June 25, 2024 - 2:45pm Regular Board Meeting

001e e e [Music] I'm good know thank you you oh thank than okay uh welcome back the time is now 2:41 the date is June 25th 2024 welcome to the regular 2 pm. meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education I'm going to go ahead and take rooll Dr McKenna here Dr re yes mron present Mr Mel here uh Mr Ortiz Franklin board president Goldberg here and we do have Miss gona on the line she uh has had an emergency and so she will be appearing remotely in order to do this under the brown act we will need board action in order to approve it so uh what that would require is um someone will move to have board action taken for an emergency exception which Miss gones will explain when the

002time comes uh the board would then vote on it and then if the board approves the emergency action Miss gones will be able to attend remotely take action under the current Brown act move it been moved and seconded um that's moved by board member schmon seconded by board member uh mvo and uh very briefly not getting uh too detailed board member gonz um the nature of the emergency yes um my baby got sick and spiked a fever at daycare and had to be sent home there's no one else available to care for her while the other two children are being picked up so um I am here with her now okay thank you thank you for the information and you're the only person over the age of 18 in the room at this time correct

003outstanding and we have Miss gonz on audio and visual um I'll also note that board member Ortiz Franklin is here now and uh can we please we'll take a vote on it if that's okay yes absolutely call a roll okay Dr McKenna yes Dr Ras yes Mr schmon yes Mr meloy yes Miss GES I'm not sure that you're allowed to vote on that well miss Ortiz Franklin yes uh board president Goldberg yes that's six eyes to attend under the emergency exception under 2449 so thank you very much and we're sorry that your youngster is ill and we hope she gets he or she gets better very quickly all right please join me in the pledge of Allegiance please stand face the flag place your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to

004the flag so first uh I want to thank the fact that we have signing today and that we will have signing on a regular basis from now on so that those who are DEA and heart of hearing can participate more fully in our meetings I also want to say that this is the final meeting of the Year and that we have had and have overcome many obstacles Chang es in the state budget which I hear they're finally finally adopting maybe today or for sure by tomorrow so we'll have to see what tweaks they made and that means we may have to come back in August and revise a little bit of our own but I also want to say I want you to all join me in recognizing and thanking all the people who make

005this possible and that is all of our translators who are translating right now so I can't have them come out here and take a bow all people in the back who make sure that people can be heard that the air conditioning works when it's hot and the heat works when it's cold the police who ensure everybody's safety the folks in the back who make sure that we have taped these meetings so that people who are not here can see them and all of the people in the back who make sure that people who call in can be heard all of them work very hard and have worked very hard this year and I'm going to ask all of you to join me in applauding them right now and that of course includes Mr McLean that's

006right all right now we're going to hear briefly from labor Partners uh we have I believe uh CCA and seiu99 in whichever order you want I'm going to request not require but request that you try to keep your remarks to five minutes because we still have a lot left to go in this meeting are any Representatives here from CCA oh no okay well if they come in maybe we can fit them in I don't know later how about from SEIU Local okay thank you for joining us good afternoon board members and superintendent carvalo I am conrado Guerrero I'm a building engineer at LUSD and I'm also the president of SEIU Local 99 earlier this month you heard from seu Local 99 members about the serious impact that Staffing Cuts would have on dedicated workers and

007the student services we provide you Revis the budget restoring the hours of Campus AIDS super School supervision AIDS teacher assistance and other essential School workers is a positive step forward we appreciate you taking that step but while the restoration of ours is a positive step the district needs to do more to address the serious staffing shortages Staffing shortages persist because the district refuses to create a budget that focuses on the needs of students and schools it is misleading to compare Staffing levels to student enrollment the district must instead look at Staffing ratios and other factors to truly address what's happening in our schools as a building engineer I go from school to school and I see firsthand how the lack of custodians impacts our schools and students I see schools that are half the size

008of city blocks where only one building and grounds worker is assigned to clean that school at Night by themselves the most they can do is service the restrooms and empty the trash cans mopping dusting vacuuming and other needs are just not getting done that's just not a safe environment for our students to have it's not conducive for them to have a good learning environment for them to come to school thank you thank all of you for coming down to the meeting anybody else here from our labor Partners okay then we will move on um the next item we have we're going to take out of order board members we're going to take the two resolutions number seven and number eight six I'm sorry if somebody wrote me seven and eight all right six and seven

009thank you I stand corrected so item number six is brought by myself it comes from us having had a tremendous opportunity to be in Sacramento and to see how some of these things work the impact uh my resolution and I would uh ask I will move it and ask someone to join me in seconding it Mr uh meloy will second it you know really there are thousands of active and inactive Wells within the boundaries of La unified and the legislature passed SB 1137 in 2022 to initiate a health and safety setback which prohibits new or modified oil and gas Wells within 3,200 ft of schools daycare centers Parks Health Care Facilities businesses and homes but the oil in industry has not ever decided that it should have to follow legislative rules I was there for

010six years I can tell you they fought everything we ever tried to do so they have now spent at least at least $20 million putting on the ballot a measure to say no we're going to we're going to withdraw it we're going to overturn the ballot the the 2022 resolution sponsored by uh Senator Lena Gonzalez uh who represents a good part of the southeast part of this district and I'm asking you to join me in having a resolution which says that the district will publish accurate and un biased information about ballot initiatives on the November 24th election including regarding the well-funded attack on SB 1137 and that we say to people that we understand to people that when you know a health hazard is just steps away because of these dangerous oil wells that the

011fact that you have lots of money in an oil in a very very very very well-funded oil industry that that is not sufficient reason not to protect the children and the families and the youth in our district and throughout the state uh so I ask you to join me in uh in supporting my resolution I'd like to co-sponsor absolutely co-sponsor absolutely absolutely absolutely absolutely Miss gones if you'd like to co-sponsor you can as well but I you know this is this is a sad thing you know you pass legislation that protects health and safety and the wealthy corporations in some cases decide they don't want to be legislated so they're just going to raise enough money to overturn it all right uh I think we can call the rule on Tab six oh we have

012a public speaker on this one I'm sorry let's take the public speaker yes we do thank you for reminding me uh Emma Emma silur come on up have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon my name is Emma silur with Physicians for social responsibility Los Angeles and I'm here today representing the campaign for a safe and healthy California that is working to keep the law that protects neighborhoods from toxic oil and gas drilling thank you for considering this resolution to support our campaign to keep the law Big Oil spent tens of millions of dollars to qualify a referendum on the November 2024 ballot to overturn SP 1137 a common sense law overwhelmingly passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Nome in 2022 that prohibits new toxic oil and gas drilling within 3200

013ft of schools homes daycare centers parks and Healthcare facilities living near an oil well increases the risk of asthma birth defects high-risk pregnancies respiratory illnesses and cancer over 250,000 California students attend school within a half mile of an active oil well across the state Black and Hispanic students are disproportionately burdened by the impact of oil and gas drilling on schools as are students eligible for free and reduced School meals children are especially vulnerable to exposure to toxic chemicals emitted from oil and gas operations their brains and bodies are still developing and exposure to toxic chemicals during critical and sensitive Windows of development can lead to illness during childhood adolescence adulthood and across Generations in my world in my role I work closely with folks who are impacted by neighborhood drilling one example is in South

014La at the Active Murphy drill site in February 2022 the operator of the site brought in 5,000g tanker trucks carrying carcinogenic acids for maintenance work without a permit as 1300 students from K through 12 began their school days less than 1,000 ft from the drill site potentially exposing them to toxic air pollution so I ask you here today to support this resolution and thank you so much for your consideration call the roll okay calling the roll on Tab six Dr McKenna yes Dr Ras yes Mr smon yes Mr melin yes Miss gones yes and you can add me as a co-sponsor absolutely uh Miss Ortiz Franklin yes uh board president Goldberg yes it's seven eyes all right uh tab seven is a resolution from our former uh board uh member Ms Ramirez who I believe

015is on zoom and G to present her own her own uh resolution instead of having me do it for her is that correct are you there there she is all right back at Yale thanks a lot go ahead hi everyone Hi everyone thank you so much for letting me connect with you guys through Zoom I'm so sorry I couldn't be there um I'm finally zooming in from the East Coast from Yale I'm currently at one of their residential colleges uh Ezra Styles college so very exciting to join with you guys virtually um but just the resolution that I bring before you guys today really resonates deeply with me in my student community and as a student advocate for the students in La unified whether it be in my role as La student board member or

016through my participation in the many many different councils in the district I've been very very privileged to experience firsthand what it means to exercise my freedom of speech within our educational community and specifically within this district and in LD um I not only have the opportunity to voice my opinions through roles through things like public comment and um participation in councils and this role but I'm also equipped with the knowledge that I need to exercise these rights and um I know in the resolution I talk about how courses like APUSH Dov and con law haven't only educated me about these uh civil liberties but they've also empowered me to assert them confidently in any space that I enter so in USD I feel very very empowered to speak my mind both on and off campus

017and I'm really really thankful to our school district for letting me exercise my feeling of speech and this resolution that I bring today is Cru crucial for students across the nation many of them who come from La unified um but recently um we they we seen that they haven't really been afforded the same freedoms that I know I have here in the district and in recent months I've seen my fellow student Advocates penalized by their educational institutions simply for exercising the rights that they've learned that they've discussed and that they've debated in the classroom and I want to ensure that here in L unified our student Advocates and students in general feel empowered on our campuses and carry this empowerment with them to their future wherever that may be and so this resolution just wants

018to remind our students um in our school district about the significance of being able to freely exercise one freedom of speech within our district and it just reaffirms our commitment to the principles that were once outlined in the LUSD student Bill of Rights which the board also approved and supported and it also just calls on other educational institutions to provide their students with the freedom the confidence and just the environment necessary to practice these civil rights and Liberties without any fear so if you guys want to join me to remind our students and others that as a school district we can uphold these values and ensure that every student in our district and just Across the Nation can confidently exercise their constitutional rights both within and Beyond the classroom but yeah that's that's all I

019wanted to say but thank you guys so much for letting me zoom in today it was really interesting seeing you guys through zoom and H in person all right a motion is in order moved by Mr melvo second by Mr schmon um I do want to move a slight change which she's already okay which is in the um last resolve it says to never call and she's changed it to reframe from calling police to an assembly as long as it is peaceful and nonviolent so I will move that if someone will second that Amendment uh she said that it was uh friendly so we can just vote on it as one item uh anybody uh wish to be heard on this yes I do go ahead uh I was concerned about that say that uh

020phrase as well it says never call police to an assembly as long as it is peaceful and nonviolent uh that's not the same as disruptive it's not the same as some other make the assembly that was already planned un able to proceed that would become a problem but if you say refrain I guess I can accept that um but I'm not sure it is sufficient to talk about the difference between peaceful and nonviolent I'm not sure everybody how everybody defines peaceful and I'm an advocate and devote of the nonviolent movement but sometimes you can be very nonp peaceful and not be violent um that's a matter of I guess you have to make that Judgment at the time of the event so if it disrupts the event you have almost no problem no no choice

021but to do something call somebody if you don't call the police I'm okay with that too but uh if you're asked to leave and cease from disrupting and you refuse to do it I'm not sure what you do at that point but I can accept that friendly amendment I guess refrain is sufficient for anybody in that situation to take the choice of how how you try to you know get get past the uh the disruption thank you very much anybody else wish to be heard on this item hearing none I believe we have one speaker Mr McAn oh we have two is Anna Caren here anna C are you here come on up you have two minutes to speak and then after Miss Ken is Mr David tolkovsky okay good afternoon um to everyone it

022is very interesting that she puts this resolution and declare it above the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the rights of the students and and I believe that we have surpasses Del limited between adults and without taking the ideas and consideration and the necessities of the students like security as same as academic within the security as well and yes we can do something about that why not but we need to be proactive parents need to be proactive we shouldn't come and yell we shouldn't impose we should ask things just the way it should be done with education and we are the model for our children's for the students therefore in the bulletin that we've generated for many years in the parent Center there is a there's a volunteer for school L

023USD where it says that parents can assist or can be in the play area and I believe that these if these parents work together that these parents that come from public schools it would be nice for them to create groups supervision groups along with Administration I believe that we would there would be a lot of discrepancy and we would and because this is like I say fire to fire just as the same as if there's Darkness there's light and there's peace there's war and we need to be conscious there should be security but if you begin to look at the criteria of the police is not for the students I I've been a volunteer parent for so many years inside the schools and I've seen it and it doesn't we want stupids students it we

024want students not thank you very much for your time Mr toski please come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin ESL social studies teacher a coach of the mock trials and the coaches of the national decathlon I think this is a great statement of values but it has no money behind it and I encourage you as the board as you attempt to look at your budget today to amend that budget to put money where these values are for example you have a very anemic uh summer school which lacks any of these Social Studies classes uh of interest in them there is very little on world affairs there's letter little on Latin America their ethnic studies is solely Mexican-American history we need anthropology cultural geography and Street law as Miss Goldblum and

025Dr McKenna are well aware of uh instead of having these endless debates going on let's put some classes in schools on Regional studies in the Middle East Regional studies in Africa and so on so that kids can take some of the money that is leftover in carryovers as you look at your budget today you you'll see a number of carryovers when there are carryovers at the sites we sweep the money back to the central office but when there's significant carryovers that you see in the budget you will see today you don't dedicate enough of that to good causes like the motion you're about to approve instead we see charts from school Services of California which is an organization that promotes the fiscal cliff Theory uh that is good warning but it's not good instruction and

026good amendments you're spending 60 plus million doll of General funds on your certificates of participation that's in your that means you're not putting a bond forward in the last meeting today which means there'll be a shortage of Greening money shortage of money for housing shortage of a number of values you have so again you have significant general fund monies and I'm glad you're putting some into reserves and you're also seeing today that you're putting some of the monies that you excessively put in reserves to be carried over dedicate those Monies to the values you're voting on today thank you very much anybody on the board wish to ask or make questions or comments on this hearing none let's call the role on uh bo former board member Ramirez's motion I mean resolution uh I think

