Alright. Welcome to the February 22 Board of Education meeting. Call to order at 04:00. Okay. Mister Riggstart, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please? Absolutely, madam president. On the roll call to establish quorum, student director summons, student director Vasquez perhaps it. Director Latta? Present. Director Williams? Director Hutchinson? Director Barry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. Vice president Bachelor? Present. And president Brohart? Here. Quorum, present. Thank you. And mister Seichau, can we have a translation check?
Oh, I'm not mister Hart. Thank you. We have translation check, please. Yes, madam presidents. On or for tonight's meeting, we have two languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will start with interpretation check. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need language which is being announced,
which is Arabic. And I will ask miss Abdi if she can come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Okay. Arabic instruction is done. Thank you. Thank you, miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language which is being announced, which is Spanish, and I will ask miss Walker Marquez if she can come off mute and give
the interpretation announcement for Spanish. The Spanish announcement is done. Thank you, miss Walker Marquez. Checking to see if there's any hands raised on Zoom for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the first interpretation announcement for this evening. We'll make further announcements later in the evening, and I pass it back to you, mister Rick Shaw. President, the initial, translation of, translation or interpretation availability announcement has been completed. Thank you.
In tonight's closed session, we will deal with several matters excuse me. D one, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, d two, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, d three, conference with legal counsel anticipated legal, litigation, and d four, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation. We will deal with two pupil matters, d five, expulsion student n, d six, expulsion student o. At this time, we'll have public comment on closed session items. Yes. President Breaux Hart,
we do have one registered speaker, Sheila Haines. Okay. And, we can give her two minutes. Two minutes checking, and it looks like she's not online at the moment. Alright. Thank you. With that, we will, recess to closed session until 6PM. Our biggest impact around what we do with the district is not just participation, but how we're making sure we're increasing enrollment across the district. And so the funds and the and the measure g funds are, impactful in and that and that says for us to create continue to create, you know, opportunities, program. At the middle school level, we've seen a 20% growth and participation.
We've been able to add new sports at the high school level. We've been able to close the female participation gap and now really prioritizing, students with disabilities. I'm really excited to find more resources to bring Arabic books, to bring, there's a mom book that was recently published by an OUSD staff member that we're bringing into our libraries to make sure that our libraries are really representing the communities that they serve as well as the open communities. Well, we know that if it's just about reading, writing, and math, that some students will be excited by that, but others need more.
And so electives really keep kids in school, but we're able to to be creative and be excited about the different offerings that we can offer, including the different types of art, digital art, maker classes. All of that was was funded through that '21. Thank you for joining us to tonight's February 26 regular school board meeting. I will now turn it over to the parliamentarian who will introduce interpretation. Okay. To establish a quorum, I need to call the roll of the board. And on the roll call, student director Simmons? Here. Student director Vasquez? Here.
Director Lauter? Present. Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Berry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. K. Director Hutchinson? Yes. President of vice president Vassler? Here. And president Brohard? Here. Form present. K. And mister Hollis, can we have a translation check, please? Yes, madam president. For tonight's meeting, we have two languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can loot that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on the Zoom taskbar.
With that, we will start with live interpretations. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hands if you need the language that's being announced, which is Arabic. Also, if you are in person and need a translation laptop, you can see the gentleman in the back of the room with the laptop set up, for your use. With that, I will ask miss Soleil if she can come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Okay. Arabic instruction is done. Thank you. Thank you, miss Abdi.
Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing one hand we will start with Arabic interpretation, once we complete the interpretation announcement. Thank you. Now we'll lower all attendees hands. Please only raise your hand if you need the language that's being announced, which this time is Spanish. Also, if you are in person and need a translation laptop, you can see the gentleman in the back of the room with the translation laptops for your use. I will ask miss Vargas if she can come off a mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish.
Thank you. The Spanish announcement is done. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, miss Vargas. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised with Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Spanish interpretation at this time. We will start with Arabic interpretation until our next announcement later on in this meeting. With that, that concludes the interpretation announcement, and I pass it back to, Mr. Rick Straw. President and members of the board, the, second announcement of the availability to the public of,
interpretation services has been completed. Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize the importance of respective respectful decorum, communication, and engagement at our board meeting. 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 up here 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 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, 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 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, and 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 our meetings bring us closer to achieving our district's mission and vision. Meeting rules of engagement for board members, up to three minutes speaking limit for board members, no mingling with the audience, address comments to other board members, focus on agenda items, don't repeat what's been said, always be respectful, no interruptions, enforce norms, and most importantly, model desired behavior. At tonight's meetings, there are several allotted times where you may make public comments, provided you pre register 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. There will be public comment at closed session items, which was completed earlier. All non agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the district, adoption of people discipline report, adoption of the general consent report, adoption of the general consent report facilities, student board members' reports, unfinished business items, service agreements, Bay Area Community Resources, Acorn Woodland, Elementary School service agreement, Bay Area Community Resources,
Lockwood Steam Academy service agreement, Oakland Public Education Fund, Esperanza Elementary School and fiscal sponsorship agreement, Oakland Public Education Fund. There will be public comment at new business after the presentation of notice of layoff, classified employees reduction in force due to lack of funds and or lack of work, eliminate certificated positions due to a reduction of a particular kinds of service, application for provisional internship permit, California Commission on Teacher, Credentialing, 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 spoke of scope of the item. If a speaker speaks to a different item, the chair will need to ask that that speaker either speak to the specific item or hold their comments until appropriate public comment period. I would ask that my fellow board members help and support me in this regard. If you don't get a chance to speak during public comment, I want to encourage you to use the e comments feature via legislative information center
on the OUSD website. And, of course, you can always email board members directly using this format, firstname.lastname@ousd.org. I wanna report out closed session, items taken up in closed session tonight. Legal matters. On item d one, number 250,398, conference with legal counsel anticipated, litigation, the board discussed this matter. On d two, number 20 five-three 99, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, the board discussed this matter. On d three,
number 25 dash zero four eight five, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, the board did not take up this matter. On item d four, number 25 dash zero four eight six, conference with legal counsel anticipated lit litigation. The board approved a settlement in this matter. Motion by President Brohard, second by Director Thompson, vote seven to zero. Items d five and d six, the board heard these matters and will vote on the matters in public in section k on the agenda. This is the end of the 02/26/2025 closed session report. I'll now ask if there are any modifications to the agenda.
K. I'd like to request that the student board director's report be moved up on the agenda. No. Gonna go to the teaching. Before you're looking, we did wanna move the student report up to after, j, after public comments on non agenda items. I'm sorry. After k, because we vote on the, council after we vote on the consent report. So we're moving, items n and s, which is our classification. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? Yes. I'd like to, pull r six. K. It's also been requested by staff to pull items r four, five, and six. K.
Are there any other Director Hutchinson? I'm sorry. Just a point of clarification. So those those items are being withdrawn because they're not on the consent report. So we're withdrawing those r items that you mentioned? Yes. Thank you. There are no special orders of the day. We will now move to public comment on all non agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. We have thirty minutes for this. Mister Faitiao, do we have public speakers? Yes. President Brujah. We currently have 38 speakers card, and we have eight,
that are students. Should I call the first eight students? Right? That is correct. K. We will take the we'll take 30. Okay. And then we'll take but you can call the first five and one minute each. Okay. Noted. First five speakers are Marcelino Pablo, Sergio Pablo, Alicia Pablo, Jeremiah Evans, and Najir Roy Farris. Those are first five speakers. My name is Jeremiah, and I'm a part of Project Nemo. This is a long going issue and the time to enact is now. Firstly, we demand that we add filtration systems to the existing metal water fountains to ensure
that the water, our students and staff drink is safe and clean. Staff. This helps to catch any health issues early on, especially those that might be related to the water. So they might, I mean, so they can be treated quickly. Every year, all the water sources in our school should be tested. This means checking the water fountains, sinks, and any other places where water is used. Regular testing ensures that any contamination is found and fixed. This would also encourage students to trust school water and drink from our water fountains. Thank you. I'm not in Nigeria, but he has to go. Hello. My name is Daniel Thomas, and I am a senior at Oakland High School.
I'm part of project NEEMO as an ESA initiative dedicated to improving water systems in our school district. For years, leg contamination has been a consistent problem in our water supply, impacting nearly half of all students. Exposure to lead is linked to serious health risks, including cognitive impairments, development delays, and long term long term organ damage, especially in children. This doesn't just affect students. It affects the broader Oakland community, endangering trust in our public water system. We need your support to to address the issue and implement long lasting solutions.
We all need to work together as a community to improve our water. Thank you. Hello. My name is Palmer Cayando, and I am an Oakland High student. I am also a part of Project Nemo. I have been going to Oakland High for all four years, and throughout my years here, I have either been in sports or after school programs. During my time here, I have noticed that students make unhealthy choices and actually go through the whole day without hydration as they distress our water systems at school. Although this has started to change last year through low water filtration systems, we only have limited stations at certain areas around school, and they tend to break all the time,
sometimes during long periods. This leads to students taking more time in between periods to search for clean water systems and, or just getting water outside school. We should have safer and more available filtration systems in our schools, and we do not we should not have to beg you guys to get clean water as clean water is a basic human right. Thank you for your This problem is, affects my community too. Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Alicia Pablo. I am a junior at CCPA.
I am also a leader from frontline catalyst. I came here to talk about lead in school. I have been seeing how no one does anything to fix it. I feel like we're not being heard enough. We should get together and do something about these schools with lead issues before these young folks behind us suffer the consequences we can see. We could also see all this happening already. Students who are facing consequences are even faced who who have even faced death just because you guys didn't do anything about it. So we must do something about it before it's too late.
So please listen and help the schools fix these issues. Thank you. Hello. My name is Marcelino Pablo. I go to OOPA Premise Academy. I am a leader with frontline catalyst. My voice matter because kids are getting sick because of the lead issue. You are not listening to our voice. This is urgent. Kids deserve clean water. I should not have to go to school with dirty water. The water is hurting us. We might not see the effort right away, but they will stay with us forever.
Hi. My name is Sergio. I am a frontline catalyst leader. I am speaking up because there is lead in our water. It is harming kids. It gets them sick, and we want clean water. We want OUSD to fix our pipes. Kids will be happy with clean water. If we get clean water, kids will not get sick from the lead, and they will be happy. I want people to hear my voice, and I want people to learn about lead the lead issue so everyone can speak out for clean water. Thank you.
President Breuhart? Next Do you wanna call the speakers online? Yes. We do. But we have two more students that has been called yet. Daniel Thomas and Marilio Aguilar. Those are two, student speakers. And following that, Sheila Haines, Mark Ergood and Tanya Kapeter. Thank you. Mark Ergood, if you can meet yourself to speak. Okay. Yeah. This is Mark Ergood. I'm, a site rep for the OEA at Sojourner Truth. I'm, part of the equal opportunity now by any means necessary civil rights caucus. I'm speaking against any cuts to the Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth virtual school was created out of the fight to keep families safe during the COVID pandemic. It's a refuge now, not only for families who are concerned about health, but also for families who are concerned about Trump's, ICE raids on school campuses, for students who have, severe special education disabilities and need the support, for home and hospital students who the virtual program is able to serve,
for Arabic students, for students who are fighting for their education, for a public education. There's no replacement for Sojourner Truth program in the public schools. Any cuts, any closure of Sojourner Truth will mean forcing family to move to partner school. Thank you. Sojourner Truth open and uncut. Hello. I'm Tanya Kapner, also with the Equal Opportunity Now by any means necessary teachers caucus teaching at Sojourner journer
Truth Middle School, thirty years in Oakland Public Schools. We are here to say keep Sojourner Truth Elementary School open. There is no equivalent school. This will only force parents out of the school district. This school provides a quality public education online, This school provides a quality public education online for our mainly Latino Arabic speaking and black families that need this program, and you are showing them contempt by circumventing and trying to close this school illegally. I will spend the rest of my time reading what one parent had to say today because you all make it so hard for people to sign up online.
Alisa Sacati says, I oppose the closure of Sojourner Truth Elementary. I am an East Oakland native of over fifty years and mother to four sons who've all attended OUSD. My youngest child, fifth grade, is currently attending Sojourner Truth Elementary and has been for the past three years. We have a medically fragile, excuse me, we have a medically fragile. I will have to continue afterwards. SJT is literally the only option many families have to keep their students safe. Your time is up. Thank you. Our beloved school. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Sheila Haynes,
if you could unmute yourself to speak. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. I just wanna just ask you guys to keep in mind while the district figures out this budget deficit that you not cut any of the funding that's designed to support our most vulnerable students. I'm the author of the Save Our Future Resolution, but also a huge advocate of Measure NNH funding and now the new Prop 28 funding in which we've been trying to understand this new ongoing funding source. We've been emailing with no response and need answers, And we're unclear of the total budget for Prop 28 as it relates to music
and arts. There's a real shortage of music for our students. And for those that know me, my son was traumatized due to the district's actions, including schools, and he has never recovered. He's been learning online for five years. We've been fighting for over a decade now for the district to mandate a loving environment through daily reinforcement with language, but now the music is an added ask. His suffering continues while he gets further behind, but I'm asking you to please help him and all children by pushing forward by mandating a joyful environment through music and respectable language. Music is really a way of learning and expression.
Thank you, miss James. Your time is up. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next five speakers are Gabriel Kahn, Ronak Gillespie, Carmela Golden, Leticia Arouho Perez and Kim Davis. Hello, good evening. My name is Gabriel Kahn, I teach eighth grade at Life Academy. It's great to be here again two weeks later. Two weeks later seeing some real progress from the board on hearing our concerns and on hearing creative ways which we can cut spending in our district without cutting important school support and teachers on-site.
I'm excited to see the alternative budget adjustments that our board members have worked hard to do as well as some of the proposed around controlled over outsourcing as well. So thank you directors who were participating in that process. I want to remind us that every $100,000 1 hundred and 20 thousand dollars we can save is an adult in the classroom. And when we talk about supplies and resources in the classroom, the most important supply and the most important resource to these kids are caring, loving adults providing care and education to children in the room.
So when we we know it's hard, we know it's hard to go through contracts and pick through all these contracts and there are a lot of people in central office who apparently have the ability to set contracts. So there are thousands of these contracts that we have to go through for at least hundreds. But every time we find a hundred or a hundred $20,000 that's an adult in the room helping a child get an education. Right? So thank you for doing that important work. We are here to help you figure out exactly how to do that to keep the most important resource in our classrooms. Thank you. I heard my name, but I don't think I was next. I don't know if there's a process you guys are following.
Okay. Kim Davis. I want to kind of echo what was said. Obviously, the layoff notices are gonna be You know, awful. They're awful. And and, I appreciate that the commitment that you guys guys have expressed in looking for every single dollar, every penny that we can find, to get these people back in classrooms because they are the ones that make the the biggest impact. I'm looking forward to seeing these this and more legislation policy coming from the board
to ensure that we are looking at every single dollar, that we're looking at how we can undo some of the, problems that we have. And I also wanna say, I cannot understand how we can close Sojourner Truth Elementary School without an AB nineteen twelve process and a year to do it. It doesn't make any sense to me. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, Roland, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Hello. Good evening. My name is Roland Gillespie Montes. And I'm a teacher at Surgeon of Truth. I want to say to our board directors, Valerie Bachelor, Jennifer Brohard, and then Cedric Williams,
I want to remind you that you were not elected by the privatizers. You were not elected by the billionaire class. You were elected by the teachers and public school community and so the fact that a budget proposal like this is even under your consideration is shocking to me. A proposal that includes almost a hundred million dollars in cuts directly from our school site personnel that has a 15 OEA positions eliminated permanently is shocking. By closing programs that serve our most vulnerable students, you all will be contributing to the so called declining enrollment problem in the district.
Every year that OUSC public school students have pardon me, that public schools have lost students, charter schools in Oakland have picked them right up. So let's be clear to everybody in the community. These cuts are not about serving students today, are not about making our schools more efficient, they are about serving a billionaire class agenda that sees our schools as an opportunity to profit. Next speakers are Michelle Lacey, Justin Helujaza, Keita Cabrillo, Myra Cardino and Sofia Alge.
Those are the next five speakers. President Berghard, I do see two names that were called that's online. I think we have speakers coming up to the podium. Okay, I noted. Thanks. I'm sorry. Thank you. Your your time is finished. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Ayda Budinho, and I have students in the OUSD, Students in Risk Academy and CCPA. I'm part of, active families, and I am, a resident in Oakland. For a very long time, I have been very concerned about the quality of our schools. I have a daughter that is right now in seventh grade at CCPA,
and she always comes home to tell me that there are students in his in her class that are not able to read. So that, to me, it shows that our students are not making any progress towards the goals that the LCAP established. Therefore, that shows that the goals that we have for fifty eight point three towards eighty three point seven are not being reached. So and this is a systemic problem, and it tells a part of this story that our students are way below grade
level. Thank you. Next speaker please. Thank you. Your time is up. Can we have a translation, please? Hello. And, hello, good evening, President and Directors. My name is Camilla Caballero, and I am a model leader with two students at OUSD, Christian in eleventh grade, who is attending Unity High School, and Camilla, who is going to green leaf at eleventh grade too. And, throughout all the experience that, my kids have had in the school, I have seen a lot of, things that are lacking. And therefore, I decided to become more involved in everything to be able to bring a positive
change to their lives during their academic lives. Last year, I presented before you a resolution with several goals. One is to improve the reading outcomes, also the mathematical outcomes by 40% and mathematical by 43% and also the A to G progressed from 50% to 80% and then it was cut out. Good evening, president and board of directors. My name is Sophia Allgood, and I am a parent leader at Lazear Charter Academy in the Fruitvale area.
According to 2024 go public kids report, one in three third graders in Oakland are on grade level, and only one in five English learner, Latino students, and students with disabilities are on grade level. At this rate, it will take over eight years for all our students to be on grade level. Can we wait that long? We need to keep the quality of education, especially for our black and brown students, at the forefront. What will OUSD do directly next year to ensure that more students, especially students of color,
are becoming proficient in reading and math? Michelle Lacey, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Rochelle Lacey, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Good evening, students, parents, teachers, and school board members. My name is Rochelle Lacey, and I teach the moderate extensive support needs self contained program for grades kindergarten through eighth grade at Sojourner Truth, and I have been there since 02/2021. I am here in support of keeping SJT open in the 2526 school year and beyond. SJT is a unique learning environment,
a pioneer in the future of education, 100% online learning, and as a fully inclusive school with a place in classrooms for all students with all abilities. SJT serves students in all areas of education, General Ed, English Language Learners, students that have IEPs, in Gen Ed, in with resource, mild moderate, mod severe, extensive support needs. Many students in my class are able to have a classroom experience.
Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next speaker is Camilla Golden. If you can unmute yourself to speak. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. As one of my colleagues said earlier, you've made it very difficult. You've created an incredible barrier to entry for people to be able to speak because of the broken registration system. So I will be, taking my time, with other people's messages because they were unable to sign up. This is from one of our teachers. To claim you're a sanctuary district is very hypocritical since you are trying to get
rid of the one place a lot of young children consider a sanctuary, SJT Elementary. As a teacher at SJT, I have seen the tremendous work the elementary teachers have is have put onto these students. Especially for students who are ELLs, they are active within my class. And they know the SPED teacher and You know the SPED teachers are holding everything down because aside from the parents, they are doing a 10 person job teaching these kids, and they are making progress. Also, for much cheaper because we don't have an overhead. We're all working at home. We pay for our own Internet. We have four, five, six year old computers that the districts are not replacing.
We are an extremely cheap pool. Thank you. Your time is up. Next speaker. Next next five speakers are Justin Hingeaza, Samantha Blanco, Edina Anderson, Lee Thomas, and Ben Tapscott. And these will be the last speakers called? Excuse me? These will be the last speakers called? Noted. I know we have the time. I'm sorry. There's a thirty minute time limit, and we have a lot to cover tonight. Thank you. Can we let these Go on. So president Brohard, I would like to move that we extend the time for,
I think, twenty minutes or however long we need to accommodate all the speakers who signed up. Do you want to send okay. Twenty minutes. Okay. Can we take a vote on that? We have On the on the motion to extend, public comment on knowledge and the island by twenty minutes. Student director Simmons. Yes. Director Vasquez? Yes. Order? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Richardson? Yes. Doctor Berry? Yes. Thompson? Yes. President Bachelor? Yes. President Pearl Horner? Yes. So it's set for twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes. We had a, what I would call a great celebration, but it was filled with racism and discrimination. Bill Russell's daughter and son drove seventeen thirteen, fourteen hours to get down here to Oakland. The first night they were not recognized. The second night I went up to one of the Under Armour ladies and said, you know, the son and daughter are here and they would like to have a few minutes. White people were going in and out. People like Bill Patterson had to stand.
They had a list that nobody was looking at. Other ethnicities were walking through. And I said, what's going on? And who's organizing this? They went from they they weren't our people. They were under armored people, and it was terrible. So we need to send a letter or a phone call or something. They left because they were heartbroken and didn't get to speak at their father's presentation. Good evening. My name is Samantha Blanco, and I am a parent leader at Achieve Academy. The LCAP midyear update,
which we'll be hearing about later tonight, does not explicitly address the dangers of these educational goals not being met. This to me is alarming. My children fall under the category of brown kids going to school and living in the city of Oakland. I believe that having two way communication with schools, especially when coming to education is vital. I am here to ask what will OUSD do differently next year to ensure that more families and students, especially those of colors, are made more aware of the importance and being assisted in becoming more proficient in
reading and in math. In math. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I'm Edana Anderson, a twelve month community schools manager and also a UAOS executive board member. Cuts to the community schools managers are inequitable and frankly are not fair. Last year, our UAOS president negotiated hard for a raise for all UAOS UAOS UAOS members. Only about 60 of us are getting cut to being eleven month employees, which means we lose that raise that we worked so hard to get,
while the other 250 plus UAOS members still keep it. We also also lose retirement benefits while still being expected to keep students first and supporting our communities during the summer months. Community school managers work really hard to provide supports that are equitable for all of our students, and not and we're really not being treated fairly. So I hope you consider that. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, board, madam, superintendent Lee Thomas, president, former president of United Ministries for Oakland School, community school manager,
Markham Elementary. Let me remind the board that 4.3 dash one collective bargaining agreement between UAOS and OUSD talks about the work hours of community school managers. Modification of the work year can only be an agreement between the district and the union. The work year for classified employees is two hundred and sixty days, not two hundred and two hundred sixty days to two hundred sixty two days. Let me remind you of the letter that you received from UIOS that talks about the perb examples that was submitted to you guys that showed that you guys would be violating this contract agreement.
You guys have a obligation to respect the collective bargaining agreement. If you're unfamiliar with it, I would advise you to make yourself familiar with it before you make the decision of cutting the CSM manager's position from twelve months to eleven months or whatever you choose. Make sure you educate yourself and don't just look at the numbers. Last thing you need to do is violate a CBA. Thank you. Next speakers. Next five speakers are Simone DeLuci, Nate Landry, Asado Lobala, Stuart Noble, and Judy Greenspan. Those are the next five speakers.
I will say this, black and brown children in this school district are not having the same experience. And I don't appreciate when people get up and give information black and brown students. We're not having the same experience. Black students are underserved and no USD. Black students' issues constantly are brought to you and those issues are being ignored. I appreciate that you have been able to understand that our newcomer students have great deeds. You have a director of newcomers. You have a curriculum for newcomers. You have a wellness initiative for newcomers.
You have after school programs for newcomers, summer school programs, emotional and trauma support for newcomers. You have absolutely nothing for African African American students that specifically looks at their needs. And there are over 3,000 newcomer students, over 7,000 African American students in this district. So I'm tired of it. And don't come with me. Oh, you're you're speaking against another group. I'm not speaking to get you can support anybody you want in this district, but you have to support African American students. Good evening,
everyone. My name is Simone DeLuqui, and I'm the restorative community schools manager at Frick United Academy of Language. I'm here to ask the board not to cut CSM positions from twelve months to eleven months. CSMs are charged with supporting vital functions that contribute to our full school for a full service community schools model. Work is direct service with students. During the summer months is when we actually have time to iron out the plans and work out the details of what we will implement in the fall. Because of the summer work that I did and many of the other CSMs have
done at their school sites, we have higher enrollment to start the school year. We have more effective cost teams that launch right at the start of the school year. We have authentic student and family engagement events like coffee with the principal, affinity spaces, or different ethnic groups at our school, town hall meetings. All of those things take planning. When you are doing implementation, it's very hard to plan because we have to do the things that are in front of us first. Remember that a cut to CSMs is a cut to our communities.
Please do not roll back these positions. Good evening. My name is Stuart Lobel. I'm a science teacher at Frick United. Thank you to the incredible students we heard from earlier for the reminder. Lead is in OUSD drinking water. It's still there. No amount of burying heads in the sand or obfuscation will make it go away. To review, the impacts of lead include cognitive impairment, kidney failure, reproductive issues, learning disabilities, behavior problems, and more. The bottom line is schools are not safe and will not be safe until folks
on this dais takes this crisis seriously. Through a partnership with eBase, my students, just recently, February 5, we sampled five water fixtures in our site, found two of them still had high levels of lead, including a water fountain just feet from my classroom door. We know that lead is still in the water. So why are sub central office representatives asking sites to remove the bags that are covering water fixtures after significant no significant action has been taken? Why is lead not the top issue for folk on this diets?
Thank you. Your time is up. Good evening, board. Nate Landry, Brewer, parent. It is great that the students were here tonight. I was privileged to help support their work, but they shouldn't have had to come here. They shouldn't have to wonder if the drinking water at their school is safe, shouldn't have to take time out of their days to urge you to adapt solutions that are stunning in their common sense. To be clear, the responsibility for this situation still lies with Mr. Thomas and Ms. Littlejohn both not present and beyond them with all of you on the dais, but I think we know better than to expect anything from the no accountability regimes of this superintendent and previous iterations of this board.
So I'm trying to imagine a situation in which it wasn't necessary for students come here to do the work of adults who are overpaid to do that work poorly. Perhaps the district leadership wasn't so instinctively protective of senior staff and their weak oversight and worse ideas, if senior leadership weren't tracked out to either condescend to or confuse the board as well as the community as miss Grant Dawson has been doing so effectively recently, we might not be in the mess that we're in now. If accountability were more of a regular practice around here, senior leadership might actually feel the pressure to deliver on their obligations to the community instead of coming here looking for another $200,000 for the coal project.
Maybe if accountability were more of a regular practice, OUSD would have gone to the trouble of even tracking the living pairs it has done, which apparently they have not been tracking. Thank you. Your time is up. Okay. Hi. My name is Judy Greenspan. I'm a retired teacher, who has returned as a substitute, and I'm working at United for Success Academy. And the reason I'm raising that is because we have, along with McClymonds, suffered from lead in the water since 2016. And just recently, I found out, that we have these raised flower beds, and they are contaminated with lead. They went and they bought the they bought the soil at at the hardware store,
but because they're watering it with water from the school, the the vegetables are, of course, contaminated with lead. And this is a very serious situation. I also, as a teacher, wanna talk about the fact that it it is such a shame that education someday, we're gonna look back and social scientists and historians are gonna say, really? They didn't prioritize the education of our community and our students. We have a very serious situation. I'm gonna ask you to not make any budget cuts, but to stand up and to find the money and to go into the supplies
bill and some of the other things and find the money so that we can have a successful district. Thank you. We have time. Are there more speakers? Next five speakers are Eui Poling, Maxwell Litzler, Rachel Martin, Jack Nelson and Carrie Anderson. Those are the next five speakers. All right. I'm coming up. Good evening, board directors. My name is Ellie Pulling. I'm a library tech at Madison Park Elementary and an SEIU member leader. I'm here tonight in support of our Oakland High students who have dedicated their capstone projects to research and advocacy around the OUSD's lead crisis.
Our students are doing your job because you have not done your job. The people that lead this institution that are supposed to ensure all students in Oakland get their basic needs met have been absent. The senior leadership team has been absent from our schools, absent from where our students gather to commune, learn, and grow. You are responsible for not working towards a solution to this problem, a problem that we've known about for nearly a decade. In April of last year, you were reminded that there is still lead in the water. In August, you claimed it was a communication breakdown.
And six months later, six months of monthly water quality meetings with our labor unions have resulted in little more than labeling water sources and insisting on the authority of flow water machines, which our students just told you break down regularly. The mismanagement and lack of will baffles me. Tonight, all of you will vote on a budget solution that will eliminate hundreds of workers who have built personal relationships with our students. Thank you. Your time is up. I just want to remind people to take the one I know it's a shortened time,
but we have a lot of speakers. So if you could watch the timer, that would be great. Thank you. We wanna hear from as many people. Good evening, board. Good evening, community. My name is Maxwell Litster. I'm a math teacher at Skyline High School. I'm speaking to the effort to close the newcomer program at Skyline as well as the broader suite of closures targeting many students across our district. I am deeply concerned about the decision to close the program at Skyline as it's clear that this decision will have deeply inequitable impacts on students and staff. It will shake our community and dramatically shift the working conditions for our teachers and
as such the learning conditions for our students. Skyline's newcomer students are a thriving population on our campus, and they are deeply invested in our community. Our newcomer teachers have worked hard to create extensive supports for our students inside and outside of the classroom. These are more important than ever as we face the threat of ice rates here in Oakland and our schools. How can we call ourselves a sanctuary district as we actively dismantle the programs that support and protect our immigrant students? Please keep cuts away from our newcomers, fund the sanctuary resolutions and stand for the values right there on the seal of our district. Thank you. Hello.
Good evening. My name is Rachel Martin. I'm a first grade teacher at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School. Prior to this role, however, I was the site site's STIP sub. This role was integral to our school community. I knew and still know every single student at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School and was a trusted adult when they needed one. Non teacher student facing roles are few in this district, and it was absolutely necessary to ensure that legal services, including IUPs and LPAC testing, were carried out at our site. I had flexibility to support wherever I was needed in the school. Now I am still wearing the same hats while teaching full time first grade.
I am unsure how LPAC testing will be done at our site as subs have been denied by the district, and I know we no longer have a stip. The second important element of this role was gaining experience while pursuing my teaching credential. This is important within our current teaching retention crisis. It offers a pipeline for students, teacher student teachers to have experience in the classroom before becoming a full time classroom teacher. Leave sorry. Losing this role across the district would be destabilizing. When I hear that OUSD one more thing. Sorry. When I hear OUSD is adding top managers and holding money in their books and
supplies budget and is so willing to cut essential positions, it's injustice to our students. Thank you. Wow. Couldn't have planned that better, Rachel. Good evening, Lord. I'm Carrie Anderson, first VP of OEA and District 5 Resident and teacher. I'm actually here to speak to you about SIP subs as well. A few weeks ago, I emailed you a copy of the joint memo from OUSD and OEA regarding the substitute teacher incentive plan. That is the plan that we call steps for short. I also emailed you pages worth of comments that teachers submitted detailing the importance of steps at their sites and the reasons they're important.
Two things in that memo I wanna draw your attention to again. The primary purpose of the step program is to provide stability and assurance of coverage for teacher absences. And I quote, when students are familiar with the person substituting for the regular classroom teacher, instruction and school climate are maintained at their usual level. Second purpose, a practical pathway for prospective classroom teachers to develop their teaching skills and familiarize themselves with the Oakland Unified School District, which is what Rachel just spoke to. So the plan that the district is putting forth is to eliminate site based steps
and take the number down to 45. This is going to have serious impacts on our school sites. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any to speak? Yes. The remaining speakers are Jack Nelson, Adrian Hogue, Kelis Hair, Jose V, Sam Shaw, Janelle Harris, and Leticia Arujo Perez, which is the person is online. I'm going to make a motion that we just that we extend the time ten minutes. We're at the end of our twenty minute time. Is there a second? Yeah. I think I'm on non agenda items too.
But, We we have to take a vote. Full call. Student director Simmons? Yes. Doctor. Vasquez? Yes. Doctor. Thompson? Yes. Doctor, Barry? Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes. Excellent. Yes. Yes. So I have an additional ten minutes. Go ahead, please. I think I'm on on agenda items, so I shouldn't speak now. Yes. Hi. I'm Kylie Sayer. I teach at Oakland Tech, and, I'm getting a lot of kids with headaches, lot more than normal. When I ask them, they say, I'm too scared to drink the water. I wanna go to a flow station, but they're not working.
There's one that always works. It's the one in the counseling wing that has locked doors. There's one that works in the gym. Also, when they don't need to go there for class, it's locked doors. They don't have access to water that they can drink, so they're getting headaches from dehydration, and then they're trying to learn. They also feel like you guys don't care about them, and they don't feel welcome at school or safe at school because they haven't heard anything happening to fix the problem. So I'm here, like many others,
to ask that we test every single source and replace anything with any detectable lead and communicate with students so that they can feel safe and secure that you're protecting them. Thank you very much. Hi. My name is Adrienne Hogue. I teach at La Escalada Elementary School and I'm a member of EON BAM caucus. And I just wanna say, any of you up there that are voting for these cuts tonight, hundreds, cutting hundreds and hundreds of people's jobs and positions, whatever you tell yourself,
you are balancing the budget on the most vulnerable students in Oakland. Our medically fragile students that attend Sojourner Truth, our immigrant students, our students that need to be in a safe place, that are traumatized because what they have experienced in Oakland. You're cutting their program. You're cutting newcomer programs. In the midst of the largest attack on immigrants in this country that we have seen, you are cutting STIP subs which provide intervention and support for students that have IEP so their teachers can actually talk and make sure that they are supported.
And you are acting like Elon Musk and supporting Trump's plan of cutting people's jobs and not doing anything to support what you claim to be a sanctuary district. The only people that I have to get rid of. My name is Jose and I'm a member of equal opportunity now by any means necessary caucus and a TA at Skyline High School newcomer program. These planned thoughts to newcomer virtual school programs and public education in general are racist and scandalous. These attack or We do not accept the threat of a state takeover to carry
out these attacks or outside pressure to once again gut public education in Oakland. This city has one of the most profitable ports in the world. Many businesses that are making record profits and part of the richest state in the country. It is unacceptable to say that we are broke. This is not a time for business as usual when these actions are exactly what Donald Trump wants to do. This is a moment for bold public leadership to be on the forefront of defending public education, civil rights, and democracy. This is Oakland after all. I am proud to stand with Oakland Students and families that have taken a stand
against Donald Trump fascist attacks on immigrant communities, minority communities nationwide. Whether protesting and marching in Fruitvale, for a day without immigrants or students at Oakland High, Life Academy, Fremont that have walked out or protested in their schools and plan to do again on March 3, another national day of action in defense of immigrants, which this board should support. This is a kind of real leadership in action. Thank you. I'm Craig Gordon. I've been in this district for thirty five years. I'm wearing the sweatshirt from the school I was at in the early 2000s.
Paul Robeson, which was closed along with Best High School which was at McClymonds and so many other schools that we know have been closed over all these years and supposedly because they were too expensive while OUSD was spending far more on outside contractors and top administration than pretty much any other school district in The Bay and and mostly pretty much more than anybody in California. And so little's changed. Still overspending tens of millions on top admin and private contractors while closing schools of
vital programs. Do not close Sojourner Truth Elementary or Skyline's newcomer program, the SIP substitute program that was talked about earlier, so many other vital supports for our students. Get the lead out of the water, prioritize our students and school workers over downtown administrators, and so many millions wasted on outside contracts and consoles. Next speaker please. Hi. My name is Sam Shaw. I teach science at Life Academy. I just wanna speak to a later agenda item with an alternative, proposed budget cuts. I'm, excited to see that some, new proposals are being taken in places that take the damage away from our students.
That excitement is mirrored by the bafflement that I and my colleagues felt, that those cuts were being kept away from, places that it could have been in the first place. Those namely being, extended, and external contracts. This makes sense, however, and from Central Office. My, eighth grade teammate Gabe pointed out, very eloquently a couple weeks ago, that of course, central office will not cut themselves. It is on this board to do so. And, it is on this board to keep the damage away from our students, our in our communities. Classified staff who are receiving pink slips are part of our cohesive student student communities
that make our campuses safe and improve student outcomes. So I urge this board to take, in mind these alternative budget proposals to make sure that our school communities primarily retain their safety and their support for student outcomes. Thank you. Good evening, board. I just wanna take a moment to remind this body on who the intended people for civil rights were. Right? Civil rights was because black people who had a history of enslavement and building this
country were getting unequal treatment here, which we still are today. McClymonds is just an example. It is a historical black high school that started only because of the great migration that happened here in Oakland. And it still continues to thrive, even though we have nothing. I mean, that that is our gift, right, as we know how to make a dollar out of 15¢. But when we talk about civil rights, we need to be included in that, especially since it was based for us. So I would like you to remember,
when you say civil rights equity in all these documents, we're nowhere other than suspension rates and expulsion rates. So can we get some reading equity? Thank you. Thank you. We have, final person on line that was called previously, Leticia Araju Perez. If you can unmute yourself to speak. Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. Hello. My name is Leticia O'Raho Perez. I'm the administrative assistant at Prescott Elementary. I'm also an SEIU member. My purpose in speaking tonight is to address the concern about job cuts,
in particular in regards to attendance specialists. The district is constantly lamenting that we are losing students and losing money. However, the district also seems to target attendance specialists who currently work full time to make them have time. Attendant specialists are instrumental in maintaining positive interactions with our families to ensure our children come to school. Attendant specialists are some of our hardest working employees and are some of our lowest paid employees who are placed under tremendous amount of pressure.
