001[Music] Hey, [Music] Brandon, raptor. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Good morning everyone. Oh okay. Uh good morning colleagues, district staff, uh and members of the public here today watching um the committee of the whole either in person or remot remotely. Um I'd like to call to order the committee of the whole uh for Tuesday, May 22nd, May 20th, 2025. This is the final committee of the whole meeting uh for this academic year 2425. Um so it comes at import at an important time for our district. Um reasons for that is uh budget-wise the governor's revised budget was uh was finally released. Uh we continue to navigate an unpredictable federal environment as well. Across the district we are asking tough questions about how these developments will have an effect on our schools this year and in
002the years to come. Um, it's clear that we must be thoughtful, strategic, and equitydriven as we make decisions about how best to serve our students and our communities. We'll be focusing on our discussion on two presentations today that speak to the district's priorities. Investing in multilingual learners and understanding the budget outlook so we can plan responsibly for our students needs and their future. But before we dive into these conversations, we'll begin with the remarks from our labor partners. Their on the ground experience and advocacy continue to shape our shared vision for schools uh that are inclusive, supportive, and mo community centered. Following our labor partners, we'll uh hear some a presentation from Lydia Kosa Stevens on the forthcoming 2025 multilingual multicultural master plan and from Dr. Andrew Thomas on the implications and the governor's may
003revise. So we'll begin with our labor partners. So we have here I see UTLA coming up to the podium. The floor is yours. Good morning. Good morning everyone. Um my name is Alex Orosco, UTLA secondary vice president. Uh before I hand over uh our report to our fire survivors, victims of the eaten fire, I'd like to just make a couple of comments. Um I hear that today will be a budget discussion, robust, comprehensive, but please note that we reject any talks of austerity measures, any talks of cutbacks. We know and we stand firm with our assertion that the district does have over $6 billion in reserve and we will take that to our members as we know is accurate. Um also I heard just this morning that at one of our iconic high schools here
004in East LA, Garfield, any Garfield alum? Hey. All right. Um they are uh at risk of losing their Aka dance program. That is something that cannot be uh correct. I mean it's not it's it's just cannot happen. Uh they already lost their balorico a couple of years ago and this is a program that the community stands behind supports and the students look forward to as become a cultural uh and iconic uh program of that uh community. So, we ask the board to make sure that everything is done to protect that Aka dance program at Garfield High School. And with that, I'm going to pass the mic to our eaten fire survivors. Good morning, Superintendent Carvalo, school board members. My name is Rachel Bado. I have 29 years of service as a psych social worker with
005school mental health. For the past three years, I've been assigned to Montto Vista Elementary School in region east. My home of 19 years was completely destroyed by the January 7th in Canyon wildfires in Aladena. And if you never visited Aladena, n um Aladina is about 19 or 15 miles northeast from here. I'm here to express gratitude and say thank you to LA USD and to our unions for its outreach and efforts to support those employees and members who were directly impacted by the wildfires with aid and assistance. Specifically, LA USD Education Foundation employee fund release fund and the UTLA mutual aid disaster relief aid. In addition, I have a request. 20 miscellaneous natural disaster days were made available to employees whose homes were destroyed. We are asking you to continue to stand by us with
006more MSN days for the next year to help us rebuild our homes and lives without using our illness time. You should know at my school site, four of us lost homes, two staff members were displaced from their homes and one lost a rental. This school board, which governs the second largest school district in the nation, has an opportunity to demonstrate and serve as a model to other districts that in a crisis and unprecedented times, LUSD is not only committed to students, but to its employees recovery dur following a disaster. So those 20 days helped in this init initial journey with our journey with our recovery. We are here to ask you to continue to offer miscellaneous natural disaster time for the next um for for next year for the employees planning to rebuild their homes.
007Most of us here are the primary providers for their families. Thank you. Good morning board members. My name is Melendez. I am a proud product of LA USD and I have dedicated 33 years of service to the district. 26 of those years as a teacher at Franklin High School magnet. Today I'm here advocating for additional support and time from the district. My home, like many others, a multi-generation household, was tragically lost in the Eden fire. This home represented not just shelter, but the heart of our family for years. In the midst of this hardship, my sister is fighting leukemia. adding another layer of emotional and physical strain to our lives. Despite these personal challenges, I remain committed to my students and to LA USD. I'm asking for compassion and support during this time. More days
008to navigate and recover from these ongoing life-changing events. This is only one of many stories from Aladina residents. As an an example, as we were waiting outside, I just got a call from uh the Army Corps of Engineers for them to remove the debris from my house. So, this is our dayto-day survival. Thank you. My name is Leticia Vado and I am also an Indian fire survivor. I too lost my home and grieving being displaced from Aladina community that we belong to for years. I have been a PSA counselor for the past 11 years and I am currently assigned to three elementary schools in region east, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, and Lincoln Heights. I am here thanking you for LUSD immediate support, including the MSND time because it helped us focus on priorities at hand
009with having to without having to worry about the long-term implications to taking time off. I want to share a glimpse of what our daytoday has been after January 7th. Imagine you're driving home and you realize you got off on Altadena instead of Glendel. Then you continue driving your old neighborhood and nothing seems familiar. Every house and most trees for blocks around your home are gone. Or when you're feeling like you've reached some level of normaly, but then something reminds you that you don't have that too. But your brain still thinks you do. Your aunts knitted coasters, your baby's drawings that you kept, your favorite sweater that you tried not to use, so at least it would last longer. and every holiday decorations are all gone. Then the dread that you have to start from zero
010and at the same time watching every expense to figure out if you can buy or you could live without because you're always wondering if you could rebuild and on top of this wondering about your long-term aspects and taking time off work. You might wonder how we managed securing housing, managing grief, work responsibilities, family. It's the love and support that we receive from family and community, including LA USD's community that helped us manage the roller coaster of grief that we experience on a day-to-day basis. At time of crisis, support is heaped on survivors at the beginning, but then the n crisis comes and we're forgotten. The rebuild process is projected to take years. Please don't forget about us. We need your support more than ever. Good morning. My name is Ann Tipton. I am the TSP
011and magnet coordinator at Monav Vista Elementary School. I work with Rachel. Um this is my 27th year as an educator in the district. I stand before you today as an eaten fire survivor. My home was lost, my 20-year home, the morning of January 8th, and it's the only home my two young adult children have ever known. My family and my community have been devastated by this unprecedented tragedy. Our lives were suddenly and irrevocably upended that day. As Rachel mentioned, the staff at our small campus was hit particularly hard. For each fire victim, the impacts of the fire and our path to recovery are different, as are the many jobs we work in LA USD. We are career educators who have committed ourselves to the success of students at each of our schools. This has been
012a long and arduous four and a half months and it's only the beginning of our recovery and rebuilding. I'm here today with my colleagues to ask that in addition to another allocation of natural disaster days. The board agrees to a protected leave category for the absences we will need to take as we rebuild. Most of us have acred illness time that we can use. Still, the contractual six days in the personal necessity category likely won't be enough each year as we fight for full insurance payouts, decide on rebuilding plans, and work with contractors to rebuild all while managing our work and personal lives. FMLA exists for medical and mental health issues. We will be absent for other rebuilding tasks tasks that don't fit this category. Thank you for your time. Good morning. My name is
013Claudia Huarez. I've been a teacher at Bushnell Way for 31 years. I am here not as a wild as a wildfire survivor, but as a colleague, a friend, and an advocate for all LUSD employees impacted by this unprecedented natural disaster on January the 7th. As a as a district, we need to continue to be prepared and ready and have systems in place in case a natural disaster hits again. My Utilier colleagues, Alex Orosco and I had the opportunity to tour and visit Aladena on separate occasions. My colleague Rachel Bado invited us to visit and see for ourselves the scope of devastation that has changed their lives forever. I was impacted with my visit to Aladena because unless you visit these sites, you may overlook or underestimate the gravity of it. I urge you to visit
014the area and my colleagues here present will be glad to give you a tour. We need to continue to support and stand by our employees who lost or got their um homes damaged. Whether it be providing emotional wellness, central um centers, resources, mutual aid where teachers can donate a day off or providing miscellaneous natural disaster time without using their personal necessity days. Today is for the surviv fire survivors. tomorrow it might be me or for us here sitting in this room losing a home rental or um being displaced due to a disaster. The message I have heard from my colleagues whose homes were damaged or burned is for the district to not forget them. Many of my colleagues took with them a few school shirts with their laptops because they just naturally they never forget
015about their job and responsibility for their with their children. students. Rebuilding can take from at least three to five years and we need to extend our hand and not turn our head around and pretend that the Eden fires never happened because there were hundreds of LUSD employees impacted. Please don't forget our brothers and sisters and they need us now more than ever. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much uh for coming here and sharing your experiences. I know what you are um experiencing is hard, traumatic and as you mentioned the recovery will be long term and know that and I say this I know um on behalf of my colleagues that you will not be forgotten. So thank you so much for coming and sharing. Appreciate it. Um uh any other labor partners
016that want to come and share? I see somebody coming. No. Okay. Wonderful. Well, now uh we turn to our first presentation by Miss Lydia Questa Stevens, executive director of the Motelingo Multicultural uh education department. This presentation will preview the 2025 Motelingo Multicultural Master Plan Beyond Limits, which outlines a vision for advancing language equity and honoring the culture and linguistic assets of our students and families. Thank you, Miss Aquosa Stevens. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. And good morning. I just want to check one thing. Is this how I advance? Perfect. Make sure I hit the right button. Thank you so much for having me here. We are truly excited to preview and let you know what is happening with our 2025 multilingual multicultural master plan. I appreciate everyone who
017is also joining us in the audience and who is watching publicly as well. This master plan will be a district-wide blueprint for everything we do with multilingual and multicultural students, families, and success in the diversity of our workforce as well, our educators. I'd like to go to the next slide, and I'd like to give us all a moment, approximately 20, 30 seconds, if you could please read the land acknowledgement to yourself. Thank you, dear board members. Thank you so much for also passing this land acknowledgement. It is um a beautiful thing for our district. Our next slide. As we look at our 2025 master plan and we consider the vision and the mission around this, I will be reading this slide because I think this work is so important. And as we think about who
018our students and our families are, who we serve, there is never a single story. We believe that teaching and learning are transformational experiences. MMED envisions a society that commits to seeing and honoring the integrity and humanity and dreams of all in LUSD. Our mission is to create transformative relationships, experiences, and spaces with youth, family, community, and educational leaders as they inform, shape, and guide our work. We will elim eliminate opportunity gaps for multilingual, multicultural learners and provide a rigorous and well-rounded highquality education. This was developed with everyone that we met with in our community in terms of the feedback. As we consider living our master plan, I'd like to highlight the wonderful things that we have done as a district and what our families and our educators are saying they will continue to want more
019of. the summer program, international summer program, the international newcomer leadership conference, the summer coach institute in all these intersectional spaces of all of the students we serve. We serve our very strong LA Zoo partnership with migrant ed and of course our master plan instructional institute that has approximately 800 participants over five days every June which are the e design and also our coaches. Now, as we consider the writing of this master plan led by the resolution work bromeso and exito, one of the things I'd like to call out is the themes that were coming out regarding student voice and identity, educator capacity, identification, placement and progress, effective instruction, family engagement and communication. I think, sorry, I jumped ahead. Sorry about that. We listened to over 13,000 voices in Zooms through thought exchange meetings with our
020union partners in a very collaborative and wonderful space. We received tons of input. This meaningful engagement of listening, learning, assessing, and acting. There you go. This is who they were. are community-based organizations and who participated families, Allah, UTLA, CSSA teamsters, board members, administrators, your communities, you invited us to come and present to them as well. And of course, in professional development, every PD are asking all of our teachers, what do you need from this master plan? And the district-wide thought exchange. So, a grand total of approximately 131 sessions and over 13,000 participants. Now, I'll go to our themes. Thank you for your grace. Those themes, student voice and identity, family engagement, educator capacity, identification and placement, effective instruction. Student voice and identity critical to kiddos. Belonging. Where do we belong? How do we belong? Can
021we have infinity groups? But can we also be part of the whole community? That in andout space, right? Internal, external from family engagement, multilingual awards. Keep doing it. We want more of it. We want our children not just to be bilingual. We want our thesistos to be triilingual, quadrilingual, and like the superintendent, I think it's five languages. And our educator capacity, our educators are asking us, keep putting out the PD that you create in MMED and with the regions, we get so much of it. the planning tools, how to put to togethers to meet the differentiation and needs of everyone we serve in our classroom because kids are not in a box. They're a little bit of everything at different times in their life. In addition, we also heard a lot about identification and as
022if you recall, we have a beautiful comprehensive plan for our American Indian and indigenous students. that campaign continuing continue that identity piece and effective instruction all about culturally, linguistically and responsive pedigogy in how do we put all of these tools together to work with all our district adopted curriculums. How our master plan is organized. As you look at the cover of the master plan, those are puzzle pieces that can be moved around because kiddos live in different spaces. We're English learners. Born here, foreign born. We get reclassified, we earn awards. If you're a kiddo like me, English learner, born here. My first English was not school. It was the English of my community with I hate to say it, my little cholitoas and cholas. And sorry, that's who I am inside. And my grandmother's halisco
