October 11, 2022 - Regular Board Meeting 1:00 p.m.

001a senior at girls academic Leadership Academy and Valeria Chavez a senior at Jefferson High School leave the video oh Ellie unified Board of Education and superintendent cavalajo my name is Sean Starsky and I'm an 8th grader currently enrolled at Hesby Oaks Leadership Charter College redness is on everyone's mind but it should be here are some things that mice will does for parents for college and higher education English class quizzes and tests are formatted very similar way to sat questions we also learn about the seven husky habitats which are taken directly from the college writing this book and help students prepare for college our teachers also about their college experience and what's going to be like for us emphasize the importance of extra curricular activities such as clubs leadership and sports one last thing that my

002school does is prepares for college and life in journal is to be independent we go to our parents who are confused or stressed but our school teaches us strategies around that for the future so as we continue our preparation for high school I encourage all my medical peers to talk with their teachers and counselors now to learn about the entrance requirements thank you for this opportunity my name is Ella Saleem a senior at girls academic Leadership Academy and I plan on majoring in public health with the concentration in policy public health is everything from the water we drink to the roads we drive on I love that public health is interdisciplinary and that I can and will be able to make positive change public health is not about the individual but about the whole my

003counselors were able to spark my love for Public Health by sharing opportunities that related to my interests that were identified in my igp meeting overall my counselors not only supported me when it comes to my future but also when it comes to applying to college my college counselor Miss hervey has extended office hours for seniors to come in and ask questions or just sit down and work on their college applications this has been a huge help to me because applying to college has been tricky and sometimes hard to navigate and having Miss Harvey there to Linda Hand is crucial to my success and my peer success in applying to college I believe that counselors office hours and or access to College counseling should be something that is available at all high schools across the district

004Dallas seniors also just completed the last part of our College boot camp which started last year we learned all about FAFSA the CSS profile we learned how to read and understand the financial aid package and what it really means to take fifty thousand dollars of debt on when it comes to our district I hope that all schools can have a college boot camp that was similar to ours the SAT is another barrier when it comes to applying to college it would be great to see districts make available SAT prep that will be accessible to everyone similar to the SAT college essays is another obstacle in applying at Galla our first semester of 12th grade English we attempt to tackle the personal statement though we aren't always able to get individualized feedback it would be awesome

005if the district could provide essay editing services for its students College and Career Readiness needs to start early having conversations in the classroom starting a middle school about what your future path will look like and the steps you need to get there are vital to success for all students no student should think that college is unobtainable for them one my name is Valeria Chavez I'm from Thomas Jefferson High School I'm a senior uh I want to talk a little bit about my college aspirations um thanks God I already know the majors that I want I want to focus in nursing or psychology um between those two which are kind of related into in certain things so one of the things that inspired me the most to decide for to go for these two majors that

006I really like to be helping people and I know that the help people is something that I want I want to do for the rest of my life so either way mentally or physically I just want to be there for the community um I really I'm really excited about this year because last year was a really good year so I have a really good feeling about this when I reclassified last year which makes me so excited I started high school as an English learner student so for me like look him back and see everything that I have done this three years and I'm finally in the last one in one of the biggest moments of my life it's made me feel so happy I have no words to express it how grateful do I feel

007about it I just want to say thank you to miss Gutierrez Miss Prado mrabella and my counselors all my teachers that helped me to learn a lot and help me to reclassify especially with Gutierrez music she have been a big support for me my whole high school life um I feel like right now all the students should be in touch with your counselor which that will help you a lot especially if you're applying to college be in touch with your College counselors the best thing that you could do right now um constantly checking with my college counselor which is Miss Santos she's been helping me a lot in this kind of difficult process so just I would like to say like don't worry don't be scared follow your dreams and apply to those Primary School

008you never know what's gonna happen uh thank you to all the students who shared their college stories with us today and and some suggestions on how we could better support them as well we wish you the very best on your applications and we're excited for you as you begin this process um up next we have our labor Partners Mr McLean are there labor Partners who wish to address the board uh none object in with me yet I believe that Max RS from SEIU Local 99 went into address support can you yes Max are you here please sorry sir it's mainly respect respect for those workers that that actually did the work to take this District out of the pandemic the physical work and respect the work that they do that's the topic of the conversation

009I want to have with you today to that end we're gonna three of us are going to speak first I want to invite uh my brother president conrado Guerrero who's also a long-time employee of LAUSD thank you Max good afternoon board member superintendent good afternoon um as Max said my name is Guerrero I am the President of SEIU Local 99 and I've been a building engineer for over two decades here at LAUSD the last four years few years have sounded an alarm about how critical SEIU Local 99 members are to students in operation at our schools during the pandemic we were considered essential we provided meals to our community SEIU Local 99 Food Service workers and others served over 140 grab-and-go meals as a building engineer I upgraded all the air filters at over 120

010School sites in my area as a building and custodians disinfected and deep cleaned our schools to make sure that they were ready to reopen even though schools students weren't reporting to schools the schools still needed to be needed to be maintained during that time more recently the Heatwave showed us how important we are to keeping our ACS working and making sure students have a safe and cool learning environment and how important gardeners are to expanding shade and green space areas in our playgrounds the cyber attacks have highlighted how essential I.T technicians are securing Vital Information yet it seems we are only essential during a crisis when it's over the district goes back to business as usual the work of SEIU Local 99 members is not valued our contributions to students learning is ignored and we

011continue to be the lowest paid School District workers on our average wage is about 25 000 a year most of us still are only part-time workers here and a majority of teacher assistants after school workers Community representatives and other others have no access to health care benefits it's no wonder we have such serious staffing shortages we are currently in contract negotiations with you guys to address the issues but so far LAUSD has demonstrated how you continue to undervalue our work we are demanding Equitable wage increases that respect our work and more full-time work so that we can provide students with full Services they need SEIU Local 99 Frontline workers urge LAUSD to move forward with bargaining let's move forward for the Clean safe and supportive schools our students need thanking you and next uh my

012union sister Kelly Rodriguez good afternoon board members and superintendent carvalo my name is Kelly Rodriguez and I am an Early Education aide at Toluca Lake Early Education Center I'm also a mother of two boys and um a proud member of Local 99 I get emotional because um I love what I do and I love giving children a sense of security and especially that security when they come to school I start my day at work at 7 45 every day Monday through Friday A.M and we already have little ones there before I get there and I start off with the question of the day and that's something that those little ones look forward to when I'm right there it gives them a sense of Independence and sometimes those children that are there they have difficult times

013at home and I try to take whatever they have away maybe they might be going through something but sometimes they little little they need a little Carino which means a little love and caring and it's very rewarding to give her children security to help them know that they're smart and Powerful yet for all our hard work and caring it's very sad but many La USD workers have to go through yet we're not able to survive on our wages you know the cost of living is so expensive you know I earn 18 an hour and I'm one of the lucky ones because I work eight hours but still I live paycheck to paycheck sometimes I can't even buy groceries there have been times where I've had twenty dollars in my bank account if I'm lucky at

014the end of the month and some of us are just a pinch the pitch of being homeless and not everybody says it because we're too damn embarrassed I know a special education assistant works for LAUSD and he's in low-income housing that which LAUSD provides and he says that he's grateful and he said that his check goes right back to LAUSD you know it's so sad that he has to have a second job to make ends meet he's working for the district he and he's working for the most vulnerable children special education children and this is so wrong we work for one of the biggest school districts in the nation and you mean to tell me that we're starving I mean I don't think that we should beg for a decent wage how hard is it

015to beg for the wage a lot of us are parents at Ellie you know a lot of us are parents of children that attend LAUSD and I don't think you realize that what you're doing is you're also affecting our children the constant worry of money causes depression and anxiety on us with the employees as well we bring that home to our families our children see it and feel it kids are very smart they pick up on emotions you don't even have to talk about it they know when something is wrong foreign I don't get it how do you expect people to survive those of us who work for the district have a lot of heart integrity and love for what we do and it's so sad that the district looks at us like we're worth

016nothing we are worth more than the change that you throw at us I'm here to urge you to pay us what we're worth respect us that's all we want is respect is that so hard now I present to you our executive director Max Arias thank you Kelly um heartfelt and multiply that by a thousand thousands and um I'm here to call out the disrespect this district has repeatedly shown to the Frontline workers in our schools from low wages as you heard to reduce work hours to outright harassment on the job LAUSD has continually sent a message that classified school employees are second-class workers at LAUSD the most recent move to suddenly change the school calendar with a Consulting with Frontline workers is a blatant example of this disrespect even worse pretending to negotiate with us

017even as you publicly announced the change to acceleration days it's an outright insult not to mention a violation of the law we're going to protect our rights this is why we are urging you to vote no on changing the school calendar that you set in the spring change the school calendar in the middle of the semester will be disruptive to students families and workers at LAUSD if the district is sincere about utilizing the acceleration days as a core strategy for addressing learning loss it should do so days that maximize student participation working parents plan family gatherings on vacation travel far ahead on time based on the school calendar they look at your calendar to do that a change will have a personal and financial impact on families and could impede a parent's ability to enroll

018their children in the acceleration days I want to be clear this is not about a disagreement between two labor unions we respect utla's bargaining process over the accelerated Day schedule this is about the district's failure to reach out to the entire School Community about a critical change in school operations that impacts all workers parents and students this is about the district once again not truly understanding that it takes a full team to help our students learn inside and outside the classroom it is also about our collective bargaining agreement that's been open since 2020 you bargain with every other unit but our members are too busy bargaining over the impact of everything that had to do with safety and delivering services to students and families that's how we spent the pandemic working and supporting you yeah

019you offer a zero percent raise on that year it's about LAUSD failing to understand that students need a clean safe and supportive learning environment and that can't happen without fully staffed tools without full-time hours for classified workers without decent wages for those on the front lines without real respect for their contribution to Student Learning this disrespect a leading is leading to the dire Staffing shortages at LAUSD Target pays more than you so will fast food pretty soon and its students or ultimately the ones feeling the stress of not having Clean safe sportive schools it's important that students at Franklin High School if you haven't seen the news have to resort to circulating a petition to make sure their school is clean to ensure that bathrooms are open and the AC is working and it's not

020about the quality of the worker members it's about there's not enough of them and the ones that are there are being worked to the detriment of their health and this is just one school when there are simply not enough custodians not enough food service workers not enough special education assistance not enough staff to deliver the full Services students need and tragically it is schools in the most vulnerable communities that suffers the most we just heard a statement we also condemned the racist remarks and we demanded that all of those city council person and the head of the Federation of Labor which the machine say it happened in a neighbor's house we demanded they resign but to address the racial inequities you have to start addressing actually with equity and it starts at creating conditions and

021start by conditions for those families to thrive and it starts putting more resources to address anti-black racism and those schools where black children aren't we need to get more resources to those schools and so on that's Equity I don't want to have to define equity all of you are showing your school colors these are fine schools you went to well show us that you understand what the meaning of equity Equity means making decisions that are difficult and you know that I encourage you to do that and we're not going to stop at encouraging you can start by voting no when I change the school calendar that completely disregard the voices of stakeholders and you vote yet you vote yes we're not giving up because you're violating your rights and you can also begin to respect

022the thousands of essential School workers to keep our schools running and students learning by coming to the bargaining table with a real proposals that don't dismiss our work you can't continue to have a Workforce mainly of black and brown women living in poverty and struggling having to use their own resources to make sure that children get ahead it is unacceptable you can do better and I urge you to do better we are at a time when we can work together to achieve this but that time will pass if we don't see you really start moving in the direction of equity so I urge you I urge you to come to the table prepare to do what you must to start addressing these issues thank you for your attention thank you to our labor partners for

023their comments uh Mr McLean are there any other partners who wish to speak before the board there are not okay um board members let's proceed with committee reports um board member Ortiz Franklin anything that you'd like to share from The Innovation committee thanks um we had a great first meeting um just a couple weeks ago or was it last week time is flying by on becoming an employer of choice so great to hear from our labor Partners um ideas about how to do that really holistically we heard from a School site from a charter partner and from a teacher organization that places lots of new teachers with us and I just want to thank the presenters and the committee for listening to some innovative ideas that are available on our website a lot around incentivizing

024folks who are coming in early so that they are making a wage livable for living in Los Angeles and a lot of ideas about um really thinking holistically about meeting the needs of the employees who get to serve our kids every day so uh the one pager like I said is available on our website and all circulated around to board members as well so you can see some of the recommendations from our presenters on how Ella unified can continue to and even more so become an employer of choice our next one this month is going to be on Blackstone an achievement we're going to hear from some schools that are doing really well in closing opportunity gaps for black students as well as the district's update on black student achievement and we'll make sure to

025share all the information with you as well great thank you so much Miss Ortiz Franklin Ms Goldberg anything from curriculum and instruction our first meeting will be on the fourth Thursday of this month we will look out for that Mr schmurelson so I have a Coming Attraction for you for the family and Community engagement and that will be um on October the 12th five o'clock P.M so these are the topics we will cover the overview of the LAUSD compensatory education plan for educating students with disabilities impacted by remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic the lcap parent and family engagement and feedback opportunity for school Staffing Equity Grant and the roadmap for wellness social emotional learning and student achievement so those who cannot join us you can watch the meeting by visiting lausd's temporary website at

026achieve.lausd.net.voe Board of Education Boe and the next family and Community engagement committee will be on Wednesday December the 7th thank you thank you Mr schmerelson um Miss Garcia anything from the school climate okay great um next or lastly we have our student board member report um Mr Shin the board the floor is yours thank you board president Gomez I first wanted to thank the students uh Sean Ella and Valeria who shared their stories of how they're preparing for college and how the district is supporting them in that Journey um so the first thing I wanted to do is discuss the igp Redevelopment process which was one of the key strategies in dejivas Garcia which was one of the key strategies in priority 1D of the Strategic plan so the igp stands for individualized graduation plan

027and it's essentially a document that shows the courses that students need to take not only to be rigorous and competitive but also that are required for uccsu admission so this igp is an extraordinary extraordinarily useful resource especially for students who don't have access to private counseling or College Planning Services because it provides a really great outline of what courses they've taken so far and how many credits they need to graduate and thrive um so so far within the igp Redevelopment process the division of instruction team has been meeting with School counseling services and mices to discuss Logistics and functionality for the new igp right now they currently have a working draft that's pending approval to integrate with programming coursework and while the approval process is pending the igp development team has been meeting with stakeholders

028so during the month of October they'll be talking to counselors parents School site and District administrators as well as on Monday October 24th a focus group of students the goal for the igp is for it to be released to school counselors and therefore to students in the spring semester the new igp is going to be available in multiple languages right now it's in English and Spanish with the hope of expanding it to more languages to make it more accessible for more families so I wanted to extend my sincere thanks to Miss Brenda pensamiento and Michelle Hernandez from the division of instruction who've been working on this project and the other report I wanted to give was about what secondary especially High School is doing tomorrow which is the PSAT Administration day so 9th and 10th

029graders will be taking the practice PSAT exam and then for 11th graders their psct will also count as the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test so since seniors have already taken the PSAT multiple schools multiple high schools are taking advantage of that opportunity to lead workshops specifically related to college applications FAFSA and career development so that's what schools are doing tomorrow and with that I'll hand it back to you board president Gomez yes Mr smallsen and yeah wanted to say that on one of my visits to North Hollywood High School and I popped into a classroom and who do I see but nay chin in the classroom a Spanish 4 class is a four or three AP excuse me AP and I'm telling you I was just watching him with my mouth open so fluent so

030able to articulate and I'm just so proud I just want to tell you because I was a Spanish teacher and you are my hero okay Nate a shout out to my extraordinary Spanish teachers a senior Jewett senior Ortega uh Senora ardana because I mean it's their education very nice uh Ms Goldberg yes thank you very much um I just wanted to say that I think that we are not doing enough in this area yet and uh one of the things we did Mr superintendent and board members in the 1980s was we hired about a half a dozen UCLA sat College Prep teachers and we paid English teachers in 11th and 12th grade to take the training because what we found is is that affluent kids had their parents pay for SAT prep at UCLA but

031nobody else could afford it and I would like to see us look into reinstating that kind of program that we did back in the 1980s which allowed every single student in 11th and 12th grade to get SAT prep if they wanted it through their English teachers who got trained by the folks who do it at UCLA so we were providing the same type of service only it was now free to all our students and I know that it was very successful at the time I don't know why it was discontinued probably financially you know when we go down we'd have to cut things but I'd like us to see it again do you think Mr Chin and that's why I'm bringing it up now do you think that that students would attend if it were

032available definitely I think that students like to take advantage not I think I know that students take advantage of the resources that are offered and specifically on the way that it addresses Equity gaps is so important I know to all of us so thank you for bringing that up okay well I I knew that when I saw this item that you were going to talk about there so I thought I'd at least mention something from my long distance past thank you Miss Goldberg Mr Melvin just just to add to the course here um you know one of the things this board did a few years ago was make the SAT a work you know a requirement that students could no the SAT we did the PSAT but we also did the SAT we moved it

033to a Wednesday um it was an opt-out basis it was free and what we saw um is the percentage of 11th graders who are completing the SAT went from the mid-30s to the mid 80s in one year and then to Ms Goldberg's point we realized well we need to provide some prep and we partnered with the Khan Academy and maybe um uh Dr Garcia can can share if that's still active but partner with the Khan Academy to do for you virtual prep one of the things not now but that I'd love an update on is whether that program still exists and also has so many universities moved away from the SAT and ACT like which is what's the landscape in this District of test prep are we encouraging students to do it how many students

034are still completing it uh based on what colleges are acquiring it um but you know we we're kind of at a high water mark there in the high 80s and then did that prep and then the ground shifted a little bit during the pandemic but I'd just be curious for an update superintendent on a college test prep efforts all right stimulated a lot of discussion there for another version um sounds like more to come on this topic um all right board members let's turn now to the consent calendar as a reminder to my colleagues if you have questions or comments that will not affect your vote as we go through items please let us know we'll leave the item on consent and come right back to you for your questions or remarks um Mr McLean

035please proceed with marking the items yes a new business reaction procurement contracts tab one and sent one question uh tab two facilities contract actions and Sam one question sorry actually on one it's not a question it's a comment I'd like to note on Tab one procurement contracts uh items A and K have been withdrawn A and K that's items A and K under tab one all right tab three report of cash disbursements donation of money and materials and before routine Personnel actions so up to Tab 8 revised instructional calendar for the 2022 2023 school year session tab nine resolution zero zero five celebrating National camiante families matter but the way of everyone tab six report of Correspondence um including William settlement uniform complaint quarterly report summary okay so I'm hearing consent for that which it

