IUSD (Regular)Board Meeting Wednesday, October 1, 2025 @ 5 pm

001Okay. Good evening. It's 5:00 p.m. and I'd like to call the October 1st, 2025 regular board of education meeting of the Englewood Unified School District to order. And next, we'll move on to roll call. I'll ask Miss Sbrano to call the role. >> Board President, Miss Margaret Turner Evans, >> present. >> Board Vice President, Dr. Carlos McGee >> present. >> Board member Miss Joyce Randall >> present. >> Thank you. Board member Mr. Brandon Myers >> present. >> Board member Mr. Ernesto Castillo. Student board member Amaya Hazard >> present. >> Dr. James Morris >> present. >> Dr. Bernadel Lucas >> present. >> Dr. Brian Coffee >> present. >> Mr. Rafael Guzman >> present. >> Please be informed the Spanish language interpretation is available during this meeting. Thank you very much, Miss Sbrano. I'd like to ask

002our student board member, Amaya Hazard, to please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Miss Hazard, please stand. Put your right hand over your heart. Place the flag. Ready to begin. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Miss Hazard. Uh I hereby approve the agenda with one modification. The following item has been uh withdrawn from the close session agenda. Item B, certificated classified public employee discipline dismissal release pursuant to government code HR item 001-2025-2026 was pulled. Reporting out on actions from closed session this evening. In closed session, the county administrator took action to approve the following case. O a case number 2025070443. Additionally, during closed session, the county

003administrator took action to approve settlement case O a205081 with a correction of a typographical error on page two. And now we'll move on to reports and presentations for this evening. And we have four presentations this evening. Uh first two will be from board member Mr. Brandon Meyers who will provide an update on the citizens bond oversight committee as the first item. Mr. Meyers. >> Thank you Dr. Morris and good evening community. My name is Mr. uh Brandon Myers and tonight I'll be providing the updates on the citizen bonds oversight committee. Uh so Jordan Miles uh who is our uh project manager uh provided updates on bond expenditures as well as uh current financials. Uh Mrs. Grisby um asked if uh all schools had electric uh marquees which Jordan did confirm that they did. Um there's

004various conversations that went on uh at the at the committee uh that talked about employees moving uh to adult school brought up by uh Miss Grisby and she inquired if the bond funds were used to move um were were excuse me were um were there to be used uh and Jordan clarified that the bond dollars uh would not be used for that purpose in terms of excuse me in regards of employees moving uh to the adult school. Uh there were some handouts that uh Ka Dales uh requested earlier distribution of handouts and Jordan agreed to provide them a week before the updates. Uh moving on to moderation funds. Rosa Lavo uh asked as the status of the funds and Jordan explained that they're still waiting for them. Um we have a question that was asked

005about vandalism and security uh by Mrs. Grisby and she asked if $ five dollars uh would be used to uh support the vandalism repairs in the school closures. And Jordan explained that the security team uh was contacted during the closures of the bond funds uh being used for security and he noted that they would provide further details on funding for the uh for the security in the future. Uh moving on to the updates on the bond measure facilities project, excuse me, project updates. Noel Castro shared updates on several projects including new Kelso or Lane Inglewood United Sentinella Oak Streets playground upgrades and reing projects. In Englewood and Morningside High uh was the next uh topic of discussion and Dr. Troder asked if the new campus was being used by both schools. Noel confirmed it uh

006though Dr. Morris explained that they are permanently uh going to be combined as schools. The next uh topic was security and maintenance. Again, uh Jordan provided updates on security cameras, deferred to preventative maintenance and classroom details at Inglewood High. And the committee has agreed to a uh site tour uh which is going to take place November 13th at 3:30. Uh they will begin here at the district's office and uh following that meeting at 3:30, then they will travel to the various sites that were discussed. Uh that concludes my citizen bond oversight committee uh presentation. Do I have any questions from my colleagues? >> Thank you, Mr. Myers. That's all I got to say right now for your committee report. You did a great job. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I wanted you to repeat

007something. You said there's going to be a a tour of schools. It's just for the the bond committee to go on this tour. Is anybody can join the tour? Who is that? >> Well, um >> when is it also? >> Okay. So, you as a as madam president, you can join the tour anytime you feel. Okay. Um there was a question asked, you know, how are bond dollars being spent? And so, the chair thought it would be uh fair that the committee take a site and see how these bond dollars are being utilized. So, that tour is going to be uh November 13th at 3:30 and they'll start the um start the tour here at the district office. To my understanding, everybody will pile into one vehicle, which I don't like, and they'll travel to

008the various sites and look at the bond dollars and work. in looking at those bond dollars. Um, are we looking at green space for these new, um, because I was at Centinella and my heart just cracked, you know, it just cracked. Um, so I hope that's a consideration as we build capacity in these new spaces because for there to be no green space, it it it it it just it just blows my mind, you know, cuz we move from so much green space to concrete. So, I hope that we are looking at these um new configurations and making sure that um we're providing space that our children can play on that's safe. No, to that point u madame vice president um not in this committee that that topic has been mentioned but in our facilities

009uh committee that has been mentioned uh about what's the future steps which is that you know that that committee is planned to share recommendations about future bond dollars uh if that is to happen if we ever pass another bond but um that committee did recommend that we have more green spaces and I think one of the uh mentionings was Bula that had very little green space. Um, I believe one of one of our one of our uh committee members was mentioning about that and she was very frustrated because none of the kids had any green space and I guess when they were constructing these properties they looked at more so with the what the I guess explanation came from they were looking more at parking for the employees rather than which was totally asinon right

010that you wouldn't think of green space. So uh in in future conversations that that is the the plan. to increase green spaces. >> Yeah. Well, I'm >> And not artificial ones, actual real life green spaces. >> Yeah. Well, that's how we breathe and grow. And um you know, just to see the number of parents that have come to me, you know, with their kids having accidents, you know, I'm at one school and the kids got five stitches and we moved from green space to concrete. So, there you have it. And I guess that was a smart move. On that note, Dr. Mars, is there uh a way that we could move back to a facility with green space? like the kids who are at Centinella, should we move them back over to Highland because they

011have a lot of green space over there and then we can do something with Sentinella >> and and don't be trying to use that space for something that you know we may not be in agreement on because I know people are looking at that space but you know my space stays in my heart for these kids and not for developers and anybody else because I I I just don't know how we how we made that that move. Dr. Morris, >> I just don't know. >> Feel free to answer it. >> So, we are coming up with the facilities master plan that will come to the board that does a sightby-sight assessment. And as Mr. Myers mentioned one of the things is that's one of the things that's analyzed at each school throughout the district. Right?

012I think we all know many of our school sites are very compact. Many of our school sites are very compact. Probably none of our schools actually meet the state recommended play acreage for schools. And that's common across many urban areas. But as we look at what are the future improvements, what do we envision as the school in the future, that's one of the things the committee has talked about is looking at providing some kind of green space at school sites. For example, when you see our project that we're doing at Inglewood High School and you look at number one, the green space and also the number of trees because there now are state regulations about the number of trees because it's not just green space, it's having shaded places for students to be able to

013>> we're able to see that be as the design goes into um effect. But you guys were so excited for me to go over to Centanella. I thought I was going to see something that was going to wow me. And what it did, it gave me a heart attack because I guess I was looking I was I I was looking at the safety issues and and when I hear from parents that their kids have been in these atrocious accidents, it makes me wonder how how how do we move from green space to asphalt? That's all you know. So going forward, I'm really going to be um keeping u a really eye on, you know, how we envision our children um being in an environment where they're supposed to be safe learning and um we got

014a lot of kids there and no green space. They have a patch of green space that's a little larger than this. >> Yeah. In the front of the school >> you saw. No, by the kindergarten uh classrooms. So, we can move on, but Mr. Myers, thank you. And Mr. um uh Dr. Morris, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Our our next presentation will also be for Mr. Myers, which will be uh an update on the asset management advisory committee. Mr. Myers. >> Thank you, Dr. Morris. And again, good evening, community. Uh so the asset management committee has met uh in a total of 21 times. Uh the committee is chaired by Miss Cheryl Matthews uh who continues to provide strong leadership. And I'm pleased to report that all the committee members

015have been active and engaged in their com uh commitment and dedication to this service of serving on the committee. Committee has also approved recommendations regarding the former Englewood uh adult site and the committee has recommended school site tours of these locations under consideration. You got your pen, Miss Evans? >> School site tours. All right. Timing permit. So, we're going to do Highland, which is the former Kels Morning Side. Okay. And these sites are scheduled for Saturday, October 18th at 9:00. I repeat, Saturday, October 18th at 9:00 am. >> I won't be. >> Please don't show up at PM. All right. So, the committee believes that these visits will enhance the quality and relevance of final recommendations for providing firsthand context regarding the conditions, locations, and potential of the of each site. And just to like

