001[Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] all right approval of the minutes we have eight a nape I'll take them in one motion if they're if there are no changes motion to approve second all those in favor aye aye all right minutes approved and Reporting out of closed session the board approved the comprehensive school safety plans for the five Scrolls on a 5-0 vote all right so now we'll move on to item 10A February student of the month who wants to do it I guess Dr Mentor are you here I think all right you didn't I didn't seem to sneak in I came at the buzzer good evening everyone thank you for having us here and before I get started I just wanted to say
002thank you it's always an honor to be here to present especially when we're here to celebrate our student of the month Missy Tana carcamore Gilroy I also I also want to give a shout out to our Thornton staff who's here with us they are the people on our team that make a lot of the magic happen and a big reason why we're here to celebrate Kitana as well I'm going to turn it over to one of our staff members a colleague who's been with us for over 25 years as a member of Jefferson Union High School District and one of the people on campus who has played a major role in the success of etana as well as being able to have a have a front row seat to see how inspiring of a leader
003itana is and will continue to become so I just want to turn it over to Mr Ed Lopez [Applause] um good evening uh just I'll make a brief uh I met hitana about uh about this time last year as a year ago and was as she was walking across the campus she looked like a student who was looking for something a little bit different so I asked her to come and visit and check us out and at that time we were coming out of the pandemic and big we're coming back into class and I was looking for a student to help lead and I bet my money on her and helped bring the Wilderness School into this next phase and it's paid off I um one of the things when she first when she first
004came to the class she was really hesitant and really shy and not sure of herself and the way I my step Grandpa from Manawa Nicaragua my mother my father and various family members related by both blood and love alike my primary language was and is Spanish making me bilingual my home was filled with music laughter and The Culinary sense of warmth and connection life in both plant form animal form and human form most importantly our home was filled with admiration for each person from each person who resided in that home and the world around us I'm an extremely calm person I am empathetic observant and loving I'm an easy person to talk to but a difficult Target to approach due to my exterior I am an animal lover a nature lover and a person lover
005I enjoy writing poetry making and writing music exploring herbalism meditation and reading tarot cards I love astrology and the intricate shadow in which it lies and intellect I enjoy reading writing short stories and engulfing myself into informative YouTube videos such as the fetishization of school girls recently I was awarded with the student of the quarter award at Thornton as well as an award for honorable as high school has been quite difficult for me to be recognized and awarded for my efforts is a feeling unparalleled along with being awarded with acknowledgments I've also been awarded with knowledge some responsibilities I hold at school include running the morning Circle and being a lead instructor at the Wilderness schools Whitehawk Adventure Ropes Course each course I exercise my voice and power I hold within for the greater good
006insurance and safety of others in the morning Circle it is my job to greet our clients introduce them to the student leaders and with themselves further into the course I have the responsibility of holding each client's belay rope and getting them up and down the event safely while doing this it is also my responsibility and my second nature to connect with the clients emotionally and mentally my journey to Thornton ultimately began when I was in the 8th grade in December of 2018 my beautiful home on the ocean side of Daly City was no longer going to be my home my Grandma had plans to sell our house due to financial issues which was hard for each and every one of my family members we left our forever home on December 31st 2018 leaving my mom
007and I with nowhere to go my mom and I were displaced for seven months moving from place to place a friend of mine's house in January and summer February a room and a friend of my dad's home for the remaining duration of February to March in April a hotel room in Pacifica and in May a shelter home in San Mateo as we remained in the shelter home for the first half of may we were then no longer welcome to stay separating my mom and I my mom left to stay where she could and I left to stay with my grandma and step grandpa in their one bedroom apartment I love staying with my grandparents so much I had missed them dearly after we had all separated due to the loss of our home each night
008I slept on the floor of their bedroom a blanket a couch pillow and the comforting sound of my grandma's respirator and the presence of people who loved me bringing a feeling of serenity although I felt at peace and one within my grandma was not doing well due to catching sepsis earlier in 2018 the after effects hit her gradually when I arrived to live with her she had a respirator along with an oxygen tank she was frail and tired but still as feisty and is nurturing as she always was as June came along it was time for me to close one chapter of my life and open another 8th grade graduation was right in front of me as the summer came my grandma's condition was worsening inside I knew she was not going to be able
009to see a lot of my firsts the woman who had told me stories of her childhood and El Salvador as I lay in her bed her fingers pacing my strands of hair the woman who also proudly posted me on her Facebook showing off her Nita the woman who would almost annually take just her and I to eat at Beach Chalet I began to rebel and make questionable choices due to the circumstances I was in as the end of the summertime approached my grandma was ready to be sent off on her trip to El Salvador my family and I accompanied my grandma Gloria to the airport we sat and talked before her departure she told me beautiful things go to school Mamita she said do good for yourself I love you Mamita she told me my
010family and I said are goodbyes Smiles overriding our tears and our inner knowing of what was to come a few weeks before my freshman year commenced we received news my Grandma had passed on to the next life freshman year began as my mom took over the couch in my Grandma's apartment my step-grandpa in the bedroom and me on the floor of the living room my longtime best friend ended our ended our friendship unexpectedly my heart was hurting but my head was high as freshman year went on I began to skip school every day I was hurting I was sad I was lost and I was what it felt like to be alone my friends from elementary and middle school began to disregard me at Westmore the high school I attended until I came to Thornton
011my grades were plummeting as was my well-being my sophomore year my grades were still as bad as they were my freshman year my online attendants alike my junior year my grades improved drastically however I was not on track from my expected graduation date in March of 2022 I transferred to Thornton my first day being my 17th birthday at Thornton I made beautiful friendships loving relationships amazing bonds with the staff and repaired the bond I had and had with myself my grades have never been better my accomplishments do not go unrecognized nor do I I have never felt more comfortable out of school as my 18th birthday approaches making it almost at the Wilderness school I truly feel like a replenished version of the person I once was as I finish my story off keeping it
012somewhat short and somewhat sweet I'd like to formally end with an original poem written by me see I grew up in a world of hail a family full of hurt and betrayal followed by handshakes that would soon prevail voices arguing all night expressing emotions these drugs fighting might as opposed to what steam does tight I don't like to fight I'd rather exercise my rights a firm believer of love the only thing that keeps me above ground above sound above anything that would care to see me round after round I settle down into my sheets my awalita giving me these crumbles of masa pan sweets combing my hair filling the air with warmth and Grace I say at dinner canastes eres my grandpa says to me and in the moment I feel so free food for
013the soul s Mommy make them tighter my beautiful mother never a liar pure love in her nature pure gold in her heart loving you there was never a start riding a bike around this Lake plus 10 steps we would take good night Daddy sweet dreams I love you I do and if those bed bugs bite be thin till they're black and blue father father O Father What a Beautiful Soul lost in the Mischief of this never-ending stroll big bug eyes baby button nose as sweet as a rose a petal once Falls a new one to bloom thank you [Applause] open it up to the board and student trustees if you'd like to say anything let's say like that was very beautiful and very well said and I know it takes a lot to come up
014in front of everyone and say that but I can tell that you put a lot of time and effort into collecting your words and it was it's very powerful Oh what a beautiful thing to say it's actually that fun at the end I almost started crying you have to away with words and it's like it's like I got a glimpse into your life you have a very powerful voice and I can tell that you you do care a lot we have a lot in common actually I was at Thornton myself that's where I graduated from and we have a some similar stories in there that I was kind of relating to you with as you were talking um growing up with my grandmother raised me I didn't have parents growing up um I lost my
015grandmother about five years ago but you mentioned listening to her little machine going my grandmother had the same machine so I remember I used to go over there just a buzz of it you know and that you could hear the oxygen coming out of it so that was that was pretty neat but you do have a really cool way with words um that poem was amazing uh you know I was thinking as you were talking you know for you kids these days we used to be able to shelter as when we were younger we didn't get the exposure of how big and ugly the world is you know and and it can be it could be beautiful too but with all the things that are going on and how much you guys take in and
016have to absorb it's a lot more than kids used to have to do so it's tough you know and especially going through the code the pandemic thing um so just just seeing you kind of come from that spot where you weren't sure where you were going to be heading and finding your way out I mean that says a lot about you your character and where you're headed so keep it up great work yeah um boy I am I'm trying not to cry you were so powerful and inspiring and to really be vulnerable and share that with all of us when I read it on paper when I read it on my computer I thought this girl's amazing and that she is sharing all of her hardships and her struggles with us and to see you
017in person how strong you are I think the possible abilities are endless for you you're a very powerful woman and you have so much to offer this world you're an instructor I mean I've been wanting to try that Ropes Course I'm putting this on camera Maybe you know if our board would be able to do that I am I'm sorry we'll have a special session knowing you were there to help me um gosh you um and I love that saying that you said you know that you had people related by blood and love alike and I think we all have those sorts of people you know um thank you for your family Andrew Thornton family for being here Thorne always shows up for their for theirs always and um God I'm so proud of you
018I'm I'm really proud that you represent our school district so well and I can't wait to see what you'd end up doing because you are going to go far thank you so when I read this at home I was a mess and um it was even more emotional sitting and hearing to say it out loud um so first of all I just want to thank you for your courage because most uh students of the month don't speak we ask them if they want to but they usually decline um so not to to to not just be but to share in such a vulnerable way um was so powerful so powerful and you know also having a similar story um being a parent and you know being homeless with my kids and I'm not gonna cry
019because you didn't cry and I was like you didn't cry but I just want to say first to the parents you know you feel like when you can't provide the basics for your children that label that people put on you but look at the powerful beautiful child that you created and for me that's how I'm Gonna Know You Forever that you produce such a beautiful soul that can impact the room in the way that she did I you know kudos to you kudos to both and um to you you know life is not fair and it's terrible to have to learn that at such a young age but the benefit that comes out of that is you have such a heads up on so many people to know who you are like in this short
020time I Know Who You Are and the fact that you can go through so much and still stand there courageous like the world better watch out the world better watch out and I just want to thank you for highlighting and just saying so eloquently that what you went through and how you came out is why I became a school board member so that I could support the people that supported you and so I am so grateful to all the Thornton staff all of the Florida staff like over and over again with my child with so many children you are the definition of love because you support and treat everybody in the way that they deserve to be treated so thank you to each and every one of you and um I hope that we see
021more of you I hope you come back and run for office here like I can't you know I just can't wait to learn about what you do and regardless of what happens because life continues sometimes be rough if you hit a rough spot know that you have so many people who are cheerleaders here for you we are even if we never see you again I will never forget you so thank you uh Kalima just stole what I was gonna say I'm gonna say it so I have a four-year term here I just started it three years or so if you want to come back and visit us and we can talk about some things and nobody has to put up with me anymore um I I wish you I want to say look continued success
022that you've earned um you know you have a lot of good time in front of you I hope I hope you enjoy it it's on a um the gentleman on your left when I was at when I was when I was at Thornton for the family day could not stop talking about you he was so proud of you about what you've accomplished and and and he was just beaming and and pointed you out when when you walked by with your plate of food and with what you shared tonight about yourself about your family it's I I mean I'm I just like my colleagues I'm impressed and and I can't wait to see what you do and I am eternally grateful to the Thornton staff because time and again the work that you guys do to