023spanol that didn't come from a formal education. You need to understand who we are. And we all move in these spaces. There's never a single story. So you'll see the chapters and you'll notice that we have a special education and a gifted chapter in here. Our family spoke very loudly. But how are is my kiddo standard English learner, my American Indian child, how are they going to be identified gifted? What are you doing for twice exceptional dy dually identified students, emergent bilingual and neurodeiverse students? This is part of this master plan. The state requires an EL roadmap, but in LA USD, we go beyond what the state requires. We are about who our community serves. So, this is a comprehensive plan about the tapestry of who we serve. You will note that every chapter talks
024about who we serve and how important history is important. Assembly bills, right? Pieces of our constitution where all this work came from. You will see that there. Our teachers were really clear with us. give us real world applications and give us a place where we can click and find the resources and the research and endotes and definitely a glossery with all of these terms. key highlights around some of these chapters that will be in alphabetical order is as you think about it that CLRP for our American Indian and that expansion that we've been doing for American Indian and indigenous students DLE awards we gave over 20,000 awards last year in 52 languages we are the only district in the nation and I've been researching machine that does that. If you consider as well the seal
025of biiteracy 7,200 one in four kiddos graduates with the seal of biiteracy and that was in over 80 languages. our emergent bilingual work focusing around that high quality PD and the impact of ELPAC on our emergent bilingual gifted and talented. As we said, families were very, very clear. Increase equitable and inclusive identification and verification policies. Our international newcomers include resources districtwide to support all of our students across the district in all the different spaces and languages. Our refugee and migrant ed continue the literacy work and the programs with the zoo special education and we've been doing this for over three years. continue that coordination of the API's and the EL design at school sites to work with our families to make some of these complex systems easier for our families to navigate standard English learners
026shari holly rings of culture thinking about all those different spaces and again our world language and cultural work. So, as you look at the master plan and we begin the launch in June, take a look at those puzzle pieces. I bet a lot of those puzzle pieces could represent you, your family members, your ancestors, your godchildren, people in the audience, and also our union partners, our community-based organizations. We will be moving forward with June, July and August in publishing and training all levels including our par professionals which I forgot to add that bullet there so my apologies. Lastly, equality is giving everyone a shoe. Equity is giving everyone a shoe that fits. And that shoe can change sizes from a four-year-old to a ninth grader developing agency, pushing against their families and us. And to
027the celebration of where they go, college and career and beyond limits in our district. Thank you very much. I'm all yours. Thank you, Mr. Kosa Stevens um for this preview on all the work um in the collaborative effort that came into um organizing and filling all the wonderful um aspects and strategies and belonging that you mentioned um and all the work that you do from rotilingual um learners and multicultural students. So now I will open it up the floor for any questions or comments from my colleagues. anyone okay I'll start it off then um what are the most significant changes and advancements um from the previous version what is expanding for our students in this plan one of the key pieces is the intersectionality piece when I led the 201718 master plan we actually added
028um not just English learners we added that standard English learner piece but as the world is changing and we see who our students s are and we think about the spaces we live in. That's one of the key pieces. Also including all of these additional chapters regarding the different spaces they live and how we as a district have been leading that American Indian and indigenous work with our partners and especially the gifted the special education. um the historical timelines was something we also heard that's been added and the broadening of how we service and what we provide in diver differentiation and all of those needs. So those are some of the key highlights and then there's some traditional practices in there that we are keeping and reinforcing. Um my next question, how is the new
029plan strengthening homeschool partnerships especially for refu refugee migrant and newcomer families who face additional barriers for engagement? So we are very fortunate to have a dynamic team, a small but dynamic team who runs all of that work depending on what's happening globally and how students identify it. It is a very formal process. All those workshops are made through um the development and relationship with LEO. So there are evenings with their families. There's also Saturday parent and students especially the little ones who participate in literacy workshops among one of the many things. We have math workshops and other things. So that relationship and us understanding as they navigate questions. In addition, we worked very closely with our DAC officers and the committee members. We had several sessions with them where they were highly engaged in feedback
030and that is why you see a gifted and special special education chapter. They wanted us to go beyond the compliance which is the minimum standard. Any questions? Yeah, go ahead, Miss Gregel. All right. Again, all my thoughts. Um, first I want to commend you and and your department for all the work that you do. Thank you. I'm so impressed and even when I was in the classroom, just seeing the books that you purchase for our students, it they're just amazing titles and um I want that for everyone. They're just amazing titles. So, I'd love to I don't know if you have a library here in the building, but I'd love to go and and see some of the books. We're going to add that idea. Okay. Um, and then also I participated I greeted the
031students, the newcomer uh students at the newcomer leadership uh conference and I love that and I think that it's one of the best things that we're doing for our newcomer students. a place where they can have agency, voice, participate and there were so many students participating, young ones and practicing their English skills. It was just amazing. So great work with that. And then also the way you rolled out this um master plan listening and learning campaign. I was part of that and I appreciate the commitment of inclusivity of all the stakeholders and sharing what especially what students feel they need that is very important. So just props to you all because the work that you're doing is amazing and I think um my questions are around you know we we have a high number of
032English language learners and so we know we need to uh continue working on hiring and retaining educators who can uh support um our bilingual education programs, our dual language programs. And so I'm wondering can you share a little bit about that effort that we're that we're in right now and trying to re hire and recruit and retain? Definitely. Um I'll give you example just yesterday we were with the French consulate um who was sharing with us in our food services team was amazing there yesterday about global um food services nationally and what we lead in California. One of the reasons we go to that and there were a few principles there is because we're looking for French teachers. So it's very ground roots and very personal to us. We also have a really very strong
033relationship with Frank and his team. He has built a amazing program and with the microcredentiing program and we were the first one in the nation to have an EL1 and a DLE that has led to promoting those pieces but what they have also done with um it used to be called second step we're back to career ladder and why we train our paraprofessionals in MMED that was my trajectory so I'm biased um especially our special ed assistants. How do we put them in that space in that trajectory that HR has built such a wellthoughtout plan? We're also working with Marco Nova's team because the state actually does not require um the clad anymore at the secondary level. With that being said, HR is taking the lead on how we can provide that to meet all
034our assignment monitoring needs here as a district for our secondary teachers. So there's multiple paths in all of this and we have one of the again I'm biased LA USD Lifer I think we have one of the best HR and PCs in the nation but I'm biased. So great. And then regarding the dual language programs, I've been hearing from some parents that the numbers have the enrollment has gone down. And so much so that now we're having combination classes of dual language and even super combos, which I had never heard of a super combo, but it's like more than two grade levels. And so I'm concerned about that. and I'm wondering um what are the efforts that we're making in trying to increase enrollment and promoting dual language um in our district. So there's a
035few things. First I'll talk to the enrollment actually enrollment in DLE is increasing. when we first started approximately 10 years ago and you know as a result of 227 187 all that craziness but when Prop 58 came into play we opened programs everywhere right we have about 235 in seven languages but they start in K so we add a grade level those have increased because at the time I I believe we were at about 8,000 we're almost 24,000 students in dual language programs So it's actually not dropping but certain communities based on demographics socioeconomic changes work and other things that families face that shifts sometimes where it should open where one should close what should we do about that now I'm going to be very honest I personally struggle with the struggle that people have
036around split splits and super combos. I taught splits. I loved them. And this was even doing like having the OCR, open court, all of those things. There is an opportunity there as my mom likes to say no. What a split can do and it's you have to work with your teachers and you have to support them and especially that first year the planning time is if teachers are interested in looping students you've already know who half your classes the families know you if you look at schools like Waldorf and other places super combos actually exist in a lot of gifted areas across the nation those 345s are amazing And I've seen parents want that because of the leadership opportunities for fifth graders to be those leaders but take in the little ones and then the
037little ones get to see they get to be the leaders. If you teach to that highest level standard and build the scaffolds, it's quite a beautiful thing. Also, if there's a need for a student who may be like their brain is they are a math wizard, but you know, they just don't like writing. Hey, we're all different. Them working on their writing skills at another level is not a stigma because you're differentiating those needs. So what I believe is that we have to build the support system for it because that is going to continue to happen not just in DLE in everything. So, one of the things we're doing at our teachers helping teachers institute which was our superintendent's um new product and we ran with it is actually doing training on combos and super
038combos and creating planning time for them because the reality is they need planning time and there are some amazing teachers with creative ideas that that can play with the curriculum. That's my take on it. We just have to build the systems to support it. It's not going to go away. I can't ask everyone to have a five-year-old this year and a six year, a six-year-old next year to form perfect classes of kinder and first grade that are only 24 students. I unless I rule the world, which I don't want to, I don't know how to create perfect classrooms like that. But I think there's way to build support systems. If I may also board member, it's Carla Becky here. If I may also um we are doing a dual language analysis and partnership with our
039strategy office because we do need to see the wonderful opportunities that have been created with our dual language programs, but we also need to strategically see where we've seen a significant increase, where we have not, and how do we make sure that schools that are really close to each other are not competing for the same kids. So now is the time for us to do take a step back and look at the landscape uh and then make a determination about where do we need to make some strategic decisions in supporting the schools on alternatives or to just recognize that some of these programs are going to look a certain way for a little while. Those kinds of decisions that we'll need to make but there is a comprehensive assessment that we want to do on
040that front too. Okay. Thank you. And yeah, I agree with you that I think if it's intentional and it's planned and you train folks, it is definitely possible. I completely agree with that. And um but again, it all the other things need to be in place. It can't just happen overnight. And so um and then also we need to include parents in that conversation. Yes. Because parents also need to understand that um if it is going to happen how the school is going to make every effort to make it so that it's an experience that it's positive for their child and that they their child will be getting the best education still in this environment. So I think it's the more that we are uh that we share this conversation with others um I think
041that people will be more open to it. educators if they feel supported they'll jump on board and assistance you mentioned assistance and I think that is very important if we can uh continue to support having assistance pair professionals in um not only in the dual language but in in general but also at the high school level for students who are newcomers and are learning English I have noticed that if you have an assistant there they do much better especially in the classes like biology or the science sciences and math that integrated ELD that connection. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Grego, for raising um the concerns and wanting to know the plan for our dual language programs because I do share your concerns and I'm glad to hear that there is a
042plan. that we're going to support our um our teachers, our dual language teachers and also that overall um at the macro level, the district level. There are some analysis that are going to um take place and to improve not only um the program itself, but also the enrollment and how, you know, we're maneuvering that particularly as enrollment is going down. But not for these programs though, they're actually increasing, which is good. Um um Mr. um please. Thank you. On page uh 11 that talks about next steps, you mentioned that the master plan institute will have 800 participants. Who are these participants? That is a beautiful question. That is our EL design, our coordinators, our TSP advisors, title one, all of that. In addition, this year we are launching a family strand. So, we are inviting
043parents to also come and we're looking at how we can do a student part of it. We're also letting families know that they can sit next to teachers and coordinators and all of these trainings and learn side by side with them. Here's a uh perplexing question. Yes. So for students to well let's let's say this for students say that they want positive affirmation of their backgrounds and their languages. So what are we doing now that we didn't do before in an affirmation a positive affirmation of their backgrounds and languages? What are we doing now? So some of those spaces is um the state and the the federal government may have particular compliance type labels, but if you think think about the term English learner, we choose emergent bilingual because we want them to know that's
044who they are. They're actually using both languages, strengthening both languages. So part of it is is our internal labels that we use as a district just like we have at promise for the state. In addition in our trainings at the master plan institute and with our teachers we did a lot of training on trans languaging and what that means in different spaces for students. So teachers have also learned things like, and I learned this from another teacher, um especially if there was a consequence for a child, saying things more like, "Look at me with your beautiful eyes," right? Versus other types of terms when a child maybe uh needs some grace and forgiveness for an item. If you think about the term foreignb born versus international newcomer, it raises different thoughts and feelings about who
045they are. And I would say this also lives across um with our student health and human services and our LGBTQ and all those other areas. So speaking to children from the asset lens and not the need base and building upon that and actually kids are kind of teaching us what they consider assets based and also working with families. So for me it's theoros if I call everybody ao then I'm connected. Thank you. Thank you. Some more perplexing questions or statements. So, so for students to receive an affirmation, we have to do more to ensure that they're welcome to speak their native language as they also learn English. Yes. Cuz I remember when I was a little kid, you were Oh my goodness. My parents were not allowed to speak anything but English. They were embarrassed.
