Okay. K. Hey. Welcome to the March 12, Oakland Unified School District School Board meeting. We're calling to to order at 04:00, four zero two. Mister Seichow, can we have a roll call, please, to establish quorum? Yes. President Breaux Hart. On the roll call on the first roll call to establish quorum, student director Simeon, student director Vasquez, director Latta? Present. Director Williams, director Hutchinson, Director Berry? Here. Director Thompson? Present. Vice president, Bachelor? And president Burghard? Here. Quorum,
present. K. And, mister Hollis, can we have a mister Secha, sorry. Can we have a translation check, please? Yes. Absolutely. Moving to interpretation announcement. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all tennis hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Miss Abdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please. Yes. Arabic construction is now. Thank you, miss Abdi. Checking to see, any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we'll now start with Arabic interpretation. We'll next go to Spanish.
Again, I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Of course. Spanish. Language interpretation Spanish. The Spanish announcement is done. Thank you. Great. Thank you, miss Vargas. Check attendees and see if any hands raised for our Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start reinter Spanish interpretation. And that concludes interpretation announcement, and we'll check again later during the meeting. I turn it back to you, President Brujahire. Thank you, mister Sejia.
Tonight in closed session, we will discuss several matters. We'll discuss labor matters, d one, conference with labor negotiators, d three I'm sorry. Oh, d two. And then legal matters. Sorry. D two, conference with legal counsel anticipated action. D three, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation. D four, conference with legal counsel anticipated legal litigation. D five, conference with legal counsel existing litigation. In Pupil Matters, we will discuss d six, expulsion. We will reconvene to public session at 06:30.
And we do we have any public comments? There are no public commenters for closed session items, madam president. Okay. Thank you. We will now reconvene to, closed session, and we will reconvene at 06:30. I'm now going to turn it over to mister Sae Chow for interpretation check. We're gonna do a roll call. Oh, sorry. I didn't hear you right. We're gonna do roll call for to establish quorum. Thank you. Yes, president Breaux Hart. On the second roll call to establish quorum, student director Simmons? Student director Vasquez? Here. Director Latta? Present. Director Williams?
Present, sir. Director Hutchinson? Present. Director Berry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. Vice president, Bachelor? Here. And president Brujar? Here. Colonel, present. And mister Staitiak, can we do a, translation check, please? Yes. Moving to interpretation announcement. For tonight's meeting, we have two languages for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. For in person, we have laptops in the back of the room For interpretation, there is also translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by
clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. We will start with Arabic. I will lower our attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Miss Le, if you can come off, mute and make the interpretation announcement for Of course. For everybody, please. Arabic is done. Great. Thank you, mister Lay. Check attendees to see if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Arabic start with Arabic interpretation. We will next go to Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands.
Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Miss Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Of course. And good evening, everybody. On behalf of my colleagues, I, ask you to help out interpreters by speaking clearly and at a moderate pace. Thank you. And now the Spanish instructions. Thank you very much. The Spanish announcement is done. Great. Thank you, miss Vargas. Checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will now start, with Spanish interpretation. That concludes interpretation's announcement,
and we'll check again later in the meeting. President Burghardt, I turn it back to you. Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize the importance of respectful decorum, communication, and engagement at our board and committee meetings. The work of the board is serious business and impacts the everyday experiences of our students, staff, families, and broader community. It is critical that all of us, both appear on the dais and in the audience, model the respectful interactions that we would like to see our students have in their classrooms, on the play yard, and in athletic competitions.
As we open tonight's meeting, I urge everyone present and planning to attend to review and abide by the Board of Education protocols and meeting rules of engagement listed on pages eight and nine of tonight's agenda. We will address disruptions consistent with Board policy and state law. Per Board policy and government code, the Board shall not permit any disturbance or willful interruption of Board meetings. Persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the termination of an individual's privilege of addressing the board.
Persistent disruption includes interrupting other members of the public when they are addressing the board at the podium. When there is persistent disruptive behavior by an individual or group, the individual or group will be asked to discontinue the disruptive behavior, told that if the disrupt disruptive behavior persists, they will be asked to leave the meeting. And if an individual refuses to leave upon request, they may be escorted from the room. Again, our goal is to conduct our meetings without taking these measures. We appreciate you all for honoring our community norms of respect and decorum.
The decorum, safety, and security of our meetings is the collective responsibility of all of us, and I'm grateful for our shared commitment to ensuring that our meetings bring us closer to achieving our district's mission and vision. Each speaker on the board each board member will have up to three minutes to speak. There's no mingling with the audience. Address board members will address comments to other board members. Board members will focus on agenda items. Board members will not repeat what's been said and be respectful. No interruptions, enforce the norms, and model desired behavior.
At tonight's meeting, there are several allotted times when you may make public comments, provided you preregistered to speak online before the meeting started or if you fill out a comment card, which you can find on the table by the entrance. And you can submit those cards at any time. The times that we'll have public comment, closed session items, which was completed earlier, all non agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the district, adoption of the pupil discipline report, adoption of the general consent report, adoption of the general consent report facilities, student board members report,
public hearings, sunshineing the Teamsters Local one hundred and seventy, initial proposals to OUSD, collective bargaining successor contract, and unfinished item business, two items, amendment one, services agreement, relayed hours, twenty twenty five Oakland Unified School District, California legislative prep platform. Excuse me. Under new business, there are eight items. Second, interim financial report as of 01/31/2025, fiscal year twenty twenty four twenty five, lease leaseback contract between Swinerton Builders and Garfield site renovation project,
amendment number three, measure y spending plan, October 2024, board policy new, board policy to be announced, facilities, climate action, sustainability, phase two of climate emergency action resolution, the sole source purchasing resolution for flow water and LK water filters, board of education directing alternative budget adjustments, fiscal years twenty twenty five-twenty seven, recommending establishment of an ad hoc control over outsourcing task force, and application for provisional internship permit, California Commission teaching on, teacher credentialing,
and then after the superintendent's report. Please be aware that in compliance with the Brown Act, board members may not respond to comments regarding issues that are not on our posted agenda for tonight. I ask all speakers to keep their comments to the time allotted. We have a lot of speakers tonight, and we wanna be able to hear from as many of you as we can. Thank you. Sorry. Just a minute. I'm gonna report now on items in closed session. I'm sorry. Are there any modifications to the agenda? I know. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. I went ahead of myself here.
Reportable actions from the closed session. On labor matters, on item d one number twenty four nineteen twenty six, conference with labor negotiators, the board discussed this matter. On legal under legal matters, on item d two, number 25 dash zero five six one, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, motion by director Latta, seconded by president Brohard, vote six in favor and zero, no and one abstention. On item d three, number 25 dash zero five six eight,
conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, the board did not take up this matter. On item d four, number twenty five zero three nine nine, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, the board discussed this matter. On item d five, number 25 dash zero six one three, conference with legal counsel existing litigation, The board gave direction on this matter. Motion by president Brevard, seconded by director Thompson, and a vote of six in favor and zero opposed, one abstention. Pupil matters. On item d six,
The board heard this matter and will vote on the matter in public in section k on the agenda. Again, thank you for joining us in tonight's board meeting. I will now turn it oh, so we just started that. Are there any modifications to the agenda? I believe the superintendent asked to be moved, the superintendent's report be moved to the top of the agenda since there was, some comments around, lead abatement at the last meeting. So I think we should have that be moved up, after k. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? K. Alright. Thank you. Here we go. Okay. We sorry.
We had a little discussion on that one. We will also move the student report to before the superintendent report. So it will go item k, adoption of people discipline consent, then item n, student report, and then item t, superintendent's report. K. There are no special orders of the day. We will now have thirty minutes for public comment on all non agenda items within the subject matter of the jurisdiction of the board. Can I have the number of speakers, in person and on Zoom, please?
Yes, madam president. Currently, we have 24 speakers. How much time would you like to allot for public comment? One minute. With that, we first have five student speakers. Those five student speakers are Rochelle Serrano, Camilla Domingo Aguilera, Nick Nick O, Jose Bonilla, and Fatima Flores. Hi. My name is Fatima, and I'm a ninth grade student at Life Academy. The first thing I would like to bring up is the use of budget of $34,000,000 to buy more supplies for the school, but I don't see no new materials at my school.
We're always reusing the same materials. If you're budgeting 34,000,000 on materials and supplies for us, but we aren't seeing that, you must be spending it on something else. Isn't that stealing from our our students and our education? The second point I would like to bring up is the funding to keep extra teachers for extra support in classrooms. I understand you guys are cutting off budget on that. For example, like, my one of my teachers, miss Nell, RTSA, at Life Academy, she's very important to our school. She helps our IEP students.
She helps students in general with their reading. I would also like to bring up the use of budgeting. We could also on top of materials, we could also use other things like interior locking in case of emergencies. I feel like that's going to, help students and their safety and feel safe at schools. Another point is that I feel like you guys should go into classrooms at OUSD, especially my school. I think I think you guys see our points of what we're fighting for. If you guys see the classrooms,
our desk, we have broken desk. If you guys are saying you guys are wasting the budget on materials, but we don't see that. Getting rid of TSAs is so unnecessary because not they don't only help our students, they also help our teachers get coached and everything. You don't understand what you're cutting. There should be no reason why a ninth grader or any student at OUSD should be here at a meeting asking for all these things. I'm sorry. Your your time is up. I wanna give the students two minutes each. Students two minutes. So the students will have two minutes each?
Right. Good evening. My name is Jose Bonilla. I'm a ninth grader at Life Academy. When I started sixth grade, I started with a second grade reading level. And if I did not have reading classes, I would still be at a very low reading level. Through all my reading classes, it was very important to me because if I didn't have reading classes, I would be struggling a lot in high school with the reading we have today. By eighth grade, because of them because of the amazing teachers we have, I reached grade level reading classes. Reading classes are the last thing that should be taken away from the school because
every subject involves reading. If you cut if you cut our reading teachers, a student like me students like me wouldn't have the opportunity to catch up and get the education that they need. I'm asking you to find other ways to solve your problem because cutting reading classes would terribly impact a lot of the student a lot of the students in their reading. If it wasn't for my reading classes, I would be struggling a lot more. Alright. Hi. My name is Kumina Domingo Aguilar. I'm an eighth grader and member of Boys for Justice.
As a child of immigrant parents, it's important to recognize that Oakland is a sanctuary city. And because Oakland is a sanctuary city, there would be more immigrants coming in needing services. Therefore, we would need more community school managers around to assist them. If we were to get rid of CSMs, there would be no one to help newcomers and help with dignified services. Please take in consideration so the families that would be left helpless and the communities that would be impacted. A suggestion to put out there is we could use the money from resources we don't use to to save money in our budget. A question I have for you is how can we ensure students have some input
in this process? Thank you for listening, and have a nice day. Good evening. My name is Michelle. I'm currently in eighth grade in Urban Promise Academy. Wanna talk about the budget cut specifically about miss Gundy, one of UPA's staff. She helped a bunch of families and throughout her years working in UPA, she left a significant impact that even students who graduate still are thankful for the help she's given to them them to this day, one of them being my older sister, Christine. She says, and I quote, during my time in middle school, who's just learning the language and the culture of the country, the school was different from what I was used to.
She helped me and my family with the process of getting accustomed to our new school from the enrollment and how the school system works. Although we don't speak the same language, she was very patient with me and my family. Not only that, she provided additional resources, support, and encouragement so I can succeed in my classes. And I quote, I'll forever be grateful for all the love and support that miss Glendly gives to the student, families, and staff of OOPA. I hope I've easily listened to my statement. You can take in consideration the type of person miss Glendly does and what she and then does for schools. And she's not only a big part of Uber,
but to many families in Oakland. Thank you. Mister Hollis, I will. Are there any other student speakers? I believe that's all the student speakers. Okay. And how many speakers do we have remaining? Remaining, we have, minus five. I feel like doing calculations in my head, but 20, technically, because we just got another one added. So it's 20 speakers. Okay. One minute each, please. Good evening, board, community. It's good to see everybody here tonight. I think we all know tonight is a big night in terms of decision making. And as a former trustee of the school district high school district representing Daly City,
Pacifica, Brisbane, Broadmont, Oklahoma, and as a teacher in the climates for the past four years, I wanna speak on behalf of our district community and a lot of the voices you're hearing here tonight. I can say at the Climates, we've been understaffed and they're funded in law positions for a very long time since I've stepped there. We hadn't even had a fully staffed special education department and we all know that compliance is not just fiscal but it's also in terms of education and policy. So we're counting on this board. You have a whole district full of consultation here. You can hear a lot of things from above, right? As a board member,
our duty is to our county, to our state, to our country and Oakland plays a very vital role. So you know that we're counting on all of you. Superintendent is counting on you. Every staff member here from administration to every position here including the students who work very hard to make this school district what it is because we would not be here if it weren't for them. And so for me, when I'm seeing Oakland and I'm seeing the progress we've made in all these years and yes, with the reserves that we do have and the funding that we do have, we have a responsibility to make that count and to lean that forward. So I would encourage everybody here to remember that,
and the rest of the state of California is pushing that same narrative and looking open for that leadership. I know we can do it. We can do it together. Thank you. Madam president, call the next five speakers. Alright. Yes. Next five speakers are Tanya Kapner, Mark Ergood, Gabriel Kahn, Leticia, Araujo Perez, Jalen Wilson. Madam president, I do see three of those speakers online. You want me to call them? Okay. In person? Hello. My name is Gabriel Khan. I teach a Creative Life Academy. And, yeah, so much gratitude for old students of mine showing up for what they know is
their best interest. Again, I wanna reiterate what they said, which is they shouldn't have to be here. Right? I hope we listen to them. I hope we give them the credence they deserve because no one's an expert in their experience like they are, and they are telling us exactly what they're seeing. They make sure they remind me that every day. I also wanna speak on behalf of our community school manager who, communicated to me that they are being told about their reduction in pay far after they were allowed to make a decision for deferred pay. So they were twelve month employees when they started the year. They got paychecks for twelve month employee ship,
and more than halfway through the year, they get told they're gonna be moved to eleven month employees. And we need time. Right? We have the time to be creative with how we make these decisions. We have a $300,000,000 reserve that can be used to humanely make decisions about our budget. And when we don't do that, when we when we cross these lines, as quickly as we do, we lose the chance to keep everybody involved. We lose talent when we do that. We wanna make sure we keep as much talent as o and open as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. I'm actually reading on behalf of my sister who is at her second job.
So my name is Jalen Wilson, and I'm a library technician at s and SEIU ten to one member. On Wednesdays, I work twelve hour days working both OUSD and the city of Oakland of, libraries, of which I'm also an SEIU ten to one member. Despite being highly qualified for my job as a library tech, the district salary forces me to work twelve hour days and six days a week to make ends meet. When district officials are bargaining with my union, think of people like me who work multiple jobs, who are overworked and underpaid, and who genuinely love the work they do. To the larger community, I ask that you bear witness to this personal experience that many people share and
share and stand in solidarity with some of the lowest paid workers of OUSD by demanding we receive a livable wage. Maintain this fight not just in front of an audience, but especially behind closed doors. If you advocate for us in person, but don't do the same behind closed doors, then your solidarity is performative and you actively contribute to the plight that I and many other low paid workers face. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker is Leticia Arujo Paredes. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Great. Good evening. My name is Leticia Araujo Perez.
I'm the admin assistant at Prescott, and I'm a SCIU member. It's disturbing to hear that our SEIU members consisting of early literacy tutors are on the chopping block. Do you board members have any idea how essential these members are in contributing and supporting each child with their high academic education so that they can excel in their reading skills from an early age starting in TK to K? Did you know that there are early literacy tutors who are actually working outside of their classroom range and are helping support older students including fourth and fifth graders,
middle and high school students. Even though these members make under the current minimum wage, which is horrendous, regardless, they show up to work every day because they're dedicated and loyal to our students. These early literacy tutors, their instructional skills and compassionate and empathetic extra support to our students are an essential contribution to our students' lifelong educational success. These members are hardworking and invaluable to our site populations. I hope you would take my words into consideration. Not only keep these members on board for the new school year,
but also provide them with an equitable cost of living wage increase. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Tanya Kapner. Yes. Hello. Good evening. I'm Tanya Kapner with the Equal Opportunity Now by Any Means necessary teachers caucus here to say no to the layoffs and cuts to our students, our schools, to get back our staff for Sojourner Truth and our newcomer programs and for all our schools so that our students can have the teachers and the staff and the resources they deserve for a quality education.
We don't accept this this budget crisis is manufactured. It dates back, number one, to the violation of democracy of Oakland when we had a state takeover. We demand that that debt be be re relieved. But secondly, right now, the the board has said that they have millions and millions and millions more debt than before. When you all have a reserve, put the money to our schools, no cuts to staff, get our we send those layoff notices. We need our instructional support. We need our teachers. Our students need a quality education.
No cuts to staff. Reverse those budget cuts. Stand with the community of Oakland now. Next speaker is Mark Airdood. Yes. This is Mark Airgood, EON BAM, equal opportunity now by any means necessary. I also wanna speak against all of the cuts to the schools. And in particular, I wanna focus on protecting the programs that are offering sanctuary to newcomers. The newcomer program is is due is is being slated for cuts and Sojourner Truth, the virtual program.
These are programs that are essential to fighting Donald Trump's attacks, on our students, on our schools. We have to preserve them. I also want to say that we need to preserve the discretionary spending of schools. That's a not discretionary is not discretionary. I mean, it it's the things the schools, school by school, have to have. And so we should be preserving that fund and fighting for all of our students in Oakland. Thank you. We have the next five speakers,
in person, please. Yes, madam president. Next five speakers are Kim Davis, Judy Greenspan, Sophia Seiberth, Janelle Harris, Katie Lundgren. Good evening. My name is Judy Greenspan. I am, a retired teacher who works as a substitute now at United for Success. I think it's very interesting what's happening right now in this country, which is this the dismantlement by the Trump administration of the Department of Education, the Federal Department of Education, at the same time that the Oakland board and OUSD is considering major cuts to
education. We don't need to be in line with Trump. We need to take a stand against what is going on in a federal level. And I would suggest if you look at the budget, there's so much I mean, the consultancies, they all need to be looked at. All the consultants need to be looked at. We have a superintendent who is earning $200,000 more a year than any other superintendent in the Alameda County or in the neighboring districts. We also have we have inflated costs for books and for, for for school supplies,
which which which is phony. We need to make everything realistic, and we need to give this money back to the schools so that we can run them successfully for the students. Good evening. Kim Davis. Excuse me. Just three quick things. One, I'll speak about the budget later, but I just wanna remind us that nobody twenty years from now is gonna say, oh, wow. I remember I have this great executive director of whatever, who made a difference in my life. They talk about their teachers and the the folks in their classrooms. The second thing I wanna say really quickly is in San Francisco,
they passed a policy where PTAs could not be, backfilling with staff. This is an equity issue that we face. You all need to figure out how we are ensuring that a school the furthest from opportunity, has the resources they need and and other schools aren't just adding to it with PTA dollars. Finally, I wanna thank, director Latta, director Williams, president Brohard, Kelly Craig Arnold for their appearance last night at the hearing, for American Indian Public Charter School number two that was denied but given a second
chance potentially down the road in a in a process that I don't that is not statutory. So I certainly hope that you all are gonna be pushing back on that and making sure that they stand on their denial. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Katie Lundgren, and I teach fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary. I'm speaking in favor of passing an alternative budget that prioritizes stability for our students and keeps cuts as far away from them as possible. As a former STIP substitute at Lincoln, I'd like to highlight the STIP role as one of the many areas that should
be protected and not cut. The STIP program is intended to incentivize substitute teachers to commit to teaching every school day at the same school site and to become a part of the fabric of that community. As a STIP, I performed many important roles and got to know many of the students who I later taught in my own class. It was also through this program that I, like many other OUSD teachers, decided to become a classroom teacher. In the midst of a teacher retention crisis, cutting these positions would harm OUSD students and school communities by taking out a pipeline
of dedicated new teachers and removing vital members of the school community. Please protect this program, pass an alternative budget, and keep cuts away from our schools and from our students. Thank you. Good evening. I hope that someday workers that are chronically overworked and underpaid don't have to send proxies from their second jobs to come plead for livable wages, but here we are. I hate that signing up to work in public education often means that we're signing on to a life knowing that we're about to have our empathy and passion and love for our youth just be exploited.
And I used to say, of course, I would do anything for these children. This year, I realized we cannot do anything for these children under these living conditions and and working conditions. This brings me to a really huge problem facing so many TK teachers. I know, president Bruhard made a statement about it, but, superintendent's presentation on the realities of TK in this PowerPoint, you're telling families that they are promised a safe learning environment for their three, four, and five year old children.