036is a public hearing and we'll read the statement at that time Tab 7 Charter petitions for public hearing also public hearings will be a statement will be read that's not action I do have questions I know they're here okay the Kentucky calendar has been moved is there a second so again it's one through four five cannot be on consent eight is for discussion um and nine and oh my gosh six sorry the order is weird um one through four six and nine on um on the consent agenda all right um Mr McLean Let's uh hear from public speakers on those items okay under tab one do we have Aiden geronimus come on up you have three minutes to speak once you begin thanks uh members of the board superintendent thanks for your time uh my

037name is Aidan geronimus I'm speaking on behalf of jobs to move America and the LA County Electric bus and truck coalition we've been working in Coalition with Community groups environmental groups and labor allies to advocate for an accelerated transition to Electric school buses that also prioritizes the creation of good union manufacturing jobs we're really happy to see the purchase of these new buses these 30 new buses but we urge the district to adopt purchasing policies that evaluate job creation when companies bid on these high value contracts historically good union manufacturing jobs have been crucial to building out the American middle class we know that the district has numerous options when deciding what companies you'll buy new buses from and the district should use that position of power for the public good companies like Thomas built

038byd and IC are taking the high road and creating good jobs with a diverse Workforce meanwhile there are known Bad actors like Lion electric and bluebird Lion in particular has recently refused to meet with Community groups I look forward to the district passing and purchasing policy that evaluates these companies accordingly a policy in which the district demands that our tax dollars are not given to Bad actors thank you very much for your time thank you Joe Sullivan are you here Joe Sullivan I'm Mr Sullivan you have three minutes once you begin thank you thank you uh good afternoon or President Ford uh superintendent Carvalho and Steph my name is Joe Sullivan I work for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11 and the national electrical contractors Association in Greater Los Angeles this represents about

039300 electrical contractors in Greater Los Angeles that partner with about 10 000 Union electricians and apprentices I'm also a part of the Los Angeles County Electric bus and truck coalition I want to speak in strong support of agenda item one and the approval of the procurement of 30 electric school buses and I want to thank the board president the board superintendent and staff including Daniel Kang Christos sungli David Palmer and the rest of the team for their leadership and commitment to electrifying lausd's school bus fleet winning this Grant and procuring more electric buses not only does this help our environment protect our kids and our teachers electrifying a bus fleet of this size has the potential with proper Workforce language to create many high road middle class careers and while this is a wonderful achievement

040there's still a lot of work to be done to Electrify a 1300 school bus fleet and build out the required infrastructure and right now is the time to take advantage of unprecedented amount of Grants um but this will require full-time grant writing staff bus fleet specific engineering expertise strong utility support and benchmarks again I congratulate you on this success and I encourage a sense of urgency to complete this Mission thank you thank you Yasmine agilities Yasmine thank you you have three minutes to speak when you begin thank you good afternoon um superintendent carvalo and board members and staff my name is yasmina agelitis and I'm an attorney with Earth Justice and I'm also a member of the Los Angeles County Electric bus and truck Coalition um like our my fellow speakers have mentioned our Coalition

041is made up of environmental and labor groups that have come together around the shared goals of cleaning our air as well as uplifting communities by supporting good high-paying careers in electrification uh we are supportive of LAUSD purchasing 30 electric school buses today these 30 electric school buses are an important step in getting to full electrification at LAUSD and they will allow children drivers and communities to breathe safe clean air on their daily commune but at the same time while we commend the board for entering into this procurement contract today the Board needs to do more to accelerate its zero Mission efforts for school buses currently we are not on track to electrifying all 1300 LAUSD buses in time um infrastructure planning is a critical piece to this transition and we know that it needs to

042move faster we understand that the LA Department of Water and Power will be entering into a memorandum of understanding to fund some of the required infrastructure build out and we hope the board will make sure to ask for the funding that LAUSD needs and deserves to support this transition at scale not only will LAUSD students families and staff benefit from school bus electrification but led will as well and we hope this is reflected in the funding agreement I look forward to the district approving this procurement contract today and to accelerating electric School Bus transition you know our Coalition looks forward to continuing to to work with the board to get all LASD school buses to zero emissions thank you thank you Rebecca Schenker are you on the line Rebecca schanker you're on the line press

043star six time mute yourself and then you'll have three minutes to speak when you begin thank you good afternoon superintendent Carvalho and members of the board my name is Rebecca Shanker and I'm a member of LAUSD parents for covet safe schools I'm coming today in strong support of the ongoing investments in HVAC and today's procurement items and to ask the district to prioritize additional investments in ventilation and filtration before the fall and winter virus season as noted in the procurement Equity impact statement many of our priority schools and schools in historically underserved communities are in need of air conditioning repairs students in these schools need an environment that's conducive to learning and teaching which means the rooms shouldn't be overly hot or cold we agree students need an environment that's conducive for teaching and learning

044and HVAC is an equity need but beyond just temperature a healthy environment for Education requires safe air to protect against pollution and viruses it's back with more of 13 filters are now the only ongoing and consistent coveted safety measure left in our schools the covet dashboard remains down as it has been since September 1st honor System testing does not work especially in a school environment that prioritizes attendance many schools don't have shaded or comfortable outdoor eating infrastructure that we hope this changes with more green schools for all Investments we still don't have final approval on a memo to enable air filter donations and we still have no Clarity on whether RH fact achieves six let alone 12 air changes per hour before the viruses arrived this winter we urge LAUSD to prioritize HVAC maintenance at

045all schools including confirming we have proper ventilation in all systems in other words allowing the maximum amount of outside air while Maximum Outdoor air ventilation is District policy carbon dioxide or CO2 data readers in individual classrooms show a different reality my child's classroom recently suffered a large covet outbreak this classroom has no open windows or doors but the HVAC is working unlike many LAUSD classrooms however our CO2 readings over the course of a week show levels rising to 2 400 parts per million of CO2 regularly exceeding 2 000. State Fair indoor quality is 800 PPM my understanding is LAUSD roughly targets 1 100 PPM so my child's room was more than double lausd's own targets and demonstrably unsafe these numbers indicate that zero outdoor air was introduced into that room over the six hour school

046day and at least six people cut covet as a result our incredible teacher is still suffering the results of her infection weeks later and all the students learning is suffering in turn recent studies show that every dollar invested in clean air LAUSD can save 10 to 100 in the long term we want to see more of these Investments including a thorough ventilation and maintenance check now at all schools as well as a report on the actual clean air delivery rates and the plan to achieve 12 ACH thank you for today's ongoing investment in HVAC and we look forward to expanded Investments That prioritize the health and safety of children and staff thank you El Luisa Galindo El Luisa Galindo I just Tardes good afternoon members of the board [Music] um yesterday I was trying to

047sign up for public comment I tried to sign up for the one o'clock they said there was no more space but in and then foreign I'm here to ask you to support investment in public schools it's urgent it's important um and I'm also here to ask Monica Garcia to stop this racism against us parents we're fighting to keep these millionaires from taking over our Public Schools they need safety in the schools what they need I've been circulating this letter uh because there was discrimination against my daughter in the schools we are a group of parents teachers and students in the east LA area in Local District East and we've been tagged as uh we've been censured as parents and I've been requesting Monica Garcia return a photograph to me she knows which one is and

048I want to be I want us to be taken off this list where we're being censured my daughter could not go into Garfield because I have been tagged as a problematic parents I was just trying to defend her school against covid it wasn't to go against parents or teachers it was to protect it from Millions is getting into this school is of course teachers need attention and respect just as norie Martinez was making those terrible comments about ugly short Mexicans we as mothers need respect as well we need to be taken off this Blacklist we need to stop being censured so what I'm saying is not racist I am not lying I have faced these Millionaires and we want them to invest in schools that already exist this is the Maria brand you can see

049here supported by that Nuri Martinez everything's being paid for by Bill Brands you can see what's going on here is so those millionaires if they want to invest they should invest in schools for green spaces where it's needed not in these lies not I've never seen Maria bran in our communities fighting alongside me for public schools we don't need any more of these lies and none of these photographs as well my daughter is suffering racism in school she's not allowed to go into Garfield because her mother has been tagged on this Blacklist in the in the local districts and you can see that this is the propaganda paid for by these millionaires Martinez names of people who are supporting Maria Brennan who have censured us like Alberto Martinez other names palabra other principles that are

050churning out parents running them away from the schools you know what words Dr Escobar use who made their made those teachers cry is he said it was because how are you going to support my daughter in her mental health when there's all this racism I am Mexican I am indigenous this racism cannot go on thank you for your time as a reminder folks signed up to speak under tab one are to speak um about procurement actions as listed under that tab uh speaker number six Karina Mario are you on the line Karina Mario are you on the line if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak hello everybody um my name is Karina Murillo I'm a member of LASD parents for coolwood safe schools and

051I'm a parent I'm an laxd student in District Four I wanted to comment today in support of the ongoing investments in a track maintenance contracts and the upgrades in today's procurement item and to ask the district to prioritize additional investments in ventilation and filtration before the fall and winter virus season students need an environment that's conducive for teaching and learning and that HVAC is an equity need for temperature pollution and viral safety while we're lucky that Regional numbers are low right now in Europe and in the east coast covet is starting to rise and pediatric ICU units are already challenged with standard respiratory illness we can expect another wave here soon too with this being our first fall winter season of the pandemic with low booster uptake little to no testing and almost no masking

052we must proactively plan mitigation efforts to reduce illness and overwhelming absences lesd should prioritize HVAC maintenance at all schools but especially in historically marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution and covid maintenance should include confirming that HVAC systems are properly ventilated in their spaces in other words allowing in the maximum amount of outside air while ventilating is District policy CO2 data in individual classrooms can show different reality multiple members in our Coalition have recently recorded unsafe CO2 levels in their children's classrooms with levels exceeding 2000 PPM in rooms in different locations around the district indicating high levels of recirculated air and minimal ventilation the HVAC contract and fall HVAC work must prioritize adequate ventilation as well as identification and deployment of existing portable air scrubbers to as many rooms as possible without adequate ventilation

053we also call the district to assess and report on the actual clean air delivery rates occurring in our classrooms via combination of filtration and ventilation and to determine whether our schools are actually achieving a baseline safe air rate of six air changes per hour with a plan to achieve better recommendations of 12 air changes per hour as your own Equity statements note we need classroom environments where children can actually learn kids cannot learn if they catch covet due to an adequate ventilation and filtration if their teacher is out with covet or if any of them suffer from lock covid this contract has a potential to create positive change and Aid maintenance and operations in meeting our District's dire needs please continue to prioritize robust Investments and initiatives which increase positive long-term health and learning outcomes

054for our students not just performative ones like the 241 million allocated for excellent attendance initiatives we continue to ask you for the bare minimum adequate air filtration routine testing to keep our children staff and our entire LASD School Community safe thank you thank you Hector weso Hector weso come on up you have three minutes to speak when you begin thank you thank you good afternoon uh board members we're president superintendent my name is Hector Wessel with jobs America can you hang on to change our district attorney because over the last several years um we were the Coalition that got Los Angeles metro to commit its entire fleet to 100 electric buses by 2030. since then we've worked with countless public agencies and Transit agencies across the country to adopt good jobs policies in their purchasing

055we've even worked with manufacturers to ensure that they're creating a community commitments and Pathways to High Road employment opportunities through the manufacture of these vehicles we even launched the nation's first and only electric bus manufacturer during apprenticeship program doesn't exist anywhere else it's just here in the Antelope Valley right now but when we did this work over the last couple of years we didn't have a bipartisan infrastructure bill that put forth so many resources for this kind of transition we didn't have the chips act we didn't have the um inflation reduction act we didn't have a one and a half billion dollar commitment from California governor just for the electric just for electric school buses and so the opportunity that's in front of the district right now is once in several Generations opportunity an amount

056of public investment that hasn't been seen since the New Deal era where we can transform our fleets we can transition to clean our vehicles that are protecting our kids lungs while creating Pathways to get students into good jobs get their families into good jobs if we're willing to meet the moment with the political courage and the leadership to transform and think about how our purchasing policies can have broader impacts on how these vehicles are being built and how this transition happens with Justice and with Equity with job guarantees for black and brown workers especially with racism being the topic of the week Valley City Council and other events this is a way to do this um with with training procurement for our existing brothers and sisters in who drive the buses and do the maintenance

057on these vehicles so I want to commend staff for their ability to draw down these resources and purchase the vehicles but at this pace we're not even on track to meet the 2040 goals that this board has set out if we really want to meet the moment and we want to accelerate electrification um we we want to work with you on making sure that we can do that with policies and with the Coalition that we're building to support this thank you thank you moving on to Tab 4 routine Personnel actions good afternoon good afternoon superintendent Carvalho good afternoon board member George McKenna board member Monica Garcia board member Scott Schmelson uh student board member Nathaniel shin board President Kelly Gomez uh Secretariat that's what I know he has um board member Nick Melvin board member

058Jackie Goldberg and gold member Tanya Ortiz Franklin I would like to start by attesting to the value of SEIU Local 99 staff at our schools I was here for their presentation and I can say that they were among my most valuable Partners in serving the students of La invaluable in many many cases my name is rosalva Villanueva I am a teacher at LAUSD I have served the students of LAUSD for 23 23 years I have been placed on paid as work status I have been referred to by District staff as being out of compliance with the district's covid vaccination policy and also as refusing to obey the coveted vaccination policy which is dated August 13 2021 I am here to declare that I am in fact in compliance with the district's coveted vaccination policy I

059have followed the district's vaccination policy which on page one of this policy states that the purpose of this correspondence is to inform District staff of the vaccination requirement as a condition of continued employment and Service as well as supports in place to assist with receiving the vaccination and or verifying vaccination status and the process for seeking a medical or religious exemption from this requirement additionally on page five it says um fourth paragraph failure to comply with vaccination requirement failure to comply with the man date to be vaccinated and or failure to provide the appropriate qualifying exemption documentation may result in disciplinary action being placed on unpaid leave and or separated from District services again I would like to repeat I am and hundreds of my colleagues are in compliance with the district covet vaccination policy

060as it stands the accommodation offered include teaching in the virtual academies retirement resignation and unpaid leave as teacher positions in the virtual academies were cut many of us were left with three options retirement resignation and unpaid leave all of which are not reasonable and are not accommodation for people like myself and hundreds of teachers like me who are the sole supporters of their families during my shrb committee meeting I was informed that it is this board here in front of me today who has the authority to revisit that policy and may allow for additional accommodations including in-person teaching with reasonable things such as mask wearing social distancing Etc as we see that local state and federal data is changing thank you so much I appreciate your time thank you for your time moving on to

061tab six which is a public hearing the report of Correspondence including William settlement uniform complaint quarterly report summary I will read the following statement before action is taken on the report of Correspondence regarding the Williams settlement uniform complaint quarterly report summary a public hearing must be held this constitutes public hearing on the report on a maximum of 12 individuals who wish to address the bordence item will be heard those who wish to speak and who have not already please sign up online speakers will be called by name the first speaker is David tolkowski Mr tokowski if you're on the line press R6 to meet yourself you'll have three minutes to speak foreign thank you very much this is the April May and June report from Julie Hall panamino in which you verify that during the

062hot months April May and June there were seven complaints on facilities within the Williams complaint process Williams was a litigation that um was solved by legislation from Ms Jackie Goldberg under the Arnold Schwarzenegger governor year to make sure that every school posted in a clear way in the main office and in every classroom so that parents and employees and students could know student representatives there could help that if there are any problems with any of the facilities if there are lack of instructional materials for your advanced placement courses at North Hollywood High School if you are missing any of the textbooks for AP Chemistry or any other series of classes or any classes in ESL or online that you must be able to notify the district so they can resolve it this is a process

063that should work well looks like it works well here that there were only two complaints in all the classrooms the entire district for instructional materials and only three concerns you know the superintendent had more than three concerns in April May in June about teacher vacancies and missed assignments these teacher vacancies and Miss assignments uh should be able to be resolved if they're posted via Williams case in every classroom and every school so that we can address these issues in a smooth way Miss pandemeno is in charge of this and she could help make sure that the schools and now of course the five to seven thousand kids who are online have to be given some kind of notification that they too can families or teachers or administrators um resolved there were three areas teachers instructional

064materials and the facilities thank you very much for the time and thank you for the public hearing thank you this concludes public comment on consent items thank you to our speakers um I have a couple of questions and comments from board members on these items I think first we had Ms Goldberg with a comment on Tab one procurement contract yes thank you very much it really has a lot to do with a couple of the speakers who spoke on this item I have had an opportunity to meet with some of the people principally involved with this organization I'm looking for the name of it here well you know the last speaker I can't find his name uh jobs something good job America yes what what was the name of that group no no the jobs

065to move America yeah jobs to move America I had a chance to meet with the director of that and a couple of these folks and here's here's what I want to comment on I think it's important that we first start out by thanking our staff here at the district for their quick action on the first 10 buses and on getting that money that was put aside because you know if you don't get it quickly it's gone and you don't get it at all so I I want to start with that but as we go forward with these purchases I'm going to urge the superintendent and his staff to meet with groups like uh jobs why can't I do this right absolutely jobs to move America because uh in the city council I work with some

066of the people that are in this organization to do the living wage Coalition and to pass this uh nation's first large living wage uh uh resolution changing how we paid workers in the city of Los Angeles and contract employees the idea that they have is is that with the amount of money the federal government and this state government is going to put into it we ought to be asking a great deal of these companies in terms of how they treat their employees how they recruit or their employees representative of the community uh that they serve do they reach out to the community and offer some kinds of community uh policies that say we're going to be partners with communities these companies do this for example Thomas built does this with an offer of competitive wages

067and benefits they Source major components here in Los Angeles and I would like to see us look at the possibility of using our purchasing power to reward High Road Community Partners like them over companies like Bluebird and lion electric who actually refuse to meet with anybody to even discuss these ideas so I'm just uh wanting to point this out because it's it's on consent I support it these Tenors need to go boom let's get them but as we go forward with the hundred other buses we're going to need I would hope that we have an opportunity as a board with the leadership of our superintendent and business staff to take a look at adding perhaps some of these other issues into our contract bidding process and that's really all I wanted to say thank you