046They were absolutely embar on the bus. They just kept quiet. They never spoke their native language. They were embarrassed. And that that's an oldfashioned old school reason that that doesn't happen anymore. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. So just want to say that. But the system is very unfair at times to English language learners because their tests are in English. The teachers are limited and how they can help students during assessments. So, how could we affirm the native language of a student and help them feel positive about themselves if they don't do well on a test because they couldn't understand the words on the test? So, a lot of this comes back to what we um call data chats, for example, having a student have agency over their data and just having those discussions about trying your
047best and setting goals. We do a lot with vision boards with our students to think about those spaces. I will say um what you ran into with your parents was the same thing as my husband who does not speak Spanish because that would happen. And for me, I was identified a dual identified uh sped in third grade. So we are making sure we educate people to understand again who children are. the affirmation of language, the awards are actually building that districtwide because we have children who may only speak English only now who are going to other children who speak other languages, Armenian, French, um, Arabic, Spanish. Can you teach me that? I want to learn that award that you're going to earn when you're four and five years old. So it's that community that sense
048of community and that's the work that we lead in our professional development and when the the kiddos attend our webinars with their parents and they're talking in all these languages about all the awards. So it's that celebration and joy like a beautiful team member Carla Guter said we can't let anybody take our joy away and that's where we live in multicultural and multilingualism. But so true. Before I last before my last question, let me just tell you on the beline that I take many times to come to Bodri, you hear every language imaginable. And I like to guess what are they speaking. So I can usually tell if it's Armenian or if it's um of course Spanish of course, but now what I hear more and more are indigenous languages. And I look and I
049thought, "Oh, I I thought they were speaking Spanish." And every once in a while I hear a Spanish word come up in their indigenous language. But it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating that everybody was interested in other people's culture and language. What a better world we would have. Don't you think? Exactly. And that's why we have the American Indian and Indigenous Comprehensive Plan led by our Carmine who's back there and all these partnerships with Cello and I and everyone. Um it's really I mean honestly it's cool just all these things last comment it's a complaint I'll give you one complaint with all those positive things okay so one of the main complaints that I have heard from community is the lack of interpretation services during meetings at school sites and I know about this because when
050I was at Cochran Middle School we bought our own system we copied the exact exact system that LA USD uses when the interpreter comes to the school because every time I would call they'd be out busy, right? So I' I'd have the equipment, I'd have the headsets, have to make sure I get them back from all the kids, all that stuff. But um and I would find an interpreter at school. They weren't as good. They weren't as good as the LA USD interpreters, of course, but it's the best I can do to make sure the parents were participating. So, how are we addressing this issue of the lack of interpreters and how do we let schools know that uh the service can be provided to them at no cost if there's enough of them and
051they're not booked? Agreed. So, with our partnership with Esphace, with Antonio, we've worked together on looking at what language needs are. We also because we work so closely with schools and regions they let us know if a unique language or situation is coming up Bangladesh or some other language as we said there's 80 awards 80 languages all of those different spaces uh that will always be ever evolving um based on who enrolls and we will just always be looking at that and and supporting it. I think we do do an excellent job as a district and we will continue to work on informing our schools of the options they have available. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Miss um Anub. Good morning. Thank you. Um I want to say thank to Dr. starter
052as well for um kind of answering one of my questions in regards to strategically looking at dual enrollment and the areas in which uh some of those programs exist and how to expand some of those programs. Um and then I want to say thank you for including the seal in this organization and in this updated version. Can you share some additional insight on what additional curriculum supports and resources would be included in the SEO? Perfect. So, we're very fortunate that our standard English learner work, our AMP schools are the hub where all this work is done. So, we have approximately 15 coaches with that work. They do a lot keenly in working on lesson development that they will share and have available districtwide. The team also worked very strategically to develop a CLRP trifold regarding
053literacy and three strategies. That's also a district-wide professional development that was available last year. They continue to look at researchers and they provide professional development at least twice a month. But with AMP schools and the leaders there, they meet with them on a regular basis and with the coaches. That work ties into our secondary work that um involves um for our students regarding UCLA and USC and the architecture program. In addition, they have partnered with Aaron who's here somewhere from our gifted department on the identification piece because we heard very loud and clearly as well not just for emergent bilingual but for our standard English learners. How do we get that gifted identification space for us and access to all those classes? So all the systems in place plus the curriculum. The team has a
054strong history in developing thorough researchbased practices. Thank you. And then with as you mentioned the AMP program, what are some of the resources for the schools because often I'm visiting they're saying it feels like they're being phased out. Oh, interesting. Well, we have parent directors, parent center directors that we train. There are also some schools who re receive between $3,000 and $5,000 to move some of these different programs. We also support them with lost links, the training, the analysis of the data. Now, it's all optional. It's not mandated that teachers must attend all the professional development. So a wondering I would have is are they attending the professional development and if they're not potentially sharing with us why or why not so we can figure out a solution for them. And then our AMP team
055also does specific site visits and works exclusively with those teachers. And there's actually, I believe, oh, four principles meetings connecting all of those pieces together for the four groups, which is black, um, MexicanAmerican, Chico, American Indian, and I just drew a blank on my last one. Javier Hawaiian Hawaiian AAPI. Thank you. And then last I know um with the ETO office, what are some resources that are aligning our BAP support academics alongside with the program? So with our ETO office um the tiered schools and actually with our regions, they ask us to conduct all the training with the priority schools. So we do specialized training just for those schools that ETO supports on DLE, on world languages, on emergent bilingual work. You name it, we do it. Even family training, we do the same thing
056with the regions for the tiered schools that they are supporting as well. And with BAP, we have standing meetings every month. Travis and I connect all the time because we're trying to and working on expanding the seal of biiteracy for our black students who also are very interested in being multilingual. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions, Mr. Malfoy? Yes. And apologies for having to step out for a few. presume that most of my questions were asked and answered by my colleagues, but one just because I know it's something we've discussed and it's more of a comment is just uh and maybe for you and the superintendent, I think um we there's been a focus in the last few years on expansion of dual language programs um which is important but I think uh they
057also require a lot of maintenance in in order to sustain really successful programs. And I think some of the elementary dual language programs in my district are ones where when we look at the data, we're attracting the most students from outside the district. We're getting permits in from Santa Monica and Culver City. Um, and we've been trying to be more intentional about that pathway. And I think with different divisions like region, in my case, region west, medo, there are like now a lot of different departments thinking through this, but sometimes working in silos. And so my encouragement, you know, I know it's getting more difficult in middle and high to do full pathways when it comes to teacher recruitment, which is something we actually were talking with the Finnish delegation about yesterday. Um, but also
058as folks students just have uh less room in their schedule. But I I do want to make sure that the these programs that we're touting that are incredibly successful, we're not letting die on the vine because we're focusing on expansion and not maintenance. We had a I had a a resolution that I pulled because we had a commitment from the superintendent. I think it was a $10 million allocation a few years ago to sustain because I think when we've seen increases in the budget aotment for for dual language it's usually to expand but we've talked about do those classes or do those schools need different norms do they need more TAs like it's just a more difficult program to sustain and I'd really like us to see uh a budgetary investment in that and just
059also make sure we're clear on who is between SEPO and the regions and med who's uh um guiding that ship knowing that everyone's going to have a part in so that we make sure that those pathways are sustainable. I know we like just we had some challenges the last few years with our Venice pathways with manner and Spanish and now as we're solving it, I know we're getting emails as a leadership team just how grateful the families are that they have a spot. Um and so we want to make sure that we can sustain that going forward. Thank you. Thank you for your advocacy and uh the community you serve. We've learned a lot and we're just getting better. Dr. Estrada did uh respond to that regarding um an assessment we'll be having and pulling
060in place and there's many many conversations for the opportunities that you are mentioning and just and I don't know if it came up earlier but because I did allude to it I would love us to see um advocacy around credential flexibility when it comes to dual language teachers um I think it's harder it's hard enough to sustain at the elementary grades but when we look at middle and high school and we're looking for a Mandarin speaker who's also credentialed in physics or biology here. I know Miss Gonz was um mentioning the difficulties with our uh Tagala programs um just in the elementary setting and so figuring out how we can whether that's advocacy at the federal level which I know is is quite complicated right now or just state credential flexibility to allow native speakers
061to come and support our programs. Thank you. We'll continue to work with Marco Nava and I do want to say that the secondary pathway doesn't necessarily have to mandate two courses. What we've discovered that the students are telling us is we don't want two courses. We just want one course because we're interested in another elective. So there's a negotiation happening as a future parent when your kiddo is a teen. A lot of negotiation happens and sometimes the best way to keep the language going is saying no matter what you're taking one okay I won't make you take two courses. One is your choice but we'll work with them. Um, I'm gonna go with Miss uh Gonz. She's uh joining us here through Zoom. Do you have any questions, Miss Gonz? Um, just a couple. Thank
062you. Um, hi, Miss A Costa Stevens. Thank you so much for um all of your and the team's work and just the deep community engagement that I know went into developing this plan. Um, I know that this plan will have a transformative long-term impact on our multilingual learners and by centering and uplifting the assets that they and their families bring to our school district. So, just appreciation for for everything. Um, I was excited to see um kind of the uplifting of our American Indian and indigenous students as well as um, as you mentioned, the intersectionality because we know that our merchant bilingual are such a diverse group. And so I think that this plan goes a long way towards um, recognizing that diversity, celebrating it, and ensuring that um, appropriate supports are put in are
063put in place for all of our students. Um, following up on that, I wanted to learn a little bit more about the gifted components of the plan. I know that in developing Exito Promesa, our resolutions um, focused on multilingual learners last year, as well as previous resolutions around equitable access to some of the district's most rigorous and highquality programs. One of the things that was raised was kind of the low numbers of emerging bilingual who were being identified as gifted. And we know that giftedness exists in all of our communities. Um and it's more a matter of our practices um not being inclusive enough to be able to recognize that. So if you could share more on besides that um gifted gifted programs is a chapter um what what does that mean in terms of
064our policies and practices as a school district? Right. So I'll give you a current practice because we are living our master plan um even before it gets published. And I'd like to call out actually Shaina and Erin who are back here who have led very strategic and intentional work with ELOP funds and afterchool enrichment program on leadership portfolios and how to look at all those little kiddos who maybe the kiddo who often might have a referral for a consequence and time for reflection with a leader in the office. and how do we tap into that? And actually, we just this Saturday did a huge celebration on that piece. So, we're learning a lot from Aaron around systems and structures and the work she's been leading for many years. But in addition, um our Shaina Hardy
065over here is just like a superstar zoom zoom zoom with innovative ideas and opportunities. We plan on expanding that and leveraging it as we look at the UCLA and USC work in terms of architecture for all of our Latinx and actually all our students in all the spaces. Um, so that's just one example and that will continue to live because the master plan is actually policy. So it will live there and that is part of what then you know the white paper piece of the policy that goes out to our schools. Great. Um and then on in a similar vein, I wanted to learn more about um just the focus on our uh duallyy identified students are um emerging bilingual who are also eligible for special education services. If you could share more about um
066what are the specific changes the the plan entails in that front. So, one of the key things that we found with our emergent bilingual and our neurodeiverse kiddos, which we call twice exceptional, that term for them, is that the families um need needed a lot of support in how to navigate. So our partner Alicia's somewhere here um we've partnered to work very closely with our APIs's and our EL design TSP adviserss at school sites and it is a line it is a segment as part of our master plan instructional institute. So when we started this work approximately three years ago and every year we learn more you know we do better every time we learn I don't know there's a zo I have to remember it. Um on that end we've found that it's always
067coming back to the communication piece and as the kiddos get older especially in secondary letting it have that space if it's okay with the parent. I will also say that Antonio has been a huge partner with us and whenever we know that someone might be struggling in the legal complexities where all of this crosses over, someone from the MMA team goes out to support the school. Someone from our sped team goes out um the regions as well. Um I if if it's okay, I'd like to bring Alicia up for just a hot second to also address what we've been doing. And I should have brought Aaron up. Sorry. Good morning. So, the partnership between special education and our multilingual department has only strengthened over time. As Lydia talked about, in the last three years, we've
068really been reflecting on our practices to ensure that we're not only um continuing those practices that are successful, but that we're always adopting, adapting, and even abandoning when we need to. We want to make sure that we're offering stellar service to our families. And the way we do that is through our staff. We ensure that the partnership with med and sped is front and center when we're talking about the training of our special education teachers, our special education administrators, and the other leaders at our school sites to see the connection and the intersectionality between the two groups. We know that many of the um resources and accommodations and services that we provide are similar for both groups of students, but what we do now and what we've improved upon, I think, is really being able
069to operationalize those pieces and help people really see those connections directly so that it's not just something that everybody is doing in silo, but we're seeing those con those connections across the board so that we can leverage them with different student groups. And the way that we do that again is through that continuous communication. One of the things that we're doing in the plan this year um in both the master plan and in the division of special educations from their listen and learn campaign is talking about how we can engage our families even more deeply with understanding as Lydia said how to navigate the system but also the responsibilities of our school district, the responsibilities of our families and how we can bring everybody together to do what we need to do to ensure our
070students success. So, we are talking about additional workshops for parents in this work um and that intersectionality as well as looking at additional training opportunities for staff. Thank you so much. Thank you both. Um I think that when we speak to families about how um about their students, their multilingual students, the need for greater communication is definitely something that's uplifted. So, it's great to hear that um in this area that that is a focus. Um, I also wanted to learn more. I I think that it was some of the student feedback around um wanting access to APs and um like college ready coursework. We know for our emergent bilingual there is historically been limited access through more limited access to um things like advanced coursework um elective classes. I wonder if you can share more
071about our work to ensure equitable access for our emergent bilinguals to um rigorous coursework in the secondary space as well as electives. Um and if you might touch on the comprehensive ELA EL pilot um work that's also going on. Perfect. Thank you. We no longer have the pilot, but we are now full go mission launch with all of our secondary programs, kiddos, families, everyone told us what they needed, which is exactly what you said. So, we have what we call grade level EL. So, a student will take a grade level ELD course with also leveraging the ELA curriculum. So you will have students who may not have reclassified along with year two and three international newcomers. So I'm going to give you a perfect example that was just shared with me at Vanise High School.