History tells us the extra support positions to make this a safe working place would not probably be filled by the first day of school. We're tasked with providing these families the most precious thing, a safe place to learn. And when we don't feel safe ourselves in in an overcrowded classroom of overstimulated three to five years old year olds, I cannot stand by this promise. Thank you. Your time is up. Just because it's legal ratio doesn't mean it's right. Good evening, board. Today, I wanna talk about my attendance yesterday at an SSC meeting.
I was very disappointed to see how our CCSPP money and our title one money dollars are being spent. Every single dime is going to staff. Every single dime for a social worker, our community manager, a counselor, a literacy coach, a restorative justice person. We had to buy computers for our dual enrollment class. It's like, what does the district supply for us? This is crazy. We don't have we have a family resource center that me and miss Assata furnished
100% and brought everything that's in it. We bought it out of our own pocket. And now I'm being told that I can't go to the school anymore because I have to go through this process of being fingerprinted and which I've done, but I've been there for two and a half years already. So I don't understand how this is happening. Thank you. That concludes our allotted time for public comment on non agenda items. And we'll have extended time. Oops. Sorry. I didn't realize that. There'll be other times to comment on the budget,
throughout the agenda. The next item is the, consent adoption of the pupil consent report. Is there a motion to accept the pupil, consent report? I move to adopt the people consent report. Second. And we have time for public comment on this. Is there any public comment on the consent report? Yes, madam president. We have three. That is Asana Olobala, Ben Tapscott, and Janelle Harris. Thank you. Two minutes each. If your name was called You know, I'm still concerned with the fact that our population of black students is around twenty four percent,
but yet we're making up fifty five percent of suspensions? I don't understand that. So only black students get in trouble? I really don't. And the fact that we don't we got different types of programs for newcomers. What about the oldcomers? What about the black oldcomers? Why don't we have equity when it comes to the climates of West Oakland or other parts of the city that have black students? They're being underserved, and no one seems to look into this. I've asked superintendent, the office of equity?
Equity? You mean unequity? Because it doesn't make sense that large numbers of kids that are black are being suspended at a higher rate than the rest of the kids. They're not the only ones out there causing trouble. And this district doesn't look into it to find out what are the solutions and what's going on. I taught at Mac for eighteen years, and I never sent a student out of my classroom. I never I sat down and listened to their problems. And we keep going right along, and nobody tells us what are the types of suspensions so you'll know how to
address the problem. How are there other ways of conflict resolution other than fighting? We don't do that. And then this report comes out where almost 55% of the suspensions are black students. This stuff has gotta stop. If I may, madam president, there was an additional name, it's Jeffrey Sims, to the list of, cake. Miss Harris, continue, please. Excuse me? Yeah. Go ahead. So I wanna talk about l nine, the service agreement for nutrition services at McCliman's.
We're at have been charged. Miss Harris. We're on item k. I'll call you for Okay. Alright. Thank you. Yep. Miss Sullivan? I'll take that away from us. Wait till the We're we're going to continue with the agenda. Sorry. Let us speak. Let us speak. Missus Sala, you're it We're talking about two minutes. They let us know comments. We waited for hours. Missus Sada, go ahead, please. Madam president, I'd like to make a motion to extend the clock for okay. Okay. Fine. Okay. As it relates to expulsions of students,
I have come to you many times with the need doing microphone went off. Okay. Can you start the clock all over, please? Thank you. I have come to you many times about the expelling of students, and you just can't expel students without having an something in place as an intervention strategy to help these students get back on track. But you're not doing that. And I've also said it appears that there's a disproportionately high number of students who
are being expelled who are African American. So there's a new report that came out called Black Minds Matter. In that report, it is said that African American students are suspended and expelled disproportionately at high rates over the last three decades. And they also said related to dealing with any issue around African American students, nothing nothing has happened to change the dynamics. The the academic gap for blacks California students has been allowed to linger.
You have allowed the issues of black students in this district to be unaddressed. I appreciate that you can recognize newcomers and establish for them services and supports. I expect you to do the same thing for African American students. Thank you. Thank you. Does that conclude speakers for item k? All names were called for k. Thank you. Next, we will move to the student report. President Burhaerts, do you wanna take a roll call first? Take a roll call? Yeah. A vote a vote for the pupil.
Oh, I'm sorry. I totally understand. Yeah. Can we have a roll call on the vote for the student? Yes. On the roll call to adopt the pupil discipline consent report, students are recused. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Abstain. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Abstain. Vice president, Bachelor? And President Bujar? Yes. The people with discipline concern report is adopted. Thank you. Next on the agenda is item n, which is the student report. Director Vasquez? Thank you. Good afternoon, community,
students, parents, staff, and board members, and superintendent. In today's report, I'll go over student voices, student leadership, and student upcoming events. So for student voice, unfortunately, director Simmons wasn't able to join us, but direct he was recently interviewed by KQED on the turnout of our Oakland Youth vote. He spoke about what went well and what what are some things we could improve for the next time we're able to hold this event as well. I feel very proud of director Simmons, and then you'll see him more in the future.
Further, director Simmons will also be speaking against the a b 68 on March 26 at the state's capital. At eight b 68, it is a proposed California law requiring at least one armed cop on public school campuses. Having a cop on every campus in California feeds into the school school to prison pipeline, takes away funding unnecessarily, and furthermore, funding that could go to our students' education. Having cops on campus is a decision for districts to make,
not the state. Each and every district has their own unique communities and values built through decades of hardships, creating a strong relationship between the district and their respective communities. This law would completely disrespect and disregard these amazing communities values and habits, which were completely we wanna support having our own voice and being represented, something that this law would not support at all. For student leadership, on March 6, which was last Thursday, we AC All Student Council held their twenty seventh annual peer resource and ethics studies
conference. We had a lot of positive energy from our middle schoolers from all across OESD. OESD. The students were able to network and be a part of different workshops talking about leadership, how to have culture in their communities, and just a lot of different opportunities for them to make friends across the district. We had over 201 middle school students in attendance, which I feel very happy about. I like to give special thanks to Anna Brewer, West Oakland, Claremont, Ontara, Urban Promise, United for Success, Hillcrest, Brenhart, Westlake, and Roosevelt for their attendance and support.
Thank thank you so much to all these middle schoolers and had so much fun seeing them interact with each other and just bring so much positive energy And just seeing them at this conference gives me so much hope for the future. Moving forward with student events, ACC will be help will be holding their fourth middle fourth high school meeting at at Casa Millen High on March 20, which is next Thursday. We will invite all OESD high school students to attend, and you can also follow our Instagram at all city council OESD.
For more information, you can also speak to your leadership, teacher, and principal to get more information about this. And if you have any questions, you can also contact our, student engagement specialist as well. At this conference, we'd be speaking and talking more about our Youth Action Summit, which is coming up in here, and just prepare a lot more as well. Also, we'll both director Simmons and I will be panelists at the twenty twenty five Stand Does Speak Out Statewide Conference. Please join us on Sunday,
March 23 at UC Davis at the UC Davis campus. It'll be from three to eight, and you will see us both talk about our experiences. As you may see on these slides, I'll be a panelist for the youth power, young activists carrying the torch segment, and director Simmons will be a panelist for, for movement builders, multicultural, anti carceral, and solidarity. So please join us. Please support us as well. And if you want more information and know and have more information to sign up,
you can follow their social media at t r p underscore nine sixteen. And that's it for our report. Thank you so much. And if you have any questions, you may email both of doctor Simmons and I, and also our student engagement specialist. Thank you so much. We'll now take, ten minutes of public comment. How many speakers do we have, mister Hollis? One moment. Seven speakers? Seven? Yes. We'll give, one minute each. And do we have any online? Not sure until I call the names. Okay. I'll just call those seven speakers. They are Janelle Harris,
Asada Olugbala, Jeffrey Simms, Ronan Gillespie, Nicholas Parker, Chris Jackson, Alexandra Nell. Oh, miss miss Asada, are these, student speakers who are coming up? Are there any student speakers? Okay. Thanks. I saw in your report that you mentioned ethnic studies. I wanted to let you know what's going on in California related to ethnic studies. The city of Palo Alto last week I'm sorry. Santa Ana voted to discontinue ethnic studies. Palo Alto is right now protesting parents against ethnic studies.
In the case of, Santa Ana, a lawsuit was brought by multiple Jewish advocacy organization. They have also put forward with support from a legislator, assembly bill fourteen sixty eight. With that bill, if passed, before you can have ethnic studies, you're gonna have to establish some kind of standards related to what you're gonna be teaching. And any curriculum that's developed will have to be reviewed by the State Board of Education. So all of this pushback, I think, is due to the fact that the Jewish community is feeling like,
they're being attacked because of the Israel Palestinian thing. And I think students who believe in ethnic studies need to start standing up because, a lot of people are trying to dismantle it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Jeffrey Sims, and I'm representing the new McClimans Committee. I'm speaking to the audience. Do you remember when she said it was a privilege to address the board? Was I the only one that caught that? So this authoritarian attitude that you're radiating, You don't listen. You're puppets.
You stand up there. This is a done agenda. You've already made your decisions, and this is just to allow these people to vent. You don't hear us. You don't listen. You don't even question anything. You're sad. Fremont. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. It's it's fitting that this is happening on the student board members, agenda item because I'm speaking today on behalf of a former student, a very, very valued member of our school community. Her name is Norma Pablo Calmo. Alright?
And she is slated to be cut from our staff even though when I started at Fremont, our department was a revolving door. We never had Spanish teachers for more than two, three years. We finally have a stable department. She's one of the only teachers to my knowledge who is a native mom speaker despite the fact we have thousands of mom students in our schools that we serve every day. You go into her classroom, and you will see a warm, welcoming, culturally relevant, and just a vibrant space,
and that's what's at stake with these cuts. So you need to rescind these cuts to our school sites and save Norma's job. My name is Chris Jackson, Fremont, and I'm a SPED teacher. And so talking about on our student report, the fact of the matter is we serve our community. We serve our students who are on the margins. But the fact of the matter is a teacher can't serve students who are on the margins when we are also on the margins economically, socially. We need y'all to rescind the cuts.
We need you to restore our eleven month contracts, and we need you to save Miss Norma's position because we do so much for our community, not just our school sites. I used to have to work a second job. I know many of my teachers here work second jobs. We want to be something special. We are something special. The fact of the matter is it's hard to live here in Oakland. It's hard to be born and raised here. It's hard to stay here. And as a teacher, we shouldn't have to fight just to live and teach in our own community.
So restore our status, restore our cuts, and please make sure that Fremont, Mac, and Castle, all of our teachers are made whole so that we can stay in the communities that we wanna teach. Thank you. You have an opportunity before you this evening to take back all of the layoffs. So as you make this decision, let me please just remind you of what this community has done to fight for our students when you've tried to close our schools and cut off our staff. We have walked out of our dilapidated
dilapidated school buildings, and we have marched on your offices. We have occupied Parker and Westlake so that they remain public land for public good. We have gone on hunger strikes. We have shut down the port, and we have joined together with our siblings and labor to disrupt this city's economy. And if you continue to make cuts to our community, you will see just how powerful we are because we are going to make sure that any cuts that need to happen come from the bloated central office, from outside contracts, from the exorbitant salaries of the executives in this district.
We want schools that are stable, that are clean, where you can drink the water, and where all our students graduate at a college reading level. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Alexandra Nell, and I'm a TSA at Life Academy. Due to the mismanagement of funds in in OUSD, my position is being cut next year. As a TSA, my primary role is an instructional leader who works alongside admin to develop the academic focus of our school. I'm an instructional coach across grade levels, the eleventh grade team lead. I teach two tenth grade reading classes. I'm the ELPAC test coordinator and run our school garden program.
I also cover classes when needed, lead eleventh grade college trips, co lead a post session every May, and do a myriad of other things that come up in the school day. As with all small thriving schools, everyone wears many hats, and we are all in all the time. I am personally devastated to be forced to leave my school community. It is hard to watch central office protect themselves while the communities that have been historically marginalized continue to be stripped of essential resources. The message that the board and the district are sending is that families in OUSD
don't matter as much as your own paychecks. On the homepage of the OUSD website, it tells in a big bold letters that our academic achievement while serving the whole child, eliminating inequity, and providing each child with excellent teachers every day. Your vote to cut positions at schools completely contradicts this pledge. It is the staff on the ground at schools who show up every day and creatively problem solve. Thank you. Your time is up. I'm sorry. I'm gonna keep going. My responsibilities at life will not my responsibilities at life academy will not go away when I'm not there next year. They will be shifted to the shoulders of teachers and administrators who already
Thank you. I wanna allow time for other speakers as well. Thank you. Hi. My name is Karina Elias, and I am in Just a second. We we need to set the clock. I like I like to jump start, but there you go. Thank you. Okay. And I am an early childhood department stiff sub, and I only found out a couple of hours ago that I am getting a pink slip on Friday because the board does not think that the early childhood, department needs its own stiff subs, except we do a very specific role. We receive specific training to work with three to five year olds.
We go to PDs to deescalate a child in the middle of crisis. We are trained on specific language to use with preschoolers. The other day, a girl told me she needed me to wipe her butt, and then she proceeded to poop into the wipe. This is the job that I do, and you don't want just anyone doing this job. Parents don't want just anyone supervising their kids. ECE SIPs provides stability to our youngest students who desperately need routine and consistent teachers in order to feel safe and secure in school.
Kids cannot learn if they don't trust the adults in the room. Thank you. Your time is up. Students. EK will be I should be the oldest son. How is they should continue to improve the life of your day? I'm Next speaker, please. Madam president, for the record, there's an additional speaker. It's Jasmine Miranda. Yep. This will be the last speaker, and this one will take public comment on this later at another point in the agenda. Good evening. My name is Miranda. I'm a CTE teacher and a director of the media academy. A year ago, we were honored at the school board for being a California distinguished academy. You know how we got there? By being an eleven month, twelve pay school. To find out in March that we will not receive payment over the summer as
a lifelong resident of Oakland, as a product of Oakland Unified School Districts. It was the first time that I really was ready to throw my hat out the window and walk away from the school. I might be a lifelong resident here, but do you know what that means to many of us? It means housing instability. When you were 11 a month, twelve pay, you were not given the option to have deferred pay. We're not given the option for that. Our students let me tell you what we do over the summer. We mentor students even when we're not physically on campus. We grade. We plan.
I and many of the people I work with, including some of the newest hires, this is breaking us. To break the budget on our backs is painful and disheartening and disrespectful. Thank you. Are there any board comments on the student report? Seeing no comments on the board super the, students, report, we will now move to the superintendent's report. Good evening, board, students, staff, and community. Thank you for being here tonight. Oh, I don't need this. Thank you. As always, my full report is available online,
and some of the highlights focus on the implementation of transition kindergarten and updates on enrollment. But, I wanted to take this time to address much of the feedback and concern from the last board meeting related to water quality. So at this time, I'm going to yield the time within my report for Preston Thomas, our chief system and services officer, to provide an update on water quality. Mister Thomas? Great. Thank you. Preston Thomas, the chief systems and Service Officer,
is there a clicker? Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Great. Okay. Really thank you for taking the time, Superintendent Johnson Trammell. We have a comprehensive review of where we are in the process right now. Just want to reiterate and I think that this is a really critical piece for us. Our goal is to provide clean, safe drinking high quality drinking water for all of our students and staff. And And what we're going to talk about tonight in several different areas of, the evening tonight, there's the measure wise spending plan where there will be allocations for, lead remediation in that plan.
There's also a sole source resolution on the agenda tonight to invest deeper in the water quality systems and industry. One of the things that we are doing right now is just an update of several different initiatives. One is we are collecting data through testing that's ongoing. We'll talk a little bit more tonight about how that testing has changed. We do have a publicly available flow water dashboard, that folks can see to how many flow waters and how many drinking filtered systems we have across the district. Now we've one of the biggest issues that we had in the summer was that when there was testing being done at school sites,
it wasn't automated, and now it's automated. So when it gets scheduled, it goes into the calendar for key individuals at school sites. We have named every fixtures and we'll go through the school we'll go through what that looks like, but all the just all the drinking fountains have been named. They've been tagged specifically so they have locations because there was a lot of confusion around what the test meant and where they were in the system. And then repairs continue with group four charters. I did wanna also name that there are other investments that the district has made that complement some of this work.
So for example, there is a flow, excuse me, a cal shape program that is right now doing assessments across the district but will replace some of the drinking fountains and some of the shower heads across the district that that may be older, older, systems and outdated systems. We are deploying water fill filling station service requests. So one of the challenges and you can look at the flow water system that's here. One of the things that we were having was a challenge with, people calling the phone number and we didn't know that it needed service. So there's a new upgrade that's going across the district right now,
ongoing testing. We are developing two, databases. One, a database that will be publicly available by the beginning of next school year, that really shows where the repairs have happened, But also, it'll show, like, what the testing results were at the school sites. And so, that is where we are right now in terms of making progress across these different bodies of work. There has been updates. The water quality, website has a lot more resources for families. We heard that very early on, that we needed more resources available for folks. So just the website has been refreshed and we're continuing to refresh that as we
move forward. One of the things that I wanted to show and you can look at this at other, drinking fountains even here. This is actually one of the drinking fountains at McClymonds High School that you've seen bagged before. There is stickers that we are placing on them now and also if you can look at the bottom that is one of the inline filters and we have based on suggestions that we've heard in public comment, we have added stickers that talk about the date that it was installed and also the date that it needs to be replaced. So that is a new innovation that we've been doing across the district. This is the naming convention and one of the things that we'll talk a little
bit later about the EPA, grants that we've applied for but you need to have a location that's very specific. If you go to every drinking fountain, every water filling station across the district now, there is an address that so if you see that on the report, you'll know which drinking fountain we're talking about. And even to make that more, simple for folks, we are now putting barcodes on every single drinking fountain. So, when you see a report online, you can go to that report and you can check and make sure that it's that drinking fountain. That's a unique identifier for every single drinking fountain around the district.
I'm gonna turn it over to Rebecca, Littlejohn who's gonna talk a little bit about the testing protocols and how we've changed that to better do a diagnostic across the schools. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So we have moved we're moving to a three sample test. So it's two one twenty five milliliters and then a 250 milliliter sample. And what that does is it it shows basically where the plumbers to look if there's an issue.
So the first one twenty five samples the outlet. So it would sample that comes from the bubbler. The second one twenty five, if you see on that diagram, it would be inside the wall where that solder joint is. And then the two fifty takes the sample farther down the line. So it's a better way for us to diagnose if the first sample comes out elevated, then it's the bubbler. And so you've seen that on different samples. So what I wanna show you is that bottom line right there is an important
line for us to talk about before school sites would have one sample. And you would see it, and it would be either elevated above the five parts per billion or not. Now, you're gonna see three tests for every sample that we take or every site that we go to. The first one, and this is just a sample, it's like you'll have an individual asset tag. The first one tells you what's around the bubbler. And you can see in this example, it tested at zero. The next sample is in the wall and that shows that it was at 17. And like I said, this is a hypothetical example. This isn't real, but it shows you how how,
how this would work. And then the third shows a point nine zero that is from the third draw. That what that would tell us, it tells our buildings and grounds team where to do the repairs. Right? The second sample says that you need to repair kind of the angle stop that's in the wall and then we would go there and do the replacement. It does show that the site would have some lower levels of lead within the piping infrastructure and that will help us know where the district is across the entire district and that's a really critical point when we talk about funding. Then it shows the repair that needs to be done at the site.