023to really change lives of our students is nothing short of miraculous and I am so grateful to every one of you and it's and it's and it's because of students like you Katana that I'm here as well this is this is this is you're you're a reason why I do what I do to support this district and the students here because our students come first and every single one has a powerful story and I'm so grateful for your powerful story tonight thank you so much and congratulations and I think it's time for us to actually give you an award in a moment after Ms presta's speech thank you you know honestly I did cry a bunch of times um I don't think I can say it any better than was already said but um thank
024you for giving me a chance to just say that I'm grateful for you representing our district in such a profound way um your words are very strong and I know that through whatever comes because life life is difficult oftentimes and it's not fair often times but you um you're strong and um your your light shines very brightly I just choke myself up thinking about you so um congratulations you really deserve this honor and um and I too am really excited to see where your life goes so come back and visit okay thank you okay [Applause] is Chelsea are you taking the photos today okay so if you'd like your family to come and take a photo thank you you want to come over here do you want us to take it on one of your
025phones too here thank you yeah sure ready [Music] yeah very nice all right congratulations Department thank you thank you so much thank you so much congratulations do not have to stay you make you made yourself yeah congratulations congratulations of course thank you our pleasure should be oh my goodness yeah you should be super proud oh your grandmother's proud of you too yes they do they keep an eye on us for sure [Laughter] thank you Thornton teachers and staff no thank you guys thank you oh yeah yeah I need Kleenex oh I know I was a mess when I read it yeah that was thank you thank you thank you all right Denny all right well that was training yeah motion to adjourn oh I think you'd have a lot of takers [Music] all right moving
026on I item 11a board report out we'll start with our student trustees at the far end um things ah turnover I think have done really well I don't know if there's anything super specific to talk about but no negatives no extreme positives I feel like it's kind of hit the most mundane point in the school year where we're just fighting along between and spring break is a stretch but all has been well at turnover I have a question did you recently have a winter ball or something we did we had our winter formal in January and it was at the United Irish Cultural Center and then today we actually just released our prom venue and we're having our prom at the Pearl in San Francisco and me and all yeah yes I'm so excited I
027feel like I've been spending all of my time planning that so it's cool that everyone we're not keeping any more secrets and everyone knows everything in terms of problems I'm looking it up too Jefferson everything's been fine again it's like that kind of weird period where there's like nothing going on Mission Fusion just finished their shows like a couple weeks ago if not completely sold out and we finished our um Team rally that also went very well nothing else really to report we also had our winter formal but that was also in January great Chris Walker I went to Mission fusion and it was amazing yeah that's where I've seen you before I never set foot in the Jefferson Campus before that so it was a really nice introduction yeah pretty big campus um nothing
028to report uh go I'm gonna be visiting the domini Hoskins Black History Museum on Friday in Redwood City so I'm kind of excited about that checking that out cool so I also went to Mission Fusion excellent Eden excellent yep but I couldn't stop looking at you the whole time there she is um it was just an amazing uh show and um and then we also were at the San Mateo County School boards association dinner meeting last night many of us and um it was a great presentation on equity and race and it was just good to be around there were about 54 education leaders there it's awesome um same we went to Mission Fusion we saw you Eden Dan and I were so proud of you and um you know again um so much kudos
029to all of the students and the staff and the parent volunteers who helped put that together because I know it's a huge production and I'm really glad that it didn't rain a lot so that it made it easier um and I also went to the uh San Mateo County School boards association meeting uh which was great and a good turnout after I finally found a room where it was being held because I was a bit of amazed and um I uh also I spoke for the district at the cash conference talking about our Workforce housing which was really nice I've been well received and um with Andy did a virtual tour I'm not a virtual tour I'm just used to saying virtual a lot of person in person this time tour of what's with Santa
030Cruz unified so it was nice too talk to other districts and hope that other districts will also move forward with looking into housing and one of the reasons why I've used so much of my time doing this is just because you know while it does give us an advantage to have it it's also thinking about public education as a whole and you know we're as good as our neighbor districts and we all have to hold each other up because we don't have each other's backs no one else will as we've learned with public education so I'm really hoping that some of the districts that come through here and move forward and be successful in the same way that we were I agree it's it's it's good to encourage those other board members in other districts
031when they're asking questions about what it takes to build faculty and staff housing it was good to it was good to talk to Santa Cruz yesterday um I also went to as I mentioned earlier to the Thornton family day which was actually pretty cool it was just fun to just did out there on campus and and and talk to staff and see the students and it was actually a really great turnout I think this format actually is going to work really well for them just just much more casual the barbecue and lots of food and did I mention there's lots of food yeah it was great it was really great yeah so it was it was fun to be out there I was also out at Mission Fusion as well but can we also talk
032about those turkeys from the culinary arts program you know the three different cookies would be uh I know this is a very food oriented we were fighting over the lemon cookies in particular were great but that was there was a chai latte turkey yes and then there was the uh double fudge chocolate turkey as well but the lemon were by far I think all the way to Andy's home I know right trusty is actually a green completely so there we go no no Mission Fusion was great but those proteins really just added to the mission experience yeah that was that was good too yeah yeah so so yeah we'll make sure we just snip out this little piece for the chef all right Miss Preston thank you and um yes I was fighting over those
033lemon cookies at Mission Fusion I my son was like can we just take a few home can we get some extras uh Mission Fusion was awesome um I'm also gonna mention because there's not a Westmore student here that in a few weeks March 16th through 19th their Musical Legally Blonde is playing so I'm looking forward to going to that um last week we had off many there were some administrators working some staff working I did not work I took some time off and just rested and saw lots of vacation pics and was at first envious but I shared with um with the board earlier that while I was envious of not having a vacation it turned out to be a really good thing that I just got some rest so um it's that time of
034the year where um it's good to be rested because we're gonna gear up for lots of stuff happening in the spring um let's see I was at the San Mateo County School Board Association dinner last night we had um we saw a really great presentation on the equity work being done at in Campbell um and so that was really uh really great um Miss Baka was there with us as well so thank you for coming Miss Baka um and I'm looking forward to the presentation tonight about our Equity work and that's it for me and before I took it to aft I do I forgot to mention that I went to the cash conference on Friday because our district along with our Architects SVA Architects received a jury citation award for 705 ceremony it was
035actually pretty cool to to accept that award on behalf of the district and um you know the cash conference the Coalition for adequate School housing it's really for facilities and construction and architects in K-12 in the K-12 space and they they give awards for the various designs of different schools across the state and but because they don't have a category yet for housing they created one called the jury citation Ward so it was actually pretty cool for us to be able to actually receive that so pretty cool yeah enemy of one more thing as well um so our director of uh Communications and staff housing Austin Morton is heading down to San Diego to present at the Casper conference I don't know what it's it's Public Relation I don't know Cal public relations I don't
036understand what it stands for but he um has a great presentation planned and I'm very proud of him for taking this on so I'm sure he can share it with us and um maybe can show that at the next board meeting but I wanted to say that publicly right all right and now our aft 1481 report Mr Lucas yes um the only uh mention I have tonight is uh the CFT conventions happening in San Francisco March 17th through the 19th hundreds of CFT members and guests throughout the state from throughout the state are going to gather in San Francisco um the biannual convention is the highest governing body of the CFT and uh Monica Casey is on the Slate to be a CFT vice president vice president look for the results stop the ballot if
037you can vote often see you nothing okay making a change sorry sorry sorry um the theme of this year's convention United United for justice United for Education it reflects our continued commitment to building the schools our students and our communities deserve and looking forward to Monica's return and do we have a 19 response update we do okay um hello take home antigen tests were distributed to all students and staff the week prior to the February recess with them being asked to take one this past Sunday or Monday morning before returning to school and again tonight um before going back to school tomorrow as of yesterday and today 11 positive cases have been reported in the district substantially lower than the number expected after returning from the week-long break we continue to update the district dashboard
038when a positive case is reported to the district along with bi-weekly exposure notifications being sent to families in affected areas great thank you all right jumping over to consent is is there a motion to prove consent just need to make a comment about item 13a1 so we're removing the March 7th meeting date with the calendar that it's attached is does not remove it it still highlights the seven so that needs to be amended okay so moved with that amendments okay all those in favor aye aye all right consent agenda passes and the board meeting um of of Mark 7th will be removed and we just made sure that that comes off that calendar yep okay great item 14 public comment do we have any public comment this evening okay then we'll move on to item
03915a1 for the ethnic studies update and the course of study proposal Ms Baca me so Educators from Jefferson Oceana and Westmore came together during the 21-22 school year and ethnic studies task force there they began developing as ethnic studies practitioners and charting the scope and sequence for a course the vision for ethnic studies in the Jefferson Union High School District is to provide safe and brave spaces where students teachers Center to stories experiences and knowledge of people of color challenged and dismantle racism and intersectional systems of of Oppression and cultivate communities that are committed to Wellness Liberation and solidarity tonight director of curriculum instructional accountability Dr Laurie Robinson and teacher on special assignment Miss asra deodin will be providing updates on the progress of art ethnic studies at Jefferson Union High School District in addition
040there is also a course of study proposal for discussion that will be approved in the following board meeting everyone you know I'll sit here but just you know to look cute all right um getting everyone it's good to see you all um some people have not met so nice to meet you I'll be presenting our updating ethnic studies tonight and before we begin I'm actually going to do a practice that we're also trying to do and Implement studies courses which is a land acknowledgment and in doing so I would like to begin by acknowledging that I'm a settler on the land that I reside upon and the land that I teach on this land has been the home to the Ohlone people and they are still here I think one of the core components of
041ethnic studies trying to honor those who have been here in the past especially where we are working living you know dreaming upon so so I think that's a very important grounding for me and before I introduce myself let me just say um in general for ethnic studies uh this is something familiar to probably quite a few of you but I'll just reiterate to maybe some of you may not have seen it before or have not heard my perspective on this but this ethnic studies pedagogy at least is one element of District topics and initiatives that we're taking and I want to emphasize that this is one piece of something that will provide students meaningful engagement and that to all students in the classroom so I want to say it's not a separate piece I really
042think that you know as far as developing ethnic studies it'll be hand in hand with a lot of these things so I've gotten training on udl this year for example some of the teachers I work with have gotten training on grading for Equity a lot of us are trying to implement constructing meaning meaning those academic language frames in these sort of classes so we're trying to you know incorporate many other initiatives as well so just wanted to state that first and then of course a little bit about me so my name is Astra um so for those of you who don't know me it's pronounced it's spelled asra pronounced like u s r a so asra and I grew up in East Bay Area um Fremont and then in Pleasanton my parents are still in
043Pleasanton our brother in San Jose I live in San Francisco right now and um a couple things my academic background so I went to SoCal for college went to SoCal got my teaching credential Masters at USF I specifically got the teaching credential for social justice education so that's really where a lot of my passion was and then uh was at Jefferson for five years and then in that capacity I was a history teacher United States history AP World world uh teaching English language Learners Etc and now I'm atosa at the district office specializing for you know the ethnic studies program as well as social sciences and that is McCue cat who when I come home and runs to me and then my husband's just in the background but anyway Nico there we go and so
