Uh, MR. Rake Stark, we have a roll call to establish quorum, please. All right, on the roll call to establish a quorum. A student directors are absent. Director Lauder present. Director Williams present, sir Director Hutchinson Director Barry Director Thompson, PRESIDENT, Vice PRESIDENT Bachelor. Yes. PRESIDENT Brohart here. Present. Thank you, uh, MR. Uh, can we have an interpretation check, please? Yes, moving on to interpretation check for tonight s meeting. We have 3 languages for live
interpretation. They are Arabic, Spanish, and Cantonese for in person, we have laptops here, please see us. We will start with Arabic, our lower art in his hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. MISS Abdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for, for Arabic, please. Baliatia the esfali if has aide irrae Sheer al kura Olia Botale I might either enter to shawati with the unakeko feliciahabataleha the master elves is done. Great. Thank you, Abdi. Is to see if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation.
See no hands raised, will not start with Arabic interpretation. We ll next go to Cantonese again. Please don t raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation. MISTER Ewan, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please. Uk. You go to San Quyinche you saw your kong tongwagapanji mapane he kickyle to the bootetino in Taogan yihagaqisi is a hoy lin Tong Mog Shengjianxihaoandu Kong Tongwagaane. You go so you gong tong Kai tong gao poo kao ying zhongfuho you know Xinjia Kong tongwaliziahoyaoendo go to Wagapanji you go so you find it more soyu Guangdong. Kennedy s announcement is done Great, thank you, MR. Ewing,
checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, will not start with Cantonese interpretation. We ll next go to Spanish, I will all tennis hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. MS. Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Or uh MISS Um Welcome. Yes, of course Enaan and ion Enaan and Enaan and ion Enaan and Enaan and ion samosopreciento interpretation simultania el espanol il espetimo que quepida ervirelo Herees Herees Herees Herees
servizio I les banadodo de pretac. The Italian sumelina and to mosque laillorequieren porescuchalo interpretation Bade in a part they say interpretation precion I I elephant Spanish espanol illabana pode escucha. Innocuentra del symbolo de la interpretacion in supuma res puntitosillabanen contra. Unavesquean in Spanish er canon panes cuchala interpretation pero loquetaviciendo ingles perobolomen maspacito. In no quereescucharlo la possi palo and on the vice mute regional audio.
The audition, and it is sportsscription in tone is just solobanescucha de espano. They don t know I meantekomose me you know to lamente bamadare serviapartela or deviatite pi. Spanish announcement is done. MS. Walker Marquez. Checking 10 to see if any hands raised for a Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, who will not start with any interpretation and we ll check again later during the meeting. And I turned it back to you, PRESIDENT Bruhart. Thank you. Um, tonight in closed session, we will discuss the following items. D125-1864 conference with labor negotiators. D2 26-1444 conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation.
D3 26-0703 conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. We will then reconvene to public session at 5:30 P.M. Um, right now, are there any public comments on, um, not on a closed session items. Yes, MADAM PRESIDENT, we have 2 Marlene Sacks and Beth Ruin Kukuyaic. How much time would you like to allow for Public comic? 2 minutes, please. Good evening. My name is Marlene Sachs, and I am the attorney representing the Oakland Jewish Alliance and the pending lawsuit against the district. For more than 2.5 years, Jewish and Israeli students, staff, and families have reported anti-Semitic
discrimination, harassment, and a hostile educational environment. We have filed approximately 35 discrimination complaints. Yet the district repeatedly delayed investigations, sometimes by more than a year, and in many cases failed to investigate at all. As a result, the district now faces two lawsuits. The human cost has been significant. Dozens of Jewish families have left ousd because they no longer felt safe, welcome, or protected. Jewish employees have transferred, resigned, or retired. Rather than confronting the problem, the district has too often minimized it, ignored it, and violated its legal obligations. Tonight s
presentation is another example. The California Department of Education s JANUARY 23rd decision required the district to take specific corrective actions by MARCH 1st to discuss the findings publicly. You intentionally delayed this meeting for months until after school was over, to minimize the access of this information to the public. The public deserves to know that the cde has repeatedly found that ousd engaged in anti-Semitic discrimination, violated uniform complaint procedures and failed to remedy a discriminatory environment affecting Jewish and Israeli students. Equally troubling, the presentation omits the district
s own DECEMBER 12, 202025 admission that pro-Palestine and anti-Israel visual displays throughout the district, along with biased instruction and curriculum have contributed to a discriminatory environment for Jews and Israelis. The board has the authority and the responsibility to act. You can direct staff to remove visual displays that create a hostile environment. You can require compliance with board policies governing controversial issues and with ab 715. You can ensure prompt investigation of discrimination complaints and impose meaningful consequences when employees engage in
discriminatory conduct. We urge you to immediately investigate the complaints that have been ignored, comply fully with the cde s orders and take concrete steps to end the discrimination. Jewish students, staff, and families are entitled to the same protection, respect, and equal treatment that every other community expects and deserves. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please Good afternoon, everybody. Uh, my name is Virinkoulevi, chief steward of the bctc i ll just speak a little bit clearly about our uh bargaining that s pretty much not going anywhere, uh, we ve been going for a bargaining for almost 6 months now. There is not one counterback, uh, it
s literally last time we had a, we, we were probably filed for a ulp. Uh, they re denying us caucus room. Uh, at the time during the reservation that we reserved the room for it. They denied us, so we couldn t cox at the time matter that we re supposed to, uh, we proposed for a second time, uh, 1 year extension in uh in a 12% asking for a vote that year of the extended. Uh, and we told Janine and we told Gia and everybody in the management oesd that we need to expect a counterback tomorrow which tomorrow is our bargaining taste. So hopefully they re gonna come back with something because if not, you
re gonna see today. Half of the, or even almost whole unit of bctc here standing, demanding fair contract like every other union that been in the existing oesd. We are by end of this month of the contract. We will be preparing for a strike. That s something that I m trying to avoid, but if that doesn t change in these tomorrow for I try something that they re trying to work with us. Then we re gonna probably start taking a different stand on it and pushing it the way that I don t want to push, but clearly district looks for that. So I just wanna state that today you
re gonna see many members standing behind my back, talking about issues that we have during the bargaining that it s unfair, that it s definitely like being disrespected, that they don t value us as employees, so it s time to say enough. So please um talk to the district, whatever it is, but we need to be in communication and change this behavior. Thank you so much. Thank you. Are there any other public speakers? All registered speakers for this item have been called, MADAM Person. Different people come in and. I d like to welcome everyone to
the JUNE 3rd Oakland Unified School Board meeting. Uh, MR. Rakestra, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please. On the attendance roll call for the purposes of establishing quorum. Student directors are absent. Director Lauder. Director Williams not on the dice, ok. Director Hutchinson Director Berry Director Thompson, PRESIDENT Vice PRESIDENT Bachelor. PRESIDENT Brohart. Quorum present. Thank you and MR. Sechak, can we have an interpretation check, please?
Yes, moving to interpretation check for tonight s meeting. We have 3 languages for life interpretation. They are Arabic, Spanish, and Cantonese. For in person, we have laptops, uh, please see the person to your left if you need laptop for interpretation. There is also translation closed caption and feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption on your Zoom taskbar. We will start with Arabic I will lower art in his hands. Please don t raise your hand if any Arabic interpretation. MISTER Tareq, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for
Arabic, please. So I come to the estimate a reliad estimate a reliad and Sasha. I don t know the famous sigma, but with sigma zoom and the interpretation of Arabiyaru language interpretation The Madawara done while you can I don t get results mana will do uh Antae are mute um and whether there s a Thank you Thank you, MR. Tareq, checking 10 to see if any hands were raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Arabic interpretation. Next, we ll go to Cantonese Again, please only raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation.
MISTER Ewan, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please. I check your Boao Taidino in our country, you have a iiiz ahoyi lin tong Mo Sheng gai yanxi haoandou Guang tong wanna find it. You go to show you Guang tong Agaanjinto ying yao hafongim Kiyote yaoyingzhong of uho in Tao Xinjia Konang Tongwa it s a hoyi saoendo Guang to Magapanjit. You go to so you find it Mahaliao yole oyao so you you got funding for Go. Canone announcement is that. Great, thank Cheng attendees to
see if any hands were raised for a Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, will not start with Cantonese interpretation. Next, we ll go to Spanish. I will lower Art in his hands. Please don t raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. MISS Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Yes, instruction cultural interpretational espanol por favor selection in la parte de ja de santa racque interpret interpretation is selectionliioma Spanish espanolinnovelico no table teleostolata tra la lio the interpretacia. Great thank you, MS. Vargas.
Cheng attendees to see if any hands raised for a Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, will not start with any interpretation, and we ll check again later during the meeting. PRESIDENT Bruhar, I ll turn it back to you. Thank you. Before we begin, I d like to emphasize the importance of respectful decorum, communication and engagement at our board and committee meetings. The work of the board is serious business, and impacts the everyday experiences of our students, staff, families, and broader community. It is critical that all of us, both here appear on the dais and in the audience. Model the respectful interactions that we
would like to see our students have in their classrooms on the play yard, and in athletic competitions. As we open tonight s meeting, I urge everyone present and planning to attend to review and abide by the Board of Education protocols and meeting rules of engagement listed on pages 8 and 9 of tonight s agenda. At tonight s meeting, there are several allotted items where you MAY make public comments, provided you pre-registered 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 opportunities for, um, public comment after special orders of the day, California Department of Education Uniform Complaint procedure findings and district corrective actions to address anti-Semitism. After the superintendent s report. After the adoption of the general consent report. After the adoption of the general consent report facilities. After all non agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. And after each of the two public hearings, 2024, 27 local control and accountability plan year 2 and 2627 fiscal year district budget. After unfinished business, the report update on the ad hoc control over outsourcing task force.
