001witkin to please lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you all rise ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the board just can concluded closed session and we received information from staff i need a motion and second for the approval of the minutes of the june 22nd regular school board agenda meeting second by stressingbird all those in favor aye any oppose motion passes five zero okay earlier the agenda was approved by motion by david witkin second by rachel nemeth 5-0 approval and next up we have the superintendent's report by dr stephen keller hi everybody uh we're excited to have our students returning to campus on wednesday august
00218th parents will receive a welcome back letter this week from me they'll also receive a welcome back letter of course from their site principal in the next few weeks principals and i were talking today about the timing of all of our letters because there are a few going out um we're excited to have our students return to campus uh and in these letters uh we will uh apprise um our families uh that we are returning to school um essentially under the pre-coveted schedule bell schedule you know calendar everything included and there'll be two options obviously coming back to the regular program which we you know are ready for and then we're learning uh the new legislation from the state which is the independent study program which is a model that follows the state guidelines for
003such a program and just to be clear i want to make sure i read my notes correctly you know you have a choice as a parent which we believe you know about 99 of our parents will return their child to campus full-time however we do have the independent study online program that's essentially 100 online program so you'll have a choice as a parent uh and that information will be coming to you this week um we just want to be clear there is no middle there's no option three uh you know because we're coming back to campus so there's no concurrent simultaneous teaching model where you have half the kids in class have kids at home uh as we as we have done in the past so just to be clear this detail uh this you
004know the simple piece for everybody for parents like me they're going to be having their child go back to school they will just not need to respond for the independent studies program and for those that believe the independent study program meets their child's needs there will be a process for that and we welcome them and we'll even have a town hall for them to learn more about it and the director of that program mr brandt will be the one taking the lead on that we will also send a letter out welcoming our staff members back to the 21 22 school year this week and it provides the details regarding our welcome back rally which is suspended last year we didn't have it and we're doing this outdoor this year at the seahawk bowl so there'd
005be plenty of space that's where we held our high school and middle school high school graduation and middle school promotion ceremonies and we are excited to be returning to rbusd to this event in particular it's a great way to begin the year we are returning our in-person leadership retreat which which is essentially our management team which is on august 5th so again getting back to normal which is a great thing and at our next meeting i want to introduce our new two program specialist part of the special education team as well as our new assistant principal at paris middle school and that's all i have thank you at this time i would like to see if we could get a motion to move the discussion item 14 to um above can i get a motion
006to move the discussion so at this point i know dr keller and mrs sieverling have a brief presentation about the current guidelines as we understand them for our returned classrooms yes and so we try to be as concise and to the point is always our style here and as objective regarding kind of where we're at and so what uh jessica and i will do is essentially just kind of walk you through this process uh there aren't uh too many slides up here so everybody could easily follow so number one piece i would share with all you and dr alpern is always reminding me this because she was part of that team that sent out some of these notifications but we've always followed the la county department of public health guidance regarding these the flu notifications
007whooping cough lice you know unfortunately some of us receive some of these letters so for some of us that have already received information from l.a county department health they've always been in our lives as a school district and i think that's important to note where they really became prominent the l.a county department of public health obviously it was in march of 2020 uh when covet hit our our communities and our our world essentially and so obviously it was a a a a greatly heightened relationship with l.a county department of public health weekly calls for the last you know year and a half uh and ongoing memos of reading you know guidance and protocols and trying to interpret and getting interpretations so really over the last year and a half we've gotten a lot closer with
008ali county department of public health and they've certainly been in our lives more so than ever before rbusd has always remained agile because the guidelines have changed often and we've been in and last summer about this time in fact where we were ready to present something that changed uh during the board meeting it was at first it felt embarrassing but at the same time that's the reality of covet it's just you're constantly needing to be agile changing to what the guidance is providing us and allowing those experts to guide us for a safe return to campus and then if you go on the rvsd site one thing i will tell you is you still see the letters from last year we scrubbed a lot of the learning protocol from last year because we're returning kids
009to campus under a normal schedule which is great uh but those letters are still there we communicate it often and um at great length and you can find all that information on our website and then beyond l.a county department of public health people ask sometimes well really who else you know who are the other players in this process for us as a school district in l.a county we follow la county department of public health however these folks are out there the centers for disease control and they are advisory they don't tell us what to do their advisory to the nation and i i know that california department of public health listens to their advisories and i know la county department of public health listens to their advisories but they don't direct us in any shape
010matter or form the california department of public health obviously provides input to l.a county department of public health and over the last several months l.a county department of public health has said they're going to be more aligned to california department of public health nevertheless l.a county department of public health is a separate entity from the california department of public health and then the american academy of pediatrics aap provides advocacy and opinions and you know obviously we listen to those but really l.a county department of public health can take that information and use it as they deem appropriate for the 21-22 school year this is what we've been saying all along for the that rbusd is returning to a pre-coveted calendar daily schedule per california department of education structural minutes so following those minutes and policies
011and then recent legislation regarding independent studies program which i just shared a few moments ago that you will be receiving information all parents and families about that independent study program if that is an option for you all the details will be there and some follow-up information if you want to learn more and we're excited about offering this opportunity to the families that wish to enroll in it and so jessica now will cover the vaccine and best practices thank you dr keller so we've worked hard to provide vaccination opportunities for all our staffs with the support from our partners over at beach city's health district and approximately this point in time we have about 75 percent of our employees vaccinated we've also been working with the beach cities health district to provide the vaccination opportunities for
012those interested for students between ages 12 and 17 and with approximately 54 percent of students in the in that age range being vaccinated at this point in time hot off the presses to share with all of you is i've been working closely with ali and we will be providing one more back to school vaccination clinic august 12th and again second dose will be september 2nd at the south bay adult school so any staff or students that are wanting are interested in the vaccination there is one more opportunity that we are partnering with bcd's health district and a flyer will be sent out tomorrow to all of our staffs and our families um you know as we continue to have programs and offices open and things like that we are really adhering to the best practices
013of sanitizing surfaces practicing good hand hygiene social distancing of three feet when applicable and possible and really using our symptoms screenings to ensure that we keep our staff and students safe right now per lacdp the county department of public health we are required to wear masks indoors all staff and students and on school campuses and in school offices masks are optional outdoors and this is the current guidance from the los angeles county department of public health the importance of masks in classrooms really comes into play when we have positive cases this point in time we are required to investigate to determine whether or not there are close contacts and or people potentially exposed some of the questions that were required to ask or were masks worn at all times and was social distancing practice so
014the benefit of having masks on indoors allows us to not quarantine people because they aren't deemed close contacts so having masks on inside does prevent the spread which is what l.a county department public health has told us which is when we investigate we really monitor those situations so we can keep staff and students in schools and the mask requirement right now is the only thing that licdph has required and allows us to open schools and the pre-coded schedules so keeping schools open and that eight to three type bell schedule or full days is only allowed if we are wearing masks and doors we have asked staffed or for anyone who is unwilling to comply with the mask requirement to refer them to the site administrator and as always we will be respectful and empathetic to
015all rbusd community members regardless of opposing beliefs rbusd will continue to follow los angeles county department of public health guidance and protocols as we're required to do so thank you and then on a couple of positive notes just want to highlight this we're moving towards pre-covered practices and policies been sharing that uh already this evening and the reopening of drinking thousand fountains and water filling stations for the 2021 uh 21 22 school year uh these were shut down as you know and we actually spent some money i give dr alpert and her team credit to actually uh add the water filling piece and then a limited number of volunteers can now be on campus they must follow the same guidelines as students and staff and so those are some positive notes as we begin the
016new school year we're excited about and that's all we have for you tonight okay at this point i'd like to open a discussion among the board members about these guidelines and um i did have just a couple of questions since i have the mic right now that i wanted to ask to clarification you know we were able to go back to school in the spring but we were not able to go back in a full schedule we did not have lunch incorporated on classroom sites and we were required to wear masks at all times indoors and outdoors what will be marketably different is this year is that we will be able to have lunch you'll be able to have lunch outside with your friends take your mask off as your choice and that's something we've
017already implemented with our summer programs and cdc programs correct correct okay so um it's we're what we're really talking about now is the mask worn indoors for instruction by both staff and students can i ask one more question of course which is about legal liability like if we did not follow the mandate and let's and let's say a teacher got coveted and got very sick and died like how does our legal liability differ versus if we had mass and that same teacher got coveted and died um i i spoke with our insurer last late winter and then reconnected again this last month and the message has continued to be the same which is um our liability would not be and would be our own the insurance would not cover us if we are not following
