duty what are you going to do when the right wing starts coming for your students when they start doxing and start harassing ing or students are you going to be silent neutrality is not an option A lot of people like to throw around Martin Luther King Jr quotes against people who stand against racism and against misogyny well I'd like to give you a quote also here and he he said the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality it is not okay to be neutral in this situation we need you
066to publicly say stop harassing our staff stop harassing our students and leave us alone it is not free speech to call miss fera those names it is not free speech to harass us as a staff we need to support our students we need to support everyone who is taking a stand against these policies that are effectively trying to wipe us from existence thank you Miss nrom Miss nrom and then sorry we're actually the last person is g to be Sophia Bermudez go ahead Miss nrom hi my name is AA nrom and I'd like to seed my time to um Abby stle okay Miss stle hi I'm Abby and I'm Emily Lon um and we want to use our two minutes to clarify BHS stop harassing perspective on some of the interrelated issues surrounding sexual harassment
067following up on um what the lawyer from the Eastbay Community Law Center said so um we want to describe our ongoing vision for an intersectional and sensitive response to sexual harassment in BD that affirms the district's goals to reduce disproportionality in suspensions and expulsions and support students of all Races and ethnicities religions socioeconomic situations um gender identities sexual orientations and backgrounds so BHS stop harassing is a Grassroots organization of students with are two adult advisers Rebecca and Heidi and we Advocate on behalf of survivors um and work to improve B BD's SE sexual harassment policies and programs um we are not advocating increased suspensions or expulsions and we support bsd's goal of providing a safe environment and quality education for all students we really want to um support restorative justice to address harm and prevent
068future retaliation against the affected students both victims and perpetrators hi uh my name is Emily levenson just want to clarify we're the co-presidents of BHS stop harassing um I really want to come here today and say thank you Nuri has been hired um from Impact Justice to work once a week we are so grateful thank you so much we think this is the first step in a really great future that we can have where we can really provide restorative justice to help people learn when they've done when they've created harm for other students we want to thank you that Green Dot is being implemented um over the past three years that I've worked on this there's been a lot of harm but also there we've made so many steps as a district and we're just
069really looking forward to working together to create more steps to creating safe environments for all of our students um and in particular we just really want to um thank you for the letter that went out today and we saw that list of all the steps that have been taken in the past three years and that this is a great jumping off point for the next three years and the years after that that we continue working together on this issue um so thank you thank you both uh Sophia Bermudez will be our last speaker I seeed my time to Pablo okay I was incredibly excited when the night started with the words this is what democracy looks like from you brother Ty Albert unfortunately this is not what democracy looks like when two-thirds of the room
070come out working parents from the most marginalized community in the era of trump and two speakers get to come up here the whole night that hurts that hurts deeply in this context uh so I'm a little emotional about that but I'm going to move into the little time I have to try and speak for a whole bunch of people that should have been able to speak for themselves our school our school represents exactly what Berkeley is always bragging to the planet from the highest Towers about right about Sanctuary cities about a space in the era of trump in the era of deportations in the era of Muslim bands in the era of the orange man in the White House sending the boys in blue to put black bodies in black body bags right this is
071the place where we're supposed to stand up for the most vulnerable and they're here they're in this room and they're silenced and what we need is just a little space for dialogue a little space for creativity we didn't come here to be oppositional we want to find a way to work together so that Berkeley can keep a really good thing going there's a conversation out there about finances there's a conversation out there about where these kids come from there's not a conversation and there's always multiple perspectives and multiple truths to every issue there's not a conversation about this this people right here that student that came up who's the only voice who's come up began to give you a hint of a thousand stories like that and realm is is a sanctuary in this city
072we talk Sanctuary City but what does it look like in Berkeley do we have ice raids every day is that what we're dealing with this wasn't the city of Oscar Grant this is the city that's too expensive for these families to live in but we will have them work we will have them work in our restaurants we will have them work at UC Berkeley we will have them work at the hospitals we will have them do all the things that we need but their children better not show up in our district needing Services needing support and when somebody finds a way to do that it needs support if we're going to be a sanctuary City it needs support all we're asking is that you take the proposal that we gave that's multiple options and creative
073ways to solve this problem and give us one year one year to find a new place put it in the document put it in the document that we only get one okay thank you I'm sorry but I want to make one request one very less than 30 second request go I know they didn't get to speak but they prepared a chant can we do a chant it's a loving chant to send you positive energy beautiful beautiful folks we ready it's compromise collaborate take us stand compromise collaborate take a stand black and brown students need you yes we can comor yes we can for the special needs students take a stand compromise elaborate yes we for all the real Community take a stand compromise elaborate yes we can in the era of monster Trump take a
074stand compromise elaborate yes we can in the era of deportations take a stand collaborate yes we can in the a of Muslim bands take a stand compromise collaborate yes we can see set where yes we can C yes we can [Applause] see yes we can yes yes we can yes we can yes we can we love you and we want to work with you thank you thank you that now concludes you can give it to the Liz thank you that now concludes the public comment period again there will be another public comment period at the end of our meeting which will probably be at about 10:30 you're obviously welcome to stay you can also go out get dinner come back you can also email the board at board ofad berkeley.net now we're going to hear
075from our unions um I know Miss Campbell is here miss Phillips are you people are leaving yeah we'll we'll wait I just want to see who's here stay May staying good evening School Board MERS hold on one second P we are going to be discussing um both the the issue about bathrooms and the uh and realm after the common period if you want to stay if you're if you're leaving if you could try to be quiet as you leave so that we can so that we can um continue to hear comment from our unions I'd appreciate it thank you um just give give us a second Paula and is it just um Paula and Kathy is is anyone from Yuba or Local 21 here okay all right uh Miss Phillips go ahead thank thank you
076good evening my name is Paula Phillips I'm the president of the Berkeley Council of classified employees I represent the classified staff in the Extended Learning Program the instructional technicians and the program specialist and the instructional assistants in the Bears program program I just want to say that throughout the years we have suffered some drastic cuts to the Extended Learning Program but despite the cuts they've still serviced the students to the best of their ability and over the past couple of years I've spoken to the board about the need to feel a lot of the vacancies in those positions the effect of the classification study and the effect of the recruitment plan by the human resources staff has put has hindered the district from hiring qualified employees in those positions in the beginning when I was
077in Human Resources we tested for nclb requirements as part of the written exam as part of recruiting for those positions currently the requirement is for the staff to come or applicants to come with the nclb requirements and then they're subjected to a rigorous exam again and an oral exam again so what I would encourage you all to do is to request that the commission reconsider the recruitment process and the minimum requirements of those positions so that you can move forward with filling those positions so that we can continue to serve as students I just want to commend the after school staff Aaron Jorgenson and um Angela Gilder Miss Gilder for all of their hard work to keep this program running they work very hard to staff the program with the little bit of support that
078they get with human resources with not trying to adapt and to come up with Creative Solutions to to meet the recruitment needs of that program so I I do thank them for all of their hard efforts um and when you look at the report I do also want to say that in the past and I have some historical knowledge here is that the after school staff when they were hired they were in charge of leading enrichment activities not so much of an emphasis on academic say the way it is now but the after school staff when they were hired part of the process was for them to explain what they can bring to the table in the in the area of of enrichment and what I've seen over the past several years since we lost
079the funding I think it was 21st century funding and when miss Emily davidow Nathan left is a shift from having our own staff provide those AC those enrichment activities to the PTA funding the programs and funding these enrichment activities an increase in vendors and and and um exuberant costs in in contractors providing this support so what you don't see in the report is a little bit of the information that I just shared with you and I'll be more than happy and willing to share some institutional knowledge when it comes to the after school program and Miss Gil herself was here many years or years before me I don't know about many but quite a little bit before me and when she started out as an instructional technician herself in the after school program and I'm
080happy to see that she's now the program Supervisor over the lens program so that shows that we have taken and we've recognized the hard work of our internal applicants and promoted them from within so that's all I have to say and thank you thank you Miss [Applause] Phillips Miss Campbell president good evening board members I'm Kathy Campbell I'm the president of the Berkeley Federation of teachers I'm going to share my time tonight with bft member and realm teacher Khloe kkin she's going to begin good evening I remember when I first saw Victor Diaz's face on Skype in my apartment in New York City where I had come home from an incredibly long day teaching high school and this Beacon of light coming out of California just called me back home now the school that I
081work at is extraordinary it is growing it is strong and as Pablo has mentioned and other people have mentioned we serve everyone who needs to be served let's put it that way now a colleague of mine who I was hanging out with with many others who are here right now just today mentioned how there was a boy who came into class just today on International women's day wearing heels no one really bad at an eye that small story that one sentence Story shows who we serve why we serve them and why we're here right now please ask to your agenda meeting on March 22nd our proposal to extend the lease we don't want to lose our school thank you to Chloe and to all the realm parents and family members and administrators and staff classified
082staff that are here tonight so I've sent the board my speech and I'm just going to read part of it um I'm here tonight on behalf of my members at realm the students and families they serve and in support of Realm classified staff to call upon both buusd and the realm board and administrative team to do all that can be done to try to save realm as an organization and to avoid a revocation of the charter the primary factors leading to the realm Administration team's recommendation to close the Middle School are actually Financial they are Financial there is a facility component but the primary component are Financial the overall Financial issues at realm are very significant and put the high school at serious risk of closure as well as the Middle School in addition the
083failure of Realm to meet the conditions Bud put forth for renewal of the charter in December 2015 risks revocation of the buusd charter which would have the impact of closing the high school in your notice of violation that you provided in January you wrote realm's failure to meet the ending fund balance projected in its renewal petition does not demonstrate Financial progress toward meeting the board's renewal conditions we know that it is not this board's desire nor the desire of BD Administration to revoke the realm Charter and we know that you understand as to all stakeholders that the biggest impact of these actions and decisions and in some cases lack of actions falls upon the young people realm is charged with educating we are confident you want to do everything you can as B USD to
084keep the high school open and to keep the charter active so we call upon you to do some specific things one is to use your prerogative under the realm Charter and under the realm board bylaws to appoint a representative of B USD to the realm governing board we believe and it's our opinion that this bu USD representative should be someone with fiscal expertise and knowledge of the realm budget this is a critical need at this time we believe that with such a representative on the realm board you could work with realm to re-engage their board there is a significant lack of governance right now at the realm Charter Schools we call upon you to continue as you have been to demand a balanced budget from realm one that is based on accurate attendance projections that
085are in line with their historical Trends this is key right we all know that ADA is everything in addition class size in this case is everything and we call upon BD to look carefully at the details of the budget that you'll be given um projections of special ed costs and the cost of Realms extremely large monthly cash advances need to be considered as well um we appreciate your attention to this we all know this is a very serious situation and we encourage greater engagement by BD with this challenge thank you thank you Miss Campbell now we will hear from um District committees I know we have the PTA Council and and deac are there any other District committees okay what why we go ahead with DC because you're closer to the podium so um first
086I would like to thank you for the opportunity to for the English learner parents to speak at the board I'm giving you some updates about our meeting Dak has been meeting once a month since October 2016 the first two meetings were very well attended most schools were represented since then parent par participation has gone down we have received lots of information about lcap and other services to support unduplicated students for parent of English Learners who are English Learners themselves we find it really difficult to digest all the information that is presented the language or content is not accessible to parents much less parents for whom English is our single language and it is hard to summarize to bring information back to our school sites one challenge um we have been facing has been to get
087organized to bring a cohesive message to the board we spend the last three meetings discussing and filed because of the limitation of the brown act we are not able to move forward like the first meeting we couldn't discuss um a born message because it was not on the agenda the second time we had to figure out how we can get organized to discuss the message and uh at the last meeting we finally decided uh we have to send someone to the board and speak so um how can we keep um parents engaged in these committees without having a clear sense of what is expected of us how we can contribute in a meaningful way and what what we can bring back to our school sites elac moving forward we would like deac to be a
088space where parents can have the time to organize and share what is working well and at our different sites and be able to offer concrete recommendation to the board for the elap master plan not only absorbing information thank you thank you yeah that would be helpful you can give it to me oh good evening go go ahead I didn't see you there go ahead you start there five minutes over good evening my name is name is mad Kumar and I chair the PTA Council subcommittee on the Extended Learning Program which will be addressed in agenda 13.1 by Angela and Aaron I want to make two points first BD has two extended day learning programs bears and learns learns is available to All Families Bears is available to low-income families the BSD website States and I