027technically she could still be a student board member until the end of today so maybe she could get to vote on this very special board member as well then by all means all right Dr McKenna yes Dr revas yes Mr Mr Schon yes Mr melne yes Miss gonz yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president Goldberg yes and I'd like to be a co- auor coauthor and uh student board member Ramirez yes all right very good you got an unanimous support for years at Yale Mr superintendent I believe you had some retirees that uh you wanted to make note that we note to about today absolutely thank you very much Madam president today we have the honor of recognizing 12 of our esteemed colleagues who are retiring out of those 12 individuals four of them are

028with us today but the combined number of service for all 12 is 491 years of dedicated support to our school system 491 years these are the individuals who teach who provide academic support they keep our students our schools our staff members safe our campus is clean they maintain the district's operational system they do all for all so let me very quickly recognize first the ones who are not here and then uh we'll leave uh the for last the four war with us today we have Miss Susanna Gilman special at teacher at Baner career and transition Center 47 years of service we have Jonathan Foreman building and groundw worker at Manhattan Elementary for 44 years of service we have an MAA assistant principal secondary at uh Carell Learning Community 54 years of service Timothy Meadows Carpenter

029uh at maintenance school-based uh operations 42 years of service we have Jose Rios Sergeant School Police Department 30 years of service we have EMT Ross School safety officer 50 years of service we have Jan Jennifer Tarkington Early Education Center Aid 44 years of service and we have Elizabeth verth School supervision Aid 17 years of service and now Linda Allison these are the individual individuals who are with us I would ask for you to uh come to the front of the auditorium as I call your name uh Linda Allison an accounting technician with 41 years of service we have marann Garcia school administrative assistant at Victoria Elementary 45 years of service next up Maria Lord Razo sap functional analyst 39 years of service last for today jacn Vasquez principle administrative assistant at student integration traveling program

030with 38 years of service on behalf of all of our students our staff and certainly this honorable board thank you congratulations enjoy your retirement [Applause] uh on behalf of the entire board we want to thank you for your service and want to know why you look so long young even though you've had that many years of service so I'm looking forward to finding out how that works all right uh we have no superintendent reports so now we come to where we ID the consent calendar and um hold on let me get my consent calendar I know it's here there it is nope it's not there where is where where's my consent calendar I had three of them now I have none of them I can't believe it I had three of them no I got

031none of them yeah I had three calar can't find one of them all right uh this is the part ladies and gentlemen boys and girls where I asked the board members who've had a chance to review all nine items before us whether or not uh they have any questions and if they don't uh would they put it on consent if they have questions or comments they need to make they can take it off consent all right number one is consideration of Street lighting maintenance assessment for Eastern Avenue pedestrian lighting District consent item number two submission of the 2425 Consolidated application for categorical Aid programs consent item number three adoption of the proposed 20242 budget discussion uh item number four adoption of the 2024 local control and accountability plan and presentation of the 2024 State accountability

032dashboard local indicators consent item number five adopt I'm sorry oh I'm sorry discussion item number five adoption of LUSD Affiliated Charter Schools local control and accountability plans consent consent item number six resolution oh we've already done six we've already done seven item number eight report of Correspondence consent consent item number nine approval of routine Personnel actions consent all right we have two items that are not on consent items three and four so now what we will do is we will hear from the speakers on the consent calendar uh before we take a vote on the consent calendar after which we will take up each discussion item one at a time okay here we go we do not have any speakers under tab one under tab two we have um two people in the room and

033one remote uh di guen are you here please come on up and speak to the submission of the Consolidated application for categorical Aid programs and then after Miss guen will be areli Caba Miss Kean you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and uh folks missan is going to speak in Spanish so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English as she is speaking here in the boardroom uh please put your hand up and we'll get you these headsets for simultaneous translation okay graas good afternoon members of the board my name is Diana guen and I am the vice president of DC committee and the Consolidated solicitation it seems that like needs to revise this we don't review this it was a meeting for just to see vaguely they gave us a

034few datas but honestly we don't know how this Consolidated solicitation works we haven't received any results and how it impacts and again we are at the same place from the beginning without knowing the funds how they're being used linguish Learners is something very important for us because we are 26% of the public of of L USD uh percentage of LUSD and the percentage that you are wasting is only for coaches and we think that the schools should decide how these funds should be used not for you to give it to miss Costa so that she can decide but honestly we don't know where the other funds apparently lcap is $54 million for Eng Learners therefore how are these funds being used where is it coming from and how will parents inform us even if we're

035at at the district level We Know How These funds are being used in this District therefore this is what we are speaking today when we speak in regards to school security when we speak in regards to parent involvement this is not existing and this is why there's a misinformation and this is why many parents and honestly you've lost more than 100,000 students that have left to charter schools with the decisions that you're making you will lose another 100,000 students and I guarantee this and you say that you fight for public education you're not doing a very good job by why because you are not taking the people the parents the ones that come from below the ones that are going through these situations security situations and academic success is not giving to the students because

036we don't have any information how would we speak about something that we don't even know therefore please pay attention on this and please thank you for your time public education better areli Caba areli are you here Arelli good afternoon I give my time to miss Maria orti thank you good afternoon to everyone my name is Maria Ortiz and I am here speaking in regards to this topic because the law is clear it says that all the categoric funds should have a consultation in significance from all parents and elect committee does inform everything does inform all the voices of all parents within the schools schools are not Consulting with parents as how the mathematic program is functioning art and language program uh the quality of teachers inclusively you know that the law does state that no

037student should be without with four weeks with a substitute and that happens all the time we have many substitute teachers therefore please I ask for you not to approve those category funds it seems like the superintendent is giving a plans to categoric funds I'm not sure it has to do with if it has to do with the secure passages funds we don't even know how much you receive per funds title one is one thing Title One is parent involvement is another thing and you supplement The Voice with the parent guide and this doesn't represent the voices the parents voice and the from and and this academic voice doesn't represent the parents should show you should show straty for mathematic with math and art arts and language and the security program from each school should be

038open to all parents so that we can see which way and I ask you please do not approve this Consolidated plan because our voice should go to Sacramento more than so with this category funds haven't had any significant consultation you have removed more than $100,000 to English Learners and you have it at has an additional goal in local control please in we need specific intervention for English Learners within development within the development of English learner is learn speak and learn how to English please learn the teach these parents in each level from kinder to 12th grade thank you and have a great afternoon thank you for your time Nell I see you are signed up to speak remotely but you are not signed in right now Nell are you in the room no n okay

039we have some general public I mean some specific item comment on tab three but that's for discussion Tab four also for discussion that's it that's it all right now heard from all the speakers on the consent items and so a motion is in order on items One two5 8 and nine moved by Mr Schon seconded by Tanya Ortiz Franklin that's how we did it in Sacramento uh all right uh call the roll Dr McKenna yes Dr Ras yes Mr schmon yes Mr Mel yes Miss gones yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president goldurn yes seven eyes seven eyes that will take us to item number three adoption of the proposed 2425 budget and I'm going to ask for us to hear from speakers first okay so I'll call as usual as the folks that are

040listed as speaking in person sometimes people list themselves as speaking as call-in but they're actually here so if I make that error uh please understand that there is some small margin there uh let's see so the first four folks please come on up with the first person I call coming to the podium Miguel Dominguez please come to the podium then Nathan Cabrera and then Delino armo and then grisela Perez so first Miguel Dominguez then Nathan Cabrera then Delina Aro and then uh let's see grisela Perez did I see Christian flag out there he's coming okay so he's here in person all right yeah please proceed cool good afternoon uh board and superintendent my name is Miguel Dominguez I'm here representing Coalition and Equity Alliance for LA's kids um I'm here to ask you to really

041step up into making Equity more than a value but a real core practice um and a structure of the district I'm really hardened uh by the previous discussions around budget transparency um and specifically the differentiated approach uh to allocating carryover that takes into account uh different categories of need uh so uh that that gives me a lot of hope that that that that that we're moving in the right direction I'm here to ask for a few things though uh I think primarily uh just Clarity on asenia investments when reviewing the 23 24 lcap document uh it's reflected there's there's around $410 million in carryover uh but the document only shows about $764 million in in current allocations for the coming year uh that means that uh those those additional $64 million only reflects about 50%

042of carryover which is far below what the current C carryover policy is um and so please provide some uh uh some some clarity around just uh some of those numbers uh I'm also here to ask you to take three other considerations into account as well too uh one to push for uh 100% of high and highest need uh schools uh uh to receive uh to receive 100% of the carryover dollars um to push for uh B Bap cohort one to be included um in uh in a differentiated approach um and to and to also release the carryover dollars as soon as possible so that schools can start budgeting now uh because we know it this bureaucratic uh uh problems that create uh the amount of high carryover dollars right um and our communities have sacrificed

043so much over the last few years uh during C we call them the essential uh families uh but they've also fared the the biggest brand of all the systems right and I'm not talking about the education system but every single system across the the district right uh for example South La alone represents about uh uh uh uh 27.6% of residents living under the federal poverty line right um so with the actions that you all can take here today can really go a long way towards really making uh uh possible for these families uh to be able to uh uh have a quality education and to be able to provide for some of our close allies like seiu99 so that we can have those positions and and campuses that that that that that we know are

044critical for St long-term Student Success uh thank you uh and have a good afternoon thank you for your time Nathan Nathan Caba are you here Nathan come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin [Applause] hi my name is Nathan cabera a risen Jor at mstma at the Udo Roosevelt High School and I'm a youth leader with the United students I was here last week and I'm back this week because it's really important to me that the district honors its commitment to equity as you vote today remember that in your strategic plan you promise to serve students in high need schools equitably especially when budget gets tight I'm asking for you to release 100% hour yes power carryover funds and expand any beyond the set two-year commitment already in place I'm lucky

045to be a part of mstma a low need magnet school but I see vast differences with my friends who are part of the high need main campus at Roosevelt this can be clearly seen in our a through G prep and college readiness my friends aren't as confident to say that they are ready to commit to a fouryear and would rather be employed straight After High School even though College was always on their mind I want the best for my friends and you should too do your part to ensure your students are ready for anything with utmost confidence I want to attend a flourishing well-kept school and cuts to essential maintenance food service and bus driver staff will have negative effects on school morale these staff change our days completely with their kind smiles and gestures

046that are irreplaceable keeping these supporting staff roles shows a promise to Future students at schools LUSD is the model for the nation so your opportunity to Center the highest need students can and will make an impact Across the Nation any carryover for the 2425 school year um we hope that you would prioritize the highest needs and the students by releasing 100% of the carryover dollars without barriers to access we demand transparency you can't make decisions that affect us without us the time to act is now and thank you for your time and when I come back I hope it's me being grateful for your commitment to equity thank you thank you for your time Delina Delina Aro are you here Delina armo bu good afternoon superintendent carvio and members of the board my name is

047Delina Aro and I am here as a representative mother of Santi School in District 5 I am also a parent leader for parents in Los Angeles and members of the alliance for Equity this that is dedicated to differentiate educ and um Equitable education I'm going to advocate for the schools that have the highest needs in the entire District while the budget is finalized for the next school year I urge you to give priority to the protection of funds of trans uh carryover funds from Sunny specifically I request a focus a differentiated approach to return 100% of the funds carryover funds to the senny schools with the highest needs protecting the carryover funds is ensuring Investments lasting investments in schools that benefit most from Sunny delaying them delays the delaying them inhibits the development in highest

048need schools with less talents available as the school year nearest I urge the district to inform transparent way about all the supplementary funds that's it thank you for your [Applause] time okay Gisela Perez and then Christian flag concern community members I am grela Perez L zom volunteer in three schools in region East member of V committees elac SSC fat lslc and Pac today I'm here present with inner struggles well as a parent standing before you my heart aches for the future of our schools but even more so for the future of our my son s and Jays and ultimately for all those students and parents who can't leave their voices United for a Cass that directly impacts the future of our students our schools and our entire Community the issue at hand is the potential

049cut s carry over funds these funds are vital for our high schools providing resources for the sessional programs and crucial support for our students we are struggling already with our budget this upcoming year when it's done and we had to cut campus eight in our middle schools and our high schools my elementary school has a very old building with restrooms over 50 years with outdated water fountains our children particularly those who additional challenges deserve to learn in an environment that Fosters their potential full s carryover funds would ensure qualified AIDS special like programs and dedicate resources create and learning environment with every child FS including supported These funds bre the cap for a high needs students leveling the playing field and giving them the tools that they need to succeed acadly and socially by investing

050our more vulnerable students we invest in a future where everyone everyone can contribute and Thrive here's what I propose open communication between parents school boards and administrators data driven the itions clear data on where the C funds are going parental input value our voices our concerns and our insights matters this isn't about the politics it's about our children let's advocate for transparency and be a part of the decision-making progress make us part of it together we can build the future with where every student regardless of background or needs has access to Quality education that prepare them for success thank you and let's fight for the school and our children thank you for your time Christian flag come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Christian [Music] flag uh good afternoon my

051name is Christian flag with Community Coalition the police free LA USD Coalition and Equity Alliance schools need 100% of their carryover and Bap needs 100% of its unspent budget to do the ACT ual transformative work needed to better support our students and families as a community organizer that works with black and brown students in South La high schools and a community partner on the Bap steering committee for over three years we know that Bap has already begun to have positive impacts but it's nowhere near the levels that it should be why is Bap funding for academic supports being cut by $4.7 million when black students as a subgroup still have the lowest test scores and and there is no institutionalized implementation of Comm culturally responsive curriculum why is funding for African-American studies course being cut

052by 1.3 million when only 18 or 19 of the group one secondary schools have it on their master schedule and only 2.5% of those students are even enrolled in the class why is Community Partnership funding being cut by almost half $8.4 million while it's simultaneously being opened Beyond those group one school to group two group three we acknowledge that it's extremely important to maintain the $ 125 uh million at face value but there's drastic shifts happening and it's not keeping up with the intentional and Urgent Focus that Bap was intended to have furthermore it doesn't even begin to address the structural barriers so what if we committed $20 million just half of what was unspent in the first year and invested that in the teacher pipeline at roughly $20,000 a uh annual tuition the district