018l.a county department of public health guidelines but if we are following the guidelines insurance does cover us yes okay all right thank you no yeah along those lines um two things going back to the meals it's going to be plated meals using our cafeterias it's not grab and go anymore it's it's a different animal we can't do a buffet style like we did before but that's the plan is that correct which is great it's and i i saw that today even at the cdc going on which was awesome to see and then follow along the insurance does our current insurance have a cap on it or is it it's a shared risk pool policy how does can you give me the basic overview of how that works it is shared risk they have put into
019place due to a pandemic covid protocols and students who participate in particular activities are required to complete an acknowledgement of the limited liability we have some liability but we don't have total liability under our pandemic conditions so um the they really have to make a determination the pooled insurance really have to make a determination as to whether or not the district has followed all necessary guidelines to determine whether or not they could cover a claim it's unchartered territory for them but the basic message was if if we don't follow those we end up at risk for sure okay thank you is that a question um so during the past year when we've been open during the pandemic have there been any cases of transmission in our classrooms by masked individuals you want to take that
020one i don't want to get that wrong i'm not in the bathroom so the masks in the classrooms were working there at least um i guess elaborating on some of the possible repercussions of not following the l.a county department of public health orders i'm picturing things like if there is an outbreak the quarantines are become messy but what other repercussions for example loss of control of our schools by the state or the county having to return to hybrid or distance learning things like that what what would be some of those possible repercussions you know to speculate i would say moving back to what we saw in the spring but i don't you know i'm not the l.a county department of public health they may have something up their sleeve that i'm unaware of but i
021would just assume that we've moved back to the previous model or have that option okay thank you in in continuing on your slide where you said students who do not wear the masks will be referred to the site administrator what is going to be our procedure from that point we're going to work with the family we're going to share we want them in school we ask that they comply with the la county department of public health we're not here to be the bad people we're here to instruct as i've shared with people you know i think it's important for for you know families to understand that this is the ticket in the door it gets our kids back full time five days a week you know we're excited to have them back we've found a
022lot of success with kids on campus already even with mass and uh you know and we would you know talk to them if this is not a model for you you know the independent study model is an option for them and we respect that and again we'd still love to have them in school with their mascot just one other question along that what's been our experience when our kids have gone back masked in the spring has there been a lot of compliance that our administrators have had to do or that what's been that there's been very little issue whatsoever i mean what we've learned is yeah we need to give mass breaks we need to give some kids a little more space for sure and our teachers and our staff have been very accommodating and
023our staff members for that matter i'm a person who doesn't like to wear a mask personally it's very you know restricting for me and so sometimes i have to go outside and go for a walk and so we've done that for staff we've you know covered classrooms that we've done what we need to uh it's it's unchartered territory as dr alperin said earlier and we're all adjusting but we're making it work well and it will be marketably different with the option to have it outside that something would be a little bit less restrictive for everybody that's involved does anyone else have anything they want to ask because i have some other things i want to propose i have nothing i something you want to say sure okay go ahead i mean we're we're all being
024we're all being very polite and diplomatic you know asking questions i'll just come out and make make my statement which is where i where i kind of draw the line is um i don't i do not want to go back to distance learning it was it was so harmful to my own kids and so many kids in the district and so if the cost of ensuring that we can continue in person school is wearing a mask then i'll bear it to me it's a small cost regardless of what the county says or doesn't say and what they say changes all the time um and but delta is extremely contagious who knows you know the course it will take and so if we have to wear masks in order to kind of maintain the right to
025send our kids to school like i'm totally fine with that and that's my statement i had one more question sure um did didn't cdc just change the guideline in fact for the recommendations so that's what we're hearing i've been in a meeting so but i i've only heard that through my phone alerts yeah one more quick follow-up the remote learning option is it still through the same entity that we had used before question um miss phil you wanna you wanna handle that one i don't wanna get that wrong it will be through schools plp and apex so two of the platforms we did use before yes and do we have an idea of how many kids ended up going that direction even last year we did an interest survey well last year oh gosh not
026certain but we did an interest survey for this upcoming school year and we found that very few have the last time we looked it was about 47 students to be honest families out of the nearly 10 000 that we have and did you find that maybe you don't know but from the database it clustered around higher grades or lower grades or just it was spread across yeah a little bit more at the upper grade level at the high school level but it was spread across the three levels did we get any feedback from those families that went that direction no we just wanted to see just a general pulse about whether or not what we would be looking at in terms of numbers coming back in the fall so we didn't get into specific details
027regarding their decisions around that so either way good or bad we haven't gotten any feedback about that program but that's that's what we're still offering for an option okay all right thank you so um i do know and i think that it's important that we be open about the fact that we've received we have about 19 000 parents or guardians in our school district and our board has received advanced public comment and requests to consider advocating on behalf of a mask optional policy from arbor usd which we've discussed very clearly what that you know it's different than us saying we're going to adopt that policy whether or not we would advocate for that with the entities that are in control of that as far as my statement goes in being on the board when we
028had to shut down brand new to the board when we had to shut down to covid and to deal with the changing guidelines and the constant just when we thought we'd met every goal post we could open again and then we couldn't it was an immensely frustrating it was immensely emotional and 100 percent agree with mr witkin in that we need to have a return to normalcy and a return to classrooms and i think we've worked really really hard to make that happen and we're lined up again here to make that happen and i do not want agree with mr whitman it doesn't seem like it's worth it to um even consider but not to mention this is only to keep all people safe and kids in school and i think ms silverling what you
029said is in our experience when we have had coveted cases since we've been back in school because that is a fact the kids that were masked were not deemed close contacts so their lives were not disrupted they still got to go back to school they got to play their sports they got to keep going along with their lives and the quarantine is a difficult one and we will not have that zoom option for folks come the fall because the idea is for us to get back to school and get back to normalcy and we have a right as a board to do in local control is to add more layers of safety mitigation not less and i believe that this board has shown that it is passing just the mitigations that we are required to
030keep all safe like adopting the mask optionals outside as it comes so my question to this board and we've read every single letter every single link i know that i can speak for myself i've talked to some of my colleagues we read it and we educate ourselves not just from the la department of public health or cdc or american academy of pediatrics this has been all consuming for all of us and including the staff i know that have worked so hard for this so my question of this board is do we want to consider the resolution that was sent to us by these um approximately 25 parents which would come out to be 0.1 percent of our families that have reached out in this regard at that resolution i don't i would say can we
031table that move to table that until after we hear on the public comment section so would that mean we'd still leave this discussion open as far as a point of order and then we come back and discuss after we hear from the hearing is that okay with this board yeah i would just add too that um even before we hear anything i think having read through that there's points in there that could remain but i think some of it has changed even today and to adopt it as is wouldn't work so we need to consider that and but there there's other things in there it's a mix but as a whole it's not where it might have been prior to changes that happened just recently and it's not um an action item on this so
032it would be for creating it as an action item to consider at a future board meeting at this point right stan okay is there any more discussion or does anybody want to make any statements on this matter before i open up the hearing from the board members all right since we have a of many that want to speak tonight i want to read the rules of conduct from our war laws bylaws and that's been on this request to speak to the board guest speakers a person wishing to be heard by the board shall first be recognized by the president and shall then proceed to comment as briefly as the subject permits individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board on each agenda or non-agendized item the board shall limit the total time
033for public input on each item to 20 minutes with board consent the president may increase or decrease the time allowed for public presentation depending on the topic and the number of persons wishing to be heard the president may take a pool of speakers for or against a particular issue and may ask that additional persons speak only if they have something new to add for regarding agenda item concerns the board shall give members of the public an opportunity to address the board either before or during the board's consideration of each item of business to be discussed at a regular special board meetings however during the board's actual consideration of each item the public is asked to not address the board non-agendized concerns at a time so designated on the agenda members of the public may bring
034before the board at a regular meeting matters that are not listed on the agenda the board may refer such matters to the superintendent or designee or take it under advisement but shall not take action at the time except as allowed by law the matter may be placed on the agenda of a subsequent meeting for action or discussion by the board without taking action board members or district staff members may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by the public about items not appearing on the agenda additionally on their own initiative or in response to questions posed by the public board members or staff members may ask a question for clarification make a brief announcement or make a brief report on his or her her own activities furthermore the board or board member may provide
035a reference to staff or other resources for factual information ask staff to report back on the board of a subsequent meeting concerning any matter or take action directing staff to place the matter of business on a future agenda the board president shall not permit any disturbance or will for interruption of board meetings persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the chair to discriminate to terminate the privilege of addressing the board the board may remove disruptive individuals and order the room cleared if necessary in this case members of the media not participating in the disturbance shall be allowed to remain and individuals not participating in such disturbances may be allowed to remain at the discretion of the board when the room is ordered cleared due a disturbance further board readings shall concern
