March 11, 2025 - 1pm Regular Board Meeting

001w [Music] he n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] n [Music] e good afternoon and welcome to the regular March 11th 2025 meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education meeting I hear an echo is there an echo down there that anyone else is hearing may I have my tech people come out and push that one button that makes it stop echoing if we can tolerate the echo I'll take roll and then hopefully they'll come out all right Miss nubil present Dr Ras present Mr meloy here miss grigo here miss gones present Miss oti Franklin present board president sharlon present and student board member president okay I have the honor of doing the pledge of allegiance would you please rise everyone on and face the flag place your right

002hand over your heart before we begin our uh board president reports I'd like to have uh a few words from our um Sue stangle who is our Inspector General a message from Sue let's go ahead and cue that slide for the oig please good good afternoon I'm sue stangle the Inspector General for L USD promise there is a slide coming the office of the Inspector General is in the midst of developing our annual work plan for fiscal year 2026 and an important part of this process is conducting our risk assessment and soliciting input from stakeholders and the larger LAUSD Community about any areas where you believe there is high risk or exposure to the district so each year we present a survey for anyone and everyone to take and this um slide presents the QR

003code to access the survey the survey right now is only in English but it will be available in Spanish in the next couple days we encourage everyone to please complete the survey it is extremely important and helpful to us as we prepare for our work plan for next fiscal year thank you thank you Inspector General we're now going to begin with our labor partners and I see in our audience I see SEIU if you're ready to come up SEIU you're welcome to be first e we play a vital role in ensuring School runs smoothly and that our students receive support they need to thrive I love working with kids and seeing them Reach important mileston especially achieving their IEP goals my work is essential because students rely on us it will be impossible for teachers

004to do their job effectively without the support we provide whether it's assisting in the classroom preparing nutritious meals maintaining school facilities our behind the scenes work directly contributes to the Student Success and the strength of our communities every day we address urgent needs in our schools because of my commitments to the students and my work I am here to raise concern about the unassigned days in the instructional calendar these are the days that we that can be used by students to catch up on schoolwork extra tutoring or lifting up their grades these are also days when dedicated School workers can come to support students learning as we earn extra income to support our family like many of my co-workers I struggle with rising cost and financial un uncertainty special education assistance teachers assistance Food Service

005workers and others are not paid during unassigned days the the proposed change to the instructional calendar will only deepen the economical hardship SE Local 99 members face I'm unassign days affect not only only our pay but also affect students academic progress before moving with the instructional CH calendars I remind you that we must bargain over these changes to ensure that any modification to the calendar truly supports the students and students like and staff like myself thank you hello and good afternoon board members uh my name is Michael Smith and I am also a proud member of SEIU Local 99 uh I've uh been employed with the school district for 40 years 5 years as a bus driver and 35 years currently working in Fleet Maintenance servic servicing all district vehicles trucks cars buses other words

006anything that has wheels something that you may have rode in on this morning and as a SEIU Local 99 member we play a vital role in ensuring schools operate smoothly and students have the support that they need to succeed it I've taken pride in keeping La usd's transportation system running safely and efficiently so students can travel to and from school safely without worry since I since I've started with the district I've upheld the high standard of safety and service that LUSD Transportation demands ensuring every vehicle is properly maintained at top quality the importance of our job is that without our work our the transportation will not run the way it is designed nor will it function safely our role is just as essential as any other in the district every day we handle essential tasks

007that keeps our school running that's why it's vital that our work be valued respected and given the investment that it deserves the uh proposed changes in the instructional calendar will increase economic hardship for SEIU Local 99 members um seu Local 99 members are among the lowest paid employees at La USD earning an average of $33,000 a year that is right near the property level for families that are for in the Los Angeles County as a former bus driver I firsthand uh I have seen firsthand how schedules changes hurt workers bus drivers already struggle with reduced hours a calendar with continued unassigned days would only make things worse so I urge you this afternoon that the district would ensure that we have a Frontline work that as that we ensure that we the Frontline workers have

008a voice in the process we ask that you negotiate with us I urge that you come to the bargaining table to ensure we secure a calendar that truly supports the needs of our students and the dedicated educational workers of L USD my time is up and I thank you for yours thank you very much SEIU our next member will be from utla welcome come on up good afternoon uh my name is Alex Orosco utla secondary vice president I have Karen Murray here with us she'll be speaking in just a couple of minutes on some very important special education issues um couple of things on the agenda today Charter renewals um just want to make sure that you all understand that we are in favor of granting the extension agreements to high performing Charters that are

009five years but we understand that there are a few today being uh considered for more than that six years and upwards we do not uh accept that and we want to make sure that you don't do that because there's no need to um everything has been working fine with the five-year extension um also we' like to recognize item 24 grigo schon's um motion resolution to celebrate and recognize Ramadan thank you for that that's very special to our staff students communities also uh item 26 gones Kelly gones supposing Federal funding cuts that will harm students and families we absolutely strongly support the spirit of the resolution and stand in solidarity with you miss gones um in item 27 uh Dr Rivas expanding opportunities celebrating dual enrollment awareness month we strongly support all efforts by the district

010to expand College and Career Pathways for all students in grades 9 through 12 thank you for those three resolutions coming up um and on the special education issue we are currently uh having difficulties getting the district to acknowledge and pay about a hundred of our special education Educators you will hear from one of them in just a second um we have filed a grievance on behalf of over a 100 utla members who believe they are owed a stien um utla and L USD agreed in the current uh CBA in a current contract that effective June 30th of 2022 any special education teacher who teaches an SDC class with two or more students over the SDC cap will re will receive either a 625 stien or a $1,250 stien per semester we have not seen that

011for over a hundred of our members and we have filed this griev on their behalf also add adding to the confusion we have just learned from the district that these stiens are no longer retroactive to the fall of 2022 conflicting with our agreement that we signed this last bargaining cycle this is a small stip in for our special education teachers who are teaching classes over the cap providing Education and Care to LAUSD students and now I'm going to hand the the mic over to miss Karen Murray a special education teacher good oh not good morning sorry it's been a long day good afternoon everyone uh my name is Karen Murray and I am currently a coordinator at canbury Avenue Elementary and gifted magnet in arita um I have a lot to say about this subject

012but for the time because I'm on a timer here I'm gonna read from a statement okay but if you if you were on the side I could have I I could say so much about this um again I'm a coordinator currently at the school where in 2020 uh 2 2023 school I was a teacher in an Autism alternate curriculum classroom educating our District's most vulnerable population uh as a special educator at the Los Angeles Unified School District I am deeply frustrated by the lack of professional respect the district has for special Educators this is highlighted by your willingness to drag your feet on your contractual obligation despite my class size being consistently between two to five students above the cap for the program not only have I not received the compensation outline in the contract

013um but there are many more who have not as well in addition to this there are even more special Educators who have received an incorrect amount for classes above the cap the classroom that I left in 2023 to become a coordinator at the same school um the teacher that took over that classroom is currently over the norm by three the other classroom which is the same type alternate curriculum classroom is the same uh nine students three over the cap again can inconsistently receiving stiens that are incorrect in the amount or sometimes not receiving it at all according to the agreement special educators are to be compensated when their class size exceeds the cap by two or three students the additional workload and responsibility that comes with managing an overcrowded classroom not only affected my ability

014to provide the level of attention and support my students deserve but also left me feeling undervalued and unsupported it is disheartening to see that the commitment to uh supporting both students and Educators not being honored particularly when it directly impacts the quality of education and Services we strive to provide for the last year and a half I have patiently waited to receive the compensation owed to me despite the clear Provisions outlined in the LD utila contract throughout this time I have consistantly reached out to special education school and family services and I have communicated with Carla price and Essence Kendrick both by phone and email the only response I've received is that an over Norm stien inquiry was submitted on M March 4th 2024 exactly a year from ago last week on March 4th Ruby

015abara emailed me to inform me that there is still no update on the status of my stien inquiry to add to my frustration I was told that the over Norm stien began in the spring of 2023 not fall of 2022 despite my class size exceeding the cap during the entire 2022 2023 school year again this lack of clarity and the prolonged delay in addressing the issue is both disheartening and demoralizing it feels as though the district is not honoring its commitment to support Educators who go above and beyond for their students all special education teachers are asking for the exact same thing that we we provide to everybody on our school campus and in our district professional respect I respect each and every one of you where you are at this time in your career

016and what it took for you to get there all I am asking is that you do the same for us thank you again I can go on but thank you so much thank you thank you for your time and we have uh Maria Nichols speaking remotely uh Miss Nichols please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have a few moments to give us your thoughts Maria Nichols from Alla Miss Nichols if you're there please press star six to unmute yourself yes good afternoon can you hear me we certainly can please go ahead oh thank you so good afternoon superintendent carvalo and board members I am Ria Nichols proud and optimistic president of all our team to local 2010 I come before you today on behalf of the dedicated and tireless members of all the

017Teamsters Local 2010 our approximately 3,000 certificated and classified workers who are the backbone and heartbeat of La USD our members are the heart and and are essential to the district's success and we are here to demand the respect fairness and Equitable treatment we rightfully deserve since taking off office in July 2025 I have led with One Singular Focus advocating for our members and ensuring that our work is valued and respected we've reached a critical juncture in our negotiations with L USB and Stakes have never been hirer on March 5th 2025 we began collective bargaining with the goal of securing a contract that prioritizes fair working conditions reasonable workloads and work life balance this is not a request but a need we are demanding changes that directly address the concerns of our members for certificated workers

018we ask for improvements to working hours job responsibilities and rights as all a Teamster members for our classified workers we ask for adjustments to work hours job sred representation and stronger protections for workers these proposals are not just improving conditions they are about restoring dignity and respect to those who keep this District running without our members La USB would grind to a halt we are standing firm in our commitment to fair treatment and we will not back down the time for empty promises is over we are preparing for our next negotiation s session on March 19th 2025 and we expect real tangible responses from LAUSD we urge the Board of Education to immediately engage with us acknowledge the urgency of this situation and take Swift action to address the needs of our members the clock

019is ticking and every day we wait is another day our members are left waiting for the fair contract they deserve this is a call to action this is about fairness respect and a commitment to the future of valy USD we cannot afford to delay any longer and I hope and expect that the board come to the table with meaningful Solutions and a genuine commitment to the people who make this District run thank you for your immediate attention and partnership in this matter thank you for your time that concludes our labor Partners yes thank you very much any other labor partners that we may have missed okay then we're going to go on with our committee reports and uh committee chair for committee of the whole Dr Rivas yes thank you board member scharon um so

020the committee of the whole met on February 18th 2025 and learned about the following Financial oversight and planning the district reviewed audit findings to ensure Financial accountability and strategically strategically planning for upcoming budget consideration related to State funding uh navigating state and federal fiscal pressures California school districts including LUSD are experiencing increasing Financial strain from ex U expiring pandemic funds Rising costs and potential Federal funding shifts necessitating proactive advocacy at all levels this was presented um by um what was it who services financial services yes thank you instructional account calendar planning the board is carefully considering the 202528 instructional calendars balancing Community needs and academic impact which will be voted on today uh our next meeting of Committee of the whole will be held on Tuesday March 11th 2025 this year thank you Dr Ras

021and our next report will be the special education committee chair and that is Miss grigo hi we had a a great meeting last week um with the special education committee and these are some of the things that we discussed we first um celebrated World Down syndrome day and autism awareness month we uh which is World Down syndrome day is on March 21st and World autism month is during the month of April um we heard from the Department of speech and language um Las services and they gave a presentation on um the role of a augmentative and alternative communication supports for our students with speech impairments that includes such things as low Tech visuals uh to high-tech speech to text tools we also learned about assistive instructional technology which includes any tool or device um that

022supports students with disabilities some tools include um could be integrated into applications uh or it could be a low Tech things such as a pencil holder or mag magnetic numbers um at the end of the presentation we had the committee engage in discussion and some of the things that the committee wanteded to know more of is how does a district support and celebrate students uh with autism and down syndrome Beyond March and April how can we make our schools places where our students can feel included throughout the whole year and celebrated throughout the year uh committee and parents also wanted to know more about what our school can do to ensure that all of our students are included um that school culture is more accepting and welcoming um they also wanted more information about how

023we are thinking about using Ai and how we are supporting parents at home to support their students their children uh they also suggested more observations in the classrooms to see if other students need more supports beyond what is included in the IEP sometimes things don't pop up immediately but they might show up in the class classroom um we also heard from families who came and spoke to US during public comment and some of the comments included more information or more attention to our inclusion program as well as uh parents wanted this type of presentation at their school sites because many had said that they didn't have this knowledge ahead of time and they wish they had it so we are meeting again in two months in May on May 5th I believe thank you so

024much really quick can I make a correction our next Committee of the hall is next week March 18th not the 11th so I made a wrong date duly noted okay thank you our next report is from our student board member anelli thank you for president sharlon over the past month I have had the privilege of engaging with our student population across the district and Beyond listening to their concerns and working towards meaningful Solutions with them the student superintendent student advisory Council met yesterday on March 10th 2025 where student leaders across LUSD shared their experiences concerns and ideas to make a more Equitable and inclusive learning environment and working towards our outc cap the local control accountability plan and implementing student voice in our food services department we will be continuously meeting with our elcap team

025to continuously improve and include the student voice in our budget next our dedication um students dedication and their willingness to serve their communities continues as the students Embark student board member finalists are chosen we have 10 students running for the student board member position and I strongly urge the board and teachers counselors School Personnel to urge students to use their fundamental right to vote they have options it is on school there will be more information coming out from the student empowerment unit to continue promoting Civic engagement not only within their schools but within their broader communities students continue having pressing concerns regarding immigration status and documentation status continuingly continuously living in uncertainty and shaping their ability to focus on their education I urge the board to continue to provide their unwavering support to these students

026with resources advocacy and unwavering solidarity this P past month additionally students also attended the A Dream Deferred college board conference and the Latina hope conference thanks to board president scharon and the the team's Conant advocacy for students to engage with their Los Angeles community and continuously learn from our active Community leaders and as a finally as a representative of LUSD I continuously connect with students and many have felt the need for me to con to advocate for our lgbtq plus Youth and that we continue acknowledging the great research that has been done in this department and I will be sharing some of that today 20.7% of LZ students identify as non-heterosexual reflecting a broader National Trend as student identities become more diverse schools most actively Foster inclusive environments that support all sexual orientations and gender

027identities despite 60% of high school students and 45% of middle school students reporting lgbtq plus acceptance there has been a concerning decline from the previous year years amplifying the need for schools to intensify efforts to improve School climate and inclusivity lgbtq plus youth face disproportionately High rates of bullying often even before openly claiming to be part of the community addressing identity-based discrimination regardless of a student's identity is crucial for shaping a safe School environment the Trevor Project a suicide prevention hotline for youth has reported a Sevenfold increase of calls from lgbtq plus youth reflecting a deep mental health toll and societal political challenges I urge the board to continue standing in unwavering support of all students regardless of documentation status race gender identity and that our students are not only empowered but continue to Advocate

028and take deliberate action to protect and support every student in LD and that concludes the student board member report thank you board president schron and thank you and next we will hear from our early Ed committee and that would be Miss gones thank you board president um this is a report out from February since I I missed that during last meeting um so in January we held the most recent meeting of the children and families and Early Education committee the focus was enrollment Trends and our early education programs so this included reviewing uh TK Trends Statewide versus LA County school districts and how this interacts with State preschool programs to help us understand where La USD fits into this broader context we also learned about our Recruitment and promotion efforts for our Early Education Centers

029and our utk programs at elementary schools and examined enrollment throughout our spectrum of programs this school year um which in many places shows improvement over previous years which is exciting um as always we appreciate our fantastic Early Education team for supporting us as well as Dr Bruce Fuller professor Prof ameritus at UC Berkeley goar um whose work is focused on child care and Early Education um he joined us to present on those broader Statewide Trends our next meeting is next Thursday March 20th at 10:00 a.m. we'll hope you'll join us online or in person we'll be focusing on numeracy and socio emotional well-being mental health um support and Trauma informed care for our Early Education students thank you Miss gonz and a little bit later we'll have a report by the uh school safety and

030climate committee run by Miss Ortiz Franklin and that'll be when she is on screen to give us her report so thank you very much everyone now are we able to move to the consent calendar okay let me just tell you a little bit about the consent calendar I know you heard it some people have heard it a hundred times already some people have hear it for the first time so the consent calendar is a procedural device that allows us to vote on multiple items at the same time it's very efficient it's a very efficient way of doing things and these are items that come to the board on a regular basis and routine business and we as board members have discussed this in briefings or than two in briefings and what happens is we ask

031all of our questions and we're ready to decide yes consent or no I want to not put it on consent so if a board member decides to ask a question or just make a little comment that item is pulled from the consent calendar and it'll be voted on individually it'll be heard after public comment is had so I'm urging my school board members if the item that you hear and see will not affect it being pulled off the calendar no change then it should be remaining on the consent calendar and here we go Mr mle okay tab one instructional calendars for the 25 26 26 27 27 28 school years tab two I'm sorry yeah uh tab three renewal of the transition partnership program okay so question from board member Grio and uh Tab four

0322024 2025 second interm report and multi-year projections discussion certificate tab tab five certification of measure us results and establishment of a separate capital projects fund consent uh tab six align funding strategies for three school facilities projects programs funded by certificates of participations with school upgrade program framework and measure us priorities and implementation strategies consent consent T six yeah no discussion let's see tab seven and eight cannot be on consent uh tab nine to find and approv 24 classroom upgrade projects and amend the facilities services division strategic execution plan to incorporate therein consent Tab 10 toine and approve seven playground and campus exterior upgrade projects and amend the facil services division strategic execution plan to incorporate therein consent consent uh tab 11 Define and approve four Board District priority and region priority projects and amend the

033facility services division strategic execution uh plan to incorporate therein uh tab 12 Define and approve four charter school facilities upgrade projects and amend the facility service division strategic execution plan to incorporate therein consent discussion discussion Dr Ras all right tab 13 approval of the renewal petition for Community magnet Charter Elementary which will be a public hearing consent I have a question discussion uh tab 14 approval of the renewal petition for Justice Street Academy charter have discuss a discussion discussion uh tab 15 approval of the renewal petition for center for advanced learning discussion tab 16 approval of the renewal petition for pente Charter yeah discussion discussion uh tab 17 approval of routine Personnel actions consent consent uh tab 18 provisional internship permits consent tab 19 donations of money to the district consent tab 20 report of

034cash dispers dispersements requests to uh reissue expired warrants tab 21 2024 2025 non-public school agency npsa approval of Master contracts I'm hearing consent tab 22 approval of procurement actions discussion uh tab 23 approval of contracts facilities contract actions I'm sorry approval of facilities contract actions consent consent then we have a number of resolutions that will have a Time certain they can still go on consent but since they're on a Time certain generally should be voted on separately is what I'm thinking okay so um we're going to put uh tab 24 on discussion tab 25 on discussion um and then it looks like uh tab 26 you would you consent or just consent great okay tab tab tab 27 okay with the time certain discussion with the time certain all right uh we have an initial

035announcement on Tab 28 for Action so that doesn't require any board action uh resolutions requested by the superintendent re appointment of the member of the school construction Bond citizens oversight committee consent uh let's see tab 30 report of corresponden consent and tab 31 minutes for board approval consent all right okay so we can move to public comment on the consent items one moment okay uh for consent we have tab we have tab five I'll just go through the Whole Thing tab two we have discussion uh tab three discussion Tab four discussion tab five consent uh tab six consent I mean sorry tab six discussion tab n consent Tab 10 consent tab 11 consent tab 12 discussion tab 13 discussion tab 14 discussion tab 15 and 16 also discussion and then tabs 17 18 19 20

036and 21 are consent tab 22 discussion tab 23 consent tabs 24 and 25 discussion tab 26 consent tab 27 discussion uh tab 29 30 and 31 are consent does that sound about right okay we get to the public speakers Mr McLean just regard to tab 26 that's on consent it's as amended board members have a copy of the amended resolution at the table and board member of the Franklin is added as a co-sponsor okay outstanding and we also have copies of that in um the booth in the back of the room so items with consent and that have public comment will we take those now scrolling through to see all right tab 18 let's see Chui c h i c u eii I'm so sorry if if I've uh undoubtedly un mispronounced that this is

037for tab 18 are you here in person not here for tab 18 and the rest actually we are um on discussion and have and have comment associated with them so we can take the we can vote on the consent C calendar now would someone like to move for the consent calendar second okay let me take roll would you mind if I make comments on my resolution since we're voting on it okay that's right I'm so sorry that's okay um well as I noted before I would like to move version two of this resolution it's tab 26 opposing Federal funding cuts that will harm students and families which includes amendments to reflect um some of the latest actions in Washington as well as adding board member or Franklin as a co-sponsor um in the last month

038as you may all already be aware um the Senate and House of Representatives approved budget resolutions cutting billions of dollars from education spending as part of an ongoing effort to advance this administration's agenda an agenda which threatens act as to a fair equal and high quality public education for all students as part of this effort we continue to face the threat that this Administration will dismantle the US Department of Education an agency that plays a central role in protecting the civil rights of our most vulnerable student populations dispersing Title One funds for low-income students and protecting students rights particularly for students with disabilities lgbtq plus students immigrant students and students who have face racial discrimination unfortunately our public schools have become a stage for conservatives to play out a cruel agenda with aggressive attempts to

039reverse the progress we've made in how students learn about race history and the lgbtq plus community as just a few examples as we are likely aware in the coming days we will see a final spending bill and it's important that we urge our representatives to vote against any actions that would cut funding for our families such as Medicaid which helps support the needs of our students with disabilities and the basic health services that many of our students and families rely on any other resources our students depend on to fulfill their potential and any actions that would weaponize or strip the US Department of Education of its core civil rights purpose um or dismantle it um so I I bring this resolution for the board's consideration and I hope that we support it to send a

040strong message to Washington about where we stand in support of our schools and our families this the time to co-sponsor co-sponsor great I have just some comments for that sure um well I'd like to strongly support this resolution opposing Federal funding cuts that will harm our students and families and I like as I said to be added as a co-sponsor um I want to specifically acknowledge also Martha Alvarez and her team in the government relations um for their continued prioritization and engagement in this crucial work of advocating for our students needs their expertise and dedication are invaluable and especially in these trying times where threats against our community are a persistent concern it is vital that we amplify our voices and clearly voice our opposition to any cuts that would further endanger the well-being and

041educational opportunities of our students as I'll be engaging with our legislators in Washington DC next month this resolution provides crucial backing and highlights the district's unified stance in this critical issue so thank you very much board member gones for bringing this forward thank you I have a comment too but who would anyone else like to speak be added as a co-p co-sponsor Mr to be add something to say yes okay Miss GGO yes thank you for bringing this forward um yeah it is critical right now that we as a district uh we continue to push our legislators in DC uh to oppose any cuts to public education the suspension of these funds will impact our most vulnerable students in LAUSD our students with disabilities our students who are lowincome our English language Learners and even

042our earliest Learners we must stand strong against any efforts to dismantle the public school system and the values that it represents so thank you m gones for putting this forward and I'd like to also be named as a co-sponsor thank you wonderful anyone else anelli comment thank you board member gonz just to reciprocate all the sentiments shared today many students that I've connected with are recipients of the direct funding that comes ferally title one college prep programs organizations and programs that otherwise would not have pushed students towards higher educ ation and if we allow these cuts to happen most as we have mentioned in this resolution the most vulnerable student populations will be affected that disabilities language barriers hunger that these students may get from many students I know school lunch is only meal of

043their day the only way they're going to feed themselves and cutting these will be simply cruel so I am in sincere support and would also like to be added as a co-sponsor thank you wonderful thank you Mr superintendent just want to add my voice uh to the cores of support uh for this important resolution uh it is very clear that under the guise of uh National def efficiencies local deficiencies uh could be the result deficiencies most importantly impacting those students in our communities that most desperately need the resources that are allocated federally the dismantling the the the possibility of the dismantling of the Department of Education Beyond uh perhaps elimination of the entity that uh as board member gonz correctly stated the entity that for decades has protected the interests and the Civil Rights and

044the personal rights of students and workforces across the country uh is the possibility of uh reductions in funding or the establishment of new protocols for the distribution of those dollars uh providing possibly a dilution of Title One entitlement programs that benefit the poor in our community necessary funds for English language Learners in the title three or the protection that should be afforded to students with disabilities under idea there's too much to risk there's too much to be lost and this is the appropriate position that the board would take thank you thank you um let me just also quote besides being a co-sponsor let me thank you again uh Miss gones but uh cutting funding for the education department is uh one of the most counterproductive things we can ever do in our lives and by

045doing so we limit our students Futures we destabilize our communities and we give up any hope for progress and it does make no sense not at all and I just want you to know that I have worked with the superintendent recently and the LA County delegation and the county delegation to support each other and next week I too will be with great City Schools and we're going to fight like heck to make sure that we have no cuts for our students education thank you anyone else sure go ahead Carla I mentioned many vulnerable populations but I did not mention our lgbtq plus community and they too are very vulnerable particularly our trans students and uh community members so I want to make sure that they too are protected well said thank you Miss gonz oh

046thank you I'm excited about the unanimous um co-p sponsorship for this resolution and just to know in addition to the great work we're doing led by um Miss Alvarez thank you Dr Ras for noting that this is also part of a nationwide effort among the coun Council of great City Schools districts um to all be contacting our legislative representatives to make sure they're hearing a unified voice from our Urban school districts that we will not stand for any um funding cuts that will impact our Public School families um so just wanted to highlight that this is a nationwide effort as well thank you so much okay Mr McLean we do have some public comment associat with this I don't see a whole lot of the folks here but I'm going to read the names if

047you're here please come on down Macky Draper LMA khil Smith Randy Jones Dylan Chastity Eli Gala Manning Martinez and jiah Fields folks are here this also requires a rule 72 waiver but since this is on consent the rule 72 waiver I'd say is subsumed into into the consent calendar okay it's been moved by Dr revas second seconded by Scott and uh well here we go tab 26 uh Miss nubil yes Dr Ras yes Mr melvoin yes m g yes Miss gonz yes Miss Ortiz Franklin proudly yes oh she's with there you are yes for Miss orti Franklin board president schmon yes and student board member Lopez Cortez yes Mr mclan while we have Miss uh Ortiz Franklin here would you like to do your committee report while you're on screen sure if that's okay I'll

048I'll be brief sure um we met with two new board members welcome to miss dubel and miss Grio to our school safety and climate Committee of the year uh we are focused on looking at data from The District's perspective on uh incidents around safety both in school and out of school physical safety and emotional safety and this time we looked deeply at mental health and particularly our uh vulnerable populations as we've just been talking about immigrant students black students lgbtq students um and heard directly from school sites as well as District staff operations and wellness on exactly how we're supporting these students and so I want to give a big thank you to Drew Middle School and the vsap program there as well as Maya Angelou and the newcomer program there uh really appreciated the

049engagement on thinking about how the district both systematically and on the School site level protect some of the students who need our support uh the greatest um stay tuned for our next two meetings of the year we're going to keep looking at incidents of um student safety data in and around campus we're hearing often from our community about uh what is happening and how we can do better so we welcome public comment and we look forward to finding more solutions together thank you thank you Miss Ortiz Franklin our committee reports are now complete Mr McLean okay it's 2:00 and we have a number of items that are flagged for uh discussion shall we take tab to so here we are on tab two there was folks who wanted to have some discussion on item yes

050thank you Mr McLean and I don't um I just pulled it to vote no I don't need to belabor the point I've spoken on the calendar over the last few weeks um appreciate the team juggling a lot of competing interests uh but just remain frustrated the process that this calendar is coming so late and that also I I think we're still an outlier when it comes to breaks and start dates and starting the year on a Thursday ending on a um on a Wednesday it's just not student or family or parent centered so I'm going to vote no I do just have one question um uh as we finalize the calendar maybe for um uh um Dr estada or someone on the instructional team I'm curious if we know the dates of summer school and

051summer enrichment um over the years we've really expanded our free summer offerings which have been great but I've heard from families that they're posted the dates are posted so late that families have already availed themselves of other sometimes costlier child care so I'm just curious if we can talk about summer school summer enrichment or when that will all be posted so they are working on finalizing with the instructor calendar they are finalizing the dates we were trying to figure out also some prep days for teachers so that will be posted on our website that will go live very soon so I will have those dates for you very soon like this week uh yes definitely because it was just finalizing a couple instructional calendar elements as well as some prep days for teachers so yes

052okay great so we'll be sure to share that with families about the summer various enrichment and summer school options which are again I think high quality and free and then I do while I don't support the the instructional calendar I do appreciate that at least we're locking in a three-year calendar so that um we have certainty for families and schools who are trying to plan over the next few years so that's it for me Mr Schmelson thank you very much Mr McAn beg your pardon charlette I just had a question or comment as we talking about child care um are we working with our community and Civic Partners to ensure the appropriate child care and youth activities are available I know with the city of Los Angeles we've aligned some activities um but what about

053our other I think we're adjacent to about 25 other cities that serve within L USD I don't know who can answer that question if there is someone working with those other agencies there is ongoing Outreach with not only entities that have a countywide presence jurisdiction um but also uh a across a number of different municipalities it is one of the top areas of concern that are negotiated uh when we enter into compacts with different cities and we have now I believe 10 nine compacts a 10th one on the way uh and uh we will continue to do so we'll provide to the board uh if the board would like an informative as to how expansive and of particular interest the agencies that we partner with the most both through cities uh the the YMCA other

054entities as well as NAFA profits in in a variety of different areas thank you that would be great because I know many of our families are looking for those Alternatives when we have three weeks off or two weeks off thanks thank you any other comments on number two number two no go ahead Mr mle all right we have uh one uh person slated as speaking in person Eli gala are you here not here okay so we just need a motion in a second to take the vote and we'll moved by uh second move by Miss gonz seconded by miss nuil and miss nuil yes Dr Ras yes Mr mvo no Miss Grio yes Miss gones yes Miss Ortiz Franklin Miss Ortiz Franklin come back okay uh board president schmon yes and student member Lopez Cortez

