001okay we are live thank you I would like to call this meeting to order at 7:03 can I get a roll call please good evening everyone mr. Li wasn't mr. our chip in t yeah mrs. in Garrett yeah mr. Hatta here miss salahuddin is it thank you you lookin so today in the current climate and in solidarity with people who are out when we're at the board meeting and just because in respect to how I feel and I'm grateful for the board to give me the space to do this I would just like to move past item number seven which is the pledge because I really feel like the country needs to make an obligation to my children and my family and everybody that looks like me and other people of color in this country
002before I I'm comfortable saying another clinch so we're gonna move past item number seven and to item over eight approval of the agenda dr. Deloria are there any changes to the agenda and you please doctor deloria there are no changes to the agenda thank you can I know that we have one item on the agenda the last item which is the resolution I think we're gonna have a lot of speakers so I'm asking the board if we wanted to move that up to 14 a1 just so it's not the last item with people waiting to make up public comment I would then move to amend the agenda with with that suggested change okay all those in favor aye [Music] we're gonna report out of closed session the board met in closed session before this meeting
003and took action on item settlement number 20 19 - 20 26 and the board approved the settlement of 119 thousand dollars 100 119 116 dollars total so I'm sorry 119 thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars doll okay so moving on to communications forward report turning it over to trustee ultra pin T yes thank you so as we are closing out the year and watching everything in our community I think as public officials we're always watching these things and as educators and people working within the field of education it's it's a rolling responsibility of ours - often times I think I feel like we need to report on you know everything going on but I think all of us watching the news know where our country is at and or at least where we're currently at
004and are trying to move forward in terms of figuring out the next steps in really providing for well I think education plays a strong role in and one of the things I realized and being students growing up in this community and going to college is that the role of education is to empower people one of the things I learned in college was educate to liberate I mean it came from two students to UCLA and a bunch of Carter and John Huggins who actually were active you know the movement and and we're Black Panthers and and promoted that because we knew that education was like many people say it's our passport to the world seeking to provide a global education for our students to think right now as we're closing out the year with all of
005the ups and downs and virtual graduations and in hopes of having you know in a person graduation and staying healthy and seeing our youth get out there and speak nothing makes me prouder than seeing the current young generation fight for the things that I think a lot of us have done in our own time and as activists and as organizers and it's as parents and in addition as students and teachers and educators you know of course now as public officials so I just want to say that on not only am i proud but I'm also looking forward to the work that we're continuing to do here as a public you know body and as a school district to help reinforce that as we you know serve meals to get through this pandemic as we provide
006community service and resources to our city and county and state officials at the local level to make sure that we're achieving and also not only to to be here in terms of service as we go through these things but to be a active voice and I think all of us here will probably agree that not only our voices are important but empowering the the voices of our youth next generation to be involved as we seen them on our advisory council and board but in our community to feel like they can say these things in our community because San Mateo County needs that we see in bigger cities and across the Bay Area in the country but we really need to uplift that and I think we're doing a good job of that and I think
007um we still have a long way to go but it shouldn't take as long as that you should be asked you know proud of where we are right now and trying to move that forward so Thank You trustee of Japan tea trustee Lee I think a lot of this stuff is just your opinion said kind of weighs heavy on my heart it's been a really weird strange several days now right past week has been just brutal and for it to all occur in the midst of a global pandemic is just one of the strangest most awful things I didn't even imagine right now I know you it's funny because I was actually kind of in a good space over the weekend just you know you kind of get to the place of just you know
008it's there it's happening and you and there's stuff that you know you need to do prepare for or meeting you know so you so I got myself you know doing some of this i finishing my taxes you know all of that then you know for me at work it's the month fiscal month then so you know lots of stuff going on and then 3:30 yesterday afternoon hits and and suddenly my mind is elsewhere right i think about my kid Hank who was already out in Oakland protesting you know I'm thinking about the images I'm seen in Washington DC a lot of fear then just then out then a lot of fury after that just rage you know and it's already on top of everything else going on that I'm you know I'm I'm mad about
009you know to be able to stand alongside our fellow our fellow brothers and sisters who like elected presidents all who Dean and her family who we love dearly and you know who has experienced so much that I can't even begin to imagine you know and you know and and then then this morning it became you know what screw all is well you know I don't from fear to anger to courage because you know what I'm looking at my my son who went back out to to the great highway to protest he went back down the Redwood City you know he's gonna be in San Francisco tomorrow I mean he he's he's taking his outlet you know and and that's fantastic he's out there with friends there massed up there there social distancing as well as
010possible in a large crowd very proud of him for doing that very proud of the young people for doing that and then I realized you know there's so many things out there that's happening I can't control but I can't control how I choose to respond to all of this and part of that is working with every single one of you my fellow board members this fantastic district administration the teachers and staff and as I got to know so many of you you know I am incredibly proud of the work you do because this is the resistance right here this is the long game I'm that there's stuff Curren right now that's that we can't necessarily do but I know that every single one of us on this hall and listening in or watching on YouTube
011I know everybody out there is in this because we're trying to make this country a better place and we can do it starting right here in our community and Daly City and Pacifica and Brisbane and pull up and Broadmoor this is where it begins and I'm proud to be in this fight with you so thank you love you guys Thank You trustee Lee trustee anger I don't have I mean well said trustee Libre trustee of Japan gee I don't have much more to add I mean I definitely ain't agreeing with with everything that you have said you know I wanted absolutely think you know our communities for bringing up the these young people out here you know getting out there and having a voice heard is because of you know teachers and staff and parents
012in the community they're out there raising them to be aware of our surroundings and you know hopefully you know when my children are of that age and they would not have to struggle as hard that you know they would have a voice too out there and be able to to speak their mind and and you know act on injustice as well so I'm grateful for our community and again all our teachers our district for you rallying everybody up and and loving the students and teaching them and and educating them to raise them to be productive human beings so thank you Thank You trustee Tejada I feel like I've been hiding because I can't handle it I for the last month I've been dealing with my father's health issues and I can't be with him I've
013been trying my best to shelter in place I've been doing a great job and all of this the stress of it all I can't when I think of Colima and her kids tells me and I break down I think of Karla her children I feel like why it's open season on black people I just you know I've suffered discrimination in my life and I used to think well I'm just enjoy everything is fine now I'm in a good place it doesn't happen all the time but I'm lying to myself it happens all the time it happens all the time they're just not trying to kill me and you know my kids are half white and curly made the observation that you know she's never the only time police have stopped her in a riding in
014a car was with me and her brother and never her dad and that realization to her was like wow mom I never realized that and I I don't think about that kind of stuff but you know when all this was happening over the weekend Carly you know she's on social media all her friends are and they're just outraged they are but they had a moment where they had a friend who had different views and was defending the officer you don't know he's racist you can't look into his heart and they all the dialog till 3:00 in the morning they were on the phone actually on the phone do we continue to continue trying to educate her or do we have to let her go it's it was a huge thing and you know I never
015talked to her about this she is learning this at school she is learning this from her teachers she's learning to be a thinker because of all the teachers she's had she is so I mean you know she has had teachers at Jefferson who have really you know brought this civic engagement out in her and that these kids and they're all from different schools in our district that they are talking to each other about this it gives me a hope gives me a real hope and you know I gotta stop hiding because you know I'm gonna be 57 tomorrow and I feel like I'm hitting my second act I've gotta bring myself up as a better human being because these times this is nuts and it's we're a race conscious Society and we have to accept
016it and we all have to see color we all have to see color and I love everyone on this call you are the best I'm so proud of our district and everything that we do for our students and I'm grateful to you personally for what you've done for my children thank you Thank You trustee Tejada and you look fantastic by the way so and then I just want to speak to like trustee to how I got really emotional and I know what she was thinking of when she did when she talked about my kids because and the reason I bring this up is just to say to be there for each other during this time because I was I had a really rough incident that happened a few years back where my son was in
017the hospital and due to some of his actions we were held there and all the nursing staff and everyone said they had never seen anybody treated like that and I really felt like we were being discriminated against and they refused to let my son and I out of the hospital and we're gonna hold us until the next morning where they could try to do a 5150 and I didn't know I just called Rosie I didn't know who else to call and I called Rosie and I was like I'm scared I don't know what's gonna happen and it was like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and Rosie got up and then she got me coffee and she stayed with me the whole time until they released me and my son and so you know I
018don't know if I'd be here if Rosie wasn't there for me and so and so in those type of moments like even though wasn't my fault you feel like somehow it is but she was just there and she listened to me and there was no judgments so so many people have been in here for me now to help me get through this time and I'm just grateful for my board family and the Ju HST family and I just ask that everybody who is on the zoom and who's listening on YouTube that is like the best way to help is just to be there for each other and to really be present and that's how that's how I stay hopeful and that's how we'll get all through this because you know sometimes you know I have
019no guidance give people because I haven't I don't even know what to say to my own children right now but that's how but the one thing that I do say to them is that we are so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who our family our friends who care for us and love us and so that's who I hold on to and I just want everybody to know that you know I'm ready to be present for you if you need me and I'm so glad that you're there for me vice versa so thank you dr. delaurio while we're where to start so this was a tough weekend and I'm just gonna put it out there I am clearly aware of the advantage that I have as a white educated female and I can't