089quote students from Thousand Oaks Cragmont Emerson and Oxford will be bust before or after school to attend bears at a different site yes we're busing kids based on income kids of color are internalizing a message that they have to leave their Community their school and go someplace else for extended-day learning while their friends and learns can stay on campus we want you to integrate bears and learn so that our kids can minimize the racial and economic imbalances throughout the school day second if agenda item 13.1 has participation rates of kids in learns Rosa Parks has 75% of their kids participate and learns 75% the district average the other elementary schools is 40% yes PT do run enrichment classes for their families because the families demand extended day learning families who want to participate in learns
090cannot because of enrollment caps we want this District to scale learns to satisfy the demands of all families in our community hello my name is Sandra leving and I've been overseeing the BAM PTA enrichment program for the past seven years I have over 25 years of experience in extended day learning programs and know firsthand how important the hours from 2: to 6 p.m. are in the lives of children I have worked in the most challenging areas as well as the most affluent areas in Los Angeles throughout my experience life skills and academic success has always been in the Forefront of my all of all my programs Berkeley has adopted a 2020 vision for all our children unfortunately we selectively apply it to 60% of the time our children are spending at school 8:30 to 2:30
091the achievement Gap primarily impacts our students of color who represent almost 50% of learns and bears we cannot expect students to attend an afterschool program that offers limited academic support to return to school the next day having M magically narrowed the achievement Gap what I know for sure is the most important way to create an effective effective extended day learning program is to properly train the staff our third point is to provide incentives for after school it to get more credentialed with proper train training it will be able to provide amazing enrichment classes become more confident with Children and Families which will help run the program more smoothly every place I have ever worked I have demanded training for my staff trainings and workshops create a more cohesive and productive team it allows the staff
092to get the help that unfortunately is unable to get when they are busy dealing with with the day-to-day of running of the program currently at most schools it are usually working alone with limited support and guidance it's amazing how one day's page wage to attend a training can completely improve a program our last point is that we want the district to handle all the business side of extended day learning and enrichment programs at all schools currently vendors are hired by each site contracts are negotiated by the PTA and oftentimes the same vendor will make double what they make at another school if the district becomes The Negotiator as well as the supervisor vendors will have the same contract at every school this will create a menu of classes that each school can choose from contracts
093and contract renewals will become easier invoicing and billing will become timely and most important programs at each school would become inclusive Equitable accessible to all our children I want to reiterate we're not in this alone the 2020 vision is a Community Vision the city of Berkeley runs is a fantastic extended day learning program that costs 1/4 of learns their program runs throughout the school year Cal has 40,000 students they participate in the build literacy program they've created we uh B scientist programs at the middle school we need to utilize this resource Berkeley City College has a 2-year AA program in education they have certification classes if our instructional text in the after school program can get certified to be instructional AIDS during the school day we can have greater collaboration and greater cohesiveness between the
094school day and the extended day learning program I really want us to be Innovative creative and find ways to address the solution so to be clear first integrate bears and learns scale learns to meet family demands the 2020 Vision has got to be for the entire school day for the district ought to handle negotiation of contracts not ptas the PTA Council knows our district can do better no must do better we have the potential to have the most impactful and amazing extended day learning program in America where any child no every child has the option to continue to grow learn and Thrive thank you okay now we're going to hear our consent calendar do I have a motion I have a motion for the consent Calendar please I'll move so I'll move it motion by
095director Appel second director Lea Cutler all in favor I okay we passed the consent calendar now we will hear item 15.4 which is oh um can we do this item before we do comments okay um we're going to do item 15.4 and then we'll do board comments um item 15.4 is an update on the all student restroom implementation we'll do that then we'll do board comments and then we'll go back to items U 15.3 and 15.5 so we've heard quite a few comments tonight um on this topic and um we provided the board with an update on where we are with the bathrooms but um tonight I have uh Tim White and Maggie riddle here to ask or to answer any clarifying questions that um any of the board members might have around um this
096this issue so before um you ask any clarifying questions um could one of you provide the board just a brief summary of what we've um what we have in our packet just brief yeah can I can I focus the I think if you can let us know as of today where things stand with elementary school middle school and then high school with respect to um whether there's an all student bathroom that students can can actually access um and maybe a little bit about the signage too just so we can hear about it all U thank you uh president Alper um Dr Evans for this opportunity and I will say that uh I was encouraged to hear from some of the parents today that uh their experience is that in some cases for the most part
097there have been um folks who've taken advantage of the uh all gender restrooms that have been installed uh for us it is uh very uh similar to what they represented it's our what we call our first phase in terms of providing um uh single stall restrooms uh first phase of our implementation of all gender restrooms was a single stall restroom to be selected at each one of our schools uh some schools as you heard have selected more than uh one uh single stall restroom uh case in point Malcolm X and I believe Rosa Parks uh but uh for for the most part there's at least one single star restroom at all of our elementary schools and uh middle schools as well uh in addition to that the uh teachers at the elementaries and Middle School
098have uh variously asked that we expand the locations and in some cases um uh M uh multiple locations have been uh requested um Berkeley High School today uh we just recently checked and it's been expanded to three uh restrooms uh on the um the signage for all of the sites that uh we've discussed is uh uniform and it does say all student uh restroom and the uh Sy symbolism on it is is a single um uh fixture uh water closet fixture so thank you um so can we just do this one at one group at a time so with respect to the elementary schools are there are there any schools where and first let me just say I I I think we all appreciate the the work that has gone into um ensuring that students
099particularly now as um transgender students and gender fluid students are um in in other jics don't have the uh or may not have the ability to use the bathroom of their choice like they do in Berkeley I think we we're very grateful that we have staff that is willing to devote the time um and effort to making this work and so I just want to be clear about um at the elementary schools are there schools right now where the signage where where either the parents or the or the teachers or the principls are not convinced that the bathroom itself is accessible and the signage is appropriate yeah I think that's the case I think so how many like how of those I think we heard that from at least one of the parents uh here
100today maybe two uh I would say that from my own uh inspections uh uh Berkeley Arts Magnet has signage in one place that needs to be moved to a more accessible restroom um and uh particularly right now uh as a good example Berkeley Arts Magnet has a um restroom designated in the uh nurse's office but the nurse's office is behind an office door so although we've clearly labeled the restroom doors uh the the signage uh is not visible from the hallway which makes it a little bit difficult to find and so that is an example of uh of some house uh keeping that we need to do so how so how long will it take to to those those uh type of things should be completed within the week what we uh want to do
101is complete this phase one uh activity of single stalls uh that should be completed within the week okay uh it let me just inter I'm sorry to interrupt you director white but and director rid is there does that sound right to you that there about within a week we small things that we need to continue to work out and we need to make sure that the bathrooms are visible to students and that every student knows where they actually are and so we still have some work to do on the single stalls and taking a look at where the adult single stall restrooms are as well okay um okay now with respect to the middle schools are there any are there concerns at the middle schools it's I think we heard comment from King right yeah
102there there are some concerns all three middle schools do have single stall all student restrooms um but we still need to have restrooms in other parts of the campus than in the one location and is is the holdup in the middle schools um what is it that the the school Community hasn't yet identified a location or is it just a question of making sure that we get the right signage um and signed off on by The Architects I think it's a a combination of both and um in conjunction uh as I said we were in our first phase right and so the first phase is the completion of single stall restrooms being identified having the locks changed to make sure that uh the access and egress is uh easy and also having the appropriate signage
103uh the other issue that uh Maggie riddle alluded to was we're actually taking restrooms out of commission that have to be uh replaced and so it's a fixture count uh kind of balance that we go through in the maintenance department okay so how long do we think it would take at the middle schools well right now we've we've already identified the single stall restrooms but going forward our next phase phase two is actually to identify further expansion of all gender restrooms into multiple stall uh bathrooms and uh locker rooms okay well so let let's talk about phase two in a second but just on the on the first phase of the single stall restroom so how for the middle schools we in a week we think we can do the elementary schools in the middle
104schools what are we talking about I I would actually say uh middle schools as well in a week I think it's an issue of identifying signage uh making sure that we uh identify the proper uh additional uh restrooms and uh place that signage out in some cases um uh I'm not sure if we actually have enough signage uh but uh if if that's not the case then we should have uh temporary signage up to make sure that we uh don't delay the implementation okay and then the high school for the single stalls same thing at the high school currently they're three single stalls uh labeled and identified okay what buildings are they what buildings they are in G on the second floor C on the G on the second floor C on the second floor
105and M on the second floor okay so just with respect to what what you're calling phase one which is the single stall restrooms is it is it um reasonable to ask for a report back and on just on information in at the next board meeting which is two weeks from now certainly okay that would that would be great um now I understand phase two is a is a longer discussion about multi-stall gender neutral bathrooms and and and locker rooms too potentially and and I understand from the memo that you director white would like to convene a a group of of interested stakeholders is that right yeah I think it would be um I think it would be beneficial for us all to engage a little bit more closely uh particularly uh and at adhoc Fashion
106as we go through this process of identifying and uh providing the facilities for for our students okay and um so interested stakeholders have already reached out to you and they can just expect to hear from you right they they did uh the parents of our students did send us a letter our Our intention is to respond uh in kind with a letter identifying all of the um uh modific ifications that we've made to address their concerns and identify where the restrooms will be and what the timeline will be for the engagement to to look at phase two roll out okay and I know I've been monopolizing the comments so does anyone else have any comments or questions Judy yeah I just I somebody who was in involved in helping to make this happen at the
107first at the beginning and sorry at the beginning of the process I have to say that I'm um there we are the only School District that I'm aware of that has made sure that we have all gender bathrooms in every School site and I don't I mean might not be the only one but we're the only one I'm aware of and I um also really appreciate your taking the input from parents regarding the signage because that was something that I know was also an issue kind of which signs we would use so I really feel like we're exemplary in that way and uh I do recognize that there's some you know there's some final steps that need to be to be taken and I I I'm glad we're going to get a a um get
108a a report on that and uh I don't I don't know if there's further steps that are that we're planning to take at Berkeley High I can say you know I have a gender queer kid who goes to Berkeley High or now was at is but went to Berkeley High and making sure that we now have three is great because they had to get a key to use a bathroom in order to not use an inappropriate bathroom and so now it's it it sounds like we're normalizing it and I Berkeley High is really big so hopefully over time we'll be able to identify even more whether it's multi-stall or single stall bathrooms but I just wanted to thank um thank the staff for following the direction I think of the board and um helping to
109create this access for our kids yeah thank you go ahead just a quick comment of thank you and thank you to the parents who also came out and the suggestions that have been provid Ed to the district and all I wanted to add is in terms of the communication that where the district is going with this and that being not just by School site but broadly for for the whole District uh both in English and Spanish in terms of what we're trying to accomplish here I think it's important to make sure that it's either in the A+ news or it's someplace that we really um communicate uh well what our intent is here thank you thank you both so much um okay we're going to go we happy anniversary Direct riddle happy anniversary um we
110um we did that out of order for we had a scheduling issue so we're going go back to board comment and then we will continue with our other um discussion items so um now is the time for board comment board and superintendent comment you want to start director Lea Cutler um well once again I want to thank uh the community of parents who have come out uh both from Realm and from the sexual harassment our students our parents our teachers who come to support our students um in saying things to the board that you know it's not easy um it's very difficult for for me to hear the harm that has been done to our students and that they're still experiencing so it it it it it hits heart it hits our heart and I
111know that we as a district are working very hard to remedy this and I and I have full confidence that with a hire of our new title 9 coordinator that we will be able to address this more in a better and more efficient and uh responsive way um uh also you know I I'll admit to reading these ugly um racist and very uh hurtful messages from people from all over the United States not they're mostly I suspect they're from other places they're not here locally and I have not responded to them and I will respond in a way that uh says that I will block you for the messages that you are sending to both our staff and our school district because uh we respect um all of our staff and the rights to First
112Amendment so I think that the very least I can do that I've just been deleting the messages but I think they deserve a response for me personally um and so and I also just a reminder I've changed my um my dates for meeting uh office hours to be Mondays the first Mondays because it turns out a lot of Thursday meetings are happening so it'll be the first Mondays of each month but if anybody wants to schedule a time I'm open to scheduling another time if you're in able to make it uh from 4:30 to 6 o00 at Cal Latina thank you I will go um I was going to try to leave a little early this evening um but I wanted to at least um uh be here for the discussion on the after school
