001of the united states of america and through the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice okay welcome everybody in closed session tonight the board discussed public employee discipline dismissal and gave staff direction i would now like to invite our student board member charles stearman to the podium to take his annual oath of office hey you ready oh yeah okay i state your name charles stearman do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic you want to start with that that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution maybe just repeat after me okay okay i charles stephen do solemnly swear that i will support and defend
002the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california did i take this obligation freely without mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that i will and well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i'm about to enter congratulations thank you it's good to be back thank you [Applause] okay before we begin i'd like to review the rules that govern our public board meetings face coverings must be worn at all times in the boardroom including while speaking anyone not adhering to this public mandate will be asked to leave the room audience members in this room are here to observe please do not
003disrupt the board meeting or other audience members or speakers if you do you'll be asked to leave the room you're welcome to submit public comments in writing and watch the board meeting on your personal device during the appropriate time on the agenda i will invite citizens to speak concerning any item on the agenda or other matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the school district this is not meant to be a debating period complaints and problems related to the pilot to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent persons who have complaints against board members or the staff are encouraged to seek resolution to 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
004for 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 moving forward i will need a motion and a second for the approval of the minutes from the august 24th board meeting we won't have a student advisory board this time because you weren't with us but can i have a motion in a second to prove the minutes second stretching bird all those in favor say aye aye says 5-0 okay we have four reports to the board this evening the first regarding the curriculum and course adoption processes presentation by dr susan wilds hi good evening everyone so this week marks an exciting time in ed services this we are going to have our first meeting of the rbusd k5 english
005language arts adoption committee therefore we thought it would be important tonight to spend some time sharing with you the protocol and the processes that we use for any sort of adoption in rbusd so why do we spend so much time focused on curriculum well donated services we have a saying everything we do is always research based this is a quote from steiner mcgee and jensen that kind of summarizes what the research indicates around the impact of high quality curriculum on student achievement this is second only to the impact of a high quality teacher so let me let's go through the road map for tonight i'm going to start by defining some terminology it's important to note when we talk about curriculum we need to have the terms clear clearly defined next we're going to take
006a look at the state's role in curriculum in adoptions and then what is that process what process do our does rbusd utilize in considering curricula and then i wanted to address some just frequently asked questions calls we get down in its services so let's start with key definitions so the word curriculum is often overused for several different terms so there are three key terms that i'm going to use during this presentation the first one is standards this is the driving force of everything we do teach assess and learn in redondo beach unified school district standards means the expression of the goals of student learning they're typically written at the state like the california state standards or the federal level the common core state standards they outline what we expect students to know and be able
007to do at different levels of schooling throughout their career the next one those standards and you'll see an arrow because the standards then drive the curriculum the curriculum is the means to achieve those goals it's the vehicle and it's that how do we achieve those goals that are clearly expressed in the standard for example it's the entire teaching and learning program and it can include instructional materials textbooks lesson plans activities scope and sequence documents the computer programs the software we're utilizing and even the assessments that we do so it's important when we talk about curriculum it's important to talk about specifically which one of these we're addressing and then finally the curriculum is going to drive the course and the course is a series of classes over a extended period of time on and around
008a fixed subject geometry english 10 physics those courses are also aligned to the state standards including course objectives outlines unit outlines a list of those text connected textbooks and materials that will be used and students will receive a grade in academic credit that being said how do we judge the effectiveness of a course we come back to the standards are the students meeting the goals and the objectives of that course so what's the role of the california department of education in the curriculum that you see in our classrooms very involved and so one of the biggest pieces of guidance aside from the actual standards that we utilize and we look to are what's called the framework the california state board of education adopts the california department of education's curricular framework works for grades k through
00912 in a variety of different content areas this is meant to offer districts guidance and research based approaches for how to implement those standards they will specifically they specify exactly the design of the instructional materials the professional development they believe that teachers will need to implement those standards those frameworks also have within embedded in them criteria for evaluating the instructional materials that we want to utilize within the district you'll see on the right hand side is an example these are all public documents now they're on the california department of education's website this is an example of the pe framework for california public schools so how often does the state provide and update their guidance not super frequently so you'll see foreign language 2001 health 2002 physical education 2008. interesting enough you'll notice that i do
010have an asterisk by math because currently the california math framework is in the process of being updated by the instructional quality commission this framework is continuing to be under further revisions based on all of the public comment and the feedback the state board received and the state board is set to take action on this framework sometime around may of 2022 it'll be open for public more public comment during january and february now one thing to note is that these frameworks from the moment that they are board adopted they don't immediately necessarily go into practice it takes a while for the state to do the final publications of these frameworks to enact training for districts and so the trickle-down effect can quite can take quite a while sometimes years so what does the process look like
011in rbusd the number one thing is we look to see what's the need now i'm going to show you in a little bit where where we determined ela is our greatest area of need right now so we look to student data we look to our teachers we look to our administrators we look to our parents and we gather feedback what do we need and once we identify that area of need we establish a stakeholder committee our stakeholder committee and you're going to see a makeup of our ela elementary stakeholder committee in just a bit that stakehold committee is charged with doing the work to make a recommendation to the board and we're going to keep coming back to that making a recommendation the next step is that stakehold stakeholder committee is going to immerse themselves
012in the research there is a tremendous amount of research around what best practices are in literacy at the foundation level in upper elementary and we need to know what that research is and says and guides us we need to look to the standard and be highly competent in what those standards are looking for students to achieve we need to be immersed ourselves in the state board adopted curriculum framework and then we need to know the student data what is the data telling us around literacy illiteracy achievement at the k5 level next we review now we're going to go back in that state board approved curriculum framework work excuse me we're going to review the criteria that and the state provided toolkits that are in the framework we're going to look to see what they're recommending
013that we look towards as we evaluate and we're looking to see it does that toolkit align with our district lcap goals because those are our those are our true north next the committee is going to develop a vision that vision is going to guide our curriculum selection it's going to help narrow down from the dozens of different ela elementary curriculums that are out there we are also going to adapt that evaluation instrument the ones that we have reviewed we'll adapt them to be redondo beach specific and now we're ready to go so we're going to review now we're going to start reviewing what's out there using that instrument that instrument is critical for having a non-biased stakeholder group be able to look with a critical eye at what is out there we're going to talk
014about some of that criteria in just a minute we're going to gather feedback from the committee committee members are going to gather feedback from their stakeholder groups that they represent as well and they're going to bring that back and provide lar that input to the larger stakeholder group so parent and community involvement is also highly valued and we solicit it in a number of ways because oftentimes parents will say i don't i'm not familiar with the research i don't know what the best practices are that's okay you're raising your children you know your kids best so the first thing we need to do is we need to make sure that they're represented on our busd ela adoption committee and thank you for rbp rbpta and our other stakeholder groups for providing us reps next those
015representatives are going to be tasked with communicating what they're learning and where they're working what they're working on with their larger groups that they're representing nothing is going to be held silent your st your representatives will be telling you what they're learning and where they're working on where we're headed all meeting agenda notes artifacts will be posted on the website under educational services once we narrow down the selections to the final few those will be made publicly available for parents community to view and provide input we oftentimes will post them here at the district office we will have copies sent out to school sites so that they can be reviewed alongside our evaluation instruments finally we'll have a public hearing held prior to any final recommendation to the board so that the board can accept
016public comment and then we look to the board of education to make the final adoption decision so what are some additional elements that go into some go into the adoption one of the areas for review that all of the frameworks are linked to is called the social content review the standards for evaluating instructional materials for social content and accompanying ed code were designed by the state to help end stereotyping in instructional materials by showing diverse people and positive roles who contribute to society the ed code specifically states that's egg code 60040 and 45 that materials any materials that we adopt must portray accurately and equitably the cultural and racial div diversity of american society they must demonstrate the contribution of minority groups males and females to the development of california in the united states they
017must emphasize people on varied positive and contributing roles in order to influence students school experiences constructively and do not contain inappropriate references to commercial brand names products corporate or company logos in any way shape or form the social content review standards are listed on the california department of ed website the next step is implementation and professional development so once an adoption has been approved a lengthy implementation plan is then developed alongside of our teachers and staff and we're going to collaborate with the rbusd professional development committee now the implementation plan has to take into account the unique requirements of the particular curriculum that was adopted the training needs of teachers the training needs of staff instructional aides and administrators who are going to best support our classrooms we need to look at prerequisite training that
018teachers may need in order to implement the curriculum as well as other recommendations from the pd committee in terms of function form when the these trainings will occur what do they what to the what are the recommendations they believe are best and then finally again the governing board of rbusd makes all final adoption decisions so i said a few slides ago that we have to do a needs assessment and these are our needs the current the age of current curriculum materials this is the age that they were board adopted you'll notice that there are two that i have starred the first one 2006 our elementary teachers and our students deserve new ela curriculum and that's what we are going to focus on first that is the primary need of rbusd i have two students who
019are ninth graders at rb at redondo union my children are not as old as those textbooks we need to focus on that first the next will be history social science these are huge endeavors history social science will be planned for the 2020-23 school year and our ela adoption committee to give you an example of its makeup and representation and i wanted to be very specific because one of the questions we get is how come we don't have equal parent to staff representation and that is outlined clearly in the california education code each district board shall provide for substantial teacher involvement in the selection of instructional materials and shall promote involvement of parents and other members of the community in the selection of those instructional materials substantial teacher representation we're going to come back to that
020later because that's mentioned in another education code as well dr wilds sure how many people were on the ela adoption committee we have 29 today okay so 13 parents would be three okay now many of us are double dipping like i said i have students in the district there are teachers on the committee who have students in the district but trying to play our primary role as a teacher parents gov we have governing board members here who are parents in the district but um primarily that's their primary classification frequently asked questions how long does this process take almost as long as this presentation no i'm just kidding 9 to 12 months that is the average length of time if you are going to do an adoption in the process that i mentioned if you're going
021to immerse yourself in the in the research you're going to immerse yourself in the data you are going to create a vision statement it can take 9 to 12 months to make sure that you have full representation of all of your stakeholders and input so about electives courses that was one of the terms that comes up a lot right how do electives in sixth or eighth and i want to be clear in california and k-8 courses of study are are directed by the california state board of education count in the cde the only addition for six or eight would be these electives so but then courses in nine through 12. so step one the teacher and or the department in collaboration draft a course outline and they submit it to the school site principal that
022process alone of drafting revising feedback drafting revising feedback can take months step two then once the school principal feels they have a good working draft they will send that draft to educational services and my team and i will revise and edit back and forth back and forth that can take another few months our goal is to make sure the courses completely aligned with california state standards step 3 middle school administration then would request the approval by the assistant superintendent for elective courses high school courses are submitted to the board of education for final approval once that board of education once the board of education has approved that course then we have to go after three more approvals if it is an ap course it has to be submitted to the college board for their approval
023it also has to be submitted to ucop to get gain a g approval so the students are in compliance on their path toward a g readiness and finally all courses have to be submitted to ncaa for approval to make sure our athletes are enrolled in highly rigorous courses and approved so one of the questions that we get asked frequently is for going after ela what kinds of things are we looking for there are four big ones number one when we're talking about english language arts the research tells us that we have to go after curriculum that has a high level of text quality and complexity if we think about the difficulty is involved that's involved in access for a student to access that text that's complexity they're about 10 different subcategories that make up complexity
024we're looking for texts that are worthy of students time and attention texts that have complexity that have rigor they have a range of reading tasks and they provide the opportunities for a high quality instruction right cspot run does not offer a lot of opportunities for complex dialogue and discussion right so those are some of the criteria that we'll look for and we'll look at it through the lens of kindergarten all the way through fifth grade we're looking also to see that they are in alignment of the standards there are a lot of curriculums out there that tout alignment because they have a sticker on the cover but we need to delve deep and we need to make sure that they cover all of the california standards and not just some of the california standards because
025maybe they were written for the state of texas these are things we need to make sure that is happening and we need to make sure that curriculum is aligned to make sure that our students are college and career ready finally we're looking at building knowledge does that content in the ela provide access students to topics across content areas are there science topics are there social studies topics are there health topics are there um even math biography of famous mathematicians we're looking for reading across the content area so that okay so we're looking to build knowledge across the content areas across topics we're looking for the use the text the the curriculum's use of rigorous academic vocabulary to build students reading levels and again does it offer the opportunity for complex tasks that allow student students
026to persist finally no curriculum is is worthy of our of our look if it doesn't have sufficient amount of instructional supports for all students and the usability some of the best curriculums touted in the country are very very difficult for teachers to access and to to read we want we want the curriculum to be usable to our teachers so do most districts use only state abort adopted materials no on the state on the california's department of education they have board adopted curriculums wonders is a perfect example it's state board adopted we do not have to automatically use those we may use instructional materials that are a lot as long as they are aligned to the academic standards math however has to be aligned to the common core state standards initial initiative and consortium and again
027one of the things i referenced about teachers if we as a district choose to not to use a a ela curriculum adoption a curriculum that is not state board adopted already we have to make sure that we the majority of the participants in that review process are classroom teachers who are assigned to the grade level and the subject area they are our experts in the in the field so what about the ethnic studies curriculum or social justice standards we get this question quite a bit so let's talk about what they are the ethnic studies curriculum was a model curriculum that was approved by the state the california state board of education in march two thousand twenty one it took three years for the writers to craft they received over a hundred thousand public comments that
028led to the revisions and the editing of that of this framework or this curriculum it is a guide for districts so that if we choose to we can adopt these high school courses but it's meant for us meant for districts so that we can reflect the people demographics in the community and to be clear ela is a big left so rbusd will convene a committee next school year to study and determine the recommendations of whether to adopt an ethics studies curriculum course at the high school the social justice standards they are a framework for anti-bias education so remember the key terminology from the beginning standards are an expression of goals of student learning they outline what students are expected to know and be able to do so these are standards they're not lessons the four
029domains of these standards are identity diversity justice and action the race and equity subcommittee recommended that these sub these standards be investigated and i bolded that and made it all cap to investigate to determine whether an adoption committee should be formed for further study investigation should be given sometime next school year and i want to add one more thing because i've seen myself and my name out there arbusd is not considering the adoption of learning for justice with the learning for justice website that's not an adoption we are considering it at this time so later on that we we also have a public hearing in this agenda for sufficiency and instructional materials so i thought i would take this opportunity to kind of let everybody know what that means california education code 60119c1 states that
030each pupil including english language learners must have a standards align textbook or instructional materials or both to use in class and to take home but to be clear this doesn't mean we're giving out two copies of every textbook very expensive this applies to for the four subject areas of reading language arts math science and history social studies and at the high school as well for foreign language health health sorry and um science lab equipment and it can include the use of instruction technology-based materials so it doesn't necessarily have to be a a hard copy of a book it can be an electronic copy questions for the board correct yes let me get some water all right so i do have a question um as it relates to curriculum adoption in general like in our process
031of how we've done it over the years so in the past three four years it looks like we've adopted science at elementary and middle and math yes as a parent i mean i was not on any of the committees and i don't recall being made aware of anything related to adoption outside of my role as a board member so what's the process to keep i guess a to select who which parents get on the committee how many parents are on the committee and then three once the committee is formed you said there there should be some sort of process by which parent representatives inform the parent community yes it it certainly didn't trickle down so good it's good thing i'm here david um no one of the things that we uh and dr alpern was
032in this role before i am she can speak to the amplify science we did have parents on that committee we had a board member as part of that committee as well and a lot of it it comes down to thinking about how do you intentionally communicate one of the very first agenda items for thursday is to be asking the committee to really think deeply about what's the best way to communicate this to parents because if you put something on a website not everybody's going to think to go there if we send something out in an email saying hey parents amplify science materials are available for public viewing at the district office not many people may jump in their car and drive over but maybe it's about saying we've got our parent representatives and saying you
033know i'm not going to drive the district office but i might but stop by my child's the front front office in my child's school or maybe we need to pass out um we need to have like a a poster in the front office of the elementary school so one of the first tasks of the committee is to kind of look at if you didn't know about it then we didn't do a good enough job of communicating it and we will do it this time so we're going to brainstorm that okay so that dealt with the third point what about the you know the identity of the parents on the committee and how many so very similar um to how we when we get parent rep when we get representation for anything i go to our
034stakeholder groups i go to rbpta i go to rbta and i say we're looking for people to serve on this committee as representatives knowing that this is the commitment and we're going to ask you part of that ask is not just to be present is that you agree that you are going to be communicating this to the larger group and so those names are provided for me from our subgroups okay and are you the individual who makes the final decision on no on who got on yeah everybody got on um again a committee we're up at 29 that's on the high level right so we're gonna have to spend a good amount of time in our days together in smaller subgroups you get a committee gets too big people lose their voices so um our
