001okay welcome everyone i'd like to ask dr jonathan erickson to lead us in the pledge of allegiance please ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the board met in closed session regarding public employee discipline and dismissal and gave direction to staff i now need a motion in a second for the approval of the minutes from the september 28 2021 regular school board education meeting all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 5-0 and i was asking mr gallegos to give me a census of how many folks we have to speak tonight before i do the record of the agenda approval this meeting was open this morning and
002mr whitkin and strutzenberg gave the motion and second to approve the agenda but he's going to get me account of how many people are actually out there wanting to speak and in the interest of making sure that everybody does have a chance to speak i wanted to suggest to my colleagues here on the dais that um perhaps we propose adjusting today's public comment time as a limit to two minutes per speaker so that we are allowing everybody the chance to speak i think we mr gallegos had said we were at 21 and he's going to count further does anybody in the board think about that just to make sure we make everybody gets a chance to speak i think i'd rather give everyone a chance to speak rather than you know running out of time
003so i think that would be more appropriate from my perspective shortening the time but ensuring everyone has a chance of course any additional public comments that people have that are over the time can always be submitted through to the board as written public comment that'll be again part of the minutes but does anyone have any other thoughts about that i'm fine with it i i think the more voices the more like we have more people here giving them the chance to have their voice heard is fine um and people should be able to say what they want to say in two minutes so i i'm fine with it have any thoughts then if i if we are going to do that it would amend the approval of our agenda so i need a motion in
004a second to amend the approval of our agenda and limit the total time to two minutes per speaker i need a motion in a second so moved second elder all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay motion passes hopefully we'll get through everyone uh-huh to go what i'll do is i'll click it too so i have a one minute warning perfect okay great all right now we're up with reports to the board paris middle school presentation by dr jonathan erickson school principal hello uh rbusd board of education and uh district office administrators um i'd like to start by saying it feels good to be back uh i think it's uh it's been a while since the school is presented here so we're very excited um there's miss ramos so she's uh with us
005in spirit and um i'm gonna take my wife's advice and not talk much longer because i know who you really want to hear from are the students so i'll let the students come up here and introduce themselves and get started okay hello thank you uh as was said we are three eighth graders from paris and we are the writers and editors of the paris roar which is the school newsletter um i'm priya ramtron the founder writer and editor-in-chief of the newsletter hi i'm alexandra manz i'm the writer and features editor of paris roar so the paris roar is an entirely student-run and student-created newsletter it was during online school last year that i felt very isolated from the student body and i lost that sense of community we usually have on campus so i figured
006i wasn't alone in this conquest to find like-minded kids i thought of the idea of creating a platform for all students to interact through writing which has been a long-running passion of mine writing is used to think deeply about the world around us and when we were in such turbulent times i think kids my age needed a way to analyze that chaos so i gathered alexandria and daniela from my english classes and we started drafting our issues it was a way to simply it was a way to simplify big ideas and current events so it was digestible for teenagers this gave us the power to understand the world in a deeper sense and it was a way to think write and debate and connect this kind of communal intellect gave every student a voice and
007it elevated the general awareness of the student body and it also became a place to talk about the pressures of being a student it prompted discussions on school policy and became an outlet for the creative minds of the youth in paris but our newsletter has grown into even bigger and better things than we could ever have imagined in january of 2021 we introduced our first issue issue which contained articles that had a more general topic as we progressed each issue had a theme that usually matched with that month and the articles were closely related to the title and theme as well so what's the impact as was previously mentioned our original intent was to create a positive atmosphere for students at paris a place where students could express themselves and share their opinions with peers
008once our first issue was released we immediately saw that this had been achieved students throughout 6th 7th and 8th grade all sent emails hoping to contribute and thanking us for the space we had created this is when we knew we had to take it a step further to bring students together to do this we started our google classroom page teachers would post the classroom code in their own classroom page along with our audition and soon enough our community began to grow here we posted our addition issues as well as other activities and questions so that students could view their peer answers and interact with them as you can see on this slide the comment section of our post became a collage of ideas questions opinions and answers where all students could express themselves in each
009monthly issue there is a theme or an umbrella idea that guides the articles in this example on the slide we have art and self-expression the design of the newsletter matches the theme and the articles correlate with the main idea so in this issue about art our articles consisted of the evolution of music the elitist culture of modern and the latest culture of modern expressionism next each writer alex and daniella and i contribute a small blurb which adds to a collage this is a collaboration article in this example we all wrote about a local small business and their struggle through the pandemic we also sometimes interview teachers students and staff as a collab the monthly features at the top are submitted by the students sometimes with the prompt this can be drawings photos poems songs writing
010stories or anything they want to publish to be shared we get a lot of interesting submissions so we want this power of student voices uniting to be attainable for everyone so this leads us into our activity so how do we do it how would students create their own newsletter every time we start our next monthly edition we go through a brainstorming process figuring out the themes main articles collaboration articles and eventually choosing the month's features rather than explaining this whole process we'll have you give it a try as we go through the following slides we will be asking each of you for your input on one of these elements to a newsletter edition in the interest of time only one person will be choosing in a quick manner but in reality this process is always
011done collaboratively and over multiple days of work nonetheless are you ready to create your newsletter let's get started okay so first we have some themes on the board so anyone can just shout out the theme they want so the first one is art and self-expression media and entertainment or new beginnings media and entertainment please all right now it's time to choose your main articles so the first option is you can choose an article about creating your own art which is coupled with an article of the evolution of music your second option is about perseverances landing on mars and an article about covet 19 vaccines and your third and final choice will be a behind-the-scenes movie productions or the evolution of film so which one would you like go ahead well the three is the media
012and entertainment right yeah so let's choose uh behind the scenes all right so for collaboration option one is we each wrote about supporting local businesses and also celebrating history months for the second one we have women in history we each talked about a woman who inspired us and for the third one we got input from students on campus about their opinions on going back to in person school after being online so which one won two or three [Laughter] let's go with one number one okay one supporting local businesses and celebrating history okay now it's time to choose your month's features so your first set of submissions were two drawings with captions and your second set of submissions was one drawing with the caption along with some photos and your last submission was one drawing with
013the caption and some tips on journaling so which one would you like one two or three one one so two drawings with two captions okay so now that your newsletter is complete we have a poster board of all your choices and you made your first cover so this is how it would look wow thank you and there is your newsletter thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be here today we hope to see paris roar continue on through the years when we leave paris next year sorry picking the next generation of writers won't be easy but we know there is a group out there willing to make a difference just as we have done thank you and so just two things i wanted to say quickly before um questions is one um
014it was the teacher miss paige johnson that was the sponsor for this club and um and so we thank her for uh for supporting these students even during the pandemic when they were meeting online and not in person and she did that all voluntarily which was wonderful and then the second thing i just want to personally thank the board because um i know you know your work is so important and and i know you don't always get to see what your work accomplishes and um i hope it came through really clearly today like the things that the decisions you make every day do make a difference we feel it at the school site and this is just one of the many wonderful things that come out of it so so thank you for making our
015school so great all right so i i have a question i'm going to put you on the spot dr erickson first like so i've been a paris parent for almost two years do you in your friday emails do you send the paris roar and i just didn't yeah i i i have been i i i have before i have before we haven't found yourself yeah i'm exposing we haven't said this issue yet because i didn't want to preempt the board meeting but yeah we we've sent it before and we'll make sure that that we uh make it make it clear it's a little tricky to download it and turn it into a pdf that's not too big of an attachment but but we've done it we'll do it again okay yeah i mean i think