053could have 500 college students that will be graduating in their second year of a credential program we have to use those unspent dollars for the Strategic and systematic transformation of what we're trying to do as the problems emerge uh thank you thank you for your time okay so we have a couple more inperson speakers Jess bero you're next Jess bero Jess is Jess out there all right there you are and then after Jess bero will be Juliet Alvarado so Jess bero and then Juliet Alvarado and then we'll transition to remote callers hi everyone good afternoon superintendent carvalo and La USD board members my name is Jessica on behalf of the Central American Resource Center GES La last week our newcomer youth came together to share their thoughts on the 2024 2025 proposed LAUSD budget earlier

054this week we drafted a letter and sent it all to you where we shared them with you I would like to take this time to up uplift these thoughts given that they're not able to attend this meeting in times of budgetary constraints it is crucial that we prioritize investment in our newcomer youth education funding is not just an expense it is an investment in their future and in our future as a community consider the story of R Hernandez a newcomer student from San education complex who emphasized the importance of budget transparency I think it's important that the people have access to information about the budget because that money belongs to the people any reduction in programs and resources will catastrophically catastrophically impact students educational Journeys and Prospects for instance Jay florus an 18-year-old student shared

055how her newcomers Club lost funding preventing them from taking a much anticipated trip which led to frustrations and a miss opportunity for students newcomer students like Jay Flores find this space and this club as a place where they can connect with another all their newcomer youth a place where they can share um and build community with folks that have some of the same lived experiences and a place where they can find belonging in their new home and is essential that for that the budget and its process be transparent as SE pares highlighted clear without clear information funds might not be distributed equitably leaving critical programs underresourced we urge the board to protect and prioritize funding for newcomer education and youth services as well as ensure transparency in budget decisions and include the community in these

056important discussions thank you thank you for your time Juliet alberado are you here uh oh nice try she moves real quick all right uh you have two minutes to speak once you begin um hello school board members my name is Julia Alvarado I'm a rising senior at East LA Performing Arts Magnet at Tes high school and a United students um member at inner city struggle today is an important day for students and staff of LUSD like myself as we await the final budget approval my school elapa went from being a high need school to now being a highest need School in terms of sun ranking which is why I'm here and even made sure to rearrange my summer school schedule in order to speak today it is not fair to student staff and Community when

057budget decisions aren't made in a transparent way our demands have been very clear from the start we won 100% of carryover dollars for CNY and Bap cohort one budget cuts at my school have resulted in custodial campus AIDS and office administrative staff to be cut because of this there are now less staff supporting student supervision and maintenance of the buildings I learn in this has affected me and will continue to affect me by limiting clubs and access to school facilities that students typically use because there are no staff to support or supervise these programs that have made a lapa ESP special special for so long as a performing art school I have seen how fast the Arts get get cut first it feels like a punishment to me and other students on campus the quality

058of my education will depend on your vote your decisions today will decide the future of my school as we celebrate the 10-year Legacy of senny this year I Call On You superintendent garval and Schoolboard members to please make a commitment to uh black and brown youth in highest need schools by releasing full carryover for seni and Bap funds for the 24 to 25 school year I invite my community to help me out with our demands release the school funds release the school funds release the school funds release the school funds thank you you for your time okay now we'll transition to remote callers Wanda Marshall you're listed as calling in but are you in the room Wanda Marshall okay Monique lucans you're listed as being a remote caller but I'm calling to see if you're

059in the room are you in the room and Julie bersin you're listed as calling in but I want to see if you're in the room are you in the room Julie okay that concludes comment on item three absolutely Mr superintendent before we hear from board members yes thank you very much uh Madam president um we usually don't obviously respond to to speakers comments and that's always pretty unfair because we all are we all have strong desire to to engage in in the discussion but the rules don't allow it but I wanted to be very clear on behalf of their staff and and the process that composing uh the proposed budget for 2425 that process was not easy quite frankly we do not recall a year when a district like Los Angeles Unified and we're not

060unique this happened across the country would lose in excess of5 billion as a result of the cessation the end of the Esser funding the federal covid recovery funding this is a traumatic shift uh there's no way of uh moving forward without some degree of impact when you lose $5 billion and when you had just a year ago two years ago around 6,000 full-time employees tied to those dollars there were sunsetting so I am sensitive to some of the frustration we here that frustration needs to be explained to a certain extent on the basis of what has been done one of the things this district is not doing unlike many other districts in the state of California is we are not eliminating full-time positions even though there were 6,000 such positions tied to funding that no

061longer exists that required a herculan effort just in terms of finding appropriate resources to provide continuity of employment for those individuals we understand the frustration also demonstrated by some specific to the fact that even though some individuals maintain a full-time position with Benefits the function may be somewhat different that is true that is true we made efforts as we were massaging the budget as we were listening to stakeholders uh listening to Advocates listening to the board we made significant accom ations that we we believe ease the impact of this necessary but very difficult transition in a poster reality Equity Equity driven actions have been part of the DNA of this district and continue to be that is why to avoid a third year in the red in the state of California we need to provide

062budgets and projections on a basis of not only the next year but the next three years to avoid a red position that would require the contraction of the district yes we did embark on an equity-based uh carryover policy that Equity based carryover policy had the least impact on the most fragile schools the priority schools the s High and the sen highest schools and has a lesser impact on the more affluent schools that that's Equity is it perfect no does it spare every single impact no you cannot remove $5 billion from a budget and not see an impact I'm not one who's ever going to look back and and blame the actions of the past because those do not help build a better future the second point is that despite uh some of the commentary that

063we have listened to we've reacted to it so Bap is protected two years ago Bap was funded at $100 million per year I'm sorry $100 million per year last year was funded at $120 million going into 2425 we actually added $5 million funded to 125 million so over the past two years despite the fact that we lost huge amounts of funding specific to that Federal investment we've actually increased Bap by 25% I am proud of that we'll be looking at what was just disclosed about certain impacts sometimes we make General assumptions in policy sometimes the impact at local schools may be more nuanced we will look at that there's absolute protection of seni seni has been funded at $700 million it will be funded at $700 million going to next year carryover for sing the

064same theory of action the same policy is being applied with the most fragile schools getting the Lion Share of the carryover compared to nonen high or highest schools or the priority schools in addition to that based on the decisions we have made centrally we're not making programmatic educational reductions at any level if those are happening I am very interested in where and why we didn't stop there after listening to the community we made additional shifts because the budget is like an accordion it expands it contracts we listened we observed we pivoted we recalibrated that's why we created three additional funds going into 2425 to soften to further soften the impact of the removal of this massive Federal funding one of those funds is a school stabilization fund worth $50 million invested in schools on a

065basis of loss of hours particularly for our lowest paid employees this disproportionately will impact our classified Personnel specifically SEIU 99 Personnel we recognize how difficult it is these 50 million are an investment that based on our calculations will more than cover the initial reductions that schools would have to adapt to as a result of carryover policy this will stabilize I heard uh previously not just today comments about making those dollars available those dollars are available to principles right now they have been available to principles for them to use them to stabilize the workforce in those schools the second fund was a Workforce protection fund we've read the headlines the cost of living adjustment from the state of California this year is just barely above 1% in fact it may be altered again we don't know

066it was initially around 4% it was decreased to 1% we're utilizing the full dollar equivalent of that Cola of that cost of living adjustment and reserving those dollars to protect the workforce those are employee funds and the third fund is after listening carefully and examining school specific impact as a result of Arts and Music allocations incl inclusive of proposition 28 wanting no school to be negatively impacted we went above and beyond the letter of the law and followed the intent of the law ensuring that no school is in a losing position even if there was a lost loss of student enrollment that is why we created the $30 million uh supplemental allocation for Arts education across Los Angeles Unified as a result of these constructs and again not perfect but honestly I don't know of

067another District that has lost so much but still was able to restore so much protecting the Integrity of the workforce using Equity as a means of protecting the most fragile schools protecting programming and continuing to invest in the most fragile Stu students and schools despite the conditions are wellknown to us facing a very uncertain future so I'm thankful to this board I'm thankful to the voices that we've listened to not all of them pretty conversations but help fashion a budget that in my opinion beats the odds compared to many other districts that did not get to where we gotten to where we've gotten during the same time period facing the same harsh of financial conditions so Madam president thank you very much for the opportunity to clarify some of the points that I believe are

068important and relevant uh within this budget okay and we have two more speakers who were not here when we first called or I mislabeled them who are here now so Monique lucens I see you're on the line please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Monique lucans thank you yes can you hear me yeah we sure can go ahead please okay great okay so I wanted to talk about the school safety and your budget and first of all I don't believe that school police should be taken out of the budget for any Student Activities or programming I think it's it's its own um entity I'm going to speak in favor of the school police as I did when you're first uh talking about taking them out

069off campuses I do believe that they are preventative measures I realize that there there have been horrible stories uh police doing things under the color of Law and um you know sometimes we sometimes we can't trust them but for those who we can trust they do do some wonderful work and I would state that everyone that's speaking out against having safety is actually disenfranchising yourself and that goes for all colors sure counseling is great restorative justice the escal you would hope that all these would work in the favor of something that happening but this is a preventative measure we take care of ourselves we put our nutrition into our body we exercise but sometimes we might have to go to a surgeon and so I actually agree with the father of the student that talked

070in the last meeting with regards to being concerned about his daughter's safety I do believe that parents want to have that extra lining of protection and there are ways to make sure that the police are not abusing children just give them a set of rules what they can and cannot do I mean not that they should be abusing them but give them the stipulations of what you want them to do maybe you just want them at the door maybe you just want them to enter if there was a weapon or whatnot but there are Educators that they're frightened of coming to school because they hear these news stories and by the way we don't know everything in these news stories when they point the finger at the police that weren't doing their job thank you

071very much for your time we appreciate your time and the other caller on the line is Wanda Marshall Wanda Marshall please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Wanda Marshall good afternoon I am a very proud Elementary music teacher with LA USD thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today here is a question that also makes the point of my public comment considering a measure declaring the Arts core why would Elementary arts teacher salaries be taken out of a supplemental fund that will vary in amount from year to year that supplemental fund I'm speaking of is prop 28 on October 9th 2012 the LA Unified School Board unanimously approved a measure to make arts education a core subject in an article by Tammy Abdullah

072the board member who sponsored the measure Nuri Martinez is quoted as saying for me this is an issue of social justice and educational Equity children learn in many different ways we have to recognize that a one-sized fits-all approach to teaching and learning doesn't work for all children for these two reason reasons because the Arts of core and because the source for the Arts itinerate salaries was moved to prop 28 in the school year 2324 I'm requesting that the language in the budget reflect that the source of Elementary arts teacher salaries will be from the general funds not just for the 2425 school year but for here forward thank you so much for all of your efforts and thank you so much for your time thank you for your time and the final caller on this

073item Julie bersin I see you're on the line Julie bersin please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Julie bersan Julie ban I see you're on the line please press star six unmute yourself it looks like you're unmuted and begin talking and you'll have two minutes to speak thank you for taking my phone call um once again LAUSD and utla have conspired to unilaterally impose new working conditions for teachers working virtually without ever Consulting us or obtaining consent by us you are trying to control Our Lives again I asked you on nove on April 9th meeting and I set a speech during your board meeting not a single recognition of my statement please you told us we had to teach from home and we did you

074gave us a new curriculum we adjusted to that too you changed our lives where is our Union why didn't they negotiate with us you guys have unilaterally changed our working condition where was UTA humanitary we teachers have Decades of teaching experiences that L USC should be proud of L with's enrollment continues to plenish by 200,000 since 2019 maybe parents should cons consider going to school on Virtual Academy to stress your vaccine mandate was so bad it caed my C to commit suicide and now you and UT have concluded in a secret to issue another arbitrary and harmful mandate St home go to back to an empty classroom to teach this cannot stand I urge you please perhaps this will Sav in your budget let us stay home you immediately Lac just lost in the ninth

075circuit and on its vaccine mandate will this decision become another one of your latest source of liability please hear my request allow its Virtual Academy teachers to teach from home thank you thank you for your time that concludes public comment on this item members uh is there a motion on the budget move by Mr meloy seconded by Mr shurson now discussion from board members after you go ahead um just some comments and some questions so I'll start with um my question I want to someone can ascertain for me um how the trauma and resilience informed early enrichment program AKA tree is will continue to be funded I know that the grant for this program um has finished or has depleted but this is a program that is so so vitally important for our Early Education

076Centers and I've spoken to so many psws teachers principal who are really concerned that this program um will be discontinued but I want to make sure that my voice is heard that I'm 100% advocating for the continuation of this program so I just want to know um now how we are retaining this program yeah so uh as I conve at the last board meeting uh becoming aware of the ation of funds that were made available to support that program from Municipal entities that we would accommodate that program with District funds uh for uh next year we made that commitment last board meeting and we will live by it it is a cost that we can accommodate it will be deducted from uh carryover reserves that we currently have to sustain that program it is vitally

077important particularly considering the dirth of those support programs for the very young in our thank you for that and the reason I wanted that to be said publicly is there's still some Ambience and confusion as to that so I just wanted to make sure that that is out and um we are aware that it's going to continue wonderful so um just wanted to say that I miss a challenging economic landscape the budget reflects a struggle and a process that heard from many many voices in our school Community many voices here um of of our board members I know I've had a lot of he needed conversations uh with budget and District leadership on everything from carryover to our APS to you know the block scheduling and just advocating I continue to advocate for my schools

078as I'm hearing um I'm receiving emails from a lot of um principles and teachers and PSAs and in and P psws PSAs um so know that this has been a process that was not easy um there was a lot of stress a lot of Miss sleep a lot of heated conversations um but then there's more work that needs to be done however we did um what was best considering the circumstances of her economic um condition or or funds that are not that we are losing so there's always room to do better with more transparency urgency so I urge District leadership our budget to moving forward please be transparent as possible please make sure you are speaking to principles you're getting that input and feedback from ouri schools from stakeholders um prior to making such decisions

079that really drastically impact our students particularly students in highest needs and high need schools our Bap schools as well and our priority schools well I know our priority schools are receiving all that they um are going to need in order to to improve um Quality education but I'm concerned that we did not spend Bap funds fast enough to reflect how important this initiative is and that is reflected on the Rand report that really it was a prary report but it really indicated and provide provided ample research as to the promising results of Bap that we are moving positively in addressing the needs of our black students and also seni has also provided so much for our high need schools so I want us to move forward and making sure that the carryover funds are provided

