001Good morning. Welcome. The time is now 10:02 on October 15, 2025. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, including close session items. I'm going to take role. Uh, Miss Newell, >> present. >> Dr. Rivas, >> present. >> Mr. Melvin, >> here. Miss Grigo, Miss Gomez, Miss Ortiz Franklin, board presidentson >> present. >> That's four. We have a quorum. I'm going to go and read through the purpose and authority for the items that are going to be discussed in close session. Then we will take public comment on those items and then the board will recess into close session. So tab one under student discipline uh student tab one student discipline matters under uh education code 48918 CF. Tab two, personnel under government code section 54957. Uh let's see.
002The following items will be heard. Public employee discipline dismissal and release, superintendent evaluation, public employment under which the inspector general uh and then evaluation of the executive officer of the board of education. Under tab three, conference with legal counsel pursuant uh we have pending litigation under government code section 54956.9D1. Jane Doe 7096 VLAUSD, JS at all, VLAUSD, Jane Doe, VLAUSD at all, Jane Doe again, VLAUSD at all, and AH VLAUSD at all. Um, those case numbers can be found on our website and on the order of business if you wanted to look them up on the LA Superior Court website. And then there are two cases under anticipated litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D4. Uh under tab 4 conference with labor negotiators uh under pursuant to government code section 54957.6. Uh the negotiators Dr.
003Murphy and the following organizations are represented. Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, Teamsters 2010, California School Employees Association, Los Angeles County Building and Construction Trades Council, Los Angeles School Police Association, Los Angeles School Police Management Association, Service Employees International Union, SEIU Local 99, Teamsters, United Teachers Los Angeles, and District Represented Employees and Contract Management Personnel. Okay. We've got under tab one, student discipline matters, a call-in. Let me see if anyone is signed in. No one is signed in under tab one. That person is not here. Moving on to tab two, personnel. Let's see. We have Mr. David Tokovski signed in. There he is. Come on up, sir. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then following Mr. Tokosski is Mario Balenzula. Please go ahead, sir. >> Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning
004on your executive session, close session on evaluation. Um, again, thank you uh for renewing the superintendent's contract and also the disclosures that were different than the disclosures that didn't necessarily happen four years ago in an open public meeting. And so, it's very important to make sure that all senior managers in the post era of the Bell city of Bell must be publicly presented in their imple. So you hired a CBO the other week and there was no presentation of similarly disclosing the way you did quite well yesterday with superintendent. also uh the evaluation which you're in again on today is also uh your prerogative to have a private uh executive session on that but there ought to be some metrics and categories in which the public participates and I think Miss Gomez said it really
005well yesterday that there was a outreach to the community the community had input and those were ingredients that were put as four specific goals in the uh attachment to the superintendent's contract there has been report on why those were ambitious but probably not the ones that the superintendent and you believe in now. So you need to sort of say why you're making the change and what happened there. Also vagueness in the presentation or you say something about an annuity or life insurance. If it's vague it leads to different conclusions. The more specific you you are the better you are. And finally, you have also the uh IG evaluation today. That is something you need to take up in terms of a lot of categories that can't be done without general fund money. And finally, the
006most important thing is to remember that um our uh lovely general counsel is your general counsel, okay? And the superintendents and the institutions. And so there has not been the same kind of formal evaluation that you're doing with the executive officer, you're doing with the IG. Uh and you ought to do in some way the superintendent and the general counsel as your employees. Thank you very much for your time. >> Appreciate it. Mario B right here. Mario B here. All right. Tab three we don't have any comment on. Tab four. Conference with labor negotiators. Bob Boon. definitely not here and tab public comment. It's all folks who appear to be calling in. Let's see. Joel Ball, I see you're online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once
007you begin. Joel B. I'm Joel Ball, board member of BHA, the Brentwood Homeowners Association, which includes the residents of Kenter Canyon and Kenter Canyon Elementary. We ask for your attention to our recent fires and emergency evacuations. The LA city council recently approved a motion requiring a comprehensive review and updates to city-wide evacuation routes. LAD just came out with the Palisades fire act afteraction report noting a lack of staffing outdated equipment and recommends additional training for all fire department members in coordination with the LAPD. The LA County afteraction report on the Palisades and Eden fires recommends improved coordination of emergency public messages and creation of more specific evacuation plans. These reports underscore just how vulnerable our hillside communities remain and that includes many schools. The city is facing huge budget shortfalls. None of these recommendations can
