September 9, 2025 - 10am Committee of the Whole

001[Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey pump. [Music] Hey, hey. Hey, hey. [Music] Happy [Music] birthday. [Music] That's it. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Good Morning everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Today is September 9th, 2025. Um, welcome to the committee of the whole. So, this uh is the first committee of the whole for the 2025 school year, which comes at a pivotal moment for our district. As we begin this new academic year, we face both exciting opportunities and complex challenges. From the continued implementation of our strate strategic priorities to an evolving state and federal policy landscape, it's clear that we must remain thoughtful, collaborative, and equitydriven in every decision we make for our students, educators, and communities. The community of a whole is one of the few spaces

002where we can come together as a board, as a district with leadership, staff, partners, and community to advance our forwardfacing priorities while also demonstrating the progress that we've made. This work has never been more urgent. The recent Supreme Court decision upholding expanded federal authority over immigration enforcement reminds us that our students and families, particularly within our Latino immigrant communities, face heightened uncertainty and fear. In this moment, our responsibility is to protect our students, defend our communities, and stand firm in our values as a district committed to equity and inclusion and safety for all. Today's agenda reflects those commitments. We'll focus on two presentations that speak directly to our priorities. digital citizenship in LUSD. Ensuring our students are prepared to navigate an increasingly digital world safely, responsibly, and equitably. Housing initiative update, our second presentation, advancing

003workforce housing solutions so that our educators and staff can afford to live in the communities they so deeply serve and love. Before we dive into those conversations, we'll begin with remarks from our labor partners. Their advocacy and on the ground experience remain essential in shaping our collective vision for schools that are inclusive, supportive, and community centered. Um, following those uh labor remarks, we'll hear from Dr. uh Francis Bias, chief academic officer, and Dominique Kawukua. Sorry, I don't know if I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Uh you'll correct me later, please. uh director of educational technology innovation on the district's approach to digital citizenship. Our second presentation will be with Christina Tes, chief facilities executive um Isam Daul uh facilities director of planning and development and an vault, president of Vault's company real estate advisors on

004the latest developments on our housing initiative. So that's just um an introduction of what what lies ahead. So let's begin with our labor partners if there are any labor partners in the house in the boardroom. Nope. Don't see any standing up coming forward. Very well. Then let's move on to our first presentation. So I'd like to invite Dr. Francis Bayz and Dominique to the front. So, as they're coming forward, today's presentation focuses on LUSD's approach to digital citizenship, preparing students to navigate an increasingly connected world safely, responsibly, and thoughtfully. This work equips students with the critical thinking skills, digital literacy, and ethical decision-making tools they need to build a positive online presence and protect up themselves in a rapidly evolving landscape. So, Dr. Bayz uh will walk us through the district's strategy, key initiatives, and

005upcoming efforts to ensure that every student has access to the guidance and resources needed to succeed and our teachers as well to succeed in both academic and digital spaces. So, Dr. Bay, the floor is yours. who is our education technology and innovation director. Uh I will be presenting on the ways that we engage students in digital citizenship to promote safe engagement of technology. The goal in LA USD is to cultivate a positive authentic digital footprint that can be leveraged for college and career success. Here you see images of the social emotional competencies wheel and the graduate student profile connected to our strategic plan pillar 2 focusing on joy and wellness which highlight strong social emotional skills. This is a signific this is significant because the digital footprint can be helpful or it can be harmful

006depending on what students do in the content that they put online. We want students to know that words can be helpful or they can be hurtful and their digital footprint remains. Digital citizenship is akin to media literacy. We guide students in becoming consumers of information and identifying authentic sources of information. Similarly, digital citizenship is about making good choices in the content that is posted online. We want students to engage with diverse perspectives and contribute to civic and social issues through responsible digital platforms. The purpose of digital citizenship is to cultivate safe, responsive, and ethical digital behaviors in which students practice critical thinking skills and exercise good judgment on the digital spaces available to them. Much like what we do in the classroom and on school sites when we ask our students to follow uh safe

007safety policies, being safe, responsible, and ready at school. Similarly, we do the same thing when you're entering an online space. There are certain behaviors that will promote positive engagement, critical thinking, and that's what we do through digital citizenship. We want to teach students to have a good balance of uh healthy and online relationships. Our goal is to foster equity and inclusion for all students to have the same access regardless of socioeconomic status. I will now hand it off to Dominic who will lead us through our partnerships and the guiding principles behind digital citizenship. Thank you, Dr. Bayz. Good morning, committee chairperson, Dr. Rivas, members of the board, superintendent Carvalo, uh, deputy superintendents, and LD community. LED's digital citizenship efforts have uh evolved from celebrating digital citizenship week back in 2014 to 2019 prior to the

008pandemic uh once a year during the digital citizenship week in October to now actually uh embedding digital citizenship curriculum for everyday teaching and learning with some strategic partnerships that we have been able to provide uh through our partnership with common sense education a global uh nonprofit that is leading the work around curriculum development program and uh recommendations for digital citizenship curriculum as well as EST standards that provide the different competencies for what a digital citizen look like. Here are some of the topics that our students learn to be able to be called digital citizens. I want to also uh highlight our partnership with code.org or also a nonprofit that is uh advancing the work around computer science education. Really uh bookending what students need to do which is to not only to critically consume and

009use technology but on the other end of that is to ethically and effectively create with technology which is exactly what the idea of computer science is. On the next slide, uh I wanted to also highlight our uh policies and resolutions that underpin this work. We are here today to provide you updates around uh board president Scottish Morelson's resolution from last year, the fostering healthy relationships through digital citizenship week, resolution 007 2425. uh and that resolution formally adopted and acknowledged the third week of October as digital citizenship week in all of LA USD. Uh prior to that resolution, we also want to acknowledge that there has been policies specifically the responsible use policy that have been updated throughout the years to reflect the advances in technology most recently in 2023 uh to incorporate uh AI literacy

010and AI engagement. And so I want to also uh uh emphasize that because of these two policies and resolutions, we now mandate lessons for digital citizenships uh uh competences across K12. And I'm going to speak to the details of those uh lessons. specifically for elementary students. Uh we use the common sense education curriculum uh which have been vetted through our uh pilot programs in LUSD from again 2016 to uh last year through the practitioner schools program. These lessons have been tested across regions and across board districts and have been provided to our students uh for the first time districtwide last year. Uh for elementary schools, uh teachers have the opportunity to teach uh the different uh digital citizenship topics in whole group class also incorporating it into their uh positive behavior intervention supports being safe,

011respectful, and responsible online. In the secondary grades, uh what we were able to do is to develop internally a 20-minute lesson that have been vetted by our uh office of the general council as well as piloted through the uh priority schools back in 2023. And what it really is is it serves as not only a lesson in digital citizenship, but also as a guardrail for our students in grades 6 through 12 or 13 years and older to be able to use generative AI uh tools. We provided this lesson as a mandatory lesson before those tools are open for them. Uh what came with these uh lessons are the digital citizenship challenges that uh the office of instructional technology initiative last year put together for schools that have completed the lessons at 90% or more uh

012completion rate and about 24 schools last year have reached that across four districts and again uh regions. Uh the idea of these lessons is that teachers will teach these lessons uh either in whole group or in secondary during advisory class but also provided to students to complete uh on their own. Once completed, teachers go back and mark these as complete on MSIs and we are able to capture the data through our focus dashboard and we provide all of these data to our administrators of instruction to make sure that throughout the year we also get all our students to complete these lessons. going uh through the educator PD from DOI summer PD back in 2024 25 uh we've launched digital citizenship lessons and how they are integrated in content area for example like in uh secondary

013literacy how that might look like in critical media literacy through ELA and also through the bank time PD uh it was offered as a choice session for all schools last year and also through um opt-in my PLN districtwide PD [Music] Uh in terms of the digital citizenship week celebration itself, we have uh provided the entire district some toolkits and guidance around how not only to celebrate within that one week but to prepare uh to teach those lessons leading up to the digital citizenship week in October. Uh Dr. VZ and our DOI executive administrators of elementary and secondary instruction put together some inter office correspondents to detail the mandatory digital citizenship lessons for elementary and secondary and we are going to also look at some of the digital citizenship challenge winners providing leader uh leader boards

014uh through our website ld.org/digit. I want to highlight some strategic alignments around this and uh the board informative with the updates that we provided to the board two weeks ago also highlights how this also is related to critical media literacy and now most recently would be around AI literacy. How does digital citizenship serve as foundation for the work that we are doing for developing our students to be critical users of AI tools as well. Overall, the community messaging that we uh provide to our district is when we talk about digital citizenship. It is not just about don't do this, don't do that, but it's more about do this, which is empowered students. How do we teach students to be proactive, responsible citizens instead of being uh protective? And so that shift in the narrative around

015community messaging is from proactive to empower digital citizens. On the parent and family engagement front, we have collaborated with our S-face uh partners to not only provide uh family academy webinars but also to continue to engage them in ongoing work uh specifically at the school sites. We work with uh our in uh instructional leadership teams to provide digital citizenship student of the month as an option for the student awards assemblies. And schools have the opportunity to become digital citizenship certified school in which case uh parent engagement and family engagement is part of that um certification. In addition to some resources that our partners at Common Sense Education has provided, we're also looking to expand our reach and deepen the work this year moving forward with digital citizenship week. Much of the toolkit that we've provided

016have been student uh school-f facing what teachers and administrators can do with their students and parents. But this year we are looking to build and develop digital citizenship toolkits that are directly parent and family facing and also with multilingual resources and continue to expand district completion of digital lessons and of course to update the board on the progress that we are going to have throughout the year. Here are some additional resources related to digital citizenship. And I want to again highlight artificial intelligence and computer science education because uh this work around digital citizenship is foundational to this other work around educational technology expansion. I want to thank you for the time to present about digital citizenship in LA USD today and I welcome with Dr. Bayz any questions you may have. >> Thank you so

017much for your presentation Dominique. I will open up the floor. I'll see if um Mr. Schmelson would like to start it off since this was his resolution. >> You're right. Uh what did you say about the number 24? Uh you mentioned 24 schools had com. >> So uh part of the resolution last year was to also have a digital citizenship challenge campaign which is to celebrate schools that have completed uh the lessons schoolwide at 90% or higher completion rate. And there's 24 schools that have completed that. >> Okay. because it said elementary schools from K to prek to I guess uh fifth grade >> have instruction about digital citizenship but not actually a test where that's put in the mices correct >> they do too so we we all yes so elementary and secondary uh

018teachers both have to uh mark that complete in mises >> now in elementary school usually it's one usually it's one teacher >> correct >> how about in secondary school does every teacher have to teach the lesson or does the English teacher say I'll do it or the history teacher says I'll do it or the math teacher says I'll do it. It's been uh different uh structures many of the um structures where the advisory teacher or that first period would >> if they have advisory right correct >> they have but to your point is a lot of it is our English teachers as well as uh >> okay >> yes >> thank you thank you thank you >> there any other board member with a question yes >> thanks Dominic and Francis for your presentation um

019you know I'd just be curious what feedback or um conversations we're having with young people, with students about the um kind of concerns they're having or questions they have. It's great that we're doing lessons, but um is there any chance for students to give us either feedback on those lessons or somehow elevate their voice in the big vision of digital citizenship? >> Thank you. And that's part of our digital citizenship week events. Uh although we are doing the lessons before the digital citizenship or after during digit week, we also have other campaign for students to actually create content around what they think digital citizenship means to them and that's a way for us to get some input and feedback as to what do what does their voice really mean when they say digital citizen? Uh

020so there's different uh at the practitioner schools level before we would have it actually in project uh based learning uh formats but also as uh assignments for teachers. >> Yeah, I really appreciate that and I um I wonder too like what kinds of questions are going on in our students minds right now particularly as we grow with AI like what are they grappling with that could help us as we grow our support for them. Um, you know, we've heard a couple of these national stories about, um, how AI has influenced student behaviors, young people's behaviors, even adults actually, right, who are just engaging in ways that, um, you know, are sort of limitless at this point. So, uh, you know, as we continue to grow, I wonder what we can ask of young people about

021their own struggles or how they're grappling with what it means to be a digital citizen and how we can incorporate that in our work. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Mr. Schmson. I'd like to uh continue with your subject which is really really good because the New York Times reported uh the trend among young people in AI as friends and romantic partners these AI so um you know how are we going to integrate AI in the district and make sure the kids understand that they're not your friend and they're not your romantic partner when they tell you to do things you're not supposed to do things that they tell you to do. How are we going to work that in eventually? Any ideas? >> They are actually integrated in these lessons already both in the

022K5 but most importantly in the secondary and that's includes uh in the lessons around uh online safety. Uh making sure that students don't share any personally identifiable information about them but also being able to manage what is online relationship from your actual relationship in with your classmates. And so many of the tasks and activities that we also teach teachers during RPD is to be able to lesson plan and for planning and delivery of lessons to purposefully integrate technology. And what might that look like for students uh for example is how do we focus on those in-person collaboration making sure that students are still working uh with each other instead of just uh focusing on their screen when they're in the classroom. Yeah, I know that with students it's was even hard to have them not

023share their locker combination. I mean don't share your locker combination and then tell them their books are missing from their locker you know. So it's very very hard. How about parents? Because parents need to be informed also you know these people sending uh pictures and voices and photos and parents also need to know how to protect themselves correct against this. Do we have anything with SFACE for example? We've done that in previous family academy webinars and we're continuing to evolve our partnership with Sface to make sure that uh our toolkit is actually uh parent and family uh facing so that at this point the toolkit is how teachers and administrators can engage with parents but we want to create something that directly involves parents and that might be a video and tips about how to

024talk to your kids around this at home but also to be able to bridge what students are learning in the classroom to what you should be doing to follow up with that at home. >> Parents and community reps would be excellent in talking with parents and making sure they understand. Thank you, Rosilio. >> Rego. >> Hi, thank you for this. Um, so I we've been hearing a lot of concerns from families about screen time and the amount of time on screens. I know as a parent I delayed as many years as possible to get my kids a phone and then they got it and it's like all that time didn't matter because they were on their phone all the time and they still continue to be on the phone just like everybody else. So um

025is there what do you say about this to families because I it's a genuine very legitimate concern on the one time on the one hand we want our kids to practice their conversational skills their social skills and yet we are we are giving a lot of work that requires them to be uh behind the screen or in front of a screen I should say. So what um in all of these lessons is there anything that addresses that? >> Absolutely. And one of the uh shifts that we are uh highlighting based on these lessons both elementary and secondary is also the shift between screen time and to screen value and really having teachers and students themselves identify what am I actually doing when I am in front of my computer or on my phone. And so

026uh in looking at data that we have uh around screen time in LA USD much of this work is actually within the uh recommended screen time for students in elementary which is less than one hour a day and then uh for teens and older students less than two hours and then looking at that also is what kind of work are students actually doing? It might be uh at the Bloom's taxonomy level. Yes, my computer might be on uh for two hours, but am I coding, programming or building some presentations together versus am I just watching some passive video? And so she uh also helping our teachers and parents and families to understand that what they do on screen on on their devices is more important that how long especially with the idea of screen value.