044I'll start with our story so how did ethnic studies become a reality at juhsd what I want to underscore with this story is that our district is very supportive and I definitely appreciate that however a lot of the impetus and a lot of the push to make it into what it is today and the update I will give you came from teachers and so students were definitely asking for it as well but particularly a group of Educators including myself we came together in the summer of 2020. now I mean we don't want to go back there but you know if I like recall the summer quarantine at its peak many things happening in the world and unfortunately a lot of things that were really depressing and really are truly heartbreaking right and I think the
045biggest one I can reference is um the just the brutal murder of George Floyd and I think that really Shook Me That Shook a lot of my colleagues and I think at a time when we were really feeling hopeless you know in addition to that many other lives were taken right I have a few this is a slide that's actually a little old I can update it with more names and unfortunately that's the reality of the world we live in but as teachers my colleagues and I and these are people from across different sites Westmore Jefferson ocean Etc we were thinking about what can we do like we feel so helpless what can we do well we're teachers we can teach and so that's really where a lot of us like got that fire to
046really really push and Implement a course of ethnic studies in addition to just the philosophy at our district so so that's really where it comes from and this is something that you know we wrote together as a statement we all came together after the brutal murder of George Floyd which we see as a continuation of the dangerous institution of white supremacy that is deeply rooted in our country we hope to Rally Educators around the idea of anti-racism actively resisting racist structures through engaging with our community of Staff members students and families we're Guided by the framework of ethnic studies and again this is just a statement by me and several other teachers that summer and that kind of lends us into a discussion of what are these characteristics so what did we even mean by
047we want to bring an ethnic studies program here and these I think are the essential five one it being anti-racist I think that's a good buzzword for us particularly meaning that ethnic studies is something that hopes to eliminate racism decolonizing a core understanding of course that history doesn't begin with colonization in that practice of land acknowledgment for example that would be um something that falls under that category Community responsive it's tailored to the student population of the area or School the courses taught in for instance uh you know a school in our district currently that's piloting perhaps Jefferson might have a slightly different program from someone like Oceana so I think that's a reality we have to acknowledge and our district in general might look different from a program in LA right and so that's
048what I mean by Community responsive intentional It Centers the stories experiences and knowledge of people of color and works against historical Erasure that bit word for Words also in our vision statement so that was very very important for all of us and hopeful that next studies critically analyzes the world in order to Envision a just society and change their surroundings for the better and so um moving into our actual accomplishments uh this was actually the year 21 2021 to 2022. you know I still write dates and I write 2021 down like I know it's 2023 but I'm still like stuck in timelines um this year was when we had our task force so this was when we had a good number of Educators so 10 Educators across jhsd every single school was represented we're trained
049in ethnic studies pedagogy and created a vision statement a vision statement that was actually read partially by Ms Baca earlier and the pedagogy is something where we're getting help from an outside consultant agency Community responsive education it's a group of folks who have done work with other school districts that actually partnered with Jefferson Elementary which is great and have worked with folks around the state many are actually current professors at as of State as well uh folks in the task force also created a scope and sequence this was more of a draft form I'll just get into the breakdown of that in just a second and three of our sites prepared to Pilot and they have some Herschel release dates that was spring 2022. and so this was our vision statement it was actually already
050read out loud so I'll actually move on more to the explanation of our units and these are the four units and so as we see it unit one is self and stories meaning students are really exploring identity their ethnic Heritage and also those of their peers and why doing so they're building a lot of communities there's going to be a lot of classroom Community Building teachers are often participating in these activities and are encouraged to do so unit two is then systems of Oppression this is where we get a little more into Frameworks where students are naming and analyzing the systems that operate around them then we get into social movement solidarity this is much more Social Science History focused in the sense of students are researching historical examples one key one would actually be
051the SF State student strike in 1968 to 1969 and that one it's pretty exciting we actually um this year at least we're taking our students on field trips to us of state so this unit we're trying to bring alive a little bit and so the kids are actually going to stay and understanding that history of what happened on the campus and the origins of ethnic studies and finally unit four which is community empowerment agency where we hope the students are engaging in projects that allow them to reflect on some of the principles or some of those ideas from the course and I'm moving into this year of course it's not done but so far what we have been doing is that uh the teachers who are piloting the course are actually revising the scope and
052sequence we had kind of a bare bones sort of framework before and now we're actually putting the meat I think onto the boat so we have really Hefty essential questions we're aligning some of our projects we're thinking about other core understandings and so that's come a long way with uh both release days plus uh time after school that teachers are actually working together and collaborating which is great in addition to that one thing I also uh should have mentioned during the vision statement our vision for ethnic studies is not that it's just one class right I think that was said in previous meetings that of course yes that is important to have the class however in addition to that it's implementing and integrating this philosophy into the other classes giving other teachers training as well
053on the philosophy and all these you know characteristics all these principles and so an important thing we've started doing this year is actually bringing in English teachers and so English teachers again across the district are coming in for training with those same Consultants Community responsive education as well as myself as well as a few other choses in the district to try and think about these critical lenses and how they can apply it to units they're already doing perhaps new books that are more culturally relevant that they've adopted so that's going pretty well too so that is also occurring this year and going to continue these are examples of some of the essential questions so one for each of the units for unit one we have this question here will exploring our identities improve how we
054interact with each other and use our voices unit two do the systems in our society humanize all people unit 3 can organizing resistance to oppressive systems bring about change and unit four what will we do to bring social justice to our communities and the world I'll also go over a brief rundown and there's a lot of text on these slides but essentially explaining what the course aspect although we are integrating Frameworks into other departments looks like in each school and so the first school we'll talk about is Oceana this is a school day of humanity so they've collapsed you know English and history to get into their Humanities framework and so this is this one school where all the ninth graders are currently taking up in studies so we have four sections four teachers are
055actually teaching it and this runs year long so it'd be from August to may this year Jefferson has the course uh actually as a sign up so um there are a number of students that are taking that are mixed grades it's actually still majority freshmen based on some other information that I'll share with our survey and this is on the 4x4 schedule so although the course is taught us one year it's taught in this example in Fall August to December and then again right now it's being taught January through May and so they had two sections fall and now they have three sections advantage two teachers there who are teaching it yeah what's more this one's going to be a little more traditional in the sense if it's a semester course backing Health this is
056the ninth grade only course at Westmore right now there's one section fall one section spring a big priority um there's only one teacher there teaching it is to increase the number of students enrolled in this sort of course and finally turn Nova they are planning to Pilot in next fall and people are already attending both either the uh social science ethnic studies or the English ethnic studies professional development so they're already sending some representatives to get trained in those things which is great and I'll make a note about Thornton I didn't include it formally on the slides I've been talking to teachers there I think right now the capacity was not there for some of the folks to try and attend but they're interested in attending next year so I think that'll be more of
057an update for next year from their end okay so this is the juicy part which I kind of like it's like what the kids say about all this right so in December that's where I got um to hand out a Google form server I did a few focus groups as well but this a lot of this information that you know I gave to you all is from that survey these were actually all Anonymous so people could have said whatever they wanted just know that and we give it to each of our school sites that hasn't been piloting so that includes Oceana Jefferson westmor you see her the breakdown that it's largely going to be Oceana kids then Jefferson and then westmoring that makes sense with the number of sections that everyone has and over here
058again largely it's freshmen but you see there's uh several um chunks that represent sophomore junior seniors so there are a number of them as well that have signed up this was really interesting so I know most surveys asked for race right um we did something different we asked for ethnicity because that's something we actually talked about in the course and I think often we don't ask you know people that and we don't really reflect on it and what we found was super cool in my opinion um one third of the kids actually wrote down at least two or three ethnicities so that they have mixed Heritage of some kind so this could be that they were Irish in part Vietnamese this could be that they were Honduran and Nicaraguan right like ethnicities and so um
059I think what this shows is that's very important for us to have these conversations and identity there's a lot of Rich culture and identity and just a lot of cool stuff kids were bringing into the classroom which we can use as assets again again there's also some survey information about gender identification over here all right what were students biggest takeaways and there were other questions as well I've highlighted some for you the survey was very long and again it had like about 145 responses or so so I combed through them try to give you some highlights obviously some takeaways were that there's a lot of reading and writing that's not going to change that's okay um but I've highlighted some of the other themes so one theme was empowerment another theme was community and empathy
060and another one was relevant information and so what I'm going to highlight for you are the themes around empowerment and then around relevant information we'll see some other ratings about Community later so here are some word for word quotes from the Google survey and so we see that a lot of students literally number one their biggest takeaway is Hope which I think is huge so again in a world where you know we just discussed there's a lot of things that are difficult for many people many people have to overcome any obstacles um I think that is a really big thing to take away in any class so I was really affirmed and uplifted hearing that another one is that students are getting affirmations about themselves inwardly right about their own ethnic identity and um being
061proud of it another one I think was the one that's towards the middle there my biggest takeaway is to start stating my opinions more and to advocate for myself and others sometimes it's okay to be vulnerable in class so I think that whole piece of speaking out and feeling comfortable with your voice that's also big and finally that the last person who has this comment I pulled out in times of struggle there will always be times of solidarity and unity to help fight and protect so I think that this positive messaging and understanding is really critical another really big theme was relevant information and so this is a class which I think often we're hoping that's more engaging for students and some of these comments show us that it definitely is for some of them
062there's definitely a few I'll again show in some of our um next slides you know I think there's a range of emotion around the class however uh one thing that definitely came up is that students who are interested about the topics and actually kept thinking about them so in that first comment it's the student feeling that things that they were learning about are so important they told their friends and so I think that really shows some true engagement and really um you know deep understandings or at least deep curiosity about something brought up in class which I think is amazing another thing are some of the materials of course that students are either viewing or reading in classes they're engaging with there's a very interesting Netflix show Colin in black and white so that's actually
063one of the things we're showing and I think a lot of kids are engaging with that but regardless of that they're thinking about certain Concepts like racism right in the in the classroom and lastly is this comment here about presentations on our culture a lot of the teachers are ending unit one that unit on self and identity with some sort of presentation where students are under understanding their own culture but also sharing about it their ethnic identity and so they're listening to other students in addition to exploring and making a presentation about themselves and this student here said that I felt very heard knowing I'm not the only one who goes through struggles within family Dynamics when it comes to who we are as ethnic people so building connections so there's a sense of building