036only matters appearing on the agenda that is not going to be a question because we have a wonderful community here tonight um i have 12 advanced written requests and i'm going to ask uh mr elder if you would since we're limited by topic to just keep a track if we're going to do it in order of how they were received so if it changes topic we can allow more time but i there is a time clock that's up there at the podium and it will give you a yellow it'll be green when you have your time yellow when it's getting close to the three minutes and then it will be red well we'll have to ask for a continuation of subject so the request you have now are those only for this subject or no
037there are more than one they're not just the mask subject and we will consider pro-mass choice as one and compliance with the mask guidelines as a second okay so we're not restricting that correct no we're not at this time we're just going to go back and forth because it's as people gave it to us so it's going to be yes there are topics beyond asking that are not on the agenda but we of course will allow anyone to be hurt yes okay first up we have doug willoughby and if you could just say your name and your affiliation with rbusd that would be fantastic uh president flynn members of the board and uh dr keller first of all be brief and thank you very much for your time my name is doug willoughby um i
038live in this district my wife and i have two children a fifth grader and a seventh grader in this district and i am here for the simple fact to state our gratitude and our thankfulness for you all and your courage and efforts to get us back into school as normal as possible i agree that the last year was very challenging for distance learning and the fact that you care enough to continue to follow the recommended guidelines and ensure safety and security of our children by following the mass mandates is very encouraging and allowing us to send our children back in a confident manner once again i really applaud your efforts as long as the efforts of the teachers the aides and the support staff that made last year possible when it didn't look like it
039was thank you for your time i appreciate it thank you next up we have jessica wong hi i'm actually speaking for the trio i'm jessica wong um i'm a parent at madison and adams um wendy sergeit is on my site here she's from adams and debra coven is also from madison i have two kids they both have a daughter each none of our daughters are vaccinated let me put my glasses on i'm never going to be able to read this none of our daughters are eligible for the covet 19 vaccinia due to their ages nor are the majority of elementary school students in this country so we're here to support rbusd's continued implementation of los angeles county departments of public health requirements that must be worn indoors by all students staff and staff regardless of
040vaccination status when on school grounds when the delta with the delta variant powering a frightening rise in covet 19 cases that is not expected to peak until mid-october it would be irresponsible of rvusd not to take every precaution available to safeguard the health of all children and the entire redondo beach community while they work to bring as many kids as possible back to normal school schedules in august wearing masks indoors regardless of physical distancing practices has been shown time and time again to be safe and protective against spread of the virus in regards to the potential social excuse me or emotional impact of wearing a face mask during school we see no evidence of this in our experience anecdotally both my kids and deborah's daughter attended in-person school and summer bridge from february through july
041of this year they and their fellow students wore masks for at least four hours a day with little with little problem our principal and all the teachers i've spoken to since february have also said wearing a face mask was a non-issue for their students research again illustrates that any potential downsides of wearing a face mask in school do not compare to the actual risk of contracting the virus and its potential long-term consequences as well as the risks of social and emotional damage associated with distance learning rbusd must continue to protect our children our community and continuing modeling the highest degree of consideration for public health thank you all next up i have mike switzer hello my name is mike switzer i have two children that go to jefferson elementary they're eight and five uh i'll
042be quite honest with you i didn't realize that the big mask thing was going on today and what i wanted to bring up maybe it'll break up the discussion um my concern was with the teaching of critical race theory and likewise subjects along that same path i'm confident it's ultimately going to be a much bigger issue in the long run than the mask will be and i'd like to address this so you know where some of the community stands at least on that issue it's a fair idea to discuss the issues that lead to the disadvantages of individual students but to assume as critical race theory does that a great deal of white children and are disadvantaged or i'm sorry white children are participatory and disadvantaging children of color is laughable i find it to
043be an inappropriate conversation for children as we've discussed with other members or other children in the community this has led to a lot of white children either hating themselves or children of color mistrusting their classmates in the same classroom if this was implemented i'm concerned that this will turn us against you and we don't have to we don't have to tell our children that their their teachers are wrong or they're misguided ideologues we can't let you villainize our children or teach them that white kids are oppressors and that children of color are somehow oppressed i'm not familiar with anybody in this district that is either oppressed or an oppressor i find it unnecessary again and it's inappropriate small children aren't ready to learn controversial material and they aren't ready yet at a stage of development
044where they can think for themselves and come to reason conclusions that may differ from their teachers they're sweet and they're little and they'll believe whatever you tell them if the goal is to undermine the parents strongly held values and their authority over their own children then i shouldn't have to tell you that a lot of us feel that this is morally wrong if the district offered this class as an elective to seniors in high school i may still have an issue but at least young adults are capable of asking questions and challenging nonsense when they hear it but teaching or forcing this upon kids kindergarten through junior high without our consent without sharing the curriculum reeks of dishonesty and to be frank i don't believe it's a teacher's job to teach our children this subject
045it's ours and i respectfully ask to please stay in your lane um teach science technology engineering math teach them to uh balance a checkbook um to those parents who support the teaching of this in elementary school i respect your opinion but i would request that you have you don't have our elementary schools do your dirty work for you and just teach this yourself at home that way the parents here who don't want our children to hate themselves we can have that discussion on our own up until hearing that crt and similar subjects would be forced upon my eight and five-year-old i had the utmost respect and faith in both this district and its teachers i have a middle east if i can continue now i'm not sure how i feel now i think that each
046classroom should have a webcam on so us parents can see exactly what is being taught to our children that may shadow the confidence of individual students please understand it may not seem like it but my opinion is the majority um we haven't been vocal until now and i have a feeling as this subject becomes more on the forefront you're going to see a lot more people here for this there probably would be more if it wasn't four in the afternoon the more people are at work uh if this subject's being taught for a day then our children will be sick that day if you schedule it for a week then we'll go on vacation if you threaten to give them a failing grade then we'll celebrate that failing great at chuck e cheese if you
047tell us that the subject's going to be taught over the course of the year then i'll attract my kids to challenge this on every single day that they are taught it i don't want to remove them from the school i don't want that i want my children to go to school here i want my kids to look up to their teachers this policy or this teaching is racist and it's wrong and this is insane that it's even being considered uh please do the right thing don't allow our children to be the guinea pigs in a misguided social experiment so thank you thank you doing next up we have melissa de chant hi i'm melissa deshaun this is my daughter tinsley she's an incoming sec or seventh grader at paris middle school i'm a redondo parent
048obviously i'm a scientist i'm also a coveted widow and a two-time coveted survivor and i like to show you this is the face of the pandemic and of covid the pandemic hit my family very very hard we lost my front lines health care husband on october 6th he was an active member of the community a pta president at our elementary school he chaired the historic commission for our city numerous other volunteer activities but this is the face of the pandemic and i really appreciate that for a lot of people it's not real to them we live in this community this is the reality i've spent the last 18 months as a scientist supporting coveted clinical research for covered clinical interventions and i want to applaud the district i've mentioned this multiple times to our district
049and to our school board you all have followed the science steadfastly and you have allowed our students to safely return to school indeed the fact that our kids were able to go to two months of 2021 on in person on campus speaks to that and i applaud that and i appreciate that and i urge you to continue doing that as you mentioned the cdc came out with some revised guidelines today as did the aap several weeks ago the american academy of pediatrics and i want to i just want to make this note that the aap it's the largest group of clinical and academic pediatricians in our country many global members as well and i can tell you that when they put forth guidance it's conservative and it's thoughtful and they do so knowing that it
050might have the impact to have a huge impact on a population they did this because of the science that exists in the peer-reviewed literature and there is ample science the science clearly shows one that this new variant is a hundred to a thousand times more transmissible and that's in the peer-reviewed literature that's the world i live in the science the data also in the scientific community globally we have followed so closely the concerns for genetic shift versus drift whereby you see the virus the surface of the virus changes and it gives rise to these variants this is not the first variant this happens to be the one that's the most prevalent right now in la county in california indeed across the nation there are other variants that will arise there are other variants in other
051parts of the world and i think we have to recognize that data we have to appreciate that data and we have to follow that data as guidance for every single thing that we do it's a race right now to be able to protect our most vulnerable populations which are students who can't be vaccinated the other students not vaccinated but our teachers and our faculty our israeli colleagues unfortunately put forth some amazing data sets recently that clearly showed that this variant is lending to diminished effectiveness of our vaccines the vaccine is our most our most powerful tool in our armamentarian social distancing and masking works we have population curves across the u.s in our community in l.a county that clearly show social distancing and max mask wearing help stop spread the hot help stop the spread
052so i strongly encourage you and urge you to follow the science and let that guide what happens to protect everyone in our community thank you thank you next up we have theresa pierre okay sure hello my name is teresa pierre my children no longer go to school in this district because they've graduated we've been in the district since 2005. i'm in support of the school district's decisions to keep our children safe my nephew is still in this district and he's a fresher he's going to be a freshman in high school so i'm still going to be participating and being interested in what's going on i do urge you to continue what you're doing keeping our children safe with the mask mandate i sit in my office all day wearing a mask and it's annoying but