016take it in a further more context, there's been plenty of mentionings about we don't see the sites as the as the as as the committees are sitting at this dasis, they are not actually seeing the site. They may have a print out of the site, but they are not actually touching the physical brick and mortar. And that's been one of their uh concerns by going forward with any assets of ours. We want to put our hands and we want to walk these halls and see the grounds and see what we're discussing. So, I take my hats off to the committee for um for sharing those those concerns. Uh the committee's membership updates, uh Gladis Glattis uh Fuentes uh has recently resigned from the committee and we appreciate her service and we thank her for uh

017all of her uh commitment um that she provided. However, we were able to uh appoint a new member and uh her name is Miss Shadana Holmes. Uh and Miss Holmes will be formally uh approved on the asset management committee October at the October 1st board meeting. Uh she will serve as the representative under the landlord and renters district category. All right. Are there any questions? >> So on these tours, I know you said we're going to be able to physically look at them. >> Okay. after we look at um what can we physically um be expected to uh contribute? >> So thank you. >> That's a great question. Um so when when the committee goes so a part of the asset management committee is to determine all the closed properties as to what would be

018the best recommendation going forward when they do take a tour and look at these sites. they'll be they'll they'll be better a breast as to how to approach whatever recommendations may come their way um for these sites by having better knowledge because they're on the site they're actually seeing it. However, we have very little play with that. It's the asset and management committee that determines that. Then after they seek their uh recommendation and have kind of got down to their determination of what the property then that will be uh given to us as a board for approval. Did I do that correctly, Doc? Gotcha. >> So, the asset uh um asset management, they made the rem recommendations for where the schools are currently um um um operating. >> Yes, they did. >> So, do you

019know what the recommendation for? >> Oh. Oh, yeah. I think I'm on. So um >> no sir they do make the recommendations. They they are presented with uh agencies that may share um different strategies to utilize with the land but ultimately they have been selected to that community to make that decision. More power than us. I would just like to put it that way. >> Well, that can be a recommendation. As a matter of fact, um on the 3rd of November, you're touring Worththingington, right? >> Yes. >> That's the school that was talked about at the meeting. I was at that meeting the other day. That's the only school you're touring to. >> No, no, no, no. What? What are you saying? >> On the third, you're touring Worthington. No, >> I'm not sure about

020that. >> You didn't say what you were here touring, where you were touring. You just said you were going to tour some sites, but you didn't say what the sites. >> Not the third. October 18th. >> November. >> That's November 13th. >> November 13th. I'm sorry. November 13th and October 18th, you have Highland and Morningside on October 18th, but on November 13th, >> you didn't say where you were going. So, I'm asking you, are you just touring Worthington that day? >> No. So on on that previous uh presentation, it was for the citizen bonds oversight committee. So those tours are going to be torn to sites that have all had bond dollars expended on them. Okay. >> Then this asset management committee is just for sites that uh were set to close >> and consolidate.

021>> Okay. >> Well, maybe we can get the maybe we can get that group to go and visit Sentinella and see what's going on there with the green space. >> Yeah. visit since they're going to Highland anyway. They can see what's happening at Highland and they can go to Centineella and see what's happening at Centinella because too many kids are getting hurt over there on all that asphalt. That's all. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. And our third presentation this evening, um Dr. Bernardet Lucas and Dr. Dr. Yugjima Josea will give a presentation regarding the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Summitive Assessment Data. This is an exciting presentation. Um, Dr. Lucas and Dr. Hosea have worked really really hard to be able to tell a story and it's a story that really

022is a testament to the hard work of of teachers and administrators across the district including Dr. Lucas, Dr. Josea and the whole ed services team. So I'll turn it over to you Dr. Lucas. >> Thank you so much Dr. Morris, Madame President, Miss Evans, esteemed board members, cabinet members. Um, thank you for this exquisite opportunity to celebrate our incredible students and staff for what they accomplished last school year. Um, there's a quote that I'd like to start off with as we begin. Nothing happens in isolation. There is always a squad, collaborators, a body that supports change occurring, and that's Sage Crump. Um, before we get into the presentation, I'd like to recognize the following groups. And if I had the time, I would name every single classification in this district, but I don't. Um, everyone

023represented by ITA, if you would please wave, stand, whatever this the spirit moves you. ITA teamsters, members, IMA, [Applause] our parents who are students first teachers. the community that surrounds us [Applause] and educational services [Applause] and last but the only reason why our students. [Applause] So, um, we've been focusing a lot on the beloved community, and I'm not going to go into the definition of that. I think the words speak for themselves, but basically creating a community, um, where every single person in it, our students of course, but also every staff member, every parent, every communi comm community member, every administrator, um, has a relationship with each other that is meaningful and supports each other. Um and Adrienne Marie Brown wrote in her text emerging strategy um Wheatley's work talks about the depth of relationships

024between the individuals in a system determining the strength of that system. So the relationship between all of us is what facilitated the pres presentation we're about to give. So that presentation is the 2425 school year presentation on the California assessment of student performance and progress acronymed as CASP and that's how I'll refer to it moving forward. They are the summit of assessments for the entire school year and measure the learning of our students for last school year. Presenting with me is Dr. Eugima Hosea who has spent almost the entirety of her career in this district and who was a huge factor in this growth. So, can we please give it up for her? [Applause] Um, so I want to give an overview of the ELA data. Um, Lena Atutoa put this deck together. I want

025to shout out to her. Um but you'll see here that our combined scores if you'll look there of met and exceeded for our students in English language arts is 33% and point 33.01%. Some might say why are you all celebrating this? It's because we grew. Okay. And in order to get to your final destination you have to have inter intermittent and inter interval growth. Okay. If we only celebrate when we grow 50% or 60% we do not motivate the organization to keep that momentum going. And statistically the growth that I'm going to talk about tonight is meaningful and significant. You'll also notice I cannot mention that we do have many students at standard not met but we are progressing and I'll talk about that a little later. And importantly let's also look at standard nearly

026met. So those are students right on the cusp and with a little intervention and focus on tier one they will be at standard met or standards exceeded. So when you first look at this graph you might get a little dizzy but I'm going to ask everyone to look at say grade eight which is that kind of um robin's egg blue color. Would you please look at the quite significant growth that happened with eighth grade for example and then that gives you a sense of the other lines for the majority of grade levels we improved in English language arts. Let's go to standard not met. So while you want the other chart to lot to trend upward obviously you want this chart to trend downward. We want the number of students not meeting standard to go

027down. And for the vast majority of grade levels, it did just that. So we are moving student achievement incrementally, intentionally, and purposefully. So again, I don't have enough time to go over every single grade level, but if you're looking at the colors, you will see what's happening at each grade level. What I do want to call out, I'm going the wrong way, forgive me, is that we did do a six-year comparison. And so that six years includes pre- pandemic. So districts around the country are looking at where they are compared to pre- pandemic. And we are now higher than we were pre- pandemic. We know we took a significant dip than when the student our students were at home. The scores went up. And you can guess why that might have happened. Okay. But can

028you guess? Because they weren't home alone. Okay. Um so when you look at pre- pandemic which is kind of the base we have now exceeded our base. So let me go back to this one. Okay so there are four for four sub focus groups of students that we are int like lasering in on and they are African-American students, our students with disabilities, our English learners and our Hispanic students. Three of those groups are noted here. You'll notice that our African-American students, it's small, but they are outpacing all students combined. And that's different than years past. And there specific um steps or strategies that were implemented last year that resulted in that. And then you see a big gap between the two top lines, the blue and the red, which are all students being the blue

029and the red being African-American students, and our English learners and our special education students. That's relevant, and it means that we have a lot of work to do in that area. That said, they are still trending upward. So, we're making progress and progress propels progress. Okay, Dr. Jose is going to take this slide. You're welcome. Hello everyone. Just reiterating what Dr. Lucas said earlier. We wanted to highlight our English language arts, the schools that reached over 25% of students proficient or exceeding proficiency. There are 11 schools on this slide ranging from 30% proficient to 78% proficient. And I just want to reiterate what Dr. Lucas was saying. We we have 25% here. We're celebrating this growth, but we're expecting 50% where we're going to look at then 75% then 90%. We're celebrating the hard work

030that our schools have put into uh this growth. [Applause] [Music] No way. That's a percentage of people that have kids that know how to read. >> Should I continue? >> Okay. So I I do want to emphasize that it is critical to celebrate this because these numbers represent our students. And while we know that we have a long way to go, we must also make sure that we let our students know that their hard work is showing up here and not to acknowledge that is um I would say disrespectful to them. They deserve to have their hard work acknowledged. Um, so yeah, there is nothing that will stop me from celebrating that. So there about four slides we're going to deliberately go over. You notice that I'm moving pretty quickly through the others. Let's talk