035our consultant with uh the teacher the new teacher project and i have been working on a weekly basis to just look at small group activities to make sure everyone's voices are heard um and again we're looking at kind of that ratio how do we find to find substantial how do we find define the majority and we felt right around 60 to 70 percent of being teachers represented what we felt would be would give us a good covering from all of our school sites we have a lower elementary and we have an upper elementary and then we have three special education teachers and so that's kind of the numbers we started working from okay thank you does anyone else have any questions i will go next um susan can you go up one i think it's
036up one more slide this one uh no earlier yeah earlier it was with the uh implementation yeah this one this one okay we'll get it off let's do all those so [Music] the board doesn't really come into it until that last stage is that correct well no you'll be there thursday too but yes right yeah yeah the board is uh yeah as a whole no not until the final stage and for something you know let's use the example for ela because that's a several month process would you anticipate updates at various times to the board or just wait until that last time and then leave it to the you know rachel and i are on it well we're really both so that will be a discussion item when we how how do you as the
037you are the representative stakeholders of the board on this committee how do you best feel you can communicate what you do when you learn all the the homework that you had to do the work that we do on thursday the vision that we start creating um how best and that will be something will that you as you as the group will determine okay and then one of the slides talked about the implementation plan happening yeah this one here once adoption has been approved i would think you'd want to really start working on that earlier do you and then really kick it into gear once it's approved or because if you wait until it's approved isn't that there's some basic implementation pieces right when are you going to train identifying the when the who the how
038who's going to support but until we actually get our hands in the curriculum to see the pieces of it we can't put all the pieces of the puzzle together and a good example is amplify science when we adopted amplify science we had teachers who had done used units and small pieces of it to kind of look at it they had done a rigorous evaluation to make sure that it was standards aligned but until you look at all of the pieces of it and the t the group comes back together and says okay for this particular curriculum it is in is very very hands-on lab based right that may mean versus another curriculum that may be more text based a lab-based curriculum would need more hands-on lab-based pd it also has a large tech component whereas
039other curriculums may not so there are there are some pieces that you're not gonna we're not gonna finalize and i also think it's incredibly important to get the feedback from the teachers who are in there studying it know their peers they're they're representing their peers we need to not go i don't want to go in and say susan's got a plan for pd i want them to tell me hey we really think teachers need to spend some time again i'm just guessing we think teachers need to spend some time on pre-found on foundational phonemic awareness that's where we think based on this curriculum the demands of this they need work in this or maybe we need work on the guided reading piece of it again i don't know that i don't want to prejudge right
040so that's part of the feedback that go that's going along and i think it's critically important of a committee to keep it open because as soon as the committee thinks oh this is just susan has a plan then it's it's not a organic process right and the teachers may say hey in my mind i might think teachers want summer's off maybe the committee comes back and says hey we really want to offer teachers of summer training right that's kind of some of the feedback what i mean by that's when when it's finally developed and then i know when you and i talked about this we talked through quite a bit on the ela in particular we talked about the possibility for some uh shorter term pilot programs as part of the adoption process to you
041know test i mean tesla a couple of candidates and you know feel the waters of how it really works a full pilot can take six months to a year to really take it from beginning to end and see pre and post student data we don't believe we're going to need that we need the materials faster than a full full adoption however when we look at the usability of the program most programs have a set structure for lessons they have a set structure for units and again our teachers are super savvy they can use they can do a lesson or two a series of lessons to get a feel for the usability of that because that's really where it is you know how do the students feel about it but we're literally looking if a teacher
042can't use it it's an it's no good right and then i know for the in particular i know this is broader than just the k25 ela but before that program we were actually looking to have it launched next fall is that still up yes okay and then there was a slide also that talked about the electives especially the six through eight electives and those do not go to the board of education traditionally they have not no past practices they have not that would be up to you if you all wanted to to to approve those okay yeah this one here yeah that under step three the approval is ultimately the superintendent mm-hmm okay and then finally there was another slide that talked about the the ela was it is even the k through five ela
043to be aligned with college career and requirements yes really you're going to learn this on thursday so all of california standards common core standards are rooted in an anchor standard even down into kindergarten the anchor standards are college and career readiness that's our promise of students that's our north star what does that look like at kindergarten what's that look like at third grade what's it look like in fifth grade um because college and career can't be the work of our high school it's the work of k-8 wow i guess it's time to get my kindergarten in with a gentleman yeah college guidance exactly okay that was it thank you welcome rachel you want to go next i have one question back to the very first slide oh okay key definitions or standards curriculum that one
044so once we for ela for example once we develop the standards and the curriculum it goes to the teachers then to teach yes the the course and the class and we provide them with the material textbooks whatever they're going to need can the teachers supplement yes that material or do we limit them to exactly what we provide no california education code allows teachers to supplement as they see fit and in fact you know we have a lot we have a range of learners in our classroom right in order to to address students where they are one curriculum there's no one-stop shop that's fits for everybody and so that's why we also have a tremendous amount of technology resources additional resources thank you for purchasing new zela for us all of these other things help build
045the over umbrella of the curriculum right um they um all contribute to the experience that a student is having again we can't put all of our eggs in in one basket so but the standards to in to kind of go back one things i heard you say we don't design this the standards are there we're we're looking to make sure that we always keep them in in sight right that's the curriculum has to be the vehicle that allows us to get kids to meet the standards dan do you have a question sorry just a comment to really thank you i see how much work goes into the adoption of a new curriculum and it should because this directly impacts our students and has a huge impact on their future so i appreciate that and i
046also appreciate the data driven decisions that go into it for example the the pivot to the eureka math kits when the data clearly showed that that was beneficial to them so i like that we're nimble and able to adjust even though it is a huge undertaking in most cases so um yes i i look forward to seeing the results of this and thank you for all the work that goes into it absolutely thank you all thank you i just had one question for you yes um you said we're looking at ela and the next will be history social science and all of that will follow the same process finding stakeholders all of that yes every time you follow a process we learned and again there there's there's a team of people and every time we
047do this we learn something right the initial math um adoption we learned from that process those pro those those things that we learned were refined in the science one of the biggest key things that we learned from original math to science in elementary was that immersing in the research it was pivotal before teachers started going to the actual curriculum we have to we always have to be rooted in the research and that is something that will carry through so we'll we learn things from even from science that we'll carry through into this one and we'll learn things from this one that we'll use to carry through for history signs okay and there was a slide that was on the social justice mm-hmm okay and that's we will be following just to reiterate the same process
048when we can same process yeah we put together a stakehold committee we'll have a timeline we'll um engage all of our stakeholders we'll communicate yes and the only thing that's up at the district's discretion are electives correct and they all have to be rooted in a state standard in the state standard random elective and yes thank you very much okay thank you dr wilds thank you okay next up we have dr atlas hilaire from the southern california regional occupational center or otherwise known as socal rock dr elaire president flynn vice president wicken members of the board dr keller to the audience i want to thank you all for allowing me the chance to speak about socal roc i want to thank mr stretzenberg for bringing up the the possibility for me to be able to
049share with you this evening my name is atlas hilaire superintendent of the southern california regional occupational center i've been superintendent since 2017 and i'm going to share a little bit with you about what we do who we are and then at the end i'll open it up for some questions so socal roc we've been here since uh 1967 we were the first roc in the state of california we've been providing career technical education for over 54 years again we were the first roc a regional occupational center basically was established to serve students in a very large regional area there were 74 rocps in california and on the state california department of education website it's still stating 74 but once the local control funding formula took effect i think that number is significantly less but that's
050what's stated on the on the website at socal rlc we are wasc accredited right now we have a six-year accreditation term there are basically two types of centers or programs you have regional occupational center again these were designed to serve students over a wide geographical area and then you have regional occupational programs these would be programs that are more specific to certain school districts for instance i was a product of compton unified school district any programs in compton unified are only for compton unified school district students at socal roc if a student can get to our our center they can come and take a course at socal roc so we've had students from culver city cerritos we have adult students traveling all the way from riverside county to take some of our programs some of
051the services that we provide to our students we have a career guidance specialist this person helps students to enroll in courses provides guidance for as far as what pathways the students want to take to help them along that pathway if students decide hey this is not what i wanted to do i thought i wanted to be in the medical field but now i want to go be a mechanic our career guidance specialist helps to guide the students through those decisions some of our programs have externships this is where as part of the course or the curriculum the students actually go out to local businesses and they practice what they've learned in training on campus at the businesses we also have an annual scholarship event well once covet hit we weren't able to offer it for
052the past two years but this coming up spring we're looking at re-establishing that scholarship program we also provide bus transportation for all of the high school students during two of our afternoon sessions so the buses actually go to all the high schools where students are coming from and actually take the students back to their high schools for career preparation we have resume writing workshops we do mock interviews we post jobs for our students to look at what's being offered and then we have hands-on training in our facilities that simulate what you would see in the industry we actually have five schools within our organization school of art and design school of engineering and design school of finance and business school of health sciences and public and consumer services so all of our courses fall under
053one of these five areas typically our courses run a semester approximately eighteen weeks some we have modular style classes which may run nine weeks and then we have some courses that are year long just all depends on what the curriculum requires or if there's any state or national mandates so the types of courses we have we have introductory level courses concentrated courses and then capstone courses all of our courses are part of a career pathway and then we have some of our programs that are state and nationally certified for instance we have a registered dental assisting course certified medical assisting certified nurse assisting so on and so forth and then our students are encouraged to go straight into the industry or or to go to to college all of our courses have to be approved
054through our board of education we also have an annual advisory committee meeting and this is very critical to all of our courses we have industry experts businesses they come every year and they give us guidance on the courses that we're offering they let us know what types of things are new to the industry anything we need to revise in our course outlines and they also help us to know as far as what types of equipment is coming out and again that's very critical for what we offer and if we're not able to say afford some of the equipment at least we know what it is and we can start teaching our students about it and then maybe work with some local businesses to see if we can get some of that donated and the final
055point some of our courses are a through g approved so the previous slide i talked about encouraging students to go straight into the industry or to college i think we have about 33 courses that are excuse me that are a through g approved a sample of some of our courses that are available to high school students we have 3d character design and animation there's actually about three or four courses in this pathway students can take if you can see on the picture on the top left that's a creature sculpting course and that course they design these creatures they actually build them then they can take it to the 3d character design or to the video video game design course and actually have those characters inserted into a video game environment we have automotive cosmetology dental
056assisting emergency medical technician hvac pet health and grooming we actually have students bring their pets we have a our classroom is set up just like a grooming salon so they are learning how to care for the animals learning how to bathe them uh sterile processing distribution tech this is a new course that we just recently started in partnership with torrance memorial and with that particular program students are also getting a certification we have video game design and we have welding and that's just a sample there's more courses i gave you another handout with some or some courses listed on there students are able to take those courses as well i brought some some pictures just to show you a sample of what some of our facilities look like in art and design most of our
057courses are software based so you'll see computer labs for most of those courses but right in the middle are some of the samples that the students have designed for some of their creatures that they put in some of the video games environments that i spoke with you about earlier in our engineering and industrial trades our automotive lab is what you will see actually in the industry we just started a general electrician program and this is a year-long program where students are going to be getting certifications for being in the electrician electrician field our welding and then to the right is another structure that we use for our general electrician program our health sciences on the left you see our dental assisting chair in the middle our medical assisting program so we try to provide an
058environment that the students will see actually when they walk into their jobs or when they go for on-the-job training and on the right is the table for our pet health and grooming course i was going to take a picture of the of the washing area but the angle was going to look kind of strange so i didn't public and consumer services right now cosmetology is the only class that we have running in that particular career pathway and that particular school this is a 1600 hour program high school students who come and take who enroll in that class early enough most of the times we can get them through most of the program or all the way through the program so that they're not having to pay out of pocket however high school students will end
059up graduating and still have to finish some hours it's typically not very many hours that they have to complete and with that i'll answer any questions that you may have thank you dr elaire my pleasure questions go ahead rachel hi are all your high school classes online right now no but we do have quite a few most of the courses that our high school students are enrolled in for this fall would be some of the hybrid online style courses and part of that is we're not offering transportation because of covet so we tried to make provisions to have those courses online uh and then so you gave us a schedule the adult schedule that would not be for our students correct actually high school students are able to take those courses we typically have two
060separate um schedules the one that's labeled adult there are a handful of courses on there that high school students wouldn't be able to take for instance the certified medical assisting they have to be a high school graduate but if there are no age requirements the high school students are able to take those courses and if they does it show up on their transcript yes after each course we transcript them and we send them over to the district and then the district puts it on their on their overall transcripts okay um so how how do we advertise for example at our uhs so i mentioned earlier our guidance specialists and we're down to one career guidance specialist we're having conversations about possibly bringing on additional but our career guidance specialist basically goes to all the high
061schools she works with the counselors and with the students and so with that she brings flyers she brings applications and she sits down and talks with the students whether it's 101 or in groups and then from there once students reply and say that they're interested they get the application completed we get it signed off from a front administrator from the districts and that's how they're enrolled so in short we have a career guidance specialist that that advertises the programs in the districts great one last question no problem i saw that there's a fee for each class yes do we offer scholarships do you offer them or do they come through the high school how do we get them to kids who can't afford the fees so the fees and i didn't even talk about the
062whole budget thing long convoluted story but the fees would be for the adult students for the high school students the jpa agreement right now the high schools are paying the districts are paying one thousand two hundred thirty four dollars for each student per course the adult students have to pay out of pocket if the adult students are not able to afford it we refer them to organizations such as the south bay web the local one stops and wioa funds are typically allocated for the adult students to be able to pay for the courses you're welcome dan i'm just going to say this is a fantastic resource and you know anything we can do to help get the word out to our students and community because there's not one path for everyone so making them aware
063of these opportunities and everything out there i think is going to be really important so i appreciate all your efforts thank you as well to rolf so yeah this is a great thank you thank you appreciate it just to clarify mr strutzenberg serves on the socal rock board of education as do other members of the school districts which socal rock serves do you mind telling us what school districts are part of socal rock yes we have six districts redondo beach englewood el segundo manhattan beach palos verdes peninsula and torrance unified and from each one of those districts one of their board members also sits on our board we also have two at-large board members who represent our adult population so we have right now we have a board of eight people and you meet monthly
064yes we meet at uh monthly every third thursday of the month um typically in unless it's like uh december that board meeting kind of gets pushed around or june gets pushed around okay and just one more redondo specific question if a high schooler wants to take a socal rock course this may not be for you is it done during class during these school hours or is it outside of school great question so typically our high school students take courses we have two sessions that most of our high school students are enrolled in uh one is during 12 45 to 3 45 and that's for the high school students who like to see if they only have four or five periods and they're able to get away they take those courses and then we have courses
065from 3 45 to 6 45 and then that's where the majority of our high school students attend then we have a session from 6 45 to 9 45 and believe it or not we get quite a few high school students who come and take those courses as well so the high school students that we get are pretty dedicated because this is after their regular day then sometimes they'll hop on the bus come to our facilities and take some more classes so the great thing about the courses at socal rock is that it's something that they enjoy something that they choose their elective courses it's not mandatory for them to be there so that typically we get students who are very interested because they're investing their own time it's not compulsory education okay that's all i
066had yeah just to clarify that the courses are most of them are monday through thursday is that correct and then we have some that are monday wednesday it's not the full five days a week it's correct our courses are typically we go monday through thursday our center is actually closed on fridays and so um three hour courses typically a semester course will give us about 216 hours and we built the courses that way so that the students can get through faster for instance we we were offering asl american sign language students are able to complete some of their requirements for graduation within one semester what would have taken an entire school year at your typical high school campus so they were finishing their foreign languages in one year doing asl as opposed to having to
067do multiple years at their traditional k-12 schools yeah just so the board knows to follow up on the discussion we had at our last board meeting and the public as well that we're really exploring new courses what can we do to expand the envelope and especially my focus is on what would serve our high school students and developing courses that would be truly of interest to them and and get that built back up but we're also looking at some short courses like weekend type things and you know beyond just that so yes some very short-term courses just to give them a hint or a taste of what those industries are like or what the training would be like so maybe a one three-hour course or four-hour course on a friday or saturday let's say for
068instance if it was an automotive maybe teaching someone how to change your oil how to change breaks just to see if that really is what interests you and to try to encourage the students to come and sign up for the other courses that we have and the real key to all of this all of this is very hands-on it's that's what the beauty of socal rock is those facilities to really do get your fingers into things and have that feeling of really accomplishing something that's that's part of it that i really love yes and no homework we we really emphasize in the homework i mean because what you're doing is hands-on and taking that and going home it's not the same as working on an auto lift or working with the dental utensil so we