113um program so I'm going to try to do that otherwise you might see me I I'm a bit jet legged today I just came from out of the country a couple days ago so please bear with me um always good to have um people from the public to come out and um let us know what's on your mind um it's um particularly uh as I said before I really appreciate the young women from Berkeley High who are learning to um advocate for themselves and to um stand up for positions they believe in believe you we do listen to what you have to say and I think um what's happened over the past three years in terms of the shifts that we're making um to make Berkeley High safe uh for those that are both the
114victim of harassment whether it's sexual harassment racial harassment um lgbtq harassment or just the kind of bullying that unfortunately sometimes plagues uh adolescent aged students um that's all very important to us and so um you're advocating um for us to continue to deepen how we address that issue is very important um my office hours for March will be March 25th um that's going to that's always on the fourth Saturday and it's 10:30 at Cafe Leela which is at s Pablo Avenue in Delaware and um that's all for today bye want me to go sorry so I wanted to say a couple of things first of all I thought that the testing I want I'm I want I thought that the testimony that we heard tonight um from particularly around sexual harassment and how we're handling
115that at the district was really thoughtful and it's always really important for us to hear the perspective of students who are harmed and I also recognize that sometimes the the the um boys who are accused of the of that harm or and well in this all right the people who are accused of of that harm um in most of these cases it's boys um that it's hard for them to show up here um but I really so you know we hear one side of what of the story but I wanted to say that I really it's really important for us to hear the perspective from our students and the experience of what happens when you make a complaint and um so I really appreciate that and I appreciate appreciate the coordination of the testimony in
116a way that we hear the narrative and it's very effective tells the story really well um but tonight I also really appreciated that um the students came and talked about recognizing the work that we have done and also the complexities the the the kind of gender and race complexities of this um of this Dynamic that we have going on and also hearing from some of our young women that they're um goal is not necessarily punishment suspension and expulsion but that there be some kind of restorative practice and healing and so I I don't know I just felt like it was a really nuanced conversation tonight that was very um that felt a little bit different to me and I just really wanted to appreciate the students for being so thoughtful in what they're bringing to
117us and how much they're really thinking about how we can do a better job of addressing harm when it happens so that um so yeah so thank you for that um my office hours I am changing I'm going to have my office hours on Saturday I saw lizz's head poke poke up uh on Saturday uh 3:18 which is the regular day I'm going to have it at 10: them at 10:00 a.m. though instead of at 1 and I'm going to move them to take five Cafe 3130 Sacramento which is I know Josh's spot but it's very close to my house and I really like it so that's why I'm moving them to uh so office hours 3: a.m. Saturday the 18th at 10:00 a.m. at take five Cafe on Sacramento uh vice president Daniels um
118I have some uh comments to make on The Realm issue but I'll save that for the quick item uh later um want to Echo my uh fellow board members in acknowledging the um just all of the people who came out tonight and and chose to speak at this board meeting at others um see I there were a couple of uh sports teams that did really well but I can't find my notes to acknowledge them um soccer team soccer team uh women's basketball won men's basketball lost anyways we have some pretty good sports teams doing good out there my apologies for not remember the details at this point um that means a lot to them um there is a uh an lcap survey where we are asking for feedback from our community um to access it
119you just go to berkeley.net and scroll down there's sort of a a blog post in the middle of the page go down to the February 23rd 24th posting it's asking for uh your input today's the deadline so you can do it on your phone uh berkeley.net and we would ask that you would uh fill out those um that that survey thank you good evening um as you heard earlier that today is women's day and international women's day is today and it's part of women's History Month um of course that's taken on an adct significance this year um being all the things that have happened um but I bet you did not know that in Berkeley International women's day has deep and historical Roots uh specifically within the public school system B USD used to celebrate
120International uh women's day um as a districtwide holiday and Berkeley High School was the first High School in the country to have a women's uh studies Department um and I wanted to say many of our schools um have planned um events in uh in their classrooms I also want to acknowledge the students coming forward tonight um I also want to thank them for acknowledging what we have been trying to do um and I also want to acknowledge the fact that we have much more work to do in this area okay thank you everybody um now we will um hear together items 15.3 and 15.5 and I I think we just have um a brief presentation from Deputy superintendent Cleveland and director white is here if we have questions for him but um Miss Cleveland do
121you want to just stay there are you coming to to the okay no no that's fine so the information item that I'm presenting is the um audited financial statements for Ram charter schools for information for the 15 16th school year um I've been working closely with ram for six years um since the beginning um offering fiscal advisement support um we provided special education the realm char school um at a much cheaper rate than external um entities are are charging we provided um prop in their their share of their property taxes in advance to help with cash flows during the early years of the charger school as well but we also um provide um fiscal oversight fiscal reviews on a regular basis and provide that information to Ram to assist um Ram with the decisions that
122need to be made regarding their finances with that real Charter School's independent audit for 1516 um school year um although fairly stated in terms of the financial position of ram indicated that the Middle School um has a negative um fund balance or cash fund balance 1 million in a whole for the Middle School um and the high school had um 243,000 um as we've indicated in many many of the um memorandum memorandums that we've issued Ram that not having adequate reserves and will um prevent Ram from being able to meet its monthly obligations whereas right now real has had to borrow on the state money that comes in all the way through June so they've already received those funds through loans um to get paid current cash flows for each month so there's definitely concerned
123um both that the high school and the middle school um of Ram's ability to continue as a um going concern um as mentioned in public comment um and mainly around being able to meet the obligations of payroll and other obligations on a monthly basis um as as noted um Ram was issued a notice of violation on January 25th 2017 mainly for um not meeting the conditions of our Charter petition renewal um I meet with Victor um regularly around um and provide input as to the budget reductions that needed to be made to bring the ram Charter School in balance and um the charter school petition stated that Ram would be uh um one of the conditions was that Ram would balance by the 2016 um school year and not only did um Ram not balance
124by projected balance have a projected balance at the end of the 16 17 school year but was a half a million more in the whole for the high school um in terms of the what the projections was and another um few hundred, more negative than what was projected when we renewed the petition um real charter school could have been issued a notice a violation much sooner we work very closely to try to help and assist Ram with um getting out of this hole and waited to issue that notice of violation in January um that's the first step um issuing the notice of violation is step one um second ram has until July 1st of 2017 to provide us with a remedy to resolve its Financial um issues as was um included in the charter petition
125renewal and then um thirdly if Ram um does not meet the um those conditions then the district does have the right to um revoke which is something we've worked really hard not to do over the six years that we've worked together um so the main reason for the notice of violation was fiscal mismanagement failure to M maintain a positive ending fund balance failure to AO avoid deficit spending failure to make the significant budget cuts to avoid chronic deficit spending and failure to maintain an adequate cash flow and this is just for information this is all based on finances and not based on Ram's academic program thank you Miss Cleveland um now we have a little time for comments and questions vice president Daniels we're g we're going to do the finance first before fac no
126facilities it's all together so if there's questions director white is here so just a um uh a couple of questions and then perhaps a comment or two um my understanding is that one of the reasons why uh realm Charter may have had difficulty finding a space is because of their financial condition any is that an accurate understanding I obious not the only reason but one of the reasons uh I couldn't I couldn't answer I just need CL I didn't hear the sorry one one of the challenges one of the reasons why realm has had a hard time finding a facility for their middle school is because of their financial condition that that's correct they're going to rent a facility to an entity that can't pay their bills that may be part of it and then
127um being able to pay given the financial situation they're in being able to pay anything close the market rate yeah so I I had the chance to visit realm a few years ago um many of the employees in realm were employed by BD a number of the students uh were are and were our students um the last thing that um I think any of us want to do is not see realm be successful and I think that is why over the last two years since basically the renewal process for their Charter started um we have tried to do what we can to support them we fronted them money we gave them a a lease for a year that we were not required to give um and it is frustrating for me as a board member
128that at the end of that two-year process um the that we are put in a situation where it is up to us to uh basically determine whether or not there's a there there it can continue and in fact that has been the responsibility of realm's leadership and realm's board um when Mr Diaz was here um requesting an extens a renewal of the charter um let me take let me take a step back real quick so the way that that funding for schools and charters in particular works is that if you enroll a student you get a base amount of funding whether you are realm or BSD or ousd or anybody else if you enroll a student who also happens to be English learner or low-income or Foster youth you get an additional amount of money
129so realm has a high percentage of lowincome and El students uh in their in their Charter uh Berkeley has a lower percentage so our percentage about 40% realm is is much much higher by state law the amount of money that realm can generate uh because of those students is capped at Berkeley unified's cap so by having a charter with Berkeley realm is losing money significant amount of money and the way to fix the cash flow is to get chartered in a school district such that they their their ability to gener more money is higher that suggestion was made to them on a number of occasions in public and in private and for a reason that I don't understand fully that decision was not made um if for example West Contra Costa were to Charter realm
130they would be required to provide them with facilities and they would get higher amount of funding and yet we're at this situation where the district um with plenty of notice to realm um made it clear that that that this is what's going to happen um and now we're put in this very very difficult situation where we have these fabulous families and these fabulous parents and a fabulous program coming to us um asking for help and and we have plans for 2020 Bonar we we have to do our due diligence under the law and it's not even clear that if we were to do the facility realm Middle School could continue and if decision aren't made it brings the high school down um we've been faced with a number of difficult decisions this is not the
131most difficult but it is certainly up there and it's and it's frustrating um given the amount of time that we have spent as a district trying to support realm and giving them notice and the fact that um their financial condition has gotten worse not better um so I I think that there that I know that the community has has been um organizing and doing its best to figure out a way for realm to succeed I know that realm's leadership uh has been looking at other options I would hope that they would consider uh the option of a charter through West contracosta um because I think I think that if they want to survive they they need to consider all options um and I may have a few thoughts later but those are my my thoughts
132right now director P I just I appreciate you're saying that director Daniels and I just wanted to say to the families who are here the um I mean I can speak person personally that I really I really see the value of realm in the education that it's providing for the students and the community and the parents who clearly love the school and come out here and are organizing and I just I wanted to reflect what um doc director Daniels was talking about because it's um realm as a charter is by choice not a district Charter and um you know we I I think I think that I can speak on behalf of the administration have really worked hard to try to support the viability of realm in a lot of different ways and so at
133some point we do have to make we we have we have a fiscal responsibility to our district and and I think as Josh said plans for this building and have given notice and have even I think extended the time so I just wanted to make it um so I just wanted to add to that because I I I agree it's a difficult decision and I love that families are coming to Berkeley and finding a safe haven here and that your kids are happy here um and and especially since Berkeley so many people are priced out of Berkeley that there's a way to support having families here so I I appreciate just your what the gentleman I don't know your name but what the gentleman who spoke said um and it's just at some point comes
134down to really a a our fiscal responsibility um well I've I've spoken to Pablo and U I've heard um and and I know I've been here since over the six years seven years with Bill huitt and the board gave directives to uh our staff to really work hard to make it work to have realm here um and I know that our staff has worked continuously and ongoing with realm to be successful um and I and I and I appreciate the students um thinking and feeling in terms of how what what they feel when they come here to Berkeley and and it's um you know I I run an organization and I know if I was running in the negative I would have to seriously think about you know what what I need to cut in
135in order to make the organization function so it's not a good place to be um I'm hopeful that between now and July some things some magic can happen that uh there will be some um some support there for realm staff to find in a location and I actually didn't know that um the district uh that realm is capped at our for some reason that that escaped me um and I think that that's some some information that perhaps I don't know if everybody knew that that would be an advantage for for realm um I'm concerned about um the next couple of months and even um the possibility of Realm being able to meet their payroll come even May and June um and the Staffing how how how would you support um the program that way I
136hope not on the backs of the staff so I you know I don't know if this has been done or is being done right now is having a cash flow chart to see what what will happen between now and July in terms of all the expenses that is expected I think it's important to see that and monitor that um not not wait till July but on a monthly basis so I I do have a cash flow statement through June it is very tight and at times negative um so I do have that um we I am working closely as I always have I do get you know monthly statements and they're willing to provide that but it is a very tight situation regardless of the facility issue d uh deput tenant Cleveland so let's just