031about the ELA highlights. Um, we are now, as I said, higher than the prepandemic achievement level. Okay. 10 out of our 15 schools last year showed growth in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standard from the 23 24 school year to the to this school year. Over there's an overall increase in the percentage of students meeting and exceeding standards. And we have to remember too that the pandemic had an almost catastrophic effect on learning. So to rebound in this way is a celebratory moment. And it and I will not let any situation or comment diminish that because in so doing we are not acknowledging how hard our students and our staff worked. Four schools had doubledigit growth. Statistically this is extremely difficult. Here are the schools. City honors George W. Croer Junior High School,

032Highland Elementary School, and Latihetta Academy of Excellence Charter. Now, here's the thing that I want us all to pause on. Two of these schools were closing when they did this. >> Come on, city owners. Okay, imagine how difficult it is to have double-digit growth while you're closing and packing and going through the emotional load of that. So, if we can do this while schools are closing, imagine what's going to happen next year. All demographic focused subgroups increased. Every single demographic focus group. African-American students trend um outpaced all other students. And eighth grade had the highest growth at 13%. That is so hard to do. And the cycle of continuous improvement that was developed by Dr. Hosea was used to monitor all of this and help facilitate this growth significantly. What contributed to this? Because I

033would imagine as a community you're asking yourselves. How are you all going to sustain and advance and accelerate this growth? And what specific strategies contributed to this growth? That's the question I feel we all need to be held accountable for in the district. Those practices are relentless, passionate, take no prisoners implementation of the ELA core, the English language arts core. Our teachers did an extraordinary job implementing the core instructional program that is to be celebrated. It was a new program for most teachers and their hard work led to the growth. The cycle of of inquiry that all of our educators participated in also greatly contributed to this. teachers and other educators studying our students data and making strategic moves to advance their achievement and their social emotional wellness that contributes to their achievement. The professional

034learning communities also known as collaborative or better known rather as collaborative teams again where educators and professionals in the organization come together to focus on our students data and make strategic moves to improve and advance it. And last but certainly not least, Dr. Morris had us relent relentlessly focus on fluency and comprehension in English language arts and it absolutely paid off. Coupled with that was a relentless focus on intervention for students to meet their needs especially because of what happened during the pandemic and making sure that we interrupted the learning setbacks that happened during that time that were absolutely no one's fault. Okay, here's a different way to look at the IUSD six-year comparison. So, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. We just wanted to represent it differently because people

035access information differently, but it's pretty much the same slide that we showed five six the line the up and down line graph. Okay. ELA areas of growth. Dr. Jose. So, just and I keep starting off by saying reiterate what Dr. Luc is the same, but she's going in depth with the the data. But now I'm going to hone in on some of the strategies and things we're going to do to continue to focus um supporting our teachers and our staff in continuing to grow. We know we have a large number of students that are approaching proficiency. So those are skills that we need to one one hone in to make sure that they are successful. So one of the things that we're doing is implementing the PLC's intervention programs. We have coaching for teachers and

036for um for our teachers and for professional development as well in the classroom coaching which is significant. Um one of the things also we're looking at and Dr. Lucas said this earlier is by name and by need. This is something that we're definitely looking at because we have to close that the achievement gap. We have to hone in on where we had see that gap. One of the areas is our English learners and our sped students, our special education students. Closing that gap to where all of our students are on the upwardbound uh trajectory. >> Thank you, Dr. Hosea. We're going to move on to math. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do in math. We're at about just under 20% of students proficient um in mathematics with standard met or standard exceeded.

037You can see that just under 23% are standard nearly met. So that's that group that's right on the cusp. And then lastly, we have a very significant more than half of our students and standard not met. So it goes without saying that we have a ton of work to do. Um and we are extremely clear about that. Please make no mistake as we celebrate this, we already moved on to what we're doing about this next this um for this year. Um but it is critical that we pause to celebrate. So if you look at this slide, we are again trending upward in math. So instead of going down, we are moving up in almost every single grade level. Here's the standard not met, which was what we want trending down in almost every single grade

038level. The six-year comparison of our focus groups, again, the trend is upward for every single focus group with the distance between our African-American and all students and our students with special needs and English learners being um smaller than it was for English language arts. So again, you're seeing that upward trend. There's the um trend lines that are in the lighter colors that are showing scientifically, mathematically, statistically that our trend line is going up. And once you have a three to five year trend line of going up, it means that you're on that trajectory. That's what we can expect year to year. Dr. Hosea. So here we are celebrating like our English language arts. We're celebrating our math um schools that are 25% or more in proficiency and exceeding proficiency which are five schools ranging from

03928% to 31% and we're very proud of these schools. We had a new math adoption for our secondary schools this year. So this is year one for them and our TK8 schools. This is year two. So there's coaching, professional development, and um really hands-on uh support that is provided during those these implementation year. So we celebrate them and we're going to continue to support them to continue to grow. Math highlights, we are now again higher than prepandemic achievement levels. Five out of seven grades increased the percentage of students who met an exceeded standard. Three schools had doubledigit growth. City Honors, [Applause] Lati Academy of Excellence, Charter, and Highland Elementary School. All demographic focus subgroups increased. The percentage of a percentage of African-American students who met or exceeded standard increased by 7%. And once again, Dr.

040Josea's cycle of continuous improvement contributed greatly to that. What accounts for these grow this growth? Once again, the adoption of the core mathematics program and the relentless implement unapologetic implementation of it. Our teachers have worked so hard to implement not one but two core programs at the same time. Anyone who's had a job or work can understand what a heavy lift that is. And they did it. and then the other staff supporting them because there's no relationship in a school district more important Dr. Morse and I say this all all the time between the student and the teacher. The rest of us serve that relationship. So everyone else in the district works in support of that. So they are so critically important to this. The cycle of inquiry, I've talked about that. The professional learning

041community/c collaborative teams and the and the support that we put strategically put in place based on feedback from our teachers and the analysis of our student data. I wish I had more time. Dr. Josea, I hold Thank you. Um, one, once again, we are focusing on what we need to support our schools to continue to grow. Um, high school and middle school. Um, you'll see in these next two sections that really we saw a decrease. So, having a new program is, as I said, right on time. One of the things that we noticed was we went so long with an older program. So having a new adoption, having that support that goes with it is something that we are definitely um I'm or we're both knowing that we're going to see that growth. As Dr.

042Lucas said, the schools are working very hard. Here you'll see well we had five schools that decreased um in the number of students in proficiency at MET and then once again our sped students um decreased by 10%. And so, um, implementing strategies, making sure we have hands-on, uh, opportunities for growth and support is our goal. This is the six-year comparison. As I shared, um, it's just a different way to visually represent, um, how our students have grown over time. Okay. I hope you didn't go too far, Dr. Jose. She's going to go over, sorry, science data. She's going to go over all the science data for us. I'll hold just what you think. >> Okay. Um so this um slide and I didn't see the slide but I know this one by heart. Um so

043here we're going over our science data once again. Science uh with STEM implementation the next generation science standards. We have a new program. Um this is also an area where we're working extremely hard to support our students and our staff. And so here this data, this chart shows that we have 17% 17.27% of students that met and exceeded standards. And so one of the things that we're going to do is continue to support our um students and our staff build STEM identity. and that will help with increasing the the um knowing the opportunities and knowing and and and feeling a part of the curriculum and um increase their uh proficiency. So um one of the things with the science here you'll see um in 2024 25 you see it's continuing to grow the upward trajectory.