080and you did mention that Mr Calo about that but just making sure just want to reiterate that we're being transparent and having those conversations with our principles and I know we're retaining these uh carryover funds but making sure that they are used and provided to schools in the speediest uh process possible [Music] um and so adding to that sorry um I'm concerned also that there continues to be a cloud over how PR 28 funds were spent uh the proper share for middle schools and high schools so I am concerned how that all played out I'm also concerned with the process regarding carryover funds as I mentioned Landing in the right place but not fast enough for our schools to make budget decisions Visions where the resources were needed with that said the budget rightly protects

081Economic Security for our lowest wage earners it evades layoffs and it invests in continued growth for students in public schools so this is why I am going to vote for the budget um despite all of my concerns and moving forward we must do better thank you thank you um just a few questions um one just because it came up and I know some of us received inquiries about the seni carryover and so for San or whoever's coming up um the and the board got some answers to these inquiries just in the last hour or two and my understanding is that some of it is just the lcap numbers may not have been updated with realtime carryover but if you could just explain to the questions we were receiving around um making sure that in addition

082to the new allocation of CNY funds that the carry over that 5050 70 80% % and why why some numbers might not be adding up on the back of the envelope sure San Bravo kareim senior Executive Director of Finance policy so first just the totals so first $700 million of new CI allocation for 2425 and the most recent Advanced carryover amount is about $164 million that $64 million dollar is the total of all School carryovers whether a school received 50% 60% or 70% and again knowing the priority schools got the 70 c highest and high got 60 and all others at 50 so when we do all the that math uh the grant total is $164 million and the reason why you might see that figure uh in while it is in the budget book

083in the section kind of the summarizing the CI dollars um there are different points in time where those numbers have been recalculated so for one example during budget development that analysis was done in January the percentages were different but also the amount that the percentages were applied against were different uh whenever we have additional expenditure data we update the calculation and so even though it was kind of a unique circumstance where we were allocating additional carryover funds in May that's not something that's happened uh previously we did redo the calculation and what we what we saw was higher levels of school spending than previously anticipated and so those percentages while higher we're now being applied to a smaller total figure and so that explains why there may be figures that have changed over time for

084example in April at a board retreat we had a different number that was subsequently updated but that's why folks in the budget book may see one number in one place and another number somewhere else and so the 164 is just C carryover is that that's just a c carryover correct yeah and just to reiterate what you said just so folks understand so we we project what a school is going to carry over and then if they end up spending more there's fewer that carry over and so a percentage of those dollars are going to be which is why those are updated exactly um say that again because I think that point has missed really a lot yes so that we project what a school we think is going to carry over and then if they

085spend more than we expect them to then what the the amount that remains that carries over is less and so a percentage of a lower number is going to be less money and that's why we update those dollars exactly the percentage of restoration is going be less because the principles in the schools actually did a good job but spending faster which is a good thing so the restoration is no longer 30% of what it was five months earlier it is a restoration of actual uh uh carryover dollars at that moment and that is on top of the 700 million which is untouched correct um I hadit asked last week and I know we only had a week and so I wasn't expecting much but Han and uh elope or an elop um update and maybe

086that's something we can get when we return in the fall because it is a lot of spending nearly a billion uh and I think we need to understand it better and so I'll just request again that maybe when we come back we can have a detailed presentation on that we will dedicate uh I think it is is it is worthwhile for us to dedicate some time at a count meeting to really go deep into the plans for uh Extended Learning opportunities where the big buckets of expenditures are investments internal but also external Investments and toward what end the connections to the Strategic plan great and I guess just a few discret questions that were kind of the bigger buckets if someone can answer now one of them was a $90 million investment in robotics which

087includes a variety of stem resources which sound great but I'm unclear kind of what the allocation is uh the allocation method the funding stream which schools and services it looked like maybe there were 300 schools eligible but that's about $300,000 per school so Dr BR if you have a quick overview and then again when we return but that was a one of the bigger buckets than 90 milli the 90 milon includes the robotics competitions the robotics programs we've added 50 more schools than what we had previously and so we're also anticipating that we'll grow and the way that students schools participate is that we send out information and schools opt in so it's it's it is the equipment but it's also the robotics competitions that occur and the tournaments and the preparation and the attendance

088and also telescopes and a number of other um stem and steam programs that will be taking place throughout the year with equipment we we're happy to provide you the itemized list of what we're purchasing but that's really overall what it is and do do all schools have the opportunity to opt in or How are schools select absolutely I want to make uh make it clear that that investment through robotics is the right thing particularly considering uh this District's emphasis on Steam stem but these are not General funds okay these are funds to support these Extended Learning opportunities for students not general fund great and a lot of it is exciting there are others you know $10 million for field programs I think outside of the cultural arts passport 16.5 million for the ID dream mobile

089labs and so just given our time constraints today and understanding that we're supportive of the program those are the types of things that I'd like to see in that presentation um one thing I that I ask for every year but I'll just request a kind of a briefing is on Foster use supports kind of when we it's one of the the subgroups we must include in the lcap but usually when I inquire I'm told that it's part of the SSS SSP program and I am curious Mr SOS have you know differentiated supports for foster youth as opposed to homeless youth given their system involvement and so again maybe we'll just table that but I'd love to talk about specific Investments and how we're supporting Foster youth um and again I'll just follow up with your

090office on that front absolutely uh and then just finally um San you know one of the things besides the seni one of the questions that we that we get is this $2 billion in books and supplies and the way it's been explained to me and to the board is that most of that is Central and there are restricted grants and then a couple hundred million of that are being held by schools but I understand that just as a line item for books and supplies it looks a little uh suspicious and I'm curious if you can just share you know we say we have a billion over a billion dollars of that is in quote unquote restricted grants just in layman's terms what does that mean why is that money park there what can schools use

091it for sure so when we report our general fund budget and expenditures um it includes both unrestricted and restricted funds and examples of restricted funds the ones that people think of first typically are Title One um elop is another example of restricted Grant um there are different restricted grants that while part of the total uh for the budget are um reported on separately and often when we get allocations in restricted grants before they are fully implemented in either allocated to schools or implemented in positions they are put in the budget even in June in what's called a commitment item or object code and the label that the state has given this category of expenditure this category of budget is books and supplies But it includes much more than just books and supplies it's really any

092anything that's not a Personnel or payroll related expense but also something that's not like a a contract and so it could include equipment non- capitalized equipment it include a number of like things that are not not payroll related so I think sometimes when you look at bucks and supplies I think people take it somewhat literally that that's the amount of money that's literally for textbooks or paper and pencils but of course it encompasses much more than that um and as you mentioned it is when we report in the budget it's a rollup of the entire District's budget all schools all Central offices um and so a lot is lost in in looking at it at that rolled up level and so so I I hope that answered your question it does and I and I'll

093just say too and thank you the superintendent I mean it's in a tough budget environment you know this is a budget I support I think there's a lot to be excited about and we'll continue to iterate you know I think it's just worth noting that we don't even have a state budget and yet we're supposed to to plan a three-year budget I also know that they're not getting paid at least they're not getting right uh until that's done at least um so but I also appreciate that this has been iterative and it has been an improvement over years prior and though we have a way to go ways to go when there are these questions about syi or books and supplies or prop 28 we've had an opportunity to get them answered and either satisfactory

094satisfactorily or if not understand where we need a supplement whether that's the carryover conversation with went which went from 30% to 50% to 60% to 70% for certain schools and with prop 28 and um uh and the conversation we had last week about making sure that uh schools were held harmless and that they're getting more investment so I appreciate uh the kind of feedback loops that you've had with the board and with the public and um apprec and and the opportunity to support the budget today so thank you for one of the points that you made which created and continues to create frustration in our community which is you know seems like the ball keeps shifting keeps moving and there's a reason for that and again I understand the frustration I understand it but those

095are the cards were dealt in one single move when the state reduced the col of the cost of living adjustment by the way for those who may not necessarily know what that is that is the bread and butter of compensation increases for the workforce that's what the state projects um economic conditions across the state will be and then the state adjusts uh to that level and provides districts more funding we went from as I said earlier a 4% Cola to barely 1% that was a loss of $600 million in the middle of our budget development the fact that we are where we are reflects the resiliency of this District despite the fact that it creates frustration so it's very very difficult to create all the conditions in a very unmovable way at the very beginning

096and the reason why there is a shift in terms of position and strategy is because we are dealt cards throughout the process and unfortunately this year they're not good cards they're all low cards uh it it's a takeaway it's a deduct rather than an addition notwithstanding we are we have been able to build a budget that provides more than the sufficiency that many other districts have barely been able to achieve the last thing you know I mentioned prop 28 and also carry over the other thing I want to give kudos to the team for is the school stabilization fund because when we realize from hearing from our labor Partners in our schools that one of the unintended consequences of our gener you know the expansion of benefits who has principles who maybe were looking at

097budgets and and finding ways to cut ours and that was not anybody up here's intent to create the school stabilization fund and I know we're still working with schools so thank you you know I think sometimes we're up here and it feels very contentious but you know I believe deeply that we're all in this in the service of our kids and La unified community and so I'm grateful when people points things out to us so that we can get it corrected and I think this budget has a few different examples of that where advocacy made it better and I appreciate the superintendent's team and this board for for iterating and adopting and I think we landed at a pretty good place so uh saman the discussion about books and supplies is the perfect example of

098why we must explain things carefully to people books and supplies books and supplies but what else does it include and that's why it's important that we do this uh very very carefully so let me just start by saying I really appreciate uh superintendent the no layoffs that we were able to accomplish that is absolutely amazing I'm just so proud of that but I have to express my my disappointment with the budgetary process this past year for months I have asked for information from different staff members only to be answered with vague or unclear statements and as schools began their budget development process there's been several concerns that have been brought to me by schools and by Board District 3 constituents and the first item in which they shared their concerns was regarding the future of

099classified positions and the continuity of health benefits so I am glad to see that after several several conversations with superintendent carvalo and many emails from our union members we now have two dedicated line items reserve for school stabilization fund and reserve for Workforce protection fund that will support classified staff and classified staff there are parents of our kids in our school so let's remember that again our classified staff are essential to all that we do and with this change each School site will now have enough money to maintain existing site fund positions and there was a lot of confusion about the carryover allocations provided to school sites so School receip received an advanced carryover of 30% in the beginning which was a decrease of the 70% that they had received last time and after carefully

100looking at the projected balances and recalculating several adjustments were made and schools received additional funding and even though these changes were made I don't believe that our School site administrators had still sufficient time to plan accordingly and having been a School site principal and assistant principal for many years and as a teacher working with the school site Council also I knew when it comes to budgeting and planning ahead clear communication clear guidelines and clear notices should have been given to our principles if they are to project and use these funds for next school year furthermore due to National media coverage and advocacy from constituents in Board District 3 issues about prop 28 funding came to my attention and this lack of transparency and clear and accessible information about how the district is allocating These funds

101made me advocate for further public discussions simply stating the money is there is not a satisfactory response so in order to do my job we need clear answers at times staff gives contradictory information which only leads to more confusion and I understand that there are not always an immediate answer but I would prefer to give staff time to investigate so the responses are straightforward however I can't accept a non-answer and just leave it as it is so as of today and after many months of asking some of my questions have been answered but not in totality so Mr superintendent I know that running a school district and managing many high level senior staff we also managing their own teams can be challenging but my request is for the next school year we start these important

102conversations with you early on early on especially around the budget so we can as the board also provide feedback to you and the budget team as what we would like to see before we present items in public and before we start hearing concerns from our own constituents and their communities so a clear and simple explanation might be all that we need in order to in you know to avoid confusion and Chaos so so I will reluctantly vote Yes on this budget I am glad to see we have a positive balance for the next few years and that several new Investments have been allocated in the budget that being said going forward I will not ask I will demand that the District staff act with efficiency and Clarity so this whole R deal can be avoided

103in the future and really Mr carvalo I appreciate you're listening to the specific budget items that I presented to you on behalf of my communities so I thank you very much thank you Jackie thank you Jackie um thank you yeah I'll reiterate my gratitude for answering my dozens if not hundreds of questions in briefings and follow email we got a lot in writing which is helpful um but I too you know to Mr schon's point would love to be brought into the conversations earlier we get a lot of advocacy from school sites you know in the early spring about what they're hearing and then it's like oh these are the things we're contemplating and so while I'm grateful for the workforce stabilization that's going to um keep our school staffs more stable over the next

104few years it's probably something the team was contemplating earlier in the spring that I think the board would like to be you know included in so similar just the timing of things um one maybe quick fix we asked for the pack deac comments we got them in a link but we don't have access to them yet if someone can give us access I've been requesting it a couple of times during this meeting um but that's a big part of this and I know it's next on the lcap but we want all those things to line up which is why I'm really grateful this board passed our resolution last week about um the process for next year so we can look at actuals we can look at per pupil we can uh hopefully have a much

105better tool earlier on in budgeting cycles that will give us the confidence that we all want you know throughout the not just at this last meeting in June but you know Mega gratitude to the team I think it reflects a lot of our values and prioritizing academic Excellence first and foremost the mental health and wellness that we've been hearing from our community for so long is still prioritized our Equity investments in syi and Bap are continuing um things that we unfortunately might see at risk in the future right because we often talk about the programs on top and not like the fundamental programs and so for me next year I would love for this board to consider well I guess there might be a new board partway through the year um we'll be losing two

106of our members in December and we'll be sad to see you two go but um considering you know what do we need to be doing for the structural deficit are we going to ever take on you know the a bigger OPB contribution these are things that have come up before but we've sort of backtracked on them um what really do we need to consider slashing in the future um or growing or just changing based on the changing student demographic right to Dr ras' Point earlier we are in a different situation with students since the pandemic are there things we need to do fundamentally different um that you know account for over 80% of our budget right now because it's really wrapped up in the Norms that we've uh leaned on for so long so I

107am interested in some you know real creative conversations with our labor Partners in the future and I know that depends on negotiations and so many various pieces um but I welcome the the creativity the courage that's going to uh be required of us as we have to make even bigger Cuts because this year we're okay um but I am a little bit nervous for next year so also happy to support um looking forward to seeing more of our kids ready for college career in life based on the Investments that we're making um and really looking forward to next year's process to help us build that confidence towards next year's budget too so thank you thank you um I will be voting to approve the budget but I want to offer some issues and concerns that