069emphasize to the instructors hey they come here it's after the regular school day they're putting in the work we have no behavior issues on campus don't send them home with homework because they're doing what they need to do okay thank you very much thank you for having me i appreciate it next up we have our student board member mr stearman all right hello everyone uh so first of all it's great to be back on the board and i look forward to working with you all again this year so asb at the high school has just completed our club rush last week and this is an event where students can sign up for clubs of a variety of different topics and then they can participate in them throughout the school year and this allows them to
070get more involved in school activities and also allows them to add it possibly to their college resume as well asb is also preparing for the following events so this week we are having our spirit week which there's going to be a different theme every day and at the end of the week uh it ends with our fall spirit rally this friday and later the in the day on that friday that friday night is our homecoming halftime event which we've also been preparing for for a while now lastly uh upcoming in later october we are preparing for the ucla blood drive as well and and i will i encourage everybody to participate in that if they can and i will come back with more information on that soon and yeah that should be it so are
071there any questions on that no we look forward to seeing you at homecoming oh yeah thank you welcome back charles dr keller all right first of all great having you back charles so uh thanks to charles parents for bringing them here tonight and thank you to all of our sites uh for a great back-to-school night event at each of our sites we did a an event where we did have some sort or we will have some sort of in-person experience for those parents wishing to come on campus but obviously provided virtual experiences plenty of those for parents as well so we really did try to provide something for everybody and as the board knows as you've been out to school sites with me we've gone into visited almost every elementary school classroom and middle school
072classroom and dreisler continuation school classroom and many of the high school classrooms as well and you're just seeing a rhythm of return of in-person instruction and it's great to have our kids back it's great to have our staff back certainly you know everybody's in mask inside and you see that clearly uh but there is a vibrant learning experience happening in each of our classrooms so i want to thank our staff and of course our kids and our families for trusting uh in our great rb uh us team rbusd team um i do want to point out on the website we did with parent parents have provided some input on our our website and so we've added two pieces on our website so if you go to our rvusd.org you'll see two um when you go
073to coven 19 the pull-down menu you'll see two links one is covered 19 parent guardian resources so there's a just a wealth of information through the l.a county department of public health it's updated periodically by them it's provided in multiple languages as well so there's a lot of content and languages there and then we also have a pull down link that is also another link to the la county department of public health which has up-to-date times and locations for coveted testing i know a lot of people around here go to their primary care physician and or beach city's health district support through our means but there are up-to-date locations times for folks to secure a coveted testing test there as well so we want to encourage people again go to our website and we appreciate
074the input that parents give us to update that website to provide the details that they're saying they need i think we have the most agile and up-to-date website in the south bay so keep it coming if you have great ideas that's for the good of the whole we're all ears and certainly here to listen um jessica silberling our covet commander and also our executive director of special education uh later in the meeting we'll be highlighting some of the new la county department of public health language regarding close context and quarantining um and you know the only thing i would say i just would want to finish with this and i think this is important the one question that i'm never asked ever which is if if anybody ever wanted me to ask everyone to ask
075me this question i'll ask myself this question about copen19 because it's an important question and it really is and i want everybody to hear this and i know there are folks outside and the question goes something like this how confident are you in rbusd's management of the covid process and protocols so we have the language and plenty of folks want to talk about l.a county department of health california department of public health the cdc centers for disease control we can talk about that all day and everybody knows where we stand on that but when you get down to the ground which is where it happens which is where safety happens this place is solid as a rock and so whether you're talking about custodians you're talking about principles you're talking about teachers district office staff
076we're nibble we're agile we're accountable we communicate we make mistakes and when we do we own them but i think the the piece that parents and and and parents mainly really need to understand is we really do have a dedicated staff here that make it happen and keep our kids safe and staff safe on a daily basis and again not perfect but pretty doggone close and i'm proud of the team and i just wanted to say that's a question that i think every parent should ask is how confident are you in the people and as i've said to you many many times it's the people that make this district and this brand day to day and from however you want to put the bureaucracy of a school district the most important people to seemingly sometimes
077you think the least important people are making magic happen and keeping our kids and our staff members safe and so with that i would just finish uh that and then i'll see most of you friday night at the homecoming game so we're excited thanks thank you dr keller okay next up we have our hearing section where members of the audience may address the board on any topic regardless of whether it's listed on the agenda however due to brown act regulations the board cannot engage in public discussion on items not on the agenda topics not on the agenda which are brought to the board's attention may be investigated by the administration and a report made to the board either publicly or privately at a future meeting comments from visitors shall not exceed three minutes unless the
078time limit is waived by a majority of the board and i will tell you we have in addition to those here we've got about 38 people that want to be heard tonight which we would really like to make sure that we can including groups of students outside so we have a timer up there we are going to limit you to three minutes it's green when it's yellow you have 30 seconds is that right one minute to wrap yourself up um and it's per topic and this is so that we can have people all people get to be heard i'm going to remind everyone to please refrain from making comments from the audience everybody has their right to be heard in a respectful manner and you need to wear your face coverings as we um even
079while you're speaking so i'm going to ask mr elder to talk to tell me when we've reached 20 minutes but we can extend take a vote at that time as a board to extend time as well okay first up we have jerome chang good evening everyone my name is jerome and i'm a parent of two rb usd elementary school kids and a resident since 2010 i'm also a school advocate for rbef which is the ordonda beach education foundation so congratulations rbef for exceeding the fundraising goals from last year thank you to the district and board for your initiative and leadership to integrate issues of equality diversity social justice and inclusion into our kids curriculum minorities consider approximately half of the student body in addition to others with non-traditional gender orientation others who are in special
080education and others who are disabled and so forth we appreciate and connect more when we see ourselves in the curriculum down to the pictures in a math book or the names of the authors of a reading assignment we also value when we learn inside the classrooms the very same topics and information that we are already experiencing in our everyday lives including an accurate and complete history of local issues such as bruce's beach or that miracosta high school sits on a land formerly owned by a japanese-american farmer who is one of the hundred thousand plus japanese americans interned by our own government the district's race and equity committee is currently reviewing options on how to integrate our curriculum and i urge them to prioritize and expedite these efforts last year they committed to issuing a survey
081at the start of this semester and i'm curious when is that scheduled and we haven't seen it yet and that they haven't actually scheduled the first meeting at all and i look forward to when that would start speaking of the race and equity committee i want to acknowledge one committee member specifically kim isaacs not only was she harassed and slandered during her campaign for school board someone at the last meeting voraciously insisted that kim resign this kind of negative targeting is wildly inappropriate and i hope remains the far fringes of our community thank you very much okay and i'm of course i apologize i had a full a file the person before was katie scott katie j scott are you here sorry katie should have come first and then i'll call you back up mr
082chang because i know you had a different item do you want to speak in public hearing or during that agenda item in the other agenda okay hello thank you for your service and for your dedication to our community and to our children my name is katie j scott i have two ruhs graduates and an elementary school student here at washington i'd like to start by saying that i am a white and able-bodied middle-class cisgender woman and english is my first language the education that i received when i was young the education that most of us in this room received when we were young was written by and represented the perspectives of people who look like me it did not represent the rich cultures traditions and perspectives of our many diverse community members even more so
083than lacking in representation the education i received taught me the lessons of who should hold power who are the decision makers and who has positively contributed to u.s history in short who are the winners and who are the losers for clarity the winners i were taught look like me i should be a decision maker and those in power should look like me some of this is implicit and some of this is explicit the redondo beach unified school district's website says i quote we promote and celebrate our students academic social emotional and physical well-being in order to truly promote and celebrate all students well-being we must review our curriculum through an anti-bias lens and right now seems like a perfect opportunity to do that we should review our frameworks our curriculum our courses we should also
084review our training practices for teachers including their professional development and make changes to ensure our schools are spaces where every student feels like they belong where each of their unique gifts are honored as assets rvusd believes in excellence the only way to achieve excellence is through equity where students who need additional opportunities and resources receive them and receive them in a way that honors the needs that they themselves have identified equity means eliminating spaces where only some students students who look like me are the only ones who feel safe centered and heard equity is the only path to excellence i support and applaud rbusd for incorporating issues of equity diversity social justice and inclusion into our curriculum at all grade levels this includes the creation and ongoing work of the race and equity committee i
085support kim isaacs and her incredible efforts in our community she's exactly the person whose voice belongs on the committee i would like to see initiatives of the committee implemented as soon as possible i also support the hiring of an anti-bias consultant to support us in this holistic and ongoing journey one journey that can start immediately and needs to be continuously reviewed and iterated upon we have a wonderful anti-biased consultant in our community and her name is janelle scales thank you very much next up we have kim holm isaacs hello my name is kim holmes isaacs and i have a son who's a senior at ru hs i support and i applaud rbusd and all of you for incorporating issues of equity diversity social justice and inclusion into our curriculum at all grade levels for far
086too long many students and their families have been neglected for not being in the majority white heterosexual and etc whether their race ethnicity religion or gender orientation does not conform to traditions i.e white cisgendered and etc regarding race as jerome said earlier the the demographics of our student body has been 50 percent as non-white over the last seven years hate crimes continue to be an issue for black brown and asian folks in the south bay when i ran for school board i was threatened several times one of my signs was defaced racism is still a huge problem in the south bay ignoring it in our schools and in our teaching does not make it go away i had heard last week or maybe another tape i was um listening to that they're talking about the
087changes in curriculum including racism and including ethnic studies including learning about everyone and not just white men that it was indoctrination and i i think in my mind that what's happened up until this point is that we have all been indoctrinated i think indoctrination is where you don't question anything i think indoctrination is where you are told something that is not accurate and and expected to believe it columbus did not discover america thanksgiving was not a celebration it was after a massacre those are the things that i was not taught i was taught that columbus discovered america and we've got to teach accurate history that's not indoctrination that is the truth and the daughters of confederacy made sure that we were taught nothing but lies we cannot have that legacy continue and be a part
088of our school district as kdj was saying excellence equals equity we all have something to contribute we all have different viewpoints and we all have different backgrounds and we have to make sure that every single one of those children that come from different backgrounds feel heard seen and respected at school so it's really important that we teach accurate complete history not any of this nonsense that we've been all been taught and all been brainwashed by that white is better that white is supreme thank you next up we have megan hixson my name is megan hixson and i'm a parent of a child in the district i would like to acknowledge the efforts of the board to keep our kids safe and thank you for your service i'm here today to show my support for the
089rec committee that was formed by the district last school year and look forward to hearing about the committee's progress and what the board plans to implement i strongly support current members of rex such as kim isaacs who will help shape the efforts of the committee the purpose of equity is not to teach our kids to hate america or divide the nation by emphasizing our differences but rather embrace and acknowledge our differences quoting from psychology professor patricia devine at the university of wisconsin trying to ignore these differences makes discrimination worse humans see age and gender and skin color that's vision humans have associations with these categories that's culture and humans use these associations to make judgments that is habit something you can engage in without knowing it in order to break that trend we have to
090make sure that diversity is well presented in our kids lives institutions such as public schools should be havens for dismantling inequity and forefronts for conversations that address the obvious students are going to have conversations about race with or without us and they're going to draw their own conclusions so doesn't it make sense to create spaces for that dialogue with historical context and a respectful framework the student makeup of this district is diverse our classrooms are filled with different ethnicities religions cultures and socioeconomic classes this is a benefit the unique aspect of what makes each student different helps them embrace at those those differences in the classroom but simply having a diverse makeup is not enough curriculum hiring practices and the makeup of the programs and clubs offered at school need to reflect inclusion and intention
091meaning equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded i am quoting now from an article written by american university school of education by presenting students with viewpoints far different from their own it gives them the opportunity to examine the world in fresh ways exposure to diversity alters the way individuals think by promoting creativity and innovation as well as decision-making and problem-solving skills diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not teaching children how to understand differing perspectives can begin to repair today's widespread divisions representation matters all of our kids need to see themselves in the heroes that are taught and the authors that they read in the history that is told and the extracurriculars that are offered our teachers need to be offered trainings and tools
092to discuss race in a constructive and age-appropriate manner if we continue to insist and fight for the status quo and believing that discussing race creates racism we will not progress thank you ashley hudson what are you saying good evening my name is ashley hudson and i am the parent of a middle schooler in the district as well as two little ones who are future rbusd students my family are long time south bay residents but new to redondo beach when we made the decision to move it was important to us that our children's school would be diverse and inclusive we sought out a district that would expose our kids to people different than themselves redonda beach public schools offer beautifully diverse student body representing families from a vast array of cultural ethnic religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
093this diversity is one of many strengths of rbusd unfortunately simply having a diverse population attending our schools is not where excellence ends achieving excellence requires our district to break out of the status quo and put forth a tremendous effort to ensure that there is equity and inclusion amongst our student population i believe that to reach truly equitable and inclusive education we must implement curriculum which represents diverse perspectives our already incredible educators need training and support in leading difficult conversations and a culture of appreciation and awareness within our student body must be modeled and encouraged i genuinely believe that many of the future leaders of the world are right here attending the schools in redondo beach through equitable and inclusive education we are giving each of them the tools to go out into the world with
094kindness compassion and with empathy for others these are the kind of leaders that will make the world a better place for all of us i am so appreciative that our district is working towards equity with the implementation of the race and equity committee i am in full support of this initiative i ask that the board encourages even more action from this committee with great minds like kim isaac and lisa veal amongst others serving our community through their work on the rec i am confident that our district can achieve excellence through equity i would also ask that our district consider an rec dashboard similar to neighboring districts and email communication to keep our community informed on the schedule agenda recommendations actions and conclusions made by the committee i feel that more transparent information directly from the
095district to its constituents will leave less room for misinformation and speculation lastly i'd like to say thank you to all for your service it is a difficult time to be in the public eye the commentary heard last at the last board meeting targeting specifically named community members and board members is completely inappropriate threatening and dangerous i hope that my fellow community members making public comment proceed with in a more neighborly fashion in the future i very much appreciate all you are doing to keep our family safe during the challenging circumstances of the past year and a half and i thank you for your time thank you next we have dan pipe mazzo did i pronounce it correctly good evening um i'm here on behalf of a group named the redondo beach physician parents and i
096would ask that i'd be able to allow dr kabir yadav to give a statement which is about five minutes in length if not i can certainly deliver the first half of the statement okay um you're the next this is this dr yadiv yes if you can go ahead is the board okay if they read their five minute statement combined yes go ahead thank you very much so this is a statement from the rwanda beach physician and nurse parents dear members of the rb usd board of education we the undersign feel compelled to make a statement in response to the last several board of education meetings when we're wearing we have witnessed with dismay a parade of parents spouting misinformation conspiracy theories and nonsense masquerading as science we are all medical doctors and nurses who live
097in redondo beach and work in la county in addition to medical degrees many of many of us hold advanced degrees in training in clinical research and medical education we unequivocally support the board of education and its science-based initiatives to reopen schools we hope that the board will continue to respectfully hear out this aggrieved minority of patients parents as long as they remain respectful but firmly reject their misinformation and mistruths for those of us that have dealt with the suffering wrought by the calvin 19 pandemic on children and adults alike it is gut-wrenching to hear from a covet-19 widow at one of the prior board meetings only for the parade of misinformed parents to continue a pace right after her well into the fourth pandemic wave in los angeles we are here because too many people
098are obsessing over their individual rights while ignoring their civic responsibilities pediatric hospitalizations around the country are dramatically increased in august continuing through september and hospitalizations have increased to the most for the under four-year-olds confirmed by colleagues around the country the media is accurately portraying the situation on the ground importantly this isn't because the delta variant is more severe it's because we are transmitting delta in the community and our kids aren't protected people's decision not to get a vaccine or to fight against responsible public health measures in schools or the community is directly impacting the health of our kids the front line is exhausted and demoralized we are weary there is a hidden exodus of nurses and doctors throughout the hospitals and they are quitting because the burden has been too great and the support is
099simply not there the public used to clap and cheer for the front line at 7 pm and now people call us names and villainize us but we continue to do our work on the front line because despite being exhausted and worn down because we care about the welfare and the greater good of our communities however we cannot win this fight alone and desperately need our neighbors family and friends to do their part to prevent further suffering this discussion is not about somebody's internet research this is about scientific facts and medical realities the human despair we have witnessed in the last 19 months has been heartbreaking we wouldn't wish it on anyone's family therefore we would like to address the parents listening on these sessions in particular we know that the science and its media coverage
100changes daily and you feel uncertain about what the scientific facts are on a given day that is the nature of science and that is the nature of medicine when there is a new disease we accept uncertainty and we are open-minded to change our understanding when the facts change but this is where dr google is not helpful those with unwavering and outdated views are not scientists you should listen to the real world experts the people with specific training and responsibility to look after the public not from someone trying to sell you something be skeptical when you hear someone with a social media following or even impressive sounding degrees but lacking appropriate training and experience we have the privilege of living in a particular world where many caring and dedicated expert epidemiologists and public officials public health
101officials live listen to them we certainly do and when it comes to your family and children please talk to your trusted pediatrician or family doctor and ask them what they would do for themselves and their own families do not rely on somebody else claiming to have heard something from their pediatrician many of the undersigned are family are front line emergency medicine physicians that work in safety net emergency departments we are witness to the ongoing consequences of structural racism in our communities today and every day both in our patients lives and those are for friends and family as responsible citizens of the country ever striving toward a more perfect union we make the effort to read academic and late personal literature to understand our nation's checkered history and current practices we scrutinize a privilege we enjoy