020imagine the fear that moms especially he's thinking from a mother's perspective moms have to go through raising children especially boys of color and I think one of I was so frustrated this weekend almost hopeless because we went through through this in 19 well we went through this a lot I mean there's a child of the late 60s and the 70s but in 1992 in LA we had the riots after the Rodney King verdict came out and it was open house and I are back-to-school night for me as a teacher and we had to stay home because of curfews and things like that and all that stuff was publicized and it was it was awful two years later I was living in Italy and similar things happening it's not just race I mean in in Torino
021the number of people who were just openly bias against remember the Croatia thing was going on the Moroccans the homeless they called him gypsies but of all nationalities and the horrendous things they didn't said to people and again the looting that when I think about the businesses have had to be closed and now lost even more and I fully support the protest that makes our country great it's one of the things I know democracy is messy but we need the protests we need to keep doing that but even in my own family I had one family member not going to mention because I don't know who's watching but made the comment all lives matter and that kind of set me off and I go will you you know might feel differently if you were a
022mom of a child of color you know there's yes all lives matter but everyone doesn't believe that and until they do you have focus on those groups who are oppressed um my daughter emailed me mom what her school's gonna do about this and she meant that in the kindest of ways but I thought this is not just on schools if it's just on schools we're missing the population that's 19 and over I mean this isn't just about about what we're doing the school so it was it was a tough weekend on when I came into work yesterday a few people commented oh is everything okay well I was kind of in a funk yesterday I mean who wanted to watch the news there is nothing good news so I hear everything you're saying I stand
023with all of you on that I'd like to make a statement on behalf of the district I've just been too emotional to do it yet I need to take my time and really think about that anyway so I agree with that and not to change the subject but just a reminder we are doing a staff webinar on Thursday to update everybody on where we are with Kovac 19 and then on Thursday evening I'm gonna do an update for our current families in grades 9 through 11 Jose will do the same webinar at 7 o'clock I'll be there to answer questions and then on Monday we're doing a special webinar for our incoming new students the incoming eighth graders who will be next year's ninth graders I'll introduce the principal's they'll have a couple of things
024to say and then I'll give them an update I think one of the things I can I can't solve all the problems of the world but I think one thing that I can do is continue to update people and let people know that we're thinking about them and we're thinking of ways to continue educating all students making sure also do this thrive while keeping people safe so that's my my little bit like my contribution but I stand with all of you thank you thank you turning it over to our aft local 1481 president Monica Casey hi just to start out I'm gonna start out with some business so and then I'll move into some other items so just we're getting about two so far we have about two hundred responses to the return to school
025options so we sent out a feedback form and we have about a 200 so some of that is from from people in the community and some from our staff members I'd say about a hundred and 150 from staff members people are really concerned about safety and being safe medically health health wise so you know we just really have to keep on top of that aft and CFT they actually don't believe that we will be able to start back at school in the fall they don't think it's gonna be safe I'm sorry cat was sneezing if you hear that I want to congratulate all of us those schools and communities first house officially qualified for the November ballot so I think that happened last Friday and officially qualified so we did it we got signatures and
026now some more like we don't have enough to do right now but we have work to do on that and get people to vote YES for that each site had a meeting to discuss the return to school options of course it was hard because people were thinking those options were worth it and that's what we had to choose from and so I think people were relieved to hear that those were just options to get us started thinking about the conversation and that you know we're nowhere near ready to make a make decisions but we just we have a lot of information coming at us that we need to to hear we need to hear people's voices and I think we are hearing voices for return to school and then the last two things that I
027want to talk about are you know as far as George Floyd's murder we do have teacher and staff that are trying to organize a response by trying to figure out how to educate our kids you know they're they're thinking about the fall and how to have some kind of lesson that will help get our kids motivated to do something if they're not already because of course a lot of them are already doing something and I stand with you all kolima I don't know if you noticed I do not say the Pledge ever and one of the reasons is my grandparents did not have equality and I don't believe I do I don't believe many of us do for a lot of different reasons but you know I can't even can't even go there I'm I
028stand with you and thank you Thank You president Casey moving on to the consent agenda unless anyone wants to pull anything can I get a motion to approve motion to approve all those in favor say aye aye any opposed well okay so with approval of the consent agenda I would like to congratulate our newest vice principal to Oceana High School all right so Torres congratulations and if you would like there's no pressure to do so but if you would like to address the board in the community right now you can yeah I'll keep it short first of all thank you all for being open that was really great from hearing from everyone because I'm feeling the same thing but on the appointment I'm really excited to be working with Oceana in this new role so
029thank you thank you and I again I just want to talk or say thank you to our human resources department with a specific shout out to Tony Presta and again as a board we have given direction to the administration to really look to hiring with the lens to diversity and to people of color and you guys have really stepped up and fulfilled that asked by the board and I'm so grateful to have another person that is more representative of our student body in our administration's development thank you all right moving on to public comment so we have there's two types of public comment this portion is for anybody that wants to address the board on any item that is not on the agenda if you do want to speak about an item that is on
030the agenda you can do so when that agenda item comes up are there any cards for public comment at this time for Norma gender items so there are no public comments at this time however we have individuals who would like to address item 14 dot B dot one when we get to that item perfect thank you moving on to business services item 13 a1 a budget public hearing I will turn that over to miss banner of course Thank You president salahuddin good evening everyone for the 2021 fiscal year the district must adopt a budget prior to July 1st the budget that is presented for adoption tonight is based on the information released from the governor's may revision and it reflects the information that we have discussed as a full board in the study session last
031week this budget has been made available to the public beginning on May 28th and official notices were posted in newspapers and on our website so as outlined in the documents the budget incorporates a one point four eight million dollar reduction for the 2021 school year and additional $500,000 reduction in 2021 and nine hundred thousand more in twenty 2:23 with these assumptions it's assumed or it's projected that the district will be able to meet its financial obligations and so at this point we should open a public hearing to hear anything that the public has to say on the budget and then it will come back to the board for action and adoption on June 16th perfect thank you and with that I open the public hearing and you want to address the board in relation to
032the budget for 2020 2021 okay seeing no takers I will close the public hearing thank you I will open it up to any comments for board members before we move on Jesse Lee I just want to say thank you again specifically to Misbah and Roberts for the work that she's done on this and the presentations we've had last week and and and and you know to be able to make it and put it in such a way that it's easy for us to digest easy for us to understand and so so thank you thank you very much for all your work on this it it's it's just been a pleasure to be able to go through this knowing in confidence that you're on top of this and that this then and that your team is
033is on top of it so thank you thank you thank you um I would also like to echo those sentiments and say that you know we are in a unique category which is a nice one that many other districts are looking at having to make cuts even pre-coated before this and you've just been a great financial Stewart for the district and really helping the board make good decisions and giving us good guidance so that we keep our district in a stable fiscal place it's disappointing that I was really looking forward to all we're doing so well we were able to do some other things with the budget but I am very thankful and blessed that we're in the place that we were that we were able to hold harmless this year and not really have
034to make those really tough decisions until a future year so thank you so much mr. quartz for all the work that you've done and keeping this fiscally safe thank you as you know I'm a member of this community I have vested interest and so I definitely doing all I can to make sure that you guys have the tools you need to make the best decisions you can with that I'm gonna move on to our next item which is 2020 2021 reserves an excess of state minimum level public hearing mr. Mapp Forest thank you so for this item there is no action that needs to be taken it is based on Senate bill 858 in ED code section 42 127 that we must bring to the public when we have a signed ending fund balances assigned
035and unassigned ending fund balance that is greater than the designated minimum research so the minimum reserve for our district is 3% so when we have more than 3% we just need to talk about it and show it to the public so documents that accompany this item show that there's an additional reserve of 3.5% in 2021 projected on 2.3 percent additional reserve in 21 22 and 1.4 percent additional reserve in 22 23 this is including fund 17 which is our special reserve and this is a level of reserve that's much less than what we need to weather any downturns in property tax revenue and so it's it would be great if those were higher I would much prefer to be bringing you bigger numbers but that's what they are and so this item while we need
036to do is open a public hearing allow for discussion close it and then that's the end of talking about the reserves for this year awesome thank you opening the public hearing on our reserves any speakers no fantastic I will go ahead and close our public hearing opening it up for board comments seeing there's none thank you so much miss fan around for us I echo your comments I do wish they were award more but I'm glad that we have what we have and we will continue to push forward next up on the agenda this is a presentation from our continuation school also known as Thornton high school and I will turn that over to dr. Gloria thank you present salahuddin actually I'm going to turn over to miss Baca who's going to give you a
037little bit of context before she introduces our two speakers tonight awesome thank you all right good evening president Saar Dean good evening members of the board during the site board meeting at Thornton high school in the fall of 2019 there was a request that Stewart referrals for credit recovery at Thornton high school happened at an earlier stage because sometimes it becomes too challenging to complete these credits within four years due to this request I met with dr. Marinko Carlos al-kahf along with our director of student services during bus we know counselors Nicole Collins and now VP Marissa Torres and principal Gray Strickland to revise the board policy administrative regulation on continuation education so tonight dr. Marengo and mr. Hoff will be presenting a summary of the policies and regulation and the overall program change for
038Thornton high school so I'd like to introduce dr. Mariko and this help off thank you everybody good evening and again another honor to present with you all today before I begin I just would like to also share my solidarity and unity for those seeking justice as we are continuing to strive every day for it so pissed off and I are gonna be presenting give a couple of slides and I'll be sharing my screen with you all Carla's gonna start and then I'll go ahead and continue after this again is a presentation based on continuing education and alternative education related to or policy 61 84 so I'll quickly turn it over to meaning everyone dark Markham I wait for the slides to load okay good evening everyone good evening of Board of Trustees of evening Executive