027>> Okay. Um the other thing is um sorry let me get my questions here. So the mandatory lessons happen once a year >> and people sign off on that right. So how um are there refresher lessons? Are we encouraging our educators to uh do it again in the second semester to revisit it every time a student is going to be using um technology to complete some work? >> That's correct. So uh both mandatory digital citizenship lessons in elementary and secondary are just one lesson out of a series of lessons especially for elementary common sense education lessons have a full range of K12 in fact uh lessons but each year we focus on a specific um topic for example last year it revolved around uh data privacy and security and this year we're looking to add

028uh digital me uh balance and media literacy for elementary for secondary uh we are looking to also update the mandatory digital citizenship lesson specifically because it is AI focused and we want to be able to incorporate some of the advances in AI but secondary uh schools are also not limited to that 20-minute lesson in fact uh we also promote the extended learning activities through the common sense uh curriculum >> and then um are these lessons that uh the teacher actually engages the students or is it a video that a student watches. >> Uh they're both. So for elementary, it's actual teacher facilitated lesson uh with some group work, pair work for uh students to be engaging with it in person and interactively with their classmates. In the secondary, it is a 20 minute lesson where

029we also strategically put some pause points where students reflect if they do it uh independently on their own, self-paced. But it's also something that we provide facilitator guide for teachers to pause uh between major content concepts of the lesson so that they can then engage uh their students in think pair share or group uh talk. >> So it's optional in the secondary for the teacher to facilitate the lesson. It's not it's it's optional how Yes, it it's optional how they facilitate it. But for the most part, it's always been teacher facilitated. >> Okay. But it's optional to pause it, engage in a conversation with the students. That's not optional. >> That's not optional. That's actually in the teacher uh facilitator guide that they need to pause it and now uh discuss this with the students.

030>> Okay. Um and then let's see here. Um, so there's the digital equity act that uh grants that uh provided funding for broadband access and that's been cancelled. So how are we how are we making sure that our students have access? I know one of the goals is equity, right? And so how do we ensure that we're still meeting that need for our students um both in in the classroom but outside since they are expected to do some work. >> So >> I I will defer to CIO Catal for uh that broader conversation especially for outside of the school. >> All right. And then I still have some more questions for you. So thank you. >> Good morning board members. I'm so kettle chief information officer. So uh there were a lot of effort from

031the district over the last three years to provide connectivity to for the families at home especially beyond the school uh boundaries uh ECF uh and even in start of the pandemic we're utilizing semester funding to provide it. uh multiple of those initiative now uh essentially removed by the federal government and even a state uh provided as you defined the digital equity grant that was sponsored by the broadband initiative through the federal government now stopped and the state is not providing the funding. uh as of July 1st we stopped all of our initiative related to providing the connectivity that we were providing to the student but we are continuing the advocacy effort through the FCC uh and there is right now actually opening window for recommendation on both uh FCC right now uh receiving the uh

032feedback from community we are we were working with uh office of governmental relation and I believe there is a letter right now being developed by the district signed by the superintendent to be sent to the FCC that emphasize our uh our approach on uh continue providing connectivity uh for the lifeline e-ate and etc. One of the biggest drawback right now is on the uh on the block that we are try to preventing uh even uh FCC is trying to essentially roll out the Wi-Fi for the buses. That's the last thing that's remained from our uh prepandemic initiative and it's still available at the school buses, but unfortunately FCC is going to put it to the vote to take it down and we are advocating with all of our school partner to stop that from happening.

033But uh it is a challenge. Uh we are working very diligently and we are briefing superintendent constantly about uh any changes that comes uh to our to our views. But regardless we are working with the school directly when a students get to the point of having those challenges we're providing guidelines to the schools how to support the student for those type of services and if it's especially homeless student there are special resources as well as virtual academy virtual academy actually that we still doing some pocket of connectivity for those student but beyond that for general population of the student unfortunately at this point there is no uh road map to provide connectivity All right. Thank you. I appreciate that um update on that. And then um in terms of Thank you. In terms of uh

034the trainings that are offered for teachers, uh there you mentioned some summer trainings. Are these optional? Are these at training rate? Um >> the DOI summer PD. Yes, it's optional and teachers are paid. Uh and the my PLN uh yearround PD are as well optional, but they're also a training rate. Okay. And have we received any feedback from teachers about the trainings? >> I wanted to add though that uh in one summer it was a required section to the professional development. So the teachers received a list and also examples of the type of uh tools to use, how to use them, digital citizenship that was all integrated whether it was a language arts professional development, whether it was a math, whether it was science, every presentation incorporated um an aspect of artificial intelligence, an aspect

035of digital citizenship. So it was all teachers received it that summer. And then what we saw was an uptick in the use in the lessons during the day. Um and then as um uh Dominic just mentioned then at this point there was now an option board because at this point everyone's received it and we continue to have ongoing professional development throughout the year. Every week we send out a weekly instructional news to our schools so they can uh share with their teachers on the types of professional development we offer because there's always so many changes. Uh we want to ensure that teachers are up to date. So that's the way we keep it going throughout the year. But also during the summer there was a required uh session that all teachers received and the feedback

036we've been getting with from teachers is positive and it's also mixed. Um they are there are some things that we're addressing when it comes to um academic honesty and then ensuring that teachers understand how to you know grade papers and and understand what when to use AI and and to be able to detect it. We we want students to use it and we want teachers to understand how to use it and know when it's a authentic student writing and when it's been supported by AI so that for example an English learner may be able to see a mentor text that's generated through AI. Um that is an example and then once teachers then ask students to do a a cold write then they can demonstrate how they were they've been able to grow based on

037looking at some mentor text. These are some examples of just teachers just where they are in ter there there's a a spectrum of where they are in terms of the youth. Digital citizenship is something that everyone everyone agrees on and everyone's on board with. >> Okay. Thank you. And then um you said it's part of the board choices, right? The choice board at uh uh on for Tuesday PDS, >> right? Is there what about when there's a new teacher? when we hire new teachers um and they're brand new to the prof profession is this something that is part of their onboarding >> it's something that we can definitely add to that is um you know working with HR ensuring that during that onboarding that it's a required session as well we can definitely add that

038because it is as Dominic mentioned it's on my PLN so it's something we can ensure that it occurs for our new teachers >> yeah I would recommend that especially if we want to have a baseline that everybody and be assured that everybody has at least received that one lesson or one PD. So that should be part of the onboarding so we can be sure of that. Um let's see. I think that's all I have so far. Thank you. >> Yeah, those are very good questions. Miss Gonz, go ahead. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity and I agree on the the new teacher training piece. I think that that would be really helpful um for our beginning teachers. Um I wonder too that for educators who maybe struggle in the area of digital citizenship or who have

039less proficiency with technology, what specific supports might be available for those educators? >> So we have edtech coaches or instructional technology facilitators that are going to be supporting with the implementation after the bank time PD but also um IPL uh opt-in PD. We want to be able to offer that coaching support of how do you actually teach these lessons in context especially to making sure that it is still going to incorporate those teacher strategies, teacher moves uh and it's not just play the video >> and and does a teacher just go into my PLN to access or how do they get connected with? >> So right now we that is the plan is we still have to launch our digital citizenship PD but moving forward will be a job embedded uh coaching support from the

040tech coaches. >> Got it. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think having a person to help support them with this work um seems really helpful. I know that when we did our onetoone roll out pre preandemic onetoone there were the the um technology facilitators who worked on school sites and I remember hearing great feedback about how supportive they were in that space. Um so that's great to know. And then in terms of the lessons I was curious about um so I I hear that you know you're updating um different year with kind of different topics etc. How are they kind of vertically tiered? I understand the elementary and secondary distinction, but for example, in the elementary space, how does a kindergarten lesson look different than a fourth grade lesson? Are do we take those nuances

041into account when we provide the lessons? >> We do. Yes. Uh so the curriculum from common sense education already is uh differentiated across grade spans while they are uh under thematic concepts around for example cyber bullying and online harm. But what that looks like in each of the grades span uh grade level will be different uh both on content but also in the delivery for example like a lot of uh visuals for uh primary grade students but also a lot of conversations that are teacher facilitated in elementary. >> Okay that um that is helpful to know and then I think the parent supports sound really helpful. I look forward to those and I was curious how we are engaging with families to find out kind of what supports and resources would be most beneficial to

042them. >> So we've started uh engaging with uh Mr. Placencia and his space team to really have that uh opportunity to hear directly from parents and families around what this toolkit could look like. While we know it has to be multilingual, it has to have different uh assets like graphics, videos, and uh uh tips, but we want to be able to also hear from some of his focus groups already that are in place to be able to further personalize the supports. >> Great. Yes. I I think I mean obviously there's as board member Grigo alluded to, there's a lot of information that comes to parents about technology um and it it's hard to know exactly the right way to approach it. So I think hearing directly from families about what are those core questions that

043they have and how we might differentiate our support depending on what age your child is at etc. Um seems seems like a good thing to do. So I'm glad to hear that you're working with them. Um and then I'm curious about this initiative overall. What metrics um or progress measures are we using to to gauge the success of this digital digital citizenship initiative? So for the mandatory digital citizenship lesson, it's the lesson completion for the year. Uh and we track that through every month uh and in fact every two weeks because we do have the uh time with the administrators of instruction and we want to make sure that they are also aware of the their school's completion of this lesson. So that's one way to track uh in terms of the completion of the

044lesson itself. The other way is also through our professional learning. How many teachers are uh actually implementing this in the classroom? And we've had uh some cohorts of our professional learning um participants who are specifically under digital citizenship also putting together their network as a peer network developing some of those lesson exemplars that other teachers can um pull from. And so the number of lessons and exemplars that can be shared across the board is also one way to do that. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think exemplars are great. I would say that both of those are more like check. Are you implementing something? Are you participating in something rather than really gauging? Are students gaining the skills that we intend for them to get as a result of these lessons? And also, our teachers

045getting the skills that we would hope they have to teach this work as a result of the professional development. Um so as we look to launch you know later in October I would hope that we can think too about how are we measuring skill development and ensuring that we are attaining those core citizenship components. That's all for me. Thank you. >> Can you go ahead? >> Yes. Um and Kelly asked many of the questions that I had. Um, as far as the parent supports, um, is there an opportunity for them to be for there to be like an hotline of some sort for parents that need extra support? How would they receive that? >> So, we've been uh collaborating with its and we were able to fold in some of our um hotline uh support

046that parents need to be able to also fold that into the parent uh support group. >> Great. We can work more on specifically for digital citizenship that covers that too but more on the uh specific needs of parents and families after hearing from what they absolutely need that can be something to add to that as well. >> Great. And then the question about secondary um I know we mentioned that they would get it possibly through their advisory if it's not an advisory class. How do they get this information? So we send it through to the principal that uh as a school site and instructional leadership team they decide which teacher from that school secondary school will be uh teaching it and depending on the structure of the school and of course the English teacher where

047it lends itself to the critical media literacy lens is also the other option outside of the advisory class. >> Got it. And then with the track of success um noticing that there's 24 schools, have we been able to go back to those schools to find out what made them successful, how were they able to implement? How were they able to drive that work to be on that list? >> Correct. So many of these 24 schools that have a 90% or higher completion rate is really to also from that IOC is to work with the instructional leadership team and decide at what time of uh the day or when do we do this. Uh many of these schools have added it as part of their uh first 10 days of school lessons. And so uh many

048of these schools have taken a structured approach to it uh and early on at the beginning of the school year. So is that information now passed on to the other schools so that they can be able to implement it in such a way? >> That's is what we're uh doing this year to uh revise this IOC and mandate to promote it through the weekly instructional news of DOI to provide them guidance around how might you structure this so that it is doable and achievable. And and I think many of the other questions were asked as far as like, you know, just the skill set, being able to to see where it is versus, you know, I checked it off. I checked it off and knowing that they actually received that skill. And I think that's

049it. >> Thank you, >> Roing. >> Thank you, Dr. Rubis. Um, and uh, thanks to the team for the presentation and agenda this and agendaizing this. And congratulations, Dominic, on your new role. You're doing great. Thank you. >> Um I have uh a lot of questions and thoughts and some are discreet and some are more philosophical. Um and many were were asked by my my um colleagues and I'm also eager to hear from some of the parents who I know are here and who have signed up to speak because you know I think we this district deserves a lot of credit for working rapidly to bridge the digital divide. you know, going back now a couple decades, but really co accelerated that and making sure that we're onetoone and that kids have hotspots and access

050to devices. And now I think we're all lifting our heads up and saying, well, where's that balance and what's the screen time versus value and what is have we gone to quickly and how do we balance like getting kids prepared for a world that is changing so rapidly, but also making sure we preserve some of childhood and you know, I think there are rud not rudimentary um fixes like I'm obviously very proud of the cell phone ban, but that's an easy one. just get it out. I think it's harder when it comes to to devices as we're also thinking um about the need to train kids responsibly. And so, you know, I what I hope and I know there are various efforts engaged internally, but besides the discreet like do this checklist, what is the

051guiding philosophy that we are um uh that we are um that is driving kind of this at both the educator level and also at the school level. And so did I hear you say Dominic that that we have guidance that at elementary schools it should be 1 hour or two hours of screen time or less? >> That's a recommendation from uh research medical and educational research. >> And is that something that we've adopted as a principle or like how would schools or parents know that? >> Absolutely. So we have provided our schools and our principles with guidance. So in an inner office correspondence we'll share about what are the supplemental tools that are available for small groupoup instruction which shouldn't be beyond 30 minutes really we want this teacher to be able to have whole