102in society as parents we appreciate the board has been open-minded about how to educate our children to be better citizens and advocates for societal improvement this is the way forward lastly we haven't been blind to the nature of anti-vaxxers and other extremists we purposely did not attempt to dispel specific mistruths because it is a never-ending battle again we encourage parents to talk to their trusted medical doctors and local public health officials we also recognize that we will expose ourselves by to targeting by these same agents of misinformation but we can no longer stay silent when our community is being maliciously targeted in a way that deliberately puts our children our teachers our school staff and our neighbors at risk we respect people's individual rights but each one of us has a civic duty that should
103not and must not be forgotten be well and stay strong the undersigned if i have time i can name them otherwise they will be in the public record electronically thank you you can put in electronic comments we really appreciate it thank you uh next up we have kim chodkin did i say it did i do it right okay great shavatkin okay kim chabotkin and please forgive my nerves this is my first meeting and speaking and thank you to the board for all your hard work my name is kim chavatkin and i've been a registered nurse for 20 years i also have two boys in the sixth and eighth grade i'm not going to discuss the science because we've all heard it and we all understand it please follow the widely accepted science and not fringe
104pseudoscience i support the mask mandate and would love to see a vaccine mandate to attend school as we already do with many other vaccines i fully support the race and equity committee for challenging and changing institutional racial inequities that impact our community and students i support rbusd and the race and equity committee to adopt more initiatives not less i value diversity and inclusion for my children and my community why isn't tulsa oklahoma and the terrorist act committed on black wall street included or the horrors done at boarding schools for indigenous people i had to learn about black wall street from watchmen on hbo i want my kids to for to learn a complete and accurate history of our country i've seen a complaint online about a teacher at jefferson elementary who had a zoom lesson
105in the spring of 2020. my son was a part of that class and a part of that lesson the other side is saying that it was a a transgender who presented the lesson first of all it was during earth week and the lesson centered around climate change recycling and garbage the activist made a documentary about such and how he they collected the garbage from the ocean and used that to make their costumes for their drag to bring awareness to the climate it was a great lesson for earth week and my son loved it he was not indoctrinated into the lgbt community in any way he learned about recycling and saving the oceans i was happy that it was an added bonus for me that the presenter was a member of the lgbtq plus community and
106to present it exposure equals acceptance thank you christy mickler i have you down for two items did you want to wait to speak on one when we're discussing 14 point or do you want to do both now you can yeah i would like yeah that'd be great okay yeah yeah yeah we're going to time you for three on each topic though that sounds fine can i wait can i get my notes all set up before you start me sorry pardon me i have that all mixed up here okay hi my name is christy michler christina miller makeup i have two children in the district one at the elementary level and one at the high school i wanted to talk about a couple things today first being all right i wanted to thank the board for
107what they've done to actually reopen school and i'm following and implementing the protocol covid protocol measures i would encourage the board after hearing the compelling speech from the doctors is that i do think the board is doing a lot and i think what it's called a a swiss cheese approach and then to address covet we have to put up due to the fact that no single one measure will actually prevent coved we stack layers together protection layers together to try to ensure safety in our community and i do think that there are some added protection that the district could be doing and i i urge them to do that and one is is actually vaccine mandates because vaccines are highly proven following the science tribe proof of actually being able to stop this predator bed
108in addition to that actually doing if we cannot get a good handle of understanding whether our your measures are actually accurate or actually being beneficial due to the fact that we've got no understanding of what the actual community environment is and so therefore testing regular testing would give us a great insight into what actually is out there so we can protect our community against it with that there's only one other thing that i wanted to mention i know that you said that there's going to be some quarantining updates i'm very curious to hear what that is i did not was not aware of that it's my understanding of the current protocols actually if a student is actually has been identified as being exposed exposure they go home and they quarantine but they actually say that
109they have a sibling at home that particular sibling does not have to quarantine which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because if that one student was exposed the whole family is exposed so i do urge the board to reconsider what that looks like that's really all i have to say about coved you guys know i'm very concerned about it i'm getting a little nervous but please please please garlic me i know you guys have done a great great amount and i do appreciate it but i i urge the district to do more please okay i also wanted to talk to you guys today about what the race and equity committee is doing i'm encouraged by the board and trying to implement something along these lines we face a challenge to address institutionalized racial inequities
110that impact our learning community there may be a very vocal minority who increasingly are increasing their efforts to derail the district i am aware of a nationwide disinformation campaign that is attacking local school boards including rb usd insinuating the school board has a hidden agenda to weave critical race theory into the curriculum this is an invented conflict over critical race theory based on a made up definition and descriptors they have conjured up an imaginary monster to scare the american people and project themselves as nation the nation's defenders from this very fictional monster these efforts have one purpose to elicit fear an attempt to stoked a reactionary resistance rather than a broader understanding critical race theory is a way and to openly talk about america america's history and it has had an effect on our society
111and institutions today we need to pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened is continuing to create differential outcomes so that we become aware that we can become a democratic republic as we say we are i believe in the promise of equality and that we can therefore if we confront and talk honestly about inequality critical race theory it tells a story about institutionalized racial disadvantage and systematic racial inequality therefore there is nothing to fear by openly talking about the history of this country i urge the board to do more to implement and evaluate things that are going on associated with the race and equity committee so thank you for your time i do i do appreciate you guys i know you're you're volunteering but i do appreciate you very
112much thank you for your time thank you we have carissa gallardo hi my name is carissa gilardo i'm a parent of a redondo beach unified school district high schooler and a long time resident of redondo beach first i want to thank you for the time and effort and dedication to our students especially during this trying time i appreciate what you do for our children thank you also to the parents who spoke before me and the students who are speaking after me i share their sentiments and i'm grateful for their voice i'm speaking today to support the race and equity committee i myself value diversity unity and inclusion and work diligently to pass on those values to my son minorities make up about half of our student body we also serve many students who are diverse
113with learning differences students from various religions and cultures students who identify as part of the lgbtq community and students whose families are all over the spectrum regarding socioeconomic levels i feel that it's important that we provide an education that includes all america has a long history that is tied to race and equity including the national history of slave ownership and civil war the right to vote internment camps and more local history of bruce's beach i believe in the importance of the students our students learning about diversity so that they are prepared to live in a world and work in a world that has a global society with an understanding of history and their diverse and inclusive community the leaders of tomorrow must be well versed in diversity inclusion equanimity and unity so let's please focus
114on preparing our students for that future thank you now we have michael lee chang so much talk about school and no students talking right let's get right to the point my name is michael lee chang i'm a senior at redondo union high school uh students know me better as michael master that's my instagram but i stand here before you representing the students thoroughly disappointed um [Music] since the first day of school we've had about two cases overall and there's parents who want to get rid of the mask mandate at their school that's insanity we we don't we're not even required to mask outdoors it's just indoors and we've had that many cases think of what would happen without the masks just yesterday we've had 22 deaths and 983 cases in la county alone stand with
115your students were the kids actually risking our lives to go to school not these parents and you know what i don't know what this talk about being bullied to being vaccinated is i i'm not being segregated with my vaccination status in fact if i want to go outside to take off my mask the teachers totally let me do so and stand with your faculty member as well they're the ones risking their lives of working and they're three to five times more prone to getting covet than we are and for example these same vocal minority of parents are targeting your history teacher mr joffrey watts a u.s history teacher and i'm sure dr stephen keller remembers that shebang he's he got targeted before he's a history teacher he got targeted for hanging up a soviet union
116flag in his room and among various other flags world flags and they're saying he's indoctrinating kids with communism i've had that teacher and i tell you he's not he's a single father of two daughters and i'm sure as board members of this school district you know how it is getting harassed by parents he's working a part-time job besides teaching and he's coaching several sports teams at our school and without this job how is he supposed to put food on the table for his daughter so please stand with your students and stand with your teachers because they're the ones who are actually going to school thank you um next up we've got david oplatka hello my name is david o'plata i'm a senior at redone union high school and a commissioner on the redonna beach youth
117commission i have come here today to recommend a clone 19 vaccine mandate for all eligible students and staff members for all students who cannot get the vaccine i would recommend weekly testing we can all agree that this pandemic has made learning more difficult for everyone rbusd was on remote learning for most of last year and many kids struggled we returned to school last spring we required masking indoors and outdoors except when eating for the most part it was successful however as we returned to school this year the district said that masking was optional when outdoors as if the virus cannot be transmitted outside the guidelines from the start of this pandemic have been if you want to take your mask off outside you must keep a physical distance of at least six feet unfortunately this
118is just not possible in the crowded halls over donna union high school so people that are unmasked and often unvaccinated are standing right next to one another this pose the high risk of spreading the virus to others and is impossible to determine contact tracing later on because the student has no idea of who they may have spread the virus to throughout the dale while walking through the halls this fast fretting characteristic of the delta variant poses the biggest threat to unvaccinated students and staff in the week of september 2nd children represented 29 of all coven 19 cases throughout the country the reason students have returned to school this is not to say that students are not safe at all in the classroom it just means that we are not doing enough to protect our students
119in the classroom health officials have repeatedly told us that the best defense against coven 19 is getting vaccinated now that the fda has approved the pfizer vaccine for individuals 16 years ago of age and older i see no reason why we should treat this vaccine any different than we treat the polio vaccine for kindergartners or the tetanus and chickenpox vaccine for 7th graders lastly i want to point out something we learned in the classroom in 9th grade biology we learned about gene mutations and reproduction and charles darwin's theory of survival of the fittest the co-19 virus will continue to mutate and the most contagious variants will be served ones that survive the best way to prevent cova 19 from becoming stronger and a problem for the foreseeable future is to stop it now the best
120weapon we have right now is the vaccine we have it now let's use it thank you next up we have mia kelly hello my name is mia kelly i have three girls uh to adopt vista one at paris and i'm here to thank you for getting our kids back to school safely they are so happy to be with their friends and experiencing everything a normal year would bring with the exception of the masks i've asked my kids if anyone complains about wearing masks at school none of them know of anyone is it annoying maybe is ideal not really but our schools are open and everyone's safe and me as a parent who sat through a lot of fourth grade math last year i'm super appreciative um there have been so my daughter who's at paris
121there have been five student coveted cases and zero spread and it's because mass work i've been watching these meetings online i've been pretty horrified at the abuse that you have all um endured by parents in our own community this has been brought up several times my kids have even asked me because they'll sit with me while i'm watching and say why are they saying those things and i don't have a logical response our children are watching the reasons people are giving against masking is kind of bananas my favorite is that it causes hypoxia so if this is the case no one should ever have any type of surgery because those surgeons are wearing masks for 10 plus hours a day and if you go in for an epidectomy you may come out missing a toe
122i appreciate that you all listen to professionals who have dedicated their lives to fighting infectious diseases and not to a random dietitian who's selling salt to cleanse your aura which is not fda approved um i've like i said i sat through a lot of uh fourth grade math last year i am not a registered dietitian i'm not an infectious disease physician but i did look at a lot of numbers and looking at i i was looking at all the coveted vaccine numbers because everyone's like it's killing people and it's this and it's that and so i took a look at some things and noticed that the johnson johnson vaccine you have a chance of developing thrombosis with thrombocytopenia it's point zero zero zero zero zero that's five zeros three two percent um as for developing
123guillain-barre syndrome that's zero zero zero zero that's four one three six seven percent of population and since i'm on a roll chances of myocarditis and pericarditis is point zero zero zero zero zero that's five zeros two three one percent of the population so i'm getting these numbers from the fda not the fda wrong one from the cdc because they are trusted and they know what they're talking about i can just read the numbers um i know you can't negotiate with crazy and some people will just be believe their own narratives my kids believed in the tooth fairy for a long time as hard as they believed in it there were no little fairies mom and dad money under the pillow thank you for everything that you do i'm here because we appreciate your leadership roles
124in our community and we'll let you know we think you're the best okay thank you next up is colleen short yes hello my name is kyleen short and thank you board members for being here oh thank you okay thank you hi my name is kyleen short thank you board members for your time dedication to our children's education and um well-being um i'm here because uh it sounds like i airesley uh was informed that uh the learning for justice would be implemented or at least um thought about about being adopted and so um i did go and uh read the lessons and before i started to introduce myself i'm a proud rbusd mom i have two children my daughter's a freshman and she's biracial black and white i have a two-year-old son and he is white
125and has not attended school yet so um when i was reading these lessons i was looking at it from my both of my children's own lenses separately and uh the lessons and i'm also a uh sorry a clinical licensed clinical social worker and i um uh my school social worker too and right now i work at a school elementary school um with five percent white um so it's i work with within the black community people of color and minority communities so um the fifth the kindergarten the curriculum that the lessons that i read some of my concerns were that um these lessons seem like they were written for adults and speaking of the different stereotypes gender and racial i had some concerns about that so i'm just these are these are just my thoughts things
126that came to my mind so i in the lessons it sounded like they wanted to teach my son and my daughter that blue is for boys and pink is for girls and girls clean thing and boys make things which is not how i want to teach my children but that's what it came across in these lesson plans so it's very concerning and they kept continuing to read the lessons plan that were identified for kindergartners and up they also wanted to teach our children that um they wanted i was thinking from my daughter's perspective they wanted to show children pictures and have them identify the perceptions and stereotypes by analyzing pictures of only african americans throughout the centuries and i thought at that age that would do more harm than good for a kindergartner but this
127was in the lesson plans that i read um and they also wanted to teach kindergartners that lbgtq what it stands for and what the pink triangle stood for and what the green circle stood for i don't it didn't make sense to me why that would benefit my five-year-old if when that time comes um they also you know wanted to give this the responsibility to a kindergartner to analyze and identify gender stereotypes and racial stereotypes two more do we want to extend her time i think there's so many speakers right we've got about 20 more behind you 10 years yep that's the end of the time of the three minutes okay thank you lori sims hi my name is laurie sims and i'm a parent of a fourth grade student in the district thank you to
128the school board for making our children's safety your priority when children feel safe they are free to focus on what matters most their social emotional and academic development i'm not here to talk about the science i'm here to talk about the law recently dr keller shared the california department of public health message regarding the requirement for universal masking indoors it states public health directive has the force of law and the mandatory duty therefore exists for schools to implement the guidance for those of you asking our school board to not follow this mask mandate my question to you is why are you asking our school board to disregard disregard the mandatory duty and break the law consider the example you are setting by protesting the board's decision to follow and uphold the law you are teaching
129your children that if you disagree with the law you can and should break it as parents it is our job to teach our students teach our children how and when where to stand up for what we believe in ways that do not put themselves and others in dangers in this instance the school board is not the right place or the right audience to express your grievances grievances they are they are following the law i ask you and your children to support our school district in upholding the law if you want to oppose the mandate direct your concerns to the department of public health who issued this mandate because our school board and i quote does not have the discretion or authority to opt out from enforcing this mask requirement my second my second topic is
130critical race theory crt is not about discriminating against white people or blaming white people today for what happened in the past rather it is a practice of examining the role of race and racism in society it recognizes that while race is a social construct it is not biologically real and it is still socially significant crt recognizes that racism is not merely the product of individual biases or prejudices rather crt illuminates the racism embedded and the laws structures and policies that govern this country as decision makers with our wallets in our offices and at the voting booths every person white and non-white can make choices that perpetuate systemic racism school plays a critical role in shaping our children's world views and values leveraging crt and education is about encouraging the state board and local administrators and
131teachers to examine the policies programs and curriculum so that they may provide the same education to all students regardless of color to value and respect the lived experiences of all students regardless of color and design curriculum that is diverse and inclusive of all americans regardless of a color as parents we want our children to help we want our schools to help our children cultivate a strong sense of self-worth and empathy for others teach them to value and respect diverse viewpoints and empower them to become global citizens when they leave the academic setting and move beyond redondo beach this is the essence of crt as such it is my hope that our school will use crt to help our children find their voice and understand their impact so that they can make a positive difference in
132the world and build more caring equitable and safer communities for all of us thank you thank you next up we have lincano good evening dr keller on the redondo beach board of education my name is len cono and i have two children in the district first off i would like to extend my appreciation for everything that you've done over the past 18 19 months to keep our students and staff and families safe during this pandemic and especially as the children return to in-person learning i also want to thank you for giving your time i'm sure between this and your paid jobs and your other volunteer efforts you were all exhausted i am speaking in support of the letter sent to you by me and 96 other parents on september 20th that called for the increased
133code protection measures we understand that the required public health orders such as indoor masking and contact tracing has helped has helped prevent any school-based transmissions thus far fortunately this the start of school happened to coincide with the downward trend of the delta surge our current concern is for what may happen when the next wave hits protocols that work when transmission rates are low may not work when rates rise in addition even with today's encouraging news the advisor released its data for children's age five to eleven the fda will still take another four to six weeks before it grants emergency thought use authorization on top of that it will be at least five weeks after the first shot before these kids are fully protected if history is any indication this is more than enough time for
134a significant increase in cases also i'd like to discourage the thinking that children don't die of covid i know another cosigner sent you statistics regarding negative outcomes children and covid so i won't repeat them here i would however like to share with you some information provided by dr anthony fauci during a presentation earlier this month dr fauci said children do not have as likely a chance of a severe outcome but he goes on to say that if you go to the pediatric hospitals throughout the country you will see beds are filled with children who have coveted 19 serious enough to require hospitalization dr fauci makes clear you do not want your child to get infected not only because it could be a serious disease but because there may be long-lasting effects of copen19 to conclude
135we are grateful that the l.a county department of health requires indoor masking at school along with other safety measures but we are happy to see how well rb usd is executing on those requirements but because of the risks i've outlined we would like to see the district go beyond the minimum requirements set forth by the county we recognize the district as limited resources we believe that several of our quests such as outdoor masking and providing information that might encourage parents to test voluntarily would not strain our resources significantly if at all thank you for your consideration thank you next up i have a list that says rbta teachers does that mean anything or do we want to wait till that section on the agenda okay then we've got matthew cooper hello members of the board