And after new business, Proposition 28, Arts and music in the schools annual report, school year 2025, 26. 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 scope of the item. If the speaker speaks to a different item, the chair will need to ask that speaker either to speak to the specific item or hold their comments until the 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-coments feature via the legislative Information Center on the ousd website. And of course, you can always email board members directly using this format. First name.Last name at ousd.Org. Report out of closed session for JUNE 3rd, 2026. Labor matters on on item d1, number 25-1864 conference with labor negotiations. The board gave direction on this matter, motioned by Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor, seconded by Director Williams, the vote of Ford, um, abstained 1, absent 2. The yes votes. PRESIDENT Brohart, Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor.
Director Lauda, and Director Williams. Director Hutchinson was absent. Director Barry was absent, and Director Thompson abstained. Under legal matters on item d2, number 26-1444 conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation. The board approved a settlement in this matter motioned by Director Lauda, second by PRESIDENT Brohard. Vote 4 in favor, no abstained, and 3 absent. The yes votes were PRESIDENT Brohart, Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor. Director, or I m sorry, Director Lata, Director Thompson, Director Williams was absent. Director Hutchinson was absent, and Director Berry was absent.
On item d3, number 26-0703 conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. The board discussed this matter. That is the end of the JUNE 3rd, 2026 closed session report out. Uh, moving on to item h, are there any modifications to the agenda? Director Hutchinson Yes, thank you, uh, from the consent report, I d like to please pull 02. And 025 That s 02 025. Correct. Thank you Any other modifications Uh, direct, uh, Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor I believe you are moving our up
before or after end. Yes, we are moving r to start anytime after 7. Ok Alright, uh, there were no pupil consent items, um, we now move to j Special Orders of the Day. J1 California Department of Education, uh, uniformed Complaint procedure findings and district corrective actions to address anti-Semitism. This video, prepared for the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education. Just clarification before we start this, uh, PRESIDENT Brohart, can we get an introduction about what s happening here. We
just have a video being loaded and um it would really be helpful that at least there was some description given or some comment made about what s happening. Sure. Yes, thank you, thank you, uh, Director Hutchinson for that. So, um, during the past two years, many of our Jewish community members, students, parents, and staff have expressed harm and discrimination towards them. Complaints have been filed. Some of our responses were not in a timely manner, and a lawsuit has been filed both on behalf of students and families and by the California Department of Education. We care about our schools being safe and inclusive for everyone.
So our learning environments are places where students, all students, feel welcome. When any group shares with us that they feel harmed or discriminated against, we must listen and take action. In this instance, the California Department of Education has mandated a specific report and update on corrective actions, um, included in a response, um, from the California Department of Education due to those complaints. And so I m going to turn it over to Corey to provide an audio of those updates at this time. This video, prepared for the
Oakland Unified School District Board of Education addresses anti-Semitism in our district. We will specifically cover the corrective actions mandated by the California Department of Education, or cde and the district s response. Our overview will cover the background and context leading to cde s involvement, a summary of their findings, the required corrective actions, and the actions the district has completed to date. We will also outline actions in progress and our future commitments. The issues leading to cde involvement include multiple anti-Semitic and hate speech incidents in 2024 and 2025, culminating in several ucp
complaints. The cde findings highlighted insufficient training in social studies for high school teachers and at two middle schools, and the need for district-wide remediation. The cde required 8 corrective actions, including sending letters to families and employees condemning anti-Semitism, mandatory district-wide training, a board meeting information item, assemblies, and training for key staff. Actions 127, and a modified 5 and 6 are completed. Actions 34, and 8 are in progress. The district has completed a series of required trainings for administrators and teachers in late 2025 and early 2026. This includes training on discriminatory bias, nondiscriminatory curriculum
materials, ucp compliance, and outside discrimination training for the leadership team. A superintendent letter to all families and employees was sent on MARCH 26th, 2026. Further completed actions include training for journalism advisors on anti-discrimination policies and assemblies held at specific schools addressing anti-hate, the Holocaust, hate speech, and images. Anti-Semitism training has also been added to the district s online platform. This timeline shows our progress towards full cde compliance. Regarding the incidents at American Indian Model Schools. Ames is an independent charter school, limiting ousd s direct corrective authority. After the OCTOBER 2025 graffiti incident.
Ames promptly contacted law enforcement and addressed the community. Ousd s role is limited to verifying aims s compliance with applicable policies. Our next steps involve completing the submission of evidence to the cde and finalizing the ongoing professional development plan. Completed tasks include the all-employee training launch, student assemblies, principal letters to families and policy training on flagpole locks and flag display law. The Oakland Unified School District is committed to ensuring all students, families, and staff are treated with dignity and respect. We unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism in all forms of hate, and we will continue taking meaningful
action to prevent and remedy it in every school. There s not time for public comment, uh, MR. Hollis, do we have public comment on this? Uh yes we do. We have 18 speakers We ll give 2 minutes each Right Call the 1st 5 1st 5 speakers are Marlene Sacks, Jonathan makes Mucheon, Robert Edelman uh lg is the name that they signed up as. And Bruce Sto Maer My name is Marlene Sachs, and I am the attorney representing
the Oakland Jewish Alliance in the pending lawsuit against the district. For more than 2.5 years, Jewish and Israeli students, staff, and families have reported anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment, and a hostile educational environment. We have now filed approximately 35 discrimination complaints. Yet instead of taking decisive action, this district delayed investigations sometimes for more than a year, and in many cases failed to investigate altogether. The district is now facing two lawsuits, dozens of Jewish families have left this district because they no longer felt safe, welcome, or protected. Jewish employees have also felt compelled to
quit, transfer, or retire. The district s response has been to confront, not to confront the problem, but to minimize it and continue to ignore and openly violate the law. Just as bad is your video presentation tonight, which provides minimal and misleading information about the fact that cde has repeatedly found that the district has engaged in anti-Semitism, has repeatedly violated the uniform Complaint Investigation requirements and has repeatedly failed to correct the discriminatory environment that pervades ousd. The most blatant and obvious thing that you should be doing
to address the discrimination is to stop the indoctrination of our kids. You can and must give a clear directive to administration and staff that the offensive posters, flags, murals, and other visual displays need to be removed immediately and that the biased and one-sided instruction needs to stop immediately. You can and must impose serious discipline on anybody who has engaged in discriminatory or anti-Semitic conduct, and you must make clear that you will do so in the future. Your failure to have done any of these things so far makes you complicit in the discrimination
until and unless you do these things, the discrimination will continue. Thank you, Speaker. Highboard jt Mas motion, proud parent of an incoming skyline high school senior and 3 out graduates. Uh, what came to me today when I was thinking about what what to say was an ousd slogan, all are welcome here. That is displayed at a lot of school sites and on the website. uh, but it isn t true. Maybe most, or at least some, but I feel unwelcome, fearful, and even scared to go to some ouc campuses because I know that I could be targeted because I am Jewish.
And there are targeted uh political messages that call for the abolition of Jews. I should, I shouldn t be afraid, and neither should students or teachers. Hate is prevalent all over our district, and I m asking you today for you to enforce the cde recommendations. Do not allow symbols of hate in our classroom. Uh required teachers and staff to fulfill the basic training to combat anti-Semitism. Some forms of hate are clear and overt but, but not, but not all is obvious, and I m asking you to enforce the completion of a thorough training about the more hidden, covert Jewish and Israeli hate because
anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are hard to recognize, um. If you don t understand the ways that Jews are presently and historically demonized and blamed for societal issues. Hate takes different forms that yet that are being ignored in our district, and Jewish students and teachers and staff are paying the price. Thank you. Thank you, Nick Speaker, please. Hi, my name is Laura, and I am a very concerned teacher. Um, I want to say first that as teachers, we should never try to tell students what to think or what to believe. Our job as teachers is to teach students how to think, not to impart our own personal beliefs onto them,
whether through an outright statement on our part through a flag in the classroom or any other marker of our own personal opinions. Clearly, many ousd teachers have lost their way on this, and the school board can t seem to control it. Why has it taken this long to implement the corrective actions the court settlement requires. What could possibly be more important than student safety. We have seen how such weakness as the school board shows allows ideological takeover of education, and it never ends well, particularly for Jewish and other minority populations. The ai generated two-minute video underscores just how little the school board feels pressed to act on anti-Jewish hate. The fact that it took a
lawsuit to get the board to even begin to act on hate speaks volumes. You must take the actions you were required to take immediately. Thank you. Believe there were 3 other speakers in that group. Uh, there were Robert Edelman um, lg. And Bruce Stomacher. Uh, do you want to call the next 5 5 speakers. Next 5 speakers are Sarah Roth. Avi Ringer Gail Argon uh Leonard Hayman Arlene Heyman Yeah, go ahead and start.