It is critical to keep our attendance specialists as full time at all of our school sites because their jobs are vital. And it's horrible that one of our high schools, Oakland Tech, only has one attendance specialist. We have to fix that. And lastly, shame on you for the continued let it be. Thank you. Thank you. President Bruggemann, we have Jack Nelson sign up for non agenda items. I believe he's still down there in the audience. Okay. I'd like to thank Ms. Bachelor for reminding me to come tonight and Mr.
Hutchinson and Johnson Trammell for listening to me before. Basically, I have been working since the December on the Bean Fardella renaming of Skyline High Field, which is a little different. By the way, that won't cost anything because I'll pay for the sign. And I have no problem doing that. It's $3,414 And Coach Fardell, it was sure worth it. I was his TA. My father ran the OAL. And as you know, Miss Johnson Trammell, when have a high level job like that, it takes a lot of time away from your family.
And coach Pardell and others provided some of that time back for me. Great role model. Coach Beam was popularized on Last Chance U. Hutch didn't shake shake his head. I'm sure he saw it. He's an outstanding coach who took people out of jail and got him into college. Last, both of them put, people in the pros, but they also won 20 championships in forty years. And Casey Adams started me on this, and and I I just wanted to keep keep it going.
And I do have 230 names on the petition. I'm sorry. I went over it. Thank you. That concludes public comment. We'll now, oh, I'd like to make a comment just to tackle something that was brought up in public comment. This is gonna be a facilities report for later, but, the facilities committee directed staff to provide us with information on resources to tackle water quality in our schools. And And as a result, 4,500,000.0 in measure j funds that are that started or unallocated will be directed towards, lead abatement. $1,000,000
in arts and arts and music instructional block grant will also be allocated for the purchase of additional flow water systems at school sites, a transfer of $15,000,000 from measure y funds from draws two, three, and four will also be transferred into water mitigation, and that's a total of $20,500,000, that we will be transferring over to do that work. We are also applying for $5,000,000 worth of EPA grants and applying for, Prop $2, when they become available.
As a board, we will discuss President Brothar, this is out of order. This isn't this item, and this is very inappropriate right now. And I tried to wait to say something, but this is this comment is extremely out of order, and it's factually inaccurate. And so this is not the way that business is supposed to be done. We're not supposed to comment under public comment. Continue. We're not supposed to comment after public comment, and this item wasn't agendized, and it's out of order. And I would request that you get a ruling. This is out of order to just talk about any subject you want when it hasn't been agendized. As a board, we will discuss and vote on the reallocation.
Can I please get a ruling from the parliamentarian then president Brohard? Continuing and I look forward to continuing to work with students, staff, and my board colleagues to find any and other resources to tackle water quality issues in our schools. Alright. Is there a motion to adopt the people discipline, consent report? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Mister Raikstra, can we have a roll call on that vote, please? I refuse the student to refer. What public speakers? And on the, roll call to adopt the people this consent report, direct the ladder. Yes. Williams? Yes, sir.
Speaker. Sorry. Madam president. I'm sorry. Yes. Public comment. We have public comment on this. We have ten minutes of public comment on, adoption of people discipline. Yes. We have Janelle Harris, Ben Tapscott, and Asado Lobala. We can give two minutes each. I wanna speak to l two first and how it's such an inappropriate representation of the amount of money we spend on coal, deciding we're spending over $50,000 for consulting. Miss O'Lamato, we're on, people consent report. Oh, which one? K. K. Okay. That's our expulsion.
Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh, when you said consent, that's what threw me off, but it's a discipline report. Okay. No problem. We have okay. Thank you. Well, we have two students, again, who are being considered for expulsion. I appreciate, I'm getting more understanding based on the superintendent's report that's gonna give us some data related to that. I just wish the superintendent would have included in your report a breakdown by race and gender of the students who are being suspended and expelled.
Because it's my position not having adequate make information, I take this position that a disproportionately high number of students who are suspended and expelled are African Americans. So, I also wanted to know by schools, elementary school, middle school, and high school, where we had suspensions, and, I don't think we have expulsions at elementary level. But, my position again, repeatedly, all these young people getting the academic support, the behavior support that they're gonna be capable to return to be functional and onboard,
when they go off wherever they are, are they following the curriculum of the schools that they were expelled from, or they've been exposed to a different curriculum? If that is the case, they're gonna be out of the capacity to be ready to return to the schools. I ask you to give more attention to our expelled students when we close that community day school. We shouldn't have done it. We've we've lost the opportunity to really support these young people who are being expelled. I just wanna speak on, the discipline consent report. Oftentimes,
when I come to these meetings, we have the same information on here about, you know, expulsion and what we're doing, but I have never seen a plan to fix it. Like, how and what are we doing to support our students with this process? Because oftentimes when I do advocacy work, I find that the school district violates the rights of the kid by going through this process. And their parents don't know, so, you know, the parent liaison should be speaking to the parent about what the process is and
how it goes, and they don't. And most of the time, it is our kids, but they don't say it because it's repetitive. And I know that. I know how to read one report and link the two together. So I'm just asking that, you provide some information that has to do with the solution. Like, what are the things that we're trying for our kids? What are the things that you're doing to lower the expulsion rate? Thank you. The black population in Oakland is about 24%. How can 24% comprise 55%
of suspensions? And I've asked the question over and over again. Nobody else gets in trouble except black students? I don't understand it. In addition to that, is there a correlation between reading and getting in trouble? Because I will guarantee you that black males do not wanna be in the room with black girls and be embarrassed because they can't read. And this district actually published, out of 10 seniors, only four can read above the fourth grade level. 5,000
adult prisons in The United States. Over twenty some percent of those are black students that cannot read. And that's the pipeline we keep talking about. We got newcomer programs. What about old comers? What about teaching black students how to read? What about teaching all kids how to read above the fourth grade level? There has to be an investigation. Office of equity? Are you kidding me? It's the office of inequity. Our seniors last year,
the district published this four out of ten seniors, which means six cannot read above the fourth grade level, and we have to look at that. Thank you. President Bulha, we do have another speaker. Sheila Haines. Sheila Haines, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. I'm not I'm not sure I heard right. The bachelor say a million from music is being taken to water quality. I'm not sure if that's true, but I I just wanted to finish my statement that I was saying earlier basically
is that, you know, if music could be an everyday form of learning and everyday activities, it would also provide therapeutic and joyful value to the lives of our students. Music for my son and students that's most vulnerable with problems that lead to suspensions and things like that, it's a way of learning and expression. And I'm hoping you guys will take a look at that because I'm hoping that through music, it could be a pathway for him to gain other skills. Our resolution not only calls for music, but it calls for mandating a loving environment and helping to hopefully
help with consistency in building and learning and also hopefully cutting down ex expulsions for our most vulnerable students. So please just take a look at that, and we are asking you to provide us with answers relating to our request for music and language within our schools. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? No, president. That concludes public speakers. Mister Raikstra, can we take a vote on the item? On the roll call to, approve the pupil discipline consent report,
Again, the student board directors are excused. Director ladder? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Yes. And president Brohart? Yes. Physical consent report is approved. We're now move which student reports? Thank you. Good afternoon, community, students, parents, staff, board member, and superintendent. In today's oral report, we'll go over student events, communication, and professionalism. So to start off with our student events, our high school meeting our fourth high school meeting will be taking place on March
20 at Casa Millen High School. All high school students across OASD are invited, and we have emailed your leadership and principals with more information and the RSV link so you can all sign up and join us for our meeting. In this meeting, we'll be talking and and going more in-depth for for our upcoming Youth Action Summit where we'll be be holding elections and be talking about our new priorities for the upcoming school year. Next, on March 6 from 08:30 to 03:30PM at Mills College will be our middle school
ethnic studies conference. Our theme for this conference would be fighting for equality means fighting for each other. Here are middle schoolers all across OESD are welcome to join us at this middle school conference. We're so excited to have you all here and everybody is welcome. And of course, you all are welcome as well to join us. We'll be very excited to be seeing middle schoolers interact, doing a lot of activities, joining a lot of different workshops. And yeah, moving on to that. Alright. So before I get started with everything, I'm gonna say, I first wanna give a shout out to my Oakland High students.
I know they're not here, but my Oakland High students that came out to speak today, they did amazing. And while I'm on the and while I'm gassing up Oakland High, I just wanna, I talked to miss Obala, miss Assata, and she showed me an article that Oakland High School seniors 61% of Oakland High School seniors are eligible for a UC or a CSU, which is amazing. Just in comparison, the district wide mark is 49%. So that's really amazing. But moving on, I just wanted to talk about our professionalism on the board.
And I really stress this because I just want y'all to put your put yourselves in my shoes or Michelle's shoes. And if one of us came up and acted out or did anything of the such, the first thing people would say is this is why students shouldn't be on the board. This is why students don't need to be a part of these tables and don't need to sit on these tables because we're not fit to be here. Me and Michelle gotta show up every week, every other week with our a game.
And I expect you guys to do the same, and I expect nothing less from you guys. And I'm asking president Brohard to really work with me and actually work with me for this board to get some type of team building whether and I know about the Brown Act, and I know we I'm a we're gonna have to find a way around it because I've been asking for this since I started. And we really need some team building because I'm not gonna work on a board
that can't work with each other, especially during a time when we need to come together as leaders to find out the best way to help our community, which is why we're all here. So that's that. On a positive note, I met with, some stuff I talked about at the last board meeting was communication and how there's no communication. But I did meet with Dexter, who's the chief of staff, and we went over a couple of things. We talked about how we don't receive any bimonthly updates. And I'm pleased to announce that we're now receiving our own bimonthly updates as student
directors. So thank you, miss Trammell, for standing on that and making sure that we're getting that. And hopefully, when we're gone, student directors are gonna keep receiving those bimonthly updates. We're now gonna re we're gonna rein reinstate the monthly meetings between Dexter and all city council. So we can keep getting these updates of what's going on inside the district. Me and Dexter also talked about some plans. So student well, me, Dexter, Michelle. Sorry. So we will talk about some ways that not only us on the board,
but the community, students, and parents can start receiving updates all the time, constantly, even if you guys don't want any updates because you guys need to know what's going on. And if anything does happen, families need to be able to set up a plan b and set up a plan for what's gonna happen if things if worse does go to worse. And we also I'm a let Dexter touch on it a bit more after I finish talking. But we also talked about student directors having an onboarding program because we get because
me and Michelle got thrown into this position without any information. Well, I kinda knew what it was gonna entail, but Michelle didn't really know what it was gonna entail. And we kinda get thrown in this position without any information of what's going to happen and what our job is gonna require from us mentally, physically, and all of that good stuff. So I can let Dexter talk about the actions he's taken to get this ball rolling for the student onboarding pro for the student director onboarding program. Well,
before I start this far, I would like to also thank superintendent Trevall for sending starting to send us these biweekly, emails. But not only that, I mean, I seem very quiet usually for these meetings, but I also wanna express and just back up what Dirk Fitzsimmons have been saying about the professionalism and also the lack of communication we have been receiving. But with the communication, I'm very glad that we were able to meet with Dexter and communicate with him about our worries and how we wanted to be more connected and just know more
information because we also just like our student directors, we also have a group of students that we work with with the All City Council in Union. We also have to report back to them. And there were times where we felt like we had nothing to let them to report back to because we didn't know anything, just like you guys. So I feel very happy that we're going to start implementing these new processes, these new meetings. And also, with the professionalism. Many students, whether you don't know it, but many students do look up to you guys because or even look up to
us to becoming future directors for the school board. And just seeing your behavior can be a lot. It can not just a lot, but a little bit disappointing as we both both Max and I work together with you all, and we both wanna take on future roles as leaders. But I really want to amplify just furthering your improvement and just real relationship with each other. I know it can be hard with the Brown Act,
but I'm very sure that it's possible because I'm sure we've seen it happen before. And, yes, that's really it. Thank you. So Dexter, you may come on. Thank you. Evening, board, superintendent, community. There's not much to say. I mean, more so just appreciation to the leadership of directors Simmons and Vasquez. Appreciate you all taking time to meet with me and looking forward to continued strength and communication between, your student leadership and the students who you report back to you and, our team and staff here with the district.
One one of the things that I heard from you all last week, which was a brilliant idea, was this is a very short term, and it's very full with a lot of learning. And so to the extent that we build in some details and programming and pre meetings and entry activities to help support you, so you can be as successful as you can in this role and also impart that knowledge to, student directors who come after you. We're certainly committed to that. And so we'll definitely plan to come back and have you all share,
details of the student director onboarding program, later this year before you all, leave your role. So thank you. Thank you. That concludes our report. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Is there any public comment on this? Yes. There's four speakers. We have Gabriel Khan, Ben Tapscott, Asado Labala, Engineer Harris. Let's give two minutes. Thank you again. My name is Gabriel Khan, Life Academy eighth grade teacher. I just wanna congratulate It's, directors, Vasquez and Simmons for speaking so eloquently to what you're seeing. I also just want to affirm that you two have a lot of power. The youth voice you could hear this room get a lot quieter when you two
talk compared to when other people provide public comment. I want and I'm just hoping and encouraging you to step into that power as much as you can, and we are here to support you. If you're feeling like there are questions you have about how this thing runs and if you feel like you're looking for more perspectives and who to talk to, I want you all to know that we, as teachers, are here for you to help you figure out what's going on. I love the idea of some restorative justice on this board to heal some past harms, and I love that y'all are are modeling what it looks like for Oakland Students to show what it looks like to bring that to the table and recognize that
there's work to be done in that regard. It speaks to the incredible work that your teachers and your communities have done with you and the incredible work that you do with your own community. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, student directors. It's always enlightening when I hear you speak, especially you, Director Simmons. It's very nice, to feel protected, so to speak. Oftentimes, the past three years that I've come, our student directors are silent on things that they do not agree with, and I don't know why,
but I applaud you for having the courage to stand in your own space. So thank you. I believe in student power. That's how I got my job at Mac. They boycotted for three days because they didn't want me to be the new basketball coach. You guys gotta keep fighting. You have to remember that what you're representing is all of the students, not just some of them. This lead issue that we're talking about, I brought that forward in 2016,
and we had lead all over the place of my climates. And now we hear there are 40 schools, and we didn't get that information early enough to get it out to parents. President Thomas should be fired. He should be fired. He should be fired. He needs to be fired. And on the filters, I told him they should put the return date, the removal date, on the filters. So if we have March 5 on the filter, everyone in that school will know March, not the date you put it on,
the date you're gonna replace it. Everybody will know when it's supposed to come up. And the fact that we're wasting so much money on other stuff, forty forty schools, and those you guys have been drinking that water, so I don't know if we're bringing bottled water in now. The superintendent probably can speak to that. I don't know if they're using the filters. Before, we had dispensers in the hall, and they were complaining about no cuts. So there's a big issue with 40 schools and the health of you ten, fifteen years down the road.
Is there gonna be an effect on what we are not taking, in my opinion, seriously enough and moving fast enough to protect our children in our schools. So you keep up the fight and get in good trouble. You heard about that. Right? Good trouble? Thank you. Are there any other speakers? Yes. We have we have Asaul Lobala. Okay. Thank you. Oh, no. Okay. And that include public speakers. Thank you. Board comments on the student report. Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you again for the grounding reminder about how we
show up, not just for you, but for the entire community. So one of the things that occurred to me today as folks were giving public comment is how it is a shame that students and educators have to demand and beg for some of the things we're talking about. And it creates this sort of like it feels sometimes divisive because people are frustrated and rightly justifiably so. And so part of how I think we can address this is not just like these restorative conversations, but also increasing the level of transparency and communication and the collaboration that we're engaged
in, in order to solve or address some of these issues. Because, you know, thank you for sharing, you know, some of the work that is happening, but we need to have more of these conversations in our communities, need to hear more from us about what we're actually doing so that they can continue to identify help us identify where the gaps are. So thank you for that. I was also at Oakland High today for the A through G, gathering, and it was really powerful to see. So I'm glad that that stuck out to you guys, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do more of that celebratory work,
in the future. So thank you. Any other board? Director Williams? Yo. I'm just really excited. I'm always excited when I see Director Vasquez because she's doing a lot. Both of you are doing a lot, as students, especially maintaining that school, and preparing for the next phase after school, internships, working, socializing. We call that like, a strong social emotional connection. Right? You kind of you could feel the energy and being able to recognize the energy and speak to it.
You know, as folks get older, they tend to move past that when actually that should be something that we should connect on on a regular basis of how we're treating each other, and how we're interacting with each other. I think that gets lost sometimes. So I wanna thank you for, you know, bringing that to the forefront of the conversation. You would like to be participating on the solutions then tearing folks down. And I totally get it. I've been teaching for twenty four years, and I understand that, you know, adults can do better. And they should,
actually. The practices in which you go out and, ask young folks to be, you should be practicing yourself. And that's really what it is. And a lot of folks get lost in that because they start to think about themselves first. And so I appreciate that wake up call. It's not the first, it's the second. I'm sure, you know, we're gonna need a third and a fourth as well. I think that actually is a challenge to all of us to do better. And I appreciate it. I definitely do. And I wanna support that. As I was thinking about you all over the last week,
I was sharing with director Simmons, you know, there's an opportunity for us to work together and create some, appreciations for students who are doing work, you know, like some stellar awards to kind of really lift up our young folks as well, bring them to the bring them to the board meeting and celebrate them. And I think that would be an example for us as board members to continue to look for the best in people, then instead of looking for the worst in people. So I just really want to rock with that and just tell you that,
yeah, I I get it. You know, if I've if I've in front of you been not the example that you're expecting, please talk to me. Let me know. And, you know, I will definitely check myself as well. I think as adults, we need to be humble and be able to have those conversations as well to look at ourselves. So I just want to thank you again for the work you're doing. Oh, sorry. Director Henschel. Thank you. You know, I'm still waiting for you all to get in touch with me so we can sit down and meet. So I'm gonna start saying that publicly now because I don't want it out there
that it's me that hasn't followed through to meet with you all. So I'm waiting for the time when we can finally sit down and meet. I think it's long overdue. You know, I agree that the board really needs to work on its professionalism. We might have a disagreement on what that means and some of the root causes of some of the things happening. I I'm really, curious to know from the student directors. You know, for us as a board, we've had five special meetings this month scheduled and then canceled. Are you being notified of those meetings being scheduled? Were you notified of those meetings being canceled? Were you even contacted at all about these special meetings?