136and rb community at large my name is matthew cooper and i've been a resident in north redondo since 2016. my two boys noah and bradley have been attending lincoln elementary and cdc since kindergarten and are currently in second and fourth grade respectively no need to detail all what's passed with the coved up till now and wish now to focus on our current situation we can all agree that the recent remote learning experience in hybrid design was a huge burden on every aspect of our kids schooling no doubt there will be something in the future called the covet generation whether or not we agree or disagree on mitigation policies covet in our schools in the form of the delta variant remains a serious threat as such we cannot avoid or slacken the utmost application for school
137testing my main focus and the reason i'm here in front of you today is to share the promise and benefit of cadence testing on our elementary school campuses this valuable medical tool is absent from rbusd's kit bag and demonstrates a glaring deficiency in what can now be so easily implemented due to the substantial transmission rate in l.a county i am here today because i'm urging rbusd to implement cadence testing for our kids this extra layer of safety practice is strongly recommended by cdc and los angeles county department of public health and even more critical since we can't guarantee social distancing and class size the safety measure has already been adopted in most schools in california to keep our kids safe and our schools open we need to have covet testing at our elementary school campuses
138as soon as possible biggest success example i can offer is what ayso soccer is doing to mitigate the spread of covid and allow the soccer season to operate this fall and winter they have a fantastic testing program operating in full force i coach a team myself and i have first-hand experience how easy it all gets done the program is absolutely free it is no cost to the school district and the tested kids and adults at the booth the program additionally provides nursing staff all testing materials all the logistics to communicate the results quickly and confidentially please take note this is the program for our athletics programs and we need to extend this important safety measure to our schools i am in close contact with the officers that run and set up this testing they have
139assured me they are willing to engage with rbusd and offer this program to you i can i have the pertinent information and i'd like to send it to you okay thank you follow up an email thank you next up we have tatum cunningham hello my name is tatum and i'm here in support of the changes that are being considered i'm currently a student at redondo union high school and was a former student of alta vista for three years of middle school i was home schooled this allowed me to customize my education and i was fortunate enough to explore curriculum beyond the basic textbooks one of these being a young people's history of the united states by howard zinn it is not a book that tells our history excuse me it is a book that tells
140our history not rewritten not filtered just our history i feel that it is important that students should graduate whenever that may be knowing their history not a white person's history not a black person's history not a latino's history just our history the history of america some may hear some may have come here today to try and protect their kids but by doing so they are only hurting them by denying them these opportunities opportunity please for the sake of our future move forward with these changes thank you melissa cunningham hi my name is melissa and i have a daughter you just heard from in the redondo district thank you to our educators and the board for your future facing leadership as you consider adding social justice curriculum at rbusd we're here to support inclusion which is
141a concept that's been taught to our children since my high schooler was in kindergarten inclusion and upstanding against exclusion education on social justice simply means a more inclusive perspective and point of view inclusion does not mean indoctrination that's a false dichotomy it does make one wonder what there could possibly be to oppose in the idea of teaching without bias more likely it's about fear fear of having kids have to face tough concepts and wrestle with those ideas yes there will be hard conversations for children to have they are conversations that we must have and we will serve our children best by teaching them how to have thoughtful discourse about our history omitting these ideas from curriculum does not omit them from the students awareness they live in this world and are surrounded by these issues
142at all times rather it just gives context in turbulent times with structure and age-appropriate information after teaching a very narrow perspective for generations it's time to widen our field of view and provide our kids with a broader understanding of the world they're inheriting further colleges employers and the world at large are all desperately seeking critical thinkers social justice curriculum will support their ability to think critically these kinds of additions to our curriculum are giving our family the confidence to keep our student enrolled in rbusd rather than seeking out other options thank you for your time and your service thank you next up malone geiss hi everybody first of all to the board um i i just i can't tell you what you guys are facing and the issues that are in front of you i
143am eternally grateful to you all for having the courage to run to do this to dedicate your time it's really amazing and i see all the challenges we have in the room with very very differing opinions and so anyway for what that's worth thank you very very much it is it is truly appreciated i'm the mother of three um and i happen to be on the side of being very concerned about the critical race theory the fact and the polarizing nature of the subject you know certainly has spread like wildfire through our country and you know you see school boards being overrun there's all kinds of videos of all the craziness and everything but i feel somehow that it's all happening at the same time so it seems like it's almost like a coordinated attack
144where everybody decided let's let's go after this really really hard and while we were all sort of doing all of our coveted home schooling trying to do the distance learning i feel like all of a sudden the stuff started to really come on um i feel like the department of maybe of education and the school boards were kind of rolling out new ways to repackage crt agendas into the curriculum you see the crt purports that white people by definition are oppressors and people of color are oppressed now for the life of me i i really i cannot imagine a parent teaching a child that their own personal power and their ability to succeed is in the hands of a white person or an oppressor that is beyond me it's all about their personal power and
145learning how they can see succeed against all odds makes me you know so sad when i think about that you think about martin luther king and his dream for his children that they would be judged one day not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character so with all the hula blue around the crt and the school boards i feel like there's just been changes to the names you have diversity equity social justice all these different words i feel like it's kind of just a repackaging of all those crt agenda items so i encourage you to please stop please stop with all the crt and and all of that i just feel it's so divisive and at this day and age we need to become unified we don't need to
146be dividing and placing people into groups and dividing them by the color of their skin so with that thank you for your time and to those of you i know that there's disagreement in there it's a matter of unity we don't want to divide we want to be together as a country so as americans thank you very much everyone thank you [Applause] next up we have monique grant reimer am i gonna i have multiple topics yes i see that so what we'd like to do is time you for the uh three minutes on each topic okay okay and and not giving each other time this time do you both want to speak or was that i know i did that last time but we've got we're both going to be still got another account number
147of people that are coming if he would like to speak we're just not going to give people time extra time because we cut everybody off at three minutes and we do it together so we're using this we write that together so rather than him speaking he just feels more comfortable with me speaking is that a problem so what are you asking for six minutes on four different topics um no they're they're not all that long he we had just done it on there i didn't go through all of them outside so there's only two that are that two for six minutes how does the board feel does the board have any thoughts on this actually can we um actually i'm actually talking to my board members not the audience please so how do we want
148to proceed four topics for each of them one of them's really short it's not even close to three minutes i'm just being why don't we go with the short ones let's do yes why don't you take your topics let's see where we get with time and does that work for everybody sounds good okay and unfortunately we were outside i didn't get to hear everything that was talked about beforehand so i just went off the agenda that was posted okay can i just please remind the audience we gave everybody time to speak and be quiet while they were speaking i want to make sure we give everybody the same respect thank you okay so the 10.4 adopt resolution recognizing october 10th through 16th for the week of school administrator okay um it was on the agenda
149so i can't ask questions right if it's is that how it works you can express you can make your comments and then the board can refer to staff to answer questions that i wasn't in there so we haven't even gotten to that part on the agenda yet so no we're still at the hearing section hence the concern about time yes we're talking okay then i'll just do this blindly i'll just say it's pretty short and then i'll just okay okay all right what will this week consist of for school admin paid time off funding towards this week student participation as our district reviews to adopt a week of the school week of the school administrator i'd like to speak up and use this as an opportunity to make parents out there aware that some of
150the stuff that's been taking place in our district before they possibly adopt this week for school admin last year at jefferson elementary school a teacher who had been notified prior to giving a brain pop lesson on george floyd and blm in fifth grade got teacher of the year two years ago zoom lesson was given at jefferson elementary school by a transgender also that teacher recommending that the um there was another lesson that she was encouraging for families to watch with their students but couldn't put but couldn't do it with her their students because there was too many cuss words in it at washington elementary the front lobby doors were being kept locked during school hours as i was told for their covid19 protocols these aren't prisons we are running and parents shouldn't be kept locked
151out from the school lobbies parents i encourage you to speak up when you feel uncomfortable about something going on in our schools it's our voices that can be a change or or help our schools to remain giving our children the proper educations that they deserve that was that one pretty short okay 10.5 red ribbon week drug-free looks like me grateful for our school district will continue to teach kids to say no to drugs to by continuing red ribbon week traditions will the newest slogan be something like keep your mask up put the drugs down i find it ironic that you are enforcing guidelines mandates to inject the children in arbusd with the vaccine that we all still don't know what the long-term effects are will be on the children you teach about illegal drug use
152why and how to say no to it and that it's bad for their health but at the same time you are promoting for healthy children to be afraid for their lives to constantly be responsible for others people's lives that they have to get a vaccine that is still so new into their bodies when we all don't know what these long-term effects will be you are lying to yourselves the parents and people in this community if you don't begin to advocate for medical choice for our decisions when it comes to the this particular coveted vaccination to resist the lacdph and the county mandates you will continue to teach our kids to say no to drugs but teach them that in order to attend school or play sports here that they have to say yes to a
153vaccine that isn't even killing children in numbers that are higher than a pre other previous viruses how many booster shots are you going to put these children through you want us parents to make our kids feel that they are responsible for other people's health i have a six and a nine-year-old and the only things they need to be learning at these ages are how to first and foremost care for their own health teaching them to eat healthy exercise good hygiene saying no to drugs honesty respecting others and being kind you should not be burdening children healthy children in the manner that you currently are we all have choices to live as healthy as we possibly can we all have the choice to stay home to live in fear or not live in fear our busd
154and pta council will continue to teach about how to say no to drugs and that drugs are unhealthy for your body yet you are promoting new vaccine that you will know nothing about concerning the long-term effects if once they do go figure when we can be expecting when can we be expecting you board members and pta council to consider adding to the general consent calendar a week-long recognition educating the students about these health benefits short and long-term effects for this enforced covit 19 vaccination that you are you are promoting shouldn't the students and parents be educated by you as well exactly how this vaccine is protecting their health or what damage it can do to their bodies it being so new or will you not consider take the back seat hiding behind your insurance policies
155continue to not educate them not have any liability when enforcing or requiring it to attend your schools what about if one or what if or when a child to get adverse reaction to it will you take responsibility for having required it why while you are actually the ones that are contributing to the spreading of fear amongst children up in the public mic ramer your protocols when can we be expecting the board members and pta council to consider adding to the general consent calendar one week of recognition by educating the students about these health benefits short and long-term effects for these latest health requirements involving covid19 vaccination honestly asking you know damn well at this school district you shouldn't be promoting this new vaccine when you don't know a damn thing about it other than the
156politics and money behind it i guess i'll finish that one and the next one's going to be 14.2 [Music] advise los angeles county department health covid 19 protocol and guidance here you can hold this i wanted to ask really quick dan elder is this your instagram it is okay raymer on august 10th the board meeting you stated to the public that this isn't an open mic to spread fear is that how you address highly political member to your left dan elder did you address him like that after he made his comments right after your unvaccinated staff had just been finished being labeled in a powerpoint as only 22 most likely in the end of their careers here at rbusd at our last board meeting when none of you said nothing to defend the staff that
157is unvaccinated instead of he selfishly stated to the public save your life save somebody else's life get vaccinated he did not show compassion or did not think or say anything about the powerpoint segregated your own staff by their medical choices publicly before making his tasteless and political shout outs with his own personal fears and wants for vaccinating his own 11 year old that he can't wait for the 11 and under vaccine for his daughter while not knowing what long-term effects are ramer did you address dan elder this way reminding him that this is not an open mic to spread fear dan i speak for many in our community as we are all aware of your fakeness and your political goals and city council give it a rest already danielle are you close with wanting to
158agendize outdoor mask wearing for at this meeting ramer did you address dan after he stated this is not an open mic to spread fear because that is what he is doing he is taking his own fear and using his public mic to spread his fear amongst staff parents in our community dan you dan the elder on instagram what kind of outdoor masking are you hoping for dan elder the kind you watch on your instagram while following the santa barbara chicks where half naked girls are wearing masks over their bare breasts is this what we want in our schools dan is this what you do on your spare time pretty sick creepy dan does that turn you on it's creepy what do you do for your own family should be kept private down making public public
159political statements on social media that you're not related to larry elder and won't be endorsing him as inappropriate considering your position it's been made known to me that you are going to run for city council you're using the current position to further your political career not with the best interest to further for all students in our district stop using our kids as pawns dan let me remind you that masks aren't going to stop covid or make it go away and ralph you stated last meeting that your wife and you had just recovered from covet but didn't mention that you contracted covet after being vaccinated i bring this up because we all know that like all vaccinations that you can still contract and spread a virus once vaccinated let's be transparent i think ralph from his
160own experience understands what i'm getting at your protocols when students have been exposed are to only send home the unvaccinated students and not the vaccinated students why is that why should you negatively impact unvaccinated students while not doing the same for our vaccinated students when it comes to their need to have a quarantine and miss 10 days of schooling when people like the man on your left who was vaccinated still contracted covet it is a discrimination at its finest yet you are enforcing these guidelines to promote your political high hopes and soften your own fears bowing down to dollar sign over dollar sign parents please wake up and say something write something step out of your comfort zones because this dirty political money they are receiving to enforce this this that's the end of the
161three minutes do you want to save this dan do you have anything else that you wanted to speak about all right let's start the daughter and share time on this one i guess i could have shared his time on that can i finish that there's only like 30 seconds left on that i'd like to i said there were two start the time over again i guess no i do want to finish that i don't have i don't want to come back either and i'd like to finish i worked on this yeah she is okay yeah parents please wake up and say something write something step out of your comfort zones and be a force against this parents this is happening because of the dirty political money they are receiving to enforce this our kids have
162become dollar signs for having to jump through these medical hoops while on our campuses the millions and millions of incentive money that rbusd is receiving is unbelievable you have chosen to accept millions of dollars to somehow manipulate and promote healthy children to get vaccinated that you have zero clue what the long-term effects may have but are so quick to turn our schools into hospitals push out teachers who are assets cover and muffle our children's voices to pretend you are keeping covered numbers down stop this insanity and be the change my body my choice let our parents choose for their kids medical choices when it comes to this new vaccine that is extremely politicized keep this from mandated the covenant vaccination our school until you know what it might actually do to the innocent children long
163term be people of your word when you say you care about their health speaking about protocols our staff doesn't get to freely pick and choose when to add their own personal protocols as i like to call them whenever they feel like out of their own fears or possible laziness to deal with less parents either washington elementary school had been locking their school lobby doors when i asked why i was told by their staff we said because the coveted protocols this is not a covid19 mandate and this was overstepped and addressed because parents like me are sick of this and wondering how much overstepping and unnecessary actions being taken within some of our schools the ones who are picking and choosing to do as they please they are not prisons you do not lock parents out
164due to any coveted protocols there is a sign on your lobby doors to wear a mask when entering it should be it should be honored and doors should be left unlocked so parents are available to enter the school lobbies if needed during school hours i'm sure there's more in our district i verified with rbpd that day that schools cannot lock can lock due to active shooter protocols but not covered and i was told by their office staff and washington elementary school you have not locked our school lobby doors like that in the past five years don't close your parents out i feel more welcome at a grocery store a restaurant actually anywhere that i go to that the doors are unlocked this wasn't unacceptable okay do you ever last this one will split yeah this
165one only three minutes each this is um 7.1 susan dr susan wilde's assistant what she did first i want to make it known my hopes are that parents listen closely to what i'm about to going to share and why i'm sharing this parents you need to wake up find your voice and write to our district members to keep learning for justice curriculum out of our schools did you not reset the time she had her fourth item that she wanted to speak on so we're going to give her three minutes to speak on that we're repeating yes sorry thanks to keep the learning for justice curriculum out of our schools after listening to dr wild's presentation i know that the race and equity committee will play the part in reviewing this curriculum which leads me to
166ask dr wilds if and why she appointed committee member kimberly isaacs behind closed doors why is a person who states what she does get allowed a position on our race and equity committee and howell why hasn't our board members removed her from proposition yet i spoke out in request she removed due to the information of these things she publicly stated march 3rd 2021 unsurprisingly redondo chose three white candidates so board will remain all white our community voted for you to be in a position and the racial comments are offensive on february 3rd 2021 the police the police associations and protect them that protect them sorry that protect them yesterday september 27 2021 me racist black people can't be racist me pointing out that the board is all white as a fact the police targets and
167kill people of color way more than white people to the point where we are forced to tell our children how to behave around police so they don't get shot the police don't protect and serve people of color news to me so yes i want them abolished that doesn't make me racist and the police have nothing to do with the race and equity committee or our goals anyway i'll be at the board meeting tomorrow and i suggest you keep my name out of your mouth that's right okay kim rbusc board members i will say your names just one second please i respect everybody's right to speak but this is not a place or a forum for each of you to engage back and forth with each other and i won't look over there you know we've
168taken up a lot of time she is on our race and equity committee that's going to be doing this for our learning for justice and that this is why i'm only talking about were you able to hear any of the curriculum presentation that was made earlier no i was out so i was stuck outside okay do you want to make any clarification there dr wilds learning for justice is a website we are not considering the adoption of the website learning for justice okay so wait so all the other speakers that i was listening to they got to speak after it was already shut down you guys have there's it's not going to be accepted into our school district yes everybody is allowed to speak and say whatever they want to say in their three minutes
169of time as i reminded people also so this was a win it's not going to go forward this is a it's not moving forward is what you just said i want to be clear on that yeah i mean it's not even on the agenda it's not moving forward it's not under consideration does it have to be voted on still no it's not under consideration okay well i still would like to finish with this please that's fine okay cool this needs to stop kim you keep calling people out by color of their skin why you can't accept whom our community votes in that just maybe it's not because of their skin color but how they earn their positions are you aware that the statistics are for black on black crime in america what position any crime
170puts our police department in when they are ultimately trying to keep peace and protect our communities rbusd has good relationships and respect for how they protect our community daily i applaud their constant bravery we all have a responsibility as parents to teach our children how to behave in general not just around police officers it's called being a good citizen and biting by laws in our great country you want to abolish police and their associations what communities would be hit first and the hardest if police were abolished our black communities and friends would be these communities want and need police patrolling what you advocate i feel only hurts black people more hawke newsome a black activist and co-founder of black lives matter of greater new york announced last week and is advocating for a complete abolition