055yes that's uh five eyes one no and we're waiting on waiting on one okay tab three renewal of transitional transition partnership uh program contract for 25 through 28 it was put on uh for a discussion I I'm I should I just go with my question all right so I just had a question about um the kinds of jobs that students get placed with through the department of rehab what are some of those uh places that our students get placed okay Chad all right thank you thank you for that question um so there's there's a variable uh of job a variety of jobs that our students get placed in one thing that I will say is that um as this program is out for all students uh at every school um there's a partnership that we

056have with do where we we we place students in jobs we we provide them with uh uh subsidy for working and some of the jobs that they get may be at a store uh working like a CVS or even with our Partnerships that include supporting our after school programs whether it's atast best or working with the boys and girls club um I also have our coordinator here who can shed some more light on some other options that are available to our students so Jackie told hi thanks so much um so students that are placed by our district program through work-based learning we have with all of La UniFi after school programs are LA's best are beyond the bell um we have M with um eight of the nine Boys and Girls Clubs in the LA

057region with YMCA and so the students that we place are placed at those programs right now and we're currently continue to explore additional M us um as Dr stto shared students that are placed by um Department of Rehabilitation through their fccc program can be placed at retail businesses and stores that don't currently have M with Le unified and that is allowed if the department of rehab places a student in a place that we don't have anou like say CVS or Walgreens it is so through the fccc program so any student that is um a contract client is also a client of Department of Rehabilitation so Department of Rehabilitation then has the ability to intake the student for a work-based learning program on their side and then that is allowable I see so what about when

058it's our teachers the transition teachers and they can place students in in uh jobs is it only with our M our okay only through Theus correct right thank you I have a question if I may so um are students also being encouraged to apply for jobs uh within La USD you know and I know that that's definitely something that we promote uh especially when when we're uh talking with students about potential opportunities in the future after graduation um I know that that's something that we definitely encourage uh especially with the route of special education assistant or or even our buildings and grounds those are things that we definitely promote that's true and you know there are a good qualified Workforce and lot to offer uh employers especially in our district and um you know in

059society in general General unfortunately these individuals are often overlooked due to a unique condition or a disability they may have and I want to make sure that our district is a leader in this space expanding opportunities uh for all individuals and um I hope we can do that and last question about the funding is this a general fund or a specific grant that La USD applied for it is it is a grant um that we're continuing uh we've been we've had this partnership for over 25 years we're extending it now for three years excellent yes so we're just asking for board approval to extend it for till 2028 got it keep it going thank you anyone else I'm sorry there you go okay sure follow up sorry um are there any ways that we can

060connect uh our students to any unions so that they can start on that path to perhaps getting working with the Union um and then also do we follow the trajectory of these students um Beyond this uh this uh placement yeah so um there is actually a federal mandate that we follow students for a year after graduation and so every spring we're right in the middle of it right now we actually call all of our students who left last school year and we get data it's considered the federal indicator 14 also the state indicator 14 as well and so that data is collected Ed and so we do have that data um you know we don't currently have data from Department of Rehabilitation for these specific contract students but we do have data on all of

061our students that we get and how do we access that and we actually physically call each student so every Spring right now we have our 12th grade students that are leaving our teachers get you know best contact information that we have for them and then next spring for these your seniors they're actually going to physically call each student so and when I say call it's phone calls it's you know students respond in a variety of ways so sometimes calling kids on the phone is not the best way to reach them so we get their you know Instagram handles whatever we can get so that we can get in touch with these kids year after they've left and where do we store that information and how can we as board members or the public um grab

062that information yeah so we store that information in our welligent system and then it's reported through calpads to the state and so um it's it's open information um it's in our federal indicators all right thank you okay thank you very much Mr McLean okay tab three GNA take the vote Miss nuil yes Dr Ras yes Mr melin yes Miss Grio yes Miss KES yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes uh board president schmon yes and student board member Lopez Cortez yes all right and Miss congratulations yeah Miss orti Franklin while I have you there may I collect your vote on tab to also yes thank you thank you I appreciate that and I uh apologize for doing this out of order I was moving too quickly on the public comment and I missed uh Mr Martinez who

063was online to speak to tab 26 he was signed up before the um before the item was voted on and I just moved too quickly so Mr Martinez U the time is yours I appreciate your patience please press star six to unmute yourself Mr Martinez and you'll have your two minutes to speak to tab 26 afternoon everyone this is Channing Martinez co-director of the strategy Center um I think everyone said quite a few good things about this motion it is a very important motion given the federal landscape and the Trump Administration going after um anyone who does not support their set of politics um but I think the other thing I just have to say is that you know there's nothing that says black again in here um and I think we do have to

064reflect that during a democratic Administration this District allowed the Department of Education to come in and dictate the way that it runs the black student achievement program including removing race as a key metric for selecting schools to receive Bap resources uh you know just the last reflection of this is during any time of any year social movements are very courageous and I think this motion is a step in the direction of courageousness but I think we also have to not just protect people's rights but to fight to expand their rights including addressing race directly and not being scared to do so and putting our bodies on the line and putting things at risk because that's what the Republicans are doing they have no care in the world and they put things at risk and they're

065fighting like hell and I think it's time for L USD to do the same thanks so much thank you for your time and your patience sir okay this brings us to Tab four 2024 2025 second interm report and multi your projections um shall we do the presentation first okay please I'll just uh thank you very much I'll introduce it as Chris Mountain his team uh step up to the mic um what uh what your board and the community are about to uh to to see and hear is the required report on the status of the uh school systems of Financial Health uh this midyear update to the current fiscal year the 2025 fiscal year general fund budget um will be provided alongside a forecast of the next two fiscal years uh the stronger takeaway uh

066is is the fact that um uh we are able based on the current available information to recommend commend that the board certify um the three-year Outlook as positive if you recall last time were a number of conversations prior to today's presentation considering economic shift Statewide and an end of year fund balance for the three years there was a possibility that the third year would come in negative however as a result of uh internal strategic reduction specific to uh budget to actual calculations as well as reduction of administrative costs non-school side administrative costs um we have been able to rectify that position and present to the board uh an interim a second interim update that forecasts a positive balanced third year obviously between now and that third year a lot of things could change but at

067this point based on the information available to us that is uh the anticipated position with that said let me introduce um the the main speaker for today's presentation uh our CFO please take it away thank you superintendent good afternoon board members superintendent Community uh we are going to go through the presentation of the second interim as the superintendent just nicely outlined uh we are recommending adoption with a positive certification from the Board of Education which means that we are able to pay our bills for the current year uh and two additional years as far as those bills that we are aware of so yes things can change uh but as of the creation of this report which goes through the end of February uh that that remains the fact and we've improved our position in

068the current year and in the next two years by some of those strategic budgeting activities uh I am waiting if the presentation could go up and I'll get started may we please summon the it folks to come out and put on the presentation for the second interim that you have e there we go now we're cooking with fire as they say so uh we are presenting for you today the second interim report which is inclusive of all known expenses through the end of February so remember the process is we adopt the budget in June the first interum covers all expenses and changes in revenues and expenditures through October and the second one covers everything through February and of course then at the end of the year we come back and do from March through the

069end of the fiscal year which is June 30th uh so this report is due uh by March 15th and you can adopt it in one of three ways you can approve it with a positive certification which is staff's recommendation today which means we meet all of our current year expenses and two additional years of expenses you can adopt it as qualified which means we may not meet uh our expenses for the current and two fiscal years or negative which means that we know that we will not at the current time so we are recommending that positive certification for you today some highlights to keep an eye on when we keep uh presenting our budget it's the current year plus two years so this is fiscal year 25 that third year we always say the third

070year out so that's the two additional years that's fiscal year 27 so in the general fund unrestricted which is our main uncommitted operating budget our most flexible money uh our ending balance is projected to be 3 325 million that is $239 million higher than we reported to you at the first interim just a few months ago in December that's largely a result of the hard work in reducing expenditures uh through strategic budgeting general fund for this year at the end of the year uh we are projecting to be at 1,978 million that is $54 million higher than we reported in December at the first interim so we are improving uh increment our our fiscal position uh so that we have a bit more cushion in those out years before any changes are made this is

071just a gentle reminder of the budget timeline so this is where we are in the current fiscal year of course the next step is that we'll be providing updates to the January budget proposal in the May Governor's revise that's in May uh and then in June we'll be coming at the end of June I believe it's on the 17th and then the 25th uh to do the budget hearing and the adoption uh which will be the adoption for next year's budget fiscal year 26 and the next two years in a very similar format so we mentioned Savings in year uh have been realized and that is through our efforts in strategic budgeting uh We've identified efficiencies uh in the current year this is actually a little bit unusual for the district so we are actually

072making changes during the year to the existing budget to try to yield savings not just in the current year but the next two years because we're removing those line items from the budget so what have we re removed uh just looking at the unrestricted general fund we have closed 321 positions that were vacant in the district office in central offices that were vacant for more than 6 months some of them for much longer than that that yielded $50 million of unrestricted general fund savings that's the 54 we said we improved this year about 54 there's about 50 of it and we reduce budget Authority for underspent accounts that means that if we were giving people budget authority of let's say $10 million but they were only spending 9 million year after year we removed that

073additional million that they weren't spending we need that money to not sit on the sidelines because we do have a structural deficit right now so we don't want to leave any money on the sidelines so that was a savings of about $18 million this year and each additional year and we are maximizing restricted funds what does that mean so that means that we move things from the unrestricted side of the general fund to the restricted side so most recently we we re-budget the elop because we were not spending it as quickly as we need to and so in that rebud getting we were able to move some expenses from the restricted side I'm sorry the unrestricted side to the restricted side so we really focused during the interm reports on the general fund this is

074the main operating budget of the school district and these charts all are very similar they're laid out out in the same way at the interim report so you'll see budget adoption first interim remember that was in December and now the second interim today you'll see the changes from one report to the next and that's what we're required to report to you is the changes so the beginning ma balance means the money that we started with in this fund these are often referred to as carry forward or reserves the revenue how much money we're actually getting from state and federal sources throughout the year expenditures how much we plan on spending and how we're doing in that spending plan and then the revenue less expenditure so this number is either positive or negative if it's negative

075then we are spending down those reserves to afford our spending plan and then a projected ending balance for the current year so if we look at all of our general fund both restricted and unrestricted in our beginning balance we've slightly improved it and that was from some audit adjustments of course the audit was presented in December and January to the board and so there were some minor increases to our carry for or our reserves revenues have gone up a little bit this is mostly due to our investments we do invest all of our available cash in the County's investment program as we're allowed to by law and we've yielded slightly more than the average so our revenues are up slightly expenditures are also up mostly because of liabilities that had not been budgeted for liabilities

076also are called settlements or or decisions that we make in legal actions to pay a settlement or a claim against the district I know the board is familiar with those and then the important number to pay attention here is revenue less expenditures so all General funds you are seeing that at the beginning of the year we started with a b777 million projected deficit that was if everybody spent every dollar they were budgeting where we'd be at the end of the year and at this point because expenses have gone up so have revenues a little bit but our net position we are anticipating as much as a $2.2 billion deficit in the general fund by the end of this school year which is of course June 30th then you look at your ending balances and so

077this is where we hear a lot of our colleagues and staff and and as well as ourselves talk in public about the large amount of money that we have saved that's that $6 billion that's up in the beginning balance you can see that we are spending that money to pay for expenses uh that exceed how much money we're taking in and that's what we mean by a structural deficit so that $ 6.3 billion beginning balance ends up being close to at this point being a 4 billion1 188 million ending balance showing you the speed at which we are spending down our reserves now we're going to move just to the restricted side so this is resources that we receive from the state and federal government that are restricted restricted means they are specified and usable

078only for specific purposes these are funds like titles 1 2 3 4 5 and six as well as elop or prop 28 so any of those things that come with restrictions or guidelines that provide instruction to us in how we can spend them this is an interesting slide again laid out the same way the important thing to note here for the board and community and colleagues is that the deficit in our restricted side has increased that's actually very intentional uh so earlier when we said that we were maximizing unrestricted dollars by moving expenses to restricted resources that's what you see going on here so earlier this year and included in the first interim was that we had used the learning recovery emergency block grant to provide general fund relief so that was $700 million of

079this shift uh and so we are making sure that the deficit shows up more in the restricted side it's harder money to spend you always want to spend your hardest money to spend first and so we are demonstrating this practice in our financials the general fund unrestricted this is I like to spend the majority of our time this is the fungible money of the district this is the money that we have the most say over this is the money that the board can can determine how they want to spend it as long as it's for an educational purpose it's our most flexible money so laid out again in the same manner so our beginning balances went up slightly to 4.6 billion right about $10 million difference that's that audit adjustment revenues have actually gone up

080a little bit here and that's our investment return but our expenditures have also gone up a little bit so the net deficit in the general fund unrestricted our most flexible money notice that we've shifted some of those things to the restricted side so our deficit in the unrestricted has gone down from an anticipated adopted budget of almost $1.6 billion of deficit spending we are now down to a projected $1.2 billion of deficit spending leaving us an ending balance in our more Flex ible dollars of about $3.3 billion now I'm going to pause here because I'd like to make a really important point the board has received a tab in its materials it's available to the public we always publish it and it's our cash flow and the important thing to do is to look at

081your cash flow when you're in a net deficit to see if indeed you're really in a true deficit or whether you're in what we call a paper deficit so if the board looks at the cash flow statement you will see that we are spending cash faster than we're taking it in in 10 of the 12 months of the year and the deficit is real so it will account for This 1.2 billion and then there's about another 600 million that we had in restricted cash so you're looking at this point about $1.8 billion Less in the reserves in the savings account at the end of the year I'm pointing it out because we hear all the time the third year never comes our job is to make sure the third year never comes right we don't

082ever want that third year to come so we're improving our position but if you really want to see where the deficit shows up cash is still King when it comes to operating any organization you can see that in the cash flow report and it matches these deficit projections uh fairly radically right on within about aund million so two multi-year projection slides this is again all funds restricted and unrestricted uh this slide I'm going to spend very little time on the blue is the restricted right that's that restricted side you'll notice that we are spending down unspent money in the blue we are trying to make better use of our restricted funds particularly elop and title one which have traditionally been a little UND spent or underutilized so that we give as much fund relief to

083the general fund unrestricted as possible so I'm going to skip and take that blue bar out and just go right to the unrestricted side this is our most spendable cash again and I want to spend a little bit of time on here with the colors of this bar the light blue at the top that is our reserve for economic uncertainties that's 1% of all of our general fund expenditures every year it is statutorily required it is not spendable right so people will often say well how much of this money in the general fund can you spend that's this slide so the blue part you cannot spend it has to be in reserve according to law the orange color are assigned balances and most of those so if you see this year at the end of

084the year we we anticipate $1.2 billion in the orange portion of unrestricted that money sits at school sites that is school sites carry forward it has been the local practice and that is money sitting in school sites so that's also not spendable that actually sits in our local school sites the rest of it is money that the board has set aside to make sure that next year we can still meet our commitment to seni as well as some other commitments that are still in there uh from the past few years remember we Unwound a lot of those which made the green bar grow earlier this year to give us a clearer picture but we still do have some assigned balances notice that that is going down to about a half billion dollars and staying consistent

085after this year so the largest portion is indeed the fungible portion of our budget the money that truly is uncommitted at this time that is money that the superintendent and board have purview over that is the money that is not currently allocated to anything but it is being used to pay for the deficit spending which is why if you look at it you can see it going down this year and the next two years and where we are in fiscal year 27 now fiscal year 27 looks much much better than it did when we started the year at the beginning of the year this was under $50 million we are now at a projected balance of 963 with a small portion of it but growing the 325 being in the unrestricted uncommitted this is just

086a comparison of the first interim in December when we came in front of the board and reported out on the status of the budget and the second interum so you can see that we've slightly improved our position between the blue dotted line and the green line to its right this is also a reminder of what is in the multi-year projection and what is not in the multi-year projection so things that are not in here future changes in compensation uh that would be any changes to our contracts from our labor Partners we don't see any potential reductions in federal funding we do track that as a potential concern uh but until there's an action we would not include it in a report and at this time we are not seeing those reductions although we are concerned

087and monitoring them there are no new programmatic Investments reflected here until the board uh or the superintendent makes such a commitment no unrecognized claims so in other words we don't put something in here that we're guessing at so until we have a claim amount or a settlement amount we do not add it to the budget any of the proposals in the January Governor's proposed budget are not in here except for the cola and the increased revenues for TK to support the 10:1 ratio in TK classrooms which is in the second box right there it is our responsibility to report out to you on other funds that are not the general fund and the importance of this is is really primarily that if your other funds that are associated with our general fund ever go into

088a negative fund balance the general fund which is intended for our TK through 12 students is required to backfill these funds so hypothetically if the adult education program for example went into a negative fund balance the general fund would have to pick it up La has been in that situation for so we monitor These funds and make sure the board is aware of their fiscal Health at every report so you can see the adult education fund has been pretty stable this year they are running about a $17 million a year deficit they do have enough in their own reserves to cover that for about two more years uh but they need to close that up because we do not want to impact the general fund uh before they went into a negative balance it before

089they've eaten up all their reserves in other words the cafeteria fund I I love a bright spot and the cafeteria fund uh just makes me happy to look at it I see folks that are managing their budget very well remember our cafeteria fund also called the nutrition services fund this is reimbursement from the state and federal government as well as a little bit of grant money that they get they they like to get some some Innovative grants like Farm to Table grants this is their money that they manage and you can see they've done a really good job at the beginning of the year their budget reflected a $24 million deficit and you can see that as of the second interim they have closed up expenses and they are projecting an addition to their fund

090balance this year this is the one fund that that's true of always important to manage this fund and monitor it as well because if it ever goes negative it is also the responsibility of the general fund and our Child Development Fund uh so this is for our Littles that have not reached the TK age yet uh throughout the district and you can see that actually this is also a success story they still have a bit of a ways to go but look at how they have been working on their deficit spending so at the beginning of the year they projected about a 50 million deficit and they've already mitigated that uh it's $15 million lower eight months into the year so they're doing a good job of moving forward and they have a couple of

091years worth of reserves too uh to be able to make up that time and and close that Gap so just a reminder of the State fiscal Outlook we did present my myself and Martha in government relations did uh present to the board uh sort of the overall State Outlook uh so it really hasn't changed that much I would just uh advise the board to continue to watch current activity uh we've seen a lot of volatility in the stock market recently that's important in California because the majority of our state revenues actually come from our wealthiest individuals who are paying taxes on gains made through Investments right so seeing the largest drop yesterday so far this year as well as some record setting drops in the S&P uh should cause us a little bit of concern

092unless unless it corrects itself uh so we are not seeing a correction yet but it is something to monitor as well as those potential Federal Cuts so we continue to monitor what is done and said at the federal government and once there's an impact we will make sure that the board is aware all reminder we come back in June to adopt next year's budget and of course we come back after that to close out this year's budget once we close the books and with that we will pause for any questions and I do have my team with me in case it's detailed questions that I miss we do have a procedural matter we have a Time certain of 2:30 for Miss gonz's uh resolution so if if the members of the deas could could remember

093the questions they were going to ask in this very moment and then we will shift to um Miss gones um well I'd love to Mo move version two of this resolution the amendments are at the deis and also uh out in the public area um and and hear from speakers first yeah of course so moved gz and seconded by Mr schmon okay so we have three public uh speakers who are signed up so do we have uh Jorge Bo here come on up sir please take your time you'll have uh some time to address the board when you get here absolutely yes of course let me just turn make sure your mic is on if you could lower the microphone a little bit and then uh once you begin you'll have two minutes to speak

094thank you sir okay thank you um especially board member gones for uh taking leadership and sponsoring this resolution recognizing one of our courageous leaders uh Cesar Chavez and the uh resolution has almost all the important events so you have a great history lesson there I would like to mention that um I taught at San Fernando High School from 1968 to 2002 to and one year 880s we had Cesar chabas uh speak in a schoolwide assembly and I also um was on a picket line when in San the city of San Fernando one year when Cesar Chavez spoke to the picketing workers and Community people and I also was at a Convention of the Union where there were about 1,200 delegates all members of the uh ufw and I was there for that event and so

095probably the one project that most people are familiar with was the great boycott now some of you are a little younger than when that boycott was going on but I wonder if any one of you seven board members remember the grape boycot and that some of you not eat grapes for uh a while I see a few heads shaking well there's a big lesson about that boycott now during that boycott it was mostly workers and volunteers who went through all the major cities in the US oh my goodness please please finish your thoughts you're a guest of the okay I'll finish my thought uh as cesa was organizing the workers to go out on the boycott he told one of the workers you're going to Bar you're going to Boston and they would give him

096a bus ticket and a few dollars and a name or two as a contact and the worker said barsto I know Baro I worked there for a while and SAR says no not barsto Boston and the worker says don't they stop Boston you know the worker said where is Boston well he worked with people like this and yet they organized and successfully took on some of the most powerful uh grocery agricultural interests the country has ever seen and that's a testament to the working people and the teers but also to the genius of Cesar as an organizer and also especially this month to the L wera and I've been here a few times I've never seen a board that has as many women as you do now I I've been here when the board was

097all white men and so congratulations to the muhas on your achievements thank you very much and I would like to present each board member and the superintendent uh this poster by ignasio GES it has all the important events in his life and thank you board member uh board president uh smon because you have helped us in the past and miss gones you have helped us in the past thank you very much thank you for your time sir and maybe before we get to Mr B I'll just mention that Mr Resa in addition to just being a story government teacher at San Fernando High School for many years also educated the likes of US senator Alex badia congresswoman Luc Ras and many more leaders in the northeast San Fernando Valley he continues to be such an

098important Community leader um so thank you Miss aressa for being here and and for continuing your leadership we're so grateful um hi everyone uh my name is Jor Bo I'm a member of the Cesar Chavez commemorative committee and I'm also utla chapter chair for mlay middle school I'm also sped department chair for mlay middle school and I'm also atic dancer fori um I'm here to express my support for all La USD schools participation in the Cesar Chavez March scheduled for March 30th 2025 this event aligns with the spirit of California Senate Bill 984 which established Cesar Chavez Day as a state holiday and emphasized the importance of educating our youth about about his legacy um by participating in this March um it provides an excellent opportunity for our students to engage in a meaningful community-based

099learning experience this event serves as a practical application of the curriculum guided developed by the State Board of Education bringing Cesar Chavez's teachings to life outside the classroom by supporting this March uh board members our LAUSD schools can demonstrate our commitment to Civic engagement and social justice it will provide students with Hands-On learning experience about the farm labor movement Foster a sense of community and shared purpose among our students honor Cesar Chavez's Legacy in a visible and impactful way and for some of our declining pop uh enrollment it will promote School enrollment showcasing a positive School culture environment among students teachers families administrators and staff I believe that participating this March uh followed by classroom discussions and activities in the classroom would create a comprehensive and memorable education experience for our students it would allow

100them to connect historical events with current social issues and Inspire them to become active and informed citizens um one of the main things ladies and gentlemen a lot of La us all USD schools have been participating for the last 33 years and one of the main things things and I am sorry that my time is almost up just give me 10 seconds guys um it makes our students Community contributors it makes them self-directed Learners it makes them effective communicators and it makes them critical thinkers for the past 33 years ladies and gentlemen schools have been participating from LAUSD from bands from clubs from teachers from students from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade Service Learning has been a big impactful thing some of my students have actually gone and done service learning where now

101they are teachers now they're psychologists now they're social workers now they're doing many things in the community and they're trying to give back um some of our board members have also been part of this uh former Monica radliff uh Miss Kelly gones and also other teachers that speakers in in this March I urge you guys to please do what's right and make sure that this becomes a a a powerful movement for our students here in La USD and in the words wise of doesa because it is women's month thank you for your time we have one more speaker uh speaking remotely that's erinda Morita erinda um Believe Miss Morita is going to speak in Spanish so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English as she's speaking Spanish please put your hands up

102and we can get you these translation headsets so miss morit is going to speak in Spanish and you'll be hearing it in Spanish and if you'd like translation headsets please put your hands up and we'll get you Linda Morita good afternoon my name is Alinda Morita the heritage of Mr Chavez he refor he forced himself for the public and to have voice we need to keep in mind that the educa authentic education should focus on giving the best of our students what books can be valuable than the humanity as a mother I ask that you include us in the decision making and in the right of our students we ask for you to listen to our voice we want safety inside the schools we want schools to uh students to prepare themselves we want students

103to be a society that has that has kindness and let's help each other and right now we are seeing many issues with drugs death because of weapons substances therefore we should come together and help each other and this is the legend that he left and to us as Latinos and other races to help each other because we are going through so many problems and we need help from everyone and this is the month of the women congratulations to all women but we also need to come together not be in arguments and we need to be strong to help the rest of the people to help the students that is my that is my thankfulness to Cesar Chavez and to all people that makes this world a better place thank you thank you that concludes the

104public comment for this resolution thank you well I'll just again acknowledge and pay my respects to Mr Bo from mlay middle school who's also an activist and a community leader in Board District Six Mr Alex Resa um as well as Maria Resa his his better half who is a former L teacher administrator and Community leader with feminil kirka Children's Health fund and many other things um we're grateful that you all came down um from the Northeast Valley it's it's a long Trek um Cesar office' fight for justice was never just about Farm Workers it was about dignity human rights and the power of collected action today as we witness the rise of anti-immigrant policies attacks on workers rights and the targeting of our families we reaffirm loudly his call for justice the same struggles that

105Chavez stood against exploitation discrimination over government overreach are happening today across the country there are growing efforts to CRI criminalize immigrants roll back workers protections and separate families our Lu families have already been directly impacted by these senseless and cruel immigration actions javz knew that Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere and as a district we must stand firm in our commitment to protecting and supporting all our students and families this resolution importantly is not just about honoring the past it is about action today we reaffirm our commitment to keeping our schools safe advocating for IM and labor rights and ensuring that no student or family lives in fear I'll note that the resolution has been updated and I appreciate Dr rias's additions to the resolution which emphasize the ways that our communities can

106honor Chavez's Legacy by engaging in Civic action and I would Echo the message of our speakers to urge that our students staff and our broader communities take action March protest get involved make their voices heard in advance of March 31st this year that is a powerful and important way to live out sesar Chavis is Legacy here in the present a heartfelt thank you to my fellow board members for standing in solidarity and supporting this resolution I hope um e laucha Dr Rivas thank you um I'd like to be added please as a co-sponsor for this important resolution honoring The Life and Legacy of sad a Chavis uh thank you board member gones for bringing forth his resolution and for accepting the friendly amendments that you mentioned that added curriculum resources and the inclusion of various

107community events in B2 I just want to read really quickly the the resolve that um was graciously accepted uh resolved that the LUSD Unified School District will provide curriculum and resources aligned with the Cesar Chavez Foundation ensuring students have access to educational materials that highlight the historical and ongoing imp impact of T A Travis's work and social justice labor rights and Community involveed uh Community empowerment um providing these opportunities can help deepen student understanding of social justice labor rights and Community empowerment furthermore highlighting different events such as the march in Paka and the celebration of two added I added two other events the East Los Angeles library um has a wonderful event um for families and also the Family Day LA pla de Cultura in Ares provides our students and staff and Community with multiple

108opportunities to honor his legacy and participate in meaningful um engagement and um unfortunately these were the only two events that I were I was able to um Locate in not only Board District 2 but throughout La so I was very unfortunate uh which is why the march in pomi so important and I hope that with this resolution and moving forward forward particularly as our students are more engaged in um different service projects and learning opportunities that we expand the recognition of this such an important important um hero for a lot of us chos and mexican-americans so thank you for being here and thank you for accepting me as a co-sponsor Arla yes uh first thank you to the Educators who spoke I appreciate your words and the Beautiful poster really appreciate appreciate that um the

109legacy of Cesar Chavez includes one of taking direct action against unjust labor practices and part of the larger civil rights and chicken x movement um Cesar Chavez is a symbol of Courage of love and of justice and as a school district we must follow in his foot in his footsteps and we need to ensure that we do right by our workers by our employees who work hard to provide students with safe clean and VI vibrant learning environments every day it is also important for our students to learn about these historical events and how they can take action against Injustice today our students are in dire need of this kind of activity so I'm grateful that you're presenting this and a great opportunity on Monday for students to March and use their voice to affect change

110thank you yes thank you let me just add that cesa Chavez made it clear that we cherish and we preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens the community and exra and also our nation so we must always remember this important Legacy always remember thank you Mr Melo sure just a brief note um I'd also like to be added as a co-sponsor and appreciate the folks coming in thank you for this uh as well I think we have a poster in our office of Cesar and um uh Bobby Kennedy the the better Bobby Kennedy um uh and I remember being at the the old Ambassador Hotel you know our RFK schools a few years ago celebrating the the lot of 50th anniversaries with uh colleagues on the board and and honoring the legacy

111of Cesar um and Miss wera was there as well I just wanted to pull up one of my one of my favorite um sayings or quotes of of Cesars which is so important for this time is that you cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read you cannot humiliate the person who feels pride and you cannot oppress the people who are no longer afraid uh and I think it's that Legacy that continues especially through the dark days that we're facing right now so thank you all so much thank you Miss gonz and uh appreciate uh being a co-sponsor eching the sentiment of gratitude thank you so much it's a beautiful poster I look forward to posting this in my AP government class um the legacy of J Chavis is deeply personal not only for