137say that that the Middle School survives through the end of the fiscal year it doesn't get any better for the next fiscal year I mean they they may they may get through the end of the current fiscal year but unless something dramatically different happens the the next fiscal year there's not the money to even start up that year is that is that accurate yeah there's some definite cash flow um concerns I think the plan is to make some very significant Cuts I haven't seen the plan there the um the um notice of violation requested a a plan by July 1st with the adopted budget I know they're working closely with the Union um so I'm not really sure that they're working with some um financing have Charter School Capital who's ensured that they would try
138to help them meet their cash obligations so there's some arrangement there okay so there there are plans I mean I can't I don't know but we've not seen the numbers I mean so so Mr Diaz is here tonight asking for for us to work with uh real in some capacity um more than we already have I'm not sure what that means um but he hasn't presented us with any details about how he actually intend tends to fix his cash flow problems other than saying that he will yes he's he's said that he will he's provided and then he's provided I think a letter from Charter cap Charter School Capital saying that they would support Ram's cash flow needs so not sure what that Arrangement is um and then he's stating that he will provide us
139some more additional information as time goes forward and the interest rate on those cash flow loans are fairly substantial that's correct yeah so you're you're getting out of debt by getting more into debt um so I don't I want to well one thing I want to say and and and and I want to um well I appreciate what what director Daniel and director Po and director Lea Cutler said and I agree with it all I remember when we were renewing the charter and Mr scary I think led the educational review of the program and it was um incredibly impressive the the the program that was um that is being that is and was being offered at realm with talented teachers and staff um working with students in really innovative ways that I think I know
140I felt listening to it and having visited realm um that I think we could learn a lot from and so it so so I agree with um vice president Daniels that it's that it's particularly um upsetting and frustrating to to to be in to be in this position and to understand realm's financial situation I I want to make a comment about the facilities issue um because another frustration I have is that is the way that I understand based on Communications we've gotten from the realm Community the way I understand that the leadership of Realm has framed the issue around the facilities which is um the suggestion that the that the that that we the district B USD has um pulled the rug out from under realm or or voted at our last meeting on the
14125th of January to end the lease in this building which is not the case and and I wanted to make sure that that everyone understood the actual history which is that the realm Administration and we don't know what has been communicated to the realm Community but the realm Administration has known since well before January of 2016 that it's lease with the district and this building would expire on June 30th 2017 and it's known since that time that the district had has had no intention of renewing the lease beyond that date and the relevant documents related to those decisions are all public documents that were approved by the board this board in Open Session um at the January 25th meeting we had on our agenda both a discussion of realm's financial situation and a item about
142whether to enter into a new lease with realm in this building it was not to end a current lease the current lease ends in in uh June of this year um and in voting not to enter into a new lease the board was acting consistently with what we what the district stated was its intention back in January of 2016 and and before but it was memorialized in January 2016 the lease that we currently have with realm says it is understood between the parties that the district shall have no obligation to provide any facilities Furnishings or equipment to the charter school either under prop 39 or in Le of prop 39 and and this is this is the important part I think and that the district does not intend to provide facilities Furnishings or equipment to
143the charter school for the 5 years following the termination of this agreement in June 2016 that was an agreement that we entered into publicly in January of 2016 with full communication to the BD Community because we knew that in June of 2016 we were going to need that space and so from that time that we entered into that lease with realm we have been planning for the use of that space so I I I wanted to also make sure that that folks were aware of the item that is also in the agenda or the packet for tonight which discusses the plans that we that the district has made for that space which includes the immediate use of the entire ebuilding for the Visual and Performing Arts department at Willard um to be moved into that
144space as soon as realm vacates it in June or the end of June the district has scheduled Career Technical education classes to begin this summer in that space we um have plans to use the classrooms on the first floor of 2020 boner as conference rooms and potential Office Space beginning this summer um which will all of those will alleviate critical shortages of space around the district and then we have major construction planned for the spring of 2018 for this entire facility or at least a big part of this facility um those are all plans that we made because it was very clear to us and to realm that we wouldn't have that this base would would U be available for the district in June of this year so I wanted to make sure that that
145was um clear to the realm Community if it would if it had not been made clear by their leadership when realm came for its renewal I as many of the board here recognized that realm uh provided a great service to many students that um had not necessarily um before their experience in realm had had good experiences in college had teachers that they were attached to had curriculum that was both challenging and relevant and that academically um it was clear that Realms um was providing an education to students that um um was a was a model in many ways I also said at the time that um as as a board entrusted with overseeing realm that it was very difficult to um really uncouple the fact that although that academically the program was strong that with
146that when we were looking at renewal it was clear that there are financial difficulties um and that I think that I certainly struggled myself about H you know about how do you communicate to a community that a school that's obviously so well regarded is in deep Financial trouble as they go toward renewing as we go as we went toward renewing its lease um at that same time um we realized that um realm uh because of of of the student population and the way that the laws regarding Charter are done in the state that um we were not um required to provide any facility space whatsoever to realm while in fact um there are other um um school districts that would in fact be required to provide uh money uh facilities for Real uh we also
147at the time said that the board could no longer be in the district could no longer be in a position of fronting money to the district that um that was not something even though we were getting we had the option of kind of taking it off the top so to speak so we were not putting ourselves at risk at the time but just that that is not um it's not a path to financial stability when you are robbing Peter to PayPal and you are borrowing money either um from future Revenue so here we are um a year later and the financial situation of the realm schools are worse than it was than we when we um agreed to renew uh the facility situation um is what we had realm had wide I would say open
148eyed agreed to that this would be the last year because that the district for those of you that follow the school board know that we have our own um challenges regarding facility space uh we've had this very boardroom filled with um District parents concerned about overcrowding uh or the or the large number of students in our current facilities and we um so for example the music program moving from the Middle School much of that is because Ward needs that space for classrooms so it's not you know it's just it's not a matter of them getting a better space it's it's that the space that they're in is needed for students that are enrolled in our district so long story shorter I guess that like many of what I'm hearing from the the board it's a
149very frustrating place to be in I know that our uh Deputy superintendent has worked many hours I I know that um that to try to find ways to support realm um and um that were sustainable uh it is not really our responsibility to do that uh realm is not a in in District Charter it's an independent Charter um it is actually illegal for us to give money to to um to realm um that would be a gift of of our funds to an independent District um and so we have done not just what the law requires but quite frankly um in recognition of the service and the education that realm does provide much greater I hope that realm can find a way out of its situation I am not sure that unless it's um um
150in discussion with a another District that does have um more responsibility regarding facility as well as the ability to get more Revenue um either through um taking their their rightful share U by going for a district that would allow that or by getting grants I don't really know what the future of of Realm is I am concerned about the ability of Realm to to survive even to the end of the school year um in terms of being able to pay staff and to keep the classrooms open I would hope that as a community that you are looking internally about what are your next steps um because even if um I don't think that it's within Berkeley Unified School District's ability to solve the financial problems of Realm uh facility of I I think this is
151something that I don't know how you overcome a million dollars deficit in in in a Middle School uh and keep the doors open at least with the and certainly not with the quality of Education that realm I hear has been providing uh to so many students and I'm not quite sure about the high school as well um so it it's a difficult situation it's one that I wish that we were not in today um but um we are okay thank you and then we have a couple more minutes dror de um so I I I understand that um the realm Community is here um I know that Mr Diaz was here hopefully he's still I know he left hopefully he's watching um the um when when realm asks for help financially we loan them money
152until we could no longer loan them any more money when they asked for help facility wise we granted them a facility and we can no longer do that because we need the space when they ask her financial advice we provided them that and it doesn't seem like the realm leadership is listening or taking that advice and if there are other ways that we can help I think you're hearing that we find the program to be pretty amazing and want to find a way to help the way in which we've helped so far the facilities the finance the financial advice we're not able to right now we we have done what we can do in those three areas and we've we've we no longer are able to help in those three areas so if there are
153other ways that we can help uh support the the work you know your efforts as a community we want to try to do that or at least I I'm assuming rep my colleagues would agree um but in terms of the facility or the financial advice I I think we've done we can do and now it is on the realm leadership to to make its decisions about how to proceed forward okay thank you there was one recommendation made by bft in terms of while the while real was still hear of the board appointing someone to their board is that something that the board members would consider and maybe think about um as because it's still in our district it's still in our facility and at the very least um perhaps provide a a some some support
154on that end I would want I would want to get a legal opinion on that I would have the concern that um having been or known about these types of situations before it's at best awkward if not legally um uh not done to be on the board of an entity that you are um in fact uh charged with oversight it's kind of a conflict of interest for one of us to be on the board and then we as a board have to vote upon i i a little concerned about it about Brown act right now because I feel like about the brown act because I feel like we're we're going a bit of Drift from the agendized item so I would pref I think we should put this on if we if we want to
155think about it I think we should put it on the agenda for a future board meeting or leave that to St well the suggestion has been made to staff so I think if the superintendent um and saying a board member well so let me suggest this can we bring this back to the board um sorry go ahead um instead of making a decision tonight on who that is or who it should be um or if well I I mean I I I do think since we are talking financials of Realm it is within the scope of of the item to briefly mention it um and I think until we see um different decision making by the realm leadership with respects to its finances I don't think it would do much to uh provide one of
156our staff members to be on their board um we've provided them with financial advice and it doesn't seem that they have made changes to their approach to their budget and until that happens I'm I'm not sure that um there was much that would be gained by adding one person to their board who wouldn't have the ability to make any uh changes in their behavior um and certainly they have not come to ask us for that as a governing board um even though we have the prerogative to do that and so I I we don't have a staff person who can spend a lot of time you know significant am of time fixing realm that's that's on them um we provide them Financial advice so I I I gu yes well I understand the request and
157I think um I I I have concerns about about what that would mean given that their behavior has not really changed okay well the suggestion has been made so if the superintendent and I can discuss whether to put it on a future agenda or not okay thank you thank you director white and thank you Deputy superintendent Cleveland and um we will now move to item 13.1 which is the um discussion of the Extended Learning programs so we have Mr Jorgenson Miss gilders and Dr Sadler too or no no just the two of you okay we also have um Linda roach who's a bears teacher at Berkeley Arts Magnet Brazil McIntyre program specialist at lant elementary school and Kamal Stewart who's a program specialist at Willard Mill uh Willard Middle School um I hope everyone read
158all the wonderful information um in their packet with a lot of information so tonight we're going to be discussing some of their successes as well as some of the challenges of the after school program and and also our next steps for the program and um Miss gilders and Mr Jorgenson we originally allocated 55 minutes I'm going to if we can keep it to 45 total including plenty of time for questions and discussion I hope that that works for you both for you all do you need to connect oh you got the connector okay than oh sorry okay can you hear me now yes test one yes we will thank you good evening again and thank you for the opportunity to come and present tonight and share some of who we are and what we're doing
159in our extended day programs as you know the day has been long and so we're going to do our best to bring forth some of of our wonderful programs I am Angela Gilder I am the after school program supervisor for learns I'm a Jorgenson I'm the program supervisor of Extended Learning I'm Dr Linda roach the Bears teacher at BAM I'm Brazil MacIntyre the uh program specialist at lant elementary school my name is kimal Stewart I'm the program specialist at Willard Middle School so our our philosophy um Aon you have to um speaking to the mic so that yeah our philosophy um as was mentioned earlier we currently have two programs running in the district um what we call the learns program and the Bears program and so we have two separate philosophies currently uh for
160the Bears program we have to create a safe and nurturing environment where all children are supported in their development of economic Excellence emotional security healthy living and self-expression and for our learns program we have the Berkeley learns after school program support children in reaching their full potential by providing academic support recreational activities and enrichment classes in a safe instruction environment look at it at the school sites we strengthen the link between the schools and families and stried to provideed seamless Day by working directly with teachers staff families and school based programs we are better able to advance student learning uh with angel I both coming on last year we have been working with our staff this year to update the this through a vision process um and so we look to update those going into