171of vaccine requirements not only in the city but also on a national level this that this vaccine mandate is weaponized against black communities kim i know you advocate blm do you stand by our brothers and sisters with blm greater new york i do you say your comments don't make you racist i have something to read from an article titled sure black people can be racist too by writer producer john blake at cnn why do you think black people can be racist as well you've you've heard of the argument that people of color can't be racist because they don't have institutional power so generally white people say i'm not racist and black people say i can't be racist there's a similar form of denial that is essential to the life of racism itself you have black
172people who believe that they can't be racist because they have all uses to finish this and i won't even read the other one is the board comfortable with that her finishing it with his time no i mean this is not an agenda's topic this is none because she's still on our racing equity committee and it's this is disheartening that this is allowed and so i want to i want to clarify what racism is and that it can be on both sides and this is a really great article this isn't this is you guys i would think you would want to listen to it okay start the timer again for three minutes please and this will be the last topic her attacks on a member of the audience if you want to attack us as board
173members this wasn't an engagement between her and i that i oh you probably weren't in the email raymer's aware of it ralph is aware of it and so is dr keller if they read it if i had time today there i let let some of your fellow board members know about it so this is why it's important it wasn't just comments to anywhere it was actually addressed to me so i have every right to speak about this okay thank you so generally white people say i'm not racist and black people say i can't be racist there's a similar form of denial that is essential to the life of racism itself you have black people who believe they can't be racist because they believe that black people don't have power and that's blatantly not true every
174single person on earth has the power to resist racist policies and power we need to recognize that there are black people who resist it and there are some who do not because of their own anti-black racism and then you have black people a limited number who are in policy-making positions and those who policy-making decisions to institute or defend policies that harm black people if those people were white we would be calling them what they are racist if they're black they're no different they're racist i ask that our community reaches out to the board members to remove kim isaacs from our current race and equity committee before the new curriculum learning for justice which is already not in review now we should not make room for racial injustice of any kind in the redondo beach unified
175school district we don't want it here we live peacefully and we will remain standing united not by the color of our skin we want our children to be viewed by the character and performance in school say no to learning for justice and please remove kim isaacs from this committee i hope i get a follow-up for my email today okay thank you next up we have rosie johnson first of all my name is rosie johnson and i have a granddaughter in eighth grade at paris i wasn't going to get up and speak but i'm just kind of disgusted by all this you know it's really sad well first of all you know we're talking about kim too i mean if she's on that race in whatever race committee whatever that's called i'm not into all those
176titles why raise an equity why would she be allowed to wear a shirt like that you know what i want to wear a white lives matter okay is that good why can't i wear white lives freaking matter all lives matter you know unborn ma'am i think you should address us this is your opportunity to speak to the board not to the audience please okay well the curriculum too that bothers me when i went to school when my kids went to school and they went to redondo school district they learn the subjects what there's five right there's science history correct me if i'm wrong english there's uh whatever you know all of them that's all you should be teaching that's it you don't indoctrinate my kids it's not your job that's my job okay that that
177really bothers me where is this how does this all come about i mean what did it happen in 2019 with this pandemic you know what i mean everything was just great you know but she was going to toledo i was you know always helping out and everything it was just great all of a sudden all this crap just comes down you know what i mean and people fighting each other i don't care if you're black or white i get along with everybody you know what i mean i've taught my kids to get along with them too i'm not racist i mean i can even see the looks on on certain people's faces when they're different of a different color this black lives matter is you know what i mean we're all important we all need
178to get along together i mean you know all this is all useless you know i i don't know i'm just disgusted with what's going on in this world you know and and okay the communist flag how the heck did that happen at redondo high why would i want my granddaughter to go to redondo high now this is sad you know what i mean how did that teacher get away with it because he's in the union i mean i mean he rips down the american flag if you don't freaking like america get the hell out you don't belong here go back to where your bullet came from don't live here get out of here all of you you know what i mean anyone i don't even know who's against the flag but what are they doing
179here anyways i don't know i just hope it gets better i always put one foot in front of the other i've been around longer than probably all you people you know put one foot in front of the other i keep on going and i still have faith you know god bless america that's what it's all about god is in charge not any one of you not us none of you are in charge this is all going to go down somehow unless we change you know it's sad it's that look what's going on in afghanistan too you know what i mean it's sad people hating each other and it's in this room right here it's hate-filled that's what i see and that's all i can say thank you thank you sherry buys did i pronounce it
180correctly okay hi i'm sherry bice and i have a 14 year old student at paris and i just i'm just going to take a little bit of time i i do have a problem with the kim isaacs and her hatefulness on her web page you know they hate the police defund the police i mean that's idiotic we need the police and i don't want that being taught to my son at at this you know at this level or at any level at paris i mean you you just have to be idiot idiotic to think that we don't need police and that they're bad and you know that we should fear them really also um the whole vaccination thing so my son told me today that there was a little kid and he had he was
181asking my son his vaccination status well my son isn't vaccinated and he really you know has no business asking that but he was all afraid of him because oh you're not vaccinated i'm not going to touch you you know so that's that's creating division as well as well as you know the black lives matter thing too as well as you know i think we need to get these masks off our kids it's ridiculous that someone wanted to have them now outdoors really again idiotic i mean fresh air and sunshine that's one of the healthiest things that you can do so anyways i want to relinquish the rest of my time to sheila garcia please times i said at the beginning we're not relinquishing time so sheila you can have as much your time starts now
182when you get up there good evening all i know this has been a difficult time for us all and i do appreciate you being on that side of the board because i've been there however i've been um doing a lot of research and so how i feel as a parent and a citizen all of you up there actually have a conflict of interest it is a legal term i know you guys can't respond to me i already gave notice to everybody i noticed everybody for well not this meeting but couple meetings before bullying when there is bullying local educational agencies now you guys are probably going to know this is to you guys you've already heard this okay so it's not gonna you know but this is for the public requires local seth's law requires
183local educational agencies to prohibit discrimination harassment intimidation and bullying based on actual or perceived characteristics ab9 2012 right you guys know all that right now everybody here knows it school personnel who witnessed such acts must take immediate steps to intervene when safe to do so and establish a timeline to investigate and resolve complaints and appeal excuse me okay can you guys hear me okay this is an example in your schools you have been intimidating kids with their mouths or not mess kids are afraid they're anxious now and guess what they can go now to get some medicine for that right at beach city's health district right and i don't mind whatever you are saying in the public it doesn't matter because i have a right to speak it's my constitutional right it's freedom of speech
184if you guys don't like it hey there's nothing i could do but i'm not responsible for anybody in this room um so back to my point that you guys are supposed to resolve the complaints and an appeal process supposed to happen the superintendent of public instruction must post annually update on his or her internet website and provide to each school district a list of statewide resources to provide support to youth who have been subjected to school-based discrimination harassment intimidation or bullying and their families so again i'm going to go back to all of you who've had conflicts of interest have said or did things that were intimidating and bullying and you know who you are on that board okay i'm not going to call you out but you've had lawsuits okay based on saying things
185that are awful i don't teach my son to say awful things and i don't want him to be discriminated against or bullied whether he's vaccinated or not vaccinated we as a family do informed consent on everything and i have a real issue when you get medicine over the counter that has pages long of everything but yet we don't have that with this vaccination and i'm i'm fine i'm done because i got to put it all in writing so everything's going to be in a big o document thank you thank you next we have elia krutz hi my name is elia i have come here before but it doesn't seem like you're really listening to me because i'm back again last time i was here and we had a big rally just so you know that
186rally had more than 200 people that were very angry at you because you all were forcing kids to wear filthy masks there was a teacher who was a science teacher he was talking about germs he's very smart in science and he was talking about germs he did an example on the whiteboard he drew a mask in the size of a germ he showed that masks were made up of tons of holes all masks are you could fit a germ into the hole and you could put a germ right through it the holes were five times bigger than the germs the germs can slip through so fast but yet you don't use logic and force masks on kids my dad used to be in the vaccination clinic he it took them months and months even years
187to to allow vaccines on people and yet this vaccine only took one month one month how is that even allowed you don't even know what you're putting into your body also this is not a law it is a mandate it has never been a law for you to wear a mask before i leave today i just want to say we will be back every single week at every single board meeting until you fix this thank you thank you next up we have ferrocrats just like to say i'm very proud of my daughter um i'm a community member now and i'm happy that my children are in a safe place schooling not at rbusd i'm a public school teacher i have been teaching for over 20 years and i have never seen a district like this
188before in my life i would be ashamed to work for this district i represent one of over 75 families as part of the rbu um redondo beach parents for school transparency we're made up of liberals independence moderates conservatives we're all united we're from all different viewpoints you guys know my stance you know the bullying that's happening that sheila has talked about you know the harassment teachers are having you guys are allowing dr keller is allowing collecting 400 000 a year to do nothing never responding to anyone's emails except for we've talked to our attorney our attorney says oh no ian's friend wasn't wearing a blm mask oh no our attorney says the the soviet union flag wasn't you know against ford policy i would start watching out i want to first thank the board for
189reaching out to several parents in our group after last board meeting we appreciate it one focus of our group is to continue transparency and i turn to the teachers union if you spend less than two minutes on the cta's union website or watch any of their subcommittee meetings or even read up on the local rbta website it's instantly obvious these unions and these reps are pushing for the politically slanted and progressive agenda to be taught at ground level in our classrooms they are militant in their call for all union teachers to push social justice curriculum sign up for courses to offer your redondo beach teacher training to equity activism world politics to elementary students and worst of all how to assign and teach segregation mindsets of mindsets of one race being the oppressor and the
190others being the oppressed racim racism does indeed exist no one can deny that so this won't be an easy conversation but full of accurate history should be taught about where we've come from but to claim racism is present in every aspect of life relationship and interaction is that is that we should be teaching our children that's what some redondo teachers are already teaching our students we're barely one month into the school year and their teachers centering their lesson plans even elementary schools did to discuss identity and skin color themes teaching marx's ideologies even quoting for from howard zinn characterizing oppressor versus the oppressed skin color divisiveness distress for those that look different than you and most importantly this approach gives no positive teachable outcome or end goal in a flawed attempt to point to racism
191everything i'm not going to finish this um you know how we stand and it's sad thank you joyce lewis hi my name is joyce lewis i have two daughters at redondo union and a son of paris i spoke at the meeting last month in opposition of vaccine mandates and indefinite weekly cova testing of our athletes i'm part of a growing number of redondo beach parents i want what's best for my community and as a mother i know what's best for my children long-term mask wearing force vaccination and weekly testing is discriminatory and abusive my daughters are on the jv lacrosse team which practice outdoors and are not in competition until spring 2022 if they refuse testing they will be kicked off the team and moved to a pe class in pe they'll participate in group
192sports such as volleyball badminton and whit and and weightlifting which we which require the same amount if not more contact with other students we've had meetings with marvin brown and mr brady in which both agreed there is no method to this madness they both said stated our hands are tied and we must follow l.a county public health department we're teaching our children to follow arbitrary and illogical guidelines that don't match up with cdc statistics or common sense athlete testing procedures have been chaotic with parents not signing up in in time and inconclusive testing results causing students to have to retest then students being pulled from their teams are publicly segregated and humiliated in the stadium what are we doing what example are we setting please find a way to compromise with testing such as temperature
193checks for athletes to continue to participate without violating their right to medical privacy testing is not required of vaccinated students who can contract and spread the virus as easily as unvaccinated students according to the data it is still a fact that children are the lowest risk of contracting the virus and have severe or having severe side effects last week at paris middle school many sixth grade teachers told their students if they had their mask below their nose they would receive detention threatening detention is extreme and cruel teachers should never take their anger or impatience out on students they should focus more on teaching academics than whether or not a mask is worn properly if they're concerned about their health not to worry they're vaccinated they're wearing a mask so they're protected right please put an
194end to the sinking out of our children which is humiliating and creates a divide among students this is a formal call to action and request to the board of education and school administration to allow an alternative method to those who just who desire to be temperature checked instead of receiving the coveted vaccine or weekly testing i would like a written follow-up and answer to my request by this friday october 1st 2021 thank you for your time and consideration and i'll leave you with um i realize critical race theory has been renamed and am strongly opposed to implementing this divisive ideology into our curriculum thank you thank you derek leone good evening i wasn't planning on speaking tonight but based on some issues i've been following here in the school district as well as some of
195the things i heard tonight i was prompted to speak tonight so bear with me i first saw a proud parent of two students here in redondo beach school district we moved to redondo beach like i think many of the parents here in the south bay because we knew the district was known for having a tight-knit education education community that was focused on academics and performance and the teachers really seem to care about the kids and teaching what we all expect kids to learn when they go to school which is math science history the stuff that you can be taught and leave the many of the other things to parents because there is a tight-knit community here in the south bay that's what drew us here so as i'm addressing the board i'm addressing the board
196but i'm speaking to the people and the parents there at home i want to give you an example of something my daughter has been through and i've witnessed over the last two years since covid since parents started paying attention to what's going on in school my daughter doesn't doesn't volunteer this stuff to me i have to ask her i have to ask her what she's learning and ask her about the ideas that she comes across in her classroom so she was in her classroom and she did something called the privilege walk this was on the first full day of school this year first full day after a year and a half of the social distancing from her friends and being awkward coming into school on the very first day her teacher asked them to go
197outside in the parking lot and stand on the line and ask them a series of questions about their race about how they feel when they called the police about what language they speak and had them take a step forward or back depending on what their answers were and at the end these students all in this class got to look around the difference between them and all their their friends and see the immediate division that's set in on the first day of class and we've heard race critical race theory a lot of these topics by different names the bottom line is is our kids are i teach my daughter my my family to see themselves as individuals not based on their melanin content but based on your achievements based on your behavior the things that you
198do in your deeds everything she's learning in school under this theory if it is instituted and we're not we're talking about curriculum you said you weren't going to do this at curriculum but it's already what's going on in the schools right now we need to talk to our kids and ask them what is going on in their classrooms because the privilege walk is not in the curriculum howard zinn is not in the curriculum this is a socialist view of american history now it's a view and i agree with teaching all sides of history but howard zinn is not an objective and i can see a lot of these kids already know who he is and he's this big celebrity but he was in a socialist movement he was an activist he wrote a history book
199and now it's been adopted by many of these college campuses those ideas and the ideas of howard's inn and conan who my daughter had to read one of his articles that was given to her without a citation photocopied it didn't come out of the textbooks she's never opened her textbooks how much money are spent on these textbooks if there's a textbook the parents have transparency to know what their kids are being engaged in if they're giving uncited material by hans koenig who is a a colleague of of howards in coming from the same mindset there's a lot of critical aspects of howard zinn's teachings that are in his own historical community and they do not belong in our school and if they are in our school we parents need the transparent to know what our
200kids are going to learn thank you very much thank you very much could i could i speak on one one other issue that uh is it a separate agenda item topic because we're about to go over our time for the whole book i apologize it won't be a whole full three minutes it was just there was there was some topics brought up earlier in the night that i would happen to listen to outside and it's just one of them i'd like to address because i have actually personal involvement in this we can start the timer over you don't mind quickly i'll try not to go through the whole three minutes what i wanted to address is i heard tonight that one of the speakers addressed this these people here tonight which some of us have
201disagreements agree on some things and don't on others but he called them the fringe he came up here and called the people that were in this room and speaking tonight the fringe because they were on the other side and some people might call me the friends but i'm a parent who cares about my what my kids learn i care about being a parent and being able to teach them my values so they can go to school and learn things i heard mr stritzenberg talk last time about teaching kids trades what a concept teaching kids how to do trades like work on cars how light switches work it's the smartest thing i've ever heard of any of these board meetings and now our our um science lab has been is gone in the school in adams
202middle school they don't have a science lab because it was placed with a cooking kitchen now i see the value of cooking but science is one of the core foundations of our education system and the kids have no lab at adam's school now okay and then again what i wanted to address earlier is miss isaacs uh miss isaacs this is not a personal thing although it is personal because we have had conversations in the past she ran for school board and i created a flyer with a bunch of parents in north redondo beach about some of the things that she said on facebook i took them off of facebook myself this is not a second hand uh testimony to what was said i listened to a two-hour conversation she had with one of her friends
203on a podcast where she said anybody that has an american flag on their house she automatically assumes they are racist she said f the fourth of july she said it's a racist holiday these are not things that have anything to do with her melanin content what she looks it's about her deeds i saw her fly on my door and i wanted to know what she was about so i looked and that's what i found and if this is the type of things we're going to allow into our kids head heads on a racial equity committee race race should not be a factor in our kids lives focus on their deeds focused on your behavior be courteous to everybody this is i think what every parent thinks of this does not belong on a racial equity
204committee and equity i heard everybody say earlier tonight that we have half minority in the school district great that's great then where is all this inequity we're talking about and if so it's there who are the races because you are the system if you are the system and everybody's talking about inequity and racism it's coming from somewhere in this room i've never heard of it i've never seen where it is let's see where the inequity is and let's focus on those people who are doing it because i'm with you and i think everybody is here with you we do not like people treating people bad just because of their ace or for any other reason other than what they do and who they are thank you for your time thank you [Applause] okay i've got
205two more on the list brad waller hello board it's been a while since i've been here i am here speaking both as an ex-school board member and as a member of this community i'll also let you know that you know i serve in many volunteer organizations i'm on the california state pta board of directors and i'm on the national pta diversity inclusion and outreach committee so i've got a lot of experience in reading on these some of the things that have been talked about but i'm not going to get into those details i'm going to let you know that i represent a very large silent majority literally thousands of parents that are very happy with the schools the happy with the work that you're doing they're happy and appreciate all of the work and they