112me but for many students across our district the fight was never just about wages or working conditions it was about dignity it was about ensuring that those who feed this nation are never forgotten that their sacrifices are honored and that their struggles are recognized too often we learn about history as if it only exists in our past but the battles s chave fought are still being waged today Farm Workers continue to endure exploitation students from workingclass families still face systemic barriers to higher education and communities of colors are still struggling to be heard I look forward to co-sponsoring this resolution as more than a celebration it is a call to action C is not just a chant of the past but rather a declaration of our fight in the present because a fight for justice

113the fight for human dignity in our immigrant communities and farm worker communities are not over and it is one and it is students who continue to be at the Forefront of this fight and I look forward to seeing how students continue to be empowered civically and use their voice to wrot out hatred and Injustice especially in these politically divided times thank you so much got he going after you but I do want to say thank you um and for bringing this forward and for the words that we heard today um and in the words of sister SZ one of the quotes that he does say and share with us pertinent today true wealth is not measured in the money or status or power it is measured in the Legacy We Leave Behind for those we

114love and for those we Inspire and I appreciate you sharing your story because as you share stories as we do um that is the Legacy we continue to educate our students through our stories and I appreciate you and your service to our educator to our education system and to our students so thank you for sharing this and thank you for our gift as well thank you thank you so much and let me just add one more person to the thank yous and that's Maria Risa because I think I know her more than anyone up here she has dedicated her life to the children of the San Fernando Valley as a teacher and as an assistant superintendent and always always fighting for the children always fighting for the children so Maria thank you also thank you

115and uh before we vote I I'll just note the March the annual March for justice in pcoa is Sunday March 30th starts at 10:00 a.m. so we encourage all district students um families in the community to join us for that March we look forward to it okay so we'll take the vote I do need to take the vote on the rule 72 waiver I forgot to do that Maya Copa moved by Dr revas second okay and seconded by um Miss gonz so one moment so we'll vote on that first and then we'll vote on the underlying motion which has already been underlying res which has already been moved in second and so uh Miss nuel yes Dr revas yes Mr melne yes Miss Grio yes Miss gonz yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president schm

116yes and student board member Lopez cour yes okay and now for the actual resolution Miss nubil yes Dr revas yes yes m okay Mr meloy see there you go Miss griga yes Miss gones yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president schmon yes and student board member Lopez Cortez oh and Mr McLean can you add me as a co-sponsor too please absolutely thank you we can clap after that one if you guys [Applause] want okay um well the time is now 3 p.m. and we have another another time certain so we're going to hit that time certain now it's for tab um opposing um I think there's a photo being taken okay yeah yeah e I'm in the middle right here all right thank you you okay so we have a Time certain for tab 27

117expanding opportunities celebrating dual enrollment awareness there's also um looks like some Amendments have been made some friendly amendments or amendments by the resolution maker herself Dr revas so we have copies of those to the de and copies in the back if anyone needs them and they'll be posted online shortly um this also requires a rule 72 waiver so um one two may as well do the rule 72 waiver now so move by Miss gones second seconded by Mr schmon so we'll take a quick vote on just the rule 72 waiver so miss newbill out there somewhere Dr Ras yes Mr melin Miss grigo yes Miss gonz yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president schmon yes and student board member uh Lopez Cortez yes all right so can I have a move in a second to

118bring this motion to the table to discuss and talk about can I move it yeah I'll move all right Dr Reas has moved it and board president shlon has seconded could also wait until everyone's back too for this part I'll go ahead and start it while we wait yeah awkward silence here um um first of all I'm honored to introduce the resolution expanding opportunities and celebrating dual enrollment awareness month this resolution is a testament to our District's commitment to providing Equitable access to high quality education opportunities for all of our students and to the transformational power of dual enrollment dual enrollment is a critical pathway way to Student Success it accelerates academic progress Bridges the gap between high school and college and provides students with invaluable Real World experience the data is clear dual enrollment

119significantly increases College retention completion rates and ultimately career Readiness it empowers our students spe especially those from historically un underserved communities to achieve their full potential I want to express my sincere gratitude to The District staff who have dedicated so much time and energy to promote dual enrollment with our students and families in particular I want to acknowledge Dr Francis bayz Brenda pensamiento and Shelley alaves whose expertise and commitment Have Been instrumental in advancing the district's du the enrollment work and their their dedication to our students is truly commendable so thank you uh this resolution designates March as dual enrollment Awareness Month and it also reinforces our commitment to fostering a culture of academic excellence and career Readiness it highlights The Proven benefits of dual enrollment including increase uh College retention completion rates enhance Workforce

120Readiness particularly for our black and latinx students who often face opportunity gaps and easing the financial burden of college particularly taking all of those student loans the strength of his resolution lies in his collaborative nature we want to recognize the vital contributions of our College partners and for Board District 2 it has been East Los Angeles College and the California Community Foundation together we are working to provide our students with the tools they need to succeed in college and Beyond we are we are also highlighting all of the district's vital College Partners within the Los Angeles Community College District such as Los Angeles City College Los Angeles Harbor College Angeles Mission College Pierce College um La Trade Tech Southwest College Valley College and West Los Angeles College lastly the resolution calls for a pro comprehensive

121report by December 2025 on the district's dual enrollment programs this will enable the district to gather data on our existing work establish a clear Baseline of student participation and support and lead to concrete three-year goal goals for Student Success and this is just the beginning the hope is this report will provide a road map for expanding and improving duelan Roman opportunities in alignment with the district's strategic plan I'd also like to acknowledge the tireless work of blanca Gomez dean of Outreach and recruitment in East Los Angeles College Jack suas uh sua Laris Community Affairs Deputy on my staff on bd2 Whose dedication has been very instrumental in advancing dual enrollment and their work on this resolution I'm proud to have joined be joined by student Board member Miss Cortez Lopez serving as co-author and to

122ensure our students voices are at the Forefront of this initiative and that our students have the opportunities they deserve I now yield to miss ctez Lopez for her remarks thanks much for the introduction for Dr R Ras for two long students from historically marginalized background groups have been tone directly or either indirectly that higher education is just not for them whether it's your community your background your socioeconomic status they felt as though it was not in their reach but dual enrollment is a powerful equalizer for that it is more than a program it is a line to success in higher education it is a pathway for college for students who might have believed it never could have been possible I know students who have walked onto a college campus for the first time because of

123dual enrollment who have realized that in those classrooms with these professors that they are just as capable just as intelligent and just as worthy as anyone else to be in a room and deserving of a higher education it provides students with confidence college credits and unwavering belief in themselves to show them that they belong in these classrooms by passing this resolution we are not only recognizing dual enrollment awareness month but are making a commitment to expand these programs break down barriers and to ensure that every student has access to college level courses I've heard a plethora of support from students who support the collaboration with the Los Angeles Community College District that have access to a plethora of courses on a multitude of campuses whether it's a high schooler a middle schooler a title one

124or non-title one school part of the reason why the collaboration with laccd is so supported is due to its accessibility and sentim and its sentiment to ensure that every student regardless of where they come from has access to a campus near them a student in South La can visit a school can visit Los Angeles Southwest College a student East LA EAS of Lake Community College and so on it's accessibility to academically rigorous and skill enriching courses is why we present this resolution here today let this be the district where opportunity is not dictated by privilege zip code but by potential and let us say that to every student embarking on their dual enrollment Journey that your future starts now and we will stand with you every step of the way thank you thank you Miss

125CZ Lopez beautifully beautifully said uh so we're very both excited to introduce his resolution and now we want to share that excitement with you by bringing forward some important voice voices from our community I'd like to invite Miss Dr Miguel anel duas vice president of student services at East East Los Angeles College a proud product of La USD and Bell High School Miguel um Dr I'm sorry Dr duas um has dedicated his career to Student Success with over 20 years of experience in LUSD and now at East LA College and his leadership is in instrumental in our partnership with Los Angeles Community College District uh Dr DZ thank you so much the floor is yours well thank you very much uh greeting board members uh board president Schon vice president Rosio Ras uh superintendent carvalo

126greetings on behalf of uh uh super I'm sorry Chancellor Chancellor robberto Roman on behalf of laccd we are so pleased to be here to to speak on behalf of do enrollment speak on behalf of the opportunities that D Roman that provides for our students in our community I believe that the partnership that we have has yielded great success for our students but not just them but also in our community as some of the work that has been done around this uh the UC Davis wheelhouse has conducted a research that identified that in California high school students there about 12% of high school students participate in dual enrollment the national average is 11% we are on our way we are on our way to make a difference provide students the opportunity to get their F their

127first step in the class I'm sorry in the college classroom from a safe environment from their from their school School site AB 28 ab30 have provided opportunities for us to expand the work that we've done around dual enrollment with K12 districts this is important because this is the the the support that we need to expand the work expand the word and opportunities for our community our expansion of our partnership leads to more opportunities for our students to find find their way to education higher ed and to the workforce uh through inclusivity of our leadership Partners as mentioned earlier Brenda and and Shelly that are so instrumental to working alongside with our vice our Deputy Chancellor Al Nicole alal Lopez have risen the collaboration that La unified and La CD have seen I've been doing this

128work for about 10 years when I transitioned from La UniFi to elac and I've just seen the tremendous growth this is this is exciting to see this but along this journey we need to have our students present we need to have our our schools side staff present and our parents and community members this is a family affair this is something that we all need to do together to ensure that our students students have access to uh education and on the words of our our Chancellor education is a great equalizer and we believe that is so true so thank you very much and I will introduce Vince let me in thank you Dr doas and now i' like to invite uh Mr Vince flowers senior program officer of Youth Development at the California Community Foundation uh

129Mr flowers brings nearly two decades of experience working with educational and government agencies and his current work with the ready to rise partnership demonstrates his deep commitment to positive Youth Development we're gra grateful for ccf's support and partnership and expanding dual enrollment opportunities thank you Mr flowers thank you so as was just said I have the privilege of serving as a senior program officer of Youth Development at the California Community Foundation and ccf's mission is to improve the lives of those who live work and play in LA and we've been doing that for over a hundred years and along those lines we're excited to sit share that over the last 10 years since 2015 we've awarded more than $2.3 billion to Our Community Partners uh including L USD and so one and one of our

130top priorities is to advocate for a high quality education for all students and that's why we created our broaden initiative and broaden stands for it's an acronym which stands for broadening the dual enrollment narrative and we're really trying to help shift The Narrative and change the narrative from dual enrollment is for privileged students to dual enrollment is for all students and why is it important that we democratize dual enrollment because I like to say dual enrollment isn't College preparation it's college practice dual enrollment isn't college readiness it's College rigor and dual enrollment isn't College dreaming it's College doing and so we really want to I want to take this opportunity to thank board member revas board member Cortez Lopez as well for introducing this important resolution that designates March as dual enrollment this month thank

131you very much thank you so much and lastly finally I'd like to invite Miss Ashley Lis a 16-year-old Junior from City of Angels and chairperson of her schoolside Council to share her experience Ashley is a dedicated student has been actively involved in dual enrollment since her freshman year her leadership and commitment to amplifying student voices and truly inspiring uh so as Ashley comes forward please come forward to the microphone and I just want want to say that she is a remarkable remarkable scholar and she has been participating in our dual enrollment webinars and is she's just fabulous so go ahead Ashley thank you for being here thank you so much so I have could you hear me could you hear me now okay can you hear me now can you hear me now okay so

132I've been taking taking many du enrollment courses starting from my freshman year to my current junior year and I have gained many valuable insights from College and Career Readiness through taking the courses and I am currently pursuing multiple AA degrees and a certificate in the field that I am interested in and all of the community college courses I have taken has expanded my knowledge on what to expect when I become a full-time college student and considering that a vast majority of L USD are low income as myself this opportunity will prepare them not only for college but it would also prepare them and their families and it will save them money and time this opportunity will certainly encourage them to pursue a higher education and I find it crucial for others to be made aware

133of do enrollment and how to start to expand their knowledge and learning opportunities I'm also very grateful that I was given the opportunity to facilitate the do enrollment webinar that was hosted by Dr Ras and her team I have spoken at the webinar starting from last semester to this semester and I have been able to speak to students and families about college resources and giving advice from my personal experience the webinars have been very informative and have helped many families um and students to learn about do enrollment and the process and how to get started with taking a college classes and I also wanted to mention that taking these college classes and being part of of Dr Ras student advisory Council and speaking at facilitating her meetings the webinars they have improved my leadership skills

134and advocacy skills which encouraged me to run for the Youth seat in my neighborhood Council and I was inspired by Dr Ras to continue to bring awareness about resources U one being du enrollment not only for the district but also to my community thank you well I'm so glad I was in neighbor Council myself so you're my footstep that's great uh so thank you Dr duas Mr flowers and Ashley for your powerful testimonies your support underscores the importance of this resolution and its potential to tr to transform or continue to transform lives of our students and families we appreciate your partnership and advocacy and now I yield back the floor to Mr McLean or any of my colleagues who wish to speak or yeah I don't know you were so popular Dr Reas really that's

135wonderful it's so nice uh I think the nicest part about this dual enrollment is when our kids go to a community college and see that they actually can do it and do it well it encourages them to continue going and I know that in my area of Board District 3 we have uh Valley College and we have um Pierce College and many many of the students are coming out with one or or two associate of Arts degrees it's amazing and if you remember Mr carvalo you and I went to Harvard prep College this young man had three AA degrees so it's just amazing what kids can do kids what what students can do when they put their mind to it so thank you for for bringing this up and I want to co-sponsor your resolution

136if I may okay thank you so appreciative of this coming um forth because I so many times I go in the community and when you share that the dual enrollment opportunities are there so many families are like I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know and so I think this just amplifies the importance of us being able to share with our families and our students that this opportunity is there and it's a ailable and just the um the opportunities when you share that someone can have an associates degree uh and starting at ninth grade to be able to unfold this so I am so grateful and as mentioned um some of our schools within our communities uh that already share some of the uh schools on site and I am proud to say I'd

137love to co-sponsor thank you I see Tanya with a comment thank you I too would love to co-sponsor and I have one tiny little amendment I hope would be considered friendly not sure if we would need to vote on it um but just in the fourth resolve to further enhance student participation I'd love to add and equity in dual enrollment programs um just those two words and Equity I think a a paper copy went around um but really excited to get the report from staff and and dig in to see where we're doing really well and where we can grow and I know this District is committed to equity so I'd love to add those two words if that would be amendable to the authors yes of course thank you uh accepted okay accepted so

138we were not going to vote on this thank you thank you so much Kelly yeah um I will also thank um Dr drias and our amazing student board member for your leadership and reinforcing our commitment to dual enrollment and expanding the opportunities for our students we know that dual enrollment means um making College truly affordable and accessible to all um but I particularly want to appreciate just the focus on historically underserved schools and ensuring all of our students within our schools have access to higher education um this is work that we do in Board District 6 in partnership with La Mission College and Valley College who are wonderful partners and I know this resolution is just going to build on the great legacy that we already have in La unified around access to dual enrollment

139um and I would also love to be added as a co-sponsor thank you wonderful Nick yeah just briefly again I appreciate the resolution would love to add be added as a co-sponsor um I think additionally um or in addition to dual enrollment programs for our students thinking about how we can better partner with the LA Community College District in other aspects would be helpful um I was just at the groundbreaking of one of their new academic buildings at Valley at Pierce College a few weeks ago and talking to them about right across the street we have West Valley Occupational Center and we both have interest in building Workforce or student housing or family housing and those are two properties that we've spoken about that have tons of has land um Dr sa who is the

140new Vice Chancellor and head of facilities has also graciously joined my facilities and procurement committee at La unified to help share best practices uh on the public infrastructure side so just want to note that in addition to the dual enrollment thinking through you know I've I've joked uh that we should just kind of annex the Community College District uh it's a joke but I think when we think about like students uh kind of the pre adult Pipeline and you know finding out if you're a student in the valley who's at Taft High School and down the street you have Pierce College and West Valley Occupational Center what are your options with LA unified and the Community College District and how do we navigate that and then just work U best together on behalf of our

141constituents in this case students so love to be at as a co-sponsor and appreciate the report that will come out of this car yeah I appreciate this and I I one of the things that I'm hoping for is that we will be able to expand this right I know at my daughter School the dual enrollment class could only be held during a certain period And if your schedule didn't allow for it you couldn't be part of that dual enrollment program and so I also hope that we are intentional in really uh encouraging our black students our latinx students our students with disabilities uh to also enroll this in in these classes thank you for bringing this forth yes thank you thank you for all the co Partners I really appreciate that yes this is the

142first step and this can like I said this is there's more to come there's so much more potential and this part ship um I can think of even um community service right maybe having something where students can get some Community Service uh credits I don't know I mean the the there's Limitless potential on what can come out of this partnership so appreciate that yes thank you very much Mr Crane Mr Crane Mr McLean so sorry I'll take that as a compliment maybe some way he's here somewhere in spirit we do have public speakers to this item well I'll call the folks who are in person first and then we will transition to the folks who are waiting on the phone uh Nikolai Robin are you here I'm sorry he's Ryan Chu are you in person

143here Ryan Chu not here how about Jana kuang are you here come on up Miss kuang you'll have two minutes to speak once you be begin can you hear me okay um Hello thank you board members and superintendent carvalo for your time my name is Jana kuang and I'm a freshman at Abraham Lincoln High School I am also a member of the superintendent student advisory Council of La USD I recently took two college classes last semester du through dual enrollment students can take college level courses while still in high school which gives them a head start in their education not only does this allow students to experience the academic challenges of college life but it also helps them accumulate college credits that can reduce the time and cost of earning a degree the professors are

144very knowledgeable and experienced providing Insight on the subjects that they teach for example one of my professors last semester is also a probations officer she informed me of she informed my class of real world examples of what she had done in her line of work allowing me to synthesize what I learned from the course and apply it to real life situations I personally want to go into a future career linked to law but my school doesn't offer courses in that pathway if it weren't for the administration of justice dual enrollment class I wouldn't have been able to learn more about what I am interested in I was even able to experience writing and drafting a research paper receiving valuable feedback that I can now use one of the most significant benefits of dual enrollment is

145that it opens up higher education to a more diverse group of students regardless of social economic background for students who might not otherwise have access to college preparatory resources or who might face Financial barriers due enrollment can be a pathway to Affordable college credits often at no additional cost this can be particularly valuable for particularly valuable for students who may not have the means to attend a four-year University right away or who want to get a jump start on their col college education while still in school encouraging more students to take advantage of dual enrollment ensures that education becomes a more accessible to all creating a greater equity in the college growing program by participating in these programs students can graduate from college sooner saved money on tuition and potentially set themselves up for greater

146future success all while gaining valuable exposure to the academic and professional world thank you thank you for your time I'll call on Ryan Chu again are you in the room Mr Chu okay so the remote speaker is Nikolai Robin Nikolai Robin uh Robin online all right uh thakur Singh I see you're online please press star six to unmute yourself Zur Singh please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon thank you happy Tuesday I am theur Singh I am an LUSD junor at the leadership and public service Virtual Academy and a member of the government relations student Leadership Council here today to speak in support of the resolution by board members Dr Rivas and Cortez Lopez on the matter of dual enrollment dual enrollment has

147made a tremendous difference in my life I started taking college courses last year and they've been key to advancing my education expanding my knowledge and preparing me for the future but it's not just about academics it's about making higher education more accessible and affordable for students like me as the son of a single mother who fled domestic violence and who raised my sister and I all on her own my family has experienced many struggles just like many families across the district we've experienced homelessness living in shelters and fighting for stability but dual enrollment has helped me gain college credits while in high school allowing me to save thousands of dollars on tuition in the future that's money I won't have to worry about and it's a huge weight lifted off my shoulders this isn't true

148for just me this is true for many of my close friends and my sister who also recently began taking dual enrollment and can open doors for many others dual enrollment is an opportunity for all students especially those who face Financial challenges to get ahead reduce costs and build a brighter future it will put LUSD further ahead of the nation as my peers and I excel and raise the roof of achievement higher and higher this is about giving everyone a chance to succeed regardless of their background and building a brighter future for all so I urge you to support this resolution when we make dual enrollment accessible to all we invest in the future of students like me and ensure that no one is Left Behind thank you so much for your time have a great

149day bye bye thank you thank you for your time Michael ision I see you're signed up to speak remotely but I I don't see you online are you in the room Michael I Elana arega I see you're online please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Elana arega hi can everyone hear me yeah please go ahead okay good afternoon everyone my name is Alon I got in a junior at University High School charter a region West tile one school and a proud member of the student empowerment unit when I returned to the US for high school after being in Ethiopia for Middle School my ninth and 10th grade math credits I took in eth grade were accepted this setback could have slowed me down but dual

150enrollment changed that for me last year I had the opportunity to accelerate my learning by completing Algebra 2 and PR calculus in person at East Al Community College and because I completed both with an a I'm now an AP Calculus this is the first time anyone had ever done this in the history of my school but I was only able to do it because I took advantage of doing it starting in nth grade I've taken courses like biotechnology web development with HTML robotics Spanish and Python Programming with West Val Community College by June next year I'll be graduating with two Associates degrees but not only that I've been able to take even more AP classes within school because I took required classes like Spanish through dual noral this is one of the reasons why I'm

151running first in my grip these casses have truly expanded my academic knowledge and helped me explore potential career path as someone inspiring to become a neurosurgeon these experiences have been invaluable I know other students will value it as much as I have as well but most importantly like one of the board members amended I believe this resolution is about equity and ensur that we have the opportunity to grow and dream bigger without Financial or systemic barriers holding our back thank you so much for your time and your consideration thank you for your time salik Manan salik please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin salik mean good afternoon and I hope you all are doing well my name is solic mean and I attend chapis Charter

152High School and I'm calling to offer my support for the dual enrollment board resolution I believe that dual enrollment is a pivotal opportunity for students in high school and uplift students to explore diverse careers mining schools limit the number of classes a student can take to only six in one year to graduate there are a number of required courses that limit the amount of free space the student has to explore different fields for students in a magnet program stem program or other program the number of required courses increases further restricting how many electives the student could take on their own for that reason dual enrollment offers a versatile and rewarding alternative students may take as many classes in dual enrollment as they wish to take on and dual enrollment itself is very flexible allowing students

153to complete a course asynchronously if they choose to dual enrollment classes include Arts stem and any career that students wish to pursue and dual enrollment gives students a preview into what their college experience may look like and also gives them a new route to ensure they graduate on time and are prepared to take on higher education in the past I've taken two dual enrollment classes one was introduction to music and the other was an economic class in both experiences the professors were extremely informative and supportive the coursework was accessible and engaging and absolutely opened my eyes to a new topic that I would not have been able to squeeze into my school schedule otherwise I found my love for economics through this class and I wish to go on hopefully to study it further in

154college dual enrollment is an Avenue for learning like no other its flexibility and engagement allows students more autonomy and opportunity to take charge of their education SCH enrollment is a key experience in the students High School careers and the educational value it brings must be recognized and honored thank you so much for your time thank you for your time Stephanie lerde I see you're online Stephanie lerde please press start six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Stephanie lde hello can you hear me yes please go ahead okay thank you good afternoon my name is Stephanie Landa from Carson High School and I'm calling to offer support for the dual enrollment board resolution I believe that dual enrollment funds every student's education and paves the way for higher education

155I believe that having the expansive amount of Cl class cataloges is beneficial for students across the district District my experience in taking dual enrollment classes starts all the way from my nth grade year it's been nothing but insightful and just life-changing I was able to be exposed to classes that go further than what is offered at my school I took philosophy and astrology and those classes are apart from the regular cours work that high school students take and I found what I'm really truly passionate about and it's all through dual enrollment it has been insightful to explore courses that I have not have been able to have access to otherwise and because of dual enrollment kids like me from different backgrounds have access to these opportunities and have access to the pathway to higher education

156allowing dual enrollment creates early exposure to experience college level courses and it's so important especially because of systemic Soo socioeconomic factors that have hindered the ability for students from underserved communities to attend and Excel in college because of dual enrollment kids like me from communities that are from Title One schools have the ability to access these courses and feel more confident in going into college and feel more confident to be ready and prepared and to be successful thank you thank you for your time uh Valentine shinaman I see you're signed up to speak remotely but I do not have you signed in are you in the room Valentine that concludes public comment on Tab 27 it's now time for a vote if appropriate following the vote I'd like to just take a quick break for

157us to take a photo of this momentous occasion okay okay ready okay roll call vote Miss newbill yes Dr Ras yes Mr melbin yes M Grio yes Miss gonez yes Miss Ortiz Franklin we will come back to miss Ortiz Franklin board president schmon yes in student board member Lopez CZ yes okay passes and then you're going to take a [Applause] photo e e great I wrote in the thank you so AB thank you everybody so Mr Mount I believe that you uh are um coming back to answer a few questions that the board may have following your uh the presentation that you have already concluded so if the the board members could reorient themselves to the second interim discussion Mr Mount would you like the slides up there for your use in case they're referenced

158or that's up to you yes okay for already up that's good e e okay so like I like I had mentioned I think there's some questions about the second interum let me um get my comments and questions here okay so okay so I'll start so on page um three of the highlights of the second interim I just want to read off and then I'll follow up with my question um it says on sorry it's on page page three I don't know which version of the board book it is but it says um one of the bullet points for fiscal year 25 26 and 27 La unified is projected to meet its Financial commitments while maintaining the statutory one 1% reserve for economic uncertainties however there is a projected reduction of 377 million in the local

159Reserve fund 17 which we voted not too long ago from 5% to 2% which is necessary to meet Financial commitments um and then it goes on to say on the reserve level section in addition an additional local Reserve 593 million is in the newly established fund 17 uh Special Reserve for other other than capital outlay projects which is approx which approximates 5% of the local Reserve approved by the board um and it is still anticipated that funds will need to be transferred from fund 17 to the general fund of fiscal year 26 and 27 thereby reducing the local Reserve to 2% so I just wanted to read that so the public knows um the questions that I'm asking so my question to you is um fund 17 is projected to decrease as I mentioned can

160you clarify the process of withdrawing funds from fund 17 does this uh I wasn't since we voted on it I was under the impression that uh the board had to approve on a separate board item uh to to approve such withdrawal um but now that it's here on this report so us voting for this for yes on this for second interim is it also included that we're moving These funds from fund 17 by voting on this yes it's actually an affirmation uh the board approved it uh to be managed in that way when we adopted it at the first interim uh to use fund 17 in year three to make sure that we were in positive certification so that's actually just remained the same and it's restated in the second inter room um so my

161qu my other subsequent questions so the um California Department of Ed includes a nonspendable clash portion of the general fund balance as well as a fund 17 in the minimum Reserve calculation is that correct yes yes uh why is it not reflected in the slides or in your presentation on the unrestricted ending balances or in the multi-year projections or why was there no mention of fund 17 in your presentation just it was there but we actually haven't done anything new with it since the first interum report so the interims are to reflect any changes from the last time we reported so the activity happened at first we haven't done anything different with with fund 17 since then so you didn't need you didn't feel like it needed to be highlighted again since no it's it's

162in there just as a reminder but nothing new happened y okay nothing new happened um and lastly according to uh the standardized account code structure saxs forms in the second intern report the board approved operating budget for professional Consulting Services um that has been there's been an increase of 122% from the original budget budget uh from 339 million to 7754 million um is there a reason for such a significant increase and are we looking into uh really exploring the professional uh Consulting Services as a way to reduce our budget no Professional Services is a group of procurement so every time that you approve a procurement that is not for a commodity it adds to the amount that we're spending throughout the year or that we are are marking for those Professional Services so that's everything

163from like the tutoring bench to the Arts bench or anything like that it's not necessarily for a consultant they're referred to as Professional Services and it includes all of those items which are provided for outside of Staff of the district so if these These funds are in spent on in a particular time span does it return back to the general fund or how well so when you pass items on your procurement agenda and and particularly for Professional Services typically for three four or five years and there's a maximum value established so one of a number of things happen either they hit the maximum value before the contract is ended in which case they might bring it back to you and ask for more value to be added to it but you're actually not allocating funds

164to that Professional Services you're establishing a cap and then the Departments or the schools that are sponsoring that contract are using their funds to access it to the maximum value you establish so as they do that and that's actually a part of your expenditure report that sort of of uh itemized in the procurement section as they do that throughout the year that's the addition you're seeing to Professional Services or or con what they call Professional Services or Consultants vendors that are not staff right and so that keeps going higher as the year goes on until the end of the year captures all of their spend in that category and then we restart again in July one at zero so for instance like as I me as I asked if the threshold isn't met or it

165hasn't been spent do we revise it take a look at it and say okay maybe we need to adjust these numbers I know sometimes it does come to the board but is there um another process where it doesn't come to the board and you make those adjustments automatically uh we do not make Financial adjustments automatically so the we cannot exceed the value that the board establishes in aggregate but most of those are for three to five year periods of time so I think that a lot of people sometimes forget all of the contracts that are out there that people are charging against it's only when we exceed that maximum that we bring it back and we ask for an amended value uh from the board uh at times if it's a centrally funded contract or

166bench of contracts that's being sponsored by for example a district office then we would also bring it back and if they're paying for it then you would not just see a dollar amount maximum but they would identify that they're paying for it centrally versus it just being an open contract or bench for everybody to I just I wanted to add a little part of the actually exercise that we've gone through is reviewing existing contract authori to actually reduce our spend against those contracts so to what Chris is saying is we don't exceed what's been authorized but we are going through division by division contract by contract to see when are there opportunities to reduce spend against those contracts and then right siiz them so that we're actually not obligating ourselves to Future spend that we

167don't need and that that's exactly what I was trying to get that okay thank you thank you for those ones Mr superintendent do you want to say something that's the point I was going to make so he spoke about the possibility of a contract being exceeded which would require board approval what I was going to mention is as Pedro said we are strategically review budget to actual so specific to contracts this is what we budgeted but this at the end of the the day or the Year this is what we spent and uh we adjust that so that those dollars either revert back to the general fund or their account to be used for other purposes thank you and one last question this is a question I get all the time so I just want