Hi, my name is Sarah Rhody. I work in Hi, my name is Sarah Rhody. I work in special education, and I am a parent of ousd students. I have faced hostile work environments at ousd schools because of my Jewish identity and due to my itinerant role, I have seen many instances of anti-Semitism on district campuses that continue to this day. My ask is that ousd provide real training on anti-Semitism to staff instead of the barely 20 minute passive video training recently assigned to us on Keenan. I am sure you are already aware that many folks at multiple sites are planning to boycott it, and therefore it will not provide the education our district staff need to be a truly safe environment for
Jewish and Israeli students. I am asking that you mandate all staff to attend live in-person trainings provided by a Jewish organization on anti-Semitism and to take this issue seriously the way we take the safety of our lgbtq students seriously, and the way we take our anti-racist work seriously here in Oakland. No matter what your slideshow says, anti-Semitism continues unabated in our district. I have yet to see a clear memo memo from district leadership enforcing the end of biased messaging by teachers, demanding the removal of one-sided propaganda posters and visuals, clearly stating the policy on what flags are allowed to fly and what content
is vetted to be taught in social studies, history, and ethnic studies classes. Your silence sends the message that anti-Semitism is an acceptable form of hate. Unfortunately, due to your inaction, that it took over a year to hear back about one of my own uniform complaints that I had to file and the many instances of anti-Semitism that I have witnessed at ousd Middle and high schools, including my own neighborhood campus, I cannot enroll my own child in a district middle school. He graduated 5th grade this year and is now leaving our district for middle school. I believe in public education. I work in public education, but I do not trust you all with the safety of my own child.
Please fix this so that his younger sister doesn t have to do the same in a few years, and I can trust you to protect and educate my kids once again. Thank you Before the next speaker, um, at the end of this, MR. Edelman is online. Ok. I wish the lady who was protesting in the front row would please bring her protests to the microphone or else please do not protest while I m trying to think of what I m going to tell you. Yeah, we re white. That s because when we came from the Middle East, we were brown. We were browner, just as brown as you are. And we
re not, we re not brown anymore after 201,500 years in Europe and the gypsies, the Romany people in Scotland are white as well because they re from India, but they ve been there a long time, and this is what happens over time. I did not come up here to say this. I came up here to say that Yes, you re right I m born on the 4th of JULY. My rabbi s wife is born on the 4th of JULY. My family traveled to Spain in 1999, and during that year we saw the harbor where Columbus left in the Pinto, Pinto the Nina and the
Santa Maria to come to discover this country. At the same time that his ships left the harbor at Barcelona. Another ship was sailing in the opposite direction, carrying the Jews who were being expelled from Spain. Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain at that time, together. You get out my face. You go out us. My family came here keeper come to the front of the room, please. Here from Ukraine, Massarabia, and Poland. Um, we are part Spanish Jews. We are, but mostly, of course, we are
European Jews. Some people tell us we are half German and, and that MAY be true. Um, we are very proud to be in this country. We are happy to be in this country. This country has been such a lifesaver for us, and we re very grateful to be here. My daughter, my granddaughter, was uh yeah, genocide to you too. My granddaughter was ridiculed for her name in her classroom when she was at Crocker Highland s Middle, uh, Elementary school. She has changed her name from her first name to her middle name, and what the teacher does not know
is that both names are equally Hebrew. Jordan is a Hebrew name originally, but so many people have this name who are not Jewish, that we don t know that anymore. That was my main complaint. I, I really don t have that much experience. My daughter did visit with the board shortly after OCTOBER 7th, and, and to be active for her children. Thank you. Bye-bye Thank you I need to remind the odd members of the audience that speakers do have the right to come to the. The auditorium, the, uh, I m sorry, to the microphone. What Excuse me, uh, the speakers do
have a right to come to the, the podium. Go ahead Good evening. My name is Gail Argon. I m an ousd parent of a kindergartner. I moved here a few years ago in part because of the schools, and I never imagined that I would seriously consider removing my child from this district. I m sorry, I m gonna let you start over again. You, you really can t record in the auditorium. Thank you. Uh, we ll set reset your clock. Ok, thanks. Yeah, there s no recording of speakers. I ll just point of clarification. Since when are people not allowed to record at a school board meeting where we see people recording at every meeting with people standing in
front recording. So can, can, can we please, can we please just have the rules enforced, you know, uh, we have people who are here to speak I have something that I d really like to say to. Um, this is kind of reinforcing the point that I hear many of our speakers making. And so it s really important if we re gonna be able to function as a school district that we have the chair of the meeting enforce the rules when we re conducting the meeting, especially when it comes to public commerce. Thank you, Director Hutchinson. I would like to hear the speaker. Go ahead, please. Thank you. Hi, my name s Gail Argon. I am an ousd parent. I moved here a few
years ago in part because of the schools, and I never imagined that I would seriously consider removing my child from this district, but today that s exactly where I find myself because of your continued failure to address anti-Semitism in our schools. If hatred and discrimination were being perpetrated against another group, the response would be swift and decisive, as it should be. But when the targets are Jewish and Israeli, the district suddenly is paralyzed. Why is that? Your own investigations have found that staff engaged in anti-Semitic discrimination. Yet there have been no meaningful disciplinary actions. You acknowledge that school spaces have been filled with
unauthorized political propaganda. Yet those materials remain, and there have been no clear directives for their removal. You acknowledged unauthorized teach-ins that pushed inaccurate and ideologically motivated narratives. Yet you have failed to enforce the law and your policies and ensure that staff teach only authorized balance and factually accurate material. Why is that? Parents send their children to school to learn, not to be targeted because of their identity. Students are there to develop critical thinking skills, not to have personal political ideologies imposed on them. Every day that political propaganda remains on school walls and every day that a teacher imparts harmful
misinformation every day that harassment goes unchecked, you send a message to Jewish and Israeli students like mine that their concerns are secondary and their safety is negotiable, but these are real lives at stake There s real hurt, there s real families who are scared. Why? Because hatred breeds violence. A list of administrative compliance check boxes don t, doesn t change how students experience schools in their hallways and classrooms. It doesn t restore trust and it doesn t make families feel safe. I m asking you to take real action, enforce your standards, remove the unauthorized political materials, hold employees accountable for discriminatory conduct and ensure that all students are
protected equally under district policies and what s happening tonight is exactly why we need anti-Semitism training that woman needs training and frankly, the sticker on your laptop, if you understood why that was offensive after having gone through training, maybe you would remove it and understand why that creates a biased environment. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Me. Can we, um, get MR. Edelman online? Yes, MADAM PRESIDENT, um MADAM MADAM PRESIDENT MADAM MADAM PRESIDENT, um, allowing Robert Edelman to speak. Thank you. Um,
uh, my wife and I, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Ok, thank you. My wife and I have lived in Oakland since 1986. Both of our children, now adults, attended Oakland schools. Things were different then. We did not experience anti-Semitism or political programming of the students. I come from a family of educators. My mother and both of my sisters were teachers. They taught students. They did not bring their own political beliefs to work. The polarization and outright hatred allowed in the Oakland Unified School District is astounding. The leadership, and when I talk about leadership I m talking about supervisors, principals on up, not every
month, but enough, um, has delayed implementation of the corrections as outlined by the California Department of Education, which has led to this lawsuit. You re not promoting justice or equity, you re promoting polarization and hatred. The United States flag was taken down from Oakland schools on at least two occasions that I know of and replaced with the Palestinian flag. In one instance, the Palestinian flag was flown for 4 weeks. Another episode occurred the day after a synagogue in Manchester, England was attacked before the Yom Kippur holiday, replacing our United States flag with the Palestinian flag is not just a violation of California law. It s a symbolic gesture of how much hatred there
is for our country among people responsible for leadership in the Oakland schools and how that hatred is displayed. The flag of the United States symbolizes our democracy and all that it stands for. I am not a believer in my country right or wrong, but I do love the United States. My father served as an Army doctor during the Korean War. His brother served in the Pacific during World War ii. My father-in-law flew in the 8th Air Force during World War ii. Out of England to fight the Nazis. Every time those young men left on a mission. There was a 26% chance that they would not return to their base. The striking of the United States flag and replacing it with the Palestinian flag. Angers me, as
is an insult to our country and to the legacy of those who risked and lost their lives defending it. It is symbolic of the prejudice, polarization, and hatred that has been present within the leadership of the Oakland schools. Thank you. I want to remind everyone in the audience to please follow the rules of decorum. Again, we want to be able to hear all of our speakers. Excuse me, and um they need to, they have the right to be uninterrupted. Thank you. Uh, next 5 speakers please. Uh Uh, yes, MADAM PRESIDENT. Next 5 speakers are Don Earns. Jos. Osin
John Lynch Asada Olagbala. David Bloom David Reed Oh sorry, David Bloom Yeah. Good evening. My name is Dawn Aarons. I m a classroom teacher with a credential in both Spanish and French. I teach in public school, which is a point of pride for me, because public school is where America meets. My parents attended segregated schools. They couldn t have met in school. In Arizona when I attended school, I had black classmates and white classmates among my mainly Chicano and Mexicano classmates, but curriculum wise things were white or seldomly black. And
what was called black was grotesquely distorted. It did not resemble truth. For this reason, making my classroom welcoming to all young people is a top priority. To do this, I must listen. Some, and some of the loudest say, things are black and white when it comes to Israel. Jews state that some situations are not neatly black and white. Please, when someone tells you that there is a boot on their neck. Listen I ask of the board nothing more than I require of myself. Listen and act, redress, substantively the harms against
our Jewish children Anti-Semitism hurts us all. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please Good afternoon. My name is Josh Boston, and I am a parent of 3 Oakland, uh, students, and I wanna share a story with you because I know, uh, stories actually tell the story in a much more, uh, even though they re specific and a much more universal way, and this is my child at Oakland Tech in 10th grade, taking social studies class, and there was a discussion of the Holocaust. And she is uh visibly identifying as Jewish. She d wear proudly wears her Magandavid. And one of her classmates said to her Now, I don
t know what you Jews have to complain about. I mean, you all got reparations, ok? So this was said to her, now this was said by a student to her in front of the whole class, and she froze. In her 10th grade lorraine, unable to process, looking at her teacher for guidance, a leader, a learned elder to help guide that conversation and nothing happened It stood there It stood there for 20 seconds, 30 seconds. So what is a 10th grader do? She burst into tears and left the room. But I bring up this story because it was.
