001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do so do so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so do [Music] how are you doing today scott what is this is this a new camera oh i see okay new new equipment i didn't notice before few months oh i see i see okay how you doing sir hello how are you doing out there teachers are okay yes yes yes [Music] okay i like to call the meeting to order i'd like to call the meeting to order okay ernie's walking in all right um rope call please danielle president misses you here vice president mr beach president clerk dr eugenio here board member dr apodaca board member mr nishi here here board member mrs say um thank you board member
002dr rios present thank you okay this evening we will be discussing the following items in closed kitchen won't matter are there any public comments on the closed session items okay there's none thank you we'll move to a closed captioning not available this is you yes mr beach yes dr eugenio yes dr apodaca mr nishi yes mrs yes dr rios yes thank you motion passes six to zero [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do so [Music] do [Music] mm-hmm [Music] [Laughter] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] yes food [Music] uh [Music] boom [Music] great [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] do
003[Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] my [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] my [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] baby [Music] of all the money that air i spend [Music] i've done [Music] i can't recall so fill to me [Music] be with you [Music] if i had money enough to [Music] spend time there is [Music] alone [Music] enthralled [Music] with you [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] oh [Music] but since it falls into my lord that i should rise and you should not gently rise and soft [Music] be with you [Music] with you [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] do
004[Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] foreign [Music] food [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] of all the money that air [Music] i've [Music] i can't recall so fill to me the part good night and joy be with you [Music] if i had money enough to spend and time to [Music] is [Music] alone [Music] grass [Music] with you [Music] uh [Music] i [Music] they'd wish me one more day to stay but since it falls into my lord that i should rise and you should not o gently rise and softly [Music] with you [Music] so [Music] the board is now back in open session danielle roll call please oh can i have a
005motion to open session second roko please dania dr apodaca beach present dr eugenio here mr nishi here dr rios present mrs say mrs say she's having some technical difficulties getting on zoom misses you here thank you motion moves five to zero okay tonight our board member sophia say will be joining us virtually and i'd like to excuse dr chris apodaca for a personal work related issues okay tonight in closed session the board discussed public employee discipline dismissal release evaluation two matters conference with labor negotiator update on negotiations with abcft afscme and csea anticipated litigation won't matter let us all stand for pledge vice president bradley please lead us please rise and join us ready begin all for right stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty thank you we have a spotlight on teaching and
006learning scott smith thank you very much good evening president you board members dr sue members of the community it's great to be here with you this evening i'm happy to be here and share a communications update with you since my last report in november much has happened we celebrated the holidays leaving for winter break with a sense of hope only to return to the omicron surge we went from messaging about the holidays and a happy new year to testing and stopping the spread before winter break we'd great local coverage of the ymc donation of bikes to third graders at aloha elementary both the long beach press telegram and the los cerritos community news ran articles with photos of the donation event after the winter break we had the opportunity to share how the omicron surge
007was impacting schools cerritos elementary principal craig spratt shared his thoughts about the surge in an interview with the los angeles times speaking of mr spratt the los angeles cerritos community news covered the cerritos elementary school uh national blue ribbon ceremony which included photos from the event which was held in early december the district's efforts to get rapid test kits out to students did not go unnoticed and was covered by the local paper it was featured on the front page of the lo cerritos community news in the january 28th edition as i've shared during all of my quarterly board reports our presence on social media continues to grow we reached over twelve thousand viewers over the past three months on our main social media channels and our reach grows every day our most popular post included
008special education day holocaust remembrance day nba great all-star james harden coming home to artesia high school along with announcements for the virtual magnet school event and transitional kindergarten pre-enrollment my plan coming back from winter break was to re-engage with the cities we serve i provided an update at the january 11th weingarten city council meeting with the impact of omicron i postponed these meetings going forward as always i will reach out to board members when presenting at the cities they represent part of our outreach strategy includes connecting with community groups before the winter break i provided a district update to the cerritos or optimist club and i joined dr sue to give an update to the artesia rotary club just a few weeks ago with several large-scale projects funded through measure bb opening in the coming
009months now is a great time to show the community where this investment is going we will be introducing a new quarterly update covering the improvements the bond is making at our schools as i mentioned earlier we have been messaging updates about cova 19 safety frequently since the return from winter break and we have been sharing information every week through make it safe monday an email sent to all families as i conclude tonight's presentation i would like to remind the community to follow us on facebook and instagram at abc stories you can follow dr sue on twitter at abc supt abc superintendent and i'm at s smith abc pio thank you very much be happy to take any questions you may have any comments questions okay i just want to say thank you scott smith for
010helping get the message out to our community communication during the pandemic is essential and i know that before it was dr su doing it all alone with her camera and her phone but it is so great that you are there to really take all the pictures and communicate with our all of our staff and get all the messages out updated and when we had hit with a january omicron surge i mean that was another panic attack but you handled it very well thank you very much thank you okay next we have another spotlight with our equity officer quarterly update adrian thomas hello good evening president you vice president beach clerk dr eugenio members of the board superintendent dr sue in the cabinet i thank you up front all of you who have attended our family
011circles as you know work in conjunction with the hispanic latino student alliance and the black student alliance for our parent events i mean even been successful based on how we continually refine them through parent input from our feedback that we receive and the goal of our family circles is to increase parent involvement in their child's individual learning and educational experience so for short we call the span latino family circle hlfc so on november 17th hlfc held his first meeting with dr maira lozano principal of hawaiian elementary as the guest speaker she graciously stepped in after our speaker who was featured dr lourdes pierre arthur of the 10 command 10 competencies for hispanic parents became ill dr lozano along with our amazing hispanic latino student alliance imparted invaluable knowledge to attendees on the topic of parent
012advocacy for hispanic latino students educational success our second meeting was in january an event focused on preparing for the next grade level and accessing higher academic opportunities we thank all of our attendees and the collaboration with migrant ed has been continuous and great thank you to maria verna coordinator for the bfc we had our second black family circle on the first of december which featured dr cole an energizing educator focused on black student achievement his words fuel the parents engagement with the abc's apparent involvement to be audacious bodacious and courageous in working with schools and teachers for their student success and just this past february 9th we had our third bfc meeting which is conducted by the members of the black student alliance and we encouraged at that time parents have an academic plan through
013elementary middle high school and on to college and career transitions also on february 26 upcoming we have 63 black students who will attend the virtual hbcu summit called i am black history thank you to alpha catholic alpha sorority incorporated for bringing this opportunity to our students on january 11th a presentation was given by the center for pacific asian families on their know your roots eight week asian youth center leadership program which which which culminates in a community project that the students developed i'm currently working with two high schools having this program at their high school the center for pacific asian families provides a vehicle for asian students to develop their youth leadership as visionaries in their community enables them to be problem solvers and activists coming up this week i will be presenting to the
014secondary secondary elementary and assistant principals and deans information on the civil rights review of self-assessment it's a proactive way to make sure that we measure and stay focused on policies and procedures as it relates to school culture and climate that is in conjunction with cwa moving on to the work with the diversity unity equity board you diversity unity equity board advisory committee the board along with dr rios as stated in my last report we have determined our short-term and long-term goals for this work the two short-term objectives that we have are create an educational equity statement and a culture of respect creating a cultural respect to deter and to transparently respond to unintentional and intentional acts based on a person's perceived or actual as i read all of it race color weight national origin ethnic
015group religion religious practice disability sexual orientation gender gender identity or expression or sex basically a cultural respect will detail out how we hold true the concepts of tolerance respect for others and dignity to include an awareness and sensitivity to how we relate to each other a code of conduct if you will based on supporting the district's non-discrimination policy and all of this will be presented by the duke committee as recommendations prior to a forthcoming equity plan further the equity committee has three guiding literature resources our first book that guides our understanding in our work of equity is shattering inequities real word real world wisdom for school and districts our first resource has provided rich deco discourse and a discovery of educational equity and what it means the committee also uses a glossary of equity diversity
016and inclusionary terms which is not a comprehensive list but it's a list of words that helps build our common language while we're doing the work that we do at the january due at the 20 january 22 meeting the committee voted to make the following recommendations to the school board the first recommendation review and consider a resolution in support of the recognition of students of diverse gender identities the second recommendation have district-wide training to include school board trustees participation related to cultural competency implicit bias anti-racism and educational equity the due committee will continue its work at our meeting on thursday february 17th and finally to end as we come to honor black history throughout this month i want to thank all of the teachers all of the students who participated in the black student alliance's black
017history art contest i thank you to all the teachers who had students do videos and we really appreciate the abc foundation for putting forth funds to help us with the prize money for those forthcoming winners thank you any uh comments or questions we have dr ogarios yes i very much proudly sit on this committee and i just want to commend um you you on your work with the equity um diversity committee it's a big job um but i i do believe that with your efforts and your guidance we will advance equity in our district um and so just thank you and you know keep at it because i know it's it's a lot but i again i appreciate your efforts and you know if you ever are um able to join that committee it really
018is impressive i mean the level of articulation on behalf of the students you know again it just it's very rewarding to be a part of that so thank you thank you i appreciate that thank you very much for your service okay okay may i have a motion to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of february 15 2022. motion to prove you handle second again okay roll call please danielle mr orange yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yes mrs you yes motion passes six to zero okay may i have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of february 1st 2022 motion approved second ishii thank you vocal please mr beach yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yes mrs u yes
019motion passes six to zero okay may i have a motion to move action item 1.2-8 before the president's report so the community member does not have to be in attendance late sophia second uh local police mr beach yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rio sorry madam president can you repeat what are we doing are we moving up public comments 1.2 community member appointee oh appointee got it yes mrs say yes mrs you yes motion passes six to zero thank you one point two dash a may i have a motion to approve community member and student appointments to board advisory committee motion approved daniel second issue okay roll call wait a minute before roll call i'd like to introduce david chang to the transfer committee um david chang would you please come up to
020the podium and i'm going to ask david chang who is a parent proud parent of a child at our elementary school at stowers i believe and he's also proud product of abc okay well thank you madam president um good evening members of the apc community board members madam president madam superintendent my name is david chang i had a nice introduction written but she just stole my thunder but uh like she said i'm a proud parent of uh two children are currently attending stowers elementary and uh i'm i myself am a graduate of the abc unified school district i've attended palms nemas juarez and ended junior high in high school at whitney high school i went on to uc san diego where i studied neurological sciences and by some strange twist of fate i grew up
021to be a banker in corporate banking and i just want to say that the education i received from abc really helped to shape my life and my decision making in many positive ways and as soon as i became a parent i decided to move back to this hometown because i knew this was the best place where my own children could receive the absolute best education possible and as i became increasingly involved in the education of my kids i decided it might be time for me to give back to the school districts that's given me so much i still have a lot to learn and i'm looking forward to doing my best and doing as much as i can for this district and for our children thank you thank you very much any public comments and
022discussion okay well it's none we're gonna vote can we take a roll call yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yeah mrs you yes motion passes six to zero okay thank you welcome david chang thank you thank you all right evening and thank you for joining us tonight despite your busy schedule as president of the board of education for the abc unified school district i am committed to helping our staff provide the best possible education for our students the teachers and staff members have demonstrated their dedication to students and families throughout the pandemic i have expressed my appreciation multiple times in public the district began negotiations with abcft last fall it's important to remember that negotiating is an active process between two sides working towards common ground the current items
023discussed with abcft and with the board in closed sessions are confidential although i cannot speak as to the specifics of the negotiations i can tell you that both the district and abcft negotiating teams continue to meet and work together towards an agreement i'd like to remind the public the board's action in previous years clearly demonstrates the commitment to supporting teachers during the eight years serving on the board most of the votes have been unanimous when it came to teacher salary we have not experienced tension the trust and collaboration between abcft and the district that have built up over 20 years serve as the testament of this partnership and as we press on through the pandemic march 13 2020 we all remember we had the shutdown of our school the entire district was focused on how
024to continue education virtually through hybrid or in person until very recently after opening in person fall of 2021 and after we settled in is when we started the negotiation then the whole month of january was focused on omicron search i am sharing this background info information to express the reasons for the delay the this partnership has served as a model for many school districts across the region state and even nation because of this partnership i remain optimistic about both sides coming to an agreement and on that note i'd like to share on february 3rd i attended the virtual magnet fair which lasted for three hours thank you to dr beth and miss ortiz they were answering questions and so many students of so many parents from other districts who would who's interested in coming to
025our school had so many detailed questions and on february 8 the abc education foundation virtual meeting and i just want to thank all these volunteers business members parents really dedicating their time to really give our students scholarships grants classroom opportunity february 9th chef cerritos high school education foundation i attended this meeting very informative reports from patrick walker and serena yuan as always efficient in leading the meeting i'd like to congratulate congratulate cerritos high school mun team who took home eight gay gables gavels awards for best delegates and best school award congrats again to patrick walker mr mustard and mr watanabe for their dedication i'm also glad to hear that masking requirements will be relaxed in the coming weeks i really do like to see our children without the mask on in the outdoor fields and
026that is the end of my report thank you next we have student board representatives noti garcia of the adult school good evening president you distinguished board members superintendent dr su cabinet members and community members my name is nadi garcia no problem naughty like naughty girl very true and i've had the pleasure of attending abc adult school for almost two years pursuing a career path in graphic design currently i own a business that has been in operation for 26 years unfortunately it has been it has and continues to be greatly affected by kovid that being said i felt it was necessary to gain additional skills to assist my small business while researching a program i found many to be so costly and i was fortunate enough to chance upon the amazing affordable classes at abc adult
027school that although less expensive was not inferior in education or content i truly enjoy my teachers and sincerely appreciate their guidance i am grateful for all that that i have accomplished and will continue to master at abc adult school career technical education is on a comeback trajectory at abc adult school despite the effects of the pandemic all of our programs and career pathways continue students are finding their way back and we have several courses that have waiting lists we are using carl perkins funds to start a new program hvac installation and repair southern california has a huge shortage of qualified hvac technicians and our next goal as a school is to fill as many of those positions as we can we think this will be a very lucrative career for many of our students the
028week of october 11 abc adult school was visited by two accreditation teams for the first time we hosted a combined wasc and coe accreditation both teams gave commendations to the school for coe listed areas they wanted clarified or adjusted coe has over 300 300 areas of compliance in a report to coe we outlined how many we would make the adjustments they required and provided further evidence of our compliance in disputed areas this report is currently being reviewed by the council on occupational education and all should be finalized during their march meeting in the academic support department we already have 25 students who have completed all the classes to earn their high school diploma and 90 students who have passed all of the hiset or ged test to earn their high school equivalency certificate two former
029high school diploma graduates alicia and henry pidgey recently visited the abc adult school to thank the staff for helping them back when they earned their high school diplomas with the class of 2005. the pidgeys shared with us that they have since gone on to earn their bachelor's and master's degrees and are just two classes away from earning their doctoral degrees for this school year most esl classes at abc adult school were designed to be in person however as staying healthy was on the forefront of everyone's mind hybrid or teaching came into play hybrid classes are held in the morning afternoon and evening at our satellite campus cabrillo lane classes including grammar pronunciation vocabulary current events and civics at all levels four hard-working resourceful and very patient teachers are leading the hybrid classes a key component
030has been building a community where everyone knows a class expectations and has ample opportunities for discourse and interaction students have enjoyed their new learning environment some hybrid classes have 20 plus students in attendance and accomplishment for everyone community education courses are back in person and students could not be happier most classes are meeting in persons but a few classes are offering distance learning options through march glass fusing student joan flex is holding an exhibit at musee in anaheim highlighting her work in glass fused pictures including skylines water and flowers ms flax learned all of her glass fusing prowess at abc adult school she has been taking classes since 2011. our parent education families continue to be dedicated and flexible most classes this year are in person or in person we have been able to keep
031classes class sizes small so parents and children feel safe and comfortable the small class size has given the opportunity to provide more individual attention for both academic and social emotional learning it has been very special to see the little ones interact with friends again after 18 months of virtual classes we were able to incorporate park field trip and drive through events for halloween and christmas children said hello to all their teachers got treats for got treats at every station and even met santa claus we have continued our online afternoon art and cooking classes which bring out the creativity in parents and children alike once again on behalf of all the teachers parents and students at abc adult school i want to thank you for your continued strong support during these challenging times thank you for
032your attention thank you nadi uh nadi garcia we have some comments from the board i'm sorry comments from the board i just want to say i want to really applaud you for upgrading your career thank you and i just want to say i appreciate that and if my sincerity wasn't expressed in what i said it it really has been a wonderful experience for me as an older individual in my class i am one of the oral students so just getting beyond the fact that everyone in class was much younger than i was going through my second chapter of my new journey in life i knew that i needed to be creative because you know my business being that's all i knew that's all i have for 26 years and so now being have able to