008be enacted quickly, especially hiring more staff. With around 500 students K through five, Her Canyon Elementary experiences chronic traffic congestion. Enter Avenue is the single point of ingress and eress at the school. A recent count of traffic there shows around 400 school related vehicle trips each morning and afternoon. At the bottom of Caner Canyon, Sunset Boulevard experiences daily gridlock between Caner and the 405 with six other schools also on Sunset. Given the daily mayhem at the school, we are concerned that emergency evacuations during school hours would not only endanger students, but the entire community. The school will have an emergency drill at the end of October, but we cannot solve this potential disaster without the help of the entire community. BHA has created a wildfire alliance for those in the very high fire hazard zone,
009which includes Kendrick Canyon. BHA invites LA USDA to join us at our next meeting with LA Fire and Police as we discuss solutions to protect our students and the community. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Thelma Waxman. Thelma Waxman, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Thelma Waxman. Waxman, I see you're online with us. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Uh, Miss Waxman, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Otherwise, we'll have to move on. We can. >> My name is Thelma Waxman and I am the president of the Brentwood Homeowners Association. I represent the community surrounding Ker Canyon Elementary School. Yesterday,
010we submitted a formal letter to this board documenting seven years of ongoing safety and access problems along North Ker Avenue, the only road in and out of this canyon. That letter included photographs showing cars parked in red zones, blocking driveways, and ignoring safety cones meant to protect visibility and emergency access. Over the years, numerous residents have documented the direct impacts of this ongoing behavior. Residents report being met with verbal hostility when asking parents to move, being trapped in their driveway and unable to take their own children to school, and spending thousands of dollars to repair sprinklers and mailboxes destroyed by vehicles using their private driveway for churn. We raise this issue today because the danger is no longer hypothetical. The ongoing unsafe and inconsiderate behavior by some parents during drop off and pickup has turned
011North Ker Avenue, our only evacuation route, into a daily bottleneck. These repeated violations don't just inconvenience residents, they pose a real and foreseeable risk to both families and first responders in an emergency. During the Palisades, fire officials describe how evacuation routes became jammed with abandoned vehicles. Firefighters literally had to bring in bulldozers to clear the road so engines could get through. We have the same kind of narrow oneway in one way out canyon at Ker. It wouldn't take much for the same thing to happen here. That is why the Brentwood Homeowners Association will will be working with Councilwoman Tracy Park, LAPD, and LAD to address this issue collaboratively collaboratively. But we need LUSD to participate. I personally invite board member Nick Melvoyne to attend this meeting and take an active role in implementing solutions that
012protect students, residents, and emergency access. Our goal is to develop an enforcable plan to ensure safe drop off and pickup, protect residents access, and keep our only evacuation route clear. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Marcela Garcia, I see you're signed up to speak remotely, but you're not signed in. Are you in the room? No. Karina Lopez, you're signed up to speak remotely, but I do not have you here in the room. Raquel Diaz, also remote, but uh not signed in. Are you in the room? No. Maria Daisy Ortiz, you're signed up to speak remotely. And you are not in the room, so we'll move on. Concerned parent, you are signed in. Concerned parent, please press star six to unmute yourself. And you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Reading 420
013students three or more grade levels below 130 two grade levels below 229 one or more grade levels below 163 on grade level 115 mid or above grade level for reading 456 three or more grade levels below 137 two or more grade levels 190 8 one grade level and 180 grade level on grade level 49 mid or above. These are the reasons why parents choose to leave your schools and why they're going to charter schools. I can see that your selective outreach is only for unions not for students and biased was really on full display here at this board. Does this not outrage you? This is the reason why parents leave. Now, contractual agreements. During the special education committee, a member stated that training should be required for general education teachers. The response could due to
014contractual agreements, we cannot obligate them. Is this really what provides students faith saying that twothirds of stu students with disabilities are placed in special education? Are contractual agreements superseding special education state and federal law? Does this not outrage you that you're not preparing teachers because their contracts do not allow it? So, as you go into close session, please think about this and how your decisions impact all students. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time, Melanie White. Melanie White, you're signed up to speak remotely. I do not have you signed in. Maria Louisa Palma, you are online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Maria Louisa Palma. Good morning. Leadership, accountability. These are connected qualities that we expect in our elected officials to any elected