See, there's a lot of things that y'all should be looped into that hasn't happened at all. And there's some real issues going on here. I'm always available as the chair of the budget and finance committee to sit down with anyone, and we can go through some of these things. I also think it's long overdue for you all to organize students and show up here. That's how we really flex power. I I hear a lot of talk going around, and honestly, I hear a lot of people blowing smoke up people's behinds. These are serious times, and we have serious work. And our student directors are a part of legacy that has done amazing things for
us in Oakland. So I just really wanna say here directly to both of you, I'm always available. And I'm not sure if you understand the lack of professionalism that we really do have here on the board, but I agree. And the other thing about it that I'd like to see the student directors and the all city council get a lot more familiar with is kind of school board civics. I heard you mentioned about the onboarding. Having a clear understanding of how the process works so you all can do a better job of figuring out how you can leverage the process to work for you, I think is long overdue also.
And so I'm always available to help out. And I really think if we all work on empowering people more, we can avoid a lot of the silliness that we see going on around us. So thank both of you, and I look forward to hearing from y'all. I just, again, appreciate your reports. I think, again, how we carry ourselves is important, and I think we don't often consider that. I also did just try and send you an email, but it anyway, my computer is going crazy. I would like to set up a time for the four of us and, general counsel Lindsay, since it involves the Brown Act, to set,
to meet and actually set a plan for the restorative justice for the board. So if you could just I'll I'll email you and if you can let me know what your schedules are because they're a lot less flexible than mine. So I appreciate that and I think it's you've raised it many times, and I think it's time to as board leadership, not to just nod my head and say, good idea, but to actually sit down and set up a time frame. Anyway, appreciate it. Thank you. Any other Okay. Next, item on the agenda, which we've also moved, is, new business S. Yeah. This is first is S1,
notice of layoff, classified employees reduction in force, due to lack of funds and or lack of work. And this is being presented by the talent and human resources department. We have twenty minutes. I understand there's no presentation. Point of clarification, we just the one thing you announced for the change in the agenda at the start of the meeting was moving up the student director's report. No. I said s two. Okay. I didn't hear that, and I don't think people clearly heard it. Okay. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. We're moving s two. So this is, again, item s one, and we have twenty minutes of,
public comment. Yep. I'd like to make a motion on this item. There has been an error, on the exhibit, so I'd like to make a motion with an amendment. So I motion on this resolution, which the number is oh, here it is. Number twenty four twenty five dash eighty one with a correction of FTE increase to position number eighty five zero three from six from 0.67 FTE in 2425 to 0.8 FTE in 2526.
The exceptions on the next one. They're two separate. So just to clarify, this is again item s one, the classified reduction in workforce, and there was an error made to the exhibit. So I'm moving this forward. I'm moving to adopt resolution number 2420Five-eighty1 with a corrected FTE increase for position 85.03 from 0.67 FTE for 24.25 to 0.8 FTE for 25.26.
And this was provided to me by staff. Is there a second? Second. We'll now take public comment. For public comment, for speakers, we have Tanya Kapler, Oliver Brennan, Judy Greenspan, Asaul Abala, Ben Tabscott and Janelle Harris. We have one or two minutes. Yes, correct. Okay. So we Two minutes. Two minutes? Yes. Tanya Kapner, the on Bam caucus, and Sojourner Truth rep. And I just wanted to make sure you all also were aware that I am here with three fifty signatures of parents and concerned community members to keep Sojourner Truth
Elementary School open. It is the only online option for these families, and people have been speaking to it will continue to speak to that. But I wanna make clear, I want teachers certificated and classified to stand together against these cuts and layoffs. We know that this school district can stand up and fight to keep the money in the classrooms with our SEIU, our AFSCME, our OEA, our teachers and classified together to serve our students. All our students deserve an equal quality education in these schools.
That means we need to keep my school open, the newcomer schools open. We need to not do these hundreds of layoffs, which will be devastating, particularly as usual, for our Flatland schools tonight. And I just wanna make sure that you all hear the rest of the parents' statement when I was cut off before the way that this impacts our families is unacceptable. We're gonna fight and keep building this movement until we win because our families deserve to have a public school education,
not to be pushed to some crappy charter with a scripted curriculum, but to have fully qualified teachers teaching and caring for them and staff working with them. We have instructional support staff who are graduates of Sojourner Truth facing being laid off. People from our community are being devastated, and it's unacceptable. Here is the rest of the statement from the parent that attempted to sign up, but you all had closed the list, too early and made it so difficult that it literally takes people an hour to navigate. Which Zoom?
Which this? Which that? Click here. Make your email account. All these things that keep our parents from being able to speak what they have been trying to organize around. But these three fifty signatures tell you. This parent's got I'm sorry. Your time is up. That was two minutes. Well, I've got him. Next speaker, please. Madam madam president, point of clarification. How many people do you have scheduled to speak? How many? Seven. Okay. I did I did not want to, I'm just gonna sit down. And if after they finish because people who work in the district, their comments I if I have time,
I'll I'll Thank you. I appreciate that. Good evening, board members. I my name is Janelle Harris, and I am a parent at McClimans High School. All of our teachers are eleven month staff members. Every single teacher at McClimans. And I'm looking at this cut list, and I'm just like, please don't do that to us. We have the highest risk students that we serve, and we do it with love. And we need our teachers. Ridiculousness that the people way up here.
Services. And I'm not exaggerating. No services. I got five parents, five parents that I can identify right now off the top of my head. Their children get no services for special ed. We have a child that has been walking in the hallway since since two years. He's been walking in the hallway, special education student, and people just walk right by him. That's a CPS case. I went to a mandated reporter training and learned that they shouldn't have him walking
in the hallway, but he's walking in the hallway. I'm just like, please don't take away our teachers. Like, they already get paid nothing, and they deal with a whole lot. I'm there every day for free. So I understand, but please don't do that to us. Like, please look in the top because I can help you identify. I really can. So please don't cut our teachers. Thank you. Well, it's amazing how much money we waste. We had, at one point, one thousand Broadway spending money for rent down there when we own property.
The other thing we came back with was 18 executive directors. 18. And then we got it down before, and I think the superintendent heard me say that. Why why do we need 18 making a 6 figure income? And then we wanna talk about cutting teachers. Cut at the top. The other thing I had down was when are we going to figure out closing schools? Do not save the district money. Up there where I live, Grass Valley, when you close Marshall
and they they found out I live in the neighborhood, they dragged me to Grass Valley. The principal's up there talking about what we're gonna do, and we're gonna make this easy transition, blah blah. Parents told me, we're leaving Oakland. We're leaving Oakland. You're not gonna save money. If we have six executive directors, that's the first place you wanna start. Why do we have twenty four hour surveillance on High Street? Why do we have charter schools being painted on four weekends,
and we can't get a plastic bag off our drinking fountain? Why is Preston not fired yet? What are we waiting on? So we need to get our house in order and start cutting at the top. The grand jury said, Oakland is top heavy in administration. Twenty eighteen, they said that. Are there other speakers? Yes. President Brujah, we do have two additional speakers. Harry and Sonic Thatcher. And I believe Oliver Brennan hasn't spoke yet also. Hi, Harry Subramanian for SEIU ten twenty one.
I did not expect to be here today to speak, at least. I was here to observe. But I am surprised, I mean, by how the agenda has been moved. I don't know how you could be discussing item s one without having heard from, the bargaining units as such. Before you hear their comment, why would you move to this item? So I'm really asking for the board to stop in its tracks right now, reconsider taking up this item and move with the agenda as is
or you know, educate us as to why it needs to be otherwise. I hope I'm clear. If you have any questions, I can take answer any clarification. So, I could be comfortable if I trusted you guys. And I I'm sorry. This is going on all over. School districts are happy to make difficult decisions about dealing with deficits. And it's difficult, but it has to be done. And I'm an outsider, not being personally impacted. So maybe I would have a different position if this was my livelihood. But I do understand that these these layoffs,
what else can you do? You say cut from the top. Okay. Once you do that, will that resolve the problem completely? And the other thing you have to deal with, and it's hard for me to say this, but it's the truth. You got 20 schools that have 300 or less students in them. And all of them, except for a few, are predominantly African American. And with the declining enrollment, at some point, you're gonna have to start closing schools. That's hard to say, but it is the fact, the truth. And who's gonna be impacted? We are.
I wrote all the schools down except for Russdale and a few others, all African American students. So do your whatever you have to do. But, again, we are gonna be impacted because you're gonna have to close schools. At some point, if you don't do it this year, if you don't do it next year, you cannot continue to keep schools open with low enrollment. And I'm talking about McClimans too. We got a low enrollment. But you know what I'm doing? I'm being honest. I'm being honest, and it might hurt my school. And the question is, are you being honest?
Are you being honest? Are you doing protectiveness like the 16 buses that go to Skyline and we never have a discussion about? Are there other speakers? Yeah. Speaker that haven't spoken yet is Judy Greenspan and Sonia Atacher. I am actually wanting to speak about twenty five thousand and forty eight one, so I may be out of turn. That's the next item. Thanks. Yes. We have Oliver Brennan. If you could unmute yourself to speak. Good evening board, I'm a parent of two OUSD elementary students. So question, what is going on with the budget process? The board started working six months ago on a massive $95,000,000
adjustment as we are heading to deficits. The CBO and team has taken all of that time to get a detailed proposal done. Those of us who attended all those meetings did learn there are cuts from central office and sites. We can argue over exactly how much of each. In December after three months work, we were only at $65,000,000 Attachment C was presented in detail at the February 6 budget and finance committee. It was supposed to be voted on and passed by the full board on February 20 but was cancelled. These two resolutions on cuts are only item number 26 out of 30.
Approximately 13,000,000 of savings though critically have to occur now before March 15. Cuts are rough but we have to stabilize our finances. I sympathize with all employees affected but our only hope to get fully resourced school sites with stable employment and proper education systems is to allow the three R process to complete. We do need a big first step tonight to enable re envisioning of OUSD. Please pass these two resolutions.
Thank you. That includes five speakers and all the name has been called. Other board comments on this? Yes. I'd like to just, say that I agree with many of the comments, that community has around s one and s two, that will be made on s two. And that's why I'm I have coauthored resolution, that is w two because I believe that there are other ways in which we can alleviate the budget challenges that we have at the moment without, gutting our labor partner or labor, folks in our schools. I really do think that the adults in the room really make the educational experience
of our students possible. And I want to make sure that cuts come from as far away from the classroom as possible. We are so far into the budget process at this moment, though, that we would need we need to take this step in order to continue to meet our goals and continue to meet our the metrics that are set before us. But I do, hope and plan that as we achieve budget savings, we can bring positions back, and we can discuss that as a board. Because I do hear from all the CSMs, the SIP subs, and every single position that's listed here,
the importance of the work that you do every single day with our students. And so, that is just a comment that I wanted to make tonight. I will just keep my comments brief. I will echo everything that director Bachelor said in terms of this. I don't didn't come on the board to lay people off, and so I agree that we're far enough in the process that I feel that I do have to vote on these. But I wanna make it clear that, one, I don't plan to do this anymore.
I don't think that I'm committed to a process where we as a district look at what are the what are the positions that are actually protecting our students, protecting their experience, protecting their achievement? And I don't feel that we have done that as a district so far. I don't feel that this list while I understand that we do need to make budget adjustments, it feels like a blunt object. It doesn't feel like we're being strategic about what are the things that our most vulnerable students need, and how do we serve them well. And so I,
am excited to look for other ways to identify budget savings. I'll also be committed to identifying positions that we are saving, as we go through, the next weeks and months, and we'll be, you know, asking for, publicly available reports so that our labor partners understand how many positions we're gonna be able to maintain at school sites as we go through this process. Thanks. Yeah. I echo everything that director Bachelor and director Lotta have said. I do also agree that these positions are critical.
It's been particularly troubling to spend time with CSMs because that's the work that I used to do. And I know how important it is to have folks on the site who are connecting students and families to services and who are holding space for students. Whatever happens today and whatever, you know, I do today, it's not because I believe in the cuts. I actually do feel like today, the board has an opportunity to act responsibly, all things considered, not just the fiscal picture, but this mark this looming March 15 deadline. I'm looking forward to,
as a new school board member, the opportunity to make future decisions based on a vision for teaching and learning. Like, I regret that today we're discussing proposed budget adjustments without sort of aligning as a board on a vision for teaching and learning, we really should be making our decisions based on that. So I look forward to doing that work with my board colleagues, with the folks in this room who have been advocating, over the last several weeks and months. So, please continue to lift up your voices and and and to take advantage of the
spaces that we might create in the future to be deeply engaged with you on problem solving because I really do think this has to be the last time where we're doing this annual agonizing process of, like, figuring out who's getting laid off and who's gonna get a job. And we all know to the point that everyone's made today that eliminating positions like what's on the table today does negatively impact students. And ultimately, if student wellness and student learning is our goal, we have to figure out a way to stop this cycle.
That's it. Director Hutchinson? Oh, sorry. It's fine. I'll go. You know, starting tomorrow, I'm I'm gonna start posting and putting out the information about what's happened the last month for us as a school board. I'm really disappointed in a lot of folks. Actually, a lot of folks out there even. We we started this budget adjustment process in October. In October at the budget and finance committee, where we started with 28 possible budget solution options. Here we are now today with the final vote, and not once did anyone introduce any alternatives or have any amendments.
Not once in these five months. And to put an item on today's agenda talking about alternative budget adjustments when today's the day is pretty disingenuous. I also have a real issue that for some reason, the board president didn't put attachment c on the agenda today for a vote. When we did attachment b last year, we had a vote. When we did attachment a the year before, we had a vote. Then it was interesting hearing teaching and learning mentioned. Last week's teaching and learning committee just didn't happen. Over this month in February, the board president has scheduled five different special meetings,
and all five of them have been canceled. And so the only time as a board there was any discussion or even public posting of attachment c of our budget adjustment package was at the February 6 budget and finance committee meeting. Because I set the agenda there and I made sure. So here we are today after months of work, and I've heard a lot of people throw out a lot of crazy messages. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do this. And, actually, they took away our opportunity to change anything, to have any further conversations. And today, they made the motion to actually approve this tonight.
And not one person has called anyone on what's been happening. Not one person called the board president on the fact that last week's meeting on February 20 that had been scheduled for four months for the final vote just didn't happen. So here we are, y'all. We have to do this now because the board leadership has given us no other opportunity to do anything else. And I know I've been working on this plan for five months. I've been asking a lot of people in the audience right here to get involved in the process. We need to be in the room. This is work we have to do, and people chose to not engage.
So once we make these votes tonight, we are back on track to be able to approve a balanced budget in June, and we will be leaving receivership in less than eighteen months. But there should be some accountability, and I'm gonna start doing my part beginning tomorrow. Thank you. Object Wayne. Thank you, president Breaux Hart. Yeah. This is a very difficult decision, but I I want to say this is not the first time these budget cuts have come up. In my term and a half, I've seen this happen at least three times.
And I've I've heard about the history of school closures, over 18 school closures from coach Tapscott in the last multiple years, and we still have a budget deficit. We keep cutting employees, and we keep closing schools, and we still have a budget deficit. And the folks who run the budget are the professionals. They're the professionals. We come here twice a month, and we are advised or given a recommendation from the professionals. And a professional show up and say, here you go.
This is your choice. And I think it's time that this board takes control of the process. It's time for us to start directing and getting involved, micromanaging now these decisions. Because time and time again, the community's hurt, the students hurt, the employees are hurt, and the board members' backs are against the wall. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt every single time. If you don't do this, we're gonna shut down. If you don't do this, they're gonna take us over. If you don't do this, something it's constant
scare tactics from the professionals whose job, eight hours a day, is to watch the budget and watch the expenses. And then before you know it, we got an increase of $100,000,000 in expenses. And now we have to close schools. I think it's manufactured myself, but the professionals told me it's not. That's just it's inflation. But it's ridiculous is actually what it is, and I'm not gonna accept it. I think we have a proposal now to actually start to take control of this
district Because what we do is, again, we listen, we take the advice, we make the vote, and we hear the community comes out and says, we haven't been consulted. Our labor partners are like, we haven't been consulted. We have a contract to talk to us about the impacts of these decisions. Where is that conversation? We still don't get it. So I feel very uncomfortable trying to lead this. It's not gonna happen on my watch, as a former of as a board member would say. I think others have others have spoken
others have spoken about out there for you. I'm gonna continue. I think this is always a really hard decision, and I think like others have spoken, we're often backed into the wall around it. I think that's why I see really putting forward an alternative budget solution that looks at other ways that we can, cut from our budget in addition to what's already been proposed in the balanced budgets solution. I think that, it is time for the board to play a more active role in how our money is spent and the decisions that are made,
which is why there's also a motion tonight around a task force, made up of the community to examine our contracts and our outsourcing. I think that, like director Williams said, I I think we're all really to face our community every year and say these are the cutbacks. These are the the job losses. These are the March 15 letters that go out is, it wasn't what any of us were elected to do. And every year we're faced with that decision, and it's, it's painful. I think that, again, the community, what what matters in our school are the people. And I think our our the community service managers have spoken to them.
And having spoken with the community service managers, you know, I think that that twelfth month really is important in terms of getting our students who are normally who are afraid of or not afraid, excuse me, who aren't able to get themselves into school. They play a huge role in contacting those students and their families over the summer, making sure kids have what they need to start school. I also feel on a on a labor issue, it is really, I look at those twelve month employees and I think, yeah, you all fought for a a raise and
that losing that month isn't fair. I'm also looking back at, you know, some of the KDOL employees that do that are really hardworking, that we depend on every week for our our, every two weeks for our KDOL presentations here. But I look at the work that the students are doing as well in Kdol, and I think, you know, these are future, these are these are future, you know, journalists or photographers or movie makers or videographers. And I think, you know, again, I hate to see these programs cut. So I think my pledge to the community is to really come up with some
ways over this next year that we can begin to, not only just look at our contracts and our outsourcing and where we put our money and what we cut, but that we actually have, community input in that decision, not only at Budget and Finance Committee meeting, which again, I think people should attend if they if they can because there there is a lot of information. But I think where where our community voice is not we're not just listening, but we're actually acting on that. So thank you. Any other comments? Mister Raikstra, can we take a vote, please? Yes. On the, motion to adopt the notice of layoff of classified employees with the correction as noted.