053my husband has a compromised immune system he's cardiac patient and he loves to volunteer at the school district we go to football games we cook we volunteer we do all these things but we want to be safe and our babies and you know most of you who know me i consider them all babies all the babies in the stretcher need to be safe and they're resilient they can go six hours wearing a mask and they have mass breaks most of us as parents you know people who work every day we don't we don't get that opportunity but i feel that as long as you keep as she says melissa says following the science that's what we need to do because i work for a diagnostic control company and we do the same thing we have
054to take a look at everything that's happening excuse me with all of the you know with this this covet we develop things when we develop infectious disease controls so this is something that's new and we have to protect our kids and i'm behind you 100 i've been in the district since 2005. my children graduated i have four more years with my nephew and i'm going to continue to support you thank you very much thank you next we have renee cayenne did i pronounce it correctly hi did i say your name correctly greetings guideline the cambridge dictionary says it's a piece of information that suggests how something should be done the mask mandate is not a law and critical thinking should determine whether risks outweigh the benefits let me reference statements from roger w coupe's phd
055he holds a doctorate in chemistry and has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry for over 25 years he's well versed in regulatory compliance and is expert in ppe personal protective equipment all the data surrounding coronavirus eu cdc uscdc who has demonstrated that children are at least risk from severe outcome of the disease more children die from influenza each year coronaviruses are part of nature and children need their immune system to be trained and strengthened through exposure to these viruses masking alternatives the school could require sick children to stay at home until recovery a quarantine class where kids can keep up with studies demonstrating that sickness is not unusual but needs special consideration classroom mitigation masks masks are not effective against viruses period seventy to ninety percent penetration is typical and accumulation on the mask
056is more of a concern mass becomes sources of disease viruses and pathogens accumulate on the mask longer wear increases accumulation a masked child can spread what is on their mask to others infectious bacteria such as streptococcus including pneumonia staphylococcus e coli salmonella and fungi such as histoplasmosis candidiasis aspergillum grow and become a health risk on the warm and human conditions a mask what kills most people with viruses is their own immune system weakness and forcing children to wear a mask weakens their immune system that weakness is taken advantage of by bacterial infections in fact the most common cause of a fatal outcome due to viral infection including coronavirus is a bacterial infection pneumonia harm to children social interaction is learned by assimilation of verbal and nonverbal communication by removing facial expression remove social learning mechanism
057speech communication masks hinder correct intonation and pronunciation students with special needs are especially harmed mental retardation mask uses causes blood oxygen reduction in the brain as breathing carbon dioxide co2 poisoning destroys brain cells and causes mental impairment extremely harmful to the developing brain of a child show risk to others children's are no risk to other children because this is not a serious pathogen teachers the teaching profession has the highest degree of a healthy immune response the children and teachers become stronger through mutual expat exposure to pathos i'm almost done sweden with no mitigation has no confirmed cases of teachers becoming infected from children new zealand who lock down hard and mask now has serious health problems with their children because their immune systems have been severely weakened and damaged mask choice no mask has been
058shown to be effective contact with the nose and mouth is completely a danger due to the reasons i've i've described above are you prepared as a school district to identify an appropriate mask and if so you will violate the federal law that states the fda must approve any medical device i am not even a parent i'm here because i'm extremely concerned for these children they are our future take the masks off of them now thank you next up we have jeff krutz here one second i just want to make a point to the public and anyone else that's speaking that we are asking folks as they come in to wear a face mask even when they're speaking if possible thank you indoors that you can speak without the mask i believe susan did that last
059meeting right and this board was looking to take its mask off when we had our last meeting but the science has since changed so hi i'm jeff kreutz i have two students um i have a son who's at jefferson going into fourth grade and my daughter is moving over into paris this year i want to speak on crt blm and some of the other things that are seeping into the elementary and middle school i wanted the board to hear first hand for me what my fifth grade daughter encountered during jefferson this past spring after after a specific written request by my wife and i in january to my daughter's fifth grade teacher specifically asking for the teacher to excuse my daughter from any social study topic or discussion that may mention blm social justice or
060those sort of words might this may my daughter's class was shown a brain pop video that while portraying historic reference briefly quickly went off the rails to deceivingly state that last summer's blm and antifa riots were grossly exaggerated by the media even worse called blm an important group and worst of all inaccurately showed george floyd in a fabricated visual in a meadow of flowers picnicking with his family and portrayed as a hero why is race obsessed revisionist history being taught to young students who don't yet possess the cognitive intake ability to adequately process such information objectively and we're hearing more brain pop videos are on their way as well as social justice standards for learning adoption is being considered in our district if there was ever a more sensitive and controversial topic as crt or
061blm or white privilege topics that are raging in the information war daily in our years would it benefit the board to be transparent as possible to gauge public parental support and perception of views across regarding across the district and their parents for this type of curriculum that's viewed by many in this district as marxist and divisive as a call to action to this board i along with dozens of families in the district request that you first pause any forthcoming curriculum that reflects political and racial overtones in our elementary middle school collectively number two correct collectively create a fully inclusive and public-facing forum to review what is being considered to the redondo beach school curriculum and three to ask the board to clearly articulate in the next board meeting here to the parents of redondo beach
062the board's official stance on crt and if it's intent if it's the intent of the board to approve teaching this race-baiting futile and nonsensical propaganda in our schools this coming year in doing so you as our elected public servants will have an opportunity to prove the parents in this district that you will back up what you've promised and set out to do in goal number four of the rbusd goals reviewed and almost done in the june 22nd board meeting last month of the upcoming school year which was to promote family promote parents and promote community engagement develop partnerships with parents and families and other community members for increased satisfaction thank you thank you next up we have julie feldman can i close this because i'm too short thank you my name is julie and i'm
063a public health expert here in the community for the past 21 years and i also have a child in redondo union i sent you an email asking you giving you a bunch of information about masks as well as this virus and i hope that some of you actually did your homework because as it turns out the cdc says that only 6 000 people died of covid last year not sure if you're aware of that all the other people that died had co-morbidity and if you're not familiar with that means that means they actually already had an illness and children were at the least risk for covid in california the seven day average death rate is point zero one per one hundred thousand so you have a one in ten million chance of dying from kovid
064you have a much greater risk from car accidents riding a bicycle down the street or having a coconut land on your head or being struck by lightning than dying from covid and again children are at the least risk and yet i'm still here talking to you about letting our children breathe freely oxygen is an antioxidant the brain needs oxygen since you're considering policy based on one public health officer i will make i am a public health officer so i will make my own rule let the mask be a choice it's a parent and a family decision same as the vaccine which some of you may remember i had issues with your teachers encouraging our children to get it is not up to the school district it is a family thing you are not in charge
065of our children you are here for their safety and their well-being as 100 or 300 emails were said over the last year and the truth is 350 peer-reviewed studies say that the mask makes you more sick there has not been one study that says the mask makes you healthier i give you this scenario five people go out to eat dinner at the same restaurant one of them gets food poisoning shall the other four people stop eating i don't think so if i carry an umbrella is it going to help you standing in the rain i don't think so it's not my child's job to wear a mask to protect somebody else we focus our health we focus our lives on health and health building and if somebody else doesn't choose to do that and they
066have fear let them wear a mask let their children go to school with a mask let my kid breathe i'm not worried about this virus i am representing 200 families here in the community i have been treating children in my clinic from injury and illness due to wearing masks from respiratory and lung infections to skin infections there are parents that in florida took their masks and one of them was a doctor they took the children's mask and they turned them in and they found over 10 different bacteria and viral infections toxic and harmful on their masts i'm almost finished kids kids get virus all the time they have and they always will let them get the virus that's how they build an immune system you as the educators have this phenomenal opportunity to teach them
067about how important it is to be healthy to live a healthy lifestyle instead the mask actually instills fear why would you do that to our children you talk every day about educating them and about making them safe and healthy the dangers of the long-term mask wearing are way above and beyond the benefits of wearing it we all know there was a suicide in our district last year anxiety is through the roof every doctor is talking about it are you gonna stand there and let more suicides happen because of the anxiety of our children who can't breathe i never wear a mask this is like the only place i'm wearing one and i'm still having anxiety and breathing issues just from standing here the only thing that i can think of that where somebody forces something
068on someone else's body that they don't want to do is rape and i really hope you don't do that to our children the new hall school district is in la and they've already voted to have mask as a choice and i strongly urge you to recommend that because it's not your job it's our job as parents to take care of our children and if you do make a mask mandate my child will be going to homeschool as will hundreds of other parents thank you thank you okay next up we have denise dayla i'm sorry i can't read the last delisa concha great and we have gone just to give the people who are outside waiting too we will have to take a motion to extend the time on some that are in discussion of the