It directs the building and ground scene through the SchoolDude system around repairs and then it would allow us to test and then bring that back online. So the level of complexity and the level of depth around the testing that we're starting to do across the district is much deeper than we had done before and that's going all the way back to 2016, '20 '17. This is the funding and you will be voting on this tonight as part of the Measure Y spending plan. We have reallocated the funds in Measure Y to support ongoing funding for deeper work
that we need to do in our school sites. And so the first line is this in this first draw, we're moving and this was an ask of the Facilities Committee and when we were discussing this, we there's unallocated money in Measure J that we've allocated towards the water systems plus $5,000,000 from the second draw, that really adds up to $10,500,000 if you add in one time funds to purchase the flow water systems. So right now, we are asking you to approve and bring forward $10,500,000
We have also applied for an EPA grant. Now, there's a lot of unknown and uncertainty around whether EPA grants will be like distributed out, But there's a 5,000,000 grant that has been submitted back in the fall, and we're waiting and it requires a match. So it serves as a match and it also expands the amount of, resources that the district would have. In the second draw, or excuse me, the third draw of measure y, there's an additional $5,000,000 That's important because the state of California in proposition two is coming out with lead remediation grants that will come the the regulations are still being developed for those and
really encourage board directors, community members that are here to advocate for the rules and regulations that are still being developed right now and won't be announced until the end of the year. But it's likely to require a match and that would also provide a $5,000,000 match for the district in that. So all totaled, if you look at the spending plan and the way that we're allocating resource, we're making a serious commitment around our funds to address the infrastructure at $30,500,000 20 point 5 million dollars is absolute in terms of what the district has control
over and then there's additional funding that can come through grants and other opportunities in the district. So one of the things that we've talked a lot about flow water and, one of the things that I want to share with you all is that, the flow water systems are not the only thing that we're doing, but it is the backbone for OUSD's efforts to deliver clean, safe, high quality drinking water for all of our students. And tonight, we have the CEO, Rich Regatus, goes by Ras, who is online and is gonna walk through a little bit of the Flowwater investment and answer questions that the Board might have. And Chris,
Liccardi, who is the COO, who is here in person to answer your questions and will take over the presentation at this point. And I don't know. Have have you been able to promote? What's what's the name for RAS again? It's RAS at Flowwater. We currently do not see that name, Raz. At My Flowwater. He's not online? Okay. Oh, he's in the waiting room. What's what's his real name? Yeah. There's there's no wait there's no waiting room. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Alright. So thanks for having me here. So Rich Rasgaitis, he's actually online.
He's actually listening. He was going to start off and really talk about the company and a little bit of history with Oakland. But, I'll jump in and sub for that and then I'll talk a little bit about the technology, you know, that that you guys have here with the flow water unit. So, Ras, he started the company, just about twelve years ago, here actually in the Bay Area. And it was really under the premise and a mission around providing the best, healthiest drinking water for everyone. Yeah. Extra on top of that certainly is with regards to students. And we've been working with OUSD for about eight years now,
I believe, since the very first one. We go ahead and flip to the next slide. Yep. Oh. Excuse me. We have a presenter at the at the podium. Can we get excuse me. We're going to let him continue with his presentation. Thank you. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. I absolutely, absolutely want to get to everything, and and I will. I want to make sure that the board has a lot of confidence in what you put in the schools for the last eight years. I've been involved with FlowWater since before the very first unit went in. You guys, should have a lot of confidence. The whole district should and everyone behind me should have a lot of confidence in
these Flow Water units, and what they're doing in terms of removing lead. And I'll go through and explain all of that, going through actually the technology. And I think Raz is actually on right now. Raz, are you are you on? I am on. I I finally got through the waiting room. So, would would can you hear me? Yes. Yep. Can hear you fine. You're not on video, but we can hear you. Great. Thanks. Chris, I'll take this slide and then back to you on on a few of the other slides. Everybody, it's a pleasure to meet you. Again, my name is Rich Rasguedas. I'm the cofounder and CEO of Flowwater. We started the company, approximately twelve years ago in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The fundamental premise behind why we started this company is because I believe and we believe every single human being has an intrinsic human right to clean drinking water that they can trust and quite tragically in The United States today, that is a right that doesn't exist across The United States. And I'll give you just a couple data points for that. Number one Excuse me. We have prod excuse me. They're making their presentation, and and this is part of the board business. Thank you. Would you like me to continue? Go ahead, please. Number one, over fifty six percent of Americans in the last three years have been drinking water
with lead in it. Number two, there are over 50,000 chemicals in use in The United States today. Fewer than 100 of those, to be precise, 94 are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. And then we also have a problem with plastic proliferation. So, Chris, would you go to the next slide, please, or Preston? We basically have this seven stage purification system that's been built into the flow water unit that Chris is going to describe and define some of the specifics and the science that goes into that. And I'm also happy to answer any direct questions after as well.
I only want to go kind of so deep with regards to the technology. So in software they use a term called tech stack, which really just means kind of layered technology that together, kind of creates a functioning system. With Flowwater, what we have is a full filter stack. And with that each individual component is specifically designed to filter, purify, or to enhance the water. And together it creates this kind of fundamentally to reconstruct contaminated water to provide trust, number one, and we can assure everyone of that.
But also it's uniquely designed to provide, taste, and that's super important because, though adults may, may, you know, consume healthy things if it doesn't taste good, We know definitely children will not. So the taste is a super important part of that as well. So the mostly this is about lead. I want to get some reassurances though that everything that we have designed around this full stack filtration is about really all contaminants. And there's over, you know, over tens of thousands of contaminants. So by solving, for the lead issue, you're also solving for all the other contaminants.
PFAS, microplastics, herbicides, pesticides. Lead gets a lot of highlights. We have a slide coming up on Flint, Michigan and what we did there. But you should have a lot of confidence around all the contaminants, not just around lead. There's a lot of other things that are going on in there. So get into the actually go back to the filtration, I'll get into that specifically. So, you know, it starts with the sediment. The crowd may not be able to see the individual icons, but we have seven stages of filtration. Each is really important and uniquely designed. There's a lot of competitors out there, and each one, can do does certain things.
Okay? So I'll kind of explain that as we go through it. So the sediment filter, that's really getting out dust, dirt, like your basics, kinda heavy impurities. The carbon filter, this is probably the most common type of filter that's out there. You have a carbon filter in your refrigerator, in your Brita pitcher at home. There's lots of carbon filters, lots of types, granulated, block filters, lots of quality of carbon. They're not all created equal. So carbon is really designed to get through most of the things that affect like odor and taste. Chlorine, it removes some lead, at moderate levels.
So it's not doing nothing towards lead. And then the advanced osmosis, which is really the backbone of the flow water unit and the filtration and really should give everyone a lot of peace of mind, again, not just about lead, but about all the contaminants. So with, with the advanced osmosis, it reduces down particle size down to 0.001 microns, Okay. Point zero zero zero one microns. Just, micron and just like for scale, human hair is about 50 to 70 microns. So this removes particles down to point zero zero zero one microns.
Okay. So, this is a real engine and really the backbone and the heart of the whole filtration stack, that is there. And every unit that OUSD has in the schools, has this full stack of filtration. Then we get to the, activated oxygen. This one is really special, especially when it comes to schools. I almost feel like it's specifically designed for schools. So it's, really supreme for, disinfection and sanitization of the unit. That's particularly important for schools because you guys have periods where the machines are not being used for long periods, Christmas break and certainly,
you know, approximately three months during the summer. So with this activated oxygen, which actually no other unit has that, as long as the unit is plugged in during the entire summer, whoever that last SIP was, you know, in May or June, that first SIP in August, September, that machine is continuing to sanitize the entire summer even if it's not being used, and that can't be said for other units. So that's definitely something to be proud of. The alkaline and mineral, that's where we're getting into the enhancement. If you guys have ever tasted distilled water, it really does not taste very good at all. You need nutrients in there to provide taste.
So we're adding in the basics that are good, not only for taste, but also, you know, for health functions as well. So potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. And then we have a coconut carbon filter, so it's against a type of carbon. That is kind of a finishing filter, provides a real crisp clean taste. And then the next slide is with regards to Flint, Michigan, which is really a use case outside of just OUSD, where these units have been deployed. And, Razz is gonna talk about that. Very quickly, I just wanna use that one photo as an example. If you look at the photo on the left,
in the bottle on the left, that is that is months after the lead crisis was unveiled in Flint, Michigan, and that was one of the first draws from one of the water fountains and water stations and tap water sources that was there. We installed in via donation to, the city of Flint in about half a dozen different locations, flow water refill stations. And you can see the bottle on the right is the first flow water draw using that same tap water that was coming in, the discoloration of which you can see on the left. So when we sent these out and we actually didn't go and collect the study
samples, the samples were collected by somebody locally. They were sent to a third party lab. The lab test showed that the the tap water had 45 times the EPA allowable limit, and the flow water system using that same tap water had zero detectable lead. And this is just the function of having, in many cases, across United States, aged infrastructure. And the same flow of water that went to Flint, Michigan are the exact same flow waters that are installed to the tune of hundreds of units across Oakland and across thousands of schools,
all over the country. And, And, Chris, if you could just go to that final slide, we're coming up on the q and a section now. But the focus of our business is really to provide clean drinking water that people can trust, thousands of schools. We have over a billion people, a billion fills that have been completed with flow water over the last twelve years all over The United States and then have it be something that kids like. And what we know is when we deploy this into schools, kids drink less sugary, carbonated, caffeinated bad stuff, and they drink more important things like proper hydration that has an impact on their
health. And so with that, Chris, I'll turn it back to you as well as the school board as well as Preston as, if there are any questions. Okay. We'll go back there's a few more slides. Thank you. So, one, I just wanted to kind of like highlight in terms of where we are around the spending. The first level of the kind of the emergency system that we put in place in the fall has been installed and complete across the school systems. The item that you're voting on tonight would also include additional flow water systems across the district to raise the number of systems that we have so that there are trusted source sources across all the schools.
You can check online, and you can see this as a publicly available dashboard to show how our investments are being made across the various schools. The initial ratio for this year was to get to 200 students per, water filtering station. By next year, we'll be at 100 100 to one. So 100 students for every water filling station. One of the things we have and we've been in conversation with Flow Water around this around some of the reported issue number one reported issue is like clogs that happen in the system. And so we are working with them around installing them a little bit differently in
terms of allowing them to drain easier and we have a new system that we have put together. I talked about this earlier that anybody, whether it's a student or staff member can fill out this form if they find one that's not working properly and it goes immediately to our staff within the buildings and grounds department and we'll make sure that service is there within seventy two hours and faster in most cases. So that's it for tonight. I know that there's a lot on the agenda tonight and we wanted to make sure that based on public comment that we heard at the last meeting, around all the things that we are doing to try to support the system,
across the schools. So thank you. Yeah. Are there any board questions? Thank you. I will take, ten minutes of public comment on this since I think it sounds like there are questions about this. Yes. Madam president, we have one, two, three, four. Nine speakers for this item? Yes. One minute each, please. The first five speakers are Janelle Harris, Ben Tapscott, Sarah Quan Quinton Quantanella, Jonah Lowndes, Marina Elias Elias. Before we start,
I just wanna remind that we're talking about the, flow water presentation. Yeah. Go ahead, miss Harris. Thank you. We do have this flow water, systems at our school. However, they're not placed in places where the children can use the water, get the water, and we don't have any cups. Like, I keep hearing that we're going to be provided, water bottles or cups, but we don't have any. So it's real hard, and I had to go beg up some water not too long ago. And we got donated bottled water, a pallet of bottled water that I gave every teacher a a 24 pack of
water, which was nothing. Right? Right? It's already gone. So having access to the water is extremely important, but these machines do not clear lead. They minimize lead, and no amount of lead is good for the human body. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I don't understand why you have not fired him. He's made a mess. He doesn't even know what he's doing. We brought this to you in 2016, and they can't even get cups out to the schools? How how do how do you find something out in April and you don't tell
the parents of those kids until nine months later? And he's still here. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's not organized. And while we're doing this, they're talking about doing something else. I bet you they're making a lot of money out of this, but we're not getting to the schools. I don't understand you people. How can he keep on messing up and we got kids that are drinking the water? And he doesn't know what he's doing. I don't understand it, and I don't like it, and neither do they. It's a mess.
Before you start the clock, earlier, we didn't have an SEIU member speak on item j, so they're taking this moment to speak on item j. Good evening. My name is Sarah Quintanilla, and I have the privilege of serving in as an intro instructional support specialist in the district for the for nine years. I love what I do, and my greatest joy comes from supporting our students and helping them succeed. That's why I'm here tonight to advocate not just for myself, but for other ISS professionals who, like me, are deeply committed to our students, yet are being placed in difficult situations without the support of the district.
Over the years, I have found myself repeatedly assigned to full classroom responsibilities for extended periods. Despite my role being designed to provide instructional support while I'm fully committed to support students and staff, the nature of this assignments have often gone beyond the scope of position, placing me in long term teaching role without the appropriate compensation and respect. I want to be clear. I love my job, but ISS professionals should not be placed in these situations without fair compensations and support. I know I am not alone in this experience.
I am speaking up tonight because I believe that every educator, regardless of their title, deserve to be value for the work that they do. Pay ISS, see SEIU classify employee liable wages and not cuts. Next speaker, please. Hi there. My name is Jonah Lowndes. I'm born in Oakland. My dad's actually from Flint, Michigan. I'm a product of OUSD. I went to Wanterra, Oakland Tech. I teach at Emerson Elementary. I'm a I'm a site rep there, so I'm also involved in the union work. There were several things that concerned me about Preston and Rebecca's report.
Seeing as I have very little time, I'm just gonna get to the flow water thing, because I see this as another example of the district's troubling overreliance upon public private partnerships. As many directors are currently seeking to correct a long held pattern of outsourcing to private companies, I'd suggest employing a similar framework here when we think about flow water. But beyond that, it's also worth pointing out that these are not a cure all. When we consider how we're gonna budget, we should consider that. I know you guys are voting on new funding now,
tonight. So it's unreliable. It's about as clear as clean water that this is not the solution. I'm gonna keep going. They are they are inaccessibly located. Thank you. That's your time. Thank you. Breakdown very often. You wanna be able to hear all speakers tonight? Thanks. So I'm not Next speaker, please. Other other speakers? Okay. Also excuse me. We're gonna move on to the next agenda. Thank you. Are there any comments on the board on the superintendent's report? We have date. Director Howard. K. Vice president,
bachelor. Thank Vice president, Bachelor. Thank you. Preston Thomas, I have some questions for you. So just I just want to first and foremost say, we have an item on the agenda that we'll be addressing later on in the agenda in new business that has, that deals with this topic very specifically. But I wanted to just ask really quick. So, we've heard from a couple campuses now. Tech students and staff came last, meeting and talked about how the flow water stations were located in areas that were locked up at different parts of the day. You know, in my conversations with BNG staff,
they, like, reiterated to me that in order to install one of these systems, you needed not only the electric hookup to do so, but also the water hookup to do so. So can you tell me a little bit about, and so that may not be possible, right, in some high flow areas where we have a lot of traffic for students and staff. But can you explain to us a little bit as to, what your department's process was in identifying locations for flow water stations at school sites, and then reiterate some of the funding that we received and whom we received it
for for the second iteration of those, flow water stations so we can get more to our students and staff? So it's it's a great question. And I just like because because we were in rapidly trying to deploy things across the District. I will say that like if you go back to 2016 and 2017, almost all the investments we made in the water systems were based on philanthropy and grants. And so that was a system that was, put in place and then there weren't investments that were being made because the district was in another fiscal crisis. When ESSER came,
I do want to say, like, when the ESSER funds came, we did do a round of of replacing a lot of these. That was one of the requests that came from community, principals, staff. And so we did already have replaced a lot of them across the school sites. In this past fall, we the buildings and grounds team went out and identified locations that had water sources and had electrical. That was the fastest way that we can employ them very quickly across the district and we were able to get them installed in a little over a month across all the schools so that we at least had two in every school site. Now with this next investment that we're asking for,
there are two pieces and I want to say there is a significant investment of $20,000,000 that will put the money in place that has never existed in the bond to address issues where it is in the pipes and it is in the walls. So I do want to say that that's a significant move that we are requesting from the Board to put the resource in place that doesn't impact the general fund but it does come from the bond program to improve our facilities. So that will be in place so that we could start putting that moving forward. So in this next round as we deploy them and you have heard from school sites and school sites have been,
have to work. I was talking to the students from Life Academy where they have to go downstairs and they would like another one upstairs. That is what this next investment is, is where we will put them in. And one of the things that we're finding, and I know it was really and probably not the, you know, difficult night to come, but we had heard from the last, board meeting where we had heard concerns from the community and we've never gotten in front and talked about the technology. And so we thought it was very important for you all to hear that. We will go and if there isn't power in a location or isn't water, we can figure out ways to do that because now we have the resource to be able to bring them in convenient locations for students.
So we will be moving across the district to put them in more convenient places. We are gonna be starting with the larger schools that have the higher ratios and had higher tests relative to other school sites. So that will be starting. Did that get to everything? Okay. I'm gonna make a change here. I misunderstood mister Hollis's, I I thought you said there were no more speakers there. In fact, six. Oh. Four. Sorry. Okay. Well, there are two that I called in the first list, and there are four that have not been called. So we'll take those six speakers,
and then we'll move back to, board comments. Thank you. So to reiterate to reiterate the names that we're called is Karina Elias and Sara Quintanela. The last four speakers not called is Gabriel Kahn, Judy Greenspan, Tamar Elster, and Dylan Wilson. Hi, folks. I'm gonna beg your apology and ask to, use my time because I have to drive students home, and we didn't start on time to just mention a few of the, general consent items that I would like, to bring to your attention before you go.
I promise I will not take more than one minute to do this, but again, I will be taking these children, home and I need this this accommodation. L six is about the cost of Sonic. Over two years, you're gonna spend $1,500,000 a month on, on Sonic Internet, which makes, about $50 per child in our district. The median cost per student is $6 for a district this size. We're not auditing these Sonic costs. $1,500,000 a year is six times what any other school district pays for Internet. $950 a month to pay for Life Academy Internet for 10 gigabytes per second.
My home router gets 10 gigabytes per second for $60 So why are they fleecing us at $950 a month when my home gets the same Internet speed and the same bandwidth for 60. I wanna draw your attention to m eight, m nine, m 10. That's m eight, m nine, m 10, l five, and l seven are all Internet related. They add up to over $10,000,000 from what I can tell, and I'm not sure what we're spending that on. These are the extended contracts that I'm talking about. I took twenty minutes for me to find this, and I'm wondering why the school district can't find it themselves. This is the extended contract bloat that we're talking about and motivates the kind of
ad hoc work that y'all are doing later on. I appreciate you letting me talk about m eight, m 9, M 10, L 5, and L 7, as well as L 6. I bid you a good night. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just wanna reiterate what my colleague said. You could put a hundred flow waters in our school, and it wouldn't solve the problem that our students have unless you commit to buying cups or water bottles ongoing for our students. It's an elementary school. You can't expect our parents to bear the cost of buying new water bottles for our students every month or every two months when they lose it.
It's an inequity. We have some students who are able to use the flow water. We have some students who cannot and who are going thirsty or drinking from the water fountains that have not been labeled, have not been taped up, so we have no way to know if they are safe to use. So this is Global Family Elementary. We have not seen stickers on all of our water fountains. We have not seen water fountains being shut off or taped up. We have some that are labeled and some that are not. It's not getting done. And this is March. We've known about this all year. We've brought it up before.
It needs to be clear. Our parents need to know about this. Thank you. My sister is now off her second job, so she's here to speak for herself. Hi. My name is Jalen Wilson, and I am a library technician and proud SEIU ten to one member. My sister had to read my statement earlier because as of 08:00, I just finished working a twelve hour work day because OUSB doesn't believe that my work as a library technician is valuable. I want to remind everybody here that school libraries have actually been shut down for years across the school district, and there has been,
over the years of me being here, a beautiful resurgence. And the school libraries that we have today are because of people like me, and I need everybody out here to know that and and to stop playing in our faces. I really don't appreciate it. We deserve to be respected and humanized, especially by being given a livable wage. And on a personal note, my family did not flee Texas racial segregation in the nineteen forties for access to education for me to profit off of my granny's contributions and her laying the groundwork
for me to walk on so that I could not only graduate from high school, which I didn't think I was gonna do, go and get my bachelor's degree. Think I was gonna do. Get my bachelor's degree. Thank you. We have the next speaker. Thank you. Alright. I would like to remind people that the agenda item is the flow with the superintendent's report specifically around the flow water. I understand we wanna make different we wanna make, opportunities for people to speak about the the layoffs and the budget cuts. And and, again, I appreciate those who have taken their one minute speech so that everyone can have
an opportunity to talk. Yes, two speakers. Yes, madam president. That's Asana Olobala and Nate Landry. Okay. I'm gonna, turn over my time to Nate. No. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Okay. I won't turn over my time. It's fine. So like coach Tapscott, we've been battling, lead in the water at United for success since 2016, and things are no better. And we have a very serious situation. I mean, I was really upset at the the commercial about flow water because it has not worked at our school. It keeps breaking down. One was put in the cafeteria, which students have access to maybe a half an hour a day,
and then it's locked up. The other one is in the hallway. There's no cups, so you know what the kids do? They come over and they put their mouth up to the fountain. So I don't know. Is the water good? Is it bad? When I moved to the Bay Area, I was told the Bay Area has the best water, the best tap water coming out of the reservoir, Hetch Hetchy. It's the pipes at United for Success and these old schools that are poisoning our students. That's what we need fixed. We don't need to give money to all of these consultants to make slideshows and
to tell us why we have this toxic water. Thank you. Missus thank you. So the most important thing is what flow water does. It does not eliminate lead. It reduces lead, and nobody can say any amount of lead may not cause a health problem. Everybody's body is different. You cannot say that. Look at your agenda tonight. Lead is being dealt with, and l two is being dealt with in your kitchens.