068very much thank you Ms Goldberg board membership also has a question thank you so I know I'll be preaching to the choir a little bit here if I talk more about how we all want electric buses but I think that's something we can all agree on are so valuable for our students but the thing I wanted to turn to which is thanking and commending the procurement services division um the CFO and his office and the superintendent for seeking out this grant for item o the hvip grant for the electric buses because to me this was an ideal example of one how we can support our students but two how we can collaborate with organizations outside of LAUSD and support students um so with this grant only 56 percent of the money is being paid for

069by LAUSD the rest is a voucher from the state and so to me this is a great example of how the district can collaborate and seek out funding categorical grants block grants on all the other efforts that we're looking at substance abuse awareness financial literacy all of these areas so just thank you to procurement services for that thank you both um all right next I have a question from Ms Goldberg on top two facilities contract sections yeah and I apologize because I'm sure I should have asked this earlier and I I hate to bring them up now but on page 77 Item B calls for us to uh build a um signal uh traffic light signal for a city in my Board District and I'm wondering how is it that we build signal traffic-like signals

070I think we have Mr hovatter to help he's oh he's ready part of our California Environmental Quality process known as sequa we have to go through and look at impacts that are creating new construction is going to have on areas it often includes traffic studies um it was determined by the city that we were going to create a significant traffic impact the traffic light is going about a block away from the school and their proposed mitigation for that impact was installed the new traffic signal is this going to be an ongoing issue of cities because we have a lot of them uh asking us to pay for things that we normally think of city services it was very prevalent as we were building brand new schools we're at a stage in our program where we're

071only doing modifications to existing schools so if we were going to bring a lot more students onto a campus than we're originally there we might see this type of thing again but if we're just renovating existing campuses we shouldn't say that thank you I was just curious sure okay uh board member Shin another question sorry one quick follow-up question after Ms Goldbergs so since we're paying for this uh traffic signal if there are cost overruns or anything like that with it is the district expected to supplement for those It's Our obligation to pay to have it installed we don't anticipate the cost overruns but it would be our responsibility if they did run out thank you okay thank you those were all the questions I had noted I did want to turn um to board

072member Goldberg who has her resolution tab 9 celebrating National Coming Out day Family Matters 2022 um to see if you want to make comments on the resolution yes thank you very much you know we're at a very strange time in American history with respect to a lot of the rights of people in our country women lost our rights to have a control over our body guaranteed and now we have some who are in States outside of the United States who are literally passing laws that are anti-gay anti-trans anti-gender identification they are talking about arresting parents who help their transgender students uh for um child abuse and this is creating an environment and an atmosphere throughout the country even in states where this is not a threat right now in California because young people who are

073gay and lesbian bisexual and transgender they hear this stuff they know what's going on they know that we have a Supreme Court Justice who stated in overturning Roe versus Wade that he's really really really happy to look at overturning other rights of other groups of people amongst whom for him are the lgbtq and questioning students we have about 10 percent of our students who responded to the school experience survey as self-identified as sexual or gender diverse 10 so go into any classroom count every 10 kid probably one of them is an lgbtq we have had a history in this District of urging and requiring that we treat everybody the same that we honor and respect the questioning and LGBT folks and their families but we have never noted publicly at least I couldn't find any

074record of it of coming out day and I want to explain a little bit for those of you who may not understand what this is about many years ago when there was really no desire on the part of elected officials at any level of government to do much about lgbtq rights began in San Francisco and spread nationally to New York and other places and then around the entire country that part of the reason people were negative or prejudiced against lesbian gay and bisexual transgender people as they didn't think they knew any they thought they were some beings out there and I don't know anybody like that and I'm afraid of them and they're scary and they're sick and ew well what happened when National coming out they happened people started coming out they took the

075chance of telling first family good friends neighbors maybe the whole Community hi I'm a lesbian I got the way to do that from the LA Times writing about my lesbian relationship so I had a real big coming out thing it didn't matter because the more people who know somebody who is out the more they understand that it's all a part of our population we're just another group of people within the larger population I say we because I am an out lesbian I wanted to mention this today because there are a lot of youngsters who still get called names in our schools who are attacked who are beaten up who are uh discouraged who are bad comments are made and sometimes most of the time our teachers God bless them correct those students but sometimes they

076don't so at this time on terms of national coming out day I want people to understand that there are students and adults who will not come out yet because it really isn't safe and I am not urging them to do so and by that I mean there are students in our schools unfortunately whose parents if they knew they were gay would throw them out onto the street I'm not urging them to come out today because I don't want to see them homeless I don't want to see them homeless there are people who work in work environments where they believe that to be out would make it dangerous for them with other workers I'm not urging them but everybody else I'm saying come out come out wherever you are because the more people who know that

077they know somebody oh Aunt Susan is that why she never got married Uncle David Javier Javier cousin Javier he seems to have a lot of boyfriends and not many girlfriends when it's at that level people feel scared and nervous when people are out they say oh my goodness I know somebody it's in my family it's in my friendship it's a worker I've worked with all these years it makes a difference so this resolution simply says that we want to recognize October 11th as nationally coming out day and we support continuously the policies and practices and curriculum that honor and respect lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning staff students and their families and be it resolve that we have the governing board of La unified recognized Family Matters for the 2022 National Coming Out day and

078for out for safe schools and most of us you can see have badges that say out for safe schools that's because unfortunately even here we have kids who do not feel safe at their school being out and that's something we need to continue on but I thank you for letting me bring this in and when I found out we had never done coming out day I thought well this year we're going to do it thank you very much for giving me this time thank you thank you very much Ms Goldberg um board members I think that concludes our comments and questions on the consent calendars um so let's go ahead and take a vote here we go Dr McKenna yes uh Miss Garcia absolutely Mr schmurelson yes co-sponsor also please absolutely Mr Melbourne ditto to

079both please uh Miss Goldberg absolutely yes uh Miss Ortiz Franklin uh yes and I'd love to co-sponsor and I guess on every other consent item except so we need to make mark this please procurement item I I'm a no one item I the travel agency item thanks uh board president Gomez yes and I would also love to co-sponsor and uh Mr Shin yes and co-sponsor as well thank you seven yeses and one advisory one year great thank you all so much um board members we are time serving for public comment today general public comment is 3 P.M so um it's 307 so I believe we are ready to hear from our public comment speakers Mr McQueen okay here we go um public comment number one Lilia Mitra are you here Lilia Mitra hi Lily you

080have three minutes to speak once you begin thank you good afternoon LAUSD board members and superintendent my name is Lilia Mitre and I attended LAUSD schools from kindergarten through 12th grade I am a first generation Athena college graduate from a family who mirrors the families that I have the honor of serving at equitas Academy for over eight years as the Director of family alumni and Community engagement for years our families have asked for equitas Academy to open a high school that will help Scholars continue to receive the level of academic excellence and supports they receive at equitas Academy on their trajectory to college and Beyond uplifting family voices is at the core of family Partnerships and my work at equitas I take my work very dearly because every day I see our families as my

081own family my family immigrated from Mexico and wanted a better education for their children um family voices matter and their hopes and dreams for their children we will become a reality with equitas Academy number seven when families speak we listen equitas Academy number seven would offer our families a choice in having a school in their community that meets the many needs of our Scholars and the flexibility in learning through a hybrid model equitas has also forged strong Partnerships in our community with organizations that help support the whole child and their needs of the needs of their families thus creating an impact in the Pico Union Community today I ask for your full support of equitas Academy number seven in order to show our families that their voices matter and continue to grow our impact in

082the community I will always be an advocate for all of our families who may not be able to join us today but I'm also very excited for you to hear from directly from our families thank you so much for your time and consideration in this matter thank you uh Mark wachkey Mark watchky are you here good afternoon Mr superintendent and board members my name is Mark wichke I'm a recently retired teacher with 30 years in lausd's division of adult and Career Education I address you not just as a former teacher but as a taxpayer as well in 2018 the Los Angeles County Board of Education conducted a comprehensive audit of Montebello School District the audit uncovered appreciable evidence of rampant fraud and misappropriation of funds specifically in that District's adult education program it found many

083adult education certificated Personnel were making unusually hiring being paid for work time when classes in school were not in session elicit pay and overtime and payment for work not performed recently a colleague of mine did research and mined some data that received similar fraud and misappropriation of taxpayer money taking place at lausd's adult education program but had a much greater extent and scale in over a much greater time specifically the findings revealed that in addition to today's notorious High administrator ratio the teachers and students it has created a Phalanx about a classroom positions so-called teachers advisors essentially teachers yanked out of the classroom to do non-teaching duties just to give a few examples of what the data uncovered about days days has more than 26 percent of certificated Personnel working out of the classroom over

084one in four if you count administrators nearly one-third of certificated to Personnel are in non-teaching positions eating up almost 40 percent total certificated hours in addition Dace administrators and advisors have been somping up lots of extra money suspiciously at least 1.2 million was spent on advisors over three years for work when there were no students or teachers present and for non-constructional tasks today's certificate out of classroom employees advisors also make significantly more than the average classroom teacher sometimes as much as 30 to 40 000 per year more the data also uncovered instances of fraud for example at least one day's principle gave herself extra hours totaling almost twenty thousand dollars in one year when classes were not in session and in addition to a regular salary the short time I have here doesn't permit me

085to go into more details but you can see a picture emerges the result of my colleagues 55-page research data have been compiled and sent to the superintendent and several of the board members those board members who have yet to receive it will be getting it this week keep in mind this data only represents a small part of the picture the research begs that a complete audit of days be conducted similar to the one in Montebello that is what I'm asking today please read the documentation sent to you or that will be sent to you this week in order the much needed adult of days audit updates I'm sorry thank you very much for your time thank you for your time sir uh Maria Palma are you here Maria Palmer thank you you have three minutes

086to speak once you begin good afternoon board members superintendent my name is Maria Luisa Palma over the past month I presented public comments at your meetings on the ongoing topics of parent engagement committees and District culture this week I bring these topics together to respectfully request a change to policies to get one step further toward achievement of your strategic goal plan pillar number three engagement and collaboration have previously discussed the lack of transparency on existence of State mandated District level and School site committees and parents rights to participate the lack of consistency lack of compliance with state law and systemic failures and controls and how local districts and school sites provide public access to committee agendas and meeting documents I discuss barriers to communication and collaboration between parents who are active in such committees and

087the perception of secrecy disrespect plus parents outcomes of frustration and futility in all such committees members and officers are elected by their peers however after their election there is no transparent process for peers to connect with them for example the district's website includes names of officers serving on the pack and d-lac but their contact information is not provided aren't unelected parents or constituents I respectfully request revisions to District policies to achieve the following one when parents become members of committees offer an opt-in choice to obtain an LAUSD issued email address or use their own personal email for publication together with they their names if they elect as members of their respective committees two require all School sites to maintain a dedicated standard webpage clearly visible from the main School website site with up-to-date links to

088all School site committees and parent-sponsored groups including the names of parents serving on each to include the School site committee the elac the local school Leadership Council ptas and other any other parent-sponsored school booster clubs three require local districts and PCs to maintain similar visible web pages with up-to-date links to all local and District level parent committees elections study groups parent meetings and events include names and contact information for parents elected to all such committees four require staff to conspicuously provide within a reasonable period prior to the meeting for all committees and meetings not just when State mandated all meeting materials the time the location and online meeting codes I respectfully ask board members and superintendent will you work with us parents to remove obstacles will you agree to these requests I remind you of

089words from your strategic plan we must model for our students what collaboration and respect for others looks like by creating transparent and empowered systems of Engagement to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute thank you for your consideration thank you Lucy Garcia are you on the line Lucy Garcia if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon can you hear me sure can go ahead good afternoon board members and superintendent Carvalho thank you I'm a uh I am chair of the climate curricula Committee of the climate reality project Los Angeles a very beautiful person in the staff uh of the district told me that my job is to push so I'm going to do so eight months ago you passed

090a resolution mandating climate literacy across all subjects in all grades and this year we got started here's three facts about that start number one the climate literacy task force meeting September 1st lasted 90 minutes had seven minutes devoted to climate literacy and a five-minute q a q a there were no use there no principals teachers nor School staff spoke first meeting okay not the pattern for successful Community engagement fact too did you know that the budget only supports the funding of 200 climate literacy Champions each year so that means five years from now we will have one person trained in each school to help the other teachers and staff Infuse climate teaching into all their subjects there are 245 who signed up already this year and but it's capped and daily I get a few

091emails from people who want to sign up and can't the link simply doesn't work what happens to those principals and teachers who want to create a climate aware school and find a dead link who made this budget that delays for five years completing the initial training of the first wave of climate teachers whoever they are they are your staff and you can tell them they have the budget to complete the first wave of Recruitment and training in two years not five years and eight months and worst of all fact three there is no dedicated staff to help our teachers help our students understand the most urgent and complex works the human race has yet to do not one person what is then accomplished given that last fact is amazing there is a training for our

092245 climate literacy Champions this Saturday and many partners were engaged to make it focused and Rich we need to do better we have to put first the work of informing and partnering with our students to understand the planet that they are getting if you are worried about budget then partner up with our unions and professional associations and let's go to Sacramento support the California climate literacy Initiative for 200 million dollars let's go talk in Washington about dramatically boosting education budgets this is a year to do so let's make sure that every cent that we can use of Esser funds and the inflation reaction reduction reduction act funds is applied for and and that a good stream of it goes to training our students for the future jobs that they want the jobs they want as

093Valeria explained at the beginning of this meeting are jobs that help people support families help Earth thank you very much for your time Ida Vega are you on the line Ida Vega if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak when you begin Ida Vega por favor okay LAUSD strategic Los Padres suenos foreign pandemia foreign [Music] altados foreign estudiantes Ito foreign thank you very much for your time Magda Vargas are you on the line Magda Vargas if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to speak afterwards Magda Vargas you're not on the line Magda okay Natasha Urias are you on the line Natasha oh you're here in person welcome Natasha you have three minutes to speak once you

094begin good afternoon my name is Natasha Urias and I'm an ESL teacher with the division of adult and Career Education and the proud mom of a Calvert Elementary fifth grader I'm here today because I believe that the adult division prioritizes its bureaucracy over students student enrollment plummeted 87 in 10 years and days went on a hiring spree dramatically increasing the number of people out of the classroom while downtown and administrators awarded huge amounts of overtime to themselves and to those out of the classroom today nearly 30 percent of the certificated staff including admins is out of the classroom what does that get the students well not much if you ask me certainly didn't benefit my student he told me that he put his name on an interest list for an ESL class waited months no

095one called him he came into the school and waited two and a half hours in line to register at every school you hear these stories I heard so many stories that I pretended to be an ESL student and put my name on all 10 schools interest lists and half either didn't contact me at all or contacted me after three weeks or more students aren't registered in class before summer break instead those out of the classroom receive X time to register students during the summer students text me all summer teacher how can I register a teacher when will I hear and when do they find out about class days before the class starts good luck calling the school if you're an adult ed student you'll most likely have to leave a message with the ESL departments

096the websites won't help you either most adult school websites did not list any class schedule before class began it's a disregard and a complacency for immigrant students the most amazing wonderful fabulous students that you can ever teach you are currently looking for the new executive director of adult education but this disregard for students will not end by replacing the executive director this problem has been going on for years it's at all the schools it's with all the principles it's pervasive systemic and frankly it should be a scandal I've talked to Administration about this you have 500 pages from me detailing a money trail that leads not to students or teachers but to the administrators and out of classroom my immigrant students deserve to be treated as well as I am treated as a Suburban mom

097I urge you to look into this taxpayer money should be directed to help students not enrich bureaucrats we should make sure that LAUSD lives up to its Creed that all students come first thank you thank you may I give you this is that acceptable sure you just leave it on the podium uh Lydia Aguilar are you on the line Lydia Aguilar on the line press star six to meet yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Lydia Aguilar por favor okay we'll come back to you Lydia uh Judith Mendoza are you here Judith Mendoza are here come on down you have three minutes to speak once you begin hi good afternoon I want to thank you all of you for taking the time to letting us speak up um I was hired

098by a company to work at Croatia High School and it's been a year that I haven't get paid so I came here because I see this as my last resource because we've been seeking for help we came to the district and they told us that it might take months so I have a family to support I support my mom who is being diagnosed with breast cancer so I had to take her everywhere to get um checkups and and tests and all that uh medical appointments and right now my my resources within um jobs or uh income is very low so I want to let you guys know the the school district should do something about this company named Amoroso the work for Crenshaw High School and haven't paid the company that I work for because

099we and I speak enough for my co-workers too they couldn't be here but I also want to speak up for them because some of them being they work there for longer time that I did so this is um something that maybe you guys don't know but um the company video has been waiting for the payment from Amoroso company for more than two years already so um thank you for your time thank you for letting me be here I appreciate if you guys do something about it thank you so much yeah thank you we um we're not able to address items not on the agenda but Mr superintendent can someone follow us with him yes okay someone from the staff will will fall right now on that Judith Larson are you on the line Judith Larson

100if you're on the line press star six to mute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Judith Larson okay Judith we will come back to you um Myra Guerrero are you here in person Myra Guerrero Mayra Guerrero okay Veronica Ochoa are you here in person Veronica Ochoa Eddie Torres are you here Eddie Torres oops uh thank you board uh superintendent I'm here to piggyback on what Judah said I also worked on the Crenshaw project uh but there's several of those women been paid in two years the company that we pay uh worked for they haven't been paid in two years it's been a constant struggle uh as Judith said where here's the last resort uh we asked uh Omarosa to help us no help we went through the union we were

101here three months ago uh at the district they said it might be up to six more miles uh as also again as Judas spoke there's 12 more of us like that the two names that you just called they're stuck out in traffic right now uh they brought their family so we're real people we need help and we're at our wit's end so anything you can do to appreciate all we're looking for is a one-on-one meeting with one of your staff members uh and let us uh treat our case so once again we appreciate your time bye-bye thank you sir Jay proano are you here Jay proano are you here in person come on up and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin good afternoon board members um I'm Mr Jay perrano I'm one

102of the teachers at Vista Charter Middle School otherwise to my students known as Mr or hey mister as we're going down the hall um my teaching career started at the dream of working in the district that I was working at unfortunately by the time I finished my program there was no classrooms available so by some chance I walked into Vista Charter Middle School got a teaching job with the intention of spending one year there was it and was going to move on back to the district I wanted to be at however as I'm standing here in front of you that never happened I'm now working on my eighth year at Vista Charter Middle School is one of their sixth grade English and history teachers a large part of this has to do in regards to