072Often people say, "Well, no, we just want to teach to this level or to this group." The teacher started saying, "I had my doubts. I was a little worried, but you guys prepared me." So Van Eis has this award-winning newspaper. The international newcomer said, "Well, wait a minute. We want an an award-winning newspaper and we're going to do it in multiple languages. Will you help us do an afterchool program, help us found out advisor?" That came from that class. But guess what? The kiddos who had not reclassified for four or five, six years said, "But hold on. Since I've been with you in that class, I'm learning my Spanish again. I want to write an article for your paper about how I am reclaiming my ancestry language. That is one of those examples that can
073only come from children. Um we worked very hard to train teachers. When we do that policy, what ends up happening after the second year, we don't mandate the course. We're working closely with the division of instruction because we do have compliance items with the state about making sure the EL standards are alive and central in the ELA course for that grade level because the framework is an ELD and ELA framework. It's been successful. And as we move towards um full district-wide implementation of this work, can you share how will we measure um outcomes and and track the success? Um obviously the board um metrics. We also have our LCAP and we align all of those pieces and then we add some around awards and all of those pieces. But we also have key performance indicators
074for every area in every chapter. And we also have a yearly master plan evaluation that is conducted by our research department here that analyzes all the data for all the students and provides us feedback on grows and glows and next steps. Okay. Fantastic. And then last question for me is just um around our international newcomers. If you could share more about what differentiated supports we offer to them and how does the plan account for not just their academic needs but also the social and emotional needs of our newcomers and their families. Thank you. So we're very fortunate that as a district we make an investment in approximately 300 through the MMA department school-based positions. We train everyone to work with every typology of emergent bilingual with a special focus on our international newcomers. And I'm
075going to go back a little bit. Um, our aids have received specific training on international newcomers because we know that's often the first person they might feel the most comfort as we, you know, help them with their agency and their belonging. Great. I know I've seen some great work at schools with our interventionists doing specific work around our our international newcomers. So, um it's exciting to see that progress and I know we will see more. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. M one last question. Yeah. Just I remember when uh we were talking about the combos, you mentioned uh that there needs to be some flexibility with the curriculum, right? as a teacher, you you know where your kids are and how you can accommodate and adapt and um and still give
076them the grade level curriculum. So I think that's very important to note that flexibility for our combos any super combos so that because I think the stressors come when teachers feel that they have to teach two different curricula for the two different grade levels or three different grade levels and that's just hard and and really it it it's just not very appropriate really. Um so if we can have some uh flexibility around that that would be great and then around mental health support. Yes. So, you mentioned 300 school-based positions. Are any of those um PSWs or um we we had a grant um we have a center where we do partner with UCLA and also with student health and human services. We're trying to figure out that piece. We also have a few counselors who
077also train alongside that piece at some particular high schools. Okay. I mean, I think that if um I wonder if we could know where there where there is a higher need for mental health support among, you know, um students in the program, that would be very helpful. Um just because I do know that there certainly is a need. I know I've worked with students who are in the program and that is uh besides belonging, that's the number one ask is mental health support. Can I let you know that the division of instruction is doing phenomenal work in the social emotional learning space. So just this week uh weekend Justin Lowour led this amazing symposium around that space. We partner with them on all those paces spaces. We are also working with uh student health and
078human services and alani analyzing needs. Yeah, because I I was going to add that Smita uh does make sure that she when she's looking at assignments, they do look at certain student populations. And so, for example, uh recently there was a school that has a high number of international newcomers. We identified a particular need with the principal and the school team and then she realigned resources where possible to be able to get that person to have a healthy starts navigator for example because that's what the school said they needed more of and so that's how we identify that support in addition to the malt coach that was going to the school. So we do definitely work with them to identify where those needs exist. They have the same data we do. Um but we they
079they also do a nice job of tailoring when we see that something more is needed because we have a larger number of recent arrivals. Yeah. You just I know we live in all these acronyms. Um the malt coach is a multilingual multicultural accelerated learning coach. Sorry about our acronyms. Thank you. But I I guess that my point was about the PSWs like that kind of mental health support. I know the other ones are more like a lower tier, right? It's not it's like where you're trying to reach everyone, but there are some levels of need that might require more of an intensive. Yeah. Why don't we I'll work with uh Pedro and and Dr. Mahaltra to identify exactly how they're aligning that because I know that they're also I'm just sharing with you one position.
080There are many different positions that they have within their scope. This school in particular wanted the healthy starts navigator felt like the other supports they had were appropriate. What they needed was more of the housing uh clothing other areas of need and they felt that the healthy start navigator would be a better resource. So well wonderful. Oh one okay go ahead. At the end you mentioned that the international newcomer coach is that an academy or that's just individual? We havemies which are a national program but we also have specific coaches around that work and depending on the school's needs and the numbers of students and what principles and teachers tell us they need uh we work very closely with administrators of instructions and regions to determine the appropriate assignment or the coach or the academy
081or the coach. Or the coach. Now the academy is totally different. Correct. Yes. Themies are open based on requests, student needs, the information regions are giving us and we are looking to expandmies. And how manymies do we have right now? Because that we have approximately uh off the top of my head uh three something like that and we will continue to grow them to grow themies. Yes. And it's based on the needs of the administrator of that school site that would put a request or um it the requests have come variety okay community teachers families um what we're looking at when we're analyzing the data in terms of the need and then we have a year-long planning process with them because it is to um um Miss Grego's point it is about the intention ality
082around that work as it supports A through G access, graduation, career and vocational opportunities. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you. So, thank you to all the board members for your uh great questions and once again, thank you, Miss Leia Kosa Stevens for your revealing presentation about this master plan and for your ongoing work on equity, intersectionality, uh growth and sustainability of all this work and every investment we make was just not monetary but also people, personnel, um practices, programs, social, emotional support as well. everything that we do is intentional and also extend a thank you to your team for all of this works. I know you can't do this without this their expertise and their own dedication. So, thank you. Thank you very much for all that you do and making this master plan
083a reality and we're looking forward to the final final um master plan in June. Um so now we will move on and also thank you to all the 1300 um um you know input that came from everyone that you collaborated with you know also again we can't this plan cannot be possible without their input and feedback which is thank you for allowing me to serve a community I love. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. [Applause] So now we will move on to our second presentation led by Dr. Dr. Andrew Thomas, director of the independent analysis unit. Dr. Thomas and the independent analysis unit serve as an independent support system solely for the board of education and work within the board and they work within the board secretar's office. Throughout the budget process, we typically
084hear from the superintendent's office and our dedicated budget and finance team, but we also hear from external stakeholders that provide vulner valuable perspectives from the state, federal, and federal level and other school districts as well. We hope that today's presentation provides helpful context for board members um and also for the public as they follow the budget process. This presentation will explore the implications of the governor's may revise for the district budget deliberations with a focus on both state and federal developments shaping the district's fiscal outlook. Dr. Thomas will walk us through key highlights of the May revise, including reduced Proposition 98 funding, ongoing economic uncertainty, and potential federal cuts to critical programs like Title One Medicaid. And it'll also offer strategic considerations for the board, including the importance of a thoughtful collaborative budget process, especially
085in difficult times when we need work together when we need to work together to find creative and equitable solutions. So, Dr. Thomas, your the floor is yours. Thank you, Vice President Rivas, members of the boards of uh board of education, staff, listening public, anybody who's who's here. Um, that was a great introduction. Thank you. I you pretty much gave my presentation. So, I will I will reiterate that um uh that we're an independent voice. So, I I'm going to be talking about the May revision. It's something you've heard about quite a bit already. Last week when it uh was released by the governor and then yesterday there was a there was a session uh where school services of California spoke about it and the and the budget team spoke about it. Um, so I'm going
086to be offering kind of an alternative voice, but a lot of it is or or or perspective, but a lot of it is a a repeat and trying to clarify and and give the board uh a way to digest all this information, which seems kind of like doom and gloom. So, I'm going to try to give you uh, you know, some some insights about what to do with all this with all this information. And there's a lot of it. So, if we're repeating it and giving it more airtime, I think that that's uh that's valuable because it'll give us a chance to to talk about it more. Uh I do want to say that the mission of the independent analysis unit is to provide the board of education with timely independent information and analysis to
087support informed policym fiscal oversight, which I'll be talking about, and public trust. And I I think one of the importance about of being independent is that the public can can see that the board is getting information from a variety of sources, taking a lot of things into account and then making informed decisions based on based on that. So that's one of the value that we um that we bring in the independent analysis unit. Let's see if this works. Oh, great. Here's the agenda. I'm going to talk uh first about the key highlights of the governor's may revision and then I'm going to be talking about two big issues. And this is going to kind of be the the meat of the presentation. Big issues that we need to worry about that uh you might label
088as doom and gloom, but um I could I could uh I could just call them issues that are important to take into consideration. And then we're going to be talking specifically about the state education funding and the governor's proposal in the May revision. and then strategic considerations for the board and kind of how to to move forward. I do want to call out as as uh as both I've just said and you said a moment ago, Dr. Rivas, um there has been information about the May revision that's already come to you. There was a long bulleted list from the from the budget team yesterday. There was a very informative um long memo from uh the superintendent the government the office of uh government relations last week. Very detailed and informative. and then the memo that
089I wrote as well. And then there's the school services of California that came yesterday. There there's a whole webinar they're doing tomorrow morning about this. CASBO did a webinar. Uh the schoolboard association did a webinar and and u a post about it. So there's a lot of information out there and I'm I'm like standing on the shoulders of all this of u you know of giants I guess I could say u in presenting this information. But let's look at the key highlights. And this is kind of stuff you've seen uh before, but I I want to talk about good news and bad news. There's been a lot of focus or it's easy to focus on the bad news. I'm going to start with the good news. It's presented as a scale here and the and
090you'll see that the not optimistic part is a little lower, but let's start with the with the good news, which is that the governor is proposing that the education budget is preserved from January. So, there are some changes, some shifts, but we have a preserved budget. We have a slightly lower COLA cost of living adjustment, 2.3% instead of 2.43% as it was presented in January. But the the news is good. There's a hundred billion dollars in the state coffers for cash on hand. Um the revenue for 2025 is high. It's 20% higher than was projected. So the point is that right now the budget looks good and looking into the June approval of the school district budget, it's strong. we're getting what we need from the state and we're going to be able to continue
091the programs that we've done before. So that's the that's the really good news. Now the forecast is not optimistic and that's what I'm going to be talking about. So when you hear all the doom and gloom stuff, it's really predicting the future. It's saying this is what we're worried about happening. So right now we're in a good position and the current budget for the school district going into 26 25 26 is strong and the fiscal position is strong. it's going forward that we have to worry about. So, that's the kind of thing you can think about telling constituents or just thinking yourself about about the uh future. And here's what we can be concerned about. Here's our slide about uh why we're worried or or you know uh the bad news. I you're probably familiar
092with the with the three big taxes. The personal income tax, the sales tax, the corporate t tax, and then all of this combined together creates a recession risk. So this is really this is the main issue we're worried about the macroeconomic trends in the economy. So the governor in January said that there was no budget problem. There was no deficit. In May there is a budget problem and that budget problem comes from projected lower revenues and they noticed that they're spending a lot more on medical altogether. It makes 12 billion dollars of a budget problem. uh but the revenue side and the and I want do want to stress the governor in his presentation last Wednesday said we have a spending problem and he used the term structural deficit. So he's really identified a spending