069mask mandate just to keep if you guys want to consolidate your thoughts unless there's something new to add go ahead sorry i gotta take a deep breath there's somebody wearing a lot of perfume over there and it's just saturated inside my mask my name is denise i am a parent here at redondo for the last 12 years 13 years i've spoke to miss wesley dr keller and mrs veal over the years i have two children in the school district still please i beg you as julie mentioned let this be a choice my son's already been labeled in school district for being a troublemaker he's in high school now i wish that his voice is heard clearly when he takes off the mask at school uh he's immediately told to put it back on he needs
070breaks um breaks for his uh special needs uh he needs accommodations made for him it's not just hey when they go outside it's not okay um the education code specifically states and i can't remember it off the top of my head right now i'm sorry um that kids k through eight are protected if they disrupt the classroom but from ninth grade to twelfth grade in high school they aren't protected they can get suspended they can get expelled that's not okay um i am immune compromised i'm okay my children are okay my daughter has asthma she she's on her way here from volleyball and i'm hoping she makes it in the middle of my uh my time that i can speak um she always asks mommy i can't breathe and i tell her take off your
071mask you know she tries to play at recess when you guys were when they were back in school it it she can't it it affects her she doesn't like it but she loves being back in school my kids have anxiety of you know staying home for so long i just read a piece of paper yesterday where my daughter wrote for um for an entrance letter um to dave she was asked to describe what the worst event was um in her lifetime and she said not being able to go to school and having to wear a mask when i'm back at school i could i wish i should have brought that piece of paper for you guys to see this is a nine-year-old child it's affected her mentally emotionally and physically please let them have a
072choice don't let them be in trouble if they decide not to wear one it's a choice it's their body it's my body it's my family's choice to wear a mask or not it's not up to you guys you guys are supposed to support us as parents and as students i ask you please give this a choice for kids and staff i don't know how the staff members feel i know they can't discuss it they're not allowed to but please let this be a choice for our students and our staff thank you next up we have annalise kuzad i apologize could i pronounce your name correctly yeah yeah hi my name is anna and i'm going into the seventh grade anna that you could put on mom what no um so my name is anna and
073i'm going to seventh grade and i think that we shouldn't have to wear masks because we i think that we should be able to breathe and i would like to see my friends beautiful smiles and we were created with noses for a reason we were created with noses to be able to breathe we weren't created with them to have them covered up by a mask and i think that that's how it should be thank you next up we have pharah kritz did i pronounce it correctly hi everybody thank you for having us my daughter's going to speak too i just want to say we appreciate you guys having us here the founder of let them breathe allowed us to be represented by them and we're so honored that sharon came out and to be a
074part of it so thank you i hope you could see the the committed people that are here for us and want the best for our kids so today my comments are regards to masking in the 20 years i've been teaching and i've been a teacher for 20 years i have a bachelor's in elementary ed and i have a master's in curriculum instruction i also have taught in the public school and the charter school so i'm well aware of state standards and how school system works and being in the classroom i absolutely love teaching and that's part of the reason why i'm here to advocate for my kids the growing number of parents in redondo who sit outside these doors and in our rally today you know i think we probably had close to 200 people
075are concerned for our kids mental and physical health in regards to masking we're just asking the board to follow suit with l.a county like new hall unified school district in santa clarita they're also in l.a county who voted last week to unanimously advocate against cdph for mask choice we know that you cannot make that decision but we're asking you to advocate for our kids your call to action is to vote and pass an agreement to advocate for our children by sending a letter from our legal counsel which i gave to you on monday i emailed that to you we're urging dr keller and the board to contact cdph lacph and janice on to request the right within the state's reopening framework and guidance to allow schools to individually choose the best options for math choice
076we want everyone to be healthy we want to see our kids smile if people want to have their children in masks we agree with that but we also agree that it's my body my choice and we really want our kids to to be able to be free again um according to the california ed code section 48 900 kids in grades k through 8 cannot be suspended for disrupting school activities or willfully defying the valid authority of teachers and school personnel according to a prevention policy made by roseville joint union high school district and i quote the district will strongly encourage all students to comply with cdc cdph guidance however district staff will not be placed in a compromising position of taking enforcement actions i'm almost done the district will be directing all of its resources
077toward ensuring every student gets the best education my last call to action for the board and dr keller is to give parents information in regards to what will happen when our children show up to school mask-less please inform the families of rbusd what the reaction of teachers staff and administrators will be when they come to school masculis thank you so much for your time thank you does elia want to speak thank you can i stand up here with her yes okay hi my name is elliot courts and i'm going into sixth grade at paris middle school black lives matter is supposed to bring people together but it does not do that it does the exact opposite and divides people because of the color of their skin and makes people feel ashamed of themselves because of
078the color the color of their skin because i did not support blm some of my friends told me they didn't want to be my be friends with me anymore because of blm my teacher mrs butler shared one side of the george floyd story but did not share that he was a criminal on drugs resisting arrest and also had stolen something that day i heard that all from my parents i wrote this on one of the questions we were given at school about how teachers and other staff can help me what i'd like other teachers and adults to help me with is i would like them to discontinue wearing masks in school masks are actually useless after 15 minutes says our neighbor who's actually a nurse in a children's hospital i don't get why we have
079to wear them we didn't have to wear them during the flu season i don't get what the big problem is people die from the flu just like kovid i'm asking the board to help us have a mask choice and not to force us to wear horrible masks thank you thank you ellia we've got sandy foley okay hey guys i i just have a couple of things things to say i'm not a scientist but i believe in science this this summer i had a fairly major medical procedure that i had to go through i went with a doctor i went with an expert i didn't go with somebody that i found on the internet or you know i didn't try to do it myself i went with an expert on that and i believe that in
080terms of this mask mandate it's important to listen to the experts and you know i'm sorry that some of the kids don't want to wear masks you know i get it i had a kid that didn't want to wear pants and he wanted to have m ms for breakfast every day and you know i kind of decided at that point that maybe the child wasn't the best judge of what was actually good for him on a day to day basis and you know i now have a cheerio eating pan swearing productive member of society and i'm sorry i'm not trying to make light of this situation i'm really not i know this is a big deal but at the end of the day it's a piece of cloth it's a it's a piece of cloth
081it's a very small thing on the other hand it's a piece of cloth that represents our humanity and it represents our willingness to want to take care of one another and it represents something that's going to keep our babies from dying so maybe it is a big deal thank you thank you sandy at this point i've got one two three four more people that want to speak on the mask choice item so i'm going to ask the board if you want to extend the time because mr elder are we at time for that close to it yes we are do we want to allow the last four folks to speak make a motion to allow four more speakers speakers second whole second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay we'll take the
082four more speakers and we've got mirna amura who's up next do we have her she's still here okay i promise we're really organized good afternoon i would like to represent parent choice for every parent in the south bay and abroad and um for a lot of parents that are struggling with not having the choice of whether or not their kids have to wear a mask whether or not they have to be tested and tracked and frequent testing these are health decisions that should be made by the parents i would like to open with a direct quote from a medical study dated may 21st 2020 which states we know that wearing a mask outside of healthcare facilities offers little if any protection from infection public health authorities define a significant exposure to coven 19 as face-to-face
083contact within six feet with a patient with symptomatic cova-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes the chance of catching kova 19 from pas from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal in many cases the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic it is established the virus particles are much smaller than the openings in the masks the actual boxes that they come in tell you that they do nothing for virus transmission they do not protect against virus transmission we have to consider logic even ignoring all those facts the different ways that mass are being used outside of the medical environment whatever the mask is supposedly catching on the outside is being touched dragged
084around reused and brought home with you not trashed in a biohazard bin as it would be in a medical setting with hand washing before and after properly the masks aren't being worn in an oxygen controlled environment as osha dictates when it is used in medical setting most medical offices and professionals who use them in those settings have a influx of oxygen put in so this would differ greatly from the classrooms where nobody is regulating their oxygen levels how much they're getting there's no one liable for the effects that it has on them exposing them to hypoxia hypercapnia and especially in high temperatures and with physical activity it would also affect their brain function from reduced levels of oxygen from how they're able to focus on their studies no one is regulating those effects protecting children
085monitoring their levels or are being liable for those harms there is no long-term study about the physical and psychological impact both short and long term on these students but as statistics have shown there is a significant increase in mental health issues for our children since these lockdowns began every student deserves to breathe without restraint every parent deserves to make that choice for their student and allow them to be in their school setting should i continue which more time do you need i'm almost done okay okay given that these masks have no scientific backing as to actually protecting people given that the numbers has just been proven and come out that the pcr testings have been giving false positives and inflating the numbers all this information should be considered when uh trying to force a mask
086on the students given that the data is incorrect because the wrong tests have been used to inflate these numbers and cause a pandemic that is not even affecting these children but rather the masks are causing them more harm than they are ever helping thank you thank you next up we have christy ducachette next speaker kristen uh is no longer here christy christie yeah andrea's in the hallway okay then i've got um i just see andrea as the name okay for kids in redonda schools andrea thank you for your time i have four children in the redondo school system i have never done anything like this i'm kind of nervous i just wanted to know there are lots of parents outside who have also never done anything like this before who are here because we care