161next school year um so I I am the Bears teacher abam and we have a ratio of 14 students 14 to1 students to staff ratio we are open 240 days of the year including Winters spring and summer breaks during this time we do a lot of academics a lot of enrichment and Multicultural field trips we go um we take our students to many different areas of the Bay Area museums uh the uh we go to San Francisco to the prita center we um see the murals and like I said we take them to museums we take them to field trips to many different places um and we are a staffed by teachers with a minimum of Child Development teaching permit also um some of our teachers have bachelor's degrees Master's and doctoral uh degrees uh
162we also serve a multi-generational community we have a students that been coming to us um like for example myself I've been a humble servant of this district for over 30 years so I see now the children of my students that I had at the old Columbus or at kman school or at the different schools so we are very very proud to serve uh the Berkeley students and their parents in our community so um again I'm Brazil McIntyre and I'm the program specialist at um lant um at lant in the elementary school after school program programs we have a ratio of 20 to1 um we are open every day that school is open um and then we have a minimum attendance um requirement of minimum of 15 hours a week however it usually is longer than
163that and it also includes um us beginning at about 1:25 when the TK program lets out TK and Kinder programs let out um until 6:00 p.m. um and then we also um offer grade level groupings so that we can promote you know strong academic support and we're able to kind of Link um the different group or grade levels um with appropriate interventions and um additional academic support um with that um and then we also offer um a huge variety of diverse enrichment classes um I know at my site in particular we have like a Lego stop motion animation class we have a cartoon um C or comic book creation class um there's all kinds of um instructor Le or group leader Le enrichments that we offer with the elementary learns program good evening so my
164name is kimal Stewart I'm the program specialist at Willard Middle School go Willard uh at Willard we have expanded enrichment when we say that we mean we try to offer various options to the kids some of these things are new to the kids some of these things are things that they're interested in so we've got uh engineering computer science piano photography skateboarding tennis various social groups Visual Arts we try to mix it up and get the kids involved and get them ready to go we also offer multiple athletic opportunities so we have teams that travel and go to different schools and compete boys girls everyone gets to play we've got Ultimate Frisbee basketball etc etc so we've got uh many many sports that the kids can participate in but we also have academic support hour
165and we encourage them to participate in academic support so they can keep their grades up and stay on the team and get a a a sense of caderie and learn how to be a part of a team so we're all about community building and culture with all these things that we're doing uh we have a minimum attendance of three days a week um or nine hours so be and and since we have that we try to make sure we have programming that goes from the beginning of the program all the way to the end so we want the kids to stay and get the most out of the program um academic support happens for about an hour and we do whatever we need we we are not scared to try to find different ways of
166helping these kids uh we separate them by grade levels six seventh and eighth grade in the Middle School uh sub subject level sometimes we help them out uh specifically to the subject whether it be math science we we we pinpoint things and see what we can do to help them out um that's about it so as we try to coordinate throughout the school day one of the things that we really try to emphasize and elaborate on is the coordination with the principal and our staff our extended day staff so what that might look like is our staff will attend or meet one-on-one with their primary principles or vice principles whatever the case may be so that they have a better communication of what's going on throughout the school day and then they can come and
167return share that information with their staff also our after school staff uh what makes us sort of unique in its sense is that we continue to build on our relationships with the school day bridging and linking that um the extension of the to the after school time many of our staff members our it in particular have the opportunity to work as Tutors or Noonday supervisors and then they're always they're given the opportunity to share information and bring it to the program itself whereas is we have better means of knowing what may be happening throughout the day with a student if a child had a poor beginning in the beginning of the school day we now know why it infiltrated into the after school time and we're better able to bring that um situation to a
168a better resolution and also with that some of our staff um have come along and they are increasing their abilities to bring additional enrichment opportunities to our programs one program in particular I know that the student he was a former jazz band student at Berkeley High and he is now teaching music at his particular site so we're bringing we're doing our best to continue to incorporate and build on our staff through our uh professional development days as well as to enhance on their particular talents that they may have so that we can continue to bring a diverse opportunities for our students in general do do want to recognize there are other other programs in the district um at Jefferson we have the JS program that is ran by Bay Area Community Resources uh we work
169with them and coordinate to help help them with anything any needs arise to help them to run the best program they can there and then at John M there's also a Kids in Motion which is a third party vendor that that leases that space and has been there for many years some of our successes you are see you're able to see right here at this table many of them have risen up through the ranks of being it and now they are program specialist Dr Roach herself she was one of she has worked in dual capacity she worked and learns and she's now as well as bears and so she's one of our teachers and the Bears I believe there's nine out of 11 of our program Specialists who were once instructional technicians and they are
170now in leadership positions as program Specialists so that's a great attribute seeing that we continue to have inhome and ingrown um personnel and we're very proud of how they serve our students in our district build continuing to build on that relationship with our families seven of our seven Bears out of um 10 have become Google Certified which they in turn will be able to bring more technology to our students and we're very proud of their contributions for going and contributing over 20 hours of study time so that they can bring these efforts to our students in general for our program um um we're also you know very proud of the fact that we are keeping students off of our streets from the hours of 26 to from the hours of 2:00 to 6 o'clock in
171the evening so over nine of our sites have en enrollment that are meeting above or beyond our state expectations we do Pride the fact that we are able to build relationships with our families meaning sometimes that there we have the opportunities to have that communication with the daytime teacher that sometimes um they're not able to communicate with the families and so we can relay messages there were times when it when I was a program specialist at Craigmont um Miss Bradley and I we we took the bus down to meet our parents at Longfellow so that they too felt a more of a welcoming sense and that they didn't feel such a disconnect from us um being so far away so we pride ourselves for building our relationships with our family on a daily basis I
172want to highlight a few the challenges that we have um so this past October we went through the federal program monitoring review and that actually was became an opportunity for growth for us in that we were able to really learn about our programs more uh both Angeline spent many hours to prepare for that as well as with our staff um and we able to also create some relationships with the county and state Consultants so that now we have people we can go to when we have questions so it actually became um very useful for us um as was mentioned earlier uh in the meeting we do have a challenge of hiring developing and retaining highly qualified staff inherent in our program being after school primarily an after school program we have staff that are part-time
173so one way in which we're trying to address that is by working with human resources to find ways in which these staff can be incorporated into the school day and we find that that is very helpful as as Gilder had said uh in helping to create that bridge from the school day to the after school program so we want to continue that and see think find new ways in which we can make that happen um another challenge is we have we have two separate programs and that has been made clear um and was reiterated again tonight earlier and that is a fact of what we have in operating from two separate um income sources and so that is something that we all recognize and are trying to find creative ways to work with that and
174um try to give similar needs to all of our students similar um program to all of our students and then um we also have a challenge uh an increased challenge of supporting students with with diverse needs we found over the past few past few years that we are getting uh more and more students after school um who are asking for onetoone support um from special special education and we are having to support that in our after school program without the support of special ed staff and so we are doing the best we can to um train our staff and help prepare them to really help these students thrive in the in the after school setting when it can be very hard where there are a lot of changes and transitions for them so um the
175next steps that um the after or the after school programs are taking um the Bears uh program is participating in a study performed by a cow grad student that will be looking at the impact of the summer program um and hopes that it is making a a good impact um and to just report on on what it has done for our students um we're also planning on implementing a new program management system which will um update and improve the current system and allow for better online registration for families um payment um receipts and um you know refunds or payments if they need to make payments um and also it will allow us to um effectively electronically um track the attendance for the after school programs which is occasionally a challenge a challenge um and then
176we also are working to integrate technology um more into the after school program so we're working with the technology department and the site principles um to collaborate um efforts in in a number of areas where we can kind of implement more technology um and also use it in ways that we can offer you know additional interventions you know online interventions like math and um you know I don't know if they're using any reading but we they're definitely already using the math um intervention programs um and then we also want to improve the coordination of the school day and the Extended Learning Program um as Miss Gilder was saying earlier um that we are definitely working on collaborating with the teachers themselves um so that we can better um train our it to effectively help during
177the um academic support hour um so by working closely with the teachers it just allows our it to um really give the students the the the instruction that they need so that's all so that concludes our presentation at this time we thank you for allowing us to extend our day into the night um and we hope that we have given you some insight as to who we are thank you very much thank you Miss gildard um okay so we have some time now for questions and and discussion director uh I want to thank the staff um I operate an after school program so I know the challenges but I and not at the level of the thousands that we that our district serve so I appreciate all the staff and you also coming out tonight
178so um I wanted to highlight one of the things that we've been challenged by is the Bears and learns program not being cohabitate being able to cohabitate together and one of the things I was thinking about is have we ever requested to the state a special consideration so that we don't have these issues of disparity between the programs because I know when the state comes out and looks at us they said no you can't do that but I wonder if there there would be exception that could be requested to the higher-ups in the State Department of Education regarding this because we want to have our students not feel this kind of Separation um and difference so I wonder if we have explored that yeah actually um after uh the audit or the federal program monitoring
179review in the fall I spoke with our our consultant and laid it out for like we have great inequities going on here at same sites where we split up students oftentimes um I mean it's built into this system where our lower income students are in the Bears program and she was able to see that and um I just I asked well what can we do can we do put in like a waiver request and so I put in a waiver request um after we spoke she saides you could uh I put in a waver request stating the inequity stating um the the huge spectrum of students that we work with in Berkeley and how that our lower income families are actually shrinking um because of our our changing demographics and the response that we had
180and the response I was given them though I will continue to talk with her was as long as you are running the program based on the requirements of the more of that that are more stringent which is the Bears program the title 5 funding program um and so that was talked about in the board document that was laid out but basically it's um holding to a 14 to1 instead of a 20 to1 ratio and holding to um the more the stricter um Staffing requirements of having uh Child Development teachers with child development uh permits who are Staffing the classes yeah I'm thinking more of programs cohabitating to together I mean not you know they would each have their still but at least you wouldn't have to move the students from bears out or you know
181um do that so I'm I think exploring that even further and if not also talking to our legislators about that because I'm sure there's other schools that are exper experience the same thing if they have the learns program still so I wonder if there's a similar experience that other school districts are having also yeah actually I will be meeting um with the uh my counterpart at in Oakland or for Oakland Unified uh tomorrow to talk about some of these issues um and see if we can find a way to create legal about this we um yeah we are thinking of of everything in fact uh even talking with one of my Consultants um talk talking about running Bears during the summer and um breaks and so that then really that distinction is only happening then
182and that's and in the summer we don't have learns so there wouldn't be that distinction between the two students but that between the two programs but that would that will take some some projections and see where how much we will be losing um from our current income that we're receiving during the school year and then also see how we can creative creatively do that so I just wanted to mention one thing about the concern about the vendors and I don't know if that's something that um our staff can look more closely at in terms of how that can be with the different organizations at the PT ta pays that comes in um so I can't imagine them doing all the paperwork around that so um I don't know if that's something staff can explore is
183it Deputy superintendent Cleveland is was that for her was that for yes or or the superintendent can you maybe repeat the question um there there was a question that was raised about um through public comment also about the vendors and some school sites PTA is paying for that and then there's they're coordinating all the contracts also with that is that something that we should be looking at in terms of it coming to the district and as we have other things the PTA pays the district for for that service um there just seems it just seems like a several um schools are dealing with this I don't know yeah the PT donate to the district and then um we in turn contract because we have to make sure whoever is in our schools meet you know
184fingerprint TV those type of um but it sounds like School sites some school sites are not oh I I understood that there were some school sites that were not doing that that wasn't coming they're supposed to all be donating their funds to the school and then we contract and turn contract those Services out and when I first came to the district there were many of the schools that were contract PTA were Contracting directly with vendors and placing them on the campuses without the appropriate legal documents and so we did reel that in I'm not aware that there's still some that are contacting directly but they should all be going through the district and perhaps just check the second check on that and we use a standardized form so you're only filling out the vendor name
