001on school districts to ban this AP class from their district and of course Florida has already done so and it tells you that there are people in this country who believe telling the young people the truth about America all of it The Good the Bad and the Ugly is somehow going to harm them my personal experience teaching social studies to youngsters in high school was the more they knew about what we were in the past the more they could appreciate how far we've come and to understand that progress has been steadily made though slowly and that there's a lot left to do so I'm very disappointed to see that it's becoming political now to say that we don't trust our children our Bright Young People the future of this country with knowing everything about the
002history of the country they live in which includes all of the things that we've done well as well as the things not so well having said that however we're now going to have other voices now there are no student voices today is that right Mr shin okay but we are going to be working with you to identify relevant topics and presenters for future meetings right good good good we do have some labor Partners here and I saw Mr pies from aala I'll ask him to come up first afternoon superintendent board members and Senior staff notice I did not say good afternoon aala school-based administrators are tired of being Sitting Ducks as many of them are telling me in general students are blatantly ignoring and disrespecting School personnel more and more students are bringing dangerous illegal
003and lethal paraphernalia to schools parents and Guardians are disrespecting administrators in front of the students and at alarming rates moreover parents overall have become less Vigilant and not monitoring students and their belongings when leaving home since the resolution to defunct school police was passed I knew it was only a matter of time before our members my members were negatively impacted it is shameful in a travesty one of our principles was violently assaulted by a parent in broad daylight on the very campus you have about to protect and to make matter to make matters worse one of our assistant principles was brutally assaulted by a student board member Ortiz here is a clear example where restorative justice failed miserably two rounds of restorative Circle time were had with the student in question nonetheless the students fixation
004to attack the administrator was greater than the elusive restorative practice in this case and verifiable truths from the Crypt unlike the fictional fantasies of school police brutality told to you by paid and professional outside organizations brainwashing susceptible and impressionable youngsters I challenge you to ask for names of school police officers that have allegedly violated the civil rights of students the reality is neither the student or the organization will ever name an officer because they know there are consequences for slander and libel please be more judicious of the boisterous and disrespectful students that come before you with prepare statements by professional money-making adults with no educational background remember to keep in mind no one is never named in these outlandish stories nor will they be because you are being told Fabrications in the meantime aala members
005are experiencing acts of violence like never before schools are being burglarized and vandalized and according to the news 45 District buses in a single yard had their catalytic converters stolen the revenue being lost and the harm to school communities given the lack of after your hours patrolling on evenings weekend weekends and holidays is adding up quickly the theft and vandalism on the rights are on the rise because of your direct actions undermining adequate safety and supervision moreover our members cannot be subjected to receiving calls from the Watch Commander in the middle of the night because an alarm has been triggered or because the bells are ringing I think we can all agree it is not safe during the day in some of the communities we serve and much less in the middle of the night
006please our administrators and school communities want and need safe School communities both indoors and Outdoors and remember the board and then superintendent buettner ignored the task force results and recommendations that the voices and they silence the voices of students staff and parents it appears the former and celebrated Chief Ramirez was silenced by senior leaders former Chief Ramirez seemed to never appear before you or at any of her departmental roll calls ironically she was known to speak at paid events outside of the district touting the wonderful things happening in LAUSD meanwhile no one has been telling the stories of the hundreds if not thousands of students and employees being physically and emotionally hurt verbally harassed and mugged in and around our schools what is it going to take to stop enabling those outside groups coming here
007and yelling at whoever listens two of your colleagues continue cheering co-directing and enabling this false narrative as evidenced this past Tuesday at Mann Middle School no this Behavior was disrespectful and hurtful to our members I understand we work at the pleasure of the board but the way some of your colleagues behave sent a clear message of not caring for students staff and District assets our district and staff deserve to be safe and the authority to select the safety model that will best meet the needs of their school communities safety matters it's important and it is not happening right now around the district please listen board members since you set policy you need to revisit and fix what was wrongly done and done in 2020. do not fall victim to the actions of the board in
0082020 when the voice and Emperor families and staff was ignored on a similar vote listen and honor the 71 percent of parents and most of your labor Partners supporting a one-week Thanksgiving break and a three-week winter break for the next three years do not ignore it do not put it aside accept it respect it aala members have kept the schoolhouse doors open despite natural disasters bomb threats and work stoppages it is no secret not all labor Partners have been there all the time and while it is important we all work together some of our labor Partners have gone astray of their core mission of teaching reading numeracy and critical thinking under the guise of social justice when it is not I welcome the opportunity to continue these tough conversations publicly and informal meetings lastly I
009challenge you to regularly have Chief zipperman present to you here and at the committee of the whole to Foster transparency openness in a two-sided dialogue I am also requesting an analysis of 2020 istars and service calls by Board District and local or slash District region be shared with me and the public I think an interesting daunting data picture will arise the public deserves to know this important data to counter the rosie social media post we often see thank you very much next we'll hear from Gil Gomez uh School Police Officers Association good afternoon my name is Gil Gomez I'm the school police Union president and I'd like to introduce to you a member from our LAUSD Community Mr Travis Fenderson hello I just want to take a few minutes to uh discuss give you guys
010an idea of who I am um as you said Travis Fenderson remember LASD Community Living the community work in the community we run non-profit Intercity boys and girls of color um over the past almost 11 years we've put probably almost 200 kids in college um myself my wife personally pay cell phone bills um clothing we provide all these teams for students we help them find schools when they struggled to do so assist their parents with various things we've taken kids up and down the state of California to participate in various events from Youth Sports to academic events to different types of things we provide a lot of services for community-based organizations to assist Jackson limousine turkey giveaway numerous things we have a a a serious passion for just helping people helping kids specifically kids that
011can't necessarily help themselves when it's all said and done let me highlight last week first day of Black History Month the Sixth Street Bridge we in in some ways relived Selma's the protest of Selma Years Ago by Timmy with local police departments and local students to actually work and not just talk about helping and improving that relationship we've been working with building blue bridges for years now as part of their initial group from pancake breakfasts to going to DC to walking Smithsonian the whole nine but we also realize that these things take a whole lot of effort from a whole lot of different people like yourselves People Like Us in the community people that serve the community people that have vowed to do so prior to all of this for nearly 10 years I was
012a teacher here in LAUSD from a UCLA member I taught at Washington prep last prior to that I was at Locke high school before that I was in the juvenile halls and I was in a mental health system and the iron of it all the irony of it all is a guy from the community lives in a community to help the community and today things are not quite the way they should be but I'll I won't spend a whole lot more of you guys time but I do want to let you guys know that at the end of the day I'm an laus USD School cop I'm one of those School cops that you guys uh commonly say thank you for your service too and then do otherwise at rallies it's very difficult to do
013what we do because we care and then experience some of the things we experience so I just want you guys to know that we do a whole lot we do a whole lot of things from a place that's genuine not just because we get a check thank you guys for your time thank you sir that was officer Travis Fenderson former teacher school police officer he is one of many many school police officers that help protect lead and Mentor students in the future I will bring other police officers male and females to come speak at the board thank you for having us thank you very much Mr Gomez we don't see any other labor Partners we are adding the independent analysis unit uh today as one of the voices that we might hear from in the
014future for those of you who aren't aware it's a very small unit that reports directly to the board and does analysis which is its name independent analysis units okay so that I believe will be all that we will hear under uh voices and now we'll go to committee chair reports but before we do that I want to make a few announcements in public we will now have a greening and um climate committee and it will monitor environmental efforts for example our transition to a goal of a hundred percent renewable energy as well as our efforts to infuse all our curricula with climate literacy also it will include a look at how we are Greening our schools and I've asked Dr Vives to chair this committee and for the moment Mr melvoin who is asked to
015be on it is also being assigned to that committee we are adding a facilities and procurement committee which will oversee the maintenance and construction of school facilities as well as procurement of a wide variety of material and resources and I've asked Mr board member melvoyne to chair this committee and he will do so he said and joining him on that is Scott schmerlson uh the existing Innovations committee we will ask you to take on additional issues dealing with the many specialized schools that we have in the district bsap Community Schools heat magnet schools option schools pilot schools because there seems to be considerable interest in the part of the public of who they are do they work or which should be doing more or less of them um I believe uh your committee uh will
016add Dr Rivas uh then I've asked uh well board member Ortiz Franklin already chairs the committee and has agreed to take on the additional topics uh next we're adding Early Education to the family and Community engagement committee which is currently chaired by Mr schmerlson and has on it uh Mr melvoin and Dr Rivas and uh that is actually I believe the all of the new additions we will have an ad hoc committee now what's the difference between an ad hoc committing a standing committee an ad hoc committee exists for one specific purpose and when that purpose is reached it disappears the standing committees go on a month to month so I'm happy to announce the formation of an ad hoc committee on the integrated Pest management issues which will be comprised of board member schmerelson
017who has agreed to take this on two members of the current roster of the IPM team and one or two staff members from La Unified it is as soon as we have confirmed the availability of committee members we will move forward with a meeting which was discussed in the board report 107 2223 approved November the 15th uh 2022 at 1 pm the idea of this ad hoc committee is simply to get the integrated Pest Management committee back in compliance with the rules of that committee they haven't had elections they should have had and so forth it is not to change any of the rules of IPM I want to be very clear about that just to bring the committee itself into compliance so that's all of that now we have the ability for uh board
018members to give reports on their committee and the first one that I have here well what do I have here hmm curriculum and instructable book there was another committee special land okay that's what I'm looking for Mr merlson you want to give us our report on special I will be happy to the board's special ed committee met on Wednesday January the 11th at 5 PM right here in the boardroom uh this was the first meeting of the new year with members joining in person and also via Zoom we started the meeting with two presentations that focused on an overview of the historical legal and research foundations as well as a presentation on the least restrictive environment in La Unified for our third and fourth items our external Partners provided an overview of supporting inclusive practices
019and for our voices from the field we heard from the staff at Limerick Elementary School and our next meeting will be on Wednesday March the 1st at 5 pm thank you curriculum and instruction committee is the only other committee and we heard you oh okay good do both of yours uh Mr schmearlson hey two at once okay you got it the board's family and Community engagement committee met on Wednesday February the 1st at 5 PM right here in the board building this was the first meeting of the new year with members joining me in person and Via Zoom so we started with a presentation from Mariam nasiri and Miss Rogers from the California Credit Union which covered intro into banking Basics and touched a little bit on financial literacy they shared all the resources they
020offered to students and families and the willingness to continue to offer and expand these Services through Partnerships with LAUSD for our second and last item District staff presented on school planning and budget development for 23-24 the presentation provided an overview of the budget development process school training dates School site funds and how families can engage in the process and here's a few highlights the school budget system opens on February the 14th in general schools receive allocations on protect on projected ecast projected or actual Norm day enrollment and other school characteristics such as school type Norm category Affiliated status Etc the School site council is the designated body to approve the use of funds through the school plan for student achievement families can continue to engage in the process by visiting achieve.lausd.net slash lcap and through
021the district-wide thought exchange at LAUSD no I'm sorry at tjoin.com slash scroll thanks to the following staff members for their support Mr buendia Mr Bravo Karimi Mr valier and Mr Placencia and Miss Ryback our next meeting will be on April the 12th at 5 pm thank you and thank you Mr schwarlson for those reports uh the other committee that met uh was the first meeting of the curriculum and instruction Committee in second semester was held on January 26th the primary topic was mathematics and something called cognitive guided instruction or CGI which is now being used in about 220 of the elementary schools in the district uh data analysis uh well the items that Emer well we talked about this very much because it is an approach which involves students learning much more about being a
022mathematician in elementary school than just memorizing uh facts doesn't mean they don't memorize math facts they do need to know but it is another way of looking at it and it seems to be doing very successful it comes from Folks at UCLA Center X and uh out of that discussion the committee asked to get feedback on the following items first a data analysis will you tell us from schools that have been doing this CGI math for five years what are the average s back results by grade level in other words is it producing results secondly we asked for a data analysis for students who have attended CGI schools for five years what's happening as a result of that in their middle school both as to their grades and as to their achievement on standardized tests
023thirdly we wanted to know if we wanted to have all the schools that about half the schools have been done all the schools done how much would it cost how long would it take and what schools would be uh priorities if we couldn't do them all the same year these action items uh have been asked to sent forward uh to District staff but we are in the process of discussing the role of or the iau to be a part of helping do some of these analyzes uh so that District staff isn't solely irresponsible for doing that and more will be done on that as we go forward I think that's all we have under committee so we will now move to the consent calendar so let me explain to folks something that I know people
024have found strange somehow or another almost everything we do ends up on consent meaning everybody agrees with all of it and it's all going to be voted on in one vote and how do we do that well here's how we do that board members get this material mostly a week in advance have one or two opportunities to ask different District staff for information about it some of the issues were heard in committees in any case are in the committee of the whole and so board members came here today prepared for what they want to do on each and every item we could take them up one item at a time there wouldn't be any questions we'd have to make 16 separate votes so instead we have developed the consent calendar which is used widely in
025government official government locations and what it does is it gives the board members an opportunity to say yeah you can put that on the consent calendar I'm ready to vote Yes on it and they can say but I have a question or I want to just find one more thing out that still goes on consent or they can say I'm not ready to vote Yes so I'm not sure what I'm doing or I know what I'm doing and it's not yes and I'd like that off consent and have a full blown public discussion of it the things that we don't discuss in public are not because you we don't want you to know it's all in the materials that you have in front of you that you can get online that you can get uh
026in in ways of doing that but it does mean that what we will do is we will be more efficient into how the meeting gets run spending the time on those issues which are controversial or need more explanation so now I will go through each item and ask board members to say whether they want the item on consent or whether they want the item for discussion or whether on consent but they still have a question or two they want to ask in public okay so for item number one it is their initial bargaining we take no action on it so that item will not be involved item number two is procurement now under procurement we have items a through F item a deals with gear up which is a overnight college tours some people may
027not realize but in years past we had a grantee of gear up which was called ypi and for reasons that I'm not still entirely sure about it went under stopped existing doesn't exist anymore and that Grant went to LA unified so the material under item a shows no change to that original Grant because we really couldn't change that Grant we're simply taking it over Item B is a mobile management which calls for managing and access to instructional resources via a sign-on and authentication process on District mobile devices most of you are already familiar with them if you have a district phone or or laptop item C is Professional Services uh 2.7 million dollars in low value contracts and 33.8 million dollars for goods and services item D on Ida and uh measure two is a
028contract for beyond the bill for professional development item e is to have a card vendor change uh to bank U.S Bank n a because we believe we will get from them for using their cards about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars in annual revenue over a five-year period item e is the specialized card then I'm sorry I just said that one item f is earphones for student testing we're going to be buying from nine to five computer supply Distributors about two and a half million dollars worth of earphones so that when students are testing they can be not distracted and item f is the rental of Steel supporter bleachers these are bleachers that are temporary for schools having a sporting event but they need something for one event or two events but not permanently and
029that's that okay how do you want to put the item them too on consent all right any questions from anybody or any needs of details okay hearing none uh item three is facilities contracts it has item a South Gate Middle School site improvements uh a Lessing of that by about a million and a half dollars uh Item B is safety tile matting contract you know underneath the devices for elementary schools we have safety matting so if kids slip or fall they don't get hurt that's a 3.8 million dollars uh aggregated contract value but this is just a one million dollar addition item C is General Contracting Services which means that these people will do whatever types of general contracting the district needs they're a group of groups that are already approved contractors item D is
030painting Contracting Services about two million dollars it increases uh contract capacity item e is uh change orders uh about uh 229 of them uh for about 4.2 million dollars item f is the Nightingale Middle School barrier removal project item G is an electric vehicle charging station software renewal with Southern California as it is Edison is a part of an EV charging station pilot project item H is air conditioning units for cooling cafeterias yeah there is at addition 5 million to the 30 million already there item I extra services and amendments for architectural uh contracts about eighty five thousand dollars item J to increase the capacity for 12 geotechnical engineering servicing contracts and that's about um about 15 million dollars so what's your pleasure on the facilities contract consent any questions or items okay one from