You're gonna replace lead pipes in your kitchens with copper pipes. You're gonna replace faucets that have lead coming through them. You also have items that you're not addressing, l 14 and l 20 I'm sorry. L six seventeen. Gardening. The irrigation system that feeds those vegetables and whatever comes from those lead pipes with no filters. So it's not just the lead that the kids are drinking. It's the lead in your kitchens.
It's the lead in your gardens that you're growing that somebody's gonna be consuming. Thank you. Are there any more public speakers? That's one more president. Thank you. Nate Landry, Brewer, Parent. I wrote this before the superintendent's report was given over to a literal commercial from the Flow Water Corporation. It's been hard to not to feel like OUSD is approaching the lead crisis in terms of PR management and not crisis response. It has been made much harder tonight when the superintendent's deck has literally been interrupted by a commercial from the Flow Water Corporation. It is a bad it is a bad look. And besides just how much of the district's response is about image and maybe about
increasing Flow Water's coffers rather than substantive and science based remediation. Another thing that we did not ask for and that will likely help no one is this new flow water infiltration dashboard. What we wanted and what we were promised would be in place by this January, not next year, was a dashboard with real time information about what water fixtures are poisoning students and staff, not the ratio of students to possibly poisonous fixtures. We are highly skeptical of OUSD's betting the house on flow water and are aghast that the vast amounts of money flowing into their coffers are a result of this crisis regardless of the funding source. Why are we making our campuses more reliant on the grid and why is OUSD's
response to privatize the provision of clean water to Oakland Students? Thank you. Okay. Are there any board comments on the superintendent's report? Director Berry? Just two questions, and I'm gonna ask them first, and then you can decide, I guess, how to address them. But the first is, just so I'm clear, is the idea that flow water stations will replace water fountains? Because I I heard the plans to grow and expand a hundred to one ratio. But is is the idea that we'll no longer need water fountains? So that's the first question. The second question is just in regards to all the feedback we heard tonight.
Some of it was addressed because, director Bachelet, you asked raised one of those questions. But the cups, the inconsistent labeling, how are we addressing all of those challenges, and what's the timeline or the process that people sort of can count on following in order to get those challenges addressed? What the first question I can't even read my own handwriting. It was to replace Is the intention for flow water patients replaced? So, two things. One, to do what like the to address issues within the pipes within the schools is
an incredibly expensive process and the initial estimates that we have is over $50,000,000 to do that across the schools. You have a school system, you've heard it in public comment. The median age of our buildings is 75 years. We have several buildings well over a hundred years old. The the the time and and age in which our schools are built, this is a this is a century old problem within our school system, right? You're not gonna fix it immediately. The flow water systems is that backbone that can allow somebody and you heard peep kids, if they don't have a cup, they'll drink from it. That we we have provided water bottles and we'll provide more.
But the issue is is that you have aging infrastructure that needs to be addressed. Period. I feel like the spending plan is a bold move to put money in the places where you can replace we replace start replacing the infrastructure. Every single one of the facilities, major facility projects will have piping redone through all of those schools. So when you talk about McClymonds, and you talk about Garfield, and you talk about Roosevelt, and you talk about the Maxwell Campus, all very very old buildings, they will all have new infrastructure within those buildings. That is the least expensive time when you can replace pipes.
You have to shut down schools to get into the walls during the summertime. You can't do all the schools. It's going to take time to address that at the depth that's being requested here. There have been amazing I I just do wanna say there have been amazing comments and I learn every time from the community and we are making movement forward. I would say I would say that the system that we're talking about here is deeper than we've ever done in the district and we're going to continue to push. As far as cups, we do have more money that we will be buying water bottles for students that we will be doing at like the begin at certain points in the year.
As it gets hotter, we're going to be also distributing more water bottles, But we do need it is a partnership with students and schools around maintaining those water bottles for students. I think the other point I hear I mean, we all know that the source of the problem is the pipes. Just in terms of some simple math, right, your bond is $735,000,000. You have issues beyond just lead that you need to address with that, and you have 80 schools. That's the source of the problem. That is why we are relying hard in so many areas for public private partnerships.
This isn't an endorsement for Barbara Lee, but in her, speech last night, she talked about even thinking about Oakland's problems. Right? We only get so much money. We've gotta be creative in how we leverage the county, which we've done. How we've leveraged state funding, which we've done. How we've leveraged philanthropic funding through eat, learn, play, which we've done. If we don't do that, then we minimize the resources that we have. So we wanna hear the implementations, and I appreciate your questions. If there are implementation questions,
we will address them or concerns. We will address them. We will figure out if we need to have a budget for ongoing water bottles. I have kids. I hear about their flow water stations as well. Typically, kids lose water bottles three, four year. Like, we can figure that out. That's another place for donations, but it's going to take resources across different systems in order to do that. And we can't afford to wait on the piping piece because that could be ten, fifteen years. So that's the whole point of going and having the flow water district wide.
So we at least have one access a We can report back some of those things that we fixed. So more than happy to do that. Director Latta? I just yeah. I just wanna make one one comment, which is, yeah. My I I think, I just wanna I think I hear the frustration from community and and also, like, superintendent Johnson Travell, also from my children, about the flow waters. But I I do think that I just wanna appreciate that as controversial as having the flow waters are, I think for those of us who are who either work in schools or whose
kids go to schools that are not gonna get redone anytime soon, but knowing that we're going to invest in giving more sources of clean water for them, I really appreciate. I, I think I will also say that, having seen the water bottles come and go, I I do I think middle schoolers and high schoolers are are more capable and but I just think I will let you know. I'm hedging. I mean, my middle schooler but I hope she's not watching. I do think something about cups or some system.
It's not like we can't clean, you know, like like, reusable cups realistically, but I do think in in elementary schools having some cups. The other thing I'll just mention for our staff is it's not super clear in their teachers' lounges and staff lounges that the water isn't is safe or not safe. And I do think, like, when we're making coffee, are we you know, we're heating up our cup of noodles or we're making oatmeal, like, we're using that water. And I just think we should have some maybe more clarity about, and I I think I I want the I want our kids to have,
like, the and our staff to have, like, the best, but we can't do it overnight. And so I do think being really honest about don't drink from the bathroom faucets. Don't drink from the taps in the classrooms, is an important thing to to just be really honest about. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you. It's a little disappointing what just went on here for the about the last thirty minutes. Thank you, superintendent Johnson Trammell, for bringing this presentation forward. You know, it was an explicit request after our last meeting,
and people showed up. You know, I know for me when I was first notified of this problem in August, I wanted us to pursue a a two tracks or a two tier plan. Number one is we had to have access to safe, clean water at all of our schools. And the other track needed to be we needed to develop a medium long term solution to finally remediate it. That's what we just gotta report back in here. You know? Now I can't comment on the Passport's failures. We're not using any of the Measure j money for lead remediation.
And I'm still disappointed how Measure y was first prioritized, when a board member who's no longer on the board was board president. But what I see reflected in this presentation and then later on tonight is the first attempt OUSD has ever made to systematically address the lead problem in our schools and in our pipes. And it's gonna still take us more time to figure out the total funding, the total cost, and the timeline to do this. But this is a historic I mean, I grew up at 30 Fifth And Foothill in Oakland.
So lead in the environment is something I was warned about longer than I can remember as a baby playing outside. Don't eat the paint chips. You know? So this has been a historic problem that a lot of our communities have faced. And it's just disappointing that, sometimes we're at a point in this room where folks don't want to acknowledge that things actually are moving forward. And people don't wanna actually acknowledge that there has been work to move the issue forward. And again, I have two priorities that are guiding me through this as somebody who has,
some of the oldest buildings in OUSD. We have to have access to clean water. So I'd like to hear more about the technology and why the choice was made for flow water. But I'm also happy to hear that we are not just on a sit with one flow water to 200 students, that we're gonna keep pressing forward because we have to have that access available. And hopefully, it can expand to be used in gardens and in teacher work rooms and in all of our spaces on campus. But more than that, I am excitedly waiting the day when we can finish this next round of testing
and actually have a real remediation plan. And that's what these dollars identified, dollars 20 to 30,000,000 allows us to finally start doing that work of replacing the pipes, the fixtures, and the sources of this problem. So thank you for this work. And there's a lot of noise that gets thrown out there, but I've never seen this happen in OUSD before, and I appreciate all the work that's been done over the last six months. Thank you, madam president. I think my concern is, we passed a resolution some time ago stating that,
we should have the the lead limits there at 5,000,000,000, 5 parts per billion. And, you know, in other districts like Berkeley, it's two parts per billion. My question though is, as there have been comments to say that, the flow water will provide, measurable level of of lead free protection, does that actually mean that it's bringing it down to five parts per billion? I mean, at different school sites, they have different numbers. But how does this particular technology really,
meet meet our expectations as a district? And and that's one. And the second one is really about, like, maintenance. McClements, coach, Tapscott, many folks have talked about the lead issue, you know, and not only just the lead issue, but the maintenance of the filters that have been put out there. And there has been really inconsistent, maintenance, review of the dates and times. There's evidence to show that. My concern, again, is that this is proprietary proprietary, you know, product here. And, you know, it's gonna cause us to actually do some maintenance on this particular thing.
How are we actually planning for that? Because normally, it's like we will sell you this, but we also wanna sell you the side services as well. And what's gonna happen, I feel strongly, is that we're gonna come back and then adjust the contract to actually pay for more, you know, when we should have had all of that out on out on the level about where the maintenance stands for that. And the third, concern is about, access again. I think that, we have to be mindful that if we send kids out to go get some water and they have to walk halfway across the campus,
they're gonna miss a lot of class time. And more and more kids are gonna take that advantage. I mean, they should have the right if they're thirsty, they should go get some water. But it's really gonna create a challenging situation for a lot of teachers, especially if it's warm. Even if you provide them a water bottle, they have to walk down, you know, a flight of stairs, and it's all the way in the corner somewhere. I think that is something that's gonna be really concerned. So my question is, have you talked to the staff and the community at the school sites to really
come up with an agreement of where the best positioning of Flow Flow Water Station is. I really think that is important for us to have staff input in regards to where this is gonna be best and what conversations should come out of that of how to support our staff as well as our students. Thank you. Do you mind if I just a couple of pieces. One, just in terms of that parts per billion, the five parts per billion and and the less than one part per billion and other industries. One of the things that's really important about posting all those reports about all the flow all of the testing that we're doing is if you go through and you
look at those, the flow water systems because of their filtration system that's unique, test it non detect. Right? So that means that that's lower than that threshold. So like that is one of the things it's not just, you know, the technology or or or, you know, it is there is evidence and data to show that it has been really effective across all of our even in some schools that had elevated levels to to address that. I do wanna talk about the, you know, so there there is transparency there and we can look at it and that's when we get the dashboard that shows the testing,
you'll be able to filter by that. You'll be able to see every single test, for every single flow water system and every single faucet across the district. And that takes time to build, right? And we're building it internally. There's no, we're not outsourcing that. There's no contracts for that. We are building that with our internal team and the system services. I do want to say the piece about McLeiman's like we have improved the system there since I've come on in addressing this. We do put the stickers down the date that it was installed. There are inline stickers inline filters that are there that are rated for a year.
We replace them between three between three and six months. And so that is an ongoing thing. And you can take pictures of them now. You can look at the dates on it. It says when it's installed. It says when it's supposed to be replaced. We learn from that and we're applying that across the district. So we are trying to get more transparent about it, better information out, but it's a big system with, as the superintendent said, aging infrastructure. Right? We're not gonna get to the pipes, immediately at all school sites. And this is where we feel both flow water and externally, LK is one of the other contract items because they're externally located that will be
outside water filtration systems. So I did want to say that we're and there's a third piece about what you said. Even in our new buildings that test non detect, there's still a lack of trust there in to even use the water the water, the drinking fountains in those schools or water filling systems in those schools because they don't even need the flow water systems. We're finding that when we go to a Fremont High School and we install them, even though that that building is brand new, that filter station brings in trust to the kids. And I would say the final thing about any water bottle,
it is a routine that kids have to be taught. And some of the schools that we've met with and and are doing an amazing job, they have routines with their teachers that they go in and kids fill up water bottles and then they go out and they return them to their desk and then they use them day in and day out. So, you know, I'm definitely hearing the feedback, but I just wanted to, like, on a couple of your points, which are great points, there is we are working to progress and build a better system there. Thank you. I I appreciate that. That that will work pretty good with elementary, but we also talk about secondary. The question really is, are you engaged in the conversations with the staff at the site, or administrators to make sure that there's a voice and input on where location and
access is? In this next round that that we're talking about now that that now that we have resources as soon as the board acts on that item, we will be meeting with the schools to identify the best locations within the school and moving flow water stations into those first places. Like I said, the first attempt was the easiest, fastest place that we could install them. This is the best places that we could put them in school sites. I just wanna say I appreciate the work that you've done. I think that, again, replacing lead is extremely I mean, pipes is extremely expensive. And I think for schools that may need additional work at another point,
to rip out the walls and do that would be a double another expense. I do appreciate the presentation. I had no idea how flow water worked, and I'm fascinated by coconut carbon. But but I did have a question about another question about location, and this comes up, this come up in a number of places with, disabled students. So in our schools where we have students in wheelchairs or, mobility issues, I know and I know we talked about that at at Garfield. I guess, what's being done to make sure that there's access for our, disabled students? You can not immediately,
but you can go and look at the the system that's here. There's an elevated, drinking fountain, a lower drinking fountain, and then there's a flow water in between it. I think one of the things that we're doing is making sure that the testing on the lower one has either an inline filter because it's not just the flow water system there's other inline filters so that we have access. And I've also started to see in other locations where they are doing in wall systems that are lower for students. And so those are some of the things that we'll be doing in this next round. That's a great question. Thank you. Yeah. I also appreciated the testing in the different pipes.
The locate I have the the three spots. So, thank you. Are there any further comments? K. Pass this over to, vice president Batchelor. Alright, folks. So, yes, we are now moving on, item l, which is the adoption of the general consent report. Is there a motion to adopt? Second. We need a motion. A motion to approve the consent. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Mister Seichal, can you take oh, we have public comment on this item. Mr. Hollis, how many folks do we have, for public comment? Five speakers. Great. And we have ten minutes. So we're go we'll go ahead and do two minutes each.
Who are the five speakers, please? Right. Those five speakers are Assata Olapbala, Ben Tapscott, Janelle Harris, Jeffrey Sims, and Melody Davis. Go ahead, miss Harris. Thank you. Actually, my comment was for our chair, and she's not here right now, but I'm gonna say it for the public. One, it bewilders me how you don't know how the flow water system works when you approved it. Like, you approved the funding for flow water, and you don't know how it works, and you're a board member. That is what we're talking about about accountability,
doing your homework, doing what you're supposed to do to make informed decisions. Like, you don't know how it works, but you put it in our school and you approve the millions of dollars for it to be put in our school. That's one. Then I wanna talk about, you know, I hear Preston catching a lot of heat up here all the time, but let's talk about risk management who dropped the ball. Miss Littlejohn who dropped the ball. Miss Littlejohn who dropped the ball. She let a report sit somewhere on somebody's desk about the lead in the water.
However, McClymonds High School has had lead in the water since 02/2016. So let's talk about that. Excuse me, vice president. Bachelet, just for the record, there was another speaker, Gabriel Kahn. Continue, coach Tesco. I don't know why we're even talking about flow, water, and system and all that. It's just wasting money. Put filters on all the drinking fountains. Start the copper pipe above the wall or in the wall or visible so you don't have to go back and do it again. We can't even get that done.
You know? And there's a whole bunch of people over there that don't tell the truth. And nobody seems to care about it. And Mike, nine months later, he tells people about the lead? Doesn't make sense. So what do we do? How much money are we gonna waste on flow water system instead of starting put the filters on, check them every three months or whatever is required, and start the piping. Now he sent people up to charter school four weekends, time and a half,
painting up there, and we can't even get stuff done over at Mac. Somebody approved that. That's been on there for three three months. I don't know when this fountain was last tested. There's no filter on it. It's in the yard where the kids drink when they're out of class. Now who's responsible for this? It can't keep going on and wasting more money. Copper pipes, silver solder, solve the problem once and for all. Make sure that you put some water out there now. The cups they they don't even have cups.
I don't understand why we don't move in the right direction, superintendent. Let's get the job done. Copper pipes, silver solder. The pipes may be visible. You can paint them, and you won't even really see them, or you can cover them up and decorate them. Thank you. Next week. Piping. How much money is that system gonna work? And you gotta change filters on that? Thank you. Next speaker. So with l two, you're replacing pipes in the kitchen at one school, Allendale Elementary. One school is gonna get lead free pipes in the kitchen.
The faucets are gonna be changed. The grease traps are gonna be changed. At that school, why that school? When are the other schools are gonna be fixed as well? Same thing with l 14. This is, gardening at certain schools. Is there gonna be lead in the irrigation system to feed those vegetables and fruits, whatever you're growing? What about L 21, Oakland Fund For Education? That's for Allendale again. When's the last time you heard the Oakland Public Education Fund giving any money to McClimans?
Never heard it. So if you're listening, reach out to McClimans sometime. 27, technical assistance for 10 chartered schools who are receiving n a do we have to do this? Do we have to give assistance to them? Oh, come on. Help us. 31 is for McClimans. L thirty two is Oakland Promise. We we don't know what the hell they're doing. 35 is, check-in on the newcomers. We always checking in on them when we're gonna check-in on some black children. L 36, l 37, and l 38 have to do with travel.
Why did y'all black out the itinerary for each one of those? Is there a reason for that when you go to the memo? And then why are we taking general funds for, Skyline to go on a field trip to a HBCU? Any item that you see on the agenda that comes from the general fund, you pull it and say, is this a necessity? Is this an urgency? Y'all don't have no money. So why are we using general funds when the other schools, Fremont, is using their CCSPP money and the other school,
which is Castlemont, they raised the money to go on their field trip. Why are we paying for Skyline to go on a field trip? Thank you. Next speaker. Does diversity, equity, and inclusion protect Rebecca Littlejohn? It used to be affirmative action, but now it's DEI. So where's the accountability? And how much did you get paid? How much are you getting paid for your job with no accountability? Rebecca Littlejohn. So the position you have, if they put you in it to do that, I give you a thumbs up.
You're doing a good job. Next speaker Is, is Gabe online? I know mister Hollis, but is Gabe online? Go ahead. Hello. My name is Melanie Davis, aka trouble. You know, I come here for a laugh. I done done two meetings. And it's a laugh for utterly disgrace. I have a sign here. Hope they see that on TV. Recalled superintendent. We're doing a whole bunch of recalls. I want y'all to see this. Recall the superintendent. They're sitting up there now. Y'all see this? We call superintendent twenty sixteen,
the climate, and y'all do a doggone thing. Now all of a sudden because in other schools, elementary, middle schools, all of a sudden, it's a big thing. They they look at this. How much this cost? How is it this cost? But when we had it from the climate, all black school, the champion, kept all of it going. We were the talk of the town. Even white kids wasn't coming to high school for You understand me? But guess what? They ain't giving a darn about my clients. I don't see how some of y'all could sleep at night. But guess who's coming to get y'all?
Musk. Musk is coming to get y'all. Department of Education's gonna be shut down. People are starting to get emails right now. They start off in San Francisco. Now they gonna come over here to Oakland. I wonder what they gonna do with y'all. Must is coming after y'all. Because of what y'all do, nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The black kids, it was okay for y'all to have land. It was okay for them to have land and get sick and die. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. You are truly welcome. Any board comments And I just need consent? Director Latta? I was just gonna call the question.
So, say, can you take roll call for this Yes. For this agenda item? Yes. On the motion to adopt the general consent report, I just wanna note that students are absent. Director Latta? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Abstain. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Absent. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. And President Brujahert? The general consent report is adopted. Thank you. And now moving on to m, which is the adoption of the general consent report, general obligation bond measure b, j, and y.
Is there a motion to adopt these items? I'll move to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Let's take public comment on these agenda items. Mister Hollis, how many folks do we have for m? I have four speakers. We have ten minutes, so two minutes each. Alright. Those four speakers are Ben Tapscott, Janelle Harris, Jeffrey Sims, and Melody Davis. Sorry, miss Harris. Go ahead. Thank you. So at one of our meetings, I had asked for the expenditures in regards to these measures. And, I got what I asked for at our modernization,
meeting community meeting that they just restarted again. And it was not surprising because I wanted to see how much money has been spent on my clients through all of these bond measures because we had been passed over so many times. And it was very heartbreaking because if you compare the amount of money that has been spent and that continues to be spent on all these different high schools, McCliman's has the least. Like, we have really nothing that money was spent on.