016it like this issue that you gave us like is exceptional like and i intend to read the articles in it and the question i have for the three presenters if each one of you could tell us like which piece of writing have you done since january that you're most proud of um i would say i focus on current events and politics so i think that's really important to me so in this issue that you're holding i wrote about afghanistan and the war there and kind of breaking it down so i think when you simplify it into smaller terms it actually resonates really well with the the community and there's actually been like debates on our google classroom about like their feelings on it and how they feel we could approach it better so it's a
017really good way to like empower the youth to think about these issues and not just you know shallow trivial things which i think a lot of people just assume that we think about so i would say politics and in the afghanistan article is one of my favorite and also i wrote one on art and kind of like the democratization of that and museums and like how we can make it so it's not just for like the elite but for everyone my favorite articles that i've written were probably one about social media and if it's a blessing or a curse and it kind of addressed the different views on it if it's all the good sides of it as well but then also i thought felt like it was important to talk to teenagers about it
018because those are the people that are primarily affected and using social media and i also wrote an article that i liked about climate change and it was about not just the general stuff that a lot of people hear how like carbon dioxide is heating up the world and all that but it's more about how plants play a role in that and what we can actually do to prevent them not just in a negative light and also simplifying the terms for students one of my favorite articles that i wrote was actually in the first issue i wrote a small blurb on how animals um are currently being or predators primarily are being killed and shot down unfairly because a lot of farms think that predators are the main cause for livestock dying off when actually a
019small percentage of predators kill farm and livestock and it was really interesting and a lot of kids reacted to it and said that it was one of their favorites and i really enjoyed writing it and i also wrote in the current issue about google classroom to schoology and that was a really good one in my opinion because it asked about the teachers and what they thought about the two platforms so it was cool to hear from teachers perspectives does anyone have any other questions i don't have a question but i just want to say that the three of you are amazing and thank you so much for bringing this to us today you're the reason that we do this and i can't tell you how much we appreciate it and the high school is going
020to be so lucky to have you next year yeah thank you this is incredible you're incredible and i can't wait to see what you do next this is a terrific program and i'm so glad we have things like this in rbusd and i can't wait to see them flourish thank you yep and thanks for being the first group back since we've come back to some sort of normalcy for those of you my new colleagues on the board david and i know one of the highlights of each board meeting is generally a presentation from each of our school sites and it's so wonderful to hear from our students thanks for going first and thanks for wowing us creating this google classroom that i want to log into maybe i'll cheat so thank you very much thank
021you [Applause] okay next up we have a race and equity committee update by marvin brown assistant principal of redondo union high school hello rbusd board of education and cabinet thank you for giving me alongside dr keller the opportunity to give a brief update on the race and equity committee first i just want to say i commend you all for the work that you are doing as a school board for our district you guys are in a a spotlight that is much different than being a board member a few years ago and i just appreciate all that you do and after 12 years in the district i still feel lucky to work here so thank you for all that you do so we're going to give a brief in update on the race and equity committee
022we want the public to know that you can find more information about the race and equity committee on the rbusd website and at the top of the website if you go to about us and then if you go to the race and equity committee link there you'll find our our purpose our goals you'll find our meeting agendas some of the presentations we've given to the board you'll find a list of the committee members and you'll find other information so speaking of committee members who we are so the race and equity committee is comprised of students parents and guardians staff members representatives from redondo beach police department and other stakeholder members we have four high school students we have three three that are seniors and a junior we have parent representatives from school site from each
023school site 24 females 15 males 17 are african-american 12 are caucasian six are hispanic and four are asian we are an intentionally diverse group of individuals all of whom have a unique and varied perspectives and experiences and as i read earlier we have a few representatives from rbpd on the committee our school district is very fortunate to have a strong partnership with rbpd they're a huge asset to our school and our campuses on all levels i can speak to that personally and give you many examples but we don't have the time they're a part of the arbusd community and we want all of our students to develop positive relationships with redondo peach with redondo beach police department and respect law enforcement so the last thing i want to say about this slide is that we
024understand that not everybody agrees with the work that the race and equity committee is doing right now just because we may disagree does not mean we have to dislike or mistrust the group of individuals that have voiced disagreement with our work we can have differences but still respect where the other person stands we don't have to hate each other i'll say it again we don't have to hate each other we all need to see humanity first and find the good in people before we make judgments about them and this is part of our work so you'll see that our focus is on diversity equity and inclusion when the race and equity committee first started our focus was more on race and that was a very important focus at the time but we're shifting our focus
025to diversity equity inclusion which is a broader focus and aligns more with what with other work that's happening in our school district so we're going to have three meetings this year our first meeting is going to focus on arbusd staff recruitment and hiring data our it's also going to have student survey data from california healthy kids survey as well as panorama ed and we're going to discuss the campus culture in connection with student data our second meeting is going to focus on unconscious bias staff professional development and employment recruitment efforts and our third meeting our last meeting this year we'll focus on next steps with the social justice standards the ethnic studies high school curriculum consideration and then we'll talk more about our final rec meeting perfect i'll take it from here or this slide
026and then uh mr brown will return dr wilds showed this slide our you know educational services assistant superintendent at the last meeting and it basically covers uh from the curriculum standpoint teaching and learning standpoint uh what a committee is going to work on next year as our curriculum and and um instructional leadership um committees actually um embrace and and work on and work towards solutions so the first one is the ethnic studies curriculum um i want to be clear if you haven't read this week the governor signed ab101 which mandates offering at least one semester of ethnic studies for 9th to 12th grade students as an option buy the 24. let me get my glasses on 24 25 school year and it's something that we've started to at least consider and a committee will work
027on it next year the state graduation requirement and this is also part of a b 101 will have all uh graduation requirement by the 29 30 school year that all students will have at least a semester of this ethnic studies curriculum and it's outlined to your left what we're basically talking about and as i shared earlier a committee next year uh will be formed uh to study uh and to consider uh the ethnic studies uh curriculum and please note that this would have to come to the board this uh recommendation from this group for the board to consider and you know consider the ethics studies curriculum that we bring forward the social justice standards connected here it's a framework of anti-bias education and what we want to share when you talk about standards in teaching
028and learning the great phrase that dr wiles uses is expressions of learning goals it's not a curriculum or as i would say standards what they do is they create boundaries of where we can go as instructors and teachers and really does kind of keep people within the lines of where they should be and so i'm always an advocate of standards if they're based in research uh and as as a guidepost for our teaching staff who you know this is a tough time for them and so providing some parameters i think is helpful and then again uh any sort of recommendation from this committee uh would obviously have to come to the board for their consideration so nothing would be brought forward and implement or brought forward and implemented without your consideration and ultimately your vote
029of confirmation thanks dr keller a few more slides so the committee is uh will maintain the same committee members as last year which we agreed upon um in the in the last meeting of uh our school year last year so if someone chooses not to attend we will not replace them or substitute them and my last slide is just to talk about notes so we're going to take notes this year our meetings are going to be in person we're going to have notes that are taken and published along with our agenda as well as posted on our website under the same tab that i discussed at the beginning and there are a few summary pieces we just want to be very clear about and we didn't necessarily anticipate uh you know sharing all these details
030but i think it's important to share with our public that any and all decisions regarding recommendations brought forth by the race and equity committee are made by the board of education and a public public meeting as this meeting there are approximately 39 members of the race and equity committee each has a different perspective and differing opinions the intent was to have more voices in the room all parents were invited to apply in september of 2020. defunding the police has come up and has not and will not be a matter of consideration by the race and equity committee the committee only discussed items on the agendas posted on the rwsu website and this will continue for this year and no member of the race and equity committee can speak on behalf of the school district's plans