031Tanya Miss Ortiz Franklin but on consent okay okay item four is postponed will not be heard today item five is the report of cash disbursements uh and this is uh basically just says how we spent our money what's your pleasure consent item six is donations of money to the district of which there are many and they're all listed for you what's your pleasure consent item seven approval of routine Personnel actions consent item 8 March 15 notices to administrators I just have a question a question but on consent okay uh item nine cannot be on consent these are provisional internships that means that we've been given permission by the state to give someone who's not completely yet finished with their credential a provisional internship while they finish it so they will be allowed to teach item
03210 is the approval of the 2021 comprehensive coordinated early intervening Services known as c c e i s and it's an action plan Amendment percent consent for questions item 11 approval to submit physical education block schedule waiver to the California state board of education for high schools on a block schedule the state requires for 10th 9th and 10th grade that there be PE of a certain number of minutes but if you're on a block schedule a 4x4 it's pretty hard during some of those times to do that exact number of minutes we're seeking a waiver to say they'll get all their required minutes but not necessarily the way they used to it on a daily basis uh what's your pleasure on that item consent okay uh resolutions for Action we have the celebration of black
033history months item 12. consent but we will allow the maker to uh present it when it's a timely to do so are there people who wish to be besides myself uh wish to be added as co-sponsors Dr Rivas it looks like the entire board okay we will all be at it if you'd have no objection no objections okay item 13 it says time certain what that means is is that the public has been notified at least those that have been connected to Mr melvoin's office uh that we will hear this at a time certain that means at 3 30 this afternoon that way those people who wanted to specifically be present to speak on it could be able to do so how do we want this on consent consent and you will be able to
034present it at 3 30. item 14 report of Correspondence including the Williams settlement this is a public hearing but it can still be on consent okay I'm going to ask just a couple make a little brief statement that's it minutes of board approval and we want to thank Mr McLean for timely minutes on the closed session thank you very much we have had somewhat delay sometimes and that's been taken care of so minutes from the board approval all right a resolution of the intention to dedicate an easement to the County of Los Angeles at wisdom Elementary this looks like a lot of paper but basically it's really changing just the corners for curb cuts and a few things like that so consent and that I believe is all of our matters all of our issues
035so very good let's get started with now we will move to hearing from public speakers first on the items on consent we do that so that we will have made sure that everyone who wanted to speak on all of these items which we will vote for with one vote have had a chance to speak on their item before we take that one vote Mr McLean okay we have speakers signed up for tab 2. Emilia Elias Elias are you on the line Amelia are you online doesn't look like you're here uh Lata are you on the line Lata are you on the line not here either and David Turner are you on the line I'm looking at a live screen of folks who have signed up to speak and none of those three are there let
036me say that because we are at 137 and we are rarely this far at that time that we're going to ask you at the end of going through the public comments on items for consent that you go back to the ones you missed just to give them a chance if they didn't realize we were starting so early today okay we'll return to that tab after we've gone through all the folks that we're going through now um item number 10. uh David Norman tokowski are you on the line or are you in person sir Mr tokovsky you're not here okay we will return to you um item number 11 I'm going to read a um a public statement to be read before the public hearing before action is taken on board report 162 22-23 approval to
037submit physical education block schedule waiver to the California state board of education for high schools on a block schedule a public hearing must be held this constitutes a public hearing on the report and a maximum of 12 individuals who wish to address the board on the item will be heard those who wish to speak should sign up in the rear of the boardroom if you have not already and speakers will be called by name here we go uh in person tab 11 public hearing Mr David tokowsky are you here okay you're not here is um tahita Shakur here tahida Shakur are you here or on the line not here okay so it sounds like folks um might be a little bit behind so we'll return also to speakers on Tab 11 to make sure that
038we have full and robust public comment available okay tab um do we want to do tab 12 the resolution Dr McKenna's resolution Kenny do you believe the people are here to speak on your or should we have this later I don't know that anybody's here particularly anybody call in but to my knowledge but I'm there is a hand I see somebody's here okay let's take let's go through these some somebody's here so let's take let's go through these thank you for raising your hand please go ahead okay I'm going to start calling folks who signed up in person and uh we'll we'll go from there Laura J McGowan Robinson are you here oh there you are come on up you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin let me just make sure your mic
039is on fasting you're good to go thank you good afternoon honorable LAUSD board members and superintendent Carvalho my name is Dr Laura McGowan Robinson CEO of diversity and Leadership Institute DLI was founded to address the need for more racially diverse and culturally responsive School leadership in California and I'm speaking in support of Dr McKenna's Black History Month resolution many think of names like Martin Luther King Ella Baker Oprah Winfrey Denzel Washington when they think or teach about the legacy of black Americans and their contributions to this country and the world some of the earliest influences or Inspirations of these past and present black icons were black Educators nearly one year ago today this LAUSD School Board unanimously adopted the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparation Recruitment and Retention resolution I along with parents Educators
040students and community members celebrated this history making moment when the second largest school district in the country made a commitment to further its support of black students and supporting and sustaining a pipeline of black Educators to date the iau has released a report on the status of black Educators with recommendations the superintendent has highlighted educator Workforce diversity in the Strategic plan and Dr Dupree and members of his team began the work of gathering information from black Educators La unified and community members through focus groups of note the data in the IU report stated that those shares of most categories of black Educators have remained stable the number of black teachers has decreased by a hundred per year since 2016. Recruitment and Retention strategies are necessary to implement today I stand here in celebration of that
041moment in black history and some of those early steps I also stand here to encourage further action on this resolution by asking the district to share its implementation plan for how the work of the resolution will move forward and to provide ongoing public updates on how the work is taking shape to support the the work of La unified the charting the course of equity Coalition has convened its own focus groups over the last two months to gather input on how students parents and Educators and community members can offer those recommendations on how the resolution may be implemented these recommended recommendations are based on the IU report the focus group feedback and from the expertise of the DLI staff the recommendations include the following major areas Recruitment and Retention support pipeline development monitoring implementation and fostering
042inclusive environments we've submitted these recommendations to the board and the superintendent for your consideration research shows that black Educators play an important role in improving student achievement college going rates and school climate outcomes let's Inspire the next generation of black history makers like Martin Ellie Shirley Oprah and names we have yet to hear by fueling the pipeline of black Educators I strongly support Dr McKenna's resolution thank you thank you very much Dr McGowan Robinson Vanessa aramayo are you here Vanessa aramayo come on up and you have three minutes to speak once you begin thank you good afternoon members of the board and superintendent Carvalho my name is Vanessa ramayo and I am the executive director at Alliance For Better Community ABC we are a Latino advocacy organization based in LA county working on issues that
043impact Health economic prosperity and education today I'm not only here as an executive director but also as a parent of two LAUSD students first and foremost I would like to express my support for the Black History Month resolution that is before the board today although we set aside a month to be in remembrance of the rich history and culture we know that we must celebrate Black History year round as a product of a public education system I am proud to have my children attend public schools like all parents I want my children to have the best education and that means having cultural representation and people of color as Educators in their classrooms we know what research says about diversity making Society smarter and students exposure to others who are different from themselves and the novel
044ideas and challenges that such exposure brings like improved cognitive skills including critical thinking and problem solving but aside from the research diversity in the classroom is important because all children should not only celebrate black history in this month but also see what it looks like in practice year round and one way to do that is by ensuring that those people leading classrooms are as diverse as our communities are this is why I'm here to reiterate my support for the black students excuse me for the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparation and retention resolution which was unanimously approved by this board almost a year ago as a leader of color and a leader of a Latino advocacy organization I understand and I fully appreciate the importance of diversity and representation Beyond parity this includes creating
045a welcoming School culture for all this also means teachers of color are placed throughout the district and not only where there are more students of color today I urge you to do two things one unanimously approved the Black History Month resolution and two renew your commitment to the black educator resolution by reviewing the recommendations submitted by our partners at charting the course Equity Coalition and making a public commitment to publish an implementation plan within 90 days thank you for your time and consideration ABC continues to be a partner and advocate of this work and we look forward to your full support thank you very much all right Keisha Jones are you on the line Keisha Jones okay Peter Watts I see you are on the line uh Peter Watts please press star six to unmute
046yourself and you have three minutes to speak once you begin Peter Watts yes good afternoon LAUSD board members and superintendent Carvalho I'm speaking in support of Dr McKenna's Black History Month resolution my name is Reverend Dr Peter watch Jr I'm a community advocate board member for innovate Public Schools as well as the CEO of the Watson power Foundation that focuses on recruiting and retaining black men to be teachers in elementary schools in Los Angeles and I like to express my support for the Black History Month resolution that's before the board today and in the spirit of Black History Month I'd also like to reiterate my support for the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparations and retention resolution which was unanimously approved by the board almost a year ago now the first time I had
047a black educator was in third grade in this third advanced class at 74th Street Elementary School she's the reason why I chose to become an educator many years later I taught Elementary School at Compton Avenue Elementary and was part of the historic 10 schools program back in 1997 and I know the impact that black Educators have on students the data is clear about our presence and Excellence when we're in front of students and we know that the dropout rate decreases and the college interest rate increases especially for black male students and the reason why I continue to do this work in education is because I think about my own K-12 experience including being tracked with special ed bullied and not seen for the gifts and contributions I could have made to my school Community now
048upon graduating from college and pursuing a career and teaching the lack of care and learning in my K-12 experience showed up as I struggled to pass teacher licensure exams which required me to repeat math and writing numerous times I do this work because I believe in the genius of black men who only make up two percent of the teaching profession and I know that if we can recruit train retain and place more black male teachers in the classroom the academic achievement and college readiness of black and brown students will increase when I became a school side administrator I was able to multiply that effect and impact on students and families by providing excellent teachers and support staff that represented students that they were fun of currently in our program we have two former students in
049our program who are black men that are pursuing Elementary education credentials um one of which is a teacher at Windsor Hills magnet Elementary School we believe that black students and all students need to see black school leaders teachers administrators in their schools who look like them and so I'm asking the board to increase representation of black Educators and leaders in the district through targeted Recruitment and partnership with hbcus organizations and accountability and hiring promotional retention of black Educators with increased transparency with specific intentions on strategies to recruit black male Educators I am asking for unanimous approval of the Black History Month resolution as well as a renewed commitment to the black educator resolution thank you for your time thank you so much okay Dalia Velasco are you here Dalia Velasco come on up you'll have
050three minutes to speak once you begin welcome uh good afternoon board members superintendent Carvalho and staff my name is Dalia Velasco and I work on the policy and advocacy team at Alliance For A Better Community we're a Latino advocacy organization that focuses on the LA region and I lead on our K-12 work today I'm not only here as an advocate but also as an LA resident having families sprawling throughout LAUSD schools as an active member of my community and Advocate I have a vested interest in the success of our school Community today I'm here to express my strong support for the Black History Month resolution presented by board member McKenna Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievement achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in
051United States history and I believe that LAUSD has an important role in ensuring that black folks are not just a relic in history but also play a pivotal role in our classrooms in this Same Spirit I am also here to reiterate my support for the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparation and retention resolution as a product of public education having attended three different L.A County school districts including LAUSD in my 12 years I only had one black teacher and in college that Trend worsened I had zero black professors it's time that we put our value of diversity to practice um through implementing the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparation and retention resolution that is the start of I think LAUSD doing that so thank you I urge you to stay the course and
052approve of the black history resolution as well as make a renewed commitment to the black educator resolution I also urge you to consider forming an official task force of stakeholders who will help ensure transparency accountability and execution of the black educator resolution thank you for your time and consideration and thank you for coming in person and waving at me so we did this right okay looks like uh Miss Keisha Jones you are now with us Keisha Jones please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Keisha Jones I see that you're unmuted Miss Jones if you go ahead and speak we'll start your your time at three minutes good afternoon esteem board members and superintendent Carvalho my name is Keisha Jones and I'm a proud parent and
053educator in the LAUSD District as a member of the black community I feel a strong sense of responsibility to advocate for my students fellow colleagues and children in our schools I am here today to express my support for the Black History Month resolution and the black student Excellence through educator diversity preparation and retention resolution these initiatives are critical to promoting equity and diversity in our classrooms and ensuring that all students have access to a well-rounded education I urge the district to pay close attention to the recommendation to provide Financial incentives and support for black Educators this includes grants and Community Partnerships professional development mentorship career advancement opportunities and cultural competency training it is also important that competitive salaries and benefits are offered including tuition reimbursement for credentials and advanced degrees we know the research shows
054that a diverse teaching staff leads to improved cognitive skills and critical thinking in students and it is imperative that will reflect the diversity of our community in the Educators leading our classroom IX that the district take this opportunity to make a renewed commitment to the black educator resolution and I thank you for your time and consideration and thank you for your comments all right Mr Channing Martinez are you on the line I don't see you on the line but are you here in person nope and uh Nicole Bates are you on the line I don't see you on the line but are you here in person okay that concludes public comment for item number 12. I presume Mr Melvin you want to wait for your public comment closer to the time okay so we'll hold
055that uh so let's have item 14 the public hearing oh uh Dr McKenna do you want to present on your motion now why not okay go ahead I've been black long enough we are for those of you following we are on item 12. uh resolution 010 2223 and I call on Dr McKenna to present his resolution thank you madam chair um first of all thank the to the presenters who spoke in behalf of the resolution and the other board members who joined in I have just a few talking points and comments and support of this concept not just a resolution and words it's a commitment that needs to be made but everyone in this place called America which was founded at the expense of black people proud to bring this resolution to celebrate Black History
056Month to the boarding Community it's a wonderful time to teach students about Black Culture milestones and achievements well the month of February is only 28 days it is certainly a time to highlight and bring attention to the contributions of black people that have made and shaped the foundation landmarks history and culture of American society and countless ways this year the theme established by the Association of the study of African-American life and history is black resistance this organization is the organization that was established in 1915 by Dr Carter G Woodson widely known as the father of black history to collect curate and document the research contributions and accomplishments of black people in America in contemporary times Nicole Hannah Jones author of The 1619 project was quoted as saying our democracy is founding ideals were false when
057they were written but black Americans have continuously fought to make them true the fact that black Americans engaged in then and now to make these founding ideas are true acts of black resistance foreign resistance in all forms as a means of survival since our arrival in the Americas and have been an integral force of driving social and political change resistance for black people can be personified in action small and large such as enslaved people learning to read and creating unique marriage rituals fighting in Wars for Independence and freedom creating family structures inclusive of relatives biological and chosen developing Innovative forms of creative expression through Visual Arts sculpture film music fashion dance and hairstyles participating in all forms of Civic engagement has a means of advancing political and economic parity defining and reframing the boundaries on
058social and cultural practices that evolve into new trends and continuing to practice acts of self-government determination and definition I encourage our schools and officers to conduct historical searches for notable persons and create learning activities for students to identify and honor them in addition to the cultural and historical celebrations of Black History Month we will work to keep the narrative alive Educators black inventors black artists black artisans black advocacy and black leaders continue to make an impact on American history the actions of these trailblazing individuals and groups are all acts of black resistance as we adopt this resolution let us ensure that we recommit ourselves to Central and culturally responsive pedagogical practices embedding ethnic studies across all subjects introducing the new African-American studies courses championing anti-bias educational principles and promoting and practicing an equity lens across