052group small group collaborative without devices but it's really used in elementary school for example during small group instruction. So that is a recommendation. If a teacher is using uh a an app or a program maybe to build prior knowledge, background knowledge before they launch a unit, that's something that's teacherdirected, teacherdriven, not necessarily students having a device. Uh when we go to secondary level, we're seeing that students are producing. So that's where the that value, the screen value comes in is their students are creating content together and producing versus just being passive in front of a device. So, we've been able to share with schools what that looks like in terms of the the screen value and what it looks like at the different levels and what is available and for the the the um amount

053of time that is recommended as well. >> That's something that will be going out. >> It went out already. >> Oh, it went out. So, schools have guidance around that we they at the elementary school level, they shouldn't be on screens for more than one hour. >> We talk about screen value and a holistic approach to a school day. the recommendation. Uh but we also have um in monitoring the um the use we do also see that on average they're on it less than an hour. So it's not a an issue that we have to say do not because we already see in the data that they're not on the screen beyond an hour. >> And I appreciate that the district is starting to track this and think more critically about it. I guess how

054are we tracking screen time? How are we sharing that with the community? And then how is that guidance being developed? >> Yeah. So um we do track it. There is there is a um a platform that we use to be able to monitor that and we can later provide some information to parents or to families or communities. Schools uh parents and communities can actually go to the principal or go to the teacher and ask directly about that so that they can see what what apps are being used the time um you know so they can see that that's actually less than less than an hour. If I may, board member. Um, I think that's also an opportunity of growth as you heard from Dominic. Uh, and as the board has asked different questions around our

055families. I think we've done some work, but I do think there's an opportunity to share this toolkit that's being developed to guide families on how to be able to know best practices, best tips for that, uh, how to talk to their own children about that. That is definitely an area of need. And then for us to also be very clear about how LAUSD is is monitoring screen time and really promoting the screen value. So that's a a next step for us as well. I think there is an opportunity to grow that further. >> Yeah. And I think that I mean and this isn't this is it's critical in terms of driving us forward, but not not a critique necessarily, but I think it's been reactive in terms of we're we're now monitoring this and we're

056starting to get this data, but how what's the proactive approach when it comes to the guidance that's needed or those conversations? Um I also, you know, I think that we track students who are on our devices, but we know a lot of students have their own devices. And so I'd also want to think about how we discount or how we account for the fact that kids are on devices outside of the ones we have for schools. And then also when we have this data, one, does that calibrate with lived experience? I see a lot of elementary school kids on devices when I'm in classrooms that seems to suggest it's more than the 50 minutes a day. Um but but you know again that that's anecdotal and not not quantitative. But just also how are we

057then taking this data and engaging families and saying does that comport with your understanding and you know I heard Dominic talk about SFACE and I do think a lot of this engagement should happen at the school level as opposed to like how are schools engaging? Um and I also just think more broadly too you know when it comes to utilizing like AI I mean do we have guidance for teachers around can they use AI for lesson planning? Should they use AI? Are there certain to I know there are certain tools we have access to. So are where how can families get access to those discussions and to that guidance. >> We'll definitely prepare something and and that'll be our next steps. That will be in um definitely something that we will work on next. And

058in terms of teachers access to AI, there's been lots of PD, lots of tools that have been provided. So that is definitely in place and we've been monitoring the use of the DE or online on-screen use for for many years. Um but just recently we've been now incorporating and synthesizing the data. Um but we've been monitoring that for a long time but now as you said it's really important for us to get it in front of our families. So that'll be work in progress. >> Yeah. And I think to get their feedback and then also really hear what they're asking us when it comes to um some of these requests. I mean I you know and the superintendent and I have spoken about this a little bit too. I think year you know 10 20

059years ago there were schools who were early adopters of like STEM and STEAM and now and there's like an irony here but there are certain schools that might want to be adopters of like a more antiquated and acronistic approach and do we allow that differentiation in the district do we allow schools to say we're don't want to be onetoone anymore do we allow schools to say we're going to do Friday no screen Fridays or whatever I mean again kind of like the cell phone ban it's a little more over it's oversimplistic in terms of just get them out but maybe that's what we need in order to do some of that detox. The other just quick discreet question that's not as relevant to this and maybe it's for so hail but I know it's something

060that board members have been hearing about is around um whether parents can opt out of certain platforms particularly YouTube I know it's part of the Google suite but that is a question that we've gotten and so just while we have this opportunity to discuss it can parents who are filling out these these um digital citizenship and data privacy and responsible use forms like say that we want to use Google apps but we don't want to use YouTube. So, uh that's different that digital citizenship and responsible use policy. The um Google uh consent form which was introduced this year and required by the parents to respond and opt in or opt out is part of the uh I would say 24 apps that they are all designed for uh user above 18. It was required by

061Google not by district that a parent must must consent in order to a student that below 18 years of age to have access to these tools and it's a essentially the total number of the tools that involve Google translator and bunch of other all of the school district actually did the same thing. This is not unique to LA USD. So initially when we designed this system in the short period of time that Google provided to us we were able to create an automated process for the parent to go to the parent portal. Opt in or opt out from that is optional. They can opt out. Obviously when they opt out they need to discuss with the teacher and the schools to make sure the teacher um using the content uh individually for the student to

062be able to address those issue. If there's a content on YouTube they're going to have challenge. We received that request uh from the parents that they want to pick and choose the apps uh because of the complexity of the design. We are in the design phase right now by the and by the way this consent need to be updated every year. It's not once and done. Every year when we go to the enrollment parent need to opt in and opt out again. So, and hopefully my goal is by uh around January, we're going to have a selection criteria that the parent end uh select each app and that app is going to be removed from from the platform. >> But when you were talking about the complexity, it's the complexity of on the district's end

063working with Google figuring out how to remove like YouTube from the suite of tools that the students >> No, no, actually that's the easiest part. the most complex part because we have so many students and we don't want to put the burden of the schools to go and select the apps one by one. We want to automate as much as possible. That automation requires us create the list and when the parents select and remove we get that and automatically immediately remove the student from that app usage. That's that was work that we did in the summer to create the entire system. This is the first time we do fully automated consent platform. In the past, the consent, let's be honest, it was the form parents submit, the school put it into the mises and it

064was a flag over there. There was a overnight job process and then any activation automation required manual intervention. In this scenario, there is no human intervention. when they put a flag parent put the flag there the system automatically remove it from Google with the matter of the minute it doesn't even go overnight process because we don't obviously we we know about the budget situation we try to not to ex put the burden or extra work on any group including the schools that's why developing that automation to get the entire district-wide 500,000 600,000 parents that they may go over there and submit this request we need to absorb that workload and we did it for one consent. Now we need to do it for 24 consent. >> So by Janu but the goal is by January

065so for the next semester and then the next school year to have that option. >> Exactly. And but right now it's in development and we enhancing that product and hopefully we're going to use it for any future consent that we want to do it because again it works uh as it's designed and the parent can remove it. But my advice to the parent always discuss with your school to opt in or opt out especially your teacher because the teacher uh we want to make sure they are empowered to deliver instruction and how they are can customize that instruction according to the need of the student. >> Great. That's helpful. Thank you. >> Um and thank you. I mean, I think I do think helping get, you know, um getting those IOC's out and uh making

066sure that they're accessible for the public and also schools, making sure that every school knows that these are the guidance, uh the regulations that the district is propagating is helpful. And then, you know, I'm eager to hear from the parents and the public around kind of how this work work evolves because I do think it's more complicated than um it's more complicated than where than where we got to which was just like how do we bridge well that is still complicated as my colleagues were discussing with funding and -ate and all the craziness but you know it's one thing to say yeah get every kid a device and internet and access and now figuring out where to limit access and how to teach about responsible use and is more complicated. So eager to hear more

067from the community about how we can get this right. Um so thank you. Thanks Dr. Rubis. >> More questions. Okay. Can I do one real quick? Some of my questions because all of these are great questions. I'm like oh I don't have anything for today. No. Um first I want to say that I was you know perusing through the uh digital digital citizenship lesson toolkit and it's it's you know it's there's a lot that you have been working on. So, I commend you for that. And I know it's still um a work in progress. I mean, you have everything here from administrator messaging templates. You have um to host a coffee with the principal or with the regional superintendent. I mean, um there's a lot here that you provide resources for schools and administrators and

068teachers to really be able to, you know, implement this digital citizenship. Um just a quick question. Um as I was looking um through the websites here on digital citizenship um I see here congratulations to the top schools and digital citizenship challenge. Is this challenge um take place during the October week or is this something that's going all year long and how can we get more schools to um be part of this challenge? That is the same challenge where we had 24 schools particip uh complete and uh it was uh last year from uh October digital citizenship week and it ended uh that fall semester and we're hoping to continue that to again expand and get more schools to participate and complete the lessons. Uh but this time to not end just the first semester but

069to expand it as an ongoing uh all year round challenge for digital citizenship. >> Great because we definitely want to see more of our schools. And I was also looking at the family and caregiver resources. You have um resources in Spanish. So yeah, I think this is one of um the areas that do need to, you know, add more and more support and not only in Spanish, right, in other languages I think will be will great and I do appreciate that you have a link to the key policies, responsible use policy, social media policy and employees, but also as as to Mr. Mo um mil voice point is um screen time, right? Providing that um information so parents know and also to help them at home and how to sort of um be able to

070track the use on on screen time at home and how that transfers over to school. So I think that that's really great. So I really commend you for all the work that you've done in in this area. So really quickly, first question. You did touch on this briefly and I understand we're incorporating resources from common sense, but can you share more about how the district is working with local community organizations, libraries, nonprofit partners to build a broad broader digital ecosystem where students and families can learn about online safety, digital rights, technology tools beyond the classroom. and are we partnering with them if there are any and hosting trainings to reinforce uh the curriculum or or trainings with our parents? >> Uh so for uh external collaborations and partnerships uh the only local partnership that I

071can uh think of is with uh KQED which is uh part of the uh PBS uh affiliate uh but that's also through our partnership with the our membership in the digital citizenship commit coalition. Uh this is a coalition that LUSD has been part of since 2018. And what it is is um group of K12 school districts. Lakada Montrose school district is part of it. Uh and LUSD from Southern California and it's also uh including some educational technology and media organizations and many of these um members of the coalition actually curate and um do some research around digital citizenship. So outside of the local partnerships, um I would say the PBS uh through the KQED partnership is what we have. >> My next question just to be more explicit on the use of AI, can you

072share more about how we're integrating AI tools in everyday classroom and what does that look like? our students are and I do love that you mentioned that we're we're not only um teaching our students to be more protective and and being you know um what not to do but we want them to be more proactive empowering them and also our families. Um but are part of that proactivity are we encouraging students to um download a chat GPT or open AI or how do you know how do we or how are we teaching them to really you know use those um platforms or those tools um in the classroom but more like an everyday classroom example if you can have one. >> Yes. So first of all they uh students have to complete the mandatory digital

073citizenship lessons for 6th through 12th grade uh students and when they've been marked complete in myis then that's when they get access to generative AI tools. In terms of these AI tools, uh we first and foremost go with what has been vetted uh districtwide and that might be uh Canva for education, Adobe Express and uh what's coming is Gemini through Google and these are already uh tools that have gone through strict LUSD uh requirements and what that could look like is for example in uh game design and esports. We don't want kids to just play video games or esports. But part of that is also is like how do you create your own game uh by writing a narrative of your game story and how can you use uh for example Canva to prompt it

074to create a story arc for you and then also use maybe Adobe Express to turn that story arc from text to image generated by uh Adobe through its uh stock images and then complete that as a pitch of their game design. So there is again is moving the students from mirror consumers of technology uh using esports to actually uh starting to design and create their own video game design. Another example of like day-to-day would be like in an English class. I walked into an English class and the teacher was delivering uh delivering a media literacy lesson. And in the media literacy lesson they were all uh engaged in learning about advertisement and how consumers are influenced to buy a particular product over another. And so uh then they went on to the chat GPT they

075created a campaign. After they created a quick little campaign then they uh they collaborated. they either pair share or in small groups shared with one another and determine whether that was influential and why. Uh and then the biases involved in those type of advertisements and what consumers they are um gearing towards. Uh and so that uh is an example of how they use it. Teachers just give them a really quick little moment to engage in it and then after that it's about the collaboration. Teachers use it to plan lessons as well. Very very popular app that is used right now that is used for for planning uh um districtwide. So that's something that is very useful. >> And do we have examples for our teachers to use this with PBL uh problem based learning for

076students to really showcase how their understanding of of the correct use and also how they can be also be empowered by with PBL. >> That is PBL is also one of the one of the ways we use it. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you so much. Okay. So I'll leave it there. So I'll um while we wait for Miss Gonz Greco, do you want to more for questions? >> Yes. I just wanted to follow up similar to what uh Dr. was just bringing up last year. I received an email from one of our educators at a high school and she was asking me if we offer um computer classes where the students can actually learn uh different programs including typing. So, you know, how to use Google Docs, how to use Canva, how to use Microsoft

077Suites, how to use all these different things because what she's realizing, she was a history teacher. And so, when she wanted them to start using these programs, the kids had no idea how to even start. So, she was like, now I'm having to plan a few lessons on this, and it's a high school class that has mixed abilities and only one teacher. So it becomes extra work that she needs to frontload. And so she was actually reaching out so that I would advocate for these types of classes. I know when I was in high school there were typing classes and that's how I learned to type. And I know there were even, you know, computer class. I know I did just dated myself. But anyway, but um but yeah, I mean could we and I

078don't know if we still have those. I know in the schools that I've worked at, I don't remember an actual computer lab class where you learn how to use these programs. I also know that parents have been asking for these types of of uh workshops on how to use them. So, can you share more about that if we have them if they're everywhere? Because I can see this becoming an equity issue, right? there are going to be and I could I could tell you that it's probably our students with disabilities who are you know are probably not having access to some of these lessons so that they can be prepared to use them in the gened class. >> I can say that uh we have specialized classes around computer science education but also graphic design

079and anything that has to do with technology. Uh but most of those are uh classes that are in the master schedule at mostly secondary schools. But at the elementary and middle and high school level uh it would be um case by case basis with schools. A lot of schools have um instructional aid who would open up like um enrichment class in between classes to teach these kinds of courses that are technology based. Uh but in our work around professional development is we teach the teachers how to be able to incorporate these um technologies into instruction. While we do have uh resources and content that we can readily turn into a studentf facing what this could look like for elementary or middle schools for example like Google workspace for education uh in fact um as we

080launch Google workspace for education for students uh in the next few months we're already developing some of those courses so that they can better embed Google Drive how do you use uh Google talks to collaborate and many of our students while this is available to them through the schooly LMS app. Uh I understand that there are some students who might need more support in terms of really diving deep into these tools in the context of their learning. >> And I guess that's also part of the concern I have is that I do know that in general there are some things that are happening. It's just not happening everywhere. And I think that's where we start to hear that some of my schools in South LA don't have this, but some of my other schools may.