031to adopt curriculum curriculum decisions remain at the discretion of the board of education for adoption and implementation so we wanted to be very clear about those pieces we wanted to thank you for your time if you have any questions or comments happy to entertain them i had a question dr keller about the the curriculum the ethnic studies curriculum so in theory would that replace for example the health class that we got rid of it's a great question dr wells you want to take that because we talked about this earlier today hi absolutely so right now we're just starting to get guidance the guidance right now would be that it would be a semester long that's that's uh the details that are in the assembly bill that can be sometimes a little problematic because we can't
032have semester-long courses that meet a g eligibility so that will be obviously something that the committee that we put together will look at whether we want to make it a ha a semester offering or a full year offering so that students can um achieve a to g credit for that course that'll be something that we decide one other question along the signs is this a required course or an elective course for every high school student the way we're reading the legislation right now like i said we're going to delve into it a lot more deeply that it we have to offer it have to offer it by a certain date and then it will become a high school graduation requirement by the 2029 2030 if you can imagine those dates uh school year graduation start
033as an elective and then move into a graduation requirement for the legislation yes and the class is sent to us as is the curriculum or is that we'll get more information we'll get more information typically it takes the california department of education a little longer to give us guidance once legislation is signed and just to be clear on this many school districts have already adopted a curriculum and an a course offering um and in anticipation of this legislation coming so i was going to ask that question in our surrounding districts they've already got all of them but some some have certainly throughout southern california does anyone else have any other questions yeah just one more confirmation just grades nine through 12 correct applied to our high school basically that's correct that's it for now correct
034thank you and just to be clear that would include dreisler all right mr brown anything else i have a question so like people in the in the broader parent community or student community like if they have like during this school year if they have issues that they want to bring to the committee's attention or they see the notes from the first meeting and they support something in the notes or don't support something in the notes what should they do to communicate yeah they can reach out directly to me they can reach out directly to dr keller we're happy to address those questions or concerns and they have we've received student comments and and parent and resident comments and does like does every school site has it have they like publicized who their parent representative is
035so someone at let's say washington elementary would be more likely to know their representative we publish the names at the end of the year yeah and they're posted on the website and it says what school site they're they're representing okay thank you thanks any other questions thank you guys thank you mr brown okay student board member report charles stearman all right i have um i have a few reports from the high school so asb will be hosting the ucla blood drive that will be held on november 10th and students must be at least 16 years old and all 16 year olds will need parent permission to participate um it will be taking place at the small gym in our uhs and it'll go from 7 30 a.m to 12 30 p.m that day students can
036sign up through either an asb member or at ruhs or through a google form sent to them in their email and all donors will receive a free movie ticket as well and then i've also been planning to conduct the young leaders of arbusd program which will be occurring later in november or december and if you don't know this is a program where i will meet with student representatives from the elementary schools and middle schools of arbusd and i will run them through leadership activities and uh basically get them more involved with their school and teach them leadership skills that will help them in the future and yes are there any questions about that have a question yeah on the blood drive what what were the hours uh it goes from 7 30 a.m to 12
03730 p.m and you may not know this but do you know what time the asb members in charge of that have to be there that morning i think it would be i think we'd show up there around six i think so too and i just i just want everybody to know that these kids put this on every year in asb and they are literally leaving their homes at 5 30 in the morning to make this blood drive happen so thank you it's really important and i know we as a district i've always supported the you know the blood drive so yeah thank you so much for that yeah absolutely okay echo thanking asb has been doing a lot of hard work getting the traditions back going at the high school it's been really exciting to
038see spirit week that you had at the high school ending with the rally and uh just thank everybody at asb from all of us for reminding everybody about the great traditions that we have at the high school yeah absolutely thank you i will do that all right next up we have dr keller's report all right last week after school gate modules began on all of our rbusd elementary and middle school campuses for current gait identified students in grades five and eight through star resources elementary students are enjoying a visual and performing arts inspired module it's called vap palooza vapa visual and performing arts palooza kind of a play there while middle school students are learning about rapid prototyping and the art of 3d design in print approximately 250 students are participating in this first module
039students in grades three and four as well students new to the district will be invited to participate in gate testing of course um i also want to bring you some great news and charles probably knows this better than anybody 95 of our 11th grade students are taking the psat on wednesday thanks to rbef funding so we're very thankful and proud of our rbfers and of course our juniors that are taking the psat so thank you to them good luck do well all of them and then i wanted dr wesley to share two exciting activities we have uh currently uh one coming up and currently we're embraced in uh and that is the classified job fair and then the employee health challenges so dr wesley you want to share oh yes thank you um so this
040actually this thursday we're going to have our first classified job fair at the south bay adult school which we're really excited about we've been advertising it we are hoping that we will be able to actually hire at the job fair we're looking for custodians instructional aides child nutrition services office assistants classified substitutes we've posted on the south bay adult school facebook page and we've had over 13 000 people click on it to look at it or engage with it we had a qr code that we sent out on a flyer and we've had over 100 people sign up via the qr code so we are ready to roll we created the job fair in a manner where we can actually go through the interview process the tb and live scan process and actually give interviews
041pending reference checks and so long as they pass the tb in the department of justice process we want to make it so that it's worth people's time to come interview and possibly leave with the job so we're excited about that and we hope people will come out south bay adult school 3 30 on thursday and you want to share about the employee health challenge yes i would love to um so as you know this is our third year having an employee wellness challenge and so we're kicking off our first of three challenges this week this week this challenge this theme is commit to being fit employees will who sign up hopefully they will we'll have the ability to earn points for just doing an intentional movement we have three different opportunities during lunch break for
042employees to log in and do a mindful stretch and drop in with our beach cities health care partners they can earn points for sharing ideas to move on the message board and we're encouraging employees to go out and get those preventative appointments as well dennis seeing their doctor etc so really just moving intentionally exercising being healthy there's all kinds of challenges you know listed so we encourage our employees to sign up and participate and have some fun with it great and there are all types of jobs available at this job fair yes and they're all classified based but yes we are also we're hoping to build up our sub pool as well so people can come in and be hired for several different positions even substitute teaching not nothing certificated so no teaching no counseling
043so these are all classified positions so our office assistants our custodial et cetera health clerk clerical yes yep thanks that's all we have okay thank you very much okay it's time for the public hearing session before we begin i'd just like to review a few rules that govern our public board meetings face coverings must be worn at all times including while speaking audience members in the room are here to observe please do not disrupt the board meeting or other audience members or speakers you can submit public comments in writing and watch the board meeting on your personal device at any time during the appropriate time in the agenda i will call you up i've got 15 i believe advanced written requests we are asking you to you can discuss anything on the agenda or a
044matter within the subject jurisdiction of the school district this is not meant to be a debating period complaints and problems related to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent persons who have complaints against board members or the staff are encouraged to seek resolution of those complaints by utilization of the district written complaint procedure rather than orally addressing them at a meeting speakers are cautioned that under california law no person is immune from liability for making intentionally false or defamatory comments regarding any person simply because those comments are made at a public meeting and we thank you for your participation so we're going to start with kim isaacs and just to confirm we're doing am i timing for two minutes here yes i thought that was the board inside for two minutes and it will
045flash yellow when it's starting to loop so i just wanted to talk about um the anti-bias um and i think that i was really happy to see that what we're going to be talking about and working on this year with the race and equity committee is bias my son has had a lifetime of dealing with bias in his teachers being treated differently being targeted in his classrooms and it is really important that the teachers go through bias training we all have biases every single one of us have them and it's important to not let that get in the way of how we teach our kids because the kids of color all go through certain situations where they're treated differently and that's something that i'm really excited that we're going to work on because i don't