039Board cabinet members and so I've already eaten up kind of add you know what the genesis of this change in the board policy is I want to thank the board for hearing our our concerns when they came to Thornton high school in the fall and this is September I will be at Thorin High School nineteen years and in the 19 years that I've been there it's it's always a challenge when especially when we get seniors who need 45 credits and we get them at our fourth quarter and so we're scrambling to to help our students graduate and it's just it's just very difficult and I can't tell you how many times my colleagues my counselor colleagues will call me and and ask me hey you know can you look at this student's transcript that Nikki
040missed tourists can she's called me many times to ask me about her students and unfortunately Thornton high school has always been viewed by some families as never we're never going to send our children there it's not the school that we want for a kid and it's unfortunate that then you know the students suffer so like miss Baca said we we met as a group at Thornton high school twice and over the district policy and compared it with other district policies I think dr. Gloria gave us a copy of the district board policy from her previous trip district and went over our there was old policies from you know kind of from many many years ago Hart you je HSE district policy and compared it to other districts and I thought it was a really good
041productive meeting and we came up with a lot of good ideas as to how maybe to market sort and better to the community and introduced Thorton earlier to the students so they're not seeing Thornton high school as a punishment but it's an alternative to their education and so I mean if we are able to get our students earlier so that they can either finish earlier get their edging a high school diploma earlier or be able to return to their home school so that's you know we can help them move on to the next you know their post-secondary options I think you know if we can do this it will be better for our community dr. marcoh thanks Carl so here's some examples of some changes to board policy 61 84 week no mistake Thorton is
042as regular as school as it is we just have a different and similar path towards achieving the same destination which is the high school diploma so what we did as we struck the regular and made sure that we identify Thornton on the same level as all our comprehensive schools we that there's been some barriers to entry so one of the other changes that we have instituted was continuing to accept students to the first week of each grading area we had been doing this in the past however policy did not read that way it was the decision of the committee to then make sure that the policy resembled the current practices in addition to that we further delineated adequate progress towards graduation in an example of which is there specific credits that we have identified that
043would help trigger for school sites a threshold in which students can be considered for a transfer to thorns in high school in the past years we've been graduating students with the credit requirements of two hundred and five credits towards graduation the policy they'll read differently and we wanted to make sure again that the policy matched the current private practice the last example of a change was changes to our referral process and an example of the change to the referral process is includes a couple of items one we have further built a more detailed referral process which is different than adding more work for school sites and the reason why we made the change is because we believe that additional information in the area of social emotional learning will give us additional information to better target
044the support services that are necessary for every student so in essence charging ourselves with increasing our level of that by giving every student what they need additional changes to 2020 2021 school year that I also wanted to share out or changes related to the community environmental education program other organize other otherwise known as seep or wilderness school there's some barriers and some challenges that seep and wilderness school could potentially face given the same requirements that said though where there's crisis there's opportunity and part of what we are planning to leverage includes working with and collaborating with our local and regional resources in the community which includes the businesses within the peninsula as well as our local colleges and institutions to help again leverage the environmental education aspects of the wilderness school as whereas we're evolving
045into greater partnerships with our community we're also looking at birth grading the will dip into the thorns and master schedule and but the reason for that is our current as well as continuing to provide our students not only the academic literacy as well as increasing the rigor and be planned towards academic achievement and opportunity but also continuing to keep alive the environmental education aspect of the wilderness school so it's an evolution so to speak of how we're going to continue to not only keep what is working with the wilderness school but also look at these other opportunities through career technical education as well as working to potentially explore establishing the wilderness school as an academy through thorns in high school so in conclusion some of the key takeaways include again student referral referrals to Thornton
046in a timely manner increase access to alternative education the changes can lead to increases in graduation rates there's research that would suggest that the greater that students achieve greater success if we can better target the gaps and addressing those gaps you know in a more successful rate another key takeaway is improving the intake process which helps increase equity for all students and the last is enhancing opportunities for leveraging local and regional resources in reimagining the wilderness school that concludes our presentation we want to thank everybody for your support and thank you everyone again thank you so much dr. Marengo and I'm going to I know we have Ed Lopez I'm sorry dr. Gloria so just to remind you to the board usually I bring policies and regulations to you in discussion and we don't usually
047have a presentation but there was a substantial change not only in updating this policy and regulation - what's the SBA recommends but also the change in philosophy about or is a great place for students to go and giving the other four high schools the language they need for parents to get students over to the Florence sooner so think of this as the first reading and unless you have recommended changes I would be bringing this policy for your approval and consent on June 16th along with the other policies thank you so much for that again I was saying that we had a Lopez on the line who run seep and I don't know if he had anything to add or wanted to make any comments during this time share opening it up to the board for
048questions trustee Lee they actually do have a question for mr. Lopez and just because you know I just want some 30 as to what it means to be leveraging local resources and regional resources I mean I'm sure you're probably still in that space that I'm trying to define what that that is but it could be did you be a little bit more specific I'm just curious the questions for me I already leveraged already that's already been done through you know 50 years of you know the program being existence we we have plenty of support throughout community it's just we want to expand that support to see how we could you know better serve the students so that that's what it's gonna look like sure that's how I look look at it thank you any other
049questions trusty ink well before I ask my questions I think this thorn community knows how passionately I feel about your school and I think you you know for all you do for all the students especially you know those just need that little extra step to kind of get them where they need to go so you know I always appreciate everything you've done and especially you know with my steps and being a product of you know a Thornton I am more than grateful for everything that you do for those students I mean not even just the students but of course for the parents as well because I just felt so supported and nurtured I will even say you know during my time spent at Thornton so thank you dr. Mariko Thank You Karla for your 19
050years and counting your worth of service there and we don't want you ever to leave because you know I don't know what they're gonna do without you the students love you over there thank you um so I just want to so I just want to make a couple comments I I definitely am in support of you know helping you in whichever way to get the students to you earlier do you feel like it's the students that are kind of lagging behind on like you know there's a stigma of going there like or do you feel like you know the teachers at the other school are like kind of okay well let's just wait till last minute maybe we can you know get you to where you need to go and not really being realistic about
051the expectations of where they can be you know like okay this is the last resort and then just send them over you know to you after you know you could have done more things like you said to get them ready to instead of having them so late to be able to graduate so you know is there the messaging that we can changes it on the students card the community part or you know at our own schools part that can help you get those students to you faster so that's my question can I ask Miss buck can you bring up that part the regulation that shows the the credits I think this is a common problem in many districts is how do you get students and parents to the mission school in a timely way and
052parents don't have the same understanding that all of we do around credits and so when you just when you say to a parent your child is credit deficient that doesn't mean a whole lot to a parent well what I found in my previous districts is that when you actually show look when a student falls into this range of units it's time to consider going over to Thornton so that we can give you special attention and help you catch up a lot of times just having that language from the counselor's perspective and now the the parents have that ultimately the parent to make the decision not to send their child to Thornton but I it's been my experience that in more cases parents are more likely to support the counselor when they want to recommend that
053move so I don't can we Corrine can you bring that up so we can show the bohr but we're talking about yes thank you I'll let you explain it okay so again this is for the voluntary transfers so it says voluntary transfers to continuation school or initiated upon the request of administrators or parent and guardian students failing to maintain adequate progress towards graduation will be recommended for voluntary transfer unless particular circumstances which makes such recommendation inappropriate and then we define what adequate progress toward graduation so these are kind of guidelines if they do not have these credits or if they're not meeting that credit that they are they could potentially be referred to Thornton so at the end of ninth grade students with 45 or more credits are deemed in progress towards graduation and this
054is for the end of first semester in tenth grade it's 70 credits 100 credits at the end of first semester of 10th grade and so on and so forth so again we're looking at whether the students are on track of progressing and getting their graduation requirements and subject requirements otherwise we there is a potential that either you know a parent or guardian or a counselor administrator could request a transfer to Thornton high school the way you would read that I put it in a positive voice that if a student at the end of first semester freshman year has 45 or more credits they're getting adequate progress so the opposite of that then is if your child's make has less than 45 minutes maybe we should be talking about a transfer over to form so that
055they wrote it in the positive voice which I think was awesome thank you there's like a threshold basically if they get to this certain and you know like so I'm thinking like is should the threshold be a little bit even less you know like to just kind of have the warning sign hey you know like let's either get you up or you know we have to think about alternatives I think that's more like like more of like a proactive approach I guess so but if 45 is kind of like that threshold then you know that's what it is thank you sorry yes Teochew kimchi thank you yeah this one I have a question but just to also say you know damn I'm glad to see they were moving forward some of these changes I'm a
056discussion that we had and and of course like the misperceptions about you know schools in general in any community in school that that looks to I think support and help students who don't fit into a traditional quote unquote traditional school setting um uplifting an alternative model of Education is what we do special education it's what we're beginning to see more in general education classes in any comprehensive school so I see it as a very necessary and in some ways we could say overdue next step in terms of communicating to our community that Thorne is like any of our high schools except that it is exceptional a sense that it picks up where other schools leave off when we have students who need a different educational setting and I feel like that that's provided more in