103some of the amazing programs and I can go on and on about those programs such as Project Lead the Way which is our stem and steam program such as the Arts that cross-connects into our history I can go on about our SEL practices like way of council and how we really use that to teach children how to show Equity to each other to really kind of show that empathy and get to communicate with their teachers and their classmates and again I can go on and on with this you see but I'm one of the few Educators here that gets to watch these students walk into those double doors as a sixth grader nervous scared complain every single day about how they don't want to be in that seat they don't want to be in that

104classroom they're ready to leave the world and become an adult and then I'm lucky enough to watch them go through their two years with us through those two years we make it over to eighth grade and I get to watch them go through culmination and it's funny to watch you fight with them as they're in class and it's it's fighting to keep them in their seats and as they're etching the doors here's our tears are streaming down their faces because they don't want to leave anymore they want to stay a middle school student forever and I'm sure many of you have experienced this before the relationships that we built has kind of led to Our Success at Vista every eighth grade culmination I get the same question why can't we stay with you guys my

105response to them is we don't have that high school we have that middle school but not that High School and I face the same challenge with their parents why can't they stay with you guys and again because we don't have that High School we've seen tremendous growth with our programs even my kids that I call my lost boys who come in and they're my Roughnecks when they enter in and by the end of eighth grade they've made massive improvements if we can see that student growth in Reading Writing collaboration empathy and just the overall connections and relationships in just those three years it makes me wonder what is it we can do if we were to carry them all the way through 12th grade in that little community that they now call home thank you

106uh Beatrice lovera are you here Beatrice lovera Beatrice are you on the line if you are press star six to unmute yourself uh is Judith Larson on the line Judith Larson if you're on the line press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak Judith Larson okay um Myra Guerrero are you on the line with us Myra if you're on the line press R6 to unmute yourself okay that concludes public comment for the general public comment period thank you so much and thank you to those who have spoken before the board um now we'll turn to the superintendent and team the superintendent will be providing an update on the implementation of the Strategic plan thank you very much Madam president uh let me introduce the the presentation and then uh Pia

107will proceed from there as the board and the community knows we we unanimously unanimously approve the uh four-year strategic plan back on June 21st since that approval a work that began immediately in capitalizing and building off the work of the 100-day plan that preceded it we are now about four months in to the first year our leadership teams across the district have continued to implement key actions to align not only our work around the Strategic plan our investments as well as progress monitoring tools to ensure that the desired outcomes are in fact realizable today we will provide an initial update on our Collective approach for a systemic implementation of the Strategic plan over the next four years based on distributive leadership across divisions officers and entities to illustrate the progress made so far we will

108highlight one strategy under each pillar future updates around the implementation of our strategic plan will occur in February for a mid-year update in June for the end of year update and then an annual report by August or September now for the details on the implementation of our strategic plan piece of the cutmail thank you superintendent the Strategic plan includes four powerful goals outlining the student outcomes we expect to see by 2026 these goals establish the primary areas of success around which we must organize post-secondary preparedness literacy numeracy and social emotional Wellness to ensure our students are ready for the world for each goal we identified yearly targets to illustrate one example under numeracy the goal in order to improve Algebra 1 Pass rates we will move students an average of 40 points closer to proficiency

109on the smarter balanced math from 22 to 26 in grades three to five and grades six to eight every year our goal is to have a 10 point Improvement in numeracy our systemic implementation of the Strategic plan is centered around the distributive leadership as part of coherence making it involves a team of Educators from different levels of leadership working collaboratively to elevate our students to achieve academic success from the district offices to the schools and principals and most importantly in every classroom team led by the teacher this vertical and horizontal alignment cultivates a collaborative culture that builds on the expertise of everyone with a clear focus on student learning as previously shared the different elements of the Strategic plan are not intended to stand alone they are interconnected and influencer support one another while the

110priorities and strategies may be categorized in a particular area each piece will work together in a coherent system to provide an exceptional education program this is key to ensuring all students graduate ready for the world we will now Spotlight some strategies measures of success and illustrate the progress made thus far under each pillar of the Strategic plan providing a world-class academic experience for our students is the most important component of ensuring that students are ready for the world for pillar one academic Excellence under the priority enriching experiences a strategy is to increase access to gifted and talented programs by addressing the disproportionality of students identified to receive services by 2026 the goal is to increase the district-wide percentage of students identified for gifted talented education programs to 14.8 percent this year the target is 13.

111based on our current data the gifted identification rate is 13.5 next pillar represents our commitment to serving the whole child in pillar 2 join Wellness a strategy under strong social emotional skills is to build the capacity of all adults on campus on the use of positive behavior interventions and supports and restorative practices to promote a positive culture in the classroom by 2026 our measure of success is to reduce the single student suspension rate to 0.15 for this year the target is 0.35 percent the current suspension rate is 0.27 listening to an elevating and acting upon the voices of our students and community members promotes deeper engagement and improves our ability to serve responsively in pillar 3 engagement and collaboration a strategy under honoring perspectives is to regularly survey students and other stakeholders to capture multiple

112perspectives on their educational experience and establish ways we can collectively support our students we will measure our success in 2026 by increasing the number of lcap educational partner engagement opportunities last year there was a total of 66 meetings this school year we have 17 engagement opportunities today with 24 plus engagements planned in November to January and 20 plus plan for the remainder of the year all students deserve a world-class education with programs in their local communities in pillar 4 operational effectiveness a strategy under 4D District of choice is to establish and refine systems to recruit students to Los Angeles Unified Schools through targeted community-based initiatives we will measure our success by in 2026 by increasing the annual percentage of students enrolled who are new to the district to at least 16 percent the target for

113this year is to increase the percentage of students enrolled new to the district to at least 12 percent so far the percentage of enrollment new to the district is 12.3 percent we believe in the boundless potential of each of our students and realizing the potential is only possible when we recognize Empower and support our staff in pillar 5 investing in staff a strategy under professional learning is to provide ongoing professional development and implementation support to Educators on the use of evidence-based practices for teaching literacy math and social emotional development we will measure success in 2026 by increasing the percentage of teachers in micro credentialing programs who come from high needs schools to 80 percent our Target this year is 60 percent so far we have 43 of participants from Sunny highest and high needs schools

114together we will continue to elevate our students to achieve academic success every member of our La unified family and Community continues to play an important role in inspiring our students to be lifelong learners we are grateful for the collaborative work and look forward to our continued commitment realizing the dreams of every one of our Scholars thank you thank you mississaug um superintendent if you have no further comments on this I'll have the board go around for some comments or questions um I know Ms Ortiz Franklin will have one start over there thanks and a quick clarifying one on pillar five the last for professional learning um the 60 and 80 percent metrics is the the way it's described right now is of the participants that are doing the micro credentialing 60 of them are from

115sunny high and highest needs schools it's not that 60 of staff at sunny and highest highest need schools are participating in my drug credentialing is that correct I can go ask our chief HR because I would love it if it were the second one thank you actually we'll have Mr Marcus good afternoon board members superintendent Carvalho okay um um yes uh the 60 are 60 uh the goal is to have 60 of the teachers at our high need schools uh participating in our micro credentialing um so we do have a large number right now where they're increasing the enrollment we're doing personalized invitations for them to enroll in our programs and there is a lot of incentive for them to currently sign up for our six micro credentials that we're offering so over the next

116few years we're trying to increase that number to 80 of the participants in our micro credentialing programs for my highest needs schools okay so I heard both of those things coming through so it will make it really simple if we had a hundred teachers at our highest needs schools um would 60 of them participate in these micro credentialing programs yes okay so that's a bigger goal than if we had a hundred participants in the micro credentialing programs and 60 of those participants were from the sunny schools yeah and I'm going to invite Michael byersdorf from our micro pronouncing programs to add a little more detail to that so the the goal is around the idea of really recruiting from our sunny high and highest need schools and having the participants in the programs the 60

117be from those schools and yeah yeah it's different so okay we would love to see I think um some of the numbers right because it matters if it's like five participants or six participants of ten versus you know hundreds of teachers at our highest needs schools I think it could be really meaningful if more than half of the teachers at our highest needs schools participate in micro credentialing if it's not more than half and it's just a handful but we're still meeting the 60 it might not be as meaningful of a metric as sort of what I'm getting at yeah and that that that's very much the goal so when we're reaching out to schools we very much want the support of the principal to identify these teams of teachers we very much want them

118to participate together not as like I'm the only person from my school because there's power um absolutely in the micro credential they participate as a community of practice if I'm there with my other grade level members or even other folks from my school I can it's much more valuable so that is the way we're aiming our recruitment is to have that happen great thanks um and I'll just say for the superintendent this makes a lot of sense to just do a snippet here and there because there's a lot of things in the Strategic plan if at all possible I guess my preference would be on pillar five to look at that evaluation metric of the professional development and I know we were looking for that from the buyback days in August like what are we

119assessing our Learners on our adult Learners on um is it working the professional development and how do we know that it's working I think that'll be really informative for for us as a board to get that sort of metric ideally in our February update or whenever it can come before but that would be my preference for that pillar and then for pillar one I'd love to see the interim student outcome data um I think you know gifted and talented is an important metric but maybe again another metric that will really help us understand if we're on track our our interim assessments and by February I hope we'll have some middle of the Year data where we can see how many more kids are likely to be on grade level this year again not that gifted

120and talented is not important but I would request if we could look at some of that interim student outcome data on track to our big goals around sbac um proficiency so that's it for me for now great thank you Miss Goldberg uh you asked my first question thank you very much because I couldn't figure out which it was I'm looking at Pillar one and it says 22 23 progress monitoring data percentage of identified African-American and latinx students so that's the total population no it can't be so what does that mean those that that we only have 426 latinx students who are identified as gifted and talented yeah I'll have Pedro Garcia will be a little responsible thank you for the question board member Goldberg we have Aaron Yoshida here to support with that response thank

121you hi thank you so much hi my name is Aaron Yoshida Airman I'm the interim director for gifted talented programs it's an honor to be here so the numbers that were presented are actually newly identified students that happen just in the past few months when school started so no those percentages no I saw 5259 though that's pretty good yeah and then I saw 426 on how did that happen that's just since July okay uh okay and uh the the kind of over uh broad question I have is is that when you have four-year goals and each year you say let's just take District gold numeracy uh plus 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10. my personal experience has been that the first year we move into a new program you don't get as big a

122results as in the second and third and fourth years and I'm wondering whether or not uh those numbers are kind of firm in your head that it's got to be 10 each year or whether we would take into a consideration that the year one is often a little lower but year two is usually a big year and three is usually the biggest year in a four-year plan so I would just urge you to think about maybe setting slightly different goals for each year in some of these categories um the only other thing I had was is uh to take a look let me see if I can find it quickly here yeah uh operational effectiveness District of choice um you're saying that this that we have currently 20 12.3 percent new students enrolled does that

123include kindergarten etk eec or is that uh transfers in at different age groups from other parts of the world or other districts or other states or other countries or other other yeah good afternoon uh Derek chalice and your executive director um Office of the chief strategy officer that number excludes uh new enrollees at the earliest grade levels oh so that's actually just new students uh who are identified as coming from outside the district so we have already this year 12.3 percent more students than we had last year from outside the district that's the percentage of students currently enrolled who are enrolled from outside the district this year is is this unusual um I think uh last year's number was a little unusual because it was a little higher um this year uh we're we're in

124a new normal I think so we may need to revisit but we are growing in terms of outside students coming in we are doing our best to recruit um as much as we can um I I would hope in the next report we would also take a look at District of choice for EE swing in terms of filling those thousands of positions we've thousands of classroom openings that we've done and whether or not we need to have a real campaign around going out and tracking those youngsters and letting them know that this is free and it is quality you have those numbers and we're working closely with Early Education to um work on a marketing campaign around that as well good thank you I'm very pleased to see on the very first page after the

125cover that you're talking about coming back mid-year in February and giving us a real update at the end of the first semester statistics I like the idea that we don't wait till the end of the year to hear what's going on and I appreciate that very much thank you thank you Miss Goldberg um I will get back to the question just to clarify that last no Dr Chad just want to make sure I understand so the 12.3 enrollment new is not in it's not an increase in enrollment that is the percentage of the overall enrollment that our students who are new to LAUSD that's correct okay just wanted to make sure all right thank you um Mr Melvin I think you were next thank you um thanks for this uh mississaug and and team it's

126helpful I guess two questions one is just similar to I think a process question Mr Ortiz Franklin asked this is I mean we're seeing these Snippets um they're just pulling out pillars I'm curious we still have not seen like a implementation plan for the entire strategic plan I know there's a lot of plans there the implementation so I'm curious if we're going to get that or when the public can expect kind of the Mac not just the slivers but the macro implementation guide sure um there's actually an implementation guide that's currently available for our principals um it's available through the principles portal we've talked to the principals and teachers for different resources they'd like included on that so you'll see that also line for every single priority second thing is in terms of each division

127is working as we had shared into vertical articulation and horizontal articulation coming up with division specific action plans that really outline the programs projects and initiatives that are very specific and aligned to the strategy so that's forthcoming and in our February update will continue to share more details right and the implementation guide doesn't track data at least the one I've seen doesn't track data the way that these Snippets are so is there a macro implementation or progress monitoring plan yes we're trying we're working on those details and we hope to share by the February update okay thank you and then other question um probably for soon to be doctor Mr Garcia uh is is around tutoring you know pillar 1C is academic Excellence it talks about closing gaps and high impact tutoring and I've been

128you know somewhat of a broken record on this remain disappointed in how few students are receiving tutoring services and my understanding is that one of our partners Book Nook which is board approved a contract for millions of dollars you know has only been able to register Book Nook um it was a multi-million dollar contract and that they've only been able to register 500 out of 5 000 slots for the first cohort so I guess Mr Garcia I mean that's my first question is that are those numbers correct thanks for the question Mr Marvel Wayne I I want to also add that in terms of the tutoring in general uh we're coordinating now with the schools in local districts we have identified staff to assist with the implementation of Book Nook and other vendors that we've

129partnered with so the infrastructure is being solidified now and that we expect a much more um I think a higher amount of students than we we have initially in terms of in-person tutoring and that's what you're referring to as the in-person well bookmark is actually virtual okay but I'm I'm talking about in person and in addition to the virtual on-demand services so in general what I'm saying is more and more students will be coming on board as more and more staff are available to to to take on the the need that we have uh that's what I'm trying to articulate yeah and I guess superintendent of my frustration is that this is a conversation we've had now going on two years and we talk about we've now seen the data students lost a lot during

130the school closures we're going to be talking in a few minutes about a school calendar and acceleration days but we have this strategy for actually reaching students um creatively uh before school after school on weekends and if we're really only at 10 capacity for a a highly trusted vetted partner that we're spending a lot of money on um it's a way a huge waste it's a waste of money it's a wasted opportunity more importantly for kids and you know my understanding and talking to some Partners in schools is in addition to the lack of maybe essential strategy on this which I think is being addressed particularly in the Strategic plan that there have been barriers that the district has been putting up towards providing services that make it hard for tutors to reach families for

131tutors to tutor kids at times that are more um uh that make more sense for tutoring like after school or on weekends and it's not because the tutoring partners aren't available it's because the barriers that we have put up as a district whether it's um the need for additional supervision of District employees besides Tutors or consent form processes or additional layers of background checks and so you know and this isn't this isn't um something that is necessarily limited by California law or policy because my understanding is that other districts like San Francisco Sacramento um Oakland have been working with the same partners and able to tutor a much higher percentage of students actually a higher volume of students period which is embarrassing given that we're so much bigger and yet they're tutoring more students so

132you know I say this because I really I do my frustration level is growing and that we're not getting data that we're requesting and the data that we are getting is suggesting that ninety percent of the slots that we have paid for are going vacant which is both a waste of our resources but also again like I said most importantly these kids aren't getting tutored and so if I'd like to know from the superintendent and his team if there are things that the district can do proactively to address that ASAP because some of these contracts only go for a few more months and that's already you know Midway through the semester so I just yeah just on that one topic I'm also hearing from a lot of schools that the parents would rather have the

133kids stay after with a live tutor then to call in for Elm work help at night this is Elementary primarily so I'm wondering whether or not we could shift some of those resources from to the after school uh right after school there are many schools I have one school has 17 teachers that are doing it voluntarily after school right now but they're not enough they think they need more people and they can't seem to find any way to get tutors from any of these tutoring contracts because they've been told that those tutoring contracts are for individual students to call and make arrangements for help for immediate help on homework so I'm wondering if we could maybe shift some of the emphasis from immediate help from homework to having some of those same resources go to

134actually some additional after school particularly I've heard from elementary principals about this yeah and and just to close out for me I think too there's a disconnect between some of the things we discuss in this room and what it means to parents and so we hear a lot in the Strategic plan com uh conversations around tier one intervention in tier two and other parents Miss Goldberg's point just wants to know like this is when my kid is available for tutoring this is when I want to be tutored how does that happen and and you know these Partners these tutoring Partners whether they're um School Employees or in this case these companies we've contracted with are reaching out saying we have the combat like we want to serve your students we're just unable to because you're

135making it incredibly difficult and so you know I've raised this in various forms but it's getting to a point now that it's mid-october where it really needs to be addressed and I you know hope for an update on that soon so thank you so I'll chime in on this uh very very quickly number one in advance of the start of this school year there were three priorities that I noted to staff one was a preemptive identification of students who last year did not attend school consistently secondly the list of students who lacked adequate connectivity to be able to do school work online beyond the school bell and thirdly was the list of students on the basis of academic need would need to access tutorial services we have developed goals that are specific to Local District

136and down to schools for participation uh or for strategy specific to attendance connectivity and tutorial Services I too am growing a bit frustrated about this notwithstanding some of the legal impediments some of which appear to be self-imposed that requires some degree of revisiting yeah there appear to be some challenges that we're working through we will bring back to the board at an export meeting an update on on tutoring services with this aggregated data there'll be no place for anyone to hide this has been a priority and it is apparent that not everybody's listening with both ears foreign pillar number one talks about the gifted program as long as I've been in LAUSD every year there's less and less money for gifted education to the fact where I don't think there's any any money now at

137all so we used to have people who would test for gifted who would attract gifted students who would work on it and I don't know if there's any more money in the budget is our gifted coordinator still here I just like to know are we going to add any money to the gifted budget at the schools which is probably zero or maybe a couple dollars in there what what can we do to improve uh the funding for gifted Ed thank you I appreciate you asking the question so gate is now included in lcff so schools get that funding and they have to decide to use it on Gates so we appreciate your advocacy so they know they can spend the money they don't get earmarked funds for gate at the schools um including schools that