064connection that is also very strong and now we have a few ratings for our ethnic studies classes for example this first one here shows did the class help you develop a stronger sense of self meaning Identity or understand your culture Community better and ranges from one not at all all the way to three yes definitely we see most of the respondents fall into two and three and here we see of course there's always work to do right so we see there are some kids in the one category and that's what we're gonna hopefully keep talking about and try to improve upon our next question did the class help you understand other cultures and communities better we see here there's actually a lot more on the three categories that was very interesting for me to notice
065as well this one do you feel inspired to learn more about the topics discussed in ethnic studies again largely in the two and three and finally this this was the other theme that came out a lot in the comments was students feeling a sense of community but we also see it reflected in this part of the survey where again a majority of students are saying two and three that they did feel that there's a strong classroom community in their ethnic studies classroom and so that I think is really wonderful and for those two things I specifically want to shout out the teachers that are doing all this hard work so I'm the one coordinating a lot of things on my end however uh Mr ombre at Westmore there's Miss Santana Miss Marini in Jefferson Mr
066arzaga Mr Core Miss puller and Mr Rock and Oceana I think they're doing really great things these are all their kids again they could have said anything they wanted and they're saying these really nice and awesome stuff about their ethnic studies classes and so that I think is really lovely for me to for me to hear I also included reading list these are some of the books I may have ordered and distributed to teachers or we're also talking about perhaps maybe even integrating into the course or this might be just information for us okay and thank you for listening so I hope that helped you understand a little more survey wise about what has been going on in the district this year if not also last year and yeah I'd be happy to answer any
067questions from folks great I'll open up to the board including student trustees if you have any comments or questions I mean my only comment is I think this is really cool I wish they had this when we were younger um growing up in a school where we had multiple ethnicities and races and not really understanding you know we were always kind of oh we're all the same you know we're you don't really talk about those kind of things you know underneath our skin we're all the same but in reality is we're all very different and and trying to understand that helps us all learn a lot from each other and just the things that we do every day you know I'm for instance having Arabic friends in school growing up when they would fast you
068know that was something that was hard for us to understand why they did that and they'd have to tell us in their own terms and not we weren't taught those things so there's a lot of that communication that we kind of did on our own but still you do find out how different you are from everybody else you know also a couple things too I was noticing in that one reel where where you know some of the students commented that they didn't really the class didn't help them kind of identify with themselves for me since I'm a mixed race and I was raised by a certain I was raised by my grandmother she was Irish but I'm Mexican Irish and I I didn't get a lot of ethnic background you know of my own growing
069up so it's hard to try to understand where I'm at ethnically you know as a as a younger person now that I'm older I can kind of do my own research but being you know when you're being taught something like that it's it's hard to kind of grab all that stuff but I think it's it's cool that you know um you're having these courses in in this in this training to kind of help everybody understand where they you know where they can kind of reach out and figure that stuff out for their own so it's really cool my daughter goes to Oceana and so I'm kind of curious where does ethnic studies fit into the curriculum ninth grade humanities started this year there yeah there is another course that is uh is it like raising
070membership raising membership yes um that is for uh yeah Juniors or upperclassmen I believe too that that they have taught for a while that it's just at the ninth grade level of death and studies proper but it's not an elective correct so at Oceana this year all ninth graders are supposed to take Humanities nine and that's where they're putting their curriculum in so for um so this has been really great to see the Genesis of this and how you know while we've been on the board and you've been coming to us um giving us updates so it's been a really exciting to see it come to fruition and it's just to start and then you came to the student advisory council meeting and there were a ton of questions they had and we went long
071because all the students were really they had a ton of questions for you and I know when it was my daughter graduated from Jeff last year and she was really bummed that you know why didn't they have this yet you know but but at least there were some courses that touched upon you know some of these issues but um when when do you because because it Jeff is it because of the 4x4 that it's um you have to sign up for it for this class yeah currently that's how the admin are deciding to do it um even for next year but that made I mean we had conversations that may or may not change in the future of course but I think right now that's the best way for them I think but at what
072point are we making an ethnic studies course we don't want to just have a course you know like you said we we wanted to be embedded in all our classes so that um we're more attuned and well-rounded and we're raising good people so um at what point are we going to make it a requirement s the law graduating class of 2030 um and so uh we don't want to wait for that obviously you know it's it's far down the line but we also don't want to like lock ourselves into place on exactly what it has to look like at each School site it needs to make sense it needs to fulfill student need it needs to as you said not live in one particular course code and it also and I know Usher can speak
073a little bit more to this doesn't need to even just be a singular course code like there are opportunities for Not only living in other disciplines but it being a series of courses um you know just like other disciplines have you know sort of continuations yeah that's one interesting thing that some of the schools are exploring potentially you know of course first priority is getting prepared for that mandate which is actually fall of 2026. that's when things that goes into play um however there are schools that are really interested in trying to build a pathway so that there is a potentially a freshman course for example or underclassman course followed up by an upperclassman course so I think there's a lot of creative things happening and a lot of really interesting ideas going around and
074because this is so new I think it'll keep evolving so I'm sure if I come next you'll have another update know where that goes yeah but right now we're we're able to build the curriculum because I know that on the state level there was so much um uh debate and just the back and forth on watering down we call it watering down the curriculum and I don't want us to be teaching kids something that isn't relevant to them you know um so I'm just this is a living thing that's how I'm looking at it unless you're looking at from the teaching side too um so I will first say I would thank all of the teachers for pushing this forward and getting us to the place we're on and I'm extremely grateful so thank you
075and um to piggyback on what trustee tahada said and you know I am looking for um some sort of goal of what this is supposed to be I am fine you know and I'm you know it's not our role to like tell you how to get there but I would like to know where the there is like what is there so Oceana is doing has decided to do the year-long but what is the goal for all the other schools um because I do think that they're you know I don't want to push schools into doing things that they're not prepared for so that's not what this comment is this comment is more about I want every it doesn't matter what school you go to you're getting a robust ethnic studies program um and in my
076mind that is not a semester class and looking at what our district mission statement is you know how do we make that mission statement a reality reality through this and the other programs that we're going to talk about later um so just getting guidance and Direction on from you all about like what is the goal and then having discussion about how do we achieve that um and then my other comment is more so I spoke about whether I was going to talk about this but I think I am um we have the local land acknowledgment and one of the things I do outside the district all the time is that I do want to say all of their names but I also want local names to be acknowledged and it bothers me to no end
077that locally we talk about people who lost their lives to law enforcement outside of the county but we never mention the people who lost their lives the law enforcement right here like our lives should matter here too um so just holding that up somewhere here um because those none of those families received any acknowledgment or Justice and I think it's you know San Mateo County has some of the worst outcomes and it's never talked about discussing the way it should be talked about in this guest um so I'm just putting that out there and um yeah I also wanted to say that it really made me happy that we're already going back and getting feedback from students to hear what they have to say about the program because um for me it's just you know
078I don't want to do something that's not really making an impact or difference so constantly getting those metrics and data and um if we could continue to do that so that we know as a board too that would be great and that's all right those are the comments again um just Kudos mission accomplished on looking cute I just want to pass that just to say that as well you did that I do want to speak to what you said thank you so much for the the comment about keeping it local and bringing up those examples I mean one of the things I love about the books that um usra has on that list is that you put up the color of Law and one of my favorite Parts about that is that they called out
079Daly City you know and so by having a community responsive model like they've all been working with with their Consultants we are bringing in things from our own backyard and topics and I think that's part of what is really speaking to the students and I just wanted to also mention in terms of the requirement I think we do want to like be a little careful in the tightrope we walk with with the required piece versus like the program that we build out you know um because the requirement does come with like credential constraints you know um and things like that to fulfill certain requirements whereas when we are looking towards building like this really robust program we can open it up to English teachers we can open it up to all these different subject matters
080and have it in there um one of the things that they've been working on this year with the English teachers is the I'm looking at her because I'm like it's got a real fancy name it's that ethnic studies story practice story plot there you go what is the acronym gonna be I'm excited yeah but it's essentially like looking at the plot line of any kind of story and like seeing it in terms of like struggle resistance healing um and and evaluating that and that you can really take any story and evaluate it through this lens and encourage students to do the same and I was talking with our other tosa Lisa Rubin who's been partnered with asra in this work um that they do I just also want to shout them both out because we
081partner with Community responsive education but like I value Asura and Lisa like as much if not more in terms of the facilitation that they do their credibility that they have with teachers and all the hard work they've done over the last two years and they go above and beyond um and what we were talking about is that like hey any book that we adopt from here on out needs to have the teacher propose it with how it fits in this story plot line not because oh some books will fit it and some books won't I think all of them will but we need to be thinking in that lens when we're adopting all of the materials as we kind of move forward and so that's how I'm kind of hoping that it lives in like
082this very standardized clear their way to to speak to your point yeah I know and I agree with all of that and I think my point is not about like the state requirements it's more about getting from you what is what the goal is hearing from you guys what you think the goal is and is is the plan to have a umbrella goal like this is where you all need to end up the schools and and you can decide how each school gets there but what I just want to know is there a plan for what is there is there a plan for like this is where everyone needs to be and is there a timeline that could be fluid because things happen we all learned that like you said 2021 and 2022 like I
083still write those because we were like stuck there for a very long time like it was forever but and so knowing that you know we never know it can happen but for me in just holding ourselves accountable and always making sure that we're looking at it it would be nice to know like what the objective is and then ensuring that we are moving towards the objective sure I had one comment on that because I think that's a great point I think it's a little challenging to answer just because okay so here's an example so this past fall we had the you know privilege of going to Cappuccino High School in 17 Union um they welcomed Us in meaning myself and ethnic studies teachers and we actually got to observe what they have as their program
084and I know that they're for example building a pilot program but before we saw it we didn't even know that thing existed but now we're having discussions about it so so I think the more we're going to be exposed to different case study different sites uh just different ideas from people of how this could look and then how would we even get there do we have the capacity I feel like that'll shape if that makes sense so I think it's it's also hard because since we're at the beginning we're taking in a lot of information and hopefully we'll continue to do so and then we can really have like a nice Vision so that's why yeah you know like I'm a planner I think that'd be amazing if I had that for you but but
085I it's just hard yeah because I think a lot of this is very conceptual too at the moment so it's kind of like we're trying to have the concrete stuff you know the curriculum I think and then that Vision will for sure evolve and I think be a little more solidified and then just the to comment on your um you know hope for more surveys so yes so I'm definitely planning on doing a follow-up survey and focus groups in May yeah add something to that so um I don't remember but I know that it was said here the idea of not just having ethnic studies being the ethnic studies class so that's definitely part of our vision yeah um how that really looks is really hard and a bit amorphous right so I just want