057authority in some ways than we can at other schools and is a collection of is a is a collaboration in and you could say I guess just a representation of our entire community so it is it is different and it's good that it's that way because it's it serves that preparation goes beyond that that said furthering the alternative you know model of education in a different site it reminds me of Sarah mine Delray that we once had a high school here at our district office site and do circumstances then it was closed and so seeing thorn open up in the sense of enrollment to students who may look at the ordinate as an alternative and as an option um deco trustee and Garrett's um you know question is thing about how we can change or
058a look at that threshold and be flexible around students who are expressing an interest to be there if it's not counter - of course - you know the school's mission and I think the the priorities we have to have answer capacity a thorn because I think a lot of students would want to go throwing if it was an option we know that and so um I guess that was my question what next steps will we be looking at if there was a higher demand for that especially in times like these where the need for alternative education in different outlets is definitely rising if I may comment on that Thank You trustee OCHA binti for the question so it's a it's a great one and it's a multi-faceted answer and it doesn't begin with policy what
059policy must be included in it and I think we're in the right direction with the policy to model the current practices but it also takes us to be courageous enough to look at the systemic barriers that are implicit and explicit with why we have this perception and why there are so many different reasons why students come to Thornton one of which that families consider when not coming to Thornton his fear his fear of the unknown and it makes sense in the sense that when we talk about credit deficiency the key word there is deficient and we immediately operate from a deficit model of thinking and we need to rather than focus in on the credit deficiency as dr. Deloria mentioned earlier really focus in on the greatness of Thornton and rather than students perceiving this
060transition as a sentence more of opportunity where hey I can still go to college after I've graduated from Thornton cool I can still participate in extracurricular activities cool I can still concurrently enroll in other institutions great I can go to school and work to provide for my family great they refer me to jobs and health services and legal services and they've got partnerships with groups like immigrants rising and each one reach one and fresh lifelines for youth these are all examples in the trajectory towards providing support for the whole child and the whole student and the whole emerging young adult so the more that we expose our community that greatness that will outshine the fear it may I add to that as well just to address what sense the earth pinky and toasty ingot have
061said I think they're its feet there's so many levels if maybe misunderstandings and unfortunately even J HEC staff have a negative concept about Thornton I've heard of students coming to us saying my teacher said why do you want to go to Thornton you know there's only the bad kids go to Thornton you know so so maybe it's you know we have not done a very good job marketing you know our school I think everybody in this zoom meeting can have some personal relationships with the Thornton staff who can attest to how great our school is but I think you know we need to start also with the JH SD staff and in you know believing that thorn is an awesome awesome school for for their children and and the other thing I want to add
062too is Edie and you can you know say something about this - I don't think seat was ever meant to be a credit deficiency over York recover credit deficiency but it has become as you know I apologize for the words but a dumping ground for for 10th graders who never went to school who you know don't have any credits and and the solution is cell sends them to feed you know and you know if you're talking about equity for for students I'm sure there's a lot of students who are on track who probably would be interested in going to seat just because to the program that dad offers so you know I don't think that's being talked about as well you know I don't think that's being that the students are being informed of you
063know what the program is and so you know I know we don't have a through G but but I think there's a lot of students you know in our comprehensive schools once they know what seat offers that they might say I know I'm not at this thing but I want that experience thank you thank you Carla perfectly said with the B average but now because I'm only and again to use that word dumped on by with tenth graders I've cut my curriculum back at least 50% of what I can teach because they don't have the maturity level to deal what the program was originally set up for and that is having a wide expanse of students and a wide variety of students I think one of the things that dr. rankle and I have been
064talking about is we can get back to that where we have a closer partnership with Thornton how that's going to look like dr. Mericle myself and the staff are going to be looking at that over the next year and doing some test runs and am i sad about you know going from a standalone program to something more integrated sure but do I see the benefits and the opportunities yes and I think we got some good things going there and mr. alcoves exactly right is that there are a lot of students who can benefit from this and they wonder about oh how can I join that but again it's I know that's my fault of how we sell the program yeah you know but I do get pushback from teachers and you know I hear from
065other teachers oh that's a bad program after bad kids that's this that's that so we're constantly finding that mr. she Thank You trustee Tejada when I was at Jefferson one of the smartest kids I knew ended up at seep senior year he was so smart but he just wasn't a book smart it wasn't he you smart sometimes he was smarter than the teacher so you know he's just brilliant kid and but he flourished he flourished him seep and you know I don't know where he is now but you got there right before you did it I think so and then I think that when we had one of our our on-site board meetings at Thornton last year you told us that there were some students who are on track but they had heard about Thornton
066and they wanted to graduate early they wanted to know can we can we go to Thornton and graduate early and that's why I think that was when you know we're thinking that possibility of we didn't want to take anything away from students who needed to you know regain credits but it's out there so what would I what I want to know is the referrals to Thornton are they they're just voluntary transfer I mean the voluntary transfers the referrals there that would have to because the way of creating the the BP I think is that parents have to request it so but but it's there's someone at the school counselors who are keeping track of credits who says that this child may benefit from going to Thornton but it's up to the parents to request that
067transfer is that correct or to agree with that recommendation from the con okay there would be you know probably an SST probably several access keys and I think with this regulation will do is give the language to make it easier for me to say well yes we better do this okay thank you you seen Garrett I just have one more comment to make from my experience at Thornton so I don't know what anybody is talking about but every time I drop by there there is always a past student I cannot get enough of being there and it's always coming by to say hi so I think it's like once they get that experience and they feel so loved and supported that they never want to leave so and I just have witnessed that personally myself
068many many many times they're so you know thank you again for all you do and you know whatever we can do to support you you know we will absolutely trustee Lee thank you again for the presentation and and for you know again just echoing it was in Jared's comments it is always amazing to me to hear those stories of the students that you've shared with us either in meetings or you know when we are there at the school or or you know it's just a mean of them the work that we do there really just needs to be shared district-wide to help change that perception you know and I think it's and and it hurts me to hear that because I've heard it for members of in my community as well about about that perceptive
069Thorton and I find myself and my wife too always redirecting and an explaining time and again you know what an amazing program it is and and and so I'm grateful to every one of you you know dr. marcado let's alter officer Lopez I mean the work you do and you know thank you just thank you so can I just speak really quickly before you go dr. Laurie so um first I wanted to thank everyone for the presentation it was very helpful I do want to make a comment that it's not just the perception of Thornton I think there's also apparent perception right you feel like you failed and when you get have that meeting the meeting because have a parent that's had a child that's gone through Thorton the initial meeting at her high school
070that she originated from that meaning is really harsh it may not intentionally be set up to be harsh but it feels really harsh and I think it would be helpful to maybe have wellness counselors or someone there to assist with parents because I know I was thrown for a loop when I had that meeting and immediately felt like this is a reflection on me as a parent and what did I do wrong and so I think that's a lot of the push back for parents it's not wanting to have their children go to Thornton is because how will I be perceived I perceived as a failure and it wasn't until I got into the meeting with at that time Monica who was principal that I felt better like her intake and explanation to me immediately
071made me feel better where I wanted my child there and she really helped me understand because no one knew better than me that my child was struggling in high school and I had no idea how do I help what do I do I'm afraid she's not going to graduate and then after the meeting with Monica really get an understanding of this is how she gets help this is how we're gonna see her through and I think getting that message to parents much earlier because every parent knows when their child is struggling with all the things that we have available and you can track your students just to have that this is another tool it's a tool it's not a punishment it's a tool and reframing it that way um I do also think that it's
072not on Thornton to really look at their image but that is a district thing that we need to take up especially when it comes to how other teachers and staff members are speaking about Thornton that should definitely not be coming from teachers or staff so we need to really as a district work on making sure that everybody else under stands their role in how thorn is marketed and spoken about to the other jailer just a community and to the community at large and then the other question I have is that we're talking about equity and meeting everyone where they are I also want to talk to do that about the Thornton teachers and staff and that these are students that teachers and staff at our schools that they started have problems reaching and now they're
073going to Thornton so are we ensuring that the teachers and staff at Thornton have adequate professional development that may be more than what we are doing for everyone else for classroom management for other support services or whatever they feel like they need in order to do their job successfully and that we're not just blanketly giving everybody the same level of professional development but there may be some targeted things that need to happen at Thornton that's different from other schools and so thinking about things that way and last you know I am forever grateful for the teachers and staff at Thornton and my daughter now really found her passion and Environmental Conservation and she found that love at Thornton and she also found her voice at Thornton and that she's an actual leader she has a
074sister that is firmani granger so she kind of gave up on school and their twin so it was really hard to have a twin sister that is kind of that so academic and she really felt like that wasn't a place for her and she learned that it was a place for her and Thornton and now is you know has worked in with different Park Rangers and she's in college now pursuing her degree in in environmental studies so I think definitely having access to seat would have been excellent for her if she was could do that while she was at Thornton so really expanding on those opportunities to not make sheep a dumping ground but really treat it as the gym that we all know it is and and and really infuse it with people who