138are designated as you know schools for advanced studies they don't get specific funding for that but you're right we need that support and you know Equitable access is at the core of our work and gifted talented programs we have so many different programs and initiatives in place to ensure that our students needs are met in every school and program we have a gate program in every single K-12 School in our district but you're absolutely right they need the support so I'd love to give a little more context on what we have in place already in accordance with what we're going to be doing with the Strategic plan just so you know we're not starting from scratch here in 2011 we entered a voluntary resolution agreement with the office for civil rights to specifically address the

139disproportionate participation of African-American and Latino students in gate and we exited that in 2019 because of all of the efforts we put in I want our our GATE program to be known as the premier GATE program in the nation for many other gifted programs in the country we are known as that because we're not only the biggest but we are the most Equitable in terms of what we're doing we identify in seven distinct categories which is more than any school district in the nation we have an alternate verification process so non-identified students have Equitable access to our gate programs as well because they can be verified meeting critical thinking and problem solving skills in their primary language they don't have to be tested or identified to equitably access our gate programs like an sas site

140or a gifted magnet um we have our targeted identification program where we actually reach out to schools that are low identifying and low performing with our bsap schools 70 of them are actually our targeted identification program schools too so we're cross stitching that work together um we're the only District a large Urban School District that utilizes um a universal screening assessment where we test every single second grader um using a non-verbal assessment um all of our assessments are culture free and language neutral I could go on and on but the efforts are there we have a very tiny team we have a gate program in every school district or excuse me every school in this district and so we we appreciate being in the Strategic plan and we will continue our efforts um with your

141support of course and I do appreciate the explanation but my question is it's not designated funds it's in a big pot absolutely so hopefully the school Leadership Council decides how much money will go into the gate budget when they do budgeting exactly exactly well they have to know they have to know and we're working closely with El Cap to make sure that they have those in place so they know that those are even options absolutely yeah I know that flexible funding is great but I'm very very in favor of funding that's designated for gate students so that it will be there and not dispersed elsewhere so we are too including for a school's like gate coordinator at every school as well because many of them are classroom teachers that are doing the gate coordinators above

142and beyond their instructions or the counselor or the counselor yes and it's another job for them to do and they're full-time instructors absolutely and they're worn out as it is okay thank you thank you all right Miss Garcia thank you superintendent in the February update will we be able to see a financial update as well on investments uh to the extent that they are correlated to deliverables under strategic plan yes in fact open gov which is an asset that we showcased before the board is poised to do them wonderful news I imagine the first interim that's coming in December will be the preview of what we've spent in those instructional budgets and the HR pieces nice job Dr McKenna did you have anything okay board membership go ahead thank you I actually don't have any

143questions I just wanted to share a brief comment related to pillar 3 and what the student empowerment unit and then I student board member and doing to encourage student engagement um so first I just want to reiterate the importance of students student engagement I know everybody up here agrees you know students first um and so I wanted to address specifically with the 2026 and 2223 measures of success related to the lcap and increasing engagement opportunities so right now what the student empowerment is doing and I'm working on this project as well is training students around the district across board districts across local districts to be lcap ambassadors in the school and so we just had a briefing with these students last month where we went over a presentation that was prepared for us by Ms

144Chevalier and with support from Dr Chao and everybody who's working on the lcap team and so students got this presentation they have a guide on how to lead them within their schools and So within the next couple of months students will be able to talk to their administrators about hosting an lcap engagement session at school and then you know they'll be able to use Library Auditorium or something like that and give this presentation give details on what exactly the lcap is how it supports students and why it's so important to have student engagement and then at the end we'll give an opportunity for all of these students to engage in the online thought Exchange program so my goal in the student empowerment school for this year is hopefully to Triple the amount of year-over-year student

145engagement to me this guy's a limit why not quadruple quintuplet because we have these students who are willing to serve as lcap ambassadors so the goal isn't to make you know every student an expert in lcap they don't need to know it line by line but really the idea is that we hear from students that they have an opportunity to contribute new ideas and upvote you know ideas from other students and staff members to say hey I agree with this this is what we need and this is how you know we can make this amazing District just a little bit better so thank you that's great it's exciting to hear that we will have more student voices on the lcap process and thank you so much for your leadership on that um I have just

146a couple of questions for myself um one just on slide nine on the the gifted data um was just curious maybe not right at this meeting but if we can find out what the 13.5 gifted identification rate looks like disaggregated for student groups um because I know that the intention is obviously to address disproportionality and lack of access for certain student groups despite all all of the other efforts that you highlighted um so that would be helpful um I also a similar question on the current single student suspension rate it would be great to know again what does that look like disaggregated we know that um though we've made great progress in reducing student suspensions overall there continues to be disproportionality for some of our student groups including our black students our students who receive

147special education services among others um so that would be another data point that would be great to have um I also on slide 12 you know second Ms Goldberg's desire to to learn about our new enrollees in our Early Education um programs thinking also ahead it would be great to know about are we retaining them after they enroll and are they enrolling in K-12 once they've completed um Pre-K and TK uh and I also was wondering uh if we have a sense of when we will receive you know Norm day figures um will an informative be going to the board on that so uh Norm day figures have not been uh revealed to me yet I expect them uh this week uh we have to go into some deep analysis I'm not rushing this uh

148I know I promised the board that going to next year we'll use the summer to avoid a process that quite frankly I think can be avoided um without putting parents and teachers to this to this process of uh dealing with shifts in enrollment specific to school after the school year has has begun uh and I would like to try to mitigate some of the impact of that even this year so I'm not going to rush with decision specific Norm day I'm going to try to mitigate some of it I expect to get the data this week and then provide the board some information maybe as early as next week great look forward to the data and the conversation about improving the process um I also just wanted to thank the team I think it's at

149a really important exercise that we are constantly circling back on our strategic plan and making sure that we're making progress and that the board is centering our work on uh progress towards achieving our goals so I know this was a very preliminary data here but I think it's a great start um to the work of implementation so appreciation Mr malboy Mrs I just want to mention that our next Cal agenda we have Norm day enrollment discussion agenda is too so we'll be able to discuss or advertisements for future future conversations at the board um great thank you so much um superintendent and team we appreciate it uh board members let's turn now quickly to our items that are not on consent for today those are tabs five and tabs eight and then finally we will

150conclude with tab seven the public hearings apologies to those of you who've been waiting for that let's be let's move to F5 all seconded are there any speakers on Tab 5 provisional internship permits yes we have one speaker that speaker is David tokoski if you're on the line squeeze Place star six to meet yourself you'll have three minutes to speak Mr David tokowski if you're on the line press star six to mute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Mr tokovsky are you on the line we had you earlier press star six to unmute yourself okay um no Mr jokowski all right board members any questions or comments on Tab five seeing them let's call the vote Dr McKenna uh I'm gonna pay us Miss Garcia yes Mr schmorelson yes Mr

151Melvin yes Miss Goldberg yes Miss Ortiz Franklin yes for president Gomez yes six eyes passes yes yes I'm sorry are you abstaining or uh yes okay I'm standing and what I'm saying is you're voting yes voting yes okay thank you sir I heard a yes affirmative yes thank you seven eyes I'm sorry my Louisiana comes out I can't always pronounce my word it was my fault um all right board members let's turn next to tab by okay yes um the revised instructional calendar for the 22-23 school year their motion move it okay it's been moved and seconded Mr McLean do we have speakers on this item we sure do okay let's hear from speakers and then I believe the superintendent will introduce and then we can have board member discussion all right the first speaker

152on the line is Mr Ronan Estes Mr Ronan pesties or are you online press star six to unmute yourself you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin Mr pesties I see you online press star six to mute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak foreign can you hear me we sure can go ahead please good afternoon board members good afternoon Mr superintendent I just want to take this opportunity uh to discuss the unfortunate case of the acceleration days and this is the broker that is coming on in the last couple of weeks between the different labor partners and also in the hypocrisy of your medical partner UCLA as far as it's coming on uh what we can see also in the last couple of weeks between the packing between the acceleration the between

153what's going on in CTO right now we have a lot of talks about a lot of things that are not involving education and there was an opportunity to add more education to the more students keeps and apparently there's going to be a missed opportunity so you guys brought this gentleman he's a calvaro from Florida to help this district and to push it forward and unfortunately it's been got in the last couple of weeks it's been a campaign involving ukla and their members to smearing and to trying to just let you know got into the efforts of pushing the education of this District the numbers of the failures and the kids that are not uh passing grades are enormous Unfortunately they are presenting them as like 40 passing or exactly 60 trailing and we should all

154be extremely concerned about it obviously and when there's opportunity to push the kids it seems like there's a plan fail that is keep putting uh breaks on the wheels of trying to get those kids the best education that they can and expecting you guys the board members to support Mr Cavallo in this effort I didn't hear like any support in the last couple weeks from the board members trying to get back those days to the kids like some of the other labor partners that were like exciting and sign up for those efforts families as plans you are the labor Partners as friends and now going back and changing that that's going to be an issue for everybody and again the kids are the ones that are going to be missing and losing something else that

155is actually connected to that I just saw that star is the program that is after hours requesting to additional funds from parents because the district is asking them for more money for the facilities and this is again this is where the kids are actually getting those additional studies this additional contact with stem and with other programs and adding more money on the parents basically going to say cutting down in education for the kids so I want to also take this opportunity to ask the board and the superintendent to examine again this request from Star it was a huge success for my son he really loved that program and I think a lot of parents a lot of kids need a program and need to be affordable so this is what thank you for your time

156uh Maria Daisy Ortiz Maria Daisy Ortiz I believe you are here my name is good afternoon distinguished members my name is Maria Daisy Ortiz and I am a mother of a student with dyslexia a Libro ssia foreign [Music] to show some evidence regarding a resolution we made in 2017 for the inside this book dyslexia is not appearing and that causes a problem when it comes time to IEP they're not considering dyslexia as a special conditions and since we're in the month of Dyslexia awareness you can see by the silver colors I'm wearing one year I was here passing out silver ribbons to raise awareness about dyslexia foreign the district needs to be including two words that I want you to Define for me what is equity for you what is inclusion for you foreign if

157dyslexia is not included in this book that was revised by you in 2018 what is it we're doing about just supporting dyslexia is it a lie or is it you're trying to pull the wool over our eyes and according to the Strategic plan where in it do you see dyslexia the statistics show one in five students has dyslexia I'd like to remind you that this is on Tab of the instructional calendar on Tab eight yeah and so it's important to keep our remarks constrained to that item is I'm sorry sir please do not censure me this is a public forum and if there's no space for us to express ourselves we have to take advantage of the space please with uh my all due respect please let me finish and also as far as equity

158for our children what is an appropriate education there's children are being provided online tutoring but that is not appropriate for children with dyslexia inclusion inclusion is is to accommodate have appropriate accommodations within instruction time professions and what about professional development supposedly it's being done through Ortho Willingham but what about the implementation of that how are you monitoring it I am seeing a lack of it every day with my daughter is and as far as the budget what money is being sent to help these children with equity and inclusion is and as far as the Strategic panel I want to tell you uh to you the superintendent and to you as a board of education as defined in delac and in package I believe you're using those forums for your public relations because I haven't seen

159any proof to the contrary come over so how are you going to help those children who are below goal or just just meeting goal what about those 76 percent who are not in math and in English I can say I have a plan to go to the Moon I'm sorry I can say I can go to the moon but if I don't have a plan to get there I was just a pretty conversation in English and the English Learners who are only at six percent of proficiency in math and in English and you're censoring us our voices with these webinars which is only one-way communication I'm not going to go to a meeting where my questions will not be answered yes and it's your responsibility to make sure schools are safe and healthy because the

160money is going to you to do so not to us thank you this concludes public comment on Tab 8. thank you Mr McLean uh superintendent thank you very much so this is one of those times when the conversation is not easy but it's necessary let me begin with what should be very obvious to all of us but uh there's still some degree of controversy and push back against uh what I believe is universal truth as a result of uh the pandemic as a result of the disruptive learning environment as a result of the interrupted process for education as a result of distance learning as a result of all the elements we know impacted our kids there was significant loss of performance capacity as demonstrated in a number of ways whether it's smart a balance here

161in the state of California applicable to Los Angeles whether it is the nape assessment across the U.S we know kids lost ground whatever wording you want to use kids lost ground if you don't like learning loss interrupted learning at the end of the day when you compare students performance across grade level subject areas particularly when you disaggregate the data by a social economic status look at the performance of poor students English language limited students or students with disabilities you see a disproportionate loss of academic potential this is no longer a debate and sometimes it is disheartening to realize or to hear individuals who so aggressively and rightfully so subscribe to good medicine and science to support the ideals and the steps and the measures that they adopted but so quickly dismissed something that should be

162equally obvious that kids lost ground now I'm one who believes in the power of public education believes in the power of Education period and the power of education is manifested by a teacher or teachers and support staff and students in an environment that we usually refer to as a school teachers students support staff the best investment now we don't we do not take on a fight against the first 180 days of instruction every one of those days we believe they signify and stand for something important every one of those days we think it's the best investment we could make in the lives of those kids we feed them we diagnose them we detect sometimes abuse that were not for their time in school would have gone unnoticed we educate them we give them exposure to

163the Arts and Music we take them on field trips we take them to to the parks so I believe the first day of Education the 180th day of Education are valuable Investments they're not expenditures they are investments so my question now is this if kids particularly the kids I hear so many people talk about we need to do so much more for black and brown kids kids in poverty kids in foster care homeless kids English language learners students with disabilities if they lost something the principles of equity would dictate that we need to give them more of what works more of what we value and I may be wrong but I value teaching I value teaching by teachers in front of students so if it's good for the first 180 days it cannot necessarily become

164bad terrible a stunt or a waste of money on the 181st day I can be told you know what I don't want to do it it's not for me I can accept that I can accept that that's a personal choice but I have to refuse based on my belief in public education that if the first 180 days were valuable experiences worth the investment the 181st second third or fourth cannot be something less than let's argue a preference a choice an option let's argue whether or not I want a longer vacation or not that is a perfectly defensible argument let us argue perhaps where those days would be placed in the middle of the year at the beginning of the year at the end of the year or maybe during the winter break since three weeks

165of winter break trust me for those who believe in the summer slide LAUSD experiences a winter slide not necessarily reflective of a best practice even if it's a practice that's been around for a long time does not make it the best for students why am I saying this I'm saying this because quite frankly it is disheartening and I want to tell the board that I sincerely apologize to you and the community for the fact that we try to do something that was in the best interest of students why number one we invited individuals to a table for a discussion that discussion never took place we asked let's discuss the what and the how and the when or the where would be obvious the school houses across L.A we were not ever able to have that

166conversation in fact the message was that is not something we're even willing to discuss I get it so an alternative was found there was legally viable to add four days throughout the year not as these days have been referenced as just selected out of the sky now these were four specially placed days during transitional periods associated with semesters upon which time teachers based on formative assessments would know which students needed critical assistance those sins then would be heavily recruited to participate in these programs not at the exclusion of everybody else because it is a Wednesday so students that needed that critical academic assistance would get it other students would benefit from enrichment activities at the same schools all of this done on an optional basis paid for this would not be volunteer work to cement

167this possibility we offer three days of professional development two-thirds of the workforce showed up through our schools for professional development activities two-thirds it was great but the students weren't there this was a two-part deal so initially the board approved based on a recommendation that made sense four days of instructional opportunity of acceleration October 19 December 7 March 15th and April 19th it is clear to us that we cannot do something despite our best of intentions that in the end would not benefit the students and yes if anybody wants to claim a win or celebrate the win because we were not able to on these Wednesdays bring bring kids to our schools let that be a celebration that somebody celebrates but count me out count me out I will always show up for the kid because

168that was the right thing now could we have been more communicative up front perhaps maybe we could have but the opportunity to go to the table where the discussion takes place was never afforded to us so where do we have that conversation it was clear after a number of actions that we would be possibly putting our students in a position and where they would not necessarily capitalize on the intention of accelerating their academic potential in a nurturing environment where they would get their meals where they would get their protection but at the end of the day we have decisions to make and if we know that despite of our intentions that some individual will show up but others will not and the days is designed would not lead to an educational benefit to our students

169moreover because of requests and and demands if in fact on that day or those days students supervision would be compromised then that is a bridge that we cannot cross we cannot enter into that level of uncertainty why because children are important and in our world there's always an opportunity to create a second best alternative to the initial plan and the second best alternative is to place those days still doing transition periods but not in the middle of the week with the hopes that the community in our schools and the surrounding Community rallies around the identification of the students who need to be there and then we have the needed staff we depend on to actually provide the acceleration of these Goods and that's what the secondary plan does two days during the winter recess December

17019th and 20th and two days during spring break April 3rd and 4th I want to say a couple of things number one to those entities those individuals who from day one recognize the benefit and selflessly said I'll be there and to the entities that said we will sign we will be there thank you thank you second thing I'm sorry that we have to take a detour and pivot to a second but best alternative to nothing and we're doing this not because of pressure from someone but because we cannot put place our students our children in the position of risk or no benefit that's not something I can advocate for so this is the second best alternative to what would have been in my opinion the best thing the important thing at the end of the

171day is we need our kids to have additional time on task we need our kids to have contact with their teachers we need our students to be protected often from the streets they are not so kind to them and we need our kids to be transported and fed in our schools and if these four days as an alternative to the original plan is the best we can do then you know what I'll take it because anyone who's ever been hungry or been out on the street a little food is always better than no food at all all shelter is better than no shelter at all a bit more education is better than none at all and that's why this recommendation is before you again I thank those who early on stood up showed up spoke

172up and said we're going to do this I respect the opinions of those who said not for me and that's the way the plan was designed was optional and I hope Madam president members of the board that with this vote the board interprets it's not a win for some are lost for others it is the most protective vote for children that simultaneously enables and educational opportunity second best alternative but still valuable and this vote stands also for a recognition for those who despise their opinion currently and I understand is an opinion driven by history of disappointment and a history of at least perceived disrespect and I'll make a point here this board has empowered us to renew our efforts and I'm speaking specifically with to SEIU employees renew our efforts in a more aggressive way