046want any other child to go through what my child has gone through his entire educational every time every school he's been at he's had to deal with someone targeting him in the classroom the teachers treating him differently than the other kids and that's not fair and that's not how it should be every child is important every child is special every child deserves to learn in an environment where they feel wanted where they feel excited to learn and when they're treated differently they feel less than and it's important that we all recognize our biases and we think about them like wait a minute is this the right thing to do am i operating on a bias or not and then maybe change our action instead of going with what our instincts are because a lot of
047times our instincts are based on bias and it's there's no one in this room that doesn't have a bias we all do it's part of our makeup so that's it thank you thank you marie peter barra does i spell it pronounce it correctly you sure like the metal ball like the humbug peterborough marie peterbot when i cake should i go okay i'm marie peterbot and i have two students in the redondo beach union high school when i thought i had three minutes i was going to spend a minute just saying thank you to the board um i i agree with mr brown said you guys are doing an amazing job during a horrible time and i think people have been really mean to you and i don't think it's fair um i am very thrilled
048with the redondo beach school district i appreciate dr keller you called me personally when i was concerned and you talked me off the ledge and i really appreciated that um i think there's one group though that i am annoyed with and it's this group on instagram it's called the rbusd parents for transparency and they are they're out there they don't like what you're doing they said we're a growing group of parents that are concerned with the motives of dr stephen keller and the rbs usd school board we want the best for all children and why i got annoyed with this group is in my daughter's high school there was a history teacher that put up a flag that was a communist flag so they posted the communist flag and said email the board and you
049know send the letters and this is the teachers names and i remember it was the night of the recall and 167 kids responded with comments such as ah yes a flag that means he endorses communism this account is definitely run by a karen there's literally an american flag right next to it whoever took this photo left the other half of the classroom out another comment when his whole room is full of other flags because he's a history teacher don't get an innocent teacher in trouble or fired for something you'd like if you knew him other comments are i can't wait for you to shield your child from history and another one is somebody please get your mom off instagram now why is this upsetting me i have no idea you know i i have other
050things to do than look at instagram but this is a dangerous i feel like this is dangerous after what the woman said the whistleblower from facebook said because this group also has the star of david with unvaccinated in it saying history will repeat itself and i don't think these are truths and i don't think you can see any of those comments because they blocked all of the kids and they blocked all the comments so that's all i got thank you can i can i make just a general comment yep um like in in principle like we're willing to give people their their two minutes to you know to exercise their democratic right but we're here to do the business of the school district so if if you have a problem with the school district like
051what the board is doing or what teachers are doing or staff like that's fair game but if you if people that that have problems like with non-district matters you know like a like a social media group like it's not really that we can't control the social media like and and there are venues where you you know those battles can play out so just you know we we had incidents in the last board meeting where there was just you know attacks going back and forth that didn't really have direct impact on like what are we doing as a district so while respecting everyone's right to say what what they want to say um you know i would encourage people to just you know we're we're here to take the heat for school district matters and what
052happens at school so okay next up is jen morowaki okay i tried to quickly edit based off of what you just said so but um okay my name is jen morwaki and i have mixed black and japanese 12 and 15 year olds in the district i'm here to speak in support of my friend kim isaac from the race and equity committee who was relentlessly attacked at last month's school board meeting and also in support of mr rappaport a social science teacher at adam's middle who has been attacked for his privileged teachings both my children has have had him as a teacher the community members who keep attacking my friend kim are focusing on the fact that she said defund the police they think she should be removed from the race and equity committee of black
053women i cringe at those same community members quoting martin luther king jr as a way to further silence a black woman and gaslight people of color who have first-hand experience of being treated differently by police also for our community members that like to weaponize mlk junior's quotes google letters from a birmingham jail here's a quote for you first i must confess that over the past few years i have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating and than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection mr rappaport teaching about things like privilege are exactly what we need in our school we do a disservice to our kids if we teach them that privilege doesn't exist so privilege is not
054it it just means that you it's just not something you also have to overcome the teachings produce young adults with empathy who are inclusive having privilege isn't about shaming people that have it it's about teaching them how they did nothing to get it and should learn how to use it to help others who don't have it and i saw a tweet from modesty queen 19 that sums it up perfectly the reason america never learns from its history is because america never teaches its real history thank you next up christy mickler good evening um i would want i'm here to show my support for the board i appreciate what you guys do i am very proud to be a community member in redondo beach i'm very happy to have my kids go to the school district
055i i'm just here to support you in what you do i'm really happy that you guys are considering race and equity and considering these important topics because we are at a very serious juncture in this country and it's important that we try to breathe bring these types of topics to our our children as to bring it to full circle is you saw the eighth graders presented to you and these these topics are on their minds and they are worried about it and these are important things that we need to do as a community to deal with these things so that is really all i wanted to say i appreciate you and thank you very much thank you next we have kim shavatkin um thank you board members you've got a really difficult job and i
056appreciate all of your time and efforts my name is kim shavodkin and i have a sixth grader and an eighth grader at paris i support the activities and the recommendations of the rec committee i hope their recommendations are enacted swiftly at the last meeting which was my first i was shocked and horrified at the personal attacks on board member mr elder and wreck member miss kimberly isaacs which were allowed to go on for almost 15 minutes we all ask for transparency and you can't be more transparent than mrs isaacs has been we all know exactly where she stands and what her beliefs are blm doesn't mean we hate white people defund the police also doesn't mean we hate white people for those the reasons i'm sorry for those that are triggered when they hear these
057statements they need to have some crt and learn why discover why they are triggered by those statements i also support mr rappaport and the privilege walk lesson done i wish it was done by more teachers i find it to be a powerful and unifying lesson thank you thank you next we have jeff krutz good evening i first want to start by acknowledging what dr marvin brown and dr keller presented to us with the race and equity committee as i stand here as part of the redondo beach parents for parents for school transparency i would say what was presented today is exactly what we've been looking for we have been asking for months and months and months and so it's a little overdue but thank you and i commend you very much for the transparency that
058was shown today the continuing efforts it looks like you guys are going to keep making i think we are not opposed to a race and equity committee we were opposed to how far behind closed doors and what wasn't given so for dr marvin brown as well for saying you know notes will be presented agendas that goes a million miles for us so i just want to thank and commend the board because i acknowledge they've been under a tremendous amount of pressure that's unprecedented for most school boards over the last several years i wholeheartedly agree with kimberly isaacs too there should be no one treated differently there should be nobody put into a place where they feel like they cannot be accepted there should not be a place where they feel that they have to be
059treated differently i want to make sure that it's abundantly clear there are lots of parents within this district though that do not want class classroom lessons or hand-picked literature that characterizes oppressor versus oppressed we can reach these common goals in many many different ways but skin color privilege and distrust of those who look look differently than you all result in divisiveness so if there are positive teachable outcomes and end goals those should not be presented when they are have flawed attempts to point to racism and everything and we know there are racist people everywhere this is true that you cannot deny that the race and equity committee has has again if once it's moving forward and it's in its um in its um in its new structure we just encourage what you have talked about
060before with goal number four and that's transparency among the community so thank you very much thank you next up we have jerome chang hi good evening my name is jerome chang and i'm a resident of 10 years of two kids at 2 lita i want to just say i support the board especially on your resolute stance on all things related to diversity equity and inclusion as we're now calling it beyond race and equity and also therefore uh support any progress that the raising the race and equity committee by name more diversity equity inclusion uh is doing i hope that they accelerate any of the progress just on that topic regarding minorities as a reminder to the public that while non-whites if we're talking about race constitutes 40 percent of the city's demographics but almost 50