185and the dollar amount and the scope and the rest is already completed so it's pretty so I I think the distinction that the PTA Council may have been talking about is the operations so who sort of in charge of at the school site for these third-party vendors like making sure that what classes are offered and things like that as as compar to for the contract um I just had a question on the waiver issue so was the answer we could get a waiver but we had to adhere to the smaller class small you know the ratios or is it that we no matter what we did we could not get a waiver yeah basically it's there would be no waiver there would there would be no special circumstances for our district we would still have
186to follow the guidelines that the state puts out for the title 5 program the Bears program which is more stringent and would create an huge difference Inon it financially difficult to I see so so so the waiver we would request is not the ability to merge the two programs but could you loosen some of the restrictions on bearers to to basically allow there to be some merging and make it financially feasible for us to do so yeah the the current issue where we find the real sticking point is um where the uh currently it states that bear staff must be with bear students and if they are not then they are signed out if they are signed out that means that we do not get funding for them and so what we would love to
187do is have our students together at all hours in the after school program because that's where we get that divide that's where we get the the stigma attached to kids who are in one program versus the other and we in order for us to be able to do that then we have to have that staff who are qualified to be with those students um so it's unfortunately it's built into this program that was means well but really is hindering us in a in a situation where we have both programs going on um so we we could in theory combine them if we were willing to basically turn Laurence into Bears it just it would be much more expensive yes and I want to continue this discussion like I said every meeting with my counterpart in
188Oakland they um we were able to observe one of their sites this past year and see how they just run a totally separate program uh and it's just it's similar to what we have um but it's totally separate and the be that's that's a Title Five program over there this is the Asus Grant funded program over here and it's even worse than what we have at our sides um so but I we want to continue to look into this and I I have spoken with the state consultant and try to see what else can we do creatively to to address this okay maybe I'll follow up off line with a few other thoughts go ahead Karen so this has been a problem since my older son was uh first came to the school district 20
189years ago um where there was a bears and a learns and there was definitely a distinct difference in the demographics of who well then it wasn't bears and luren it was bears but luren was actually the I'm dating myself it was actually yes it was actually the YMCA that provided it um was before the Lauren program actually and so there's always been this this um uh dichotomy between the the program um by which it's a market more Market fee based versus the program that is based U that that is um is designed for families that meet uh Financial eligibility uh one way that um it was bridged 20 years ago was that um there were some um that the ability for a student to choose was not so much based on just financials uh but
190more maybe on what the student was was needed in terms of maybe more academic support so um the fee B fee basis program or Market fee base was uh provided scholarships that was one the other one was while the academic programs were maybe a little different that there was a sharing of access to the enrichment programs and so uh being either in Bears or learn you had equal access to any of the whether it was um um uh folkloric dancing or or comic books or whatever it was uh that that wasn't a difference and that PTA made that happen um so those there are some ways that on a School site basis that there's been more integration at least to the students during at least part of the day if not all of the day
191so those are some things that um I'm sure that there's models already in our district that are doing that that to make that practice more widespread I um actually wanted to talk a little bit or or raise the issue um that was raised before about to me it's not just an administrative issue in terms of the district taking on the contracts as opposed to the individual ptas it's also a program consistently consistency issue um I do know that at least one of the programs does offer um Services uh program uh during some vacation times and later at night than our program does and I do think there's a certain thing to be said to having one program that might have later hours for those you know uh I've always told families when they're choosing elementary
192schools look at the start time because some of our schools start differently than others and that might be a factor in what school that you take other things you know that you choose other being equal and I think having I mean ideally one school in every Zone that had the later hours uh for that to support working parents particularly those that maybe um you know work slightly traditional or shift hours that don't fit neatly into 9 to5 I would like to see that as a possibility whether we can do that ourselves uh and I'm concerned that our third party vendors aren't providing the same um academic support as are in District um programs I'm I'm concerned about kind of whether they're using the same uh restorative justice um alternative discipline um you know just those
193I mean I think there's a certain thing to be said or there's a lot to be said about the consistency of even our own program having the staff that work after school being part of the school day so it's a continuous delivery of of support and enrichment um to our kids I think we need to make sure that whoever are that to the extent that we have thirdparty vendors that we through the contract process make sure that things like equal access to enrichment um uh staff development that there that their staff is trained by us in terms of in terms of uh restorative justice and discipline practices um uh whether or not that uh that they are providing academic support um to their students students that that that those that those um staff are also
194trained in our literacy program in our math program you know in our Common Core um because I think otherwise you you know you you create a situation that um there's there's big degrees of differences based upon who the vendor is and the experience should be should should be fairly similar in terms of all students being able to get um similar support as well as enrichment opportuni so I would like to make sure that we have that in our contracts as well that there's some expectations and and quite frankly for vendors that aren't willing to have their staff um trained like our staff to provide services you know there's other vendors out there so those are kind of um things that I like to see as the next steps because I think um our program as
195it's gotten more consistent and more standardized based has has really um supported our students and um as well as families and I would like to see that be consistent throughout all of our schools director P hi thank you and thanks all to all of you for staying it's really helpful to hear from to hear from a variety of people from different sites and different programs um so I you know we've been talking a lot about the challenges of having the tube program so I'm going to stay on that theme for a second and then I have a few other questions um first of all I'm curious to know you know we heard from from one like one representative from a learn site and one uh at the elementaries and one at at a middle school
196and I'm wondering as well as with bears like what's what are you do you feel like there is increased consistency kind of to speak to what Karen was talking about between the sites and what are you doing to kind of help um with the kind of quality indicators to make sure that students at one Elementary School for example are receiving the same quality EXT end to Day program at another as as at another site and I guess that would be true both for bears and learns because there might be different answers I don't know well that might look different at each site because each site has their own flavor so to speak um our our program Specialists they do their best to um maybe do questionnaires surveys things of that nature to get a background
197of what are the interests of both families as well as the students and so one thing that we we thrive on is that our instructional technicians the talents that they bring you might see it different at a different site as I was speaking um earlier about the student the it who was doing the music well the music might look different at um let's say Oxford or lant but they're still doing the same they're implementing the same ideas what we're really thriving to do this this coming school year is to continue our professional development I think it's really important that we we enhance our staff you know on those particular skills that they bring so that they in turn can perhaps share that skill with another staff at another site so it might look a little
198bit more uniform and so those are the ideas and some of the The Works that we're working on going towards the future that's great because I don't necessarily think like the program of the specific in enrichments the specific classes need to be the same but certain standards as far as how are we dealing with how are we you know kids are the f after school they're they've got a lot of energy how are we helping to direct that in positive ways and making sure that we're using PBIS and um restorative justice and how are we resolving conflicts when they come up more things like that and how are we doing academic supports if people if kids have academic time are we training our staff have to know how to provide that or um are we
199integrating with the teachers if we are you know I know we have some money dedicated to teachers um providing um Pro interventions uh after school and so how are you know that that so those kind of Standards so that not that each one looks the same because you want to Leverage The you know the talents you have at each site but that those um quality standards are another thing that we really encourage our staff to do as well as to make classroom visits so they're hearing the language and they're able to bring back to the the staff you know whether it be the program Specialist or the it themselves they're bringing back what they have received from the daytime staff so we're all on the same sheet of music so the daytime rules are not
200looking any different than the after school rules good yeah um and is there are there any joint professional development opportunities between the after school staff and the and the daytime the school staff it's fine if there is I just curious if that's happen that is a real challenge I know we have one of our sites has really worked that just recently where they really want to get at least one or two of the ACT School staff members to be there for um uh gender inclusion training uh and so we have been able to work to get at least one or two staff members there then to disseminate that out to the rest of the staff but that is a um that is is a hard thing for us to do because inherent to our program
201we have to be there with the students when our teachers are meeting so yeah we're able to spread it with either program Specialists going to the the Wednesday PDS um with it with with teachers with with the certificated staff and then bringing it back but it's not where we'd like it to be I totally understand the challenge and I would just say that one of the best professional development experiences that I well I mean there's been a lot of great on but one that I witnessed actually I think you were there you helped that we um um I think in 2009 or something like that there was a a professional development on welcoming schools that had both certificated and classified staff together and the classified staff brought so much richness to the room so it
202wasn't just you know it was this exchange of of experience that was really positive so um I have a couple more questions though so I want to move on um how much do we get for the Bears what's our what's our budget how what's our revenue from bears uh for the uh school age program it's approximately 1.7 million and then with our um in the past I know at least when my kids were in elementary school and going to a learns program there was I have to say some inconsistencies with um there wasn't a lot of rigor around collecting invoices like we weren't I have to say we had if if if we were going to pay we had to remember to pay we didn't actually get a bill or anything like that so I'm
203sure that's a lot of years years ago my kid's now in college so I'm I'm not saying that's still the case but I'm wondering if that's something that you're if that's what the situation is now because you know if we had more money then we might be have more options well currently we're using a system that's called datco and they generate monthly invoices so those are sent out electronically and if parents are not able to receive um the mail electronically the program specialist also provides a hard copy of those do you can you provide maybe in Friday notes the percentage of parents who are like how um up to dat I guess the billing the the payments are that would be help one particular system that we're completely satisfied with and so we're exploring others
204um but I must say that it has gotten a lot better over the years uh in your situation I definitely can say that it has improved so yeah I don't know it just would be helpful to know that again it's not a critique it's just us to get a sense of how you know cuz I know there's a sliding scale I believe in learn so to find make sure that the parents who have the ability to pay are actually paying so I know I'm I have two other quick questions and maybe we can get them offline but one of them is I'm curious to know why we have a 15-hour a week minimum for learns that's interesting to me because if there's kids who are have parents home a couple days a week it's nice
205for them to be able to be with their parents so right what's the Thought there so that for our our funding the Asus Grant uh that is the re that is the requirement of having 15 hours students are there um however with there are reasons that you can give when you sign your child out if they're leaving earlier than those three out it's probably three hours a day to that you can say like you have a parallel program where they going to a judo class or something like that or or they have um transportation um needs where they have to pick up the child earlier because they live out in Antioch something that effect so there are ways in which we uh the state allows us to give reasons for an early pickup before the
2065:45 6 o' um and that is something that we are implementing and trying to get out to all the families so let them know this is how it's done um okay and then finally um it's I saw that we might get where we've applied for for um 21 21st century money again and there's a hope that we'll get looks like it's almost a half a million dollar would that be something that we we would be able to use to help address the Dual program problem like to fill to back fill so that we could reduce to 14 to one and have one program or what is your thoughts I guess on what to use yeah I think that it's something that like I said we're now that we fully being in our second year in
207these positions um now we're Fally starting to understand the ins and outs of the regulations and what we can and can't do where we can get creative um that is one thing that we'd have to uh look at that at the projections see what it be what would it be if we absorbed all of our 200 plus bear students into the learn program where of those students approximately two-thirds of them are being are fully subsidized which means they're paying nothing for an act school program so we have to be absorbing that into um into another program and also losing that 1.7 million um or can we do some kind of hybrid as I've talked about with um others and seeing if we can do something around that with and no one else that I know
208of has something like that uh in the Bay Area but i' we've talked about with our consultants and see if we can possibly think about that yeah I was not suggesting just to be clear that we give up the 1.7 million I was more wondering if there's a way that we could have those more strict requirements going to the Bears yeah so we have about five minutes left I want to um make a couple comments and maybe ask a couple questions so thank you for being here thank you for staying so late um and I don't want to gloss over all the um really exciting positive programming that you that you talked about and that you um put up slides about so um it's really important for us to hear even as we're talking about