173that in fact addresses the issue of equity that the previous speaker spoke of so eloquently but it is often so denied to many I believe we have the tools we have the authorization we have the latitude to get something done quickly and my request is let's not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good is it a perfect plan no is it good for many kids absolutely can we fly with this planet simultaneously address the issues of equity and pay compensation workplace conditions recognizing where some of our colleagues are and do more for them the same way we want to do more for the kids who are at the bottom the Resolute answer to that should be yes and I know that by tomorrow there will be an organized campaign on social media

174attacking what I'm saying tonight and that's okay that's okay this is the right thing for kids and it's a win for kids and it's regretful and regrettable that unfortunately some adults who did absolutely the right thing at the beginning have felt the pain of at least perceived as respect as a result of what we have to do to help our students at this point thank you madam president superintendent uh board members questions or comments on this item Mr Melbourne thank you Miss Gomez and thank you superintendent because I've I share your your frustration on this and this is a both a tough vote and a frustrating one and it's frustrating because for two years now this board has wanted to expand learning time for kids who even before we had the data we knew had

175lost something and though others would deny it we knew that they had lost something and for the second year in a row through now that we have the data to prove that um to show the gaps the learning loss that are exacerbated by historic lines of inequity um for the second year in a row we weren't able to get what we wanted through a combination of we have to own the unforced errors on the district admin and because as is often the case um adult agendas got in the way of kids but it's tough because on one hand uh I agree with everything that our labor Partners from SEIU said and they said eloquently and I want to thank them for taking time to come here to call in to write us um to talk

176about what this means for them and this was clear that it was much larger than the calendar um and and they're right about getting the short end of the stick they're right about standing with this district and about trying to be collaborative Partners um and uh that this is just year after year an incident after incident where bad behavior is rewarded and good behavior is ignored um but it's also tough because on the other hand uh our schools are not ready for an optional day of school next week and if you talk to our families and our students and our teachers and our principals um not revising this calendar uh will lead to chaos and I think lack of student safety and stability and there will be no acceleration there will be no enrichment maybe

177there will be babysitting and that's the unfortunate reality of this situation so on one hand you have the need and the desire and the righteousness I think of supporting those who spoke to us and who have stood with us um and on the other hand you have the the real politique of what's actually going to happen in schools in a week um and what do we have to do for kids and I wish there was a way to bifurcate this vote so that we could vote or I should say I could vote and support the demands from SEIU for respect for a living wage for Equity within bargaining for um the responsiveness this District the way we respond to other labor Partners when it comes to sitting down with them and communicating with them and

178being there for them so I could vote Yes but then also a way where we could amend this calendar uh so that when families show up when parents drop their kids off at school next Wednesday they know what to expect and they're actually going to learn and unfortunately we can and that's that's why it's tough um and why I'm struggling with this and ultimately I think we do need to have a a quote unquote normal day of school next week um but it's unfortunate that we're undermining Partners who have stood with us um so I'm eager to hear what my colleagues have to say and I appreciate your articulation of this because I think that is that is the challenge the the reality of what would happen next week versus I think the more righteousness

179of the cause I will say you know that we are all reeling this week from those audio tapes um and how it undermine our faith in our public officials and our leaders and of course the most odious element of that was the overt anti-black racism and anti-indigenous racism and homophobia but if you listen to that conversation it was about power who has it who doesn't who is in the room who's not in the room um and someone who's sitting at this this table will often say that power is the ability to Define your own reality and whether you're using that to Define who you get to represent as was the case in the redistricting conversation or you're using it to Define when you get to show up to work and when you don't that is

180power and we need to take a hard look not just as the school board but as Angelino is about who has power and the folks who are standing in front of us taking time off from work uh are asking quite fairly and quite righteously for us to examine who that power conversation and I you know the reason this will be a tough and unfortunate vote to move forward with this revised calendars because we're rewarding bad behavior and once again we're solidifying who gets to Define their own reality and it's not the most vulnerable workers it's not the most vulnerable families who need these acceleration dates it's the adult agenda that has for too long called the shots thank you Mr schmerelson I agree Mr melvoin uh Mr carvallo I salute you for telling it like

181it is uh honestly Straight From the Heart I appreciate that very much and I really believe that that segment where you spoke should be recorded which really is should be recorded and shown to our parent group so they can actually hear the truth and that's very important that they hear it from you exactly like you said it all true and I appreciate that very much thank you oh board membership and the doctor McKenna thank you and thank you superintendent Carvalho for your remarks I just wanted to say two things from my perspective as a student the first is that learning loss is real and I know you said that there's debate over the semantics about what we want to call it but the fact is that students in the United States in California in our

182district are not performing at the same level that they did before the pandemic and that's just a fact a plain fact the second thing is I want to push back on a word that I heard use when talking about these acceleration days and that was that there would be a waste a quote waste of time is what I saw on social media that some people were saying and I really want to push back on that characterization like you said I have a lot to learn from all of the board members um you know on this horseshoe but the one thing I can say is that I am in the classroom six periods a day five days a week and as a student in the classroom let me be the first of many to tell you

183that any day spent in front of a teacher any day spent at school is not a waste as you said Mr Carvalho school thank you school is where students get the support they need school is a place where a lot of students get three meals a day for free who otherwise wouldn't be able to satisfy their nutritional needs school is a safe place for students to be during the day and so it is a plain lie to say that any day at school any additional day at school is a waste the fact is we can debate over the mechanism that we provide additional supports debate over perhaps the way in which the process was conducted but you cannot say that school is a waste you cannot say that without not only lying to yourself but

184lying to the community uh the other thing and Mr Melvin you brought this up and it reminded me of something that my teachers taught me and that is um you know that our teachers teach so much Beyond just the curriculum in the classroom they teach us about character they teach us how to learn and how to be who we are and so since you mentioned the remarks made by I'm glad to say former council president Martinez um and you know where other council members in the room it reminded me of something that my teachers taught me in elementary school and that was that character counts when no one is looking that character and integrity are so important there was a poster at my elementary school I still remember it and it said at the front

185of the school it was a banner that said character counts when no one is looking and that's you know when you said reminded me of that and so that just goes to show that school is so valuable for every student not only to their learning but to their social emotional development um so with that I'll be supporting this secondary plan to provide support for students and I want to thank all of the District staff that worked on providing this option for us so thank you Dr McKenna I want to say so much I better not start getting into it because somebody would tell me I'm going too long I want to tell you that I appreciate the superintendent's courage to be able to speak truth facts that's just truth truth is what you believe sometimes

186I don't know what people believe they believe things that they can't prove they call that faith fact is young man spoke clearly any day in front of a teacher it's a better day for a student a real teacher doesn't mind teaching every day I watched a commercial not a commercial a little segment I've heard of this morning I got up and turned on Spectrum it's been five o'clock in the morning an 80 year old teacher still teaching trying to teach in 1964. she works at a Lutheran School I mean it's all full of peppers so full of juice just glad to be there she loves her job and she tells you that she's 80 years old and I find people who get paid to teach and prefer not to teach we still want to get

187paid I accept the adult agendas as being necessary but not as important as a children's agenda it was your own child you'd want that child in front of a teacher instead of people saying it'd be a waste of time it's like doctors saying it'd be a waste of time to operate on this patient he's too far gone having both of my brothers being medical doctors I've seen them talk about people that were supposed to be gone that they saved and people that shouldn't have gone and they they did that breaks your heart this is a sacred profession for me nothing special about it for others but it's secret to me I don't believe that somebody ought to go on strike there's other ways to protest I've talked about it I talked about it when I

188was in the classroom I remember when we formed the Union 1970 I think it was and so subsequent strikes on that having been a segregated child in Louisiana we knew how to protest we protested against Real things got me sitting in the back of a bus can't get to the the uh the restaurant I can't drink out of a certain water fountain can't get admitted to the certain churches same God different churches have to go to it because that's the way they thought it was a Supremacy thing the separatism but I do believe that coming to school every day is always important and I'm still coming to school every day even though I don't go to the schoolhouse every day over 60 years I've been doing this and I still enjoy it I still love

189it and for those of you who don't you haven't you have a right you have a right to not love it but you also have the freedom to leave it and maybe that's okay too I'm not inviting you to leave but find somebody who loves it like you do and join them don't join the ones who want to ditch that's what ditches that's what students do find somebody who wants to teach you there's no Foundation by yourself so you just don't go to school being out there all by yourself so I'm ditching no you need somebody to talk to well you're cutting school for the day it's always better to have a group that reinforces whatever you believe the superintendent is right I applaud the fact uh Mr superintendent that you speak in the way

190you do speaking up the Way You Are I understood you had that in you when you came here and you haven't disappointed me yet this thing we're trying to do for our children is not embraced by everyone any more than when you hear people from another Municipal another elected group talk when thinking about is listening to the things they say that's what they really believe they read from the script people have always are for the children for the children but behind closed because we don't know what you believe but you're sure about what you do and I have never believed that we should turn our backs on children even when when we've had strikes I tried to feed the teachers when I was a principal who were striking I said well look there's a different

191way to do it I said look you can why don't you just bring a car bring a sleeping black and stay in the room and don't go home and put a put a candle in the window let's tell everybody we're still here we're not going home I'll feed you and the restrooms are there and the whole world will know you're not giving up but the children can come tomorrow don't not be here they didn't do it they went out there and went on strike anyway and they have an adult right to do that but then the parents of the children who don't know what to do with that child when we're out just like doctor's going on straight you can't see it don't understand it that's not true I understand things I don't agree with

192I understand a lot of things I understand segregation I understand Supremacy I understand slavery I understand that people would prefer to have things that way if they're on the other end of it they don't prefer to be a slave but some people would prefer to have a Slave you don't have to pay them all you have to do is feed him he can feed your lifestyle ridiculous I understand that that's human nature I understand why the people in in Ukraine are being slaughtered right now I understand it and despise it but I can't do anything about it but tell you what I feel but I do understand human nature when it comes to that I don't understand all of human nature but I accept the fact that it's sometimes corrupted it is always self-centered it

193is always selfish as always what's best for me and then there are people that rise above it and say and I would tell it to my students when faced with another person's dilemma a pain problem the question should not be what would happen to me if I get involved the question should be what will happen to them if I do not and if you can sit on the sideline and say I don't really care I'm not going over there they have a problem that's their problem children that are underachieving don't get better because you don't you you don't want to teach them and don't teach them even in front of you sometimes they still don't learn do you give up or you keep trying that's the job of those of us who took on this

194sacred profession to reach the ones who don't believe they can and teach them that as possible and as the young man said it's not just about the subject matter it's about life as well what do you will understand for what are you willing to do build that relationship with that child don't you miss them I always did Miss mine I think I made a mistake sometimes by leaving the classroom certainly leaving the school site becoming an administrator in a building with no children in it a facetious let's say sometime coming down to a building with no children in it compensation is that sometimes you get a dose that exhibit childish behavior and you say oh okay I feel better now and I'm seeing people adults exhibiting childish behavior but what they're refusing to do and

195I understand the others saying please don't do this to us we're not doing it to you we're trying to do it for the children so I don't know when I speak like this if it makes a difference sometimes I see people's eyes glaze over here goes again get used to it I'm Gonna Keep on doing it I've been doing it on before I got here because sometimes people want to hear what I have to say another thing I don't want to hear that I'm going to do anything about it so just let him stop talking so thank you for the time but Mrs Mr superintendent you're not alone don't feel like you're alone when the way you feel I'm right here others may feel differently but I don't support your position I support your effort

196what are the words that you just got through saying thank you for the courage thank you Miss Garcia superintendent I want to vote no in uh standing up for the people who did stand with us for standing up for the folks who need more but I'm inspired to remind myself I believe in change and I believe in that possible that we haven't lived yet there's so much pain in the neighborhood today for many reasons we're outraged for many things and we should be outraged today and we should be outraged by how much our children need and when we can bring help and we refuse to we need somebody to stand up and say we can do better I'm going to vote Yes on this item because I heard you take responsibility for this organization I

197heard you um own the fact that we did we said we were going to do X people stood up went with us and then we had to make the best out of a very difficult reality that we could not and today you said four more days are better than or seven more days it's seven because we've already lived three but this conversation at the board table today is and I you know I I asked to be elected and I'm super grateful that I got elected four times and I'm pleased and proud to tell this District how it underserves folks and we have to do better but today I heard you apologize for anyone who was negatively impacted by this District's limitation to not just act alone this district has to act in Partnership with each

198bargaining unit with our parent groups with Civic leadership today we got a letter from the Chamber of Commerce thank you Chamber of Commerce but we need to be in Partnership and even though my preference is to vote no because of the possibility of us reaching more kids and because of a new leadership that might Inspire others to take responsibility and do what they said they would do when they have the meetings in open or closed but this organization needs partners in order to do the amazing things when we get it right there are LAUSD graduates changing the world at so many levels and yes uh when we decide that every child should get the support to read I know it will happen and I'm hopeful that negotiations with the bargaining units are fair and Equitable

199as I have seen them be but I hope we do finish the business of the negotiations and focus on our ability to prepare our children to overcome whatever else comes at them the the graduates for this year they have endured the California Financial collapse they have endured building programs that disrupted campuses across the way they have endured uh declining budgets in the state of California that really we have never recovered from and of course a work stoppage and the pandemic and the list of needs keep growing but our children continue to rise and I'm so proud to vote with board membership you inspire and so I I also want to just thank our allies at SEIU uh who many are our parents counting on this District not just for a salary but counting on this

200District to do its job in preparing our children to meet the their best potential so I hope that everybody is uh uncomfortable but I hope we all commit to being the leaders and and there's a reason I'm the third Latina we need political will to hold people accountable because everyday human beings show up to do the work of the public sector and we all have to be very careful what we say and do in public and private but this board approves dollars in public and we must be held accountable to see greater performance to see greater service to see greater outcomes at the largest school district in the country with an elected board thank you Miss Garcia um and thank you to my colleagues I think our student board members always show when they speak

201just why that role is so important that we hear from students in these conversations and we Center on on your voices um I too find the situation that we find ourselves in very frustrating and you know I think the urgency of the moment the urgency of the needs of our students require that we make difficult decisions um that that can cause discomfort and in order to serve a greater good and it is really about how do we best ensure that our kids get the support that they need to address the Deep impacts that so many are feeling because of the pandemic and interrupted learning especially our students who have been most historically underserved including our English Learners and our students with disabilities our low-income students of color among others um and so I well I

202my heart is absolutely with you know those who spoke earlier uh you know we have to make the decision visions that are going to be both centered on what what is best for students and you know there's a reason that we have fully staffed schools classified and certificated Personnel every day at our school sites because it takes all of them all of that work is essential to help meet the holistic needs of our kids and looking to a day next week where we wouldn't have a crucial component of our staff just it isn't feasible it isn't what our kids deserve that doesn't mean um that a different decision couldn't have been made by others but for right now you know the this board of this leadership we have to make whatever decisions are going to

203be best for those students who most need us um and I think further you know what we heard from our local 99 members was a lot of pain and I think that it's unsustainable for us to allow a third of our Workforce um who are largely composed of uh women of color and parents to feel and be treated like second-class citizens in this district and that treatment has an impact on the outcomes of students the you know I know that there there's some talk in this conversation about adults and students but the truth is our treatment of adults affects how they can serve our students and it affects who works for us and um and so I really think you know today is is one component of this conversation but it is really about how

204do we Rectify those inequities both for students and for staff um if our human capital structure undervalues um the very people that we serve in our schools that's not right and and we need to do something about it and I you know I think I heard from the superintendent a commitment to ensure that both how we are approaching the needs of our students um and also how we treat our employees is aligned to our values of of equity for all of our students and staff so I I feel the urgency of moving forward on that and not just making sure that these four days are valuable and put us on a pathway to academic recovery for our students but really making sure we're addressing those underlying inequities that have persisted for far too long uh

205it's the right and important thing to do at this moment with that not seeing any other board members hands up so Mr McLean let's go ahead and call a vote on Tab eight here we go Dr McKenna yes Miss Garcia yeah Mr schmurelson yes Mr Melvin a reluctant yes Miss Goldberg yeah Mr T's Franklin board president Gomez also reluctant yes student board membership yes okay that was our last action item now we have and again apologies for things being a little late here Tab 7 are Charter petitions for public hearing again these are not for Action they are just hearings um Mr McLean uh I believe we have speakers I would like to talk to the about procedures for a moment if we could with uh Mr Cole Gutierrez if he's here just to get

206some background so that everybody understands what we're doing here as a public hearing thank you for the opportunity so how does a school that might be affected know about today's meeting good afternoon everyone Barbara Goldberg pursuant to the Court's policy our office works with the local districts to inform the schools within the community as defined by policy so every school that might be affected was notified that today was the day to come in a public hearing the district schools and the charter schools are informed all of the petition yet and they got that notice about when how long ago I'd have to check with the local districts it would usually be weeks before see that's the problem weeks before it's gone they're working at schools every day because I will hear tomorrow from schools who

207said I didn't know anything about this meeting and I know they did that's why I'm asking you publicly but I think we need to do more because what was the purpose of these public hearings in law what was the purpose of it specifically to hear from teachers for example parents uh about the support or lack thereof for the petition or perhaps what they fear is the impact on them or something like that that's the point of this yes so we are about to have a hearing in which every speaker who got signed up to speak is supporting both of these Charters without any single person having had the opportunity I guess they all signed up early God bless them I'm not arguing that they didn't do that good work but if we don't have some

208procedure in which we guarantee that people who might feel negatively about this or heard then the whole point of this in law is lost it then becomes pro forma and that's what today will be will be pro forma we're going to hear from all the people talking about extolling their virtues and I'm sure there are virtues I'm not arguing they shouldn't extol them absolutely that's what the hearing's about but I am continuously Amazed by how many people call me the day or two after or the week at the same week and say I didn't know that was today I didn't know we could come down and talk how do we know and I do believe it's because you're so great and trying to give them an advanced warning that it gets lost so I'm gonna

209urge us to do a lot more because this is the only time they get to say how they think they're going to be impacted and now today we will not hear any of that because all 24 items have been signed up by people who are from those schools I'm not faulting them but I am saying that we do need to do better if the goal of it in law was to give everybody a chance to weigh in at the public hearing that is simply not happening today and it hasn't happened for the most of the time and I do not think we can continue doing it this way so I I thank you for your early early notification but I'm going to hope that we can figure out something else because when there's a vigorous