059the district all year long in a personal way and my own struggles of seeking black Liberation and compensation for the mistakes that were made and continue to be made I will Advocate openly for reparations and some people are planning to seek reparations there are many ways to do reparations but one of the primary ways if I could be persuasive is that this country this city this state but allow reparations through education free to all people who've been segregated and enslaved whose ancestors were free until they are done with their education Beyond the highest degree a university can provide because it was that one Essence to denial of Education that was a law required and if broken by death penalty if you're educated an enslaved person for us to be enslaved for hundreds of years was
060absolutely based on the denial of Education and yet we have the national the tenacity and audacity to build our own historical black colleges and universities Beyond high school and the elementary school and even then we're still denied and even then we're still in hampered an incumbent encumbered by the cost of public education and private education in the universities for which we have no Legacy to attend free of charge and so I I thank you for the support for Black History Month and to remember that the humanity of America thee shall we say vision of America and the definition of United States of America can all be summed up in what is the condition of black people how fair the children of the black community The Descendants of the people who are brought here in Chains
061the descendants of people who are part of legalized apartheid here in this country segregated denied land denied many things without any more lamentation let me let me let you know I'm old enough to have lived through some of that I was alive and born during the World War II I was alive and civil rights uh activities were passed and legislation I was alive in the time of Martin Luther King and Joe Lewis and Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall and the black astronauts and the black doctors and the black Educators who kept our schools alive both my parents were black Educators I am fortunate I was not impoverished but we were very poor when we grew up because teachers were not paid very well that was because women dominated the teaching profession and women were supposed
062to be second-class citizens couldn't even vote and certainly weren't paid the money that men made there was no money in public education and in the black community some of the best jobs you could have was a teacher working in the post office or selling insurance thank you and today we've had a black superintendent we've had more than one in this District we have black superintendents now in our in our regions we have famous educators who've been all over this country and done many things to continue to help our children I thank them I think all the black Educators who are still alive and who are gone and their memory I thank you all for accepting this resolution appreciate it thank you sir yeah I'd like actually I'm going to give everybody on the board an
063opportunity to speak if they'd like to but go ahead okay well I was listening carefully to Ms Robinson and I agree with you that contemporaries are very important that kids know who they are and what they've done so I'd like to mention someone from LAUSD and his name is Henry Jones and Henry Jones was uh well let me tell you he began his career as a custodian he continued his education he became a plant manager he continued his education he worked his way up through the ranks in finance and he became lausd's Chief Financial Officer and after he retired he became the state director of pers which is the classified retirement system so there's a movie somewhere for Henry Jones right just a wonderful contemporary that you brought to mind so I thank you so
064much the second one I wanted to say George was a gentleman mentioned that he only had one African-American teacher well I only had one African-American teacher in all of my K-12 education and I still remember her name her name was Joan Lucas Boyer and she was my Spanish teacher and because of her I became a Spanish teacher and I majored in Spanish in college all because of Joan Lucas Boyer thank you George any other board members wish to make comments on this at this point so Ortiz Franklin thank you Dr McKenna for bringing this resolution and often reminding us of the great work that we have done in this district for black students but the great work we still need to do and thank you to Our Community Partners for reminding us not only of
065the work for our students but also for our staff members which are a deep reflection of the possibilities for our students and families and communities that we serve um I am excited that in La we celebrate Black History all year long in our students in our curriculum and in our values and I think every day is an opportunity to show up for black students in this district and I appreciate everyone who is doing that to the best of their ability I do want to just encourage with the resolution to think beyond the courses that are written in the resolution there are obviously specific opportunities where we can discuss black history but again every day every opportunity that we can take we should absolutely in the second largest District in the country we are leaders and
066we owe it to our students in the future to do well by black students and as Dr McKenna said ergo doing well by our entire District lifting all of our our students and families together I do wonder about the the working group mentioned in the resolution we have had several working groups and and task forces on this issue in particular and so just for the team I'm hopeful uh that we take the community conversation the recommendations from our partners uh you know to heart as we think through the next steps for the various pieces of evolution I would say that we have both for closing opportunity gaps for kids creating Rich cultural experiences which I'm sure we'll talk about when we get to the superintendent's report and also for leaning on the assets of our
067black families our black community leaders of which there are many many in Los Angeles so thank you to the shared leadership across this district and across Los Angeles Dr Rivas um well I am very honored and um thrilled to co-sponsor for various reasons um you know when I was in high school and you know in LAUSD back in the day um I I I was always I always wanted to know more in history I loved history it was a history you know buff and and I wanted to know more about other other cultures and I remember um distinctly when I was in history you know there was so much not known about the African-American my African-American brothers and sisters and uh so much so than every time that we did a report you know our
068history class you know we're going to do a report in history I always look to see the areas that were not that needed to that I was curious more about for instance I I did a report on the KKK when I was in high school nobody else had done that and the reason I did that was because it was just mentioned but it doesn't it didn't say who they were what they were when they found out who they were what they were um and when I presented to my class it was just silence and I said look what the have they done why are we not talking about this why are we why isn't this more delved into um and that's why I did the report because I felt at a young age that um
069there was so much Injustice in our history and that wasn't you know uh really talked about or even really delved into further there was another instance where I wanted to do the Deep my teacher said hey we're going to do anything you want so I said I want to do it on Malcolm X because there was a little picture of Malcolm X but nothing else about him I wanted to know Mario and then my teacher said nope we're not going to focus on that his part of History I was like why right I was really shocked as a high school student but you know we don't question my teacher I love my teacher so I then ended up doing an Eleanor Roosevelt which was fascinating because I focused on the on her advocacy for the
070Sleepy Lagoon case I don't know if you know about the zutsu riots right and then when I did that I focused on that because our history books were not talking about that so we're not talking about all the injustices that we have endured for decades decades and so much so that uh when I was at UC Berkeley I minored in African-American studies um I took those courses and I loved those courses I loved learning not loved because I was finally delving into history our history that I never learned in high school and of course I also took Chicano courses and you know learned about all about my own history but I I say this because I we need to know this all colors all people all in the city we need to know our history
071what's going on in other states is just appalling they're even allowing this to happen and it angers me I say this in anger because we have to do these types of resolutions still now today to recognize the history of so many particularly black people I just wanted to say that because we always to our children we owe it to the city the society our country to really face what we have never faced before and there's so much that we need to unpack and of course we can unpack it now but everything that we go through defunding a police you know African-American history and educational Injustice is giving more money to our neediest schools there are really underlying root causes of this and that's what we have to talk about thank you Mr milboy thank you
072Miss Goldberg and thank you Dr McKenna for your leadership for accepting our co-sponsorships um and for reminding us that we have more work to do to see black history not just as a topic we tried out in February and not only because it's the shortest month of the year but because that the living the work we owe to the living in honoring their history is something that the sister can lead on and I appreciate Dr McKenna's comments about the true reparation of Education when only 16 of black students in California are proficient in math we can talk all we want about celebrating black history on you know the first the first week of February the second month of the year but until we get to those underlying causes and make sure that our students are
073achieving at their potential the work remains unfinished so I appreciate the upcoming presentation in this meeting on support for black students and black Educators I appreciate those Partners who are here today to make sure that while we celebrate we also demand and and that is what is important about this month and this holiday is that it is the inter uh the inexorable connection between the celebration of people's commitment to this country and also the acknowledgment that we have work to do and I also am proud to be part of this school district at a time when other districts in the state and definitely States in this Union are too cowardly to look at their history and confront it and we as Educators we as politicians we as white people need to do more to have
074the courage to confront a checkered history acknowledge it and use that to drive us forward and I'm proud that this board is is united in that mission so thank you Dr McKenna thank you to this board and superintendent for your leadership as well I know we'll hear this presentation in the next few minutes well let me just make a few comments myself as a social studies teacher the fight over textbooks for U.S history is not new it started really basically in Texas by Mel and Norma gabler a couple who decided to tell these Texas state that it shouldn't buy any books that were approved by California and New York because those books had bad history in them even they in my opinion weren't very good they certainly didn't cover many of the topics we're finally
075getting around to now but they did this so they began the the Endeavor to have a two national textbook group and it's still today you can go into a Texas school in many schools in the South and you will not find the names of Martin Luther King or any of the other black history folks why because they're just been removed there are a lot of women history been removed a lot of Latino history been removed because they're too controversial and they don't think children should ever have to be worried about whether or not the role of people like themselves were in this history so I think it's important that we say look at the resolves of of Dr McKenna's motion the second one is particularly important that this board acknowledges that all people of the
076United States are beneficiaries of the wealth of History given to us and then it lists all of the various ways but it is absolutely true that this country's wealth began when the slave owners in the South and the ship makers and the parts of the triangle of of of trade when they all became wealthy because they didn't have to pay any salaries for the people doing the work for years not for weeks not for months not temporarily not until they had seven years like indentured service forever and their children forever and their children forever this country's wealth in good part is based on the slave holders ability to collect Capital by not having to invest in wages and that wasn't just in the South the shipbuilders of the North and the traders who ran those
077ships in the Triangle Trade are also got wealthy from all of this so this country's wealth in good part has to do with the fact that slavery provided free labor for decades and decades and decades so to say that we all benefit it is not an exaggeration and yet we all benefit still to this day we are a long way a long way from where we need to be but I tell you as a 78 year old person we're also a long way from where we were when I was young when we couldn't have had these discussions when people would be fired for bringing in materials by Malcolm X I taught Malcolm X's autobiography every year for several years and I really got into some trouble at first and I was in a district that
078was almost entirely African-American students but people were afraid of that book now of course it's adopted Statewide as something everybody needs to read That's progress so while I'm in feeling strongly that we cannot say that we are where we need to be and that Dr McKenna's resolution points that out so ably we also are not where we were and that's what I tell people who are afraid of what students know about our real history is is that it shows that it was Dreadful awful not what we said it was all men are created equal who said the Declaration of Independence but the Constitution said slaves were three-fifths of a human being so that's not all people are created equal we need young people to know it wasn't beautiful but there was always a group within
079this culture within this Society mostly led by former slaves Sojourner Truth and others that said it is not okay where we are and we must keep pressing forward so this resolution reminds all of us that we're not where we need to be but we weren't where we were and that should give young people hope for the future because if we were still where we were when I was in high school I would say it's all lost so as the struggle continues la lucha continue I love that phrase and that's really what I wanted to say besides thanking Dr McKenna for bringing this forward thank you Miss Colbert we will now not vote on this because it's on consent but we will vote on it soon we will take uh the item after this item 13
080off consent because I don't want to vote for it because the people had a come chance to talk about it and with that item off consent just for the purposes of being able to hold it till the 3 30 item I believe we are ready to vote on the consent calendar or are we not we have others to hear or not we've got another couple of items two of which require a public hearing so before we do that I'm going to stop up and go back because I skipped the superintendent's report and I think it would be appropriate to have that now appropriate indeed Madam president it is it is um both elating and sobering to listen to the comments made by you the board comments that shine I needed light on periods of American
081history that in many ways have not left us are still with us and for me it is a point of pride in privilege to actually be at a table of individuals who have contributed towards Solutions in addressing the ills of American history I know you've heard this commentary probably one time too many that the The Arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards Justice unless it doesn't because somebody does not want it to gravity does not cure everything and or president Goldberg you're absolutely right foreign and Tanya Ortiz Franklin and board member McKenna those of you have spoken and uh Dr Rivas we've spoken about parts of our country were speaking truth is criticized where the voice of children the voice of Educators is threatened whether it is the voices that stand
082up for health for history are suppressed and condemned um I live that and that's one of many reasons why I'm thrilled to be the leader of Education in this community and you're right it is appropriate to take on this next presentation at this time for in fact if we value our students all of our students including black students and if we value the importance of important impactful voices in their lives black educators then this presentation cannot be a one and done this is one of many presentations that detail number one our progress towards the goal of honoring previously approved resolutions our progress towards goal in embracing and delivering on the priorities delineated in a strategic plan specific to this issue are in fact not forgotten so Madam president members of the board We believe We
083Believe that successful black student achievement is defined by a number of elements High academic performance effective social emotional supports effective and truthful awareness and Management Systems positive cultural identity experiences for the benefit of our students now how we make that work and how we simultaneously bring the adult voice to impact the young black child that's a different story and it is that story that hopefully members of staff today will tackle and speak not only to you but to the Greater Community I know of no District in a country that's doing more meaningful work around this topic than La USD I know no District in a country that has invested more more resources has paid more attention to this issue than LAUSD I know no District in a country that has brought this issue to the
084Forefront of a needed conversation than LAUSD and with all that said we're not doing enough because if we were those statistics of black students performance Proficiency in reading and Mathematics graduation rates post-secondary placement and success in post-secondary institutions and then the consequences of that meaning unemployment underemployment or contact with criminal justice entities would not be what it is today so Freedom yes Dr McKenna Freedom through education empowerment through education collaboration through education and Truth through education so let me turn it over to staff for today's presentation again this is one of a series of presentations dealing with this important issue and with that said let me introduce uh Dr Robert Whitman as of today appointed as the education transformation officer and uh he is the he is a A Silent Storm a quiet storm with
085intentionality and a lot of Gravitas that's going to lead a great part of this work Robert [Applause] there we go thank you superintendent Carvalho a greetings president Goldberg members of the board superintendent Carvalho uh community members and as well as distinguished guests again my name is Dr Robert Whitman I am the newly selected educational transformation officer as of today I'll be supporting the district's 100 Schools priority schools as well as the implementation of our black student achievement plan with me this afternoon is Dr Jared Dupree who's leading the black student achievement work in our in our district as well as Jacob Guthrie who's also leading the teaching teacher selection and retention work in La unified and we also have with us Blanca Esquivel who's the proud principal of Fremont High School they will share the
086progress on the Investments La unified has made to support black students and black Educators before I move on I do want to acknowledge that advocacy and support from our Community Partners who have been tremendous thought partners with the team and informing and implementing our black student achievement plan our efforts to close academic achievement experience disparities and expand opportunities for black students our priorities for our district as much so much as it's embedded throughout our district strategic plan fostering a district-wide culture of shared responsibility for black Student Success Dr Jared Dupree will share where we are right now in ensuring that our students have access to standards-based culturally responsive instruction on a daily basis we'll also share data in critical areas where we currently see some early winds Jacob Guthrie will also share our progress and
087marketing Recruitment and Retention of black teachers and share data on the candidates currently participating in our district teacher preparation programs we will end this afternoon from Blanca Esquivel who will show the collective impact of the staff at Fremont High School to increase student engagement as well as academic achievement of the students there at Fremont High School and so at this time I want to turn it over to Dr Dupree who's going to give us some updates in terms of where we are in implementation thank you Dr Whitman so good afternoon board president Goldberg board members and superintendent Carvalho in this month that we acknowledge the struggles and honor the successes of the black community in America we lift the success of black students in LAUSD this definition of black Student Success that you see on
088the screen was created by LAUSD black students parents and community members the black student achievement plan was implemented last year to realize this vision of success we have been working closely with the bsap steering committee to continue to refine and further develop the bsap the five tenants of the bsap conceptualize the strategies outlined in the plan family community and District working together as one team culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy and curriculum multi-tiered individual student support rigorous standards aligned education and the black Excellence experience these tenants will serve as anchors as we discuss the current bsap Investments family community in the district continue to work together as one team monthly parent and student advisory meetings are used to receive feedback and incorporate the voices in the refinement of the plan through the bsap there have been