087about this issue i have met at least eight people who have never done anything like this before not not necessarily prepared with signs but we're here because we want to know that masks do cause harm to our children and my eight-year-old she said mom you'll tell them you'll tell them i told you about masks right so she wants you to know that masks make it harder for her to make friends to read and they make her feel quote squished they make her feel claustrophobic makes it harder to focus and uh that's that's what it is in my comments thanks yeah i wanted to speak for my son the same thing he just feels like school isn't fun anymore he just doesn't want to be there laura yeah you're the next person that we had up
088on there oh okay yeah laura lares la ross yes um it's hard because kids shouldn't take the the blame for this they're they're not their immune systems are so healthy and putting a mask on is just hard they're it's reduced reducing their oxygen it's hard for them to socialize they want to see their friends so badly that they'll just put it on and go but they don't want to really do it so it's just hard um yeah i mean i'm speaking for a lot of parents a lot of parents couldn't be here because they had to work um so and i didn't have anything prepared but there's a lot of us out there that feel the same way i don't want our kids going to school with masks next year so i don't know thank
089you is that it for advanced written requests okay do we want to continue the discussion with regard to math scoring i will say that on the items that were brought up that were non-agendized i welcome anybody to send you a follow-up email we can have a further discussion about the issues that were done there but let's focus back on the optional masking does anybody have any more thoughts that they want to say about the request i think it's an important point to make that we can't make an action item to make masks optional that is not within our authority but the request is to advocate for making masks a choice yes so what i would say is as a board every decision we make has to be focused on doing what's best for our children
090whether it's something financial whether it's curriculum anything we do we have to weigh the pros and cons and really keep the focus on doing what's best for our children and sometimes that's hard sometimes it's not always clear but in this case we're looking at a virus that's killed over 600 thousand americans alone that doesn't include the number of people who've gotten sick and so i i do certainly feel for and understand masks are nothing that anyone wants to wear but when we look at where we were without the protections we have in place we didn't have school in person and then we had to go through this horrible hybrid model and all these other hoops we had to jump through just to safely reopen schools and so my primary goal is to give our kids
091the best educational experience possible and right now with this rising outbreak of the new variants coming out that really seems like masks are the optimal way to do that no one wants them i miss seeing faces i'm missing smiles i understand how hard that can be for a lot of people but i really at the end of the day if that's what gets us our kids in a full day of school and you know again they can take them off outside right now and they can see their friends still and they have that opportunity we're so much further ahead than we were um but you know the best thing we can do is to minimize this this spread so that we can keep doing all the things we want to do and get life back
092to normal i mean we're looking at a lot of really promising things like getting volunteers back in our schools and a lot of things are moving forward in a positive direction but we can only keep moving forward if we're being responsible and doing the things that are going to continue to limit that spread so that we can someday take off all of our masks and be safe again and vaccines are a fantastic tool for getting there i recognize that everyone's going to go down that path and you know until such time as we get things you know until we get to some type of herd immunity this is our best option for moving forward so i i personally do not support um you know trying to go against the public health guidelines at this point
093i think it is our safest way for giving our kids the best experience possible it's not what anyone wants it's you know we're in the middle of a global pandemic but i feel like this is our best option for giving our kids the best that we can last week go ahead so i also do not believe that as a board we should go against the los angeles county department of public health guidelines i recognize that there are many different opinions out there and that we all care about these children and it is hard to wear a mask i hate wearing a mask it's hot it's uncomfortable but that's really not the issue the the policy is ever changing the public health agency decisions are based on science and based on that changing situation for every
094parent that was here today that was against the mask policy there are as many and probably more parents that are in favor of masking the kids in order to protect and to adhere to public health standards it really hit me that the american pediatrics the academy of pediatrics issued recommendations that all children above the age of two should wear a mask when indoors and for me that's the science those are the people that i'm looking to when i'm looking to make these decisions for myself my children and for our district and as a school board member i think it's our obligation to follow the laws and the county of public health currently has an order issued in los angeles that the children are to be masked while inside and signing a resolution or doing anything
095opposite of that is not a good example to our own children and doesn't set us up as the type of board that i think we all want to be i'm not a medical expert but i also don't get my news from political websites or facebook i follow the advice of professionals and public health experts and to me for this issue that's los angeles department of county public health we also as a board our main obligation is to watch the fiscal spending and to protect our kids and our district and if we don't follow these guidelines and our insurance fails to cover us in in a claim i think that would be outrageous on behalf of of any board to allow that to happen [Music] that would affect our kids today and potentially years and years
096down the line so our best course of action is to follow the public health requirements focus on getting kids back into school in august into the programs the education the structure that they deserve and to to support our community in its effort to to keep public health standards and to protect everyone in our community anyone else want to speak yeah i think about this and for me it boils down to one pretty simple thing my number is zero no kid in our school system is gonna get sick from this with permanent damage or even possibly die that's what we're asked being asked to make the decision on right now we're not as being asked to make a decision on whether anything to do with the flu or anything else this is the reality we have
097are we being overly cautious maybe we'll figure that out in the future but for right now this is where we're at and masked are not to protect the person wearing it that's that's minimal i agree with that it's to protect the people around you it's to stop when i'm talking right now the particles that are coming out are being predominantly caught by my mask and if you don't believe that you can watch the high-speed videos of it i've seen it i have a masters in fluid dynamics i've seen this stuff it is real that's what the mass does it protects other people it's to protect everybody here me a little bit maybe that's what it comes down to as a society 10 years from now if we're still living with this we may think differently
098and that's fine we'll evolve to that but right now right here my number is zero and i will stand behind that david do you want to say anything review made your point yep um i agree with that i would like to just clarify a few things we are not considering expelling any student we are offering a choice um it's one that we will give a free and fair public education to all students and that goes for students who may not feel comfortable coming back into a classroom even if we have a mass mandate those those folks haven't spoken here tonight but they do exist as well and when the idea behind public education was to give a free and fair public education to all in the community and that has got to be a balancing
099act this is hard this pandemic has been exhausting it's been hard people have lost their lives people have long-term illness people have distrust a lot of distrust and none of that feels safe but school has proven itself to be i think even more important within our society than we ever ever anticipated and i'm not talking about just as a place for our kids to go so people can work but a place a safety it's something our community can rally around something that our teachers have shown their willingness when it was scary to go back into the classroom and to do this and they're still showing that willingness and every we have an obligation to ensure that our people feel safe and are safe and we rely on guidelines to follow when it comes to that
100and yes has it been confusing has it been ever-changing yes is that frustrating yes but i don't think we're asking anybody to be expelled from school or making it a thing about civil disobedience it's about getting kids back into the classroom and when they're indoors when the transmission is higher we've taken lots of mitigations i don't want to go back over all the things we had to do we checked our air filters dr alphon could go through it to get it we were at a place where it had to be six feet of distance between every child which meant that only half our kids could even go back does anyone remember our a b c d x y z hybrid that we had to try and do we put our teachers through hell our parents
101through hell and our kids through hell and now we get to come back we get to let everybody come back we get to do that on august 18th and i have seen everybody work tremendously hard to make that happen and i hear i do hear and i hear the passion and everybody does care about their kids but not everybody is going to get what they want here hearing what people say and reading and educating we're ultimately going to have to make a decision i can still hear but that doesn't mean i have to agree or make the actionable item on that and i don't disparage anybody that took the time to speak because that is what their right is to do and we have heard it and i stand by us following the la department
102of public health and getting all of our kids back into the classroom and protecting those around us as mr stratzenberg said so if anybody on this board wants to consider a future advocacy position since we've already established that we can't take an action item i'd be happy to hear it now but i don't think so i'll just give a pause if anyone does okay then i think we're going to close this discussion and move on to communications we can hear from our labor partners i think we have someone from redondo beach teachers association sarah robinson good afternoon i'm sarah robinson president of the redondo beach teachers association first off i wanted to thank the district's bargaining team led by dr wesley we have finished up our summer negotiations we worked very collaboratively and very effectively
103and efficiently in terms of our time and we were grateful for the partnership that we have with the district in addition to the agreements we had some really substantive conversations about how to return to in-person learning this year and what are the supports that our members are going to need to be able to do that i also want to continue to thank the district for their focus on the safety of our members and our students since last march throughout the process of our covet mou agreements i can't remember how many drafts there have been but one thing that was our priority as an association was the safety of our members and that we had no disagreement with the district that in every agreement we entered into following the county health guidelines was paramount and that's
104something that the district has maintained since the first agreement till the one you know that we're working under today and that's something that our members are thankful for it as you mentioned miss flynn it's been a very difficult time for our members there was a time when our members were returning to the classroom when there was no vaccine and they did that task and they did it well so we thank you for your commitment to safety for our students and for our members and we look forward to returning in person with just one bell schedule for the entire school everyone there regardless of your last name or a b all of that we look forward to that and as mr whitkin mentioned if wearing a mask is the ticket to what we have to do