086to speak to that because I think that we do share that same that same goal but it's not just for this semester you're going to go learn about ethnic studies now you don't think about it for any you know the rest of the time um in a in a comprehensive high school that's it's it's harder than you know in a middle school class or something where you might have a self-contained classroom and that teacher can um weave math learning and science learning and you know it's easier when it's that way it's it's just more difficult so I'll show that's one of my goals you know um but not quite sure how that's going to look just yet because I mean one of the focuses for me too like how long is Westmore going to be
087like be okay with just having a semester class correct yeah you know how is that going to grow because that's like one of our largest schools um and it needs to be at all the high schools right yeah so exactly yeah and and you know how like so it also works me like how often do I check in with you like if I know like oh it's being there's a plan and it's being worked on then you know you know what I'm saying I do I do hear you okay thank you thank you I think the best part also is that like I said before you have a lot of teachers that are very passionate so I think that's the number one thing that's gonna for example that example you just brought up will probably
088will move conversations at sites such as less more forward because I think there's so many invested teachers that I think have begun this process and really want to see it grow I mean I'm one of them so I'll just be there all the time but yeah you know and teachers seeing each other like those teachers then it spreads um I've seen that so with that I mean when you're when we're talking about the teachers who are interested are are they and we're already training the English teachers is the interest cutting across all the different disciplines if we're starting to look at some of even the stem teachers are we starting to see interest even in that area that's a really good question so I think that's going to be a little harder just because I've
089worked with my cohort of the social studies teachers and then English teachers I think what would be really nice as a vision is to move forward some of this pedagogy philosophy to Any teacher regardless of their department but I think because we have some of this pressure on the side of having this particular requirement filled and then having a quality course of study with student feedback I think it's it's hard to gauge right now because of capacity issues if that makes sense no I understand I think I think it speaks to the larger Vision right of ultimately embedding it embedding the ideology within all of our curriculum right but clearly we have to focus on what's in front of us and that's with the social science English Humanities type type of type of work it
090makes sense at least in from an execution standpoint today I think I'll talk about the again the observation that we did those sense of you know there but teachers have different almost threads that they're going in whereas you know maybe there are some that are specifically versed in ethnic studies pedagogy wanting to deepen lens some folks from any department just want to know about it and they have a certain cohort of them going through you know so I think these are they're really creative ways to engage teachers so I think we can like I would love to think about it and put that into practice but yeah I think the hard thing is also like there's just there's a lot of priorities and so it's about okay we're prioritizing Now versus like near future versus
091you know yeah given where we were before and where we are today with the feedback that you receive from the students I mean it's it's powerful I I got emotional reading those responses the first time I went through because clearly the material really touched their minds touched their hearts you know they were able to identify with who they or begin to identify with who they are which is really a cool thing and it really is about educating the whole child right it's you know we're touching their minds but we're touching their hearts and they're and they and they really start to get it really powerful and so kudos to to you and all the staff for really making making this happen and I was also want to comment on just the course proposal itself the
092level of detail in the course proposal you know I mean and to the different types of activities that you're recommending that they'd be able to do so I mean people touch on some specific Technical and presentation Stills I mean I saw you drop in the pechakucha for example which is pretty darn cool I mean that would be amazing to have students talk about themselves through that type of presentation so really just the thoughtfulness behind everything and the intentionality within the course itself is really well done yeah yeah Sweat and Tears yeah yeah would you share with them you shared with me passing in the hallway one day about when you were doing the student interviews and how sort of touched you were about how they were speaking about their teachers and I was going to
093do a focus group at Jefferson but then I got sick with the flu so that didn't happen anyway that's fine um so yeah the kids were so precious so I had small groups of maybe about five and for each of those courses they happen to be freshmen right and so um some of those kids echoed a lot of what was actually said in some of these comments so a lot of them were talking about community that they really appreciated that um project at the end of the identity unit particularly and that they all really liked how their teachers participated in the activities so the teachers are also doing this so that's one of our intentional focuses is that if you want the kids to be vulnerable right you you model your vulnerability but also you
094share about yourself that's how you really build connection and empathy and so the teachers are also sharing about their own identity perhaps their struggles and I think many students really really appreciated it so they had the kindest things to say and you know I was also looking for some critical feedback right and so you know I just asked that and so they were very reluctant to give it to me yeah I think they were just so sweet but so highly of their teacher I just thought it was really cute so they're like well maybe you know we know it's his first time the first year they're doing it they're trying so hard yeah that's I mean I thought that was really it's not that doesn't always happen yes oh that's fantastic and one last time
095what's the name of the program that you're calling this thing for the English teachers the if ethics studies what proxies story plot it's one it's a it's a framework okay so that's all right that's that's cool and and Trudeau state is for also dropping practices into the board the word that I remember from it because it's one of the few times yes any other company oh yeah I I know you said it but I was wondering what it's gonna look like at Terra Nova next fall because I know you said that it's going to be implemented next fall there yeah so I think they're still talking about it I don't think a final decision has been made however um I do know that they're really committed to piloting it next year and that's like a
096top priority so I know that one of the teachers is coming um to the social science meetings two of them are coming to the English meeting so I know that it'll be integrated in some of the English coursework but also there will be a standalone um I think I just can't talk to like how they scheduled it because they're still doing all their their scheduling but yeah I think there definitely has but because some of the books up there I read in my English classes this year so I think that there has been some implementation yeah yeah and we're excited because some of the teachers that are coming from there are definitely you know talking about how to even continue revamping things which is awesome so more comments or questions for presenters all right thank
097you so much job well done your hard work yes thank you all right 15a2 lcap goal number three after the update Ms Baca um tonight I'll be presenting on the equity update just really El Cap go three um it has many parts to it and one of the parts is already presented earlier so yeah you don't have to do that thank you um but throughout the presentation superintendent Presta will be chiming in as her she's doing me the okay um has influenced a lot of our strategies so Mr espresso feel free to chime in so I'm not butting in if I try she's got it so the purpose of tonight's presentation is to reflect and discuss the evolution of equity here in our district and as you know a lot of my slight themes as
098like meaning so you'll see a lot of roads and forks and barriers and things like that because this is a journey doesn't end we're going to continue to work on it forever and ever and make things better but for this presentation I'm going to use 2018 kind of like as a starting point 18 19 because that was when the equity audit by Ed Trust West was first published and that was also the first year that I started in this position um and then five years later 2223 where we are right now and just please keep in mind that in between that there's this really annoying barrier that kind of you know pause on a lot of things which is covid of course and so tonight I'll be covering five main or there are five main
099topics in this presentation but I will not be covering their resources because those are just all data for your own reference so I'll be spending some time on talking about overview of um Equity our lcap Equity goals um the outcomes and next steps so equity in education overview um most of you probably have seen that image with the three kids trying to watch baseball and then there's a short medium tall person the shortest one got like two blocks and then the tall one didn't get any because this person can already see well I'm that you know the short one that needed two blocks um which really means that we don't get everything equally because there are we all have differences in needs and that is really you know what Equity is we don't it's not
100equality we don't get the same exact things because kids are offered different things depending on what is needed however there are challenges to um Equity um the historical inequities that has been pervasive throughout our educational system and also there are some that are resistance to the change because they don't either see why they need to change because the system has already benefited them um and some just refuse to just completely change there's also implicit bias playing in there stereotypes and institutional racism so what actions can we do to help um you know create this Equity we really need to examine and change our policies and practices to provide access and opportunity we have been um shifting our resources to meet the needs of the students that are you know most at risk and we need
101to continue that we also need to build positive relationships um with all of our educational partners because we cannot do this alone we need each other and more importantly we really need to start examining ourselves and questioning ourselves and shift our mind uh mindset and models so why do Equity gaps exist so current and historical educational initiatives and policy with unchanged educational practices and mindset creates a perpetuation of this Equity Gap but sometimes again this is really hard to see because we are so in it so there's this article that many of you have read the water of systems change where it has a quote about this the two fish basically one of the fish said you know how's the water and then the other fish said like you know what is water and so
102we really need to make the invisible visible because we are so in it we need to really start questioning and examining and looking at everything that we do as an educational system so asset system there are six conditions of system change so there's the top part as you can see the structural change which are the implicit explicit things which are our policies and practice and our resources and most of the time we work on that upper level however what's more important in system change is to recognize that power dynamics build connections with our educational partners and also again to look at ourselves and see are we contributing to the inequities of the system so Equity Journey again 2018 2019 so this work actually even started before that in 1718 because um former superintendent Irish and
103I received an email from the county office inviting us to attend an equity Forum facilitated by address West and there we heard um Tyrone Howard and also many districts and tell and told us what they were doing to advance equity and so that's when we heard about the equity audit so we partnered up with them and then 17 18 they did like a lot of data collection this Equity audit was published in the fall of um 2018 and then groups of people steer a steering committee and a working committee work on a blueprint on what can we do to improve the outcomes of our students and on top of that they also did an analysis for our math assignments to look at the type of rigor that our students are getting in their math assignments
104they're comparing Math course one and at that time we had math course one Bridge just to make sure that we are you know Equitable in our classes that year also was the first year when President Lee and vice presidents allahuddin attended the state's csba Equity Network um the following year our administrators received training on lgbtq plus and also from that we um formed an ad hoc committee now the equity Network work continued on through the San Mateo County School boards Association so school board members across the county with District leaders attended this and really learned about this work and then we wanted to bring that District white and so we had a plan um a series of meetings for us to meet and we were only able to meet twice because of coven and so
105right after that this um committee um you know basically stalled um that fall of 2020 though even though we were at home there was an equity statement subcommittee that gathered together to start drafting our Equity statement so work was still done in 2020 2021 we were in distance learning um that was the first time when district-wide our staff heard um the topic of racial Equity um as a district so we had Nicole Anderson come in and speak to everybody and all staff members in addition gender Spectrum provided a two session training for all of our staff one during the welcome back day and then a follow-up at each of the school sites and then that year too there were series of board study sessions and on April 20 2021 for that because it's my Emma's
106birthday 4 20. um the equity statement was adopted then in 2122 our administrators received training from courageous conversation that was the very first time that we partnered up with them ethnic studies curriculum development started grading for Equity PD started and also the professional Learning Community for Universal Design for Learning was that also started so all of the work in 2122 is actually continuing in 22-23 but here are the new things that happened this year so all of our administrators have been trained to um with Toby Scruggs the same on brene Brown's dare to lead um I'll talk more about that in the next few slides also during our welcome back we had two Keynotes who talked about race and equity and that was Toby and Toby Scruggs Hussein and Luis versalis in addition um the