206trust your judgment they understand that you guys listen to experts you get a lot of reading materials a lot of presentations a lot of briefings and that you are making these decisions based on logic and facts and you're doing it agendized and in public we want to make sure that the parents who are reacting to things truly educate themselves and pay attention to experts who spent years both in school and in their careers and not just the echo chambers of social media the board must follow the law and health orders i'm used to that i know that yes your hands are tied when you are told that you must do something that's what you must do and that's what we do we are a society one of the things we do as a society is
207we protect all we don't do things just for ourselves if you have questions this is from members for the public if you have questions and you hear something it doesn't make sense it sounds outrageous talk to your teacher talk to your administrators talk to your board members they will answer you find out what's going on get the answers get the truth and finally i want to respond to a comment that i heard at a previous board meeting from somebody who was worried about wearing a mask and somehow they said that they didn't like breathing in their own poop and i would just like to say if you're breathing poop out of your mask i think you're using it wrong we have ethan lavalle lavalier did i say it right uh it's wobbly i believe okay
208thank you so um well i just kind of started like going to these i guess and it's my first time i had to skate from like all the way down to alta vista and the first thing i wanted to say is that transgender rights are important and it's important to like respect them and include them and stuff the only reason why their suicide rate is so high is because of the way that people treat them in society and kind of reject who they are also scientifically mass do work a virus is over 100 times larger than air so it's like kind of filtered and they're not really to protect you or to protect other people so if you don't use mass you're kind of mean and the type of vaccine that the chronovirus is well
209the type of like corona vaccine you know well it's vaccines like this have been in development for way over 10 years and what and like there's people have been studying coronaviruses as their career for like decades also it is important to teach people accurate american history and to not whitewash it to make all these people feel good american history is pretty bad and there's a lot of racism that has happened and the ussr flag in that history class it's a historical flag in a history class it's not trying to make your kids communist and well good night and all i have to say is black lives do matter and anarchy equality and peace thank you [Applause] okay do we actually need to take a vote to continue since in about five minutes we're extending the
210time okay so okay all right so i would like a motion to extend the time for our board meeting for another 30 minutes if we can get that this is not an opportunity to ask questions from the audience is that i mean i can try but this isn't that's me second emotion stretzenberg okay all those in favor of extending 30 minutes all right okay can i if it's a quick question yes yes i apologize for that i will tell you that it is all going to be on youtube so anything that you missed you'll be able to see there as well okay so we need to move on with our agenda that we have which i don't even know where i've put at this point the next item is communications uh let's see do we
211have anybody from rbta that would like to speak all right okay good evening board members dr keller members of cabinet my name is sarah robinson i'm the president of the redondo beach teachers association and i would just like to start off by saying that i am proud to work here in the district and represent our over 400 members who all proudly wear this logo that say proud to teach in redondo beach we're also a member of the california teachers association that represents over 300 000 educators in across the state our at our latest count uh our vaccination status was over 90 throughout our association so we are in full support of the district's uh current plans for vaccination and testing of staff members but tonight we did want to bring to you just a couple
212reports from the field as we like to say um some words from our members unfortunately they weren't able to stay so our vice president milan and i are just going to share some of those words so right now i am holly frame the department chair for science at redondo union high school uh we have enjoyed having students back in person in the science department as a result of being back in person students have been able to use pickles to model standard anatomical terminology and physiology class they have tested the primary productivity of aquatic ecosystems using the ruhs pond in ap environmental science they have performed a lab that measures the effectiveness of sunscreen and varying cloth colors on uv radiation and physiology they have tested foods for the presence of organic compounds and measured the
213energy content of those foods in honors biology they have designed a lab to test the behavior of sow bugs in different environments in ap biology they have classified bones from a dissected owl pellet and used the data to calculate the biodiversity of the owls community overall we have been able to allow students to collaborate investigate analyze and participate in hands-on learning activities and for that we are grateful hi uh this is from alana faust she says good evening everyone my name is alana faust and i am a special education teacher and parent to second grader lincoln elementary school i'm here tonight because i wanted to say thank you to dr keller and to the members of the board for helping our students return to school safely this year it has been so awesome getting back
214to full days in person connecting learning and growing together as classes as grade levels and as school communities earlier today in our staff meeting we talked about the possibility of having field trips in the spring logistics on how to make our annual halloween parade happen and what fun outdoor assemblies the pta is setting up for our students without your decision to follow the la county department of health guidelines and stand up for the health and well-being of our students none of that would be possible i want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you are doing and all that you must deal with to keep our students safe so we can get back to business of learning and teaching and growing there are a few families in the district
215who may be loud and they may be angry but for most of us we're just plain grateful thank you for your time all right dude oh hi my name is marlon land i am a teacher at adams and i am a mama of a seventh grader as a teacher i say thank you for your support as a mama thank you for your willingness to guide our school district and as a human i say thank you for making sure we are all safe school has been incredible with kids in person the following the mask mandate has not hindered the awesomeness of being together they wear it outside they wear it inside and i absolutely love being with my kids i love laughing with them making connections and making sure they know how great they are it's
216been amazing seeing their work in real time and giving them feedback immediately to help them succeed this week at adams is the webb's cornhole tournament and i know you guys are busy but if you have time it's during our lunch time yeah um come see us be happy play and like support each other and be crazy um because we love being together and um i actually won today but i want to say thank you thank you thank you for all you do life is truly great at school thank you very much thank you okay um do we have anybody from csba aft [Music] i have something from rbpta should i read that frame it says hello and thank you for everything you do for our children pta knows how hard you've worked and are working
217to help our children stay safely in school and we want to thank you for following the la county health guidelines it is working pta council has 11 unit presidents and starting in october i mean kim kiwi will be introducing you to one of them at each school board meeting they have an offer they will have an opportunity to share their units accomplishments and plans for the school year i can't wait for you to meet these meeting amazing leaders rbt rbp council pta has identified stacey moraz and jessica wong to serve on the k to five ela curriculum adoption committee they will have an opportunity to provide important parrot input and feedback and then report back to rb council pta at our monthly meetings on the committee's progress unit presidents will then share this information with
218their association stacy and jessica are up for the challenge and looking forward to being part of this very important committee thank you so much for this opportunity to share signed kimberly kiwi arby council pta president and do we have anyone from rbef okay moving forward to general consent does anybody have any items that they would like to pull would like to pull 10.1 please okay anybody else um can i pull 10.4 just for a careful clarification so can i get a motion and second for 10.235 six and seven second by elder all those in favor say aye aye motion passes five zero okay ten one do i have to have emotions just in second to discuss oh i meant it missed 8.3 can we finish this and go back to 8.3 okay thanks um who's
219do we have a motion to open ten one okay okay go ralph yeah just a couple quick questions on this um probably dr wilds i'm guessing this is the new teacher project has two items on here those were the two that we had had at the prior couple of board meetings absolutely those are the ones the pos being issued for those they are and then we've got a fair amount of big-ticket items on here um i'll start with i'm just going to pick a couple examples i don't want to go through all of them but the alpine academy for 174 525 can you expand on what that is you know what i'm i'm going to take these since it's administrative services p.o report the alpine services is um for special education and uh i believe
220there's information about that in your confidential report to the board okay so it's nothing that we can do we can't talk about that the details of that publicly okay then that will preclude the remainder of my comments okay so all those in favor of 10 point approving 10.1 say aye aye any opposed or extensions no no okay should pass this four one and then 10.4 can i get a motion second to discuss that second by older okay this is adopt resolution organizing october 10th through the 16th this week of the school administrator dr keller or whomever and the staff can you clarify what that is and is not for those who may be watching absolutely so this is recognition similar to how we do teacher recognition this is a recognition of all the hard work
221of our school site administrators and thanking them for their their dedication to their school sites does not involve any additional vacation does not involve any vacation or any monetary gains in any way okay any questions or other comments all those in favor say aye aye i'm sorry i'm back on 10-4 yes 10.4 all those in favor say aye okay any opposed no abstention moshe's passes okay do i need a motion second ricardo to open the public protocol okay so we're now at 8.3 i'm opening the public hearing concerning the adoption of resolution r 2122 colon 07 for sufficiency of instructional materials compliance for the 2021-22 school year does anyone have any comments okay then i need a motion and second to close the public hearing concerning the adoption of resolution r 2122 colon07 second all
222does in favor say aye aye the opposed okay motion passes five zero all right on to action items 12.1 can i get a motion in a second to adopt resolution r2122 r212207 for sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials compliance 2021-22 all those in favor say do we need to discuss it does anyone need clarification i think dr weil has covered it in her okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay 12.2 recommendation to approve the agreement between the redondo beach teachers unified the redondo beach unified school district and air tutors for tutoring services for students at redondo union high school can i get a motion in second please second okay is this dr weiss this is an agreement to provide air tutors a tutoring service for students at redondo union high school
223who've been designated as at risk this is a continuation of services that we provided in the late spring wherein we were able to provide hundreds of students access to direct one-on-one small group content area tutoring and additional access to high quality tutors staff recommends that you approve this agreement does anybody have any questions or comments yeah a couple here this is a are we doing this for the high school only is it this agreement is for the high school only okay because it's just in this it mentioned middle school in the agreement that we're not doing middle school no last year in the spring we had them we had both and we will most likely be bringing back to the board an agreement for the middle school this one is just strictly for the high
224school okay and this hundred thousand it's not a use it or lose it thing it's no incremental it's incremental they only bill us as we use them how high did we get last year is this we expect different this year how many uh students did we identify total cost what was it a hundred thousand last year did we it was it was under sixty thousand last year we had we had an open for approximately sixty thousand and but we didn't quite use all of it okay and then one question on the language under the ex it states the district agrees to pay for the services on a bi-weekly basis as the services are rendered and then it says the purchase order total will be deducted from the bi-weekly payments and tracked through the program so
225let me reach out to them to get clarification and i'll provide it in the friday update okay yeah they bill us as the bill is bi-weekly as students we get a report of all the students who were in attendance um who the tutor was um and um how many hours and in what subject area but i'll clarify for that yeah i'm just not clear on the way the way it's worded says the purchase order total will be deducted from a business office perspective um generally what that refers to is um your total contract is x dollars and then but you're not paying the bill right you're only paying the bill as you go for the services that you receive so it's like a not to exceed so that amount gets deducted so let's say your
226total amount is 100 000 and then you get a bill for 10 000 worth of services that gets deducted from your hundred thousand dollars i think that's what it's meant to say i agree with that i think it's written backwards okay because it says the purchase order total will be deducted from the bi-weekly yeah yeah just written that sounds backwards yeah can follow that up i i know i i've learned through my my role that sometimes language is a little wonky but the intent is as described okay that concludes my questions oh no there was one one more thing in the under the discrimination provision it states you know no discrimination because of race creed color natural origin sex or age but to me conspicuously missing is religion which is normally included in something like
227that we can reach out to them to include them do we want to move forward with voting on the contract as is or would those stipulate with those amendments or they're not stipulated as amendments yet though okay i'm not sure what's the are we in our time urgency with this oh we just can't start tutoring until it's approved but we have another board meeting we can it it's entirely up to you all we would not this would not be the agreement then that we would sign we'd have to make those amendments before any signing them we can't approve the amount and then we can vote on that so is it a motion to it's approving the agreement which is the contract so if it said the services would that be something or do we need
228to change the motion on the floor or can we vote with this i think you're asking to approve the um the amount yes yeah i'm okay with that and then i need a new motion correct ricardo yeah okay can you state the new motion or the new language would be would be to approve the allocation of that amount not to exceed 100 grand right towards the use of services through air tutors so i'm making a motion to allocate the hundred thousand dollars or prove the hundred thousand dollars towards air to the use of air tutors for the 21 22-year however the contract language is still subject to final approval does that get us where we need recruiting i think you're just approving the funds is that what you're doing on the amendment yes just the
229fund so um don't mention the contract yeah we wouldn't want to include the contract so i will draw the credit just a proven allocation of a hundred thousand dollars for air tutors in redondo beach unified school district yes for the for the count before the 21 20 21 22 school year do i need a motion and second for that that was his motion second all seconds okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed no abstentions okay now you're putting on the item oh all right um so all those in favor of voting is the i on the item as amended say aye aye as amended yes oh dude okay just but not the contract it's not we're not voting on the con because we haven't amended the contract yet correct okay that we
230forgot to vote to amend it okay so now we've amended it and voted on allocating the hundred thousand okay motion and second for 12.3 to approve the revised rbusd school year calendar for the 2021 school year okay so this is revised this is the revised 21 22 school year calendar and the only revision is a holiday place on monday june 20th 2022 in recognition of juneteenth the holiday was negotiated with aft and cse but it doesn't impact rbta or the 21-22 school year okay any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 12.4 approve the mou with the with california school employee association and redondo beach unified school district reopening for the 2021-22 school year under covet 19 conditions 8 25 20 21. and get a motion in second please
231dr wesley yes we um previously in a previous board meeting we approved and you approved an mou with aft and rbta and this mou or cse is very similar in nature um it's an agreement reached to reopen our schools for the 21 22 school year still under covet constraints and the details of the mou outlined safety protocols cleaning supplies mask wearing self screening protocols leave rights and weekly testing if there's no evidence of covet submitted and staff is recommending that the board adopt this agreed upon mou with csa does anybody have any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 12.5 approve the agreement with beach city's health district to provide an employee wellness program to all rbusd employees motion in second please dr wesley so we're pleased to announce
232that we are going to be kicking off our third annual wellness program for all employees in rbusd and this agreement with beach city's health district outlines the ways in which they will support the employee wellness program and our commitment to ensuring the program is implemented with fidelity with data points surveys etc the idea is to measure employee satisfaction as well as health improvements and this year's program will kick off next month and more info will be sent out to staff in the coming weeks staff is recommending that the board approve this agreement with beach city's health district does anybody have any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 12.6 approval of newt of the new teacher induction program agreement can i have a motion in second please so moved
233second this is an agreement we bring to the board each year it's an mou for the beginning teacher induction program with the south bay consortium we're part of a consortium staff recommends that we continue our relationship with the consortium and approve this mou for the 21-22 school year we do have the most teachers in in this consortium we have about we have 25 teachers four of which are in their second year it's a two-year program and so staff is recommending that the board approve this mou any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed the motion passes 12.7 approved the proposal for rbusd new flex 125 independent care administrator p a group motion in second please dr wesley this is for our busd's new flex 125 and dependent care administrator p and
234a group a p a will integrate with our new a new online platform which i'll talk about at the future board meeting and it's going to allow the employees to log on and see all of their health benefits at the same time it's user friendly this is replacing our this is replacing american fidelity who previously provided our flex 125 plans independent care administrator you'll see that the rate is 350 per per person that's in that is enrolled with a thousand dollar minimum and is a five-year guaranteed rate last year we had about a 200 employees with a flex plan so we don't anticipate spending more than a thousand dollars the staff is recommending that the board approve this proposal with p and a to replace american fidelity any questions all those in favor say aye
235aye motion passes 12.8 adopt a new provider for voluntary health benefits foia can i get a motion in a second please dr wesley again we're moving our voluntary benefits to voya they have better rates and richer plans than our current provider which is american fidelity and aflac voya did meet with our health benefits committee in august the committee agreed to make this change as it's advantageous for our employees the partnership with voya is at no cost to redondo beach unified school district in fact instead of taking a commission which our previous vendor did voya is going to cover the cost of the partnership with synergy and that's the platform that will house all of our benefits so the employee can sign on and see all of their health benefits and their voluntary benefits and so
236staff is recommending that we approve this agreement with voya so we can move our voluntary benefits to that provider any questions all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 12.9 approve mou for subcontracting custodial services between california school and employee association and rbusd motion and second please dr wesley so we do have a dire need to fill some open custodial positions we've been advertising these positions since the spring we haven't had much interest what compounds the issue is a deleted subpool so all of our the subs that we had are filling these long-term positions um due to personal injuries that were happened off the job and also workers comp injuries so the lack of custodial services is also impacting custodial support for outside events um especially at the high school where that usually takes
237place our custodians are able to work overtime but since they have been doing that quite regularly they're now kind of fading out of the desire to do that so there's language in the contract csa contract that prohibits the district from outsourcing or subtracting subcontracting work that employees could can do themselves unless there is a need and so we have definitely established a need at this point so this mou with cse allows us to subcontract for this custodial work on a month-to-month basis until we have filled all the positions and our substitute poll is adequate again and so we are recommending that the board approve this mou with csea any questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 12.10 approved proposal to subtract custodial services with smart janitorial motion in second please moved
238second dr wesley so this is tied to the previous action item this is a proposal to work with the vendor smart janitorial to actually fill in as a subcontractor to help us on a month-to-month basis until we're able to hire the custodians that we need and with this vote will that happen right away uh the plan would be to start next monday okay yeah any other questions all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes motion and second please for 12 11 approve the revised mou between the redondo beach teachers association rbta and rbusd returning to schools in a coveted 19 environment 99 20 21. motion in second place dr wesley this is the previously adopted mou with rbta but it has one change we met again and we added language that establishes the
239class sizes for the independent study classes as of today i checked in with mr brandt we currently have two currently have two classes and there's 113 students enrolled as of today so this is a recommendation for the board to adopt this revised mou with rbta okay any questions all those in favor say aye aye motion passes finally 12 12 a motion and second to adopt the recommended csba updated titles for existing policies as presented motion and second moved second okay dr wesley is that in your ears the existing who's got 1212 doc's espa updated titles we just made minimal changes to titles this is just more of a cleric a clerical piece than anything else we sent you an email this week mr gallegos did anybody have any questions all those in favor say aye
240aye okay motion passes um on to discussion items 14.1 do i need a motion and second to discuss ricardo just discussion so we received for first reading the following board policies administrative regulations and exhibits during and those are available for viewing does anybody on this in the board have any comments or questions on those first readings i just want to thank staff for all the time spent going over this i learned a lot uh dr albert dr wilds and michael wesley and uh anthony as well dr colonel it was a definite learning experience for me i think this would i hope this was a fairly large one i don't know if they are normally this big but there's a lot to go through if we can expect this quarterly yeah just answered a lot of