168to just for public you know disclosure um the books and supplies budget has grown from 1.2 billion in the original budget to 1.9 billion in the current operating budget uh why such a significant increase and do the are these numbers which um these numbers seem to be much higher in 23 24 actuals as well as the current projections of 24 25 25 26 and 26 27 uh why is there such a contrast between budgets and actuals in this category just so if you can just on that just a just a general Trend I think it's a few different things so number one uh books and supplies in other words buying things is is much easier and faster to get to the school site so our school sites uh can access those items very quickly right

169and is as well as instructional materials right so they can access those things very rapidly and so they're easy to buy and have delivered almost immediately to the school site so it's a very easy transaction the other thing is that uh our practice has gone from 100% carry forward for our local sites we've been doing the um I'm going to get it right here the 60 no uh 90 8070 so the the clawback um for uh underspent carry forward and when we do that it's incentivizing people to spend right so they're spending down their carry forward so we have seen an increase in expenditures over the last two years since we implemented that as people are trying to spend down their carry forward thank you that all thanks you back Carla yeah I had um

170a question regarding assigned um there was I'm trying to find it now it's a one page I think it's page 13 in your book um was it maybe um yeah I had it and now I lost it but there's a line that says assigned and so can you explain what that is and sure you have a schedule of all the assignments uh Victoria is that page 13 is that correct yes it is page 13 in your book uh so we used to have multiple pages of assignments and commitments and one of the first exercises we did this year was We went through and that's the orange portion of the bar in your multi-year projection we went through and it used to be much larger and the green portion was much smaller and we released all

171the ones that had aged we hadn't been reviewing them on a regular basis and vetting them so we released them so the remaining ones that are there the first group of them that you see are all school specific so you'll see things in there like uh filming Revenue so some of our school sites are used as filming sites and they get to keep a portion of those proceeds and they get to keep it in their piggy bank until such time as they spend it so that whole top portion the majority of the lines are specific to schools or programs that have money set aside they don't get a new allocation every year it's just money that they've saved in a very specific restricted type of money that is just staying at their school until they

172spend it uh and then you'll see a couple that are centrally managed so you'll see one for example for 300 million that says syny and you'll notice that that orange goes down significantly that 300 million was set aside so that we could fully fund senny next year in next year's budget because we knew that we weren't going to have enough revenues to keep funding it so we at the full amount so we set it aside to make sure that we had the full amount for next year's budget um and there's a couple of others in there that say to be released so one of that one of those is the actual money that's been taken back from carry forward and is being held centrally so you see a couple of those tsp uh hold back

173centrally a CI hold back centrally and so those are releasable by the board uh or or the superintendent in the future per the memos that were released on those topics and they're released for those particular assignments or they're released for they're currently held the ones you see centrally are held until they're released for one of the items that was specified in the memo which was fiscal distress distress a Central Central Sunny program uh funding allocation or onetime amounts that come up that are not covered anywhere else for s I see is that um would that be something what would be an example that that for a School site let's say so we've reviewed with uh board members how we go in when there's an a request for funding and we make sure that the school

174or the the district uh region District doesn't have the funds and if there is a real need and that's a collaborative process that's done by ourselves and instruction uh and and the regions and there's a need but the funding isn't there that's one the things that we would take out of that I see all right thank you sure Charlotte just for clarification uh Dr Rosia had mentioned um uh she said materials and I'm not sure on page 13 of this particular it says lower projected textbook expenditures is reflected in this second inim how is that different or the same or is it yeah so textbooks are included in a special item called instructional materials textbooks are pre-approved by the board and they can be spent at any time either to purchase replacement books or to

175make sure that a site can meet its Brown requirements instructional materials are are pre-approved so they're associated with one of our curricula and they don't need approval because the board's already adopted them and so schools are buying extras or they're buying consumables or they're buying support materials and so we haven't spent as much in that category this year the other category that's gone way up that you heard about was books and supplies and materials that's everything else that hasn't been pre-approved but is under the purview of a School site to purchase at need got it and then um you mentioned just for clarification you said something about the hardest money to spend in the beginning can you explain to us what is the hardest money to spend restricted funds uh so it's it's called the

176first dollar principle we always want the first dollar we spend to be the hardest money so that we have the easiest money to spend that's left over more flexibility for the school board uh so the hardest money for example the most specific in the district is probably nutrition services money right it can only be used to fund a food service program for students at a reimbursable rate it it can't be used for anything else Bond money it can only be used for capital projects by law or for those that are working full-time to develop those capital projects it cannot be used for anything else so first dollar principle is spend your hardest money first in which ever way you can leaving the most flexible money for the Board of Education to have authority over got

177it and then um one other thing I wanted to ask you mentioned on the cafeteria we talking about nutrition money that that obviously brought um these are reimbursable funds are these reimbursable funds through state or federal funds yes yes so and I and I say that intentionally so I'm sure you remember during covid when the governor said hey you only get X number of cents per meal I want to match it so that the that that not only is the meal higher reimbursement but we're also going to give you money for any student that doesn't qualify for a federally sponsored meal because we want every school to be able to every student to be able to access meals at a school site and we do a breakfast a lunch and a program and snacks so

178all of those are the reimbursables some from the state some from the federal some from both and that's how we see uh kind of no change but kind of not a negative they're actually they started at a negative and they've really worked to cut their expenses and get more students participating which really drives them getting more reimbursements so they've done a nice job this year at that that's what that sheet is showing us and then just for clarification are there any dollars held for potential salary increases given that negotiations with labor partners are still going on no and if there are reductions in federal funding as we talked how would those losses impact our ending balance oh wow it really depends on the type of federal funding that would be reduced uh we haven't been

179able to anticipate we have done analysis and backup plans of all the different Federal funding that comes into the district even some of it that's passed through the state and we have cross referenced that um I know we're told that there's not necessarily A on toone Match but we have cross referenced that with project 2025 and what the plans were uh initially uh and we are tracking of course the news to to watch that and see how it developed so that if there is an impact we can let the board know about it uh your office of General council's been coordinating those efforts to make sure that we're all sort of on the same page as well as Government Affairs so that's an ongoing I it's more than weekly it's it's all the time we're

180tracking that uh What's the total if we looked at all different sources of funding in the district including nutrition services it it it's over $1.5 billion annually okay and then just for our school sites in the reporting documents where do you find the School site lines kind of just oppose them with the new ending balances so your school sites are all rolled up to the region that they that they belong to so you'll see it says region north south east and west and all of the schools in the district all of our programs all of our campuses all roll up to one of those except for the central Office programs and they roll up to the district office okay that's it in uh following along with uh charlette so this is kind of a crystal

181ball kind of a question but what suggestion should we consider to safeguard crucial programs that may be under threat you know when I say crucial I mean like um programs for students with disabilities uh staff training what what what do we what do we consider what are we thinking of doing to protect ourselves well the only protection we can provide ourselves locally in a financial manner is reserves right so the board currently has strong reserves but uh and and we've been very transparent about how we're spending those we're currently spending a third of our reserves this year uh and so that means that that's why we're in a positive certification we're on track to spend about that much again next year and then the year after we're out of reserves right so if we want

182to provide protection for programs that might be discontinued from federal sources then the Board needs to consider setting aside significant enough reserves to potentially cover uh for the loss for however long of a period of time they would want to do that so if it's 100 $ million a year program and we want to make sure we have enough for three years you got to set aside another $300 million got it got it if I may the other strategy considering as Chris said the uncertainty specific to Federal entitlement Appropriations nobody really knows what's happening in fact uh was an article just posted that the Department of Education is is laying off is firing 1500 U federal employees out of the Department of Education so the beginning dismantling of the Department of Education is a real

183thing as a significant a number of Staff members are are are being let go we know also that uh the federal government again according to the news is already eliminating not the traditional breakfast lunch program but investments into Community meals often distributed through schools or in supportive schools that's already gone um so the uncertainty and the unpredictability and the volatility associated with uh the Appropriations process which will impact the next Fe Federal fiscal cycle um um cannot be underestimated so in addition to uh rely on reserves for personal intensive programs as is the case with title one as is the case with Ida as is the case with title three and these are disproportionately uh done at the school sites a lot of teachers a lot of support Personnel but there are some that are

184employed at central office non School sites it is prudent as possessions come open through retirement to the extent that they're not in school to actually actually not higher right away because more than likely if there is a significant shift in funding that would result in um in Personnel impacts uh secondly uh it is prudent also and look I'm not as concerned about Ida because Ida has bipartisan support I don't think that much will be touched there but uh even if tital one funding levels nationally remain the same that itself is a reduction considering inflation right and and considering higher salaries beyond that beyond that we're very concerned not just with funding levels being maintained but we're equally concerned about the possibility of restrictions being imposed on the funding or greater latitudes being provided to the

185funding so restrictions meaning anything the federal government deems as Dei related anything the federal government deems as specific Ally benefiting historically disadvantaged communities that could be in restrictions imposed on it we're going to fight that but simultaneously there's a danger associated with greater latitude given to some of these Federal programs what I mean is you give the same amount of money but part of that money now needs to go to different entities that previously were not eligible so vouchers for charter school programs for example um Investments uh at a different level into non-public schools there are all kinds of diversions that could impact what we ultimately get even though Congress May approve the same level of funding but we at the end of the day get a lesser amount many different ways of really playing

186that game therefore the instability and certainty not just with funding levels but actually the policy that is adopted uh when those money are are appropriated I appreciate the explanation um I realize that one of the things that you've done in order to keep us solvent is that 321 positions were closed due to vacancies that were over 180 days and I understand that so is this certificated and classified vacancies uh they're all at central office uh we do have a combination of both certificated and classified working on both sides so for example I'm certificate certificated I'm working in a classified role uh so it's a mix it's any it's any position in all of our different funds central office funds that had been left vacant for at least six months but it's it's mostly mostly classified

187so so positions that we find that are crucial to maintaining the district's uh ability to function do we have um the ability to open these positions again yes okay very good actually before they're closed to the they go before the freeze committee and to the extent that they are indispensable positions they're crucial critical to Mission uh they remain open but it is kind of hard to explain right if a position is critical but it's been vacant for six months I hear you right okay thank you very much Nick anything go ahead oh yeah thank you oh sorry Miss gz she had had her hand up for a while I just didn't you didn't see I am sorry go ahead Miss goon that's okay no worries um well I thank the team for the presentation and

188actually it's kind of a related followup to what you were raising Mr scharon um just to distill it a little bit because I think you know slide three mentions that sec in interim the picture looks better you know we have a higher um unrestricted ending balance in FY 27 uh higher unrestricted in FY 25 but I so but I don't want folks to leave the conversation with saying oh it's it's better than we thought it was going to be it didn't just happen um right it's it's attributable to actions that we have proactively taken so as to protect School sites from feeling impacts I don't know if you want to slightly expound on that Mr yeah and and I also don't I'm not trying to uh paint a rose-colored picture I mean we still have

189a very large deficit right a a well over1 billion that's that's real money right we are rapidly spending down our savings account but is it our job to consistently work at it to make it as good as possible yes because we want it to we want to delay the impacts or any potential negative impacts for as long as possible abely that's the The Prudent thing to do and and I think it is responsive to what we hear from the community who ask well you know what's happening at central office you know that's where we should be looking and and that that's the approach that's been taken even though some of these positions I think we we would all say are really valuable and impactful um if we have to make a choice about where we

190find our savings we we want to protect School sites and the ability for them to preserve staff and preserve programs as much as possible um and then with regard to the deficit uh maybe you could just you know Mr Mount what what's the risk of running a deficit over over multiple years like we are doing and also why why are we deficit spending what how do we find ourselves in this position so so big picture and I know we've we've presented to the board including in public session before uh we find a number of things all happening at the same time so we are in over 20 years of consistent declining enrollment right uh so 25 years ago 760,000 students this year 403 right uh we have normed and capped a lot of our positions

191particularly teaching positions which has kept them more in lined with how many students we have but we have not normed and capped a lot of other positions so for example we did a big one last year with assistant principles because those hadn't been done so we need to probably continue that's actually the most positive impact to the budget we can do because it gives predictability to the system based on the number of students that we have enrolled right so that's really the big picture so fewer students our our our funding per student has actually gone up as lcff has gone up but the costs have gone up faster so we also find it more expensive to provide the same amount of service year after year without a very large infusion the other biggest factors that

192are going up in driving expenses uh retirement costs so the the annual contribution to stirs and purs uh the stirs one is actually maximized out right now I'm going to say 19.7% I'm usually pretty good recalling the figures uh that's the maximum but perss is now uh well over 20% it's actually well over 22 or 23% right so these costs continue to go up and we have decided locally to also provide Lifetime Health Care benefits for a large portion of our staff so we have a 1010 billion uh long-term care uh bill that we pay between three and $400 million a year just in our operating budget to pay for folks that it's not about the folks that are still here which we also pay 100% it's not a cost share model it's 100% right

193me included anybody here included but for folks that have served us for a great number of years for their profession we don't pay for them just at like the standard through Medicare eligibility at 65 we pay for them and their spouse potentially up until they pass away uh so these are very large liabilities for a if I may I think your question was what happens if if right well yeah if if we would continue to to to run these level of deficits there a wide spectrum yes the most immediate impact um if a structural deficit position is not I wouldn't say cured but addressed at least giving those who evaluate and analyze the stability of our budget if they don't sense that we're taking steps the first uh the first impact is a reduction of

194our credit rating uh the if our credit ratings are significantly reduced then the cost of us doing business increases so anything that we buy on credit or our access through the markets to a tax anticip anticipation uh note the state does not give us all the money we need at one time so sometimes we need to go to the market to engage in short-term borrowing uh that cost goes up significantly so we'll be using general fund because we're paying higher interest there's a long Spectrum the the worst that could happen to the district is a condition like uh like San Francisco is where you as elected board members uh could lose the power you have over your own budget and an independent entity could take over to oversee all budgetary transactions thank you and and

195as far as the the broader variables that you mentioned like enrollment decline we know that declining enrollment is happening across the state and um Nation nationally as well in urban centers especially um are other districts you know facing themselves in in a similar position and and what steps are they taking yes uh and so and you see it on the news right last year and this year a lot of districts have been doing layoffs to try to balance their budgets uh we have been declining more rapidly in LA county than a lot of other areas because it's also more expensive to live here as a coastal area uh but districts around the state are doing that you just saw I'm sure you just saw it for some of our neighbors on the news it's been

196on the news for the past couple weeks folks are announcing layoff there have been significant ones both last year and this year but we have we have assured folks that we are not doing that this year yes which is very important I'm just like three T smaller more detailed questions so one I know you mentioned one of the strategies we're using is maximizing our grant f for example elop um it is noted I think let's see which page is it on uh page seven it says lower lower projected expenditures in elop 31 million so if you could just me understand the we're we're utilizing it but there's lower projected expenditures between second so so some of our restricted programs uh that we were discussing earlier they everybody submits a budget plan but some programs they

197submit a plan and then they find it hard to execute on all the potential impacts that they were looking for maybe it takes them longer maybe they didn't imagine how difficult the implementation was going to be maybe they underestimated or overestimated the types of expenses and how much they would come in and so we've gotten better at that so so previously you saw a lot more money uh left on the table budget versus actual and we're tightening that up so we are dynamically rebud getting those programs throughout the year and the you're going to see a pretty significant like you did in the slides today you're seeing us now increase the deficit in our restricted programs which means we're spending them faster to give general fund relief so we are addressing that we're getting better

198at it are we the best ever not yet but it's a big program particularly title one elop and we need to make sure that we are are definitely uh programming and spending as much of that as possible before we go to the general fund unrestricted side so both things are true we we are maximizing it but also we but it's still not as much as I want all the EXP yes both things are true and then um on page five in terms of our revenues the changes from first to second interim it notes 95 million due to a higher value of Investments uh can you say more about what that's in reference to yeah so if you look at the cash balance sheet all of that cash for the district we don't keep a lot

199of people will say well you keep all the cash on your floor right no no actually none of us have access to cash that would be considered a problem so all the cash is actually held in the county and we hold them in something called laif investment accounts so we are unable to invest in the market uh right now many of you would probably be grateful for that because we would be losing money right but we can invest in what are considered safe public Investments but we have to do that through the County Treasury and so we invest all of our cash with the County Treasury and they every month will tell us how much our investments yielded and then they will so so that adds to our cash accounts and for each fund we

200keep track of how much interest they've earned in those Investments and because this last year the stock market performed well the Investments did better than we anticipated now that can go the other way too so now we're seeing the stock market fairly rapid decline that tells us that next year our interest Revenue actually might go down great and then last question is just to follow up um Dr rias was asking about the books and supplies line I think I I got a little confused so I want to make sure I understand I think it's on page 15 the it says the First Column is original budget which says about 1.1 billion and then the board approved operating operating budget 1.9 billion and then actual to date about 196 million so this row is telling us

201what exactly about books and supplies so so I I I'm assuming you're reading the sax forms which I don't have the sax forms in front of me but what you just that's okay what you just read was the budgeted amount so that's what all the schools and offices give us and we aggregate it up to one big number for the district the second one is how much you've seen the board approve in materials and supplies contracts and the third is the actual spend year to date so it's not like with the action today we are changing what we've approved from 1.1 billion to 1.9 billion it's not a growth of 800 million in books and supplies you're reflecting what what has happened correct so when we come to you we actually aren't unless we make

202it explicit which would be in one of the actions that you're taking as a part of our report we are just reporting changes since the last time we reported right so all the new expenses that we've recorded in the last four months are there uh now can a budget go over budget yes can a budget end up under budget yes lower spending higher spending so we are just reporting out incrementally what that's looking like year to date okay thank you so much sure no point yes thank you a lot of my questions were asked and at least partially answered um just a few a few things one slide four which is the timeline um there's the one thing that's missing is the board weighing in on on budgetary prorities so I'm curious I mean there

203are a few things like one of the things we'll discuss today over procurement for example is that we're pulling back on providing at home internet because of erate funding and changes of the federal government but the district could fund it with general fund dollars for example so the board budget input sessions um to discuss some of our favorite subjects like carryover are I just am curious when and maybe that's a question for our board president but when in that timeline there's board budget input I can answer that so this reflects only uh the timeline specific to sort of mandatory statory requirements so to address your point and I've discussed this with some of the some of the board members uh that process will begin in Earnest actually April 2nd um when we will have our

204Retreat and strategic priorities will be addressed obviously there will be a robust budget conversation that hopefully will be aligned to board priorities we'll be looking at where are we in terms of of goal attainment by 2026 what do we need to fund more of what do we need to abandon or shift or change right and then it is our goal to hold just as we did last year at least two significant board intructions the likes of a board budget Workshop uh with the board prior to uh final budget recommendation great appreciate that um and then on slide just going through the slides Qui on slide F five um I think various board officers have asked but could you send I don't know that we've gotten the list of the positions the closed positions the 321

205vacant positions that were closed I think we've asked but I don't know that we've received them we we have sent it on to be to be given to you okay I'm getting nods right we haven't got okay so that would be helpful um I think on if you go to slide nine I mean Dr Rivas asked this but I would just say understanding that we made the fund 17 allocation last board meeting I do think and you would know better than I but a chart like it would still be helpful to have that on a chart like this because even the you know took it out I mean you also to to miss grego's question you kind of talked about assigned versus committed but I do feel like while nothing sneaky is intentionally going on

206that it can look like wait you have this whole other hundreds of millions of dollars that is not on this so so we can certainly put that in the future typically if there's no change it's not a part of an interim report but I I hear you and we can add that in uh we did change the multi-year projection slides as well but this was with board input requesting that they be simpler so things that you don't see there anymore like unsp cash and revolving funds like they can't change uh they are just required to be in there uh but you can't touch them or change them we were told that that the slide was too noisy and confusing so we were just trying to be responsive to the request of making it easier to

207understand yeah and I think it is so I hear that and then just saying you know maybe on those because I know also um there not in the presentation there's information about the fund 17 or special out non- Capital outlay whatever Special Reserve fund whatever Reserve 5% Reserve yeah um in the presentation but just an acknowledgement could be helpful um speaking of things in the presentation I also just appreciate you kind of shouting out the various departments that are doing great by their budget and just to to Mr Singh and others and cafeteria fund I know that we've had over the years challenges uh with cafeteria fund and spe specifically so that appreciate that um and then uh yeah questions about books and supply supplies and other uh unrestricted adding balances I think have been

208asked last thing I think it's alluded to on slide 11 but I just you know because we're in the midst of negotiations I just want to note and for the public that this presumes this budget these ending balances presume no salary increases correct so so the way that we have to reflect in your budget is only once you approve so the process for reflecting changes that significant uh they generate something called an B 1200 uh and assembly Bill 1200 was actually conceived of because uh a board in Richmond School District was not paying attention to what would happen with their uh new bargaining agreements and the school district went bankrupt it was the first one in California to do so which is what ab1 1200 uh law came out of and so when you get

209a final proposal from your negotiating team and you accept it then I'm required to go off and do an analysis of every fund and how much it will cost and give it back to you and that has to be approved by the county as well the as well as the Board of Education to understand what are the impacts but until we do that process I'm not allowed to reflect a guess in here y got um I think that's it thank you thank you ready for you Mr McLean okay we have one person who signed up for public comment on Tab four that's Jenna noise Jenna please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Jenna noes Tab four good afternoon uh let's take a moment to think

210logically so la is a vast City a true Melting Pot of cultures and demographics which brings Beauty and learning from one another however in today's society students face challenges that many of us didn't have to deal with when we were younger challenges that hinder the kindness we should be fostering among each other the public spaces like Library hospitals colleges apartment buildings and even shopping centers all have security measures in place to prevent negative behaviors and address issues quickly yet our students spend at least seven hours a day in schools without the same level of security while drills and safety committees are important they are limited by District restrictions and financial constraints it's encouraging to see that L USC's finances are stable but that doesn't seem to translate into the resources needed to ensure student safety

211we can't implement finus campaigns or anti-bully programs because of costs we can't provide calming rooms or proper consequences for fighting due to financial limitations we can't hire campus police officers to deter negative behaviors because of budgetary issues staff training on deescalation and Crisis Intervention is limited to special ed staff and we can't expand roles like campus AIDS or par professionals or create mentorship programs all due to funding constraints the these are just a few ways schools can improve student morale and safety but the response continues to be that it costs too much what has been done in the past clearly hasn't worked resources are continually cut yet the question remains where does the money go why is so much being allocated for self-insurance is it that just a cover lawsuits if their's funds were redirected

212towards student safety and well-being we could avoid much of the turmoil being faced I urge LC Board of Ed to continue prioritizing safety of our students staff and amilies the financial allocations highlight in the report must include comprehensive funding for both proactive and reactive safety measures including expanding campus security investing and updated surveillance and communication systems increasing mental health support and ensuring that safety Protocols are up to date thank you very much for your time okay that concludes the public comment on Tab four um can we have a a motion to vote move it move by Mr schmon second seconded by Miss nuil uh Miss nuil yes Dr Ras yes Mr melne yes Miss Grio yes Miss gones Miss Ortiz Franklin board president schmon yes and student board member Lopez Cortez yes five eyes um

213we now have a time a 4:30 time certain or tab 24 that's Miss REO yeah shall we shall we um do the I think we actually is this a uh rule 72 one yes so let's do the move in second on the um rule 72 and then we'll move in second to bring it to the table and then we'll have the discussion and the move it move it I second oh okay hi I second okay okay so for the rule 72 AER Miss nubel yes Dr revas yes Mr melin yes uh Miss grigo yes Miss gonz Miss Ortiz Franklin board president schmon yes and student board member and uh Cortez yes okay so the rule 72 passes um can we get a motion in a second to bring the bring the reso to the table

214I move it or okay so Dr Dr Ras and uh would you like to Second yes I'll second please go ahead all right I'm very excited um and honored to bring forth this motion to celebrate and to recognize Ramadan I'm going to go ahead and give some space to the speakers who are here um to speak on this resolution and then uh we will close it with some more words all right so I have a number of speakers to begin with let's start with one moment please okay uh Nilofar are you here come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and then after neaar is Tariq and then after Tariq is Amina time start we start it for you so when you start talking the timer goes all right respectable board

215members superintendent and Community leaders my name is Neil farul and I stand before you today as a proud mother of three uh spirited daughters in LAUSD schools one in high school one in middle school and one in elementary school with special needs I'm also a mother of M I'm also a member of Muslim parents Association which represents the interests and concerns of thousands of Muslims parents um kids across La USD I'm here to ask for your support in recognizing Ramadan and E and ensuring Muslim Students feel seen valued and supported growing up in LAUSD I remember feeling isolated during Ramadan Unsure how to explain my fasting from sunrise to sunset without food or water to teachers and classmates I don't want my daughters or any other Muslim Students to feel the same sense of exclusion

216today my older daughters are balancing academics extracurriculars and fasting pushing themselves physically and mentally simple yet impactful um steps like informing teachers about Ramadan offering a quiet space for prayer or allowing fasting students to take home a meal can make a world of difference districts like San Diego unified and Anaheim are already doing this Ramadan is more than just fasting a reach a self-discipline empathy and compassion values that reflect L usd's mission of nurturing well-rounded caring students at a time when Muslim Students face increasing hostility due to islamophobia these actions would send a powerful message that LAUSD values every child celebrates diversity and stands for inclusivity a council on American Islamic relations Care La survey found that nearly half of Muslim Students ages 11 to 18 in California have faced bullying and feel unsafe or

217unwelcome at schools a trend that has persisted for about a decade and is projected to increase um I urge the board members to make a meaningful steps and in recognizing Ramadan in need thank you for your time your commitment to our students and your leadership and building a stronger more inclusive community system thank you thank you for your time uh Tariq Tariq Hussein Tariq are you here come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin dear board members my name is th Kain and I'm a student in the looc school district specifically at William H Taft High School I'm here today before you to speak on behalf of myself and tens of thousands of other Muslim Students in the LA in LD who participate in Ramadan every year Ramadan is one of

218the most significant times of the year for me and my fellow Muslims it's a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset self-discipline and reflection and giving back to the community but in school it often feels like it doesn't exist for years Muslim Students have been quietly navigating the challenges of fasting while keeping up with their school workk tests and extracurricular activities many of us sit in the cafeteria during lunch surrounded by food we aren't even eating teachers don't always realize that we're fasting it can be uncomfortable to explain repeatedly why we're not eating why we may be tired or why we might need a quiet moment to pray it shouldn't have to be this way I've experienced this firsthand having to struggle through important exams tests and physical activities on an empty stomach a simple

219acknowledgement for example sending out districtwide bulletin to teachers and students about Ramadan this one small action would make the world of a would make a world of a difference for me and the Muslim Students the past present and future who I'm speaking for today if teachers knew we were fasting they could offer small accommodations like allowing students to leave the lunchroom or being mindful of scheduling intense physical activities schools could also designate a quiet pray quiet space for prayer which would means so much to the students who don't have anywhere to go during the school day we are simply asking for the bare minimum of awareness a bare the bare minimum of awareness and understanding Ramadan is about resilience empathy and kindness the very same values that schools work to instill in us the students

220by recognizing Ramadan and making small accommodations El would send a message that every student regardless of background and religion will always have a place where they can feel that they belong I am pleading with you to take action help make our schools a place where Muslim Students feel welcome and where our experiences and struggles are acknowledged and especially where we don't have to choose between our education and Faith thank you for your time and consideration thank you for your time Amina Couture Amina Amina Couture are you here okay uh shik Alam come on up you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin honorary L board members I am Samir and I am exhausted I am dehydrated and I'm sleep deprived yet here I am speaking this is how thousands of Muslim Students feel after

221a long day at school during Ramadan our day begins at 4:00 a.m. with a quick meal the only one we'll have for the next 14 hours after that not a single drop of water or grain of food enters our mouth the struggle is the most difficult during lunch when our stomachs are rumbling and our minds are begging for just one bite yet we sit quietly waiting for the time to pass despite the physical exhaustion we push ourselves to stay focused we work through the rigid calculations of Ip calculus and the complex essays of AP Lang because we see dreams with our eyes and we are determined to make them a reality but after a month of struggle on the day of Eid we finally get to C C just for one day Eid is supposed

222to be a day for joy and celebration it's the biggest day for Muslims around the world a time to visit family share meals and embrace happiness but the next day at 6:00 p.m. my parents received a call from school it has been recorded that your son has been absent to avoid a potential penalty please send a note explaining his absence I could see the worry in my parents' eyes the fear that I might be falling behind I couldn't reassure them because when I returned to school the next day a pile of overdue assignments awaited me each one a reminder of my absence so I ask you is my religion really a burden to my future are my beliefs an inconvenience to you L says we are one but why do we feel isolated this motion

223isn't just a demand it's a plea for recognition recognition of our determination to succeed despite the challenges we face recognition of the need for accommodations during Ramadan recognition that we are all part of the same Community working towards the same goal to thrive thank you for your time thank you for your time I believe that was Samir but I had called Shake is Shake here oh thank you sir come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin honorable members of The L School Board I start my speech by reminding everyone that samir's experience doing Ramadan is not an anomaly but reflects the reality faced by thousands upon thousands of Muslim Students across the second largest school district in the nation as upper classmates in our school Community my friends and I felt

224a deep responsibility to not only advocate for ourselves but for our fellow Muslim Students who share the same burden the same struggle at us fortunately because of the immense passion and dedication shown by Muslim student at my school we able to we were we are already able to secure almost all the items listed in this motion today on our campus already to reiterate nearly every single Demand on this list has been fulfilled by high school student in my school and many others we were able to achieve this because our requests are not radical it's not burdensome to anyone quite the opposite but quite the opposite but if pass it will have a sincere impact on Muslims just like it did in our school and will have the same effect throughout the district take for example