044We see our fifth grade, 8th grade, 11th grade continuing to grow. We have our um secondary um instructional coach who has a um expert in science. She's supporting all grade levels um our TK8 schools and then also our high schools really honing in on the standards that we need for our students to master the science standards. Next we have um the comparison um of the cast data once again looking at and we see the consistence the um through all the core areas and we know that these are areas that we're going to continue and implement all of the small group strategies coaching um by name knowing students what they need by name and by need and this also shows our African if you can see I'm not going to read the slides um but just

045honing in on how our African African-American students once again are growing um in science and we saw that in the data and then we also need to focus on our special our students with special needs and our English learners and then this is also looking at it from a chart form six-year comparison. So once again we looked at 20% of students that are meeting and exceeding standards. We have five schools ranging from 20% to 35%. And so once again, we're going to continue to support our schools. We're going to continue to give them opportunities going to um um CTE courses and and robotics and have their hands-on inquiry based projectbased learning experiences, real world experiences. So here are some of the highlights. We see all of our students increasing in the proficiency. Um I honed

046in on the last slide, our African-American students doubled in the proficiency. Um our eighth graders, as Dr. Luca showed with, um English language arts, we see it again in science, our eighth graders grew and met um increased by 9% from 14 to 23%. And our students um our 11th graders also doubled in their um proficiency levels and practices that we see. We have we offered um we have gizmos um online virtual labs that the students are enjoying using and also within the core there's virtual labs. So we provide the virtual labs and they also have hands-on labs in their courses. um we give or providing the professional development for our teachers. We have the coaching on-site coaching. We have a partnership with UCLA um for um science and um we one of the things that

047we highlighted and we noticed although we have a core program the um science core adopted program that we adopted in 2021. We see in our new amplified program and our study sync program there are science standards embedded in the language arts programs. So the students are exposed to those standards more on a more frequent basis. Okay. And once again we we are aware of the growth that is needed and the support is needed. We know that our our students with disabilities, our students with um special education students need um help and with um mastering the standards and only 1% of our students grew in that area. So, we know that's an area we need to focus on. Once again, as I said, more hands-on labs and increase our benchmarks. We have our um coach as

048I said earlier she's actually going to the school site supporting the teachers supporting the students so we are aware what uh essential standards in science we need to make sure our schools are covering. So, um, our students, um, moderate severe students take the California alternate assessment as part of CASSP. And it was very important to us that we highlight their academic achievement. We're not going to leave it out. These are the levels that are measured by the CA. The CA is short for California alternate alternate assessment. So, this is the definition of the levels. Um, so this gives you a year-over-year, six-year comparison in fact, um, for how our students um, with the most cognitive challenge are performing on the assessment. And this continues to be an area that we work on. I know there

049going to be questions on that was for ELA. This is for math. And lastly, science. So, the overall celebrations, we had extraordinary participation rates. I'll get to that in a second. Exceeding the state's participation rates. That's incredibly important because it shows the value this entire organization places on making sure every single student is assessed. We had overall growth across the district. The six-year trend is on the is trending upwards. The demographic focus groups that we've been focusing on now for three years all improved in all areas. and our efforts and the strategies that we re researched and came to um decision on as a community are working. The money we're expending is working. Here's our participation rate. I'm not going to go into it in detail, but we exceeded California's participation rate on CASP. Oh,

050yeah. Thank you. So, I'm going to be deliberate with this slide. Our next steps are to maintain a relentless focus on tier one instruction because it works. That's our core instructional program with MTSS supports. Fully implement our theme of together for every child known, supported, empowered by name and by need. So we are drilling down at the individual student level because we're each different. We may say a student is an English learner, but they are also other things. continue our IUSD data summits where we come together as a district community to study our students data. Continue the cycle of continuous improvement exposure to aligned exposure to the ESPback through the IABS. Continue funding what's working. Continue our proven on tutoring support. Continue with our supplemental science program. We're piloting a classroom level cycle of continuous

051improvement. I wish I had more time. And then we've created this big book for staff to use to really hone in and make sure they're implementing all elements of our academic planning and then our engagement strategies that every teacher is being trained on in the district. I want to say thank you um for paying attention to this long presentation. Um, I know somebody I heard somebody say, "Oh." Um, and in conclusion, I want to make sure that we take time for questions and answers. And I want to I really want to thank you for being so patient. The the quote I want to close with is oak trees don't set an intention to listen to each other better or agree to hold tight to each other when the next storm comes. Under the earth always,

052they reach for each other. They grow such that their roots are intertwined and create a system of strength which is as resilient on a sunny day as it is in a hurricane. That's what this community has done. And I will be a lionist always about celebrating what this community has done. We've made growth and that matters. And when we celebrate this, we celebrate our students, our parents, our staff, and our community. And I'm done. [Applause] Thank thank you so much Dr. Lucas and and Dr. Jose. And I think we all felt and we all believe in the expertise of the team, the leadership of the team and the passion. I'm going to turn it over to our illustrious board president for questions and comments. >> Dr. Lucas, I just love your passions. You just oh

053my goodness, I can feel it. >> And you know, Dr. Jose is so she's so mellow you know but I could feel your passion up here and I think we have reason to celebrate you know I've always been on >> what are we doing with these kids are they improving are they improving and we can see that they are and they have a right to be celebrated even with small steps we have to celebrate the small steps so that we can get to the bigger steps but I thank you for this presentation and we need to put this in the newspaper or put it on our website so people can see we're trying to get families to come back to this school district and we want them to see the progress that we're making. So,

054I think that we need to make sure that this gets out. I know it's online right now. Hopefully, people are looking, you know, watching what we're doing. But, you deserve to be celebrated. All the teachers who are doing all the hard work in the classrooms and I I like the by name and by need, they know who the kids are. They know what they need and all the help that they're getting to improve it. I just I'm excited. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anybody else? >> You guys have anything else to say? >> We're just going to ditto what uh Miss Evans said. We could feel your passion tonight. I want to thank your team, the principles, the teachers, and more importantly our students for showing up and showing us what is possible. Thank

055you, Dr. Lucas. >> Thank you. Well, I just want to say um it it it to provide context of the state of public education is is to say that obviously there's adversity, right? There's the fact that our schools are not properly funded. That's beyond our powers. There's the fact that we're dealing with issues beyond school sites that impact our families and homes and the fact that we are working class community and that has to be taken in in effect. But we are the city of champions and champions become through adversity. And I know deep in my heart you're a champion, Dr. Lucas. You're a champion for our students. Dr. Jose, you're a champion for our students. And I'm honored to work alongside you to provide equitable education. I'm honored to work with Miss Bof, Miss

056Calhoun, uh Dr. Collins, Dr. Aria, Siana's my school, too. >> And I and you're committed to this. I'm committed to this. Because of your commitment, the parents are committed to this. And because of that, we're going to get through this. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Did he just give some shout outs? >> Did I? >> I know Liier is in the house. I know Highland is in the house. And um y'all come on, make some noise cuz you guys killed it on on on growth. And Brandon, I think Benny Q is in the house. >> Oh, Miss Randall. Yes, please speak. >> Dr. Lucas and your team of Dr. and Dr. Jose. I just want to say thank you and I'm extremely proud of you for keeping your word, motivating students,

057uplifting the staff, and showing us the way that Englewood can be a powerhouse school district, one student at a time, one department at a time. and you have just fought the good fight and I'm extremely extremely proud of you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Dr. Lucas. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank Thank you. Um, board me board president Evans. Uh, we do have one final presentation this evening. Uh, Mr. Raphael Guzman will present the cash flow report. >> My apologies. And uh, good a good evening uh, Dr. Morris, board president, uh, Miss Evans, uh, board members, and our community. I just want to say thank you for your time today. We're going to go quickly through the cash flow presentation here. And again, the purpose of a cash flow is to really

058look at how much cash we have. And to kind of bottom line, we want to make sure that we have sufficient cash to meet our obligations. Um the cash flow is not the budget. It's different. So we want to make sure that you're aware of that. So that's the the purpose of this is to talk about that. Uh it's impacted by budget transactions throughout the year. for instance, payroll, accounts payable, those types of scenarios, or the money coming in, money going out. Uh, some of the larger revenues are received each year and don't arrive on a regular monthly basis. So, we have to understand that they come throughout time. How do we get the majority of our funds? It's through LCFF funding. We have local revenues, EPA, and state aid. Those are the top three

059uh levels of funding that we get from the state. Um, all through the LCFF funding formula. So that's we just wanted to clarify on that. So now getting to the actual part um where we are with cash. Uh let me see if I could highlight here. So as you can see in August we started with about 129 million in cash. This number here shows like negative how do you get negative cash? Well what happens is that we have transactions that happen throughout the year. Um and these transactions sometimes when we're closing the books we have to clear out the old transactions. That's really just your acrruels. Um, but we did have about $10 million in expenses go out, which means that we ended in cash. About $124 million is where we ended in cash for

060August. What we want to make sure is that this bottom number here, this ending number continues to be uh healthy. And as you can see, when we end in June, we ended about $17 million in cash. So, as you can see throughout time, um, we are in a good good place. Um, and we are spending the funds. Um however I don't I want to make sure I rearticulate that this is bud this is not budget this is just cash when we look at the budget it's a little bit different because as you know you know uh that that's a different function um here it's a little bit more broken down uh and and again there's copies of this uh here that you can see it a little bit better uh but you could you can

061look at how much revenues we received in July and August so we presented July last month in August you can see we did have that what perceives to a negative revenue, but that's mainly again just us clearing out the deferrals that we had. I'm sorry, the um receivables that we had throughout the year. And then as you can see here, here are the payments for certificated salaries, classified salaries, benefits, and so forth for the month of August. As you can see, there was a a pretty significant jump from July to August. And that has to do because, as you know, July, we did not have a lot of staff because, you know, it's the summer. So in August you would expect to see a big jump in cost and well that's where the majority of