033have this opportunity has just been a godsend and i love everything i've learned and done so i just look forward to it and i hope everyone can experience that and experience a joy at abc adult school i really really appreciate it kudos to you our abc adult school is one of the biggest and best programs in this area so you are a great example thank you very much and i appreciate that very much thank you thank you so much next we have dr seuss superintendent's report well first of all i would like to thank nadi for the wonderful report on adult school and the things that are happening in our adult school programs on february the 3rd i participated in the virtual magnet fair parent informational meeting there were a lot of important information provided
034by dr beth bray angelica diaz narano and melinda ortiz the informational meeting lasted for almost three hours and before the conclusion of the meeting on february the 4th i attended the covent 19 testing for k-12 a how-to webinar many participants facilitated the meeting including dr larry boldum special assistant office of the secretary us department of education mary wall senior policy advisor for testing at the white house christina silcox duke mark i'm sorry duke bar holas public health brittany layman r.n who was a rsu from maine dwayne bruce who was a facilitator anna hartigad uh education department trudy agenda testing for 101 jennifer harper tulsa public schools sean mcferrin clark county in nevada and eva stone jefferson county public schools with over 96 000 students and 55 schools it was a fascinating time to be with
035them on friday on february the 8th i participated in the csi funding with the lea webinar there were many superintendents in attendance training will be provided for leas on the grant management and reporting tool or g smart in the afternoon i participated in the dsln professional development plan over 85 people were involved with the summer learning program from 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock i also participated with the fmla interactive meetings provided by human resources our human resources the topics covered were the california family rights act and the employee notification system there was also time for q a from district employees before the meeting concluded on february the 9th i was invited to attend the black family circle virtual meeting everyone did a wonderful job during the evening dale williams from carmanita middle school and helicopter
036diaz narano interim supervisor of child welfare and attendance triana marbury from ross middle school adrian thomas equity officer and dr christina wise director of secondary schools there were over 50 members in attendance today i met with john mung who donated 20 000 masks for whitney high school we took a photograph in front of our district office to celebrate his contribution to our students we met with president sue who will act on her own behalf we held a meeting at the axa 14 superintendents at parker's lighthouse in long beach there were approximately 10 of us during that time every month i conduct the access superintendence academy on friday february the 11th thomas gaultier was available and on saturday tearlin finders was available on monday february the 14th i was involved with the health and well-being of
037the aapi students there was a fascinating conversation about students wearing masks as well as other features today i met with dr joshua sargent of usc to discuss the module 4 unit for planning i will begin the meeting on february the 28th have a wonderful three-day weekend everyone thank you thank you dr sue next we have public hearing i would like to i'm sorry next we have employee representative reports uh ray gere abcft president [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening president you board trustees superintendent dr sue administrators teachers nurses parents students and abc community members my name is ray gear and i'm president of abc federation teachers thank you for the to those a b c f t members who are in attendance or either here or online you are appreciated and valued tonight in closed session
038you saw the latest proposal from abcft our latest proposal is guided by the needs of our members and the countless hours of valuable work they perform on behalf of their students and their students parents the abc federation of teachers is exhausted by the back and forth of these negotiations at a time when other districts and teachers don't have to fight for every penny of respectability the exhausted abc employees are disappointed that the process of negotiations has not produced an agreement yet especially since over the last two years abc employees are tasked with more and more unpaid responsibilities as they struggle to provide stability for abc families and the students in our classrooms over the past eight days abcft has been engaged in a work to rule campaign we employed a work to rule strategy to
039provide minimal disruption for our students and parents but at the same time provide a spotlight for the school board about our disadvantage or dispatch or their satisfaction with the delays in the negotiation process the simple truth is reuben and i want to cut our hair which hasn't been cut since the last salary raise [Applause] i hope tonight that you will continue to listen to abc employees and how the past two years have impacted their students and their jobs as professional educators and nurses i realize that you will not be able to respond to the many speakers tonight but your decisions at the negotiating table tomorrow will communicate how you value abc employees [Applause] how you value their work and how you value their well-being as adults we need to set an example of how to
040work out our different differences in a productive manner just as we all value students now is the time for the board to demonstrate your value of abc teachers and nurses we need to lead by example the students are watching [Applause] on behalf of all the teachers and nurses in ebc my heartfelt thanks goes to every parent who honked their horn or shouted support for their sons or daughter's teachers [Music] thanks also to the parents and community members who wrote to the board about their concerns about what is happening in abc thank you to the abc community for your continued support for a fair contract we know you are listening a community is about stakeholders watching out for each other providing resources and supporting each other when the time is right as i said at the
041last board meeting the time is right let's put this behind us now is the time for action at the table the abc community is watching thank you [Music] okay thank you president ray now public hearing i would like to open a public hearing on the initial proposal submitted by the california school employees association and its abc chapter number 24 csea to reopen negotiations for the 2021-2022 school year on article 7. compensation and article 12 vacations and holidays copies on initial proposal are available for the public to view are there any public comments on this item i do not see any public comments madam president thank you hearing no comments the public hearing is closed district response to csea i would like to open a public hearing on abc unified school district response to the california
042school employees association and its abc chapter number 24 initial proposal to reopen negotiations for the 2021-22 school year on article 7 compensation article 9 health and well welfare benefits article 11 layoff and re-employment and article 8 calendar copies of initial proposal are available for the public to view are there any public comments on this item i don't see any public comments madam president thank you dr nino hearing no comments the public hearing is closed now we have public comments dr eurena thank you madam president persons wishing to address the board should fill out a card located on the table by the door and place it in the silver tin speakers will be called in sequence during public comments section which is limited to one hour and each speaker to one presentation of five minutes unless
043the board wishes to waive the time limit those who have a group concern are encouraged to select a spokesperson to address the board persons wishing to address the board and specific agenda item at a time the item is under discussion are limited to five minutes each and will be called to speak following the staff comments and prior to the board's discussion and taking action adverse remarks about a person's race ancestry ethnic group identification religion color national origin sex sexual orientation gender mental or physical disability or age may not be made please avoid remarks or charges which reflect upon the character motives qualifications or ability of any school district employee concerns presented to the board will be followed up and addressed by the appropriate staff okay madam president at this time we have 21 comments that
044will go beyond our one hour limit okay so we will have one hour limit or do we want to waive our one hour limits madam president if i may sometimes our comments don't go beyond the five minutes some of them may be shorter so i say we um we see how it goes halfway through at least okay fine all right okay and then we also have second public comments if it goes over uh our meeting is you know fairly short so you will have opportunity to speak at the second public comment at the end okay let me begin first speaker we have dina martens can we also bring up patrick gordon and barbara v [Applause] good evening dr sue fred dr sue president sue you vice president beach board members cabinet and community my name
045is dina martens and i have a son that attends cerritos high school i would like to address the current mask mandate for in-person instruction after witnessing the gross hypocrisy by politicians celebrities and tens of thousands of audience goers at the m mega event this past weekend i must say i was dumbfounded that the make the safe monday message i received yesterday doubled down on the mask mandates what are we teaching our children by continuing to remain silent i cannot remain silent any longer for the sake of our children we cannot continue to accept being told that the abc district must abide by the l.a county department health mandates you must see the detriment it is causing to our children at what point will the board district stand up with us the parents and challenge these
046mandates i can sit here and raffle rattle off statistics such as children have a 99.9 percent survival rate from covid the kovan 19 shot does not stop transmission and you can still get covid even if you're triple jabbed but apparently those facts are not taken into consideration in our fight to stop these mandates i do want to bring up however the suicide crisis among our children pediatric suicide attempts and mental health cases rose 53 percent in 2021 the increased suicide attempts and mental health crisis is directly related to the drastic coveted restrictions and isolation we have our kids in some may say that being in a mask for six to eight hours isn't that big of a deal it is a huge deal our kids minds brains are going through huge development these restrictions are
047affecting their choices communication social psychological development and their everyday interactions living in constant fear is causing irreparable damage to our children and we will not completely see the immense detriment that this is has caused them for many years how can we continue to turn a blind eye to this our children are hurting and they are dying we are up against goliath here and we need your help in this battle parents are asking for a choice we need you to clearly stand take us down for our children we need to see a resolution from the board the district the cabinet to the disc to the abc community to our legislators to our senator to the governor and to this california teacher union in support of mass choice preservation of medical freedom and parental rights lastly we
048will be hearing i'm sure tons of public comments from many today in support of teacher union negotiations i support our teachers i support that they need a fair negotiation agreement what i will not support is the millions of dollars that the teacher union bribes the politicians with the californ excuse me let her speak the california teacher union is in support of these mass mandates they released a statement just yesterday endorsing local decision for the cautious approach to the mask mandates i saw several teachers outside and i have many dear teachers that i know put their heart and soul into their classrooms not one t not one signed i saw in support of our students rights or student mass choice or parental rights excuse me excuse me it is tit for tat here you have tons
049of parental support for negotiations which we support but we the parents want support we demand that the districts back off our kids please let her talk back off our kids all we want is parent choice that's all we're asking for thank you next speaker we have patrick gordon on standby we have barbara v and ruben mancio hello my name is patrick gordon i am a teacher at gar high school i've been teaching in the district for 26 years and you know this is not obviously a normal night on a normal night you would go through the formality you would have teachers and students that would come forward and you would praise them for their accomplishments i think it's important for you to understand that the accomplishments that our students have and the accomplishments that you
050praise in this forum are is born on the backs of the teachers in this district it is born on the back of the quality teachers that you have and the quality teachers you want to continue to attract in this district now i know that you've probably had discussions about compensation for what we've had to endure for the last couple years and speaking for myself it has been a challenge i also know having an 18 year old daughter as a senior in high school it was a challenge for her i think some on the board believe that the few hundred dollars was thrown around towards us was some sort of compensation for the preparation that we had to do last year i know for me at my site i was told that i had to be
051a hall monitor i had to stand out in the quad and ensure that students most of which did not return did not get too close to each other and walked the correct way around the campus i did not get to be in my classroom i did not get to be preparing for my lessons in the transition from virtual to hybrid learning i was told i had to be out there i asked if i could forego the money so i could be in my classroom because the reality is i still had to do that work somewhere and at some time whether it be in my classroom or whether it be at home and the reality is the reality is is that this is much more a question of economics which i've taught for 26 years and
052ultimately in free market economics it's it's about attracting the best possible people it's about having human capital it's about having good people do good work and ultimately this this apparently is some sort of fiscal folly some sort of maybe feather in in someone's hat about how they're able to hold on against the teachers union and the reality is is what you're going to hear is a sound of silence new teachers are not going to come to this district if i was talking to a young teacher that was looking to come to this district i would probably ask why there are a lot of jobs out there they won't come here the other sound you're going to hear is not silence it'll be a huge sucking sound it'll be a vacuum of the younger teachers in
053this district going someplace else some of us have been here too long [Applause] some of us have been here too long we don't have that choice at this point but some of us might have a little regret might have a little regret i was uh at a a function a couple weeks ago talking to a colleague that works in another district not 20 minutes from here 26 years that's how long i've been teaching 21 000 dollars more a year most of us drive more than 21 minutes to get to our schools that we teach in 21 000 a year i have a daughter going to college next year that's a few years right there of college education that's a few years of paying off your house a little bit earlier and people in the area
054will know that they will know where they can go to work they will know that they can teach good kids those kids will achieve they can get this gratification they can get this gratification but this gratification does mean something who is going to come here who is going to teach here you praise your accomplishments of the past you appraise what we've done through the last couple years who are you going to have to praise going forward i don't know if i was working in this district or if i worked in administration why would i want to be sitting at a school site or at this district and ask teachers can you will you would you please when you know that we're not valued the reality is is my 26 years here i've been asked to
055achieve i've been asked to over achieve as of all the other teachers in this district i know what the stench of a labor dispute can can cause those many years ago my mom sat right there in that seat when this district was on strike one minute and it will last much longer it will last much longer than james harden coming over to artesia high school it lingers it's a stench and so you've asked me to be exceptional you've asked all of them to be exceptional and all we've asked you to be is average [Applause] next speaker we have barbara v on standby we have ruben mancias and david hund good evening abc usd board of education and dr mary sue my name is barbara vu i am a product of abc usd currently a full-time
056speech-language pathologist slp for short in special education one of the speech-language department co-chairs and i have two daughters attending abc usd schools i would like to first talk to you about my job in field like nursing there is a national shortage of speech language pathologists and particularly a critical shortage of school-based slps what slps do in the schools is assess diagnose and treat speech language and social communication disorders at every site infants to the adult transition program we have a dedicated group of 36 specialists who work in this district and we all hold master's degrees credentials state licensures and national certifications we are highly qualified educators my job allows me to work with my wonderful students for extended periods of time sometimes all seven years they are at nemas elementary for special education one of
057the biggest factors in student success is the consistency in their specialist i know my students and their families year by year goal by goal i help them achieve their communication potential unfortunately in just five years we have lost 10 specialists who left for other districts citing the pay discrepancy as the reason currently we have a number of temporary positions that have opened up that have been advertised for months with um at the district's hourly rate and there have been zero applicants i also think the current delay with negotiations have brought to light to my staff the disparity in salary and i have been approached by multiple specialists for a recommendation letter just last friday alone i got two requests for a recommendation what is the pay discrepancy for two neighboring districts i could make about
05835 000 more a year with the widespread shortages of slps all these districts would actually credit me with every year of service i've had can anyone blame our specialists who want to afford a home in southern california who need to save for college for their children who need to help offset the cost of care of their aging parents for leaving switching gears a bit i'd like to talk about how my workload has increased steadily every year and how this has only accelerated in the last two years during the pandemic when i began this job a typical individualized education plan that i would write for a student would be about five pages long i have to write at least one iep for my 55 students today's ieps are at a minimum 15 pages i write approximately
05980 to 100 evaluation reports annually i've been getting many many referrals from parents and teachers and right now i need to figure out is this child's speech living through a pandemic or is this a true language disorder this is all in addition to the direct services i provide that now involve both virtual therapy and live speech and language therapy with a mask on we have been doing the extra work without compensation all this time to hear that any increase in salary should only be approved with even more work reveals a deep misunderstanding of what any of us have been doing in the highly litigious world of special education services shouldn't it be imperative that our district have the best special education staff my work life now has absolutely begun to consume my home life i
060know this is the case for all of my teaching colleagues for my own teachers my own children's excellent teachers for our nurses at this point we're asking for recognition beyond a verbal thank you professionally i have been loyal to this district for 19 years in reality i have been loyal since i was a kindergartner at lille and when i was a senior at whitney when i walked out with my teachers i ask you to not take my loyalties for granted i ask you to not make me feel foolish for having such loyalty to this district thank you for your time and consideration next speaker we have reuben mancias on standby we have david hind and dana lindsey good evening board president you superintendent dr sue members of the board members of the cabinet and all
061of the abcft members parents and community members participating in this meeting my name is ruben mancius i'm a veteran educated educator here in abc unified and i'm proud to serve as the chief negotiator for the abc federation of teachers i've come tonight to speak about priorities and consequences abc has earned a reputation as being a district that makes student success a priority one of the ways that we've demonstrated this commitment is by attracting and retraining and retaining quality personnel to deliver services to our students one consequence of making competitive salary and benefits packages a priority is that we have a talented group of professionals and they're right here in this room tonight who help win the many awards that this board and this community are so justifiably proud of [Applause] but we cannot rest on
062the laurels of the past we need to acknowledge the realities of the present to maintain the legacy of this district's achievements abc ft members have literally been on the front lines throughout an ongoing pandemic yet here we are without having received a raise to our salary schedule for two years we continue to be the definition of essential workers and we are asking that our essential work be recognized with essential wages [Applause] when abc usd substitute pay was clearly no longer competitive with neighboring districts this board made it a priority to raise their wages i applauded the board for doing so the logic was clear we were falling behind and our students deserve nothing less than the best this district saw the negative consequences of not keeping up with prevailing wages and threatening it accordingly but
063why should our substitute teachers be the only ones who are valued in this way don't our teachers and nurses deserve a raise as well and let's be clear about what a raise is and what it is not a raise is what a professional earns from a job well done it is a reasonable expectation that an employee can maintain a dignified standard of living for his or her family based on the degrees certifications credentials and years of experience that have made us experts in our field a raise is not being asked to perform even more duties to justify additional compensation being required to chase a metric of ever increasing productivity for more pay isn't a raise it's the equivalent of a second [Applause] our job like all of our community have felt the impact of rising
064prices they know that neighboring districts are coming to salary agreements and they can compare abc usd schedule to see if we are still committed to making our teachers and nurses a priority i hesitate to predict what the consequences of continued inaction may be but i do know that our members are listening very carefully because while you may have heard the ringing of more golden bells they have heard thank you next speaker we have david hein on standby we have dana lindsey and laurie ulberg don't worry i'm double uh good evening porn good evening superintendent dr sue board president uh dr uh madame uh and the board officers and all the honorable board members my name is david hind i've been teaching at cerritos high school for the past 15 years i am speaking here in
065first person but i know that i speak at the same time for all my colleagues out there and they all have different variations of the same story before i speak i just want to point out one thing you might notice the tattoo i have on my arm the apple that's because this isn't a job for me it's not even a career this is who i am this is part of me i teach because that's my passion that's what i want to do during my 15 years at cerritos i've served my school my district in a variety of ways more importantly i've consistently served my students to the best of my ability i have always gone the extra mile i've advised clubs written countless letters of recommendation given up snack periods and lunches to help provide