089increased external Partnerships in community events such as parent and community symposiums and community fairs we are currently going through a formal RRP process for services related to Safe passages mentoring leadership skill development parent education job shadowing and academic enrichment we anticipate the solicitation and selection will be complete later this semester through these contracts we will provide more opportunities for potential Partners to be a part of our commitment to work together as one team the bsap steering committee comprised of Community Coalition students deserve inner city struggle the labor and Community strategy Center and our Union partners utla and SEIU 99 regularly meet to provide ongoing feedback parents and community members participated in reciprocal teaching symposiums and Community Affairs we had an opportunity to learn more about their unique needs and in turn we shared resources to
090support their students at home connections to academic content are increased when students see themselves and their cultures represented in the curriculum and pedagogy through the bsap school teams have created culturally responsive units aligned to Goldie Muhammad's cultivating genius framework this training MPD on anti-blake anti-black racism and ways to support black students and families are included in the my PLM platform to date 6089 certificated staff members have completed this training in addition 110 principals participate in monthly PD aligned with culturally responsive leadership development at LMU high schools have received allocations to include the African-American studies course in the master schedule and middle schools have added ethnic studies courses to their Master schedules the African-American studies course was recently approved by ucop for a course credit each region received an allocation last week to augment and or
091develop existing libraries at all LAUSD schools to include black literature and resources we anticipate this will be created by April to provide multi-tier individual student support funding has been provided to increase the number of academic counselors psychiatric social workers pupil service and attendance counselors restorative justice teacher advisors School climate Advocates six hour Community reps at all group one schools to provide comprehensive wrap-around support group two schools have received funding for either an elementary PSA or a secondary academic counselor and bsap designees are assigned at group 2 and group 3 schools through the bsap black Excellence experience Juniors at all of our group one and two high schools will participate in Atlantic HBCU tour running from March through April all bsap secondary schools are creating and are reinforcing their black student unions through BSU school grants
092to support schools as we celebrate Black History Month each region has received allocations to create region and School events we also plan on hosting a summer Gala honoring black students and family achievement here on the screen are our board and District goals outlining student outcomes we expect this let me use stronger language that we will see by 2026. in alignment with these goals we would like to highlight the following black student metrics in which we are seeing some early gains we have several areas of academic growth to highlight and celebrate black student graduation rate 86.6 is currently higher than the overall district rate at 86.1 for black students this is an increase of 7.8 percentage points from the previous year dibble's foundational data has increased by 6.9 percentage points a through G completion rate is
093up by 5.7 percent there is also an increase in the number of black students participating in AP courses 2.6 increase attendance rates have increased by 11.7 percent here is a disaggregation of attendance by bands we can see there is an increase of 11.7 percent across the advanced and proficiency bans in a decrease in below basic and Far Below basic bsap and HR were intentional about creating a team to address the needs of increasing black Educators through recruitment and retention Mr Jacob Guthrie as a director of recruitment selection and retention for bsap leaves this work it's my pleasure to introduce Mr Guthrie okay good afternoon superintendent Carvalho board members it's great to be here um just wanted to talk a little bit about what we are doing to help ensure that we have a diverse and
094qualified teaching staff for all of our students and so you'll see here that in pillar 5 investing in staff that we really want to do increase our marketing and investment to make sure that we're recruiting and retaining underrepresented candidates at all levels of the district and then also to have promotional Pathways so that we can make sure that we're giving people a career ladder to leadership positions within the district oh excuse me so on this next slide you'll see a diagram here and we know in HR that we need to empower our school leaders as human capital managers and we need to have it both short-term strategies to meet immediate need and also long-term strategies to create the pipelines that will allow us to meet our goals as outlined in pillar 5. on the right
095hand side of the diagram in the dark blue you'll see some of those short-term strategies identified this year we are very excited to return to some of the hbcus that we previously established relationships with pretent pandemic we're going to be focusing our efforts on those hbcus in the DC we may not know that expression would you tell them what an HBCU is yes ma'am and HBCU is a historically black college or university the majority of which are on the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard or in the Deep South so we will be visiting Virginia in the DC area to do a tour there and then also visiting the Atlanta area to visit some of the hbcus that are closer we know just by visiting the black college Expo with some of our staff last weekend that we have
096students there and we'd like to bring them home if they are there and they express an interest in teaching we continue to rely heavily on our relationships with our local universities we hire more than 65 percent of our certificated staff from these local universities every year we know that black candidates are still underrepresented here and so we continue to work with them to continue to create new Pathways for students and candidates there in the Human Resources Division we are excited to spearhead the creation of the new diversity equity and inclusion office we are excited to create policies that will promote inclusiveness and diversity to help recruit select and retain underrepresented staff at all levels of the district and also to to design meaningful professional development opportunities on diversity equity and inclusion on the left hand
097side you'll see some of our long-term strategies there that we would like to highlight first our career ladder this is our program that invests in our current classified staff provides them with financial assistance in mentoring as folks seek to become classroom teachers we also work with our high school students within some of our linked learning Pathways to help qualify them to become teacher assistants and learn more about how they can be invited into the teaching profession with our explicit support we also have Affinity groups which are both Recruitment and Retention tool I'm proud to work with Dr Dupree on our black male Educators Network meetings we meet monthly in a hybrid environment have meaningful professional development networking and really help lift up some of the stories that a lot of our employees are doing we're
098excited to do the same for our black women this spring and then finally promotional Pathways if you come to La unified as a TA who there's no saying where you're going to end up we have programs that allow you to earn your teaching credential in a tuition wave setting you can earn your administrative credential in a tuition wave setting when you want to go and clear your credential you don't have to apply to a university or pay a fee you can do that right here with our own employees who have been in your shoes and are able to provide that that meaningful PD and so we're excited about that because we know that it's expensive to become and remain a teacher I wanted to point you to some of our higher data over the last
099two years on the left hand side you will see our classroom teacher hire data for the 2021-22 school year and then on the right hand side you will see our year-to-date classroom teacher higher numbers for 22.23 if you look at the bottom you'll see in total we have almost met our teacher higher number for all of last year and we're only in February so we're excited that we're bringing this many new talented folks into our classrooms and then you'll see highlighted there that we have already surpassed the number of black teachers that we hired all of last year and again still in February um at present we are on Pace to hire 20 percent more teachers this year than we did all of last year and given the labor market and the teacher shortage we
100are excited about that as we remain an employer of choice one of the ways that we're doing this important work is by making sure that we are growing our own teachers as you all know our icap district interim program is not only tuition waived we feel like it is the gold standard of preparation programs in the state and we have some data here to show what we're doing to increase the diversity of our core we are currently preparing 521 Educators to receive their preliminary credential through the district interim program I just want to point out what a staggering number that is to bring that many folks in um and and have them earn teaching credentials we're excited about that of that group 55 identifies black which is a 10.6 percent rate you'll contrast that with
101the 5.7 percent of State residents that identify as black and further you'll see on the bottom row that in the teacher supply report to the California state legislature in 2021 from the CTC only 4.5 percent of enrollees in teacher preparation programs were black so we know we have a long way to go but in La unified we feel good about what we're doing and where we're going we're seeing what works and so we're very excited to continue this important work and to talk a little bit more about some of the great work that we're seeing in some of our schools I'd like to bring up the proud principle of Fremont High School Blanca Esquivel to share some more about her work before we bring up Blanca esfield I just wanted to share why she was
102selected to come she's one of several schools within our district who is strongly implementing the tenants of our black student achievement plan uh Blanca utilizes with intentionality uh the resources uh that additional resources that she sees from the district RJ teacher our PSW support our counseling support our school climate advocacy to really wrap around and pers and bring personalization to our African-American students at Fremont High School and as a result of her efforts looking at data paying very close attention to how students are doing particularly our black students are doing in the classroom we're seeing some some growth and she'll share she'll get into that around a through G on track uh kids graduating and then not only just graduating but having opportunities to go on to four-year uh post-secondary institutions and so without further
103Ado I want to bring Blanca Esquibel forward so that she can share the tremendous work that's happening at Fremont High School thank you Dr Whitman for that wonderful introduction good afternoon members of the board superintendent Carvalho and president Goldberg I am Blanca Rocio Esquibel proud principal of John C Fremont High School home of the Pathfinders I am honored to be here today to discuss the various academic and social emotional supports that I have implemented for African-American and diaspora students at Fremont High School The Mont as I refer to it creating a culture of caring at the mod for our students is what I believe is one of our primary responsibilities providing our students with the necessary support is Paramount for academic and social emotional success as they continue on their pathway to Global Citizens next
104year John C Fremont High School will be celebrating a profound marker one which the entire Fremont Community is anticipating a hundred years in the making and yes Fremont is excited to announce our Centennial year what better way to show how far we've come by showcasing how Fremont is creating a culture of caring at the Mont for our African-American and diaspora students Fremont High School space app program provides organizational structures that Foster purposeful learning academic Forward Thinking and meaningful relationships we offer clubs and activities tutoring and college excursions I sent to over 40 students to the black college Expo last weekend as we provide adult mentors here at the Mont we know our students in particular our African-American students and Advocates who encourage all of our students to reach their highest academic and personal best academically
105I have implemented a multi-tier system targeted tutoring and mentorship program that provides individualized support for Fremont's African-American students we have also increased the availability of advanced courses such as honors and advanced placement classes access to these programs lays the foundation for our African-American and diaspora students to unlock the door to enrich educational experiences creating another Pathway to higher education as of today 32 out of 46 African-American seniors have completed their FAFSA and there is a plan and support for the remaining 14 students to submit their FAFSA application before the priority deadline of March 2nd we are looking at 16 out of our 17 algebra African-American seniors have already applied for a four-year college and so far eight of our students have received accepting letters from more one or more multiple colleges and more to come
10625 of our African Junior students will be attending the bsap historically black College University HBCU trip to Atlanta Georgia the week of March 28th by holding fast to a culture of caring our staff Works diligently to pave the path for students future endeavors so our young students can continue to embrace their greatness and black Excellence at the Mont Fremont High School cultivates a school environment that is inviting inclusive supportive and safe in terms of social emotional perspectives I have introduced culturally responsive counseling services and support groups that confidentially serve the needs of this historically underserved group these services are not are designed to help our Pathfinder students navigate the challenges they face as well as provide a safe space for them to discuss their emotions and experiences while they're receiving appropriate coping strategies and methods
107I have a full-time PSW funded at a B sap I have also worked diligently with my teachers and staff to create a welcoming and exclusive School culture our ongoing professional development and cultural competency trainings are attended with participation rate and taken with an urgency of now approach by all I have also successfully established Partnerships and continue to unite with Community organizations and businesses these stakeholders not only provide additional resources and supports specific for the needs of our African-American students and their families but also seek to support other students across our campus as well when one walks at our campus at the Mont one gets a feeling of not only the Legacy but that of sacred duty to others we why Alice will we have the great success by actively involving families and developing the educational
108Pathways of our students well well I prepare for a great moment in history I want to recognize that every moment at the Mont is paid in Legacy and love because we never give up on our students please note that many schools may say they love you but who has the tenacity to pour love into the daily lives of their students Fremont us we wholeheartedly stand by Bell Hook's notable quote love is the combination of care commitment knowledge responsibility respect and Trust they say when you meet someone they may not remember what once said or how one looked but you will remember how that person made you feel so I'm going to leave you with the same feeling the same tone we spread all around our campus The Mont the Fremont Community our great City of
109La the feeling of love board members superintendent Carvalho and president Goldberg and those watching around the globe if no one told you they love you today know that from this day forward Fremont High School loves you thank you for the opportunity to share these initiatives and I look forward to your continued support as Fremont High School Works towards providing Equity access and Excellence for our black students our Pathfinders as they continue to find a path or make one thank you for your time and thank you for the presentation Dr Whitman okay I just again want to just thank our team for their presentation and providing updates in terms of the Investments uh that has been made for our uh black students in La unified we've seen some early wins some areas where we've gotten some
110early winds and we encourage by what we're seeing right now however we do recognize that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to really narrow and close achievement gaps for African-American students at this time might there be any questions that anyone has for our team go ahead well I have to say go Fremont go with Pathfinders thanks so much for celebrating an amazing school and Board District Seven in fact it was the first school that our superintendent visited when he was visiting Los Angeles so glad to see you all back here and great to see the work happening for black students I know it's strong there um a couple of questions on the slides from my point and it's a few different teammates on slide six there's the different positions for bsap
111so I'm not sure if this is a Jacob question or a Jared question but curious if we know of all the Investments at this point of the year the positions how many are filled versus how many are vacant yes Jacob's wheelhouse we'll tag team on it Jacob for academic counselors board member Ortiz Franklin 60 percent of those positions are currently filled 48 out of 80 for our PSAs that's the one we're struggling the most 21 for our psws we're at 63 percent our RJ teachers 75 Phil thanks and if the team wouldn't mind sending us that written afterwards that would be helpful and another message to the community that we are hiring if you are a counselor an RJ teacher a certificated person want to come to Los Angeles also non-certificated positions we have lots
112as well um and I think just on some of the data questions it would be helpful to see comparisons to other groups whether it's for staff or for students just to give us a sense so whatever makes sense to the team if it's at the mid-year update for for Progress maybe next month on um you know how we're doing for attendance overall we could see our black students today but how does that compare for example to our latinx students um and are they doing better than or similar to so is this your an anomaly or is the group getting a lot of support because of the investment so that's just a wondering I have generally around the data is it would be helpful to see it in comparison to other groups I don't know if
113my colleagues would agree with that thank you for that feedback um thanks and just generally you know very excited I think uh it's important that we take the time when we can to honor the growth um and uh it's great to see the the new team coming together congratulations on your new position Dr Whitman will be sad to lose you in the Fremont community of schools but know that this is a bigger and broader initiative across the 100 priority schools in the district and so I'm just glad to see the intentionality and the superintendents really Staffing up to make sure we do well by the schools that have historically not gotten as much support so thanks to the team that's that's all for now for me thank you might there be any additional questions on
114your chart on student attendance meaning that the ones that were coming the least 41 attendance in 2122 that the number that were in that category dropped by almost 13 percent to only 28 percent of the students in that group what did you do that's the hardest group to get to come to school and yet you got more of them coming to school what what is working so I can I can take that question uh there's a lot of intentionality that's happening in the schools in terms of the implementation of it of attendance plans uh phone calls um home visits targeting specific students who are demonstrating poor patterns in attendance uh maximizing the resources that are being provided to our schools right now particularly our bsap one and two schools where we see a good number
115of African-American students and so is this really making sure that our PSAs our counseling coordinators that our coordinators in our regional region offices our Costas uh our bsap support team are implementing and following through with those uh with those students who are demonstrating poor patterns lots of incentives you'll see within our schools to you know encourage our kids to come to school a celebration of attendance we just had a hundred days of of schools recently uh and use these schools go out of their way to to to make a big to do out of that to ensure that kids get excited uh Dr Dupree uh spoke about uh culturally responsive teaching and learning practices when you visit classrooms uh you see high engagement uh welcoming learning environments for our kids and so all of those
116things make a difference in terms of helping us to get kids to school each and every day anybody else yes Mr Shand so I just wanted to thank you and the bsap team for all of the work you're doing at my school site I've spoken to our bsap designee MS Baka and I had a group of my friends going to the black college Expo a couple weeks ago and so just thank you for providing these opportunities I did want a flag on the academic growth data we have two separate rows for the graduation rate so students who are passing their classes with your better as opposed to the a through G completion in accordance with the uccsu requirements that are C or better and so for me um what was a little concerning to see
117was just the proportion of black students who are meeting the graduation requirement do your better but are not meeting the a through G requirements which are C or better and so if for the mid-year report we could have an update on what we can do to move students you know from passing as a d to meeting standards as a c that would be awesome as well and yeah thank you thank you I forgot to ask one thing are we going to get the new AP black history course in our district yes we are all right yes we are all right any additional questions from any thank you very much it was a wonderful presentation to you and your entire team all right thank you superintendent Madam president the only other update very briefly and uh