061percent of the school's demographics and depending how we slice and dice that demographics dr wesley right it sometimes is 60 of the demographics and we're going to wait for this year's demographics to be finalized uh that's a big difference between the city demographics and the school demographics so there's a lot of the kids who constitute our next generations for radona beach residents but the reason why i agree also that it should be diversity equity inclusion because it's not just about race it's also about inclusiveness with those who are disabled those with different gender orientations those who are of different religious affiliations specifically jews asians and blacks of course and muslims have had a rise and and hate against them so while there is a level of feelings of divisiveness some of us are literally being
062beat up harassed and killed in this country with percentage increases of 30 50 percent more on a one-year basis as you know i talked to you last march where the rise of anti-aging hate went up 50 in just one year so thank you for your resolute stance on this all of us who show up here will show up again to show your our support for your resolute stance thank you thank you next monique grant so i have an agenda and non-agenda right so we'll time for the first and then two minutes for the second holy read because i was kind of taking notes about some of these things that were said but mr whitman i did want to say you know how you said about you're kind of addressing us it is uncomfortable some of
063these things that are said it's not comfortable for me but i do want to state that sometimes with what we say here it's our working parents who can't make it do kind of follow what's been going on with your difficult positions with our in our difficult positions with parents so i just wanted to say it's not something you know somebody else said about attacking i just wanted to you know make sure that our board is good role models as well and with some of the things it is uncomfortable dan but um and then the lessons on crt that triggers me my children don't need to be taught division because of their skin color bottom line bottom line it doesn't matter what our skin color is it's fit from kindergarten to fifth grade what was being
064presented under review with learning for justice it's it's not kids want to go to school and play with play-doh and be friends not point out their differences and that goes for all of us a color i don't have to come up here and say what color my skin is or that i'm cisgender or any of those things i'm monique grant i'm a i'm just here to talk as a parent in our district and it's to me it's just gone way too far so i did want to say dr keller thank you i do have a lot of thank yous tonight um i know that um some of these things that are said you know these hate crimes for black brown asians here in south bay can i please see these statistics are you able to
065show something to the public where you gain that knowledge here in the south bay i'm unaware of it i guess i just don't see it i don't feel it i don't spread it and dr keller i just asked that for the first thank marvin brown my first time i saw him speak thank you for your presentation and i wanted to say dr keller would you please be more mindful when you select your staff for committee for the ethnic studies i hope that you will be it's not i want diversity i think everybody wants diversity on our race and equity committee we just don't have room and don't want to make room for the obvious hatred so that's pretty much what i wanted to say for in regards to that okay do you have another topic
066you want to speak on yeah just a few things just take like one minute are they agendized are there on the non-agenda is this the other thing so okay so two minutes like i said it says not attack making sure we remain we have that we that we remain having good role models leading our school district i'd like to personally thank dan elder that you were extremely quick to set your instagram page to private during the last board meeting i didn't want my nine-year-old or your 11 year old daughter to think such mask warning was appropriate either wish more people kept their social media either private or didn't have the nerve to make half their post being in staff positions even our middle schoolers earlier seemed to be bright enough to even know what to
067do use social media for i'd like to quickly address dr keller to refrain from calling anyone a covid commander in our district it is a militant title that is earned not just tossed around and i find it disrespectful to the men and women in the of this rank in our military who have earned their title of commanders i believe jessica silberling in your last meeting who you addressed as the covet commander is really an executive director of special education correct dr keller please be more careful when you throw around titles in this board room because people who respect our military and come from military background are actually listening i don't find their service to be a joking manner i look forward to our meeting this week that's it thank you next up is catherine lapit
068lepiti thanks okay hello my name is catherine appetit i'm the mother of three kids one in lincoln one in adams and one in real londo high i'm here to address the covet 19 vaccine mandate first quick recap on vaccine efficacy i think by now um and since officially announced by cdc in august we know that the vaccine do not stop transmission do not prevent you from getting it and their efficacy weighing big time in preventing hospitalization and death unfortunately now relation coveted kids kobe 19 does not affect kids pediatric pediatric death accounts for only 0.1 of all kobe deaths and the risk for kids dying from kovid is 0.008 percent more children die from drowning every year than children have died from coving in almost 2 years so most important my point here today is
069those gene therapies are not safe period whoever says they are are liars and dangerous the veyers is the only safety data that you can refer to and through august 1st there are 800 000 adverse events reported including more than 16 000 deaths adverse events aren't rare they are real and this is just one year of safety data we have no long-term safety data whatsoever so just be super mindful our kids are the most important thing on this planet they're the future of humanity we are the guardians we have to protect them those current vaccines are much riskier for our kids than kobe itself now i'm begging you please go sit down in a quiet place and think long and hard on what is the right thing to do for you board members in 20 years
070from now you will be remembered for the action you will take be on the good side of his story be the one that stand up for our kids their freedom and above all their health don't don't use excuses like our hands are tied we know you can pull this off and lead other district by example we all have one thing in common we only have one health one life there is no redo no possibility to unvaccinate yourself until we know more about those experiments please pose and do not mandate the vaccine thank you thank you next we have brian eisley hi there thank you for letting me come and talk to you and i appreciate your attention and thank you for what you just said because i'm going to follow up my name's brian eisley
071i run a licensed medical facility here in the area and i have been treating covid for 20 months at this point in time and what i'd like to go over the real facts and the real data rather than the stuff you see in the papers so i'm a faction data kind of guy i read clinical trials i don't do anything other than clinical trials and that's why i want to make sure you understand this the lancet october 2021 so this month they did a data analysis of pfizer clinical trials and the modern clinical trials what they determined was that the actual infection rate of covid is 0.88 percent that is less than one percent because what their criteria was is actual symptomatic and a positive pcr test basic virology says you cannot transmit a virus
072unless you have symptoms you have to have a viral load you can't have a viral load unless you have symptoms so from that standpoint there they said the risk of attracting covid was exceptionally low that risk after six months because we've only been in clinical trials for adults for one year there are no clinical trials for 12 to 17 year olds there are no clinical trials for anything younger than that they have not started yet there is no data check me out go to pfizer go to the nih you will find out there are no clinical trials we don't know what this is going to do to our kids but i can tell you this vigilis world health organization says 89 000 americans have died from the vaccine medicare database says 92 412 have died
073from the vaccine directly attributed to the vaccine that's adults let's talk about kids to date 378 children have died with covet in the united states of which 96 94 percent had comorbidities to date 526 young men between the ages of 12 and 17 have died from myocardius carotid carditis and pericarditis after taking the vaccine more kids have died from taking the vaccine and have died from covet please take this into account please do the research i'm talking real research thank you [Applause] okay thank you next up is sheila garcia please so it's two minutes right um the doctor did you want more time excuse me um did you want more time we're not yielding time we're not yielding time no oh okay thank you you're welcome do you need time money no we're not yielding
074time sorry okay so i really didn't have anything planned but um you know honestly i'm going to be just from the heart and yes i realized the last meeting was a little heated and yes it you know but some of these conversations aren't always easy right like i i appreciate what you said uh kim isaacs and because i also read what's on your sweatshirt and because i'm believe that we all are humanity and we we all are coming together so i do appreciate the fact of the things that you guys do as a board okay the only thing that i'm finding that's happening with this covid and race and certain things we want people to come together however people are still being divided okay so it's happening and so i need you dr keller to
075really see how the teachers are being treated that aren't doing following the rules okay so the rules are meant to be followed however what gets me is that we're talking about this race and equity well it's like why didn't people why weren't people following the rules to begin with what you're actually saying is by accepting this uh rec is saying that you guys weren't doing a good job if you literally sat down and thought about it what you're literally you are admitting that you guys weren't doing enough in that area so what you're it's telling me is that you were actually violating people's civil rights so you weren't actually doing diversity you actually weren't doing the things that martin luther king or whoever said about diversity so if you guys can just chew on that