225securing a space for Muslims in campus that we in our school used as a prayer space while the room may have only been 100 square ft this room was a symbol of belonging for us in that small room we found comfort from the challenges of fasting during Ramadan even if it was even if it was for a brief moment the academic pressures we Face seem to fade away even when it feel like America itself did not want to embrace us that small room that small space reminded us that we did in fact belong that we are just as smart just as curious and proactive as any other student I conclude my speech with this our demand in all honesty are small but will have a profound impact on thousands of Muslim Students across LUSD change

226is not only possible as demonstrated by student leaders at my school and many others but also urgently needed given our political atmosphere the responsibility of making School a welcoming place for all student Muslim or not goes beyond the students themselves it lies with the district to not just continue with its empty gestures but take meaningful action to address this diverse student body thank you thank you for your time uh tala Sultan tala Sultan come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon board members my name is tala Sultan and I'm here today not only as a student in L USD but as a proud Muslim standing before you with hope and conviction we often hear L USD Pride itself with the phrase We Are One a powerful statement of inclusivity

227but words without action are simply performative today you have the power to turn those words into action by passing this resolution to recognize Ramadan and accommodate Muslim Students I've seen firsthand what happens when a school steps up at my school my peers and I in the Muslim student Alliance that we created ask for accommodations during Ramadan a space to pray understanding for fasting student athletes and simply acknowledgement our school listened they even put up a Ramadan Mubarak poster and for the first time we felt seen my faith wasn't an inconvenience it was embraced that moment showed me how powerful real inclusivity can be but here's the truth that experience shouldn't be rare no student should have to fight to feel like they belong in their own school district and that is exactly why we are

228all here today because what my school did for us should be standardized what my MSA did creating space fostering understanding and promoting inclusivity is something that you L USD one of the largest school district in Los Angeles is beyond capable of doing for our students and frankly we aren't even demanding for much we are simply asking that you pass this resolution to formally recognize Ramadan and accommodate fasting students this is a simple step towards Equity a step toward ensuring that Muslim Students like myself don't feel like an outsider in a district that Prides itself on its diversity and in a time where we're watching entire governments refuse to protect marginalized communities the least our school district can do is ensure that their students feel safe valued and supported and and when the next School District

229when the next school calendar is created I will be standing right here in front of all of you guys again demanding that Aid be recognized as an unassigned day because our faith deserve the same level of respect as any other Faith but today I'm asking you to take the first step pass this solution show us that we are one is not your tagline but your promise to all its students and I hope the next time I stand Here is to thank you not to ask for it again have a wonderful evening thank you for your time okay so we have Bayan namani Bayan come on up and then Rema so Bion and then Rema so please two minutes is yours honorable members my name is bayana mani and I work as a teacher in the

230Dual Arabic dual language program at Elizabeth Learning Center in kadah and I'm here to advocate for my many of my students who observe the month of Ramadan this year and every year I'm here to ask for accommodations from our students at uh across la la USD um first for them to have um designated area during lunchtime since the students are fasting it would be very convenient if we can uh designate an area for them where they don't have to be sitting at the lunch tables and it would be perfect if that designated area could be a sa a place for them to um to do their prayers which happens to be at the same time during lunchtime another thing is if we can uh ensure that these students uh can we find alternative um activities

231for students who uh during PE times especially that fasting in Ramadan it means no water no food which can uh cause dehydration so uh finding alternative activities could help students uh stay dehydrated and um um definitely um recognizing as the celebration after 29 or 30 days of fasting is the most important day for all Muslims and having that as an an assigned day could mean a lot to all students and teachers across La USD and ensure inclusivity for all thank you thank you for your time Rema mcdash could you come on up Rema are you here oh sure you're right after Maria please come on up you'll have 2 minutes to speak when you begin hiam alikum all of our board members um actually I wanted to start first my name is Maria K and

232I'm a dual language teacher in the same school Elizabeth Learning Center on East LA and we teach dual language program in our school we teach Arabic in our school I wanted to start like just with some words talking about my own kids as a mom for my kids like you know they spent all their Elementary and Middle School in a private Islamic school where they could practice you know Ramadan where they could practice their fasting with all this accommodation they you know make their life easier in Ramadan with like you know coming to school later in the morning and leave the school earlier afternoon and now as a teacher for like you know L students with a lot of Muslim Students in my classes I feel like you know I compare and I feel that's

233not fair with the students in L USD so I know that's private school but I mean also our like Muslim Students in La they have the rights right to f with all this like accommodation they they can you know they could have as my you know my colleague like you know mentioned the like maybe PE like you know accommodation activities for them because you know when they fasting they no food no drink and they really like suffer from this so all these students are struggling now and they need help and I'm focusing a lot about Eid like you know like Eid day because I have a lot of of my friends they don't you know like they they don't like agree to like take the day off just want to S send the kids to

234school because the kids they have exam that day or the kids have a lot of project that day and we always tell them ask the principal tell you know talk to the teachers not to but I mean it's not I mean nobody care but I mean they have a schedule for the test right they have schedule for all the like school activities so they don't want to do any changing in the schedule any of the calendar because of Aid day so that's why the students they you know have to go to school because they are really like you know they respect these like you know calendars so for me as a mom and as a teacher I always ask for the that day to be off so the kids can Muslim kids can practice and

235you know all the religious holidays and all these like you know activities thank you thank you for your time I'm going to call for Rema one more time just to make sure that she's not here Rema all right then we have uh Fatima bachara who Who's online speaking remotely Fatima please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Fatima um alikum hello my name is fatimaa I am Lebanese Muslim and currently serve as the ASB president at ba high school at ba high school we have a diverse Muslim Community that includes both Shia and sunn students during the Ramadan we observe fasting from sunrise to sunset which can be physically and mentally challenging many of us sleep around 300 to 4: a.m. leaving us with less than

236four hours of rest throughout the day we experience thirst hunger and fatigue since Ramadan shifts back appro approximately 10 days each year it sometimes Falls during the hotter months making it making fasting even more difficult for Muslim girls who wear the hijab participating in PE can particularly be challenging there have been instance where I have had to walk around the track exhausted and dehydrated simply to just to maintain my grade I believe that teachers should be more understanding and accommodating during Ramadan as fasting takes a significant s on our physical AB ility additionally I have noticed that many teachers are unaware of the challenges that doublons presents when students struggle to focus in class or perform well on Tas it is often not due to a lack of effort but rather than physical strain on

237of fasting one of the simplest ways to show support is by considerate being considerate if you know a classmate that is fasting try to avoid eating or drinking in front of them especially during school hours it's a small gesture but it shows respect for their practice the little understanding can go a long way I believe that if LD implements districtwide awareness the teachers would gain a better understanding of Ramadan and the impact that it has on students this awareness would encourage great flexibility and support for fasting students uring a inclusive and accommodating learning environment thank you for your time and consideration thank you for your time that concludes public comment on Tab 24 shall we take a vote oh please go ahead yeah I can say it at the end okay um well first of

238all I was tearing up when I heard the students speak and frankly this motion came out of listening to students um and the words that resonated in hearing all the speakers right now were seeing understanding feeling like we belong and support and I don't know why I'm getting emotional except that I know what that feels like to not be that to not be in a district where you are not that and so this motion is about Ramadan it's about being seen it's about inclusivity and I want to thank the students always the youth leading the way always for speaking up and demanding demanding that you are respected and that you are valued and that indeed when we say we are one you are that you are part of that so I want to thank the

239students I want to thank the Educators from Elizabeth Learning Center my district has uh Muslim people in Bell and in Kad it's a big Muslim Community but we also have Muslim Students in Scotts um district and we have Muslim Students everywhere and our district as diverse as we are we need to this is very important that we lead that we lead in demonstrating awareness and sensitivity and inclusion of all cultures of all ethnicities and of all practices and for our Muslim Students and our families Ramadan is a month-long observance that requires them to be committed even while they were in school and I heard the students talk about the commitment that they have right during school and still they Thrive and they're focused in their school and by recognizing and supporting our Muslim Students and

240our families as they celebrate Ramadan we are modeling what it is to be a welcoming and inclusive school district and like I said earlier bd5 in particular has a sign significant number of Muslim Students and so I am proud this brings me joy and I'm crying because I am just thrilled that we are doing this and I am so grateful once again to the students for motivating this for inspiring me to to to bring this forward and to recognize you and uh through this resolution though it really encourages schools and principles to open up spaces for you to be there for educators to use curriculum that is inclusive of your of your experience of your culture um and it it puts in place some protocols that will support you so I'm very proud to do

241this and I I thank you for coming out to speak in support of this and I I hope that my colleagues will support this I I know I I got very emotional just because I I I'm very moved by by your stories so thank you uh when Miss GGO called me and told me about her resolution I was so thrilled and she said to me would you be a co-sponsor of my resolution and my answer was of course I would be of course I would be and I just want you to know when we support our Muslim Students our Muslim employees and our families our Muslim families during Ramadan we respect empathy and understanding during this important time and we are so proud to ensure that our schools are safe places for everyone this is

242so important for all of our schools to know this information not just schools with lots of Muslim Students but all the schools that may have one or two or three Muslim Students everyone needs to know and everyone needs to be respectful thank you for this resolution thank you rosil um I think this resolution is so long overdue and I'd like to definitely be added uh as a co-sponsor to this very important resolution um thank you Miss greo for your thoughtful leadership and ensuring our Muslim Students have a supportive and inclusive environment during Ramadan um I was also very much moved by your by your statements and your experiences and [Music] um and I hear you we all hear you very loud and clear this resolution know only addresses the real meaningful accommodation needs of our

243Muslim Students during this significant time but it also sends a powerful message of respect and understanding to our entire School communities throughout La USD it is important that our Muslim Students have a welcoming and caring School environment and climate and that they feel seen understood and know that they truly truly do matter we heard very very powerful words and experiences from the students here um but I know they also represent the entire Muslim Community so I know right now they're jumping for joy and thanking you for being here and being their voice Muslim Students can no longer be dismissed or ignored and it is time that we all see you and know that I've see you very very very much so thank you Miss grego for this and thank you Mr schmon for also Co

244so can bringing this forward we got some strong clappers there I hear you yes go ahead uh yes uh definitely want to say uh so appreciate this opportunity um as uh a coach who had a student who celebrated Ramadan it was it was it was challenging because she was the only one on her team and for her teammates to understand what she was experiencing when they would take a water break and she wasn't um but the resilience of that and we saw that today and we heard that and as I was listening seeing and Valu was one of the things that stood out um meaningful steps and obviously an apology on behalf of the board to say we have never been able to do this before today and the compassion that we heard from you

245we definitely want to to say you know what we hear you we see you um we are in the trenches with you um the message of value to our students was also heard very loud and clear and especially to providing those spaces uh appreciate the examples that have been set by the communities have already done that in the schools who have Set uh a standard for having a space for you to go and to pray because that is important as you stand for your faith amongst others who may not understand and so as we move forward and making uh a resolution and correction to things that we have not done correct um I am so appreciative of this time to be able to share this and appreciate uh your leadership greo and smon president smon

246for bringing this forward and I too want to be a co-sponsor to this thank you Mr mvo no I'll follow our board member well that's actually I don't want to follow our student board you know what good point I'm going to go first so then she can have the last word I just want to say um thank you for bringing it I'd love to be a co-sponsor as well uh I appreciate um the compelling testimony of everyone who's here Ramadan Mubarak who those of you who are observing um I and just I want to say that I'm really in awe with you know Samir and others hearing your testimony it really my faith um requires a fast of one day and I find that very difficult and so to do it for 29 or 30

247days with school and Athletics and stuff um and really do it in in silence but you shouldn't be silent you should be celebrating your culture and your faith and we should be learning and observing uh as well um and making it easier for you and and as inclusive as possible so just so thank you I think this resolution and your compelling testimony taught us all a lot as well um and so like my colleague said this is an important First Step uh um and you know just appreciate the co-sponsorship and uh and we'll definitely be voting yes today thanks anelli thank you for the floor board member Meo echoing the sentiments of gratitude thank you board member greo and board president schmaren for presenting this to the board and as a student leader i s

248an unwavering support of this resolution because true inclusivity is not just about tolerance it's about respect recognition and action and that is exactly what this resolution aims to do as taking the first steps towards acknowledging Muslim Students in LUSD who deserve tangible support as they observe Ramadan as many of you have demonstr here today A Time of deep spiritual reflection and Community bonding I can only imagine sitting in crowded crowded lunchrooms while fasting surrounded by the scent of food feeling isolated because your faith calls for the sacrifice being an athlete pushing through practice while your body is deprived of nourishment or a student taking an exam with a mind yearning for energy these are the realities faced by many of our Muslim classmates and today we have the power to change that as many have

249mentioned today quiet spaces alternative activities and flexibility for Eid we are not granting special treatment we are simply ensuring that all students can practice their faith with dignity as a district that Prides itself on diversity we can uphold our commitment to equity not just in words but in meaningful action and that is what is being done through this resolution thank you student leaders for your bravery and commitment to uplifting your communities and to board member grego and to board president scharon for co-sponsoring and presenting this resolution here today thank you and thank you so much and our last word will be from our superintendent uh first uh Ramadan muak it is um anytime this board has an opportunity to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time we in fact get

250closer to being one and I think this is the right move for the right reason for absolutely the right people so uh thank you uh board member grego and thank you president shurson and the entire board for doing the right thing at the right time with that said Ramadan uh kadim thank [Applause] you take the vot okay time for the vote um Miss nubil yes Dr revas yes Mr melin yes Miss Grio yes Miss gones Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president schmaren yes and student board member Lopez Cortez yes right passes can I implore some of the folks who uh were part of the presentation to stay for a photo with a couple of the board members thank you while they're taking the photo I want to thank those who were here for public comment

251approximately 4 p.m. I want to thank you for your I appreciate I appreciate you Mr mle while they're Gathering can I record some votes I might have missed yes let's do that right now so miss Ortiz Franklin can I I collected your vote on two may I collect your vote on Tab four the second interim yes and the dual enrollment reso and the only other thing I'm missing was a vote on the waiver of board rule 72 for tab 24 oh yes but also on the dual enrollment res I wasn't sure if I recorded that okay but I me double check I have you is um actually yeah you voted for the rural uh board 72 but may I record your vote for the actual underlying reso yes thank you very much thank you okay

252now we're moving on to general public comment we have a lot of folks who are here in person so as usual I'll call the folks who are here in person first and then we'll transition to those who are speaking remotely so the first four people to come on up please uh Mr ma tro are you here I think I saw Mr tro out there you're up first and then after uh Mr tro is mavius Moore Mr Moore you're after Mr tro and then after uh Mr Moore is uh Mr Joseph Williams okay uh Mr mreo is here and yielding his time just if you could give me your name no come on up the floor is yours sir you have two minutes I just uh I didn't quite hear your name and then let let

253some of the folks exit so we can we can't quite hear you okay please go ahead it should be all good now good afternoon super good afternoon superintendent carvalo members of the board and my fellow students and community members my name is Cody gavara and I'm a senior at Nathaniel narbon high school here as a leader with students deserve today I stand before you to ask a simple but urgent question why does LUSD spend over $70 million on school police while failing to fully fund programs that actively support black undocumented and lgbtq plus students right now right now we see black students disproportionately targeted by school policing facing higher rates of suspensions and unnecessary disciplinary action these resources should be going towards education mental health support and student well-being not criminalization imagine what we could

254do with $70 million instead of fueling A system that makes students feel like suspects rather than scholars in LUSD we don't need more police on campus we need counselors psychiatric social workers and restorative justice programs students are asking for queer affirming spaces fully staff dream centers for undocumented Youth and a real commitment to Black Student Success through an expanded Bap program but instead of addressing these needs L USD continues prioritizing policing this is not just an issue at one school across LAUSD students have launched a mass sticker program over 10,000 stickers and flyers have been spread out in schools to spread the message that we demand change we're not just speaking up today we're building a movement so I'm here to tell you we will not stop until LD L USD listens we will rally

255we will protest and we will show up to meetings like this again and again because our safety and future matters more than any police budget thank you for your [Applause] time Mr mavius Moore come on up M check all evening my name is is maai Draper I'm a senior at dorsy high school and a proud leader in students Reserve as always I'm here to tell you guys what you need to work on as board members what we need for you to do as the head of the district is to protect your students we're currently in a nation of disorder and with your entire student population under attack by federal policies and conservative groups across the country black students are under attack by groups that you succumb to you failed to defend beap over the summer

256by removing racist criteria and you are still failing to defend this group now as you haven't turned to original state we demand that you undo your wrongs and on top of that additionally fund Bap in order to make it make it the program that truly should be undocumented students are under attack more than ever with the new pres presidency hate crimes or propaganda have been spreading like wildfire as a portion of the LA student body is undocumented we expect you to implement dream centers and fully commit to the district's s Sanctuary policies in order to protect this group in today's political climate lgbtq students are also under attack like the other the demographics I mentioned this is another group that is that is under more fire due to this new presidency we need you to

257add more gender and sexuality affirming curriculum into schools to educate on this community in order to help protect these students from stereotypes and hate crimes Los Angeles needs this District to get their feet out of the mud and protect us students when we need the most protect black undocumented and queer students right now and forever as we are not going anywhere and we need the support from every direction if you can't seem to do what's right and protect these student the maybe you guys shouldn't be sitting in those seats and those positions are not meant for you when some students are under attack it affects everybody so stand with us don't say as your students the students you work for are under attacked and ordered on your campuses protect all students protect black students protect

258undocumented students protect lgbtq students protect Muslim Students and this is your District your campuses and your county do more do better thank you thank you for your time Mr Joseph Williams Mr Williams is here and his yield his time please go ahead the two minutes is yours good evening members of the board my name is cha Goyo and I'm a senior at Garfield High School a student leader with students deserve and I stand before you today as a student deeply rooted in a legacy of resilience and activism in 1968 students from Garfield High School and other East LA schools courageously walked out of their classrooms protesting systemic inequalities and demanding educational Justice their actions ignited The Cho civil rights movement and the a significant reforms in our education system fast forward to 2019 when Garfield

259students once again took to the streets this time advocating for the rights of Docker recipients hundreds walked out standing in solidarity with undocumented peers and highlighting the ongoing struggles within our community today we Face A new challenge recent ice rats have instilled fear among our undocumented classmates disrupting their sense of safety and belonging no student should have to choose between their education and their family security I share this not as a distant Observer but as someone personally connected to this narrative my father journeyed from Panama at 20 arriving with nothing but hope my mother at 16 and Pregnant in a trunk of a car crossed the Mexican border risking everything for a better future their stories along with the stories of thousands of students across L USD demonstrate the sacrifices many families have made for

260the promise of opportunity in honor of this Legacy and in response to current threats I along with my peers and community members urge the immediate establishment of dream centers on every LD campus our predecessors taught us that change is born from action the students of 1968 and 2019 did not wait for permission to demand Justice they led the charge now it's our turn to continue that Legacy I implore you to act now Implement dream centers across all LD campuses if we truly believe in equity we must ensure that every student regardless of immigration status race gender or sexual identity feel safe supported and valued thank you so much your time okay ch [Applause] CH uh hello board members uh I'm a Ros I am a senior at theore Roosevelt High School and I'm a youth

261organizer there uh I come with a set of Demands that our youth have said schools and LUSD are designated safe zones ice cannot be allowed on campus regardless of whether they are whether they have a warrant how sad has our education become when students worry more about ice than about their exams the Gestapo was what they were called before today they are known as ice our students must now wonder whether they will be taken from within the very walls of their school taken from the place where they are supposed to be learning about Science and History the idea of freedom and safety is questioned when your friend is dragged away in handcuffs between lessons on algebra and government when they are taken at their most vulnerable without a voice taken away without with never to

262be heard the presence of ice in our schools is not just an in is not just intimidating it is demoralizing it is deliberate and calculated attack it is a distraction so powerful that no student can be expected to learn when the possibility of being ripped from your families lingers in your minds we are told to worry about cell phones in class they expect students to focus on their future when their present is under siege we are told our schools are safe that ice cannot access our records without proper legal Authority and yet those with that very Authority are the same ones who fund expand and defend ice there are two heads of the same monstrous destructive Hydra the people do not want ice in our schools in their homes in their neighborhoods it is the

263power it is the powerful who want them not the people ice has no place in our schools you can di with fear neutrality with pacifism with oppression with the forces that wish turn to turn a place of learning into hunting grounds but know this the people below are watching the students the families the workers and the people they are watching and history will will remember and you will hold and you will be held accountable personally thank you for your [Music] time okay I'm going to call the next three people Sierra Leon Ian kiry and Cheryl cono so Sierra Leon Ian kiry Le is Ramadan all right come on up [Applause] jamaa my name is Jamia I'm a junior at Washington Prep High School and I'm a youth leader at Community Coalition Federal F cust L

264USD poses a huge risk to programs like the black student achievement plan and safe passage which would definitely hurt L USD students and families there's a situation that occurred about a week ago that speaks to why we need safe pastors back on campus which is what we've been demanding on February 8 28th I almost got jumped by three people all because one of those people who is a guy could have take no for an answer and will take accountability for it the same day they were threatened to put me in the hospital hospital and said literal death Dr to me and now me and my friends are Pally getting stalked they know what time I get to school and didn't know half of our class schedules this has been very very frustrating and uncomfortable this

265same group through water at me and my friends and it's annoying that there wasn't anything done about this I want to feel safe at school and safe past being fully supported and invested in is the only way to do that why I replace George McKenna who was already bad enough with someone who's also Pro fce a black woman why should my mother have to leave her job early to make sure I'm okay when that is literally what say passage is supposed to be there for y'all ignore stuff like this as if I want to be stalked walking in and out of school and get called out of my name behind my back then wonder why yall get talked to any kind of way look at how yall rush out the fact that your black rout

266in lgbtq students are being mistreated by people who supposedly care for our safety and super attended who and I will put his name on the line for us but we know that was a lie clearly y rather let an organization from Virginia not La tell Y what to do with Bap but when it comes to your own students all of a sudden it's out of your control can you make it make sense Cara and the rest of the school board can play it up all they want to people or mute somebody's mic but at the end of the day that's not going to stop me or any of us from holding you accountable we demand an AP a public apology for not taking into account the massive impact your failures have had on black students

267we demand you guys to put back safe passes at Washington along with other schools in this District respectfully get your priority straight and put the black back in B thank you for your time and Mr kirs is going to yield his time to this young man um good afternoon School Board hi my name is khil Smith I'm a junior dorsy and the leader as soon as Reserve this is a time in history where we're seeing minorities being targeted more openly whether it's by the president or in this case the school district you want the majority of LD students and staff to believe you support the students in need but in reality you give into the changes that we know will negatively impact minorities like taking race as a criteria for Bap a resource made for

268black students this isn't the only District this isn't only this isn't the only issue in the district don't change Bap don't allow ice onto campuses make sure that lgbtq students have safe places on campuses we know what the true motives and priorities are in this district and US students will not allow for anyone to be denied the recognition and support that they deserve we've launched a sticker campaign and passed out 10,000 stickers across L USD this means there are way more people informed about the fight we're bringing to the school board it's everywhere on water bottle mods computers phones Etc from my personal experience alone I've seen how excited students are to fight back on what they know was right there are so many students that will benefit from the board doing the right thing

269by actually implementing these changes and protecting black undocumented and lgbtq students this isn't a fight this isn't a fight you can avoid or ignore it you can see and will continue to see how many people are informed and are willing to keep speaking up and to fight back this won't be over until the district decides to protect their students thank you thank you for your time Cheryl koono come on up good evening I'm Cheryl koono psychiatric social worker um La had previously promised Central District funding for one PSW for every School site to meet the needs of all students although we were moving in that direction now only 208 schools uh that have 600 or more students have Central District funding the national ratio is 1 PSW to 250 students if LUSD were to at

270least have a 1 to 400 ratio for psws more schools would receive Central District funding to meet the needs of our students research studies show that without school-based Mental Health Services um students struggle with mental health issues have difficulty concentrating engaging in school relating to others Reg regulating their emotions socially isolating and may experience suicide self-injury risk leading to poor attendance low academic achievement and school behavioral problems so no one can replace school-based psws in providing comprehensive services to LUSD as per the social School social worker Association of America what we do is we do uh it bring unique Knowledge and Skills to the school system we trained professionals lcsws who can assist with mental health behavioral concern conerns and behavioral positive behavioral support academic support consultation and individual and group therapy so there are

271enough psws available with enough graduates as per the Bureau of Labor Statistics in California has one of the most mssw graduates in the nation with an average of 3,300 graduates annually and has one of the largest networks over 85,000 social workers 68.3% of all School social social workers in California are actually School social workers and the number of social workers in California is expected and contining to grow so LD this is a call for Action to all of the board members and superintendent to provide Central District funding for all psws to all of our schools for all of our clinics and for all of our students thank you so much for your time appreciate it thank you for your time okay here's the next group of folks with Marsha Doss please come on up and

272then uh Maria Daisy Ortiz okay so Mara giving over to jacqulyn okay and so after Mara then Lizabeth VI aobos start all right you all have two minutes once you start thank you okay hi my name is Jacqueline Alvarado I'm a youth I'm a sophomore at Washington prep I'm a youth leader at youth at Community Coalition and I want to share with you the demands I have for superintendent Calo and the school board with how often you speak on trying to do what's best for students you sure don't seem to prioritize the comments from students who attend in to who who attend schools in La USD taking care of students means listening not just acting like you hear our needs and demands we are arguing you to put back the black andb app and provide

273better funding for black students also do not feel students also do not feel safe on their campus because of your failures to fully Implement safety measures that actually work we need more safety for immigrant students to be comfortable and have support when attending schools and support for students struggling to learn a new language queer students also deserve to feel safe and free to express themselves I have been in LD schools oh fine school is all my life and I have witnessed and experienced the lack of care for students we need more staff members that care about the safety and well-being of students I know I am I know many of my peers would appreciate having a person who can support them and can they can trust while attending schools I was bullied for my race

274my physical appearance and my sexuality I know what it feels like to feel uncomfortable and unsafe at my school at some point I was scared of going to school and some of my friends were also disturbed by how they were being treated when my friends told an adult the adult only told the other students to change their actions but nothing else was done it's concerning how you manag to allow our stool our schools to become this unsafe this is also why many students lack trust in our in adults we are more than just kids we are youth leaders who pass through the doors of the schools you manage who are faced with real conditions like deportation gangs and bullying we demand that you do more than just whatever you think makes you look good fully

275invest in Bap and safe passage and commit to keeping us safe and protected thank you for your time Elizabeth bobos Elizabeth come on [Applause] [Music] up good morning good afternoon excuse me my name isth V Vios and I'm a 12th grader at Emanuel arts high school and I'm a youth leader at Community Coalition our demands have yet to be enacted and we still continue to fight how many more students have to come up here because they live in an environment where their safety is not guaranteed how many more times will you dismiss it and continue to be ignorant to the students and staff whom you represent I advise you to pay attention and listen when we say school police are not the solution endless testimonies and experiences from us students expressing to witness an unacceptable

276amount of aggressiveness and failure to deescalate situations from the school police that you reenter into our campuses there is one solid answer to this school police does just it doesn't work you are funding the wrong security and it's hurting us all there was an altercation between two girls at my school and it had gotten to a point where the school police had gotten involved and they had seemed more aggressive than the two girls they shouted louder than them they escalated the situation more than solving it this is unacceptable and yet this Behavior continues not solely on my campus how many more incidents have to happen for the board to recognize this if the if you would Implement our demands the majority of incidents of violence could be prevented student safety would Fe would be prioritized

277where students can feel there in a genuinely safe environment where they're in the sa were they're in the safe passage's best interest have you changed your mind yet Mr carvalo on my way home I was robbed on the street right after school a block away from the campus the following days after that incident I didn't want to go back to school I didn't want to walk home out of school out of fear that I'd get hurt again if safe passage was there if they were available during the time of that incident I would have had the support I needed I would have had someone trustworthy to get me home but because they aren't I continue to experience this torment and I shouldn't have to even more so I have to be out on the street

278knowing that the person who robbed me is roaming through my community I shouldn't have to wake up every day dreading that this was some that something will happen to me again no student should have you decided to prioritize your students Mr superintendent listen as we tell you you are taking the wrong steps to student safety listen and understand that when we tell you it's an urgency that you abolish school police and fully implement the safe passage program and the community based safety thank you for your time thank you for your time okay Maria Daisy Ortiz Maria Daisy Ortiz come on up Miss Ortiz is going to speak in Spanish so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English as she's speaking Spanish please put your hands up and we'll get these headsets to

279you okay graas thank you good afternoon everyone it seems like you are not in compliance since it was at 4: and we're almost at 5:30 first of all I'd like to say that this report is only in English and this is another way we're left without information it's a report that is very important to understand I'm here to clarify the lie that we've been told for years that the only thing you want is to stop the parent voice and the leadership of parents here it says and this was responded by the state with certifications of the Committees that are appropriate in the district including deac that this the evaluation of these committees and approval of them so since we don't have a committee of low income I ask in this committee that the correspondence be

280done correctly because the law states that the district District must but is not obligated but if the parents ask for it the district must do it because they receive categorical funds for parent involvement so that this law can be uh complied with and under 520 621 and two it states that the superintendent of the school district as a minimum have a meeting with every committee with parents including the English learner committee not like last year who was sending an invitation to the chairperson and only her you need to show your face also when the children reclassified there's four years of monitoring but the district has taken the parents of delect because they have reclassified who are the ones that re that monitor the committee the of first English Learners so if there's four years of

281monitoring since I don't confide in you all to do so because the data is clear it is not working so you need to correct that as well because that is in congruent because elect over there we even to have school Personnel being part of elect this is a problem so please do the appropriate Corrections necessary immediately if you celebrate C Caesar Chavez he defended the rights of the workers in the fields so you defend the parent rights to be included in decisioning thank you and have a good afternoon thank for your time okay so here's the next three folks uh Sai please come on up Sai and then after Sachi are Rosalia Ria and then Joseph Bernie so Sachi and then Rosalia and then Joseph hi my name is Sai here Amora I am a