075respect the program and we'll come in with the level of respect that will rub off on students that may not have that level of respect so I think you know I think if you have a mixture of students they elevate each other you know so I'm really glad and thankful that you guys are all looking at this in different ways and I know change is hard and I'm so happy that you're open to it and I agree with you I want to preserve see for what it is but anything that we can do to make the program better I'm more than open to doing so thank you all so much for your work and effort on this if I may make a quick comment - this is building off what you had mentioned president celerity
076is we would be less successful if we were focused in on individuals performing individual tasks and then once that person either finds another calling or circumstances takes that person elsewhere what is the school left with so one of the things that we are becoming increasingly more intentional about is looking at things from a systemic lens so when we talk about constructing meaning that's part of the systemic approach when we talk about multi-tiered systems of support and response to instruction intervention that's what we're talking about we social-emotional learning we see that reflected in a revised intake process so we're approaching this from a systemic approach so that as parts move the foundation and the the focus on equity remains regardless of coup so long as they continue to embody and embrace the values of the school
077thank you dr. Deloria thank you so a couple of things first a little walk you went on mute if we can remember before March 13th before we were doing distance learning I used to love getting the email from dr. meringue ko hey I'm gonna be with my axon alternative education buddies can you cover on Friday and I don't know Carla maybe you guys get tired of seeing me but I love being over there the school is small enough that I can walk through classrooms and I start to know who the students are and I miss that so thank you for putting up with me when I come over there um but I wanted to Rima I want to connect something back to what what trustee OCHA pindy was talking about and that is our schools
078were working on on that journey of becoming professional learning communities and so one of the questions that we should be asking is why do we have so many students who are so credit deficient and there's an obligation of the other four schools to put programs in place so that we can we can try to meet the needs of those students before we have to have those conversations with parents and you've we saw some progress you said remember this was Jefferson's first year for flex time where they where teachers could bring students together twice a week those kids who weren't getting work done those students who had makeup quizzes and tests so schools were starting in that direction how can we be more thoughtful and more comprehensive and step-by-step what are we gonna do at Tier
079one what are the teachers going to do when students aren't turning in their work or when they aren't passing their tests and things like that so I want to remind everybody on this call that we still have an obligation in the other four schools not to wait until the students you know are at 40 credits and so then we make the referral so in fact principal Kerry I think is planning on on doing some kind of an MOU to do flex time next year so people are making those steps and then in terms of the the Thornton staff meeting students where they are every teacher in our district should have that mindset from the time those students come to us a ninth grade the students all don't come in knowing the same content and having
080the same background so we've got to get that that value that mindset that's a Thornton into all of our teachers over other schools I kind of related back to what President salahuddin sad is and this is related to the training that Miss Bach is having all of our counselors go through what is going to be our process for keeping parents and forum so you don't have that one meeting where it's a shock to you you know what is gonna be our prior counsel impress to make sure students are on on track so that's gotta you know when we get back to school we've gotta keep pushing on that that's not something that's gonna be done easily either of those things PLC's or our counseling process but you'd want to bring that to your attention and
081thank you to Karl and Danny for tonight thank you unless there's any other questions or comments No thank you so much you guys that was a great presentation from all three of you thank you so much for being here tonight and sharing with us so moving on to the other B piece I would discuss the first one I don't know if anyone has any other ones that they would like to call out or our dr. Gloria if you wanted to call out any others if not I would say we just move through them and bring them back for voting at the next meeting okay nothing controversial for sure they all seem pretty standard okay great so moving on to our next action item we are moving up I am 14 b1 resolution number 2019 slash
0822020 - 26 affirming support of a be 2016 California ethnic studies market model curriculum draft so this is me I asked that this resolution be brought before the board for approval we've had this discussion in the past about ethnic studies and I know that all the board is really passionate about ethnic studies and the challenge for us is you know figuring out how we go about that process and how we do that for our students but I know that you know one thing would be helpful is that if we get to endorse a curriculum and get that out to us so that we can move forward with a set curriculum and present that to the our students but I'm hoping that regardless of what the state does that we continue to have this conversation and
083we move even if the state gets stuck but in that vein especially with everything that's happening right now and how it's so timely I really feel that education plays a huge piece and what's happening right now do the lack of teaching a real and true and inclusive history that is reflective of us all and not just reflective of a single narrative and a single point of view when we're talking about the recent murder of another african-american male and I did not watch the video but the picture was everywhere and you couldn't escape the picture of the law enforcement officer with his knee on his neck and for me someone who my parents were extremely concerned about that I learned about my history where I came from so I went to a private school that was
084based that was encompassed in african-american history and in the Diaspora and I just recalled images of what I learned as a child just images of slave children who had their owners feet on them using them as footstools there's these pictures that are all over the place and I remember when I first saw that as this child learning about the history my thought process was how could they be so casual in the pictures like they thought they looked like it was an everyday thing in the picture and then I see the picture of that officer and the expression was the same he was so casual in what he was doing hundreds of years and that's image is still relevant and present and so people ask me has this always is it always been like this yes
085and that is to me like the prime example of why we need to teach history that people are asking the question has it always been like this um you know it is hard for me as a parent to not see that picture and picture one of our children and for so many children so many children of color who and including it mind being me being a child of my mother who's dealing with these problems when she was taking about me and my mother's mother who was thinking about these problems when she was raising up her one of the ways that we can end this cycle is teaching a true history so people understand you can't tackle the problem if you don't understand its origins or where it's come from and I know that the way
086it's written right now is problematic for certain groups but for me we have to start now and we need to move forward so that's why I brought this resolution and my introduction to this resolution and explanation about why I brought it before the board before we go into more comments I know that we have public comment on this item so I'm going to turn it over to trust the engi era to call on those who wanted to speak on this topic I think you mean so we do have several speakers that would like to address the board I would like to address the speakers just to remind you that you will have a limit of three minutes I will let you know when to speak once you begin and when you have one minute 30
087seconds left and when your time's up I will announce it for you so we do have our first speaker andrew hambre hello can you hear me yes we can thank you hello Justin Union High School Board members I come to you here today to speak a little bit on my experience with big studies I'm an alumni of West Moore high school at ethnic studies teachers under the pen open I educational partnership also known as pep and now a college and career exploration teacher at West Moore high school I encourage you to vote YES on the proposed resolution of ethnic studies in our district I cannot emphasize how much of an impact and ethnic studies curriculum can engage and empower our students my lessons are deeply rooted and influenced in an ethnic studies curriculum that was
088taught to me by the directors of peb dr. Allison tintin co caballes dr. Roderick the smackwall and dr. Arlene das McDowell sharing my narrative of my culture in lessons changed the classroom experience students feel safe counted and recognized because they understand the importance of defining identity and establishing a sense of community through our autobiography presentation also called Pelham boo highs which is translated as life stories in Tagalog students expressed how they became comfortable speaking and feel that their individual identities are validated many students stated that they learned to talk about themselves once students said this project is about us we all come from different backgrounds and have plans for different features another student said the tomboy I project allowed me to have a better understanding of who I am and what I want to do
089in life as you can see from some of those statements and testimonies that you've read from some of the letters that I sent to some of you a curriculum centered around ethnic studies helps students develop communication skills collaboration skills critical thinking skills and everything required for 21st century careers most importantly it encouraged solidarity among students of many cultures especially those who have been marginalized by passing the resolution for ethnic studies curriculum in our district you open our classes to respect the diversity that is within ours when you will help our students realize that their narratives to sum it all up we are ethnic studies and we need an ethnic studies curriculum in our schools now thank you for your time thank you for speaking mr. hombre next speaker we have mr. Joel Truong Vargas you
090hello good evening can everyone hear me yes we can wonderful Thank You honorable members of the JJ Steve School Board good evening to you all before I began for what I have to say have to ground it with intention what I have to say is in the honor of George Floyd Brianna Taylor I want our Bri Brandon Lee Alex Nieto Mario woods Sandra bland the Native American people of the Ohlone land in which we stand on and obviously the list goes on and on racial tensions have sharpened in America and often catch myself wondering what do we do now we are living in a complex time in which the immense amount of hurts and suffering is happening to these streets some of it has reached our doorsteps here on the peninsula and I don't know
091if I have the immediate answers because these historical and systemic problems they require an overhaul of public policy the justice system in the government and culture and what I want us to really focus on is when I say culture I realize that the instrumental place we have in this conversation systemic racism exists in America and it is to no surprise at 99.9 percent of those people I mentioned above were brown and black communities of color this is a culture in America that reinforces why they are the targets and we as public schools have the amazing power to shift culture for good or worse and this is why ethnic studies is so important to me though I lived my entire young life in San Francisco went to a predominantly diverse high school went to Mission High
092I was not a direct benefactor of ethnic studies at the time I learned to embrace diversity amongst diverse people but it wasn't enough it wasn't until I went to my first ethnic studies course and SFSU the first college of ethnic studies I learned about the power of learning stories and lessons from the voices of the most marginalized Black Studies allowed me to see the and appreciate the rich and profound legacy of black people fighting for change not the cookie cutter pacifist angle we often hear in traditional textbooks but the marriage legacy of people-to-people organizing and they in the same year I learned about my people in the way I never imagined I learned about my ancestors along the great says of Chavez and Dolores Huerta turned inside of history for the workers and the historical
093grape strike of Delano sadly enough I did not learn this in high school even with the most well-intentioned teachers because it was not systemic Lee supported fast for today we see temple televised lynching on the internet so nobody and this is where ethnic study plays a huge role we have a momentous capacity to clip our young people with the tools to analyze history and culture from a fundamentally different lens from the status quo I'm ecstatic to hear that you'll be voting on this amazing model curriculum this is a culture shifting move and speaking from a person whose career you're killing this life has changed you have my full support in queer speaking mr. Chong Vargas next we have Nazareth Sodano sedan oh I'm sorry okay can hear me yes okay so I'm gonna talk fast