076and say hey we're saying that we weren't doing it so you guys are guilty some of you have conflicts of interest and so i need all of you on that board to take the conflict of interest and recuse yourselves thank you thank you next we have ben ringel may i begin hi i'm ben ringle from redondo union high school as a student and youth commissioner i'd like to commend the board on the diversity curriculum discussed last meeting and the race and equity updates discussed this meeting after hearing some of the complaints certain people had about it now growing up is hard as teenagers managing school work friendships family relationships and everything else it can be difficult not to feel lost or insecure at times and because of this it's crucial that the classroom is a
077space where everyone feels welcomed and accepted the diversity curriculum and the rec are not liberal indoctrination or anti-american propaganda they're simply means of fostering an environment where every student regardless of their race sexuality or gender identity feel safe to learn and grow to any parents who are scared that their children's whiteness or heterosexuality will be vilified by the steps the district is making to teach inclusivity i want to let you know that as a straight white male on campus i've only ever felt empowered and inspired in the classroom by my lgbtq classmates and classmates of color this curriculum represents freedom freedom to be proud of one's identity freedom to feel safe while learning and freedom to embrace our differences i seriously don't know what can be more pro-american than that thank you thank you [Applause]
078we have joyce lewis next i'm requesting a survey to rbusd parents asking if they would like mask and vaccine choice instead of mandates parents know what's best for their children not politicians or school administrators a large number of students do not want the vaccine for a number of reasons some have recovered from coven 19 and have antibodies that offer greater protection others have sincere religious objections they object to the use of aborted fetal tissue in the development of pharmaceuticals they believe it violates their right others have friends or family that have suffered severe side effects from the vaccine and therefore are afraid or hesitant to take it in a free country politicians and school administrators should never be allowed to force students to submit to medical treatments they don't want the unvaccinated have been dismissed
079and discriminated against by our district for reasons that don't make sense we're being told to get the shot to protect the people that have already gotten the shot because the shot doesn't work well enough to protect the people that have already gotten the shot this has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with the accumulation of political power a few weeks ago parents opposing these mandates at school board meetings were classified as domestic terrorists was a statement made to deter parents from public from publicly speaking out in fear the fbi will show up at their door this is absurd all voices should be heard and all opinions considered case numbers continue to go down in our county and yet you will be enforcing harmful mandates please put an end to masking and
080vaccine mandates and allow parents to make the right choice for their children thank you next we have gene mcmillan hi i'm asking that the board reject the idea of applying a covet 19 vaccine mandate to our students the decision should be made by the individual families and their physicians the current covid19 vaccines are not the end-all be-all cure as we know that vaccinated are still contracting covenant and transmitting it to others according to bayer's summary data for coven 19 the total number of deaths associated with coven 19 vaccines is greater than the number of deaths associated with all other vaccines combined since 1990 that's 30 years permanent disabilities life-threatening events are also outpacing those of scheduled vaccines much of this is not covered by mainstream media as we as it does not follow the narrative
081of sacramento armed with this knowledge common sense begs the questions what is the benefit in choosing to put our children's health at risk what would motivate you to mandate covet vaccines i understand that our district recently received 9.3 million dollars in sr-3 funding from the state i'm hoping that a cova 19 vaccine mandate on our students is not a condition which needs to be met to accept said funds our children are young in their physiological limitations are still being discovered at this point in time we may not know if our child's body has underlying conditions which may affect their ability to safely process the covid19 vaccines for this reason risk assessment and decision to get about get to get vaccinated should be made by the individual family and not be haphazardly applied to the entire
082student population the duress applied by mandating coven 19s for in-person learning will undoubtedly result in parents finding alternative platforms for their children's education sadly against better judgment some families will succumb to the coercive vaccine mandate if one of these kids gets sick or dies as a result of the vaccine it will be a tragedy please consider if you're willing to accept the responsibility and personal guilt for any damage this vaccine causes on even one of our students thank you now i have carolyn petty i have been watching your school board meetings and hearing parents talk about what is happening in the classroom and it is disturbing here are a few examples at the last meeting dr wilds explained how curriculum is shaped and specifically pointed to ed code 6400 which states in part people from
083different cultures must be presented in an accurate manner you must be aware that a history teacher put on the syllabus a recommended reading called who am i reading this document referred to various minorities as oppressed or marginalized it also disparages others based upon their sexuality or religious beliefs stereotyping entire groups of people based upon their characteristics violates that ed code not to mention it is insulting humiliating and demoralizing it is antithetical to the standards in this country and those moral and ethical standards of everyone i know i would have to think you do not agree with that either dr wilds said the school is not implementing learning for justice but pointed to social justice as another avenue that would be explored next year social justice curriculum is essentially the pathway for bringing critical race theory
084into the classroom i suggest the school board poll the parent community at large and ask them do they think the school should be spending classroom time and resources on social justice what will not be taught when this ideology is promoted in the classroom this is precisely why many angry parents are speaking at schools because they are concerned that the schools are more concerned with indoctrination as opposed to education once you start this committee in that process there is no turning back it isn't even a trojan horse because all you have to do is review entities such as learning for justice and see that they make no secret of their ideology and goals which is to turn children into social justice activists i encourage you to ask parents about their experiences and start digging into what
085is happening in this district i also encourage you to ask dr keller what he is doing to ensure those teachers do not violate edcode i know in closing i might give a few seconds over i know your job is challenging many of you probably thought the school board would be easy and free of controversy particularly when compared to city council but now you see that in some ways your job is more important than city council you are entrusted with determining the future of redondo beach students parents know their fate is in your hands i ask you to rise to the challenge assert control over the administration and protect children from this ideology that shifts the focus away from excellence in education thank you thank you next up i have pam kaplan is pam kaplan here
086okay how about derek leone oh no here comes pam pam um i gave who was it dr toronto i think a couple of little handouts this is um i'm pam kaplan i have three kids one's um out of school at santa barbara you see santa barbara i have a sophomore at uc santa barbara i have a junior at redondo union and i have an eighth grader who's supposed to be at adams with an iep and we've had disagreements we're part of the inclusion families as i was designated in kindergarten and i'm not ready to send him back to school we've it's just not safe for him with different issues related to kovid and whatnot so he has been determined by a portion of the iep team to somehow he had zoom school all last year
087which worked out and had his issues but it's a pandemic we got through um and now he's unable to come up with some solutions so he's had no classes and no therapy we have a letter that says he will have no therapy if we choose to continue we just have no resolution and adams is having inclusion day for people with disabilities on friday and other inclusion issues for people with disabilities that are happening at the high school that benji sibling did not enjoy whatever video was shown in preparation for that so we just need to include the people with a wide range of perspectives on the topic of all these topics equity and trying to figure out ways to try to include students with a variety of manners is really what i'm looking for so
088thank you next we have derek leone leone good evening i just wanted to say that i am one parent i have a wife that would love to be here but she is a working mom i was here at last meeting from the from the time i left work in the morning to the time i was done speaking was 15 hours it would be probably the same tonight that i was at home i say this only to say that the parents have spoke before me tonight many of them are in the same situation and for every one of us here there's dozens of parents that have the same concerns but aren't able to be here for obvious reasons i was going to speak about some other things tonight but i just want to first of all
089thank you to the board for what you do we there's disagreements but and i don't have much time to spend on that i just wanted to talk about the the upcoming panoramic survey that's coming up this week and not to say that i know what it is because i've already asked the school if i could see the survey prior to my daughter taking it just wanted to read some surveys that questions that came last year how often do you spend time at school with students from different races ethnicities and cultures some people describe themselves as transgender when how when how they think or feel or their gender is different from the sex they were assigned to birth are you transgender which of the falling best describes you straight lesbian or gay or bisexual what do
090you wish your teachers knew about your experiences of race ethnicity or culture at school the reason i read these questions because these were questions that actually were posed in the school last year and i'm not saying this year is going to be the same but this whole discussion of race and ethnicity is the racialization of our kids forcing them into groups somebody was a performer proponent for the privileged walk that my daughter was exposed to earlier this year well they automatically start with the assumption that they tell you you're privileged because of the group you are you they put you in if i teach my daughter not to identify as a group identify as an individual based on your own behavior this goes out the window as soon as she enters the classroom because she's