066extra help to tutor stayed late to allow students to finish test even just provided a place for students to work after school when they needed that quiet i've also devoted numerous hours each year outside of the school day to provide extra text test practice and instruction to help students prepare for the ap exam all of this work has been unpaid and out of my own time i do this willingly though because i truly care for my students and i want them all to succeed i mean this work this work has come with a price the hours i've devoted to my students have an effect on my personal life and my relationships i've missed out events i've wanted to intend in order to serve my students or to keep promises i have made to them at
067times i've had to sacrifice time i'd have gladly spent with my wife in order to keep my commitments to my students but again i make these sacrifices willingly i've always felt proud to teach in this district when my friends in other districts have complained about their conditions in their districts i have felt privileged to teach in this district i have always felt that the board appreciated my efforts and valued me as a professional i still do feel proud and privileged to work in this district however i no longer feel appreciated and valued the last two years have been the most challenging of my career as an educator i've worked harder and i've worked at any other time my career i've had to learn new methods of presenting my information had to reimagine how to practice
068my craft and just when i get comfortable with one i've been asked to change again even this year's return to live instruction it hasn't been a return to normality i've been forced to adapt my instruction to accommodate a need for social distancing to the periods of increased absences due to covid i made these changes willingly as i knew it was serving the needs of my students i assumed the sacrifices i made would be properly rewarded i assumed that the abc usd school board would show that they appreciate and value me and all my colleagues i assume that the words of appreciation that board members have had for teachers over the past years would actually mean something sadly i've been wrong kind words mean nothing without actions to back them up i cannot express you how
069disheartening the board's in action and unwillingness to fairly compensate teachers for all of their hard work and sacrifice over the years especially the last two years i cannot express to you how sad it makes me to think that my extra efforts are not appreciated i can't express how demotivating it is to feel that i am not valued makes me ask myself why i'm giving so much of myself moreover i know i'm not the only one feeling this way i have many colleagues who are asking themselves the same questions i find myself asking we are asking ourselves why we are sacrificing so much to make this district the great district it is when our efforts are seemingly neither appreciated nor respected one minute i urge you to show with your actions that the teachers nurses librarians
070and other educators of this district are actually valued and appreciated i urge you to properly compensate those who have made this district the highly rated district that this is we are valuable we are essential we demand to be treated that way next speaker we have dana lindsey and on standby we have laurie yulberg and marcy levins to whom this may concern this seems like such an odd way to open a letter to the school board that hired me back in 1995. i dana lindsey currently teaching at elliott elementary school have happily served the students and families of abc for 27 years and i never thought i would need to write this type of letter many teachers and parents are justifiably angry at this time however as a signatory to the original partnership charter signed in
0712009 i am simply sad the work that both sides of the aisle put into forging that charter established ground truths in fundamental rules of engagement that always put the students and teachers of this district first because if the teachers are supported our students will succeed therefore keeping the main thing the main thing which is student achievement i am sad because it seems that you do not know what we teachers are experiencing in the classroom to my knowledge none of you have stepped foot onto my campus to see what we do daily for the success of our students and one of you lives less than a block away from my classroom door you are more than welcome to visit my classroom to see the emotional differences in addition to the educational challenges that we face daily
072students had been out of the social environment of the physical classroom for more than a year their needs were drastically different upon return and we continue to meet those deeds daily needs daily for example i have had to teach students not to walk between two people having a conversation and simply say excuse me rather than mow down a classmate i must continually remind students that they are not muted and that everyone can hear them singing three minutes students struggle to handle the the stan the the standard interactions between students of their age because they have missed this social growth managing all of this takes away from the academic education that we were hired to do as educators we know that in order to teach curriculum curriculum we must first meet the students where they are
073in order to take them further i had many students that could not identify an adjective at the beginning of the school year so i could not teach them to write a five paragraph essay when they could not write a complete sentence however they are expected to complete a multi-paragraph essay for the sixth grade writing exam even if they're an rsp suit where is the logic in that i am told that your goal is to build a swim complex at cerritos high school i am sure that will serve the swim team of cerritos high school admirably but could those one-time funds be used more effectively to serve the greater good perhaps you could compensate the extra hours we teachers have given over the last two years to at least financially say thank you for the additional
074work completing the necessary grading for an stis program takes at least an hour per student i have 16 currently to manage that's so far i think we had about eight people on contact tracing today so who knows what i'm going to have when i get to school tomorrow perhaps you could add more personnel to the staff to better our working conditions you also have a substantial reserve which could easily play for the modest justifiable addition to the salary schedule we have not even received a cost of living increase in two years does this seem fair do we not deserve compensation for the extra and difficult work that we have done these last two years to bring quality and safe education to the children of this once great district no we did not become we did
075not become teachers to be wealthy however we must pay our bills and we deserve fair compensation for the work we do if you cannot see that perhaps you do not need to be on the school board thank you for your time [Applause] next speaker we have laura yulberg on standby we have marcy levins and stephanie watson hi my name is laurel burke good evening um lord dr sue cabinet community members teachers nurses my name is laura yulberg i don't like to speak in public i've been teaching at cerritos high school for the past 10 years and you probably know me as the lady who knits on board meetings prior to cerritos high school i taught at artesia high my alma mater for five years and prior to teaching i was a secretary at abc usd
076for nine years i attended a b school schools i'm not only a teacher but a parent of a student who attended abc and a community member living in this community most of my life during my tenure as a teacher i have worked with students who have special needs and for the past 10 years the life students who have more significant needs i wanted to say these past two years have been some of the most challenging and frustrating times i've ever experienced we need to go from in-person teaching to virtual then to hybrid back to virtual for summer school and back to in person most of this happening within a few days notice this year we're in our classrooms teaching students despite this ongoing pandemic the classroom that i work is an impossible to keep the
077required distance and provide the education and support that my students need forget six feet at six inches every day several adults and students in my classrooms have come down with cova during this time which has been beyond stressful as i'm afraid that some of our more fragile students could get this disease which could have dire results when covet began i brought school lunches to my students to make sure they had food i brought materials to their homes so they can access their curriculum i came into my classroom for the entire 2021 school year so that i could make copies for their curriculum so my population of students could access the work as they and their parents lacked some of the computer skills that many of the computer-based programs that were there that were available let's
078say i made it work so my students could continue to learn and get a quality education this was stressful but i always made sure that my students and families get what they need my fellow teachers and i have worked tirelessly through each transition and are absolutely exhausted i just heard that one of my colleagues resigned in the middle of the year because of job related stress and anxiety i even remember a phone call where she was sobbing not knowing how to operate in a virtual environment and wanting so bad to teach her students she loves so much i've been speaking with other members who say that they're done after this year and say they can't take it anymore i'm questioning my career choice and have been feeling very underappreciated and taken advantage of i'm worried
079about my own mental and physical health at times my students this year have been extremely difficult to work with as they've been out of the classroom for two years and most of them have been cooped up at home with only family members and siblings these um i know that i have i've i've got some students that they don't even have any siblings they've just been home with adults and they they it's just been super hard for them since i've returned i signed up to work in my classroom to tutor the students whose parents requested the afternoon tutoring not only in person but online as my students have unique needs that require special instruction delivered according to their ieps i know that our union negotiating team has worked since october to come to a fair compensation
080package to include a cost of living increase retroactive pay as i believe we've earned it the cost of living has gone up astronomically i was hoping last week that our union would be giving us good news about a pay increase in retroactive pay but i was told that the abc usd school board members are not going to give us what we deserve this breaks my heart i've worked so hard for these past two years to ensure my students got what they need and deserve my colleagues have done the same i'm extremely disappointed in how the board's not willing to support teachers and show how much they're appreciated it's nice to hear thank you but thank you doesn't pay the bills we come to work each day putting our lives in danger and our families lives
081in danger to make sure our students get a quality education i'm hoping that you'll reconsider your position on the tentative agreement and let us know that you value our work and dedication i have always considered this job a lifestyle i put in countless hours at work and so much of my own money into my classroom but at this time as difficult it is for me personally i'll be looking at this as just a job and i'm not going to go beyond my job duties and that's hard for me i will no longer be available after hours to my parents i won't be tutoring after school or staying late when the bell rings i'm going to leave emails and phone calls and all the other gazillion things that i have to do daily are going to
082have to wait to the next business day i've never seen the district as a business and myself as just an employee but as much as it breaks my heart i will please reconsider your position and whatever our union is asking i believe we've earned it and more thank you next speaker we have marcy levins on standby we have stephanie watson and sylvester ani good evening board members dr sue fellow brothers and sisters of the abc ft union support staff students parents community members and all the other stakeholders my name is marcie levins and i'm a special education teacher in the adult transition program at cal lane i've been a special educator for 30 years and 25 of those years have been dedicated to the moderate severe intellectually disabled students of abc usd most of us
083burn out way longer way before that i come here today to tell you how deeply disappointed i am with the abc school board that you cannot reach a fair and equitable agreement with the labor union regarding the compensation package for the 21 22 school year with the exception of i believe two board members i have lost faith that all of you can lead us into the future i don't believe you have the ability to do that anymore when you don't believe in your teachers and compensate them fairly you're not believing in the students either we teach the future the kids are the future you're not upholding your part of the deal you're not even being appropriate which is a word i use in my classroom all the time teachers and nurses as well as most
084abc usd employees have worked tirelessly to support our students through the most unprecedented and demanding years of a global pandemic these two years have been the hardest of my entire career it has led me to retire in june which i could not decide until i had to live through these two years and then this negotiation has thrown me under the bus it's too much three minutes i'll be gone in june teachers have risen to the challenges and continued for nearly two years to provide quality education above and beyond our contractual responsibilities you've heard it over and over but no well-earned compensation to show for it leadership comes from the top and if the abc school district and its school board are considered to be the leaders then the results of these negotiations have displayed a
085disdainful absence of valuing teachers and a pathetic and painful lack of support it's not new from my own personal experience as a special education teacher in the in the adult transition program the district and the school board have consistently chosen financial concerns over student well-being and achievement historically adult transition classes were matched at 12 students per class due to the cognitive abilities that they have teachers serving these students are required to have a moderate severe credential or severely handicapped like i have that so old an arbitrary decision was made in 2010 going to take you back a bit to label adult transition students from moderate severe to mild moderate in order to increase the class size from going from 12 students to 18 i was ready to go back to gen ed this was partially
086due to an unfortunate slightly ambiguous contra language in the contract that the district the school board and the special education department they all used it to their advantage i'm not telling you that i've been angry for all those years because i'm not i'm a passionate person i'm usually passionate about my students and what they deserve and what they should have and i'm passionate about these teachers who stand with me and say it's not okay the demeaning decision as well as the disloyalty you've shown to teachers by not agreeing to the compensation package flies in the face of the mission and vision of the abc unified school district as outlined on our website's homepage the last statement of the division reads we believe people are the cornerstone of our district and students are the reason we
087are here if people truly are the cornerstone of this district then they should be compensated as such us cornerstones have worked for too long with too little our contributions to our students education and success are not honored or valued or appreciated by the current school board jay paul getty is quoted as saying the greatest investment companies can make is in their people it is time for you to act now in the interest of your people the teachers the nurses and all the others and agree to a fair and equitable compensation package to move this district forward into the future time thank you next speaker we have stephanie watson on standby we have sylvester ani and kim larkin thank you board please excuse my hair and my horse voice but i've been out in the street
088because of you in the rain in the freezing cold i'm begging for a contract that i shouldn't have to do as a professional with a master's degree first of all i want to make sure you understand that cola is not a raise cola is the cost of living adjustment that helps us survive and live in california a raise is different a raise is something a boss gives you to show and appreciate all the above and beyond work that a person has done to support their company so we need to really start by not calling cola a raise after the past two years of working above and beyond for my students during the pandemic i'm asking for both a cola and a raise on top of that there will be lots of teachers speaking about our
089workload during the pandemic so i'm going to focus on other areas i know others will emphasize that we worked often until 10 at night transferring curriculum onto digital platforms to make sure learning was accessible for our students i will not go into all the hours we have spent working on independent studies time taking time to mirror what is happening in person for our students who have no choice but to stay at home we put these hours in to make sure that no child is left behind during this pandemic i'm going to be focusing on my board member ernie nishi as i am a cerritos elementary school teacher and your district lies in my zone i am disappointed most in you i have seen you twice this year and only at big events the great shakeout
090and the national blue ribbon ceremony ces is the only school in abc that has earned that award during the pandemic you um out of all people should be rewarding for our hard work all of us you get free publicity for furthering your campaign for city council and you sang teacher praises during the ceremony yet you held back our fair compensation [Applause] why have you not come to our schools on a regular day and walk through our classroom see what teachers and students are doing on a daily basis basis i encourage you to do that sometime maybe then you won't be so removed from our daily play i was also disappointed on your social media posts where you claim you support teachers that your wife pays for out-of-pocket expenses that she was grading papers during vacations
091if you know that then work to on our contract for better working conditions stop counting pennies okay if you know that you can fight for teachers to have more prep time in the school day if we're correcting papers during vacations you can increase the prep time from 30 minutes to 90 minutes a week then invest money and making sure we get great enrichment activities for our students like art music or dance this year we started with only 30 minutes a week we recently just got up to 60 minutes at our school and that is nothing with all the added responsibilities we must attend to daily if these are the downsides that teaching support the teachers and our workington conditions you are running for city council and your campaign promises a better cerritos a better tomorrow
092well if you want a better cerritos then you need high quality education if you want high quality education then you need high quality teachers if you want high quality teachers then you need to pay the cost for it you cannot expect fellaini yawn for the price of cubed steak if you want better cerritos that hire more nurses and pay them more we have one nurse for one day a week and that's during a pandemic when contract tracing has become a full-time job for all of our principals because we lack nurses if we want better cerritos then hire our mental health professionals at a pay they deserve we had a mass exodus of mental health professionals because you treated them so poorly we were fortunate to find one at our school our mental health professional who
093is the best i cannot do my job without her has a full caseload with a wait list that means that kids are not getting the services that they need i have been apathetic towards the board meetings and board elections because in the past 20 plus years i have worked here i have felt supported by my board your actions have made me change all that dr rios dr apodaca thank you for your support continue to fight for the good fight for the teachers and don't let the other board members change you i will be there to support you in your reelection otherwise this four needs and deserves new blood and elections matter i will be walking the precincts getting out the flyers our union president ray is his viewing updates with the fight continues i am
094mad and frustrated and i do not plan i do plan on taking this fight as far as i have to go until we get fair compensation however board members you have the power to end this fight right now the ball is in your courts in this fight now so that teachers can get back in their classroom doing what we do best supporting our kids next speaker we have sylvester ani on standby we have kim larkin and marty supple uh good evening board just uh just my observation i think we need to pay teachers more i think we need to pay our educators more um and one thing that i want to ground this in is that there's not a single person in this room who would be here without an educator and that's something that
095we got to pay back and we got to pay forward um and just just being here has been electric this this everybody here you know this union is rooted in power but that power is rooted in love and what they're fighting for is that it's the love for their peers it's the love for the students there's something special that happens when you have teachers cte educators mental health professionals early childhood development nurses custodians when you have when you have the whole body turn out for something you know that is rooted in something special and uh me myself i'm a product of abc and i wanted to talk a little bit about that love that they're rooted in when i was 13 my father was shot and killed and i lasted two years at cerritos high
096school i i was truant i was a sleeping class i didn't know where i was i didn't know i didn't know i didn't see a future um i i ended up going to tracy tracy high school where like i like i was falling further and further into into depression but like at every single moment every single you know every time around the corner there was always somebody that was in my ear whether i was ready to hear or not at the time they planted a seed in me sylvester keep on going sylvester don't give up sylvester you're smart right and and it's it's the and i ended up i got my ged right and from there i got my degree at isuzu pacific in psychology i just passed my c best so i can start
097teaching in the school that i almost failed out of and and my question my question tonight is how come the teachers and the educators that saved my life make enough to to live their lives that's not right that's not just [Applause] and and something i'm always i'm always reminded of because i love each and every one of you all out here tonight um you know whether you realize it or not um and the impact that they have on students lives is is something that changes lives and the thing is if they don't have enough to point to their cups they're not going to have anything important to these students cups and the fact that we're taking them away from what they do best is depriving our students it's not it's not inviting new people to
098come in and want to be a part of something special like this um you know so i'm always i'm always reminded of the quote i am who i am because somebody loved me and these educators loved me and i wouldn't be here without them and we wouldn't be here without them and that's something that we can't forget that's something that we always have to acknowledge and that's something that we always have to remind ourselves we can't just tell them that we love them we got to show them we got to show these teachers we got to show and and that's all across the board that's our teachers that's our mental health professionals that's our cte educators that's our nurses we cannot continue to have people working a full-time job on a full-time basis making part-time