081And so how can we make this so that it's for everyone like every and if and and if it's not for everyone then let's assess the schools that don't have access to that and let's make sure that they have it. So I I would want as we're talking about digital citizenship and we're talking about broadband access and we're talking about using technology for AI for all these different things. I think we also have to keep that in mind and um and make sure that we make it happen like let's assess who doesn't have these skills and let's bring that to our students. >> Thank you. And that is part of our uh broader um plans for the restructuring and rebranding of the instructional technology initiative to make sure that our approach moving forward with educational

082technology and innovation is to support the entire district. And of course that support will be tiered based on what each of the regions or board district or the clusters of school needs. We're going to be reststacking our resources. For example, our edtech coaches who are our boots on the ground. They have done this work for more than 10 years. They know exactly what schools have done. Uh and we will also leverage our bright spots, the practitioner schools that have been uh in place for the past at least uh 10 years. We can also leverage those schools that have been models for uh purposeful technology integration. And um my uh vision for our department moving forward is to do just that. is to really be equitable, purposeful in our uh educational technology work. >> Um I

083I think board member Grigo covered much of it was just to raise the equity issues that we know persist. You know, why did we need to do f go full onetoone during the pandemic and why did we need to give out hotspots is because so many of our families lack that access at home. that was 5 years ago, but those conditions persist. And so, while I think it's absolutely essential to have safeguards and guidance to be linked to and learning from the latest research, um we can't uh limit the ability of our communities to gain access to important technologies that are part of today's society and part of the economy. And we know that our some of our highest needs communities, including many that I represent, you know, don't have the same representation in the

084STEM fields. and our technology efforts that we are teaching our students including at young ages are very meaningful and impactful to creating those pathways um to a family sustaining career in the future. And so I think we we need to weigh those concerns very carefully and ensure that all voices from all communities are heard in any conversations as we move forward. >> Thank you. Thank you very much for this great Oh yes, Mr. Carala. Go right ahead. >> Thank you very much. Just really want to echo a little bit on what board member Gon has just mentioned. Obviously, when you approach um this conversation specific to digital citizenship or digital equity um frame within uh a fairly recent a number of positions, some of which are research endorsed that u look at screen time and

085the impact that screen time and in some cases addiction to digital resources and tools may have on the well-being of kids. We need to take that within the context that a lot of resources that our kids depend on and use uh are obtained through technological tools in school and those accessed uh from home on district provided devices and connectivity. So before we get to a point where we um unilaterally say uh let's aggressively restrict access, let's consider that restricting to some means eliminating and we cannot get to that point. We cannot get to that point. Um access to mental health resources is done online. Access to tutoring is done online. Sometimes you cannot necessarily depend on the support that parents because of their own educational level would provide to their kids. You need to depend

086on that lifeline digital lifeline between the child and the parents. Secondly, uh we ought to be somewhat honest about this. Uh you know we are able to track very accurately the number of minutes that our students engage in uh instructional tools online uh very accurately. Uh and the truth of the matter is from elementary, middle, all the way to senior that range is from less than an hour around 50 minutes for elementary age kids all the way up to around two hours for high school age kids. However, the disproportionate utilization of these resources happens not in school, happens at home anywhere between 7 to eight hours that kids spend. It happens in restaurants where parents substitute often the iPad for meaningful conversations around the dinner table or lunch table. It happens when kids fly because

087that TV screen is in front of them. And what's really the difference between that TV screen and the computer? So, we ought to be uh rather careful that a position of privileged privilege, a position of newly informed privilege does not substitute for equity of access to resources. Period. So before we start removing us, make sure that some of the kids who never had it at least have access to it. And uh I am concerned that sometimes the narrative goes a little too far in really uncovering the truth about this. Do we have a problem specific to digital tool addiction in America? Yes, we do. Schools are not the reason. Not even close. Parental responsibility is very much a part of this equation. Period. Thank you very much. Well, thank you again for uh your presentation

088and uh also want to thank the board for really great, thoughtful and um broad questions that were asked. I think that they were really great questions that were asked today. So now we will transition to our second presentation. Um I would like to welcome Miss Tes, Mr. Dadul, and also Miss Voltz to come to the front. And this update focuses on LUSD's housing initiative, an effort to support our workforce by increasing access to affordable housing for educators and staff in the communities they serve. The initiative aims to address rising housing costs, strengthen staff recruitment and retention, and ensure stability for the families who dedicate themselves to supporting our students. So, um, our presenters today will walk us through the district strategy, priority sites, financing models, and next steps to ensure that we are meeting the

089needs of our employees while advancing sustainable community centered development. So, please come right front. Floor is yours, Miss. >> Thank you. Good morning, board vice president, Dr. Rivas, members of the board, Superintendent Carvalo. The reason that we wanted to come to you today at this cow is that we plan to come to the September board meeting with a request for authorization to solicit proposals for housing developments at four sites that we've discussed with you previously. Prior to doing that, I wanted to make sure that we took the time to understand both what we plan to include in this RFP, the financial viability that we did, and the outreach that we've done so far. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Assam Dadul, who's our director of real estate planning and development, and

090also Anne Volultz. She is the president of Volts Real Estate Advisors, who has joined the district to do some of the financial viability analysis and help the district draft this RFP. Thank you. >> Thank you, Christina. Good morning, uh, board vice president Dr. Grievous, members of the board, and superintendent Carvalo. Uh my name is Assam Dadul. I'm the director of facilities planning and development. Um before we um get here we go. Uh before we dive too far in, um I did want to highlight a few takeaways from today's meeting um that you'll be hearing um an uh speak about really. Number one is the district's focus um is really on workforce housing. Um this is due to the amount of funding and return developers are needed for these types of projects to be financially viable.

091So you'll hear a lot about financial viability in the presentation today. The other takeaway, the district will not be contributing funding for these developments. The developers will finance, build and manage these properties. That is the intent of the district that the district is not putting in funding for these developments that they will be financed uh by the developers themselves. We are starting with these four sites that you'll hear about today. Um, and we believe that these are the most viable of the sites um, and give us the best success chance for success as we move forward. And we plan to use what we learned from this RFP um, and development to pursue other sites in the future. I know there's great interest in us continuing to pursue development, housing developments. And so we're starting with

092these four and the plan was to learn from this and to be able to move forward. So, so with that said, um I did want to uh before we dive in too far, go back to why are we seeking a housing initiative for the district? Why is it important? And so, as we've mentioned in past presentations, we want to attract and retain qualified teachers and staff to provide a better work life balance uh for our employees, less traffic, um improve air quality. Um, we also want to allow employees to be part of the communities that they serve and live in those communities that they continue to serve. And really when we look at the value of the land that the district um has, we want to ensure those resources are being utilized for their highest

093and best use to support staff students. So with that said, um the bulk of the presentation will be by um Anne Voltz, the president of the Voltz company, who will um Thank you. And it is a pleasure to be with all of you today. And I I do want to recognize that everything that I'm going to walk through is informed by significant participation from Assam, Christina, the entire real estate team. So really appreciate the collaboration that we've had to date and it's very important. So walk through just a little bit about affordable housing and what is that affordable housing and how is it defined and as the slide says here it's when a household pays no more than 30% of their uh gross income to go towards the housing cost. So that's a a general

094definition. So there is in the industry a lot of times we will talk about capital A affordable housing and small A affordable housing. I don't know if they're in the dictionary but we will um talk through these here for the purpose of the presentation is capital A affordable housing is very clearly defined. There is a lot of well-defined funding sources for it. It comes of course and it's a fantastic financing mechanism that we'll talk about later too with several things uh ways that you see here low-income housing tax credits section 8 and then there are there are certainly restrictions because it needs to be very honed in on certain affordability requirements tied to what is called an area median income frequently called the AMI. Then there is obviously to a small a affordable housing and

095that really means that the housing is certainly intended to be less than market rate housing and also serve of course our lowincome employees. That's why we're here today. There are pros cons to both. I'm not promoting one or the other. Just sharing that if we focus in on just the small affordable housing then we don't have access to the funding sources but we also don't have the limitations of the requirements of the certain financing sources. So what is needed to build affordable housing is this is just a very simple puzzle and it talks of course about demand land financing design and construction of course we need demand and I will walk through too and you've heard too from the previous study earlier this year that there is robust demand if we don't have need I

096wish you didn't have need I wish everyone had a a very stable house but we are not in that situation so you need to of course have demand And we need to have land and as Assam mentioned we'll talk more and Christina mentioned it as well is we'll talk about four sites that we're looking at right now and then of course we need financing design and construction and I will walk through the financing design and construction in a bit too. So the case for workforce housing is these are they're they're pretty telling facts from the survey that you did earlier this year. And what do we want to do? We want to come back hopefully in three four years. I'd love to come back next year and these have all significantly reduced. But and that's

097why we really appreciate that everyone here too is looking for a need for a change and we've also been as Assam mentioned making sure this is very financial viable but when you have if you go to the bottom one when 46% of your employees are considering leaving teaching or serving the operations and maintenance of the education everything we just heard in the previous session etc because they may need to leave due to housing in security. That's a pretty significant eyeopening data that we read right when we started. We immersed ourselves into all of this. And talk about demand from the survey earlier. There's demand for over 6,000 employees expressed interest. Um, so we are not going to be able to do 6,000 housing community units today, but there is significant demand from, of course, the

098escalating costs of housing in the area. So potential sites going back to the puzzle, we have the demand. Now looking at the land and part of our work and we did our work to date in association with our partners at Gendler is we did significant site feasibility studies. We had several sites at first but our first immersion was looking at the need. So we really focused in through the test fits, through all the different viability, through the financial sensitivity, through the zoning is which sites, and we started to call them the advanced sites are the most developer ready. And that's how we ended up right now with the four sites in front of you that are actually pretty evenly distributed amongst the district. So we've identified of course the land. We've identified the demand and

099right now what are we here and that's what we're here talking about mainly is we of course need money financing as you heard in the opening from Assam. This is not intended to be a districtfunded housing community or communities plural. So therefore, we do want to seek the services of not a vendor but a development partner to work with us and bring in of course the design and construction as you'll hear more from the community outreach input and we would certainly align with it as well as everyone at the district is the design and the long-term viability needs to fit within the fabric of the community. So searching for that development partner that can bring the financing to achieve our goals, those goals that Assam mentioned in the beginning and also through viable design and

100construction. So that's what we're really here when we're talking about a development RFP. And another item too that should be on and we'll talk a little bit more is also the management. So, it's one thing to get it open, but we certainly want to and would everyone I'm sure here ensure that it is a really quality residential experience for your employees. So, unfortunately, why is it hard to build affordable housing, whether it's a capital A or a small A, is, and I'll add some more complexity, is it does take years of careful budgeting and planning. I'm not we want to do this as quickly as we can but we also need to be very sensible to ensure again that your employees walk in and say I am so happy to be home. So um there's

101resistance from neighbors. We certainly and I'll talk about it in a bit is we listen to the communities and it it's fair who are our neighbors there might be this is change so there can be resistance sometimes um to the word even affordable housing and then there are multiple agencies of course too that's that's development on its own no matter what then we've also had a really we frankly have had a robust economy overall there's been a lot of building in the several past years. So therefore, construction costs have gone up more than at least I've ever seen in my career. So we've had continuing escalation of sometimes 10 to 12% for construction costs every year. But of course, our rents cannot go up that quickly. And then if they did, we certainly miss the

102whole mark of trying to provide affordable housing. And interest rates, they were incredibly low 3 to 5 years ago. we've hit more of a stabilization, but two, them going up um has not helped with the financial viability of our housing communities. So, with that said, is talking about the work we've done to date and how are we here today to most likely come next week to recommend that an RFP re-released to find the financing, the design, the construction, and the management. is we started with intense feasibility study. So we were fortunate to be engaged around April of this year and as I mentioned we had a a a longer list of sites. So we started and we went to every single one along with Gendler, along with the district and as I mentioned did a

103very thorough site assessment on all of them and that's when we reached okay certain sites are not going to be feasible certain sites maybe need to be deferred because they're not developer ready right away and that's how we got to the four advance. We also too there is a lot of legislation lately that has been put in place to break down the barriers required to develop affordable housing in our state. So, we wanted to make sure we looked at all the zoning, the affordability, the tenency control, and so how can we make this as viable as possible given all the opportunities and frankly the constraints that we have. And then you do have and it's it's wonderful, you have communities that are open. You've done this before. And so, let's take a look at what

104have we learned? What's gone really well? Well, then let's make sure that we take those lessons learned and and maybe how can we improve upon this uh success that you have to date. So, what have we done and I've somewhat summarized it so far is earlier this year there was a request for expressions of interest that was sent out for developers. I think actually it was last year there was a survey that was done that again as I showed significant demand over 6,000 employees are are seeking housing and we've developed financing strategies they all need to align with the survey data even your investors would expect that we've met with the community we've performed that site due diligence and we have prepared a final draft of a request for proposal that's what RFP stands for

105for our developer. So as I mentioned, you have these communities that are open and you have employees who are residing in them and clearly they are very pleased with the experience because but one challenge we have is that if an employee does leave the district as an employee, it is challenging for them to leave the housing community. So there's been some challenge on the we'll call it tenency control for the sake of this presentation. We want to provide housing for all but this is district-owned land district resources even if you don't put in and you're not intending to any of your general fund dollars. How do we really keep to those overarching objectives that Assam mentioned in the beginning? So we've been looking at different financing options. We're going to leave it open to our

106very smart development community and developers that we that are in this industry every day, but we've been looking to potentially a public private partnership. So the community is of course incredibly important and we did um there were two meetings with the labor partners and then as I mentioned the four different sites we went to we went to them twice. So and really wanted to elicit as much feedback as we could and certainly made them hopefully aware that they are going to be hearing from the developer and and so forth throughout the whole process. And we certainly heard back from the community that they do want to stay informed. They would like to be a part of the process. This has changed to their neighbor neighbors. So who's going to be their new neighbors? Are there