091forced to identify as herself as a group and then ask questions about her sexuality in the classroom so this will be an ongoing discussion and i thank you for your time i notice you shorten the time tonight but there'll be future events thank you that's the last of the advanced written requests i have so means we will move forward to open the public hearing regarding the availability of statutory school fees and mitigation payments so i need a motion and second for that moved second elder does anybody have any questions or wish to speak on the availability statute school fees and mitigation payments nope all right then i need a motion and second to close the hearing someone second by elder okay all those in favor say aye aye aye should approve okay communications rbpta or
092rbta sorry added a p rbta thank you good evening members of the board cabinet and dr keller my name is mirlan land i am the vice president of the redondo beach teachers association and math teacher at adams middle school on behalf of rbta i would like to express our support and thanks to the members of the race and equity committee led by mr brown we appreciate the important work and time commitment of parents students staff and board members involved we look forward to receiving professional development and age-appropriate resources to use with our students in our classrooms and our school sites oh this hasn't happened yet but i'm gonna support it we're gonna support it is that okay okay we would also like to express support for the proposal on tonight's agenda to increase the compensation
093for substitutes the lack of available substitutes is having a negative impact on rbta members ability to participate in leadership and professional development opportunities during the school day it also puts a lot of pressure on our members to not take contractually granted personal necessity and sick days by increasing our daily and long-term sub-rates we will be more competitive with local districts and can hope to rebuild our substitute pool thank you again for all your work and thank you for your support thank you do we have anyone from csea or aft now we have rbpta hello everyone thanks for letting us be here um as of today we have 7 153 members so it's pretty good right 54 of them are community members which we're pretty proud of and we're still growing strong presidents and principals are
094working very closely trying to get programs back to our kids they are working closely and as we we have a president's round table every month and the presidents meet with me and the vice president and we collaborate and come up with new ideas and we're trying not to have every unit reinvent a program we're trying to come up with some guidelines so we can bring some things back to the kids i know that hands-on art is back in full force i'm so excited about that the garden is happening i think adams is having an after-school hands-on art program so things are starting to come back slowly as dr keller had asked 33rd district continues to have its um speaker series and the next one is on october 19th and it is about special education it's
095a webinar and i have a very special person here i'd like you to meet is uh tijuan laber and she is our d.i chairperson so i'm gonna give her up to you and hi thank you good evening board members thank you for allowing me to introduce myself my name is t'jean luber and i'm the diversity equity and inclusion chair for redondo beach council ptas supporting all of our dei chairs at each school before joining council in this role i served as pta president for toledo elementary for two years additionally i have two daughters within rbusd the dei committee was formed last year under the leadership and guidance of patti deliva and i wanted to take a moment to read our mission statement and some of the things we've accomplished over the last 18 months the
096mission statement is for our dei committee is that the redondo beach council pta embraces the diverse backgrounds experiences knowledge and talents of the students and families and school communities we serve we strive to empower all voices because our differences are our greatest strength in our mission to make every child's potential a reality over the last 18 months we developed said mission statement adopted a glossary of inclusion terms created a dei unit chair at each of our schools we created a dei initiative plan and outlined initial activities and we established welcome committees at each school site and had a cultural welcome banners in 22 different languages which represent all the languages spoken within rbusd's community displayed at every school in district office we also added a dei page to the rbpta council website with every unit's
097individual pta websites then linked back to it so we have a kind of a master area where we included all of these things that i've talked about and we also developed a central cultural calendar which will be utilized in planning at all units they take into account cultural and religious holidays and we celebrate them in newsletters and we ensure that events do not fall on community cultural religious holidays and adjust things accordingly and finally we look forward to establishing a partnership with the district race and equity committee this year the way that i kind of gotten some questions about well you have a rbpta dei and you have the race and equity team dei and what's the difference and the way that i think is the best way to understand it simply is we're sort
098of like rbef and pta where rbaf can fund resources fund people and pta can fund programs and so while the race and equity committee can make recommendations on curriculum and teacher hiring practices and training pta dei is really focused on the culture and the school level and in the classroom and making sure that that culture is inclusive and equitable for all our students so thank you very much thank you both do we have anyone from rbef okay moving on to general consent calendar does anyone have anything they'd like to pull 10.5 please okay anything else okay can i get a motion and second to approve 10.1 through 10.4 please second stretzenberg all those in favor say aye aye motion passes uh motion and second to open discussion on 10.5 so move stretzenberg second elder okay
099go ahead so i want to apologize to the board this is really late notice it only came to me late this afternoon that the way this is worded is that we are voting to adopt the administrative regulations and at this point i have a couple of preliminary findings from i wasn't able to do a lot of research but one of them was that regulations should not be adopted by the board but may be reviewed for compliance with the law and board policy and then a little bit further on i found one from laco that states similarly the slightly different administrative regulations and exhibits are only approved either by the superintendent or the deputy superintendent there's nothing in the content of the board policies or ars that i have any issue with those have been reviewed
100extensively and it was only late today that i found this potentially that i'm not sure what the answer is because a couple different sources say we should not be adopting administrative regulations because they are under the purview of the superintendent and at this point i just honestly don't know that's the number one reason for abstaining and that's what i'm going to be doing is abstaining it i don't have the answer i don't have enough information to clearly with a clear conscience make that boat so i didn't want to blindside you with an abstention at the end and supporting the abstention that's the reasons i had i reached out to dr keller immediately and i it was such short notice and i apologize for that and i didn't expect an answer but at least wanted to
101give a heads up so and i wanted to let the board know that so that's my reasons for abstaining on this just so i clarify the question is whether or not the board has the jurisdiction to adopt the administrative regulations is that yes it's a procedural thing not a content type of thing and i just don't know the answer i have not found anything that says and i haven't gone into ed code i haven't found that it says you we shall not i found a should not and should only and that's the extent of the time i had and i apologize for that but happy to respond and yes thank you mr strutzenberg he did give me the ring and i did consult with mr gallegos our executive assistant for all of us um in
102our board bylaws um there is language in our board bylaws that clarify this issue but we don't even know if that's 100 accurate but i will tell you over the years and talking to other superintendents that we are clean i mean i appreciate you giving me and my designees the ability and power to not bring forth these regulations to the board i think it is imperative that you have this synergistic relationship with board policies and administrative regulation and i know mr strassenburg and i spoke about this i would recommend that the board move forward on these if uh you know somebody wants to abstain i respect that uh obviously i'll clarify i i hate using this phrase we've done this for 15 years it's never been called out i know other colleagues who are doing
103the same thing however i'm one of those people if we've done something that's incorrect we'll come back we'll clean it up but for now i feel confident in moving forward and the recommendation remains respectful does anybody have any questions well i think i'll just follow up mr you did make a great point that it is in our bylaws that the board shall review and approve all administrative regulations and it goes on the rest of the language gets a little bit of ambiguous and that was in 1992 and last revised in 2005. so i just don't know i mean i'm not saying anything is wrong but i can't in clear conscious vote on something i'm not sure about so make sense i will say i appreciate having more stuff brought to the board for review rather
104than i mean not to say that we don't trust you dr keller but i appreciate you having bringing that forward so um all those in favor of 10.5 say i all right any opposed one extension got it thank you okay moving on to 12.1 can i get a motion and second to adopt and approve resolution number 2021-2206 the board of education of the redondo beach unified school district relating to information made available to the public in the form of a statutory school facilities fee report for fiscal year 2020 to 2021 reportable fees report uh motion and second please second specific dr alperin yes thank you board approval and adoption of this resolution relating to the statutory school facilities fees report is requested the reportable fees is included in the board documents that's attached to the