It was reprehensible but it was also a teaching moment. You know, kids will say what kids will say. But when this kind of bigotry and just misinformation in a statement so wrong on so many levels is set in a classroom, you would think that the leader, the thought leader, the teacher, the mentor would stand up and say, well, let s explore that. Not shaming the student who said it, but just, what is that about? What is that statement about? Nothing out of that happened, and I think it s indicative of the problems that are rampant in this district, you know, bigotry is bigotry.
It could be brown, yellow, blue, whatever. It s bigotry and it shouldn t be stood for, it shouldn t be tolerated, it should not be encouraged, and just the as the speakers have mentioned that video, it really felt as an audience member and as a parent, that it s like, yeah, we re gonna phone this one in. That was phoning it in. There needs to be real change. Look into yourself, erase the bigotry. Thank you. Next speaker, please My name is John Lynch. I ve lived in Oakland for 26 years. I ve been a teacher, a public school teacher for nearly 40 years. I m here tonight because for more than 2.5 years, Jewish
and Israeli students, staff and families have reported anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment and a hostile educational environment throughout Oakland Unified School District. Oj has filed approximately 35 complaints. Discrimination complaints, at the district has repeatedly failed to address the root cause of the problem. The most obvious step this board can take is a stop along schools to be used as vehicles for political indoctrination. The district has already acknowledged that pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli visual displays, along with bias instruction and curriculum have contributed to the
discriminating discriminatory environment for Jewish and Israelis. Yet these displays remain. The district policies governing controversial issues continue to be ignored. Students come to school to learn, not to be subjected to one-sided political messaging. The board must direct staff to remove discriminatory displays, ensure that instruction on Israel, Gaza and Palestine complies with the district policy and state law and hold employees accountable when they cross the line from education to advocacy. Until this happens, discrimination will continue. Jewish students, staff and families deserve schools that
are focused on education, not indoctrination. Um You also need to provide the same protection and respect afforded to every community. Not just a few The all welcome here poster outside that we all saw coming in needs to be implemented. You ve turned a blind eye You ve stood idly by You need to start preventing bias and discrimination. It s up to you to act now and create a learning environment. Next speaker Hi, my name is David Blum and I have a black and Jewish child entering 4th grade in lust.
What the Jewish community is asking for is very simple. We want an apolitical classroom. Where kids are not taught what to think, but rather how to think. We want our kids to be able to share their perspectives and lived experiences while at the same time listening to other kids perspectives and lived experiences. We want controversial issues which include but are not limited to the Middle East conflict to be taught in a balanced way and respecting the approved curriculum, which is a policy of this school board. And when there are issues involving discrimination, we want the district to take it seriously and to address them
expeditiously. And we want these things for all students, not just our own children. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please Hello, I m David Reed. I was, uh, my name was called earlier. Um I m speaking for a parent who feels they need to stay anonymous for their kid s safety. The statement that I was asked to read. Is as follows. Please ensure that ousd classrooms remain places where students are taught how to think, not what to think. All students, including Jewish students, deserve to feel safe, respected, and free from political indoctrination.
While teachers present complex issues in a balanced and age-appropriate way. I think you can, uh, and that s all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, MRS. So So, um I m concerned about the legitimacy of all of this. And I, I m not gonna take the time to find out because I m too busy trying to deal with you guys for over, I don t know how many years dealing with the discrimination and racism that goes on with African American students in this district, and you have been told by the state several issues related to black kids that you need to fix. In special education as it relates to suspensions and
expulsions and as it relates to the closing of schools disproportionately most of the schools you have closed are predominantly African American, but I m gonna address right now what is the cost issues related to this? What s the cost for sending out all of these letters to the parents. And to uh the staff What s the cause for discriminatory non-discriminatory materials to be presented. What s the cost for the outside training? What s the cost for the outside trainers. What is the cost for any oversight, if any. What is for the cost for any cost to develop a plan
related to dealing with this so-called anti-Semitic issue. A lot of lot of cost issues related to this. You don t have no choice. But you, and what is the cost for the legal two legal uh court cases that you re dealing with. All of this is that the financial burden that we have, I want to understand what is the amount of money we re gonna have to put out and where it s gonna be coming from. ok? Now uh, we gotta deal with some issues related to this, but you gotta start dealing with the issues of the African American students that you have created race bias going on many schools. Related to black kids
We don t have lawyers. We don t have an organization We don t have the anti-Defamation League to support us. We don t even have the naacp. They re sitting here with them. Thank you. Next 5 speakers, please. Last two speakers are Gail King and Patty Joslowwitz. And did the two speakers online sign up? There are 2 people with their hands up. They are not registered speakers. All right, thank you My name is Patty Joellowitz. I ve lived in Oakland for over 20 years. Uh we don t have to be here. There
s no money that would need to be spent if there was not hate taught in these schools and discrimination against Jews and Israelis. None of the lawsuits, we didn t want them. You have the ability to stop this. You had an ability to stop it from the first complaint. You let it go on for 2.5 years, you re still denying it. It s unacceptable. You need to be focusing on the benefit of the children in your care. That is all of our future. I could have been at it important naacp meeting tonight, but I had to be here to speak up for my community. It s unacceptable. There are real problems that need to be addressed. Everyone
needs to be treated fairly. I m Gail King. My husband and I decided to move to Oakland to start a family specifically because of Oakland s diverse community. We had to move to the Bay Area for our careers and after careful consideration, we chose Oakland because it s the most culturally rich place we ve experienced in the us and we ve lived all over the country My children are adults now, and we support public schools, so there was no question they would attend Oakland Public schools. Our son and daughter attended Oakland Public Schools from kindergarten through 12th grades and their entire experience was one of respect, empathy, and appreciation for
all cultures and backgrounds. They re excellent Oakland education, appreciation of diversity has given them an advantage in ensuring their success. Our son graduated from Georgia Tech with a, a bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and he oversees manufacturing for manufacturing facility that makes 90% of global diabetes, continuous monitoring kits. He s also the treasurer of the Atlantic, um, Fulton County, uh, dnc. Our daughter graduated from San Diego State University with a journalism degree and she s an ed it or at Billboard They re proud of having attended os ousd schools and make a point to attribute their success to appreciating all cultures as they learn and
lived in Joaquin Miller, Montera, Oakland Tech, and osa. We re all shocked that anti-Semitism is a problem in os in, in, in the school system and we we never had um such experiences when we were in that community. And so please fix this now to everyone s benefit and for a collective society. Thank you Thank you Are there any other boys All registered speakers names have been called. Thank you. Uh, are there any board comments? Director Hutchinson? Yes Thank you and uh hopefully, if I go over my time a little bit, it ll be allowed.
Um I m really upset. I m really frustrated. And so this is an issue that uh is very important to me and my family. First, let me just say that the reason we re here right now is because ousd has been found at fault. And um we are a sanctuary district. And we pride ourselves on that And when we say we re a sanctuary district. That means sanctuary for all. And I m not a, uh, repeatedly say that and I ve been saying that over time. I ve said this in many settings. When we say sanctuary, we mean sanctuary for all. No, no, no So for, for me,
um, I m Jewish I was bar mitzvahed at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland in 1986. As far as I know, I was the first person who looks like me who was bar mitzvahed in Oakland. My mom s parents came to this country, escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe. Her parents lost most of their family then in the Holocaust. I grew up knowing elders with numbers tattooed to their arms they had miraculously survived the concentration camps. My mother, when she was growing up, got very involved in the civil rights movement. Answered the call and marched
with Doctor King Selma to Montgomery. After what had just happened to John Lewis on the Pettus Bridge. My parents met in Mississippi working at a Freedom school They then moved to Oakland, California. Be able to raise a family together and my mom dedicated 40 years to educating all the youth in Oakland. We know that anti-Semitism is the same as racism. And is due to white supremacy. As a district, we are supposed to have a non-negotiable stance against all forms of white
supremacy. Period End of story In my opinion, too many people these days are conflating Israel with Judaism. My own personal experience, I spent 3 weeks in Israel in 1988. Wow, long time ago. As a 15 year old and the thing that stood out to me in that visit. Is every tourist spot we went to during those three weeks. There were 4 national flags flying above every tourist stop. An Israeli flag, an American flag, a British flag. And a South African flag In 1988, as a fifteen-year-old
in Israel, I realized that their government was closely tied to apartheid South Africa. And I knew from that point I needed to stand against the Israeli government in their policies because of that. Just like now today, I continue to stand against the Israeli government and their policies because of the current genocide. And again too many people in Oakland are conflating Israel with Judaism. What we need to get back to through real leadership You know, we have failed leadership. If you all stay for the rest of the meeting, you ll see what I mean about the failed leadership we re dealing with.