107last PD day for the staff all of our staff members classified and certificated receive a training on introduction to Courageous conversations so that they are aware that we are working on this um at the same time our site administrators and District administrators started the leads training series that we'll talk about in a little bit and also um the district Equity leadership team um met this year and in addition um some lgbtq plus systems and supports were put in place so this is our Equity statement and in our Equity Journey our North Star is this Equity statement so it basically embodies our commitment to engaging educating and empowering all students with an intentional focus on those underserved inadequately serve or disenfranchised by educational institutions and systems eliminating disparities in educational outcomes so that statement was the
108inspiration for El Cap goal number three um in El Cap goal number three there are four things listed here but there are actually five things in our lcap and the fifth one is about significant disproportionality but a lot of those strategies are already embedded either in these actions or some other actions throughout the lcat so I'll start with anti-racism Education and Training and as you all know race has been one of the consistent predictors of success in our educational system and that's why we prioritize anti-racism Education and Training so we're currently working with courageous conversation to guide this work courageous conversation again is a it's a formal structure or protocol and a way to engage in this type of dialogue because it's very very hard to talk to other people about race and people need
109the tools in order to do that so it uses the compass to recognize where we are in their quadrants as we enter in this could be uncomfortable um conversation sorry in the believing the thinking the feeling and the acting and the goal really is try to Center yourself before you can really have this meaningful dialogue with the other person otherwise you may feel dysregulated and the conversation will just go nowhere in addition to that it ties when ties in with um Four Agreements to guide this difficult dialogue then finally it has these conditions that are actually very very sequential and on purpose um because what happens is you kind of gauge yourself on where you are in this conversation so one of the agreements says you know the the non-closure except non-closure because sometimes you
110may have to take a pause and say I can't have this conversation right now and I'm not ready and let's come back and you know have this discussion again so these conditions basically the first two is just kind of like testing the waters to see if we can have this um engaging conversation and it really centers on yourself and then your story just as like you know what ethnic studies is um and then the second two conditions talk about um multiple perspective through mindful inquiry so you know what is your perspective let me hear you here's mine and here's yours and the last two one is really about deepening the conversation where um people explore the issues of you know white privilege and whiteness as a property and so as you can see it gets
111really really could be uncomfortable and that is why sometimes you have to go back and forth and kind of you know know where you are if you are able to have this discussion at that time yes I'm trying to not interject in your your no you're being super comprehensive I want to make one note before we um move to the next slide so we are um so really what what we what we learned is that we need to be um talking about race on a consistent basis we need um and we started there's a desire I know I think all of us want to move very quick we want to get so much done and move really quickly and I we've been reminded that we needed to sort of start with um really grounding the
112the administrators in the district with this learning and get a level of comfort um so that we can move forward with the rest of the staff and that was probably the hardest part um for for me um to not bring all this stuff to every single person right away so we've been thoughtful about that and we've spent um two solid years with the administrators um and we're gonna karine's gonna tell us more about the leads and the dealt work um but this work I'm now seeing um Roots really take hold with um between the courageous conversation training and the dare to lead training um from Toby which tovi Scruggs Hussein who does the brene brown dare to lead training it's dare to lead training and she's also somebody who is um very um gifted at
113working with race topics and helping people so it's really a double um double gift that she brings so we now I think are out of space so we'll learn more about the courageous conversation training but we're now at a space where we're going to be moving forward at the end of this year to spreading it to teams at the sites but I just kind of want to emphasize that there's been a lot of work at the leadership level um to get this level of comfort and I think I think we're we're there now so thank you for saying that because the quote here by John Cotter basically says no matter how capable or dedicated in staff groups without strong line leaders um never achieved a power that is required to achieve results efforts that don't
114have a powerful enough guiding Coalition can make apparent progress for a while but sooner or later the opposition gathers itself together and stops the change and that's why we're very intentional and supporting our leaders first in rolling out this work so here's a little graphic um on how the training um has gone and will go so it starts with the core of the guiding Coalition which is the district Equity leadership team consists of um our executive cabinet members um superintendent associate Deputy superintendent and then Director of Human Resources and our goal is basically consult with courageous conversation and each other and develop like some systems where we can look at policies and practices to make sure that what we are doing and what we are implementing helps achieve our Equity goal um currently we are
115working on our Equity lens tool that I will be sharing in a little bit so um again you know we started working with um as adult in 2122 it's continuing this year and then we'll continue again for the following year now a bigger group while dealt is happening there's also leads happening and leads leadership for racial Equity consists of our vice principles principals directors and executive cabinet and it's a series of training sessions and the topics are listed there and also the time frame that it was um being offered so basically we started in August 2022 and we will finish in August 2023. and parallel to that right yes go ahead the I notice I'm scrolling through the attachment in the board agenda we've updated it to put some times and dates because we realized
116that we didn't have those so as I'm scrolling here I'm like wait the dates aren't there we will update it in the agendas that the public can have access to that too but if you notice Miss Baca added when everything is has happened or is happening and so again the work doesn't stop you know with us and the administrators and we want to make sure that this happens at the school site level and so the goal is for each of the school site to have an e-team and or an equity team and it consists of about eight um individuals that will help train um and provide professional development um about this work they will receive training from courageous conversation but in between the training they also will have some assignments that they need to do
117at their School site in order to continue this work so those are some of the examples that they will be doing some staff meeting facilitation some literature circles data analysis and things like that so again that's what happens at the school site level and then we um and that training happens starting in June of 2023 all the way through June of 2024. and then we want to of course expand it with our students also so the following year we will be convening a group of students a multi-group of students to provide leadership opportunities and for them to voice on their leadership on this work so we will be forming the students organized Against Racism so that is our work with um courageous conversation um I believe in May um Courtney Caldwell will be here to
118also do a board study session on this so having a conversation about race requires Brave leaders and courageous cultures and that is why we had partnered with Toby scrugg Hussein who trained our leaders in there to lead and it is a 24 hour training and we basically explored um how to listen with empathy our vulnerability that we must choose on Courage over Comfort um and live in our values and so this is really teaching us to really be more courageous and step up and those are some of the leadership commitments that we have signed and attested and we had our partners to make sure that we are committing to those um commitments so here are some of the um there to lead testimonials by our administrators just for you to view and then the next
119part so I'm going to move on to the next action which is really grading practices so with um Joe Feldman really said it best when he said are we by using supporting and not interrogating traditional practices accessories the inequities in our school so grading um traditional grading has been um one of the major perpetuators is that even a word of um inequities in our school and so a traditional grading really does not reflect accurate learning like if you look at a grade book you will see you know homework extra credit conduct all sorts of things so it's not really accurate because it doesn't reflect the true learning of students um traditional grading could also be bias it could be biased towards those who have more resources or could have you know could afford tutors um
120and so the goal for this work is again to remove that bias from grading um as far as another thing about traditional grading is that sometimes um it's very off-putting and people and students get depressed with the grace that they get and they feel like you know they can amount to nothing and they feel hopeless and so what we're trying to do is be more really you know motivational to bring hope like again I'm going to bring back you know what Ezra said we want our students to feel hope and so the grading for Equity pillars is that they are accurate bias resistant and motivational how do they do that so there are some um there are 11 Equitable grading practices that our teachers have been exploring so as an example you know do not
121assign extra credit um avoid the zeros um using a four-point scale instead of the traditional scale so what does that look like for juhsd so um in a typical year and this is our second year so last year we started out with Joe Feldman doing an overview of the work through zoom and it was open to everybody in all of our um teachers and staff and um after he gave the overview he asked for um basically participants like you know who wants to be a part of this professional learning and it's not the typical professional learning that you get because what they actually get to do is try things out reflect and see how they can make it better they get a coach and then they get really really you know like support and collaboration
122from one another so it you know once they've identified that they want to be a part of this cohort there's a two-day kickoff where they learn about the Equitable ways of grading at the end of SEC the second day they have to choose one of those practices let's say they want to accept late work or do reduce or retakes so they commit to that and then they apply that in one of their classes or all of their classes it really is up to them throughout that process they get a coach that has actually gone through this whole entire um training and it's you know it could be from all over the United States so they get a coaching session um with their coach and then after that um I believe it's about six weeks eight
123weeks um basically of this whole one cycle they attend a workshop and then in that Workshop all of the teachers in this cohort basically talk about their experiences what went well what could have been improved and then they also learn um more in-depth grading for Equity practices and then at the end of that Workshop they choose another they could choose another grading practice or they could continue with the grading practice that they tried the first time and then they do that for four Cycles throughout the year um one of the things outside of that is that um Crescendo group where Joe Feldman is the CEO um they also do student interviews so last year they interviewed students from Jefferson High School in Terra Nova and this year they interviewed students from Westmore and Oceana and
124just talked about their sentiments about grading and how it could be improved and from that statement and that's those statements of course they're Anonymous are shared with the teachers in one of the workshops and it's quite powerful because it is actually the teachers that read these statements out loud and um you know and it's some of them are you know just really heart-wrenching um this year we are doing something another thing different is that we're also going to have a caregiver information session because with this work as we expand because right now we only have two cohorts about 30 teachers and our goal is really to expand this district-wide we're going to need the support of our families because this is a complete change from what it was before and so right now tentatively it's
125scheduled for March 16th but it may change but our plan is to again inform our parents and invite our parents and Guardians about this work here are some of the examples of what um our teachers chose as their action research plan as you can see the most popular one is the zero to four or the 5200 grading skill and also using proficiency rubrics and those are some of the teacher voices so I'm just going to share the first one as it said I think this just showed me that some of my my perceived Notions should be examined and challenged a bit in order to make progress in improving myself as an educator and so I really appreciate that there's a lot of reflection and thinking about you know our traditional ways of grading is not
126working the next um action is supporting lgbtq plus students so Melissa and her team had developed a series of these safeguards that were shared with our staff members so for instance um there was a system on how we would protect a student's names in our student information system um we she has done screencasts to make sure that people understand what needs to be done and this is constantly being Revisited um and updated also as you can see we have our gen gender neutral restrooms um and again it is not perfect but you know we're continuing to improve that we're celebrating you know Pride months transgender day um and also our students are invited to the yes conference I think it's the youth advisory you know I'm not really sure what this um yeah like that