108might be be of help to All of Us increasing Revenue seems to be a key area of focus so we have now an increased Ada projection which is a positive thing oh I'm sorry I'm usually too loud thank you must be the time I don't know uh for the for our consideration if attendance were higher we would earn more dollars are we seeing increases in attendance from the I 10 Outreach I don't know if we reached yes sir actually uh we saw not only did we see a significant decrease in chronic absen ISM from 50% two and a half years ago to Just Around 30% that's the way we closed out the year but we saw also a significant increase in average daily attendance which results in additional funding for every 1% of ADA increase

109the district Nets around $60 million of additional State funding so not only did we uh see that improve we're now back to around pre-pandemic levels around 91 92% we forecasted for our budget that increase plus 1% because obviously we have invested interest and expect our efforts to keep paying off so that's already baked into the the multi-year projection thank you I wanted that to be said out loud for the record for those who don't know or are disinterested in it but it's a very important way that we produce our budget um we also have made some efforts to get the state uh to improve to change from enrollment to enrollment rather versus average daily attendance I've been advocating for that for many years um there Senate Bill 9 is in the legislator and now but

110I don't know what the progress is have you any information on that um unfortunately it's still not moving uh you know the bill has been filed uh now twice um and um we appreciate the sponsors of of that legislation the impact of this district is not the Minimus the impact is significant and for those of us who are concerned with Equity the transition from ad uh da based uh budgeting to enrollment or at least a larger weight associated with enrollment is based on Equity because right now obviously for families who live in in La many of them experiencing exposure to to environmental issues that keep kids home asthmatic conditions uh for example being a main reason Urban settings like LA are disproportionately impacted so those dollars are reinvested back into communities that don't experience these

111these bows because they have higher attendance and that's really cynical because the community who actually needs it the most because of the the profile of fragility for students gets less because it is the community that's afflicted by by these types of issues if we if we were to see on the basis of the legislation a shift from a tenant-based budgeting to enrollment focused budgeting the benefit to the district would rear around $300 million annually I wanted you to put that in the record so those of us again who are not tracking that know the impact of that so just for your clarification Ada means average daily attendance and for years we've received the dollars per student based upon their actual attendance in the seat in which they sit and validate that they're there however when

112they're not there they're still our students and we still have to have resources projected like per P service and attendance coordinators to go out and get them so we're concerned about them when they're not there and we worry about them all kinds of things happen when they're not there so if we could get funding for their physical enrollment and not subtract when they're not there when they're absent uh and we still have to pay for the ad for the P service tennis coordinators it would be better beneficial to us and we're so large that there a lot of money that we're not able to get I appreciate the superintendent actually I'm I'm asking him these questions because I wanted that to be on the record I kind of know all the answers to it but

113I wanted him to be able to make the comments uh also want to ask the funds allocated to programs which which means we'll be used to validate that the dollars are getting to the school sites examples are how I better ask a question how are we going to validate that the funds get to schools programs like heat Bap prop 28 Etc uh we fund them but we want to know how how do we validate that they actually get there they are funded assuming the board approves this budget um they will become funded uh as I conveyed a number of times and San has done the same uh the programs that you mentioned do not reflect a single dollar reduction whe we're talking about heat bap seni uh Arts allocation uh in a vast majority of

114cases they actually reflect an increase going into next year despite A reduced uh investment base as a result of the loss of the federal funds but that's what Equity based funding is budgeting so the connection between uh the the budget and the allocation is a very close one and as I said specific to the reallocation of carryover dollars principles have current access to those dollars and if anyone one's experiencing any problem uh we have the staff at the regions and at central office to facilitate expedit resolution I want to thank you Mr superintendent for your attention to that because we've had people comeing to talk about we hear that and then they recite a rumor I don't know where it starts that we're going to be underfunding defunding uh not funding the programs that we

115promised to fund and we've always kept our promises and you have I want to compliment you on that and I know there are people who still skeptical and I appreciate the skepticism but always remember there's something called fact which may not be the same as belief I'm hopeful we will continue to pursue other avenues to bring Revenue to the district I want to encourage us to advocate for more Federal monies for idea dependence for Disabilities and other programs consider other facilities another facili bond to continue upgrading our facilities and climate resilience needs I think that the community sees how hard we're working and want to help us we will be doing that and uh I think there's some planning in the works for trying to see if the community will support a bond but we

116need that and there's nothing more important than a school district I'm sure people think there are things more important than the school district I don't know what it is uh for those of us who have an education any form of Education you benefited from it uh and we have things that are that we think are Necessities like hospitals and they are but that's when you're sick uh but you always benefit from a school whether you're sick or not it helps you from getting sick and it also allows your family to build a legacy on the education that you are provided so I thank you Mr superintendent and I thank the staff for all the work that has been done on trying to keep us solvent and be able to project a positive outcome in the

117budget as large as we are there's a misnomer that we're we're too big to fail that's not true I've been in districts uh not as large as this one obviously I've been in four different districts and some have failed and some are still trying to recover from fail they're still in receivership and the state owns the district because they couldn't pay their bills and then they're Savaged by the loss of enrollment to other areas and other people that solicit our students to leave us and go elsewhere but we lose those students we lose those funds and we lose a lot students lose we lose but thank you Mr superintendent appreciate that thank you my colleagues up here tried to help us uh offer something that's readable and also I'm in favor of the transparency of

118the budget so that's easily more easily read it can you can be read but it gets more difficult each time the larger it gets the more numbers you see and I'm a numbers man but it does make it easier because there are more numbers it's uh that's a lot to work with but I appreciate everybody especially who's here that come to our meetings and try to hold us accountable thank you sir thank you madam president one comment um this is it uh prop 28 did a lot of things and in Board District 3 it brought out a whole slew of investigative reporters in my Board District so they are investigating everything it not only Central and not only uh local Regional but we have parents that are are are now very sophisticated so we have

119to make sure that we keep them informed and everything's on the up and up because they know okay yeah tell prop oh prop 28 yeah the Arts money the Arts money parents no that thing really woke people up so we have a lot of investigators so thank you phone on nobody's ever said they couldn't hear me before I want to try and explain why I think it's so important that we keep in mind that we have $5 billion dollar less than last year okay that's an enormous amount of money that funded what was it 6,000 6,000 positions whom we did not lay off and we did not lay off because we began two years ago with this group of people standing up here that's represented here to say what do we have to do to

120shrink our budget in a way that preserves the most dollars in the schools but whil not by down by $5 billion which is larger than most School District's total budgets every year and I do not believe the public understands what a cat colossal colossal effort it took for this District while not having $5 billion we had last year to raise the minimum pay wage to $22.50 2 cents an hour we did that while cutting $5 billion we also reducing class sizes while cutting 5 billion I want to say to you that because this is my last budget I'm actually not too sorry about that I want to say though that there are a couple of things I think we need to do for sure we need to get all these documents in Spanish it is

121no longer okay to publish them in English and hope people can figure it out from English these documents all of them have to be in Spanish all our documents have to be in Spanish this is a bilingual district and we talk to kids about getting bilingual certification and we need bilingual certification not just to you Mr superintendent all our documents must be in Spanish it is no longer okay to go on not doing that I also want to say to you that a budget of our size is a living document that is to say we hear from Sacramento changes on this and on that from the federal government changes on this and on that we don't even know what we may need to change in August because the final budget in Sacramento has not been

122approved though it was due by the 15th and why are they having so much trouble because the state received billion ions of dollars Less in income from income taxes and from corporate taxes corporate taxes all of which must be raised all of which our our corporate taxes are minuscule with is the richest state in the richest country in the world and there's no excuse for California having such limited funds to spend compared to most of the school districts in the East and in the Northeast if it's not still true it was true last year massachusett spends almost $2 to every dollar we spend and guess what their class sizes are so low their achievement level out distances us every time but they get from their state government not as big a budget as ours they

123get almost $2 per kid more twice as many dollars per kid as this state with the rich why is that it is Proposition 13 and I'm telling you as I leave you I'm not leaving the issues as I leave you as a board member it is essential that we tell the state of California it is time to repeal The Proposition 13 for corporations who are paying the same property taxes they paid in 1978 property taxes but are you paying the same price at the pump as you did in 1978 if you go to Disneyland or Universal Studios are you paying the same prices to get in well you know what that's because their property taxes have not increased so finally I just want to say I think you've done an extraordinary job and I mean

124extraordinary when I saw the5 billion dollar going I kept thinking oh OMG what's going to happen how are we going to maintain Staffing as high as we can can we still reduce class size can we still raise the bottom of the salary schedule up can we give more people health care and health care benefits and yes that's all here it's all here it's not magic it's the efforts of people who beginning in 1983 began to teach me how to look at multi-billion Dollar budgets and so I want to personally express my gratitude for 39 years of education because I believe I do get pretty much everything in the budget now but it took me a very very long time to get there and I want to thank you and Mr Hart and all the rest

125of your team all the rest of your team for being so willing to educate me around a budget that I really honest to God had no idea what it meant when I first started in 1983 with that said we can not vote on this now because I have been informed that we need to vote on Tab four lcap first so we're going to stop here we're going to Kelly also oh Kelly does I'm sorry I asked her and she said I thought no so we will hear from Kelly at after we hear from M uh Miss gonz we will take public comment which was supposed to start about 36 minutes ago we'll come back to item number four we'll do four pass it then we can pass Five a three rather okay everybody know where

126we are Miss gonz I'm sorry I didn't realize you had questions or [Music] comments uh yes sorry I hope you can hear me um I'm also happy to wait until after public comment is done if if we not I was worried that we would be voting on this item right now but um if it's better for the group to start public comment and then come back to it that I'm okay with that as well this is that the chair did not realize that we had to do the other one first and if we had done that we might have been able to vote right now but we cannot vote on our budget until we have voted on the l cap so that's the problem so we're going to discontinue with this now and we're going

127to go to public comment we'll come back on item four and vote on four and then vote on three okay thank you very much Mr McLean okay here we go for general public comment uh I'll call on the folks in the room first I'll call on four folks of the first person coming up to the podium and the other three uh just being ready to testify so eloisa gindo you'll be the first then Vivien Freeman then Katherine Anderson and then arelia Cabrera so eloisa gindo are you here please come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin does anyone know if Miss gindo's here okay Vivian Freeman are you here come on Miss Freeman you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon my name is Vivian Freeman next semester

128I'll will be a senior at Eagle Rock High School and I'm a leader with students deserve and I'm here to address what could be described as a sort of mass Exodus of saaff at my school and to question what the role of a superintendent truly is this may as I walk to a club meeting I pass teachers speeding around in tight groups entering and exiting classrooms with starkly frightened Expressions on their faces my art teacher and my former English teacher huddled together as they shared in their Whispers I didn't need to stop them to ask what was wrong the news has already got the news had already gotten out that there were going to be major staff cuts and as we know when the money goes so do the humanities that's exactly it though why

129is it always your top priority to always maintain uh your profit margins I remember when I was it was the same with Butner and now it's the same with you even with my even my own mother told me that it seems like you're more of a CEO than a superintendent that's why it's so mindboggling that you are the person who we have to entrust with our safety while I'm no fan of bureaucracy your sudden and irrational decision to allow cops back onto campus was a clear abuse of power and showed us exactly how much you value the opinions of your Council of peers this decision was not made in an attempt to take Swift action against the problem but rather to further a political agenda which is anything but Democratic and now look at where

130your actions and your greed has landed us our school suddenly made the decision to displace our only black female teacher at our school while the decision was made by the school admin it was it was only made because our school lacked the right funding to keep all of our beloved teachers and staff it was this sudden deficit of funds that allowed us to them to espouse the mistruth of seniority and justify why they were letting her go speaking of the money where is it going what is the point of having billions in reserves what is the point of having uh non-closed police positions that could use to pay for things that we need and what is the social order that you're upholding by refusing to pay Fair wages to the people who give us everything

131to what end are you harboring all of this money and why are we constantly trying to tell you how important impactful programs like bap are and it's suddenly the African-American teachers and staff who run the programs that are first to be fired we need very much for your time I urge you to put your money where your mouth as superintendent and to listen to the people who live in the environment you manufacture every weekday of Our Lives thank you thank you for your time eloisa gindo did you make your way in eloisa gindo call okay Katherine Anderson are you here Katherine Anderson come on up you have two minutes to speak once you begin this is my husband Andre Anderson who's with me um said closer to the microphone okay this is my husband Andre

132Anderson he's going to come speak to you all my name is Katherine Anderson I am a parent with students deserve and we've had the experience of being able to speak with one another you all I think know my son matis Anderson our son sorry I'll share um so I am here today and uh a few things I know that we ask for things and I know that sometimes we're a thorn in your side but I think we've been working well together as well and I would like to say that one of the things is that I'm T here to ask about budget cuts selfishly um we had a excellent experience in being able to retain our vice principal at Hamilton High School which was critical it's absolutely critical she's an advocate of the Arts she's

133an advocate of our kids and a trusted adult and so but it's not enough that we have what we want and it's not enough that we need more we need to make sure our Arts teachers are here one of the reasons that I brought my husband up with me and we try to fly under the radar for the most part but my husband Andre Simone and his friends that they were in school and if you know songs like looking for a new love jod Watley Purple Rain if you know Janet Jackson's discography these guys did that because of Arts teachers in their schools and we just gave them an alternative to a lot of different things police on schools aren't going to help our kids stay on track Arts teachers so social workers are going

134to keep us on track my daughters Freda and Sophia Anderson are still at Hamilton High School The Trusted counselors that they have are the reason that they know who they can talk to and I'm just imploring please we really need to not have I know there's parents asking for police on campus please make a communitybased safety and let's continue to create the communication with parents so they're calling for Community Based safety and not for police on campus and Andre will be back to speak to you on his own thank you for your time okay RS Cabrera RS Cabrera okay so will the next folks come on down Amir Casmir and then Melanie Juan Cruz ma tro and Ian kiry good afternoon my name is arel Caba and I am here I am here to make