But this has to be an issue that we handle in a rational way. People need to be able to stand up against a genocide without it being anti-Semitic. We need people to be able to step in and broker the conversations that I grew up having in school. That allowed me to have the informed opinions that I now have today. But this is what happens with failed leadership and when we don t address issues. And instead when the community reaches out to the board of the superintendent, or there s a first court finding. It s not addressed right away so it s allowed to fester and even tonight in this
hearing with the video with the treatment in the room. It s only exacerbating the problem. So we need real leadership in our community. We need people to stand up and say my experience in Oakland is based on the real liberational unity. Between Jews and black folk That s why I m here, literally. And I will always stand up for that. I m always a willing partner in all of those conversations, but in order for us to make that happen in ousd. I need everyone to realize that we have to change the leadership. Because this is one of many problems that s been allowed to
occur over the last 2 years with this current leadership and out of the pandemic as a community we are not connected like we once were.So I will always do everything I can to make sure ousd is safe for everyone. I know personally many of the Jewish families who have left the district. But I m honestly asking people to partner with me. We can put this together. It s not gonna be perfect. There s gonna be challenging things that we see in here. But what s supposed to happen in our schools is we learn how to deal with that, how to learn from that and how to still come together as a community to really move in the same direction. We always have more in common than we have separately and it s, it s
heartbreaking listening to this tonight and seeing what s happened because again, my personal experience is my little white Jewish mother put her body and life on the line in a way that very few people ever have. And it s because of her relationship with my father. That I m only sitting here today. So I don t need to give a larger history lesson. There s enough people who move away from standing up for two, for true equity in every race and every religion. We can hear, we can hear it all over the place. But it s up to us to demand that our public school district serves the needs that we all
have. So thank you and when we don t get relief. Please everyone remember it doesn t necessarily mean another lawsuit. It means changing the people who we ve elected to represent us till we get the kind of representation that we want and we need. Thank you. Director Hutchinson. And with that we will move on to uh Labor Partners to Are there any comments from our Labor excuse me, are there any comments from our labor partners? Comments from the labor partners. Uh, MADAM PRESIDENT, currently there are no um comments about bargaining units on Zoom. I don t see any hands raised. I think they re coming up this way but it s especially it s time for Labor partners.
Yeah I ll give you a second, just so I can give you a got it together. Well, good evening board, and uh my brothers and sisters in hand. Uh, I will today speak a little bit about how important fair bargaining it is. And support of all our staff. We are a team and employees are a foundation of the oesd. With all our bargaining unions. Between the district, we give a hard work, dedication, and skills to contribute directly to achieve our goals. Effective bargaining is not about conflict. It s about
finding solutions that are fair and beneficial for all parties. I mean the staff feels heard and valued, we build the trust that grows in relationship that becomes stronger and stronger. Supporting staff goes beyond negotiations. It actually means safe work environment, opportunities for development and resources that help staff, perform the best. And when districts invest in their people. They create culture of motivation, loyalty, and productivity. I would like to express bct support for all of our unions within the district, Ami, seiu, oea, uos, and Teamsters in the hard work that they ve been
doing to keep our district keep moving. We are all oesd and we can t continue going without any of you in solidarity. Supporting one another during bargaining demonstrate solidarity and share the well-being of both students and staff. Strong schools depend on strong stuff. Fear contracts helps to attract and retain the dedicated staff. Reduce turnovers and create stable earning, learning environments for all our students. The success of our district is built on a contribution of all stuff and every bargaining unit deserved to have his voice
heard and respected. I encourage our school community to stand together in support of all of our unions as the negotiated a good faith for all fair and equitable agreements. By promoting open communication, fair bargain practices, and continued support for staff we can build district where, where everyone feels respected. Empowered to succeed. Also by working on all of this can strengthen our district can create better outcome for everyone in the district. What we expect from all this, as you see many brothers and
sisters behind my back. We expect fair contracts that are being nego negotiated for six months now and we re not going far. So please take consideration something that we are asking you because this, many of these members don t live in Auckland here. If they stayed here away to without their families instead of going home, this means something. Thank you. Hi, Nick Bogdanov, I m a gardening landscaping, and uh. I just wanted to bring up how, you know, we have been negotiating with uh for the contract for 6 months now. Management tends to spend the money on contractors for things that we
could do, uh, rather than giving us a raise, we ve asked, uh, for a raise. We had, we didn t get one for at least 12 to 14 years. They would save more money if they would just, just give us a raise and hire more employees. One example is, uh, we also, we cut trees, branches, uh, if we do it, it costs the district $100 200 dollars. If they get a contractor to do it, it s $3500 to $5000. Uh, there was another time where they had a plumbing contractors come in from New York and they spent $1.5 million on 20 schools every single sink and toilet installed was installed
improperly. Our plumbers had to go and fix every single toilet and sink and every single school and the contractors didn t come back out from New York to fix anything. So not only did they waste that money that could ve, that was more than giving everybody in b&g a raise. They had bng go and fix it afterwards. So it s twice the work And so they ve offered us, you know almost nothing to bare minimum every time we ve went to go talk to them and uh they keep changing the subject and the only thing we ve gotten locked down is that they want us to have new booths. And so we would like, you know, encouragement from you guys to,
yeah, negotiate a contract with uh something that s fair where we can have, uh, a living wage to An email was sent MARCH 27, saying every Oakland student must be able to attend an academically excellent full staff, safe and welcoming school. How can we have a welcoming school when we re understaffed and we cannot provide students the proper landscape, the proper paint job, electricity. Sinks toilets, and we re very understaffed. If we really care about our students. You guys gotta help us out Hey, good evening everybody. My name is Alan. I m part of the,
uh, plumbing division, right? Um. I wanna speak on the whole hiring New Yorker companies to come out here and do the plumbing. They just didn t just hire a New York company. The New York company came out here and they subcontracted another company from out here so they spent a lot of money right? And we had to go back. And I swear 3 out of all these schools, each school had 10 toilets that were misplaced, right? All the plumbing was wrong None of the sinks were, were installed properly. And then we re getting all these tags left and right to go ahead and do these. And we re
understaffed. And we re putting all this work in and no money coming into our pockets, but it s ok to go ahead and spend millions and millions to subcontractors out of state. That s not right you know, how many of you get to go home after. Your job? Right? I m just asking you, you don t have to answer, fine. But I have to, once I, once, once 3 o clock hits, that s my, that s my co-workers. I have to drive. All the way to Walter Creek to clean offices. Just so I can go ahead and provide my kids with food. Gas for myself to come over here to work. I live all the way in Pittsburgh. That s, that s a drive I don
t get to see my kids I want to see my kids I wanna be able to to put them in sports, but I can t with with the wages we re making. You know, they re just stuck on the vr now That s not cool. I wanna be able to tell my kids, hey, get ready. Come on. I can afford it now I can t afford it you know, and I m sorry I m getting emotional because it s true. Yeah seiu stands with our labor siblings for a fair contract. At its root, when you tell labor that one bargaining unit got a raise so another can t. The message is clear. Ousd expects its workers to work for poverty wages and in deteriorating work environments.
It expects our buildings to deteriorate because our buildings and ground siblings are being strung along during their bargaining process. Being told, so and so got a raise so we can t give you one is out. The days of trying to pit labor groups against each other are through and labor solidarity is resoundingly in. Hi, I m Phoebe. I am an occupational therapist with special education, and I also serve as vp for seiu Oakland chapter and um hearing about this contracting stuff is really, really, really gross. Um, we re talking about private equity, right? And private equity is about profits. It s not about the students and it s not about investing in schools
and there seems to be a runaway train with private equity everywhere It s I just don t understand it. Look at all these people, they, they re here to work hard. They want to do the work. There is work, but yet we re bringing in people from New York, so that they have to go back and do the job again. I, there s something seriously wrong. Um. Seo stands here in solidarity with b bctc who are currently navigating contract negotiations. Many of the challenges, many of the challenges they are facing are unfortunately familiar delays, superficially prolonged timelines, lack of responses, and other tactics that slow the process rather than move it
toward resolution. These, these strategies are seemingly passed off as constraints that are simply part of the process. This way of doing business is not the experience of labor in other district t s Ours has been described as unusual and costly both financially and in terms of morale. The hands-on physical demanding and skilled work of bctc members is consequential. Their work is essential to the safety and maintenance of our facilities when we invest in the people who keep our infrastructure functioning we strengthen the experience of every student who walks onto our campuses. Fair contract negotiations are
about are about upholding the values of this board. What you regularly speak about respect, dignity and accountability. We should expect leadership at every level, including labor relations, to take the responsibilities seriously. We are asking this governing board to govern and hold labor relations accountable by asking a simple question What did good faith bargaining look like today and what will it look like tomorrow? Do not accept broad adjectives, but whether meaningful objectives were met and progress was actually made because this is where the details matter. Kevin Thomas Carpenter Shop
Stewart. Um look behind you. We all have bills. We all have houses and rent I have a 7 year old grandson that I just spend time with. I work 67 days a week, plus here. It s very challenging a lot of these guys, I lost my house 17 months ago. I should be home with in the next two weeks, very hard roll, right? A lot of work involved We need to do something better about our wages. Going forward for 2027. We all have the same stuff, y all have bills like we have bills. We all need our money. We worked very hard for it. We all are craftsmen, tradesmen went
through schools. Get this degree, to get this to get this certificates, to get this money. And we need it Every last one of us Thank you. I just said, I just want to say one more thing as we speak right now, I got a two members actually resigning by Friday because they can t sustain the wages, living wages they hear, they re moving away and actually finding different company. Uh and that brings us down to 70 members. For all the trade that it s an obbctc. Which we re not talking about, uh, I m the people that are retiring, they re not getting
vacancy back. Uh, we got a 45 gardeners. We only get one vacancy back. Uh, we got uh one alarm technician that s been deleted, be going to a 2 in the whole department, fire alarm, fire alarm, and intrusion. We get a, uh, sheet metal shop that has only 2 persons for a whole district doing sheet metals, uh, which means ducting, which means the security on the windows and stuff like that. So we are deeply understaffed, and now, when we try to create negotiated the contract that make, maybe we can bring more and we retain people to stay in a bctc to actually live in Auckland and work in Auckland, we re having a hard time. We can
t get a one thing done and something needs to be done definitely talk to your labor relations, talk to everybody that needs to be talked because we need to get this done asap as we all know our contract expired by the end of the year, end of JUNE, so we don t want to go without a contract. We are proposing one year extension for 12% asking for one year that is being extent. And that s the, we understand that the financial stress in the district. That s what we re proposing this. That s the main reason. So please do something about it. Thank you. Ok.