062that came from and you'll continue to see like this across the months here these costs going uh and then on top you can see the revenues coming up but we end the year again at $17 million as that's what we're looking at in regards to cash and the cash flow. This is important for us again because you know as we look at cash uh we have to make sure that every month we have sufficient cash to operate and as you can see here in these projections we do. Um now in multi-year projections we have to look at cash as well. Um but we're just looking really right now at this year. Uh what one of the phrases that's utilized in school finance is cash is king. And as you can see you know if you

063don't have cash you could say you have a budget but if you don't have the cash to back the budget then you it doesn't really matter. Um, so you have to make sure you have the cash on hand, and which we do. And that pretty much sums it up. Uh, that's I know it's a short presentation, but it's just really an update to show you where we ended in cash for the month of August. So, I'll turn it back over to the board for questions. Thank you, [Applause] Boers. Do we have any questions for Mr. Good? Hey, you did a good job. No question. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. >> Thank you, Mr. Guzman. Next on our agenda, we'll move on to a public hearing. At this time, members of the community who desire

064to address the county administrator and board of education may speak on the item specifically on the public hearing agenda, which is the sufficiency of approved textbooks and instructional materials. Williams legislation for fiscal year 2005 2026 per education code section 60119C. The public hearing is open at 57 p.m. At this time, members of the community who wish to address the county administrator and governing board may speak. Each speaker may be allowed up to three minutes. Members of the public who wish to speak about the public hearing agenda item must indicate that on the public hearing comment card. If comment cards exceed 10 public comments, we the time may be reduced. I'll turn it over to Miss Sbrano for the public hearing. We have one public comment for the public hearing section from John Hughes. Mr. Hughes,

065please come to the podium to address your public comment on the public hearing item. You have three minutes. You may begin. >> Uh thank you. Um greetings to Dr. Morris, to the advisory board, to uh the community, esteemed community. Um uh my comment is that we all know that um textbooks and materials needed to impart um meaningful education is a um necessity but more than a necessity. It's a tool for um opportunity and we should always um or never actually um be at a deficit for those materials. So, I appreciate the efforts um and making sure that we have um all of the materials we we need. I think we should be always in a constant um state of examination of the effectiveness of of our materials as well. And um you know, Williams' legislation

066has many um items that come to the public to ensure that the rights are protected. But those are rights that I think we all agree that we absolutely uphold regardless if we had someone coming through um to inspect. But I think more um more the more that we can pre-plan, the more that we can anticipate um the needs rather than um the day of or the um the estimation, let's say, of the populations, the more that we we stockpile and um uh be ready for the increased scenarios. We had an increase at um at the high school um this year, which is a good thing, but we should always be prepared um for um facilities as well as um materials that our students need. So, I just would hope that um even prior to a

067uh Williams or any other type of um uh investigatory agency that we ourselves just remain vigilant, remain dedicated and and demonstrate to our uh our staff and our students that every uh avenue available to us will always be at the forefront um here at Inglewood. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Hughes. Miss Erano, any further comments? >> No, that that's it for public hearing. >> And so the public hearing will be closed at 6:01 p.m. And now the public hearing has concluded. We'll move on to public comments on agenda and non-aggendaized items. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the county administrator and board of education on agenda and non-aggenda items. A public comment card must be completed and submitted to the safety assistant stationed at the back of the board

068room prior to the commencement of the public comment period. Members of the public who wish to speak about an item on the posted agenda must indicate the item number on the public comment card. Three minutes will be allotted for each speaker and a maximum of 30 minutes for public comments on agenda and 30 minutes of public comment on non-aggenda items. If the public comment cards exceed 10 speakers per section, the time will be reduced to hear from more speakers. Uh speech or conduct that is disruptive, defamatory or impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting is not allowed at the discretion of the presiding officer. Anyone who disrupts, disturbs, or impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting will be required to exit the meeting. Guidelines for public comment are in accordance with board bylaw 9323. The

069Brown Act does not allow the county administrator or staff members or board of education to respond to public comments. Miss Sabbrano, will you take us through public comments on agenda and non-aggenda items, please? Yes, because we have exceeded more than 10 public comment cards for non-aggenda items, the time has been reduced. The time to two minutes per person to hear from each speaker. This adjustment of time is in accordance with guideline board policy bylaw 9323 for public comments. First public comment on non-aggenda items is from Fidelia Larache. Miss Larra, please come to the podium to address your public comment on non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. >> I want to thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I have um I have to celebrate the the numbers that we have because

070some of my one of my kids was there. He was a state above state level numbers and that makes me very proud. It makes me very proud because Ben has the best teachers to get him where he want needs to be. However, when my teachers, my child has to be really on a vigilant to see if he's in a safe place, that triggers my heart to pump every morning when I drop him off. I'm very happy to see all of you guys early morning at my school, but now with two IPDs uh cars, one in front and one in the back. I'm asking for your help. Please as administrators, as the board members, as the cabinet, come to our school, speak to us as parents, speak to the teachers. I cannot, you know, I as

071much as I want to say my teachers go to school. If I was a teacher, I will go under mental health disability. I can't take it. It's too much. Every morning there is an issue. We have had severe issues since school started. Our kids cannot go any more than 25% of our ch children may meet standards. Why? Because if the teachers are under stress who or what is going to happen tomorrow, we have had an event almost every week of this year. And it's not about our principal. She's doing everything she can. She's from sound up to sound down every day. And more than that, he's on the phone. She's on everywhere. We are parents are there. You know, now my husband doesn't call my h the house is my first home. No, the school

072is my first home. And I have to be there because my children are there. And the thing is that my question is if we don't spend the money because everything revolves about money. It's because we have to pay more security because we have this. If we don't pay it now, it is bound to happen. Believe me, we will have a child that will be seriously hurt. And on top of that, we will have to come up with money to pay the lawsuit because our parents will come with it. So, please come to our school. We need safety in our school. We don't need to see policemen every day or you guys every day at my school. Thank you. Our [Applause] second public comment is from Julian Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez, please come to the podium to

073address your public comments on non-aggenda items. You will have two minutes. You may begin. >> Members of the board, Dr. Morris, cabinet, and community. My name is Julian Rodriguez and I'm the proud superintendent of Southern California Regional Occupational Center or SCROCK. Um I'm here tonight just to share a couple of updates as the new school year started. uh during the 2425 academic school year. Um faculty and staff were very excited to see IUSD students back on that back on the SCRT campus. Um and we appreciate your collaboration with that. By the end of the year, six of your students had completed courses and programs. Five of those were from Morningside High and one was from Englewood High. Our newest pathway in barbering as well as medical front office were very popular where students learn skills

074to support healthcare offices. Um, all six students, by the way, traveled from from uh their respective schools via Hopskip Drive, which the center provides free of charge to the students at no extra cost to the district. Um, I want to take a moment to commend those students. Those students attend five, six, seven periods a day at your high schools, doing a tremendous job here as as a testament to the numbers, right, that that you just shared. Um, and then they go spend another 2, three, four hours over with us in Torrance. They jump in a car, travel 30 minutes. And I want to applaud those students. I know you applaud them. Also, um if there's anything that we can do to assist IUSD um faculty, staff, um counselors, parents, provide any information, please let us

075know. Currently, we have a couple students there. Barbarine again continues to be very popular. Um and and by the way, those students um in our barbering program will earn the prerequisite skills as well as be qualified to take the national qualifying examination uh at the at the end of that program. And then in at your last meeting you had build LA I think was here and talked about a program. So in spring we have a new partnership with the carpenters union. We are becoming a um a California registered pre-apprenticeship program with the carpenters union. So take those kiddos that were in that program over summer, enroll them over in SCROCK and they'll get the necessary three certifications to join the Carpenters Union. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Our third public comment is

076from John Hughes. Mr. Hughes, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. >> You have two minutes. You may begin. First, I'm going acknowledge my friend that I just met, Mr. Aaron Hernandez, who counts down every second when we say two minutes. Um, so I'm just letting him know I'll be right at 2 minutes. Um, uh, we just like to, um, put an emphasis on truth and honesty and transparency. um as um a couple of speakers ago um we just have to be honest about where we need to improve and then commit to doing that improvement. We have to um um look at effective ways but not be so parsimmonious that we are denying safety. you know, it's a very critical issue. Um, and it has been and I don't

077know how we are visualizing it's going to turn around. We need to be serious. We need to put the resources and the minds um towards this in an effective way. And like I said, it has to begin with the truth though. You can't hide things. Uh we're very intelligent community as you see. Um and what you may believe is um unknown or not um perceived is absolutely perceived and it's um it's commendable that they come to us for um solutions and we have to provide them. We cannot um sweep things under the rug. We cannot not acknowledge where we have um been at a deficit, we just need to take on acknowledge, hold it dear to our hearts and improve because we have the capability of doing it. Uh so that's the commitment that the