135a ask a question do you have a school planned for or any certain plan for special needs students when with that has to do with security and I'd like to know where this page is if so within lcap one of my worries and as Miss Rivas Miss Ros Dr Rosia Rivas mentioned it's good to implement Implement mental health it is good to implement emotional intelligence and I believe that this is a fun is fundamental for each and every one of us but what is happening now with psychologists in my experience when I went to my school and I spoke to a psychologist to asked for support what did he tell me he said he asked is your son want to commit suicide and I don't believe that's working we need professional people that are prepared

136and for that emotional intelligence should be implemented and for it to re be implemented in every classroom for all of our students and for it to be a preparation for our students for the parents and for this to be the base for funds to be implemented within this but what's going to happen this is a long-term thing but now we need school police what what would happen if within our communities school would be away from us and security wouldn't feel how would you feel I feel secure coming in here because there are police officers all around there is a security here even for us to enter therefore what's happening at our schools we need school police for not to be removed we have many things to better we need to implement other things so that

137this can work more efficiently because if we remove school police what will happen what's happening therefore please I ask for you to implement emotional intelligence in each classroom of the students but Amir Casmir are you here Amir come on up you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and after Mr Casmir it will be Melanie Wan Cruz um good morning or good afternoon School Board U my name is Amir Casmir I'm school and Community organizer with students deserve and I wanted to highlight um and kind of bring up a point about the community way safety plan that was brought up today as well as just budgeting an alignment at schools right you know I go out to schools every day and I hear students complaining or letting me know that they don't have access

138to restrooms that they're being criminalized when they go that they don't have access to C to um computers I personally didn't have access to a computer until after the pandemic in 2020 when folks started implementing um uh online learning and it's important to me that we are addressing the concerns and the real needs of schools first and foremost before we address the needs and wants and desires of school police right you hear students come up every day and let you know what they need to be safe what they need to be successful and those never include school police you hear maybe about school police once we come and offer the Alternatives right after we come and say these are the line items that we need to be investing in but it's important that we keep

139that Center because once folks start to shift those those line items right once we start to identify that policing is not the way you're going to hear folks really push back against that and it's very important for you all to hold the line and hear us say what we really need what we really need is community based safety what we really need is counselors and Crisis Intervention at schools what we really need is computers technological resources and secondary programs for students in and outside of schools to be successful and to seek higher education and employment thank you thank you for your time Melanie Juan Cruz Melanie Juan Cruz hello again Schoolboard let me reintroduce myself my name is Melanie Juan K recent graduate of La High and a leader with students deserve I understand that

140maybe carallo is new he might not fully understand the harm of school police although When someone tells you there's an issue you need to listen but for the rest of the board who have been here for years why has it taken this long to act we need LBD to be fully defunded now our schools are facing Cuts because there there aren't funds yet LSPD budget is still getting over $60 million there are 15 Bap group one schools that are not a priority school or a C9 school high SL highest need school this means that 15 schools that were previously identified as sites in need of extra resources to support the long-standing needs of black students will have to attempt to do so with less money than they had the previous year now it is blatant

141that the only available money is for harming black students there is enough money for LPD that criminalizes terrorize black students but there isn't enough money for resources to help black students thrive in turn H hurting them further cutting the 50 vacancies to the LA School Police Department is one step to ensuring a full defund of La School Police Superintendent carvalo we're calling on you to continue this work and commit to making a plan to fully defund laspd and instead fund support programs that do not criminalize and harmed black and marginalized students I am standing here in solidar solidarity with utla and Local 99 fighting against Staffing Cuts LD superintendent carvalo despite LD projecting 6.27 um billion in reserves in July why are schools facing cuts to their budgets and staff cuts to support services like

142psws PSAs Librarians PE teachers art teachers and so many other other Staffing that will make our schools less safe especially High need schools many Bap group one schools continue to go without full Bap teams and do not and do not have Community Based safety Partnerships to support safe passage they do not offer African-American Studies have not established internships and countless other support students and parents have been clear about why spend Millions on dollars on school police when it can be spent on black students you brag and brag about the budget for Bap yet it isn't enough it's not Bap doesn't have enough funding while police have too much funding fully the school police thank you for your time okay M Ma tjo and then Ian Kirky so tro Ian kiry and then Ashley Edwards come

143on up Mr tro you have two minutes to afternoon [Music] um my name is with the organization midd in the Coalition for police I will be reading a a statement that we received with the Coalition that says go so School Community Based school school safety the in needs to be implemented with greater urgency the Coalition free of police has an an objective create schools that are holistically more safer that are welcoming and affirmative for all students in the Los Angeles Unified School District our Coalition works with students families and Educators and uh Advocates to support and so that we are able to uh improve and to safeguard the quality and support academic achievement everything that acts as a prevention for violence in schools first our Coalition extends our condolences to the families in our F

144in our community that have experimented with a loss of a student that a a family can go through we are saddened by the unfortunate events that led to the deaths of the death of Elijah mcginness III George Washington High School and Shaye Mia from Manual Arts the violence Community violence that took away their lives has is rooted in a generational trauma in general and caused by anger in the communities provided and resources that are adequate we know how awful this moment can be and we we will make a POS to respect the lives of these students throughout this time we also hope the hope we get the response of the district to renovate the or renew their commitment to have a community safety plan uh in the community so unfortunately instead of taking on the

145responsibilities for the lack of the urgency and development for the school safety holistic based in the the district has started to send the police in response for a lasting effect we cannot prevent the um crimes with having more police particularly when our students that are black Latinos indigenous are the ones that are the one to uh take the greatest uh blunt brunt and to read for the rest of the statement it is in thank you for your time all right Ian kiry are you out there Ian kiry com on up you have two minutes to speak Ian all right Ashley Edwards are you here Ashley Edwards okay how about Fernando r are you here Fernando Romero uh and Joseph Williams though I believe he just went out to get another person okay so eloisa gindo

146did you make your way into the room eloisa I don't see okay uh let's see I'll go to the remote callers Eli H Galloway I see you're on the line Eli please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Eli hello uh my name is Eli my pronouns are Heim I'm a student at USB and I'm a youth council member for reach laa um and I wanted to argue for the allocation of more funding to specifically more physical and mental health resources and more inclusive education for lgbtq plus students often Wellness Resources such as mental products Contra contraceptive substance use resources or counseling are physically financially or socially inaccessible this is significant because lgbtq plus students are disproportionately affected by substance abuse issues or STI often due

147to a lack of education on the subject but a recent study of LGBT youth who received inclusive SDI prevention education in school showed they engaged in less risky sexual behavior than youth who did not receive such instruction proving that inclusive education benefits lgbtq plus students health and students who struggled with substance abuse generally only turned to it in the first place to cope with severe discrimination or lack of resources or support So by providing mental health support for those students like an identi identity based support group or embedded therapists they will no longer feel like they have no other option lgbtq plus students make up a disproportionate percentage of the population of unhoused students or students who drop out of school entirely in terms of at risk populations lgbtq plus students are at an important

148intersection so focusing on providing resources for those students helps level the playing field and I think that offering those tangible resources specifically for lgbtq plus students has a double effect immediately they can access necessary support that they otherwise might have been unable to and socially knowing that the board or their school is taking steps to support them means they will eventually feel less isolated which can hopefully reduce that percentage of students who are at risk of dropping out and I think it's very important that we provide that kind of support to that group who is very at risk thank you for your time thank you for your time Ian kiry did you make your way in Ian are you here all right Ian and then uh Mr Joseph Williams will follow oh turn on your

149mic all right my name is Andre um I think I came up here with my wife and uh um I just want to share a couple of things with you um first of all I want to say I appreciated U what you said at the um greet theater to the students of Hamilton very very touching it resonated I think with a lot of the students um one of the things one of the reasons why I wanted to speak up is um um I think your leadership is a reflection of the society that we live in so it's important I think we all understand that um I had an experience my son is um going to attend a college in New York um and I think my wife explained to you a little bit of my

150background um musician I think I've probably been just about everywhere in the world you can go from here to Russia you name it hungry I've been pretty much everywhere um but um when we were going to the campus because his his school the school that wanted him to you know go to New York um came out here and we spoke and we they got to know me pretty well we talked to them um they really loved my son he was a great kid great student um so we wanted to go out to the campus and experience it um so I went out to the campus uh while I was there um it was a little cluster of security guards um and I was just sitting down having having a muffin and a cup of coffee

151um but they started paying a lot of attention to me and like kind of more than was comfortable for me you know thought you know what maybe there's something about me that's a problem so let me just move move along so I left and I went to go back to where my where my son was um the one of the police officers followed me and then he came and he said you know he I saw him coming finally I just said is there a problem he said what are you doing here I guess my time is up sorry please finish up the story all right well he said he said what are you doing here um and I explained to him I said listen my my son goes here and you know and um he

152said um well you know are you on drugs I said I don't do drugs he said you know you seem nervous I said well you know you have a gun and a badge and I said You know guys like me you know if you watch TV we sometimes get shot and killed murdered by people like you with a gun and a badge when I'm just you know so he said well I'm filming you and he went through this whole thing and so I was like I said really I said you know I said and finally I had to ask because you know I'm I'm a musician and you know I said is it the hat is it the coat is you know I you know my wife told me I should have probably wore something

153different but you know I'm a musician I try to so anyway short story long I mean long story short um it became a problem the chief of police some of the other parents the school could not believe that oh the other thing is he called for backup and uh so three other police officers came and I was just I was loving it cuz I'm you know lucky my 65 years helped me understand that I could actually be calm about this so I was trying to make it as jovial as I possibly could um so finally when the other guys came and you know he told his story and I explained my story um he said um he I said you know um listen you know he said we need to take you where you belong

154I said can we all go I said let's just all go you know I don't you know and so one of the off I don't want to go so he just left and then the rest of them came and they delivered me to the staff and the staff could not believe the fact that this was happening so anyway long story short police on campus bad idea thank you for your time you're welcome Ashley Edwards are you here Ashley Edwards okay Joseph Williams are you here hello first Mr mlan did we we get eloisa is on the line she said she's online y'all can see I'll check I'll check just making sure um thank you appreciate you my name is Joseph Williams I am the director of students deserve also a part of the police free

155LA USD Coalition um and I'm in solidarity with all of our students and parents and Educators um who came here today and have come here many many times to name their experiences with police and the needs and the demands that we have and one see for the district so I'm not going to talk too much about the communitybased safety plan um hopefully each of you board members in the superintendent gets a chance to take a look at the report card um that we wrote in the statement that we wrote this is something that we take very seriously student safety is something that we take very seriously and also the criminalization of young people and the criminalization of folks in our communities is something that we take very seriously Mr Anderson um luckily was able to

156laugh off his experience um of criminalization at a time when he should have been celebrating he should have been able to celebrate taking his son to go to college at a campus that he was excited to go to and instead like far too often happens in our schools in our communities he was criminalized he was seen as a criminal as a Target as a suspect before he was seen as somebody whose presence should be appreciated and valued and that's something that students experience every single day we had some students here um who didn't speak who are newer but who are saying you know we talk about cops off campus but I go to Venice High School and we see cops on our campus every single day I go to Roy ball high school I see

157cops on my campus every single day there are students who are experiencing criminalization every single day and even though some of the other parents said we were lying these students still don't have nurses on our campus I was talking to a school yesterday that said yeah we have a nurse every Wednesday right but we have school police outside of our campus every single day so I understand that you all have had to make extremely difficult decisions about a budget but we're still talking about education dollars we're still talking about students who do not have access to the very basic necessities that should be in every single School while their District spends 50 plus million dollar every single year on school police so please we urge you to listen to continue to listen and to move

158towards fully defunding school police and investing in what young people actually need and deserve thank you thank you for your time uh Gerald McKinny you're signed up to speak remotely but I do not have you signed in in front of me Gerald McKinny oh there you are Gerald McKinny please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Gerald McKinny Gerald mckin please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Gerald mck okay m Mr McKinny last call please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin okay Cheyenne Cornwall are you there please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin shyen Cornwall hello

159hi we can hear you okay good afternoon okay good afternoon LAUSD school school board and guests my name is shine Cornwall my pronouns are they them and I am a 16-year-old high school student as well as a youth council member of reach La I call today to propose a new policy idea we are advocating for a student voice initiative committee run by students in schools that would help teach and create protocols to support black indigenous people of color or bipo communities as well as lgbtq Plus student communities and create a safer School environment due to the heavy use of slurs and hateful speech and actions on campuses in the LA USC School District the student voice initiative would be beneficial because these current inactions lead to harmful student actions and a decrease in student morale

160and Foster of a hostile School environment that often targets marginalized groups such as people of color and lgbtq plus students disproportionately a student voice initiative would help staff safely diffuse situations help provide trauma informed care and create healthy practices in holding people accountable by implementing practices suggested by students to enrich the school experience I'd also like to share my own experiences as a testimony to a student voice initiative because in my past School experience I have been repeatedly targeted and harassed for being a multi-racial career person to the point where as I was walking home from school a student had told me to kill myself because I was a one reported the school simply had told the student it wasn't kind to say that which is true but not a solution to stop these sorts

161of behaviors from happening students often times don't process things that way and a student voice initiative could teach staff how to properly handle situations like that teaching the student the history of the lgbtq plus community and why it's harmful to use language like that which is processed better than for example school police this policy is pivotal for Student Success in a school environment and we urge you all to consider implementing this into schools to cre create a safer and stronger School Community for all thank you thank you for your time Kathy gon are you on the line Kathy I see you're signed up to speak remotely but I don't think you're signed in Kathy G are you in the room Kathy no okay Marcela Garcia I see you're on the line Marcela Garcia please press

162star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Marcela Garcia Marcel gcia good afternoon members of the board good afternoon my name is Marcela Garcia I am here once again because my son was beat inside the school he was a he attends birbank middle school and we haven't been able to establish security inside the school of well my son he left 8th grade he hasn't healed his emotional state and he's not the same person he has sequels because he was beaten a student broke his tooth the principal said that the student is a leader and that he had good grades but with time I found out that it wasn't just that my son we suffered certain type of of discrimination and and against my son after I made a

163complaint with the board and this is an injustice because my son is affected as well and he's very affected psychologically because the son uh the other child is white and the and because we're Latinos I felt a certain discrimination against us they held things against my son and because of that The Substitute kicked him out out of the class two days and I was asking why why my son was asking why are you kicking me out kicking me out there was no answer and the coach had him they were walking to the office and the principal said now what well these are the children that his parents come to cry and cry to us imagine these are the words of a principle and it's not that we cried to them it's just we simply want