Are there any other labor speakers No, there s no other labor partners. Ok. All right. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you guys. Uh, next up we have the superintendent s report. Online. Will we still be called for comments or not? I signed up online My name is Hildy Spritzer and I simply want to say, um, first of all, I want to thank everybody, the gentlemen that just spoke, and I want to thank the Jewish alliance that was here, and I just want to say, and this is a personal note to
the head of the school board, and you re not surprised. I have asked that you take the pro-Palestinian graffiti, notes off of your laptop when it goes out to the public, and I didn t even have the courtesy of a response, and I take that as a personal friend When I say it s hurtful, personally. I mean it I ve been doing 16 years of coaching. I love all of our kids, and yes, some schools have more advantages, and we all know that pta also supports different sites, but personal injury on my own behalf is what I want to speak to. Thank you for
letting me get up maybe inappropriately and say what I needed to. Yeah Superintendent I next week tomorrow that board members, community, Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I d like to um share there s two items that I m focusing on this evening. Uh, we have, um, school highlights, and then we ll have a report out. On our excuse me. Illiteracy, um, recognition of,
of students. I d like to start, um, with an acknowledgment of a focus area of attendance. We have been working on chronic absenteeism of our students and uh this week we ve we ve been, um, partnering, as you know, with the Oakland natives gives back to support getting students back into school and to support um their focus on education and part of that initiative was to acknowledge um, students who had improved their attendance throughout the school year. We had several students that have been recognized, um, this last semester for changing their trajectory around attendance at
school, um, with acknowledgement of 5 of $500 checks, and these checks were um actually used for um actually life issues helping family with rent, with food, etc. Yes I could ask people who are in the audience to, um, not have the side comments during, during the superintendent s, uh, report. Thank you. Um, thank you, MADAM PRESIDENT I also wanna just let you know, um, there was a raffle that was given out to students who were a part of that, who signed up to be in this program to acknowledge their attendance,
and this is a big deal, um, to get people, students back into school. Uh, the organization Oakland Natives gives back raised monies for a final raffle of $5000 to be given to a student who had um participated in this challenge. It turns out that the student who won the prize of $5000 um, was a student at McClymon s High School in West Oakland. We re really proud of that student turning things around, um, turning their attendants around. This is a major area of of focus that I have, uh, I m, uh, have been supporting. I wanna thank publicly Oakland natives gives back, um, you ll
see in our report a picture of the student, um, their mother, and the principal, uh, and the, uh, Oakland natives give us back student. Uh, at our last board meeting, um, we had a presentation around this where we re focusing in on all of our sites to make sure that we re focused on getting our students on track and we re using lots of different initiatives to get that done. Next on again, I want to focus on West Oakland. Uh, um, on the 2nd to last day, our students in West Oakland, um, attended an Oakland Ballers game and it was it was actually a field trip.
And we, uh, many students, um, from West Oakland including Martin Luther King, Junior Elementary, Ralph Bunche Academy, and McClymons High School attended. This was a special treat for our students to be, um, to see another part of West Oakland where the Oakland Ballers play. The first pitch was thrown out by one of our students, and it was an exciting experience and this is something that impacts students, uh, for a lifetime, just having an opportunity to be acknowledged, um, to participate together and um students who are articulating through our schools in West Oakland, had a chance to spend
time together, um, uh, middle school students, elementary and high schools. Um the, uh, next area that I want to focus on is our restorative justice day on APRIL 29th, which is a major initiative that um was held at all of our school sites where we focused on practices that help create inclusive, equitable school communities for our students, staff, and families. I had a chance to visit one of those sites that day and I was just um just amazed at the leadership student leadership.
Of these rj circles. This is one of our goals is to work with students on how they can um interrupt some of the ways that they have been dealing with conflict and repair harm. Uh, this is something that was led by um the trainings were led by staff, and this is something that s been in our school for several schools for several years, um, the focus at Edna Brewer, um, was one of the highlights, uh, again, the talking circles, workshops were a part of our daylong activities at many of our sites on APRIL 29th, which was restorative justice Day. Now moving on to um Oakland Unified s basketball, uh,
beloved sports for um Oakland students and by the way, some of these activities are activities that engage our students to um come to school. Um, it was, um, another district district, uh, 5, Fremont High School. Teams of six high schools joined in the fun, where it was made up of special education students and general ed working together in games, um, playing each other, um, two general ed students and special ed students together. The teams involved came from Fremont. Um, Oakland High, Oakland Tech, ccpa and Castlemont. Each team played two different games and
all the players clearly thrived with competition, teamwork, and support from fans. I m really excited about that because we used to have um um limited activities in the past where all students, special ed and regular ed um played together and this is a new approach that we re using at all of our, in all of our schools, inclusion and it s something that I m personally excited about. Um, so I wanted to make sure that we highlighted basketball. Um, and the last item before um we have our recognition is I want to talk about the Northeastern University and I
say Mills, uh, as an alum of Mills, um, but, um, they near Northeastern has provided several scholarships to our Oakland students. This is the 3rd year that they ve done so, and we have 6 new students who will be receiving this scholarship, and there has been a support of commitment through 2030. Um, I m excited about that opportunity for our students earlier in the year I was able to meet, um, several of our students participating. This includes a full ride, room and board for the full 4 years for those 6 students. Um, so we have students from,
uh, Oakland Tech, from Skyline ccpa and Oakland High. Um, and it s a total of an investment of $340,000. I m really excited for those students, uh, and so I m gonna be there, uh, at the beginning of the school year, um, when they re enrolling and uh participating at Mills, Mills, uh, slash Northeastern. Ok. Um, I d like to ask, um, n ic o le Knight to come forward and um share with us the um the next part of my presentation will be about the seal of biliteracy and recognizing such. Thank you, MISS Knight For directors and superintendent, um, I am so
thrilled to be here to continue on the good news, um, thread of this evening to, um, once again celebrate our seal of biliteracy recipients. This year we have a record of 332 graduating seniors, um, the slides all say 331, and that s because um we were alerted that there s a student who s graduating early, and wasn t on our list of seniors, um, and so it s it s now up to 332, and I can speak personally to, um, just the joy and pride that families, um, experience because of this recognition, um, because my son is among one of the awardees and so now I
m a proud mama of um two oufd alum and seal of illiteracy awardees. And so, um, you know, just so thrilled for, um, all of our families and students and just a little bit of context for um why this matters um for our state and, um, and for our city, California, as you MAY know, is the most linguistically diverse state in the country, and Oakland ranks among the top 10 most diverse cities in the country and probably the world. Um, and so California and ousd are proudly leading the way in understanding and naming multilingualism as an essential
competency, um, in our world today and in honoring and developing the linguistic and cultural assets of all of our young people. Um, so, whoops, not yet. Um, so the California, um, Global 2030 initiative, um, started 8 years ago, um, with the ambitious benchmarks that you see here, uh, you MAY soon be hearing about a new multilingual for all campaign, um, which is working towards legislation, um, with even more ambitious goals that would make multilingual education accessible for all students and the norm for our English language learners. Um, and just last month, um, a couple of weeks
ago actually, the state board of California adopted um the long awaited seven competencies of a learner, which is similar to a graduate profile and number 4 on that list is the multilingual, multicultural learner. Um, and so in Oakland, we are also doing this work, um, and leading this work in the state through our programming, our course offerings, and our recognition of our students linguistic genius and accomplishments. The seal of biliteracy is one data point, um, amongst others of our progress as a system to earn the seal, students take very, um, can take different pathways to, uh, demonstrate proficiency in both English and at least
one world language, um, including ap exams, 4 years of high school coursework with it, uh, gpa of 3.0 or higher, um, or the Avant exam, which is offered in dozens of languages, and if, um for students who are English language learners, they also have to have achieved the highest level on the lpac, which is a state language exam. Um, I m so proud I ve used this same slide for years and I love going back to it because I keep pushing up our milestone and we keep exceeding our goals, um, and so you can see that this year we re at, well, I have to change that to 332, which is, um, a huge increase from last
year at um 281. We surpassed our goal, um, which was 300 this year. Um, so we re just really excited and you can see, um, we have, um, grown, um, our sealwards by over 400% in the last eight years. Um, and we just keep growing. So, our big ambition is in um 2030 that we would reach 450, which would be about a quarter of our um graduating class Um, here you can see a snapshot of our seal, um, or wardies across schools. We awarded not only a record number of students, but in a record of 11 languages reflecting, um, Oakland s diversity. So, in Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, so on. You can see the um languages up