093problem but then he spent a lot of time talking about the tariffs and the federal uh the federal policies that are affecting the California economy. So that's the revenue side. So I want to talk about that for a second. So and it affects the the big the three big sales the three big taxes that drive revenue. So those uh those revenue sources are driven by the macroeconomic forces of inflation, unemployment, the stock market, consumer confidence and and really all related to that is tariffs and all of it combines to create a recession risk. But so inflation um is driven by tariffs. So our inflation was kind of under control. It's 2.3% lower than it has been historically. We're worried that it's going to go up to 3.8%. And that's because of tariffs. That's the whole
094reason for that. Other than that, the underlying economy looks good. Inflation may mean that we get higher sales taxes because more money, people are spending more money. On the other hand, people don't want to spend more money, so they might spend less. So, the sales tax projection is is a half a percent of going up. But that's the only positive projection because tariffs will also uh depress the economy which will lower the personal income tax and the corporate tax. So that's the those are the big risks. Uh unemployment is not terrible. Um but it's expected to to go up a little bit and it represents kind of a stagnant level of employment. Um after after the pandemic we were adding 20,000 30,000 jobs to the economy every month. projected going forward it's maybe 2,000 3,000
0953,000 to 6,000 I think jobs a month. So the California economy is not it's it's it's going forward but it's not really humming and inflation is going to edge up. Uh consumer confidence is very low. Um it's historically been as high as 98. In California it's as low as 76.3 right now which is historic low which means spending might be down. Um and and then there there's you know overall all of this combines to create a risk of a recession and it depends on who you ask. There are these betting markets on recessions like poly market and they're betting that seven there's a 70% chance of a recession. But on the other hand the Federal Reserve in New York has a model that says there's only 29% chance of a recession. But all this stuff
096is like so basically people are really worried revenues are going to go down that we're going to have a recession. that'll bring revenues down even more and that we'll have less money in the state coffers. That's what we're worried about in 2627. Right now, we have plenty of money in the bank and it looks good. Cross our fingers. But the the the federal policy is driving the economy in the wrong direction. That's the point that the governor's trying to make. So, let's move on to some federal policy changes. Now, these are specific to education, and this is another risk. This stuff was not really in the governor's budget, but it was brought up yesterday at the at the budget meeting. And again, I'll start with the good news and then the bad news. The good
097news is currently we don't have any major cuts and that there's stable funding. So currently Title One hasn't been cut, idea hasn't been cut, impact aid hasn't been cut. Uh other things have been flatfunded. There was a continuing resolution in January passed in Congress that kept everything at the same funding level for the for this year. So everything is still the same. Now, as the superintendent pointed out last week, there are a lot of ch of of cuts on the margins to programs. He listed uh 6 million for mental health career pathway grant, 10 million for local food for schools, statewide teacher training grants, and so on. And those have already been cut. So, those are down. Um and so we already know that we're losing some money in those areas. Um and then so
098moving into the more of the unfortunate news, the less happy news are the proposals for the budget that are before Congress now. So the the the federal budget for 26 uh for 2526 um some major uh some major cuts are proposed. Um Trump has asked Congress to cut Title One by 25%. He proposes cuts to full-ervice community schools, mental health services grants, and then this is what I'm worried about the most. Uh the proposal from the president is consolidating programs into block grants. And this is something that we all need to be concerned about. So like for instance, six different programs are combined uh under special education into one block grant. Block grant is block grants are not something recommended by policy makers. There's less accountability associated with block grants and usually there's less money.
099But the big underlying um motivation for block grants from the federal government is to g give states discretion over how to spend this money and a number of states want to spend this money on private schools to take it away from public schools completely. So the consolidation process is something is a big risk in the federal budget. And then there are there are also specific proposals to fend vouchers to fund vouchers in the federal government. So that's all money away. And then of course the president wants to uh remove or um dismantle the department of education which benefits us in many many ways. Um and then there are some other specific things. Some of them were in the office of um government relations memo that went out last week that are really worth watching. There
100are Medicaid cuts we're very worried about. Uh SNAP cuts that's uh food assistance. Um Pellgrant cuts that make it harder for low-income students to attend college. And then um something that that could affect us directly in in the short run are energy tax credits uh which which make it more expensive to put solar on rooftops and to build our our EV charging stations. So all that's the unfortunately the bad news issue number two from the federal policy. But again it's stuff we're worried about. It's before Congress now. It's going to be debated in Congress and it's not reality yet. Okay. So, let me talk briefly about state uh TK to2 funding pressures. Um, this is stuff that you've heard before. You're probably pretty familiar with, but it's important to remember the key facts. Um, the
101Proposition 98 guarantee is down about 4 billion between four and five billion from January. We have a rainy day fund, a Proposition 98 rainy day fund in the state. We're zeroing that out, meaning we're spending it now. It's not going to be available in the future. As you know, the COLA is 2.3% and we're using a few cash deferrals to fix the budget problem, which means that that some money um that would be in the 26 budget is like rolled over into the 27 budget because it makes more sense to spend it in 27 but only by one month. Instead of getting the allocation in in June, we'll be getting it in July. So, it could be a cash flow problem. We'll have to make that determination at the time. U but all of those
102things fix the budget. So even though Proposition 98 guarantee is down and the COLA is down a little bit, we're still paying for everything by by moving money around this way. Uh I do want to emphasize the proposals that might affect us. Uh a really good one, so there are some targeted supports. The one I want to highlight is universal meals. I think it was $91 million fully funded. Very important because the federal government is cutting uh support for meals. So, in California, the meals are funded by the are going to be funded by the state for the in for the current budget window, for the coming budget window. Um, and then there are onetime funds that pay for 12 special programs, and we can talk about what those programs are. I think they were
103listed. They were listed in a number of sources, but there are a number of special programs, teacher training grants, literacy, um, support um, that are funded in this budget coming up. Um, universal TK is down. This came up yesterday as well. uh by a little bit le uh by a little bit. It it's really facility funding that's gone down and teacher hiring in in TK uh which might affect us. We can we can figure that out, discuss that. ELAP funding is up, but it won't really affect us. I did want to talk about AB um which is the uh special education funding that's gone up by the COLA 2.3%. I think the um the funding rate is $917, a little bit higher than last year. And then of course the medical cow cuts are coming
104from the governor and uh the effect of them will be uncertain. I mean it is is uncertain how it will affect our students except that we do know that 51% of our students are on medical. Um so I'll just uh emphasize the the implications for LUSD and and we don't this is still early. I do want to say that um it's really hard to know a lot of programs are funded but the these adjustments might affect us in some ways. We won't really know uh until more details come in the coming week. And I and I also want to mention or emphasize that uh the legislature may not accept all these proposals. So we have to remember that as well. They may decide for instance to fully fund TK universal TK and but take some
105money away from one of the other programs. They could they could make that decision. So that's something we need to keep our eyes on. The reason that universal TK uh uh funds may affect us is that there is less support for teacher recruitment um and we do need to ensure that we meet the ratio of 10 students for one teacher and that may be something we're doing. I'm just not sure about it. We can we can we can check into it. I'm worried about LUSD's cross subsidy for special education. the special education reimbursement rate is has gone up a little bit, but the federal money is is going probably going down and um we never have enough money to to to pay for special education. So, and we pay for it usually out of the
106general fund or general education budget. So, uh we may have to do that more than we used to. And then of course the Medicaid and medical uncertainty. This is a bigger uh topic, but when Medicaid um spending at the federal level goes down, there are all kinds of follow-on effects uh to health and human services and to the health of students. And we do do want to remember that healthy students are students who come to to school and the biggest driver of chronic absenteeism is or health issues. And so Medicaid could not cost more because we have to provide services, but it could it could lead to more attendance problems, which reduces revenue. So there are all kinds of effects that can come from Medicaid cuts. And then I just want to talk about the
107strategic considerations for the board. So I've just listed five here um that I think will be useful. These are things to keep in mind as you approve or review the budget. So one thing is that it was is what I'm calling revenue volatility. And just to be aware that we have money now, we don't think we will next year. We're really worried that there'll be a recession. We're really worried that revenues will be down. Um and so in that environment, um prudence is called for fiscal prudence, reserves to be preserved, new new programs. In the in in their description or their discussion of the May revise, the LAO said we wouldn't have a budget program if we didn't have new programs. The the governor wants a bunch of new programs. Uh and the legislature supports
108that. And that's something to to keep in mind in a time of of fiscal um constraint is you know is this the right time to start something new? Maybe not. Um I want to do I want to uh mention or uh elevate the fact that federal cuts are possible. So the federal budget so we're worried about that. It's in Congress right now like I like I said a moment ago. Um the federal fiscal year starts in October. We get rolling allocations from a number of these entitlement programs. We could actually lose our allocations during the year in so if we we have a regular budget um where everything is fully funded in fiscal year um 20 25 26 we could actually lose money during the year as a result of federal actions. So that's something
109to to keep in mind and a reason to keep the reserves big right now. Um, we expect a deeper deeper effects likely in 2627. And you saw that yesterday in the budget workshop and the budget presentation. We expect there to be a a a real budget problem in 2627 and definitely in 2728. The district does costs uh are always something to keep an eye on and um the declining enrollment is an ongoing issue that you've heard a lot about. That is important to keep in mind. Um and that's about it. I I I just I wanted to uh I I brought it like a cheer tie, but I I wasn't able to bring a lot of cheery news, but I just want to emphasize it's we have money in the bank now. We're really worried
110there won't be money in in the in the future. And so, we need to make decisions based on on that. And we have an opportunity. I guess I I want to just end with the way the superintendent ended yesterday. the threats are are really at the federal level right now and um affecting the state economy. Um and uh we have but but because of the situation we're in now and because of the governor's uh approach to making the state's budget robust and and sound, fiscally sound in the state, we have some breathing room. And so the coming year is really the year it's a planning year. It's a year for u for collaboration, for discussion, for creative problem solving. Um and uh and we can really taking advantage of you know starting in in September,
111October, November next year planning for exactly the kind of budget that the board wants and the and the constituents would like as well. So thank you available for any questions or discussion. Yes. Thank you Dr. Thomas um for your presentation and giving us you know further food for thought. Um so I want to open up to any questions or any other discussion areas that you all may want to ponder in light of um what we all heard yesterday and also here today. I'll start it off. So, um, Dr. Thomas, based on your analysis, and you you mentioned some areas here. Um, what do you see as the most important takeaway from the May revise that the board should keep upront in mind as we prepare for the upcoming budget decisions? you mentioned we're okay now
112but in the future not so much in the next you know for 26 27 but overall what is the you know what do you should we you know keep in mind I I think um uh and I'm not sure I emphasized this too much in what I just said but that the governor is taking a an approach um that puts the state budget on a solid fiscal footing so he's trying to uh you know spend down some reserves that are required to spend down, but also contribute to other reserves. Um, spend one-time money on programs that, you know, you know, might or or that or that are short-term programs like teacher recruitment that would benefit teachers now and if you didn't have it next year, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Um, so
113so that kind of approach I think is a major takeaway. And then a um another major takeaway is just the effect of of social programs uh cuts in social programs and and spending in social programs and how that affects that will affect schools. It will affect the entire state. So the it's kind of interesting this the um I really emphasized the revenue um threats that the or risks that the that the governor brought up but he also really identified medical spending the growth in medical spending as a as as something that needs to be brought under control. and um and and as a school district I think we uh uh o over the last few years we've also seen a growth in that kind of spending or that kind of emphasis let's say um and
114so it's it's really something to to think about more deeply keep an eye on so that's kind of mine um and next question how should we be thinking about the difference between short-term adjustments and long-term structural risks in this budget cycle yeah that's Another thing I think um sound fiscal footing, we should make decisions. I recommend that the board make decisions um based on on on firming up the fiscal state, the fis the footing of the of the district. And so it's good to have reserves. Um it's good to think about programs, how long they're going to cost in the future. It's good to to to to exercise fiscal oversight and to really um and this is the superintendent talked about it yesterday as well to talk about the return on investment and in you