094because I have a lot to say so we have a very diverse community and with that I am printout thoughtful people of all genders sexualities and backgrounds coming together is great although unfortunately we're all against each other I can't tell you how many times I've heard on black people yell the n-word at their peers or the amount of times people have screaming the F word and my LGBT friends and I in our school and if that's not angering I do not know what is the American education system is very limited when it comes to in firming students but history so limited that we rebellion from the better ancestors and who gave us the rights we have today history we were taught today taints the whites as good people we are not taught about the things
095they've done to minorities like the Trail of Tears but thousands of Native Americans were killed and forced from their land and no one teaches us about the minorities who have done so much for this nation in the rest of the world no one taught our students about the Black Panthers who were a revolutionary group who fought for the rights of black people no one talks about the Stonewall Riots Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera the to POC trans woman and how they are the reason why I can have a little more of a chance of buying a wedding cake with two brides on it instead of one with the groom I have yet to hear any of my teachers speak and teach the students about Malala a young woman from Afghanistan who Shaun face because
096she spoke about woman's rights we also don't about the current events going on right now there is so important we're not taught about ice and how they're sexually abusing women and children in detention camps and getting away with it we're not talking about talk about the brutal killings of black black people that cops do the amount of LGBT people killed holding each other's hands in public trans men and women being denied hospital treatment and how women even in little girls are being in n abortions either due to rape or ineffective birth control most students don't do any research themselves on history or current events once they step outside of the classroom which is the result of many ignorant people the schools can I keep turning a blind eye on these historical events so if you're
097willing to go to get teachers who are able and willing to teach it correctly the only reason why I become so political is because I was lucky enough to have a history teacher last year that didn't go by the rulebook and was honest and accurate my youth is waking up to the country's problems and the fact that we have to fight to fix them instead of the old people in power because they love the corrupt system they work for it's tiring but we are willing to keep fighting ethnic studies is essential because it proves young people access it proves young people access to the full spectrum of human knowledge and not just participate so I ask you so please put earth Nik studies in our school to open up the minds and eyes a bit
098more young people so they realize how bad minorities have been treated in this country and how they were still being mistreated today thank you Inc in Nazareth for speaking next we do have Sousa Johanna sorry Carla can you say that name again D'Souza Johanna they are not present I think it's in the chat is the other way around Johanna to see them okay okay sorry thank you sorry about that that's I just read what I get I'm sorry I'm sorry Johanna no your turn six what you okay now everyone hear me yes okay head good evening everyone my name is Johanna de Souza and I'm now a graduated senior from West Moore high school I'm co-president of Filipino bar kata and I am now the 20/20 class speaker I was inspired to use my voice
099to speak out by the opportunities given to me by Filipino bar kata in which I learned more about part of my culture people who look just like me and I've made their mark on the world it has always been known to me that when we study our history we only study one side to it one side that doesn't do justice to the other half of multiple races and cultures that has transformed the world into what it is today a side that is overlooked and not seen in our modern day history books especially with what is going on in the world right now education is the best power and allows us to unite for a bigger cause ethnic studies is starting to become widely embraced in many schooling systems now for example San Francisco State the
100first college of ethnic studies in the nation continues to provide culturally enriching classes that gives students the opportunities no history no self no history no self ethnic studies I was my high school what allow us to really understand the world from other points of views it would deepen our knowledge of who we are while broadening our scope of history with the narratives of many giving students an opportunity to see that people just like them have changed our world in numerous ways is giving students power to ignited change in their perceptions of history I may even give them the inspiration to start a change for the better thank you for your time and I hope you consider not only the good of having ethnic studies on our school but the impact it can have for a
101future world and the changes that can happen through knowledge for the next generations thank you thank you Johanna next we have Keisha David hi everyone can you hear me yes go ahead good kiddingly everyone my name is Keisha David and I am fortunate enough to teach 11th grade humanities as well as recent membership at Oceana high school I say fortunate because both of the courses I teach include components of ethnic studies and intentionally focus on counter narratives in history and the lived experiences of people of color in this nation I have also worked with a district on our race and equity task force which I also believe is in line with ethnic studies I am grateful for board members I'll have you for bringing this resolution to the board I am very excited that this
102board is discussing and hopefully will be affirming the need for ethnic studies in all of our schools it really is about time when I was a student at South San Francisco high school I did not have F mnek studies and my history courses did not really engage me because I could not relate to a lot of what was being taught I remember that all that was taught about Filipinos in the United States was a paragraph in a text book about how the Philippines was handed over to the United States as part of the spoils of the spanish-american war I didn't know it then but that experience led to a disconnect between me and this country I wasn't sure how I belong in the United States as a Filipino woman it was not until college as
103a history major that I learned about ethnic studies and what it man and felt to have a culturally relevant education ethnic studies is about representation it is of course meant to educate our students about the identity history and experiences of groups that have been historically marginalized ethnic studies have taught me to love myself my community and my people and I would love for all of our students to have the opportunity to do the same as a district we have many stakeholders in our community who identify as belonging to one or more of those marginalized groups more importantly we have many students who belong to those marginalized groups who may not identify with George Washington Thomas Jefferson or susan b anthony but can easily relate to the experiences of Larry it Leon Don Bohol anima Balan
104Brandon Lee Cesar Chavez Dolores Huerta Vincent Shen Alex Nieto a Matar berry Brianna Taylor - and George Floyd just to name a few I think that it is about that we ensure that our students are given the opportunity to learn about people who are just like them who are very much part of our history as a nation I mean how else will they be empowered to take their own place and making our society better I mean I like to take this opportunity to share a quote by dr. joy deGruy author of post-traumatic slave syndrome in which she wrote there's no single prescription for protecting people against racism bigotry and hatred there's no one-shot inoculation against intolerance or fanaticism however it appears that educating people to understand that these things do exist and about the manner
105in which they are manifested can be helpful to those who come face-to-face with them 30 second few days they have questions what my role is in the movement towards equity and justice for black and brown lives in the nation doing march do I donate or begin a marathon posting in social media for a minute I was lost and then it occurred to me ethnic studies was the answer it is a powerful weapon that we as educators have a unique power it's wheeled in our fight against racism and their inequities in our nation I would like to close by saying that this resolution is great and timely but it's only the beginning because as long as there's still a need for a special course where our students can learn about ethnicity race and identity it means
106that other courses still have the choice not to which only serves to perpetuate dominant narratives and education thank you Inc you Keisha next we have Jeannine Acosta hello can you guys hear me yes we can hi everyone my name is Janine applause well I just want to say thank you for giving us this opportunity to be able to speak speak out about our current discussion though there are many statistics and studies that show the benefits of taking an ethnic studies class I will be speaking from my personal experience of how learning ethnic studies material has impacted me I was in high school I took the carpathian course here in West Moore for two semesters in that course I learned so much not only about Michael apena culture but other cultures as well this course that
107has taught me more has taught me a more profound understand association with my history the officer showed me different points of view points of view of the ethnic history does not instruction isn't structured instructed in history classes that we have the information that is provided to us in our history books are very limited when it comes to showing the history and the contributions of the minorities one of the most important topics that I haven't had the chance of learning more about is how the Philippines were colonized by Spain Japan and especially the u.s. I am also part of a club here what's more called Filipino bar kata in that club we try our best to update our members with relevant facts and lessons about our history and we do that every Friday for at least
10810 minutes of our lunch time it's surprising to know that even though we have a huge number of Filipinos out west from high school a larger than our large number of our membership admit to not knowing not knowing about the history of our people or the culture of our ancestors with the limited time that we have at lunch we try to meaningfully make those connections are people just three me and our advisor mr. Vargas try our best to make those connections or members an education we lack in the traditional school setting imagine what a 15 minute class can do to further in that journey what him what would it mean for us to have a class devoted to understanding our history ethnic study showed us that our existence our existence is worth telling and learning
109about again thank you for this opportunity Thank You Janine next we have Nancy Appel there is no Nancy I don't hear either okay next we have alright who is it I don't have another name oh okay I can tell you next we have vice mayor Jocelyn Monello okay we have Vice Mary Jocelyn minato oh no we don't hold on hello I'm here Thank You just--let's just thank you sorry about that it's okay no worries honorable board of trustees thank you so much for this opportunity is to speak to each and every one of you today I asked you to vote on the ethnic studies model curriculum draft written by teachers and scholars from across California we have never seen the adequate representation of the narratives of people of color in our textbooks despite the enormous
110diversity of the community we live in please support the proposed school board resolution and prevent the censorship and removal of era of American Pacific Islander and Central American Studies from the California ethnic studies model curriculum growing up in Daly City I did not learn about the history of my community not until I reached college I remember in elementary school searching in the library to find only one book about the Philippines that I could identify with and this was unfortunate and like the previous speaker the only story I learned about the philippines' about the Philippine insurrection in the heist in high school and this was unfortunate young people want to know who they are without ethnic studies you are depriving them their own his and her stories in their classrooms if I learned about the history