241the real boilerplate questions of the how it all works and everything i appreciate that okay anybody else have any other comments or questions all right uh 12 and 14.2 i know mr chang wanted to speak again before you present dr silverling if you don't mind i think we had just one last speaker on this topic can you set the timer please hi everyone my name is jerome chang and i'm a parent of 2rb usd elementary school kids and a resident since 2010. i want to thank the district and board for navigating us through this pandemic and the fluid county health orders such as this latest one i personally have set up a covet dashboard just for redondo beach and watch case raises case rates initially rise and now consistently decrease this is very reassuring but
242we have seen history repeat itself with several surges that die down we get laxed and then another surge happens i think we're on our fourth or fifth now i urge that our district actually implement more mitigation measures to ensure we don't repeat history we must particularly protect our vulnerable unvaccinated kids who are under 12 years old which for elementary school is every single child even if the fda issues an emergency authorization next month for five to 11 year olds it will be well into january february before a good number of us a number of the kids are fully inoculated which is during or after the next likely winter surge it will be here the most vulnerable part of the day for our unvaccinated children is lunch they're unmasked and sit crowded half a dozen to
243a table i realize they're sitting outdoors but when you're chatting and you're sitting close to each other that is a risk for unvaccinated kids some students who have tried to sit farther away were told by lunch supervisors to relocate indoors where risk is worse i know your understanding is that most people are sitting outdoors and safe but there are quite a number who are at risk so i think just down to the trenches please communicate that i'm glad to hear more tables have been ordered but i'd like to know when do they arrive i mean it would be great as soon as possible and why is this only revealed when we email you so i i guess i would suggest that these kind of inquiries and questions are probably coming every day the same types
244add a page where there's facts faq so we can just point to it and say that these have been answered okay otherwise we're just all speculating and don't let our imaginations run i also urge you to notify the entire classroom when there's a confirmed case not just the parents of kids deemed as close contacts don't make us get intel from our kids they're not spy agents they're not spies allow us parents to test our kids and not keep us in the dark on that note please disclose the number of kids who quarantine as closed contacts as you did yesterday with the staff at paris when six staff members had to begin quarantining this data clearly established the scope and the impact of kova in our all of our schools so we all understand and will
245influence us to remain vigilant a year ago many south bay residents complained why we had to be beholden to owners county health orders that were made for 10 million people and now today we're focused only on complying with county health minimum requirements i have like four 10 seconds left can i just finish yeah thank you i know that every one of us when offered more safety for our kids pre-pandemic would always elect more never less in football you can rush 90 yards but a touchdown is only when you cross the goal line let's remember that we're not there yet thank you thank you okay miss soberling do we have to take a vote to extend 30 more minutes can i get a motion in a second for that moved all those in favor say aye
246aye all right okay go okay going can i just set it up real quickly it'll take me two seconds uh the l.a county department of public health issued on september 27th some new guidance optional guidance that i know most of the school districts in the south bay are going to move forward with and we wanted to bring it to you and ms silberling here will share the details thank you on september 17th lacdph released new guidance for an optional modified quarantine for tk to 12 students it's important um that to note that it is optional it's a modified quarantine that applies to students only this is a require is not a requirement but is an option that's given to students who remain asymptomatic to have been identified as close contacts and that exposure period happened
247in a school setting where students were supervised by school staff and it applies to students regardless of vaccination status so the next two slides are going into sort of the specific details of the criteria to qualify for this modified quarantine for our students so um you would be exposing the school setting like i said um previously where students were supervised by school staff the expo student remains asymptomatic as currently it remains it throughout the quarantine period masks were worn properly during the exposure period in the school setting and the exposed student is not a part of a tk12 outbreak should that happen students under the modified quarantine are still subject to health office officer quarantine orders which means that they are only allowed to be outside for in-person outside of their homes for um in-person
248instruction only so it doesn't apply to after-school programs sports or anything you would still have to remain home for those activities students under the modified quantity are required to wear masks both inside and outside and when eating or drinking under this quarantine order they have to be a minimum of six feet away from others students under the modified quarantine must also test twice a week from the time that they've been exposed the day one or two is what is recommended for the first test and the second test should be three days after the first test ideally on day five that is the guidance that is outlined from lacd ph at this time for the option to modify quarantine so we want to share with you some of our local districts have already begun this process
249and the goal obviously is to keep as many kids in person safely as possible i do want to share with you this has been a throughout la county where there's 80 superintendents and many of us advocated for a modified version or alignment to california department of ed excuse me california department of public health uh because i believe every other county except ours already embraces this and has been practiced in it if not nearly all of them to just fact check me and so our goal would be to bring it to you first to let you know what this language is to be public and transparent about it and our goal would be to begin this optional quarantining process um uh monday nov excuse me october 4th yes thank you yes correct does anybody have any
250questions yeah okay how how do you think this will affect our numbers as a district i feel like our numbers are are pretty low and in control already so do we need you know where do you see a difference happening i think the goal is it's an option to allow students to remain in person because the transmission levels are low in the classroom um the impact i i can't speak to that my crystal ball is not very good i think she means as far as are we quarantining a lot of students is that what you mean like are we already currently quarantining a lot of students yeah i'd say per case we're averaging between five to nine students uh in quarantine when you get to the secondary level it can go as high as about
25119 students but not all of them are quarantining at the secondary level because of vaccination status so how many for example today how many kids do we have in quarantine um i'd have to look uh what i can say is based on the cases that came in today there were six students that were required to quarantine that's just today that's not total in the last two weeks are currently under it would we as far as the the test would have to come back before they're allowed to come back to school are you no the way the guidance is written is that they're simultaneously in school and we collect it along the way as long as they meet that criteria they continue to stay asymptomatic they're following the health office order outside of school they test
252on day one on two and get negative and then they test again on day five and then they're fully released from the health office order after day seven like you would be under normal quarantine but you continue to monitor symptoms for 14 days this is this is just a discussion item so what is it that sorry uh i would say if the if the board asks to bring this back to a next meeting we can for an agenda for an agenda and a formal action item since many of the cases we've had in the past where we've had revised language we've brought it as a discussion item i thought sharing this and having the discussion was healthy and if the board was not necessarily you know supportive of this process beginning monday then we can
253bring it back to the next board meeting as an action item sorry so just a question for the close contacts who've been identified who have had to quarantine how many of them have later tested positive if any at this point in time we've had no one in a classroom in a close contact test positive we had one member of an athletic team uh in uh early august at the start of school a second kid did test positive in that athletic group but it never spread beyond that in the classroom zero okay so yeah in the classroom settings the closed contacts are staying home for no reason right now essentially so far they've all been yeah negative there's been no spread in classrooms thank you yeah so yeah rachel's comment to just to follow up on
254that i've been tracking it fairly well to my own spreadsheet and everything that ratio of quarantine to confirmed cases had been roughly five to one on an average district-wide which is pretty close to l.a county i think about this all together however it's been trending down just like our cases have been trending down we peaked around august 30th in cases at yeah about the second week of school about 2.79 per day on a 14 day average and as a basically right now we're down around 1.2 per day so it's definitely a steady trend down looking at the 14 day average which is a great way to look at it because that dampens out the spikes that we get day to day so but both have been trending down and there's a i think a variety
255of reasons for that part of it's just the uh you know we're getting more and more vaccinated and also the um just when those numbers fall it tends to impact less so even that ratio has been falling with that so i would support is it more work to do the new tracing the new there is an added layer but i think we're prepared to implement it if that's the way we go if we were trending up i would feel very differently about it but knowing how you know basically this month since august 30 we've really been steadily trending down and you know it's all been community spread so far but community spread is trending down as well so i guess that gives me a little more i don't know if i can quite say confidence
256but reassurance that we're not going in a bad direction and we have a little bit of wiggle room to work with and we could always rescind this if if it if we decide it's not working if it moves the other way and we do get confirmed you know contact cases that were then you know deemed to be uh actual cases right so i i'm in favor of moving ahead with this i think this would only this applies to people who have been deemed in close contact who are unvaccinated and so it's really going to apply more at the elementary school levels that where kids are not able to impact theirs definitely and also at the high school level for those who have not chosen to be vaccinated too but allow them to stay remain in
257school provided they're asymptomatic yes so it wouldn't change any of our other coveted protocols so if a sister has coveted i just want to clarify this yes you are not going to school right like if your sister is at home with a covid no you're a sibling because you're not attacking you're a close contact at that correct so that doesn't change that isn't what's okay so there's one thing i just want to make clear that if you're outside and you don't have your mask on and that's where you're identified as a close contact you don't apply for this you can't qualify for modified quarantine if you are in a venue where your masks are not worn so athletics outside eating lunch things like that if that's where you're identified you wouldn't meet the criteria so
258purely contacts in the class meaning if you're sitting in class wearing your mask and you were considered you would no longer be so this will be again it's not uniform it'll be a case by case investigation basis the way public health opens for every positive case or guides us to yeah the investigation we'd go through criteria to determine if it was met based on what lacdph has written and we would determine based on the coast contact list who could fall under this criteria and meet meet it for being under modified quarantine it would not be a every close contact it would have to be based on meeting the criteria and dr keller you had mentioned earlier that other districts are adopting this and they are and you know we do our own thing i respect
259that but i will tell you i know at least one district who said immediately that it did you know less the amount of kids in quarantine and kept more kids in-person instruction for in-person instruction and it was um manageable you know it's a it's a new process definitely for jessica and her team uh and for our principals but it's uh one well you know we're confident we can implement with fidelity and then when in doubt we we won't up we won't um embrace the optional um process dr wesley what is rb rbta where do they stand on this okay because we're talking about our elementary school teachers and all of our teachers well but we just we were saying this is going to mainly affect elementary school kids who are quarantined so if it's for
260the and i guess partially middle schools yeah in high school too so i just i was trying to understand from our perspective who are we impacting with this decision tonight we're putting more kids back in classroom and the teachers but with those kids who are not yeah right i'm just i'm curious to know how they would feel about it um they're they're the ones on the front line i mean for me the the really positive thing is that the health protocols in place seem to be working very well um you know even in all of lausd where they've got extensive testing there's only been 14 schooling cases of transmission so these health protocols are working and quarantining kids who are never getting sick and keeping them out of school and putting them through that again
261if that's not necessary and that the data at this point in time at least indicates it's not they're going to do a lot better in a school setting than you know some some kids have had to quarantine multiple times as close contacts you know they didn't do anything wrong they just were sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time and now they're missing weeks and weeks of school already in the school year so if we can safely keep you know more kids in school and give them the opportunity to learn in person i think that's going to be better testing so these kids will be tested multiple times right twice in the quarantine period something changes we can pivot and one of this is going to you know part of this is going to
262be messaging to parents because that's there's going to be parents that will object to the fact that they're having to test their kids twice a week and yeah i mean it outlines it's not without complexity yeah the criteria is outlined and if it cannot be met then they can't be under the modified quarantine i would support the staff recommendation on it my concern is if we're going to you know jump back and forth we're going to cause a lot of confusion i'd rather not jump too quick and does this create a new what we call the kova cheat sheet option then it will on the blue pathway it will create um what what i'll do is create an attachment that says modified quarantine and it will outline that and then i will get that out
263to all of our code persons and um and to our leadership team and then from there we will edit and modify our exposure letter per these guidelines and the county has a template that we can go off of and when you get a call when you're close contact you would then be also notified of the modified quarantine protocols could you please add the board members to the distribution of that document yeah of course that would be great david do you have any thoughts um no i think it's anything that can get more kids back into the classroom without a commensurate increase in transmission risk is something i support so i support this and just to let you know if this the first thing we would do obviously is we rework that cheat sheet if you
264will and then the other thing is we would obviously communicate to the parent community either tomorrow or thursday of the intent to implement beginning monday it's going to be a little technical for parents um just to let you know you know but uh we will we will make it very clear and um you know provide the best detail we can without without um having too much intimidation with the technicality of it all because there are it's different than the california department of education excuse me california department of public health language this is a little more restrictive it's a tweener if you will that l.a county department of public health tried to work with school districts to keep more students in person and they didn't necessarily want to embrace uh what uh you know california department
265of public health actually has in writing so this is a compromise those weekly calls so yeah you know yeah if they see a spike they'll be the first one or if they see that if the transmission rates are going down they won't even align further with the california department of health and then just to be clear on the kind of the transition into this you it would go into effect monday is what you're saying but so if we had kids that were quarantined on friday good question they'd be under the they they would not be they would not be under the new guidance they'd be under the previous guys the current guys they would have to follow through on their full quarantine rather than on monday uh sorry county's prime mental health made that very
266clear yeah made that very clear so we have to formally announce is that what the health department's saying is no it's just it's just we would it's how the notification process would be clear on the front side okay do you need anything else from us all right does anybody have any correspondence to share or how about board member reports well i will just yeah correspondents and i want to follow up on the the scrap thing that we talked about would is that better for correspondence or just board member reports probably your board remember reports like to go first then and give your board if we're rolling into that shirt just to follow up we had the discussion last time about the fin prep lease at socal rock where that landed is there was a resolution
267presented to the board and it had the typical whereas whereas and therefore and therefore at the end was we supported the reinstatement of the fin prep charter and i didn't based upon our conversations i didn't feel comfortable with that because it was kind of butting heads with laco and if laco did it for their reasons i didn't want to be getting in the middle of that so i requested that that be taken out of it and kind of replaced with the fact that we just we we do support the the core mission of fin prep and in serving those those foster kids and homeless and so forth but not the reinstatement and that did pass four to two i believe it was and torrance and i myself still voted against it just in general because
268we didn't want to go in that direction at all but that's where that landed so it's it's kind of landed as a limbo for now i would say it didn't really do much and we don't know what the future is going to be for that that finn prep organization at all it may come back it may just go away we don't know yet but that's where it landed all right anything else you want to add in your report i do have a couple things i'd like to ask of staff if is that a future agenda item or part of your board member report there's clarification questions we'll do future adjustment item on that one yes that would be more appropriate thank you mr elder sorry i've got to make this quick because the lights that
269adam's going to turn off shortly my son will be unhappy but i just want to say thank you to the teachers and staff for starting off this year so strong getting us back to school there's been a lot of bumps along the way certainly but things are all heading in the right direction i want to thank all of our families for supporting all of our kids as they try to navigate this full-time return to school you know we're still in a pandemic but we're making it work and thank you for supporting our teachers and our staff also because it's been hard for everyone so you know the community has been fantastic and also thank you to our students they've had to be more flexible and resilient than any of us have ever imagined and they've
270been incredible and their enthusiasm is what keeps us going seeing them at school and and how happy they are really makes this all worthwhile i also want to thank our incredible ptas who are keeping those school communities going and getting everyone engaged i want to thank our healthcare heroes bhc health district everyone who's helping keeping us healthy and going through this global pandemic and then also you know a final shout out thank you to their parents and our community members for this investor drive with ed foundation it's fantastic that people are investing in our schools and our children so keep it up and with that i apologize i have to run off okay run rachel quickly given the time i wanted to say what an amazing opportunity it was to go to dreissler this last
271week and do a school site visit i have thought i'd been everywhere in the district i had never been to dreissler and i was so impressed and really enjoyed getting to know that school so thank you anything david mr wicken all right just an echo of thank you i was honored i got to attend the teacher of the year luncheon with dr keller where our own sarah robinson was recognized and i feel like we've always had a teacher somehow end up in the finals of teachers of the year and hearing not just our teachers but all of the teachers there on the stage really reminded me why i'm involved in all of this because we have amazing teachers amazing students and truly an amazing amount of dedication that goes into all teachers everywhere but congratulations
272to sarah robinson really enjoyed going to site visits seeing kids back in classrooms and that's what i've got for tonight how about future agenda items no i'll chime in with those um dr keller first one i think ends up directed with you is you had presented your annual goals uh for the um for the stat not your goals but the staff and we talked at one time about getting a mid-year uh report out on those is that something they do yeah maybe i don't know about december how that will work if we if the december meeting is a full one or not i don't know historically but january would be fine and then i also like to get a very top-level report out of what are the coveted funds that we have received covered related
273funds that we've received so far which ones where have they been spent or allocated not to get into a high level of detail on that but just a big picture so that we can help understand that and then finally i'd like to get a summary of tests that we do at i guess by grade level because there's so many different testing programs and i'm getting familiar with more but i haven't been through anything beyond well beginning of fourth grade so far so if we could get a which tests are done in kinder first second third fourth you know on up through twelfth and and also with that maybe an allocation or an estimate of how much time the students or how much those tests take in the classroom basically i guess is what we're looking
274for so just ask a clarifying question are you looking for standardized kind of norm reference test are you looking for like in person because there's tests can encompass unit tests semester tests um by grade level but i'm taking the stuff like map testing map testing the big picture level ones that were we implemented either because we have to or because we want to and no map is because we want to but just to get an overall feel for what is it at all the grade levels and you know rachel and i talk about does that cover what we'd talk about we want to include a pset for what is it 10th graders i think eleven you're taking we have psat we um for eighth graders that's optional and then we also have this optional for
27511th graders yeah so the optional ones would be good to include too because all of them take up time a-c-t-s-a-t and e-those well those are weekend tests that we have those aren't classrooms but that's fine you just still include them and part of it's a learning curve for can that just be a friday update that'd be fine yeah that'd be great okay just so make sure yes it doesn't have to be an agenda item but that's it thank you does anybody have anything else okay we're back here on october 12th at 5 p.m and again on the 26th the 9th we have a holiday on 11th for the 11th for veterans day and thanksgiving break from the 22nd to the 26th back on december 14th can i get a motion and second to adjourn the
276meeting all those in favor say aye you