115know and as dispassionately as possible. Are these programs uh achieving their intended aims for the cost for what we're spending? Um, if if we're spending a lot of money and they're not maybe working that well, I mean, then we then we should think about tightening those programs up or moving resources to another place. But, um, but since we since we're we're stable right now, we should use this as an opportunity to enhance the stability going forward. So, that would be my long-term short term. And my next question, you mentioned the importance of collaboration and creative problem solving in uncertain times. From your perspective, how can the board better structure its deliberations to stay strategic and responsive? That's that's been such an ongoing thing. Uh you know, how does the board uh participate more in the
116budget making process and given given the the the structural way that budgets are done and you know they the allocations are given to schools, schools decide budgets, they they bubble up to the top, you there are like guidelines and policies, but it's hard to make you know what feel like really tangible decisions from the from the horseshoe here. And um I've seen a lot of really big improvements in the way that the uh staff in the district has presented information to the board and given the board more opportunities. Um but there are I think there are some additional ways. I was I was um noticing that in Pasadena they have something called the superintendent's budget advisory committee which is a um which is an ad hoc committee and it's got board members and community members
117and experts on it and they meet a few times during the year to formulate a budget and I think that's kind of an interesting idea. It would be interest they they do the same thing at Berkeley Unified. These are much smaller school districts, but Pasadena right now is facing some major budget constraints and problems and they're using this as a way to get buy in. Um, and so some kind of ad hoc committee I do think and we've talked about this before. I think the devil's in the details but having some kind of budget guidelines or or a decision-making process as early as October for next. So basically we come back from summer summer break we have a meeting or two and in September and October we have a a budget meeting for 27 am
118I right? 27 28 um uh especially given that there's there's going to be a fiscal stabilization plan in this budget and that we're looking at a budget problem going forward. So, uh, I would seriously look at at at a specialized committee that starts to look at the budget in October and then moves forward um to, uh, like a proposed budget in January, kind of the way the governor does it or a recommended budget and then, uh, there's some time in February and March for community input and really discussing things. I mean, there was a um I could go on like this for a while, but there in the budget workshop yesterday, there were there was a slide with a bunch of boxes and the funding priorities that the superintendent had. That's the kind of thing
119where you might say, you know what, I don't want to spend $60 million here. What about this other program? Or what if we split it and we spent 30 here and 30 there? Or um you know, it's that kind of conversation that that that that is important to have. But because of the budget cycle, you need to start it earlier. earlier. Great. And lastly, are there areas where you think LUSD could show leadership statewide in how we respond to this evolving fiscal landscape? [Music] That's yeah, that's more difficult. I guess I would come back to um uh uh to the social service issues. um calling the attention to the importance of food assistance. Um how important funding medical is, the effect of medical the medical cuts that the government's proposing that the governor is proposing
120right now affect adults who are undocumented over I think it's over 19 or over 21. They're adults. Um but uh uh we would should be very concerned about medical cuts more broadly. Um, so that's one thing and I mean showing being an example of fiscal prudence and um and um I I think the way that the superintendent um made clear the district's stance on immigration is a model for how we can we can do the kind of we can stand by our our values and our principles. So we are going to continue to serve everybody food. We're going going to continue to to value equity. Um and in that way we can we can model for all the other districts in the state how to move forward in difficult times. Thank you. Any other questions?
121Oh yes, M. Greg. Well, thank you so much for your presentation. I wonder were you a teacher at one point? Because it was really well done. I could totally understand it. Your visuals are amazing. I love the, you know, the balance, the scale. Um, appreciate you starting with the good news with the positive positive. I want to shout out Megan back here who did the the graphics. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Good uh group effort. But yeah, I I do appreciate you um um highlighting that in this moment we are fine, right? and um that the forecast based on you know the the national uh conditions right now any potentials is what is creating a lot of this this gloom this feeling of gloom and I always think of anxiety is when you worry about
122the past or about the future and not when you're in the present then you can let go and I just feel that uh I appreciate your presentation because I think it it it paints a very um a full picture right of of of the economic situation. Um and so thank you for that. I you touched a little bit on um on some grants that some 12 programs Oh yeah. that uh the governor is is uh putting forth. I wonder any of those 12 programs something that we will benefit from LA USD. Oh yes, many of them. the yeah literacy screening um teacher uh recruitment the money shifted a little bit I have to look at the details I think it was teacher recruitment announced teacher stipens or was stipens announced recruitment yeah that's um so
123there have been some shifts um but yeah there many of them will benefit from and I can get back to you I should have a list if you could um share that that would be good so that way we we know what some things that are coming through you know toward us And that's a good question because that it's a little bit more in the weeds than I plan to get into. But those are the kinds of things that are pro will probably have the most immediate effect. People people in the district will want to say, "Oh, am I getting my money for this?" I know it generally we see the outcome of that as part of the legislative process. These are in many ways one-time resources, repurposing of unspent dollars to fund uh targeted
124programs, the expansion of the literacy program to now a math focus as well. Um, so there's opportunities there, but they're one time in nature, right? So how we utilize them and apply for them will will be contingent on what the legislature actually approves. Uh, in June. Okay. Yeah. But that's a positive thing and and that's great. Um, the other thing is you also mentioned something about community schools. Can you share about that? That's just the full service community schools grant from the federal government. And personally, I was just surprised to see that their website is still up there on the Department of Education website. Um, but the the proposal in in the president's skinny budget is to is to cut that completely. But I don't think that this district and and uh somebody from budget
125can um uh probably be more accurate about this, but I don't think we get much of uh money from the full service community schools. I don't think we do at all. Mostly state. It's mostly state right now. It's the CSSP grant. CSSP, the grant from the state, the community schools grant. And then we put in a fair amount from um the general fund ourselves for community schools. All right. Um there was another question I had and I just lost it. Um Dang it. Hold on. Oh, yeah. So just your thoughts on on we have some time to lobby right the governor to lobby our our representatives. What are some do you have any ideas on how as a district we can um we can push for some of these things that especially impact our most
126vulnerable populations. We're the second largest district. high number of I mean, you know, of needs throughout. And so what do you have any ideas on how our district can lead in that effort to pressure our legislators and our governor to to make some changes? Well, I I wish you had something more specific and I think I think Martha's here from government relations. That's who I actually would invite up. I I think when we're talking about the portfolio of advocacy and the focus right now in Sacramento is really to ensure that there isn't any erosion of commitments that are in the current year. What you'll see in the governor's may revised proposal and what's being considered is you know we talk about that stability in revenue that stability in revenue is a lagging indicator. It's a
127reflection of last year's economic performance. What they're cautioning is what's the economic performance that we expect from January of this year to December that then informs April, you know, tax receipts next year. And we know that that's that's driven by, I would say, the tenor at the federal level, but also how businesses are responding in California, how individuals are making personal choices around spending as well as business decisions that are the primary driver of our revenues at a state level. And so I I I think there's an opportunity to really think about that interdependency. You know, when we talk about the concerns around medical and the reduction of SNAP resources, most of our actually meal programs and our uh other programs at the district level actually come as a result of our direct certification files.
128Direct certified is when the state makes a determination that a family has a need and that they're eligible for SNAP for medical and that then informs their participation in a number of K12 programs. When you actually limit medical, you limit eligibility which then limits participation. And so that's the interdependency that we see between human services and K12. It's this is always the challenge when you look at the conversations that happen in Sacramento is that the two largest budgets in California are going to be human services and K12 and they're pitted against one another when we know it's the same populations that we're serving. And so strategically, we need to think about how we're working together to make sure that there is a comprehensive budget that serves the whole child. And it's really thinking about the
129whole child advocacy at a state level. Yeah. So maybe if you can't answer it, uh maybe Martha can respond to that question because I I feel there's urgency that we need to be very proactive in in what we advocate for and um and our legislators, they represent us and they represent our students. So I'll just add to that. I would be interested in hearing uh uh what we're hearing from legislators about how much they agree with with the governor's proposal. Yeah, thank you. Thank Thank you, Andrew. Um thank you board members. Uh um good afternoon, Martha Alvarez, chief of governmental relations. Um so our team in Sacramento, uh actually this morning, uh there was the first public hearing on the Prop 98 proposals in the Assembly Budget Committee number three. Tomorrow the Senate committee number
130one will be hearing the same proposals. Um so so I can give you a preview of the items that we started to highlight of interest to LA Unified. Um and also what my team in Sacramento Sasha Horwitz um mentioned. So uh the legislature, the members of the committee of the budget budget school finance committee. Um they're concerned about the proposal to zero out the Prop 98 reserve. Um right now there would be a balance of $540 million. The governor's proposing to withdraw the funding in order to be able to pay for the LCF cola next year. Um, so it would be a zero dollar balance come at the end of 2526. So they're concerned that the knowing that the economic situation is not looking good in the future years that there won't be any more
131funding in the reserve for Prop 98. Um, uh, and it is important to highlight that on the on the general fund reserve, they are leaving about $15 billion left over for future economic uncertainty. Um, but at least on the Prop 98, there would be zero dollars left over. Um, and I'll come back to the what's important to us. Um, one issue that we'll be closely uh looking at and perhaps even uh having comments in our letter that will be going out in the next day or two to the administration and the and the legislators. Um there's a Prop 98 guarantee split. So um when Prop 98 was passed by voters in 1988, uh it's always been uh T well now TK since we have a new grade level for four-year-olds uh K14. So it includes
132community college districts. Uh, traditionally it's been an 89% of the Prop 98 guarantee goes to K12 and then the other 11% roughly 10 10 point something 11% goes to community colleges. When um three years ago when the governor and administration um adopted the TK uh fiveyear in implementation timeline, they committed to doing what's called the Prop 98 rebenching. That means that um Prop 98 is being augmented. there's an additional um part of funding above it, above the guarantee from the general fund. Uh and that was in order to be able to not take away money from other grade levels to pay for the TK expansion. That's in the tune of $2 billion um the ongoing cost from general fund into Prop 98. What the the Department of Finance did not do that when that rebenting
133happened, it did not uh protect the rebenching to be only for K12. They also gave some of that money into community colleges. So they overappropriated community colleges by about $500 million, 400 and something almost $500 million. So this split is an issue that is creating tension in Sacramento, the perception that K12 is now taking away money for community colleges in order to make whole for the TK expansion on the K12 side. Um so legislators this morning brought up that concern in that budget committee hearing and we could uh foresee some um maneuvering trying to minim mitigate any impact to community colleges. Um the other issue again because of this rebenching at a time when the general fund has limited um room for growth knowing that there's cuts to Medicaid and other potential impacts cost to
134um uh Medicaid for undocumented immigrants and others. Um this concern that at least one of our um LA members brought up this morning uh the cost to implement the TK1 to10 ratio. Um that's going to be a significant cost to the state um again for that rebenching to happen over $2 billion. um the per student amount that we would benefit around $5,545. So, we need to me make sure that the ratio funding maintains in the uh final budget adoption because otherwise uh we'll be left with the requirement to lower the ratio but not the funding. Uh as Andre alluded to it beforehand. Um and then the other concern that the legislators have which at this point I don't anticipate we'll be um adding into our advocacy is um the the proposed $1.8 8 billion deferral
135um in the June 2026 payment to instead defer to July 2026. Um that deferral is necessary as proposed by the admin by the Newsome administration in order to be able to afford the LCFF um payment and cola and uh for our purpose it's more of a cash flow. It's just for the state it helps them instead of scoring it against the 25 26 fiscal year they're just saying one month delay. Um but that's another area that um you know we there might be some small uh cost borrowing uh to us um borrowing cost but for the state is one way again just to maintain the LCF hole. Um of areas of priority um again we're we're having discussions with our staff um that to better understand what it means for us. Um uh there's a
136uh proposed zero cola for the state preschool program. Uh for us, the preliminary estimate is about $6 million less for LA Unified because they would be giving no cola to preschool. Um the governor's office has indicated their intent to give zero cola is to have parody with the child care side because there's no augmentations for the child care side and they're asking for more um increased rates and increased slots for child care. And so in order to try to keep us equal, um there's recommending 0% cola for preschool, but obviously we have our staff to maintain and and uh programs to keep. Um so that's one uh potential um advocacy will definitely be in our advocacy letter. One other is um facilities funding. Um, so one clarification I wanted to make from what Andrew mentioned,