127and then um yep social Summit and their progress Pride flag was um also flown throughout the summer so outcomes and impacts I've broken this down by teaching and learning and human resources and things like that and as you can see we've done so much since um we've you know started this work we now have a more defined scope in sequence for English math and social science we heard about ethnic studies we have Community responsive novels in English and it's just going to get better our textbook adoption rubric now considers representation in the textbooks so that our students can see themselves we've improved our progress monitoring for students learning English and students with IEP we've increased our dual enrollment courses and before our credit recovery classes for summer school were not a through G but now
128they are a through G and also our after school classes are a through G through Apex um CTE courses are that our a through G have increased along with Pathways for CTE Math course 2 bridge is no longer offered we now offered an alternative to math course 3 which is data science and on the right hand side I'd mentioned all of the you know the grading for Equity Universal Design for Learning constructing meaning and also one of the big things that came out of this is really looking at the structures of our school so that's when Flex time and 4x4 an advisory were put in place in you know outside of Oceana we've increased our co-teaching sections Thornton High School's referral process has been revised in our instructional coaching sessions have increased so for climate
129and community Miss vasuino we have our um solution Matrix um we've also um improved our alternative to suspension through brief intervention um for substance use we have gender neutral restrooms increased Wellness staff and then we also provide intern supervision Wellness newsletters being sent out on a regular basis there's caregiver information night so as an example in April there will be an immigration resource night um that will be facilitated by our Wellness team and I believe there's also one coming up that is we are working with Jefferson Elementary School District also um so that has been happening we have attendance task force and I mentioned earlier procedures for protecting the identity of transgender non-binary students improve El newcomer intake process so a lot of this you've heard from our principals and previous presentations too our board
130meeting right now is being interpreted in Spanish and I always have to remind myself to speak slowly um to help The Interpreter I hope I'm speaking slowly enough Noemi um there's the superintendent weekly communication regularly not just the staff but but we have our family Liaisons our bilingual paraprofessionals and then our staff doing book studies which is really cool we've done you know udl grading for Equity white fragility courageous conversation and then School climate committees um for Staffing and Human Resources I don't know where Miss Luann is hiding right now yeah so thank you to her we've had interview questions on how they feel about their commitment to equity we partner with work wider who will you know kind of help us um recruit um staff of color also there's um you know personalized onboarding
131support So before it was more of like you know an email a phone call or you know just like basically an email here it is here's what you need to fill out now there's a lot more personalized support again PD that we talked about um the other thing that we have done is that for our substitute custodians and substitute paraprofessional staff we have removed their testing barriers so before they have to take this you know exam um and so um there are several things that um was it completely removed and then um and so we're doing that and also um we're supporting our classified staff um with Pathways to Bachelor degrees and then of course our staff housing as a recruitment tool um none of that could be done without Miss Finn wrap Horst um
132basically all of this is really here our area of like you know reallocating resources for this work you should take credit for that as well miss Baca you do a lot of that budget allocation and then this is just a date data summary because what I wanted to see was like okay we're doing all of that what does that really look like in terms of like student outcomes and you know some were doing really really well some we've slid backwards and I don't you know really know if it's caused by Equity work or not maybe or maybe not but what I wanted to see was you know where are we and can we continue measuring this and looking at the breakdown and you know ethnicity to see if what we are doing are really making
133a difference um sometimes I'm going to be honest it feels like it's not um because I still see the same results for suspension for chronic absenteeism and sometimes like I want to say I give up but I can't um because this is such an important work and there's been you know like covet has really put a lot of you know damper on all of the things that we do um and again like what I mentioned earlier our Equity statement it's our North Star we gotta keep working on this because we have hundreds and hundreds of years of historical inequities we're in year five or so and we need you know people like us that will move this work forward so for academics we've reduced the the gap for grad rate and a through G rate
134which is really really awesome same thing for students learning English um and also our students with disabilities um however and this is actually the first thing that I've looked at this which is really interesting because we now have the results from national student Clearinghouse from class of 2018. and look at how they did and whether they graduated in four years and whether they persisted um so with this looking at you know just Hispanic and African-American they have the lowest college going rate and lowest College persistence rate that is something to track and again for behavior and attendance we produce disproportionality for our Hispanic and Pacific Islanders group but for our African Americans it has increased chronic absenteeism again it's a it's been a challenge because of covid and as you know heard from our student
135of the month tonight there's just been a lot of things that is happening at home that could contribute that may have contributed to um The Chronic absenteeism um and I also looked at the healthy kids survey and the question was are students feeling safe or very safe at school and there is a downward Trend and again it could be because of what's happening right now locally and what's happening to us nationally and globally so again you know this work just needs to continue and I'm very very grateful for Miss Presta and her passion about this um thanks thank you I I just want to say um you know when when Ms Baka put this slide together um we've had we always we have a lot of conversations about these topics all the time um but
136it can feel um like she said disheartening when you don't see what you want to see um and you know we've been doing this work for a long time like in this District in different districts um and while it can feel disheartening um I I think we don't let it hinder Us in fact I think it lights a fire under us even a little bit more um because we want to see Trends you know whichever data point we're looking at we want the the trends to be going into the right in the right direction and in one of the many conversations that I have with Ms Bach about this you know she said something that I thought was really a great way of putting it she said we're we're looking at the water here so
137you know we have to call out even the data that doesn't look good you know even the things that aren't aren't looking the way we want them to look so that we um you know so that we're examining the water that we're swimming in essentially um and so I just I wanted to mention that like it's not always the data we want to see but I don't feel at all hindered I don't feel at all like oh well this isn't working I feel like no like keep on and I think like Miss Buck I said you know we're trying to undo a long history of inequity is going to take time yeah exactly um yeah exactly I think it's more than just at school too I think this has to happen in the house with
138you know I mean it starts I mean this is a good starting point but I mean it has to continue at home yeah well it's a society today with family yeah our whole society that's the challenge keeping keeping it consistent yeah it's like one of the things that we really would like to do is that's different we haven't really posted a lot of the things that we've done on our website and we've done a lot and so we'll be working with Mr Warden um to basically you know help us see because sometimes when you're feeling down you just got to look back it's like you know look at where you were and look at where you are now and so that will kind of help guide us um in moving forward um the other big
139thing is that um we as a district really need to improve our data literacy because if we're going to address these changes and we need to learn how to look at data and multiple measures of data and it's not just the Big Data it could be you know it's the little things that happen in your classroom um sometimes people feel so overwhelmed with these Casp in this dashboard when it could be just as simple of like you know an exit ticket so um our mtss crew is working on that we're working on a website we're working on training staff to improve our data literacy district-wide so with that um oh I forgot about this thing here's the other big thing exciting um very exciting um it's an equity lens um tool that there are sets
140of questions that we're going to be asking ourselves and each other when we look at policies practice and programs um we want to make sure that the voices are heard from the other perspective we want to make sure that they are represented we want to make sure that how we communicate this is clear so there's a whole bunch of things that you know we will be asking ourselves as we look at policies in practice Ms basuino gave a great example that one of the things that we're using is for is dress code um and also we will be looking at this you know our athletic eligibility all of those things that we are starting to look at using this Equity lens tool this is not perfect yet and we're going to get feedback and so
141starting next week Miss Preston I will be going to the school sites um in person where we'll be offering Zoom sessions also um to get feedback and then um we'll also gather feedback from you and then um we're gonna revise it as needed and then adopt it for our district there's a lot of buzzwords in here I understand um and so one of the things that we will be doing is um like definitions and instructions I'm also thinking of creating like a screencast so that it is on our website to help people understand what this is and I just want to say this um so thank you to miss Baca for creating the the making it really pretty um and thank you to um the executive cabinet we worked with Courtney Caldwell from greatest conversation
142she came um for in our delt training in our delt workshops basically she's worked with us I don't know many hours and we did hours of work with each other with Courtney not there we looked at some samples that other you know from other organizations and um use that as a starting place but this is really something that is our own so a lot of work at the executive cabinet District executive leadership team level went into this um tool and we want it we want to use it throughout the district once it's perfect right or you know I guess probably it's never going to be perfect um but we want this to be something that can be used by students in on their site right principles and you know teachers and by us looking at
143and by the board looking at you know we want it to be able to be usable so um to that end we are going to talk so this this isn't the final product we probably should have put draft across this so you know there will very likely be changes but um I'm super proud of us because it's not easy to um to do this work and I'm um it but it makes it just as I'm proud of the board's work on the equity statement um that wasn't easy work it wasn't like you just sort of sat down and you know knocked it out in an hour something have to go back to and you have to go back to and so anyway I just wanted to say that I'm really thankful to the executive cabinet
144for their work open it up to the board for for feedback comments questions I have a question toward the end there you mentioned people who may have an alternate viewpoint is that what it was that's not the words you used uh but I think you might have mentioned in other side like um like the underrepresented groups that are usually not heard that's what we want to get feedback from that was your friend I understand thank you I can go uh so thank you this I know this has been a huge lift and I'm really grateful for the work that everyone has been doing um and thank you Miss Baka for um everything important in the champion and you've been a fantastic Champion for this work um so I'm excited I mean I think I understand
145the depression and frustration I mean like I understand it you know as growing up as a person of color through my whole life and then being a board member on this side you know um and the thing that keeps me going is my kids you know and eventually having a point and getting to a point in time where you don't have to think about the things that I had to think about you know or think like you have to be a school board member you know in order um um so I you know to talk about progress you you know Miss bestwino knows I mean when I first started on the school board we couldn't have had this conversation so to be able to be frank and have these conversations is progress um you know
146I had a really good conversation with um superintendent Presta about how I was feeling and I have not been able to have that type of conversation with the superintendent in my entire time of being a board member so you know that's progress um so you know and I have to my kids are always do this because I will be at home and I'm like and my kids will tell me you know Mom remember when you don't remember the time so I don't want us to get frustrated and burnt out of the work and remember that we are making progress while the same time still being open to challenge ourselves on the work that needs to be done um and just found you know grounding the things that I say and constant acknowledgment of who you
147all are and what you bring and the amazing work that you've done so for me when something goes wrong it's not a reflection on you the thing that I'm looking at is how we respond um and so I know it's that's the part for me that gets frustrating sometimes is you know how do we get to a place where we're okay with and we're it's we're getting there but it's hard because I defend you know and when things happen and people come to me with complaints I have to stop myself from initially defending the district when a parent or someone will come to me and talk about something we're doing wrong you know during covid I lost friends because I was you know at defense and I think doing some other things if I could
148go back in time you know I am something that this is directed at myself too in representing the district there are times that I wish I have gone back to and not been so defensive and really just had a more empathetic lens and heard the person more before I jump to well we're doing this and we're doing that you know and we're trying and so I think looking at the power and privilege and that's you know that is a looking at my own power and privilege and that is a huge thing that I can do I can just shut a whole thing down when somebody comes to me and talk about something because I'm a school board member and people um it's hard to come up and have a complaint against me and then when