078community is asking for and we're behind them 100%. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our fourth public comment is from Mario Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez, please come to the podium to address your public comments and non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. >> Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Um, I was not able to attend last uh board meeting. Um, I came and I had an emergency, but I'm going to try to give uh get to business right away. Uh, thank you um for giving us the opportunity to grow. It's all I got to give it to all the departments for you guys uh to do those um great changes in the academic court. Um I seen the change of my children now they challenge and I love it. I love it. Um continue doing the

079good work but just like I said we it's a lot of work to do. A lot we got a lot to work and we got to work together from all sides to help these children to be a whole children. All right. Um, I always follow the numbers and I want to know why the emphasis all the time to sell our properties. I want to make sure that this city is not on sale to any investors or anything like that. I keep on here the same way. We selling, we selling, we selling. It's like we we have a sell sign in is like we selling the lands and it's only about to the community but the people who in here are not the community. I've seen those meetings and it's so like you trying to push

080that on us knowing that what is the necessity when we have gave you all our money from those bonds almost I can say the number but I'm not going to say the number because it's over over a quarter a million dollars and that's not even counting the interest and we set up those bonds because it might be changing hands in hands from here to there and I know how money works. So, I want you guys to stop trying to sell our properties and I'm asking because our board does not have no authority here. >> Thank you. >> Our fifth public comment is from Diane Sbrano. Miss Sbrano, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. So listen fast. Good evening. I'm not going

081to waste time with that. You just heard truth, truth, truth, and truth. And I keep on healing hearing lies, lies, lies, and lies. I was here the other day, that big YMCA bruhaha. How many of you know where 10 miles north, 10 miles south, 10 miles east are? And how many of you know the city is color city, lndale, Lennox, Hermosa, Manhattan, Elsa Gundo. Yeah, even Torrance. You can ride a public street through all those places and see a swimming pool from the street without looking for it. So stop lying to our public that our children haven't had pools. We have three in this city Olympic size. One you're tearing down next week or so. one you haven't used in I don't know how long and one that is currently at Sella Park. Bottom line

082is when I hear people lie that much that often in one meeting not another thing you say is going to ring true to me. It was a lie and every one of you know it. And then you put up this stuff. I got to tell you, when you tell me I have to celebrate that our children, particularly Hispanic, we're supposed to be and they're less than 30%. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. As a Latina, I will tell you, one generation down from me are physicists, air traffic controllers, civil engineers, etc., etc. And for someone to say they're Latino so they can do lesser. Oh no. Game on. [Applause] >> Our sixth public comment is from Yarita Gonzalez. Miss Gonzalez, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. >>

083You have two minutes. You may begin. >> Good evening. My name is Yisa Gonzalez and I'm a resident in in Englewood in Trusty Area 3, an alumni of the Englewood Unified School District and I'm here to continue to voice my concerns around all the ICE raids and activity um in Englewood. As you may know, despite the announcement of a government shutdown today, ICE will continue its raids and activity because most of its operations are deemed essential and funded to continue. A budget passed in July of this year gave ICE substantial funding that is not affected by the shutdown. We are expecting that the ongoing ICE raids and activity in Inglewood and neighboring cities in the South Bay and LA County will continue. Therefore, now more than ever, we need to take action. We need more

084bold leadership as we have seen from state and county leaders which were able to recently pass legislation like AB49 and SB98 to ensure that existing mandated protections are strengthen strengthened on how to respond to federal agencies and schools. That being said, we must work with our state and county leaders to make sure that this new legislation is being enforced at the local level by updating our own policies. Therefore, we urge you all to stand alongside immigrants in Englewood and approve the proposed revision uh to board policy 5145.13 response to immigration enforcement. Given that this hasn't been updated since 2019, however, it still must be further updated to ensure that existing mandated protections are further strengthened to ensure that the district has a plan in place in response to the ongoing ice raising activity. This is

085one of many actions you all can take. So, we ask that you continue to meet with community leaders to learn more about other actions you can take to meet the needs of the members of our community that are currently being impacted. We have seen our very own community leaders take action by creating rapid response networks to provide support when ICE raids are happening and directing impacted members of the community to resources and services that provide mutual aid support. We ask that you work with community leaders to establish other forms of support that are currently being offered by people just trying to be good neighbors. This could be an opportunity to also work with the mayor and city council. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our seventh public comment is from Richard Atkins. Mr. Mr. Atkins, please

086come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. >> Hello. Good evening, Dr. Morris, cabinet board members of the community. My name is Mr. At Richard Atkins and I'm the CTE uh music instructor for the Newit Unified School District. I just want to share uh we had um today we had a a performance at Kaisa Permanente. Um we performed for doctors, nurses, staff, patients and west um in west Los Angeles. Um I took um it was nine six schools but nine students. Um these students worked with me individually. Um we never got together and had a rehearsal but we were able to do four pieces together. We got together and we performed excellent. Um due to our performance um the CT students had been approached

087by Kaiser leaders regarding future perfor uh performances there um and this performance wasn't a result of the medical pathway partnership. I just want to say that by you supporting the CTE um programs, it really has helped the students to have a place of um involvement and I feel like when you have something to buy in, it also helps in the other subjects too that they might not be doing as well in. So by you keep supporting the CTE and also it gives them a lot of the students a an extra start. Maybe everybody doesn't want to go to a four-year college or maybe they don't feel like they have the money right away. But if you can have your CTE program and get a jump start and maybe get some certificates, you can definitely start

088off at a maybe a decent salary. Um, so I just want to share that and thank you and I keep supporting our our programs. >> Thank you. Our eighth public comment is from Yvana Tees. Mr. Deas, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. >> You have two minutes. You may begin. Good evening, Dr. Morris and team members. My name is Joanna Telis. I'm an instructional aid and this is my second time presenting my situation to the board. On August 21st, I was removed from my assignment and the teacher, Mel said that I've been working with for the past eight years. I was told from the last board meeting that there was going to be a meeting regarding my transfer back to my classroom. Unfortunately, I never got a response

089and I I have transferred schools before and in the past and it's never taken this long, especially since the m I have a there's a major need for me to be in the classroom since there's no aid. the this classroom already has struggled enough since they haven't had a teacher for the past two years. And now that they have a teacher, let's take the aid away. Can the school get a regular school year from the beginning? Thank you from your time. Thank you. Our ninth public comment is from Sarah Smith. Miss Smith, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. you may begin. >> Thank you. Uh, good evening. My name is Sierra Smith. I'm a resident of Englewood. I also run a nonprofit community counseling

090center based in Englewood that serves a number of Englewood residents. And I am here this evening to also voice my support for the board considering the revisions as written by the community leaders around immigration policy and board policy 5145.13. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as eloquent as Miss Gonzalez, but what I will say as somebody who is serving a lot of residents of Englewood, we are seeing the impact of the ICE raids on the mental health of a lot of our residents. The stress that it's causing, I would say, is up there with the stress caused by the pandemic. And I can't imagine it's not contributing to learning loss. So, the more the board can do to really support these uh residents, the better it will be for their mental health and the better they'll be

091able to perform at school. I would also encourage you where you can to try to reach out to the city council and the mayor and urge them as a city to take a stronger stance so that the residents of Englewood, particularly those who are impacted by ICE and the fear of leaving their homes, can feel supported by the community. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our 10th public comment is from Marisol Delid. Miss Sid, please come to the podium to address your public comments on non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. Good afternoon, board. I wrote some specific notes down because I wanted to make sure I hit all my points. I am here to follow up on last month's meeting in regards to who you just heard, Miss Telles. My current uh well,

092my was my current SDC8. I am in a classroom that has 19 students all SDC. Some of them have one to ones. My kids are being mainstream because that is what a special ed has decided to do. All of them are being mainstreamed into gender classrooms who right now at Oak have a total of 703 students. When my kids mainstream to those classrooms, those classes are over their cap limit. Some of them go without an aid and they're able to function. But when teachers decide to move their classrooms around because that is their right to be able to have the classroom setting that they want, some of my students ended up on the floor sitting for over 45 minutes because there was no chair for them. I have no instructional aid assigned to my classroom

093because a BI was supposed to be slipped over to do that job. That is not her job qualifications or what she was hired to do. My job is to teach them with support from a classroom aid. the classroom made as Miss Telis. She was able to provide that support. Now, she has been taken away. So, no support has been given to me. Yet, I am expected to still turn in IEPs on time, be in compliance, and make sure that all the services are being provided to students. I just got approached by a parent telling me that their child got some scores from the cast when their child was homeschooled for over three years. They haven't met their goal, of course, because they were homeschooled. This child has medical issues that unfortunately we cannot fix from