In one of your reports, it says that solar was completed. And I was like, solar? That was in 02/2014. Why is it on this report? You don't have anything else on there for my other than that. And it's in 02/2014. So I'm like, what is that? Like, I don't understand. I'm trying to understand, but I'm not understanding when we give so much to the city of Oakland. Like, I sent you, director Williams, a report on how many NFL players came out of my Climates.
Did you see how many? And we never get recognized. We had a kid go to MIT this year. Like, hello? So I'm just like, I'm not understanding how you cut our social worker, our community manager, our restorative justice, and we have the most at risk kids at our school. The most. So please help us. Like, I come here all the time asking for help, and I feel like it falls on deaf ears. You guys all say yes to everything. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But you say no to us.
And I'm just like, why? Next speaker. When we talk about equity, over a billion dollars if we look at BJ and White, seven hundred and thirty five million. Tim White had us on the list in 2018, number one. He said we're gonna fix that. We repiped the cafeteria. We repiped the gym on the girls and boys' side. We got the rest of the school that is waiting to be funded. Measure y says if this is passed and I'm a taxpayer, the funds will be used to remodel my Climates High School.
I look at this and it shows all these people getting money, and Mac is gonna get what is it? 91,000,000? 90 1 million? You can't even do a parking lot for 91,000,000. We need around 300,000,000. If we're gonna remodel Mac, the only projects that's been delayed two years has been Mac. Now no other project's been delayed. Fremont got a hundred and 37,000,000 and I fought for that. They said, why? Because Fremont needed a football field. But when it comes to us, we have to wait two years.
And now, 91? That that's not 300,000,000, and they think you're gonna do something. It hasn't happened. And I think it's a lawsuit because if they told taxpayers that if this is passed, funds are gonna be used to remodel my Clemens High School. And what did we get? A two year delay. And I asked if there's been a seismatic test on the foundation. And superintendent, I'm gonna say it again. Don't spend any money on that filter kind of stuff. Let's do it right the first time. Put filters on all the drinking fountains,
extract every piping. Use silver solder, and you won't have to go back and do that again. We're just wasting money on this other you're gonna have to change filters on that too. Next speaker. Okay. So if you look at at item m seven at Emerson, you're gonna be performing a prerenovated hazardous material survey. I'm assuming that every project that involves renovation or any type of work that's done at a school requires this survey.
What I never see is the findings, and because of the findings, what money is gonna be allocated to eliminate. Now the only time I heard of that where there was a finding was at Kohl's. After they started the project, it was revealed that they have to have money to remove certain soil contaminants that were found. So you've gotta look at every school. If you got gas leaks, if you have mold, if you have, asbestos, if you have the, pesticides that have, caused the problems,
if you have rodents. And you saw what happened to Jean Hazard's, wife died from a rodent disease, and we got rodents all over McLennan. And forty percent of people who come in contact with this particular rodent virus die. So we gotta get rid of rodents. We gotta get rid of, mercury. And there's a whole lot of stuff that has to be, PCBs, Rondon. I don't know if that is r o d o n. There's a whole lot of hazardous materials that have to be identified. But where in the funding is it gonna be identified once you do the survey?
Y'all did a survey at McClements. We never heard what the results of it was. So let's get some, not not Preston Thomas. Let's get somebody that knows what they're doing to deal with the issue of hazardous materials being dealt with, not just being identified. Next speaker. Thank you, miss Assata. Thank you, miss Janelle. Thank you, coach Tabscott. Those are my role models. Thank you. Board comments on agenda items under m? I will stab it. No board comments. Mister Seichau, can you take roll call just to for the vote?
Yes. On the roll call to adopt the general consent report and general obligation bonds measures b, j, and y. Student directors are absent. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Director Williams? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Bullard? Abs the general consent report, general obligation bonds measure BJY is adopted. Great. So with that, we have already done the student board report, so we're moving on to the PSAC report,
if folks wanna join us. And I'm handing it back over to, president Brevard. Before you start, I I wanted to propose, giving PSAC twenty minutes. Is there a second? Thank you. Roll call, please. A roll call for twenty minutes. Directors are absent. Do I student directors are absent. Director Lawton? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Breuhart? Yes. The motion to abstain is adopted.
Great. Can they also get the clicker? We're looking for the clicker to extend the clicker? I just wanna go. Alright. They are accommodating me, and we're gonna skip to the CAC report first. I'm JD, the cochair for, the CAC, and, I need to get home. So, we can this is who we are, and, I'll be reporting on our key learnings from our February meeting. I did mention it the last time. You can move forward. And so, in our February meeting,
we talked about, staffing, particularly, paraeducators. And our ratios did slightly improve, in the 2425 school year, and that's what this graph is about. The, graph is the number of students with IEPs per one support staff, so we want that to be going down. And then our, key learnings from our February meeting is while the hiring of paraeducators is improving somewhat, the vacancies can still persist well into spring. So we get rid of the vacancies, but, you know, late in the school year.
And these are based in essential positions for special education programs and students. Paraeducators have a starting pay of 18.66 an hour, and that's to work with our most complex students. And we are working to help keep our paraeducators in OUSD, and so we would like to spread the word about an event. So the CAC, we have a working group that's a mouthful talent working group to promote sufficient and sustainable special education staffing for OUSD students.
We'll host our second listening circle for paraeducators on Wednesday, April 9, after school. And the goal is to listen to the experiences of paraeducators, what it is like to be a paraeducator in OUSD and what helps you stay in your role. And for additional details and a RSVP link, you can write to carlos.santana@ousd.org. And this Monday's CAC meeting, we, just two days ago, learned about the level of access that OUSD disabled students are having to athletics and
visual performing arts two, learned about ongoing work to improve access in these areas and three, got basic information about 2025 special education extended school year and other summer programs, and we are going to share the learnings and actions stemming from that meeting at our next report next month. So please join us at our next public meeting, Monday, April 14. And the meeting information with the links are @ousd.orgslashcalendar.
And our presentations and materials are at 0usd.org/lcap. Thank you. Hi. Good evening, everyone. We have our, PSAC representative, on Zoom, miss Shelly Gonzalez. Would we be able to unmute her for the report? Do you know what her name is on Zoom? It should be miss Shelly, but sometimes there's butterflies. No? Okay. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and I apologize. I mean, I'll go ahead and do the report. Alrighty. My name is Melissa, parent of a ninth grader at Oakland High, interim district four representative for both PSAC and the district English language learner subcommittees.
So I will start off with our PSAC report. So we have a message from all of the advisory committees about proposed cuts to federal funding for public education. So this is our quote from Great City Schools. The House of Representatives is currently considering a fiscal year twenty twenty five budget resolution, which proposes to cut $880,000,000,000 from the Medicaid program over the next ten years and an appropriations bill that could potentially cut title one by 25% and title two and title three entirely by next
school year. Please make phone calls, use social media, enact emergency board resolutions, and send letters to members of the House of Representatives opposing this bill and opposing cuts to any education programs. Further, please encourage your principals, teachers, central office staff, school board members, community and parent organizations, members of your chamber of commerce, and all civic leaders in your communities and across the state to oppose any cuts to k through 12 education. And you can contact our US Congresswoman, Latifah Simon, at the information, on the screen.
You can also use this link and QR code to read a letter that describes the proposed federal cuts in detail along with ways to speak out. So this is our current PSAC membership, and we want to extend a very warm welcome to Collin Dental Post from Cleveland Elementary and Ligiana Hernandez from Roosevelt Middle, our newly elected PSAC members for District 2. We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the school staff who helped us connect with parent leaders, from school committees. They did a lot of the heavy lifting,
and a big part of the reason we were able to reach so many more districts this year. So thank you to them. The following schools sent parent representatives to the d two special elections, Bella Vista, Cleveland, Crocker, Franklin, Garfield, La Escuelita, Oakland High, and Roosevelt. That's eight out of the 11 schools in District 2. So these are a couple of the highlights from our February 19 meeting. We learned how the budget adjustments for the twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six school year would be felt at schools through the example of three elementary schools of
different sizes, Carl Munk, Allendale, and Lockwood Steen. In learning about the changes, we also got a greater understanding of how our school budgets and staffing are constructed. We learned in special detail how the number of specific positions or full time equivalents, FTEs, are calculated for schools. There were a lot of questions from participants about how the number of specific positions or full time equivalents are calculated for schools. For example, we had a lot of discussion about the number of noon supervisors and clerical staff at different schools. Proposition $28 for visual and performing arts and how to maximize those dollars.
For example, we learned about hiring paraeducators for VAPA classes as an allowable use of the funding. So if you'd like to read all of the questions and answers, you can go to our public folder at 0usd.org/lcap. And if you'd like to review the presentation notes and recording, you can also do that at 0usd.org/lcap. We would like to extend our appreciation to directors William, Lada, and Hutchinson for attending our meeting. Thanks to, thanks as well to chief,
Sondra Aguilera and LCAP coordinator Diana Sherman for a very informative conversation. Our next public meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 19 at 05:30PM. It'll focus on the services that will go from being budgeted at the school level to being budgeted centrally in the next school year. We're especially inviting principals to attend our meetings so that they can share their suggestions for how to best manage those services. To prepare for this conversation, we also sent a survey to principals asking them to share their thoughts about these changes. We ask that you encourage your principal principals in your electoral district to attend on
March 19 so that our conversation can represent the experiences of all schools across OUSD. These are two examples of the types of changes we'll discuss on March 19. First is the end to budgeting and hiring stiff positions at the school level. And the shift to hiring and managing them centrally, and the end to budgeting and hiring teachers on special assignments or TSAs at the school level, except as required by labor agreements and MOUs, and the shift to assigning only the following TSAs to schools based on specific criteria,
school improvement TSAs for federally designated CSI schools, literacy TSAs, and newcomer TSAs. Everyone is welcome to join this conversation on March 19. The meeting begins at 05:30PM. The main topic begins sometime between 06:15 and 06:30, and you can find the Zoom link and other meeting information at 0usc.org/calendar. Now moving on to the district English language learners subcommittee or DELS. This is our current membership, and these are some of the highlights from our February 27 meeting.
We learned about the results of the Dells needs assessment survey for families of English language learners and discussed next steps for using the survey and launched a new meeting segment for representatives from site English language learner subcommittees to share about work at their schools to support English learners. We'll focus on a different survey question from our needs survey needs assessment survey at each meeting. The question at the February 27 meeting was, when you walk into your school's office, is the staff able to help you in your home language?
Most of the participants who completed our survey did so in Spanish or English. Participation in these two languages grew from last year, but participation in other languages was pretty low. While the number of Spanish language respondents is not large enough to be representative, we learned that a lower percentage of respondents answered yes to the focus question as compared to school year twenty twenty three to '20 '4. When you walk into your school's office, is the staff able to help you in your home language? So this is a graphic, representation of the responses.
So we need your help as board directors to promote use of this important survey across OUSD. We'll continue to gather responses until the end of the school year. Please include the survey in your newsletters and other, communications. We must all learn from the lived experiences of students and families at schools. So this is a link to the survey flyer. If you have the screen in front of you, you can scan that QR code, or you can also access, the link on this slide. It's available in six languages. We'll hold our next public meeting on Thursday, March 27,
and you can find the link to that meeting and those meeting details at 0usd.org/calendar. Thank you. A small note that the Foster Advisory Committee doesn't have a report at this time, and they constructed their agenda for March 27, the day after this report was posted. I think sometimes hard. Thank you. Are there board comments? So first, thank you. As always, I wanted to shout out the call to action because I think we don't demand enough from our state, from the county even,
but especially from the federal level electeds that represent us. And a lot of the challenges that we confront here in Oakland are the direct consequences of the policy choices at that level. So thank you. Some of the things in the report inspired some questions, so we could take them up maybe at teaching and learning. They don't have to be answered now. And they're mostly for staff, not you, but anybody can answer. So one is I would love to hear any thinking about the theory of change for how the shift of,
like, STIP subs and TSAs that are no longer being managed at the school level? Like, what the theory is of theory of change for how that might improve student outcomes and, like, what the potential might be there? And maybe a slightly different question on the flip side of that is particularly because of some of the feedback we heard tonight, how do we ensure that it does not negatively impact student outcomes? And perhaps in it gets taken up at teaching and learning, but I just had a thought. Maybe it's also part of the three hours process. The second question is about the last point that one of the last points that was made in
thinking about, the three hours process again, it seems like it'll be important for us to address how OUSD will approach the urgency for our teams at the school site to be able to connect with families in their home language. And so I just wanna flag that for the board and for staff as something that we might wanna consider when we think about priorities going into the budget balancing process. Oh, sorry. Some a third question. Again, something for teaching and learning committee perhaps, around the hiring of paraeducators and improving,
the vacancies. What is being done, I guess, to increase special education paraeducation hiring and retention. I guess I have a, like, a why, the vacancy question, but, I think the what we're doing about it is a little bit more urgent. Are there other comments? Director Williams? Thank you, madam president. I wanna thank PSAC for the work that you've done to put it in. And, also, I would like to invite, director Berry to some of the meetings, that the PSAC parents are having. The thing about it is the questions that you asked,
they're doing the work right now. They're doing the work every single meeting. They have a consistent, they have the most parents' participation, at least 80 plus, just about at every meeting, really deep. And they've been actually doing that work. I give them a lot of credit on that. I think sometimes when we think about funding that comes from central office, I think, prior to doing the funding, we have to go to the source and see how our parents are experiencing, how their kids are actually experiencing this, and then it gives you better idea how to advocate for them.
So I definitely would like to invite you to, the March meeting and then LCAP meeting this April 14. I think you will actually be very surprised at how deep the work they have done and the engagement to answer some of the questions you may have in regards to, STIP funding as well as, impacts on on STIP at the school sites. Again, I think it's imperative for all of us as board members to join in and hear those conversations. There's some fantastic engagement that is going on.
And lastly, I think that as we've been hearing about, many educators and communities today that are concerned about the cuts, the early literacy, there has been a commitment from the district to, keep those cuts away from our students with disabilities and special needs. But I I think we still have to keep a very close, hawkish eye in regards to, how these services are still being provided and supported. So, I ask for all board members and get a chance to actually stop in to
the meeting so you can get some of those, top level questions answered from those individuals that's doing the work. Thank you. Okay. The board comments? Just a response. But because I just wanted to be clear that I think the best people positioned to under to answer some of the questions I'm asking is it it's because it's around what we're gonna do and what staff will do. But I do I will be coming to meetings, and I do appreciate the perspective. But I just wanted to be clear for the record who my questions were particularly for. I just wanted to comment.
I I was I'm interested in the, listening circle for Paris. I don't know if that's open to other people who are not Paris, but, I would be interested in attending that. I also I know that, there was another parent, Sheila Haines, I believe, who brought up the issue of, participation in VAPA. So the fact that we can use, VAPA money to hire Paris, that was an issue that came up, for some students that who needed assistance in the, VAPA program. So I'd be interested to talk with you more about that too as well. Thank you. And with that, mister Secha will do a translation check.
Yes, president Brujah. Moving to interpretation announcement. We will start Arabic. Again, I will lower all ten years' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Miss Abdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please. Miss Abdi? I'll do it. Okay. Great. Thank you, miss Abdi. Checking attendees to see if any raise, does any hands are needed for Arabic interpretation? Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Arabic interpretation. Next, we will go to Spanish. I will lower our attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation.
Mister Copenhagen, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation an interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, mister Seichao. Great. Thank you, mister Copenhagen. I do see one hand, so we will, activate Spanish interpretation. And that concludes interpretation announcement, and we'll check again later and turn it back to you, president Brujahire. Thank you. Next on the agenda are comments by, collective bargaining units, agenda item p. Each, bargaining unit will have five minutes each. Are there any comments by thank you. Steph, I am the chief steward of SEIU and a district occupational therapist out of the
special education department. I'm also here with the SEIU leadership team. When it comes to budget reductions and position eliminations, SEIU is the most impacted labor unit. Layoffs can be up upending and detrimental to many, including our students who benefit and thrive from positive relationships built between them and our staff. Two weeks ago, you voted to pass the resolution number 25, double o, 81, classified employees dash reduction in force due to lack of funds and or lack of
work, 02/2526. Roughly a 47 positions in SEIU are slated for elimination, a 12 filled, 35 vacancies. However, you still have the chance and duty to make things right. Current inductions and position elimination include instructional aids who lay instructional aids who lay down the foundation for our preschoolers' social, emotional, and cognitive development, Two, case managers who organize parent groups and communicate with families to determine what support they need.
And restorative justice facilitators who help students communicate with their peers and practice self advocacy. At the March 6 BFC meeting, '2 resolutions were voted for to help address the current budget crisis. Both offer tangible solutions that will reduce the impact on student facing positions. SEIU fully supports number 25 double o 84, alternative budget adjustments, which caps the salaries of all confidential, classified employees and prioritizes this rest restoration of layout positions. If funds are identified in '25 2025,
'20 '20 '6 projections, SEI fully fully supports Resolution Number 25,083, Outsourcing Task Force, which allows all stakeholders to examine contracts with outside vendors and make cost saving recommendations. SEIU recognizes and understands the immense responsibility you carry in making critical decisions as well as the challenges that come with them. However, at this moment, you hold the responsibility, duty, and institutional power to make these two resolutions. Our students and workers are counting on you to take a bold action,
one that will uplift, support, and invest in their success and thereby the success success of our communities in which we all live. By voting in favor of both resolutions, you have the opportunity to ensure that students receive the quality education they deserve while also improving working conditions for dedicated classified professionals. There is no class without classified professionals. This highlights the crucial role that classified professionals play in OUSD. By putting students and workers first, you can demonstrate principled leadership, the type of leadership we elected you for.
Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Board and Superintendent. My Name's Compolites Rancifer, president of the Oakland Education Association. So no matter, whether this district has resources or not, the history of this district is that the board will engage in budget cuts and attempt to close schools, whether we're in good times or not. The budget, that has been shown is a manufactured budget. We have demonstrated this in the second interim budget report showing that enrollment is higher,
attendance is higher, revenue is up by $30,000,000. We have now a projected end fund balance of $100,000,000 by the end of the third year. Reserves are not only meeting OUSD standard but also the state standard. Every time we go through these, like, austerity cuts or every time we start to close schools, there's actually real people behind it. Thinking about cutting the eleven month employees in the middle of the school year and
and them not knowing how they're going to pay their bills over the summer, that's just harmful. It's disgraceful. Thinking about the impact that it's gonna have to real kids, real children when we make these cuts at school sites over a budget that's not even real. If cuts are needed, then I would like to see those cuts happen on these expensive contracts and, consultants. If cuts are needed, I would like to see people cut some of the senior leadership team and some
of the really, really high paid employees in this district. Last night, I was watching the Alameda County board meeting, and they made a decision to give the county superintendent a raise. And I was like, wow. You know, the timing is something. But what they did was they were looking at the average salaries of superintendents in the area, and they said, oh, they have to pull out one of the skewed salaries. And I had to take a screenshot because I was like, wow. But this board approved that. This board proved that salary increase,
that they had to pull out countywide to be able to make a decision around the, county superintendent's race. We are a school district. Our main function is to teach children, but what we are doing is cutting the very people we need to teach those children. We are we need you. We need this board to have the courage to cut the places that are far away from our kids. It is not just a thing.
It's not a slogan. It is real. There are real people behind these cuts, and we are counting on you to do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other collective bargaining units? Are there any board comments? K. Move to item q, which is a public hearing. The the open the public hearing for Sunshining Teamsters local 70 initial proposals to Oakland Unified School District collective bargaining successor contract effective July 2025,
is the hearing is now open. Seeing no presentation from the Teamsters, the hearing is now closed. Public comment, madam president. Okay. I'm sorry. There's, public comment on this item. Is there any public comment, mister Hollis? There are no public comments just for this item, madam president. Thank you. And with that, the hearing is officially closed. Okay. The next item is, item r, which is unfinished business. And the first one is R124Dash3018, amendment number one, services agreement twenty twenty four twenty five.