099income it's not right it's not just and i'ma continue to stand with y'all and and let's and you know i just heard this outside for one of my teachers my teachers like nice things so pay them more thank you [Music] speaker we have kim larkin on standby we have marty supple and maria nunez good evening board members and dr sue my name is kim larkin i have been a resident in cerritos for over 25 years i'm a community member and a teacher at richard garr high school i've taught in abc for approximately 30 years and another 10 years before i came to abc so i have a total uh i have a total number of about 39 years of service i am the senior mentor teacher and i am on various committees in the district
100because i am inspired by my profession and i want to make a difference in the lives of teachers and students furthermore gar high school is one of the most diverse schools in the nation that makes me proud i chose the city of cerritos to make my home for many reasons it's not far from the city the school district was great it's the city of parks it's a family-oriented city both of my kids attended cerritos elementary carmanita middle school and cerritos high school i felt the city of cerritos had a lot to offer at present my younger daughter teaches in the district and my older daughter is a forensic specialist for a local police department it took a lot of hard work dedication and parenting so that my daughters could be successful in stealing the growth
101mindset and setting the same expectations for my students at gar high school is what it takes for children to succeed in a partnership which defines the responsibilities of each partner teachers willing to teachers willing to agree to deliver a high-level quality of instruction that is our job cerritos is located in a setting where we are called to serve several diverse communities teachers come to this district from many cities and counties furthermore many teachers live and work in the city of cerritos artesia norwalk and lakewood our teachers have already stood before you and explained how we flipped on a dime in march on a thursday or friday to monday three minutes sending assignments out to our students and fielding questions assisting students day and night correcting and returning assignments to make sure students understood what you
102wanted or expected them to do it was difficult but with the growth mindset we made it happen we had to learn new systems to start the new school year that many teachers were not familiar with and had never used frankly i went to a colleague's house for two days in a row from 8 in the morning to 10 at night to learn how to implement google meets along with new protocols and procedures i learned it and my students adjusted but it was the extra effort that we as teachers put in again and again to make it happen everything continued to be fluid and the changes never stopped the mental and physical stress stress was almost unbearable we continued and we never quit working with the district and administration to keep it together using the electricity
103and internet in our own homes day and night buying technology they made our internet strong so our students could see and hear us clearly we continued to spend hours after school planning lessons keeping up with common core strategies so students could write with purpose using the writing process buying materials for our students that we can't even write off anymore because the new tax cuts by the former president don't allow it i delivered newspapers and magazine articles to some students homes because they did not have access i bought rewards and mailed to my students homes and delivered some in person because i wanted them to know that i cared i know there are countless things that teachers did for their students watching my daughter was extremely inspiring because i could see the fruits of my own
104labor and good teachers are always learning in the past and at present endless preparation endless fundraising meetings with clubs to plan and then extra time because planning is one piece of them of the implementation process but actually to actually carry out these ideals takes more time a member of the board came to my house i wasn't at home one minute but the board member spoke with my husband who worked as a business agent and a trustee for local 250 for nine years as he represented his trade after conversing for a bit he asked the board member do you support the teachers the board member answered i can't say because we are negotiations he mentioned his party affiliation but that does not specify whether you supported the teachers or not anyway he went on to say
105that they had given some money to the teachers the extra pay that you mentioned we were compensated for the extra supervision that we did before school after school and at lunch was not in our contract so an mou was created and we returned to school and taught simultaneously another fluid change that we had to adjust to the money was spent and taxes were taken out we did our duty i did not know that that was part of the negotiations process as we started working toward a salary increase we don't need a swimming pool at cerritos high school we have an olympic-sized swimming pool at cerritos park east it was built with the olympics in mind remember it was a venue what a blessing that kids at cerritos high school can practice there my kids learned
106how to swim in that pool setting nothing could be better but this is what politicians do they forget what they are sent here to do and that is to serve everyone including the teachers while we have excellent teachers in our district we want to continue to attract top instructors that are passionate about powerful teaching and learning show us some respect we are not machines and we will not act or be treated as such we could not get enough substitute teachers to work in our district because of the assignments because of the substantially low pla pay that they were receiving our pay does not represent the standards that we set in the abc unified school district high quality teaching is what the community expects from its teachers i quote we are wondering if you realize the
107time we spend away from our families for our students the workload has increased a great deal communicating with students and their parents day and night the tireless hours we spend on extra activities that we don't have stipends for then the salary should increase in juxtaposition with those demands the numbers have to balance on both sides of the equation hours in abc is not balanced we demand the pay we deserve for our constant extra efforts on a daily basis we deserve the dignity of being treated with respect we deserve to be treated as professionals we deserve the pay raise for the sacrifices we make for our students we deserve a wage that honors our own families we will wear you down by our ability to suffer says the reverend dr martin luther king give us the
108ballot give us the ballot [Music] next speaker we have marty supple on standby we have marie maria nunez and patty alcantas we are coming up an hour at 905 we still have approximately nine speakers remaining okay so after this speaker then we will resume after our meeting at the end of the board meeting and our meeting is pretty short yeah thank you very much go ahead ma'am good evening dr sue members of the board cabinet members and community members my name is maria nagnes and i am a proud member of abcft having served as a special education teacher and now as an instructional coach at the elementary level i am also now a parent of abc students my six-year-old twins who are now kindergartners in our district i stand here this evening to speak up
109for my union brothers and sisters as we ask for fair negotiations and compensation for the work we do as i heard more and more about our stalled negotiations i was honestly quite surprised i had understood that our district was very supportive of its teachers and knew our value so in my mind i decided to give some of you the benefit of the doubt maybe you just hadn't noticed all the increased workloads maybe you weren't aware of all the extra hours our teachers and nurses have put in over the last two years maybe you just forgot that we have been on the front lines of a global pandemic maybe you just didn't know because if you did if you could have seen what i've seen you would have raced to the bargaining table you would have
110jumped at the chance to show us and show our community just how much you value the ones who have kept this district going through the most challenging time we have ever faced you must not have known that teachers were sacrificing precious time with their loved ones to ensure our students felt loved and connected during the early days of this pandemic you must not have been there three minutes to see the tears we shared having seen the pain in our students eyes and knowing even our best was not enough you may not have known how we had to completely reinvent the way we taught over a weekend and then put in endless hours striving to prote perfect our instruction building the plane while we flew it you couldn't have known just how important we became to
111our students and their families bringing strength comfort calm a sense of normalcy through a computer screen all the while facing our own fear grief exhaustion and uncertainty maybe it's because we never let it show did you hear the cheers or honking horns as teachers found new ways to build their communities through car parades drive through graduations or book giveaways did you hear the incredible zoom concerts created by our talented music teachers excited but at the same time so scared to return to our classrooms and schools knowing the risks knowing the enormous job we had before us to protect our students to help them reconnect to their school to start the work of picking up the pieces for them to start again maybe you just didn't know because we knew we had to hold it all
112together so we never let the struggle show have you seen us this year have you seen us reinvent ourselves once again to return to our classrooms and attempt to make the best out of what we had short staffed facing more demands than ever have you seen how hard your teachers and staff have been working for students who are returning with more challenges than we've ever seen before i wish you could have seen the teachers i work with the sweet kindergarten teacher my children adore how they show up day after day to face unknown challenges with love and creativity and brilliance and compassion and strength i guess you just haven't seen what i've seen but i hope you see us now we are your greatest asset we always have been and i hope the decisions you
113make show that you see us thank you madam president that concludes the first hour we can continue the remaining speakers on the second public's comment section okay we'll resume with our meeting and we'll have a second public comment section at the end of the meeting may i have a motion to approve the consent calendar madam president just just question uh how many do we have on uh the uh online i'm not sure but we can take care of that at the end of the meeting also that's usually done through that okay yeah yeah at the end this is sophia can i say something now president uh later sophia we're continuing with the consent calendar okay okay may i have a motion to approve the consent calendar motion to approve daniel second is there anyone who
114wishes to remove any item to be considered separately yes madam president 1.1 okay oh so um madam president i i suggest that this travel be made contingent upon finishing the negotiations so i'm maybe we pull it to make an action item okay one point one i'd like to make a amendment to that particular uh action where there's travel to go out of state i'd like to make that travel contingent upon uh the approval of negotiations thank you okay um we're going to have a vote is there danielle roll call please mr beach yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yes mrs u yes motion passes six to zero okay next we have information item 1.4 dash don't we have an action item action item census okay so we're gonna go
115into one point okay one point okay 1.1 see okay okay okay so this one right here supplement to the energy okay 1.4 dash i 2022 supplement to the annual update for 2021 2022 elf cap okay okay dr mayfield thank you good evening board president sue you members of the board and dr sue and to our public as part of the requirement of the california department of education we are asked to present an annual update to our lcap in the form of a supplemental update and so i'm excited tonight to share our progress as a district based on the data that is available reminding both the board and the public that due to the pandemic a lot of these state assessments were suspended and so a lot of the metrics that we use to monitor our
116progress is not available and you'll see that throughout the presentation also joining me this evening i want to thank in advance miss carol castro a supervisor curriculum instruction and professional learning principal alejandro gutierrez from ferguson principal denise macias from fetty and then our new el castler profetti miss perez i want to say thank you for being here at this late hour like many your days are long and we appreciate you so we will start with the general presentation of the lcap and then a metric that we're required to report publicly annually is our english learner progress often we're asked questions about the services and programs that we provide for our english learners no one better to speak on the hard work and those initiatives than our district and school staff and so tonight you'll have
117a chance to hear from them on the work that's taking place throughout the district the lcap requires us to engage our educational partners that's a new term that's being used and so you'll hear us move away from stakeholder language to acknowledging that these are our educational partners and that they play an important role in helping guide and direct us and how we use these funds to support our students this year and due to covet we actually engaged our educational partners using the survey i think it was an effective approach in the sense that we had over 3000 participants by using the survey the survey was made available to all families and as well as permanent employees and so the numbers speak to the level of interest that individuals had to contribute to the recommendations that
118were in our lcap and as we will be reporting out this evening as the board knows the state has eight priorities and our lcap must be aligned to those priorities priority one basic services speaks to the credentialing of teachers as well as their appropriate placement and assignments as well as instructional materials and fair good facilities in good condition priority two addresses the implementation of the california state standards and all subject areas priority three is parent engagement priority four focuses on student achievement more specifically in the area of their academic progress whereas priority five looks at student engagement in terms of school culture and school climate as reflected in attendance and dropout rate and priority six school climate focus more on student connectedness how well they feel connected to their school and learning environment and sense
119of safety course access deals with access to advanced coursework our dual language immersion programs and vapa and then priority eight student outcome is a focus on our career technical education programs so when we look at the actions and services aligned to priority one as i've shared earlier this really centers around credentialing our our teachers credentialing programs as well as instructional materials in safe and well-maintained learning environments for our mid-year data we have 99 of our teachers are appropriately assigned and credentialed we also had our williams report that we speak to present to the board annually and 100 of our teachers indicated that they had standards-based aligned instructional materials and our facilities that were inspected were also approved as being in fair and good condition in state priority 2 and 4 this area specifically addresses a
120lot of the services that we're providing and particularly to our english learners about right before covid i had initiated a focus group of principals and district staff where we were spending time around a new document provided by the california department of education called the english learner road map that document was used to conduct a self-assessment of where we were as a district and from there initiatives were put in place at the district level and at our school sites to support the advancement to proficiency of students who speak more than one language again i'm excited tonight that you'll have a chance to hear from our team who is doing a lot of tremendous work to support our students and you'll have a chance to hear about their progress in this area as mentioned earlier most of
121these assessments were suspended due to the covet 19 pandemic and so we don't have mid-year reports on this data our students will be engaging and are engaged in some of these assessments and will at the end of the school year and so we will have this report for the board in the fall of 2022 in the area promoting parent involvement the focus here is really to provide opportunities for our parents to engage in a decision making process we have successfully through our adult school continue to provide the parent leadership academy that's well attended by our parents at the school level parents are asked to be involved in schools like council we also have our parent advisory committees and our district english language committee as well as our community advisory committees and so there are opportunities
122for parents to have parent representatives from every school serving on these district level committees the way we look at our progress this is a one of the state required tools is the california school parent survey for engagement indicator and 74 percent of our parents indicated last year that they do feel that they have the opportunity to engage in school and decision making process and 83 indicated they have the opportunity to give input in the decision-making process this survey again will be administered this school year and parents will once again have the opportunity to respond in the area of use of pupil achievement data this area really focuses on trying to provide our students access to accelerated opportunities through advanced placement coursework at the secondary level as well as advanced math courses and at the elementary
123level is where we focus our energy on our gait program as well as additional english learner program support to exit our students so they can access some of the other programs we are still offering sat in act prep academies because we do have students who are still applying for schools in which those assessments play an important role our ap exam pass rate of 3 or higher was 75 percent in 2019-20 and our mid-year data indicates a 66 for spring of 2021 um students also take as part of the casp assessment is the early assessment program eap again since those state assessments were suspended the data that we have dates back to 2018-19 but that data is used to indicate students readiness for college level courses and so the csus actually look at student scores in
124those areas and if students score met or exceed it then they are able to take a college course varying english or math class and not have to take a remediated class upon entrance as an incoming student priority 5 has a due of pupil engagement and in this area we are very focused on providing students multiple opportunities to improve their grades when it comes to a to g grade improvement the csus and uc's are recognizing grades of c or better and so even if a student passes a class with a d they can retake the class in summer school and of course if they fill the course we're offering other opportunities for them to retake the course avid is at our middle and high schools and continue to have a graduation rate of 100 percent our
125dropout rate did increase during the pandemic prior to this our dropout rate was about 1.5 percent so again we are intentionally going after those students who did not graduate and providing them what opportunities to enroll in our adult school program so they can earn their high school diplomas we've had a robust tutor program that's been available to all students to access tutoring at all of our schools we run one of the most robust summer school programs in abc i mean in the area where students from elementary middle and high school taking not only courses to help improve their grades but enrichment opportunities as well as opportunities for acceleration and priority six is where we focus on positive school climate this is the area we talk about students social emotional well-being and supports are provided through
126pbis structures at our schools a lot of support from our mental health professionals who are very viable to the success of our students academic performance as well as our safe schools child welfare and attendance coordinator in that team who really helps to monitor and support schools and students attendance our statist our suspension rate in 2021 was zero percent um looked great to keep our suspension rate at that low i think that's a a record for us but even at the mid-year 0.5 is fairly low our expulsion rate continues to be at zero percent our chronic absenteeism rate is increasing and so again we're targeting resources um through actually going and doing home visits and checking out do you think that we can keep it kind of quiet in the hallway or we can just close
127the door i would appreciate it go ahead dr mayfield thank you and checking on our families to make sure they have the supports and resources that they may need to help their children get to school safely our attendance rate again has been impacted by covid where students having to be at home due to illness or due to exposure and again our our healthy our california healthy kids survey plays an important role in keeping us informed on how students are feeling connected and so 74 of our students gave schools a high rating of feeling connected to their school environment and 75 percent gave their schools a rating of high for being having access to caring adults and again students will have a chance to take those surveys in june in the area priority 7 inc increase
128course access again this is where our focus has been to provide our dual spanish immersion program i'm excited tonight we'll hear from one of our principals mr gutierrez who actually has a program at his school and he's going to share some highlights of the success of the students in those programs but we also have a pathway that includes nimitz ross and gar high school for students in our dual immersion program we also have increased our opportunity for students to earn dual college and high school credit and so that's a big emphasis for us to help students to graduate from high school completing a significant portion of their ges for college by taking these dual enrolled courses we offer our teen parent program for students who need support as young parents and we have our artesia
129high school high school opportunity class in our k-12 vapor programs so our a to g passage rate i said earlier at 61 percent our high school graduation rate when we look at seniors only for the class of 2021 was 696.3 percent and as mentioned earlier our other data dates back to 2018-19 due to the covet pandemic in the area of career technical education our college and career indicator which is on our dashboard indicates 61 of our students are making progress and are meeting the standards to be both college and career ready 539 students have completed two or three courses in a single pathway and we have 114 students in 2020 who had a internship some of those are paid some of those are not paid but it's still an amazing opportunity for our students to
130be exposed to the work based learning and 142 is our mid-year report for students who are in internships the priority is for juniors and seniors to be placed in internships but we are also placing 14 year olds in internships as well so in this next section we'll have an opportunity to hear from miss carol castro who's going to share about the initiatives that are happening district-wide at both the english i'm sorry at both the elementary and middle school level i want to introduce us to another new term multilingual learners you'll slowly hear that term being used instead of english learners i like the term multilingual learners because it acknowledged that kids have more than one language it doesn't make one appear to be more important than the other but it says that this is an
131asset for students to be multilingual and we should support them and their ability to become proficient and so you'll hear that term also being used in future presentations ms castro good evening mrs sue president of the board mr broadbeach vice president dr michael eugenio clerk dr chris apodaca mr ernie nishi dr olga rios mississippis sofia say board members dr sue our superintendent cabinet members and community members i'm honored to be here this evening to present our district english learner multi-language learner initiatives on behalf of my department the office of secondary curriculum as well as on behalf of dr beth bray our elementary curriculum supervisor and lisa davis our special program supervisor our work is really centered on providing supports to school sites to expand and improve services to english learners as a multilingual learner myself