210discussion at the public hearing it informs us all better than to have only here from one point of view so thank you very much for that I apologize for taking your time but I want to make it clear that we have an obligation in my opinion to do more to in let schools and parents and communities know that this is coming up and they have a right to come to a public hearing I was there when some of this legislation was passed the whole point of the public hearing was not to bring the people who are supporting it although they're certainly not excluded but it was to hear from the people who are afraid of what it might mean for their school and that's not going to happen so thank you I'm sorry I didn't

211mean to put you on the spot but I think it's important for us to understand that the legislative intent was something other than 24 speakers all from the two schools that want to be chartered thank you for the feedback Mr superintendent we'll look at additional notifications to our schools and assess any additional actions we might take thank you and and sorry Mr Koval theater since you're here this is not the only opportunity right these are not being acted on today there will be opportunities at the there will be more public speaking opportunities at the November 15th meeting so this is this is folks early heads up notice that they can sign up and make sure that they are going to be heard at that meeting we also accept public comment via email via voicemail um

212and I assume that these stakeholders are engaged as part of the community engagement process that must be undergone by these Charters is that right for the policy that's expected okay thank you Dr McKenna I'm sorry let me just finish to my mind I would also urge that when you do have speakers on both sides you go every other one one yes one no one yes or no until you've run out of one sign anyway just a suggestion understood what Ms Goldberg said but I respectfully disagree with the concept we should be disappointed because people didn't exercise their right to come down and speak if we we say the other side is not here are we going to editorialize our position and say come because as board members are going to take a position I don't

213think we should do that until we get to vote there are reasons that people support that position I may not but I can't get disappointed if other people don't come because they've come before and nothing's happened nothing's changed it gets voted in anyway so if you say that something's wrong with this it's because the the position that you take due respect to that position is not reflected by the people that showed up here because there's something wrong with that and they're right or wrong it is what it is the people who support it show up can't blame them for that the people who don't show up if you say the staff you need to do something about that staff I really don't know what they could do you notified we're in advance if we keep

214saying show up show up show or we are we supporting a position against the position of the people here we we're not legally alive I'm I'm not and you mean three people agree but I wasn't saying it for their agreement I was saying for the objectivity of it because it sounds like I mean the other side what side are you on I'm really not on the side I am but I'm not because I'm willing to listen to the benefit of it and can they come through with that a lot of people have made a lot of promises coming here about they can do a better job with an alternative to the public school and I I don't agree with that and then when you look at the data the law says all they have to

215do is get two points better than an underperformed School and they get to keep their children for another five years but two points better than underperforming it's still underperforming so now you have an underperforming public school and another performing Charter School and one has taken enrollment from there they're not taking it because people are choosing to go people make their choices I understand the frustration of that Miss Goldberg if you would yield for a moment people tried to sign up and all the places were taken I see what you're saying so all the places were taken I asked quietly behind the meeting if we could call some of the people who could not get on because all the places were taken and I was told no we cannot do that because I did not understand

216so that's that's why I was nervous because they got blocked out well there was a that the slots were filled up it's a first come first serve that's how we handle all items before the board and well let's take it offline with Miss Nevada Reed because I think that Dr McKenna raises an important legal question to consider and also you know the the they're waiting to speak so I would like to allow them to speak um if there are no further questions for um saying that okay well we'll have some follow-up for you it sounds like thank you all right Mr McLean turning over to you yes a bit more throat clearing this constitutes a public hearing for Equity Academy seven as well as Vista Legacy Global Academy a maximum of 12 individuals who wish

217to address the board on these items will be heard those who wish to speak well have already signed up speakers will be called by name um after the public speakers are done I will announce the board will be taking action on the charter petitions at a subsequent meeting um petitions denied may be submitted directly to the Los Angeles County Office of Education or directly to the state for Action okay let's start Adelaide Gonzalez are you here Adeline come on up you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin how many speakers do we have signed up 24. oh we have uh two public hearings uh one for each Charter petition with a total of 12 speakers for each Charter petition 12 times 2 is 24. correct and then yeah on my fingers is it three

218minutes or two minutes three minutes pregnant but we'd be here a while okay 72 minutes ready for public comments good afternoon all members of the board um my name is Adeline Gonzalez I'm the mother of three children uh the two younger go to ecotus Academy number two universities up and UC Davis my third child already graduated from ekitas and she's in her first year at UC Davis Union I live in the Pico Union Community and as you know it is a community a poor in many different ways when Akitas arrived it made a big difference nutrition it provided a lot of security in our community and education a better education for our children and nutrition it supported my daughter in the transition from high school to University giving her giving us step-by-step assistance as first

219generation uh parents it gave us a lot of Education we didn't have and a lot of support along the way step by step as you can see I have a son with special needs for which ekitas has provided all services during the pandemic my son received all the therapies he needed all the education he needed in home is and that's why I'm here to provide full support for ekitas number seven yeah I hope you will consider and support a school like mine not only in my community but any in any community that needs education Antonio I thank you for all the time you are rendering us and all of the consideration you're providing thank you very much gracias the next speaker is yaira Perez Perez are you here foreign you have three minutes go ahead

220good afternoon Board of Education uh superintendent and parents my name is Jahira Perez I have two daughters attending the equitas academy charter schools my youngest in first grade at equitas Academy elementary charter school and my oldest and fifth grade at equitas Academy number two middle school today I am speaking on behalf of supporting our new equitas number seven I have been part of the equities Academy community school for over six years now with my oldest daughter but today I am here to share my experience as a parent of a child who has an IEP service my daughter Haley Hernandez who is currently seven years old was born with a congenital heart defect called tetrology fellow and due to multiple open heart surgeries and delays at Birth she had speech and other health delays due to

221her health condition she had never been to a campus site learning environment until her first year of kindergarten at equitas Academy Elementary Charter School as a parent of a child with special needs it can be challenging to find a school that is willing to offer all of the services that my daughter needs but after a thorough evaluation at aquitos Academy Elementary School my daughter's IEP qualified her for the correct services in accommodations that provided her with extra time to eat restroom support in the Trust In from a trusted culture coordinator and due to the eligibility of her other health impairments she also received Services as RSP occupational therapy and speech and language support on weekly sessions that are one-on-one prior to starting school physically my daughter's only way of communication were pointing at objects or

222using sign language today not only has my daughter's speech progressed in a way that she can pronounce her needs but has also developed the competence on herself to attempt to become more independent in a school and even at home as her mother I know my daughter's accomplishments have had a great impact in her daily life being part of a charter school in a small campus has allowed her to feel safer with additional staff helped her academic focus and allow her to perform positive growth in her abilities equitas academies provides a structure academic based Community to prepare students to graduate from four-year colleges and universities as Mission States I can say this with confidence because my oldest was also a fifth grader is currently a middle school in in a Middle School site that also resides

223in Pico Union and her structure schedule is preparing her for greater opportunities in the future to attend a university one day for this I ask you your support for schools like mine and any community that wants to have a good Charter School in the future I thank you for your time and consideration thank you Carla Perez are you here Carla Perez yeah three minutes to speak once you begin good evening LAUSD board members and superintendent my name is Carla Perez I'm a beneficiary of an education from LAUSD schools having attended Washington Irving Middle School and John Marshall High School this is my seventh year at equitas I started as a seventh grade math teacher and instructional coach then transitioned to Dean assistant school director and now I'm in my second year as a School director

224of equitas Academy 2. throughout those years I've heard families if they as they have asked over and over again about when equitas would offer a high school they appreciated our college-going culture and our balance of structure and support and wanted to continue to see their children thrive in that environment as a high school student I had to commute over an hour each way to get to a school where I could Thrive and be prepared for college eq7 would offer scholars in the Pico Union Community a chance to thrive in their own community and live out their full potential all the way through High School the pandemic surfaced formidable new obstacles for everyone as an organization that listens and continually seeks to serve the community in increasingly more effective ways equitas wants to respond to what

225Pico Union families want eq7 would build upon equitas's previous successes and learnings from distance learning all the way to re-entry in order to provide a school that meets the needs of Pico Union families a high school would provide for our families who want more high quality options for their teens and the hybrid options and the hybrid option answers a clear call from our families you need more flexibility from their schools I ask for your support for eq7 so that our Scholars and Community can have the quality they deserve and the flexibility they see thank you for your time thank you Lilia Mitra or miter okay thank you Cecilia melgares good afternoon LAUSD board members and superintendent my name is Cecilia melgares and I've had the opportunity to work at equitas Academy charter schools for the

226past seven and a half years today I'm speaking on behalf of supporting the petition for equitas Academy number seven I strongly believe in the power of Education because to me education changed my life I'm a product of LAUSD schools I grew up in East Hollywood in a single parent home and my mom immigrated to this country from El Salvador when she was 15 years old and she instilled in my brother and my sister that we worked hard and we studied and we focused on education we could achieve anything that we set our minds to I've carried the sentiment with me my whole life and now as an adult I carry it every day on a day-to-day basis in my work by providing the best education for our Scholars we're not just changing their lives but

227we're creating an impact generational change for their families equitas Academy charter schools provides quality education for over 2 000 scholars in the Pico Union Community equitels Academy 7 would provide our families an opportunity to send their Scholars from TK through high school I respect I respectfully ask that you support equitas Academy number seven thank you Robert Spencer Robert Spencer good afternoon superintendent Carvalho LAUSD board members and staff and a special thank you to our equitas principal staff teammates and most importantly the families and Scholars that got here at 1pm today for the LSU the LAUSD board meeting for equitas number seven Charter I'm Robert L Spencer and I'm honored to be a first generation college graduate an English teacher a teacher leader a 12-year principal veteran at principal coach and supervisor in the MacArthur Park

228District community in the MacArthur Park Community and currently the chief schools officer of equitas serving the Pico Union community the pandemic has stifled the growth of the Pico Union Community according to Public Health servers Public Health numbers that over 16 000 families lost their lives in our in Los Angeles County they suffered enough equitas is still here and serving the Pico Union Community and listening to its constituents and hate and heeding the call for strong tk-12 grade educational opportunities that prepare our Scholars to compete nationally with their peers and matriculate to and through college given our strong track record in the Pico Union Community with two out of our four elementary schools being ranked in the top 16 percent of California's elementary schools we believe we can replicate success in our true growing elementary schools

229and design a high school model that will do the same let us equitas Academy and the LAUSD board continue to listen and engage the requests of the families and students in the Pico Union Community and not ignore this community especially given that they are one of the hardest hit in Los Angeles City thus please vote Yes for equitas number seven Charter petition we too are here helping you help the children of the city of Los Angeles thank you sir Brenda Campos Brenda Campos I think the only way okay good afternoon all members of the board and also Mr karvali superintendent you're a little late but you're very welcome thank you I have a daughter in the fifth grade my name is my name is Brenda Campos and my daughter is in a school in South

230Central it's a charter school it's aquitas South Center I live in the South Center but my daughter is in a Pico Union area so I live in South Central but my daughter Goes to School in the Pico Union area at first I was a little afraid of her being in that charter school because I did have a son who was in LAUSD they both graduated this has a great impact for us in our community because it has shown us the importance of being able to have choice in your school even if it's not in your area as I've said for years I don't have money to leave my children in inheritance but the best I have been able to leave them is be able to select their education and so I recommend as a mother

231as a neighbor and as a member of this community and the world for those of us who have children and we worry about their education the school itself doesn't matter or where it is I as a mother I spend a lot of time driving my daughter back and forth from school in the morning and in the afternoon there's a lot of traffic and the price of gasoline but I know I've made the best decision by putting my daughter in Akitas and that's why I'm here to beg your support for Akitas number seven escolar [Music] and so thanks to her education not just at the educational level but a nutritional level the school levels my daughter has had a different life she's been able to get to know the whole world through her education through her

232teachers through the computer during the pandemic is so I've also been able to travel the world with her I can breakfast in Paris have lunch in Mexico because she's showing me everything that her teachers are showing her uh and getting her ready for her graduation for her trips in life and all of this alongside with her teachers I'm asking you as a mother to support us is um I'm here because I have my trust in all of you I'm here as a small child as requesting a treat from the adults the school will be hybrid from TK to 12th grade so again I'm here as a mother to beg you for their support like I said I don't have money to leave my children but I can't leave them as potential I don't care if

233I have to go underwater or up to the sun ekitas is a good place it's a good school it's my school now it's my choice and I'm not here you know to for something for us it's something for the education of our children I'm not going to complain that my daughter got left behind because we had everything we needed at our fingertips if there were any problems the problems with us because they provided books notebooks teachers internet everything we needed as parents uh we we got all the support we needed for our child to stay up to date with the learning foreign in other words you're my soul mate and together we can work uh making sure that the dreams come true for our children I trust you thank you so much and have a

234nice day thank you are you here Sophia good afternoon superintendent Carvalho board president Gomez an honorable board members my name is Sophia rodidi and I'm the new chief executive officer at equitas Academy I'm the daughter of immigrant parents of first generation college student and a proud product of Los Angeles Unified School District I've served LAUSD as a student representative on this board as a teacher at Carver Middle School an assistant principal at both Carver and Southgate High and most notably as the principal of Roosevelt High School during a time when it had 5 000 students I'm also a familiar face to some of you on the board member Garcia championed efforts to increase graduation rates when I was the principal she also championed other reform efforts board member Ortiz Franklin is familiar with my work

235at the partnership for Los Angeles schools as she and I work together to launch restorative practices in La unified almost a decade ago I have over 26 years of experience in K-12 public education in Los Angeles and in San Diego most recently I served as a chief of staff in San Diego unified and I feel fortunate and thrilled to be back in Los Angeles serving the students and families in the city where I grew up leading for equity and continuing to advocate for Scholars from underserved communities is the reason why I joined the equitas academy team founding CEO malca Borrego began equitas Academy because it was her dream to develop amazing schools in the neighborhood where she was born and raised she wanted to create schools which would prepare Scholars for college and pave the

236way for them to reach their full potential equitas Academy is a community of dedicated leaders Educators staff members families and Scholars many of you which you will hear from today equitas has a proven track record of high performance and we are strengthened by ongoing support from LAUSD your continued partnership with equitas will enable us to accomplish our shared goals of educating our youth eq7 is important to our community our families for years have been requesting a high school option we know that feeder patterns or families of schools lead to Greater scholar success I have personally experienced the value of feeder patterns and I've witnessed the positive impact through my work both in San Diego and Los Angeles Unified I ask you today to stand with the families of the Pico Union Community and support this

237new model for equitas Academy 7 and I thank you so much for your time and attention to this matter thank you Adriana Perez Brianna pittance good afternoon LAUSD board members and superintendent my name is Adriana Perez I am here today as a proud parent and staff member for equitas Academy charter schools I've worked in partnership with equitas Academy for the past seven years equitas Academy has been the beacon of the light of to our community during the pandemic we focus on providing the best education for our Scholars virtually we provided all the support possible to our families including home visits to parents and grandparents that were having issues logging on their scholars in addition we provided meals weekly to our Pico Union Community we provided hot spots computers materials and any type of support that

238we could give them all as a parent of equitas Academy my son started his first year in school virtually during the pandemic he logged in with joy every day he felt included he received all the instructional minutes from his teachers and I saw the development and the growth that he made teachers checked in with my son not only academically but also for his well-being on day-to-day basis equitas Academy made his new virtual learning experience memorable for my scholar and myself we learned so much together on this new Journey these examples highlight the commitment that equitas Academy charter schools have to the community our families and our community deserve the best high quality education for our children and for that our families have asked for many years for the last past seven years that I have

239been part of equitas for high school I've heard all the stories and all the asks from all our parents so today I stand here in front of you and I ask you to please support equitas Academy number seven as we want to commit to our families and to our community thank you for your time thank you Edgar Escobar Edgar Escobar are you here Edgar okay uh Anita balcazar Juarez um good afternoon members of the board and uh Sprint Carvalho my name is Anita Juanes and I am a mother of two girls who are with me here today um Marcia is age 10 currently attending equities Academy number two middle school and it's in the fifth grade Andrea H7 is currently attending equitas Academy Elementary and it's in the second grade today I'm here to speak

240in support of equitas number seven a tk-12 grade hybrid model school I would like to share with you that in my family education is very important that's why our parents that's what our parents taught us and that's what we're trying to teach our our daughters my husband and I graduated with a bachelor's degree from a four-year University we both value education because we've seen through our personal experience what our degree is worth we opted to send our daughters to a charter school because we felt it was the right fit for us um we wanted a school with smaller classroom science classroom science we also wanted a school that provided a strong sense of community and support towards our daughter's educational goal both of my daughters were born late September and they were enrolled as a

241transitional kindergartners it was important for us to find a school that we challenged them but it will also give them an opportunity to be evaluated at the end of the TK school year to be considered for first grade instead of kindergarten with the help of their teachers they began showing signs of advancement and both were eventually placed in the first grade since they were both academically and socially ready this allowed them to have a head start in their education equities teachers have been great support not only to my family but to many families in our community they have created a safe learning environment for our children at equitas my daughters feel at home as a parent I feel hurt and I feel valued I have a direct direct line of communication with both teachers and

242administration equitas Elementary and Middle School have been of great support towards my daughter's education A.T ATK through through 12th grade hybrid model will allow students to continue with the curriculum through the 12th grade giving them a chance and better preparing them for a higher education today I ask you to support equitas parents like myself who only want to see our kids our kids succeed and become future role models citizens thank you for your time and for your consideration thank you ebony Wyatt are you here ebony quiet good afternoon board members and superintendent I coming for you asked uh thank you you for your time today and for listening to our petition um my name my name is Ebony Wyatt as you know and I am the chief Talent officer at equitas Academy and also a

243parent at equitas Academy I joined equitas Academy as a first generation college graduate with almost 20 years of experience in organizational development half of which was has been spent in the education space my passion for Education stems from my role as a mother first and foremost I do have a one five-year-old girl who is here with us today and a 14 year old boy it is important for my daughter to see us advocate for such an important mission that impacts the Pico Union area and the serving the communities of Los Angeles my eldest son has traditionally attended private schools and my daughter was set to follow in his footsteps this changed once I began working at equitas Academy during leadership weeks ahead of the start of the school year I was able to witness the

244transform transformational work leadership team was charged with in reimaginally reimagining curriculum design after the decline from the pandemic I was fortunate enough to interact with and meet the teachers of equitas and began wondering if my daughter could possibly join such a purposeful mission for the scholars of equitas not only do our schools incorporate rigorous learning standards but we care about the emotional development just as much I support the growth of equitas Academy in a petition to create eq7 as it would allow other families the same opportunity I have been able to give my daughter alongside the beautiful families of the Pico Union area uh that care about their children's future just as much as you me and everyone who is fortunate fortunate enough to be a guardian of our youth I vote Yes for eq7's