111of my community with my classmates in the diverse city of Daly City and San Mateo County I truly believe this would have been a huge impact to my peers in our devil then I proudly graduated from Jefferson high school but also saw some of my peers lack enough credits to graduate I was saddened by this but I know that ethnic studies curriculum could have curbed those statistics I've seen firsthand the impact of ethnic studies on lives and it changed mine after Jefferson High I graduated with Asian American Studies in the College of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University which has informed my analysis and direction towards serving my community as a public servant in addition I received my master's in public administration with an emphasis in public management to humbly serve the community I
112was raised in would both this these disciplines I know it's imperative that you add California ethics that he's model curriculum - did Jefferson Union the fight his high school district one minute thank you so much you all have the opportunity to change the discourse of what the educational system has been lacking stories of our communities of color who have contributed to the local and national fabric of the United States can be included in the dialogue and be centered in the dis discourse this is 2020 and a narrative must include a diversity of what this county reflects in the educational system so the current attacks on ethnic study is an area of American Arab American Studies are completely unjust and we do that for them I urge each and every one of you t anonymously vote
113YES this evening thank you thank you so much next we have Edie Lopez he's no longer in the meeting yeah I think he left I think he just turned in a card to speak on the continuation okay perfect okay so next we have Lauren daus she's enabled Lauren can you unmute hi there we go hi there hi my name is Lauren das and I am an ethnic studies teacher at jeune Georgian school for equity in San Francisco Unified School District and a library trustee for Daly City I'm here to be in solidarity with the students and educators in Daly City I was a college student of ethnic studies at San Francisco State University and now I have the honor and duty of teaching ethnic studies to high school students high school was a time when
114I wish I would have learned about ethnic studies yet I'm constantly reminded that ethnic studies should be taught across all grade levels I'm grateful that this district is in the process of teaching youth the importance of living and breathing ethnic studies ethnic studies teachers students and about community the importance of taking care of each other during times of struggle especially during our time right now it also teaches students about solidarity and unity which is what is tremendously present during this time of Koba 19 and the systemic racism that is plaguing this country people are literally fighting for their lives while building solidarity with each other the black lives matter movement needs us to show up as we expect ourselves to show up for you I strongly support that the studies model curriculum and encourage you
115all to do the same as we need to continue to live and breathe ethnic studies for the future generations of hope thank you thank you so much Lauren next we have dere door trunk Oh hello hi there alright cool hello school board members first and foremost I wanted to shout out and say black lives matter my name is Jude or tronco I have lived in Daly City with my family for 31 years I am a brown and second-generation Filipino American and a childhood immigrant I am a product of the k-12 education here in Jefferson Union High School District and I'm a 2007 alumni at Jefferson High School my uncle Antonio cell-cell doe was once here in front of the board several years ago because he saw that there was a need for Filipino soap you
116know Americans have teachers and support and I reflected his children and the classmate experience experiences and he did so to organizing and establishing the first PTA adjust and I am here today because there is a need for ethnic studies for students of color here in the district um and I am asking you to for your support for the ethnic studies mark curriculum drop even though being a Filipino American in a city that is one dub so Prannoy capital in the United States too has one of the largest Filipino television news networking networks located here for its US headquarters and three known to have the most concentrated area of Filipinos outside the Philippines in the world for someone like me why did it take until I went to college which is a privilege and shouldn't be
117at San Francisco State the first place of ethics a college literally in our backyard why did it take this long to learn about my peoples history and stories the history stories of communities of color why did it take this long to know I had ancestors that had been here since the philippine-american war you know I have a relative that was a buffalo soldier which is all published in a book titled Filipinos in carbon crystals why does it take us long to know I have a family family members that are also one of the oldest Filipino families in San Francisco and organized and stylish one of the oldest Filipino for existence after school as well why did it take this long to know about Filipinos and the roles of Mexicans and leading and organizing the United
118Farm Workers Union why did it take us long to change the Jefferson high school mascot why I take as long to get the conversation about ethnic studies when minute being a student from Jeff Mike time for my time my brother's time probably even before that Jeff had a batter up a Sigma it was known as the gate of school position which I'm sure has changed and gotten better over time however I've also heard first-time incoming high school students or who just like when I went to just they would rather go to another high school some micro students you just want to graduate and never coming back however that next place is important to me because being someone from here from Jeff it teaches you to take what you learn and bring it back to your
119communities and make it better that's why I'm supporting it you changed my life elevated my critical consciousness connecting to God and be involved in my community 30 sessions amazing in urban studies and planning because I want to make cities more humane for people from you for Humanity and with that and with the world's current status we're going to need it the generations after us are going to need it thank you think you did or and the last speaker we have is Lucy Valerie nough Garcia how can you guys hear me yes we can do we lose her nope I see her back okay unmute there you go Lucy all right can you hear me yes good evening everyone my name is Lucy Villa Rihanna Garcia I'm a graduating senior from Oceana and an incoming freshman
120at UC Santa Cruz where I'll be majoring in ethnic studies I grew up with a fascination around resistance and a keen devotion to racial equity as I approached my years of adolescence I realized that just this fascination would not be enough to create a real systemic change I was then introduced to Oceanos social justice based curriculum or learned about modes of resistance stages of genocide and types of oppression these new teachings began a yearning to learn about to learn everything about race in America then senior year world around where race and membership in American society finally became a class at Oceania a life changing course also known as ethnic studies the information I learned in this class was so exciting because for the first time in my life I understood what needs to happen for
121systemic racism in America to end in lessons where we learned the definition and roots behind the term race how to critique social oppression and how to be transformative in your resistance are just to name a few ways in which ethnic studies has reshaped the way I view society it is my firm belief that taking ethnic studies has made me more productive member of the modern civil rights movement in doing so I've learned how to always think critically of the world around me in regards to race when this new train of thinking first occurred I noticed that topics of sexism classism and religious dominance often appeared around instances of racial inequity in other words when you learn the mechanics of institutional racism you realize how intersectional the topic is and how it often connects to various
122types of injustice is that we see both historically and today now more than ever where lynchings have sparked national outrage across America ethnic studies needs to be a mandatory class the education I received in oceania x' ethnic studies curriculum needs to become common knowledge and having these classes across the district I surmise that this would not only bolster a racially safe place across stage you see high schools but also create a population of students who are hungry for change a population of students who are ready to dismantle systemic racism in America think when thank you very much and that is our last speaker for tonight so thank you to all the speakers that spoke so passionately on this item as a board member I'm greatly appreciative it and I open it up to my fellow
123board members in dr. Gloria chef Ely it's an it was wonderful to hear from all the speakers and the passion and especially from the students you know I I too did not have did not take an ethnic studies type of course until I was in college at section Asian American Studies course and I took to Native American Studies courses and you know in both and all three courses were eye-opening experiences for me and when we think about what's been happening in the world today when we see even the reports from you know a racist attack of a racist attack on a san mateo city councilwoman today at her home you know who's asian-american and you realize you know this is this stuff's pervasive in our community you know we think that we're safe in San
124Mateo County and yet you know my son just got home and saw somebody here in Pacifica riding a bicycle with a swastika on it fun on his t-shirt Pacifica right the the fact is you know we've we've had a majority significantly majority non-white student population and our students deserve to be able to and learn about themselves from us and and and this is the beginning you know this is part of the equity work we've already started and we will be continuing to do and so it's I'm grateful that we as a school district are are doing this and talking about this and this curriculum absolutely does have my support so thank you thank you anything else Oh sage Christi - Hatter I want to thank all the speakers boy and I'm especially pleased to hear
125the passion and the very wise words of the students yeah like probably everyone almost everyone here I think we didn't have ethnic studies and in high school in our elementary school you joined clubs to connect with the people of your own culture but you didn't really learn about your history and my father is a World War two veteran Bataan Death March survivor and he suffered with PTSD for many years and before I was diagnosed and with him and everything he went through as a 19 year old watching the atrocities and surviving that 60 mile trek and starvation that that PTSD permeated our entire family for generations and I've you know I found myself you know trying not to repeat some of the anger that he lived for his whole life and you know trying to
126change myself but that that PTSD that all the suffering he went through just travel through every generation of our family and when I think of those people torn away from their homes 400 years ago in shackles and coming here against their will and treated worse than animals it that that just permeates through entire generations and probably the same for the oppressors and and this is our opportunity it's a start you know we're such a we're doing equity work our two board members masala Dimas really have done intensive intensive equity work and brought it back to our district and now we're we're getting that going and and we really need to we really need to implement an ethnic studies curriculum is the one I was in high school we learned all about FDR and all the
127great things he did but it wasn't till I got to college where I learned that he decided not to intern Italian Americans are or German Americans because but he said let's intern the Japanese Americans because there's strangers from a different Shore that's when I learned that that is the real history that's a history that's submitted and so I'm grateful for the work they're doing at Oceania and I'm all for passing this resolution Thank You trustee Oh cheap in tea yes there's so much I could say and and I think has been said someone first thank all the people who have sent in letters of support for this resolution and of course beyond the resolution for implementing curriculum as president Saleh who you mentioned you know regardless of the timeline stays working on you have a
128responsibility to UM to implement something like this and we it's it's long overdue literally a day that a couple of us were sworn into office here Sam Cisco Unified finally passed that thing studies in 2014 even then it was long overdue in place of scams to school where they had already been doing that work to to do this at the board level so that all of our students have access to this curriculum and really just this level of education it's a it's it is a civil right and it's a human right to make sure that we know the truth and I think studies is the true I just wanna say a few things one I know there are some concerns too you know about you know how we do I think studies who is being