118I can visit I've conveyed this to to the board members previously but for the benefit of the community um I think we just crossed a significant milestone in terms of hiring practices across LAUSD if you recall we closed last school year uh with a promise that every one of our teacher vacancies would be addressed even if we had to deploy uh credentialed staff to those positions and whether we're talking about positions in in schools where bsap programs are in existence or any other school we can happily report today it's the first time that we fell below the threshold of 300 we went from about 700 positions where we had deployed staff to now 295 as of yesterday and the interesting element of this data point is that half of those positions are the result of
119either principles hiring uh positions above what's normed so they are electing to do so or as a result of separations from positions as a function of retirement and the like mid-year so we are on the right track we've compared ourselves to other large districts in a country and we compare very favorably in terms of our ability despite the severity of economic conditions impacting our area the unaffordability of homes and the like we are doing very well with that said because this is a priority for every single board member and is a priority for our Workforce and our labor Partners we remain absolutely committed to negotiate Fair contracts that meet and exceed the inflationary pressures in our community and dignify our Workforce with compensation that allows them to be recruited into our school system to be
120retained in our school system and to incentivize and incentivize others to perhaps join our winning team thank you very much um now I'm going to go to board members uh questions on the consent calendar and I'm going to start first with facilities uh number three Miss Ortiz Franklin you said you had maybe a question or comment on tab three yes thank you um let me just pull up my notes oh sorry oh yes I just had a question for the team on the electric vehicles and um the installation of more charging stations which is very exciting I know this board passed before I came on a commitment to Green energy by 2030 and I thought this would be a great time to just resurface that and when it makes sense for the team hopefully before
121the end of this school year if we could get just a brief update on progress towards that clean energy it's seven years away and I know we've made some progress but we're and I see Mr smerelson smiling because I believe that was your resolution so we'll be happy to hear again when it makes sense for the team but it seems we're making progress I'm curious how close we are to that and I presume that the new Greening committee will also be hearing some of this as well but come on Mark Hove at our chief facility executive there were two elements of that by 2030 we were supposed to only consume electricity that's been um produced with clean um sources and then by 2040 we were supposed to convert everything that didn't use clean energy like
122all the natural gas our buses our stoves our heating systems by 2040 we're on track to finish early by 2030. the second piece is going to be a much greater challenge because it involves a great infrastructure replacement and just by consuming or just by applying those new systems that now use electricity that has to be clean energy as well so we have to produce another 100 megawatts of electricity so that's going to be our biggest challenge and that's I'm sure that was Ken I'm contemplated in the resolution because we had an extra 10 years to get it some of the technology we're going to install to achieve that hasn't even been invented yet question on was item 8 the March 15 notices again miss Ortiz Franklin yes thank you um and I know traditionally we
123have to send out all of these notices they often get rescinded but just curious with the reorganization we've been uh you know really excited that there's a cost savings and we now are in um instead of local districts we're now in what regions thank you um so given that I'm assuming a lot of Administrators who were at local districts now regions might be recipients of these March 15th notices just curious if the team whether today or again in the future can give us a heads up if we expect the same number to be rescinded as we traditionally have or if things will be different this year because of the reorganization the cost Savings of these March 15th notices to administrators oh sure we can do it today good afternoon Maria avoid director of administrative assignments
124so um all the administrators as we indicated previously in your questions will receive the March 15 notice um they will subsequently receive a notice only if they will be displaced or um to be changing positions so there may be some rescinding some rescissions based on changes after the fact but the March 15 notices will not be rescinded perhaps other subsequent notice but that is um typically when we send the subsequent notice is because we know that a position will close or there's a budget circumstance that needs that necessitates a position being closed so the so the administrator will be excuse me displaced but typically rescission notices are only done when we lay off people which we are not laying off anybody that's I think the message we wanted to send out there today thank you
125okay you're welcome I think that's what everybody was looking for is are we laying off people the answer is no we still need more people we're not laying them off but positions change they change even if you don't do reorganization because some people ask to move to a different School some people are needed to do different things so positions change uh next Mr schmerlson yeah so Maria I know in the past those were costly certificated certified letters they were costly and I know now you've managed to get a lower price letter to be mailed but I was so surprised that you don't require a signature and I always had to go to the post office because when the mailman came I was working so I always had to go to the post office and pick
126it up why is there no signature required so actually the ad code does not require a signature the Ed code only requires us to send them via certified so the signature piece is because you're not home when it's delivered so if you want your letter you go and pick it up and you sign for it and and yes we you know it was nice for us to know who picked it up and who didn't but now with our electronic uh tracking we know whether it was delivered or not okay thank you thank you Maria yeah can I thank you thank you Mr he's very good for raising the point I just as someone who received a handful of these notices on the teacher side I just want to make sure I know that's happening at
127school sites you know state law requires we send these notices from a due process standpoint but it can be very disruptive to the administrator in the school the uncertainty um as folks are figuring out their own planning and School site planning so I just want to make sure that as we're preserving some of that flexibility with moving people you know on one hand we've said now publicly we're not laying these people off we said that there's some flexibility the more that we're in communication with the school sites so that our employees in the school communities knows the purpose of the of these notices what they mean and what they don't mean would be helpful because I know it leads to some consternation in faculty meetings when folks got this letter especially newer administrators who maybe
128don't know that it's a pretty routine procedure yes and we will We HR will be hosting a series of uh Zoom informational meetings to answer some of those questions thank you very much but the bottom line the bottom line the bottom line is nobody's getting laid off no no want to make sure that's the clear message thank you so much item 10 uh board member Scott schmerlson yes just one comment only on the section that refers to changes to number fives activities you know um the rationale for change was not a very clear or good one and I know that if I handed that in on one of my reports they would send it right back to me when you say the activity will be folded into the supports for K-12 programming give her a
129page number oh I'm sorry yes it is Page 16. there's a whole bunch of them they all say the same thing uh activity will be folded into the supports for K-12 programming to ensure a cohesive version of support and it does sound good but I'm telling you when we did our plan in school and you they wouldn't accept it they would not accept that answer so I think in the future in the future we should just be clearer about how the rationale for change is described that's all thank you I appreciate the feedback okay okay before you go just so the public understands what is this report about all right so good afternoon Maribel Luna senior director division of special education this is our comprehensive coordinated early intervening Services plan cceis and this piece that
130we submitted today is an amendment to our 2021 plan and any time that we need to make a change to the where we're allocating the dollars we need to bring this up to the board for approval and so at this point because our original plan had certain staff that we were looking to hire in certain positions that we weren't able to fill we were looking at a salary savings by the end of our plan which is in September 2023. so we needed to take a look at that re-evaluate and reallocate the funding in a way that would still service our students in a way that we would still be set up to meet our measurable outcomes but that would not require the same amount of Staffing per se and does this have anything to do
131with some of the issues that the federal government has been looking at us in terms of uh over identification absolutely so the original plan this is only the amendment but the original plan is due to disproportionality for African-American students in emotional disturbance and in the number of disciplinary actions towards them I wanted to make sure the public understood what this document was for but it's addressing that ongoing problem to try to say that we don't want it to be a problem anymore absolutely so the amendments are are written because we believe there are things we could do to improve that opportunity yes and this was an amendment to the original plan thank you very much anybody else on item 10. okay thank you it was item 14 which was on the uh Williams settlement and
132I just want to say that it I'm happy to see that there are finally some people taking advantage of Williams but I still hope that as we work with Community reps and as we work with students that they understand that in every classroom there's a form that says did you not get a textbook you needed is there something wrong with the air conditioning in your classes are there things that are making it hard for you to go to school students can fill these forms out and the state law requires action to be taken to figure that out Mr shin so we're currently working on an implementation strategy for the student Bill of Rights that the board passed and so we've been collaborating with stakeholders across the district to see how we can promote that student
133Bill of Rights we're looking for a rollout sometime in the spring semester but I think that would be useful to include in the rollout toolkit is information about Williams I would love that I think that includes all of it so now we're going to talk about public care yes I may do the public hearing for tab 14 and then we hear anyone who's on the line and we had one for 11 yet uh we did that one we did that one okay so I'm going to read the public hearing statement for tab 14. before action is taken on the report of Correspondence regarding the Williams settlement uniform complaint quarterly report summary from the director of the educational Equity compliance office a public hearing must be held this constitutes public hearing and a maximum of 12
134angels individuals who wish to address the board on this item will be heard five folks signed up and I have zero on the line in front of me I have a live screen telling me who is called in according to our rules here you call this 213-338-8477 you enter the ID for the meeting and then you pop up on my screen and I don't have any of the five folks signed up popping up on my screen although I do have folks popping up on my screen for general public comments we'll come back to that Okay so we've had the hearing but the people who wanted to be heard have not managed to show up that is accurate okay very good now we also have a public hearing on item 16. yes this is on Tab
13516. references made to Board of Education report number 13722-23 dated January 17 2023 where in the governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the resolution of intention to dedicate easements at wisdom Elementary School for Street and Ali easement dedication purposes the board has fixed this meeting as the time and place for the public hearings upon the question of such dedications an opportunity is now given anyone present present to file the board petitions to file with the board petitions protesting the proposed dedications signed by at least 10 percent of the qualified electors of the district as shown by the affidavit on one of the petitioners no petitions being filed the motion is now in order to adopt the resolutions authorizing the execution of the deeds and to direct the president and the director
136of the real estate to sign on behalf of the board the Deeds dedicating said properties we have one person to comment on this tab and that's Mr David tokovski he says in person I don't see you Mr tokowski so that concludes all the things I have to read for the consent calendar all right so it is my understanding that we are now prepared with the exception of item number 13 which is time certain to take up now the consent calendar anybody have any further need to speak before we do so hearing none Mr McLean call the rule okay um Dr McKenna yes Dr Rivas yes Mr schmerosen he'll be right back Mr Melbourne yes Mr Ortiz Franklin yes board president Goldberg yes and we'll leave the uh roll open until Mr schmarlson returns so we
137are now down to a problem problem is it's 311 it's a good problem a problem we don't normally get to have but the 330 call is not there and the four o'clock public hearing is not there right and we can when Mr McLean's off the phone we can see I know that some of our speakers are here at least one object yeah then I would like to let that speaker speak and maybe we'll get to 3 30 and who knows okay so we are now on item 13. we took it off consent not because nobody wanted to vote for it but because we wanted to make sure people had a chance to speak on it before we took action oh we can do number nine too thank you let's do that great I'm sorry thank
138you whoever okay provisional intern permit means that people who are almost getting their credential have been given a waiver to teach uh for a year if the if the school board adopts a resolution saying that we want them to do so and those are the names that are listed in item nine is there a motion on that item some moved by Mr McKenna seconded by Dr Rivas though she didn't know she did it but she did she seconded hearing no discussion that's how they do it in Sacramento they just pick somebody uh hearing no seeing nobody wishing to speak that's called a roll on item nine all right it's moved by board member Melvin seconded by Dr Rivas and let's go Dr McKenna yes Dr Rivas yes Mr smorson Mr Melvin yes Mr Ortiz Franklin
139yes board president Goldberg yes and we'll hold that open as well for uh Mr schmerelson all right so now you're saying that for item 13 that there may be some people here so let's at least start and see if we can take some of those up knowing that if you don't get here till 3 30 we will call on you at 3 30. great I will move to 13 in that case all right is there a second second all right so uh please okay it is now time for public comment on Tab 13. um uh Miss Cheryl revkin are you on the line Miss Cheryl revkin if you're on the line please press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak once you begin Cheryl revkin hello hi hello hi hi
140uh I'm here to speak about uh number 13. yep yes please go ahead you have three minutes thank you all right thank you I'm a member of Mom's demand action and I'm also the grandmother of the child in LAUSD and I'm very concerned about um gun safety and the safety of our children in public schools as we've seen from the news um gun safe to use an issue in elementary middle and high school I'm um I want to support LAUSD and their commitment to prevent gun violence I'm grateful to you as LAUSD to for considering our children's safety the number one cause of death of children in the United States has got is gun violence and every day 300 people are either killed or wounded by gun violence and this is unacceptable um personally I
141would really like to see um on a monthly basis that um LAUSD um present to the parents hello the parents in each uh School illustrations of what secure gun storage is we think we might think that a lot of our parents don't have guns or that they're securing their gun but uh they really aren't and if we had illustrations um sent out I understand it's going to be in the student hand handbook next fall but if it was sent out on a monthly basis to remind parents to secure their guns at home I think that would be extremely useful and the only other issue is to help parents ask when their child goes to another home to ask that other home if they have guns and if there's um if they're stored securely so thank
142you thank you for your time and thanks for your attention okay thank you so much okay Maria Daisy Ortiz I see you on the line Maria Daisy Ortiz uh please press star six to mute yourself and you have three minutes to speak when you begin Maria Daisy Ortiz good afternoon can you hear me good afternoon hi good afternoon distinguished members I am here with the concern that due to the events that we have had with guns and also the false alarms that we have been receiving sometimes that there will be a shooting at a school and my question to you is why why have you not engaged us as parents in the decision making and most importantly now that the security the safety is so vulnerable at this time because many because there are no
143parents to be volunteers because you have way too many requirements so this is affecting the learning of our students because a student when they're fearful when they have fear they can't concentrate they cannot study and you are not putting police in our schools and we need for our children to be safe and the way that many schools what they do is they close the bathrooms but you cannot close the bathrooms because we have girls that they need to go to the restroom so there needs to be other ways proactive ways so that we could guarantee safety and to be able to have a good academic achievement in students as well as good attendance because they are met a lot of bullying which is not being prevented and you're not intervening or remediating and so you
144need to know that our children cannot play easily with the you can have gamble on the safety of your children like a like a saying goes if there's no kids there's no money but if there's money there's kids there's money what there isn't is parents because you don't engage them because you try us as a third class citizens it is time to change this our children need to be safe and no one loves their children more than their own parents and they need you need to change your practices and be more inclusive with the parents and more equal and more transparent thank you so much and have a good afternoon gracias thank you uh Ray Lopez Chang I see you on the line Ray Lopez Chang you're on the line uh press star six to
145unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak once you begin uh Ray Lopez Chang hi good afternoon uh board member Melbourne LAUSD board members superintendent Carvalho and Ford and District staff my name is Ray Lopez Chang speaking to you on behalf of gpsn for those of you who I have not had the privilege of working with uh gpsn regularly convenes and activates over 70 Broad and diverse cross-sector organizations across LA to advocate for improved educational outcomes for LAUSD students folks my comments will be brief because it remains urgent that we not delay action on addressing gun violence the 2022 calendar year broke the record for the most school shootings in over four decades and it also marked one of the most violent years for youth ages 12 to 17 and as you know January
146resulted in 52 mass shootings with over 80 lives lost including our home of LA County uh you know LAUSD is making a necessary treatment by considering this motion and I had to take some time to reflect on the title of this resolution and not so I'd like to encourage this Board District leadership the audience legislators and the broad flocks of angelino's listening to take some time today to face the following questions when will it be enough for us to feel emboldened to treat this crisis like an emergency how are we actively resisting numbness and apathy toward incessant incidents of gun related deaths what choices or lack thereof exist in our immediate locus of control that encourage us to translate anger to action we are grateful that today's resolution links words to those very actions a
147response format that we've seen LAUSD achieve in numerous incidents whether it's enacting a security response posthumalde achieving last week's win with LA County to provide Telehealth support prioritizing the district fundamental responsibility of safety first but finally it's important that we know that unfortunately for every life lost to gun violence we are losing a mind full of Brilliance a life filled with potential and a body meant to be cared for and while the power of a gun is exponential our Interruption of that power has infinite outcomes and so board member of Melbourne thank you for building explicit guidance for LAUSD and to the district we hope you will all leverage your legislative expertise and procurement negotiating power to move words to action we know this work is arduous but never enough that we can't work together
148to heal Los Angeles thank you thanks all right Ashley Castillo are you here in person Ashley Castillo come on up once you begin you'll have three minutes to speak thank you thank all of you who are here before 3 30. hello esteemed Ellie was D board members my name is Ashley Annette Castillo I was a previous student at Hollywood High School and now a student at City of Angels independent study I have been a gun violence Survivor since the age of six I've worked with every town for gun safety four years the largest gun violence prevention movement in the nation with over 10 million volunteers I founded their students demand action chapter at Hollywood High and trained through their demand a seat program on gunsen's policies and hold a seat on their National Advisory Board