107going to be additional parking, traffic concerns, maybe even safety concerns? Is there opportunity for economic development? So we have been taking all this community outreach and it is reflected in the request for proposals and as you'll see in a bit too is the development partner or partners that we select will be required and also show that they are experienced in a strong community engagement plan. So financial viability assessment is want to make sure we're standing here in front of you today to there's development is risk but to show that there is some viability of course to achieving those goals by providing affordable housing. So we ran several different financial models testing all different types of programs rents financing. So to walk through at a high level is once we engaged in the whole process in

108the financials we recognized too that unfortunately from the survey is there is a significant demand too for students families and it's unfortunate and certainly wish it didn't exist. Of course, when you mix the student families and we mix the employees, there does become challenges on many financial um aspects to create that affordability. It challenges some of the legislation that's um in place. It could open us up to surplus land. So for a host of reasons right now to advance as quickly as we can for your employees the work then focused in solely on your employee housing and the request for proposals is written for employee housing. So we started too as a traditional um there's big spreadsheets that go behind um what I'm sharing here but with a traditional debt and equity model and we

109became very challenged with the cost of capital to achieve that small A or even capital A affordability that we really need to achieve of course for the objectives. So then we looked as well as a very common um lowincome housing tax credit known as LITC and this definitely drives affordability. It requires a a significant amount of pretty deep affordability to achieve the LITC model. This is what you have and this is how your current housing was financed. So and as I mentioned that has been very successful. There are challenges though as you have right now and we're certainly not saying that this can't be a viable option but the tenency control without a master lease. We even saw in the request for expression of interest is a lot of LITC models but showing the need

110for a master lease that is district risk. It's an option but it's district risk which we've heard from the beginning is not intended to be part of the partnership with the developer. So then we also too and this is not a promotion of one development. We were looking for a development partner or partners that can achieve our objectives. The public private partnership 100% taxexempt financing requires eligible residents. It's a capital E capital R and they do need to be affiliated with an educational use. So therefore, if an employee leaves their employment with LA Unified School District, they wouldn't be asked to be moved immediately, but they would not be able to renew because upon renewals is when you do check eligibility. But also too and it um it's really the third row from the top

111where it says financial gap remains is even with our models we want to make sure too that it is um known here that there are still a a smaller financial gap which is pretty expected with conservative modeling and in today's market that I mention. So then let's add just before we talk about the potential levers to close the gap is that of course we've and that's all right to achieve our goals there's a bit of complexity we've already talked about no general the land is what the district is providing we want to make sure that we maximize the tenency for our employees I'm not sure if it's going to be 100% for our employees but we want to maximize that as much as possible and of course keep the rents affordable and we do have

112fair housing which applies um certainly in our LITC model of course our ED code. So there there's complexity to doing work in publiclyowned land but there are means to close a financial gap. This could be a really long list. This could be an eight-hour workshop. Our developers are accustomed to becoming, we'll call it, creative, embedded in deep integrity, of course, but different ways. Maybe they will monetize a portion of the site. A couple of our sites actually have a a significant footprint. They may take some risk themselves. Most likely they would. Um, so they might take some risk maybe even on their fee or on some expenses. We've had a little break since we did our models and the rates. So frankly even right now if we ran our models to date the gap is

113a little less. We can never promise of course um what the markets will do but um we could maybe a developer would want to bundle which means do two three or four of our sites together. So there's a lot again as I mentioned there are so many ways there's a lot of philanthropic dollars lately more than I have ever seen and it's truly wonderful big organizations again I we none of us can promise but there are a lot of access to public monies and donations as well to close these gaps both in terms of construction and also sometimes too for helping with um payment of rent. So developer procurement as I mentioned is we have been working on uh it's at a final draft point right now of the request for proposals for a developer

114to bring the financing the design the construction and the operations. So what do we want to consider is in the draft is of course we want to make sure we very objectively evaluate our proposals based upon the objectives that have been stated those goals you heard Assam mention the requirements that I have shared as well. So we want to make sure too that we maximize the site is right now we're looking to is that is that AMI again is that area median income. So 30% to 120% in your current housing communities. Your AMIs are unfortunately some of your teachers are making just a little bit too much. So they do not qualify to live in the housing. Yet we still have 46% of our employees overall that are thinking they may need to find a

115different job because of housing insecurity. So prioritize of course that it is for our employees experience will be absolutely important. That community outreach plan of course is very as I mentioned we want to see the robust engagement and how that will be incorporated into the plan and also show again experience and then we want to make sure that the developers know too while this is going to be a very objective evaluation very easy to measure that we want to make sure we're open this is not intended to be an RFP that says to developer you're going to do exactly this is because our developers as I mentioned they have a lot of tools that we hope and they will bring to us and we believe they will to achieve your goals. So we also too

116in addition to demand we u want to make sure the developers are aware of this opportunity. So we held an industry forum in August. We were really pleased. Uh we had representation from several developers and um and we heard from them too is wanted to really get their feedback and and share that this opportunity exists to make a difference for your employees and I'm going to turn it to for the timeline. >> Thank you an so um just a quick summary of the timeline and next steps. So, as you've heard previously, we're planning to come to the board next week with a request to release the RFP for the four sites. So, that'll be coming on September 16th. Shortly thereafter, we would be issuing a request for proposal and going through the process of obviously

117reviewing the proposals, interviewing developers as necessary, and then making the final selection with the anticipation that we would be back at the board for approval and authorization to enter into agreements if we were to obtain successful proposals um in the second quarter of 2026. So, with that um I will open it to questions and thank you for the time. >> Thank you very much. uh for your presentation. Uh yes, I will open it up to my colleagues for any questions. Who wants to start? Mr. Movoy. >> Sure. Thank you. Um this is uh clearly a priority of mine and I'm really appreciative to you all for for the great work. I think it was took us too long to get this off the ground, but since we've um since we've gotten it going, I appreciate

118that we've kept to our timeline and we've done uh you know all the objectives that you mentioned to the board, including these industry forums and getting this RFP in front of the board, which I'm very hopeful we will approve next week. So, lot lot of excitement. Um think this makes a lot of sense. Uh appreciate the the flexibility um endemic in the RFP around letting the market decide with some of these things. I know some of the concerns I had early on is when we were kind of maybe self-defeating and like oh this wouldn't work or this that wouldn't work and let's let's see. So I think we've had us um struck the right balance. A few questions uh just based on the I guess the slide that's the kind of about the upcoming RFP.

119one is um do we is there a way to prioritize LA Unified families LA Unified employees who are also families like I know one of the things we've heard about we've been deciding about this and we we have the three projects we have four here one of my next questions will be how do we get how do we get the next ones off the ground but we know there's advocacy from the community around families which changes some of the financing and the abilities but we know that a lot of our employees are also parents and so is there a way to like be that specific Yeah, right now for in regards to the tenency, I don't we're not being overly specific in the um in the RFP. Now, in terms of what the requirement is,

120we're allowing them to make the suggestion of what percentage of AMI. So, really, it's based off of the percentage and not the type of u of employee that's going into that that space. So, >> but would we be able to say from a kind of normative standpoint, we want employees who are also LA Unifunified families? >> I think that might be something that we would discuss with the developer after the proposals are received and something that we would have to discuss with um our legal counsel to just make sure that we're within the the all the fair housing rules as associated with whatever that particular funding source that that developer is pursuing. And on that point, because I know this is one of the concerns that's come from some of the community meetings, can you

121remind us and if it's dependent on the funding source, that's helpful too. But if there is, are we able to require that um tenants are district employees? Um or is that just something that we can preference? Um, I also just saw something up in the Bay just this week that there's I think a county project that they are preference they are not preferencing but they are I mean I guess maybe it's a preference but they're only opening it up to school employees up there. So just curious because I know some of the feedback we've got is well you can you can um advertise or recommend but you can't require. >> So it is dependent on the financing structure. So AB3308 allows us to prioritize our employees. So if we are to open housing um let's

122say for an example using the low-income housing tax credit that list right immediately would be available only to as long as we have enough demand and you most certainly do to your employees. The challenge that we've run into, which is what you have now, is that you lose control of that tendency when folks leave employment. the public private partnership method. Again, it's not advocacy for any one method that actually requires that it only be a resident that is affiliated the who's ever signing the lease agreement or the license, whichever you use, is affiliated with an educational use. And so upon renewal, if they are no longer employed and verification obviously wouldn't be able to happen, they would need to move out within a reasonable amount of time. >> Yeah. And I know that our existing

123projects, one of the criticisms has been the percentage of employees has dropped. But I also get from a policy standpoint that if folks qualify and so they're, you know, making only a certain amount of income and they like leave the district for, let's say, a better opportunity even though we hope that we create those opportunities for our employees that we don't necessarily want in an insecure housing market to kick them out. So I get that that is a question for policy makers like we want to increase the percentage or keep it pretty high but I if you're an employee who then decides to make another decision for your family livelihood I could see the argument that like you know to your point a reasonable time. So I just say that publicly because I know that

124when we looked at some of the existing projects folks will say it's only 60% district employees. It started out at 100 and then without attrition we just decided we're not going to kick people out. Um so um that was one question. Secondly, it mentions on this slide open to market rate or land exchanges for viabilities which are like land swaps. I had heard something recently around a new bill or a new law that requires a 7-Eleven committee for this. So, can you just so I'm kind of >> Yeah. So, there's there's a recent u AB130 requires which has just been passed uh as of July um requires the 7-Eleven committee for any land swaps that would be um done by public agencies. Um, so we're currently working with Office of Government Relations internally with the

125district to see if that can be reversed. Um, and then we're kind of working through the issue as it relates to this RFP on whether or not uh, you know, we can suggest that land swaps are available. Um, knowing that they might have to go through the 7-Eleven committee if this uh, AB130 were to continue. >> And can you just sha explain for the public? So the terms we're using land swap and then also 7-Eleven committee. >> Sure. So, a land swap is ultimately in in this context would be that the district owns a parcel of land that is underutilized. There might be a developer who has or is in the middle of construction and has a site that's already readily available that might want to swap existing units that they're currently constructing that for

126vacant land which would allow us to bring units to the market sooner. >> And the 7-Eleven committee, >> yeah, the 7-Eleven committee is required by the ED code. Um if you sell property, the school district is required to go through a 7-Eleven committee, which is a um a fairly long process which requires 7 to 11 committee members um to go through the process of disposing of any public lands for the district. So for the purposes of this, it just makes it more difficult. If we had a viable land swap offer that we wanted to avail ourselves of, the 7-Eleven committee would make it tough and the developer might ultimately lose. >> That is correct. which is why we're looking for um that's disappointing and I'm glad that Martha and her team are on it. Um

127the uh as part of this RFP process, are we being very clear? I guess my suggestion is that we are clear. You know, I know there are um we part because of our advocacy around state law, but also as a government agency have some of our own entitlement or zoning um flexibilities or powers. And I just want to make it clear in the RFP as developers are looking at this like what is in our jurisdiction. What like if someone for example says I don't do work in LA because the city of LA and the land use is crazy. We want them to know like you don't have to work for the city of with the city of LA because of XY andZ. So are we is that all articulated in the RFPs as they're being

128drafted? Like what what is what we what can we entitle ourselves? Where do they have to deal with other agencies? >> Absolutely. So without dictating what legislation they should lean into is we do recognize and and demonstrate in the RFP that legislation is available that would exempt them through going through local zoning. There are I'm certain these will qualify for SQA exemptions. So really showing that a lot of those barriers are minimal compared to a private development in the city. >> Right. And then are we allowing or is the RFP going to be crafted in such a way that government agencies or other cities could bid? >> Absolutely. So we are not being too prescriptive. So it does not say that you need to be for instance a for-profit developer or a notfor-profit developer. So

129a public agency would certainly be welcomed as long as they have of course the experience and the criteria to >> I know that we've just gotten at least in one of the properties that's in my district some of cities have reached you know one city but has reached out uh and you know have we've had a conversation and so curious if they have if that would be um an option and then the other thing that I'm sure you're doing but just I'd encourage us to look at is I know that the community college district LACCD just did a similar RFP process for student housing um and so if there are lessons learned there for for better or for worse that would be helpful. Um I know my colleagues have questions so I'll just say this

130is exciting and um I do look forward to once we have this first trunch of these four properties there's a lot more land that the district could be better utilizing for the larger community. So I hope that we can you know another proof of concept and then we we go forward. So um I guess I might have more but let I'll send it back to the chair for now. Thanks. >> Yes. I know Miss uh Ortiz Franklin had a question. Thanks. Yeah, I love this idea of prioritizing employees who are also families. Um, we did a recent visit to our Gardina uh location which has been around for 10 years and there's over 6,000 people on the waiting list and have been for 10 years. One just got off the wait list and was waiting

131the full 10 years. Um, less than 700 are employees. So, you know, about 10% who are applying, but we have this preference and I'm not sure if this is codified in state law or if this is an L USD policy, but first preference to LUSD employees within three miles uh radius that's where their job site is. and then all LUSD employees and then the general public. And so I guess my question is is that preference list for the Gardina housing LUSD policy or state policy? >> Yeah, that so that was the Sage Apartments that we had the pleasure of visiting on Friday and with that it was LITC funding, low-income housing tax credits. And so based off that particular type of financing and our work with that particular developer, that's how we set that waterfall.