149I immediately jump into fence mode it's kind of a walk away so looking at instances of what's happening on our campuses and you know I know that there are issues with students feeling like they don't belong because they're part of the lgbtq community because they're a part of other significant subgroups and how do we make sure that all these things that we are doing are trickling down to them and it's going to take some time and I'm just wondering like you know how do we measure that you know what are we doing to get a ground you know a Baseline and then see if things are effective and moving forward and really leaning into students and student voice um and then covet destroyed the community group that we had that was a really strong group
150and seeing if we can try to bring that back um because they were really engaged in an active group because they wanted to see change and also could feel that we were open to it so seeing if we could bring that community group back as another place to have conversation and get feedback and um and then continue to um look at policy I think we started the policy work with looking at policy because what do we do you know we get shocked what do we do when we find out that somebody who works here is blatantly racist you know what do we do do we have policy to fall back on what do we do when um certain things present themselves because I think it's so hard to have these conversations in the Bay Area
151you know we really don't want to be perceived as these things and so when these things happen it's really hard for us to kind of Glock it's really easy for us to kind of gloss over and not want it to be true instead of dealing with things directly and head on and then if we had policy and things to fall back on um I think that would be helpful um and then lastly it's just um knowing that for me that um like I am fully supportive of the work that you all are doing and that I'm really grateful for the work that you are doing and I know it's hard but you know I believe that we can do it you know we've already we've done so much in a district that's so small and
152the resources that we have but I'm always heartened by we stay student centered and student focused um in that you know I'm finally seeing it I I'm filled with hope like this presentation filled me the hope and I know it's frustrating but just to be able to talk about and say these things to me is like that's the pathway like being able to acknowledge and have the conversation that to me is some of the biggest hurdle so thank you for everything that you're doing and you know I'm here to support in any way that I can kill you feel you um thank you so much for all of your hard work um and I grew up in this District I went to Jeff in the 70s and 80s and I I will admit I'm when
153my son was old enough to go to high school we did not even tour Jeff Jeff was not going to be an option for him because at the time I felt ashamed that um I always felt less than a Jeff there was that reputation that followed you everywhere I was salutatorian and I'd meet kids from the South Peninsula and they'd go well Jeff and you know it and it's hard for me to admit this but when but with all the work that we'd been doing as you know in my time on the board all the work that we'd been doing and I never felt like I really didn't know there was a district that took care of us when I was a Jeff you know I thought we was just us and we had our
154rivalries with ceremony and you know in and um but I you know and the and the teachers are very very insular as well you know but when it came down to when my daughter was deciding between Jeff and Westmore I left it up to her and I was over Joy she picked Jeff and she flourished there and it's one of the it's one of the things I'm most ashamed of that as a school board member I did not want my child to go to my to one of our schools because I had a bias because of how I felt growing up there even though I felt I got a great education I never felt good enough but look at the work that we're doing look at the work you've all it's progress not perfection when
155you're dismantling a system you can't do it overnight I don't know if it's gonna happen in our lifetime but I know that we're making grounds you know we're we're getting there so when you get frustrated I get it I have been in um a Perpetual state of mourning because of all the losses I've had and I struggle with my Wellness and there may be um maybe in the last six months might have been two or three times when I in one moment I'll say God I feel good I feel good right now and I'm amazed that I feel good and then it'll go away but that's progress because a few months before I was not good look at the strides what we're making I am so proud of our district and I'm so thankful for
156all the work that you're doing this Presta I mean just to for us Equity is not a buzzword it's change we are really rolling it out and it's we're not going to see it we're seeing progress we're not going to get it all overnight and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your hard work and your dedication thank you for the presentation and thank you for connecting the equity dots for me you know I mean we've been hearing so much about all the different things and you know in the recap we're in the board meetings about you know this training for it for administrators this training for staff Etc and sometimes I'm thinking all right what's does it all make sense is it our and finally right
157here especially looking at slides seven and eight what do you put out put down the timeline of the equity Journey and I still remember you know when claima and I were sitting in the csba conference room with you know a handful of other districts and and suddenly realizing oh man we've there's a lot that we've got to learn and that we want the rest the board to learn and that we want our leadership team to learn and then to see other board members from other districts feeling the same way it's up for a handful who decided this is this is too uncomfortable for me I can't be here and we could have easily been that but we weren't we decided to go and go through this battle because we see that 85 percent of our
158students are students of color and and it's so important for us to represent them well and to educate them well and to let them understand that they are important and that and that we want them to be the ones to ultimately dismantle the systems that we're trying to do we're teaching them how to do this and it's powerful again going back to that to the ethnic studies presentation and the and the comments from the students about how important that class has been for them so far and and then to hear to read what the teachers are saying about just what rating for Equity has meant to them it's all it's all connected and it's incredible to see the journey we've taken I still remember when we sat when we were talking about what we had
159learned at csba at one of the convocations and there was these blank stares in the Terra Nova theater from from staff what are these two metalheads thinking you know what are they saying and and to where we are now the fact that we've got the objective cabinet all unified with what with the board and that there's groups of Staff throughout that are unified with with Detective cabinet and with us and the fact that the next step is really the larger District and it's been uncomfortable for all for a lot of people it was uncomfortable for me and that's okay you know it's okay for all of us to feel a lot of discomfort and to feel like we're not doing enough and to feel like oh man I still have to learn that and I
160screwed that up that's okay we have created a safe space in the boardroom we've created safe spaces in our offices we're creating safe spaces in our classrooms this whole District to save space let's let's keep it that way let's let's do that I love that so thank you I'm reading off my soapbox now that's what school board meetings before I know anything else that anybody else wants to add I mean I didn't have a lot to say I mean for me this is all this is all really new I mean we're just kind of digging in and learning about what you guys have started and are continuing to do and it I'm not going to lie it's pretty overwhelming to kind of sit here and try to absorb it all and really see like what's
161really going on um I don't think a lot of people realize that I really don't I know I didn't you know and I've I've never really been part of a board or but I wasn't a PTA you know kind of guy or anything like that but um this is a really deep important stuff that you know that just has been lacking for forever I mean and you could tell it's still in its infancy and you know there's tons of hard work going into it and lots of thoughtfulness and you know I I know we want to see results and I know that we want to see change I mean I think most of us do I mean for the better but I think you know the reality of it it's going to take time and
162you know we just got to keep pushing forward and I mean I think it's just cool I just I I I'll have a lot more to offer once I really know what's going on I just I'm really trying to be 20th May 20th stuff to try to like it's okay hold on to you know your first year as a board member is a blur yeah yeah but but it's it's so encouraging just to see I mean the passion and and everything that's coming out of everybody's mouth and just you know it's it's so encouraging and it's good to know that I you know like you were saying about your daughter not want to go to Jeff I didn't want my daughter to go to Jeff either I went to Jeff and when I was at
163Jeff it was pretty bad you know I mean it was not a good school to be at so and that didn't really have anything to do with the education that was just the environment that it was back in those days you know so it was it was different so that's kind of always stuck with me you know going through you know you know kids were growing up and stuff so but but thank you uh thank you guys for all laying all the groundwork and creating this environment and you know making it somewhere where you know people want to be you know some somebody looks up to and your daughter is a Jefferson she is yeah she is just to follow up sorry yeah she's there in the story she's doing well she loved it yeah
164she's doing really good so I mean it's you know it's been a good journey and now I'm here and I get to be part of this so that's even better so yeah thank you guys appreciate it thank you so much yes I don't want to step on you board member you don't need to I don't want to step away supposed to say something not at all let me let me say something really quickly I um so now I've lost my train of thought um that happens at my age um I want to say that um just we've had again many conversations about this but I'm reminded I went and saw Michelle Obama speak recently she just wrote that book The Light we carry and she was talking about how do you make change you know
165like do you make change from the outside if you make change from the ends I mean I think there's no right way right there's we all have a place those people from the outside of the system you know um telling us we need to make change and so we all in this room are deciding to be in the system and to make change I think we are all change makers here we all see that you know like I want to often just like completely dismantle everything and wouldn't it be beautiful to just create this idyllic space doing it all the right way everything the way it's supposed to be done and um so while that's a beautiful dream even being the superintendent even being on the school board like you think oh when I'm this
166I'm gonna make this stuff happen and you know it's just not how it all works but um I do think that when we are in a position of power and privilege and so um we are able to dismantle the pieces that we can dismantle and rebuild them in the way that they should be built and so um you know I am so just that that we've all made the decision to be in the system and to make and to dismantle what needs to be dismantled and to rebuild it in the right way so it's the good work that we're doing and because we you know it's like so not doing a deep dive deep in this more emotional in my comments like how we're feeling but I know we have the work study coming up
167and so it would be good at the work study to hear about like what a you know learning more about how we're uh hiring and looking at using resources to hire more people of color but then that's just that's just not enough like do what people of color want to work here is an environment that people of color want to be in you know so it's not just about the students but also about the adults um and seeing if we can you know is there climate survey and information about how the adults feel working here um and other things like that so um I'm excited to have those discussions I look forward to the work study thank you well thank you so much Miss batra and thank you everyone for the ongoing Equity work and
168that it is not a buzzword here it is the way we live all right moving on item 16a1 approval of tentative agreement with Teamsters Local Union 856 Ms Lujan foreign it's nice to see all of you um the item before you this evening is the tentative agreement with Teamsters Local Union 856. it includes included are the salary schedules that we've agreed to as well as some language changes about things like agreeing to do monthly earn two annual meetings so some contractual changes and I welcome any questions you may have questions for Ms Lujan if none then I'll entertain our motion to approve d all those in favor great thank you all right Ms Baca item 16 B1 revision of BP 61 46.1 High School graduation requirements revisions but it did not include the requirement of
169ab101 for ethnic studies however we are I am bringing this today to include the language the beginning with 29 30 school year a student is required to complete one semester course of in ethnic studies to graduate from high school we know that this will be implemented way before that but we wanted to make sure and just put the language [Applause] motion to approve second all those in favor aye great thank you all right item 16 C1 second interim report 2223 budget Ms van raphorse thank you president tonight is the second interim report which covers the financial State of Affairs through January 31st um you have been given the executive summary that describes our overall Financial Health the overall finding of the report is that we will be able to meet our financial obligations which is
170noted by the positive certification um if you would like me to go over some highlights I am happy to do that or I would ask that the board approves a positive certification but I can submit the report to the county superintendent first any questions or comments mission to approve okay all those in favor aye great okay thank you item 17 consideration of future agenda items anything okay as soon as they're none we will go on item 18. is there a motion to adjourn it is I'll take that as a motion it was already on the floor all right and I believe Mr hotter had the second all right all those in favor aye meeting adjourned that 9 29 PM yeah thank you [Music]