132it's really important that we really focus on our student efforts and on the support that we can provide at school sites so our district we really have a four-pronged approach professional learning support programs extended learning and additional personnel so i'll start with the additional personnel which you could see a brief summary there for you the support with additional personnel includes new 19 intervention specialists that has been hired for every elementary school in addition i am very proud to say that we have seven new designated el counselors at every middle school and high school this includes a district-wide el counselor who helps to coordinate the efforts of our secondary english learner counselors across the school sites can we move this side forward please one more now one more thank you for professional learning our focus areas
133are been the ell roadmap principles for each level which came out in 2017 we've been working for that for years actually pre-pandemic working with a committee of teachers and principals from the school side as well as district members to really focus on how do we help our schools create an assets-based approach to our english learner population and how do we become needs responsive to our students and so that work continues across the board and it's really been a focus for our english learner counselors that we've hired as well as our intervention specialists for math and reading coaching support we've also continued to provide excellent professional learning for our school sites as well as our read 180 coaching support which is our specialized program for secondary schools for our designated english learner teachers about the middle
134and high school and i'm proud to uh emphasize the data that supports this with having 63 of our students already mid-year reaching their lexile gains for the school year so it's a testament to not only the effectiveness of our coaching and our curriculum but the hard work of our teachers and our school sites and administrators for extended learning our tutor zone is available with bilingual tutors every day afternoon every afternoon and this is drop in support for our english learners as well as the extended enrichment that you heard dr mayfield discuss the elementary jumpstart and enrichment summer programs for el students and our secondary language excels which includes academic math writing reading and enrichment opportunities for grades 7 through 12. next we have our support programs this is the curriculum aspects and the additional support
135programs that we've been able to provide our school sites which includes wonders eld leveled support imagine learning language and literacy imagine math freckle reading and math for elementary secondary supplemental includes read 180 universal program for language support along with system 44 designated study sync units leveled for our english learner students alex math program and ixl math program and of course we have more work to do so coming soon we are going to be hiring some additional staffing support at our middle schools for our newcomer classes this is really because looking at the data we find that the greatest need is to support our students as they transition from elementary to middle school and they start to experience a different type of school day in a six or seven period format so we're trying to support
136that by adding additional staffing we're gonna look to bring a committee of experts our teachers and staff to adopt a newcomer curriculum for secondary students as you may understand language development at the secondary level is very different than at the primary level and so it's important to differentiate those needs as we move forward and then we're going to start the work of vertical articulation and vertical articulation means that our secondary support staff such as our el counselors will begin to work with our elementary sites to really ensure that there's a an easier transition for our students as they move from sixth grade to middle school and from middle school to high school those are the critical years that we want to make sure we do the best that we can to support our students now
137i do want to note some data and i know you've seen much of it already but i want to highlight some things that you may not be aware of first our graduation rate in 2017-18 for our english learners was at 80 percent now in 2020-21 for our english learners was it it's at 87.3 percent our a through g rate in 2017-18 was at 7.6 percent now in 202021 it's at 30.3 percent our cte pathways completer in 1718 was at five now it's at 42. this data makes me really hopeful that the components that we've put in place the systems and structures are working but it also motivates me and my team to do more for our students and do more for our english learners because we still have a lot of room to grow and
138a lot more that we can accomplish to support our multilingual multi-language learners in abc thank you ms castro next we have our principal from ferguson elementary academy of communication and technology mr gutierrez [Music] good evening for president soyu distinguished board members and superintendent dr mary sue so before i start i have a little disclaimer if you notice on the slide in on the presentation you see students not wearing a mask mind you this is pre covered pandemic okay so i don't want you to say hey ed ferguson they're not wearing any masks there okay so i just want to make sure and set that clear so a little bit of i do i am thankful to be able to provide a little insight as to what's happening at ferguson elementary so we are in our
139fifth year of implementing our dual language immersion program uh we started back in 1718 and now we are expanding all the way to sixth grade as well and then looking through a pathway of bi-literacy as well in our different middle schools and high schools as well we are also an avid school which our students utilize wicker strategies one of the big things that i'm also listening is that we also really establish the growth mindset with our students know that they can and prepare for tools that they could utilize for their educational career we also have a broadcast room we uh the first picture you saw there was a green screen room there our our teachers and our students will do different uh components of it and teachers actually tie in the curriculum and then the
140students do a presentation using the green screen due to the pandemic we haven't opened turn on the lights yet but we're looking forward to returning the lights and get the cameras going with our students as well one of the big uh focus that we also have in our school site is that social emotional learning we know it's very important that if the student feels safe and welcome at school then there they will thrive with their education as well our teachers also provide uh social emotional learning uh activities and lessons along with our mental health professionals go into the classrooms doing additional supports in that end as well so one thing that we also used to do and i'm proud to say that we're relaunching this is our our robotics the coding and programming portion of
141it um this time around is actually what's unique about this time around i should say is that uh we are partnering with the whitman elementary and we are relaunching the program together as well so we are in the beginning stage of this portion of it but again we are happy to say that we are relaunching this pro program along with the after school ymca there will also be doing uh the programming coding during the after school hours as well so i know we're talking about english learners just know that a lot of these initiatives that we have here they actually tie in into the district's el road map as well next slide oh yeah we're there so uh our english learners our goal is for our students that are in fifth and sixth grade they
142are able to reclassify regardless of which program they participate in um one of the big things that works that we're currently working on is the reciprocal teaching which students get to utilize the reading comprehension strategies along with having discussions with their classmates this is happening as early as kinder and obviously we're utilizing these reciprocal teaching strategies all the way through sixth grade as well we are focusing on writing we know that it's very important especially for our english learners to articulate and then able to write so we do have a wide school-wide focus within writing we also have math talks where students get an opportunity to explain their reasoning have conversation and use the academic language that's necessary for our students to perform how do we also support our english learners well we also utilize
143the wonders curriculum right along with other resources that are available to our teachers and they utilize this the eld time to reinforce the language for our students as well one big component of it as well is the progress monitoring that every six to eight weeks we are monitoring their students progress to ensure that they're making adequate progress as well next slide so a lot like dr mayfield mentioned a lot of the data is data that we have from 1819 but one of the big components there i would say that in looking are our english learners uh about three three we were our english learners performed three points above standard using the ela data as well so um one thing in looking at the lpac we know that about 66 percent of our students were meeting
144proficiency levels as well which is in using the matrix from the state that is considered very high as well not in the slides that we see there we know for comparing from our baseline data starter data to our first trimester i would say 79 of our english learners are making progress as well so and to meet meeting standards as well so uh very proud of the work we're doing at ferguson elementary and if you ever like to visit we will turn on the lights for you guys so and anybody else who would like to come thank you mr gutierrez up next i'd like to invite up our principal from fetty middle school mrs macias as well as our eel counselor mrs perez and as they're getting set i did want to share that mr garcia
145from artesia high school is going to be here as part of this dynamic team but all their sports teams are in playoffs and they have games tonight and so go artesia go pioneers hopefully they're out there winning tonight but what that says we have the mighty team of betty here with good evening us president you vice president veach members of the board superintendent dr sue and cabinet members i'm denise macias the proud principal and alumni of fetty academy and with me tonight is our new ell counselor and i'll let her introduce herself good evening board president you vice president beach members of the board superintendent dr su and cabinet members teachers and community members my name is mark perez and like ms macias just mentioned i'm the new el counselor at fetty academy and being
146a product of abc having attended willow haskell and artesia high school i'm extremely excited to be here too today to talk to you about all of the work that we're doing for our el students at petty like ms perez said it is an honor to be here tonight to talk about the programs and services we offer and the initiatives we have launched for our el population like ferguson yeah perfect like ferguson our students are making progress as you can see here from the california dashboard information all subgroups have made double-digit gains towards english proficiency now i want to point out that our ell population has increased by 15.2 points our hispanic population has increased by 10.8 points and lastly our social economically disadvantaged population which is the majority of our students have increased by 12.1
147points and we attribute this success to the efforts of our teachers and support staff that have gone above and beyond to do what's best for our students next slide in this slide you'll see the current ell data for our school currently we have 39 students who are designated as english learners we have 12 percent reclassified this year and 15 are pending reclassification so our goal is to reclassify i think it's about 21 students before the lpac 37 percent of our students improved their gpa from first quarter to second quarter which was a big win and 34 percent of our el students also made honor roll this semester so we were very proud we had a celebration we passed out their certificates during homeroom and due to the what they say they received a treat after
148school courtesy of ptsa we also had a virtual honor roll night and you can view that on our website if you'd like still up at fetty ms.us and lastly 60 of our students had perfect attendance in the last two weeks and for us this was great news as we had had we have had a large number of students absent after the winter break due to the surge so we are very happy that our students are back on campus and for that we are celebrating them as well we have weekly celebrations for our students who have perfect attendance ms vez will now go over the school-wide initiatives we have launched this year and i just wanted to point out it was actually 64 percent of our students that had perfect attendance in the last two weeks
149so we're really excited about that um so as far as our initiatives go some of our goals this school year include improving our el students attendance academic performance reclassification rate and school engagement in january we actually began our attendance initiative to increase our attendance rate and sought an improvement from one week to the net to the next as we just mentioned students with weekly and monthly perfect attendance are celebrated and rewarded we've been able to do this thanks to the generous donations we've received from local restaurants and businesses in regards to academics i am doing weekly check-ins with all el students and ensuring that those who are struggling academically are assigned tutoring i also communicate this with parents and provide them with the physical and digital copy of their students tutoring schedule as well in
150order to better support our students our tutoring services are target targeted meaning our students are assigned based on their grade as well as subject in which they need additional support in terms of reclassification for us that that has been our priority because we know that the research shows that if students do not get reclassified before they get to high school they have a higher dropout rate and don't attend college at fetty we celebrate our students success when they reclassify we acknowledge them we also make sure that our students and parents know the reclassification process in addition this year we are planning an elpac boot camp to prepare our students for the elpac assessment that's coming up in march furthermore in terms of student parent and staff engagement our goal is to make sure that all
151that our community is informed we are doing this through one-on-one meetings with students monthly parent and staff meetings we also communicate weekly through our parent and staff newsletters and lastly we are also excited to announce that we are in the process of assembling a group of instructional leaders on our campus with the focus on teaching and learning to better meet the needs of our students thank you programs and services at feti academy we have comprehensive programs and services that meet the social and academic needs of our students vespers will go over the services she provides for our students some of the services include me as an el counselor monitoring students attendance academics and helping them with goal setting translation of materials and resources is huge so making sure that both students and parents have access
152to translated materials and services and resources and ensuring that all yell students are scheduled appropriately and lastly doing academic reviews with each student we started doing this in the fall and we've been doing this in collaboration with artesia high school and we will continue to do that in the spring as well at fetty academy we also have bilingual tutoring and we have that available to our students during snack lunch and after school every day we have three bilingual intervention specialists that support our students one-on-one in english math and eld and lastly we are very proud to announce that we have a migrant center on our campus fetty academy has a large number of migrant students at the middle school level this center is equipped with a full-time college and career specialist where students have access
153to bilingual tutoring and other resources in closing the success of our students is a group effort that includes a dedication of our teachers staff and the support of our parents and community thank you so much for having us tonight thank you so much i think the message that we hope that our community heard is that we believe in our students we see that they're making progress we know that we have not arrived we know that there's still room for growth and room for opportunity but i wanted to acknowledge that there's a lot of hard work that's taking place at our schools and from our district staff to help our students be successful so thank you so much for being a part of this presentation the law also requires us in addition to talk about our
154metrics um and our progress um to also update the board on our budget and so what that's mr new and we'll provide the budget presentation can we ask some questions because we've gone through almost a pretty long time i'd like to ask a few questions okay uh dr valencia do you absolutely should we can we ask questions first or do you want to finish the funding first it's up to you board president you if you want to ask questions it would be good if we can ask some questions and then go to the absolutely okay thank you very much if you um if you guys could just make yourself available please hit the like in case there are specific questions to your area thank you so much thank you first person will be board member
155ernie nishi thank you madam president actually i want to go back to dr mayfield's presentation related to the the programs that we're going to have are we going to have summer school this year and it will be will it be in person we are planning for summer school this year in person our enrichment summer school most likely will be virtual summer school will begin as early as june 22nd and so we are gearing up for that as we speak staff has already been meeting and we have to hire teachers to teach our summer school programs and so yes the answer is yes we are and yes we're planning for it to be in person and we're excited great thank you second question is uh similar being so we have a dual immersion uh spanish there
156was a time we were thinking about doing dual immersion mandarin as i recall uh and i understand that the the the impact of the coveted right now but um is there a because i have a feeling this is not going to be just a one-year phenomenon it's going to be a while so is there a long-term plan for getting to that you're absolutely correct we had started that work right when kovit hit the conversation around a mandarin dual emergency program actually at juarez and we had initially started with some survey data that we're going to put out to our parents and our community to validate the language as the focus area for our district and so we do need to re-gear up for that work i just think the other covet emergency has taken priority
157but i know that that's still important for us that is definitely something that we would like to see for the future of abc students to offer that program so yes we hope to get it up and running in the near future okay i just don't want to forget about it that's all because sometimes we haven't talked about it in almost two years i think so it's prime time it's it's been like that another quick question so uh principal at ferguson i remember when your green screen room was basically almost nothing yeah and so to see it uh get transformed into something real action and alive is kind of amazing so that's a lot of kudos to do your extra work to do that um how so is that program uh up and running yet or
158how is that uh we uh prior to the pandemic we had her running right returning back our focus has been in making sure that our students are engaged in school the connectiveness getting them back to where they were prior to the pandemic so now that we're moving forward our our hopes is that we revamp that and we relaunched that portion of it at our school site as well great great i remember seeing a program at csba about some edward james almost program it was american cinema and it was pretty amazing because they had these kids they just made the whole movie and everything and and it was exciting for the kids to to be able to do that so i don't know if we could explore that that would be that'd be really nice um
159and i remember you did some really great work over there so that i'm thankful for all your work over there thank you um gosh i had something for fetty but i forgot we'll come back to you okay please come back to me next we have uh board vice president brad beach thank you madam president we always talked about the metrics on how we were going to measure the lcap spending when i was on the strategic planning committee because of all the money that's at stake and i just want to say that these percentages are a big achievement i want to say thank you to dr mayfield she led that committee when we kind of set the vision moving forward i want to thank the principals for showing up ms castro ms perez you're doing a
160great job and i want to say thank you keep up the good work thank you next we have board member dr olga rios thank you madam president my first question is about the dropout rate dr mayfield can you tell me what that four percent four point three percent is that based on our cohort is it a senior class is it total student population i believe that was our senior class for last year and we are looking more into the specifics around the students in terms of their attendance and this is during our when we were virtual for that time period and students just stopped connecting and stopped attending we are able to reach out to those students and still extend another year for them and so we have hopes that those students will re-engage with
161us and allow us to provide that opportunity through adult school to complete their high school diploma so that's a surprise to us when we look at that data because that's just not typical for us in abc but we do know that students were struggling and there is opportunity still for students to re-engage and graduate yeah thank you for that because yes research tells us that there are dire prospects for kids who do not graduate high school so that's that number to me is alarming um the other questions are about our el program definitely celebrate the progress right it sounds like uh we are doing things better and i'm happy to see those numbers grow as some of my colleagues have mentioned um you know we haven't talked about the money but there are about 21
162million dollars that are given to us specifically to fund certain groups and english learners is one of those groups and so i i like to see that or or you know it's good to hear about some of the programming because if schools have language learner learners then they should absolutely be well resourced and they should absolutely well be well funded and i've just now started to schedule my visits to school so i i really look forward to seeing some of these wonderful things in practice i do have a question for uh principal macias tell me a little bit about your el counselor is that an additional staff or how many counselors besides your el counselors do you have on staff so currently we have one academic counselor who is annabelle lara and our new ell
163counselors it's an addition to our academic counselor is ms perez here thank you and it sounds like you're doing wonderful work and it's making a difference and that's what we love to hear so thank you i'd like to acknowledge miss castro the eel counselors at schools was a big initiative that she pushed forward after we did our eo role map study and analysis and we were looking closely at the graduation rate of our students and realizing that we knew that we need to target students specifically because we saw that we're our migrant education counselor our graduation rate was increasing for that particular student population and so we used that model to say we need to duplicate it at our middle school and high schools and so i do want to acknowledge that fact that something