On the roll call, director Ladder. Yes. Director Williams. No. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Barry? Yes. Noted that the student directors are absent. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Breaux Hart? Yes. Motion adopted. The next item on the agenda is item s two, which is elimination of certificated positions due to a reduction of particular kinds of service, talent, and human resources. I understand that there is a, an amendment that yes. Okay. So can we have a,
go ahead. Can we have a motion to adopt this? And then you make your amendment. I would like to make a motion to adopt resolution number 24 to twenty five dash zero zero eight two with the removal of three FTE elementary school teacher assignments for Sojourner Truth. The positions are number eighty, nine twelve, eighty nine twenty five, and eighty nine twenty eight. This means that the Sojourner Truth t k to five program will stay open. Can I get a second? I'll second it. Thank you.
And we have, twenty minutes of public comment. Yes. Currently, we have seven speakers. Mark Gergood, one in Calipse, Kelis Kelis Hart, Janera Harris, Ben Tapscott, Asolo Labala, and Judy Greenspan. We can give ten minutes each. Kelly's hair from Oakland Tech, and I wanna talk to you about, teaching when my mom was dying of cancer. Because I was gone a lot for two years to take care of her. And I don't know how I would have done it without the stiff subs at my school. Knowing that there's someone in the room who can protect students if something happens,
who they can go to if they're in trouble because they know them, because they're always at the school is huge. And every time I had to leave, I could actually talk to them. I could just go talk to them and say, here's the lesson. Like, let's walk through it. Make sure you understand everything so that my kids could keep learning when I was gone. And it's just they need to be there. And we already lost ours at my school, but now we're gonna have more schools losing their stiff subs. And it's just one of the many examples of why we can't be cutting from
people who are working directly with students. Stiff subs can build relationships with the kids at the school and be there for them when we can't. I also wanna talk about, the cuts to Sojourner Truth Elementary. I'm really glad that there's three back on the table, but it needs to be everyone. This is a school that supports our students that are the most vulnerable. And as was mentioned earlier, if we're saying we're a sanctuary district, but we can't provide a way for students to, from the safety of their homes, attend school, and get an education,
then we're not a sanctuary school. If we can't provide a school for kids who are in the hospital, without this, they could get one hour of school through the hospital program. Like, we need to have a space for our students who can't be attending our other schools, and Sojourner Truth is that school. Thank you. I just wanted to to share with you, when we had Katrina in 02/2005, they fired all the teachers. They fired them because the plan was if we fire and most of our teachers
were seasoned teachers, mostly African American teachers. So the plan was if we fire all of these teachers and hire Teach for America, this will save us money. So I hope this is not a plan to fire teachers who are certified and then come back and hire, uncertified Teach for America teachers because, that was something that was done from my experience. So I I don't understand what's going on with McClymonds. Where you have 11, positions eliminated or better.
So at some point, could you help us understand, not just me, for everybody, what does this mean when you say eliminate? We don't have we're gonna eliminate all our teachers? So I can't speak to something because I don't understand it. I understand what's going on with our staff. So, are you voting on this tonight to to actually okay. So, I don't know what you're doing over here, but how can you find that many teachers or lay off that many teachers at McClymonds and we can still be functional? Hi.
My name is Janelle Harris, and I'm a parent at McClimans High School. Again, I am pleading with this board to not take away the teachers that we have. It is very, very stressful in that kind of environment where we don't get the support that we need. And I know that everybody's struggling. All schools are struggling right now. But, again, you know, McClimans has a legacy, and people forget that. They forget that. You know, it's not only a sports school, but, you know, we have we had a student that's graduating this year that was admitted to MIT.
Like, that don't count for nothing. Like, you will never hear that. Yeah. It goes out on parent Parent Square or whatever, but that should be announced to the world at these meetings. My climate student is going to MIT because a lot of students don't get that far. But our kids do the best that they can with what they have. Please don't take away our teachers because if they can't afford to live, they can't teach our kids. And that was told to me by a teacher. He's like,
I can't be here if I can't take care of my own family, Janelle. What can I do? And I can't even be mad at him. But in the meantime, I'm like, my son is impacted. His friends are impacted. Everybody's nervous, scrambling around. These are kids, and it's like, why are they worried about teachers coming back? Or are we gonna have teachers? Or do we have qualified teachers? We already got a whole bunch of teachers that don't have credentials. So come on, y'all. Let's be responsible. Are there other speakers,
Mr. Cinchot? Yes, we have Ben Tabscott and Judy Goonspan. So I guess my question is, how does this correlate with other high schools and how many other cuts are being made across the board? What is the figure that we need? What what continues to bother me, how do we get in $94,000,000 debt and nobody says something? The superintendent can't do it unless she's told that they need to do it. The board can't do it. Why do how do we get in this shape? Who's watching the money?
And how are we cutting equally across? These questions need to be answered. And if she's not getting the information, something's wrong. And then we get to the point where we're gonna start cutting in clothes in schools. And I keep saying it's impossible. We got six high schools strategically located. But in no other district in Oakland have they closed seven schools except West Oakland. Closed seven or eight school. In one part of the city, if that's not discrimination and it was before the president superintendent got here,
They've closed eight schools. And we used to go to BART in the morning and see parents running with their child, trying to take the child to a place close or grandmother's house because they've destroyed the system that parents look at. Oh, I'm gonna put my child in this school. I'm gonna move him from that school. I'm gonna put him in this middle school, then I'm gonna put him in this high school. They plan all that out. The demographics are changing, but we still got people. We pretend to be visitors, and we call admission records and talk about,
I just got to Oakland. I see a school down the street. Is it a high school, or is it an elementary school? We just arrived. And you know what they tell them? That's a high school, but it's full. You need to put your child at Tech or Oakland High. They're still doing that. We do have Mark Ergood on line. Okay. Mark Ergood, if you could unmute yourself. Yes. Mark Ergood, Ehan Bancalkus. I'm site rep one of the site reps at Sojourner Truth. I want to speak for keeping all of the positions at Sojourner Truth.
I when I said earlier, the population that Sojourner Truth serves are the the families that were impacted by the COVID pandemic, are are, immigrant and undocumented families who are in under pressure from Trump and his, attacks by ICE, their fam their Arabic families. There's their families from special education, severe special education needs, families that would need home and hospital that are getting the services. The Trump push
Is we all know not only anti immigrant but also against public education overall. This is an attack on democracy, and this board needs to stand up against the attacks on public education. We know where this is going. Whenever this is done, and this has been years, whenever the board makes cuts like these, then the district shrinks. The people turn to charters. They leave the district. That's what happens.
You're you're cutting the public school system. This is not about money saving. It's about maintaining for us, it's about maintaining public education in Oakland and not having you go along with what we know are the Trump attacks that are gonna be following. We have to we have to draw the line on defense of our students, on defense of our families, and we can do that. But if that means somebody having a spine to actually say no,
we're not going to make these follow the Thank you. Your time is up. Thanks. President Boehoy, we do have one additional speaker. Okay. Michael Shane. Next speaker is Michael Shane. Good evening, everyone. I guess my time doesn't start. Okay. There we go. Okay. What was I gonna say? So, obviously, you know, like, as I come to speak as a rank and file worker in this district, you hire us to teach, you hire classified staff to do the vital work at schools, We elect you to govern the district. Pretty simple. Alright? Now if a teacher can get out to a budget committee meeting,
great. You know, if it's SEIU worker, AFSCME worker, could they get out to a committee meeting? That's great. But in the re realistically, you all need to be the ones doing that work. And if you really want to know what's happened at the schools, it's not like we're hiding. The schools are listed. You know where they are. Come to the school sites. See how it works. If you did, you would surely know that at my daughter's school, Lincoln Elementary, they desperately depend on their stiff subs. So why on earth would you think it's a good idea to put stiff subs out of central office? That just means they're our sub.
What's the difference? These people are vital to school communities. So again, I don't really understand, you know, the the logic behind, you know, telling us that we should come tell you how to do your jobs, that we have voted for you or we elected you to do, and we campaigned for you to do. We didn't campaign for you to say, I'm gonna do vote this one time for these budget cuts because these budget cuts come around every every year or every other year. Again, this is not the first budget cut rodeo, but again, we didn't elect you to to act like rodeo clowns.
We acted you we elected you to do your jobs in a really genuine way that serves the students of this district. And the last thing that I would like to say is that I would like to put forward, Edgar Raikstra's name as the next superintendent because he's sure been firsthand witness on how not to run a district. President Brujah, we do have additional, speaker. Sonia Thatcher. Bear with me. Hi. My name is Sonia Thatcher. I am, twenty four year veteran of Oakland Unified School District.
I'm speaking on this measure. A key thing that site based stiff subs do is provide coverage for IEP meetings, so that the classroom teacher can fully engage with understanding and planning for children with disabilities. I am concerned that centralizing stiff is going to decrease general education participation in IEP meetings. They're only going to be able to show up and sign the form. It will be even less possible for a general education teacher to offer their grade level perspective for IEPs for students in self contained programs than it already is. Parents will even more be told to waive their presence and that breaks fragile bridges
towards mainstreaming and inclusion. Making it more difficult to cover for IEP meetings does not be in filled teacher capacity to understand and work with diverse learners and ultimately this does not serve children. Please consider this and other ripple effects when attempting to reduce the number of staff who serve their kids. I understand that these cuts may need to be made. If these cuts are made, work to minimize the impact. It starts when we understand the impacts, and this is one. Thank you for considering. And this will be our last speaker. Do I go without the clock? Okay. Hi. My name is Corinne Elias, and I am a STIP sub.
I started at my current school site on the first day of school, and I am still there because the lead teacher quit in November because she was fed up with the district. This was extremely hard on our students who are three and four years old. And to this day, they still ask where is miss Thomas? Remember, we are a big part of these children's lives. We know that the world is much bigger, but we are basically their whole you know, we are part of their whole world. As a stiff, I provide stability for my preschool students. I have built relationships with all of them, and they expect me to be there.
And I will be there, and so will other steps as long as our position exists. And maybe if the district had a lower turnover right, we wouldn't need as many sit positions. But until then, we are we are right here. Thank you. Thank you. Before we start board comments, I wanted to know if, miss Gard could come online and explain the the lemon oh, she's here. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't It's okay. Good evening. What's the question? I think the question was the process of the, the McClellan's folks were talking about the eliminations.
And if you could explain, is that an elimination of an eleven or twelve month position and rehire as a ten month position? Yes. I can. And I also can I'm with you to go through it. Okay. So, the it's an eleven eleven month teacher, that is that position is being eliminated and then replaced with a ten month teacher. K. Thank thank you. I just wonder. Are there any other board questions? Director Hutchinson. Thank you. You know, this is one of the things that we've literally been talking about this for a
year now as a school district and as a school board. Since we approved last year's budget adjustment package, which wasn't big enough. And so this year, we knew that we were we had a larger looming budget adjustment to close the whole projected in next year's budget. It's because we didn't make enough of an adjustment last year. A lot of our COVID dollars are sunsetting. We're still cleaning up the mismanagement of the past. And this is now the way that we project forward as a district. This is attachment c. Last year, we did attachment b.
Two years ago, we did attachment a, which is what gave us the ability to negotiate a historic raise with OEA. This is how you're supposed to budget and run your finances. I find it offensive that people would try to blame this on staff, not letting them know to the last minute. That's why I keep repeating. We've been talking about this for months. I understand that rank and file workers might not be able to show up at a budget and finance committee meeting. But thankfully, your unions have paid release staff who should be doing that. There's no way around it, y'all, that we don't have any other options now because people chose not to engage.
And so there are no school closures in this plan. There never were. That was never a part of our options as we worked our way through this. But lastly, we were supposed to have a number of meetings over the last few weeks. And instead, those meetings were canceled, where we could have had these conversations. At our last board meeting two weeks ago, there was supposed to be a study session around these adjustments. But instead of that, the board president canceled it and invited the county here to come tell us their intervention plan instead. And I'm I've I gotta admit, because I've been to these meetings a lot of years in the past,
it's shocking that people would rather protect their own egos or their own agendas or who they think are their friends rather than stand up and demand that something else be differently done. And so and and the people laughing are usually the people that are paid by the same people causing these problems. So I know how I know how this this works now. This is fine, y'all. What we need to do is we pass these. We will then pass a balanced budget in June, and we are on track to finally leave receivership after twenty two years in less
than eighteen months. And we've done this because Lisa Grant Dawson is the unicorn. And we've managed our finances well, and we've ended the mismanagement. And even within that, we've negotiated almost $100,000,000 in raises with our employees over the last two years. I won't let anyone push us over the cliff or stop this now, but people need to stop and ask. Is it okay to just show up at the last minute and complain? Or was there a way to be engaged in this so we wouldn't be in this situation? This is town business. I'm proud of the work that we've done, and I'm proud of the work that I put into it to get here.
Thank you. Are there any other board comments? And there's no school closures on this at all. Director Hutchinson, thank you. Are there any other board comments? Just, one comment just because I feel like it's important to say for the record. I think that we have rightly so been focused on klutz today. But I also think it might be helpful to have some immediate guidance around how we fill the gaps that some of these adjustments create at sites. So if if adults in these classrooms,
in the school buildings are really critical, so what now? What do they do? The work has been important. I think in particular about Stibsubs, it's been clear to me in this process how critical they are to sites. How perhaps staff envision the use of SIP subs in the future and what sites have been using SIP subs for. And even if there is a difference, say we we we move to a scenario where we have 45 held centrally. The work that SIP subs have been doing that we heard about tonight that we've, you know, people have been
people have been emailing us about that work still needs to get done. And so like, how do you do that in this new model? How do you make sure that that work gets done? Do you need to redefine the base staff structure create new positions and figure out how we fund that, and do we take that up in the three R's process? Because obviously the work is real, so we could get to it. So I think, Director Berry, that's a perfect question and an example of the citywide conversations and really articulating what are those services, so that we can build into future budgets,
right, what those investments are and as a board understand the cost to be able to do that if the board intends to keep 80 schools. But I want to back up. There are three reasons why we ended up having a $95,000,000 deficit. And it is not a crisis. A crisis is something that came out of the blue that you did not know. We've known that we've been a declining enrollment district and state. Right? That's why you're seeing districts across the state grappling with this. That's one.
Two, the RSR intake was $300,000,000 All that money went away in September at the September 2024. We did things like extend steps. One of the reasons we did that was during the pandemic, people were out all the time. It seemed like the most strategic thing to provide them to all the sites. And we had the money to do that. We had the money to increase a lot of the site staff support. And in people's contracts,
it said the end date. We repeated it over and over. It didn't feel like we had a deficit growing because we had all of that one time money. At the same time, because it was absolutely the right thing to do. I've been in this district since 1998. When I was a teacher, we never received a double digit raise. And so I understand the anger of all of labor because we haven't given competitive raises in, like, the last twenty years. We've, like, given cola raises. And so part of the reenvisioning is saying you gotta set aside money for employees.
It's not that the employees are more important than the students, but if we can't hire employees in a city that is so expensive to live, we're always gonna continue to have the attrition. Our attrition rate is about 20%. That's the national average. We want that to get lower. So to me, the work of the board is understanding the vision and then backing into what's the money to actually make that a reality. And we don't budget that first. We're looking for that money after everything else. That's why there have been strikes for the last twenty years.
So that is one of the reasons the 300,000,000 went out. We understood we needed to increase salaries for teachers in particular. It's harder to get a raise from that seven years to fifteen. We're losing teachers. They're they're seasoned, and then they're like, let me go work in Berkeley. Let me go work in Piedmont. So that was strategic. Right? But we have to continue to give raises. So it's not a crisis. It's, we made investments, and now we have to figure out a way to pay for it. That's the only thing the county letter said. It was conditionally approving our budget because there are other things that we need to
do so that we're solvent with more investments that we have. So I do think that priority conversation is important. I know that the model at Lincoln, they were getting results, but we have to now figure out how do we continue to pay for that, right, and making sure that all of the schools, right, that we intend to support have all of those resources at elementary, middle, and high. So just things to think about as we think about budget development for the next cycle. And I do agree with the looking at contracts.
I do think when we get into lean times, we have to think about what's the nice to have, but we may not be able to do it anymore. But spending the time in the contracts to think about, I don't think you guys are talking about cutting contracts to repair sewers. I don't think you're talking about the contracts that are in school's budgets. You may make a rule saying we don't want you to outsource, but I don't think you're saying take that money away from schools and, you know, put that towards a deficit. It just may be, no, we want you to spend that money in a different way.
So I think that's part of the work of the task force is really understanding the layers of what we use outsourcing for and then making some direction of maybe what we're freezing or not doing. So looking forward to those conversations. Director Latta? Yeah. I'm not gonna repeat what I previously said, but I will just speak as a parent whose kids are in the schools, that I don't think anybody here, on the board or in the public, people who are listening, feel like our schools are are overstaffed. So I think that this budget and this readjustment,
I think I particularly appreciate the superintendent calling out the COVID dollars that have sunsetted and that we have planned poorly as a district and this, for how we are going to make this hard decision to pull back from some of our COVID investments. But I think that I am committed to, again, being really transparent about what positions and how many FTEs we're actually going to lose, and then secondly, committing to sustainable staffing that is that is built around how we support our students,
not just their achievement, but their experience. And so, I am looking forward to doing that work going forward, and this will be the last time I'm voting on large layoffs. Thank you. Director Williams. Thank you, president Brohart. Let let's really not forget that, the district we are the district. We are the district. And we've had a a long history of poor budgeting. Our interim projections versus our unactuals audited actuals has really affect our budget. And the thing about
us as a board is that we use this concept of a multiyear projection budget. So we're budgeting for three years out. We have to recognize what our spent when we overspend. We have to recognize that. We have to know when we have money and other funds that actually coulda went to, either teachers or paying down the expenses that we need. What I'm saying to folks is that we've had a history of overbudgeting and and stuff like books and supplies and overspending,
on administration and outside contracts. We've had a history of that. And what if you add all of those up, it equals budget cuts on the backs. What we just voted for, the last vote, that's 20% of those positions we just cut out. I didn't see 20% of administrative positions cut out. Haven't seen that one yet. Haven't seen 20% of the contracts cut out. Haven't seen 20% of outside contracts. I haven't seen a proposal to invest in house over outside.