209ways to improve the after school programs and the extended day learning programs I hope you you realize how much we appreciate the good work that's being done um um and now I am going to gloss over all that and and and uh talk about some of the things that I think we need to um think about improving which we've talked about so I really appreciate this conversation I don't have um necessarily new things to say I want I it has um I think until we figure out a way to integrate the the Bears and the learns program um I personally will never feel comfortable with our after school programming when we and the numbers you provided were helpful the the many attachments were also helpful um it may take a little time for us to
210digest them but I appreciate you providing them but just the just the numbers just to make the point that first of all the the students that we're serving in the after school programs generally are um are disproportionately students of color and lower income students than our student population generally um so that's one thing that the that our population of students in the after school program um are generally students that that um we are trying to make sure we're supporting um well um and and that for example our uh if I'm reading this right the UN the percentage of undoc unduplicated students for lcap purposes in Bears is 80% of the bare students are unduplicated 54% of the Learned students are unduplicated compared to 30% of students across the district are unduplicated students um so our
211targeted students are disproportionately represented in the after school program and I think that um imposes a particular obligation and responsibility on our part to provide as as for those students as as best as we can um and and again much of what you talked about tonight is doing that um but I also want to point out that the numbers and and you said this but the numbers also just bear it out that for African-American students the the 42% of be students are African-American and 18% of learned students are African-American 34% 35% of of bear students are Hispanic Latino I guess and 26% are in learns um unduplicated 80% I just said this 80% in bears and and 45% learn so what that means when we have a segregated program is that l lit Al if
212I understand it right and I've seen this in some of the schools when you when you when the students walk into the after school area they they either go into Bears or they go into learns and so you've literally got the black and black and brown students going in one place and the the uh White students going in in another place um and the uh I know I I completely understand the challenge in in figuring out a way to integrate our programs but um and I so so I I I hope that we can continue that we will continue uh I think we have to continue searching for ways even if nobody else has figured out how to do it even if and I think we need to know how much it would cost us
213to to completely integrate the programs um even if it is giving up $1.7 million at least I think we need to know that we're making that choice to continue a segregated after school program um that I don't I don't think it does sit well with any of us so I'm not suggesting that anybody is satisfied with that it's clear that that this is a priority and I appreciate the conversations I've had with you Mr jensson that you've had with with the site representatives and with the PTA Council but I just want to underscore how um uh how problematic that that situation is um I just so a couple other real quick things in my and just the LA the last minute I think that the um there was a question about the enrollment gaps in
214learns itself and and I was wondering if you could address that why it some school it what I was not clear about from the packet was whether we really do s serve all students or whether students are being turned away because or or whether students are not being told that they have a spot in the program until so late in the year even after the school year started that it's kind of it's a meaningless offer because they've had to make other Arrangements where are we on that is that something we're working on um yeah that is that was a concern that I experienced the last two summers when I've had frantic parents calling me and um every day and so that is something that has been communicated with our program Specialists we've asked how can
215we support them being able to give either um some kind of idea of if they there their child has a spot for an iner in kindergarten or a student from outside the district in the fall or if they can just let them know if they're weight listed and approxim where they are uh I have found um over these past two summers that if families sign up by the end of the school year um they are getting spots and uh it is families who are coming in later and one concern that we do have is often we have families that have a great need who aren't able to um who who don't know what they're going to be doing for that next school who don't know where they who who don't know exact don't know where
216they're exactly going to be or aren't be able to plan out that far and so we do have to also consider that and leave some spots for some families because they often tend to be our families of greatest with greatest need um and so that is something that we have to do and one thing we have we have looked at is providing more uh staff uh if we get to a critical number where we have enough as was mentioned we have grade level classes and so we have to get to critical amount where we can support bringing in a new staff member approximately 10 to I think we say like 10 to 15 students to be able to really support bringing in a new staff member and be able to bring in students that are
217on the weight list okay well so we're out of time but I guess what I would like to suggest is that there's a number of things that you all are working on you know including um finding creative ways to integrate the programs what you just mentioned um trying to figure out ways to keep staff to retain staff um and then I think some of the other issues that the PTA Council have raised and I want to um thank thank you all for um the your partnership with the district and the Really constructive way that you have approached working on this difficult issue um so what I would like to do is is have you all come back sometime in the fall um and let us know how we're doing on each of these things we
218can talk in the meantime about what specifically would make sense to come back to report on um but given the importance of the program that we've got these students for several hours a day every day um I think it's worth us hearing more and and hearing more about the progress that you're that you're making um so um that's the suggestion that I'll make to the superintendent um but we very much appreciate all the information and and and you all com here and staying so late so thank you I just want to say thank you and and as was highlighted um we do really have a unique opportunity with many of our students who need the most support and I would like to continue that conversation and find ways in which we can really help to
219get our school day and our school day staff um working with our after school programs where we have some of the strongest after school programs is where we have that coordination with certificated staff who are doing after school enrichment and where we are really getting um support from the the School site the principles and and and other staff members counselors to provide the services for these students who really can use them and it will help them to um to do to to do better during the school day great thanks so much now um I I promised earlier that we would be it would be around 10:30 when we would have public comment again um are there people here here who want to make public comment went can you just raise your hands okay okay let
220I'm going to go ahead and do public comment now and then we'll do the budget um after public comment so that you all don't have to stick around if you don't want to you're welcome to of course um so there were I saw about six hands if you could just um just line up against the wall there and we can just do one at a time uh for 2 minutes each in the how long will the um second inter take JV um our presentation is normally about eight slides no more than 15 minutes 11 maybe 10 10 to 15 okay can I have a motion to extend the meeting to 11:15 11:20 I'm going to make a motion to extend the meeting to 11:30 we don't need to keep it that long but at least
221we'll have the option we can only do it once okay second all in favor I okay p get to you right after we do the public comment here um oh hi Miss Phillips okay so two minutes each yeah go ahead Paula Phillips Berkeley Council of classified employees I just want to ask that you approach this with caution the shift of moving from a learns program to providing this with fully with the Bears program and a move and a shift from a learns program to a bears program there's separate funding um of course you know that but there are with that funding with a shift to Bears is increased cost because of the certificated the need for certificated staff what you would in essence do is put Miss Gilder out of a job because she cannot
222supervise certificated staff and increase the workload of Mr Jorgenson's because he's the only one who could who could supervise and direct the work of the certificated staff and in essence um decrease the the positions and the classifications for the classified employees who s who who support the learns program so I just ask that you approach this with with caution thank you thank you and I appreciate that Miss philps hi my name is Veronica laara I am I moved to Berkeley um 37 years ago and was fortunate enough 27 years ago to become a homeowner in West Berkeley I um sometimes clung to living in Berkeley by the skin of my teeth so that my children could go to school here I've put three I've sent CH three children to Berkeley High my daughter uh my
223beautiful eighth grade straight A student daughter um fell through every crack in Berkeley High she ended up dropping out of Berkeley High through in the middle of 10th grade my grandsons are now going to real I have a a granddaughter at uh Rosa Parks I have another girl at Berkeley High Berkeley High does not serve all the all its children it does not serve all its children while some children need a different method of teaching my youngest grandson is um was always in trouble at Rosa Parks uh he would didn't get to have recess he thought he was bad at math after a week at realm he said hey why I've not been going to this school for six years I've been wasting my time turns out you know his troublemaking skills at Rosa Parks
224were leadership skills he thinks he's good at math now it's been wonderful for him my other grandson is a junior he will be a senior next year if realm um high school goes away he will be forced to go to Berkeley High it's not a good situation for a senior to come in in the last year I have W there now in her last year he will his ability to go to college will be compromised when my two grandsons were trying to make a decision about where they were going to go to school they were actively discouraged at school from going to realm Charter actively my youngest grandson came and said I don't want to go to realm my teacher said we would be betraying Berkeley by going to realm the issues are low enrollment
225those are one of the that's one of the issues that's causing thank you so that is one way in which you can change what's going on around by supporting uh thank you for listening to us um I I just want to comment really quickly that um I think it's really important that if we're going to talk about the realm budget and there's going to be a ton of question asking and then conjecture about what's actually happening it would be a great idea to invite uh the executive director to actually sit up here the way I usually see it happen when a budget's going to be analyzed so that those questions can get a narrative from staff of the school and not just narratives that you have before you the narratives that we heard today were
226the same exact information that came out in the January 22nd board parents are very aware of it we've all watched the video some of us two and three times we know what's going on and we really want to hold our board and our executive director accountable we need your help in that process um what we proposed was not about those financials we're working on that and it undercuts our ability to work on it if we can't solve the F the uh facilities issue because we absolutely won't have a school so we won't be there to work on it the proposal that we gave and I really really hope that that somebody addresses it because it hasn't been addressed yet is to please look at the proposal that we crafted and begged Victor to submit to
227each of you where we lay out different options for how we can compromise on facilities use now now I heard brother Ty Alper say that there's plans for the two classrooms here and there's plans for building e what I heard was that there aren't plans until construction starts with building a now if you look at our proposal one of the compromises is that we can limit our operations to building a switch the high school with the middle school be tighter over there and work with some of the places that we're looking at for smaller um space and keep the Middle School alive so there's an option that's a real clear Avenue that we could explore we're even willing to end our year a little bit earlier if construction by some magical uh moment this time
228uh happens right right on time in April or May as it's planned so there's a way to work together and we want to hold this board accountable we want to do these things but we can't do it if we don't have a middle school last last thing I want to say is that b USD was actually in danger of being taken over by the state Once Upon a Time so it's not a reflection on terrible management these things do happen in our world and you came out of it and I think we can come out of it but we need the room to come out of it and it's not going to happen if we lose the facilities we're dead in the water if we lose the facilities so I beg you to consider the
229actual proposal and address the actual proposal and come back on the 22nd with an answer to that proposal that came from parents not from Victor thank you thank you I just wanted to make some comments about the after school program my name is Vicky Davis I run the PTA enrichment program at Malcolm X Elementary we have um 27 PTA classes which is 17 instructors that I do all of the contracts for and with all due respect the contracts are not easy I spent 600 hours of volunteer time running this program 300 in the fall 300 in the spring I have to do all invoices for the instructors um and just that I fact of having to coordinate with 17 contract instructors to get signatures on these contracts and the back and forth between that is
230not simple to go to Karen's comment all of the contracts do go to the district and the district does do payroll I have not been billed for three semesters for my after school classes I have an account with over $140,000 sitting in there waiting to get build so I can pay the school district for those after school classes for the last three semesters um that I've been running them um so there's definitely some issues going on here and um the the other thing that's not addressed aside from the integration of bears and learns is in my programs I have over 200 students 40% of those are learned students 20% of them get almost full scholarships for their enrichment classes but the other 120 or so students are regular students who want to take an enrichment
231class bears and learns does not provide for under 15 hours parents don't necessarily need their kids to be at school for 15 hours it's 3 hours a week so there's no way to integrate those programs if you take it away and just do bears and learns and don't have the PT enrichment then what happens to all those other schools there's a better way to integrate the programs um also the examples given by the presentation were the best in the district not all schools look like that a major problem is that the staff doesn't report to the program supervisor but the principal so program supervisors at site don't have oversight on how to get training for their staff and support for their their staff can I make one more comment very quickly okay my last comment
232is Bam which was amazing And if every school looked like that that would be awesome but that enrichment program and bears and learns enrichment was run by a parent who was getting paid as a contractor to run that program for the last six years and all bears and learn students got to enrichment classes integrated with the PTA and we were told that we could not duplicate that program so while that program sounded amazing to you guys we were told that we cannot do something like that at our schools thank you thank you I'm Rob Collier from lant PTA and um following um incredible footsteps Vicky Davis essentially runs the best after school enrichment PTA run program in the district uh not everybody is Vicky Davis you know it takes a fantastic amount of time to