We lead ours, community schools, and and student services department. Is there a motion to adopt this amendment? Move adoption. And is there a second? Second. K. And we'll now have ten minutes for public comment. Yes, madam president. There's one speaker. It's Janelle Harris. K. Two minutes, please. For me, accountability is extremely important, and I haven't seen the board oversight for any accountability, especially when it comes to drugs, guns, things on our campus. I'd like to see more. I I am a policy person,
but this district doesn't follow their own policy. And I feel like we should be included as a community as part of if you have to trim the fat, we wanna give suggestions. Because I could tell you what works at our school and what doesn't. We don't need a whole high school superintendent network. We don't need them. We don't need them. We got a whole bunch of them. We don't need them. We don't need the Jennifer Blakes. We don't need them either because they don't do nothing. We don't need the assistant principals who are over sped department that don't know nothing
about special education. We don't need them. So, you know, when you guys are doing these contracts or looking at service contracts, it's important that you know what you're speaking on. And I don't see that coming from this board. Like, I don't you don't you only have one person does homework. Thank you. One person. And the rest don't know what you're talking about. So that is hurtful, harmful. Like, I don't hear any feedback coming from you guys when you guys are approving. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. On contracts that you don't know nothing about.
So do better. All names have been called, madam president. Are there any board comments on this? Can we have a roll call, please, mister Satchel? Yes. On the roll call, 2024Dash3018. Student Directors are absent. And director Lara, absent. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president bachelor? Absent of president Burghard. Abstain. The motion is not agreed to. Alright. I'd like to move that. We call the question again when all the board members are here then.
And I just wanna say I'm I'm gonna be very disappointed if this is the one item that's singled out and not passed. This is an organization that does really good work that was started from two brothers that are from Oakland. And, so hopefully, we can call the question again when everyone's here because I'm a be very disappointed out of all the items if this is the one item that's not passed, especially since it was just withdrawn from the last meeting because it wasn't ready to go. K. The next item is R225Dash0146. So I'd like to move that we reconsider now that we have director Latta here
or maybe wait for director Bachelor, but that's, I am moving that we reconsider since it wasn't passed since we had two directors absent. I'll second that. Call the question to reconsider? Yeah. On the motion to reconsider the previous item, which was 24 dash three zero one eight, students are absent. Tom's director Thompson are absent. Director Lauter? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Bruhhardt? Yes.
The motion is adopted to reconsider. Do we have a motion to take that motion up? K. Wait. On item r two twenty five dash 0146, 2 0 2 5 Oakland Unified School District, California legislative platform, Board of Education, second reading. Do we have a motion to adopt the legislative platform? I move to it. I move to adopt the legislative platform. Second. Moved by director Latta and seconded by director Berry. Uh-huh. K. And we do have public comment on this. Do you wanna give your present okay. Do we have public comment on any,
public comment on this one? Part two. Part two. Yes. So for r dot dash choose, we have three speakers. Those three speakers are Ben Tapscott, Janelle Harrison, Asada Olapala. Okay. So you cannot ensure strong readers as it relates to black children when the report came out last week that says, reading reaching proficiency in reading and math for black students, it will take them more than six decades to catch up.
It says the academic the academic gap for black California students has been allowed to linger. One to three black TK students in California are absent more than 10% of the school year. You can't you can't read if you're not in school. AG I'm not gonna read that one. But the the situation is this. The report on Black minds matter, you have given no attention to black kids. That's all through California. I get so tired of no disrespect to newcomers,
but you have addressed the needs that they have to have to be successful. And the, black reparations, black reparation thing, nothing. You cannot say it for black students. And how can you learn to read with all of this diversity going on in the classroom like you have at Frick speaking different languages. I know you want me to shut up. I'm gone. I'm gone. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? If I may, there's an additional speaker, Cynthia Molina. All other names have been called. So last year's CCSPP plan and title one plan,
focused on our students' reading. Almost everyone in our high school is below reading grade level, which is extremely sad. We have a test called iReady that the kids check out after ten minutes and just start clicking. So it really isn't a reflection of how they read. I'll give my son as an example. He was said that he read at second grade reading level, and my son reads novels. So it's inaccurate. However, this report that came out, I sent to my district director because we continuously,
are ignored. Right? And you have made no attempt or provisions for black students in this district, especially at McClimans. We are 80% African American, and I don't understand it. We talk about equity. Everybody's fired up when it comes to other groups. But when it comes to this group, where is the anger? The last API I saw was probably dated sometime back. Aguilera said there are 12 low performing elementary schools. I counted 18.
When I ran for office, they were telling me that they needed help. The teachers needed help on putting a program together. A reading specialist that spends time with the teachers, they say, coach, we don't know how to do it. So we need some reading specialist to go in and help. Those 18, they could be at a couple of schools a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And I also threw out Saturday school, where if they attended a certain amount of Saturdays, the superintendent would give them a gold key certificate or something
and try and get them to reach the level you want. Now I would I did a no d policy with McClimans, and they said, coach, that b and a d is a c average. I said, I'm not gonna have any play and get a d. So I think if we assist the teachers and listen to what they're saying, because I don't know how to teach reading, but they're saying they would need help. And there were 18 elementary schools at the bottom. They were all Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. I've seen Temelina asking a question on behalf of the CAC for special education.
I did not know this item was on the agenda, so, I know they would have asked the question. I don't I saw the, items of law, the legislation that is listed as being supported by by the school services, right, the the lobby. And I'm wondering about the process to adopt, CAC items for a legislative platform. I don't know how many of you are familiar with four items. Is this con is that connected to this? The items are specifically around charters joining the SELPA of their region, the certification of, teachers moderate with moderate extensive credentials at charters,
the full funding of the, special education at the federal level, and the increasing the extraordinary cost pool for, districts or, LEAs that spend, a higher amount of money on students with very high cost services. So there was a very long process, by one of the members, to Carol. You know? You're very familiar with her. Through Curtis, he followed all the steps to get that in front of you historically, and then it it kinda fell away, and then she picked up up that process with Dexter Moore. And I'm not seeing discussion of those four things as part of the legislative platform.
So is that a separate item, or is that part of this? I just wonder if, if maybe if doctor Moore could come up and and pull up the full because it's not in the presentation, because there is a special education section that reflects some of that. Although, yeah, I think maybe definitely thank you for that. Thank you for the question. And similar to process, years in the processes, in the in the past years, the CAC recommendations, were considered and are reflected in the current platform that's in front of you. I'm just wondering. Do you have I mean, it's it's linked on the agenda,
but I don't know if you would be, maybe I'm trying to think of How, we could pull up the full memorandum that has the sections, and we could just show the special education section. Sure. Would that be okay. Director Latta, would it be sufficient for doctor Mortich's orally provide an overview? Sure. Yeah. Let me just, pull that up for you. So the CAC priorities, that are reflected in the legislative platform, for this year, are actually pretty similar to the ones from the last couple of years, and those are, in the special education section.
And I'll just highlight specifically some of the language that CAC was, requesting. And so, I'll just read that. So OUSD supports educational and fiscal policies that, when accompanied by adequate resources, serve students with disabilities and learning environments where they can thrive. We believe that students should be given the opportunity to learn among their peers in classrooms where they are supported by staff and resources designed to eradicate barriers to their academic success. We believe charter schools should be required to join the SELPA of the district in which they are located as a condition of granting or renewal of their charter.
We believe in increases to the scope of extraordinary cost pools so that districts are reimbursed for a larger portion of the cost for students requiring residential placements, individual aids, and other services. And so all of those are reflected, under the special education section in the current platform that's in front of you. What is this e a e school? Is that Does that answer your question, director Alatta? A e what about the what credentials? We believe in requiring charter schools to have certificated staffing with credentials and extensive support needs, in alignment with AB 15 o five and mandating the disclosure of student data between
charter schools and their authorizers. Again, everything that was shared by CAC is reflected in the current platform. You're very welcome. I I think there was also something added to the credentialing part in general that to make the credentialing process, streamlined? Yes. That's in a, different section. So the platform is organized by our strategic, plan priority areas. And so the section that you're referring to, president Brohart, is under our diverse and stable staff. Can we have a motion to adopt this? Did you did? Okay. Great. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't write that down. Any other public comment?
Board comments? My only comment is that there is a lot happening at, again, the federal level. And so wondering I know that this typically focuses on state legislation, but just wondering how it could also comment on I don't even know how or I don't have anything in particular in mind, but just comment to comment or respond to federal level action. So I think this does deal with the state and and the, excuse me. Thank you. Yeah. She's right. She's right. Yes. She's right. Yeah. I did wanna I know, doctor Moore,
that there were some bills that they were gonna be looking at. I know they sent a document. Do we have any update on, the bills as well? Yeah. Thank you for the question, president Brohard and director Berry. We do have, doctor Patty Herrera and miss Leilani Aguinado from school services online as well. And perhaps they can speak a little bit to the process in terms of next steps. But, typically, the board will pass and adopt the legislative platform. And then in the near future, we'll bring back a set of bills to recommend having a position on, aligned with the platform.
So, I'll invite Patty or Leilani just to share a little bit more about those next steps. Can I add one other question to that too? And it came up in the student, student report about AB 68 and the, armed police on on campus. Thank you, president Brogaard and doctor Moore. So I'm Patty Herrera from School Services of California. I'm joined by my colleague Leilani Aguinaldo. And as doctor Moore, mentioned, now once the board adopts the platform, tonight or in at a subsequent meeting, what what will happen is Leilani and I will look at the slate of legislation
that has been introduced by, the California state Legislature, members of the California State Legislature, and identify bills that align most closely to the district's highest priorities, pursuant to the platform adopted, by the board. As noted, there have been several pieces of legislation that has been introduced by senators and assembly members, that attempt to address some of the changes in federal policy, specifically relating to immigration and immigration enforcement actions,
protections for, marginalized or minoritized student populations that we're seeing federal policy, beginning to affect. We anticipate that we might be seeing, further legislation amended to deal with some of the potential fiscal impacts of some of the federal policies that might impact, federal, or programs that are historically funded, by the federal government. We haven't seen a a a large slate of those bills, come forward. And as you all know, Leilani and I do not we are not federal lobbyists.
We we focus specifically on the state legislature. But to the extent that there are California there's California legislation that deals directly with these policies that are priority for the for the district, we will uplift the uplift those, bills to the board's attention for action. And I I'll pass it to Leilani to see if she has anything to add. Thanks, Patty. The only other thing that I would add is, the legislation that director Vasquez mentioned earlier during the student board member update. That is something that is on our radar,
and we can certainly add it, make sure that it's included in the list of legislation, that is presented to the board for approval, and that would be Assembly Bill 68 by Assemblymember Asali. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Director Williams? Yes. Thank you very much. It it appears that the governor is trying to, do a IOU for $1,600,000,000 out of Prop 98, and, want to see if we are gonna continue to advocate that. It's a constitutional, mandate to fully fund Prop 98. Are we gonna, put some advocacy behind,
holding the governor responsible for that? Secondly, the governor also has, proposed a 2.43 cola, for the for districts, for Prop 98. And we also want to see, has there been any energy or conversation about actually increasing that, as well? Thank you. Thank you for your question, trustee Williams. So, Leilani and I coalesce with, several urban school districts across the state of California on your behalf, including districts like Los Angeles Unified School District,
San Diego Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District. And, as part of our joint advocacy with those districts, we have lifted up those very issues that you have raised, which is the what some people would perceive as the under appropriation of proposition 98 by $1,600,000,000, which frankly could grow because we believe that, revenues for the 2425 fiscal year are likely to be higher than what the governor had estimated it to be in June I mean, excuse me, January. So we expect that that number could actually be big bigger than $1,600,000,000.
And on your behalf, we are lobbying that the governor and the legislature fully appropriate the obligated minimum guarantee. In addition to that, we highlight that the 2.43% COLA is actually lower than what, we all estimated and you included in your adopted budget last June, which was estimated to be closer to 3% and that we want the state to fully fund the the COLA and then make it in additional investments on top of the statutory COLA so that, apportionments provided under the LCFF would be what we would have expected last June.
I'm not sure if that answered if I answered both of your questions or all of your questions. And if I didn't, please just repeat, and I'm happy to answer. Yes. That that definitely answered the, my questions. I I'm sorry. Lastly, I forgot. There is, the pregnancy leave that is starting to be moved again through the women's caucus, as well. And we're moving it to the budget. Is there any conversation, with your support? As we know that our employees are 75 70 plus percent women, and these women, have to take their own time to actually pay for,
differential in regards to taking time off. Wanna make sure that, we as a district will support, our women and our families in getting, pregnancy leave. Thank you. I'll defer to my colleague, Leilani Aguinaldo, who's stopping that bill very closely. Yes, director Williams. That bill was actually just heard and passed the assembly education committee today. And, certainly, we will intend, intend, we've heard loud and clear, right, that there is an intention for or a desire for the board, to take action on adopting a position on that bill. And so certainly,
AB 65 will be included on the list presented to the board. And we'll also make sure to include the feedback from, direct excuse me, from the district staff, to make sure that part of the conversation also includes, just implementation considerations for the district as well. But, yes, a b 65 will be on the list. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Okay. With that, can we call the roll, please? Yes. On the roll call to adopt twenty five-one hundred and forty six, which is 2025 Oakland Unified School District, California legislative platform.
Students are absent. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson, Sebastian, vice president, bachelor? Yes. And president Breaux Hart? Yes. The motion is adopted. Thank you. I made a mistake on the last issue on the last, r one and that I took a vote to called the roll on whether or not to have a second vote on this. So on r one, number 24Dash3018, amendment number one services agreement 20242025,
we lead ours community schools and student services department. We need to take a vote. You need a you need a motion. Motion. In a second. I need a motion to So moved. Thank you. I second that. Call the question? Yeah. Call the question. Thank you. On the motion to adopt as stated, 24 dash thirty eighteen, students are absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brujahard?
Yes. The motion is adopted. Alright. Moving into new business. Item s one, second interim financial report as of 01/31/2025, Fiscal year oh, I'm sorry. We have an interpretation check. Yes. Moving to interpretation check. I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Miss Sabdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please. Okay. Sure. Arabic announcement is done. Thank you, miss Abdi. Check attendees,
see if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will now start with Arabic interpretation. Next, we'll go to Spanish. Again, please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Miss Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Miss Vargas? Or mister Copenhagen? Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you, mister Seicha. Great. Thank you, mister Copenhagen. Checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will now start with any interpretation. And that concludes interpretation announcement and turn it back to you, president Burghardt.
Thank you, mister Sacheo. On item s one, second interim financial report as of 01/31/2025, fiscal year twenty twenty four, twenty five, chief business officer. Do I have a motion to adopt the second interim financial report? Move adoption. A second. And we have ten minutes for public comment. You wanna do a presentation first and then public comment? Would it for you oh, preference is I do know the hour's getting late, so however you need me to push the gas so we can get to the rest of your items. Let's do the presentation first and then public comment.
Okay. Alright. Oh. Feedback. Okay. Well, thank you so much, for the opportunity, president Brohard, vice president bachelor and governing board to present the second interim. I'm just really gonna hit some key highlights, as it relates to the second interim. One of the pages I'm sorry. One of the, areas that we always update for each interim is the assumptions. So key areas, I won't go through all of them to look at. Again, we update, and we just talked about legislative items as far as the governor's budget, the cost of living adjustment. So for 2425,
we are remain at a 1.07%, and then the 2526 cost of living adjustment has been adjusted, down to 2.43%. We also update and by the time around, we're at the first, period for attendance, so what we call p one. So with p one, we also update our, enrollment as well as our attendance, projections. So we are seeing a bit of a uptick, with, our attendance. So where we've been hovering, like, 89.8%, attendance to enrollment or 90.1%,
we are getting closer. And as you can see, you know, with the, enrollment, projections where it says enrollment to ADA, where the percentage of enrollment to ADA is, above 90 and appears to be holding, and we're hoping that it continues. Again, just as a reminder, Pre pandemic, we were at 94%. Other areas that, we continue to update, just so we can continue to see the contributions to in particular, special education and routine restricted maintenance, are required contributions to make those programs whole. Routine restricted maintenance is completely funded by the base general fund.
So when we have conversations, and I'm gonna move the slide, to the unrestricted general fund. We're talking about what we need to do to continue to maintain the health of the base, which is, the four zeros resource code. We, in 1920, were at a negative, amount in our fund balance for the base and and really began to share with the community why we needed to improve that and make sure that we had funding in the right places. The base is the house. It pays for any and all expenditures that cannot be covered by the general fund
as well as other funds. So as you can see, we did a lot of work, to improve the balance, that was available, which would our reserve, which is about 28,000,000, would also be covered from. So it meant that in 1920, we actually didn't take care of our 3% reserve out of the base. It was out of other unrestricted funds. In 2021, we didn't take care of the reserve out of the actual base, the actual resource is supposed to pay. For it. And so as we move forward to 2122 and can kept with that work,
we were to do that, but then come 2425, it started to decline. Why? Because we use our fund balance to adopt our budget. And so with that, we continue to keep an eye on, those particular areas. So I'll move to the highlights of what changed with the first interim, which each of those slides I just went through is just a different iteration of how to look at the summary of the first interim, but we always provide an update as to what changed. So our key change what were the key changes as to why we have,
a better projection for, our outcomes for the second interim? Well, we earn $2,000,000 more in interest. So back to the cash that, our county our money is pulled with other governmental entities, including, the city and Alameda and the county of Alameda. And so that increase in interest and then a $5,300,000 increase in the net change of our fair value investment, that means that the money that we have in the county treasury is growing, and we're earning money.
We also saw that at the, unaudited actuals. That's good. How long will it last? We don't know. But for now, again, we recognize it at second interim. You also see a lot of movements between for supplemental and concentration between, there's a reduction in books and supplies, and we list just the highlights of what adjusted. But then you also see a coinciding increase in, the 5,000 in services and operating expenditures. One of the key areas we also saw increases is PG and E.
So we are all experiencing increases with PG and E, the school district, though we do have, different rates, with the type of entity we are, we did, adjust our budget to prepare to absorb an increased cost in our utilities. The restricted general fund, during the second interim period especially goes through a process where we are not only updating our projections, but most of the federal resources that receive, and the restricted resources can't carry a fund balance. It means that if you get an award for $10,000,000
and you only spend 7, unlike the general fund, we can show that $3,000,000 as available and it becomes part of our fund balance. With our restricted, resources, we can't do that. So when you see that the top bullet where the federal revenues were aligned to, project spending, it means that we reduce our spend our revenues by $4,100,000. Why? Because our expenditures for those resources are 4,100,000.0 lower than what we projected. And so this document shows you how revenues minus expense equals zero because it's deferred
revenue. It means that in the example, you still earn the additional 3,000,000 that you didn't spend. You're deferring it to a future year. So with that being said, those are the rules of fund accounting, but you're also seeing the same things where we're moving and adjusting expenses between, object codes. This means that departments and sites are adjusting what their plan expenditures are. We did receive, the award for the Golden State Pathways grant award, and we recognized that in the second interim period, which we didn't have in the first interim period.
And so with that, we have adjusted the revenues for that. We always, share the ancillary funds. The only thing that I will say is that we are watching our adult education, fund because, we are also deficit spending in adult education. So as we were building the budget, in addition to looking at other expenditures that are occurring, we wanna make sure that that fund maintains and is able to support itself. There have been years in the district's history where we've had two funds, child development and child nutrition, that could not cover its expenses.
That has now changed, and we wanna make sure that we continue to do our due diligence with all of our funds, including adult education. So I'll move really quickly to the multiyear projection. I'll I'll show one more document, once I finish this just to kinda show us where we are. With the budget balancing solutions, there are some of the budget balancing solutions that I was able to put into the multiyear projection so we can begin to see the changes. There's still more to go. And so by the time we get to third interim, all of the iterations of those changes will occur.