We have been spending money, the $280,000,000. We spent it up, and now we have a $95,000,000 debt. So I think that we have professionals in this job that can project out and when we need to start to change the course. And it all runs through our our committees. Right? So our committees are the ones who actually sit there and have the deeper discussions and bring it to the board. So let's not get it twisted that folks are trying to make a point right now, but this has been going on for a very long time.
We have the data. We can look at all of the interim budgets and look at the over projections and then look at the end and see where the actuals are. And we can look at those practices of cutting, cutting, and cutting. It is needed that we actually take care of our staff so we can retain individuals, or they will go outside to another district, and we will still be underresourced. So let's not get this twisted. There's another way to do it. There's an alternative budget coming your way so we can have those conversations and have
it in a public space. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Mister Raikstra, can we take a vote on the s two, eliminate certificated positions due to reduction of particular kinds of services with the exception of positions 81 eighty nine twelve, 80 nine 20 five, and eighty nine twenty eight. Alright. On the motion. To adopt s dot dash two, the elimination of certificate positions, excluding the three position named. On the roll call, student directors are absent.
Director Thompson. Yes. Director Berry. Yes. Director Hutchinson. Yes. Director Williams. No. Director Latta. Yes. President Bachelor. Yes. President Brothard. Yes. Motion is adopted. Next item is s three application for provisional internship permits, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, named employees for school year twenty twenty four, twenty five. Is there a motion to adopt the Yes. So move the application for provisional internship permit, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, named employees for school year 02/2024 and 02/2025.
Second. We have, ten minutes of, public comment on this item. Yes. For s three, President, Burjard, we have Janelle Harris. Thank you, board. I appreciate all the comments and the engagement that has happened here tonight. I really do. I feel like for the first time, we're being told things in an honest kinda way. And good or bad, we just have to deal with it. But I wanna talk about again, I'm a parent at McClimans High School, and we have a lot of teachers that are not credentialed,
which is not a problem. Right? Because we got some real good teachers at McClimans. However, the accountability piece for them getting their credentials is not there. Again, I've been there three years. I know there's a time limit. I think it's like two and a half years possibly that they have to get these credentials, and some of them ain't even trying. And I know that for a fact because I'm there every day. So, you know, I would like it if they're going to give my child a grade. I'd like you know,
when I ask for an explanation, I'd like to be able for a teacher to have one, and they don't. They can't even tell me how, what the grading curriculum system. We don't have any of that in place. And I think that's what I would like to see because we have a really good group of folks at McClimans. We have our problems, but we have good people. But it shouldn't take parents to come to this podium, be like, when you gonna get your credential? Right? You want the money, but when you gonna get your credential?
Because as you know, on social media, we have people that should not be teaching our children at McClymonds or should not be working with our children at McClymonds. So it's just food for thought. It's really important to me as a parent that, you know, we want our young people to to look at the people who are teaching them. Right? I look at teachers like doctors. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any board comments on this item? Okay. Big straw, can we take a vote on the a roll call vote on the,
history? The student directors are absent. And director Thompson? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Director Berry? Yes. Vice President Basker? Yes. President Brohhardt? Yes. Motion is adopted. Great. Now we're gonna move on to l, the adoption of the general consent report. Can I get a motion, on the floor? So moved. Vice president Batcher, I don't know. Do you have s seven down? I think I I put that down as well to pull s seven.
I don't believe there is an S7. There is an R7. R 7. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But we are on l. Oh, okay. Thank you. L. So we have a motion. Do we have a second? We are on l, the adoption of a general consent report. We need a second. Second. Great. Thank you. Now we will go to public comment on, again, l, the adoption of the general consent report. How many public speakers do we have on? We have three speakers. Great. Let's do two minutes each, and if you could read the names out loud. The three stickers are Salo Labalen,
Ben Tapscott, and Janelle Harris. About l one because the funding is from deferred deferred maintenance. And any deferred maintenance, we should see if this is a high priority item because we have, I think, three less than $3,000,000 in deferred maintenance. L two is, money that's going to coal over $50,000, and you also have, under m, money going to coal. And so we are spending a lot of money at coal, and I hope someone will address that. L three conduct conducting salt testing,
and I think we need some salt testing over at McClymonds, but I have an item that says you may not have enough money to deal with soil contamination at my school. If you look at l five, what's in, what should be, cited is the number of teachers who have left, 83. I'm sorry. The number of teachers on leave, 83. The number of teachers, separation, 30 seven. And we need to pay attention to whenever that comes up, what those numbers are looking like. L nine. I'm sorry. Not l nine. I wanna go to,
l 80 and all safety plans. L 80 is the McCliman safety plan, and I I think we are doing good with our safety plan. But I'm concerned about l 83, Skyline safety plan. Skyline safety plan cannot evacuate those students in case of a fire, earthquake, or any emergency. There is no evacuation except for those kids to go on the football field. My clients, we have identified in a a a space several blocks away, a park,
where we're gonna take the children. Skyline, you cannot evacuate those students. K? And I'm gonna keep asking you to do that, and you're putting those kids at risk. Thank you. Next speaker. I'd like to bring your attention to, item l nine. When I saw the service agreement, it kinda took me back because I wanna go back to equity again, right, and why we feel like we're always being left out of the game. I have been volunteering at McClimans for almost three years as a parent liaison with
no pay, no contract, no anything. Never once has it been ever offered to me. Just recently, I was told that I cannot come in the building as a volunteer anymore because I have not been fingerprinted. Now I've been coming every single day to McClimans for two and a half years, almost three. But I said, okay, because we're trying to get policies in place, and I'm going to follow that. So I'm going to get fingerprinted. But I see this contract, and the district has an outside contract for Oakland High School,
but we don't have one for my Clemens. It it's okay to to use me, but other schools get offered service contracts. So where is the equity in that? Because our kids have a very high population of special education, and I help all the students' families navigate that system. So I'm like, where is the equity in that? So that's L 9, and then I'd like to bring you to L 2. I'm seeing that there is $50,000 again for coal, and not one student steps in that building.
And so for McClimans to have to beg, beg, beg, beg, beg, we always I was just told yesterday at a meeting that McClimans has solar. I'm like, how was that when we got a 1956 service breaker? I was told in 02/2014, my climate's got two or three panels, and and that's included in the service agreement. Thank you. We have one more speaker. Yes. We have been Tapscott. So the equity issue that I'm looking at is some of these things on here for the major projects. I don't know how many you got this or not.
And they're talking about, a small amount of money from the climates. Now I understand, and many people think you're lying to them about starting redevelopment in July of twenty twenty five. That's coming up right away. But I'm looking here at some of these proposals, and there's a total of, on this one here, 91,000. 90 1 thousand wouldn't even do a parking lot. They gave Fremont a hundred and thirty seven million for theirs. I now hear that they're gonna be doing partial things on the football field,
and I don't know if that's been approved or something they're talking about. But the equity issue and the fact that here, permanent, central administration, $45,000, then they got ten, twenty across the street. I need to demolish it. What are we gonna do with it? So some of these things should have some kind of answer. I don't know. You may wanna think about trying to share some of that space with Laney College across the street and generate some money. So I'm not sure what these things mean. It's it's a renewal,
a review, and there's about 12 things skylines on here, permanent central administration, collegial collar academy, McClimans High School, Roosevelt. There's about one, two, three, probably 20 items on here, and I think they need to eliminate some of them and move that money up to the priorities on the top of the list. I don't even know if they're in rank order because I've asked for that before, and I never get it. We're in top five. Thank you. Board colleagues, any comments on l,
the adoption of the general consent report? Seeing none, mister Raksha Rakstra, will you take a vote on the adoption of the general consent report? Madam vice president, the student directors are absent. Director Hutchinson? Director Thompson? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Terry? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. Motion adopted. Thank you. Now we're moving on as regularly scheduled to, m, which is the adoption of the general consent report,
general obligation bond items. Any is there a motion to move on these items? I motion. Second. Wonderful. With a motion in a second, we'll move on to public comment on these items. Mister Seychell. Yes. Vice President Bachelor. We have two speakers, Janae Harris and Asado Lobala. I'll do two minutes. Thank you. So, m one, I read the contract. I went to the contract. There's a problem with the contract. Concept contract says the work should commence on 02/27/2052.
And then it says it'll end February 2005. Okay? And it's been signed by Preston Thomas, the facility legal counsel, and the superintendent. So I don't know what that means. Now on your with your reading, there has there's a date that makes sense. So does what you approve does it does the approval go with what you approve, or does the contract pass on it? Contract has commencement of work 02/27/2052. And can you correct it?
Please correct it. Okay? Then we're looking at m three coal architectural services. When you add all those numbers up for whatever you're doing, it's $344,000.988. So another coal. And this one's for construction, administrative support, commission, closeout services for coal. What does that mean? Three you're gonna spend all of that money for things that I don't know make sense. And, again, we're going back to we are spending an exceptional lot of money on coal.
And I can't get money for my because we don't have the money. But whenever things come up with coal, the money is there. The money is there. And so where's the source of funding for coal? Fund 21 and measure why. Thank you. We've been looking at this for about four months. President Thomas needs to be fired. President Thomas needs to be fired. He lied to you about the furnace. 17 restrooms, no warm water. 10 classrooms, no warm warm water.
Five custodial workstations, no warm water. What's wrong with that picture? We got Innovation Marshall Charter School where I live. I'm going by, and the chain is down on a Saturday, and about five district trucks pull in. I go on to Home Depot and come back. I pass there. I said, I'm going wait a minute. Wait a minute. Today's Saturday. I turned around and went back. Five trucks were parked inside Saturday and Sunday for four weekends
painting the charter school, and we can't get this thing taken off. I said, what are you guys doing here on oh, we're making time and a half, coach. Oh, really? Who approved that? They couldn't approve this. Not good. Hello, Born. So I I I need to ask this question because I haven't heard anything about it in a while. The progressive design that McClimans is under is the reason why we can't get any more money, and that is just absurd to me.
Like, I keep seeing these schools. Fremont just got their whole school rebuilt. A hundred and 40 some million dollars, and they still are getting money. Like, we need my climates to be done properly. We are $32,000,000 short, and we have the documents to prove it. Last night, I went to a facilities meeting where it was a bunch of I don't know where it came from, and they're saying they're 1,000,000 over budget. No, sir. We are $32,000,000, and we need $32.02
32,000,000 to complete everything, what we need to complete, not half way. Our gym was just redone by Under Armour, and it's looks ridiculous. Like, the bleachers go way into the basketball court where you can't play basketball. So it's crazy. It's like, make it make sense. You're spending all this money. Do it correctly. Right? And I I do wanna know about that progressive design. Is McClymonds still under that? And why can't we get more money from the bond measure that we contribute to?
Like, we contribute. I'm a bond measure contributor. And I will tell you, if we can't get this, I will not be voting for any more bonds for this district. Ford colleagues, any, questions or comments on, m, which is the adoption of the general consent report, general obligation bonds, b j y? I guess the only comment that I will make is once again, at the facilities committee, we did, move forward, in our amendment of the of Measure Y funds, and that will be coming to the full board for discussion and vote, at the next, board meeting.
And part of that, will be, some funds, allocated for, the water mitigation at our schools. Alrighty. We've already gone through oh, I'm sorry. We have to vote on this. Mister Raikstra, can you help us take a vote? Yes. In a moment, madam president. I wanna address the, statement from one of the public speakers Yes. Thank you. On item twenty five zero one two one. The year 2052 is in the board memo. The contract reads 02/27/2025 through 06/30/2025.
The board's motion as printed in the agenda reads the same way. So there is a consistency. It's simply a typo in the board memo, which is not binding. It is the terms and conditions in the contract that are binding and the motion that the board is prepared to adopt. And in this particular instance, the general consent report, the motion's correct, the contract's correct. We will type, correct the memo, in the minutes, but the board may proceed, because there's consistency between the motion and the contract terms.
Thank you. So just to reiterate, it sounds like the board memo is not a legally binding document. Right. And there are typos, and I appreciate the community for allowing us those typos and pointing out those typos to us. But because of those typos are not included in the contract, the contract is correct as well as the motion, we can then go ahead and move forward in voting on it, and there won't be any issues on the start date of the contract. Correct. Thank you. And we do appreciate the we don't wanna we don't wanna have typos in in
documents, but, we we we but the board may proceed with the vote. Documents, but, we we we but the board may proceed with the vote, notwithstanding this typo, and we will correct it. On the on the roll call, student directors are absent. Director Ladder from the adoption of the general consent report general obligation bond. Okay. Director, Williams? Yes, sir. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Vice President Batschwer? Yes. President Brouwer, the motion is adopted. All right. Now, we will continue to move forward. So we've done N already, which is the student board report. We do not,
need to take up item o, which is the, PSAC report because that is not for this board meeting. Now we are at p, which is comments from, collective bargaining agreements. Would folks like to come up to the front? And or are there any, collective bargaining unit reports coming from, Zoom? Vice president, currently, we do not have any on Zoom. Okay. Good evening, board. My name is Kompolites Rancifer, president of the Oakland Education Association, and wanted to yield my time to the rank and file members here.
Good evening. Thank you for your patience. Y'all got stiff armed into sending some slips today, and I could see that that was a tough pill to swallow. I want you to remember that feeling because this is a different board than the board that set that situation up. It will have a consequence even if we can pull back on those on those slips. Right? We have teachers who are getting pink slips who are thinking now this is not a stable place for me to work. I gotta find new We lose experienced teachers. We have to fill those positions with new teachers, we lose. Right? This could have been avoided if we had prioritized stability of the people in our classroom over balancing a fake budget.
When that when we erode that trust and we lose stability, that stability within our ranks, it's also stability in the classrooms. Right? We're losing, an entire online school. We're losing I saw RJ facilitators, early literacy tutors, English teachers, paras, STIP subs. I need to remind y'all, you've heard it already, but from a STIP perspective, these these STIP subs have relationships with the kids. It increases learning in the classroom when teachers are gone, reducing the learning loss that happens when teachers are out of the classroom. That makes it easier for us to step away for the moments where our parents have cancer, which is something I shared with somebody else who has just spoken previously.
When we have IEP meetings, professional development opportunities, crisis days, unit planning, it is essential that we are able to take trusted adults into our room that have relationships with the kids to continue the learning, trusted adults into our room that have relationships with the kids to continue the learning as planned. Because it's a real learning loss when we have new teachers come into the classroom as best we can. Furthermore, you know, SJT is a school that provides for our most vulnerable populations. I I hate to think, for our most vulnerable populations. I I hate to think about how lonely these kids must be at home already, and to think that they are losing their online community because we couldn't figure out how to get the books and supplies budget under wraps early enough is shameful.
So I appreciate we're gonna make moves on that. But when we send these slips out, I need us to feel what that feels like for teachers who know that they're getting that slip. They don't know if they can stay. They have to make moves to leave. They have to take care of themselves. We lose good teachers even if we solve this problem late. I'm sorry that that's on your plate now. It should have never been on your plate. It's the fault of a previous group of board members who decided to pass this budget earlier. It is where we are today, and I hope we can learn from this as we go forward. Thank you. To the community, the parents, and and staff members, and everybody that's been fighting for Sojourner Truth Elementary School,
I want to thank you for your efforts, and we must continue this fight. To any of the school board members that voted for cuts and layoffs today, it is shameful. Our school is facing 19 positions being cut. We have a kindergarten through fifth grade program. That is not we need a teacher for each grade. We do not want to be under resourced in the Oakland schools in a shameful and unacceptable manner. We need to chop from the top. I just wanted to make sure the community knows that we are continuing to fight
this the attempt that was done all wrong against school closures, and we're continuing to fight against all the layoffs because Sojourner Truth deserves a full staff, as does every Oakland public school. And we're gonna keep fighting. We're gonna keep gathering the petitions. We're not gonna let them vote for any more cuts this year, and we demand that they be reversed. Absolutely. Full staffing for all our students. Good evening, board. My name is Phoebe Wen. I'm SEIU vice president and occupational therapist. I'm here with the rest of our SEIU leadership team and SCIU staff.
And before I begin, I just wanted to say that although we represent the most and lowest paid workers, we do deserve respect in the sense that it was only fair for you to hear from our members. We're we're talking about people who are unhoused, people who are going to food banks because of the cuts. So with all due respect, we should have had the opportunity to speak before you voted on this. SEAU is here to stand firm on our opposition to eliminations and reductions to positions
that directly serve our students. These essential positions include attendant specialists, noon supervisors, case managers, newcomer newcomer learning lab assistants, reading tutors, and restorative justice facilitators. These positions are integral in the development and success of our students, and their removal will have devastating effects that extend beyond the classroom. Eliminating these positions sends a message that the district does not prioritize our students' learning, safety, or sense of security. During a time of unprecedented change, the Oakland community is living in a state of alarm and fear.
Historically, classified positions represented by SEIU face significant job insecurity, often being the first affected during budget cuts and organizational restructuring. In 02/2019, OUSD planned to eliminate over a hundred classified positions, including early literacy reading tutors, culture keepers, restorative justice facilities, and more. And now the district is proposing staffing cuts to align with previously approved budget reductions with classified employees, again, bearing the brunt of these classified employees again bearing the burnt of these layoffs. Roughly a 47 positions in SEIU slated for elimination.
A 12 filled, 35 vacancies. These this pattern underscores the persistent trend where essential support staff, crucial to daily operations, are disproportionately impacted by financial challenges leading to instability and equity within OUSD. The sum of FTE net change does not capture the devastation or reality of what the real impact is for workers. Each position number represents a person, a livelihood, a family. These cuts sadly put our members in a crisis as we are some of the
lowest paid workers. And on top of this, the budget adjustments we received don't indicate a savings, which feels incomplete and lacks rationale for the cuts. What are the total savings in dollars for the SEIU bargaining unit as well as others? How is the board supposed to vote on cuts without knowing the savings amount prior? Is the board prepared to make an uninformed decision? You just did. First, I'd I'd like to say that I would be hella rich if I played poker with some of you guys because none of you can really keep a straight face
up here, and it's pretty sad. This board are seemingly forgetful that they initiated the three R's budgeting balancing solutions, yet they claim they're being held hostage to eliminate to by to eliminating key staffing cuts, but they themselves haven't brought forth any true alternative budget adjustments. How is this inaction reclaiming our public education system? Isn't this continuing the bad past practices of past boards? We are here to remind this board that you have the power and responsibility to
shape the experiences of our community to do something better. You've been put in a position of power to make decisions that won't harm students and workers. You have the opportunity to make meaningful change and lead with integrity. Now is the time to take action. In cowardice, we knew that you would vote in favor of the budget cuts, except for one. Thank you, director Williams. And since you'll be supporting management, we ask that you exercise compassion and vote in support of item w two resolution number twenty four twenty five dash 84 that would potentially rescind March 15 layoffs.