282senior at gala and I'm a leader in students deserve I wanted to use my time here today to to remind you of something that has been important to many people throughout history and today something that is incredibly important to me my family important to many people in this room and Beyond and I think you too equality on February 14th the Trump Administration published a letter standing up for equality they claimed race-based programs specifically race-based programs and stated by many educational institutions that are targeted towards disadvantaged groups create inequality and thus should be ended but what be came clear when reading this letter is that the Trump Administration is ignoring the centuries of discriminatory practices practiced by this country that has disadvantaged certain groups of people especially black black people they are ignoring the inequality that

283is evident not only by looking at the academic achievement Gap but the economic Gap criminal justice Gap Healthcare Gap and more when the Trump Administration intentionally ignores these facts they will not be able to create true true equality th thus they are not truly standing up for equality one of the founding principles of this country on the contrary in February of 2021 you the laus board truly stood up for equality when you finally began to address the inequality that is ever present in this District the inequality that is seen clearly in the achievement gaps between black and non-black students and that has been created and perpetuated by racial discrimination practiced by our country as well as our school district you made the Revolutionary decision to approve bap and that decision showed me as well as

284other people across the school district and beyond that LC stands for equality but unfortunately unfortunately last summer you took a step away from equality when you removed race as a criteria for Bap allocation and unfortunately it is also a time in our country where many people and communities equal rights are under threat from the federal government I am here today because I hope you will begin to stand up for True equality again as you did in 2021 you and approved Bap superintendent carvalo and board m members we look forward to working with you to put the black back in Bap we also look forward to working with you to protect black undocumented and lgbtq Plus student rights thank you for your time Rosalia get off your phone the two minutes is yours please go ahead

285good evening board member superintendent carvalo my name is Rosalia Ria I'm and I'm a psychiatric social worker with the Ramona School mental health clinic as we recognize National Social Work month and the impact that our profession has had on our students and families I'd like to take two two minutes of your time to remind you of the great work we are doing here at La USD my colleagues and I have been delivering quality Mental Health Services across 14 Clinic sites within LUSD addressing trauma depression anxiety and other mental health challenges that significantly impact our students abilities to learn and Thrive Clinic psws play an important role by supporting students emotional and Social Development helping families navigate challenges and creating a safe and supportive environment our school communities often identify our Clinic programs as a resource

286in providing tier two and tier three support our services are intensive individualized consistent and effective in restoring the social emotional functioning of many students despite an increase in the need for mental health services our Clinic program has not grown on the contrary it has been impacted by budget cuts we recognize that our school-based psws are also working diligently to meet the demands of their school needs and the benefits of collaborating with our colleagues to provide the individual family and small group support that our students require to improve their well-being is more important than ever I ask that continue to advocate for school mental health by demanding that funds be allocated to support the growth of all of our programs including our Clinic program advocating for in-house Mental Health Services will allow psws to continue providing

287quality care that is easily accessible to students and families in doing so we will ensure that our students are equipped with the tools necessary to overcome adversity lead successful lives and prepare for the world thank you thank you for your [Applause] time okay Mr Joseph Bernie are you here Joseph come on up and after Mr Joseph Bernie is Leo seron and then jalah Burns floor is yours superintendent carvalo school board my name is Joseph Bernie I'm a senior at Hamilton High School I want to use my time here today to speak for a group of students who need your attention and your protection I'm sure you're well aware but right-wing bigotry in the conservative movement is on the rise the Trump Administration has launched an agenda of anti-blackness in a vicious attacks on what they

288call Dei which is a euphemism for any program that seeks to empower and support black students in the wake of this there are those who fight that pressure and those who cave to it students from all seven board districts have passed out thousands of stickers and info sheets urging you all to protect black undocumented and lgbtq students government officials across the country who care about marginalized people such as the US attorney for New York have opted to resign minor refusal to obey Donald Trump now not just the superintendent but the seven of you elected officials have to make the decision of whether to defend and even double down on programs such as Bap or to forsake black students I want you I want to trust that you'll take the noble stand for my brothers and

289sister's education but I've seen LD cave to bigoted pressures before you already caved to racist right-wing pressures when you refuse to stand up for black students and listen to a lawsuit from Virginia telling you to essentially kill B Bap do you see why it's hard to trust you now but even then I want to trust you superintendent knowing your background as a young immigrant and your genuine concern for students I want to trust you I respect the regard that you demonstrated yesterday Schoolboard I want to trust that you'll stand up and refuse conservative pressure by putting the black back in Bap but you have to actually do it the only other option is complacency with the Barry attacks on the very students of ostd you claim to cherish and serve it is in fact aiding

290and edding the agenda of JD Vance of Donald Trump Elon Musk Mitch McConnell and the Republican party it doesn't matter if you're not wearing the red Mega cap thank you your time leoon Leo siron come on up um good evening my name is Leo Sone I'm a junior from from mclc and I'm a leader with students reserve and I'm here today to talk about the importance of keeping and fully supporting the black student achievement plan be was created by students to provide essential academic and social and emotional resources it is not just a program but is a commitment uh to um to see the students succeed uh black students continue to experience some of the highest rates of suspens suspension rates in a time where many programs like Bap are being under attack cutting or

291altering Bap would be a step back um we need LZ to take action be bold in the protection of black students changing the racial criteria out of um taking out the racial criteria of Bap will make it harder for these students to get the resources they need thank you thank you for your time sir Jia and then after after Miss Burns we'll be uh Gypsy Vasquez aala and then Amir Casmir um Julia Burns sent an email yielding her time to Connie so she's going to speak on her behalf today Julia wasn't able to make it okay thank you have at it Connie um hello my name is Connie may I please ask you to just lower the microphone oh sorry and then we got to restart the timer so just let my staff restart the

292timer and then okay please go ahead hello my name is Connie I'm a sophomore at Washington prep and a youth leader at Community Coalition I've come here today to share the demands I have for the school board and carvalo I want you to put the black back and B up and expanded by 100 million annually and to formally apologize to black students and families for the Decades of anti-black policies that denied us of equal education I honestly really think you guys are doing this purposely like honestly taking the opinion from people not even related to the LAUSD School Board to open Bap for everyone is like weird to me why do you listen better to people outside of L USD District than the people in the district like hello because of your unnecessary decision this

293program is no longer being prioritized for black students black students are receiving less support than what they should be receiving like the whole point of bab was to help support black students it's like you guys forgot what bab stands for so I'll remind you black student achievement program that's what beep stands for another thing I want to bring up is because of your discriminatory practices whenever a colored student has behavioral problems you guys are so quick to give that student an IEP and place that kid in special classes that they don't need to be in but why kids don't get put in those special classes for Behavioral issues do they for example my brother has had behavioral issues and soon after he was put in classes that he didn't need to be put in if

294my brother was being supported by LD and had the support had the right support in programs the result of his situation would and could have been different you guys also installed those phone pouches that cost 100 per pouch when that money could have gone somewhere else more important for example supporting the minorities in the LD District like as a black student myself I feel targeted I don't feel supported by the LD District right now and I'll continue to feel unsupported until you formally apologize to black students and expand B set by 100 million annually we don't work for you we work for [Music] us thank you for your time uh gypsy Vasquez AA and then Amir Casmir my colle please outstanding come on up please just say your name and you'll have two minutes to

295speak once you begin good afternoon La USD board members I am here on behalf of aspire Public Schools um my name is paa Navaro and I have the privilege of serving as the parent coordinator for Aspire Junior Collegiate Academy but beyond that I am also proud of I am also a proud aspired parent I chose to enroll my own children in our charter school because I hardly believe believe in the mission and vision of aspire to provide all students with an exceptional education that prepares them for college career and Beyond at Aspire Juni Collegiate Academy we're not just educating students we are Empowering Families Our parent Community is engaged in meaningful work ensuring that our voices are heard and that our children receive the best education opportunities possible we have created created a thriving parent

296group that not only support School initiatives but also Fosters his own book club providing a space for shared learning and personal growth the collaboration between famili Educators and students is what makes our school so special I would also like to share with you that right now we have um a workshops for parents and letting them know uh know your rights with all the immigration going on we have hosted a couple of workshops and we'll still host another Workshop the 13th of March and for this I would like uh to invite you guys to come see the incredible learning that's taking place and meet the dedicated families who are sharing the future of education and witness the firsthand the impact of strong parent advocacy to together we are building a brighter future for our students and

297we're allow for you to be part of it thank you thank you for your time Amir cmir are you here hello I'm leading my yielding my time to J thank you sir hello sorry good evening La USD School Board my name is Jade Santini Ron I am a black lives matter member of Los Angeles and a parent leader of student deserve I am here this evening to State the demands of that you reinstate black student population as a criteria for Bap School allocation honor your commitment to black students by immediately restoring this factor and reaffirming Bap as a rep reparative program designed to address the Decades of racially discriminatory practices that violated the civil rights of black students with all the attacks coming from Trump the right-wing parents from Virginia attacking every aspect of Education

298that addresses the needs of black indigenous and other vulnerable student populations LUSD carvalo and this Board needs to develop and Implement concrete protocols to ensure that our children will continue to have the support and that Bap brings for them an expand Community Based safety on every LAUSD campus we can not have our children being hospit hospitalized by racist parents from other ethnics excuse me from other EIC groups my phone messed up you guys I'm sorry that's okay um from other ethnic groups nor can we have our children feeling unsafe at the hands of some of their peers who may be taking their trauma out on others either empower the Bap steering committee next the office of etto needs to Grant real decision-making power to beap steering committee and analyze quarterly boards reports from steering committee

299appointees to ensure authetic collaboration on the growth of implantation of BF and lastly this Board needs to vote to permanently expand funding for B Bap allocate an additional 100 million annually to Bap to ensure it suspend and fness and meeting the needs of black students now in the future now like I said before out of respect CU I know it's out of time be the seed of that change make a difference from these kids they need you go home and know that you made a difference and you was that change what God put you to do put the black back in Bap a thank you for your time four we have four speakers left Alana hassanin Alana and then after Alana Mariah Williams and Maya Sanchez and then Drew mcnight so Alana Mariah Maya and

300Drew please come on up Alana you have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon my name is Lana henin I've taught in public schools across the country including LD for 15 years and hold a Masters in Education leadership from UCLA as the only Jewish teacher on staff for most of my career I took bu building bridges into my own hands because I am aware of how needed it is in our schools I am both ashkanazi Jewish and Egyptian I grew up in Jewish organizations and educational settings it is where my love for education and building a more Equitable world comes from the adl's involvement with ice and the detainment of Mahmud KH is unconstitutional the ADL have jeopardized the safety of countless individuals and organizations throughout our nation it is my mixed identity

301that makes me keenly aware of how the ADL pits my people against each other this Zero Sum game that the ADL is committed to playing in the US is not only dangerous in a trump presidency it endangers our children's well-being and the future of our democracy any curriculum that denies the live experience of our Palestinian and Arab students and their families does not belong in our schools nor does it combat anti-Semitism not only is their curricula factually misleading it is unethical to put our students and their families in such a vulnerable position Public Schools were founded to ensure democracy and prepare children to be responsible citizens of society while I do think anti-Semitism should be addressed the adl's method is anical to its purpose I asking that the Le sever its partnership with the ADL

302to not adopt the adl's curriculum no place for hate and Echoes of Reflections and to not partner with the ADL for professional development under sb277 when the Trump when Trump was elected this District put out a statement that our schools would be a safe place for our students and their families please ensure this happens drop the ADL thank you thank you for your time Mariah Williams come on up Mariah Williams hi LD School Board my name is Mariah Williams and I go to San Pedro High School racism is increasing Trump and his followers are using police ice and executive orders to attack black immigrant and lgbtq folks so why is LUSD attacking Bap and spending 60 million on school police hate crimes in La reached record highs black people are 9% of La County's population

303but 4 9% of victims black people are disproportionately targeted and schools were one of the major sites undocumented youth are facing deportation and getting separated from their families trans and nonb binary youth in quer forming curriculum are facing increased attacks and in the last few months black and brown students have been attacked by school police and by Trump supporting anti-black and anti-immigrant adults near campuses in 2020 we ended years of El's overp policing by kicking cops off of campuses and cutting their budget we also created Bap to bring counselors therapists black studies and more to schools serving black youth but LD removed race as a criteria for Bap schools even after failing to fully Implement programs like safe passage does LD really think Decades of black anti-black discrimination was fixed by four years of Bap

304does l wizd really think immigrant students and lgbtq students will be safe if the Deion doesn't take action we demand LUSD one put the black back in Bap and expanded by 100 million annually two apologize to black students for decades of anti-black policies that deny them an equal education three guarantee Sanctuary protections massively expand and fully staffed dream centers supporting undocumented students and ensure the is's lay start app doesn't report immigrant status four Implement queer forming spaces and curricula and current and culturally responsive supports for lgbtq plus Youth and five abolish school police and expand and fully Implement safe passage and Community Based safety thank you thank you for your time Maya Sanchez Maya come on up and then after Miss Sanchez is Drew mcnight good evening can you hear me we sure can please

305go ahead okay today I stand before you and I ask that you make public schools safe havens to refuse entry to ice and no matter the circumstances as schools and as communities we have drawn Upon Our own resources to provide know your rights trainings to our students and our parents but this will not be enough ald needs to be vocal they need to call on their students their families their teachers their staff and you board members to take a vow to protect their students and families that are under attack by ice in this Administration you hold enormous power you hold the safety of hundreds of thousands of students and families families that sit at dinner tables tonight discussing what is up to you to stay silent is not an option I want you to remind

306yourself of The Vow you took when you said you were going to take care of the children as a board member will you allow ice in the schools will you stay silent I know each of you will go home to your own life after this you will call your mothers make dinner for your kids or talk to your partners about your day don't you think undocumented children and their families deserve the same tonight I assure you there is a little girl or a little boy sitting at their dinner table and they are just as scared as everyone else they too have a mom they too have siblings and perhaps they are the best spell in their class perhaps they are the fastest in the mile sometimes they are the valid dictorian of their schools it

307is your job to make sure these kids stay safe not in fear not in a cage not in handcuffs as they are dragged out of their schools humiliated in front of their peers your silence and your lack of action is not a disservice to these children it is their endangerment I understand the fear I understand the fear of this Administration but with the privilege you hold and with the power you hold with the accountability you hold you may not stay silent to stay silent is to allow the sacrifice of thousands of ALC kids to allow for their suffering and their detainment so I ask you who should be more afraid you or them children should never live in fear of being ripped from their families or schools a place where they should be curious creative

308and safe make sure schools stay safe thank you thank you for your time uh Drew mcnight Drew [Music] [Applause] mcnight okay hello my name is Drew mcnight and I'm a sophomore at Washington prepatory High and a youth leader with Community Coalition and I want to share with you the demands I have for superintendent carvalo and the school board my peers and I have come forth multiple times only for you to continue to sit there and act like you know what's best for our students without ever putting any putting forth any effort to any action to protect us our school board should make an our school board should make an effort to make sure we feel safe and protected in our schools and the lack of resources that you have given us shown that you are

309doing a terrible job walking to and from school I can constantly see that my neighborhood is not safe for my peers and I to be walking through black students in my community are underresourced and feel pressured to support their families and have the protection of a group when walking streets these problems have made their way onto my campus during my time in the school I have witnessed multiple students showing up with Firearms fult fights involving gangs in the death of one of my close peers and we do not have the stay of Staff trained to handle these situations during my time at Washington I have been so close to these kinds of fights that I could hear them punching each other you say that you have safe passage but these fights can go on until

310someone's bleeding or heavily injured before any staff can get to them our vice principal is the one to stop these fights instead of the people that you supposedly hired for this one day these fights will get go too far and more of our students will be killed or harmed if you can put the same effort into safe passage as you do for Yonder pouches and phone Bands then we can bring down the chances of losing more of our students due to gang violence Bap has been around since 2020 and it is now 2025 and you are attempting to strip away the only Recess Recess resource you have given black students put the quickness you put into foam bands into protecting black students when a student spends majority of their time on campus it is your

311job to make that a safe learning environment for students to go through whether that be investing in more Mental Health Resources staff members who understand the conditions my peers and I go through and a system that allows students to walk safely to and from school we should never and I mean never worry about our safety and a place where we come to learn and better our education we need people who understand what our go students go through to tackle what our students go through safe PES has the potential to be amazing and we got it thanks to Bap we are here not to to to ask but demand that you put the black back in Bap expand Bap by 100 million annually abolish school police and fully Implement safe passage and Community Based safety thank

312you for your time that concludes general public comment and that brings us to tab six six tab six aligned funding strategies for three school facilities projects also known as cops um can I have a motion in a second to bring all this discussion to the table move it moved by uh Mr schmon seconded by Dr Ras again this was set up for discussion so there are members here today so we have questions any questions no no okay I'll have I'll I'll I'll go for it then um okay so tab six um I just want to make some want to make some general comments and then I'll ask my questions but I want to start off by saying that I generally believe and think that the objective the the okay great okay um is that was

313saying I I generally uh think the objective to offset substantial burdens to our general fund is fiscally responsible um I understand that the proposed strategy to pay down cops is intended to save money for the district um however another perspective that we have been hearing is through this strategy uh will not necessarily save money uh but more accurately we will lose less money over time would you um Mr Mount agree with this assessment no uh no so the transaction so if the question were is the bond program saving money the answer is no right uh but essent what you're looking to do through this transaction is De fees the portions of the cops that are traditionally aligned with the bond program uh we say 250 million it's actually 238 uh which is the amount of

314the proceeds it will take to take out the bond money and pay off that portion of the cops and then over that 30-year period what will the principal and interest be paid back in that property taxes it's about 264 but the long-term savings to the general fund fund is 304 right and so that's a difference of still positive if you look at an all funds view $40 million right so but the but the transaction is designed to make savings to the general fund it is not to make savings to the bond program right very very explicitly so and no one's ever said that but there is still a net if we looked at all funds if we if we pretended like bond funds and general funds were the same is there still a savings from

315paying them off early yes it's $40 million but the long-term savings just in the general funds is 303 million inclusive of that 40 um so given the thank you for that answer given the risks associated with cops such as balloon payments and high interest rates and and uncertainties and state and federal funding how would the district ensure that future debt issuances uh remain sustainable and fiscally responsible moving forward huh that's a complicated question so I only transact and my position only transacts at the direction of the board right so the board should be looking for the analysis which we provide of the short and long-term fiscal impacts before making the decision to send me to Market to issue debt right so that process was was followed with the cop and it was a way to

316get capital projects done that were not yet conceived of by the bond program the idea when the board considered a bond uh and I was here during that time time I had not been here when the cops were issued but I remember the discussion very clearly of community and board members saying well could we use some of those proceeds if we can pass the bond to pay down these cops that we're paying for out a general fund and the answer was yes and that's how they conceived to putting that language in there as one of the options to do that and it's still at the board's discretion if that's what they want to do right so if we want that savings to the general fund which has been one of the goals of the board

317because we do need general fund relief then this is one of our option is to pay off that portion of the cops from Bond proceeds um it's also statutorily recognized so one of the statutorily state recognized uses of bond funds is to do that but you also put it in your bond language well when the cops came to it didn't came the cops didn't come from the board it came from you know your predecessor or from the superintendent so it's not something that we pushed forward it was something that was informed to us that we should you know the cops were going to be are the best way to um fund some capital projects because there were insufficiencies in bond money so it didn't come from us yeah so it's it was the only option

318that you had if you couldn't rep prioritize or see your way to getting those things paid for in the bond program so if if the desire to get them done was there but they couldn't be absorbed into the bond program then it is your only other option as a school board that's correct so if measure us had not passed well what alter alternative strategies would the district have pursued to address the existing cop obligations without measure us there was no alternative so it would just come out of the general fund there would been so there was no plan to yeah so cops can they're actually guaranteed against two things when you go to market they they do look for a property value to to basically pronounce a lean against just sort of like a mortgage

319what's the property you're going to pledge but it's guarant guaranteed against your general fund y so it is a general fund loan um you mentioned that you were not you know the CFO during the time that we voted on the cops uh would you have taken the same approach why or not had you been in that position um that's more in the area of opinion and and training my my background is not to engage in cops when you have a bond program uh when you have a bond program uh and we have a large Bond program uh you know we have 16 or 17 billion in outstanding issuance still then if you want to get work done then the board typically would engage with the folks working on the bond program to rep prioritize and

320make sure that their current priorities are reflected in the near-term project execution uh and and that would be the way to make sure it's encapsulated by that Bond now I don't know that that's happened I've only been here for a sh short period of time but if but if they were not acceptable expenses to the bond program then you do only have one other lending mechanism which is a cop okay thank you for that um I just I we did receive a a letter from the bond oversight committee um that was not included in the on the board book because it came after so I just want to um just read if if you know if you all will indulge me indulge me in this and some of the um concerns that they expressed um

321from the cop so one um they said the action circumvents the responsibility of the BC to provide fiscal and program oversight to consider projects before approval and I know this came to them rather um hastily the same that it came to us although we I know we did have opportunities to ask questions but it you know it came you know at a point that if we don't do this now uh we will not have another opportunity later on so the district um continue reading what they said the district brought this proposed AC to amend the SCP and utilize bond funds to pay for projects after the projects have been approved by the district and funded by cops in December of 2023 reviewing the projects after the fact prevents the bo from having meaningful input in

322the prudence and permissibility of the projects and I do agree with them there's a reason why we have the boc um it is difficult for the boc to carry out this oversight role when it is not involved or informed in a timely manner of matters that impact the bond program written materials for this action were made available to the boc and the public less than 48 hours before boc's consideration for this extremely complex item um at its February 27th 2025 meeting their second concern while uh while advantageous to the district's general fund the action is detrimental to the district's Bond program the action Saves The District's general fund approximately 300 Million by Shifting the costs of the three projects to the bond fund while there would no while there would be no net increase in

323assessments paid by taxpayers the bond program essentially loses 250 million in Project value projects that cannot be funded and constructed because of this action it is also now assumed that any cost overruns of these projects would be paid from the bond programs uh Reserve this would be an additional cost to the bond program that is now not now quantifiable um they also mentioned while this may have been the appearance of financial advantage to save 300 million in a general fund by reallocating 250 million in bond funds to general fund expenditures this does not account for the time value of money and the cost of inflation because the savings occurs many years into the future and the impact on the bond fund is more immediate the overall impact is a loss further the district's own analysis

324estimates that in today's dollars not on a net uh present basis across all funds the overall impact is a loss of $4.4 million do you agree with this or what is your opinion on that so the short-term loss analysis is $4.4 million in the first three years but we look at the entire transactional period and so the savings is $33 million and all funds it's still 40 million they uh and further down they say as press presented this proposal will result in taxpayers paying interest and principle concurrently on both newly issued measure US general obligation bonds sold to fund this Defence as well as on Cops which are not calable um until October 1st 2023 is that true yes M so um I don't feel comfortable um are comfortable in in voting for this so

325I would not be voting for this it just to let you all know and want to you know and agree with the bond oversight committee's uh concerns just just a couple of things that were referenced uh that uh that need to be clarified so this is not the only opportunity for the board to do it we were suggesting that the board do it now before our ratings were degraded because of our our fiscal deficit right now right so we we want to always go to market at the best financial time for the district we are already going to sell bonds uh for measure us a portion of that sale would be used for the defant if the board would like but that was also at at the board request so this wasn't something that we

326were moving forward with uh at my behest it's just another part of a transaction for me right so the board has asked for relief for the general fund this is one of the Avenues that you have um what is the loss for going later it'll be more expensive and you know the $22 million uh for that we could be saving this year and next year would be lost so that's an opportunity cost that doesn't have a a an emotional value to it it's just that's the opportunity cost of waiting at this time and we are looking at potentially not having the same uh fiscal rating as we do currently and and I'll just reinfor I'll reinforce that point because I I think board member Ras you asked you know what does the staff do to

327ensure that we're managing Debt Service in a thoughtful way so that we aren't incurring greater cost and so when we choose to issue in particular periods we weigh those particular criteria areas that that Mr Mount just hit on um when you're looking at ratings when you're looking at the market favorability um that does inform interest that is incurred as a result of the issuance and so um we're choosing to act now because we think the market is favorable to issue against um uh the bonds as well as def fees the cop um real quickly so if measure us funds were already planned to uh cover for the cops why did you come why did you not why was not this brought to us prior to now why why not in was voted in November if

328it was planned in you know December or January February why come now and not prior at least to provide Bo with ample time to weigh in so I believe uh measure us was was approved by the voters in November uh December was was too soon to get anything on the board agenda so we got the first agenda in the new year before we're going to Market so we're going to Market in April uh that's when we'll be issuing the first us uh new money issuance as well as refunding between three and 400 million uh of old bonds for which we can find better interest rates currently and so it's best to do all those transactions at once we don't go to market throughout the year there's cost with doing it over and over again so

329we try to get as many of our transactions together at once and if we're covering now these cops would these 200 or 238 million um take away from the projects that were already planned for this because now we have less money for those project it comes out the 238 million comes out of the $9 billion of of bond authorization absolutely um that is that's never been stated anything else this is to literally pay off something that's coming out of your general fund with something that was conceived of by putting the language in measure us to look for general fund relief and and that's been discussed publicly by the board that's the only only reason it the the language went into the measure it's the only reason we're proposing the transaction uh like I said if

330the board doesn't want to do the transaction we don't get the general fund relief There's an opportunity cost there and that's a choice but we have to bring it when the board says that they want us to look at it and Mr Mountain the who does Kelly okay go ahead Kelly then I'll ask after thank you Mr scharon um I I appreciate the conversation and and I think you know if we were redoing this in present day 2025 with a An approved Bond I'm I'm certain that we wouldn't necessarily take the same approach of of going the cop's route um I guess just to to provide a little bit of rationale in my mind of of why that step was necessary um one project that we've actually already voted on Tab 23 the um contract

331the Construction contract to uh complete the electrification of the Sun Sun Valley bus yard this is a bus garage that we utilize um for over a 100 school buses here in the valley it's right next to a span school um in my district the only uh bus site that is directly adjacent to a school site because it's not a school location it's not eligible for Bond projects so we couldn't utilize any other funds to do this upgrade and it's a really essential um effort in order to protect the health Health um of our students at Sun Valley magnet who have been demanding that we do something about this bus garage that um is bringing Fuel and fumes every day where students are playing Just across the fence so I I do I just want to

332highlight that there are some projects like that that were not Bond eligible um that we were only able to undertake um to improve the environmental health um and physical health of our students and staff because of the cop um so I I and note that the project came in under budget as well so I thank the team who was able to achieve that um and then more generally you know this effort is um does save us money in the in the general fund I think that that's the the immediate takeaway is that um there are savings that we are generating here and we need to utilize those funds for a lot of other things such as school supplies vital staff positions you know we just had this conversation about the second inter um where we're

333looking at um the long-term Outlook and our concerns around how do we protect School site programs how do we protect staff at our sites when costs are going up um so I certainly hear the boc's concerns I appreciate Dr Ras um walking us through them um and I hope that we can work in in close collaboration with them moving forward but I think that this is an important thing to do for the overall fiscal health of our district and again to the overall end of protecting our our school sites from the likely economic impact acts that we're facing in future years so Mr Mount the um positive savings to the district by voting yes today would be what what amount you you said so so this there savings are split into different ways so there's

334no savings to the bond program right let's just be clear on that people keep saying what's the savings there isn't one we're using that money to pay off the debt taken out in the general fund so the savings to the general fund is 303 million over the next 14 years and 40 million of that is is Savings in paying off early for for interest and and and early payments right if we look at all funds so if I was imagining that the bond fund and the general fund were the same there's still a $40 million savings by by pre prepaying so anytime you pay off a a loan you do get a bit of a savings now this isn't a traditional loan our investors are looking to get back some of their money so it's

335not as much of a savings but it's still a $40 million savings got it got it Mr superintendent yes I I appreciate the narrative and the questions and the explanations um I just want to be clear about a couple of things number one uh to the point that was made earlier it is absolutely true that uh this is an idea that was proferred actually by speakers when the cops item was first uh entertained also by some degree of board commentary that sought to relieve as much as possible general fund liabilities because those funds are the funds that primarily support schools so much so that when a measure us was drafted the language that individuals voted on explicitly included the the viability of utilizing measure us bond funds to relieve cops payment correct it is in

336language so this was actually widely advertised to the community prior to the community voting on this uh secondly um and I appreciate the important question so what would be the alternative to Cops uh if we did not go in that direction to satisfy a number of projects some of which are generated by board resolution when the bond does not allow them to be included as a liability meaning it is not legal to use Bond dollars to pay for some of those Investments there is no other alternative I mean you could go out and and borrow money from a bank to the extent that you could at this level not feasible at much higher interest rates but these are the only two vehicles it's it's a bond referendum which is paid overtime or cops and uh

337the intent here consistent with what was discussed when the cops item was first entertained by the board was you approve this now with the commitment that we would explore the feing reducing this liability that obviously rationally needs to be interpreted that in in a way that if you do that yes you are removing some of the bond funding but I want to be very clear measure us the $9 billion is spread its utilization probably over the next 15 15 years we've taken great Care As We examined where would These funds or what projects would be would have the least impact as they were as they would be now the the revenu shifted over to eliminate cops and if the board um looks at what's being proposed are projects that probably will be at the tail

338end of the bond my assumption and this is where I derve some degree of comfort is that by the time the board gets to a point where projects funded by measure us would become a reality meaning before the board's vote this board probably will be entertaining another Bond referendum so there will be continuity what there's no continuity for is without cups some Investments would not be able to be made now if this ises not move forward you know Chris is not going to lose sleep he's not going to lose sleep this was an idea that was entertained over an emphasis on relieving as much as possible general fund revenues because those are direct investments into schools salaries increases Health Care Etc it's not bondable um so the pros are at over $300 million reduction in