there across 11 schools and um I think PRESIDENT Rouhart, you were the one who asked, like, how are, who is being awarded in terms of our fluency is that our, um, English-only students? Is it And so I did pull this data, 80% of recipients are either English language learners or former English language learners who have been reclassified and also, uh, shout out to Life Academy, um, who, um, uh, 55% of seniors earned the seal this year. So just incredibly, um, impressive work. Um, and then wanted to bring in, um, just, you know, a glimpse of why the earning the seal is so important to our students. Um, I want to bring in some student voice. Uh, we
do have, um, a link to the videos, so I hope at another time they re short, um, you can take a minute to listen to them, um, speak in their length in English and their, um, their home language. So this is, uh, Lulia. She um is an Oakland Tech graduate now just graduated trilingual and English Amharic and Tigrinya, and in her interview she speaks about her language journey, um, as she, um, moved, she had to move to Ethiopia and she learned Amharic to be able to communicate with her grandmother, and then, of course, here in this country, um, learned, um, English with her sisters, and so she speaks in the video of how important
it is that not only is she learning these new languages that she needs in order to, you know, survive and thrive in this society, but how important it is for her to hold on to her home language of Tigrinya, um, and then just love this second quote, learning a language is the best thing you can communicate with anybody and everybody. I think that s beautiful. Um, and then here is Derek, um, who, uh, is in Oakland High recent grad, um, from as of last week, uh, from, um, El Salvador who, um, uh, used his bilingualism to tutor children in his community and has earned a full ride to uc Davis. Um, he speaks of the importance of the seal of biliteracy and acknowledging
his hard work and learning English, um, you know, coming to this country relatively recent So, um, lastly, um, yeah, there s a link you can see all of the names we ve had to add pages to our programs because they don t fit, um, and, um, and just also to say that we don t wait until high school to begin this work, you know, as I, I think you know, um, it s seated in the earliest years possible through asset-based instruction programming and celebrations, um, uh, that honor our students bilingualism and home languages starting even in pre -k this year, uh, we awarded 574 awards, um, across our early
childhood, um, programs and then in 3 kinder, 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade in our dual language schools. So we are 118 seals away from our 2030 goal of getting 450, and we believe um that goal is in reach, and we have, you know, at least 332 reasons today to keep going along that goal. So I just wanna, um, hope you can join me in congratulating um our seniors and should you have any questions, I m happy to answer. Thank you very much, MS. Knight. Um, I want everybody to know while she s standing here that. Um she is a sought after speaker. This is something that we can take pride in, um, um,
as staff that s known statewide. Um, she s asked by many different organizations. She has labored in this area uh for, for years and I m just really proud of how she has advanced, um, our work um here in the community. I think it s very significant with all of the challenges that we have that we are focusing on students and focusing on outcomes, um, with our students, and I love the fact that um you did something that s really important to me is acknowledging the work through the voice of our students. Um, it s very significant. So I just want to thank you for your service. Um, you make us proud. Um, you ve been very
significant in this work in the safety of students in our work around the academic outcomes and just being an ambassador for Oakland. I appreciate you. With with that, we ll go ahead and take, uh, word comments, uh, board colleagues, any comments on the superintendent s report? Director Thompson? Yes, um, I, as is always the case, Superintendent, I appreciate, um, what you share with us. I really do appreciate it. Um, I was just thinking about um the inclusion that takes place. I was thinking about kids receiving that $500 scholarship, and uh we found uh uh a personality in the picture that
we probably all might know, but I think he was on gq the last time I saw him, um, MR. Van Cedric Williams So so we re really excited about that. Um, I m excited about the biliteracy seal Um, I think it s really wonderful, but I, I wanna ask one question. Which might go into two questions really, but, um, do we have any students who come to you as monolingual students who then become bilingual and then specifically, if we could narrow it down, do we have any
African-American kids who have become bilingual, and they also receive, I don t mean uh African kids from other, I mean, I mean, here in America, African-American kids. Yeah, and I m happy to get you some of those, um, specific numbers, but yes, absolutely. Um, the other, I shared that 80% of the recipients are English language learners are formal English language learners, which means that the other 20%, um, are, um, English only. So we do have students who are from English only households, right, um, born in this country, raised in this country who do many of them as a result of, um, being in our
dual language schools, um, or sometimes other language study that they ve had, um, last year when I presented, I was able to share, um, the story of a McClymon s graduate who received his seal of by literacy in Japanese, um, so not because of our dual language schools, but because of his own drive, um, and then I, um, in my, you know, my son just graduated and we, um, my, my kids went to mla and so i was, um, got to hang out with some of my former mla, um, um, uh, parents, and I learned of um, uh one of our students, um, Benjamin, who s now in Concord, so he left us, but he was, um,
the only black student and his class who graduated and and conquered with the seal of biliteracy because of his um study. I don t know Doctor Sadler if you remember Benjamin, and so I was so thrilled to see um him walk the stage a little video of it, but yes, we do have, um, black students who are us born who have and we, um, you know, a topic for another time, um, we are very interested in making sure that all of our students have access to dual language programs should their families and the students want that for them and that is, um, you know, work that I m proud of that we re doing, but we have a ways
to go to really make sure that, um, we re, that access is fully available to all of our students. I really appreciate that. Now, I want us to be able to highlight those kinds of things that Oakland is actually doing, so that, of course, it, it will encourage people to want to come to our district, but also it ll highlight what the kids who are already here, but they re doing in the kind of educational opportunities that are afforded kids because they are bilingual, let s be honest. So, I think that s something that we can really celebrate. Thank you very much Doctor, thank you. I just wanted to appreciate highlighting the unified
basketball. I know it was the, um, for maybe for folks who don t know, was actually the very first season of that program, um, and I think I wanna first appreciate the um the cac for special education for really pushing for um access for students um with IEPs and 504s to have um to be able to participate in the full experience of school. And so I think just this realization of this um, and then I think kind of seeing over the years that this has kind of been in the works, um, that, um, there was a lot of cac members who were talking about how meaningful it was for their students to actually participate in, um, sports for
the first time in like a real tournament setting. Um, so I think just wanna appreciate that work and then I think the other thing that, um, in terms of access for the seal of illiteracy is I think it s um, you know, and, and maybe this is happening already but um you know, seeing kind of some of the single digit numbers for certain languages that we have a significant population of in our um schools that, um, making sure that students all understand that even if they aren t, you know, maybe they aren t classified as an English language learner, but that they um culturally know, um, our,
you know, our bilingual in a different language that is not Spanish, um, but is there, um, you know, kind of, you know, that they re understanding that you can get it in many, many I think it s it maybe over 100 languages that it s maybe, and you probably know the number, but um, but I just think um that s, that s a kind of a question I have for kind of going forward. Thank you. Doctor Williams Uh, thank you very much, uh, Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor. Uh Doctor Sadler, once again, I just really want to thank you for your leadership. Um, for your vision for really, um, as you come in, you start to um bring a new emphasis.
On lifting up not only our students, but our educators. That is a cultural change, and you re carrying accountability with that. You re able to highlight all of the good things that are going on, not just as a data point, but because it s a real work that you do. Everywhere you go, you highlight individuals doing good work, and so I just want to really commend you again as a director. I think there have been so many misguided folks in the community that only look at negative things. This is like an amazing achievement that we
ve had with our se a bi literacy, but also with you partnering up with our community to do, uh, to address chronic absenteeism. Thank you very much. And for your investment in the climates. I cannot tell you enough. Uh, you know, with your leadership, we ve invested over $120 million. We re having a groundbreaking coming up. I want to thank you again for moving that forward. You brought in some stable leadership to the high school. I just want to thank you for that as well. And I just really believe like uh you planting seeds, you re planting seeds and these roses are growing as fast as you plan them. And so I
just want to thank you again. For all the work that you re doing. Appreciate it. Thank you. Director Hutchinson Yes, thank you. Um. I just want to say before anything else, I was really disappointed that uh Superintendent Sadler, there was no, uh, statement. Around that first item, which was addressing a lawsuit and findings from cde, um. And I just think there, there should have been more to it than that. Uh, i m also still really disappointed about the press release that you issued last week, um. Around, uh, the vote for a positive certification of our budget.
Uh, I think it s clear looking at the 3rd interim numbers, hearing the conversation at the last board meeting and then looking at what s coming forward today. Um, it s, it s clear our, our budget is not positive. Uh, last week, I asked one question over and over of you and staff, which was an explanation, uh, of a number from the 3rd interim report on projected total expenditures for next year. That number has now become the total expenditures number. For next year s budget And after asking that question over and over last week. Um, I heard nothing from you or for staff over the last week to answer that question.