Classified professionals build relationships with students and families, providing emotional, academic, and social support, and we must not be sacrificed. Are there any other bargaining units? We have no public hearings. Next item on the agenda is unfinished business. And we are pulling our Sorry. R 4, 5, and six. So, item r one, services agreement 2024, '20 '20 '5, Bay Area Community Resources, Acorn Woodland Elementary. I don't think that's the one, but I thought I included r seven. I didn't give you that earlier with the rest.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So I have R1 and R2, which are both, BACR contracts, and those were both pulled by you last time. Can we look at those together? Yes. Okay. Madam president, I hear you want to have consideration of r one, two, and three together. We thought about that, but the first two were about VACR and the other one is a separate thing. I don't know Director Williams, those are all yours. Do you want to consider them altogether, one, two and three? Okay. Yes. We can do that. Okay. We have, ten minutes of public comment. Was there a motion or the second?
Sorry. Is there a motion? There is a motion, and I second it. K. The motion has been made and seconded. Director Williams. For item R1, R2, R3, we do not have any public comments for this session. Are there any board comments? Okay. And mister Williams? Yes. Thank you very much. What we're trying to get at when we're pulling these particular items, is the agreement that the district has with our labor partners. And the agreement basically says if there is any hiring outside contractors that actually,
do the same jobs that our labor partners are doing, there should be a conversation on that. And what we've had time and time again is that our our district staff has disrespected our labor partners and chosen to overlook that and push out a an outside contract. It's really concerning that this practice has been going on for a long time, for the history, for quite several years. And I just think that we need to lift this up and really stay,
focused in regards to the practices that we have. I ask the members on the board not to vote for this, just because we need to change our particular practices. And if we start now, practices will start to change in the future. Thank you very much. Director Williams, I just want to kind of second that. I think that looking at both of these, I can see that R1 I'm sorry, R1 has supplemental reading support, which again is our reading tutors. R2 has additional hours for daily support,
for social emotional, which again is our media service managers. And R3 has family engagement, which is also our office of equity. Unfortunately, I think with these contracts, and I think this is something we've raised repeatedly, when these contracts have already started, it's a little late to be canceling them. Not impossible, but I think that this really points to the need of having to being able to see our contracts brought to the board before the implementation date. I just have a question. So in terms of process,
because it's see, the way I'm reading these is that the school site so it's for one of these, right, it says the principal site staff and community partners. And in my mind, I'm like, they're asking to do this work and have this work done. And I can't imagine why they would ask for the work to be done if it was already being done by staff at the site. So I don't know, like, how do we read that? Did we talk to Esperanza Elementary, for instance, when you pulled the item to, like, understand what was going on? I just
feel for future. I do think you're right that they are, site based things, but I think it's also important to really educate ourselves in the district to look within among our employees who are already providing these services. Director Hutchinson, you just wanna add? Go ahead. Yeah. To to follow director Berry, I mean, process. You know, at the last meeting that we had, these items were pulled, and it was moved to bring them back date certain at this meeting, presumably, to provide more information because the people who pulled them wanted to get further information.
Now here we are two weeks later. I think I would be safe in assuming that nobody got any extra information, and now there's a move to just not pass it. I don't understand why that wasn't just done last time, these games being played back and forth. And, I really appreciated superintendent Johnson Trammell's comments at the last meeting. If people wanna change a policy or do something different, some of us have had four years worth of opportunity to do that. So just to pull items now and create this chaos to to earn points places, is really difficult, especially for contracts that are site approved.
And those sites are depending on this and we've told them they have the authority to make these decisions. And now we're gonna step in at this point and say we know better. And so this again is just not a good practice for doing business and, you know, it's one of the reasons why our meetings go so long. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? And mister Raikstra, can we take a vote on items r one, r two, and r three? Three? Yes. On the motion to approve the items as stated by the chair. Student directors are absent. Director Williams? Abstain. Director Thompson?
Yes. Director Lawner? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Abstain. President Brogaard. Yes. Motions adopted. The next item is R7, which is the fiscal sponsorship agreement at Welcome Public Education Fund chief of staff. Director Hutchinson, did you wanna speak to that? I believe that's No. I just, really wanna thank again mister Siriki. I I said at the last meeting, he sent me the documents I had requested. I wanted some more of the, the history of the money that's, gone through the Ed Fund and been donated. He gave that to me, but, unfortunately,
it was the night before the last meeting. So I just really wanna thank mister Siriki. And, after reading through those documents, it made me feel a lot more comfortable and it made me feel a lot more comfortable to know as a district we do have that information available. So thank you and I'd like to move approval. Second. Alright. Miss Medina, I know that you're here if there's anything came. Do you have anything you want to add to this? Hi. Good evening. Thanks for, having me. I'm Ally Medina. I have the pleasure of meeting and working with most of you for many, many years. I just wanted to come up and say, the Ed Fund's role tonight for you is a lot different than what you've had
to deal with tonight, which is that we're bringing resources to the district. We bring financial, which is fundraising. We are primarily a fundraising organization, as well as materials and goods as and then 8,000 cleared volunteers. That's human talent that pours into our OUSD schools. And we're so proud of the work, and we're desperately part proud of the partnership that we've built just lockstep with everybody, on the board, on staff, principals, parents, and teachers. And, if you have any questions,
I didn't receive any in the last two weeks, and I thought I owed you, my face here in person in case anybody had any other questions. My email, my phone, my door is always open to connect, And I really look forward to another wonderful four years of working together and building, just a really strong district. I'm a parent as well. And, I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the work you guys do. I just want to encourage the board as you continue to gear up future conversations. A lot of the work that Ally does,
like, we wouldn't have Salesforce if it wasn't for her. We wouldn't have our student internships because we don't have the capacity to pay our kids. And so the Oakland Ed Fund pays all of our student internships for us. We're in the process right now with many of our computer science teachers to do some visioning around computer science, preparing our kids for the jobs that are in AI, and so working with the Kapoor Center. And so it would be great to involve her as you're thinking about the future so that this is how we supplement with our Lean Dollars,
philanthropy. So she's she's there as a resource for many of those things. Alright. You have a comment? Okay. Good. Public comment. I'm sorry. Is there public comment on this issue? Yes. We have five speakers, Sheila Haines, Kim Davis, Gabriel Khan, Janelle Harris, and Asalu Lobotla. First, On Zoom? Okay. Kim Davis. I, I was I was actually glad that, director Hutchinson pulled this item because he also pulled this item four years ago when this contract the current iteration of the contract, came up and gave a,
insightful, history of what the Ed Fund has been and how it started and and what the, kind of where how we got here. And there is no question that the Ed Fund does good work. It's not it's not a question of whether the, is not a not a question of good or bad. It's a question right set of priorities for this board? Particularly as you are going to be looking at contracts. And although, the Ed Fund does other things, this this is just about fiscal sponsorship. It's a the existing agreement goes through June 30.
This is a new agreement that for some reason would start now, not at the the conclusion of that. So you'd actually have time to think about this a little bit more. But you're locking yourself into a four year agreement, for fiscal sponsorship where quite a lot of money doesn't get to kids and where I would argue that we have built capacity over the years, managing an $80,000,000 community school grant, for instance, to manage grants internally in the future. So, you know, I would I would urge you to to look at this again.
We're talking about dollars that should be going to kids that are going to a private organization that gets to make the decisions that, while they do they have their nine nineties. They have some public, you know, accounting that we can I couldn't ask them to show show me their books? They have no obligation as private entity. And over the last four years with the Salesforce grant, which has amounted per Salesforce to $25,500,000, OUSD has gotten in direct grants from, the Ed Fund just about 20,000,000.
So $5,000,000 of that could have gone to paying someone to manage the grant and also, to kids. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? Mister President Brewer, other registered speaker has been called. All the registered speakers have been called. I thought you were calling your name. All right. No more board comments. You have one? Okay. Yeah. I just want to clarify that some of these grants, we wouldn't receive them if they don't go through the Ed Fund, because they're not going to give those grants directly to the district, eLearn Play being another one of those.
So it's just a factor to consider. Right. We're ready to call the question. Okay. On the motion to adopt r dot dash seven stated, student directors are absent. Director Thompson. Yes. Director Latta. Abstain. Director William? Abstain. Rebecca Hutchinson? Yes. Rebecca Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. K. Alright. And vice president Vassler? Yes. President Brohard? Yes. Stop it. Mr. Hollis, can we have a translation check? Yes. As stated before in this meeting,
we have two languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Arabic and Spanish. And we'll start with Arabic. I will lower all hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hands if you need interpretation for the language being announced, which at this time is Arabic. And I will ask miss Soleil if she can come off on mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Oh, wait. Hold on one moment. Okay. Miss Yes. Miss Solei? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you, miss Saleh. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation.
Seeing no hands, we will not continue with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation at this time, and I will ask miss Walker Marquez if she could come up mute and get the interpretation announcement for Spanish. Yes. Of course. Spanish announcement is up. Thank you, miss Walker Marquez. We do see a hand for Spanish interpretation, so we will continue with Spanish interpretation.
We will not have Arabic interpretation at this time. That concludes the third interpretation announcement, and I will pass it back to madam president. Thank you. Next on the agenda is, item t, which is the superintendent's report. Okay. You can continue. Good evening, board, staff, students, and community. Thank you for being here this evening. I'm just gonna give highlights of the report. And as always, the full report is available in in the PowerPoint presentation. There'll be three key areas of this report, district highlights,
an update on summer learning programs, and a report on student discipline trends and interventions. District highlights. On February 4, OUSD students showcased their artistic talents at the annual Step Into the Light Art Contest at the historic Cow Palace in Daly City, which honors Doctor. Martin Luther King Junior, who once spoke at the venue. Students from Met West High, Oakland Tech, Skyline, and Sojourner Truth Independent Study participated, and four placed as winners. A special congratulations to Oren from Sojourner Truth,
who earned first place and a 300 prize. These students exemplify the creativity and excellence fostered in OUSD schools. On February 14, more than six fifty students from across OUSD took part in a basketball clinic at the Moscone Center, coinciding with the NBA All Star Game in San Francisco. Schools such as La Escuelita, Reach Academy, Claremont Middle School, Frick United, United for Success, and West Oakland Middle School joined the event. NBA players,
including Moses Moses Moody and Trace Jackson Davis of the Golden State Warriors, led drills and skill building exercises. Special thanks to Zoom Transportation for providing free rides, ensuring all students could participate in this exciting opportunity. And huge thanks to John Sasaki and Dexter Moore Junior for organizing all the all star NBA activities, during during the event a couple of weeks ago. As part of the NBA All Stars festivities, the National Basketball Wives Association launched its twenty twenty five Books and Ball initiative at
McClymonds High School on February 13. '40 '7 female student athletes took part in a seminar covering essential topics such as financial literacy and mental wellness. The event also included a basketball clinic featuring NBA female all stars as part of the initiative NBWA, which awarded a $25,000 grant to support student athletes at McClymonds. Summer learning update. This summer, OUSD will provide expanded learning opportunities for over 6,000
students spanning from pre K to young adult education. Huge thanks to our state for their continuing ongoing investment in expanded learning. We've been able to do wonderful things with that continued funding. So just huge appreciation to our state for their investment in education. Key details include extended school year, better known as ESY, enrollment for students with IEPs, which begins on March 10. TK-eight summer school enrollment begins on March 17 with families receiving invitations via
placement. In addition to district run programs, OUSD's expanded learning In addition to district run programs, OUSD's expanded learning office supports multiple community based summer programs, offering full day programming for students. Registration opens on March 17 through the N Play tool, allowing families to select from a variety of enrichment and academic programs. Additional citywide offerings will also be available, ensuring that families can find a program that meets their needs. Families can visit www.ousd.org/summerlearning
for more information. And those needing support can contact their child's school or email summerlearningosd dot org. Student discipline update. Our district remains committed to reducing exclusionary discipline practices while ensuring safe, supportive learning environments. Today's report includes data on disciplinary trends over the past three and a half years, highlighting key areas for intervention and improvement. Approximately seventy percent of suspensions each year are related to violence, underscoring the need for ongoing prevention strategies and deep partnership with our city.
The OUSD case manager program provides dedicated support for students facing expulsion, helping them transition to county schools and reintegrate into OUSD when eligible. Suspension rates before and after the GRF graduated framework for restorative justice resolution show areas of progress and continued focus in areas of improvement. Our team is focused on tiered intervention strategies to reduce suspensions and expulsions, including placement support for students transitioning back to OUSD,
resources for students and families to address behavioral challenges, expanded restorative justice practices to promote conflict resolution and positive school culture. We recognize that discipline policies must balance accountability with support. And we will continue to refine our approaches based on data and best practices. Lastly, there will be an upcoming literacy and justice for all symposium that will be happening, I believe, literacy and justice for all symposium that will be happening. I believe the dates are March. Next week, the Oakland Literacy Coalition will host the literacy and justice,
symposium, bringing together educators, practitioners, funders, leaders, and community partners from across the country. The event will highlight effective strategies, approaches, and tools to address literacy needs for all students. The symposium will feature visits to Grass Valley Elementary, Oakland International High School, and Emerson Elementary, where participants will hear from both elementary and secondary librarians about their programs fostering academic success. I am proud to be able to showcase the strong literacy progress we are making
in our schools and that our dedicated educators and community partners will have an opportunity to share their insights with a national audience. Together these updates highlight the incredible work in areas of improvement across OUSD, from student achievement and enrichment opportunities to ongoing investments in summer learning and student support systems. Excuse me. I encourage you to review tonight's full report for additional insights into our collective progress. Thank you for your continued commitment to our students.
And that concludes my report. I'll pass it back to you, President Brohard. We have ten minutes for public comment. Is there any public comment? Yes, President Brohard. We have four registered speakers, Ben Tapscott, Asaul Lobala, Janelle Harris and Sheila Haynes. We can give two minutes. President Bruja, looks like they are not here. That's correct. Is, Sheila Haines online? She has not raised her hand as she let me see. She is online. Miss miss Haines, if you could okay, I see her. Give me one second.
Ms. Haynes, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Hi. So I just, I continue to ask you guys to just reconsider the Save Our Future resolution because not only does it ask for music mandates, but it asks just for what we're talking about. It's just the reinforcement of love and respect for each other. And it's not just needed at the student level. It's leading at the adult level. They need that daily reinforcement. And, again, I ask again why you guys deal with this budget deficit.
I thought I heard something about a million dollars being allocated from music to water safety. I mean, I ask you once again, please, please consider our most vulnerable students, and and and don't use Prop 28 funding or funding for your budget problems to address the needs that our students need for these consistent services. And I'm I'm continuing to ask for a response to our request, and it's very critical that these services be consistently used for its purpose, which is designed to help our most vulnerable students with ongoing consistency that they need.
So please just, follow through and don't cut Prop 28 funding. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments, mister Stitcho? No, president. Deggincoop, public speakers. Thank you. And are there board comments? Director Thompson? I want to personally thank the superintendent for a wonderful report. And I'm I'm really excited because we talk about, some of our vulnerable populations, but I see ES, ESY program is already taking applications who are at least starting to work in order to address their needs for the summer.
And also other summer programs that are actually being made available so that we are able to address our students' needs. And so as I think about those things, I just just reflected on a wonderful event that we had today that dealt with A to G requirements. And so I think if we all work together in order to make this thing go forward, we will address the needs of all of our kids and open. So superintendent, thank you very kindly for leading the charge to make certain that we address the needs of all of our kids.
Thank you very much for your report. Director Hutchinson. Thank you. First, thank you, superintendent Johnson Turmel, for, helping the district and for all the work your teams put in, especially over the last month. It's been really appreciated. I think, hearing some of the public comments today and then also, some of the off the cuff comments from a director, I think it's really important that we get an update on where, our work to address the lead remediation stands right now, and especially, more details about, the plan that we are trying to cobble together to,
spend on it. And, I just think we're long overdue for some hopefully, at the next board meeting either in your report or if, president Brohard wants to schedule that. But, I'm sorry. No. I I'd already, No. I had already, in hearing the public comments, have asked staff to be prepared. And if it's okay with the president, even just having that as a, an agenda item, just to have some Q and A, would be my recommendation. So Great. And and just the last thing real quickly, I was reading in the, in the biweekly report, about the conversations that are going on to,
maybe see about the feasibility of bringing a Montessori program to OUSD and some of the other ideas. And, I'm excited about it. I just want us to try to be really careful because it still feels like we have a tendency to just have one off conversations behind closed doors. And, as we're looking to do these things, hopefully, we can have some kind of guiding policy or process in place. And, and I wanna choose my words a little bit carefully like this. I also get really nervous if, we're looking at bringing the leadership of a school that by definition failed into the
district. So I just wanna cite that, and I was a little surprising some school sites' names mentioned. But it will be great for us as a district if we can start having that conversation of, you know, there's a Montessori program. I know there's interest in maybe bringing Mandarin immersion. You know, we have a Waldorf program that might not be renewed in the future. To see the feasibility of really kind of adding those kind of programs to our portfolio. So I was excited, but hopefully we can figure out a way to just kind of make it more
public and outward facing as early as we can. Yeah. I appreciate you bringing that up. I don't think, since they're still kind of in conversations, I don't know how much we want to publicly because nothing's confirmed. However, I do think, again, back to the board leading priority conversations and with the three R's and the redesign, this is a piece of it, is really thinking about another strategy of increasing enrollment, listening to families, why are they seeking other options, and figuring out how we can bring those back into our district.
It's similarly with the expansion, right, of our early learning programs. If we can do that as we're improving our K to 12, that's another way that we can increase our enrollment. So thank you. And the other thing that you mentioned, we've been talking about that internally, is they have been one off conversations because we don't have the system built yet. And so those are some of the things we're talking about internally. So if we do have these opportunities every charter renewal cycle, then we have more of a system for these conversations. So we're we know that that's the infrastructure that we need to build.
So thank you. Any other doctor doctor Barry? Yes. First, thank you. Double click on everything that's already been shared. Two questions that don't have to get taken up tonight, but just that I'm curious about. Any update you can provide on how we're addressing, sort of like the imminent threats being posed against certain groups of our students, our LGBTQ community and our immigrant students and families. I'm also thinking about federal budget cuts and the threat of that and how that
might impact, teaching and learning here at OUSD. Big question. So take or leave the opportunity to address today. I can say a couple of things. Feel free, general counsel. She's been spending, I don't know, 80% of her time dealing with this, If there's anything you wanna say as well. Tomorrow, we're actually having an all administrator meeting for our, leaders around just making sure people understand what the executive orders are, which things, for lack of a better way to say it, is just hype and talk, so that people are clear what protections we still have under state law.