339total liability net $40 million benefit to the general fund and and um no measurable loss of investment in the bond programs that we envision because those are years down the road but a direct investment into board priorities without which we would not be able to build the Sun Valley charging stations for example uh so that is the reality this is not something that we are dying to do it is simply a vehicle to reduce uh the general fund liability uh while protecting the board's priorities which are reflected in some of the projects are being funded yeah go ahead and then we're going to have public comment okay um for me it's the fact that when when measure us went before our our our angelinos our taxpayers voters it was presented to address the needs of

340our facilities of our schools 80 years of um of of facilities needs that are our schools needed we didn't have enough money the this bond this measure us did not go forward to our taxpayers saying oh we're also going to use this Mone money for the debt that we incurred it was it was not presented that way so in a way I understand how you know are some taxpayers may feel like they were misled and how these measure us funds were were going to be utilized that was not the message that we sent to our taxpayers and yes I do agree that we need to release some funds from General um um from the general fund and then we needed these projects for our um the electrification and I know that those are the goals

341I completely understand that it's just the way it was presented and the way we went about it um that is my concern I I just wish that uh we would have been more upfront about it and everything that I read about measure us never said that it was going to be paying for the debt that the district had incurred a year before it was to address the needs of our schools the schools that our student that our students deserved and that's how it was presented to me and to all of Angelino so I feel that and you know to the bond oversights committee um to to their points as well I mean we have an oversight committee for a reason and if we're not taking their concerns seriously then why even have one so that

342that's just my concern my reservations about this is the way we went about it was just not I think very um fair to our our taxpayers that's all that's where I'm coming from I I'd just like to stress very clearly that um what we're doing here is funding the priorities that voters um were articulated during the election electrification uh Safety and Security investment in a number of projects uh districtwide um and so when we talk about alignment and promise this is very much align to what voters uh received in in their advocacy thank you yeah I was going to say quickly just as a point of clarification without Weighing on the the merits I do plan to support this I am pretty sure and maybe someone that measure us did say explicitly one of the

343things we would do is pay down or um refinance and defease the cops so I just um correct yeah just for the record I want to I don't want to yeah misso yes thank you so um I wasn't here when that happen with you all neither were you when and all these decisions were made so if you can just um share with me um what um how these the the I I looked at the list of priorities um in the presentation and um so was that something that the board decided so there's the electric buses but also enrollment modernization student Information Systems upgrade student support application modernization campus safety system improvements student data analytics reporting and dashboards cyber security Improvement program and green schools for all program so that was all a board decision so

344there were there were actually 14 items brought to the board and they prioritized and funded the top ones and at that time there was also a conceit that we would be continuing to issue bonds to fund the totality of that but when the cops were issued is when the the push back of using the general fund uh to pay for projects came out when we had a bond program so that was when the board said well if we get another Bond let's put the language in there to make sure that we can pay off this debt so this was decided in 2023 and then um the bond decision happened when early 24 last when I mean it was on the but when did you decide that you were going to put it on the ballot

345August of 2024 okay so and then the the cops were decided oh gosh in when in 23 um it was June of 2023 was when it was approved by the board so there was no talk about a potential Bond coming up in November you guys had not thought about that at that point that was a year a year and a half before so we hadn't okay so you didn't think oh we can do it in November because you knew there was an election coming so I think one of the the elements that is important to know I think uh Miss gones talked about priorities and execution the intent was to execute on a number of projects that Were Meant to align to priorities of the board electrification electrifying the Sun Valley yard uh answering the

346call to the community around some of the Safety and Security concerns cyber security was one elements as well that we had recently experienced and so absent our ability to access any Capital bond funds with for those things that were eligible um this was one of the mechanisms to actually fund those immediate needs and actually amortize them over time so you didn't incur one lump sum hit to our general fund you spread that over time um but when you look at the annual expense right now the debt obligation to pay off uh the cops is about $36 million annually what we're proposing here is to uh free up the annual expense of about $21 million um which will then be freed up in our general fund for other expenditures I appreciate that and I bring it

347up because one of the the the points that the boc made in their letter is that when these issues come up then why not reprioritize instead of taking on a cop that's going to you know we have to pay it off using our general fund why not you know pause and think well maybe we need to rep prioritize where we're spending our money so I just think it's it's one of those things that it's advice coming from an organization of folks who are looking at this information and I think that for the future maybe we can pause and think about about well you know do we want to continue getting these things in light of these B these cops in light of the fact that we have to pay it off using our general fund

348and that is such precious that's such a precious fund so I just think that um I appreciate the boc's um letter because I think it's they're giving us insight and some advice on how we do things right and it's calling us out on the fact that you know you all circumvented the process you went you you did this after the fact and I you know I accept that and I think that we we take a moment to to think about how we move forward um I am going to support it because um I know you're saying that it's going to save us money in the general fund and I think if we can pay something off um sooner than later and it's going to save money um in the general fund I'm all for that

349but there was a a public uh a person who spoke earlier today who said that actually you're not going to save money because there's going to be some uh penalties I guess for paying it off early and so in the end you're not going to wind up saving so that's one thing that kind of stuck with me and I'm wondering about that and if you can address it and then the second thing is in the letter um the be in the the boc's letter they said further the district's own analysis estimates that in today's dollars on a net present basis across all funds the overall impact is a loss of 4.4 million and so where is that statement coming from from from the BLC I don't know if you answered that already by the way

350it's actually coming from me uh so I do an analysis uh with Tim and if Tim would like to speak to it so so people are confusing short-term impact mm with total impact so in the first two years there is a negative impact in other words we're paying more out of the bond than we would have out of the general fund but I'm looking at the entire payoff amount okay right so the entire payoff amount saves money in the general fund only and if I was to combine them again it still saves $40 million than what we would have paid out of uh over in in interest in payments over the over the length of the cop when will we start seeing that savings when will so we'll see it in the general fund immediately

351but again if if people keep saying what is the savings to the bond fund there is not one they are paying off the debt right so so yes there is a a it immediately it's more expensive for the first two years to pay it off out of the bond but long term it's cheaper and it's saving us long-term in in uh general fund as well as shortterm okay all right did you want to address the did I explain all that correctly it's all correct thank you so are we ready for uh public comment everyone we're ready public comment we're ready for public comment okay thank you he we have six speakers it looks like five of whom are in person or four of whom are in person so I'll call on the folks who are

352in person first and then we will switch to the folks who are remote so the first three folks are Maria Louisa Palma come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin then Juan Jose mandhi and then after Mr mandhi is I think I think I S saw Dianna guen who was here in person not not remotely so Maria Lisa Palma Juan Jose mandhi and then di guen good afternoon I want to remind you of this booklet that went out to all of us voters and in this booklet it clearly says that there is such a thing as an independent citizens oversight committee required by law for the bond program it says the purpose of the committee shall be to inform the public concerning the expenditure of bond proceeds in accordance with provisions

353of the Ed code the committee shall actively review and report on the proper expenditure of taxpayer money for projects on the bond project list in accordance with the Education Code so the letter that you have from the bond oversight committee is in that that intent to inform you and the public on what they consider to be the proper use now the quotes that you keep getting that I read out of the board Reports say that you are saving Debt Service of 303 million over the 14-year period but the bond oversight committee is trying to tell you when you're talking about money you can't talk about future money as an exact dollar amount you have to discount it back that's what they're talking talking about on the Net Present Value basis okay so it's fine that

354perhaps Mr Mount says that over a long period of time there is a savings where is that analysis you should have a schedule in your materials that show the exact payments how much interest is being paid prepaid if that is so I believe it is on the cops and then what will you pay an interest on the new issue of the bond that's what I want to see as a taxpayer because yes Mr Mount agrees there is no savings total because the bond program will still be paying for this so all of that comes out of our pocket the general fund comes from our pocket the bond funds come from our pockets so I want the best use of those funds because otherwise if you are double paying interest during this period I will consider

355that a waste a misuse of public funds perhaps fraud if you don't have that information all we ask is for you to get the schedule to get the exact dollar amounts all those calculations we have not been able to see those calculations in the public you keep asking about them apparently you haven't seen them either please get those before you approve thank you for your time Juan Jose mandhi are you here Mr Mandi does anyone see Mr Mandi okay then miss Ken please come on up Miss Ken's gonna speak in Spanish so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English please put your hands up we'll get you these headsets so you can experience simultaneous okay list good afternoon members of the board first of all I just want to thank Miss Rosio

356for asking these questions about this that you have it under consent that it was going to be approved and I want to say Mr carvalo that not something because it's illegal is legal I'm sorry it is correct and also Mr salido that you don't have ethic in wanting to approve these types of B bonds now since the tax pay it's taxpayers money the oversight committee the bond committee they are telling you clearly what is happening and you have to listen to them or you will also be like the paring committee that you're going to ignore them completely and you're going to just do whatever you want or you as board members will you approve everything that Mr carvalo is saying that it's okay you need to have reasoning you need to have know what's happening

357and the misuse of funds that is happening do you have a deficit who is responsible all of you each one with your vote you need to decide what cuts need to be made because we can't have everything we wish we could have it all but you cannot you have to decide and Miss GGO I ask you to consider your vote since this will affect families you're always talking about all the families poor families immigrants but you know what all of us immigrants will pay that for 30 years our children and my grandchildren will pay for it so you need to really think about how you're going to do this and when the voters did this this will be paid out in 30 years you need to have transparency and that is why we need to

358review these transactions and that is why we have this um Bond committee to take them into consideration not just because here and just because Mr garval and Salo say that it's okay you can do it no you need to make your own assessment and see all the deficit that the district have because all this money we will pay as taxpayers and you have made very poor deis that's why we're in this hole but you don't need to have the public faith for it you need to be responsible in better managing the money thank you thank you for your time uh let's see David Gray are you here David Gray come on up Mr Gray you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and following Mr David Gray is David to kovski so David and

359then David hello school board and Mr cabado my hat is off to you you all uh today's been quite a stream of information and ideas um to think that our capabilities have doubled every year may not even be close to reality War's law may not even be real anymore um we've seen nvidia's new handheld AI supercomputers a super computer that you can hold in your palm of your hand we've seen IBM Google and Microsoft's quantum computers uh and massive neuro networks have created a whole new world of computing at speeds at subatomic speeds um we can so shouldn't we utilize these Technologies to best protect our children teachers and give them a warm inviting and comfortable learning environment the problems and emergencies that you all deal with daily are not just how to identify weapons

360or trigger alarms much of the misinformation and Chaos that First Responders deal with comes from what happens after the alarms are Tri triggered um a holistic approach to Emergency Management has to include what comes after those alarms are triggered our current emergency communications are dangerously lacking we are far um we are for the most part still depending on voice Communications over 911 phone calls Simplex radios and Standalone cell phones to communicate life critical information and planning we have the technology for Teacher over staff and AI controlled alarms technology that supports instant decentralized communication systems that instantly unite all First Responders with the children and teachers whose lives depend on them this Communications vehicle needs to be visual via Instant bidirectional Video visual conference calls just like you guys do every day on your cell phones

361my ask for this body is for an opportunity to show you that technology thank you thank you for your time uh and now Mr David doovi thank you very much I spoke to you two years ago when the cops were being put before you I warned you it was about the general fund it is a good idea to defease them get them off the general fund but you have a burden and a responsibility to bring the bond oversight committee right here and talk to you in public not through a letter talk to them directly maybe the superintendent and team could ask questions that bring common ground but to go ahead today and not wait for them to speak is very questionable you heard a moment ago that the voters approved measure us they also approved

362the bond oversight committee okay that was in the ballot don't you want to take a moment to hear from the county auditor controller who voted yes but had the questions bring them forward you're going to approve him later in the meeting okay so don't approve him unless you want to bring them in did you ask how much were paying the advisers the bond councils the others that ran around you're paying them once to issue the cops you're paying them again and you'll probably pay them again and remember this was on the agenda for 1.3 billion thank God the superintendent whoever stepped in and put a stop to the 1.3 because it was headed to that higher number and we knew there was a structural deficit and we knew there were general fund problems but we

363still went ahead with it did you ask was there competitive bids to get the deal and why are we only putting 250 of the 500 million back did you get an answer to that these are things you should get answers to before you move ahead is f facilities a problem are they not doing what they should do are we blaming them let's figure it out ask the questions we knew the Cyber attack was September of 2022 okay we didn't even go to the cops till much after that go out to the Sun Valley bus depot see how much electrification has happened in two years Greg dannis your lawyer naara Reed your lawyer said I never advise my school districts to use cops never cops and robbers is what I learned this building if you love

364it was funded by cops because it was a political nightmare and we didn't want to put it on the bond I encourage you to pass this but not tonight get answers come back thank you for your time we have one remote caller Lauren aam Lauren please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Lauren akam hi thank you my name is Lauren aim and I'm the climate codirector at the alliance for new economy where working with diverse partners for climate progress to win real change for workingclass communities and communities of color and a big component of this is healthy and green Public Schools so I really appreciate um all that the board has done to consider this and the ways in which various resources of the district

365can help move that forward we know that clean air and relief from extreme heat are crucial for racial Justice and Equitable learning outcomes and obviously funding is a big part of that and so I appreciate this discussion and the resolution adopted earlier today around ofli to F funding I've been trying to wrap my head around this so I really appreciate Dr Ras and board member guo's questions and Miss gan's comments on the importance of the buffard electrification and from what I understand what I can understand I'm glad to see the district relieving pressure on the general fund um uh for some of these important projects that said I also look forward to hearing more about how the US will approach resourcing continued progress towards the district commitments to clean energy and fleets and green schoolyards

366given that the bond would be needed to back sell funding for some of those projects that had already been committed for schoolyard Greening clean bus and charging projects and those solar projects discussed last month so I would love to continue to work together and hear more about how we can bring additional resources um for future projects that will help ensure a healthy green future for LD students and staff and again really appreciate all of the thoughtful questions from the board members on this important and very complex item and know that we and the public also appreciate those questions because they help us understand these um very complex issues thanks thank you for your time that concludes public comment on this item so Mr McLean we are ready to vote on this item that's correct okay

367okay roll call vote on Tab six uh Miss nubil abstain Dr revas I just want to say preface by saying that yes um this fiscal move is smart but the process was very opaque and not very inclusive and we disregarded our boc and as I mentioned it was voted in the measures and that's why I'm voting I'm going to abstain um Mr Melo yes Miss grigo yes with the caveat that we need to uh really um be more transparent not transparent but more open and and stop and consider things before we enter into these cops again uh Miss gones yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin moose artiz Franklin uh board member schmon yes all right so that leaves us with one two three four yeses two abstentions and one unrecorded vote sh uh in any event

368it passes shall we leave the role open for Miss orti Franklin okay we'll come back to that I I want to note that we have one two three four five six seven eight nine items of business remaining to conduct some of which have about I think uh two two 15 public comment uh slots filled each um so we have a good amount of business ahead of us for the evening just want to let everyone know so tab seven cannot be on consent um can I have a motion in a second to bring this to the table move it moves then Mr uh meloy seconds no one had alerted as to any discussion but maybe there is some now no okay let's do roll call vote uh Miss nuil yes Dr Ras yes uh Mr meloine

369yes Miss Grio yes Miss gones yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin board president schmon yes okay that is one two three four six yeses we will come back to miss Ortiz Franklin okay tab eight I have a motion in a second to bring it move it uh moved by um Mr mvo and seconded by I believe that was Miss gones yes yes okay roll call vote uh Miss nubel yes Dr revas yes Mr melne yes Miss Grio yes Miss gonz yes yes Miss Ortiz Franklin board president schmon yes okay that's six eyes okay tab 12 Define and approve four charter school facilities upgrade projects and amend the facility services division strategic execution plan to incorporate therein this was placed on discussion some folks wanted to talk about it this is tab I I seem to be

370recalling bd1 or two but I can't remember remember which okay so no discussion on this second okay move by Mr melin seconded by uh Miss Nill all right Miss nuell yes Dr Ras is this for item 12 that's correct yes Mr Mel yes Miss Grio yes Miss gones yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president schmon yes sorry yes okay so seven I's while I have um Miss Ortiz Franklin here can I capture your votes for tabs seven and eight yes and yes thank you thank you um and Miss gonz can I record your vote for tabs 4 and 24 yes I was just going to note that for you um yes and yes and if it's not too late to be a co-sponsor on 24 I'd love to be added okay thank you I'm

371just checking for public comment just give me one moment please okay this moves us to tab 13 I have a public statement to read about tab 13 okay before action is taken on board report number uh 222 d2425 approval of the renewal petition for Community magnet Charter Elementary a public hearing must be held this constitutes that public hearing and a maximum of 15 individuals who wish to address the board on the item will be heard those who wish to speak should sign up online speakers will be called by name so this is tab 13 do we have any presenters on Tab 13 I don't believe that we do um all right so we have one public speaker that is Mr David rovski okay is there I believe there is discussion on Tab 13 oh here

372comes Mr doovi oh Mr doovi just in time sir thank you you'll have two minutes to speak why don't you begin thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on Affiliated Charter Affiliated Charter is a charter that is uh part of the district it used to be called a dependent Charter by the previous General Council and I changed it to an Affiliated because dependent doesn't really give you a good sense of the opportunities and you have opportunities this Affiliated Charter and the second one coming up are utla represented charters they are part of the district and you could expand the number of Affiliated charters in fact if the superintendent wanted to I know it's a little difficult because it's very decentralizing you could make every school in the district an Affiliated District Charter that

373means if your schools are performing better than other districts instead of lying about your address you could actually just transfer in you could be and in fact that's happening the previous head of strategic enrollment said in front of the public that all the Affiliated Charters were full first of all that was either a lie or it was a testimony to how successful they are if they are all full then you should be banking more of them should continuation schools opportunity schools kids who go to other districts have the opportunity should a small school that's about to be strategized to be closed should a small school just prevented but become an Affiliated Charter develop its own autonomy this is a question that I raise Palisades High which all of you represent currently has over 1500 kids

374of its student online and I may not be up to- dat of the exact situation at sirs robu but let me tell you you should be enrolling 1500 kids not in a three-hour online but at unihi and at Westchester and at dorsy and other schools because those kids live all over the district they don't live online this is an opportunity Affiliated Charters are an opportunity and superintendent cortinis understood that because he prevented all the Affiliated charters in your District Mr Schon from becoming independent Charters thank you for your time we have some discussion on this item yes um I just want to ask Mr Jose ker to be here um I do I have some concerns about extending um Tri renewals for six years given the fact that um because of covid a lot of

375schools the the charters uh you know were extended for a few more years so um wanted to ask you if you can provide us with your rationale for providing why would a school oh well I know here we're we're you know the school is community magnet Charter but I'll be asking the same question for the the schools I got six years um what what was the rationale for providing five six or seven and how do the each dep each Charter that is of you know before us for Renewal why did they meet that criteria thank you for your question Dr R and good evening everyone first this is grounded in state law when the charter schools Act was amended through ab55 in the um about 2020 when it was became official or so uh there

376was a provision in law that allowed for high per performing charter schools which are classified by the state you're either High middle or low based on the state's classification the district receives that and the law allows those schools to be considered for a five six or sevene term but the law does not provide nor do regulations exist saying what are the different criteria factors so after the the law was passed the district brainstormed you know uh did our research and came up with some of those factors to consider that are in the district's board policy but also there's some in practice so for example for Community magnet on page 966 we share some of that rationale uh and these are uh included but not limited to first we look at our oversight record in the

377areas of academics governance Etc and want to make sure that um for those areas that they have higher marks so we have posted on our website and in the policy the demarcations uh for those criteria okay so in this case 7year which is the highest you need to be high performing through what we call Criterion one okay that's the state Criterion one blue and green on all your dashboard indicators Community Magnum missed it by one in chronic absenteeism in I think 22 23 otherwise it would have met Criterion one would have probably recommended a seven-year term they did it they got it through Criterion two where they're their academic uh indicators for all students is higher than the state and their majority of their student groups are higher than the state they meet that hence

378they they are qualify under R review uh to start there for a six-year term then we look at other areas they have received a majority of fours uh and no scores in three and you'll see in the record they have fours and threes they have not received any notices to cure in the last two years that's the case here we look at other additional uh factors do they have benchmarks not the case here are there any issues with equity and access these this school and our Affiliated schools follow our unified enrollment process we have not been made aware do we see concerns at this time regarding those access and Equity issues and any issues with school climate and culture and we do not have those their suspension rates as one point are very low so

379considering all those factors grounded in state law the factors we consider in the boorder approved policy um they Merit six-year term so I I'll stop there for any other questions no that was all I just wanted to you know just for the public record how you came about to to the six years and giving the six years and knowing the the landscape we're in overall right L um enrollment is going down for even for Charter Schools um and the the uncertainties that lie ahead for Budget were there any concerns and giving six years I mean it's a long time anything can happen within those six years um so what is your oversight in making sure that Within These six years is long term you know that you there the schools the charter schools are remaining

380you know fiscally viable or anything can happen within those six years absolutely this would apply for independent or affiliate this is an Affiliated Charter School uh a district operated school Under the board's governance for example in this case with your leader leadership and the superintendent we have very active oversight based on policy and law and so our record annually and not just with our one visit we'll do as many visits as necessary announced or unannounced depending on the school's record to assess that so for example this school is glowing with its results um certainly uh the finances are attached to the district so we always have to be mindful of that their enrollment um is overall in a good shape so we're we're we're on top of it each year and then for any other

381school that maybe uh has weaker enrollment we look very carefully at their numbers we'll ask them for an updated plan each year our team reviews their audits we review their reserves their rate different ratios Etc and where there are concerns like sometimes you'll see some schools in the county letters where they have maybe a projected negative fund balance we follow up to see what they're doing how they're making those corrective actions Etc it may rise to letters to notices but the short answer Dr revas even if the board approves pursuant to law a six-year term we're confident given the active oversight that we can have a sense we can always take action if there are um some appropriate ways to to deal with them during the term uh but our team and looking at the

382record of this school um do not have those concerns at this time yeah I just wanted you know not everyone has uh has had although everything is heing your report you know just for public record they may not have an opportunity to read the rationale for five six or seven so I just wanted you to to just address that so that's my only question and then moving forward for the next other schools just State your rationale just to go over there yeah um and I I also noticed that in some areas like students with disabilities there's no color or no num there's not a number is because well tell me why smaller uh they they they're have a very small number say fewer than 11 students so they're not reported I see and were you

383able to visit this school myself our our team okay has visited yes every year we visit every single school okay I saw their video and it was very impressive um and I noticed that one of the things that they talked about was social emotional learning that that is in fact what they Center and uh they lead so if you could just give me some some insights that uh you may have had when you visited the school in terms of curriculum and terms of the kind of work that the students do are they uh it sounded to me like they're more involved in Hands-On learning project based learning um if you have any insight that would be helpful yeah let me see if one of my team members who may have visited if we have any

384for Community magnet yeah uh we could we do have a staff member who visited upstairs but um there let me say this about the school and if we if we'd like we can get you some more information this is a magnet school at the liberal arts program okay um and if you'd like we have also the oversight report that we could provide that will have more details in terms of the visit not only the results of their academic program but some of the other observations if that would be helpful that would be helpful so we'll send that to the Board of Education thank you thank you I'm good and just to add to that because as we know as Charters were here to help us understand or to kind of pilot some things for us

385to be able to come back to Community Schools to be able to show in that report that you give uh are we able to see some of the samples of you know best practices especially for forther discussion we should uh that should be included but if now we can add some additional points for that yeah thank you thank you Miss GES hi um to go back to the earlier question about the longer um length of renewal term I was just curious if since Affiliated charter schools are LUSD Charter Schools they're overseen by like the same levels um you know our regions uh their community of schools directors Etc as all other L schools whether we considered like differentiated criteria for them just in this one it seems like the only area where they aren't generally

386speaking in blue or green was that chronic absenteeism in the 22 23 school year which like I'm sure many many many schools in the state of California were struggled with chronic absenteeism this year um so I was just curious if we thought about since these are schools that we directly oversee you know we can intervene at any time if we have Financial concerns or performance concerns whether we thought about a different approach for them thank you for the question we we had have had those discussions uh board member Gomez gones but we are applying it consistently this year um this is something that we want to look at given this is our first year back it was applied in 2020 in the last round of renewals as well and we may want to consider additional

387factors uh moving forward because we going to have more data we'll have a couple more we'll have a a new classification for schools coming out later this month as expected by the state if all goes well um so we did consider it we maintain the consistency at this time across the schools hence didn't deviate from that even though you note the one area that um that kept them out of the Criterion one so I I would offer that and ultimately the the decision of firm is the board of education's decision these are this is staff's recommendation as to the term uh but we're trying to apply it uh consistently um for all of our schools independent or Affiliated thank you thank you go ahead I was going to say very briefly because I I am

388proud to represent Community It's a Wonderful school with a very rich history it initially open in the 70s I think it was on LA's campus and then moved up to where it is now in belir but it's a full magnet um and I think it's has to have one of the longest weight lists for any one of our affiliate Charter or magnet schools I mean like you know thousands of kids um and I'm curious too just with chronic absenteeism I know it notes some things like vacations but it is I mean every student there basically takes the bus because of where they're coming from and so I also wonder too when it comes to tardiness and you miss the bus and then kids don't show up but it's a gem of a school um I

389would approve it for 10 years if we could and I think Miss GGO and others to see if you know especially given it's one of our schools but I'm sure many Charters would welcome this it would be great you know come visit anytime I was actually there a couple weeks ago they did a nice celebration of bus drivers because they were also one of the schools that was evacuated during the fires uh and so the students were thanking all of our La unified bus drivers and but it's it's a real wonderful community that does have a focus onal and Hands-On learning and Project based stuff so I mean maybe we can find a time to visit too um prin have a lot of faith in principal clue who's been there for a while and uh

390yeah so I would ask for folks support but um it is uh kind of one of the gems of the district so I'm proud to support it today I'll move it if we need to moved by Mr Mel second seconded by board president schmon okay this is tab 13 approval of the renewal petition for Community magnet Charter Elementary Miss Newell yes Dr Ras yes Mr Mel yes Miss Grio yes Miss KZ yes um Miss ortise Franklin come back to you Miss orti Franklin board president schmaren yes okay that's six eyes six 13 okay tab 14 I have a public statement to read about tab 14 before action is taken on board report number 223-242 approval of the renewal petition for Justice Street Academy charter a public hearing must be held this constitutes that public hearing

391uh and a maximum of 15 individuals who wish to address the board on the item will be heard those who wish to speak should sign up online speakers will be called by name so this is tab 14 public hearing and it looks like we have a single public commenter Mr David tolkovsky thank you very much I I began to say that super superintendent cortinez and to some lesser degree Tamar gallinson before Mr schmon took over kept all the Affiliated Charters from going independent in the West Valley they were all going to go independent which is about 30,000 kids which I calculate is about $750 million dollar per year which could have been going out for 10 years but they became Affiliated and we had to argue that we had to say why it was good

392to be part of the district I just don't see any of that happening at all in the Strategic enrollment so you got kids online at palad high you've got kids from my neighborhood in Eagle Rock who go to burn down charters in Pasadena and now they're accidentally coming back into the district come on where's the Strategic plan to bring them back in Mr Cole Gutierrez is on the mark you have the options of 56 and 7 nobody should be yelling that it has to be five just because they're Charters it should be based upon the data that you see and so let's take that out of politics there's a law and it's he mentioned it finally if you're telling the role is still open on on the cops and people can change their vote and

393again I'm for deesing them but I think you need to answer a lot of questions if you and your staff have truly read this Mr schmon if you have read this through and through every single piece of it then fine your vote is good but if you haven't looked at it then you ought to be aware that you're about to approve the man who wrote the letter to you from the bond oversight committee for another term fine also you're about to approve Item B in the contracts for uh $250,000 of cops and another one in item e and some that haven't even started and until you vote on these contracts they're not legally bound bound so you are approving more cops miss grego this meeting they're yours you own them okay get the answers before

394you jump into it and you still can get to Wall Street and probably get a better rate than going on right now thank you thank you for your time all right so uh tab 14 was pulled for discussion so I believe Dr Ras did you have yeah my f my same question for um for Justice Street Academy charter just the rationale for six years particularly given the fact that there have been some declines uh from 2023 to 20 2 4 um and some of our you know like Latino socioeconomically disadvantaged students so anyway but I know they did are higher than in the data so I just wanted to understand that thank you in brief pursuant to the factors that we consider that have been posted since 2020 we also looked at their um High

395performing status they they got in through Criterion to so they're all students group in math and Ela their academic indicators are higher than the state and the majority of their student groups are higher than the state in this case I believe all of their numerically significant student groups are higher than the state in their oversight record on page uh 999 for example you'll see that they're uh proficient or accomplished which would be three or four on their oversight report we don't have concerns in the areas of access and Equity um School culture and climate uh notices to cure Etc you're your note about declines yes and we note that for all of our schools will continue to monitor that engage what they're doing about it Etc but they're still higher than the state so uh

396and based on the the consistent application they Merit the six years in our in our humble recommendation that's all tab 15 tab 14 any more discussion on Tab 14 okay can I have a motion in a second move it second second by miss nuil all right Miss nuil yes Dr Ras yes Mr melne yes Miss GGO yes Miss gones Miss Ortiz Franklin board president shlon yes okay we'll come back with those those two votes brings us to tab 15 approval of the renewable Charter for center for advanced learning I'm going to read the public hearing statement and then we have the two-minute presentation and uh so forth uh before action is taken on board report number 224 d2425 approval of the renewal petition for center for advanced learning a public hearing must be held this