149I've been working with students elected officials and leaders across the state of California for years just today I attended the press conference in hearing with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in regards to this very same issue or motions to strengthen gun violence regulations were passed by a unanimous vote this issue is something I battle each and every single day something that's taken over so much of my life that I couldn't continue to receive a traditional education just as I began my senior year Hollywood's high students demand action chapter started off with eight members and only about 28 followers on our Instagram account last year after all of our work only within this past year that club grew to almost 40 members and the Instagram reaching almost 400 followers consisting of students parents and
150staff we've spent our time educating students and the entire Community holding voter registration drives and events our account is the first place people can come to for updates and information regarding the many threats and emergencies we face that are plaguing our ability to learn this week is National gun violence survivors week we've been posting and highlighting Survivor stories as they like myself are the center of our movement just yesterday we held a survivors week event where students were able to hear from a Survivor and learn about how they can become involved and also take initiative I'm in support of this resolution as long as it also includes recognizing National gun violence survivors week gun violence is an issue that especially pertains to us as youth guns are the number one killer of children and teens
151in America with 18 000 children and teens being shot and or killed every year even in Calif foreign the state with the strongest gun legislation in the nation we still face the horrifying effects of gun violence on a daily basis students risked their lives just to receive an education I've done work with an educational policy and school safety and since I becan advocating for this issue as education is something I am extremely passionate about and as Educators you understand how severely an educational Gap can affect a student's future gun violence is a top voter issue yet it isn't something we educate about or discuss in schools a place where it is so heavily prevalent officially recognizing survivors week and gun violence awareness day and encouraging students to wear orange show support and solidarity for victims
152and survivors of gun violence throughout LAUSD many survivors don't actually know their survivors some don't even realize it until years later the sooner student can learn that they are survivors the student the sooner that they can learn about resources that are available to them to help them with trauma and allow them to heal overall recognizing these two significant events is an opportunity to both educate and allow our communities to learn together and heal together and realize they have each other thank you before you go uh would you like to tell the audience that might watch this how they get in touch with the national gun violence survivors group definitely so from the student perspective and for students who'd like to join since that's mostly what I focus on it as I represent students Demand Action
153you can text students to 64433 or to also connect with moms and Men action in every town you can text enough to 6443 say that again slowly yes sorry used to the three minutes that's all right you're off the clock right now I wanted people who are hearing this to know how to get in touch with you definitely so for students who are interested in getting involved with students Demand Action they can text students to 64433 and for people who are interested in joining every town for gun safety they can text enough to 64433 all right thank you very much and thank you for spending your time with us thank you okay Kristen Farrell are you here Kristen Farrell come on up and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin thank you hello
154everybody it's really nice to actually be back in person the last time we did this it was on Zoom um but my name is Kirsten Farrell I used to be at Venice High School and I'm currently the athletic training coordinator for LAUSD working on student athlete health and safety um so we find ourselves here again firm in our commitment to make our schools our district our state and our country safe for our students and I'm here to speak in support of Mr Melbourne's enough resolution I can recall a few years ago we were here uh shortly after Parkland I stood up here with two of my sophomores at the time because my kids had just received the humanitarian award for their work in um mobilization and Outreach regarding common sense gun laws that we were
155working on in 2018. sorry also at that time we did a lot of work with the city attorney's office we had safety meetings in all of our our local board districts and we were firm in our commitment and we come back again firm in our commitment as a teacher I've been extremely lucky I've worked in Japan Switzerland and the United States mostly all of my teaching in the U.S has been here in LAUSD and in California the nice thing about Japan and Switzerland is they have some really great gun laws um they have stringent regulations for private citizens they both countries have rules regarding mental health background checks the permit process is lengthy and there are specific rules regarding storage and of your weapon and ammunition we live in a global Society I think it's
156prudent to examine gun laws in other countries especially those countries with highly consistent safety standards so that brings me back to LAUSD we're the second largest school district the United States we are in the state that has the largest sub-national economy in the world perhaps it's time to call Thurmond and our state school board and together work on education inspired legislation around gun safety not just for California but for the entire U.S as an I appreciate the fact that I've been an educator in California which is one of the strictest states around gun control but we need to encourage everyone to follow suit I was raised in military brat so that means I was raised around guns however I never knew anyone killed by a gun outside of War until I came to California so
157for Augustine who was shot and killed on our campus for Sal and Allen shot and killed in penmar park just days before graduation for Oscar who was shot and killed returning home for dinner and for Tai who was shot and killed protecting the passenger in his car I stand before you readily to support Nick melvoin's enough resolution thank you okay Adam chernick I see you're on the line Adam chernick if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Mr chernick Adam chernick I see you're on the line but you are muted so please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin last call for Mr chernick asking you to unmute yeah sorry can you hear
158I almost got you Mr trinik are you there sir I'm here can you hear me excellent we can can you hear me yes we can you have three minutes to speak once you begin thank you perfect um thank you so much I will never forget at age seven hearing about Sandy Hook Elementary in the shootings kids my age being shot to death I remember being in ninth grade my PE teacher saying that there was shooting out of school not that far from here and this year we've got another horrifying story of a six-year-old taking a gun and shooting his teacher a first grader around the world people questioned about school shootings in America and how we can have so many when everyone else has a few this isn't just a news story this is a
159reality that many students face as a school district we can educate students and parents while courts have affirmed gun rights and put a stop to Law's ground donation aimed at gun control there are still ways that we can ensure my fellow students and I are protected you must find ways to protect our second graders and our 12th graders I urge the board to adopt a resolution and to use whatever means available at your disposal to keep students safe and ensure that we can learn and be alive in a world where we live in fear since concerts synagogues moths malls and even driving you can be scared why be shocked can we at least make sure students can be safe I beg of you to ask yourself two questions is it legal can it save lives
160if the answers are yes to both do whatever it takes adopt the board member Melbourne's resolution I'll leave you with this from kindergarteners to 12th grade we deserve to be taught and not targets thank you all for your time and have a great day and thank you for your call okay uh Nikki kentor are you on the line Nikki did I get that Nikki Kantor if you are um please press star six to unmute yourself then you have three minutes to speak when you begin Nikki Cantor all right I believe I've unmuted you are unmuted and you have three minutes to speak great thank you so much I'm calling as a volunteer with Mom's demand acting for Duncans in America as well as a gun violence Survivor and we are so grateful to LAUSD for
161your leadership on gun safety allow me to share a few shocking statistics every day 120 Americans are killed with guns and every year more than 43 000 Americans are killed with a gun the proposed resolution is especially important this week as today is the last day of national gun violence survivors week which is observed February 1st through 7th each year this is a time when we come together to share and amplify the stories and voices of gun violence survivors who live with the impact of gun violence every year by early February more people are killed with guns in the United States than are killed with firearms and other high-income countries in an entire year our gun death rate is 13 times out of our peer countries which is unacceptable we are a nation of survivors
16259 of American adults including myself are survivors of gun violence and this number jumps to 71 among the black community and 60 percent of latinx people who identify as survivors behind each of these statistics are individual stories of trauma and laws but you never got to kiss their child goodbye victims living with physical and emotional wounds and families traumatized and left heartbroken during National gun violence survivors week we take stock of the terrible human toll of America's gun violence crisis and recommit ourselves to honoring survivors with action thank you again for your commitment to gun violence prevention and I urge you to pass this proposed resolution thank you so very much for your comment okay and we have one more person on the line Araceli Cabrera though I see that you are not with us
163right now um that concludes public comment on this item I think we heard from Araceli okay well thank you very much Mr Melbourne you're on thank you uh board president Goldberg and thank you Mr McLean and thank you to the speakers who um called in or were here in person Ashley thank you for your leadership um and uh Kirsten failed to mention she was the state teacher of the year so want to just give her the credit where it's due and thanks for her leadership as well um this resolution was born out of frustration and Desperation we've done a lot to put the district on record to be against guns put this epidemic and the trauma is still causing has an outsized impact on kids so I just want to make sure we're doing everything
164we can to take a stand yet again against gun violence and while I'm proud to bring forward this resolution calling for an end to our nation's ongoing gun violence I'm extremely disheartened to see the toll mass shootings and school shootings have had on our country in the last month alone since I wrote this resolution last week there have been eight additional mass shootings bringing the total to 60 mass shootings in 2023 alone which have resulted in over 95 deaths today as was mentioned by Ashley and others as the last day of gun violence survivors week which takes place now because statistically by the first week of February more Americans are killed by gun violence than in any other of our peer countries over the entire year I want to reiterate that that by the fifth
165week of the year more Americans are killed by gun violence than in any of our peer countries over the entire 52 weeks of the year we're also nearing the five-year anniversary of the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and it's time we yet again take a stand and say that enough is enough we need to leave no stone unturned because children are dying and so this resolution seeks to reiterate our previous support for some of these efforts and seeks creative new ways to help end this epidemic it proposes that the district continue to publicly oppose gun violence by supporting legislation that imposes requirements on gun sales or otherwise strengthens gun safety measures many of those we heard from Kirsten a few minutes ago this includes the recently reenacted after it died in the
166assembly last year Senate Bill 2 recently announced by Governor Newsom attorney general Banta Senator portentino which will strengthen California's public carry laws I'm asking that we look within and review our own procurement and financial investment policies to identify whether opportunities exist to adopt policies that discourage gun sales or gun ownership putting Children at Risk and I know the superintendent will report back to the board with an analysis and some recommendations on how we can use our purchasing power as the nation's second largest school district to discourage guns from harming any more people and I do want to acknowledge the superintendent's leadership on this through his powerful words and actions which unfortunately we hear far too often given how frequent we see shootings in our community and in our country and lastly I propose that we
167marked the last Friday in June every year as National Gun Violence awareness and wear orange day so I look forward hearing from my colleagues with their suggestions and support and I hope you'll join me in supporting this resolution and calling on an end to gun violence in this country thank you well thank you board member Mel voyne for bringing this forth I have presented um some friendly amendments to for this resolution and um I want to read them into the record sure I'll bring them so I um I have four warehouses as you guys I'll adding some forward or as is whereas you need to read what you're adding yeah okay okay so I'm adding these four whereas gun violence is a racial justice issue people of color particularly low-income communities are disproportionately and overwhelming
168overwhelmingly harmed by gun violence due to the lack of investment in communities of color racial housing segregation and structural racism whereas black Americans are 10 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun gun homicide women of color are disproportionately more affected by gun violence than white women and young black and brown Americans experience elevated rates of gun homicides whereas gun related injuries became the leading cause of death for ages 1 through 19. moreover black youth ages 15 to 34 experience highest rates of gun homicides across all racial and ethnic groups whereas the whereas and children exposed to gun related violence are most likely to experience externalizing and internalizing disorders post-traumatic stress diminished social competence social School problems and decent synthesization to violence and potentially to be involved in or commit a gun violence
169offense and I added a few um points to the resolve to the second resolve um I'll just read it as I have it here resolve further that the district amend its 2022-23 legislative priorities to include support for state and federal state and federal legislation that imposes requirements on gun sales or otherwise strengthens gun safety measures strengthens gun storage laws and facilitates public education about laws mandating the storage of firearms separately from ammunition strengthens gun violence restraining laws and promote education of the public and law enforcement about the importance of removing firearms from anyone who appears to be a threat to themselves or others and then I added two last resolves uh resolved that the district commemorate or added actually no um at one point to this last resolve um that in addition the district participate
170and partnered with the city and county for the National Gun Violence Survivor week from February 1-7 which was mentioned by the student as a platform to amplify gun violence Survivor stories make trauma-informed programs and Direct Services available and hold discussions on reducing the traumatic impact of gun violence on youth particularly students of color and lastly resolve that the district will advocate for investments in community-based violence intervention CVI initiatives and programs to address the root causes of gun violence to establish contextual proactive Solutions and you are moving that as an amendment as yes friendly amenities and I miss Goldberg will accept that as a friendly Amendment and maybe Dr riccio um Dr Rivas we can send those to Mr McLean to distribute to board members and post to the public but I but I will accept
171those all as friendly and I also fail to mention it's not on here because um with the time of printing but Mr smeralson is also a co-sponsor of this resolution I think others would like to as well including myself oh great thank you and I see Dr McKenna you said yes or do you want to speak yes oh oh co-sponsor it all right thank you and I uh Mr Carlson sorry for not mentioning you off the bat thank you for the support um and thank you Dr Rivas and and Miss Goldberg and Dr McKenna all right any other board members wish to speak on this this uh board member Ortiz Franklin thank you yes and I'd love to be added as a co-sponsor as well I think we heard a lot from public comment from
172our colleagues here about the need for school districts as educational leaders in this country to step up and see what we can do not only in prevention uh in safe storage which I know this board has done in the past but I'm particularly interested and gratified by the resolve around looking at our own Investments I know there are some other entities that have committed to divest from various groups that um somehow or another might promote ammunition and guns and so looking forward to receiving the superintendent's report on that assuming this passes so that we can be really thoughtful about our financial investments perhaps as it relates to retirement I believe stirs and pers already don't invest in guns and tobacco and other things like that but where we can learn from others we should and
173where we can model for others we should and so thank you Mr Melbourne I think this is an opportunity to model for others and just again to work with our students and communities to the extent possible because prevention is the vast majority of this work it is already too late when we are working with families who have seen or experienced gun violence and our hearts going out is not enough as you've heard we say these things repetitively in this country and in La we have an opportunity I think here again to really Champion not only the prevention in our schools but in our communities and what it would really look like to all come together with our other government agencies with business partners with community members to make sure we're all doing everything possible to
174reduce access to guns and make sure that those who do have them store them safely away from children and from anyone who would harm anyone else in our community so thank you for your leadership on this yeah um I'm very hopeful that but my hope has been there for a long time I've been around a long time and I've seen guns kill people wound people paralyzed people destroy families when I was a principal I asked my students write down the names of anybody that you know a friend or family member who lost their life to gun violence over 400 names were given to me and I put them on a plaque like the Vietnam Wall veterans play I had my print shop printed up and put it in the main lobby and some students gave
175me gang names I said I can't put that up that I don't know what the real name is one student said Marvin Gaye I said is that related to you he said that was my uncle so I put his name up there our resolutions our Lamentations our righteous indignation and hopes and prayers for the victims go to the same place they've always gone Into the Mystic a political correctness of those who say we need our guns to defend ourselves against whom against what in Black America has always seen ourselves as being the other defend themselves against us we frighten them whoever they are am I blaming anyone I'm blaming our society the accessibility to guns especially about children do you know that children have easier access to guns than most adults because adults will try
176to get a permit that takes paperwork children have access to guns on the street not all children but there are any permits to get these weapons and they come from illegal nefarious sources that allow teenagers and sometimes younger to walk around with guns sometimes coming to school yet we decided the majority of the board not to have metal detectors we were criminalizing the children by having metal detectors that when you go to the airport you're not feeling criminalized and so the political correctness works both ways whom are we serving who's running this District I think the ones running this District are up here right now they got elected we got elected I got elected us to make decisions about the district we select the superintendent superintendent can't be voted on he's selected by us he
177has come out strongly which I greatly admire and appreciate this is a strong work strongly worded resolution what will happen in Sacramento I don't know we can't make laws we can make laws about don't bring guns on campuses but we we also voted not to search randomly randomly not every student as a deterrent yet we've had students with guns on campus we've expelled students who've had guns on campus do you think that all of our students know what this resolution means care about it their parents don't secure the weapons in their homes they can get them off the street we live in a dangerous Society which is nothing to brag about and we'll celebrate all kinds of things in this country from the 4th of July to the Super Bowl yeah people will die in