164to clear things out when they invent they come up with things that things that students aren't even doing and it's not happening the way they're listening why aren't they listening to the voice of the student why because they intimidate them the principal told me not to worry if the kid was K getting kicked out of the class was because the substitutes don't like to work with certain students well if they don't like to work well they shouldn't be working in that job or that position because they shouldn't choose who they want to teach you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin eloisa Galindo eloa gindo please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin I see you are with us looks like U Miss gindo was

165muting and unmuting herself you're unmuted Miss gendo if you speak now we should be able to hear you okay we will come back to you Marbella Maldonado Marbella Maldonado you're signed up to speak remotely but I don't have you online in front of me are you in the room Marbella Maldonado okay Julia vicory Tren I see you're on the line Julia vicory Tren please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin can you hear me perfectly please go ahead hello L USD board members my name is Julia vicory Tren and my proun a sheiker I am a 14-year-old trans female upcoming high school student and the youth council member at retail a today I'm here to support my colleagues and propos new policy we're asking for a

166student Le committee to support black indigenous and people of color and lgbtq plus students and to make our school safer there's a lot of slurs and hateful speech on laoc campuses and we need to take action not doing anything about these harmful behaviors lower student morale and creates a hostile environment especially for Pac and lgbtq plus students a student voice initiative would help staff handle incidents better provide trauma informed care and promote accountability through healthy practices according to the Trevor Project lgbtq mle and high school students with school support are 20% 26% less likely to attempt suicide the Human Rights Campaign also found that over 50% of black lgbtq plus have been verbally or physically harassed recently and this includes almost 59% of black transgender and gender expansive use thank you for your time thank

167you for your time Karina Lopez I see you're on the line Karina lope Lopez please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak when you begin hello hi hi ah good afternoon my name is Kina Lopez I am here making a public comment because I support school police and the reasons are multiple one of the reasons as the previous Miss Marcel Garcia that just comment in regards to what happened to her son the problem is very clear it is not with the school with the with with police it is has to do with emotional psychological and administrative they you utilize in a bad way they utilize this in a bad way and they decide and they determine who they will have Justice in with and this is why it's important

168for school police to implement and give the surfaces that they can provide to a better to better the students school police is very important and it's necessary because this community and la and Los an the city of Los Angeles is not Disneyland to be able to walk freely we need to support school police in everything that we need to identify security and the monitoring of vigilant cameras and inside the classrooms inside the school and around the school thank you this is it [Applause] good afternoon I am Norma Gonzalez and I am here third time with this public comment in regards to school police and I want to eradicate that what what parents are saying we want school police to go back to schools because of the physical security of their students of personnel of principles

169administrators and of all Personnel that has to do with the school and we don't want students to criminalize because get criminalized because of the school police why because they will give them training that should be more appropriate and because us as parents we need to feel that our students are safe not for not because this is something that should criminalize them and there are certain groups that are just saying that they are they will be criminalized as students knowing that this is not a proof it's not proof that they're being criminalized we want them to come back because we don't feel safe of the community members of different organization of different schools sign the petition so that school police can come back to school please do not ignore 5,000 signatures that are there and we

170are here to support and to begin and call all these parents to support us so we can have a bigger testimony not just simply for it to be the student groups that are saying that yes it's possible that it's possible to criminalize school police or scri andiz students but there are many schools middle schools as they said previously where security is necessary for all students thank you eloisa Galindo Miss Galindo please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin eloisa Galindo good afternoon my name is eloa Galindo I a mother I'm a mother of a student at Garfield High School I just exit the bus and I want to tell you that there are many working people many Latina people are making United States so much bigger

171we have a dream for our children to change their Lifestyle by going to the university and it's an injustice for the resource that for the resource to leave the schools the resource need to be inside the schools mental health everything that an integral integral education needs we are talking about caritos he was beaten like George Floyd and this was before the pandemic he only he was only around 16 years old the police shouldn't have been him because he was an adolescent and if you would had a different system to call the parents and for therapy to be given to the student because the child was going through a lot of stress and we are criminalized as immigrant parents as well and the parent were deported and he was going through the loss of his parents

172and at school while he didn't finish his high school uh this police beat him and he's he was working at USC where he should have been graduating from USC not he could have been a doctor therefore do not criminalize any student my voice was always for the students for all the L USD students and for Los Angeles students that don't have a voice and it's an injustice for you to criminalize any student especially the working ones the ones that are principles that are trying that are treating the students bad I ask for you to ask M Mr Jose wera he is part of the priv privatization there he's doing such a bad job at East LA schools and we are losing a lot of students we are losing resources because we know that schools will

173be closed very soonly in Oakland 20 schools were closed and if we don't raise our voice as parents for our schools to have re better resources these schools were come down why and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Fernando Romero hello everyone my name is Fernand Romero I you her the Evan pronouns I am 22 years old I attend Cypress College I am a youth council member for reach La my policy idea proposal is to allocate funding to ethnic gender queer black indigenous people of color spaces as well as connecting them to Wellness and Mental Health Services an issue that many lgbtq plus students of color face is is a lack of ethnic gender and queer spaces in their campuses there's a lack of opportunities for students to access wellness and Mental

174Health Services as well I would like to share a personal story about A lgbtq Plus student who has experienced these issues this is what they shared as a young child I was abused it was repetitive and bad had developed several disorders dissociative identity disorder did post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD and anxiety and I had a fair share of trust and abandonment issues when I was a kid I was considered a misbehaved child this resulted in me being enrolled in military school after a bit I was sent to counseling eventually after medication and Mis diagnosis I was diagnosed with the eventually I learned to lead a normal peaceful life some resolutions to these issues are providing inclusive and diverse spaces the these can look like support groups clubs and visory councils led by queer trans bisexual indigenous

175people of color encouraging School teachers and staff to let students know about their Mental Health Services these Mental Health Services should be accessible to students by providing online options as well as a safe space within the school that's so leave for these session another issue that I would like to point out is that in the past when I was in high school I knew friends who couldn't access sessions with counselors therapist who are lgbtq plus affirming due to their parents not approving of the services and wouldn't sign the required documents to get started a solution to this is having counselors therapists who are lgbtq plus affirming provide information about accessible resources to students during school time these counselors therapists who are lgbtq plus affirming should have specialized training in working with in working with queer

176English Learners low income and Foster Care youth who are people of color thank you thank you very much that concludes general public comment public comment on uh item four the l cap and then we'll go to the lcap item uh Maria Louisa Palma come on up you'll have two minutes to speak on Tab four good afternoon my name is mar Luisa Palma I appreciate the discussion held here about this post Esser reality but did wasn't that always known that those funds were going to Sunset and those covid funds not just temporary but they were supposed to fix a learning loss and how well did that work out out here in the public we don't really have information on how well that's worked out we see the sad sad numbers of our proficiency levels but out

177here in the public in our parent committees the parent advisory committee and the deac we are at La unified an educational agency are we not from TK to 14 why don't we have Adult School quality curriculum about all of this budget about the elcap process this is the part that I can't get past the working group that we have been assigned with Mr San and and the others from budget they keep asking us what do we want for the transparency on the elap well they Educators that work here I think adult Educators why do we have to tell them what we want as it stands the budget tool that we just received yesterday for 2324 okay we just got that yesterday about a month ago we got the version from 2223 we still don't have

178clear metrics okay what were the goals on any of those formats and we need the continuity to show what happened in 2223 the achievements or lack of achievements how that flowed into the goals for 23 24 and how that flows now into 2425 so we are way far behind on this what programs were purchased what programs work what doesn't we don't have this information and apparently the public doesn't have that information either we have all these people showing up here talking to you about seni talking to you about Bap but I bet you that they don't know where those funs funds went none of us do we will continue to go around in circles having these conversations until transparency and a program for how to educate the public on the use of public funds are

179implemented by you it is your responsibility not ours to tell you how to do that thank you thank you for your time okay Ginger Rose Fox I see you're on the line Ginger Rose Fox please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Ginger Rose Fox hello can you hear me perfectly please go ahead perfect thank you hi my name is ginger Rose Fox I'm a 25 year veteran at Val unified having served as an Arts educator since 2001 and I'm a member of lausd's Arts advisory Council since it was established last spring we'd like to thank members of the board for your ongoing efforts to ensure that all five Arts disciplines dance media Arts Music Theater and visual arts are an essential aspect of core instruction

180for all kids prek K12 we're grateful for Mr schon's actions last Tuesday to lead the public inquiry into L usd's questionable implementation of prop 28 we're grateful that lcap goal number one academic Excellence shows an allocation of about $ 34.6 million to continue to provide the itinerate Arts instruction program to all elementary schools districtwide bringing create ity and joy to our youngest students which is why Arts Ed must also be included in lcap goal number two joy and wellness we are very concerned that similar dollars are not earmarked in goal number one specifically to ensure funding for arted programs in our middle and high school thus the district must one provide every secondary school with general fund dollars to fund arted positions that were already in existence in 2223 but were supplemented by prop 28

181and 2324 and 2425 two reinstate the general fund allocations to every Elementary and secondary school for supplemental Arts materials and supplies that were zeroed out in 2324 in l cap goal number five investment staff the district must one provide hiring and retention incentives for credential Arts Educators to teach in La USD number two establish each of the five Arts disciplines as a teacher shortage field so that prospective teachers can qualify for settle Grant and Loan and three work with the Arts education branch and a representative group of Elementary and secondary Arts teachers to co-create a professional development series that focuses on all aspects of District Arts funding thank you very much for your time that concludes comment on Tab four we do have a labor partner who um has arrived to speak remotely Franny Parish

182you have about five minutes or less please please go ahead please press star six to unmute yourself I hope I'm unmuted you are completely unmuted please go ahead well good afternoon it's been a long wait my dog is over there looking at me rather longingly uh good afternoon it's so nice to uh be with you all I'm so sorry that I couldn't be there in person but then again I'm really grateful I am not there in person all right so I wanted to first of all give you some Kudos thank you again belatedly for the fabulous uh classified school employee week uh the wonderful uh coffee and coffee cake uh I need getting some fly over here for you um it really was wonderful the employees really enjoyed that all right so the that I

183really wanted to talk to you about today which I know you really don't want to hear about it again but it is wearing on everyone and that is again uh proposition 28 we were all a bit disappointed in your response to the information that was provided to you and the board last week the students and families uh deserve better and the labor Partners we are still waiting for the school by school data on La USP investment in arts education for the school year 2223 the Baseline year before the enactment of prop 28 and the same for the school year 2324 your staff have repeatedly said the information exists which leaves us puzzle as to why you have not shared it publicly you continually uh continued to claim the accountability test is not done at the

184school site the accountability test is done districtwide that is not what the law says merely repeat repeting the same falsehood over and over does not make it true our letter of June 18th provided you with specific language from prop 28 along with detailed analysis by the State Legislative analyst it shows clearly in simple easy to understand language that prop 28 funds must be used to increased Arts education at every school and the new monies cannot be used to replace prior spending at any school when we provide the public with L usd's legal analyst uh analysis to support its claim this unsubstantiated districtwide view seems to be the reason you say that L USC is not in violation of the law you owe it to all in the school Community to share the basis for such

185a claim now Mr Schmelson just talked about all of these people who are like these little legal beagles who are watching people are watching and listening and paying attention we're not dumb out here all of us have other jobs and have had other jobs that know what's going on I can read the law you even disagreed with the author of prop 28 the Au and you're saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about La USC said it intends to restore 30 million of spending on the Arts at elementary schools for school year 2425 the implication is that same amount was cut in school year 2324 and unlawfully replaced it with TW top 28 funds if that's the case schools are owed not just 30 million for school year 2425 but also the 30 million

186they did not receive in school year 2324 that still leaves open the question of what happened to the rest of 76.7 million there's another 46.7 million that needs to be accounted for prop 28 provides School District across California with the opportunity to begin a new era for every student in every school has the opportunity to participate in Arts and Music at school we went out you guys asked us to go out and beat the bushes to get people to vote on this 65% across the state of California we got all of our csda members up and down the state to go out and beat the bushes on this every time you have asked for any proposition any kind of thing that would get people to tax themselves we convinced them to do it this was

187no taxing this was free and if you're not going to be able to come forward and show them that you're going to be transparent on this you cannot count on us to go forward with anymore asking anybody else to ever ever tax themselves or come forward or do anything else for the school district or any public school again this is very difficult you guys this is very difficult to ask thank you very much Mish you had one last thing when you guys asked a question it was very difficult to watch last week Miss Goldberg when you were asking questions Mrs mson and Rosio re and I thought I was watching a production of river dance or course line because I could hear the tap dancings no one answering the question we are trying to finish

188a meeting by we are trying to finish a meeting that passes the LC cap and so forth you've made a very strong point about how you feel about proposition 28 and we appreciate your comments thank you so very much okay that concludes all the general public comment and the item specific comment and we have tabs it looks like uh four and three remaining four to be voted on before three I'll take a motion on tab three at just to move it and second it move by Mr meline seconded by uh Mr we already did that oh we already did that all right I want a motion on Tab four and then we will discuss Tab four and vote on Tab four before we vote on tab three move by Dr Ras seconded by Mr melin

189all right board members discussion on Tab four one question go ahead so what standards did the district not meet according to California state standards good afternoon uh William Johnston executive director of office of data and accountability uh quick answer to your question is that we met all the state standards including the local indicators which are separate from the state standards um uh and we can elaborate on those if necessary hey that's a good answer all right very good answer we met all of the requirements go ahead any other thing else no M Dr Rivas just a comment I mean it was um it's a bit difficult to really have a complete understanding of the LC cap and the actions it all seems like all bullet points um I just feel like it needs a little

190bit more more detail more information and the reason I say that is you know I was curious as to what other school districts how they also present their um the El Cap I looked at San Diego I looked at Oakland I looked at Sacramento and they seem to have more of a flowy I mean they had also the same um tables that that you know that you presented but it just seemed like I could understand theirs a little bit more than I wish I could understand ours um for instance you know I had questions as to why and um well we have challenges so what are we doing to address these challenges so I don't I you know that that's just my own constructive criticism um just to you know it says that we saw