397constitutes that public hearing and a maximum of 15 individuals who wish to address the board on the item will be heard speakers who wish can sign up online and speakers will be called by name let let me just confirm if the petitioner wishes to do the presentation uh at this time I have a loudspeaker would the petitioner like to make the two-minute presentation at this time shook her head and no answer that was a no okay so um we'll move to the public speakers right off the bat for uh tab 15 okay your dear G come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin appreciate all y'all's patience thank you very much good good evening board members and superintendent carvalo we thank you for this opportunity my name is Janet Bailey and

398I'm a charter school staff member our parents seems like most of them had to leave due to the lengthy day and the schedule they needed to get home to their children and their families so we will end up passing for a lot of our speakers if you need to go through the names okay well you're on the list so do you do you want to finish up with that minute and a half while you're there it's true I am on the list as I said my name is Janet Bailey and I'm here to request that this board um approve center for advanced learning's recommendation for Renewal um if you ask me what I love most about our school and what I think makes us great I would absolutely have to say it's the positive climate

399and culture which is Apparent from the moment you walk into our campus um our staff is um friendly our staff is congenial our parents feel welcome our parents have access and as a mother of five and a grandparent of 15 I cannot tell you how important something like access is in the life of a child and in the child's education so knowing that parents at center for advanced learning can make appointments to speak with leadership members teachers are invited to campus are welcome to campus and frequently come on to campus to volunteer to participate in observations and to support our team is just an incredible thing to witness um am I supposed to watch this or am I supposed to listen for this it's up to you I mean when it dings I think you

400have another 20 seconds thank you very much so as I said the access that is available and the the commitment of our team we have a high rate of returning teachers and staff so that's that's also something important and speaks to my point about the climate and culture at center for advanced learning and on that note once again I would ask that you support the CD's recommendation for approval of our school and I thank you for your time thank you for your time Paula alria pass okay um let's see araseli madrano come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin good evening board superintendent good evening to everybody else my name is arel medano I am the office manager at center for advanced learning for the past 15 years but before working

401at Center for advanc Journey I was a parent a parent of four so my all four of my kids graduated from Cal now they're alumni and one is a senior so why am I here I am here because uh Cal I asked for you to please give us another opportunity to give us a a new renewal we deserve it Cal is a second home to me um Cal has done so much for my kids that made me work there and now I am providing that support help and all the Necessities to our parents um I just want to say that everybody is welcome at the school all the parents as you can see we had a whole full roll of parents here supporting uh unfortunately it got late so they had to leave but I

402speak as both parent and staff um I can only say that U Cal has given me the opportunity to work there just because of the staff that we have there um it just everything that we do there is for the kids we support 100% the parents um we the team we are a team we have a great team at our school and um like Dr Hammond used to say Teamwork Makes the Dream work so I will always keep it in my mind um another thing is that we always recognize what um our mission and vision is we always make sure that we go through our mission and vision and our words for our kids is Excellence is our only option so I ask and beg that we do get a renewal thank you thank you

403for your time uh Raina Diaz pass right uh Jessica Lopez pass uh let's see I'm going to mispronounce this name I fear yente Livingston pass Bianca Rodriguez pass also had to leave thank you thank you apologies Victor pinetta Victor is here come on down Victor come on up Victor Victor's here no sorry oh we are going to yield that time to one of our alum outstanding come come on down thank you so hi uh my name is Alexis Gino and I graduated from C in 2013 so I'm here to speak to you as an Alum of the school so recently I have graduated from the University of California Irvine where I earned my Bachelor of Science and pharmaceutical science there I gained not only research experience in a pharmacology research lab but I I'm also

404a co-author to a research paper that has yet to be published so I'm here to speak to you about how cow helped prepare me for the path that I have taken now I could speak to you about the academic rigor of the school one that prepares all its students for any subsequent challenges that they'll face in the following grades but I believe that is something that is self-evident and something you can easily find what I want to speak to you more so is about the community and the team building and the commity and the um collaboration that the students have with one another I'm sure I don't need to emphasize that in our modern day interdisciplinary collaborations and teamwork is essential to anything and everything and it is vital for Success the students here are

405a part of a close-nit community it is not a situation where a student will be struggling and one thinks to themselves oh it's just someone in my English class struggling or someone in my math class struggling it is their friend their that is struggling those students see this and they help each other it's not just the students that help each other lift each other up it is also the teachers as part of a small the small class sizes allows each and everyone to know each other and to help each other and to build each other up so I implore you to renew the school and I am asking you this not just as an Alum but also of the Big Brother of a little sister who is currently attending the school thank you for your

406time uh Carla hialgo pass uh concepion Morgan pass Stephanie beltron come on up miss beltron you have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon dear superintendent and board of directors my name is Stephanie Beltran this is my first year as principal of Cal and actually it is my first year as principal ever so you can imagine what this feels like being uh up here as you know speaking for this firee renewal it is definitely a learning experience that I very much appreciate and I wouldn't pick another school I cannot imagine doing this for any other school besides cal um so I'm just going to go ahead and read what I said so my journey at center for advanced learning began not too long ago when I decided to step out of the classroom

407within months Cal began to push me to my full potential a potential not even I knew I had now I stand before you as the principal of center for advanced learning a title I am so proud to hold but my story is not unique here at cal cal is a center where we strive for excellence from both our students and our staff our students become leaders at Yale Stanford and UCLA and UCI I'm so proud of him and our staff move up to very um to leadership positions Cal is the foundation for growth empowerment and success we are not only an element Elementary School we are where students come in and say Excellence is our only option the people behind me and the people who were here our parents and the people who are on

408campus now and will always make sure that that is true and I want to thank you for your consideration this afternoon thank you thank you for your time Nicole Sims come on up you have two minutes to speak when you begin good evening board members and superintendent my name is Nicole Sims and I'm the reading specialist at the center for advanced learning I'm originally from the Inland Empire when relocating to the Los Angeles area I had the opportunity to interview for a variety of schools cal made my choice so easy Cal's loving family environment and commitment to a growth mindset really stood out to me Cal has adopted the motto Excellence is our only option this model is special to me because it reminds me every day that we are committed to ensure our students

409succeed we will not fail them at the end of every day every ounce of energy is spent making sure our students are learning and growing we have made great strides this year and we just like our school mascot the rocket our desire is to shoot for the stars we offer literacy classes for our community an enriching after school program Extended Learning opportunities and much more we have grown our Student Success team and have been intentional to be certain that we are meeting the needs of all of our students I humbly ask you to continue to support the center for advanced learnings growth and improve our renewal so we can continue to make a difference in the lives of our students and the communities that we serve thank you for your consideration thank you for your

410time Winnie Peterson come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin uh good evening Schoolboard member superintendent and friends my name is Winnie Peterson and I teach second grade at the center for advanced learning I love our school I have been a classroom teacher at the school since it was founded and I absolutely love working for an organization that values its staff and students I am so appreciative of the opportunity that c has given me to really get to know my students as well as their families and friends we are more than a school we are a family this can be evidence by the events schoolwide theme days and weekly uh and weekend extra credit projects we organiz for our Scholars which include classroom spelling bees honor rooll assemblies schoolwide parties like

411our I ready celebration Multicultural Festival Hispanic Heritage Month Spirit Week Thanksgiving food drive Red Ribbon Week Black History Month Spirit Week Dynamic field trips bring your favorite blank to school day which allows for or presentation skills to be improved create your own blank as an introduction to a new academic unit we also offer wonderful online programs to our students on their own classroom Chromebooks such as epic which is the Netflix of books for kids cahoot and bit competitive online review quiz apps that make learning a lot of fun 99 math which is also an online uh platform that helps students develop math skills through games extra math online math fluency program that helps students develop quick recall and automaticity of basic math skills I ready freckle and Prodigy uh a small list online learning Pro

412platforms that allow students to practice math and English language arts at their own levels which is very important examples of these can be seen in these super cute yearbooks that I make for my students every year if you would like to see uh I am proud of the school we have built together it is a place where our many different students can feel loved seen heard and appreciated we have a schedule that empowers our sped students and English language Learners and celebrates the various modes of learning we emphasize and use which is social and learning strategies and programs even Adele gave us a shout out I feel blessed to have been a part of this magnificent school and I ask that you support Cal's renewal so that we can continue to serve the students and

413community that we love thank you for your time thank you for your time uh Cynthia Hernandez come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin good evening board members my name is cynia Hernandez I am the fifth grade teacher at um Center for Advance learning before I get started I want to give you a little background of my uh uh teaching career I started as a pair professional for LUSD I work for L uh LC for six years then I went to a parochial school a private sector for nine years and now I this is my 10th year at Cal why Cal because Cal takes in consideration the social emotional of students and um staff members they cater to our needs they are family they will go beyond to actually help meet

414the needs of the students and mostly the and also the teachers you know if a teacher is not well she's not going to perform well and I what I'm very proud of the background um res all the resources everything that CS provides for the teachers because then we can become a successful teacher in the classroom um what I like about Cal is as soon as you walk in you can see diversity diversity um we focus on sympathy equality um embracing each other's unique Ness and I personally have had uh parents that have that I've taught their children like three or four of their children so if the parents keep coming to our school that means a lot they want to stay there and now some of them left because obviously this is the LA um

415late meeting but many of them had have had uh students attend Cal and I'm talking about one of my parents had five students and there's one more left so that shows a lot if parents want to come back to us if they want to continue bringing not just them uh their children but also the community students is because we're doing something good we're not the we're like I said I don't want to say we're perfect but we are perfect because we continue to better ourselves and try to make ourselves better every day and pass that on to our children like they said I could um excellent is our only option and that's the Moto that we live by thank you thank you for your time that concludes public comment on the item um can I

416have a motion and second uh just a motion to bring it to the table and discuss and then we can vote thank you Mr Mel second second and Mr schmon this tab 15 hi I have a I'm wondering I was looking through their uh data and I didn't see the comparison to the residential schools thank you for the question uh Miss GGO so pursuant to the policy we would do the resident schools analysis in a sense when it was needed the first level is the dashboard analysis compared to the state so why don't we go to that um briefly here so page 1026 we will see an Ela we start with 2122 we see they were lower all students in that group but higher for all of their numerically significant students student groups and that's

417the same for all three years okay so that would pass muster as we've consistently applied it to all the other schools given the Maj all in this case all of their student groups the all students certainly would like to see that but the state includes all student groups all tested grade levels so it's something to factor in but the fact that all of their numerically significant student groups there um were higher than the state that was favorable for them and that's the same story in mathematics okay then we go to the next academic indicator LP they were two out of three years higher than the state did have a a decline here also in the last year a little bit bigger to go lower than the state but two out of three were higher they

418did not provide verified data but based on our consistent analysis the dashboard pass muster we did not need to go to resident schools let's say it were more of a mixed record or less than a majority for ELA or math then we would have likely gone to the resident schools since they didn't provide verified data um and that's been the the approach we've taken through this renewal season what about in uh for students with disabilities and um I see here uh let me see here for ELA and for math um in 23 English language Learners declined significantly yes um students with disabilities declined significantly in 23 and uh it stayed the same um in math for students with disabilities um so that's why I was asking because I'd like to know how that compares with

419the residential Schools are they you know is that also happening at the residential schools got it well I'll make a couple notes to your first your observations we also noted those and that'll be something as part of oversight we we will address um they did decline significantly for English Learners as you noted uh still landed higher than the state so still need to address ongoing um what's happening there students with disabilities um doesn't have a color they have a small uh group of students but that's an area that they'll need to continue to monitor that's why you don't see them with any classification compared to the state just two things there the the note about the resident schools um I would just State briefly it's an area obviously it's per policy when we need to

420go there I think we need to continue to be judicious of when that is necessary if the dashboard analysis already passes mustard the reason is previous to the ab55 changes everything was essentially a comparison to where students would otherwise attend or resid in schools one can argue that that that's a different bar some may say it's lower some may say it's higher depending on who you're comparing and so we we reserve that analysis for Middle performing schools pursue into the board's policy when a the dashboard analysis doesn't pass muster B verify data whether they submit it or not doesn't pass muster then we will go to that analysis so that's that's I would just advise that um um and then again when there's no color or there's an asterisk then that means that the number

421is significantly low right uh the number of students if there's an asterisk so for black or African-American students in ela uh for 2023 it's there's no color and there's an asterisk and then it says no change level right so I mean but how do we know how the students are doing how that I mean I understand why you don't do it but at the same time we need to know right and what page is that ma'am just that one is 1027 yeah let me go back to well and to be clear this is pursuant to how the state reports it on the dashboard so um I'm seeing the the charts there I'm not seeing maybe it's a diff um is it the data set oh the data set I'm seeing so let me look there

422the short answer is one year a student num a student group could be numerically significant for the purposes of dashboard another year they may have dropped But to answer your bigger question regardless of the numeric uh significance pursu to the dashboard we still look at the data for all students that are at the school site you're right that the data then are not purported fully because of the rules that the state has established given the smaller numbers but we are still having the conversations with the school to us make sure that all students whether they're quote unquote numerically significant for data purposes are being served okay and there's no narrative I wonder if um not that want to give you more work but for those situations I wish there was like a narrative that said

423okay this on the dashboard you can't see it but based on our other analysis of other data this is how these populations are doing um these are you know students with disabilities uh black or African-American students English language Learners sometimes there we may not have the full picture based on this data and not necessarily that we would not not approve something but we want to be aware of it and have that communication with the charter that you know we we these areas need Improvement if they do need Improvement or you're doing amazing in these areas but whatever it is I I I feel like we need to have that yeah info let me take that back I will share that we've also worked to streamline the materials a bit given the volume but let's see

424where there's a happy medium but I will tell you we used to have more language in the reports we've kind of streamlined it a bit to what you see um but let us take that back reflect on it and uh offer some recommendations of superintendent uh balancing that given our our high numbers um but but wanted to provide you what you need thank you okay that's it for questions all right roll call vote Miss newbill I don't know come all right Dr Ras yes Mr melvoin yes Miss grigo yes Miss gones yes you miss Ortiz Franklin Miss Ortiz Franklin uh board president scharon yes here's Miss nuil oh miss nubil how do you vote on tab 15 yes I heard a yes I heard it too is a yes yes okay we will come back

425to miss Ortiz Franklin for tab 15 then oh Sor sorry I'm a yes if it's not too late okay that's a yes so can I also record your votes for a couple other tabs while we're here yes please all right how about tab uh 14 uh yes okay how about tab 13 yes and how about tab six cops yes okay thank you and then yes they know you know yeah yes you all are renewed yeah thank you moved kind of quickly um and Miss gonz while you while we have you um I believe I need your vote for tab 14 that was uh just Street Academy charter yes thank you so much okay let's move on to tab 16 I'll read the public statement public hearing statement for tab 16 uh before action is taken

426on board report number 225-242 25 approval for the renewal petition for pente Charter a public hearing must be held this constitutes that public hearing the maximum of 15 individuals who wish to address the board on the item will be heard those who wish to speak should sign up online speakers will be called by name and by the looks of it we have a two-minute presentation from you yes good evening everyone um my name is Brenda Messa and I'm the principal at bla charter school thank you for the opportunity to speak on our rual petition I have a really short presentation for you and it's really reiterating our data for 2324 Academic School year on the first slide you see the results for English language arts and math for our school on the right you see

427the results for the state and the district on the following slide you can see the results for our English language proficiency as well as the result um the comparison data for state and District as you can see bua results surpass State and District outcomes we currently hold a high- performing School status based on the California Department of Education criteria such results can be attributed to a variety of things mainly to our school culture of accountability for all of our staff as well as our parent Community we Contin continually strive for a strong home to school connection these outcomes can also be attributed to the intentional and datadriven instruction delivered by our highly engaged team of teachers coaches par professionals and support staff buente um also engages in targeted professional development on a weekly basis with

428topics that are D that are driven by data and lastly as a community school buend has intentional Community Partnerships in support of our staff um our students and their families thank you for your time and consideration of a six-year renewal thank you for your time um looks like we have a full boat of public comment which we'll go to now we have folks are listed as speaking remotely and in person we wish to wave our speakers okay I'm I'm going to I'm going to make sure that there aren't any folks who uh weren't maybe with your group um and make sure we didn't wave wave them but I'll just read the person then you you'll probably be able to identify them um let's see Matt Wells we wave the speaker okay uh Isabelle Calderone wave

429okay Andrea grigo wave right um Jerome Greening wave the Jasmine madrano wave right Dominic arender wave and Michelle wolf wave the remainder just so the public knows the remainder of the folks on my list are listed as speaking remotely and I don't don't have anyone signed in speaking remotely so it's not necessary to go through and do the whole wave wave wave thing um this item uh was pulled for discussion so now is the time for discussion hello Mr Jose KZ same question uh six years but um also raising concern concerns in regards to English learner the out of all the subgroups the English learner seems to have the highest um DFS for Math and Ela so just wanted to know how um you ask you know how they're um planning to address the the

430high DFS just for English Learners although I know that they were higher than the state they are the DFS is higher than all the other subgroups and all students as well so just wanted to right thank you so first for the uh consideration of the six years following the criteria that I've mentioned the factors uh we we applied the same uh methodology here so the school uh is high performing as designated by the state through Criterion two they're all students higher than the state majority of student groups higher than the state as well and their oversight record also meets the criteria that I've discussed in terms of notices to cure threes and fours on the no notices to cure uh threes and fours on the oversight visit um no concerns that are uh material for

431for student discipline climate culture access and equity and the like so applying that criteria we uh came forward with a six-year renewal uh recommendation in terms of let me go to the data set just to to see the the information there um so as you noted and similarly um we we note schools that are um performing well certainly this is an error any declines we're following up with them on uh and and the principal noted some of their efforts um and so this is a case for English Learners with uh as you noted uh Dr Rivas in English language arts with a negative um no sorry a negative um 34.2 on the uh 2223 and 35 negative 35.2 in um 2324 while they're still higher than the state you know by about 30 points uh

432they they've mitigated the declined from the prior year 30 negative one still need to to to proceed further um from our team's review it's it's a very individualized um smaller school and um provide that that individualized instruction um I did an unannounced visit um and spoke to one of their coordinators uh that day who talked about some of the declines in the uh scores for English Learners and some of that individualized attention that they're doubling down on uh from that conversation um so those are some things I would note from that unannounced visit that I had and certainly our team also did the oversight visit individ individualized attention are they adding more supports or how are they changing that or I don't know if they're adding additional staff I'd have to defer to the school

433but they do have a an assigned coordinator that provide that reviews the data works with the team she was sharing about some of those um data conversations and trying to address it to to not only mitigate the declines but turn it to the positive okay thank you thank you board members any other questions no okay all right can I have a motion to a motion was that Dr Ras yes second second and seconded by Miss nuil uh Miss nubil yes Dr Ras yes Mr melin yes Miss grigo I'll obain Miss gones yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes uh board president schmon yes and student board member Lopez Cortez yes okay that's a six eyes one Obe passes Let's see we have tab 22 approval of of procurement actions was pulled for discussion believe was that Mr

434mne yes um I just had a quick question that is not as much about I guess it's about this procurement item but more about our Global question on um at home internet so this is tab 22 item J um and I don't know maybe this is is so hail but one of mine and the board's priorities particularly during covid the last few years was at home internet for families um and I think as of today we still have about 57,000 students connected and I understand as Federal the emergency connectivity fund ended in June of last year and the federal government particularly this federal government is not particularly supportive but and so so this contract his $72 million out of mostly eate funds for hotspots as part of this bridge but as we all know a

435hot spot is not as reliable as you know at home connectivity so I just wanted to flag that transition for you the board the superintendent and get a sense of H how are we notifying families of this change are we stop like have we been just paying for their internet and now we're not and so they have the option of paying it themselves or getting a hot spot how are we notifying them how are we advocating around this um I you know I you know understand that we're losing the federal resources we were relying on but given that we still nearly 60,000 kids using at home internet thanks to the district which was a huge success and win I just want to make sure we're thoughtful about this bridge as we've been call as you've

436been calling her to this transition so I just had some questions and wanted to make sure that everyone was aware about what this item was good evening board member I'm so kle Chief Information officer so um we started this program as you recall uh when the digital divide resolution passed we implemented the ECF program back then the funding for the ECF ended um in the previous school year and uh with authorization of the superintendent and discussion with the board we got the breach contract internally and we use District general fund to cover the um duration of this work during the last year we were working on the advocacy effort to make sure we can secure this uh program ECF to the eate funding there was a event actually is one of our highest schools the

437FCC chair back then uh came and we celebrated the passing of the eate transition of ECF to eate program it was a successful effort um and uh we were able to uh get the authorization to apply for the E rate for the next school year so as of as you indicated as of now we have 57,000 uh families they are using our service uh since the program ended we froze the portal we are not receiv new application because we didn't have enough funding to increase the number we sustained those families but we were in constant communication with them at the same time with the public through the websites and every everywhere else that we were discussing that the uh future of the program is depending of the continuation to the eate program uh but the

438passage of this contract we're going to start the communication because we didn't even have the contract to start uh making assumption they're going to be the bridge uh process we're going to make the community communication with their families and essentially Define what are the guidelines because fcc's guideline is different than what we had before before we were covering the fixed Broadband such as uh Spectrum or AT&T fiber optics on unfortunately under the guideline of the eate none of those are allowable because by some legal virtue in the language of the FCC authorization they can lend the service they can lend uh something and they needed physical asset to be lended so when we were in Washington DC discussing with the FCC that was the only way that FCC was able to authorize this program so

439uh despite that we are using the program the same way the goal is to uh being constant communication with the family and transition them to the hotspot um process but at the same time we are sharing the other uh lowcost services that is still available through the lifeline and other opport Unity for the low-income families there are Flyers that back then we were using through the ACP the goal is to Comm continue those Communications so the parent can take advantage of those uh lower cost Services as well and I do appreciate I mean I know we paused it now but I was seeing on buses or Billboards kind of All Families connected in the um advertisements over the last few years to get internet so we were physically were we reimbursing families for their at

440home internet or were we just paying for it um for the we just paying directly we are not reimbursing actually the contract is directly with the district there was a contract we passed we pay the service provider and service provider just connect the service and we are constantly monitoring the utilization of the service so based on new federal guidelines around eate we can't do that so instead we're going to those families and saying here's a hot spot that we'll pay for um so you will still have no cost it's just a different provision of Internet it is a different provision but it still parent doesn't get into the contract with the service provider we handing over the hotspot and I'm noting so 90% is eate and 10% is General funds can we use Bond dollars

441and this is Operation usually for operation you cannot utilize the bond dollars because for Bond we need to equip the schools and unfortunately at this time we don't we didn't see provision for that and that 10% is the match from the district from U like any other eate program is part of free reduced launch but we can discuss with our legal council and do more verification if it's needed um and then as families I'm sure this is on your radar but as families are transitioning off if they're going to do our hotspots they'll um I don't want them to be on the hook for any costs of like the uh you know vestages of their own home internet so like with Spectrum for example would Spectrum just come and collect their equipment like because the

442contract is with us families won't be charged anything in that transition no they're not going to be charged and actually we specifically in the contract we have a language that the service provider they are not allowed to get in touch with the families so all of those communication comes through us and the H and equipment and all the services need to be returned back yes correct but the communication is through the district not okay yeah I mean it's I think it's unfortunate at the federal level of course because at home and broadband and spectrum and all those are I think higher um uh quality than hotspots in many cases that's why we went there in the first place but if this is the best we can do I appreciate that we're doing it um just

443wanted to have some clarity about how we're communicating with families so thank you thank you go ahead Rosio good question um why are we using only 90% of eate funds and not 100 and why are we using general funds why would so that dichotomy the way that FCC uh structured the allocation for any e not just this connectivity is based on the calculation of the student in the entire District that they are in free redu launch program so that calculation for district uh for our district for category one which is a category to provide the services directly like our internet service is 90% And for the category two we are at 80% so we usually leverage between 85 to 90% but that's a FCC guideline so the rest of it District need to put the

444match okay we now have uh three oh I'm sorry go ahead go ahead go ahead item H so it's also for you uh Mr Catal my question is second um there have been reports of national trend of price gouging targeting school districts um responding to cyber security breaches and threats how are we ensuring that from this bench there's due diligence and smart investments in this area particularly as we're allocating 101 million for this bench bench so um obviously the uh as far as the pricing the price overall during the inflation and everything else for commodity and services are going up we are aware of that the therefore the contract has provision for protecting our um um essentially pricing for both category the discount or the price list or the services that being provided this is

445Avenue that actually we can control for the next 3 to 5 years make sure we have enough control obviously there are multiple vendor in the bench so when we solicit to the bench is still we looking for the lowest price between them and low better better service not just a lower Serv and lowest price but better service service and more Optimum solution from the vendors but uh and that that and that time we're going to do more analysis to make sure the service with the support of the procurement to do more analysis to make sure the service that we are getting is accurate and usable to the district um my next question given that 22 of the 35 vendors are existing pre-existing contractors how did the competitive RFB process ensure that we are receiving the

446most competitive pricing I think you alled to that already and avoiding potential price gouging espe officially with the large contract amount so I think you've already addressed that right yeah but I want to defer do you want to make any comment from procurement because this is more procurement process sure so um during the procurement process there's a number of um teams that actually go through the scoring process and so as part of that they're scoring individual vendors or contractors based on a number of factors which includes price so as part of that scoring um of course price is a component of that yeah and how has a cyber security budget changed over the past few years and what are the projected funding needs for the future and what are the penalties for these vendors if

447there is a data breach due to their negligence no um obviously there is a a report that we sent to the board the ex uh the entire um expenditure that the district does around the cyber security program is in indicated in the quarterly report um and we are right now I would say the second year of the program we still have about I would say one or two more years to complete or get to the maturity level that we expect but uh for further detail I can uh send the informative updated informative with your question or we can discuss it in the close session as far as your second question was uh sorry can you what are the penalties for these vendors if the data breach if there's a data breach due to their own

448negligence there is a language terms in the contract that protect us uh for any type of data brid they have a deadline that they need to notify us and at the same time they are there is a liability language uh which I our general counil usually uh work with us to develop those language for the contract and at the same time additionally we have our own cyber security insurance that covers um on top of that so there are three level of protection liability insurance and as well as the cyber security clause and data uh protection as well sure sorry about that I thought Nick was the only one who had the question of thean I'm sorry we should have written it down okay thank you thank you very much so we have three board members

449who have a uh motion closing motion well we're gonna we need to we need to move the move the item and then we'll vote on it uh I apologize again I guess it's getting late okay all right move it who who move it whose disembodied voice was that was Miss gones okay thank you Miss gones I appreciate it so miss gones moves who is a second uh Dr revas uh Miss nubel yes Dr Ras yes Mr melin yes Miss grigo has just stepped out uh Miss gones yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin Miss Ortiz Franklin okay board president schmon yes okay board student board member Lopez Cortez yes yes let's uh if you don't mind let me just call in um Miss Ortiz Franklin one more time Miss Ortiz Franklin okay that concludes um all our

450action items for okay so we do have three board members rosil and Kelly and Carla who have a adjourning motion let's start with you m Rosio thank you um this adjourning motion is um in the memory of Guadalupe um also known as Lupe Rodriguez she was a teacher's aid at East LA Skill Center uh Lupe Rodriguez a devoted mother grandmother and cherished Community member passed away on February 23rd 2025 at the young age of 65 born on December 12th 1959 in guara halisco Mexico Lupe was raised with strong values of perseverance kindness and dedication to family she later made uh she later uh made dowy California her home where she resided for over 30 years creating a life centered with love Faith and Community for more than 25 years Lupe was a dedic dedicated LUSD

451School District employee working at East LA Skill Center as a teacher's aid she took great pride in her work always striving to make a difference in the lives of others family was at the heart of Guadalupe's world she was a loving mother and doting grandmother consistently placing the needs of her loved ones above her own she found immeasurable joy in spending time with her beloved Son and two cherished grandchildren who were the light of her life Lupe was known for her kind Ness generosity and quiet strength she touched the lives of so many with her compassion and unwavering Devotion to those she loved she made an indelible impact on all who knew her and experienced her kind kind kindheartedness through a warming Grace a thoughtful advice or simply her reassurance Aura through her physical presence

452though her physical presence will be deeply missed her Legacy of love and kindness will live on in the hearts of her family friends co-workers and all who have the privilege of knowing her May Lupe rest in Eternal peace and love and may her memory continue to bless those who have loved and worked alongside her rest in peace Lupe thank you Rosio thank you Kelly thank you board president today I would like to adjourn this meeting in honor of Mr Luis Fernando Gonzalez a dedicated educator mentor and coach at San Fernando High School for nearly three decades a UC Berkeley graduate with a master's in education Administration Mr Gonzalez began teaching social studies in 1996 inspiring generations of students as head wrestling coach he led his teams to 17 CIF championships multiple state titles and National

453recognition he was awarded State teacher of the year coach of the year five times and National coach of the year yet his greatest reward was seeing former students return to thank him for the impact that he made in their lives his legacy is one of dedication excellence and deep commitment to the San Fernando High School community and the broader northeast San Fernando Valley he truly touched hundreds of lives over his time tonight we honor Mr Gonzalez for his lifelong service and I ask that we adjourn this meeting in his name with our honor and deepest gratitude thank you Kelly and Carla and I would like to adjourn this meeting in the memory of Alex lades 12th grade student at Richard Alonzo Community Day School who passed away on February 2nd 2025 Alex ladis was someone

454that had an incredible gift for art and his drawings spoke volumes capturing emotions and stories with a depth and beauty that was beyond his years his work was not just skillful it was a reflection of his inner World his thoughts and the way he saw beautyy in the world around him each piece was a little window into his heart and we were all privileged to witness it but beyond his talent it was his character that truly made him stand out Alex lades was respectful to everyone he encountered he treated everyone with a level of kindness even on the toughest days he was determined to arrive at Alonzo CDs Alex Lattis will be missed but his legacy of kindness will continue to inspire and remind us of the incredible person he was thank you thank you

455Carla okay unless there's any objection the meeting is adjourned no objection okay the time is now 7:56 thank you everyone [Music]