I'm gonna be attending the, monthly, Council of Great City School meeting with all of the national superintendents since that's our big lobbyist. And then I also, I believe, to board leadership, sent an advocacy letter. I think it was in the last update. I've been sending that out to community based organizations so that we can do our part to advocate to keep some of the cuts away from education. I was on the phone earlier this morning with our RISE East partners. We're deeply worried about if they're gonna be cuts to SNAP, if they're gonna be cuts to Medicaid.
But those are going to be devastating. So I think it is a moment to do some cross system advocacy. I know the city, and our county are really thinking about this question of how do we stay focused on our equity work even under these DEI attacks. Our chief academic officer is thinking strategically, even with our LCAP, how might we need to rename things but still stay true to the work that we're doing. So we're in those conversations with a lot of different folks, because everybody is thinking about that.
As many of you know, there's already some litigation. We know more than likely California as a state, New York as a state, given our values, right, will be under attack. It's been refreshing to see some of the support from Sacramento, particularly from Tony Thurman and other leaders. And so we'll continue to provide those updates. We don't have clear answers right now. And so that's part of the anxiety is, you know, there are places where either we're pausing because we're waiting to make sure there aren't gonna be any changes to law.
So that's part of the reason we're having the conversation, with leaders and trying to when we get updates either from school services, which is our lobby lobbyist, or from counsel of just distributing that information, I think the best thing that we can do is just equip people with a law. Right? So that you hear the hype that we know by the law what we can do. I think that's been helpful with a lot of the deportation. Craziness is making sure that folks know there still are laws around schools being sanctuary places, even with what we're hearing.
So, if it's helpful, I can include some, additional information in the next superintendent report. But unfortunately, I think it's gonna be an ongoing conversation. Are there any other questions, comments? Director Williams? Thank you for the report, superintendent. Appreciate the suspensions. The update on how the district is addressing some of those concerns. As as you may know, I continue to really try to move this work of the George Floyd Resolution, village response team, and making sure that our young folks have
a space to have conversations when decision that they regret later on. You know, I think that's really important for them when they have an action that leads to a suspension, who's there to support them, process, where the conversation is with parents. And, you know, we have a lot of great community organizations out in Oakland to really do some of the work that we are not able to do at times. So continuing to move that forward. You know, it's been almost five years since the George Floyd
resolution, right? And we're now starting to get into schools and use it as a practice. Moving that conversation. I was actually looking at, you know, the number of suspensions, I'm trying to see, the number of suspensions that we have down, which, they go to this on slide. Slide, 16. Expulsion data. Slide 16. And looking at the number of total referrals, and you look at the referrals, and, you know, we're averaging about 33,000 34,000 students, which is one referral to every four zero nine students. So I think that we are making progress,
that our schools are safer. You know, we get a lot of negative news coverage at times, but I think we are moving in the right direction. 2022 is one to four one to four zero nine. '23 is one to four fifty four sixty five, one to four fifty three, and then the last one, which is this year so far, is one to nine forty four students. You know, so it looks like we are making progress on our engagement with our young folks providing safety at the school sites.
And I think that's conversations that we need to continue to uplift, not only with our staff, but just to let our folks know that sometimes they feel pressure, at school sites. Sometimes, that pressure comes from outside the school. But nevertheless, we are still focused on providing the safe school site, and the data shows that. And hopefully, you'll be able to share that with other school sites. Lastly, if you're having conversations about a school this is going to be in two seconds. If you have a conversation about these other schools,
emergent schools, I hope that you keep directors in those districts, you know, informed that these are possibilities. It may not actually be certain, but we're considering in your district some particular ways to increase enrollment there. Thank you very much. I also wanted to thank you for the expulsion data. I think, I did have a question. I'm looking at your thing now. I was wondering, it's got the number of students that are that reenter. And and how do we know where those students are going? Because it isn't the same number of students who are readmitted.
So I guess one thing I really wondered was, are are students reenrolling in other schools? Are they what is the follow-up for those students who are not, listed on this table? I totally forgot that we have Misha, actually. I'm so sorry, Misha. Misha is actually, I think, available to answer questions. So, Misha, are you still here? I am. Can you all hear me? Yes. Thank you, Misha. My apologies. Good. Did a great job. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Hello, board director, superintendent Johnson Trammell. That is one of the most difficult things to track are the students,
especially when they are expelled and leave us to the county schools. Those numbers, as you see, the readmissions don't necessarily match, and it's for a variety of Some others may leave the district. We have some kids who are not fulfilling their rehabilitation plan and can and stay on for expulsion for we've had some kids for two or three years. But this is an area of growth that we need. We're getting a little better at it now that we're learning how to partner with the county schools as, at a better situation, but it's still an area of growth that we need to,
to do better in. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank Thank you for your report. And we will move on to the president's report and board regular board members reports. I do have a president's report. Over the past few weeks, I've met with teachers at several schools to discuss their concerns. And many of these concerns have centered around the balance between time spent testing versus time spent teaching, as well as ongoing staffing and budget challenges. In the past days, I have received numerous emails and phone calls regarding changes to TK class sizes for next fall. TK teachers were recently informed that classrooms will have 24 students ages three to five
staffed by one teacher, one paraprofessional, and one reading tutor. TK teachers have raised serious concerns about student safety, the quality of education under these conditions, and the effectiveness of the creative curriculum, if these conditions go into effect that's currently used in TK classrooms. I also share these concerns. I can't really imagine twenty four three to five year olds in one classroom. Additionally, the district has historically struggled to fill paraprofessional positions. And given this, we need some clear answers. What is the district's plan to ensure that all TK paraprofessional positions are filled?
What happens if, when school starts in the fall, there are 24 students in a TK classroom and no paraprofessionals? I believe we had a discussion about that earlier, superintendent. This reconfiguration requires more thought and direct input from TK teachers before it is implemented. Assignment letters go out next week, which makes this an urgent issue that must be addressed now. And again, I can't say enough for all of us who are visiting classrooms and schools, the issues that we're learning from our about our staffs, about their working conditions, and, the ways that the board can actually support them and through change in resolutions.
Thank you. Board report, sorry. K. So I wanna acknowledge again that today and the weeks leading up to today's votes were not sort of like a bright spot, especially for me in my early journey as a school board member, but I'm am eager to get to the future conversations where we identify sources, that we can employ to recover some of the positions that were on the table today. I also mind for us is this, goal of identifying and defining our priorities so that we can build a sustainable budget,
so that we don't have to have this conversation year after year after year. More importantly, I want to use my time to just shout out District five and all the powerful work happening. So I want to give a shout out to the literacy workshops for and by parents at Manzanita Community School with FEA and their Lit for Literacy program. I want to give a shout out to the Fremont High School Architecture Construction Academy students who I just learned today competed in the SkillsUSA Regional Competition. I look forward to seeing the results of the competition.
But in the meantime, congrats to the 15 students who poured their time and talent into their craft in the competition. I want to give a shout out to the OOPA student who delivered public comment today. I see you. And shout out, another shout out to Manzanita Community School teachers who, after a long day, spent time with Director Brohard and I yesterday to share feedback. I think that the conversations we're having in the teaching and learning community, committee are really important to prioritize. And I hope that they extend beyond the committee and inform the three R's process.
So I'm eager to do that work with you and Director Williams. And director Williams. Thank you. Again, like I said last meeting, it's been an interesting Black History Month in OUSD and here at school board meetings. And and, again, I'm disappointed that it wasn't really mentioned tonight at all. I'm a proud great great great grandson of an enslaved African who earned his freedom, and the Hutchinson House still stands on Edisto Island today. You know, we've had a lot of problems with the board over the last couple of months. You know, the teaching and learning committee didn't happen last week.
Well, no. So if you want to interrupt me, you can say it on the mic, but, yeah, because nobody ever bothered to agendize the meeting. That's not how it's supposed to work. That's, I watch every meeting. And so thank you, chair, for admitting that you didn't set up the meeting like you were supposed to and for interrupting me again. We also had five special meetings scheduled and canceled over the last four weeks. We've also had the county superintendent started attending agenda setting meetings. We had the county superintendent invited here at the last board meeting to present an
implementation plan. The board leadership has been warned that they're not allowed to send letters on the board's behalf unilaterally, and they still did it anyway, including they just sat down and met with the county superintendent again in the last few days and have the nerve to try to sell us out to the county. And so I kept my mouth shut about a lot of things because I knew my responsibility as a school board director was to make sure that we keep moving forward and we were able to pass budget adjustments tonight. And although the budget adjustments were not on the agenda,
by tonight's staffing votes, we locked those in. It's so disingenuous to tell people I'm turning in an alternative budget when the process is over. And so now that we're by this, I'm going to be very vocal starting with tomorrow. I'm going to publish my timeline of what's happened over the last four weeks where I've been documenting each meeting that's been set and then canceled. This is not how things are supposed to work. We have meetings that are set and statutory responsibilities like the teaching and learning committee meeting each month. And so if it wasn't going to happen,
the proper process would have been to notify everyone that it was canceled. But people don't have the unilateral authority to cancel those meetings. So instead what's happened is people have decided not to do their job. And we just approved a budget adjustment package where we had no discussion at a board meeting about the whole package. So this isn't how things are supposed to be run. There are a lot of upset and scared people around right now by what's happening. And so, my job is to always fight for our district and never let anyone attack us, even if they're attacking us from the inside. So I'm gonna be very vocal,
and it's disappointing we still haven't had anyone apologize or admit to that's what's been happening. Thank you. There any other board comp board reports? Thank you, professor or, Professor Berry. I've just anyway. Thank you. I appreciate the, all the accomplishments in your district. That's pretty exciting. And I think, again, I appreciate that report. Director Basch, vice president. Sure. I just wanna give just a quick shout out to, both our superintendent, the Currys, and screams from the students as, the curries came in, and they shared a few words. And it was just a really inspiring moment to be with our students and to see,
the, the the happy faces of folks, and being able to play on a new playground, have murals set up, for them, and then have so many amazing volunteers be planting, things that are going to be, again, just joys for our students in those spaces. So I just want to thank you for that, and thank you to the Currys for their continued, relentless commitment to Oakland and, our learning spaces for our students, and playground spaces. And with that, we will move into item, introduction of new legislative matters. And this is item, w one, which is the twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty seven local control and accountability plan, twenty twenty four, twenty five mid year update. And I believe I'm turning this over to you, superintendent. Thank you, board president. And I am going to turn this over to Diana Sherman. Good evening, Diana. Good evening. Thank you. And I'm looking to see if I can see the slides if they're being projected. Thank you. So we're here tonight, with our midyear update on the LCAP, which you may require, remember is a required presentation each February, to the board. Next slide. K. We're gonna keep this relatively brief,
since we know it's been a long night. But this is a midyear of status update of the LCAP metrics and implementation that comes ahead of our full annual update, which will be later this year. And this was a new requirement beginning last year, and this is actually the third one because we also made one of these presentations during the pandemic. Next slide. Sherman, I'm sorry, but we're at a time, I guess, the end of the meeting. And I'm you have six minutes to produce Okay. So we'll talk very, very quickly. I know. I'm sorry. Alright. So this is a brief update of slight reductions in our,
supplemental and concentration grants and in our total LCFF funds. This is based on enrollment on census day. Those numbers have come down a little bit from projections. Next slide. K. And we're gonna talk very broadly. I'm not gonna go through the details. You can read the individual slides to see the metrics. But, in terms of spending, our big trends are that we do have some action areas that have been affected by the hiring freeze. You'll see those pretty prominently. Those are new investment areas where we intended to create new positions that had not been filled by the time that freeze went into effect. So you'll see much lower expenditure amounts.
We will talk more in the spring about what is happening with those positions as we move into next year. And then you will see some other areas, where the metrics are showing that we have made great progress and strides, and we may, in some cases, have exceeded our three year targets. So again, when we come back to you in the spring, we will talk more about next steps for adjusting those targets to make sure that we are continuing, to raise the bar. Next slide. K. So this, again, I'm not gonna read these through, but you can kinda see I will do this as an example, for goal one. Most of these expenditures are quite close to what we estimated,
or we budgeted rather. Estimated actuals includes all of our currently encumbered, currently expended salaries, all of our, non labor that we anticipate is going to be spent by closing of the books. So it is not necessarily what we have currently spent to date, but it's what we realistically and reasonably expect to spend by the end of the year. And, again, you'll see some areas where we were not spending quite at that level. Most of the time, it is due to vacancies. K. I'll just quickly we can go through these, and I don't won't speak to them there. Next slide.
This is an example of the data points, and I do encourage you, and members of the community who are interested to take a minute, to review this report later. But what you see here is our baseline data and our year three target. We shared these with you last spring. The year one update is actually our end of year 2324 data. We did not have this data when we brought the LCAP to you last June because the year had not closed yet. So now we have this data for most of these metrics, and we will have it for all of them, we hope, by the time we bring this back to you, in June for the full annual update. But you can see where we've made great progress.
In many cases, we are approaching and in some exceeding our targets. In others, we have fallen. And so we're watching all of those areas. And when we bring the revised out back to you, you will see how we have integrated all of the learning from those different data points. K. And now we can just go through these. And a sense here. Again, this is goal two. Similarly, you'll see some of the comparison of the spending expenditures, in areas where we have not spent as much as we planned or in some cases have spent more. Next slide. And just quickly go through the metrics here.
Again, I'm not gonna speak to these, but you are encouraged to review them. There are many, many metrics, so we will not spend time on this one. This is goal three. Again, this is one area where you will see some particularly large discrepancies in our plan versus actual expenditures, in particular around safe and welcoming schools and in around our attendant supports. And that had to do with the creation or the planned creation of new positions that had not moved forward yet. In many cases, such as attendance, for instance, those case manager positions are in school budgets for next year. They were intended to begin this year,
and so that's where you're seeing that gap. And that money becomes part of our supplemental concentration carryover. If we do not spend it this year, it stays designated as S and C rolling forward. We have already committed about 6,000,000 of that funding, to positions next year to preserve them so that they did not have to be among the positions that you eliminated earlier in this meeting. Then we will continue to watch that total carryover. And if it grows, then we will look at additional ways that those funds can be used, to preserve or restore positions. Next slide.
And we can just quickly go through these as well. You will see more in that section, around not yet available. We hope to bring those back to you in June. Many of those are qualitative. We're gonna go now through very, very quickly all of these to the final closing slides. This is goal five, six, seven, eight are all of our equity multiplier goals. Those live in the school plans. Schools are working on those now. We'll have much more information, for you, at that point. And then I'm gonna hand over to doctor Aguilera for our last two slides for a very fast closing. I just wanted to highlight the, some positive results in, the LCAP efforts.
We did receive a letter from the county, superintendent, that stated that we have exited differentiated assistance for seven student groups, which is really great. We are still in for our foster youth, so still an area of focus. You can see the specifics here in terms of the actual percent increases, but really wanna commend all of our school sites and, of course, central office staff, working together to improve these outcomes. Really significant increases in graduation rates, and for specific student groups and chronic absenteeism.
Absenteeism. So with that, we will end, and you can email any questions that you may have for us. But this is the midyear update, and it's there for you to reference. If you have, any questions, please contact us. And thank you. Yeah. Or comments? I'd like to I'd like to extend the meeting by fifteen minutes. I'll second it. On the motion to extend by fifteen minutes, the directors are absent. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Ladder? Yes.
Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Berry? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Axler? Yes. President Burghard? Yes. Stop it. Seven fifteen? The next I The next item, W2, which is the Board of Education directing alternative budget adjustments fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty twenty seven, introduced by President Brohard and Vice President Batchelor. I'm going to speak to this in just a moment. We are introducing these budget adjustments as part of the collective vision that the Board has expressed. We strive to be inclusive,
transparent and to prioritize our students in every decision we make. These adjustments are part of a new way of doing things. We were elected to bring transparency and change to the district, and a key part of that change and transformation that needs to happen is fiscal responsibility, accountability, and shared governance. This is one piece of making this is one piece that can make this happen. We can't wait until next year, and we need to take immediate steps to refocus our spending towards students in our classrooms. We do not feel the current budget proposal adjustments,
including the layoffs that we just voted on, center the needs of our students. So we're introducing additional adjustments to start the process of reprioritizing money towards our students. This, proposal will be sent to teach to, Budget and Finance for recommendation. It which is next item, sorry, is w three, which I believe Director Lotta is gonna speak to. Yes. Thank you. So I'm, I think in light of the decisions on force reductions and some of our, you know, kind of concerns around outsourcing present this resolution,
to create an establishment of an ad hoc committee that will look at our services and outgoes. And this is also part of an attempt to, and I we shouldn't say an attempt, purposeful move towards more transparency and accountability. It's going to look particularly at spending at outside contracts. You know, for years and years, we have overspent on consultants. And in the recent, you know, kind of several years, it's far outpaced other districts. And, to make the decisions, though, about how we reduce this spending in a responsible way,
we we need to have our stakeholders, all of our Oakland School communities be part of this shared decision making. And we need to get to a place where we have a school district that is really focused on our students, the success of our kids, And it also means that this money can be invested in our students, invested in our staff and not relying on outsourcing, but building our capacity to do this work in house and to do it in a way that is intentional and responsive to community concerns. So to get there, we're gonna shift our priorities, and that starts with our budget. And that may,
as tonight showed, take place over, not just one budget, but a couple. But we're we're moving in that direction. So thank you. Thank you. And this, resolution will also go to budget and finance. And with that, yes. I I forgot to do something. Can I give a shout out, please? Go ahead. I I would like to give a shout out to miss Kimmy King, Doctor. Cole, Javier, Serra, and the students from Oakland High, Oakland Tech, and Open Unity. The students at the presented a wonderful student led panel, today, and, of course, Kimmy Keane helped to,
put together this entire group where charter schools and district schools, sort of came together and showcased their acceleration of a to g requirements for all of their students. And so I'm really excited She Yeah, principal Moy. She actually, her school grew exponentially in terms of their A to G requirements. And, during today's, little session, we have a chance to understand how graduation rates are different from, excited that OUSD is actually hearing the banner forward and showing how they can excel
in A to G accomplishments. Shout outs to all of those individuals. Thank you very much, president. You know, I'd love a shout out to Pam Moy. She's an amazing principal. With that, we are adjourned.