245Charter petition and I hope you do the same thank you thank you this concludes speaker on this Charter item uh the board will be taking action on the charter partition at a subsequent meeting petitions denied may be submitted directly to the Los Angeles County Office of Education or directly to the state for Action we will now move on to the speakers for the next petition uh Donald Wilson are you here he is good afternoon president Gomez honorable board superintendent carvalhone my name is Dr Don Wilson and I've been an educator for 35 years 29 of those years right here in LAUSD where I taught for 17 years I served as a principal of one of the top performing schools in the district and I was also director of instruction overseeing the district's pilot schools at

246RFK Bernstein and the downtown complexes six years ago seven years ago I became the superintendent of Vista Charter Public Schools back then there was only two middle schools as I did then I still believe today that Vista must be a tk-12 system if we're going to really transform students lives in 2019 you supported us by reaching reaching our goal by approving Vista Horizon Global Academy and we've received glowing reviews by your Charter oversight board at Horizon and at our Middle School each year the approval of Vista Legacy will ensure that our students and their families have what they need and more importantly what they have been asking for over and over which is a Vista High School and why wouldn't they ask for it our program offers a clear road map to both College and

247Career with all of our students participating in either international business medical or the new climate change leadership pathway that's been created in collaboration with UC Irvine and with the new Eclipse Statewide initiative between UC and the Cal State schools Vista is the first school district to work with them on this initiative and will be the first to offer this pathway in the state our program is also a TK 14 program leading to an AAA degree at graduation currently we have a hundred percent participation at our high school students with our high school students in Santa Ana and a counselor ratio of 1 to 75 which gives us the support we need for success our program is also based on a strong steam Foundation where Project Lead the Way starts in kindergarten and goes all the

248way through graduation and where the Arts are just as important as the other disciplines and they are provided at all of our schools all of our schools have full-time psychologists and we're deeply committed to restorative practices not just at the first sign of a problem but from the very first day that our students arrive they sit in counsel they get explicit instruction and multiple opportunities to practice speaking and listening from the heart and our practice goes Way Beyond the classroom teachers administrators myself our families we sit in Counsel on a weekly basis to create a culture of counsel and we make Vista an emotionally and physically safe place in a world that really is not through our Global Learning and our Partnerships with the international study school network all our students engage in solving real

249world problems which answers that important question of why should I have to learn this which is critical to deep student engagement just this year our students made a huge difference in the lives of others while participating in Operation Smile and and one of our former students will receive the global youth humanitarian award from the United Nations honoring her among the world's great humanitarians that'll be in December so I'm grateful for the last years of your support enthusiastic about the positive impact that we can have and I would be grateful for your support going forward thank you very much and Miss Goldberg thank you for today's Proclamation 33 years ago today at 24th Street I nearly a graphed 100 letters I came out to that school as a recent graduate from BYU terrified and it made

250all of the difference in my life and it was one of the proudest moments and I carried that in my heart today so thank you and all of you for that Proclamation today Daniel summer Daniel summer are you here okay uh Colin Felch are you here good evening board superintendent my name is Dr Colin Felch I'm the assistant superintendent of Vista Charter Public Schools uh I also spent my entire career in LAUSD prior to coming to Vista as a teacher as an instructional coach and as an administrator and also a proud 2013 LAUSD teacher of the year instead of my original remarks uh I want to share the remarks of one of our parents that had to leave early to pick up her children because I think her remarks are more important than mine so

251good afternoon board president board members my name is Maria Salas and I have a student at Vista in sixth grade he's actually here in the back the reason why I'm here is to advocate for my community and the kids and the kids in my community and Vista is what we need and what our community needs having a Vista High School will create continuity for me my peers and all of the families in the community as a mother of three it is important to me that I know where my where my children will spend their future years I don't want my son to get to eighth grade and not know what high school he will attend I don't want I don't want him uh I don't want him to get to get to eighth grade not

252knowing that Vista is no longer an option for him as a charter parent school choice is important to me well I want my child to attend Vista Legacy it's also important for families to have choices in their community that is why it is important for me and important for you to approve Vista Legacy Global Academy thank you thank you Karen Amaya Aaron Amaya are you here good afternoon board members and superintendent my name is Karen Amaya and I have served as principal at Vista Charter Middle School for six years and this time we have collaboratively implemented systems and structures to support student achievement including a rigorous database daily Intervention Program in the development of social of student social emotional competencies through restorative practices and direct instruction around our core values of grit empathy accountability and

253respect or as we like to say at Vista Charter Middle School and Vista Horizon Elementary we shift into gear in 2019 before the pandemic we were able to celebrate an 11 growth in math and an eight percent growth in ela on our state test scores this incredible achievement is a testament to the impact of our work and school culture I can proudly say that we love our students and they love their school our students have also developed the essential Global competencies as they investigate the world learn from multiple perspectives and in their project and take action in their project-based learning one project that stands out is when our students elected to research the effects of vaping pens and electronic cigarettes on teams and as a culminating activity they went to City Hall and spoke before

254the city council and advocated to prevent vape shops from opening near schools through our partnership with the international school studies Network our students have also participated participated in forums such as generation Global with others with other students in Colombia Pakistan and Mexico on a range of topics such as social media cyber bullying and alcohol and drug abuse the way this work around issues that are important locally and globally has made Student Learning authentic and meaningful to them and their families our students and staff continually work hard to develop these competencies and along with their families we share a vision of the future where our students can continue to develop and pursue the passions they that they develop throughout their time at Vista Horizon Global Academy and Vista Charter Middle School So today we're here to

255ask for your approval of Vista Legacy Global Academy a high school that will give our students and their families what they've asked for and which will have a positive impact in our community your approval will help us continue to equip our students with the tools they need to make an impact on the world support them in cultivating and fostering strong relationships with restorative practices and way of counsel continue to develop the steam learning the experience through Project Lead the Way Network and in our elementary and middle school and continue to engage them in a robust arts program that includes Visual Arts cultural dance music and performance finally they'll get to participate in Pathways in business and Health Services as well as climate change leadership and even earn college credits an NAA degree thank you for

256your support of Vista Charter Middle School and Vista Horizon Global Academy in the past and your continued support of our vision through Vista Legacy Global Academy thank you very much thank you Erica Nigeria Erica are you here thank you Gloria Morales are you here Gloria good afternoon board members and superintendent my name is Gloria Morales my grandson is presently at Vista Charter Middle School beforehand he was six years at a Catholic school so this is his first experience in a public school and I'm very very grateful for Vista Charter Middle School he's grown tremendously he has excelled he was on the honor roll and he got an award for leadership so this school is amazing the staff the principals everyone is always wanting for the best for the children and you can feel it when

257you go there the whole environment is geared strictly for the children during the pandemic it was difficult for all the children so now that they can get back to school and be all together and have after school activities that's the most important so I ask you to please support us in our new Global Academy thank you very much thank you Anthony Pena Vasquez good afternoon normal board members my name is Anthony Pena and I have been fortunate to be part of the Vista family since elementary school I was part of the founding classes at Vista Horizon global economy and I am now in my last year at Vista Vista Charter Middle School I arrived at Vista Horizon Elementary School in the fifth grade the students were respectful and welcoming on my first day with Vista

258and I'm on my first second in a teacher's great help there weren't many students in the fourth and fifth grade class which allowed the teacher to help all the students a student came to Vista from Colombians and the students helped the teacher Translate uh translate translate the material to her in Spanish I then started sixth grade at Vista Charter Middle School I like like all the kids like all kids that stayed home I had a hard time learning the first time I got an F but as soon as we returned to in-person learning I was able to get the F up to an a with the great Hub of Vistas the great teachers summer our Vista Charters Middle School's great leaders because they look out for students and ensure everything's in order the learning experience

259has improved by adding training teachers to the crystal team the thing that I like about Vista is a teacher because when you need help with some work they will help they will help you Mr miles to Summer has been running Vista Charter very well and many friends and classmates like it here are some ones here's here what some students have to say there are multiple choice in sports I like that I bond with the teachers and it feels like we're a family I like how they do a lot of school events and the school is very organized and they're very kind teachers and students here we will uh we would like to have a few more years as part of the Vista family we would like to continue the amazing learning what we do or

260we do our Vista and we would like to continue that bonds with friendship that we have formed with adults with two gear and way of the council we really need you to approve the global Academy reason one parents trust Vista and still want their children to attend a physical School within two other schools might not pay attention to the students the the way that Vista does with the chartered us the third reason is the teachers pay attention to the students my last reason is a education investors better I am really happy with how much I've learned and how I've how much I've improved I am here today to ask you the support of opening Vista global economy thank you for your time thank you Samuel Salas good afternoon board president and board members um my

261name is Samuel being at Vista Charter Middle School has helped me develop my confidence and any Independence we've uh yo I've only been at Vista for one quarter I am learning that I need to think about my future about Middle School I'm going to Vista High School will help me continue to develop what I'm learning I feel safe at Vista Home is not just a place where you live but I spend your my time at with teachers and staff at Vista Charter Middle School Vista is like a home for me we do a lot of team building activities and we have Council I have been developed a positive relationship with my peers and adults at Vista I know the staff and Vista Legacy will also help me and Friends put our learning and our future

262I am excited to go to Vista Global Academy High School where I will have more opportunities to grow I will explore my studies in international business and Health Service or climate changes and I will graduate with um school with college credits that will prepare me to continue my University or go to a Workforce for both going to Vista Legacy go to academy will prepare me for the future thank you thank you Jay proano okay Beatrice lovera okay let me check is Beatrice on the line I'm not showing Beatrice uh David tokowsky are you on the line press star six to mute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak when you're done Mr takovsky and I'm just going to make sure Maria Salas you're not here correct thank you yes uh Mr tokoski are you

263on the line if you are a press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak now is your time to shine Mr takovski last call for Mr telkowski I see you on the line please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak once you begin hello thank you thank you Mr tokowsky you have finally yes you have me in a visiting room that uh I can't get out of but anyway uh I am the exception to Ms Goldberg's rule about who gets to sign up on a public hearing uh clearly public hearings are a challenge for the district and more Outreach needs to be done uh not just here but on the Williams issues and so on uh in terms of the charters here Ms Goldberg

264and Mr Superman board uh it could be a lesson from the Williams that the schools affected in the geography area that the principal or the Council of each School sends in a a letter verifying whether or not they were informed of the meeting they want to come they have any issues rather than have it trickle through the bureaucracy and not get there on time for communities of Interest by the law to make comments second and I've mentioned this to um Mr kol Gutierrez um but as we see he's wearing a Stanford sweatshirt and that may impinge upon his uh insights that us Berkeley people may have secondly these Charters Mr superintendent board members represent 1500 kids uh 45 million dollars and the education and incumbent upon that um they are not asked uh because there

265is no clear path to become Affiliated Charters with the district there is no process that is clear and simple for a startup Charters conversion Charters and other types to be part of the school district system of choice uh they in essence by the process are pushed out of the system bringing more kids out of the system uh so those two things could be very helpful in terms of board policy and some changes as well as in the case of the students who were reading their comments off the computer from their instructors um or we could take a lesson on whether or not these faculties are being paid the questions you've raised with SEIU today the same question should be asked of our Charter Partners what are the salary ranges that they are putting out for

266their employees and finally congratulations on the calendar 24 hours about four days it's 24 hours and what can be done in 24 hours with students who need the help is a tremendous amount not only to catch students up but do enrichment classes there could be a focus class a subset of the AP Calculus could be focused on something a history class could be focused for 24 hours on on issues of the day in the Ukraine or World War II so many opportunities to re-engage in Rich Kids if the um the team puts out clear directives at these 24 hours are not for cleaning your file cabinet but they are for instructing kids thank you very much thank you Mr tokowski this concludes public comment for this public hearing the board will take action on the

267charter petition at a subsequent meeting petitions denied may be submitted directly to the Los Angeles County of Education or directly to the state for action point of information yes um I first of all let me say thank you to all of you who stayed at the copious notes on every single person's comment and I appreciate your concerns and your love for what you're doing and for your students I would like to suggest a change in procedure that would say that we would have six spaces set up for the charter people and six pay state spaces set up for uh those who uh want to comment on it that but are not related to the Charter could still be all positive but not in the Charter Community and that it be first come first served for

268each group and that we set a certain dime by which time if one side or the other doesn't finish then they can fill in other spaces but I do think it's it's helpful because we had people who did come here and who because the charters had gotten all of the spaces very early in the morning they were not allowed to speak I think that it would be a useful thing and I'm inquiring as to how what we would do if we wanted to follow such a procedure I think we need to speak with Ms Navarro Reed separately about what are what limitations one can place on public hearing speakers I don't know the answer off the top of my head but that's certainly not for me to decide by myself we'll have to consider that

269Ms Goldberg is part of our board rules you know I'm only simply trying to say that obviously if you're a charter school you're going to get up early in the morning and sign up because that's your whole thing that's that's what you want to do I'm I'm telling you they did a good job I'm not saying that they didn't but also we need to be able I believe to find space this is not a small issue for a community a new Charter in any Community has an impact on virtually every charter school there as well as every LAUSD school there and I'm simply trying to find a way to give some opportunity for people who have the same opinion but aren't in the Charter Community or have a different opinion to be able to get

270into these spaces and if they don't take them by a certain time they get opened up to whatever the other side is yes or no anyway I I just think it's important for us to try to stay in tune with the uh intention of the legislature and having these public hearings uh is this about this or something else okay yes so um we tried to keep people on topic by having them speak on the item that they're supposed to be speaking on if it's a consent item or not right so what do you do if somebody starts speaking and it's not what they said they were going to speak about what are you going to do if they're going to talk about a no and they're talking about a yes are you going to cut

271them off are you going to let them continue speaking that's always a problem with people following through to think about at least I think there's there are a lot of I I definitely hear the the concept and when we've tried to do balancing of speakers in the past for other items it is very difficult to implement in actuality so um certainly welcome more conversation on that and um yes is this on the topic just on that okay um Miss Gomez I think if the board's going to consider uh as we have in the past there has been different strategies to try to be fair but it's not just public hearings for Charters the idea uh but it is a whole I mean there's a lot of conversation about that uh several attempts I would just

272want it to be all items and not just public hearings on Charters James Fair Dr McKenna and then Mr malpoin okay yeah I think that uh Miss Goldberg makes a good point and I think Mr Schmo I think it's important and he has a good question what if a person signs up his point and Counterpoint so if you make room for point and point room for Counterpoint even though a point a person gets on the list and says I'm going to speak to the Counterpoint but does it gets in there talking about something else you can shut them down Mr uh Mr McLean has been very good at saying your time is up your time is up and it's probably going to be one of the best we've had and he's very polite but they

273he shuts him down but I do think even though we talk about everybody has a right to free speech and they do but we're trying not to give everybody the same time and other people are shut out because we give a limit we ought to give a limit to both let's go over made a good point to me when I went over there to talk to her and said that well you know if you have seven seven candidates on one side and the other side you have a deadline for both of them the people that want to speak against it don't meet you by that certain deadline whatever that is then they have to concede their point or not the other people just keep their seven you have no no people on the other side

274you don't have to fill it up with with 14 or 25 people all saying the same thing I think that's redundant and I think it's it's not a good use of their time or our time they keep saying the same thing over and over but I do think we we could have some kind of discussion and rule that allows both sides of if there are two sides of ignition that's just it's just a discussion and they can say what they want but if they're two different definite sides here um Erwin Khan you have to choose one and maybe we can we can work it that way that's I think that's important because McDonald raised it Mr Melvin yes my contribution which will be limited because I know this is not agendized is just that um

275we every year since I've been here we have had this conversation we've actually proposed some board rules in the past we I just mean the collective board that looked at Pro con that looked at one minute versus three minutes two minutes and so these are you know it's it's um there's no way to win here you know it's like the food's bad and the portions are too small you know if you reduce the number of the time but increase the number of speakers people are going to hit you for that if so but I do think maybe this is something that either is up to me the board or someone should take up not just for Charter items but to Dr McKenna's point you know a lot of these items there's a pro and a

276con and we should we should just be a little more intentional and proactive about doing this for the board rules as opposed to you know signal out specific speakers or specific topics so yeah and and there's the I I welcome a whoever wants to take this on and obviously we can't make the changes up at this moment that's not I nominate Nate Nate yes we're in good hands um uh and and there are you know provisions of the board rules that speak towards trying to balance it's just the you know and I think it gets back to the legal questions right like we can't necessarily ask or require people to tell us what they're going to say in order to speak on items because that's a barrier to them being able to speak to us

277during their public comment time so um lots of issues to work through certainly um if you're interested um I guess maybe go to miss Nevada read and let her know um with that I think we have a couple of votes that we still need to count yes we do uh student board member Shin could you please give me your vote on the consent calendar that's a yes all right and can I please please have your vote on Tab five it looks like it was the provisional internship permits yes okay thank you so much thank you all right board members that gets us to the end of our agenda for today Mr schmurelson I'll turn to you first for your adjourning motion and then we'll turn to miss Garcia yes um Beckford charter school or enriched

278studies recently lost a wonderful buildings and ground worker named so fronio Rani platon he joined Beckford in may 2014. he was respectful kind mild-mannered and followed a strong work ethic he was a valued member of the Beckford Community his sudden passing while on a three-day vacation is indeed heartbreaking he was a devoted husband and father and we extend our syrians sincerest condolences to his wife Nancy and their three sons thank you thank you Mr schmals and Miss Garcia thank you board members I'm asking that we adjourn in memory of Art Laboe who died on Friday he was 97 years old he was one of the first popular DJs to desegregate the airwaves playing songs from beloved black artists like Little Richard and The Shirelles for listeners from all racial backgrounds according to the statement of

279his company he was especially loved by Latino listeners who frequently Incorporated less known Chicano Soul bands into his lineup of what he called and later trademarked oldies but goodies um he was one of the first DJs to welcome listeners to dedicate a song to their loved ones they'd call in or visit him live when he'd record a show at the drive-in it was one of the few places when Mexican Americans as well as other people of color living in Los Angeles could find a medium through which their voices could be heard wrote Anthony Macias from the University of California Riverside professor in 2004. thank you Art Laboe for bringing so many people together we wish you and your family uh peace thank you we have a motion to adjourn saying no objections adjourned 6 20

280P.M