094one day to another. This is a medical issue that needs medicine, that needs doctors, that needs doctor visits. Luckily, now, thank God, she's back into school, but I cannot provide her with that support. Please answer my question. Thank you. Our 11th public comment is from Justennena Ernnandez. Miss Hernandez, please come to the podium to address your public comments and non-aggenda items. You have two minutes. You may begin. >> Good afternoon. Um, first of all, I would like to say what's going on with the special education department that no one seems to answer my emails. Um, main question is why why doesn't my son the first grade um does not have a teacher since school started? Uh, will he not have a teacher throughout the whole school? I mean throughout the whole school year. Also, since

095double digits are so important, who's teaching my son and what are they teaching him? Uh, do you guys owe him for all that time? No teacher is teaching him anything. Also, I'm not getting any feedback since substitutes are changing from day to day or week to week. I need feedbacks and no one seems to give me any response because I do need to be getting informations from IEP and to see if he's meeting up his goals. Um, so those are my main questions. When will you guys have a teacher for my son? Thank you. And our last public comment is from Pharaoh. Please come to the appointment to address your public comment on non-aggenda items. >> You have two minutes. You may begin. >> Good evening, everybody. Uh I'm a first-time parent. My daughter's in

096kindergarten at Bennett Q Elementary. And uh I'm pretty sure you guys are aware of the situation that's happened there in the past month. Uh so I'll break it down. Uh they had a bomb threat. They had a homeless guy in the girl's restroom early in the morning. Um they had a kid show up with a toy gun. And then yesterday there's a kid that goes to that school walking around campus with a gun. So my question is how are you guys going to address this? I think we need some kind of security before something really does happen and then everybody goes, "Oh no." Like they always do. Second of all, um uh I saw the surplus in the budget that's happening. Uh I was at Bennett Q I think earlier this week. Uh as soon

097as you walk into the cafeteria, there's a hole in the ground. there's a chunk of concrete missing and I'm waiting for the day my daughter trips over that so we can you know get that covered up. Uh other I see the percentages 33% 25% uh we're not making leaders in this community by 33% literacy proficiency learning we're not going to have anybody from Englewood sitting in those seats our students are going to be flipping burgers at McDonald's if the robots don't do it for them. Uh what's going on? I'm a first- time parent. I'm very concerned. That's why I got kind of like, you know, made like a little scene outburst. Um, I'm running out of time. Uh, I will, you guys will be seeing me more. I will try to articulate myself better. Calm

098down. You know, this is my first time speaking to you guys. But my concerns are real and I hope you guys understand that. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. That concludes our public comments for tonight. Thank you so much, Miss Zbrano. We'll move on to action items. Uh, now we're going to move on to approval of human resources items. Board members, questions or comments on human resources 10 A1 through 10 A4 are each approved. Moving on to educational services 10B1 through 10B17. 10B1 through 10B7 are each approved. Moving on to business services 10 C1 through 10 C6. 10 C1 through 10 C6 are each approved. Moving on to measure GGI and facilities 10D1 through 10D5 are each approved. Moving on to county administrators decision 10E1 through 10E4. Thank you. I do want to

099make a very quick comment on one of the items on county administrators under board policies. We are approving a revision to our board policy response to immigration enforcement on school campuses. There was a recent change in state law. The California Attorney General is within the next coming week supposed to send a revised board policy to schools based on changes in the new law. So, we will be bringing that forward again for revision. Hopefully, we'll get the revised policy by our next meeting. 10E1 through 10E4 are each approved. Moving on to approval of minutes. Board members, any questions or comments on the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of September 10th, 2025? The me minutes of the September 10th, 2025 meeting are approved. Moving on to sto student board member remarks. We'll call on

100student board member Miss Amaya Hazard. >> Thank you, Dr. Morris. Um, I would like to dedicate my remarks section for something that has been affecting me and many of my peers at my school, which will be the end of the LMU upperbound program at my school. I was a part of this program for three years so far. And in that time, I've gained mentors, guidance on college applications, and experiences that truly shaped me in my high school career. It gave me expo exposure to college and opportunities in the summer and a community that I will never forget. With this funding now gone, so many students are losing not just a program but a pathway to opportunity. I do feel for for example my little sister who just joined the program but now this program is

101closed and doesn't get to experience the same summer same opportunities that I have experienced as well as well as during this season college application seniors like me and my other peers are almost at a loss because LMU is closing but TRIO and other um college prep uh programs are still here but won't be here for long currently. I would just like to um find ways as a district to support these students and my peers who depended on this program because the impact that had that it had on us is something that you can't truly replace. And that is all I'd like to say. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Hazard. I'll turn it over to the board president Evans. board members. Uh do you all have any comments tonight? Starting with uh Mr. Meyers. >>

102Sure. Thank you, Madam President. Um so, thank you community for coming out this evening. Um just want to give you some updates about me. Um so, uh this uh past week I was at uh Inglewood United uh and I am so appreciative to Dr. Collins uh as well as Miss Lopez and every uh committee member that played a part into making this uh Hispanic Heritage Day at Engle United an amazing event. Um so I just want to say thank you so much for for inviting me and thank you for putting on an amazing show and uh representing your culture and your heritage uh so proudly. Also this Sunday uh this past Sunday I was honored thank you Miss Gloria um from Pace Magazine. honored me for a glory award and so I'm greatly appreciative to

103that. Uh the day after Monday uh I held my very first town hall uh which I'm so appreciative to my Bennett Q community for coming by and just gathering some updates about uh the things happening in the district. Um I also wanted to uh mention that uh Bennett Q I hear you about these safety concerns. Um there has been mentionings um to the cabinet about trying to upgrade our camera system that uh clearly detects uh firearms in that manner. Um also I want to look at um preventative measures so we don't always uh have to result on uh technology and um uh uh uh other things that that happen or that that we try to support after the issue. Also, um I want to publicly say that uh again, we need fences that have been

104a queue. We need to reconstruct these fences. There's been plenty of times where we've uh took in tours and it's like no results. So, we need to really start discussing how can we heighten the fence so that it keeps out the vagrants um coming over from the community. I know Calrans has a project going on the 105 uh which is very deserted and and it leaves our school open and it leaves our our babies vulnerable. So again back to one of those public comments uh what's the price of safety for our babies? There is no price. Um, then I want to mention I want to uh add a point of correction because on the 28th of September, uh, one of our community members, Miss G, she sent out an email stating about um, uh, Worthington

105uh, school and we all know that that that it's closed. And I just wanted to set a correction that yes, I am a part of the asset management committee. However, I have not had any uh, conversations with our council woman uh, neither the mayor. I know we have talked, Dr. Morris, but I haven't had any conversations with any of those uh officials. Um I do think it would be illegal uh to have those conversations about trying to sell that land uh without the asset and management committee. So, I just wanted to make that correction. Um I know it was easy for me to write an email back, but um we are in a public institution uh where things need to be transparent and so I'm being transparent and letting them know that that's that statement

106is inaccurate. I have not been involved with that selling. Uh that is solely focused on the asset management committee. And so finally, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you and good night. >> Uh thank you madam board president. First I want to start off with a PSA. Um as some some of you know I graduated law school recently. So I made a lot of friends in law school Law School to be specific. and they're coming to meet our students, sixth to 12th grade girls. They're coming to uh Inglewood um specifically Latte. So, thank you Miss Tay for hosting us. I think she left already. Uh and there are students who are just who have done amazing things in their life, going to do amazing things after law school. And our girls

107need to meet them. They need to see themselves as law students. They need to see themselves as lawyers. So, this is a great opportunity for them to uh learn more about law school and learn more. I know Miss Hazard has been a mentee of this program as well, too. So, for all the parents out there, please, uh, the date is October 18th. It's 12:00. Um, and we're going to miss LMU Upwardbound because they helped us out a lot lot events. It's a tragedy what this federal government is doing to our our programs that help uh, black and brown students. Um, and it's it's hurtful because that was the reason why they decided to defund that program. Um, so we're going through some real situations where we have an administration that's willing to say, "Yeah, we're

108going to be racist and take away resources and programs that benefit students that are black and brown." and working-class community. So, right now is definitely a time for for bravery, right? I think I brought this up last time at the last board meeting. We have to be brave. We have to ask not what we could do, but what more can we do for our community as they're going through these tough times? Right now, we've seen bravery in so many different ways. As one of our public commentators mentioned, we have people going out to sites where ICE kidnappings are happening to record. Not just to record, to agitate, but to record to make sure that family know that this person's been taken and they can share on social media so they know that people disappear in

109these programs. People disappear in these detention centers. So people are brave enough to go out there, take these videos and be part of the solution to a problem that is obviously beyond our power, right? And someone recently got tackled by these ICE agents and been hospitalized by these ICE agents. So these people out there are willing to risk their body and risk their life for an issue like this. We have to ask ourselves what more can we do? And that's why I really want to appreciate Dr. Morris for for answering that question. We address the policy change. We strengthen our our commitment to our immigrant students. And not only that, we're going to start educating our students of our history. Now we're going to start teaching Chicago studies. And I was a double major studies.