164that she really brought to the forefront as a sense of urgency for us to do this year our principals had a chance to interview and hire their own folks and they've gone through extensive training on how to read transcripts appropriate academic placement for students um college and high graduate college expectations for graduates so i want to say thank you ms castro for that leading that initiative and we're so fortunate to have hired some amazing folks who are working directly with our students thank you okay we have um ernie nishi i remember the questions i had so the there's this on page 26 talks about increase 15 increase 15 points 10 points for hispanic and 12 points for socioeconomic disadvantage first i thought that was increased people but now that's increased score and so it looks
165like it's pretty it's double digit gains am i right that's pretty amazing actually and so almost looks like at this rate you'll be at standard in just a three three years almost is is that am i reading that right yes and that's the goal it's potential right but if you have if you're at the same amazing rate of this two or three years it's potential that we will actually be at standard of these particular uh particular specific risk groups right yes that's correct congratulations this is really good i don't know what you're doing but uh it's whatever it is it's working great things come over yes i will come and visit this oh that's friday if it's okay okay thank you and uh i have a question on page eight the ap exam passing rate
166with three or higher in 2019 and 20 was 75 percent and for spring i mean 2020 was also pandemic but 2021 was entirely pandemic and still we had 66 percent that was that's really good but for this year do we have the extra fund to support the ap prep because teachers do have to you know really go out of their way before school after school on the weekend and some students need extra support yes we we continue to fund our ap prep program and support them through the additional funds through our lcap program so yes we do offer additional funds for teachers to stay after school work with students some schools have opted to work with tutor zone to do extra tutoring for the ap program and we work closely with each ap coordinator to
167make sure we're creating the best program for that particular school site okay thank you and then i also noticed um the english it went from elementary school they were at green and then when they went to middle school it's starting at yellow so is there a what is the disparity well just to be clear there's a huge transition that happens for our students and that's why we really work to get our support staff in the middle schools you know the standards do change and on top of in elementary school they get an increase dedicated time to english and math and then history and social science are usually in addition on top of that but in middle school now you have scheduled time you have to balance six seven different classes in addition to having that
168schedule in a day and for our english learner population we also provide an additional block period of instruction so not only do the standards get higher but now they have greater workload as we all know as we get older and we get bigger more responsibilities and so that's what tends to happen and so the counseling support that we're providing with these additional eel counselors led by our district yield counselor nireta armenta gomez she also is working with each site to make sure it's not just an academic support but it's that social emotional transition and learning how to balance all those responsibilities to make sure that we continue to show increase and that we help with that vertical articulation like i mentioned that now we not only reach out to the middle schools but we are
169going to start working with our feeder elementary school so that we can start transitioning students earlier and not waiting till they show up to our campus in middle school that is fantastic idea may i ask what is the ratio between i think the el counselor concept is fantastic what is the ratio between the er counselor and the the el students so we looked at the percentages of our el population at each school site and so we started with funding those school sites that had large percentages for those school sites that had lower percentages of el population for example at a couple of our schools they share an eo counselor one eel counselor for those two schools and i believe that only happens at two of our middle schools and at our high school that shares
170a counselor with our online independent studies program but all other schools because of the percentages were 20 or above they have a singular el counselor that is entirely focused on the english learner population at that school site thank you very much thank you very helpful any other questions from the board okay that is it thank you very much thank you so much for being here this evening [Applause] thank you dr mayfield good evening the budget presentation will be very short i promise because this is just part of the and the annual update um throughout the year just the reminder board will get five different reports in the budget right you approve the budget in june you get an update in december you're gonna get another update in march and then in june again and september
171so almost quarterly you get a thorough detail budget update so this is just part of your lcap annual update on the budget so the state the board adopted again the budget in june for the current year on june 15 after the board adopted the budget the state then adopt their budget so we have to make adjustments after that and it's reflected on here so the adjustments actually um it's going in the right direction it's a positive adjustment so if there's an increase of about 305 000 to the lcff funds in the area of low supplemental and concentration grants after uh you know from what the board adopted to after the state of the budget so we have made this adjustment and this has reflected in the first interim report to the board this is a
172breakdown so you can clearly see how lcf is funded and that's again stands for local control funding formula for the current year so the total lcf funding for the current year for abc as of right now the reason i say that because it changes is 201 million dollars 871 979 dollars so the base grant is the biggest piece of that is about 180.2 million dollars so how do you get to the base grant that's your per ada students multiply by a base grant amount so if we have nineteen thousand students then you get nineteen thousand multiplied by uh roughly nine thousand dollars to get to the 180. so this is an equal dollar amount for every school district you get the same base grant for every student that you serve now the next two tier
173it depends on the number of low-income students english learners and foster youth you have and that's why it's called supplemental and concentration this is above and beyond the base grant this is on top to supplement the base grant right so you get 20 percent more of the base grant multiple multiplied by the percentage of eligible students or that group that i just mentioned low income english learners and foster youth in abc that percentage is about 56 percent unduplicated so you count the students once only they could be both english learners the students could be both english learners and foster youth and low income but you count it once so at 56 percent we get an additional 20 million dollars for supplemental concentration adding uh for supplemental concentration is a little bit above that you get
174an extra 65 percent for for anyone that above 55 percent for that group and we had about one percent so we don't have a lot we used to be or didn't get any of the concentration money because we used to be like right at about 55 but now it's up a little bit to 56 percent so with just that one percent we get an additional 1.5 million dollars at this point so to answer the question about supplemental concentration grant it is for the current year 21.6 million dollars to be exact it's an increase of about 752 000 from last year for the base grant is an increase of about 8.6 million dollars at 180 million dollars for a total of 201 million dollars total for lcf funding so that is just a brief update on
175the board of the current just the local control funding formula this is only part of the big budget right you also get federal funds you also get all the state categorical programs funding adding together it's roughly about almost 275 280 million dollars but this is the biggest piece of the pie so um part of the allocation funds that we get under supplement concentrations is provided directly to the school for their own use so so we we have an allocation here for the board this is the current year so there's two columns right base and supplement concentration same concept the base funding to the school is based on their ada so the more students you have the more base funding you have and that's reflected on here but the supplemental concentration is based on your enough
176percentage of account students again it based on your english learners low-income and foster youth so a school could have lower enrollment like aloha but they have a higher supplemental unconscious state low-income students or eligible students they get more supplemental and concentration funding so as you can you can see the two columns clearly show that uh you know for example they get a lot more than a school at the north side like leo or cerritos l a school like ferguson was here and hawaiian melbourne nemes those are the schools with the higher upp so they get additional or a lot more supplemental and concentration than the other schools and it's reflect here also at the high school as you can see artesia is almost half the size of cerritos but they get about three three times
177more in supplemental and concentration funding than cerritos both for the reason that i share but on the base they also get similar because in the base there's there's there used to be the old school improvement grant that built in there so they get you know a lot more money than the other high school uh because of their students populations so that is where we are with the budget update for the uh for the mid-year update for the lcap okay we have questions first we have dr ogilvio well has there been talked one about those 752 000 that were additional and how we're going to get that directly to students so that's actually get built into the budget already that you approve in june because we incorporate for that the only changes is the three of
178the the new thing here is the 305 but the 752 is part of the if you remember in june when you adopted the big lcaf budget with 30 plus item it it has about 21 million dollars in there okay i thought you said that like there's a number of what was anticipated and then what was actual so yeah so that's here so what we adopted in june it's not the same as with the actual list correct and this on page it's on the first page of the lcf budget and the increase is about 305 thousand dollars okay so those 300 and 5000 you're saying that that's already been allocated so that's part of the re you know when we do the adjustments to the school we reallocate that so they'll be getting more money correct
179only certain schools thank you yeah depending on those that have those three population groups yes ma'am thank you any other questions okay so the supplemental concentration these funds pretty much explain the presentation of tonight right okay yes it's it's it's part of the entire lcap the the the intent is that like like we have shared here you what are you spending the supplement how do you spend your supplemental and concentration money to support the targeted groups so and we have um thoroughly went through that with the boring tune if you remember the list of 30 plus items that we go through each item how how much on you know in each area and how we plan to spend the money including allocation to the schools to support our targeted groups thank you very much we
180have one more question by mr ernie nishi this will be really quick um so i see here that uh the supplemental concentration is about 3.5 for the high schools in the middle and then 2 million for the elementary schools so that means the balance of the 20 million is used for other different things besides going to the sites correct the 3.5 is the total oh wait now 3.5 is the total of total total high school is 1 million middle school is 456 and then the um elementary is 2. so 3.5 is total going to all schools not not just the middle school correct but it's the supplemental concentration grant that uh goes like the schools that have the the highest ratio of people who need their help goes there so from the 21.5 if you
181will 3.5 given directly to the school the rest of them the 18 million on the 30 items list remember that the ball approved right so we spent on behalf of these students but a lot of these programs are centrally um you know administered up here by by the different departments to to support the target groups right but this money also goes towards specific uh tasks and things like that at the schools right and supplemental for the specific like aloha for example correct they would get this money specific target further and then they would get additional money through the 20 million uh this the additional 17 million dollars that's left over also gets allocated specifically correct through service not funding correct we provide direct service to them thank you that's all okay so there's no more
182questions thank you very much thank you dr valencia thank you good evening carol castro and thank you everyone okay we have next action items if any okay may i have a motion to conduct a public hearing and adopt resolution number 21-64 reapproving trust area boundaries following analysis of 2020 census data do i have a motion something to adopt second ishii thank you thank you good evening um so the good news is that we only have to this to do this once every 10 years and so every 10 years after the census data for for districts that have uh trustee area elections uh we have to re-look at the boundaries and see if uh if the population is still within the acceptable deviations if not you'd have to redraw the boundary so normally the data would
183be available much early on but this year you know there was major delay in releasing the data uh from uh from the state so initially we thought we have until november to do this and then i went on the workshop and i said no you have to do it before march 1st so i we contact our legal counsel and mr david saldani who is here tonight to present to the board of his work and uh and his our recommendation accordingly uh through his analysis of the of the um of the trustee areas uh population uh the good news is as you can see here is that you just have to reaffirm uh the the trusty area and the maps uh no change is needed but i will not steal his thunder and and i will
184let him present to you his findings and his work and i want to thank david you have to go to the podium uh for it was almost a miracle that we was able to do this with and meet the timeline by by the by the state and the county because like i said we thought we have until november and we were able to do this in such short time so i want to thank mr sadani again he is a partner with our legal firm atkinson anderson um lawyer help so you pay them enough but you just don't remember the name we're paying by the hour should be very short right so thank you uh so again david well thank you very much it's uh great to be here this evening i was actually involved in
185the initial redistricting back in i wanna say 2011 2012 when we first made this change when you are in this method of election meaning you have trustee areas the law says that every 10 years following the decennial census you need to make sure your areas are still balanced and we measure that balance by looking at total population because it's a representation issue so every trustee should represent roughly the same number of residents in each area and when i say roughly i mean we're looking for a difference between the most populous and the least populous trustee areas of no more than 10 percent so that's the bar that's what we look for and yes we were not we but the census data was late this year because of covid so we got a little bit of
186a late start normally i wouldn't be talking to you about this tonight i would have been here six months ago and been gone already but here we are our deadline was not moved back despite the late release of the data so we still have until the last day of this month to accomplish this and if we don't uh then those changes have to be made by our by lakehou the county committee takes that takes care of that for us so do i have a clicker or do i just tell you next next please okay so the first thing that we do is we look at your existing trustee areas okay at the time that we created them we had a deviation that was far less than 10 percent but over the years you have some
187growth and sometimes that tends to change well in your situation you are fairly built out so while you have had some growth over the past decade the growth has been fairly even so now if you look we've added over a thousand people in the last decade according to the census it's about a one percent increase and as a result our variance is now at eight point eight percent well that's uh a first one point two percent below what's required so as a result of that we technically don't have to make any changes you have the discretion should you desire to tighten that variance further but you know you don't get extra credit if you go from eight percent down to two percent it's really a binary decision you're either above or below that ten percent
188line below that line presumptively legal so you are already there so it is within your discretion tonight to simply re-adopt the map that you have been using for the past decade and in doing so you'll be able to continue to utilize that map all the way through when hopefully not me but someone will be back then and uh hopefully it won't have changed to the point where you have to make changes that would be great okay the rest of these slides just for your information this contains uh updated data from the 2020 census so you can see the breakdown in the the census categories that we look at are are three-fold we look at the total population that's every human being infant through adult you see these numbers and it's broken down by race and
189ethnicity as those categories are described on the census okay you may have recalled during the pandemic getting the something in the mail or completing something online that was the census the next column over is that we look at is age 18 and over those are all the adult population again broken down by ethnicity next slide please this third category has kind of a funny acronym it's called c-vap what that is is citizen voting age population so it's 18 plus but only those individuals that are citizens and the reason why is because that's the universe of people that could register to vote and that's a significant number for federal voting rights act purposes we keep track of that again by race and ethnicity and i don't know if you have a black and white copy like
190i do but in color you can see this is a we call a heat graph this shows the concentration of your protected class populations in this case we just we showed an example hispanic latino these little shapes that you see on this map are actual census blocks so these are the units of measurement that we use to build trusty areas and embedded in each of these shapes of varying sizes as the actual population in ethnicity data so you see the darker the block the higher the concentration so that gives you a look at one of your projected class populations hispanic latino and if we go into the next one we see a similar heat map this time for the asian population which is the majority of this district by cbap again the darker the square
191the higher the concentration and again each one of these units is a census block so you can get a sense that they are different shapes and different sizes let's go to the next slide please and here they are these are your current areas that you have right now each of you is elected from one of these seven areas every two years three of you or four of you or three of your seats or for your seats are up for election this is the map that i would recommend you re-adopt it is still legal people you your um elect your constituents have been electing you from these same areas for the past decade so there's there's some value in it being consistent over time and not changing it too often so that's my recommendation if it's
192legal if it ain't broke don't fix it right let's go to one more slide here in the current trustee areas so this is reflective of your 2020 census population this tells you the breakdown by each trustee area based on these two important metrics of total population and citizen voting age population or cvap i want to direct your attention to a couple of things that are important if you look at for example trustee area 2. and trustee area three and four two three and four are what's called majority minority districts because they have a majority the majority of that population is asian c-vap now if we go up a couple of columns if you take a look at trustee area seven that's your hispanic latino majority minority district at 64.7 percent so with that i am
193happy to answer any questions that you might have and again the deadline for making this decision is february 28th any public comments and discussion okay discussion board members okay we have dr gabriel change is often difficult and adopting trustee areas was not welcome by all initially i mean it took a lawsuit for this to happen but yet i think we can agree that increasing the diversity honor board has yielded powerful rewards we now have representation from across the district every school and thus every child we all do our best or perform our duty to the best of our ability but we ultimately have to earn your vote at every election in reelection we are accountable to you our abc community i serve abc students and represent um and advocate for the lakewood schools and the
194sometimes specific needs of our abc students so i am proud to um support this effort to continue to represent this district by trustee areas any other discussion okay if none i think we can go ahead and vote roll call danielle mr beach yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yes mrs you yes motion passes six to zero public i mean public hearing is closed three point dash eight 3.8-8 may i have a motion to approve submission of the 2022 harbor freight skill trade summers program grant application for artesia high school motion to prove eugenio second any public comments i do not see any public comments madam president discussion board members okay doctor okay board member ernie nishi thank you madam president a couple questions regarding the program i think it's
195a great idea to have a harbor freight it's a good uh innovative thing 156 000. um so are we hiring these people or are we using our cte group or how is this going to work i will actually be using abc teachers who will be providing the instruction for these two summer camps and so one summer camp will center around automotive and the other one is around welding they'll begin this summer it's a six week program for students the students will attend school four days a week for about six hours and they will end with a certification in specific to that area or a in in the case of the automotive class they'll actually get dual enrollment credit and so we're really excited about this the grant will also pay for teacher hourly as well
196as teacher prep time to teach in this program our students will also get an internship stipend for participating so our current existing cte teachers are going to be doing and at their current current rate i so i don't know the current rate that i'm sorry i don't show the rate that they'll be paid for this it is a grant funded program i'm not sure if there's a cap on the percentage that teachers can actually receive but i do know that the program will fund our teachers as well as provide extra funds for them to do the prep their prep and planning time as well and so i'll have to look closer to see if the school sets that dollar amount or if it's consistent with whatever is contractually already negotiated for them but um i
197do know that the funds is coming from this entity okay so you already have uh uh you already have commitments to to that already or you're planning on getting applying they received 8 000 as a planning grant to plan and they've already so they have to actually write the application to get which we're asking the board to approve is for them to write and submit the application but we do know that included in the budget for that application is the funds to pay for the teachers to teach it this summer at their current rate most likely typically when we hire even if it's grant funded is at their current rate okay all right thank you thank you no further questions okay no other questions discussions okay we'll vote roll call dania mr beach yes dr
198eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yeah mrs you yes motion passes six to zero madam president i'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting one hour i'd like to hear from the rest of the teachers and public here sounds good all those in favor aye aye aye okay we'll extend it okay we just need to go back to 1.1-c um approve out-of-state travel for superintendent dr mary sue to attend the superintendent summit in white south sulphur springs west virginia april 6th to 8th 2022. sophia your new second so madam president the the only amendment i'd like to make is that it would be contingent upon the resolution of the negotiations that we currently have and that all of our travel should probably be contingent on that as well so
199csba and things like that i think it would uh we need people on the ground here okay so that's what i'm thinking okay i think it should be everything should be resolved by then i'm hopeful that's the only amendment that i'd like to have so you want to make a motion yes okay so the motion be that uh we will approve the travel to virginia for the superintendent contingent upon the successful conclusion of negotiations with the with the current issues that we're currently having that's all second mr beach yes dr eugenio yes mr nishi yes dr rios yes mrs say yeah mrs u yes motion passes six to zero okay okay next we have a board members report i'm going to start with dr ogarios i'll make my brief and actually a request can we
200add the diversity unity and equity committee information to our committee meetings in our board work please since it is an actual committee district committee um so that's always a fun experience again participating that every month this past saturday i had the pleasure of attending the first gar baseball game and it was exciting my son plays travel ball and we didn't know what to expect when we showed up to a high school baseball game and it was so intense the parents out there had so much energy really enjoyed it they played against olu and man did they almost there we almost had it we didn't win this one but i'm sure that there are a lot more fun games to come so shout out to those baseball players and to the baseball parents that is it
201madam president thank you next we have vice president brat beach thank you madam president the school board is in negotiations with the teachers and i can't publicly discuss any specifics from our contract talks however i will say that this board is negotiating in good faith and i will discuss things openly when negotiations have concluded at the appropriate time i will answer all of your questions as usual many of you know me well and know that my word is my bond trust and integrity mean a great deal to me i want to say once again publicly that i respect our teachers and value them greatly many of you know that my mother janet beach was a teacher for 28 years at cerritos high school and many of you probably don't know but i started college as
202a mathematics major and i wanted to teach math and p pe at high school level and coach baseball taking a criminal justice class changed my trajectory but i still have love for the teaching profession they have always had my support on various issues those aren't just words and my recent actions were to support the teachers with one of the highest weekly stipends compared to other local districts for their dedication and extra work during the pandemic they definitely deserved it and have done an outstanding job during these difficult times i also along with my colleagues voted twice to increase substitute pay there are some things i need to clear up from recent articles quotes and comments first recent facility upgrades have been from measure bb funds and those cannot be used for salaries the solar panels
203were not paid by general funds and those benefits to our district will include future reduced energy costs we have lost over 1400 students from our school district and it's gonna we're going to be facing major potential budget deficits in coming years this has to be considered before making any prudent decisions for our entire community i will always do what is best for the kids teachers parents and staff i appreciate all of the emails that i have received over the last couple weeks and responded to each one of them thanks for your input i am also listening to parents about senate bill 866 and senate bill 871 many parents don't feel that their 12 year old child should make mental medical decisions appropriately for themselves and that the vaccine mandate for young kids to attend public
204school could have negative impacts on many of our students i have interviewed all of the dads at a recent watchdogs meeting and they all regardless of vaccination status of their kids didn't want their 12 year old sons or daughters being able to make their own medical decisions many parents have threatened to remove their kids from public school and this could definitely hurt our enrollment in the future i am pushing to bring a resolution to the board to discuss these important senate bills at the march 1st meeting madam president per our bylaws i'd like to formally request this be an agenda item at our next meeting this speech is all words but i am confident you will see action soon and i want to be judged on my actions there aren't just two board members that
205support the teachers and time will reveal that thank you all for your patience trust and support it means a lot to me and i'll continue to keep you all posted on recent developments thank you thank you board vice president very well set next we have board clerk dr michael eugeo thank you madam president last week i supported my old elementary school mary bragg by going on to mary bragg greenteam.org i ordered six trees including two peach trees two apple trees and two cherry trees i'd like to thank dr apodaca for making me aware of this fundraiser during our previous meeting for the general public you can you still have time to order your trees until february 19th again at marybragggreenteam.org i can't wait to receive my trees next month and start my mini orchard madam
206president that's all i have may god bless you all and keep you well thank you next um sofia say are you ready yes i am thank you and let me take my hands down okay first i want to say i do acknowledge our teacher the hard work that they have been work with us together in the past we always have a i mean from for myself just the fourth turn in abc in the past history we always support our staff needs and we do find our best okay i myself i do a position here i'm a nurse and i always facing high-risk patient taking kid call me patient and so and meanwhile my husband is a cancer patient recovered but i have still have to be cautious when i go to work i have to
207be really i mean my nurses go up when i take care of those high-risk issues but meanwhile i'm also a teacher i teach called fifth university college so i do understand both sides on needs and i acknowledge you and i knowing the risks and affects what we're facing too in the past my history and i heard about the people say the two board member always does this i want to clear that all my colleague here in the past we have vote almost seven to zero almost all the time it shows you all four i cannot speak every single one but at least based on the history the voting decision is very support to our staff once again i do want to staff to hear that please be patient with us you will hear the news
208but again we do need your help and we need to continue continuously provide the best service that you are with our district you are we are we know you i know you're working hard and i expect it i respect you too now for me on the past i have a couple um site visits on february the 3rd attending magnum parent information on zoom um on february 10 i also um attending the abc school district give award to a local resident john mayne and i when i approaching him i say can you donate some math i know we have a massive school i also know some parents give the math to the students but i don't want them for one last whole day during the crisis time i liked them to change it as a safe
209practice and i'm a nurse i was focused on a pediatric nurse practitioner so you know what's my focus in that everyone health is we are in part of the charge of that so we want to prevent provide the best safe practice for your child and our district staff too i want to thank you john main and donated 20 000 mass and i think this listens to us working together makes difference we work with the local community make changes provide the best things for our children but again also um with uh with the teachers the same thing we are doing here now and we do have a good relationship with union and we'll continue work with the union staff and then the 212 attended chinese school will open new program they have in 213 attending i
210was invited to a chinese senior association zone meeting and so that will be my end report president uh i do like to cut and short right now to give the chance to public comment thank you that's the reason i'm standing back again i have a problem with the internet but i want to stand back i do want to hear the second part of public comment and i am here humbly to listen thank you for president thank you sophia save next we have board member ernie nishi thank you madam president so yes i'd like to reiterate that uh the statements by board member brad beach that we should be judged on our actions not so much on our words um and those sometimes these words hurt because you know we are people and so when you
211tell us that we're evil it does hurt my soul so um please recognize that we we are people we have families we have feelings and we have to make a living separate from that i'd like to say um i'm so glad to get extra comments out of that too good get people to move i got to visit cerritos high school i was visited uh i got to visit the baseball field water we got it i mean when i was a kid it was nice to drink out of a hose but it'd be really nice if we could have a water fountain station out there so they don't have to run back ross high school middle school is doing great i had got to congratulate the new principal there she is she's a great principal and
212her teachers are also very good mr geary does teaching history with plato and i know she bought it herself i don't think the district paid for that and music play-doh and music and it was looked like it was a really fun class so i just wanted to note that carminida has a great band teacher they're teaching outside probably annoying the neighbors but still i think that's a pretty great thing and and we need to help those facilities there just a little bit if we can um make it really quick this last thing is the day of remembrance so we are still going to do day of remembrance except we're going to do it in march it's not necessarily limited to a particular it was it was actually march 19th i believe is when it was
213actually happening but we recognize that it's not just a civil rights issue it's also a history as well and so it's not in within the context of things we want the teachers to love to teach it not to be forced to teach it i think that's a great uh thing that uh dr valencia and uh dr miss castro dr astro sure thank you for working on this program and really making it part of our whole curriculum this thing about history being in your heart not just in your head it's really critical and so with your indulgence madam president i would quickly like to read a short passage from my grandfather's diary which occurred on february 14th valentine's day that day about 78 years ago my grandfather was released from the prison and he had been
214there for a while so i'm going to quickly read this so just to indulge me today we had sardines so we discussed whether we should cook the sardines for lunch or for dinner we decided to have sardines for dinner and cooked the beans for lunch there's such a lack of food that we have to debate about when to eat sardines it's not really human while i was waiting shimada and nakao came in and they said we worked hard for a long time as a matter of fact wait when we go back at three o'clock listen shafer came into the back he called out my name and told me to roll up my blanket i was stunned this is completely unexpected so my roommates helped me pack my items my clothes were only partially dry mr
215sudasset yelled out in english please tell my family not to worry about me i responded okay skipping over while i waited we worked hard for a long time as a matter of fact we made a long distance call to lieutenant colonel austin to get permission for the release of u2 and granted us an okay please remember that we signed a form that guaranteed that you too would not disrupt the peace in the camp after your release it is just a formality but director best asked us to tell you this so i hope you understand my grandfather in his most defiant manner i did not say anything a truck was waiting outside the fence and filled with all sorts of motions as a headache camp because he hadn't been there for a long time to see
216his family as soon as he dropped off in front of our barrack he put down the bag and the box was carrying and held masako masako was my mom i think she was six she's passed away now who jumped into my arms i was also greeted by mr furusawa and mr hayashi who stood nearby with a great smile and i thank the others who had supported my family and then i was able to finally settle into the room skipping through i was deeply moved masako and sayudi did not go to bed due to all the excitement i was home after three months and one day so he was in jail for three months and one day he never had a trial he was almost sent back to a country that he hadn't been to in
217in years and so i'm hoping that this day of remembrance becomes something very important for all the students to understand in their heart that we need to stand up for justice for fairness it's not just up here history is not something just in our books although this is a book i want all the teachers to call and ask all these survivors survivors of world war ii people who were young kids at that time and talk to them and see what their experiences were and learn and maybe someday they those kids will save our future and that is my report madam president thank you next we have announcements next regular board meeting tuesday march 1st 2020 to 7 pm district office board room committee meetings strategic strategic planning board advisory committee tuesday february 22nd 2022 6
218pm virtual meeting legislative policy committee meeting wednesday february 23rd 2022 6 30 pm virtual finance and audit committee thursday february 24 202 6 pm virtual meeting dates to remember presidents day holiday is february 21st now we have second public comments section madam president information only we have nine speakers in person and six online okay i think we need to have a short five minute bathroom break for um board members okay so let's make a quick five minutes we're back okay yeah i was gonna close that one too but i'll actually use that one thank you yes [Applause] oh [Music] do [Music] thank you madam president first speaker we have patty alcantas on on standby can we bring up rico tamayo and rich saldana good evening president board members dr su cabinet members teachers students and
219community my name is patti alcantar i have 21 21 years of service with abc usd i serve as vice president of child development for abc ft also member of abc ft's negotiation team and most importantly i work as a child development teacher i am here to represent my fellow child development teachers working for tracy infant center state preschool head start and the extended day program i come here today to urge you to support negotiations i specifically ask that you support fair and equitable compensation for all teachers as you may know there is great pay disparity between tk12 teachers and child development teachers our jobs and qualifications may be different but are equally important your efforts for fair and equitable compensation will help bridge the gap for child development educators i also urge cabinet members and
220board members to work together to address the substitute shortage child development programs have been greatly impacted by the sub shortage the sub rate increase for tk12 teachers was greatly needed and much appreciated however it depleted our already dyndaline subpool the sub shortages negatively impact our students and our teachers on a daily basis child development administrators and ptosis are covering classes we appreciate their support however this keeps them from carrying out their jobs and responsibilities in a timely manner please consider increasing the sub rate for child development substitute teachers so that we too can attract and retain highly qualified subs for the 22-23 school year child development programs will be undergoing a lot of changes the rollout of universal tk will negatively impact enrollment for state preschool and head start both of which are already dealing
221with declining enrollment an effort to preserve our programs serving a younger population is being considered however that's easier said than done serving a younger population means new environment new curriculum that is agent developmentally appropriate for our students this may also require teachers to go back to school for additional class coursework the launch of the extended learning opportunities after school program will also drastically change our current after-school program and the changes are yet to be determined your support and participation during the planning and transition process is going to be crucial to save our programs preserve child development jobs and ensure the continued success of child development programs finally i would like to extend an invitation to board members and cabinet members to visit our child development programs your visits will ensure that you have a realistic
222understanding of our programs and our challenges in order to represent and advocate for our students and our teachers you must know our programs we child development educators look forward to your visits and look forward to working with you to ensure the advancement of our programs thank you [Applause] next speaker we have rico tamayo on standby we have rich saldana and joe guzman next speaker we have rich saldana on standby we have joe guzman and esmeralda de avila good evening board president you and fellow elected members superintendent sue and all my colleagues parents students and community members who have been so supportive of our teachers and students my name is rich saldana and i certainly wish i was here to celebrate someone or some accomplishment of our district as has been my reason for coming here
223so many times in the past so this is not where i want to be tonight especially at this hour but rather it's where i need to be this evening because of my students i must stand up and speak for what is right just as i ask them to do for many of us it has been a long time since we have been to a board meeting and hopefully it will be a long time until we need to stay up this late on a school night and stay i said i would have been at home creating the best lessons i can for my students and grading their work and giving feedback so they can improve their skills teaching has taken more time than usual the past two years as many of us have had to convert
224all our lessons to a digital format to make them available to students both in school and at home so why am i here i have listened to most of you thank teachers over and over and say how much you understand and then demonstrate that you don't understand by your actions instead you give us more thank yous some we hear use and more recently covet test kits into in a mental health hotline staffed by nurses who are then pulled away from our students to answer the phone although these may be well-intentioned gestures what we really need is a school board who does not drag on negotiations since and this is a quote from a school member since abc opened negotiations on february 2nd 2021 this is not good for our mental health and this is not
225good for abc who until now has served as a role model for many school districts around the region state and even nation another quote from a board member i agree that we should be role models in all that we do dragging negotiations out for between 6 and 12 months depending on which board member you ask is not being a role model [Applause] we can all imagine what putting our partners husbands wives off for months does to a relationship not good as you have stated i acknowledge that you have been meeting two times a month before board meetings to come to an agreement that is the problem clearly limiting your partner to twice monthly meetings merely drags out negotiations and deteriorates a relationship we can all imagine if our standard response was i'll get back to
226you in two weeks imagine if instead we had met at least every week until an agreement was made how much more would your actions then show you care and that you truly respect our teachers who partner with you to educate our students what we are going through right now is totally unnecessary when as quoted from the cerritos news abc's reserve currently sits at a whopping 14 percent the cap is 10 percent minimum 4 percent so they have 10 percent to play with there is simply no good reason to delay this agreement our teachers and nurses will always do what's right by our district and students as we did about 12 years ago when we took unpaid furlough days to keep this district financially solvent we have again sacrificed for two years without a raise while
227increasing our workload to meet the needs of our students during this covet time as you have heard from so many now is the time for each of you to demonstrate that you truly do understand and come to a fair agreement with our abc federation of teachers thank you [Applause] next speaker we have joe guzman on standby we have oscar galicia and catherine pasquale all right excuse me i'm kind of tired got to be up in four hours right now i'm a father parent of children who come here to abc unified i'm a public worker union member and a frontline worker what i say today is with deep respect to everybody's opinion and those of you who might disagree i'm here to speak about our children being required to wear masks when it's truly not required
228all of you were elected to serve not to rule over our children and parental rights the past couple of weeks we observed public servants celebrities who impose mandates disregard the so-called importance of wearing a mask yet our children are required to wear a mask against her will you are all expected to serve for what's best for these children and that needs to start now facial expressions are that an important part of their freedom to express themselves the way god intended it is also important that a child has a freedom to breathe without restriction you know as i speak here it's hard for me to speak we hear stories about kids running around in mass and they can't breathe we all had the liberty to live and breathe without a mass growing up and we do
229this to them why we have all these political politicians we have public servants we're all servants teachers nurses we're all servants we're expected to be on the front line but our children shouldn't be at our hands while they suffer with this we're all waiting for a day in the form of announcement about lifting a mandate scientifically has a virus communicated to us on when it feels it won't be a threat to us la county health department director fair her fairer herself was present at the super bowl her guidance led to either providing proof of vaccination a negative test result for a large event we have seen that vaccinated are still able to transmit and become infected with coven tests are also proven to be unreliable if this virus was that serious how are both practices
230accepted on a grand scale this is what all of you should consider and his board members and teachers this is what all of you should consider and not resort to political ambitions when making these decisions the actions of these elected servants should have all of you question their leadership and begin to make the decision now to benefit that will benefit our children the ones that you were elected to serve so it's pretty difficult you know today i heard a couple people booing a parent who spoke about this you know that's your freedom to express but it's also disrespect i support a lot of you teachers i support your pay i support you getting paid for what you do for them we suffered along with you during the pandemic they did your job and we appreciate
231what you did it was hard it was new to us and it was new to a lot of you but we don't hold that against you we still want you to get paid but from what i heard today that was freaking disgusting a lot of you should really be ashamed one minute you know i want to come up here and tell them something but i had to tell you guys something as a parent i'm disappointed i want you to get paid but i want you to understand how we feel these are our children not yours if that was case i would give you their birth certificates all right so you know very disappointed from what i've seen today i really i love you guys i think abc unified good teachers all the way around and