105to do that we're more than willing to do that thank you thank you do we see anything from csca here aft i know we have rb pta kelly which one not you're like which one i'm sorry i gotta look pta hi kelly hi everybody thank you so much for having me here my name is kelly woolshon i'm vice president of membership for the redona beach council pta and i'm speaking on behalf of kimberly kiwis who's on a long overdue well-deserved trip home to michigan to see her parents we have just kicked off our 2021-2022 pta membership year and all our school units are so excited to be back in person for our back-to-school welcome activities in august we cordially invite everyone to become community members you'll be getting those invitations soon another year's worth to
106show their support for each and every one of our school sites you'll receive weekly e-news letters from each school to keep you up to date and in the know thank you so much for your ongoing support thank you for everything you do and we look forward to our partnership again this year thank you rbef robin hi everyone thank you members of the board dr keller thanks for having me today and what is my first actual school board meeting in person as executive director so i'm thrilled to be here um so i'm happy to announce that rbf's board of trustees welcomes our new executive board and our new president is doris dunlew richmond our new vice president john nemeth our new our current treasurer is continuing sharon day our secretary robin toth and our officer at
107large han archer so we're excited for those changes and just completing a successful summer session and seahawks sports camps we are so happy to provide this to our students thank you to the staff the coaches our athletic trainers uh renee regalado christy brown clara cahan for all your support and really making it what could have been a very challenging year that much better and as dr keller just shared with the return to school you're excited to be to support redondo beach unified school district with programs and staff that will enhance our children's educational experience so with that we will start our fundraising season with our investor drive kickoff on september 8th through the 24th and this year celebrating 30 years of serving our kids our rbf has also been chosen as a charity of choice
108by the beach life festival and we will have a booth all weekend so come on by it's going to be a fun party um and we are going to have some photo opportunities so get excited for that the dates are september 10th through 12th and lastly please save the dates for the skechers walk which is coming up october 24th and our annual rbf classic golf tournament november 15th thank you so much thank you excited to hear from our community partners in person next up uh we have our general consent calendar does anybody have any items they'd like to pull i'd like to pull 10.4 please okay anyone else all right can i get a motion and second to approve items ten point one through ten point three and ten point five and ten point six
109so move by stretzenberg second by elder all those in favor say aye aye okay can i get a motion in second to to approve item 10.4 recommendation to approve field trip extracurricular activity travel requests during the 2021-22 school year some second all those all right go ahead before we vote is there a discussion yeah so what i just wanted to bring up is um it's fantastic that our kids are getting to go on some of these activities again where for an entire year and longer they were not so i'm just really excited we're able to resume some of these normal school activities because so many rites of passage and these major milestones were missed for so many of our students so i appreciate all the efforts that have gone into this and i would just
110again you know urge them to be responsible follow the guidelines so that we can continue to do these types of things but i'm really excited for our kids and i hope they have a fantastic time um and that we can continue doing this thank you and i'll add to that thanks to dr alpine for getting the transportation contracts put together that allows this to happen with the covet protocols integrated to all those and that's a key part of this is they got to have transportation and making that happen absolutely let's get back to as normal as we can for sure all those in favor say aye aye motion passes five zero next up were to the action items 12.1 approved purchase of district-wide janitorial supplies for the 2021-22 school year from gale supply company pioneer
111chemical company and southwest school supply dr alpern did you want to have any of these put together some as we've done in the past or well each one can separate no this one's fine okay yeah uh speaking of getting back to normal staff request your approval for our janitorial supplies contracts we contract with three different firms we go out to bid and these companies are the ones that have provided the lowest responsible bid was i supposed to take a motion to open the discussion on this one i believe so so can i get a motion to approve to discuss 12.1 second okay we've had the discussion does anyone have any questions yeah just real quick is this include additional supplies for the code related things that we're doing is that funded separately or how does
112that work the contracts are for general janitorial supplies that we would typically use but these companies do provide materials that are on the list for the epa that allow us to use them to respond to like sanitizing and areas for cleaning as they relate to covet so in general those dollars are general fund dollars however we reserve the right to use covid dollars for additional covid specific janitorial needs okay thank you and you'll see in the po report if we are using covid specific dollars you'll see a notation within the po report that will indicate that to to you as board members you can look for that any other questions all those in favor say aye are you opposed no extension can i get a motion in second for 12.2 approve extracurricular transportation services agreement
113for the 2021-22 school year second step dr alperin yes um staff request your approval for extracurricular transportation agreements with the following companies global transportation m coach tlc luxury and zoom services so depending on availability we like having contracts with multiple transport companies because you know it's sometimes there are certain weekends or certain days where it's very popular and we really need that flexibility to be able to meet our demand and this would be for sports for school transportation for special ed students all of that field trips will be able to respond special ed has a separate contract okay but yes these are these are specifically for field trips extracurricular activities and sports wonderful weekend trips like the kind that mr elder was referencing okay any other questions all those in favor say aye aye me
114opposed motion passes can i get a motion second for 12.3 recommendation to adopt the 2021-22 rbusd consolidated application the con app so moved okay dr halpern it's actually actually me it's mrs neal so sorry good afternoon the consolidated application for federal funding is a yearly application that provides assurances for the next fiscal year that districts will comply with the rules and regulations regarding federal funding such as title 1 title 2 title 3 a and b and title 4. this application is arbusc's acceptance of such funding for identified students in programming staff recommends that you approve this application for funding any comments or questions okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed no extensions motion passes you can stay up there mrs veal because i get a motion in a second for 12.4 recommendation
115to approve the 2021 single site plan for student achievement for each of our elementary middle and high schools copies are available in the ed services office you need a motion in a second second other way okay can i chime in here yes we're on sips that's correct yes we're on 12.4 so i've had a conversation with um mr strutzenberg i've been working with miss field today as well on this item and then it hit me as i sat next to dr alpern tonight because we've all been chasing this approval process and how to do it right uh and uh dr alpern you know was in that service for what 12 years 12 years and she brought something to light that i think is going to make perfect sense and so if you don't mind i
116apologize just since we sat down two hours ago i think her highlighting this is helpful to all of us and it will make perfect sense i hope so the requirement for board approval for single school plans pertains only to title 1 schools as a practice in our district we have brought all of them to the board for approval but by law we're required to bring only the title one schools for your approval so now is this motion to approve all of them or just the title ones goals do we do all of them i think it's i think it's a split between what we were talking about earlier i think there's ones that are approved and ones that are for file and for filing yeah yeah yeah i think that's my point is that it's
117a little bit of both if we wanted to be technical about it and part of that discussion too revolved around the issue of even for the board approval requirement to material changes and try to figure out what that means is it i guess staff's opinion that these do include material changes that thus require board approval and it's also been pointed out that these are living documents these are not frozen in time this is we're not approving we're really approving a status more than a version yes and i don't even know if a record of that version is kept is it this is what the board approved and and then going forward if there's material changes are there do we know if there's typically material changes during a year because if it's a living document it's
118subject to changes and do those then have to come back to the board those are approved by the school site council which is why every member of the school site council is elected so they serve as an extension or arm of the governing board so the material changes approval by the board is a one-time yes when do these get posted to the website which versions once the board approves them typically so right now they're in draft form they have been approved by the school's school site councils once the board approves them then we typically post them so have they all been approved because in particular madison had not when i last looked at it yes uh all schools know to go through the approval process it's just a matter of going back into our system
119we have a dts system and they have to go back in and put that date um i recognize that two i have the dates for the for two of them and then we have two more that we just have to get the dates for but they have been approved which two i'm confident which two did you get i got burl and paris okay rural and paris are now reported okay but you have the assurance that the others do have that date it just hasn't been input yet okay so then what we're doing is approving the ones that are title one basically and receive and file the remainder as acknowledgement you know a lot of work goes into these i definitely want to acknowledge that there is no doubt it's a lot of work just to
120read one it's a lot more work to read about 11 of them 12 of them so do you want to make amend the motion to receive and file i think that we know the ones to be a title one would be adams washington lincoln madison madison madison madison and that's it not our uhs we only have the three there are only three schools now receiving the title one funds yes okay and that's the really critical thing is it's because it's related to the con app and the title one issue and federal program monitoring so we absolutely must have uh those approved for that and i understand that a desire to have the other ones reviewed by the board and you know and they're great to compare two to see the differences between what happens at
121one school in another i think that's awesome so yeah that would be my i guess in a substitute motion or amended motion that we would approve the three for the title one screw schools and receive and file the remainder second okay so do i have to close discussion on this one and take a vote where is ricardo yes the answer is yes so the answer is yes so what was opened was 12.4 recommendation to replu prove all of them so i'll take a vote on that all those in favor say aye any opposed opposed hi any abstention okay so this one does not pass and do i have a motion in second stretzenberg for a amended motion to approve the site plans for adams washington and madison and to receive and file the remaining uh