137the proposed reduction in the TK um, funding is more so on the per pupil amount that supports the staffing ratio, not for facilities. There was no proposal in the governor's budget in January or now for TK facilities. The proposed uh repurposing is $177 million that they're um putting back in the general fund that was going to be supporting uh facility projects and more recently trying to help with wildfire cost uh for facility recovery costs. The administration's now saying that it should be Prop 2, the the state bond that voters approved this past November. So, we're figuring out if there was a need for any facility related uh wildfire recovery funds um in the next few months and if not we would be able to access the Prop 2 funding at a later time. Um but
138that might be an area specific to LA Unified of concern. Um and then the one also that has not been mentioned is uh that we also uh will be adding to our our advocacy letter is a proposed $1.3 billion uh withholding of Prop 98 funding. So, um the governor is proposing to set aside um to not give money in the upcoming fiscal year, um $1.3 billion and instead wait until next spring of 2026 to see if the money materializes. What they don't want to do is overappropriate um money to districts. We spend it and then the money ended up being lower than expected. Um and so so a lot of the statewide organizations I'm assuming uh ranging from the schoolboard association to CTA um they likely will be opposing that um again 1.3 billion because
139that's money that we wouldn't be getting now that it would be kept aside for next year. Um and then there's other areas um uh that of great interest to us to the board member's question of the 12 programs that Andrew mentioned on the one-time funds. Um there's actually a proposal for a pilot uh $50 million for a secondary revision reimagining secondary, middle school, and high school supports. Um so it would be an optin for school districts that would like to have schools be part of the pilot for middle school and high schools being rethinking that. Um there's $200 million uh one-time funding statewide. Um that would be I believe $200 per uh per employee, not for the employee, but for the district to generate the money for the district to support with evidence-based um literacy
140uh professional development uh for science or reading. Um there's an companion bill that's going to the legislature um on this issue. So this would be providing the funding for that. Um there's also one-time funding that would be providing for districts like LA Unified um to keep us whole with our uh count for TK students. um the law changed last year where students no longer can take um the LPAC assessment, English language um uh assessment uh in TK and so in order to not lower our UP, our unduplicated people count for LC purposes, they would provide a one-time hold harmless over the next couple of years while a new test comes in. Um so there's funding for that. Um and I mean I won't bore you with it. Happy to, you know, discuss more offline. Um,
141but there's a few definitely um minor parts of funding that they would be a benefit to the district um in a in a holistic way. Um, uh, yeah. So, I'll stop there. Any questions that I can help answer, let me know. No, thank you, Bill. Well, thank you, Martha, and thank you as well. And I appreciate the tie. Um uh just you mentioned some things in the implication obviously of the proposals that are here. Um and can you just elaborate just a little bit and Martha mentioned some of the funding but when the ELOP funding goes up exactly how is that affecting us because many people will see an increase but then the adjustments that need to be made on our part. As I understand the ELAP funding, uh it's it's statewide funding and it's
142really um I have the number in here somewhere. It's going up in order to to fund districts that are no that are currently not required to offer ELOP to all their students because um uh it's based on the count of unduplicated pupils and ELOP fully funded districts that had a high count like LUSD of unduplicated uh pupils and now states uh funding is expanded to include districts that have 55% unduplicated pupil ount or lower or no I think at least 55%. Um so so it really doesn't as I understand it it won't affect LA Unified at all. Got it. Um and then in your um as far as a Medicare, I'm not sure if you could even answer this, but would some of our partnerships within our school sites, would that be an effect to
143our school sites? Because we do have partnerships that work through these fundings. I would be worried about that. Yeah. I don't know exactly but yeah but and and our strategy is to is to rely increasingly on on partners to provide some of these services and and those partners are funded partially through Medicaid or medical. Right. So I would be worried about that. I think we need to do an analysis about of that. Okay. And then you mentioned, which I appreciate, the um advice about coming up with an EDCOT committee to kind of strategically plan and for the reductions that may come October 2025 after we've already um made vote to a budget that would help us kind of sustain. Um and so you did mention um like the start of new programs. And when you
144say start a new, what would you imagine would be something new that you would think would not be sustainable one year to the next? I was worried that I don't I haven't heard any proposals for anything new. So, it's more in principle. I mean, our big I I think of our big um transformation initiatives in the district as priority schools, community schools, BSAP. Um they're probably more pilot schools. Um, but I I I don't think there's anything on the table right now that anybody's proposing of that magnitude magnitude. Right. Okay. Um, and I think that was it. I guess I would say one thing that that crossed my mind which is which is I I'm not sure we've done a close look at it and whether um there are some efficiencies in in in um
145and new initiatives in that area. It it might be something that bears closer scrutiny. Got it. That's it. Any other questions? No. Well, thank you um Dr. Andrew Thomas for your insight and your analysis and providing us further food for thought as we will be making some very critical decisions um in the near future around um budget and as we understand what's going to happen uh with certainty at the federal and also state level moving forward. Do appreciate all of your work and also Megan's work as well. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Um so once again um much appreciation to Miss Leia Stevens and Dr. Andrew Thomas for sharing their sharing their time, insights and deep commitment to our students and school communities on uh so many levels.
146And now we will be transitioning to public comment and just want to emphasize that we truly do value the voices of our communities and appreciate your engagement in this process. So now turn it over to Mr. McLean. Hello everybody. Uh we have public comment now. We have a full boat, a full slate of folks here to speak. As usual, I'll call on the folks who listed themselves as being in person. I'll call on them first and then we'll transition to those who listed themselves as calling remotely. Um and let's see, our first speaker is Maria Louisa Palma. Come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Each presenter has two minutes to present their comments. Uh please come on down, Miss Palma. to see you out there. And then following Miss Palmer
147is Jessica Guzman and then Isabelle Gonzalez. The California Constitution guarantees students and staff of public schools the right to safe schools and grants them the inalienable right to attend campuses which are safe, secure and peaceful based on that authority on behalf of the parents community who signed the petition for red padres scholar and in accordance with board rule 132 and the education code section 35145.5 I bring you this resolution. ensuring local school site and community control, authority, autonomy, and choice regarding safe campuses and the protection of our students and staff. This is an update of the resolution brought forth by Dr. McKenna, Mr. Schmurson, and which this board voted on and not passed in September of 2021. We are requesting here that you empower schools to allow the schools to decide if they want an
148assigned school police officer on the campus for you to fund sufficient school police positions in the 25 to 2026 budget to have an ongoing data reporting system to report safety instances systematically to create a safety accountability plan to measure specifically what is working and not working in your safety programs. So when this board in 2020 and in 2021 cut 133 school police positions, there was no plan. There was no way to have any accountability for the public to keep any of you board members accountable to the results. So you continue to pretend that nothing is happening there despite the elevated incidents, despite the number of parents who come here and tell you that there are major problems with violence, crime, everything that gets reported on in the media. So you continue to evade scrutiny, evade
149responsibility. The law says it is the intent of the legislature that members of the public be able to place matters directly on the agenda of school districts governing board meetings. Will you comply with the law? Will you comply with the will of the people? Will you hear the voice of parents and hear this agenda item and vote on it this school year? Will you do it? I hope you do. Thank you for your time. Jessica Guzman. Jessica Guzman, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon. Uh I am here in support of school police. Um it is very necessary because it provides um safety and surveillance um which is necessary if you want students to keep attending school and doing well academically. Um um it is very needed um
150because it provides a lot of um safety and thank you very much. Have a nice day. Thank you for your time. Isabelle Gonzalez, Isabelle Gonzalez. Miss Gonzalez is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up and we'll get you these translation headsets so you can experience simultaneous translation. Anyone else for headsets? Okay, gracias. I was at a meeting yesterday, a budget meeting, and I'm here to say this again because the audio was cut yesterday. Yes. And the school year is ending. Meetings are ending as well. And I would love to give thanks to the members of the board and congratulate you for the big work and the dedication and the hard work and more than anything transparency, justice, and equity. But that's
151not the case. It's the contrary. We have been discriminated. Obviously, you are not listening to the parents, the parent of students of LUSD. You are not listening to the community, to the to the students, and why not to mention as well school personnel. We are here to ask for school safety for prepared, qualified people, and trained like school policees. And you don't know what happens inside a classroom during the students recess, during the mornings or the entrance, the beginning of the day, even after school. We know what we see and what our students live at the schools. Fights, bullying, stabbing, drug sale, fentanyl, fentanyl, and drug and death. Well, what happens to the personnel that gets to the school first and are the last ones to leave? What about the schools that are vandalized every
152night? The school personnel lives. They are restrained from hand, mouth, and feet. They can't say anything because if not, work ends for them. And they also don't feel protected and they've why is there security here? Why? We want the school finance to come back and complete. Wednesday I was at a meeting with coffee with the principal at a school and it is so incredible to hear the voice of the parents that are asking for school police to come back to schools and we have trained school police but the board are thinking of an a contrary agenda and not the voice of the parents. Right, Miss Carla? You were there. You promote an agenda to promote funds for the most vulnerable uh little over two minutes. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay, Jenna Noise,
153there you are. Please come up. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. Jenna Noise. And then after Miss Noise is uh Irene Tamargo. Eden Tamargo. The two minutes is yours. Thank you. Thanks. You may want to uh move the mic up. There you go. Thank you. There we go. So, my name is Jenna Noise. I'm speaking today on behalf of families and the 31st district of PTSA. I previously submitted uh their official letter of support February 10th advocating for the return of campus police as an integral part of the school community safety support system. So I present the letter again to you and then as a dedicated PTA leader and advocate I conducted a district-wide survey focusing on the key issues that impact school climate and operations. The responses revealed both appreciation and
154concern across all school levels. Uh, and I present the report findings to you today. Um, and what our community is asking is clear, not size, one-sizefits-all safety model, but collaboration between the school's families and the district and the ability for each school to choose the supports that meet uh their needs. So, when we asked what makes a safe learning environment, the most common answers were trusted adults, emotional and psychological safety, clean and secure campuses. So more than 97% of the respondents support having mental health professionals on campus. At the same time, 75% believe campus police have a role to play, particularly in situational capacities. So this tells us that families don't want to choose between mental health professionals and campus safety officers. They want both used thoughtfully and in partnership with school leadership. So safety
155looks different in each campus. So what works for one school may not work for another. So that's why we're asking for the district to empower local schools in collaboration with parents and staff to determine the right mix of support whether it's the PSWs, counselors, aids, campus police. So we must move beyond debate and towards partnership. So this means listening to communities and giving the schools flexibility and resources they need to ensure every student feels safe. So, let's work together to create not just safer schools, but schools that every student is seen, supported, and secure. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Irene. Toargo Eden. Mr. Margo is going to speak in Spanish, so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up if you do not yet have a
156translation headset. Um, okay. Gracias. Um, well, I would like for there to be unison because we as parents and you as people who are the representatives for education, if you can take into account that our students need a lot of safety. Well, I have my daughters that go to the Hollywood area. There are is a lot of violence right now. There's a lot of drugs. There's a lot of alcohol and mainly what is in the school environments because it's not just one, it's the schools. There have been many incidents and truly I wouldn't like for my daughter to go through that because she is finishing out middle school and unfortunately high school is tougher. Um, and there's things that they will go through. And truly, I as a mother, I'm afraid because I would like
157for there to be personnel that that makes them feel safe because we have seen that there are students that have committed suicide, students that have died in the schools due to overdoses. and students that have killed other children with uh firearms or or other kinds of arms with guns and knives because that's what we are seeing nowadays and that's what's most concerning to me because I am a single mother and I believe that it's not just that but that we as parents we want the best for our children and most of all to see them that they are professionals. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Let's see. Now we have Maria Daisy Ortiz. Come on up. And then after Miss Ortiz is Dian Guen and then Erica Gonzalez. Miss Ortiz is going to speak