232i appreciate that but from what i've seen today was just plain disrespect it was and i appreciate the work all of you do i'll keep saying it but please please consider our children and complete please consider our right to make these decisions thank you next speaker we have oscar galacia on standby we have catherine pasquale and sam desai good evening colleagues families and board members um although you see me wearing black and gray i was here a few minutes ago wearing blue but i had originally left um to go home um i did um have an axe i did partake in an accident i got a car walking to nimas elementary where i teach at um so my back really does um hurt sometimes when i'm standing and i could not go to sleep if
233i did not share my opinions and my voice so i will begin now so good evening colleagues families and board members my name is oscar galicia and i'm a fourth grade dual immersion teacher i stand here because i felt both inspired and compelled to share my voice with you today in a span of three years teachers have been asked to do the impossible teaching virtually without a manual explaining how to do so employing new strategies to maintain student engagement and fostering relationships even when a screen created a divide yet time after time we have demonstrated resiliency when we were asked to teach virtually and in person at the same time we did when the dual immersion summer school team was asked to teach yet there was no curriculum set in place nor enrichment courses for
234our dual immersion students we seeked out resources and did so time after time we have proven to be resilient i not only stand here as a teacher but i stand before you as a product of a school site that has invested so much in me i have the opportunity to teach at the school site that i attended as a child it is because of my colleagues many of whom were my elementary school teachers set in place that more able to stand in front of you with a comp with the confidence to say that i know my worth because they saw mine yet here i am having to ask you to see that worth thank you [Applause] [Music] next speaker we have captain pasquale on standby we have sam desai and marty supple good evening hello
235okay good evening firstly i'd like to remark on the fact that the board is obviously uncomfortable hearing from all of us tonight um typically there are a few of you who want to extend the first public comment so that you can hear from everybody and you do that when it's parents in the room and tonight with teachers in the room you didn't do that you're asking us to judge you by your actions and tonight you had a lack of action and that silence was definitely in addition to the challenges of the last two years january was a very hard month to be an education and it has made me think a lot that's why i'm here for my third meeting in a row speaking um but i'm going to share some different stuff tonight so
236when i got married and i moved to the city of cerritos where my husband grew up i heard about the great schools and i made it my goal to get a teaching job in this school district i was so excited that my future children who i did not have yet would have the privilege of attending the school district these schools drew people to the city of cerritos with the city council election quickly approaching it'd be great for the community to remember that their housing values are high in part due to the reputation of this great district but our schools are great because we have been in partnership between labor and management our schools are great because our teachers and our other staff are so dedicated our schools are great because our families come to the
237area and they care a lot about education and they choose this area with great schools but will our schools still be great if our teachers teachers and staff leave due to burnout or as more dependent demands are placed on them without additional time or compensation will they still be great if our great employees flee to other districts that pay a lot more like 2.5 miles away from where i teach i could make more than 20 000 more it's something that our staff is constantly thinking and talking about what's the smart decision for their family will they still be great three minutes if future teachers coming out of teaching credential programs no longer strive to work here i have a friend who teaches in a teaching credential program locally and she says this is not a
238district of choice for her students which makes her really sad because she's a product of this district concerned i'm concerned about paying my bills i'm concerned about if i will continue to have great colleagues in this profession that i love because they're fleeing i'm concerned that our students see how stressed out we are and the future generation isn't wanting to join this great profession i'm also concerned that my twins who will start in this school district in just a few months maybe we'll get this great education if this school district isn't rising back up to where its reputation has been at please do right by the staff we need pay raises to bring our pay up to par with other districts in the area we need equity amongst our staff we are very far away
239from local districts pay not just for teachers but for mental health professionals for speech pathologists for our cte staff for our early childhood educators we need to come and meet where the community is at this is an expensive area to live and we need to look at what the surrounding districts are paying teachers ask themselves can i stay in this district that i love at this school that i love teaching these students i love is that the responsible thing to do for my family if the discrepancy is so great thank you [Applause] next speaker we have sam desai mr smith is online actually he is online i don't know if you want to get through the let's go through the in-person speakers first next speaker marty supple followed by on standby we have dina martins
240and anthony brenes hello how are all you tonight i just got off a little while ago and i decided to drop by to give my words about cte as you know we met in december we had a big meeting and the purpose was actually to inform you what's going on hoping that there will be an action plan in place and that you will execute said action plan time is not on our side these cte teachers are fantastic people and all these teachers are incredible beyond belief and we're a family folks and this part of the family cte is get paid at a rate of 35 percent less yet you expect me and i will because i love what i do to get ac certifications to continue to talk to vendors to talk to people we're
241like entrepreneurs and i was one for 20 years this is what we do and we do it every day and we love doing it but don't pay us less because we love what we do i'm proud of these people you won't believe the kind of things these people do day in and day out they're constantly looking and improving what they have to do folks technology is increasing rapidly and you're in a 50 year old paradigm things have changed dramatically and the things i need to learn is every day but i'm happy to do so i'm proud to do so and so are these people here these people work hard every day and we work more than most yet we don't get the compensation we need to be compensated folks we want equity in a country
242which has been divided somewhat look around you do you see what's going on are we going to do anything about it it seems like a lot of us are doing different things what about teachers i'm happy to be here i love what i do and i will do it to my dying days all right but you've got to pay us this is ridiculous we're professionals in this national cte month i don't know what that what does that mean for us i don't know i mean so anyway i'm just here to say that i want to continue to serve you to serve my students wait a minute serving students isn't it when you have a cte teacher leave that takes you months to get a replacement well we take are we taking care of our students
243then no we're not in fact another high school in this district lost their auto teacher and i was supplying power points and information and going to that high school to help out because i'm part of the family i'm part of the team that's what we do but unfortunately you know you're paying us at a very low rate folks you're going to start losing people then i wake up the other day and i see on television about or the rest of our family not being paid folks this is my district too i grew up here i still live here i went to school here take care of business because the thing is time is not on our side and actually it's not on your side either because if it continues to go to the media about
244what's going on abc i don't like to see that i'm proud of this district i'm proud of these people and what they do and we need to get with it no more talk on how much you love us do something action as i tell my seniors and i'll say it to all of you there's many excuses for failure but many reasons for success what side are you going to be on thank you next speaker dina martens followed by anthony brunes good evening again i would just like to make a few additional comment points if someone is asking for more compensation and support for their cause the heckling of a supportive parent making a public comment is not a wise choice it is disrespectful and it gives that person and colleagues a bad look common sense
245says to listen and try and understand maybe have an open dialogue with that that parent without parents and students there are no jobs finally mr beach has already mentioned senate bill 866 and 871 for the second time last board meeting as well i don't think parents grandparents understand the ramifications of these two bills so parents listening that are here please take do your homework and research these bills regardless whether or not your four coveted vaccine not before covered vaccine this is a detriment to future our future kids and grandkids so please do your homework and be ready to oppose these bills they're very dangerous thank you good night next speaker anthony brenes hi um i'm a father of five i have four kids that go here to abc school district and i just want to
246address the the mandate mask mandates i just want to ask you guys like where's your like common sense and masks because they do nothing for us or them um if anything it makes the kids more depressed they look like they're in prison in school you guys create more division than actually trying to protect them they need facial expressions we were able to grow up um being able to laugh look at each other i have kids that also have iep classes they can't see you guys gave them a plastic mask it gets foggy it gets foggy real quick and it's even harder to breathe than these they play sports right next door in orange county kids don't wear masks nobody stores are um in the parks they don't wear any kind of masks and they're fine
247and it is getting to the point where it's disrespectful um you guys trying to tell us what's right for our kids you guys are not um in our house when the kids are sick the last time i checked you guys don't go to our kids at school um doctor's appointments that flag right there is an american flag we have rights we have a choice we have a freedom we choose to parent our kids however we want to whether our kids are vaccinated or not or we want to vaccinate them or not that's our choice it's not yours that's up to us as parents you guys should not be telling us how to parent our kids and it's just getting to that point and i just want to call out all parents out there um come
248speak up for your kids speak up for your kids like it is enough just like how the lady just said right now um it's not just for now it's for the future and we have to be able to respect each other's choice it's not about whether we believe one thing or not it's about respecting what we believe and being able to speak and just be respectful of each other's choices it's not um i don't agree with lgbt but i respect it i'm sure a lot of people feel like everybody needs jesus but we don't push that in school so i just want to let you guys know to just respect our choice as parents you guys need to get rid of this it's unnecessary and i don't think we should even be here in this
249spot they don't do anything for us or them and i know you guys probably don't want to hear this but if you guys were to make um vaccines a mandate it's pretty much like medical rape if you take this vaccine or not um i mean it's either take it or not i don't know like it's just that's pretty much what it is it's medical rape so that's all i have to say madam president concludes in-person speakers okay can you fill out the card yeah okay yeah you can still come out right now yeah can you come up can she come can you make a path for her madam president in the interim can we hear the uh online because we only have 10 minutes left right so we will after this uh why don't we
250comment scott scott after this public comment we'll have the online thank you evening um i know we went a little bit late but i want to say i really appreciate um all of the board members i really i really truly appreciate all you do um while we were out there in the outside uh we we were honking we were supportive we were rallying with the teachers uh we really really believe in inequity and equal pay and we really feel like teachers should be valued and and that's a big thing for especially we have five kids so for us it's a big deal um when dina spoke and immediately when she said she's a parent and she's for freedom of choice the amount of rude comments the amount of disrespectful uh things that that the teachers
251were saying it was just appalling my kids wanted to come out here and and voice to the board members how they felt about these masks you know they have to run miles in pe with the mask outdoors they have to be they can't interact with their friends like they used to they're depressed there's so much going on that that teachers may or may not be privy to so when we're here fighting for freedom of choice it's not about uh you know anti-mass or anti-vaccine it's just freedom of choice for parents you know and that's all it's about so when there's negative comments you guys have to be mindful anybody who comes out here and speaks has to be mindful that there are students here there are students that want to come out and speak to
252the board members and when you guys say nasty things this is not how abc teachers should be carrying themselves they're supposed to be following rules they teach our kids follow rules and when how many times did somebody go over time and they were just kept going through there's times where parents have come out here to these board meetings and they have spoke and and they've gone seconds over and someone will screen time and it's usually cet teachers that will say time time time and we don't do that parents don't do that to you guys it's unfair it's not right students also have a voice and they need to be heard you teach them in school to follow the rules and be respectful we'll do that am i gonna tackle you we're gonna say negative things
253to you guys students are watching they're watching now masks it really should be a choice especially for iep students maybe a face shield i totally get that we need to protect ourselves and and we're i i'm a hundred percent in support of that i have an uh autoimmune disease so i have a weak immune system i've been wearing masks before kovid was a thing so i know what it's like i wouldn't i wouldn't force that on children they can't interact with each other when my son looks to see how his teachers and peers are pronouncing things he doesn't know he doesn't know it makes it so difficult for kids to interact with each other when they do the zones during lunch time it's one week you play handball and you have to stay in your
254zone then the next week you switch and you get to play basketball it's so hard at lunch time they're segregated they're isolated and they have to be in the same they have to speak with the same people in the same bench it's a lot it's it's so much and it's so hard on these kids and i know we're gonna do the outdoor uh lift the outdoor mask mandates which i i i'm really grateful if you guys do that that would be amazing but what about indoor what about pexi glass you know the virus it's if it's airborne pepsi glass isn't going to do anything so all of these little things if you can consider parents i speak to parents all the time where we're pretty majority of the community that are very freedom of choice
255that we have parents that are fully vaccinated fully vaccinated and they do not feel like a 12 year old should be able to consent whether they want to get vaccinated or not especially when there's incentives like a free pizza being thrown at a 12 year old they don't understand that type of decision so all of these things need to be considered and i appreciate i know each and every one of you this is important to you and i appreciate all of the work that you guys put in because it's not easy you have to deal with the department of health you have to deal with you know everyone's personal opinion but at the end of the day like my husband said it is america we should have a choice we shouldn't have our choices stripped
256from us it's important and i appreciate all of you and that's my time thank you guys so much madam president that concludes the in-person speakers okay scott are you ready for the online virtual we're ready the first speaker will be laura hernandez go ahead laura thank you uh thank you all for giving me this opportunity to speak my name is laura hernandez i've been serving our students and families at abc for over 20 years now as a head start state preschool teacher currently a tosa working in child development i have a bachelor's and master's degree in early childhood development with a specialization in early childhood trauma i hold a specialized permit to work with preschoolers from the state of california as a department child development teachers are overlooked and underpaid many of us holding the
257higher degrees that i just mentioned i do not make what a first year teacher makes currently i wholeheartedly love what i do and love working with preschool age students serving our families serving our community i also live in the city of cerritos i'm the mother of six sons six sons who've graduated all from abc and are now wonderful men my youngest is now working as a substitute teacher for abc and although i would have wanted to discourage him because of the wages i encourage him he's a lovely person a wonderful young man and will make a wonderful teacher i have always taught my sons to advocate for themselves and now it's my turn i'm advocating for myself for our child development teachers cte nurses and all other district teachers i ask you everyone on the
258board everyone in the building everyone hearing me right now could you live on one thousand three hundred and fifty dollar paycheck no i don't think you could guess what that's the amount of my my february paycheck one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars yes my pay was impacted because i was ill most of january what did that get me the understanding that i shouldn't get sick in a pandemic and be a teacher at abc as a child development teacher that is unless i just don't care about paying my monthly bills 1 350 dollars can you live on that i can't thank you laura the next speaker is lakeisha anderson go ahead good evening last wednesday february the 9th i was informed by miss m the assistant principal of
259gar high school that the district has instructed administrators to identify students on permit to determine if they should be kicked out of school i want to know why this is being done what positive outcomes you are seeking to achieve and what are the demographics of the students enrolled or in our district permit as vice president beach stated the district has suffered declining enrollment students have just now started to have an opportunity to enjoy a semi sense of normalcy in school after two years of virtual learning what do you seek to gain from this i know abc usd to be a district that concerns themselves with the welfare of students but these actions seem to be the complete opposite thank you very much the next speaker is jolly scott how many more do we have we
260have one two three five more five more we doing one of both to extend it because uh we have it originally scheduled for 11 30. unfortunately i think our bylaws prohibit that we can only do it once so we should have thought of that about an hour ago i think we don't legally have the ability to do that unless we unless attorneys here and find a different answer so should we just end it one more public comment online this will be the last one scott if that's what you'd like to do madam president we still have uh four more after this we'll just end with one more there's one public comment all right uh this will be jolly go ahead and unmute hello um good evening board president you vice president beach clerk eugenio board
261members and superintendent sue thank you to all members of our community in attendance this evening my name is jamison jolly and i teach at gar high school before i begin my prepared remarks i must say vice president beach tonight when we were looking over the data on the academic progress students have made you did an excellent job of patting yourself and the administrators on the back for implementing some programs however your non-acknowledgement of the work executed by the teachers to get those results was deafening could you imagine if following sunday's big game the general manager credit himself the head coach and all the subordinate coaches for the super bowl win but didn't mention any of the players this is the very issue that has led the teachers to come out tonight with that said people
262say teaching is a calling like the priesthood now i don't know why we are the only public services servants who get this comparison no one says this about police officers firefighters or for that matter school board members but i will say that many of us are drawn to this profession out of a deep desire to help our communities as you have heard from my peers the last two years have been the most difficult years of teaching we have ever had i will not renumerate these in detail here however suffice to say the teachers of abc usd have dealt with everything covid and the politicians have thrown at them we have taken on more and more job responsibilities without additional compensation we have been given little support with often conflicting directions we have been asked to
263dig deeper and go back to our wells of strength time and time again but i fear for many of us the wells have run dry and there is no reign in sight where does this leave us speaking solely for myself after 14 years of dedication to my students and this community i'm having a crisis of faith unlike my priest and his calling i have a wife and child to help support inflation was seven percent last year and yet the district sits on a substantial reserve and continues to maintain a second class status for our cte teachers three minutes this is the same district with whom we have a quote-unquote partnership how can i have faith in this partnership when it feels like the relationship only runs one way and how can i have faith in
264my role as an educator this is the same profession that has been recently politicized with book bans fear-mongering about critical race theory and claims of brainwashing students with liberal propaganda when the day-to-day job is as stressful as it has been for the past two years these additional elements of derision become just too much to bear and naturally a person starts to get a wandering eye non-profit organizations and education consultancy firms are looking more and more attractive with each passing day a major reason for this no one says those professions are a quote-unquote calling so as to justify their low pay instead they get paid as they deserve to be look the district can't find substitute teachers for us schools of education are struggling to find the next generation of teachers all the while the baby
265boomers continue to retire from our teaching ranks the laws of supply and demand dictate that labor isn't its strongest position in years and yet the district continues to be withholding when it comes to proper compensation and equal treatment of our cte teachers you can claim your concern is about declining enrollment or taxes or some other strongman arguments you're blue in the face but that is not the real concern here many of those missing students will be returning to the classroom next fall as things return to normal additionally abc usd has a massive reserve your real concern needs to be if teachers like me leave this profession due to a crisis of faith who will you have left to teach our students at the end of the day i still want to be here i just
266want to know through actions not lip service that you want me to be here too thank you okay the time is up and i want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and i especially want to thank my fellow board colleagues for listening to all the comments and uh it's been difficult for all of us for the past two years but we shall overcome together okay so good night everyone may i have a motion to adjourn motion to journey daniel second ishii okay all those in favor say aye aye actually it has to be roll call but it's supposed to be roll call but that's right [Music] so [Music] you