So if you look at first interim and just moving to total expenditures, which is a nine, we were at 452, million dollars. And then by 2526, with the adjustment, some of the adjustments from the, budget balancing solution were at 406,000,000 and then projecting to go up just because cost, the consumer price index is going up. You have salary, as we saw on the assumptions that are planned to go up without us doing anything. Just the cost of salaries for step and column will go up among other,
expenditures. The loan payment is modeled, and if you look at the actual pages of the first interim, we are reserving the $2,100,000 loan payment to be paid in 2425. That is our intent. So we took it out of 2526 because, essentially, the plan is to pay the loan payment off a year early. So in addition to that, when you're looking at the other projections as far as, our, other adjustments, We're making some of those adjustments, which has allowed us to continue to maintain, the specific reserves that we've had to include,
again, a 28, almost $29,000,000, 3% reserve. So when you're looking at that zero in the out years, I'll show you a document that shows you how'd you get to zero with all the adjustments not, being there. But you see in row e how our deficit is getting better just with the steps that we have taken for the things that we have put in. We are not done. There's things to put in, and there's things to take out, but do wanna show, the modeling of how we're progressing forward with that. Here's the difference with restricted. And so the key takeaway is that with the budget balancing solutions,
if you look at 2425, restricted at, we were at 488,000,000, I'm rounding, for expenditures. Again, a nine. But then look at 2526. It goes up to 501,000,000. That's because for a lot of budget balancing solutions, there were expenses taken out of unrestricted, supplemental concentration and then placed into other restricted resources, many that still have a sunset date. So some of them are grants that will be expiring. So, again, it still means that we still have work to do because by 2627,
why are the expenses going down? Many of those resources are going to not only expire, but we're spending it faster. So if all things go to plan based on how we're building the budget, it means that we'll have less money in 2627 to expend based on that. So, again, that's just the signal for more work, to be done. Again, we're sharing the cash projection. We did do a two year, cash, flow projection. So you can see that our cash, based on what we know today, goes down by a hundred million dollars a year without any additional revenues or adjustments
to our expenditures, over time. And, again, this cash for adjusting is based on, you know, again, the the amount of the multiyear projection that's in. So everything's not in, but still it's still showing the decline, which we've also, shown. I won't go over the local control funding formula pages, but we always provide them there. There's one for adopted budget, first interim, and second interim, though the second page, I didn't I I didn't change the first back to to the first. But the first page in the middle is first interim, and then this is second interim. So lastly, we move, to,
ask the board to adopt this second interim with a qualified status, and and we're qualified versus negative as a first interim because at first interim, our projection was lower. And a large part of why that was lower is when we close the year and put new expenditures in, it's gonna again create, you know, more, spending that then reduce our fund balance in addition to other, changes in our, expenditure projections. And so with that, we do come back to you for a third in a room. We're continuing to move forward with our budget development.
And if we can switch really fast to the multiyear projection page in your full packet, there's a whole lot of reports. One, report includes a summary of the reduction in force and, the FTEs. You can see the net dollar changes. However, some of those dollar changes yes. We can make it bigger. Some of those dollar changes, again, in the way that, it's in the spreadsheet, don't, completely accurately show what the net change is because you have positions that are going up, positions that are going down, and positions changing,
but we wanted you to see that. So this is a multiyear projection, and what I wanted to show you really quickly if we slide down to one more right there. So that is row 10. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. In row 10, in the middle column, there's a negative $53,000,000 that's sitting there. That's how much more we need to reduce the 2526 budget by, meaning continue to implement the budget balancing solutions in order to break even and cover
our reserve that's further down at the 28,000,000. So that's showing you we didn't balance yet. That's how much is required for us to balance. So we placed that number there so that you can see that piece. If we did nothing and we didn't continue to implement the budget balancing solutions, you also see with the 51, right, there's another 61,000,000 in the out years. So that's not changed from what we projected before. It's just showing you the improvement because we're starting to implement the budget balancing solutions.
So just wanted to point that piece out to you. As always, in this packet, there's also, a full summary of the positions as well as the budget for every department and site. So we remind people of that because there's always a question of where can I see that? It's always in the back of the report. And, again, if you have any questions, you can always feel free to contact me or anyone on my team. And, again, president Prohard, I know that was swift, but I appreciate the time. Thank you, miss Grant Dawson. Are there any public comments? Yes. We have seven speakers.
We'll give one minute each. One minute each? Alright. Okay. Those seven speakers are Tanya Kapner, Gabriel Khan, Asada Olafala, Ben Tapscott, Janelle Harris, Kim Davis, and Jeffrey Sims. Uh-oh. Who's this here, guys? Okay. Okay. So I remember at the budget committee meeting, miss Grand Dawson said something that stuck with me. And she said, even though you're gonna look at those numbers, you gotta do the work. And that's the part that you need to start considering. What is the work we gotta do to decrease the budget instead of just looking
at numbers? And let me give you an example of doing the work. There was a finance committee meeting at City Hall this past, Tuesday where staff brought to them an item that was gonna cost the city $700,000 for outsourcing for recruitment of temporary employment at the for the city. So they said and they wanted it to be for seven years. They reduced they amended the recommendation for the contracting of this particular agency to be for one year
for $40,000. They had another contract that was gonna be a hundred and $25,000 for executive hiring for the city. They amended it to be I don't remember the exact price. It was supposed to be for two years, for one year. That's what you gotta do. You gotta start looking at contracts and looking at spending to say, instead of this recommendation, we're gonna recommend an amendment to reduce the cost. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Is Kim Davis here? Yes. We're talking a little bit about budget,
and I shared with the board and also the superintendent. This flow water thing doesn't solve our problem, and that's costing us additional money. And that's gonna have to be checked instead of putting that money into filters and start to repipe with copper and silver solder. The other thing I wanted to bring forward was the fact that I've asked for a top five projects that are gonna be funded and whether or not they will
have money to fund those, and I have never got an answer. I know one thing that, 91,000,000 is not even gonna do a parking lot. So I'm requesting that they increase the amount if they're serious about remodeling my Climates High School up to around 300,000. They gave Fremont a hundred and 37, and Fremont went back two more times and got additional money. So Thank you. Flow water, whatever they do. Good evening. I'm frankly too tired to cogently speak about this,
but I do wanna, just say that, I've been looking at other districts' budgets and first interims and second interims to try and understand, you know, beyond what the experience here is in Oakland is. And one thing that that is is hard to understand, and it's hard and it's not that I'm, you know, stupid about budgets. It's just the way we do it may is difficult for me to grasp, that we have such wild swings in our expenditures. I realize you don't know everything at,
adoption of budget. That's why you have first interim and second interim. But, in this second interim, we have a 220,000,000 swing in our, third year third out year in our combined. And it just that just it it's like that doesn't happen in three months. So I I would urge us to get more clear on why we're having all of these unusual swings and negative certifications followed by. Thank you. Are there any other public speakers?
All names for this item have been called. Public commenters. Thank you. Board comments. Director Berry? I I mean, my first comment might be an invitation for Lisa Brent Dawson to respond to, like, the fluctuations, just to clarify that. And then I have a few other questions. Mhmm. So, I would say that one of the things that we do that other districts don't do is I always share with you what our swings are and why, which is why there's the distinctions. If we're I'm not really sure if we're talking year to year or just one,
you know, '24, '20 '5 to 2627. But by the time we get to second interim, as I shared, one, there's additional resources that are available. Two, In 2627, I just shared how there are resources that are gonna be gone because we're spending it faster based on our projected changes in spending. So that is also gonna project out that there's less expenses or less revenue available, for us. So, you know, we definitely can and then when you combine it, again,
as I've shared, our district receives more resources than most other districts as well. And so with that, we really have to have a conversation about which is why we unpack the unrestricted and restricted resources. There is a document that shows you all of the resources that we receive, and so, therefore, the explanation lies within that. We also, as we look at we have three parcel taxes. We also did receive an additional $11,000,000 for, our, measure h parcel tax. All of those things affect our projections,
as we look period by period depending on when they occur. And, you know, lastly, you know, I will mention as far as the the negative certification, we we commonly wanna compare ourselves to other districts, which I do too. I really wanna get to some of that other norming, if you will. And I agree on the way we do budgeting is different and it's challenging, and we've talked about that as well. What I what I will say is is that, one, we're not under other districts that aren't under state or county receivership, have different rules.
It's just what it is. Two, we have certified positive since I've been here, and then we've certified negative since we've been here. But as I've shared, since 1999, the district has been qualified. We have to do different. Miss Olobala just said it. She came to Budget and Finance. We have to do the work in order to create a different level of consistency where we're not doing what we've been doing, and that is also what we've been been petitioning and advocating for. So until we get to those places to be able to create the way forward as I've used before,
we'll continue to see this trend. And I really do look forward to, the board, creating that passage for us to do that and to stop kind of going through the things that we've been going through for many, many years. So thank you for the opportunity to clarify that. Director Wert, you Yeah. That was just my follow-up question to the public comment. We need to extend, the time for our meetings to 11:45. So I'd like to make a motion to extend our board meeting until 11:45. Second? Oh, got it. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes.
Oh, okay. A roll call to extend the meeting to 11:45 as stated. Director students student directors are absent. Director Thompson is also absent. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Berry? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Breaux Hart? Yes. The motion is adopted and stand to 11:45. Director Berry? So I think there's probably a lot to celebrate in this report. I do wanna hear from you, superintendent, about what you think the second interim results might mean for the remaining
parts of the budget balancing process, the three r's process, and any of the other work that we need to do in the future in order to to reach a a point of sustainability. Sure. So, I'm not all that excited about the progress, because I know it's temporary. So I wanna kinda back up in terms of I I really, at this particular point, don't wanna use the word crisis because crisis is when something comes out of the blue. Right? And we've known since 2020 when the escrow money came in that we were gonna
get an infusion of a lot of money for a short period of time, three years. We also knew and made a collective commitment. It's probably one of the few things between superintendent and full board that we unanimously agreed on, and that was increasing salaries. So we knew that was gonna be a cost. We knew that money was gonna come in and be a benefit for three years and come out, and that we were gonna gonna have to make some significant decisions. So that's not a crisis. It's a hard thing to do,
but that's where we are. The budget balancing solutions, which if I remember correctly, initially were about 30 different options. Those options included some pure eliminations. They included restructuring, which to the board's request, we will come and give updates to the board and public. And they included a lot of shifts into one time funds. So part of what you're seeing in terms of the progress is a lot of investments, particularly school site positions that are being moved into one time funds,
particularly learning recovery to try to mitigate the level of impact of take back from school sites. So that shows it it fixes the problem for as long as we have those funds. We're supposed to have them, Lisa Grant Dawson just alluded to it, for three years. But the rate at which we're shifting to try to maintain services to schools, we probably will use those funds up in about two years. So, yes, it looks good for now,
but we don't have a long term plan given how we're currently structured to continue to provide the services to schools. Right? And be able to ensure that we have the dollars available to pay for the raises that we gave and ensure their dollar set aside for future, raises, which is our responsibility. So that is what leads us to the three r's conversation. Are we gonna continue to do this through cutting? Right? Because really the alternative budgeting balancing solutions is still more cutting.
We're just saying instead of cutting here, we're gonna cut there. It's still taking things away that are gonna have an impact. Or are we gonna look at how we're structured and say we need to make some decisions, right, in terms of all of our buildings? So that that's really the question. And a lot of the just to put it out there on the table is, you know, we all know there's an there is an upcoming transition. There's my transition. There's our CBO's transition. And we feel it's responsible to try to not leave this for the next leadership
team coming in new to try to learn, to try to grapple, and then figure out a solution. The other thing that I think everybody is, you know, on the same page about is going into state receivership. Like, that that's not an option. That's not an option. So we wanna do the work now, but that that's really, again, back to the three r's and that's doing, you know, the work so we don't continue to be in this cycle. I hope I answered your question. Thank you.
Are there any other board questions, comments? Director Hutchinson? Yes. Thank you. You know, this this conversation starts to feel like kind of the conversation that had we had about lead before, and and I think it's really important that we restate and reset some of just the facts. I think the first graphic that was put up that had the years and what our, general fund balance was each of those years was really telling. And we are so lucky that superintendent Johnson Trammell brought miss Grant Dawson to OUSD. And so what she left out of that presentation is that 1920 school year,
that was the year that miss Grant Dawson arrived at the end of that year. And that's why we had a negative, general fund balance. We didn't make our reserve, all kinds of problems. Miss Grant Dawson came in, and immediately our finances have been turned in a different direction, and the mismanagement has been ended. And this year, we saw a dip in those numbers because the board didn't make a big enough budget adjustment this past year, and so it set back the work. But I've heard a lot of comments even today about different fund balances and these things.
I just wanna say explicitly on the record, just like I say behind closed doors, I trust miss Grant Dawson explicitly. I was here fighting against some of the past people from Vernon Howe to Marcus Battle. I was here when we did have real variations where we were told lies by district staff about our finances, and then they would mysteriously quit before the closing of the books came because they wouldn't wanna sign their names to those numbers. None of that has occurred since miss Grant Dawson has been here, and she has put us in the position to actually leave receivership. So I want everyone to just kinda take that in a minute because as people
are gonna say, oh, there's a $300,000,000 reserve and, oh, books and supplies and all these numbers. I've heard miss Grant Dawson explain it a number of times, both here and in budget and finance. We all have what the real numbers are. Actually, our staff and leadership has to sign off on those numbers at one point, So I know they're not gonna give us wrong numbers. And hopefully, as a board and as a community, we can, learn how to have good things again. Like, it is good news how our finances have improved and the work we've done. And that was not the time for us to back away or make up wild
claims about negative certification in these things that people clearly don't understand when I hear them talk about it. So I just wanna say here, miss Grant Dawson, I really appreciate it. If anyone deserves a statue in OUSD in the future now you might laugh, but that's because you don't talk publicly about the mess you inherited. And I appreciate that that's not your style, but sometimes it gets frustrating to me because we would not be able to do any of this if you hadn't been able to come in and not just clean up our finances, but help us with a plan for how to use these COVID relief dollars that
we got injected in and how to make this big pivot. We were on the brink. We have not had one vote for midyear cut since you've been here, which means I haven't had to have one of those votes since I've been on the board. I thank you, and I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Director Lotta. I'm just gonna make one quick comment. I I echo director Hutchinson's appreciation for you and your team, and all the work that you've done and, you know, other, you know, previous board directors have done to get us to this point. I am you know,
when I look at the budget, well, I I think it's very clearly spelled out, you know, what the work is that we need to do to get to, a balanced budget in the out years. I think the fact that we have a positive fund balance and we haven't even addressed the, despite deficit spending, that we haven't even fully implemented the budget balancing solutions is, I think, I would, yeah, I think I'll look forward to a conversation at third interim about, considering a positive certification. Thanks. Doctor Williams? Thank you very much, miss Lisa Grant Dawson. Appreciate you,
for the work you have done. I think when I first came on the board, one of the things that I, really liked about you was shift in, thinking, philosophical shift that needs to happen, which is something that you brought from the outside into the district. What tends to happen is, you know, everyone comes up together and they have the same type of thinking, and you gotta think outside of the box sometime. You gotta bring something else in. And I think we're at a point now that, you know, you've brought us, you know, and you'll continue to navigate these challenges.
But I think the board now is starting to realize that, you know, there are also a number of different ways to look at the budget, and we like to continue to have those conversations, you know, in that regard. So, I mean, my experience is, not being on the budget committee, which I guess I could be watching the videos. But, you know, there are some entry points that, you know, hopefully, as we move forward, there are conversations to be had in regards to how we handle our expenses. So I just wanna thank you for what you're doing. Look forward to having future conversations.
Also thinking we need to really again, we had a conversation about the golden handshake. I think that is gonna be very vital for us to continue to keep that conversation lifted because that is one way to save layoffs is really making sure that folks who work and live through this district for thirty plus years be able to walk, with a decent golden handshake. So we can thank them for their service. And the the differential, you know, will be a savings for us. So I hope that we continue to look at it and not just kick it
down the line as well. I think that's a real good conversation to begin as soon as possible. And lastly, I continue I only focus on one thing, which is the attendance of our students. Right? As we see that there is consistently chronic absenteeism runs about 3,000 students. You know, it's a range of how between twenty and eighty percent of them showing up. But I think as a district, we really can continue to advocate for a more efficient plan to really build out,
our relationships and incorporate some incentives that would actually increase our revenue, which would, be helpful to our budget. So I think, again, for the last three or four years, I've really been targeting that. Mhmm. And, I hope that we will look at it again, and look at it with more of an attempt to do something, not just as, a cost cutting measure, but actually an investment in our students. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. I wanna based on your ADA, because you have been start working that, we're gonna come back to that.
I was reviewing middle school attendance, with our middle school network as superintendent, and middle school is doing well and improving. Like, again, it's those things that we need to kinda really keep lifting up. So wanna give a shout out to the middle school, for, the attendance, improvements. And not that we're not seeing it in other areas, but do that's that, you know, pivotal point. So we definitely will come back with that. But since we just freshly looked at that today, wanna give a shout out to the middle schools. I'm gonna make my comments short. I would like to also give a shout out to the middle school network because they really follow that data.
I do appreciate the work that you've done. I appreciate the questions, the answer you know, the the conversation. I think we were lucky to have a really good one, after the the budget and finance, meeting the other night. I did have one question, though, and and this was just around federal money that came up. Child nutrition services I mean, child nutrition funding. And are we expecting to see a cut in that? I know you mentioned that that nutrition services is now kind of, you know, going getting even in their money, but I was concerned when I heard about the, possible nutrition cuts.
Yeah. So we, are starting to, you know, definitely brace ourselves and, look at adjustments. There was an adjustment that was, shared today. So in 2024, president Biden did add some additional, funding for nutrition for, schools, and that has now been repealed. So we're gonna work on the ways that we communicate all of the changes that we're learning about. In most cases, it'll probably be rapid fire as we've already seen. Like, we wake up one morning and something has changed. Right? Then as you see, there's just a been a lot of not only,
lobbying, but we are really, like, entering in the courts in areas of discussion about the the way, which, again, suspends or has suspended some things, and they were waiting for judges. Like, we're at this place that our judicial system, is is opining or preparing to opine on so many different things that we never had to discuss. So we are working on that. We've started a folder with the notifications, and so that was one that came in. It's not our main funding. But, yes, that would be a concern. There's several areas of concern you all heard that the Department of Education is laying
off half of its, staff. And it's already challenging working with department of ed in many instances just because there's so many volumes of funding that we are eligible for and receive and being able to communicate. So we don't know how that's gonna impact us, but what we do know is several people that we likely were working with are not going to be there, and those departments have to be recalibrated. And so we don't know if the money but we presume the money is gonna slow down and flowing out too. So everything that we're talking about as far as what we're looking at,
all of that will be in the restricted general fund, could really be be impactful. So we don't know yet, but we will continue to work with that. And then you just heard of our legislative platform. That also is going to be top of mind, as well. But great question, and thank you for asking it. Okay. With that, we're gonna call the question. Mister Sae Chow. Yes. On the motion to adopt twenty five dash zero five two zero, second interim financial report as of 01/31/2025, fiscal year 2024 to 2025 as qualified.
Student directors are absent. Director Lara? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Brujahart? Yes. The motion is adopted. Thank you. Alright. The next item is s two twenty five zero four one nine, lease leaseback contract, Swinnerton Builders Incorporated, Garfield site renovation project, division of facilities, planning and management. This has gone to the facilities committee and was recommended favorably.
We're gonna take oh, is there a motion to adopt? So moved. Second. Moved by vice president Metzschlend, seconded by director Bair. We'll take do you wanna give your presentation first? There's no there's no presentation. Oops. Sorry. Five minutes from public comment. Yes. There are two speakers for this item. That's Assata, Olafala, and Ben Tapscott. Okay. Two minutes each, please. Two minutes each. No? I I don't remember McClymonds coming before you specifically to look at them be being a progressive design review contract. So this is a lease leaseback design that you are considering for consideration of the
project. Why didn't we do it for my climbers with the progressive design? Now this project, they're gonna be able to have change orders. This project might call for additional funding. Nobody from any of the schools in modernization has to come to you to talk about they now have enough money. Only McClymonds. Only McClymonds. And you will not have any other school going through what McClymonds is going through. How can a school like McClymonds have a design that says we're gonna have the grandstand and the restrooms fixed,
and the turf is completely destroyed, and the scoreboard doesn't work. Oh, now we got $3,000,000. But why in the beginning you didn't see that? And who had the stupidity to say, we're gonna fix the grandstand and the toilets, and the you talk about the school of champions so the kids can and the PE, children can play on that turf. And you go watch a game, and we ask him, what's the score? What's the score? Nobody knows because it doesn't work. Thank you. Next speaker, please. This is a drinking fountain. Kids drink it every day.
I couldn't find a filter. This has been in the hallway for three months, drinking fountain. And we bring this kind of stuff to you and it's for what? It it just you know, it it gets frustrating after a while. How do we approve We can't get the water fixed. How do we approve a charter school having a whole month, Saturday and Sunday, being painted? They could be somewhere putting filters on. We don't need twenty four hour security out on High Street. I don't know if that's a waste of money. I mean, why why do we need them out there?
And if we're gonna talk saving money, I don't know, superintendent, if we still have six executive directors making 6 figure income. And I took that one on with you about having 18, and now we may down be down to six, and we're talking about saving money. They painted that charter school four weekend, Saturday and Sunday, time and a half, OUSD's buses trucks out there in the parking lot. I pulled up and I said, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're paying the school.
Oh, how did that happen? Somebody had to approve it, but it's okay because it's charter school. It's not West Oakland. Thank you. Are there any additional comments? I can give them the usual consent. All names have been called. Alright. Are there any board comments? I'd like to call the question. Director Hutchinson. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm not even gonna address it now. It's okay. So, hopefully, members of the community who are here will stay for the next item for the measure y reprioritization. Within that packet, you know, on page 19 has the list of major construction projects, and as everyone can see which projects are listed on there.