158in Spanish. So if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English and do not yet have a translation headset, please put your hands up and we'll get you one. Gracias. Buen. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Maria Dei Ortiz and really I am frustrated. I get upset because you are assassinating education because with your actions you are killing our students dreams. And one of the priorities that you should have is our student safety because we trust a system that provides safety in the learning environment because if a student does not feel safe then they cannot learn and you want safety. You want to try it uh with a band-aid with uh safety uh pathways. you who is this agenda for uh safety uh pathways because you're very good to safety passages because you want
159to make something good you make it happen. If there's not political movements there are polit economical movements or actions. So truly since you left the parents outside of the decision making and also in authentic consultation this has been on a downfall. It's time for you to make effective changes and to answer those that pay taxes and pay for your positions because you are all public um servants and because of that you need to comply to all of that of us that pay taxes and our schools have to be safe. Our schools need to have quality programs. But here you come to do negotiations on obsolete programs. You deal with positions and then what? Now you're concerned because you're concerned about your position. Reduce the bureaucracy that makes it so that you are not compliant to
160the public. Investigate all those position uh ghost positions that are in schools. And please also this district has a lot of nepotism. That's why our concerns are not heard because here there are brother-in-laws, um, sister-in-laws, mother-in-laws that can no longer exist. We need transparency. We need inclusion and we need results. Our children's are the future and you are not responding to it. Thank you very much for your time. Dian Guen, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after Miss Gen is Erica Gonzalez. is my name is Jana Gan and I have represented the uh parent network for student safety since last year in fe January we spoke about that we need school police there are 744,000 losses in the audit that the district have and one of those
161fa sales. What that you had is safety. And so what is happening? You are not listening to us. We have brought more than 4,000. And today we brought another 1,500 signatures that we want you to see because we ask you and you don't know where they are. You say that you have not received them. Today in the morning you received them. You received 5,600 signatures of many parents of the community, teachers, principles that want school police to return to schools. That tiny group that's being financed by the teacher union at UTLA does not represent the majority of parents in the community that needs to have safety here in the corner right here. They killed a lady. They even the dogs were eating her. And what did you do? Nothing. You just like nothing happened right
162next to the district, right next to the school because you're very comfortable here. Here with air conditioning, with the police watching over you when you go in and out. But what happens to their children? There's drug sales. Gangs are targeting our students, selling them drugs, selling them a dream that you cannot provide because they know that you are not working for our children. And what do you do? You just they just go and sell drugs because you have failed with education. All those programs that you are providing our children are not working. We want for safety to be back and we want educational programs for our students that do work where parents are part of the decision making. We don't want Mr. Antonio Placencia that only is there to uh oppress and you let for
163them to call out call us out and here you glorify him when all of us as parents are he is belitting us in DA committee he wants to belittle the membership and you're supporting that man that is kicking our butts all of our parents because you allow it you are the uh the ones that hate the parents change and we want police back Erica Gonzalez come on up. Erica Gonzalez. Erica here. Okay, we will go to afternoon. I just before beginning the meeting, I just want to ask Mr. from Nick Melvin. If Good morning, my name is Marita. Just a reminder for the board, we ask for the officers in schools to protect our students and we call for to take into account our voice with respect and seriously because serious recently there have been
164students that have been stabbed in high school. Remember that students have the right to have welcoming uh sites and that they are safe and you have the responsibility of putting into action the safety protocol so that the rights of the students are not violated. We want safe environments for a welcoming learning and uh that is calm and for them to go to school without the fear of being harmed or drugged. And right now at this moment I would like for all of you to know that there's a lot of violence in the streets. There are a lot of people here on Glendel Boulevard and on Lucas. There's a lot of camping or tents out there. That's where the students walk from downtown business magnet Royal and the other school that is Belmont and you have
165to go and patrol you. We want for the school police to be in the sites. I like how right here you have the metal detectors here. I like it. I want those officers to I told them too. I told them that I want them in my school. And so we need to have to work with safety. You LUSD and the board and parents also Antonio placencia I have written to him telling him that I need teachers with credentials or credential teachers and he has not responded. I have written to other people um executive level and they have not responded. All document I want it in writing. I don't want Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Okay, Monica Razola and then Cheryl Ortega. Monica Razola, come on up. Buenos, my name is Monica
166Razola. My name is uh Monica. I have two children in the district. I am here again to advocate for our safety for our student, which is the police. You just want to lie to us with the safety passages and I want to know where are those safety passages coming from? those youth that they have a bracelet on their foot. Why do they have a bracelet on their ankle? Are they from immigration? Is immigration watching over the police? Why do they have a bracelet on their ankle? I want to know why. And many of us parents want to know. Why are you bringing us these children that are supposed to be taking care of our children? I'm so concerned about that. I'm so concerned that we don't have school police. And you know better than anybody
167how important police is. Sadly yesterday another girl was killed. She committed suicide. And it's not thing for you because you're used to a student dying here student dying another day is doesn't matter for you because it's not your children. But it is our children. Our children. And if we are giving them to you alive, we want them alive. Because if we're leaving them in school, why do you return them dead? Why do you return them as criminals? We need to take them out of jails. We need to take them out of a hospital. We need to bury them. Why do we need to bury our children? Why do we need to pick up our children if you are giving them to you? Well, we want you to return to them just as we gave them
168to you. We put them at the doorstep of the school. Why do we have to be picking up our children in that way? It is horrible because the death of a student, the a parent cannot recuperate. Even if it she has five children, a child will always be a child that will be hurtful. It is a child that is worth so much. Not even all the money in the world can we compare to the pain that that mother can suffer. You have not been in their shoes. And I wish all my heart that you would go through what those mothers are going through because that is the only way that you'll be able to understand the pain that the mother feels when they lose a child. And that is not fair. It is not fair.
169And I wish with all my heart that you go through with all what those time. Cheryl Ortega, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Cheryl Ortega, I'll come get all those petitions and stuff if you could leave them in one spot. Thank you so much. The two minutes is yours, Mr. Ortega. Thank you. Um, good morning. My name is Cheryl Ortega. I am the director of bilingual education for United Teachers Los Angeles and I'm honored to be here today to uh thank congratulate and honor Lydia Aosta Stevens and the med department for their marvelous work in and uh creating and formulating the new master plan uh of which we have been uh partners in in in helping to do that. Um I want to I want to say that the
170collaboration between MED and UTLA has been wonderful over the years. It's collaborative, productive, creative, and it's one of the most useful things for educators, parents, and students that I have ever observed. Uh the expansion of the master plan. Oh, and I wanted to say that it it's a it's a document that leaves students knowing that what they are, what they speak, where they're from is affirmed by all of the people that help work with them. Um the expansion of the categories of the master plan are excellent. from ser solo solo excuse me from only serving English learners uh 12 years ago to the uh to the uh expansion of categories that it serves now is wonderful. Uh we do want to recognize that it is classroom educators that make these things happen that the the
171teachers that are in dual language programs their dedication to their students is is amazing. And we also want to recognize um the expanding recognition of our HHS and DIS professionals who have language abilities who help those students and their families progress through uh difficult times and and we just want to honor them. And I will I will end with what uh it's kind of a humorous story but not really. Um, we all know that our president recently signed ane an executive order uh claiming English as the official language of the United States. Uh, a position that UTLA has taken opposition to. And I wonder if any of you remember that in 1986 the state of California did the same thing. And uh there was a move there was a move to anglify all the names
172of the the the cities in the state of California, but no one could figure out how to drive from the angels to St. Francis, thank you. Thank you for your time. We have some remote callers. We'll first go to concerned parent. Concerned parent, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Concerned parent. Good afternoon board members. Recommendation seven of the modicum consent decree closure report states establish forums where parents can provide feedback and complaints on non-compliance without fear of reprisals such as annual hearings and/or telephone surveys board members. Several parents have reported that the LUSD has retaliated against them by reporting them to CPS after they made complaints. Not only is this a waste of resources, it is a tactic that it appears is being used
173specifically with families of students with disabilities and Hispanic parents to instill fear so that parents stay silent. This is an abuse of power and the district must do better. Second, at the last board meeting, the mic was still on at the end of the meeting and a staff member stated that students will be given more latitude during public comment. It is evident that parents will not get that same latitude. Board members, your public is asking you to hear them. Not only do you have recommendations for opportunities to provide feedback, but per your own board rules. As a board, you have the ability to schedule board meetings for the specific purpose of hearing public comment. Will you implement these recommendations and follow your own rules? Thank you. Thank you for your time. Uh, the next remote
174caller is Isabelle. Isabelle, please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Isabelle, Isabelle, I see you're with us. Please press star six to unmute yourself. And you have two minutes to speak once you begin. Good afternoon. First of all, it's a shame that all the members are present. We miss da and I I her name escapes me. But you say that the representatives in Sacramento are representatives in Sacramento to lobby for us. But how as a school board are representatives of the parents but more so of our students. Um even though I'm in agreement, I feel like you provide a lot of opinion and you defend much more the teachers union than us. And those that are the in the red t-shirts are look like they're
175defending more the the teachers than the parents and students. So for the labor partners, it seems like you are focusing so much on that and you lose the motivation to support and provide programs that help our students for them to realize their full potential. The budget should be exclusively focused on helping students academically. And one way to support our students is to defend their needs in Sacramento because even with the district has said there's been other burdens. So I would like this to start in the August to focus on that and to help our vulnerable community. Thank you for your time. flag. Hello. Can folks hear me? Yes sir. Please go ahead. Hey, good afternoon everyone. Uh, yes. This is Christian Flag, director of youth organizing at Community Coalition. And our organization is a core
176partner in the equity alliance for LA kids. And I'm calling today uh to urge the board and the superintendent to stay committed to equity in LA USD by protecting Cinei beyond uh fiscal year 2526 and expanding BSAP. Um our organization has the honor and privilege of serving over a 100 black and brown students and families across South Central LA. Uh the very same community that I was born and raised in. And in this work, I could say firsthand that um Cinei and BAP are expanding access to incredible resources and opportunities at levels that never existed in our historically neglected and underserved communities. Students from the hood are getting opportunities to go across the country visiting H.B.CU. They're beginning to experience environments that are actually centering and uplifting their culture. They're inter interacting with teams and
177staff that are uh explicitly working to serve their unique needs. But at the same time, we also have students that are still experiencing things like long-term substitutes in their core A throughG classes. They're attending schools that have have had two and three different principles across a four-year period in their high school journey, right? They're they're working they're at schools with amazing staff that are trying to do more, trying to be innovative, but are hindered by overly rigid uh spending policies and racial bias that's held by district some district personnel. So, while we acknowledge the fact that LUSD is approaching a rough financial period in the coming years, I must remind you that the student at high and highest need schools, black and brown students from South Central LA, from Watts, from East LA have been
178underserved for decades. Cinei and BAP have only just begun to shift conditions and for our most vulnerable communities and we must remain committed to them through the toughest times to actually truly create lasting transformation. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay, the next caller is Jason Melendez, but I do not see you online. Are you in the room, Mr. Melendez? Not here. And then the last remote caller is Kayla Caffy. I do not see you signed in online and there is no Kayla in the room. So that concludes public comment. Thank you Mr. McClean for facilitating public comment. Uh so this concludes the committee of the whole meeting for 2425 school year. Just want to appreciate all the presenters and all the speakers um since the beginning of this academic since the committee of
179the whole in January. We appreciate all the continued uh support and engagement and expertise throughout the year. And please stay stay tuned for the coming weeks for next year's committee schedule. And thanks again, we look forward to continuing this critical work for the 2526 academic year. And until then, have a wonderful summer and take good care. Thanks everyone. [Music] Huh?