132So it was based off of the the financing that was specific to that project. >> Okay. Yeah. And I I do think to your point, Mr. Melvin, the more the public knows about the financing really um leading on this rather than the board or the district making policy about this, you know, that's helpful. Um you know, I would just say I'm really excited for this as well and so excited that so many developers came to our industry forum. There is such a great need even if people don't win our RFPs because only you know maximum of four will this round. How can we encourage them to keep doing this work and applying for funding elsewhere to still serve our employees and families given, you know, what I just shared about one of our units having

133such a long wait list? Um, you know, if if they're not successful with us, how do we help them, you know, keep going forward with this mission? >> Yeah. So, we'll continue to have um a database of all the developers that we're working with that are submitting proposals. And so when the next trunch comes out, we'll continue to do outreach with all of those developers to make sure that they're still involved with us and still can propose on future projects. >> Yeah. Or do it without us, you know, if if possible. Um but I am really excited, you know, I am looking forward to um particularly the one near Grumpers Middle School, which is such a high need community. And so I uh know that that will really help with stabilization of um staffing at

134high need schools in South LA and particularly near Watt. So I'm pumped for that and uh really excited for this project. Thanks sir. >> Mr. Schmen, >> so do we retain ownership of the land where the building is? >> Yes, that is correct. >> And what is our financial gain in this process? >> So, so we're not necessarily looking at this as a financial revenue stream for the district, although the proposers could propose that there is a some type of um revenue sharing if there were to be any um revenue as well. So, we're leaving it very open-ended in the sense that the developers are going to propose, they're going to propose what the maximum or I guess minimum uh lease term is that they would like for them to develop on the land, but

135the district would retain ownership. >> Okay. One of the things that I'm very concerned about is the parking situation. And I certainly would hope that these buildings because there's no way that neighbors are going to be friendly to any building that takes all their parking on the street. And I know that the law says if you're near a big intersection where there's public transportation, well, that means uh many times no parking at all for anybody. And so that's a good way to start off with your neighbors having no parking taking their spot. So I hope that we'll consider that. I know it happens all over and uh it's kind of sad. Here's what kind of makes me think. Well, I'm a teacher and I'm at the the the housing unit and I say, "I'm not

136teaching summer school this year because I can't afford my salary to go so high because I won't qualify anymore for this building." So, is this going to kind of make people not want to increase their income like most teachers want to? I was a teacher, too. Everybody went summer school and and interc more intercession. What do they call it? Winter session. Winter Academy. Yeah. I'm just worried about people saying I'm always have to watch my my my income so I don't I don't get kicked out of this building at a certain time. Really? >> Yeah, that's certainly a philosoph philosophical question as well. So, capital A affordable housing does have strict area median income requirements. It doesn't mean that the minute if it's you're teaching summer school for three months. I mean there's some leniency

137as to but to your point is if a employee gains or um I don't know increase as you mentioned the smaller a affordable housing does let us be more lenient in that regard so you could have district policy still trying to achieve the the small a I don't think anyone's here to build luxury housing >> but then that would um circumvent what >> all teachers want to advance. You know, we have step and column and you start off really low and then you work your way up. So, what are you going to say? No more races for me. Please don't move me up the steps and columns because I don't want to be this income. So, I just don't want it to hinder someone's progress in becoming a better teacher. That's all. Thank you. >>

138Yes, Miss Ggo. I thank you for your presentation. I am very excited that we're where we are right now with this. Um I think it was what in 20 was it 2019 or 2023 that uh teachers went on strike? One of those two strikes and we got anou on the housing. Which one was it? I don't remember. >> 2019. So um and we created we one of the things that we won was a task force right on housing that included community members. So I'm wondering um are any of these uh stakeholder engagements inclusive of those task force uh meetings because I know a couple of teachers who are part of that and community members who are part of that. >> Yes. So we've met with um UCLA um as part of not necessarily as part

139of the task force. So we've we've had two separate distinct meetings. We've met with UTLA as part of the task force as separate meetings and then specifically to this housing initiative, we've met with them as uh last was in August and the time before that was in June. And we've shared with them the timeline and the thought process behind how we were going to move forward with our housing initiative. >> That's great that you met with UTLA. The housing task force also includes other community members and I think that's why they're I think they're a great source of information. uh because it does include other labor partners as well as other community members who actually do work in housing and have been doing this kind of work. I've seen some of their presentations on the

140various types of housing that exists in other parts of the country and other parts of the world and um and so that's the reason why I'm asking if you've met with them and talked to the task force. >> Yes. So we so we have met with the task force. I don't recall the exact date, but I can check with my team um on the last time we had a meeting with this the task force specifically. And then and then I do want to highlight that it wasn't just UTLA that we also met with. We met with SEIU and the other labor partners as well as part of this global outreach that an was referring to earlier. >> All right. Wonderful. And then the other thing, one of the um which I'm very excited about, one

141of the proposed uh sites is in BD5 and um there was a community meeting that was held and uh my staff went to it and it was very low turnout. So I'm wondering what is and look I was an organizer and I've worked with trying to get people to meetings and I know it's hard to get folks to meeting. It's so what is your strategy to make sure that we in that people show up that people are participating in these conversations because what we'll hear is that there was no community engagement right so what are we doing and what is the strategy for that >> absolutely and we were in round one too thought it was slower than we wanted of course so I will say in round two we had more folks but we

142also too is um There is a lot of there were emails, banners, um that a lot of distribution, social media, there is a website as well where everything all the community presentations etc are kept. So we want to make sure too that that is distributed because that's really the key source to go to to find out when we're going to be having the next community meetings and how people can get involved. There's an email on there, too. So, if people have questions, they can email them to us. I mean, they go to the district, but that right now, um, but I we take it very seriously and we've worked a lot with the district day-to-day team as well as, um, I'm not sure if they're called the public relations department or community engagement. Thank you.

143>> To ensure as much outreach as possible because it's really important and it's very valuable. some of the takes you go back and you say, "All right, we need to change this RFP a bit." That was a really great comment. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that um it is hard to get folks unless you're talking to folks, right, and inviting them and letting them know what this is about. So, I would recommend that there be some form of personal engagement. And I've I've shared this with with the superintendent like some of these things we have to act like it's a campaign and we have to go doortodoor knocking talking to people being outside schools letting folks know attending meetings collaborating with the face uh you know uh office the division that works with parents.

144I mean just all of these things is this is great right and we want to make sure people know that we are doing this and we want our employees to know that we are doing this. So I I mean if if we could uh make the community engagement more robust and be not just rely on social media and uh postings but actual human contact and letting people know and visiting um the different meetings, neighborhood council meetings or whatever, working with our governmental relations, which I know you're already doing, but continuing to do that to to really get the word out. I think that um I think that's very important. So um let's see. I do have something else. Uh actually no, it's Oh, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Um um so um you showed us

145some employee results and I'm wondering if you have mapped the results um to to know where the greatest need is. The survey that was done earlier this year does map that out. It maps it out by location and it maps it out by AMI and it maps it out by employment status too. >> Can you share that with us or did you already share that? I remember seeing something similar but I don't remember. >> Yeah, we we did share and what we found was that there was a pretty equal distribution amongst the entire district. So there was not just one area that was more heavily favored in terms of the demand. there was demand kind of through equally distributed throughout relatively speaking within a few percent um throughout the district. >> Wow. Okay. Well, thank

146you so much. If you can share it again, I'd appreciate it. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you, Miss Gonz. Good. >> Thank you so much. Well, I really appreciate the presentation. Um, I think the board uh first passed a resolution on employee housing uh back in November of 2018 and um at that time also passed a resolution around supporting our homeless students and families and looking at uh providing housing for them on our district underutilized district sites. Um so I this has certainly been a long time coming and it's exciting to see the progress. We know that there's a housing crisis in Los Angeles, really an emergency. And so I think being a part of this effort as the large one of the largest land owners in the county is super important and we know from

147our employees that the housing costs um are really affecting their ability to work with us as a district. Um their well-being, the well-being of their families. So um I'm really appreciative of all of the work so far. Um I will note I am disappointed by not including our families in this effort. I I think the idea of of looking to preference employees who are also um parents of children in the district is is a great idea. Um you know, we just know that our families are in desperate need of affordable housing and um you know, I wouldn't want a missed opportunity to really support with that need. Um I know that there was the survey results which we talked a little bit about though only it looks like about 800 families completed the survey. 89%

148expressed. So, I see like a 40%ish number for our employees, but an 89% who were interested in in housing from the district, from our families. So, I I think that's pretty stark and speaks to the level of need and demand in our communities. Um, C could you all talk a little bit more about the decision to proceed solely with workforce and what those what those barriers are that led to that decision point? Yeah, I could speak to the more, you know, broad terms in terms of the financial uh analysis that was done um and then um Ann can speak probably into more of the details, but ultimately when you look at when we look at the financial viability of each of these sites in terms of what the potential rents may be um and that

149rent is really dictated based off of the percent of AMI. So a uh AMI average median um income if you're between 30 and 60% the rent is going to be lower. If you're between 40 and 120% then that rent will go up based off of that percentage. So for a family that is unhoused or um is even be below that 30% then that rent that rental return back to the district uh or to the developer really becomes lower and it beca becomes financially unfeasible for those developers to get a return on the cost of construction and the cost of maintaining the property. >> Okay. Um I I definitely um understand the math there. Um I would hope that as we continue to proceed on these projects, but also look at the other properties that we're

150examining that um we continue to prioritize the need of our families. Um perhaps there's other sites where it would be more feasible to explicitly include our district families. Um, and we know it's not just our families who are right now categorized as experiencing homelessness that so many um, of the LUSD families we serve are on the brink of being housing insecure if they are not in that particular defined position right now. Um, but I appreciate your explanation. Um, and then I'm curious about, you know, what other criteria the district may use to evaluate developer proposals beyond financial feasibility such as community benefits, sustainability, etc. Absolutely. So it is intended to be a holistic evaluation criteria. So it is it is weighted on a course experience. We need to make sure that we have a developer

151that can get the financing for the project. Show that they have done it in the past. We do have the community engagement plan is very important. The program and the approach is also and that's that's very important. We need developers frankly that understand our objectives and our goals. So that will certainly be evaluated as well as well as to their management um capabilities because a lot of times when you're doing these closings everyone's focused just to get it open but when it opens that's when we make the impact. So having to that management entity that can really serve our needs as well is important too. >> Gotcha. Uh I you didn't mention sustainability or commu you know community benefits explicitly so I'm just curious whether those will be things that we consider as well >>

152and I should have mentioned that the sorry and the answer is yes and that's even something we took away from a community outreach meeting is that they had some really excellent ideas on how these communities especially at one of the sites could really enhance the neighborhood. >> So we went back and did add that in more specifically. >> Great. Okay. Okay. Well, I look forward to seeing some of those details when we look at the materials for the uh board meeting next week. Um, and then also curious about in terms of the process, how will we ensure diverse participation in the RFP such as by smaller or missiondriven developers, not just the largest developers in LA. >> We do have um and also too, I should have mentioned this as well as part of the

153is how are they going to address um local comm local businesses, small businesses. So that is um included as what they will need to submit and be evaluated upon. >> Okay. Um and uh is local hire something that we'll be looking at as an incentive? >> And that is in there as well. Yes. >> Great. Um obviously that's important. We also typically in a lot of our construction projects look at workforce learning opportunities for our students. Is that something we might consider as well? >> So yes. And so you're going to hire if you Well, you don't really hire. they're your partner. So, you would engage in a partnership with the developer or developers. The developer will bring in the architect and the contractor, but through our partnership, we certainly would want to ask the

154contractor who technically works for the developer for the learning opportunities, the local hire. So, a lot of that comes from whoever they bring in as their construction manager, their GC. So, that's a long-winded way to say yes, that's important. >> Okay, great. And I understand that some of these details may be fleshed out farther down the road, but just want to ensure that that these are things we're thinking about from the outset of these projects. Um, and then I might have missed this in the in the document, but is there a set number of units that we're aiming for overall with these four properties and a breakdown of the types of units that we So, for example, if we're trying to incentivize family housing, are we looking at, you know, multi-bedroom units, for example, and

155not just? So the the RFP as written does not specify the number of units for each development because we want them the developers to determine that based off of the zoning based off of what they think um will be achievable financially. Um and in terms of the unit type um that's also going to be dependent on the developer to make that propose. We we really didn't want to restrict any of the developers to any specific unit types uh unit sizes etc. uh because we want to create as much flexibility for the developers as possible so that they can formulate and put together a a comprehensive proposal. >> Um I I I think that the flexibility um makes sense and is appealing. Um, I hope that as this is a longer term effort that we might

156set out some specific district goals as to, you know, what percentage of our employees are we looking to provide housing for? And then similarly to my prior comments, you know, h how might we make a percentage impact in, for example, our families who are experiencing homelessness. Um, so I I would hope that as we look to this being a longer term effort that we can have um our own particular goals that we're hoping to achieve um laid out in a metric driven way um for our housing program. >> Yeah. And I do want to point out that when we receive the proposals, we're evaluating them based off of what they are proposing. And so obviously if they were to propose a higher number of units or or higher number of bedrooms, then obviously that's something

157we would take into consideration as we're comparing one proposal to the other. >> Understood. Okay. Thank you both. I appreciate it. You >> Thank you, Miss Hendinyu. >> Well, this was amazing. Thank you um for bringing this to us and uh I haven't been here as long, but have been here as long to obviously appreciate the work. Uh some of the questions were already asked and wanted just some clarification on once these developers come forth, it's possible that there's one developer per project or per site. Is that possible? >> Yeah, that's correct. Actually, that's how it's written. So, it's written so that a prop a developer can propose on one, two, three, or four of the um sites. They're not limited and each site will be um evaluated independently of each other. So a developer

158may submit on four, but we're going to look at one at a time. And so they may that developer may win or not win necessarily, but they may be selected for one of the four, but maybe not all of them. That makes sense. >> Okay. and she asked a question about the number of units um obviously to see the impact for our families or you know um those that work um how we reduce that number because obviously it's a large number and seeing how we do that in this round and then obviously for future rounds um and I think that's one of the questions that will be asked too just when we see that coming forth obviously this and and you said something I was like it can take a long time. I mean, it's

159been a long time. What is the estimate now since we're at this place right here? >> I'm just so I understand the question. >> So, I know we've said this has taken a long time. We've talked about reszos from 2018 just to get here today. So, today moving forward, what is time frame looking like as we get these RFPs together? What would that look like? Is it depending on the type of product >> that kind of drives that? >> Got it. Thank you. So yes, in terms of de develop development itself, so we need to select a proposer. We need to come back to the board to get authorization to enter into that agreement which would be in the second quarter of 2026. And really depending on what the propo what the developer is proposing

160will dictate how long it's going to take for construction. As we mentioned, there's a streamlined process that hopefully we'll be able to take advantage of to get through the squa process to get through the city approval process for the units themselves. Um, in terms of an exact time frame, you know, construction can take, you know, a year, two years. Um, and it depends on how long they're going to take on the design. So, I can't commit to a specific uh time frame, but it does take, as as we all know, uh, design and construction can take a a few years. >> It won't take seven years, though, right? I hope not. >> Just asking. Um, uh, what was and then with Tennessee control, is that all solely on the law? How can there be any