191increases and this satisfied because we said we saw these increases that seems to satisfy the effectiveness of of um you know the the um actions taken or the intervention and all of that um I just wish it just flowed a little bit more it provided a bit more detail um and I know we're still in a lot of it said well we're still waiting for 23 24 data to come in the summer or next year so I just want to say that for when we do have it next year for the next l cap get just give us a little bit more detail if there was a challenge what were the challenges and how are we going to overcome them um you know I saw a lot of increases of 2% in the outcomes or

192Ela and NB back 2% 3% is that enough to really take us to you know the 30 points that we want by 2026 it just seems like we're going in increments right um and I will like this l cap to say yes we have small increases but we're going this is what we foresee to really take us to all of our goal the board goals the Strategic plan it just seems that needs a little bit more it's it's a lot it really is a lot of words and a lot of and I know there's a lot of work it just doesn't give me a very comprehensive understanding of um where we're putting our money and the outcomes the outcomes just seem to be that's all it it just seemed like I just wish um it

193was a little bit more so if you can look at the other school districts I don't know if you looked at them and their l cap and just see hey what are they doing maybe we can do take a little bit here so we can provide um a little bit more of detail and line items I so I agree with parents who saying it's not very transparent it's not it just gives you very like bullet points boom boom boom boom what does that mean so anyway I I I have a lot of questions but um I don't want to ask all of those but I was just the Crux of my CR my constructive criticism is I just wish it would flow better instead of just providing bullet points and the metrics but not really

194flushing out what all that means that's all as far as working towards 2425 um Eric Elward elcap administrator uh part of the constraint is the the template that we work within uh you know with the California Department of Education template that districts uh put together and certainly we're looking to take what is a very large dense document uh 659 Pages uh the infographic is definitely an an attempt by us to consolidate information that's important to the board important to staff important to our educational Partners but absolutely we'll go ahead and look towards that thank you in light of what they said first of all I would like to see this document in Spanish and it should always be in both languages but I think the point that she's making is that when you look at

195a 500 or 600 page document you feel like I don't know what it really says even after I looked at all the pages probably what we need is some kind of look at the key items under each goal of which there are eight M and which ones we have done the best in in meeting and which ones we haven't as a separate document I think it would be e and then refer to pages in The Big document you want more information about it look here because I you know I read everything um it's start a long time ago and I just read everything um I felt even as I was going through that and marking it up and making notes it would have been nicer if I had a little companion piece that said in

196goal one here are the things you probably need to know the most about here's where we did well and why we did it and here's where where challenges were and maybe some of the things we're going to try to deal with those challenges and do that for each of the eight then those of us who try to read the entire document which some of us do and some of us don't at least we'll have a guide that makes our reading more useful and better ACH we better achieve understanding of what was the most important in those five or 600 pages also will help everybody in the public everybody in the public because I doubt that anybody in the public has gone through five or 600 Pages maybe some have I take take that back but

197not very many and particularly not if you read only in Spanish so I think first of all it's a beautiful document the five or 600 Pages it really is but I will say to you as I was going through and checking off notes and Ticking little you know me and my little pink tabs I was thinking it would have been nice to have sort of a guide to looking at what this is in appendex sure thank you that's really the only thing I would say except that it is quite a document and I it is online not yet in Spanish but it will be in Spanish won't it the June 18th was in Spanish but with the corrections with like we needed okay I only saw the English so I apologize I didn't know you

198were already there but I I think it's important though for having when and I would say the same thing for our budget document you know I spent literally 39 years looking at budgets this size or larger when I was in the state and it isn't easy to make any sense out of it even when you read all of it all the time again the more times that people have a little guide that says here's some things to do and and to know that are really critical the big changes from previous years the big Sacramento effect from pre current and future years and so forth and then look on these pages in the actual budget if you want to see all the detail that those kinds of things make it more accessible to board members and

199to the general public thank you board president anybody else all right a motion having been made on item number four for thank you very much want to make sure I say the right number on the l cap call the roll Dr McKenna yes Dr Ras yes Mr schmon yes Mr mvoy yes Miss gones Miss arti Franklin yes board president Goldberg yes that's six eyes six eyes and we'll leave it open in case she can reconnect on tab three h it having been moved and had the discussion and heard the comments from the public call the rooll please okay I want to check one more time to see if Miss gon is available to comment on this one because this is the one she wanted to comment on uh board member gones are you are you

200with us uh yes can you hear me we can okay yeah just a couple I'm sorry to do this at the 11th hour now but um just a couple of quick questions on this one um I'm appreciative of our efforts to be Equitable when it comes to the release of school carryover and um I'm supportive of the tiered approach I was wondering if the superintendent or team could speak to the school carryover funds that have been released and exactly which schools will be will be or have received a higher proportion of their carryover so in descending order thank you for the question descending order the priority schools uh are receiving the Lion Share 70% then s highest and high received the second highest level at 60% and then the remaining schools uh get 50% and

201and that has already been communicated to principles and those processes and those reallocations are ongoing and active thank you and can you speak to the status of Bap tier one schools um as as a group for group one excuse me so somean do you want to I think I understand the question but uh so I know I I believe there are about 10 Bap schools that are not um sem higher highest and um we have formulated a way of ensuring that those schools too it's not a a significantly large amount of funding those schools will be taken care of they will be addressed in the same fashion as the other BP schools okay thank you for for clarifying that um and then separately I'm appreciative of the school stabilization fund I think you know I

202have been advocating very strongly to ensure that as we Face very real significant budget challenges that we don't um solve those problems on the backs of our lowest paid employees or our highest need schools um just some questions about the stabilization fund one is you know there was a release of additional carryover earlier um earlier this year in late spring with the stated purpose of being able to restore hours and benefits to classified staff at school sites um unfortunately it looks like sufficient hours were restored in less than 7% of cases only about 40 positions out of 591 um what are we doing to ensure that the school stabilization funding will actually address the issue of restoring hours effectively so all classified employees in filled positions so all class filled classified schoolf funded positions that

203saw reduction in hours whether that impacted their benefits or not will be restored so that covers all of those employ all of those positions and so you're right that not every school used the additional carryover allocations that they received in May to restore hours um but all employees will be restored as part of the school Sy stff stabilization whether a individual School chose to do that with the additional carry carryover funds or not got it yeah and I would just note that it it's not some schools it would it would appear that most schools did not did not choose to do that despite Express encouragement I guess to to move towards that direction yeah so not not and then just on a more logistical sense for the coming school year for those employees whose hours

204will when and how will they be notified sure so a basis employees will already received their assignment notifications on uh June 17th uh ebasis employees are anticipated to receive their reassignment assignment notifications on July 2nd and B and C basis employees are expected to reive their notices on July 9th and so in all cases over the next few weeks certainly before the beginning of the school year um is when we expect those those notices to be received by employees got it okay that timeline is is helpful to know and obviously I urge the team to do whatever we can to get this information to folks out as soon as possible there are likely many effective employees who might not have even heard that we're we considering this funding to restore their hours and you know

205need to make personal and professional decisions now so um definitely want to make sure that we can retain those staff and and help them prepare for the future um and just one you know broader point I I agree with all of the um all of the accolades that have been given around uh the superintendent and team and how we have handled the you know really serious Financial challenges that are facing us um and and again as I said I really appreciate the you know the steps to be responsive to to those challenges that we're seeing at school sites including those impacting our classified staff um I just one question for us as a board is how do we avoid this issue in the future when we expect that there will be continuing budget constraints in

206coming years um and what are we doing to ensure that we're maintaining benefits for our classified employees and their families but also ensuring that we have sufficient Staffing at our school sites to provide for a safe and welcoming campus I think that our earlier meeting spoke to real needs and deficiencies in those areas and so I I plan to to continue that conversation and look forward to us digging in more on those systemic issues that are impacting um the conditions of our schools and how to ensure that as we Face these continuing challenges in future budget years that um that there are not all of these issues that we have to go back and rectify at the end but rather that we are proactive about them so um wanted wanted to add that to the

207conversation I heard it more as a statement but but I find a question in there so I will chime in a little bit and I would encourage San or or David or P to to add if I miss something this is a very unusual year so when I hear the question you know how could we do something differently or better uh in the coming years to address the volatility that we observed this year well let's begin with the fact that this was really a very very different way year beginning with the fact that it was a very volatile year and was a year where we saw the coming together of the perfect storm right uh very lackluster State Investments a decreasing Cola simultaneously with the evaporation of the multi-billion dollar Federal investment uh we do

208not have many years like that in fact this is a year comparable to probably 2008 2009 the great uh Great Recession um hopefully we will not have many years like like this one where you see State conditions deteriorating very quickly at the same time as you see a rapid and massive evaporation of federal Investments but I think uh steps quite frankly are consistent with what we attempted to this year have a preload frontload the number of budget workshops um to sensitize the board and the community to the fiscal realities the financial realities based on Trend but I do not want to let Sacramento off the hook the true Solutions have less to do with our processes because how in a world do you really adjust to a $600 million right uh disappearance of of colon

209Investments uh in just a matter of weeks I think the true Solutions uh on top of whatever additional efficiencies we create locally and process improvements that we that we fashion and enhance enan communication to the workforce in the community I get all of that the true Solutions reside with the state um you know shifting from Ada to uh to enrollment based funding is a solution that brings stability to the funding to the $300 million right uh and there are additional other elements that would bring greater stability looking at as our board president said earlier uh the the maybe the unintended consequences or the consequence by Design associated with Proposition 13 those need to be looked at if in fact we are to have a more stable um uh set of financial conditions how the state

210really does not fund education on the basis of very much more stable funding streams tied to property values uh relying more on volatile capital gains which fluctuate up and down with the stock market very very unusual to fund education like that so I think the systemic fixes are beyond beyond our control but we certainly will do our very best to continue to improve our internal systems to expedite processes provide more ample notification to the workforce but this year was certainly by all accounts a very very unusual very different year now just that as we look at you know the future workshops it's being purposeful when when we have conversations that we're looking at various budget scenarios you know it's it's pretty much the the Goldilocks approach where we look at you know various economic conditions

211and how that could impact the multi-year projection in our budget given the volatility and the sometimes unpredictability of what the governor proposes in January and the actions that are forthcoming with the legislator with the legislature and so um when you ask the question you know what can we do what can you do is engage and Advocate early on um we start our engagement with the governor's office and the legislative leadership in November um before even the January budget is is uh presented to the public um to at least be able to inform some of the broader strategies that the legislature might entertain and so um we'll be purposeful in bringing options and looking at those different types of economic um uncertainties and how that impacts the budget and what the trade-offs are associated with each

212of those types scenarios one last comment on on this process before the board votes I really want to thank once again the voices and sometimes they're strident they're loud they're condemning but in the end they result in a better work product as far as the budget is concerned um secondly I want to thank uh this team uh San David I see Tony back there the entire team for what was a grueling uh budget development process I know it has not been easy the the number of permutations we went through were excessive because of the real unorthodox year that we we experienced thirdly um I want to thank the board for your patience for your engagement and active participation in the budget workshops and committee work and your wise advice in terms of coming up with

213novel solutions to address uh the really dire conditions that we were facing thank you very much thank you Mr McAn call the rooll on tab three okay Dr McKenna yes Dr Ras yes Mr schmon yes Mr Melo yes Miss gones yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin yes board president Goldberg yes that's seven eyes and uh while we have you on camera Miss gonz can we return to Tab four for your vote yes you can record me as a yes okay thank you very much all right Mr McLean I think you wanted to say something before we close and I have a closing um adjourning motion okay just before the adjourning motion I really wanted to thank uh my staff I think that the we all know my staff are doing their job when you don't need

214to talk to them and so uh just upstairs in the front office James Ley and Raina they're our admins they do an amazing job in this wild Estuary in which we work sitting at the intersection between the Board of Education and the district at large the hearing secretaries who sit in the booth back there and work with the board offices on getting these meetings produced ebony Lisa and Miriam I am convinced I have the absolute best staff uh and it's an absolute pleasure to work with all of you I would be remiss if I didn't mention its and klcs who all and the translations unit who all come together in in this um very interesting dance that we do to make each board meeting happen so it's a real honor and I want to thank

215uh all of them and and I I love working with you all I'd like to I'm going to have a hard time getting through this one I'd like to close our meeting in memory of Jessica Jesse Alejandra adoni we buried or my family buried her this week yes Saturday first of all you need to know that she was a woman of pure heart and strong will the Rees and sandal family are truly devastated to have lost such a beautiful soul having been the firstborn Donna daughter of Alma and or Jesse was an affectionate sister of BU all and pioneered her siblings towards college credentials by maintaining the first to graduate with her bachelor's degree in liberal studies from Cal State LA Jesse completed her degree while working as a special education par par professional for

216La unified where she continued to work as a special education as a fully credential educator having earned her degree Jesse brought her affection into the classroom caring and loving her special need students like a mother cares for their child the night before her burial we had a a viewing and students her special Edge students and their parents came and if you ever want to hear anybody talk about a teacher with such love you should have heard those people talk about they appeared again the next day at the actual funeral um Jesse married Pavan adoni in 2021 and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl her little girl became a daughter of a loving and devoted mother and wife caring and loving for others came naturally to Jesse she tended to her daughter cared for her

217special need students and Fosters sheltered dogs to prevent their untimely euthanasia her affection left a mark on those around her and she was a bleeding heart for anything with a beating heart Jesse was a mother wife daughter sister cousin niece devoted teacher and a friend to many she was known as a bright light charismatic and Lively bringing potent positivity to both her classroom and the spaces around her with all her roles she played to those in her life being a mother was her favorite role endlessly doting on her daughter alongside her husband her life came to abrupt end on June 7th after being pronounced dead by medical professionals following a ruptured aneurism her sudden death has left her 2-year-old daughter without her mama and our family in disarray is Jesse's strong will and Pure Heart

218laid to Eternal rest so it is with a heavy heart ask you to adjourn in her memory she was only 34 years old she had a bright future ahead of her her students loved her her family loves her and she will be missed by all thank you very much 557 the meeting is adjourned unless there's any objection [Music] oh [Music]