129taught in the curriculum what is where it's being implemented in terms of globally we talking about and and when what timeline are we working on to get these these classes in their schools and I think it's obvious to many of us given everything that everybody's been saying the time is now time has been now for a very very very long time and as a person of color ice when mixed-race about you know Native American and Italian and all these things that you know I seen my family's experiences like many of you I did not get a full education in my k-12 education wasn't until I left AV city that I realized the cultural diversity that I grew up with here and how how positive that was to grow up in his community going west more
130going to bans bias and oceania I'm starting high school there and see the kind of things that we can be doing and things that we can do them better and I saw that yeah when I was a college student in LA I saw in San Francisco and it's one of the reasons why I dedicate a lot of my time in doing service here in my hometown in our county because we need it we see it all around us and I especially want to uplift the voices of the youth because everybody here in this meeting was a young person experiencing and seeing these things in our generations and somebody's got a little bit older and working as a teacher I started off doing workshops around acting studies when we were in college I enjoyed I chose
131to major in it as well as a mixed major and I realized there was so little funding for ethnic studies that we didn't even have a mixed major or even classes for mixed race studies until last year and that's 50 years down line so this movement is of course bigger and just ethnic studies it's moving for civil and human rights and what we can do at the board level here in a school district is to help promote that and uplift those voices through education we will talk about this morning I think I'll just end there because I think we should return to this issue not just sometime in the future which we will in the middle of pandemic we eyes so much in terms of graduations everything that you want to turn out our full
132energy to that we will be doing but I think we should be turning to this this summer and make it a work session so we can have a much bigger community session on what we can do here because we are right here make San Francisco but we are right here Daly City in Pacifica and of course Brisbane brought more on : this entire area San Mateo County has lots to offer and she gets started so um glad we're starting off in this note and under these circumstances it's one thing but it's one thing we can do right now Thank You Justine Gary and then I'll get to you captain Gloria you know I just want to say real quick I know I don't have too much to add except that I agree with all my
133other fellow board members about ethnic studies you know I've not 1/2 been big on assimilating all my life so rather than assimilating I'd like to celebrate I like to celebrate all cultures and know about all culture so I can appreciate you know where I have not come from you know and learn about you know other people's struggles and where they've been and so that I can appreciate it more so I also like for my children when they you know are getting educated to be able to celebrate other cultures and not have to assimilate you know so I'd like to look at it from that standpoint and I again I am definitely inspired by all the young people who did come to speak tonight on behalf of ethnic studies and know that we you know every
134one of us have a little bit of that experience to take with those you know what their lives about you know how we've been treated how we've been looked at how we've been perceived you know so again if all of us are able to look at somebody with just a little bit more light I think we you know get some positivity out of this world you know especially you know starting out and being educated you know before we go out there and experience the real world so that's all I have dr. Deloria yes I'll be brief I just want to build on something that trustee o Japan he was talking about it's not about just doing ethnic studies I think we have a lot of work to do there but it's also about making sure
135all of the classes that we teach are culturally responsive I don't think it should just be one time where you're learning about your culture I think there's ways to infuse culture race ethnicity in all of our classrooms so our students see themselves in the curriculum the other thing I wanted to ask this did come to us from other board members president Saleh who Dean did you want to send a copy of this approved resolution to members of the State Board of Education that you want to remind everybody that in statute they were supposed to take action on a model curriculum by March 31st so that school districts could move forward with their own curriculum development and it has stalled in a real big way so I'm looking for direction of what you would like me
136to do with the resolution if you approve it tonight thank you we temporarily lost president Charlie yeah just marinating on what you just said dr. Deloria yeah just um to speak to that as president so he means getting back online um I think this resolution is a step forward it was also something we have received through other movement in the Bay Area in California so um moving forward on this in terms of curriculum I would just like to echo I think everybody's been kind of asking and saying is we should take the steps forward to start building what we can see as a model curriculum with where we at right now we have all the resources I think we need to get started I know the Elementary School District Jefferson Elementary School District has already
137taking some steps forward to work in that direction certainly the bigger city districts we know around us am Cisco and Oakland Unified have already been been implementing and teaching that so we can work off that and especially I would say like the colleges universities give a wealth of resources that we were very lucky to have physically nearby despite social distancing but that we tap into those and perhaps it'll work study sometime soon that suggested we can do that and start building that as soon as possible on the legislative level I don't know that there's gonna be much action this summer and so I don't know that we should wait on that but we definitely can take other steps if you want to advocate for it further I don't know whether trustees think so I just
138want to manage everybody's expectations I think miss Baca is your group of staff together to start talking about these issues but this summer is just not going to be a possibility we're gonna be so busy trying to make a decision about what school is gonna look like and then once that decision is made there's a lot of work that has to be done with masters schedules parent education staff education student education I just don't see that I don't think that we have the the bandwidth to do that this summer but it sure would help if our State Board of Education would take action but you're right there's no reason why we have to wait for them to do that but we need to get this emergency quick behind us now so um I'm vice president
139I'm in charge now now but Alexander a so I think that this will not as anyone worries at times like this that you know we're all fired up right now we're worried might fall by the wayside but it will not because we're resolved you know this is what we want and so have we so we have not actually voted yet on this and we'll wait for Messala who Dean to get back on because she apparently her internet is a little wacky right now and she's trying to log in and I may have to there she goes so I would like to wait for her to log on before we take action on this unless anyone else still has any more discussion just a reminder that I was asking for directions from the board and what
140you would like me to do should you approve the resolution tonight did you yes why don't we why don't we vote on it first and then we can discuss that president Saleh Nadeem did you want to take over here okay I'm back on my iPad but it's weird so I can't see anybody um so I have knowing you can keep going because I have no idea what we're asked is sorry about that my internet just went wacky oh okay so this since there's I don't believe there's any more discussion on this item so we are going to put it to a vote and do we have a motion to approve move to approve a second second mr. TUPE in T so um why don't we have a voice vote here Miss Candis Miss Belle can
141we do a roll call vote sure no problem mr. Lee Han Miss Georgia penty ah mrs. in Garrett hi mr. hodda i president said little dean i thank you so because the internet went down I cannot see the agenda so okay so so so what we while you were in plugging back in dr. Deloria we had said let's take a voice vote let's do a vote and see if we approve the resolution the resolution is approved and then dr. Doyle Deloria wanted some guidance as to what we wanted to do with the resolution okay so we need I think we need to sign it so I can you have our electronic signatures okay am i meeting um yes I did okay so you could use our electronic signatures to sign it and if you happy
142to me I can forward it on to the appropriate folks okay awesome and then so was that the direction you were looking dr. Dorian awesome okay thank you everyone this is the moments that I love being a part of what's board so thank you everyone for your working comments on this I know we received a barrage of emails so but I'm glad that we stayed focused on our vision and push group so thank you everybody and I get it I'm trusty too hot okay so the next item is another action item 14 a 1 it's a public hearing and resolution number 2019 2020 - 27 approving engineer's report confirming diagram and assessment and ordering continuation of assessment for fiscal year twenty twenty twenty-one for the Jefferson Union High School District maintenance assessment district miss van
143Rapp Horst Thank You vice president Tejada so this item is one of our end-of-the-year items that we need to do each year the maintenance assessment district was formed back in 1991 and generates about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually for our district to fund the maintenance insert and service of public recreation recreation facilities and improvements at our locations and so as mr. Hatta said this resolution would confirm the assessment and order the continuation of charging this assessment through out the 21 the 2021 s lawyer okay do we have any questions from his van request all right so I do have to open this to a public hearing the public hearing is open do we have any questions then public hearing is closed and do we have a motion to approve removed again all in
144favor aye on to item number oh I got lost anyone okay on to item number 14 a to approval of resolution number 2019 2020 - 28 the education protection account miss van Rapp horse thank you so proposition 30 allocates funds that have to be put in an education protection account by the state and then they're allocated to each school district the school district has rules on how this money can be spent it can't be spent on any administrator salaries and each year we have to adopt a resolution that does outline how it will be spent the documents that are before you tonight show that we would be spending our allocations of around eight hundred thousand dollars per year for teacher salaries and these are teacher salaries that have already been part of the budget they're
145not new allocations there is I'm sorry to say a typo in the last paragraph so I will ask you to approve this resolution with that adjustment to clarify that we are the Jefferson Union High School District in the West the last paragraph of this resolution okay I'm back alright how stressful so if there's not any questions can I get a motion to approve without a minute mm-hmm second all those in favor say aye aye thank you and the last next item on the agenda is the resolution number 20 19/20 - 29 Roger budget increases in transfers at your end thank you so each year school districts adopt a resolution which allows the county superintendent to transfer budgeted amounts between expenditure categories to meet our financial obligations it's not allocating new money just making sure that
146we have that flexibility so if there is any questions let me know but otherwise this is just a standard end-of-the-year activity Lester any questions can I get a motion second all those in favor all right moving on to consideration of future agenda items me yes mister our trustee on trip inti yes the father weapon Studies on agenda and maybe sometime in June July I mean we're in June now but you know we have a lot in terms of graduations and of course things we're currently doing but I think we should move on as soon so can we do a work study I'm not sure what people's schedules look like something that's open to the public at large so we can have a more free-flowing conversation we can definitely add it to see when we can
147add when it'll be convenient for us to have four has to have a work study well put that down any other items nope dokey um we do there's no one that we are joining the meeting for but Jake the board does need to go back into closed session so can you send us link for or can we go back into the old link for closer I will open it back up okay so with that um can I get a motion to adjourn so we can return the closed session again thanks guys thank you later see everybody in a few