233run what is in effect a a private Educational Services business this is privatized Educational Services that the parents have taken on because because there are kids and we want to help our enrich our kids lives but the the the volume of work that is required to run this business the Contracting uh the negotiation of of pricing uh really should be our proposal is that it should be taken over by by the district charge whatever Ser whatever service fee to the ptas is appropriate to cover your costs but uh the the sort of burden on the students on on the parents rather is uh successive and results in as Vicki said a a lot of very sloppy book bookkeeping $140,000 left over lant just got a bill for uh $43,000 of expenses that we had not
234been aware that we had to pay uh for expenses as far back as 2013 this is not good bookkeeping by us or by the district so we ask that uh as you discuss with staff uh how they are to report back that you look carefully at our proposal for the district to find ways to take over the business end of after school enrichment classes thank you thank you hi I want to follow up on the fact that uh the presentation said that our sites have more than the state mandated requirement for enrollment AC Aces gives us $15,000 per site if you have 85 students and 90 students if you look at the programs that are really successful in the district Rosa Parks 75% enrollment bam this about 200 kids in bears and learns and another
235200 kids being served by PTA enrichment Vicky Davis Malcolm X lant Emerson the same thing if you actually work the numbers there's a demand for about 75% of our kids to be enrolled in some extended day learning ptas are here to support programs build communities and engage families we're not here to run programs we're not here to provide academic intervention enrichment and support for our families that is a district role that's where the 2020 comes in so to say we have we've met the demand of families is false our school has a long wait list we have less than 30% of our kids in learns Rosa Parks has 75% if you build a good program families will come we talk about low-income families students of color being over represented why is that people with means
236can go other places if you provide a good program we'll have an integrated program and studies across every Dimension talk about segregation by deficit whether it be low-income housing students performing poorly just fail we need an integrated program bears and learns can be integrated very easily it's simple math I acknowledge Paula's concerns I acknowledge everybody's concerns 10% of our kids are in Bears 10% of our kids we raise our fees by 10% we can accommodate them during the school year the summer year the summer program let's run learns over the summer let's run a learns program over the summer our district needs it families need it summer programs cost 300 $400 $500 we can run a sum program at $250 we can work with the city this is our community we have the city let's
237work with them thanks thank you all right last public commenter all right let's see is that working okay yeah my name is Mary dagostino I um work in Berkeley and I live Liv here for many years as I earned my bachelor's Master's and PhD degrees uh sadly my family cannot afford to live here anymore and I'm a parent of a sixth grader at realm middle school and I teach special education at realm High School I came to work at realm because of the program of Project based Hands-On learning Multicultural community and socially relevant program teachers at Rome provide a learning environment accessible to all Learners they really care about their students and do a fantastic job of accommodating English Learners students with disabilities and those disaffected for any number of reasons I transferred my daughter
238Rose from her West Contra costra public school to realm because of the teachers community and curriculum my daughter has learning differences she's both gifted and has a learning disability and was not doing well in the traditional curricul curriculum um she was a dnf student from kindergarten through fifth grade and she has really taken to the realm approach and is now an A student on the honor role 27% of the high school students who are our Berkeley residents qualify for special education I mean 27% of the high school students 27% that's nearly triple the usual percentage of students with disabilities at the middle school 25% of the Berkeley students have IEPs that means special education overall across the whole student body 22% of our students receive special education services most schools serve closer to 10% talk
239about diversity realm serve students who are traditionally underserved students who have color immigrants English Learners students with disabilities and from low-income families please keep Berkeley a safe and educational Haven for our students I would like the B USD to include extending Realms lease on the board meeting the next board meeting um to be considered separate from the fiscal issues thank you thank you thank you all okay now we will have item 14.1 which is the second interim report thank you for your patience every but did you um did have [Music] okay so good evening um I'll be presenting the second interim and that for the period ending January 31st and first for the highlights um we have a positive certification which means we'll be able to meet Our obligation for the current year and the
240subsequent two years we have an undesignated fund balance of $5.5 million and that's after we designated $1.1 million and that leaves us with an ending fund balance of $6.6 million um the change in fund balance in first interim is an increase of $600,000 um now looking at the changes since the first interim we had a one-time reduction in mandated cost funding per ada8 and that resulted in a reduction of $214,000 in base funding um our enrollment and Ada decreased by 127 and 92 students respectively and the impact will be will be reflected in 1718 since we're funded on the lower of the current or the prior year um we had net Savings of one point of $1.1 million and that was mainly due to vacancies and adjusting cost to actuals and we have the details
241on the following slide we also saw an increase in the contribution to special education and that was as a result of um increased cost for non-public agencies in the amount of $147,000 and a onetime cost of $100,000 for board approved expenditures for special assessment kits and the total increase is $247,000 and this is the $1.1 million that I I referred to earlier you could see that we have um Savings in expenditures and that's because we took onetime adjustments to expenses um for unincumbered expenses and also for vacancies so in our lcap budget we saw we took um Savings of $131,000 or unexpended funds of $131,000 unfilled positions due to vacancies was um 475,000 Health cost 247 and unencumbered services $182,000 and other budget Savings of $22,000 um we now can look at our deficit and
242our Surplus and when we were looking at our our structural deficit we um we look at the change to in fund balance and then we exclude onetime revenues and EXP expenses so you can see in 1617 our change to fund balance was um $3 million and in 1718 is $125,000 and in 1819 $1.1 million we're going to remove onetime um revenues which is our mandated cost reimbursements it's $1.9 million or $2 million in 16117 and we also get um onetime revenues in 1718 and that amount total is $442,000 which I have removed our one-time expenditures we're going to add that back um and that's $6.4 million in 1617 and that leaves us with a structural um surplus of $1.4 million in 1617 and um we have a deficit of $568,000 in 1718 and 1.1 Mill
243milon um that's a significant growth from year over year this is a quick look at our um one-time expenditures um you've seen most of these before um we have our bonus the largest ones are our um onetime bonus in 1617 um B program support that was 1.7 million at first interim but we've taken Savings of um our unexpended funds um to have the balance um reduced to 1.6 million however we have to designate for the full $2 million that the board had committed um in our um ending fund balance so we're still um unless the board um approves a change we have to designate or um assign the difference our Common Core costs are there and we have other costs as well which we have mentioned earlier so now we can take a look at
244our multi-year projections and the assumptions are obviously based on um on um our dartboard and you could see we have no Coler projected for 1617 1.48% 1718 and 2.4% in 1819 and these are actually based on the governor's um budget the revised budget that we went to in January the Gap percentages are there and you could see that our total um LC FF funding um is based on the um the Gap based on the Gap percentages 83.3 million in 167 and slight increase in 1718 and a significant increase in 1819 other state funding you can see the decrease um from the from 1617 to 17 188 for the onetime revenues and a further decrease in 1819 for another onetime revenues um in all um revenues 89.3 88.2 and 90.1 million for the 3 years our
245expenditures went from 90.6 million in 1617 and once we removed the one times and added in costs for our STS and purs we're at 86.7 M million in 1718 and 89.7 million in in in 1819 there was a slight decrease in our sources and uses for year over year and the first year was predominantly due to our contribution to our adult education program which was one time okay so this is a change in fund balance that um that we that we used for our deficit slide and when you're looking at our beginning fund balance um we could see that our projected ending fund balance 6.6 million in 1617 6.5 in 1718 and 5.4 million in 1819 um other notes about our our um multi-year in 1718 this is the first year of the measure and
246we had a decrease in the transfer and this is based on the model um we did remove the onetime contribution to adult education as I mentioned earlier over $100,000 and the one-time revenues for mandated cost reimbursements $442,000 and we talked about the one-time um expenditures that were removed and um a note about our Ada we're projecting an increase of 60 students which represents about .5 million in funding we are deficit spending by1 1 million however um in 1718 we have the one-time Revenue of4 million the structural deficit is actually .5 million6 million is with rounding and we also have an increase in stirs and purs and that's estimated to be $1.2 million 1718 I mean in 1819 we also have increased salaries and benefits for bitsa and lcap um and those are both added to
247to our expenditures where deficit spending by 1.1 million and our increas in SS and Pur um is estimated to be 1.1 million other considerations um there we're warned about um a downturn in in Revenue the tide has begun to turn this is from our governor and there's a the trajectory of general fund growth um has declined um we also have um our increase in pension costs even when we're having an increase in Revenue this cost um the increase in in pension cost is in is adding to our structural deficit and a word about our projected Ada we had projected the increase of 60 Ada um and that's um dependent on our student enrollment information and if it's if um if the information the subsequent information that we receive does not support the goal we would
248have to adjust um our budget before adoption and now we're at a point where we um based on the projection oops the projections of Def deficit spending um we have to face balancing our budget and we are expecting some budget reductions in 178 18 and we are expecting more significant reductions in 1819 um the the super the sbac has um let's see um the district the superintendent budget advisory committee will be meeting and going through proposed cuts um in the spring and later on in the next fiscal year next school year and however um the multi-e projections were prepared without um the impact of possible future negotiated salary increases um possible Berkeley High School redesign and other budget priorities and Common Core expenditures are not included in the multier so I will take questions I
249just want to add that we are proposing to um do um come up with a uh board policy for reserves um and take that to the policy committee um this spring I'm sorry can you I'm sorry can you just say that again I wasn't paying attention I'm sorry so so says the board president and the vice president of the policy committee right so we're planning to bring forward you know um director Daniels and myself working on a policy related to District Reserve resing more than the 3% required State reserves as we Face the change in the economy and um don't want to um spend down our reserves all the way down to just having the 3% available okay thank you what would be the if we um get our Ada back up next year what
250what impact will that have on the well projections the 608a we that's about .5 million in um in in Revenue right so we've already budgeted based on our work with the um enrollment numbers an increase is already included in this budget for 1718 of 60 students over what 1617 um student count was um 156 we would have to add um another 60 we have to go up about over 127 students to get back to the 15 16 level we did not see where we could do that that so it would get us about Midway back up to our 15 16 level by adding the 60 although we will monitor that 60 you know with the attendance office between now and budget adoption to make sure we're able to to get to that enrollment number because
251it's helping our budget we would have a million dollar deficit in 1718 and our and a um another um $1.6 million deficit in 1819 had we not put those 60 students in there and so the county will ask us to support you know how we will given we dropped they will ask for some additional support on how we will get and to the increase of 60 students next year and what do you mean by we couldn't do more than that is that a facilities issue or we don't have the interdistrict transfer requests we don't have the interdistrict transfer requests based on our meetings um with our attendance our manager over the attendance office to go another 60 okay yeah at least we didn't think so not that we wouldn't accept them if we could but
252we didn't want to set a goal you don't want to really pad your budget with 120 students unless you have a plan to get there and make the budget look extremely balanced I think 60 was a a pretty conservative number and if we get more than 60 then we would reflect that okay um I'll save my questions on the status of the nutrition fund fund and the Child Development Fund for another time since it's just second interm and not much has changed um two comments one um I I appreciate the comment Mr President I also think we should be careful not to try to grow our way out of a financial challenge um that's why realm is where they are and why many other school districts Oakland I didn't say it I just said many
253other school districts so um I you know I think we should you know plan to not grow our way out of it and plan to like actually figure it out um because that's how you stay fiscally solid um and then you can always resend it if you don't have to um just I saw an interesting chart um before uh the state recently so it looked at the last four years including this upcoming year and it compared increases in lcf funding to increases in pension costs and in the first year this hand will be lcf funding this hand will be p costs so the first year was like this the second year was like this the third year was like this and the fourth year it was like this exactly so what you can what that
254that tells you is that over the four years we've received much more LC funding than we have pension costs but we didn't fully know about that fourth year and so we spent the difference on other things had we not spent the difference on other things had we known that and been know the budget for it it wouldn't be issue so I think the the lesson for me was that is there will always be some un expected expense or lower than anticipated Revenue at some point in the future and good organizations in terms of fiscal management will will you know not spend everything they can to Max it out and I think we've done a pretty good job we have other districts that are in in way worse shaped than we are um but I think
255we should you know keep going with that success UC and um I'm glad we're doing sbac I'm glad we're doing this this Reserve policy um so I you know I I I don't want to cut unnecessarily but it's better to have a little bit of difficult decisions this year then leave to a future board when some of us may not be on it much more difficult decisions in future years that I'll force others to say wait what were they thinking when they you know back in the day because we've been there and hopefully we wouldn't put another in that situation we should definitely proceed with the thought that it could be a million dooll hole in 1718 um so that's what we'll be doing in sbac um and I have already started scrubbing the budget
256for Loose Change um to try to yeah to try to get there um so we tighten the multi-year projections quite a bit to get to that small deficit in 1718 and we increased the revenues at the same time so we do have to to be careful to plan as if if that doesn't happen thank you both okay thank you both okay now our last item is item 14.2 which is a public hearing opening the public hearing is there anybody here for public comment on the no um okay I am closing the public hearing um do have a motion to approve staff's proposal regarding the sun shining um Provisions for bargaining so moved motion by director P second by director hemple all in favor I okay that motion is approved and yeah for