161effect to that and in a unit? So I've known to and this may be true in some as we talk big a little affordability that some units are designated here and then some other units are designated in a different category. Is that all still based on how the developer come forward? >> Yeah, I ultimately it's going to be based off of the financing they use. So once we once we know uh which proposer we're selecting and what financing they're using, then we'll have a better idea of what type of tenency control the district could uh if it so chooses uh proceed with and how much of that tenency control we want um compared to if we want to just keep it open open-ended. So I think those decisions will have to be made at a

162later time once we know which proposers we're going with and what type of funding they're going to use and what type of restrictions come with that funding. and she mentioned some of the questions in regards to um like CTE for our students obviously being able to have that opportunity on site but as as you mentioned that comes from the contractor which hopefully we'll see down the road. Um and I think that's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Wonderful. Great, great questions. A lot of them have been asked, but I just want to um just go back on on on some of the areas that my board members here have asked. I heard I heard you mention that um as we partner with developers or as developers are being um you know, submitting their

163proposals um that we can communicate our priorities, the district's priorities, the board's priorities. Um, as Miss Gonz mentioned, workforce development, training opportunities, good paying union jobs, um, and student career pathways. We want to be able to integrate all of that. Um, how can we include this? How can we include this in the RFP so that selected firms align with these priorities from the start and have clear accountability measures built in it as as with follow through. >> So, thank you. So, we we will definitely take what we've heard today and sit back and look at the draft RFP and make sure that we're incorporating all of the board's um kind of initiatives that they want to pursue that we want to prioritize as part of this RFP. >> Yeah. And particularly also climate resilience. We

164want to build um you know housing that is climate resilient which is also aligns with the with the district goals. Um and Mr. Um Schmemell mentioned the feedback that we receive particularly with traffic and parking and construction impacts. That is also something that we specifically include in the RFP. Correct. >> Yeah. So, so there's so two things. One to go back to climate resiliency. So, in terms of this district's sustainability efforts, that's already in the RFP that we've drafted. So, there's language that specifies that we want just like our other projects to be um environmentally sustainable. Um as it relates, what was the second part? I'm sorry. um the question about the community feedback about traffic construction and the and that will go directly into the RFP for them. So there so we are not

165we have not in the RFP dictated the number of parking spaces per development or a minimum number. Again, we're going to rely on the zoning, but we do indicate a preference for how we're going to evaluate it based on what they propose and understanding that we heard from the community that parking was a big factor >> because we will the community will come back and if these issues were not addressed, then we want to make sure that we specifically or you know included our preferences and that we heard the feedback from the community because this is the reason why we're doing community engagement, right? otherwise. Um, so I know they will come back if they're very upset. So we want to make sure we're addressing them as those issues as well. Um, so from now

166on the RFP when we vote on it until when it comes back in the next spring, um, that's going to be some time, right? That's right there. So what do you see or have you thought about what could be the biggest risks in this time frame until you know we actually see vote on the the proposal and how um can you seek support in keeping that these projects are on track? >> Yeah, a great question. So um in terms of the risks once we re number one is we're hoping to receive proposals which we think we will considering the industry forum that we've done and the the outreach that we've done. We don't think there's a high risk of not receiving proposals but that's there's always a risk of not receiving proposals for all the

167reasons that an uh mentioned in terms of the construction market um in terms of pricing and interest rates etc. So there is always a risk that proposers are not going to be able to make these pencil out. We hope it's a minimal risk, but there is obviously a risk there. Um, once we issue the RFP, we're in what's called a cone of silence. We're in a procurement process. And so, we need to give time to the developer to put together the proposal and then time for district staff to evaluate. Um, we don't see a lot of risk in that period of time and hope that by the time we are able to come back, um, we come back with positive results. Why can't we be bold and different and say we are going to supply

168parking for our residents? Because this we're the school board. This is a school project. This isn't some big construction company making housing. This is the school district. And why can't we be fair to our neighbors and include parking for people? Because if I get all these calls about there's no parking, I'm going to send them right back to you. Okay, you got it. Okay. The chief of valley services um you know I think that's a very very good very good and important question. So the risks and challenges considering uh the issues swirling around us right tariffs possibility rapid cost escalation um the uncertainty specific to uh interest rates as decreed by the Fed. All of that could spell out a series of challenges that are hard to predict at this point. Right? particularly when we

169envision projects that historically in this district have taken a long time to realize elevating the risk and the challenge specific at the very least to cost escalation. That's why we are trying to move as as fast as we possibly can while still being thorough in the examination of what we're doing and the reason why we're doing. Uh so very very good question, something we'll continue to look at. The the next point that I I agree with is I mean we're very hopeful that people respond to this, but the the private sector is also monitoring these conditions and they're not going to venture into these projects just because we think it's a good thing. You know, they're going to come at it and with with with the night towards making money. So that's something to to

170understand. But we have already conquered two critical elements, right? we have a land and and we understand the demand and that's powerful both in terms of workforce with 52% of the respondents to our survey saying we're very interested and as board member Gonz said earlier a very significant percentage even though from a smaller pool of parents declaring also a significant interest in these projects. We believe that that will actually increase to the point made by board member Grigo to the extent that we get better at actually surveying larger numbers of constituents whether workforce or or parents. The next frontier you know after we uh after we amass additional experience through through these four projects simultaneously rolled out will be actually probing these additional partnerships. You know, the city, cities, not just city of LA, but

171cities have a a huge interest. I met with seven or eight city managers yesterday. Huge interest in addressing um housing uh issues in their community, particularly in cities where you have high level density, no available uh land space, and we happen to be the only entity that actually has this space. So to the point that was made earlier in addition to the four sites that we are rolling with and moving forward with RFP we had identified up to 10 or 11 sites we chose to move forward with four because they are the ones that probably are facing the least resistance. You know the pathway moving forward is easier. But in addition to the other ones that we had looked at there are literally dozens of additional sites in the community. For each one of those

172sites, there could be a different methodology and purpose adopted. Meaning we can be partners in bringing about not only workforce housing solutions with priority for our workforce but also then uh housing solutions for families looking particularly to address critical issues. We could be partners in joint development or being the land providers via negotiation to cities to address homelessness, the unhoused conditions of many. So there's a whole series, a whole host of possibilities that lie ahead. What we're lacking at this point is actually the experience to move quickly with foresights. We as a board have experienced in developing some of these. I I was on a visit to the one in Gardina. Fantastic space. Amazing. amazing asset that we have provided to the community. Um, which by the way I think represents a best practice. I

173would hope that all of our partners had examples like the one in Gardina or the one in Korea Town. Now that we are where we are, if in fact we receive the responses we anticipate receiving to the RFPs, we amass that uh that experience and before ground is broken on the very first one. We believe that we can actually move forward with other iterations that would serve and address other needs like the ones I described uh already. So I want to thank the board number one for your vision. I know we've been at this for a long period of time. We're now moving I hope that we're catching up moving with four you know RFPs simultaneously which has no precedent. Uh but the point here is considering the need and the assets that we have

174available to us is even before we break ground, we begin to consider additional steps to be taken in addressing this vaccine problem for our entire community. I really want to extend my appreciation to the board for this important conversation, but also to Christina Toes, to Ann, and to to Isam for for leading and leaning heavily on this very exciting and very needed uh body of work for our community. Thank you very much >> and thank you for addressing that. That was my next point um just in general that we mustn't forget our families that are facing housing insecurity. And the point I was going to make when you you actually address that is that we look for other initiatives and or joint partnerships and addressing that. So thank you for that and I look forward

175to um the next steps that we take to help our families. So thank you again. I reerate reiterate um my appreciation for the presentation today and yes once again very wonderful great uh questions from our board as well. So now I we will move to public comments. So, I hand the the mic over to Mr. McClean. >> All right. Thank you very much. We have a full vote of public comment. So, I'll call on the folks who are listed as being in person first and then we will transition to those who are speaking remotely. Um, so for the first person, Bridey Lee, come on up. I think you're out there. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. I think that's the first time I put the R in the right place when I

176when I called your name. And then Ana Mexen and then Laya Bak. So, um, let me turn on your mic and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> Today, the LA Times reports historic lows in math and reading test scores attributed to increased screen time, shortened attention spans, and changes in teaching methods. It reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg's famous mantra, move fast and break things. Tech celebrated ethos of unapologetic recklessness and what made the running joke on the comedy series Silicon Valley that they were quote making the world a better place so hysterical. But it turns out the joke is on us. Other recent headlines reveal that Metup explicitly permitted its chat bots to engage young children in quote conversations that are romantic or sensual. And OpenAI's chat GPT apparently coached a

177teen to commit suicide. LUSD's digital citizenship lessons are from Common Sense Education who lists among its donors and partners Mark Zuckerberg's Foundation and Open AI. Bill Gates, another funer of Common Sense Education, said that with AI, we won't need humans for most things, including, he suggested, teaching. LUSD seems to agree. LUSD's instructional materials for English language arts feature a screen recording of an eighth grade teacher copying and pasting a student's essay into perplexity to grade. Is this the personalized AI education we're all being promised? Last year, Mr. Carvalo lauded the promise of AI chatbot ed at a summit hosted by GSV ventures. The VC firm forecasts a coming wave of edtech fueled school privatization in its report learning and earning. All the founder of ed ended up earning was an indictment for fraud. But has

178LUSD learned its lesson? Move fast and break things, right? Why don't we slow down and do some research before we destroy public schools and endanger children with untested, unvetted, unproven edtech from untrustworthy, profit- hungry companies who see young students as nothing more than dollar signs. If L USDU wants to make the world a better place, it should reward the long hours, dedication, and care only real human educators can provide. There's not an app for that, and there never will be. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Anya Mexen, are you there? And then after Anya will be Laya Bak or Leela. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Thank you. >> Hi, uh my name is Ana Mex and I'm a member of schools beyond screens. There was a lot of talk today

179about data that apparently the district has data on how much screen time kids are getting at school. Um and apparently it's very little. That is the opposite of what we are hearing from hundreds of parents who have joined our group. We are seeing that middle and high school students in particular are spending the vast majority of every day sitting on their one-on-one devices and spending this time surfing YouTube, online shopping, pling video games, and more. The district needs to make their data publicly available immediately, including the methods for how this data is collected. These 20inut digital citizenship lessons, furthermore, that we heard about today are like choosing curtain colors in a house that's burning down. You are not addressing the core issue, which is too much device use. And in fact, you are now trying

180to gaslight us that what we're seeing with our own eyes at schools across the district isn't actually happening. Show us the proof. Research is clear that this generation of children is the first generation in history that is cognitively worse off than their parents. They are literally dumber by every measure. And the reason is very clear. Their attention spans have been decimated by excessive screen time. Not because their hard-working, struggling parents are lazy failures, as Superintendent Carvalo had the audacity to suggest today, but because schools are relinquishing their responsibility to educate children with real human teachers using proven pedagogic methods rather than the latest corporate sponsored tech fad. Do we want future generations to be functionally functionally illiterate and outsource all their thinking to corporate controlled AI? A recent MIT study has shown that chat GPT

181users experience a steep drop in cognitive functioning while using the program and for several hours and days afterwards. Is this the kind of learning we are encouraging in our schools? The district needs to urgently place limits and guard rails on the use of tech in school and district leaders need to listen to the science on this issue, not the tech companies that are trying to sell you a product and sponsoring these pointless lessons that do nothing. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Laya Bak or Leela, come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And after Miss Bak is Maria Louisa Palma. Thank you. I'm Leela Bay, a parent of students at John Burough's Middle and Third Street Elementary and the founder of Schools Beyond Screens. This morning, Superintendent Carvalo and

182member Gomez raised the crucial issue of digital equity, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to address it because despite the slick marketing pitches from edtech CEOs, their tools do nothing to close the achievement gap. Quite the opposite. We all know that math and reading scores have been plummeting ever since 1:1 devices were rolled out in 2011, and the decline has been steepest in the most disadvantaged communities. Look where tech executives send their own children to be educated. nature-based low tech schools. Mark Zuckerberg's kids go to a monastery. In the future, those with means will be able to access personalized bespoke services while tech companies and AI evangelists disconnect the rest of us from social services. The parts of schooling that really matter, quality time spent with real humans in the context of meaningful relationships will

183be devalued and widen inequity, making life even worse for the most vulnerable in our society. We at Schools Beyond Screens believe data is important, science is important, and yes, superintendent, equity is important. These values underpin our shared goal to create learning environments where all children can achieve their fullest potential. We previously submitted a petition with seven suggestions for mitigating the proliferation of tech in our classrooms. In lie of asking you to address each suggestion individually today, we'd like to consolidate them into one modest resolution which we urge the board to adopt immediately. LUSD must undertake a review of all existing technology products and policies to ensure they are safe, effective, and legal and develop a set of guidelines and principles by which to assess the use of classroom tech moving forward. These rubrics must be

184developed with the input of parents, teachers, and students and must be based on independent research free from corporate influence. Thank you, and we look forward to your response. >> Thank you for your time. Uh, Maria Louisa Palma and then Carol Land Verde. So, first Maria Louisa Palma and then Carol Land Verde and then after Carol is Danna Hien. The safety of our students is our top priority. Is that a true commitment or a farcical slogan? Because I've been hearing from parents, specifically most recently from North Hollywood High School. They were told at a meeting from counselors that they have constant uh wandering students on campus who don't attend class. So, is this happening at other schools? I'm going to guess they are. The answer to why that was allowed was, well, we have 2500 students.