178the street every day somebody dies by gun violence and it's sad when it touches us personally but it's even sadder that we have indifference to the pain of others I read somewhere if you think and feel at extreme levels if you think about everything and feel intensely about everything you have a tendency to go mad because you're caring and you're thinking will expose you to things that other people are just indifferent to the suffering in the world the suffering in the city the homeless people that are out there and how enthusiastic are we are about eradicating that how enthusiastic are we are about eradicating the miseducation of our children the undereducation the underachievement of our children how does how much does that keep us awake at night I don't know I've been fighting this since
179I realized I could think as a child growing up in an oppressed Community called New Orleans Louisiana oppressed by many things which I don't need to reiterate now I'm not looking for anybody's sympathy but I am aware and it frustrates me when I see a well-intentioned resolution well worded we'll always stand up and say Amen and some of us will take pictures and yet what will change am I optimistic not as much as I'm realistic even pessimistic and rightfully so because I haven't seen anything that really makes a difference thank you Mr Malvern for your resolution thank you board members for joining in thank you for raising the awareness nobody here thinks this is sufficient but it is necessary improve a theorem in mathematics it has to have two conditions necessary and sufficient conditions this
180is necessary but it ain't sufficient because it's hard to implement it even in our own house and especially to protect our children so we have responsibilities too that we have not yet met and not yet been willing to accept that it's our responsibility all we can do is hope that this in some way some may be even a measurable way changes somebody's mind and they don't do something that we won't be able to measure what they did not do buy a gun store a gun use a gun just to settle an argument but thank you Mr Melbourne Mr Cheryl smerlson I too thank you for this resolution and I just want to remind our families that in May of 2019 I presented the safe gun storage resolution and now it is part of the documents
181that parents receive every time they enroll their child in school and it's only a piece of paper but it's a piece of paper that's very valuable and we must remind people if you have a gun in your house it must be safely stored away you would not believe how many people tell me Well we have a gun in our house but they don't know where it is and I tell them well I got news for you they know where everything is in your house including where you hide the money in your house so it's just saying that they don't know where the gun is is wrong so there is a there is a resolution talking about safe gun storage that we have to remind parents about that and I I'm getting ready soon to to
182do another one which is called um let's see the the letters it's called uh let's see g v r o and what it is it is if you're afraid that someone close to you may use a gun to hurt themselves or another person you can learn more about the gun violence restraining order and we will be talking about that at a future time in at the board meeting so I just want you to know we have to be safe at home kids know where everything is at home all guns must be locked up at home thank you thank you Mr Melvin other board members I'd just like to thank everyone for their support and Dr McKenna I just want to give you an amen and I appreciate you you articulated so succinctly at the end
183that this is necessary but not sufficient but when you were speaking I was also thinking of just Dr King's charge that if you can't fly then run if you can't run then walk if you can't walk then crawl but whatever you do you got to keep moving forward and that's what we're trying to do here is just keep moving forward so appreciate it yes I'd like to just put a couple of notes in first uh on the safe storage I don't think we do enough even though we at least give it once a year I think we should do a lot more on that because a lot of folks actually don't know that they're required to do this and actually don't know how easy it is to do it they're commercially purchased materials that you
184can safely store a gun that make it very difficult for a youngster an awful lot of suicides come from home guns that aren't locked away awful lot of suicides are and so I would like to just like to encourage us to figure out Mr superintendent how to more incompletely help people understand what they should do how they can find the things to do it with and how easy it is to do it because I think that safe storage is a big issue in Los Angeles Unified the reason the problem that that we don't get more done is because gun laws have to be National you know we have very strong laws in California but you can literally buy the parts to a gun online and put it together yourself you can make one with a
1853D computer pick one yourself has no registration has no serial number we can buy things which take a regular handgun and turn it into an automatic handgun you can buy online magazines of guns that are with unbelievable amounts of bullets in them unbelievable amounts of all of which can be fired in a matter of seconds as we have seen in some situations so I think I would just urge when it comes to the part here that says that we should support legislation I think we need to be pushing very hard on federal legislation even though we have a House of Representatives that is not interested the new leadership I do believe they are vulnerable to public outcry about this message and I hope that we will do everything in our can with our legislative or
186uh instructions to work on uh the bills that are already ready in Congress in the House of Representatives because I think if you don't make these things National you can just continue to do it no matter what your State's laws are and I think that's really unfortunate but it's true uh and I too just want to thank you for bringing this in I'd like you before we vote on this to explain to people what the anagram enough means so that they know you're not just saying yeah Basta yes although again you can text enough if you're a student to or no if a student you text student to 64433 if you're an adult you can text enough to 64433 but is an acronym that stands for end the nation's ongoing unrelenting gun horror pasta and
187that uh with the amended uh version of the resolution uh Mr McLean called the roll and before I call the roll I'll note that the amended language is up on our website and there are copies in the back for the public to view if they like and so that everyone can have a look at what has been done here thank you for getting that done so quickly you got it um okay we're gonna call roll uh Dr McKenna yes Dr Rivas yes four members yes board member Melvin yes board member Ortiz Franklin yes um and I apologize to student board member Shin I have not called you a couple of times so I'm going to call you right now and call attention to it student board member Shin yes and board president Goldberg yes and
188Mr Shin would you like to be recorded on the other items that we voted on today on the consent calendar I think the vote is still open right oh that's right it absolutely is we need uh after this we'll ask um board members we'll come back to the open rule okay so this item passes unanimously superintendent I think he wanted to add uh some comment yes I would um it goes without saying that um and I I heard carefully the the words spoken by uh by the board members it is uh it is a scourge in our nation it is an embarrassment in our country particularly when a bad condition actually became worse young people in this country used to die more often as a result of vehicular accidents than anything else that was the
189number one cause and then there were all sorts of other injuries and then congenital diseases over the past 12 months firearms have been the reason why more kids die in America than anything else um this is preventable and uh I agree awareness is important seeking policy modifications that the state and federal levels is equally important who really cares how strong the laws in your community may be when your community is porous and the guns can keep pouring in and that's exactly what happens so this is the right policy at the right time for absolutely the right reasons and and shame on those that that believe that the best thing we can do in this country is actually liberalize access to guns or the way you wear guns without any review without any permitting without any
190training as some states in the country recently have done in terms of legislative adoptions so thank you uh board member melvoin and the board for your comments and your vote on this important issue now it's a matter of taking words and turning them into action in our community in our state and across the country thank you very much thank you and now I guess we're ready for public comment and it is almost four o'clock we got 20 seconds to go with that 20 seconds can I return to uh foreign on Tab nine and the consent calendar how do you vote Yes as to both yeah yes excellent and uh student board membership yes for both thank you sir all right we are now at four o'clock and so it is time for public comments Mr
191McLean take us away here we go I see we have a number of people in person here which is delightful samya Smith are you here samya Smith please come on down you have three minutes to speak once you begin hi my name is Samaya Smith and I'm a junior I mean I'm sorry I'm a senior at Dorsey high school and I'm here to talk about a very concerning issue with the school board superintendent Carvalho were you aware that last week Dorsey students were taken on a highly inappropriate and a traumatizing field trip to a pro-police under a pro-police agenda are you aware that Dorsey students were told that this field trip was to honor the death of Tyree Nichols a man that was beaten to death by Memphis Police however the real purpose the real
192purpose of the sorry the real purpose of the field trip revealed itself when Dorsey students showed up and there were over a hundred cops there were over a hundred cops sorry there were over a hundred cops in LAPD LAPD Police Chief Moore gave a speech in an attempt to convince these students that LAPD is not a part of a racist system that prevents that perpetuates violence against black and brown people most of the world watched Tyree Nichols beaten to death and the First Response of LAPD is to spew with victims or families of victims have heard time and time again is that not all cops are bad and not all cops do the wrong thing and then if that wasn't bad enough these students were brought into a traumatizing police simulator where police explained to
193these kids why they sometimes have to shoot black people why they sometimes have to shoot brown people this is outrageous and it would be helpful to know if you authorize this pro-police field trip and we would also want to know why police chief Zimmerman and police chief Moore thought it would be okay to manipulate the morning of Tyree Nichols by bringing us on the field trip to talk about how great LAPD is and lastly superintendent Carvalho when will you make a statement that supporting black students is not just a trendy thing that LASD would do for a few years but that resources for bsop should be ongoing and not just for a few years I'm pretty sure that you're aware of the confrontation that happened between Dorsey high school and View Park and I'm pretty
194sure that that could have been prevented had LAUSD implemented the millions of dollars that we have sitting in bsop for safe passage and conflict prevention intervention that's all thank you thank you for your comments thank you Samaya uh Amari Carter are you here Ameris amaris Carter please come on up you have three minutes to speak once you begin uh okay hi my name is amaris Carter I'm an 11th grader at downtown magnets high school and a student leader which didn't deserve and I wanted to discuss the last lack of resources here on LAUSD schools for the past few months I and other students have complained about the lack of medical emotional and physical resources here at my school whether it's broken appliances like sinks toilets or hand dryers a lack of pads tampons toilet paper
195soap or paper towels dirty classrooms that are supposed to be cleaned every week and blaming the latter on neglectful janitors is unhelpful due to them being overworked and underpaid or too little staff for too many students tell me why I walk all the way across campus to get to tell the nurse about my period pains for them to sit for them to give me a cold damp paper towel and sit me down for about 15 minutes how does that help in the slightest along with that what about be sap my school has a low black population but that doesn't mean that we should be disregarded the promotion for bsap at my school is so low and probably underfunded that students don't even know that we have one this is a major issue all addressed above
196are major issues doing issues trying to be uplifted and solved by students deserve and not by the school board despite that being your job personally I've been continuously disappointed and tired of the unhelpful useless and inactive attempts by the school boards to Rally For Students policing criminalizing and villainizing news flash don't work they have never and will never be affected ways to end trials students are dealing with I recommend recognizing your own biases and waking up to the reality that the status quo you once knew was a lie that continuing to perpetuate these beliefs will only dig your own Graves among students parents teachers and community members then actuality you have no more harm than good to your community I strongly suggest listening to the demands of students and continuing or starting to support and
197Champion students deserve students parents and teachers community and communities deserve so much more that you do for them than you do for them period thank you and thank you can I use the rest of her time my name is Ashley Edwards I'm operations manager for students deserve and I just want to can you get closer to the mic yes I'm operations manager for students deserve and I just want to uplift something this is the second student today that has gotten emotional due to the lack of respect due to the lack of empathy of what they're going through so I just ask you guys to take a little second to see what we'll see what's happening with these students the last time I was here and I'm getting emotional but the last time I was here
198another student left in tears that should hit you in some kind of way you should you should that should hit you in some kind of way that three students on Black History Month are leaving out of this boardroom in tears that's sad do something thank you very much Genesis Cruz are you here Genesis Cruz if you're here come on up you'll have three minutes to speak what you begin thank you good afternoon my name is Genesis Cruz I am a senior at Jordan High School located in watts and Board District Seven I am also an organizing fellow with our turn and a member of the Healthy Families coalition I am here to speak to you today about the ongoing contamination at Jordan which sits directly next to Atlas Metals industrial recycling plant at least creates
199noises releases sharp projectiles and sends toxic fumes and dust containing dangerous substances like lead and arsenic into our campus in Coalition with other students Educators and members of the Jordan High School Community I am I have been organizing to demand action to address the situation at Jordan while I appreciate that the district has made the shutdown of and or relocating of Atlas one of its advocacy priorities for the year it is still unacceptable that Watts that the Watts Community which is almost entirely made up of low-income students of color is being asked to endure contamination that endangers us in fact one analysis of the lead levels that Jordan shows that the levels there are more than 75 times what the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe this is not tolerable at this point there are
200multiple lawsuits against Atlas medals including one brought by districts by the district and also one filed by the LA City attorney along with the Healthy Families Coalition we have been demanding solutions that do not rely on the settlement of these lawsuits which have been going for years it is not right to ask students to endure this for years and on specifically we have called on the city of Los Angeles to take over the land at least it's on by imminent domain rezoning the land or negotiating to buy the property I have personally witnessed students learning being disrupted by noises caused by Atlas where tests have had to be stopped due to loud noises as well as sharp objects disrupting campus activities by making the school stop using its own facilities to clean up industrial materials
201that end up on campus from Atlas I am here today to ask you to find solutions that address the harm that Alice has caused our community we deserve a campus that is clean peaceful and free from harmful contamination specifically we ask for you to seek solutions that can be implemented quickly and that do not rely entirely on the legal process which is easily delayed we should not be asked to deal with these conditions for years when our communities are really already disproportionately burdened by harmful pollution thank you for your attention of this issue and for what you have done already to try to stop Atlas medals from endangering our schools and to get them to clean up what they have contaminated thank you you uh while under the brown act we are not allowed to
202have a discussion of anything not on our agenda it is not inappropriate for the superintendent to make some comment about something of this nature and I'm going to ask him to do so yes thank you very much Madam president uh this is indeed the an existentially important issue it is a threat to the well-being the safety the health of our students particularly in this community and um and the last speaker and the listening audience ought to know that uh just this week we have planned the mediation hearing to bring about the Swift solution to this matter and I'm very confident this is something that I have monitored very aggressively and form myself very aggressively on our general counsel has led on this issue and I'm very confident that very very soon we will have a
203solution for this problem it is not right it's not fair it's not acceptable to allow anyone entity including a private sector entity to be located so close to a school when it produces harmful potentially harmful projectiles pollution that directly and indirectly affect our student body and so suffice it to say that there is an imminent solution that is going to be brought to this problem secondly and I'll take advantage of uh this opportunity all voices matter to us particularly the voices of students this is a district that does not directly or indirectly Embrace or engage in actions that traumatized students um it is not why we do it it's not Who We Are so whether it is in school whether it's pronouncements of this board or the messages that we send out as a district
204our goal is to protect students our goal is to elevate students our goal is to um to provide students an opportunity to be who they are in the safest possible way thank you okay next okay Adrian Flores are you here Adrian Flores if you hear come on up you'll have three minutes to speak Adrian Flores Zoe Gardner are you here okay come on down Zoe you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin my name my name is Zoe Garner I'm a junior at La High and a leader in students deserve as you all know it's Black History Month and as we all know black people and black history are important year round not just in February when it's fashionable black lives matter always all the time everywhere permanently in 2020 you defunded la school
205police by 25 million dollars that spring you were willing to pay a little more attention to black students for a little bit of time because City police in Minneapolis had just murdered George Floyd I think that murder in the resulting black lives matter demonstrations in the streets had a lot to do with this with your decision to decrease funding for school police in our district that year when I was a ninth grader but the reality of how dangerous police are remains relevant even now as I am a junior those factors that led you to vote to defund school police then should still influence the decisions you're making now into 2023 caring about black people isn't a fad that means you have to stop funding cops in criminalization the reduction you made to school police in
2062020 was good but let's be honest you can't Coast off a decent thing you did three years ago I hope this Black History Month you ask yourself what can I do now this year in 2023 to help make sure that black lives matter always all the time everywhere permanently there is one major thing that you can do this school year I want you to use the 4.9 billion dollars you have in reserves to make permanent improvements to our school use part of the 4.9 billion dollars in reserves to make the black student achievement plan permanent use part of the 4.9 billion dollars in reserve to fund mental health supports at all of our schools we need psws grief counselors and addiction counselors five days a week at all of our schools permanently use part of
207the 4.9 billion in reserves to invest in art classes and art supplies permanently use part of the 4.9 billion in reserves to invest in peer counseling classes and programs through LAUSD I'm a peer counselor at La high and most people in LAUSD don't know what that means because peer counseling does not permanently exist in most of our schools use part of the 4.9 billion in reserves to increase the number of College counselors at every single high school one college counselor is not enough to support almost 200 seniors at La high and it's certainly not enough to have one person who supports all 1 000 of us at La High figure out what we need to do to be ready for college in other words use part of the 4.9 billion dollars in reserves to end
208the school-to-prison pipeline in LAUSD and be part of making black lives matter always all the time everywhere permanently don't wait for the next tragedy to strike before you feel like it's your responsibility to be part of making black lives matter in school don't disagree with me during February when it's Black History Month be ready to work with us in March and April and May and June when it's no longer Black History Month use part of the 4.9 billion dollars in reserves to fund black Futures permanently thank you thank you for your col Bates are you here Nicole Bates if you're here come on down not here Kathy Pacheco are you here Kathy Pacheco if you're here come on down you have three minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon board members my name is