110I didn't know what Chuco was until I went to college. I didn't know my own identity growing up here in Englewood. >> So you know, everybody knows I grew up here in Inglewood, right? I went the schools here. So, we do develop leaders. Let's not mistake that. Leaders still come from Englewood and they come back to lead in Englewood. And one of the issues we need to lead on is the issues of our immigrant community. So, I'm really proud to be part of this district. I'm really grateful for all of you for for uh assisting and and approving and advocating for these changes in our policy. I'm really grateful for the education department for allowing us to have Chicago studies being taught in our high schools. Now, we know now that what is happening in

111our community is not something new. If we know our history, we know how to make sure it doesn't repeat itself. So these are movements that we're taking now today in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month to ensure that our students are safe. A student body that's majority of our our community now. And we're doing it without fear and we're doing it straight to what we consider equity, true equity for this district. So thank you Dr. Morris. Thank you board for your advocacy. Thank you community members who constantly come out to speak on these issues. Is because of your advocacy that we're moving forward in these issues. and I'm grateful to be part of Unified and I'm grateful that Ingle is now going to do more to protect our students. Thank you. Miss Randall, it's your

112turn. Are you there? I guess she's not there right now. Dr. McGee, thank you, Miss Evans. And thank you to those that are still here because you know it can get a little long. But I first want to um acknowledge the parents that came out on Saturday to my autism symposium. oftentimes we can't do a lot in the schools, but I want you to know that I do whatever I can to provide information for you, to vi provide resources for you, and I want to thank Holly and Rottney Peep for being um a part of the conversation. They have a son that was born on the spectrum, so they know firsthand what it feels like not to know how to access resources. We will continue to do that because I just cannot imagine a school

113district having all of the answers for you. So, please um you know, I'm just going to continue to get that information out because whatever, um we can do as a board to support you, I think we want to do that. I also want to um acknowledge um Dr. coffee. You were not at um the principal's appreciation um uh dinner that we had a couple of weeks ago. I think you were somewhere like in Paris or something on vacation. How dare you? But I I want you to know that I am the president of the educational foundation. And although I think some of us think we're an ATM, but we are definitely there for our students and this is a volunteer position. I don't get paid. Dr. Coffee doesn't get paid, but we really try and

114respond to the needs of this school district. So, Dr. coffee. On behalf of everything that you do, we want to thank you for your unwavering dedication to the Inglewood Educational Foundation. [Applause] >> Thank you. And I also want to acknowledge Mr. Meyers. We just can't be everywhere, but we are so happy that the city and Gloria of Pace Magazine recognized your leadership and your commitment to what you do for this school district. So, thank you so much for everything that you do. And that concludes uh my remarks for this evening. Thank you. >> Okay. Um Mr. Myers, you had one more thing you needed to say. >> Yes, please, Madam President. I'm sorry, uh Reverend Randall. However, um this this uh past weekend, uh one of our teachers, Mr. Maroki. He uh lost his son

115Neo Maroi. So Dr. Morris, I'm asking if you can close this meeting in honor of Neo Maroki who was born 920 and he was killed 9:205 on his birthday. He uh recently graduated from Cal State North Northridge uh with his bachelor's in science degree in finance. So I ask that you close it in honor of Neo Maroki. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Uh, good evening everyone. Thank you so much. Um, Dr. McGee, I have to give it to her. She is the best vice president I could ever have cuz she sits in this seat as the president. Um, she just does all kinds of things. Thank you to the Inglewood Education Foundation for all that you do for our students and our teachers. But I was at uh a school was at Centinella last week and

116she had a program there from Wells Fargo Bank on financial literacy for our kids. And I have never seen kids more excited about how to spend money, how to get money, what they're going to do with their money. It was just every student was engaged walking around the room. Everybody had a budget. Everybody had a different occupation. They had to figure out how they were going to spend their money, how they were going to use it, if they were going to have any money left at the end of the month. It was just something to see. And that's because again, Dr. McGee knows everybody and she was able to get Wells Fargo to come. Thank you uh Dr. Lucas for allowing them to do that because students were out of class for an hour and

117a half but this was something worthwhile for them because you know they realized you know money doesn't grow on trees and they have to plan to spend their money. Did they want to buy a house? Did they want to rent an apartment? Do they need to buy a car? Were they going to buy used furniture or used clothes or are they going to buy designer clothes? It was just all kinds of situations and scenarios. And I'd like to thank Wells Fargo for bringing it. They brought their employees to uh do this affair for us, put on this affair for us. It was really, it was remarkable. It made me think about how I'm spending money and I'm retired, but it really makes you think. So, thank you, Dr. McGee, for doing that for our students.

118Um, I've heard so many comments tonight and as a board, as Dr. Mar says we are updating our protocols and so forth, but we can only do so much as a school district. Now, as far as safety for your students, that's that we can do. Put some more staff around, police officers. You saying that there are police cars over there, but right now that's all we have because we don't have enough staff to put all these people at a school. First of all, we're trying to get staff in teaching positions because in some schools we don't have some classrooms covered, but we're working on it. And it's not just Englewood. You can go next door to Hawthorne. You can go to any school district and they can tell you they don't have enough staff, you

119know, and in special ed especially, they don't have enough trained people. You have to have a certain personality first of all to be in that classroom with the students and you need the credentials to do it because you don't want just anybody dealing with your children your children. So, uh, Dr. Coffee, I have to give it to him. He's working. He's doing we're hiring consultants, companies to try to get people out here to fulfill those positions or fill those positions. But it's not like we can just, okay, next week we're going to have a new teacher there. We've got to do what we can do to get those teachers and get somebody in place. So, I feel for you. I understand your concerns, but it's not just it's not that easy. I have a son

120looking for an IT job right now. It hasn't been easy. He's been laid off for two months and he's got a you know, he's got a college degree and everything else, but he can't get a job. So, it's not that easy to find people to work. He's looking for a job, but he can't do what you need. So anyway, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for letting us know your concerns because as as we said, we're not at those school sites. So, I'm happy. That's why I was asking questions about uh doing um site visits because some people we need to see what's going on out there at the school sites. And we are going to get out there to actually see what's happening at the school sites and hopefully once we the

121committees, the asset uh committee and the facilities committees get out there and see that will help them in the the the decisions that they make what we need to do with the schools. So, thank you. Uh, Dr. Randall, Mr. Randall, did you show up yet? She's still not there. >> Oh, there you are. Okay. >> How are you? >> Can you see me? >> Yes, we see you. I'm very excited that this that I am a board member at this pivotal moment in the district where everything is moving forward in the best possible way in the best possible light and that the 18 is in place led by Dr. Lucas and the girls. Thank you so much. Um I was not able to attend the administrator's dinner but I'm told that it was fabulous. Dr.

122Coffee, you certainly deserve to be recognized. You work yourself day and night on behalf of the school district. Dr. Carlos McGee, thank you so much. And community, keep coming. Don't stop coming because you give us a sign of the story that we would not otherwise know. So, thank you so much for an opportunity to speak and for the technology being able to be on Zoom because I'm not able to be there in person. you done? >> Thank you. >> I have one more >> that I wanted to add. >> I just wanted to um add this. We did have a press conference on Thursday of last week to announce the uh Englewood YMCA and I'm quite excited about it. I'm quite excited about that swimming pool because there is not a pool that is in

123Englewood that's within 10 miles from here that is Inglewood. And so I am spearheading our community fundraiser and I really want to um get as many people from our community to continue to give us feedback on what they want to see at that facility. and um just to get excited. We have not had a YMCA in this community for 20 years. So to have the opportunity to bring something of that magnitude back and better, I I remain extremely excited about that. So anybody that wishes to join the excitement with me, yay, I'm here for you. So that's all I wanted to do is mention um that that Y is coming. >> Thank you, Dr. McGee. We're done. >> Thank Thank you, President. Thank you, President Evans. Uh moving on to county administrator remarks. I was

124going to recognize uh Mr. Meyer's honor. That's already been done. I was going to talk about the YMCA. It's already been done. So, I will just announce that our next meeting is on November the 5th, 2025. And then I would like to offer an adjourning motion in honor of our incredible teacher, Mr. Maroki's son, Neil Maroi. And with that adjourning motion, the meeting will stand adjourned at 6:50 6:50 p.m. Thank you so much.