015office. Don't we agree on that? at yesterday's discussion on the smarter balance results. So, it's great to know great that we have seen improvement across scores across so many different groups. But it is striking that the comparisons on all the slides that were presented to you board members are to the state averages. What happened to the targets in the strategic plan? Were they ever mentioned? I didn't hear them. What about the targets in the LCAP? The local control and accountability plan which is required by state law. That's the key word here. Accountability. There are metrics in that plan. Baseline and target measurements. Did you hit hit the target? That is the big question that that plan is supposed to answer. So the discussion here at the board should have been to analyze the results of
016those exams. Were they on track to hit targets? Yes or no? Curiously, the targets in the 25 to 26 local control and accountability plan for academic excellence, some of them were changedly behind the curtain that you all uh don't get to peek behind. I'm guessing the age through G completion rates were decreased from 73% to 70%. Graduation rate for various subgroups and as a total from 95% to 93%. the English learner reclassification rate from 22 I'm sorry from 25% to 22%. You approved the ZCAP back in June. So why the shift away from the target? Who does it serve? You're reducing those targets for even less accountability than we have. If that's possible, who benefits? Who suffers? I believe some of you benefit. Do any of the contracts that you're negotiating today benefit? The students
017suffer? This is classic soft bigotry of low expectation. Why are these targets a secret? >> Thank you for your time. Victoria Irgoyan, I see you're online with us. Victoria, I please press star six to unmute yourself. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> Hello, my name is Victoria and I'm the parent of Gregory McGrath who was once a John Doe. He's no longer a John Doe. He disclosed sexual abuse at LUSD when he was three years old and seven months. He said the predator, Mr. Co Alvaro Jose Navoa, an LA USD early education teacher, told him that his real mother had been killed with a knife and that I would be killed with a gun. and he lived with that trauma. We filed a ci civil case around that time and LA
018USD won by saying that I had munchous in by proxy. I had never been diagnosed with that, accused of that, evaluated for that. But it scared me so much that I would be criminally charged, incarcerated, lose my parental rights, and have my children taken away from me. That I remain silent for 15 years. My son is turning 18 years old, so I can now speak without fearing that my children will be taken away. There are many parents who have reported abuse to LAUSD who have never been contacted by the principal, administrators, anyone to figure out what went wrong. I'm begging for a meeting to resolve this issue after 15 years. My son wants to know. I want to know where is Mr. L? Is he still at LUSD? Is he still teaching, raping, abusing? >>
019Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your time. The next caller is Bet Sida Shahanian. Shaheen >> not here. Uh, let's see. It looks like Karina Lopez is signed in. So, Miss Lopez, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Karina Lopez. >> Hello. Good morning. My name is Karina Lopea. Can you hear me? >> Great. >> Yes. We we have a situation that was presented regarding Miss Daisy Ortiz who was elected to participate and the district in the region east I believe Mr. Placencia because he blocked the continuity of the participation of Miss Daisy Ortiz who was elected uh on part of the legislative group on behalf of the school. We would like to have answers regarding this situation with Miss Daisy
020Ortiz. We have the understanding that she already provided the information required and certain information won't be necessary because it's part of her privacy and there is no trust with the person that has been in contact with her. So it's we need an answer as soon as possible. it's necessary also when it comes to school safety. Also, the amount of the interpreters with a state licensing is important. Thank you, >> Maria Daisy Ortiz. I see you're in the audience. Come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good morning everyone. My name is Maria Ortiz and I will repeat a bit because I want this to be resolved here with us because all of us need to be communicating and also acting because you know if I go to the mediums for communication
021if we can work together we can uh we can do this. So the supervisor of Mr. Placencia Mr. Salce Mr. Carvalo. So I would like as soon as possible that we correct this mistake because this mistake has affected a person more than four years creating and replicating this error. So if you gave that directive, I would like this in writing based on a law. And another thing that I would like to uh disclose is that I am realizing that you are pressure you are applying pressure to the schools so that they can they can send their budgets for December the school plan two months to do everything that has to be consulted and done. I don't know what agenda you're trying to do but here we're talking about lives and students. This needs to be
022revised. and the best decisions need to be made. So if somebody is in any kind of urgency because of their personal reasons, but not the situation of our kids, because even if the data says that we're doing better, we're not arriving at the goals. And if you're lowering the requirements to get to the goal, that shows that you're making negotiations with those groups, but not us parents, the ones who pay for your positions. So, you can't be for telling these schools that for December they need to have these budgets and plans. Thank you and may you have a good day. Also, I would like to know how many times you ask the drug test for the personnel and teachers. Thank you. >> That concludes public comment. The board will now recess at 10:25 into close
023session. Thank you.