122single site plans for the remaining schools so moved again yes okay second and by nemeth all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions okay you've got your site plans absolutely um for 12.6 staff has recommended that we pull this item until the august 10th meeting so they can make some modifications to the contract so we will move past 12.5 did i miss 12.5 yeah i'm glad you're keeping me honest because i can't keep my glasses on with this all right sorry 12.5 motion and second please for recommendation to approve the agreement with the new teacher project for accelerated learning okay the new teacher project otherwise known as tntp is a national nonprofit educational research company that partners with schools and districts to provide consultation and high quality professional development and training this
123proposal is for tntp to provide a learning acceleration series to our school leaders and instructional lead teachers to build a shared understanding of acceleration and ensure all students are engaged in rigorous grade level lessons staff recommends that you approve this proposal i'm sorry so in in essence this is professional development it is it'll be ongoing for the entire year and it's specifically around acceleration have we used it before is this new we have not myself dr wiles um one of our tosas and actually jessica sibling participated in a series um over the past month and a half and due to that we realized that this would be a great professional development to bring back to our staff and this is a one year after year we would reevaluate and see if we wanted to use
124it again okay thank you do we have any metrics we use to gauge the effectiveness even just a survey of teachers afterwards or anything like that to see excellent we plan to it's really going to be around teacher efficacy right um understanding what acceleration is and how to infuse those practices into the classroom to really support our students as we come back from the pandemic thank you yeah well any other questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion passes now i jump the gun i'd like staff is recommended that we pull item 12.6 which takes us i need a motion and second for item 12.2 7 a recommendation to approve the purchase of amplify refill kits for k-8 science curriculum okay mrs veal redona beach unified school district is committed to ensuring
125all students have access to high quality next generation science standards align instruction for all students amplify science our k-8 science adoption implements the frequent use of hands-on laboratory experiences and materials that must be replenished every two years this proposal is to provide refill kits to all k-8 classrooms we recommend that you approve this purchase any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed no extension motion passes notion second for 12.8 the recommendation to approve an agreement between language bird and rbusd to offer virtual mandarin classes to students at redondo union high school in emotion second thank you this is a proposal for online foreign language classes for our uhs students wishing to take chinese four and five for high school credit through language bird provides live one-on-one instruction alongside asynchronous learning
126activities courses are a3g and ncaa approved and allow students to continue their study in chinese beyond what we are currently staffed to offer at redondo union high school this proposal is for individual four year full-year language courses for 24 students with additional teachers supervised and closed chat rooms wherein our our uhs students can gain additional practice with the language together staff recommend that you approve this proposal so this means that we'll be able to offer further acceleration if you will or advancement in mandarin for all of our high school students who wish to do that that's very exciting for me to see i can remember when we didn't have chinese so yes does anybody have any questions all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes we will have mandarin foreign five okay
127now i've got to get back to my agenda 12 point notion and second for 12.9 the initial proposal of the california school employees association chapter 57 csea initial reopener proposal for negotiations to the redondo beach unified school district can i get a motion in a second so moved second by witkin okay dr wesley so this is csu's initial proposal to rbusd for the 2122 negotiations and so staff is recommending that you present cse sunshine proposal publicly and you'll see that they are sunshining only two articles salary and health and welfare questions okay all those in favor say aye aye can you pose abstentions 12.10 the initial proposal of the redondo beach unified school district to the california employee association chapter 57 csea can i get a motion in second please moved second okay dr wesley
128again your response this is rbu state rbusd's initial proposal to csa chapter 57 for the 2122 negotiations and staff is recommending that you present rbosd's sunshine proposal publicly and just as a reminder i'll be back at the next board meeting asking you to adopt our proposal any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed no extension motion passes 12 11 memorandum of understanding agreement with the redondo beach teachers association july 19 2021 can i get a motion in second please second okay dr wesley this is a signed agreed upon mou reached with rbta regarding the reopening of schools for the 21 22 school year still under some coveted constraints and the details in this mou outline safety protocols cleaning supplies that will be provided by the district wearing masks as required by
129the la county department of public health self's greedy protocols for staff and leave rights and so staff is recommending that you adopt and approve this negotiated mou reached with rbta any comments or questions i will share that as sarah robinson shared earlier our mou at its longest length was 26 pages and so now you can see we are returning with a two-page mou it's a lot about our progress it does it says a lot about our partnership too and the trust that we've established and the commitment everybody has our staff included to getting us past this and on to back into classrooms i have a question about um in the daily self-screening section it says uh members who decline to state vaccination status will be assumed to be unvaccinated yes when would that then come
130into play unfortunately we had that situation last week um where is there was a positive case uh an employee was exposed and they didn't want to state whether or not they were vaccinated so out of an abundance of caution we had that employee quarantined so we put that in the mou so that all staff are aware that if they choose not to disclose whether or not they're vaccinated we will assume they weren't again out of an abundance of caution and it could impact them in terms of taking their own sick days once the supplemental six leave expires on september 30th so we wanted that to be very clear so if someone is like practically speaking if someone is forced to quarantine after that sick leave period expires they like they don't get paid for that
131period of quarantine is that they use their sick days they use their accrued sick leave okay right that's clear thank you any other questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye you opposed abstentions motion passes in motion second for 12.12 the memorandum of understanding agreement with redondo beach teachers association hermosa beach city school district library services agreement second so this mou is with rbta and just to provide some context the redondo sorry the hermosa beach city schools district does not have a certificated librarian and under the california ed code a public school district must have a certificated librarian we do have one at ruhs and so we therefore we meet the ed code in a case like this a district can reach out to another local district and ask for support and services
132from their credentialed librarian and fortunately we have a credentialed librarian who's getting her masters in librarian services and is more than willing to support hermosa so we've worked with rbta to come up with this mou to provide assurances to that employee in terms of the maximum amount of hours of support that she would provide to our neighboring school district who we would like to support so this mou outlines those assurances and limitations as well as the support that she would provide so our recommendation is that the board adopt this negotiated mou with rbta any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye can you pose nope motion passes okay thank you very much we are through we don't have informational items we're now on to correspondence does anybody have any correspondence with the
133board they'd like to share board member reports i'm looking at you mr schutzenberg this time to my left do you have anything you'd like to add excellent i will start out it kind of ties into the items to report to us uh being aboard benvert the socal rock one of the things that's come before the board and i wanted to discuss it with the our board was the possibility of leasing space classroom space that is available right now at socal rock to a charter school and i want to hear if there's any board input if that's an issue for us to approve something like that because it is a charter school now one of the caveats to that is and we're getting more details is that they stay state that they cater to homeless and
134foster children not from within our district so they would specifically be from districts you know north of us i think is basically what it comes to but this particular charter school and i asked for numbers just you know because they stated they cater to we didn't get a number of actually and they estimated roughly 100 students i said well is it 20 students that you're serving that are homeless and foster kids or is it 80 or what what is that number what does that really mean but the big picture is are we okay because it's kind of our jointly owned property more or less it's our entity as um with other school districts when's your next board meeting because i i this may be in it i'm just thinking if we really want to talk
135about we may want to agendize if we have time maybe bring it back to the august 10th if we have time if we don't i'm happy to chat with you we do have time it'll be after the august 10th great because we can if it's okay with you all we would agenda and i will try to get more information on it at least sure what we've gotten so far but right the whole preview are we okay with yeah and if you can get in the meantime dr alpern their charter information that would be great so we can do a little due diligence in the meantime okay great thanks that was going to be my question what do we know about this charter school and then maybe some background as to who owns the property and
136that type of thing so we'll add that to the next agenda anything else all right mr elder sorry uh i would just say that um we had a great tour of cdc sites today uh board member starts to merge and i getting to go through and see their summer programs thank you for giving us you know showing us around but it's great getting to see how well that's working for them and just you know really appreciate their efforts they were the first ones back and they kind of led the way for how these protocols could work in our schools and they worked great so appreciate that opportunity great miss nemeth i want to just recognize the work we've done with rbta and reaching what we hope is the final agreement and all the time and
137effort that everybody puts into that because i think that's really what makes this district special and it's really worthwhile and it makes sitting here a lot more meaningful when we're able to reach these agreements so congratulations thank you no report all right well that leaves it to me i just want to thank everybody that took the time to reach out to us and the time that we had here today and i hope that we can count on everybody's support in getting our kids back into school in a return to normal activity and if anyone ever has questions we're always available to answer the district is available to answer and all parent concerns are always taken seriously by this board so that's all i have with that with our next calendar of events we'll be back
138here on august the 10th four o'clock the first day of school is on august the 18th and on august the 24th we have our other august meeting at that point in september is when our meeting dates will change to 5 p.m so we have two more in august and we'll see everybody back here and welcome back to campus need a motion in a second to adjourn the meeting all those in favor say aye hi meeting is a turn you