185So, basically, the staff is too busy to deal with these wandering students. So, are you knowingly knowingly allowing vast numbers of instructional minutes to be wasted where these students are not sitting in classrooms? So, are you overstating attendance? I hear from parents sent me pictures about safe passage workers in BD3. Mr. Merlson. They're staring at their phones the whole time. I have multiple photos. At the beginning of the year, all of you board members stood together in front of the media together with school police. Ah, now you're friends. Huh? Now when you're banding together against ICE, now you want school police. Ironic, isn't it? I remind you the resolution we presented to you by the public. We want this to be voted on by the entire board titled ensuring local school site and community control

186authority autonomy and choice regarding safe campuses and the protection of our students and staff. Mr. McLean, I don't have any response from you this so far this school year about when that will be scheduled. We want this to be presented for all of you to vote. Go on the record and vote. How will you vote on this? What is it that you're willing to to do to hear from the communities to allow the communities a voice the democratic process to have individual schools choose if they want school police on campus? It's too bad Miss Gonas isn't here because she told me recently, "If it's not good enough for my kids, it's not good enough for anyone's kids." Miss Gonz, do you want to send your kids to a school where students wander around freely? What

187happened to Melanie Ramos when she was wandering around freely? Unfortunately, >> thank you for your time. Uh, Carol Verde, come on down. >> Uh, Miss Landa Verde. >> Okay. Okay. Uh, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English. >> Okay. If you'd like to hear what Miss Liver is saying in English as she's speaking in Spanish, please put your hands up and we'll get you these translation headsets. >> Sorry. Good afternoon to all and thank you for allowing me and my son to be here along with Miss Diana Guian. This is an urgency for me. I want you to please pay attention because my son is not going to school. He is uh he has autism. He's special needs and he has diabetes type 1. He has asthma. And at the previous school

188he was at, they would allow me when the student would uh receive his insulin, I would they would allow me to be there at the primary school. The transition that he's had at sixth grade, Mr. John has closed doors on me. He's discriminated against me. I had meetings. We opened the IEP. We did an amendment. The they've closed up a lot. Miss Andrea Coleman has opposed to this uh nurses for that are there as well. I was taking food to my son yesterday because he diet he's he needs a certain diet food and they said that the nurse said they wouldn't allow me in. I had to take my child out knowing with the what he has he has health issues as well and I take care of him and yesterday I was really bothered

189because I did tell the principal that it wasn't correct what he was doing and they tried to do a letter create a letter when Mr. Mr. Carvalo I've sent you many emails since the 13th and Mr. Placencia organized a uh meeting without my authorization. There was no transition made. What he did, he made an error. He said I was a bad mother. He made it seem as if I was a problematic mom and I'm a leader from the West. I advocate for parents and my son will say something as well. So that's truth because the principal and the nurse doesn't let let my mom inside or something like that. And we we try like me and my mom tried to like do like like tried to get in but they don't let us even even

190no one helped her but yesterday my the principal yelled at my mom and and it was like it was like one month ago. school. I don't remember. But but the principal yelled my mom and then like and then my mom had to take me and then like I was like sad because and when the the school when I was going my old school elementary >> young man young man about 30 more seconds, please. We value we value student voices here. We've gone over a certain period of time. So, just 30 seconds more, please. Thank you so much. So, and then like so in bedendo when everything like that it's like going I don't know if my life is going like worse but but but the puss was not letting my mom in and the like

191I don't know what they do about it. I don't know but yeah my they don't live my mom. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. >> And and then like yesterday and yeah, even the principal doesn't do about it. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. We're going to have to move to the next speaker. Thank you, young man. Thank you. >> Okay, Diana Gen, I see you're out there. Please uh come on up. You have two minutes to speak when you begin. Miss Guin is going to speak in Spanish. So again, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English as she's speaking in Spanish, please put on these translation headsets. And following Miss Guien is Maria Deortis. Okay. Thank you. >> So, good afternoon. I believe I believe

192it's afternoon. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Diana again. been a president for the central committees for the last five years and I've been listening to the pre today's presentation and honestly yes parents we are very worried because and pack also mentioned that teachers uh put students under screen saying they're doing I ready all day and that is something that you need to supervise number two they are also talking about uh well they're saying that they want housing for the employees honestly I say well if you want housing, I can obtain uh housing, lowincome housing, because I I have medical. Therefore, an LUSD employee that works eight hours, I don't think they would uh be able to obtain lowincome housing. The rent is $2,500, even though it's low income. And I was

193also saying that uh housing in South Central they've offered me and you know I will not take my family to live there because I have young kids who outside there's prostitution there are a lot of sell drug selling even though I do need the money I need to save money but I will not take my family there because it is very dangerous especially working in within the safety issue and because of the parent uh because of this we want school police to come back to the schools. You are not listening to us. We have asked for this as a public, we're we've demanded this and you being members of the board, we want you to vote and for people to know that how you really think because you lie when you say you talk to

194the schools and you said, "Yes, we do have school police, but they're not inside the schools. They're not vigilantly monitoring because when something happens, that's the only time you let them in." And Miss Rosio to the member pack members, you don't respect them. Um, mom wanted to speak to you yesterday and Miss Juvia science, you ignored her. You denied her. You denied speaking to her and you've denied meetings and you only have meetings with organizations that will add to your political campaign. Stop doing that and attend the public. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Uh, Maria Daisy Ortiz, come on up. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. Miss Ortiz is also going to speak in Spanish, so you can keep those headsets on if you'd like to hear what she's

195saying in English. Good afternoon to everyone. My name is Maria Dei Ortiz and first and foremost, I want to suggest for you not to evade your responsibility supplementing or adding a low resource item. And I did something that I want to say to you. We want we don't want a lot of teachers. We want teachers with hard vocational and preparational so that they can have a better vision to better education so that for it not to only be information but formation of the future leaders of this great nation because information is not the same as instruction. There aren't bad students but bad teachers that do not teach or guide or form leaders. If not they if not they destroy dreams lives and we don't want our students to be thought to be ignorance we want

196them to think so many information you seem like programmed robots we don't need that I want to invite you to see the documentary the sraor she's the best teacher so that you can see that you are honestly you honestly need to think outside the box to be able to touch the life of our children with a quality instruction because it's enough. You two come down, four, four come up and you applaud that. And when in reality, if you know how to count when two are down and two go up, you've only recuperated a few. There are many that need to elevate. It's just a makeup that you're doing. You present things, you present digital numbers because of cynicism and this is what you have the most. Everything looks good here. Just like the Alice and

197Wonderland, everything looks wonderful, but at the campuses is very different and that is not what we want. We want don't want this to continue. We want changes, but you don't want them. This is why you don't want parents. That's why you don't want committees. This is why you don't want transparency and this is why you don't want inclusion. But you say you have inequ in Thank you for your time. That's for your time. >> Erin Craig, are you here? Erin Craig, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> And then after Mr. Craig is uh Mr. David Tokovski, parent family. Uh the parent and family bill of rights and responsibilities posted on the LUSD website calls out a lofty ideal that the district commits to a partnership between itself and

198parents that reflects mutual respect and and support for each other. Partnership requires communication, honest, transparent communication between the parties. You'll recall from my previous comments that I had a requested information regarding my seven-year-old daughter's use of tech on her schoolisssued device. Information that boils down to three questions. Is it safe? Is it legal? And is it effective? Well, last Friday you transparently communicated to me that you have no real interest in answering these questions, and you're just going to hope I go away. My name is Aaron Craig, and I'm with the and I'm a member of schools beyond screens. Our group has been asking for transparency and a clear set of datadriven science-based guidelines that outline how tech should be used in the classroom. We've asked to be participants in the discussions that lead to

199these guidelines. And we've asked for transparency around how thirdparty vendors interact with our children and their private data. We aren't saying that there shouldn't be technology in the classrooms. Far from it. We're saying that there are real concerns regarding the efficacy of these systems in school and they need to be considered. So take us up on the offer. We don't bite. We want to help. Our taxes pay your salaries and our votes elected you. And we've entrusted you with the most precious things in our lives, our children. Now, later today, you're going to find in your inboxes a request for that same information I required before. I requested before, but this time under the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act, known as Furpa. And you're going to have 45 days to respond. And if you

200don't respond, then you're going to hear from my lawyer. I wish that things didn't have to escalate. I would prefer that we cultivate a partnership that you so idealistically refer to on your website. Can we find a way to transparent and honest communication? I'm open to that and I hope so because we're not going away. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your time. Mr. David Tokosski, come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Thank you very much for the opportunity. On the housing issue, again, you need to think bigger than just housing. It's a good first bite, but you have so much property that we can reinvision our schools and make it park space, make it housing, make it senior citizen, make it auditorium. So many elementary schools

201don't even have an auditorium big enough for their for their parents to come. Think bigger. Number two on housing. Uh I don't know why we continue ignore the first project which is Glassell Park. That is the first housing project. It's got some lessons learned. Find out why it's not being presented. Next on uh with respect to the first presentation today, um if you're meeting with city managers, make sure that city is paying its developer fees. Why sit down with the city manager of Huntington Park and they don't even pay what they have to give for their developments? Number two, the danger of motions. With all good intent, there was a digital citizens motion and now it's turned into something else. Take a look at common sense education. Take a good look at it. It's a

202Trojan horse going into our school system from companies that want to take advantage. Number two, virtualmies. Have you seen the results of the five six thousand kids in math and English in our virtualmies? If those results are really three times worse, take a look at what virtual learning is all about. Broadband, I think the IG needs to do an inspection of what has happened. Why do these certain places still not have access? We received money and there's more money available and the governor is dealing with that now. equity issues. Not one word during an hour about AP computer science. Find out which schools have AP computer science and how the results are. If you find that 30 of your high schools don't even have AP computer science, that's equity at the highest levels. And finally,

203you have winter and and summer. If you're going to do tutoring, find out the tutor data. Have you ever seen the tutoring data? Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. All right, the next we'll go to the folks who listed themselves as being callin. Marcella Garcia, are you on the line? Marcela Garcia is not there. Are you in the room, Marcela? Uh Karina Lopez is on the line. Karina Lopez, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Karina Lopez. Hi, good afternoon. >> Good afternoon to all. My name is Karina Lopez. Karina Lopez. >> Well, we've always been worried in regards to the training for parents and LA USD. has always told us that parents are our associates when it has to do with

204students and we also have the rights. We also have the responsibility. But what is the responsibility of the district of LUSD and what is the responsibility? What is the real responsibility of parents of families especially the ones who belong to a legislative group and entity and provide recommendations. LUSD receives budgets for each individual for each student and also to provide training quality training and appropriate training. But this we haven't been receiving this. The parents, we have the rights, but we also have responsibilities. But how can we obtain or how can we provide this responsibility when not all the information is not provided to us in our language in an appropriate way. And this is why we ask LUSD to please comply be so that parents we can be responsible in an amplified way. Now technology

205it is a vulnerability of for parents and members of the community and we should also integrate that. Please please pay attention to this. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Okay, Raquel Diaz. Raquel Diaz, you're signed up to speak remotely. Uh but I do not have you online in front of me. Are you in the room as Diaz? Nope. Uh, Matt Reley, you are on the line. Matt Reley, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Matt Reley, >> good afternoon, Lusd. Matt Rafley, uh, parent of a Broadway elementary school student. I previously emailed this board on August 25th, indicating that the communication by Agnes Camau, regional director for District West, which was sent on August 16th, 2025 to the Broadway Elementary School community. In

206my note to the board, I included a copy of the email that Agnes Kamal sent and indicated to you that the note that Agnes Kamal sent was obtuse, offensive, and illegal. Subsequent to my email of August 25th, uh I there was a letter served upon the district written by Peter Liasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California. That letter was served upon D'vor Reed, Agnes Camau, and Celia Sosa on September 2nd. Mr. Eliasberg's letter in is in direct response to Agnes Camal's email of August 16th. In Mr. Liasberg's letter, he points out numerous places where the policy promulgated by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the follow-up email policy promagated by Agnes Camal would not survive const challenges to its constitutionality. The letter expects a response from this district

207by September 9th and demands that the district immediately resend and cease enforcement of this illegal policy related to how parents interact with each other on social media. It says a lot that the chief counsel of one of the largest and oldest civil rights organizations in the country send a letter to this district. The district should take seriously the points made in the letter and should expect that any attempts at enforcing illegal policies will be met with a swift and adver with swift and adverse reactions. In the current state of finances, it seems intuitive that it makes financial sense for the district to avoid costly and embarrassing litigation. In an era like we are in right now, it is shocking this board comprised entirely of members of the Democratic Party is sitting by and doing nothing

208about this. The silence is absolutely deafening. This board needs to set an example to the world and that this school district is in is a house of learning and that will not fall prey to illegal Trumpian tactics. >> Thank you for your time. We appreciate your time. Belinda Ma, I see you're online. Belinda Ma, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Belinda Ma, >> good afternoon, school board members. I am also going to speak to that ACL view letter that was sent to the general counsel of the district on September 2nd regarding LUSD's social media policy which raises serious constitutional concerns that demand your immediate demand your immediate attention. The ACLU has identified that LA USD's current policy violates the first amendment by prohibiting derogatory

209and disparaging comments about virtually anyone connected to the schools, students, employees, other parents, volunteers, and even the schools themselves. This sweeping censorship goes far beyond what the Constitution allows. The Supreme Court has made clear that we have the right to robust criticism of public officials and institutions. But this policy attempts to evviscerate that protection. It attempts to regulate speech about private individuals like other parents and volunteers. This policy creates an unconstitutional double standard across the board. Parents can praise anyone or anything, but they will face discipline or for any criticism. This isn't just viewpoint discrimination. is an attempt to control the narrative by chilling free speech. This is exactly what the First Amendment prohibits. Even more troubling, schools like Broadway Elementary and District West are using this already problematic policy and threatening to ban parents

210from campus for engaging in their protected speech. The ACLU correctly identifies this as unlawful retaliation that would kill any reasonable person from exercising their constitutional rights. The internet and social media are what the Supreme Court calls the most important places for the exchange of views in our democracy. We cannot create speech-free zones in these vital public forums. I urge this board to immediately resend the unconstitutional portions of this policy and direct all administrators not to enforce these provisions. Our schools should be modeling respect for constitutional rights, not violating them. Parents voices, whether supportive or critical, are essential to approving improving our schools. Let's protect that right while we still can. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your time. And the last caller is Maria Brenes. Maria, are you in the room? because I

211do not have you online. Maria Brenes. Okay, that concludes uh public comment for the meeting. >> Thank you, Mr. McClean, and thank you for all who shared your public comments. Um, all in all, today's discussions from preparing our students to navigate a rapidly evolving digital world to advancing workforce housing solutions for our employees reflect our shared commitment to creating schools where every student can thrive and every educator and staff member is supported. These efforts are deeply connected. By investing in our students future and ensuring stability for the people who serve them, we are strengthening the foundation of our school district and the communities we call home. So, thank you all. Thank you for my colleagues for great questions. Uh, wonderful discussion and this adjourns our community of the whole and we look forward to seeing

212you at our next meeting. Thank you so much. [Music]