105board item it's been made available to the public since september 24th when it was posted publicly we collected this past year just over 1.2 million dollars in developer fees developer fees is the commonly understood term for the statutory required fees report that we engage in annually and so we provide information to the public and to you as a board and we seek your approval and adoption of the resolution so just one thing i wanted to highlight for the board and also for the members of the public these developer fees are critical for us we've spent millions of dollars of bond fees to build new classrooms replace existing ones and as development continues in our city world we could need new facilities and pieces like that and these developer fees are you know a huge helpful
106way of doing that there have been housing bills that thankfully did not pass which would have eliminated these developer fees uh which would have been devastating here but you know this this is a critical source of revenue to offset the impact of additional students in our district um so i'm i appreciate all your work in in maintaining them you know it's something we badly need our classrooms need them you know it's it's real critical for our facilities so i just wanted to highlight the significance of that thank you yes any other questions or comments okay i just want to point out it was a big year for us there are some large projects being developed in the city so that brought in that isn't a typical amount that we will yes i was going to
107say yeah we you and i discussed this doctor when we collected for legato we did we also collected um from the anastasia project on 190th street which is a large project that was 36 units i believe yeah 122 thousand dollars we were collected from that project but nothing from the galleria yet no i think this is the 20 unit product project on 190th the larger project i don't think we have fees from yet okay so it's the smaller one right next door yeah i think it's a 20 unit yes project so yeah there's a 36 right next door to it that's coming then we're familiar with that one yep very thank you okay all those in favor say aye hi he opposed no abstentions motion passes 12.6 can i get a motion in a second
108to approve the increase of daily certificated substitute rate from 175 a day to a long term rate to 200 a day so stretzenberg second dr wesley this is a recommendation to the board so that we can remain competitive with other local districts several which have raised their daily and long-term substitute rates so we're recommending an increase for both our daily and long-term substitute rates currently our daily rate is 140 so we're recommending it be increased to 175. and currently our long-term rate is 180 and we're recommending it be increased to 200 dollars and the long-term rate kicks in on the 21st day in the same assignment we've done some research and we again have noted that other districts have increased their rates these rates have come about by again what other local districts are adopting
109as well as like the median rate within the the south bay area and we believe that these rates will help us become more competitive and help fill open sub positions and help fill our sub pool great any comments or questions you have two quick questions on the implementations when will this go into effect tomorrow okay so it'll be immediate and then if we have a for example sub that's at day 11 and then they reach their 21st day after this assuming this goes into effect would they then be under the new rates so yes so they would reach once they're the 21st day they'd be 200 retro to the first day retro back to their first day right okay that's how it works yes so if the 200 would take effect but the daily rate
110won't be it'll just simply go into effect no retro for the daily rate right and i really appreciate it i think you gave this at some point a comparison of i did other local districts and that was very helpful thank you oh thank you yes okay all those in favor say aye oh you have a question go ahead yep go um have you i know we're having a really hard time getting subs in all levels do we know are districts that are paying the higher rate having less of a problem um only anecdotally you know again i meet with other assistant soups in this position once a month and so um you know again in our conversations we heard that this was an action they were going to take to help with the raid and
111i do also want to know if you remember we do have a third party that we work with that does help us fill positions when we aren't able to but it is at a higher rate than even this so while we are at times able to fill open positions using the third party vendor um increasing the rate will help us build our own sub-pool and that is our preference and we lost just so people understand that we really lost a lot of our subpool from kovid that seems i would say that we lost a lot of our sub pool to people who are getting jobs there's there's a demand for teachers and a lot of our prime substitutes have credentials and they're just being hired even by us we've hired a lot of our substitutes
112with the retirements etc and so yes we've lost either due to covid other jobs but or they went into teaching they got their credentials yeah one thing i would also highlight is in addition to being able to attract new subs preventing attrition of our existing ones because we do have some fantastic subs and uh hate to lose in other districts who are offering more than us so staying competitive is important my daughter's had a long term sub all last year she has another one now and would not want to lose them to a higher paying district so i appreciate all the hard work that goes into that and thank you for doing it thank you all okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes five zero twelve point three motion and
113second to approve agreement with synergy subscription some of seconds as you may recall at the last board meeting i talked a little bit about synergy when you approved agreements for two new uh benefit providers and i mentioned that this was a new user-friendly platform actually it's called plan source but it's managed by synergy and it's going to be used to assist employees with online enrollment for both their health and voluntary benefits as well it will provide the district with an online management system for these services where all of our benefit providers will be under one platform um so this is agreement is effective 921 2021 so it'll be effective you know immediate i mean when we start our open enrollment actually and it'll go through 12 31 2026 and there's no financial commitment from the
114district because we're partnering with a new vendor so i shared that last week so we sorry last board meeting board meeting so we are recommending that you approve this agreement with synergy any comments or questions so this is basically a portal and is it can you still access the individual sites through their own systems or would you need to go through the portal only to get to anything so right now you don't have access to any any sites you don't have access to for instance like american fidelity or lincoln financial you go through our hr coordinator if you have any questions i mean you can call these companies but there's nothing for you to log in currently so this will allow you to log in as an employee and see all the benefits that you
115are signed up for see your your dependents uh your rates etc so synergy has agreements with all of these vendors that we also work with including sisk so it will allow you to see what you have and monitor it we don't have that ability at this time okay and so for the remainder of american fidelity it will be available through this and then when we switch over the new one will be right so american until the end of the year and then we we're starting open enrollment in november for the 21 sorry january 1 2022 to the end of the year thank you so how does synergy benefit do they is are they being paid by the uh the insurance plans by voya so last last board meeting we adopted an agreement with voya which
116is the voluntary benefits so voya is not taking a commission instead they are sponsoring our use of synergy so they have a partnership okay any other questions all those in favor say aye aye no opposed motion passes five zero okay does anybody have any correspondence that they'd like to share okay board member reports let's start with mr witkin none rachel miss nimitz i just wanted to acknowledge that mr startsenberg and i attended the first meeting for the new language arts adoption program it was amazing it was so nice to be included as a part of that so thank you for putting both of us on there and i wanted to let people know that it has been what we did that first day is posted on the rbusd website under educational services and on the
117right-hand side there's a link that shows you even as much as what we did and the posters we created and pictures and and kind of tells the story so thank you i'm looking forward to the next one okay mr elder uh as it is a week of the school administrator i just wanted to thank all of our administrators out there and all the various leadership roles you feel this has been an incredibly difficult past year and a half now everyone wears multiple hats you've juggled incredible new roles and you've been flexible and resilient and you've gotten us back so i just really want to say heartfelt thank you to everyone who's done so much to get our kids back into school and and help this recovery effort and really put yourselves out there to keep
118team rb ufc working so thank you you are appreciated and that's all i wanted to say thank you thank you nick thank you susan thank you derek thank you dr keller thank you dr alpern that's it that's it all right i just have to give a shout out to the high school team because i've had the pleasure of watching the countless hours that they have put in whether it be working football games or homecoming or spirit rallies whatever it is that entire team has been committed to getting everybody back and as best and safely as they can with those traditions and it means a lot of work outside of school hours and never did i not see one of those people there and happy and never complaining about another friday night or a saturday or
119whatever it is so i just think that they have my at all administrators specifically to the high school right now because they're under the gun but all to all of us i do appreciate that extra effort the extra mile that we go for our kids and i thank the people who came to spoke to speak tonight and who will ever come to speak and speak in a respectful manner we do care about all parents opinions and we do listen so appreciate people following the protocols with that and that's all i have except to say that we'll be back here on october 26th on november 1st we have a non-student day i think it's the end of the first quarter november 9th again we'll be back we only have the one meeting in november because the
12011th is veterans day thanksgiving break is the 22nd through the 26th and we'll be back in december for our one meeting december 14th and then on winter recess how that time is flying i do not know does anybody have any future agenda items they'd like to consider okay and i'll entertain a motion in a second to adjourn the meeting so moved second by elder all those in favor say aye aye me should everyone see this you