And so this is actually a very good sign for us as a district that one of our three major projects that now once we had to vote to reprioritize measure y the last time are now here and listed. And those three projects are, and they're listed here as active, are McClimans High School, Roosevelt Middle School, and Garfield Elementary School. This is the first of those three that's coming up now for a lease leaseback plan, and this is exactly what we want to be able to do as a district. Garfield has long been overdue as well. And when you look at the gradings of our facilities,
it grades out as the facility in worst shape in all of Oakland, which is saying a lot. And so this is a really good step for us, and I'm excited. I'll talk more about it when we do the measure why reprioritization. I have heard the, complaints, and I've shared many of them for a lot of years. And I firmly believe that this construction project and us reprioritizing measure why will take us that big step further in terms of rectifying what should have been done originally. And I wanna say explicitly, McClimans, Roosevelt, and Garfield have been promised a new school for a decade going back before that,
but we're told that money was available for them in measure j. And here we are halfway through measure y. So this is a really good sign. I'm excited to do this for Garfield, and I anticipate in the next month or two, we will be approving similar items for Roosevelt and McClymonds. These are the three major projects that the district is actively engaged in currently. Thank you. If there are no other further comments, I'd like to call the question. Yeah. On the motion to adopt 25 dash zero five two zero, student student directors are absent,
including director Thompson. Director Berry? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Burghard? Yes. The motion is adopted. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is s three twenty four dash two three four three zero, amendment number three, measure y spending plan, October 2424, facilities planning management. Is there a motion to adopt this measure? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to adopt this measure with the following amendment, which is the reallocation of the $3,000,000,
back to Elmhurst and Skyline from measure j that's included in the presentation in slide 30. Second. Director This is not a resolution, so there's no need to have a written amendment. This is just a plan. So the amendment is to reallocate the 3,000,000 to Elmhurst and Skyline from measure j that is, in slide 30. I just wanna check. Director Berry, did you have an amendment as well? Yes. But, I mean, the it's different now, the plan, but yes. So I do wanna make a motion. Is now the time?
Mhmm. So a few things that I wanna say before that. So the first is that I, for those of you who don't know, did not vote to move this to the board, when it was presented to the, Facilities Committee, and that's because I had some unanswered questions. But questions have been answered, And I do understand now the urgency, which at that time, I did not. But a few things. So I appreciate that the measure why spending plan is moving to address our vacant properties, and I acknowledge that based on what I understand affordability,
Ralph Bunch in the current iteration of the measure why spending plan was identified as the first step in that, to address that issue. And at the same time, because of all the potential at 1025 Second Avenue, another vacant property, and because even though there aren't students at 1025, the students and families at the surrounding schools are impacted by how dangerous it is to continue leaving that site vacant. And I've been reading emails all day, and especially because a lot of folks were here and they're not present,
I'm just gonna pull a few quotes from those folks from a Dewey student. Our campus has been broken into three times since 2025 began. A camper van left the front of our school scattered with human excrement, a pit bull inside the building, and a man tried to drag a student into the building. Another quote, I have to walk by it every day while men yell inappropriate and disturbing things. They tend to harass me at times if I don't reply back to them. This makes me question my safety as I attend my school every day where I should feel safe and protected at all times.
Our student has been our school has been broken into more than once this year. They've taken our speakers. We express ourselves a lot with music and our air conditioner. Director Berry? Oh, yes. Are you going to I am gonna get there. I am But can you do that first, your your My motion? Yeah. And then do your comments. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I'd like to move to amend the current motion to include that before final board action on the demolition at Ralph Bunche, a deeper assessment of the cost associated with the demolition of Ralph Ralph Bunche and
10/25 are explicitly referenced in the plan. And this assessment should be comprehensive, addressing total cost, potential risk to the districts to the district and address some of the concerns I mentioned earlier with any other financial or operational implications. And the findings should be discussed at either the facilities committee or as part of an upcoming asset management study session to ensure informed decision making before approving any final resolution on the demolition.
I believe that's a friendly amendment to the plan. You have two minutes. Right? Yes. I will go quickly, on a few things. So one, I do want to say that this is like our we have a vision that we've set out around what we want for kids in Oakland. The absolute need across our facilities in the last facilities master plan was $3,400,000,000 escalation in inflation costs have increased that to probably somewhere around $6,000,000,000 right? We are playing a game from behind a lot.
And so what we're talking about here is a lot about prioritization and what we feel like is important to best set up the district for the future. So I wanted to name that because we are in the process of a facilities master plan, a new master plan, but that is the challenge is really around where we're prioritizing our funding. I'm going to hit at a really high level. This has been reviewed multiple times. It started back in September when we brought it to the the facilities committee. It then went to CBOC. It then went back to the facilities committee when we talked about the lead resolution,
and then we brought it back to CBOC, and then we brought it back to the facilities committee. So this has had a lot of iterations. And I do want to name, this is a budgeting process, right? Like this is a budgeting process. And like was earlier mentioned about Ms. Grand Dawson, we hope to keep bringing the spending plan back with adjustments as we adjust to new conditions. I'm gonna go really quickly, over a few items. I just wanna point out this is our priorities that were laid out in the master plan. Right? The slide that you're on right now, the bulk of the work that we're doing is in these major major modernizations. There is a list.
It is five schools. Right? It's McClymonds, Roosevelt, Garfield, Maxwell Sherman, and CCPA. Those have been called out, and that's what is in the spending plan adjustment that we're talking about. I'm just gonna go over the challenges and then I'll turn it over to board questions, because I know that you've reviewed this. We've had two by twos. You've seen a lot of the information here. We are expecting more revenue. And one of the things that I'm trying to do with our team is to ramp up our ability to get more revenue into the district to support the program. Prop two is one, also philanthropy and that has been something that's been ongoing.
And there is a slide here that just shows potential future funding for the district. The other thing I want to say and this is the important thing about the contingency and then I'll turn it back over to you all for questions. From 2018 when all these projects were named, we've had to make adjustments to the other projects as well. You have a total escalation about 50% right now. There's also increased pressure in the economy right now. The wildfires in Southern California around the modular builds has deeply impacted the Garfield project because the cost of all the portables has gone up significantly,
right? And then finally, like the economic the executive orders and federal economic policy, you heard it impacting the Child Nutrition Service Program. Also the tariffs are going to impact the, the overall constructability of a lot of these projects. So that is the one thing that we are mindful of in putting this forward to you all. The I'll pause right there. I know that there's a lot of questions that everybody has. So I'll stop right there, and then I'll reference slides individually if you have questions about things. I think we need to take public comment first.
Oh, gotcha. Is there any public comment on this item? Yes, madam president. We have seven speakers signed up for this item. How much time would you like to allot for public comments? One minute. Each those seven names are Assata Olafala, Ben Tapscott, Janelle Harris, Mana, and and Aldi, Yolanda Gregory, Stacy Ross Morrison, and l Andy Nelson. Coach Tapscott left. Okay. So I requested in that same meeting you were referring to, director,
all the spending that was done, and I too got an answer. I was given a document that shows all of the spending on my Climen's. If you look at this report, you will see that it said solar panels complete. And I'm a say this again. That was ten years ago. Eleven years ago. 02/2014. Two thousand '14, that shouldn't even be on this report. But if you compare the spending that you spend on every other high school in Oakland, severely neglected, and we have been for a long time.
2012, measure B, four thirty five million. McClyments, nothing. 2018, measure J, 4 20 5 million. McClyments, nothing. 02/2020, measure y, seven thirty five. We were allocated $91,000,000 but we haven't Ain't it yet. So Thank you. Next speaker, please. So at the measure BJNY meeting, this is what we got. That Garfield modernization, 56,700,000.0 to 70,700,000.0, likely needed is 87,000,000.
That's what this said. Which you you got something that said 56.7. We also got something that talked about the demolition of, Ralph Bunch, four million dollars. Ralph Bunch was moved the students were moved because they needed to do maintenance at the school. They moved them over to West Oakland Middle. They did nothing. Facilities did nothing. They allowed that building to deteriorate and become a site of of, blight. Then you start throwing junk in there.
Did nothing. That's what you do to black schools. And now you wanna spend 4,000,000 to dim you did nothing. Hold them accountable. They were supposed to do maintenance at that school. And then you have in here that in the future, Elmhurst and Skyline will be a priority. Thank you. Will be a priority. And you never made my climate a priority. And you say in this document, you will ensure that they get the funds that they need at Elmhurst and Skyline. Are there any other speakers, mister Halls? All public commenters' names have been called.
Thank you. Board comments. Those children at Ralph Bunche, and now you want Teddy's school down? Director Hutchinson. I'm I'm always maybe even naively optimistic, that we won't find ourselves in the same exact place, the same exact thing happening again around the same exact dollars. So now that Mr. Tapscott left, when I look around the room, I was the only one who was involved with these controversial projects from Measure j in 02/2016, went to dozens of community meetings, both over the Central Kitchen, Glenview Elementary,
and Fremont High. And I was excited about measure y getting passed after what had been done with measure j. And then as a board member, measure y passes, and the board president at that time reprioritized the list. And all of a sudden, CCPA wound up at the top of the list. Never had been on it before. The Cole Administration Building gets put on the list. And so one of the things that I worked really hard to do when I was board president two years ago was reprioritize the list again to make sure the schools that we had promised years ago a new site would be put on the
list. And now for this resolution tonight actually, the start of this reprioritization, I really wanna thank director Lerma. He coauthored the resolution with me six months ago to start the ball rolling. And as mister Thomas spoke about, he's gone to the facilities committee, this committee, that committee, passed forward from the facilities committee. And here we are on the night of the vote, and people wanna introduce an amendment at 11:15 at night. This is the exact reason the supreme or not the supreme court. The grand jury report that talked about measure j and the mismanagement of dollars,
this is exactly how that happened. That's right. And deciding I mean, you know, of course, the trustee is not even on the meeting, hasn't been here the whole night. But I would assume this is exactly the kind of thing that the trustee should stay the decision because it shows awful governance, and it shows a lack of responsibility. When the chair of the facilities committee who passed this forward now waits till tonight to introduce an amendment, and we don't even have a copy in writing. And these are hundreds of millions of dollars that the community needs for our facilities. That's what we've heard all night long. And so people think that this is the way to do stuff instead of bringing
it to the committee, instead of reaching out to colleagues, instead of reaching out to staff and working with folks to develop a plan over six months. You just wanna come and bring amendments. And then I get told, oh, they don't need it in writing because it's not a real amendment because there's not a real resolution. So what are we doing here then? What is it? And I'm embarrassed. I'm furious, and this is so disingenuous at this point. And just wait until we get to the other ones that won't be able to be passed because if there's no financial impact analysis, the board bylaw applies, and it will never be listed as passed.
And I know there's no financial analysis of these last minute amendments. Thank you, director Hutchinson. Are there any other board comments? I don't even know what the amendments are. There is, I understand it, no fiscal impact for the friendly amendment I proposed. I do wanna use my time to re just to finish the quote that I was reading earlier. So, I have to walk by it every day while men yell inappropriate and disturbing things. They tend to harass me at times. If I don't reply back to them, this makes me question my safety as I attend my school every day where I
should feel safe and protected at all times. Our school has been broken into more than once this year. They've taken our speakers. We express ourselves a lot with music and our air conditioner. They also have stolen teachers' vehicles. I love my city city despite all the bad things that happened, but this is where I draw the line. I hate to have to question my safety. The smell in trash is very disturbing too. The smell of things burning and feces from them and their animals too. The bark they bark nonstop and sometimes even chase them. Chase us.
I would like to make sure that the work that needs to happen at 10/25 is reflected in the measure wide plan. That's the the spirit of the amendment beyond the possibility for us to access potential contingency funds to do that work. And beyond that, I also wanna make sure that we have an opportunity to refer to the forthcoming guidance, like the asset management report, to shape sort of those decisions, particularly around the vacant properties, including both 1025 and Bunch. Move along with the Bunch. I agree with the,
with director Barry. I think a few days ago or with I did the African American reading. And excuse me. I was so excited. And I I sat in the classroom with nine year olds. And now I had talked to high school students. I know I talked to, you know, principal Morrison. But listen to these nine year olds, and this is what they look out at every day. This is they don't they don't see any sky they don't see anything but this crumbling building. And the kids were like, oh, are there ghosts in there? We heard people were murdered in I mean, it and,
again, you know, we talked about, you know, diff is it a little more real? But I think they're they're nine year olds, and that's what they see every day. And I guess my concern, around 10:25, and and we've talked about this, is that I I don't know why it keeps getting pushed back. I mean and we're only talking demolition. We're not talking anything else right now. I know we have an asset management, report coming, But I don't understand what it takes to just tear because something's gonna happen there. And it could happen to one of our students.
It could happen to someone's unhoused who's living in there. But the district would bear liability for that. And I think, again, I feel like in this particular area of schools, these are schools that aren't perceived as having much power. And these are some of our most vulnerable students. And I just I don't know what it takes to just do the demolition. But, and, again, it's the the the demolition was in the measure y, and I think, you know, I I think we've been really patient about it.
But but that building just has to come down. You know? So, anyway, any other board comments? I'd like to call the question. Just say Chuck Lee. Just a point of clarification. I've never heard of us approving an amendment or anything that we don't even have it in writing. It's just words. That it's it's required that if we're gonna vote on something, an amendment, that is provided in writing, and it does say that in the bylaws, and that's Robert's rules. But I've never heard of just somebody throwing out words, and now we're gonna vote on that? We don't even know what we're voting on. We called the question to amend the,
spending plan to return, Elmhurst and Skyline to their original funding and to, put the, demolition of 10/25. Original to what? There's been multiple lists before. That's why I would like a point of clarification. We can't vote on something for millions of dollars Excuse me. And it's not in writing. Where so if I may add, the motion is to amend the spending plan, not a resolution, so it doesn't need to be in writing, to reallocate $3,000,000 back to Elmhurst and Skyline from measure j funds,
which you all can find on slide 30 of the slide deck. That is the motion plus the amendment of director Berry. If director Berry would like to repeat her amendment, she can. Why were you blending? Missus Sada, we're conducting business up here right now. Thank you. I move to amend the current motion that before final board action on the demolition at Ralph Ralph Bunche, a deeper assessment of the cost associated with the demolition of Ralph Bunch and 10/25 are explicitly referenced in the plan.
And Ralph Bunch is trying to This assessment should be comprehensive, addressing total costs, potential risks to the district, with any other financial or operational implications, and the findings should be discussed at either the facilities committee meeting or as part of the upcoming asset management study session to ensure informed decision making before approving any final resolution for demolition? Can you follow the question, please? So can I please get a ruling from the general counsel? Because this is so in a in a inappropriate to vote on something that's not
even in writing. I can, share screen with the two amendments and the amendment and the friendly amendment. I I believe we have done it this way in the past, director Hutchinson. Tomorrow? I don't have the time limit. Oh, director Berry, does this reflect, the friendly amendment that you would like to propose? It needs to mention 10/25. Does it? And vice president Bachelor, your amendment. That is correct. Thank you. You can move forward. Call the question? Yeah. Call the question, sir. On a motion to adopt 24 dash two three three zero as amended by vice
president Bachelor and also an amendment by director Barry s Friendly as stated. Director students are absent. Director Thompson is absent. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Hey. I'm just telling you. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Berry? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Brujahire? Yes. The motion is adopted. David Schittman. David Schittman. Point of clarification, or maybe this is for counsel. In Robert's Rules, there's an ability to suspend the rules. So I'd like to make a a motion to suspend the rules to complete the
agenda for tonight, which would which requires a two thirds majority. That's not, the Robert's Rules that requires the hard stop. It's a bylaw. It's a a board bylaw. Excuse me. What? She said you gave a ruling, and I I can't hear her. It's a bylaw? It's yes. Director Latta, the it's not the Robert's rule that requires the hard stop. It's a board bylaw. And so that is the distinction. Then I'd like to make a motion to suspend the agenda and or to spend the rules and consider item s six next.
That's not that's not a appropriate amendment or motion. Sorry. Can't I can't suspend make a motion to suspend the rules? That's that's a rule. Robert's rules and that's I think you're on s four. Yes. You want to call a motion on the S4? No. It should be. Oh. We can do that on the same page. I think the modification of agenda time has already lapsed. That was earlier. Our next item is s four, which is board policy BP. I don't know what n t b d means.
Facilities, climate action, emergency action resolution, facilities planning and management. Do we have a motion to adopt this? So moved. I'll second. K. Do you want me to give you a two minute presentation? Thank you so much for the time to speak with you all today. We had previously presented to the facilities committee in January and, February where we provided an overview of the sustainability policy, which is grounded in the climate emergency action resolution that was passed in 2020. This is phase two of the climate emergency action passed in 2020 that we are bringing forth to today.
Since 2020, we've built this policy through collaboration with the task force, a sustainable advisory council, department leadership, and various community groups. We refined our priorities through data analysis, peer, institution research, and conducted a cost estimate analysis of our priorities. This was an OUSD led effort. We also conducted various community engagement activities as well. The policy covers 11 focus areas, all centered on student well-being, safety, and OSU's role in addressing climate change. These goals provide the framework for sustainability.
And once this policy is approved, we will develop the implementation plan to put these goals into action. I also want to note that the sustainability policy sets the goals and priorities for sustainability across the district but does not bind the board to specific commitments, which allows flexibility based on funding and evolving targets. Work is already underway that align with this policy as it, through the energy efficiency bucket in the current bond, and any new projects that are developed from this policy will undergo its own independent
review to assess its scope, budget, and alignment with the board's vision prior to being approved. To go into a bit more detail, I wanted to share some, student engagement that we had done. I'm going to skip through our slides here. We conducted student engagement around our sustainability policy, including, student presentations and student participation participation in our sustainability survey. This survey achieved 711 total responses, about 69% of them being students, 10% parents,
and 19% OUSD staff. Based on what we're sharing today, in our previous two presentations in the facilities committee, we are hoping he can either vote to approve this policy or we can come back for a second read, to approve it in the next following board meeting. And, again, after the approval of this policy, we will kick off the implementation plan to develop the steps and actions to achieve the goals through this, outlined in this policy. Thank you. Point of clarification. I'm just again, I'm looking at how like, this is a very important policy that we received a lot of questions.
You know, I got a lot of advocacy from students on. Plus, we have several other items. And I'm, wondering if I can make a motion to adjourn this meeting to continue, later this week. So the emotion to so that we can finish the work on the agenda because so I just I second that if that's possible. We can make a my understanding is we can make a motion to adjourn the meeting to a date certain this week. All the items have been posted, and we can, then what if we decide to do that, then we can find a time to post it along the that the motion that I would like to make is to adjourn to
a date certain this week to continue the items on this agenda. Are there do we need to post on this? Is your is your motion to adjourn the meeting? Adjourn? Adjourn and continue. No. No. I'm sorry. If we if we've picked up, do we need to the seventy two hours for the posting and the This is outrageous. Yeah. Do you is is the item the item on the floor, is there a motion or anything related to that item? To clarify, there is a motion by myself and director Brohart to move this item. Director Latta.
We can't motion to move this item? Was okay. Colorado. On the motion, students, The motion was to move the to adjourn the meeting and to move to a date this week. What's the note So then is it then If if we do that, do we need the seventy two hours of posting for that? Friday. Mhmm. The staff can't be there, so you guys already knew Right. By yourself. Yeah. I I I we can't I don't know how we would do that. I mean, staff would have to come. We'd have to have posting time. It could be done. The soonest we can do I got a couple more Excuse me.
That's not I'm not motioning to adjourn. I'm motioning to adjourn and continue the meeting. So if people don't wanna do that, you can vote against me. That's not that you can we can vote it now. I think So it's motion to adjourn. We have to make sure there's staff to a date certain There's also Right. Right. Two times certain. So that needs to be at least seventy two hours for posting. We need to do excuse me. It's 11:45. Our meeting by according to bylaws is officially adjourned. So, I I'm the one who adjourns that, Mike? No. The bylaws at 11:45, and we can get a ruling from general counsel.
The bylaws say explicitly 11:45, and it's 11:45. So we'd have to make sure I mean, staff has to be able to come. There's no way I don't think there's a way to do that. The meeting is is adjourned for the choreography. Know how to stay identified right now? Right. We can call us even this is all about. We can call a special meeting and not and and and identify with staff the time. But if we all that's the decision we can make. Okay. Oh, my arm's blowing. I think that that's what you're committing to.