209Kathy Pacheco I am the advocacy and Community engagement manager with KIPP philosophers Academy we are a Middle School located in board district 7 also in watts and I'm here today to support Jordan high school and I'm with the Healthy Families Coalition so I want to Echo just the urgency of the ongoing contamination that's taking place at Jordan High School Which is less than a mile away from our school first of all I want to thank you for addressing the issue earlier and I am just looking forward to hearing more about what will be done I do want to just reiterate that you know this issue it is an issue of environment environmental racism and our communities deserve more and deserve better and so I am just appreciate the work that you are all doing to
210make this issue a priority and and looking forward to hearing more about what's going to happen I do just want to State as well that even though our school is not directly impacted by this issue we do have students that will in the future attend Jordan High School have family members who attend Jordan High School and walk by Atlas medals every day so this issue is not just an issue for Jordan High School it's for our entire Community it's a public safety issue and even though we know that the lawsuits are in place again we need an issue as soon as a sorry a resolution or something to be done as soon as possible so we're looking forward to hearing more about what Will um what is coming and um what will how our communities
211will be kept safe thank you so much thank you for your comment Luisa Galindo are you here at Luisa Galindo talk Adelante when I started the board good afternoon members of the board my name is my name is I'm also a member of a poor community is I came here on the bus and I saw so many students on the bus carrying their backpacks porque Nuestra estudiante de los Di I'm here today because our LAUSD students need more resources more services and less police years ago there was a strike muchos Padres and many parents ask where are all the things promised after that strike you have not fulfilled them and I'm also here as a mother of of students in LAUSD foreign one of them has told me you don't even know what goes on
212at school when just randomly when just because of our look our Latino look they search our backpacks another of my students who had a GPA higher than a four plate universidades a year ago we talked to her counselor to see how we could help her to apply to more universities um maybe you because you're an involved parent you come here and ask about that but do you realize how many students we have for just one counselor tus service do you know how many exams that are created by getting corporations the students have to run to their classrooms in order to eat on time a lot of them don't end up getting there on time to eat maestros I think it's time that you as board members you as a superintendent take the time to look
213at the needs it's time to look at the needs of students and of teachers estudiantes I was just listening to the students who were talking about the need for a nurse okay plan and I'll never get tired of saying the what is the uh what you know the association of charter schools has a plan dismantling the education system to eliminate all the public school that that's a given yeah I would call the superintendent to action escuelas our schools our communities should be places that are safe Nosotros Como Madres those of us as mothers I'm not here because someone paid me to be here I come here because I feel the need to tell you what is going on in our school Community is on the bus I see students from all different schools charters I
214see lots of posters marketings Charter Schools why don't they line up all the students to be equal and that there be Justice and good education for all the students I would tell you as a mother of a teenager who's 18. it's not mature enough yet emotional they don't they're not in control of their feelings all they feel is fear yes when they see police with guns instead of having resource sufficient resources to have good mental health and have academic success [Music] and succeed in this world that we're living in thank you gracias thank you Joseph Williams are you here in person Joseph Williams good afternoon board members good afternoon superintendent Carvalho my name is Joseph Williams I am the director of students deserve who many of these powerful young people who are speaking today um
215and and who you might have seen have some really strong emotions about some of the things that are happening at their schools I think I stepped out for a little bit so I missed some of what was discussed um but it reminded me um you know the emotion that one of our young people showed about what happened and what has happened at Dorsey which she said when we stepped outside was that speaking it out loud made it even more real for her what she had experienced and I was reminded of what it felt like as a 13 year old boy to be regularly criminalized to be regularly looked at as a Target as a suspect and to have those things happen so often that they became normal occurrences they became normalized in my mind and
216that even now as a 30 year old man I look back and I realized damn at 13 how much being criminalized impacted the way I felt and felt about myself about what I was capable of about what my life would look like about what my trajectory was and what path I was walking on the things that we take um as small incidents as adults or as you know maybe annoying but necessary things are hugely impactful to the children who are experiencing them every day and so Samaya I know mentioned uh incident uh fight between Dorsey and View Park on Friday night there was also a fight at the Roosevelt and uh Garfield game uh basketball game and both incidents were responded to with police and the Roosevelt uh game police actually pepper sprayed students now
217we're still trying to figure out whether that was school police or LAPD um if you have answers that would be great because La school police should not have pepper spray right you all in the suit the last superintendent banned the use of chemical weapons against students and yet that is what happened in response to student conflict and it is urgent it is so urgent that you all as District leaders as you all as folks who have the lives of children in your hands reimagine what responses to conflict look like reimagine what safety looks like it's not acceptable to say oh two kids shouldn't fight because violence is bad but when they do we're going to respond with even greater violence we're going to respond with pepper spray we're going to respond with handcuffs with criminalization
218oh it's bad to do violence at school so if you commit violence at school I'm going to take you out of your home I'm going to handcuff you and I'm going to put you in the cage as a child right the district has even more of an urgency and a responsibility right to reimagine what your response to conflict is and how do we respond to things that are going to happen kids are going to fight especially when we think about kids who are experiencing trauma and insecurity in their homes and in their communities they're going to come to school with conflict they're going to fight and as long as a district refuses as Samaya said even when you have resources dedicated to do so as long as you refuse to actually Implement alternative responses to
219violence and conflict you will continue to say it's unacceptable for kids to be violent or to have conflict but it's okay for us as adults to abuse those very same thank you for your time that is absolutely not the message that we need that's not the mess the the manner of school safety or preventing or responding to conflict that we need and our Coalition released the port last week that tells you and that lays out very clearly how we can move away from a system that criminalizes and abuses kids and reimagine our response to conflict as who are supposed to be the responsible adults in the district thank you very much [Applause] okay we'll go to the folks who are waiting on the phone line Lindsay Weatherspoon are you on the line Lindsay Weatherspoon if
220you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Lindsey Weatherspoon I see you're unmuted Lindsay hi can you hear me we sure can you have three minutes good afternoon my name is Lindsey Weatherspoon and I am with the youth Liberty Squad I am also a junior at Venice High School last week the police free LAUSD Coalition held a press conference to release a report from criminalization to education a Community Vision for safe schools in LAUSD this report captures everything our Coalition has been advocating for for the past few years but we need schools to be led by the community and be free of police time and time again students parents and community members have been advocating for the district to train and invest in
221things that actually support black and brown students school police are not one of them instead LAUSD needs to increase investments in the black student achievement plan and hire the right people to ensure that Visa is fully implemented and that the money is actually being spent on what on What It's meant for LAUSD should also invest in safe passes programs that do not rely on law enforcement many of my friends who attend bsop schools have started to see positive outcomes because of the additional money their schools have received but there is still a lot of work to be done because black youth are still being criminalized after having gone to a school with school police and one without it I've noticed a huge difference at my police school we only had two counselors as a resource
222and only had a day once a year for upperclassmen dedicated to getting real about our mental health but at my police preschool we are encouraged to get real about our mental health every day with the support and facilitation of many different programs and counselors the only thing we got for my police school every day was this increased anxiety knowing that a power historically Revenant weaponized against students was still being raped in our faces today please listen to what we are trying to say today because of the current LAUSD student I know firsthand what types of support I need a thriving school I want to see the district invest more in arts arts Educators restorative justice staff counselors nurses psychologists and social workers because that is what helps me actually feel safe at school thank you
223for your comment okay Martha Torres Ortiz I see you on the line Martha Torres Ortiz please press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak once you begin Martha Torres Ortiz if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak once you begin hello hi hi uh sorry I tried company but it didn't work okay um hi my name is Martha Torres Ortiz um I am here because I'd like to speak to you guys about um the lack of special education instructors and Professionals in LAUSD um I have two children in elementary school that are going to schools in the Local District West and in my school alone we've only we haven't had a resource teacher or um research teacher this whole year
224we are sharing a assistant principal with another school and we get a psychologist once a week every other week now why is this important because at least in my specific case my daughter has been struggling with ADHD since elementary kindergarten I've been asking for help since first and second grade I was about to start getting a service for being taken Series in second grade when the pandemic hit last year I've been aggressively asking for assistance I finally demanded a an IEP back in August and back in August I was pretty much told that that was not my decision to make or my the determination to make I had to request it again back in October I didn't have a meeting until January and I didn't get my actual IEP uh document for two weeks what
225is also this means my school alone has been out of compliance with me only three times in this year alone and the thing is I've called the um the teachers with the the office that you guys have for special education services and even they they try to help me but even then they're like well we don't have stuff anywhere and the main uh thing that I'm always told by the staff who by the way has been lovely and they care I can and like they are not I'm not being dismissed because they don't want to help me I'm being dismissed or pushed aside because there are too many people and they don't have the resources so my question is why are you um why is there such a um why is there such so many
226vacancies or why what are you guys doing to recruit and incentivize people to um professionals to come and work for LAUSD and also why is there only one or two um openings in the website for special education assistance and special education substitute for a special education paraprofessional when there is so much need my question too is are you guys waiting to be sued in order for special education the kids who need special education resources to be taken seriously uh my daughter is a good kid she gets ignored because she's a pleasant kid but what people don't see is that at home she is struggling so much and having panic attacks very much every single day thank you very much for your time we appreciate it I love you for your time okay uh I'm gonna
227check the folks who said they were in person but who were not here Adrian Flores are you here in person Nicole Bates are you here in person okay um and I'm just going to read out loud the instructions for calling in so folks have a clear understanding and that there can be no confusion public comment can be made in person or by telephone and members of the public must sign up online for either method as described above members of the public can only make remote public comment by calling 213-338-8477 and then you enter in your meeting ID um and it's very important that when you register online you give the same number from which you will be making your public comment so that we can identify the caller with a commenter that being said we
228had a couple people drop off and I have a name on my list Maria Daisy Ortiz are you here Maria Daisy Ortiz if you are come on up and you'll have six minutes to speak gracias thank you very much good afternoon distinguished member superintendent members and staff of the board and special guests I hate to repeat my name for those of you who know me but for those seeing us for the first time I am Maria Daisy Ortiz and I am a parents I would like to cordially welcome our newest member Maria Rocio Rivas who before it was just a parent like meantes so the first I want to talk about a complaint I had made around public comment I used to come in here with my children and we were here till 8 pm
229at night and with that complaint with I did with the Council of Highland Park we improved that much better now come on now I have another complaint how could it be that we as the second largest school district in the nation only allow 15 public comment speakers that closes 24 hours prior and by 1 20 PM it's closed that is censoring the voices of parents and we pay our taxes and I would like you to improve this practice be so you can hear all voices this is how you get feedback in order to make effective changes that can affect all of our students and I would also like you to fulfill a promise that one leader stated where he believed in the science of literature and that was superintendent conference in California principal this was
230at a reading Coalition Conference and he was one of the principal readers so you can't just say these words whatever you say you need to fulfill is so please I beg you in order for our children to be ready for the world our dyslexic students need the tools and the accommodations in order that they can be prepared to function in the world only their symbicion is and so it was a leader with no vision will cause the The Village to be to go down to be reduced but I as a parent leader I will not allow this to happen when we have students 20 percent of students with dyslexia this is high school and so I would like to ask superintendent Carvalho you know parents need the tools per law that their students require so
231how many Workshops can you tell me have been given to parents about dyslexia I know there have been some for elementary but what about middle school and high school implemented so just offering Arthur Willingham training is not a fit is not enough how can this be implemented difference and that's going to make the difference so that none of our students are left behind thank you very much good afternoon and thank you uh Chloe Finley I see you're on the line Chloe Finley you joined us please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Chloe Finley my name is Miss Tyler so my overall concern is the lack of safe passage and community that says peace building initiatives at our school in addition to that we also do
232not have enough Mental Health Resources as a result of this schools are continuously relying on policing criminalizing and abusing in response to this typical adolescent Behavior like fights or behavior that may need mental health care for example like Drug Care police on campuses can also provide stress for many students especially the black students who have to watch almost continuously on the news or on other social media platforms black men women and children being beaten kid and killed for nothing these emotions have a very significant impact on students and when they travel to school to a safe place they are met with police that can bring back that trauma all over again these needs need to be more thought into what school policing can have on various students in addition to that continuing the commitment to
233fund black Futures create community-based safe passage Partnerships and continue to defund school police thank you thank you very much for your comment okay and it looks like our last caller Nicole Bates you're on the line Nicole Bates please press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak can you hear me now we sure can okay awesome so my name is Nicole Bates and I'm a movement lawyer at the collective for liberatory lawyering and a member of the police free schools LAUSD coalition as folks were already mentioning earlier in the board meeting in the wake of recent murders of Keenan Anderson after Leon Sanchez takar Smith and Tyree Anderson we find it critically important to urgently call for this board to divest from school policing and invest in evidence-based Community alternatives to
234ensure that these incidents don't keep happening and more importantly that we are listening to our young people and community members as they are the experts of their own experiences resoundingly we are hearing that real safety is rooted in communities caring for one another not in the involvement of police so instead of relying and depending on police to handle student misbehavior which often leads to criminalization we are calling on the board to fully implement the black student achievement plan by hiring mental health and wellness coordinators that utilize strategies and practices that are culturally relevant and responsive safe passage programs like the young person before me just spoke about peace building initiatives violence prevention and credible Messengers right um and last day the police preschools LAUSD Coalition held a press conference and launched the from criminalization to
235education a Community Vision for safe schools and LAUSD which is a well researched plan that centered a participatory process that involved Community voice and input and really um from there was able to create this very reflective and responsive plan um and I find it interesting also that this week February 6th through the 10th is um a week of action for black lives matter at school and so um we know that February is the month that everyone um for sort of pays attention to and celebrates black folks um but it's interesting that like the like this week is really meant to be having critical and honest conversations about like racial Justice is it education and like we're not just doing that by saying like it's a black history month so we're not only calling for these
236critical and honest conversations we're also calling for the board to fully implement the things that they've already said that they would around be sap and what young people and community members um are saying will help them and their communities feel safe thank you thank you for your comment and thank you this concludes all those who signed up properly to speak um under general public comment uh board member Melbourne I believe you're having a journey motion and while we're waiting you can always go to boe.lausd.net to find out everything that happened at this meeting the video should be posted within the next 48 to 72 hours of what happened today at both meetings and you can also find the documents that are associated with everything the board members looked at in order to make their informed
237choices today and how they voted and if you have nothing better to do with your time it's rebroadcast on Sundays and one last thing if you have any questions about how a board meeting is run or why it is that we do what we do you can always email me at my office and my staff at secretariat.lausd .net I'm sorry email me there you can also uh I want to point out that the minutes today were brought to you by my staff not necessarily by me so I just want to make sure they get their proper recognition for that um thank you staff we haven't had minutes this close to when the meetings happen in a long time we are appreciative is there any second now all right thank you board member thank you Miss
238Goldberg um I'd like to adjourn today's meeting and memory of Hamza al-sadi a Pally High grad and San Francisco State University student who died tragically in a swimming accident on January 19th his family originally from Iraq emigrated to Los Angeles from Jordan when Hamza was 10. he attended Kentwood Elementary Orville Wright Middle School and then Paul Revere middle school before graduating from Pally High where he was a talented member of the wrestling team he continued his wrestling career at San Francisco State where he was in his senior year and majoring in political science with a minor in Arab and Muslim studies and diaspora studies no doubt he would have gone on to make a meaningful contribution to the global community and will be greatly missed by all the lives he has already touched we send
239our deepest condolences to his family friends and loved ones thank you at 4 50 p.m we are adjourned thank you all very much for your attention and for your participation [Music]