Nobody sent me an answer. Nobody reached out. Nobody said anything. And so that question now has still been unanswered. But then I was even more disturbed when looking through the consent report for item 02 which I pulled. That sure looks like a change and who is on the executive leadership team. Their job descriptions. And it doesn t include a cheap business officer anymore at all. Um, I ve also been concerned, as I ve heard the rumors that we currently don t have a chief of staff. And so now in your time as
superintendent. It looks like we ve lost two chiefs of staff. We left the chief business officer. We created a new position that we moved the head of hr into and we re relying on outside consultants for financial advice. If nothing else, it s clear that we ve lost two members of the senior leadership team, and there s been no work done to hire new people or replace them. So in the consent report item 02, new job descriptions and salary schedules for senior leadership. I was really surprised that was there. I know there s been no public conversation or board
conversation about it, and currently you re still the interim superintendent. So why is senior leadership being changed? Why the job descriptions be changed, then changed. Is Lynette McElhaney still currently chief of staff, and it looks like now there s been a decision made to no longer have a cbo. You have a position in an associate superintendent position, a person who we did not put that job out. Um, I have real questions looking at the documents of the qualifications, but yet it s being codified in 02. So I would still like an answer to the questions I asked last week about a certain number,
and when we get to item 02, I would really like an explanation about these changes to the senior leadership team and the executive team. Um, we have to be able to do folk better and it s clear our budget is not positive. Thank you. B Yeah, I just want to uh bring it back. I, I really do appreciate the work that Nicole Knight has done, um, and it was really definitely an honor to teach her son, who was also on this list and to hear Benjamin, sorry, I mean, he was like, that that s really, he was one, also another one of my students. So I think again, the depth of our work that we re doing in this is really pretty amazing. Um, and I think really speaks to the work that we
re doing in Oakland, speaks to the staff that we have and again our students coming out, um, fully bi li ter ate um, and seeing some of those students in the very early years at mla and now realizing they re on this list that was, I think it s a real testament to the work that we do in the district. Um, I also was pleased to see the basketball game. I think, you know, again, I think that we have participation of all of our students in, um, in sports, it really does make a difference to that. I know sports was really important in my growing up, so I know, um, I can, it s a, a real sense of belonging, I think, for our students to, to um feel a part of the team. So, um, thank you again for your report and uh that s it Yeah, I d just like to add um a
little bit as well. So I wanna just start off with congratulating the Skyline High School varsity team, uh, for their fives to 1 victory in advancing to the icif, uh, Northern Regional basketball Championship semifinal. That s going to be tomorrow at 4 P.M. At Skyline High School, uh, tickets go on sale, um, there are anywhere from $5 to $9 and you can go to GoFan.Com, sorry, to purchase those tickets. Um, Nicole, I just quickly did the math and, um, I m proud to say that our ccpa Skyline is Sojourner Truth students are 89 of those are graduating with the Seal of illiteracy. Yay, um, and of course those students
are from all over the city, but it s really great that our programs in District 6 are really strong as well. Um, and I fully support this, our biliteracy program. One language that I know, um, many, many of our students speak is Mayanum, um, and, um, if you could, uh, answer the question as to like, is there, are there steps that we need to take as the district to uh increase the number of biliteracy languages that we can test through, um, is there any additional steps that folks have to take cause I just went to the Mayan mom graduation. There was 140, um, honor roll students, and many of which were not only bilingual but trilingual.
Yeah, thank you, um, for the question. I mean, one is, and this is a role that you, you know, everyone can help with is to spread the word because the more students and families who know that this is an opportunity within their reach upon graduation will seek out the opportunities to one develop in their language, but also to be assessed for it, right? Because we do have more students. I know we have more students who could, um, you know, pass our Avant test or, um, you know, uh, meet that mark. But they have to, um, uh, they have to take advantage of that opportunity. So getting, getting more of our families
and as excited as one. The Avant test is what we use, um, again for, um, languages that are not about ap classes, right? Or there are not taught, um, in terms of course offerings. And so that s how we re able to offer the sal by literacy in languages as such as Amharic and Tigrinya, um, last year we had a student from Yoruba um, language, and so those, you know, tend to be students home languages, and there s, yeah, there s a, um, dozens of languages. We re talking to the Avant Company about including a Mayan mom component, um, and in previous years, we were able, um, we did offer MAY and Mum our cell uh we were able to
recognize a student through a different process. The state allows us, if there is not a uh, an exam available for a certain language, then we can use local criteria and so we, um, we re using like an elders, um, you know, Mayanum group to to actually assess our students and qualify that way. Um, that, you know, uh, requires a little bit more infrastructure and time, um, so I appreciate the push so that we make sure that that is, um, in our system for next year so that we can celebrate those students as well. Sounds good thank you so much. And with that we ll move on to r which is the public hearing, and I ll return, uh, it back to
Director Arohar. I apologize. We did not do public comment. Thank you, MS. Asada for holding us to it. Are there any public comments on this agenda item? Uh, yes, Vice PRESIDENT, there are 3. It s uh Jonathan Masutchen, Sheila Haynes, and Asada Olubala. Each DR. Sad I would really wanna thank you for uh, looking at the basketball, uh, I found out my grandson s playing aau ball. It s very expensive. And what I found out too, I thought this was the black thing, but all the kids, Asian, uh, Latino kids of the Asian
Pacific, they participate with very few black because of the cost for the fees and the game costs, parking costs, it s a lot. So continue to pursue that as well as our soccer and volleyball. I see it in the agenda that we are going to be giving some attention to that. Uh, whenever I see an African, uh, I always ask him first question, how many languages do you speak The average African speaks 3 to 4 languages. I think I find that amazing. I, we re making a big deal out of this bilateral, but uh I just, I, I just learned that the average African speaks many languages. So it s good that we have this bilateral opportunity, the, the,
the thing I take a challenge or difference with is when we have dual language, when it s mandated. Like schools like uh, can t think of the school where kids, particularly African-American kids have to learn their core subjects in another language. As long as it s voluntary or you test kids to see if they have the capacity to learn in another language, at least do that. Uh, I m, I m concerned about, I, I don t particularly care about this paying kids to come to school. I mean when you go on your job, nobody gonna pay you to show up. And this is supposed to be preparation for real life. Uh, a lot of people disagree with me but that
s, that s old school me. You, you are ingrained through your training. That s how I was training. You go to school because that is a necessary element to your total development. That starts at home Uh, I have a problem with the chronic absenteeism, not including truancy. Truancy is a different level of being absent and we don t concentrate on that. Thank you for everything you re doing. N Hi, Jonathan Mate s motion. I just wanted to appreciate Doctor Sadler s report. Um, there s a lot of negative and
bad and, um, the news generally is not great to watch, but, um you know, you were able to bring a side of Oakland and our school district that more people need to see, um, and I know that we have a lot of work to do. We have a, I m very concerned about next year. Um how we re going to make it through and I m concerned about the upcoming budget discussion, but what I, um, appreciate is how hard you re working, um, and how your, um, uplifting these amazing moments and I m, you know, excited when I talked to my friends, uh you know, my parents, uh, at
Skyline who just went to graduation on Monday and they were thrilled. Um, I mean, frankly, I loved our graduations on the football field, but I understand that is a time of the past, and I m sure I will love having my graduate at the Paramount next year, but, um, it sounded like it was an amazing event and I m looking forward to more collaboration on um you know, making all the schools, uh, a place of not only joy, but just like we want kids to, you know, have fun learning and I think that that that s what I see you re trying to bring and I appreciate that thank you.
Thank you last speaker, I think is online, Sheila Haines. Can I mute, Vice PRESIDENT, I will allow them to speak. Hi, can you hear me ok? Yes. Hi. Thank you. So, I actually thought I was signed up for the earlier discussion, um, and just wanted to highlight part of the findings for the cdc with the lawsuit having to do with hate speech in regards to hate speech, um, but I do appreciate Superintendent, one of your highlights on your report being around restorative practice. Um, as the board probably knows as outlined in my resolution around safer environments. It asks for restorative practices and
district-wide through the arts and with no hate speech. I do see later on the Prop 28 report about a real shortage in staffing and availability services for students, um, and black students with disabilities are the most impacted with, and I hope that with the financial state of the budget, um, I can only hope that help is on the way and soon for my student who s bn learning online for over 6 years, but it doesn t cost money to mandate um a love and respect. So if you can please help our students be in the best mindset. It, it, it starts with being able to respect each other, um, what respect there should not be any hate speech of any kind
against any groups of people, and school is supposed to be a nurturing environment where students feel happy and willing to learn. Not an abusive environment where hate speech is tolerated. So I just asked the board to continue to try to work on this budget situation, um, and not cause further harm to our students through services that will help them stay safe and um thank you for your ongoing work and support. Thank you. With that, we will move on to r, which is a public hearing on the local control and accountability plan. I see MISS
Sherman, I see. I m opening up both One hearing on the local control accountability plan and the, um, fiscal year 26, 27, a budget discussion. Good evening. Uh, my name is Diana Sherman. I m the coordinator of the local control and Accountability Plan, or the llcap. Um, so tonight we are here to present to you the first draft or the revised draft, I guess you saw the very first draft last week. But this is the public hearing draft of the 24 to 27 local control and accountability plan for our 3rd year, the 2627 school year. Ok. And we
re not going to spend too much time on these front slides, but this is just a reminder of our vision and our mission that guide this cycle of the lcap. Um, we are coming up on a new llcap next fall, um, and so that will begin the start of our new 3-year cycle where we will have an opportunity to revisit all of our vision, mission goals, and actions. Tonight we are here to present the close out of this three-year cycle, our last year. So we re gonna review changes to our 2627lcap, um, and conduct a public hearing of this plan. So briefly, we ll be talking
through some of the context, some of our recent legislative changes, um, the changes to goals and actions and metrics that are proposed. The projected carryover of our supplemental and concentration dollars in the areas that we will still be addressing before we bring this back to you for adoption in 3 weeks time. Ok? As a refresher for those who MAY be. Viewing this for the first time, the lcap is developed by every school district in California. It is the overall district academic strategic plan for our vision towards quality community schools. This 3rd year will be
the final year of this 3-year cycle, um, closing out our goals, metrics and actions that we developed in 23, 24 to launch the 2425 school year. We each year also have to integrate any new legislative requirements that have changed, and we will review some of those as well. So this is just a refresher of last year s significant change, which had to do with the spending of the learning recovery emergency block grant. Um, we refer to this, um, more casually as learning recovery funds. This was a block grant that was a post-pandemic award to school districts across the state and
was the subject of the Kayla Jay versus State of California lawsuit, um, which the state settled by adding some additional provisions around expenditure of these funds. We can expend these funds through the 2728 school year. Um, if they re not exhausted before them, but beginning this current lcap 2526 year. Um, we must ensure that they are allocated based on a needs assessment that looks at English language arts, mathematics, and chronic absenteeism. Um, there is a template the state provides that guides us around identifying which schools MAY receive those funds, and which MAY not. It also requires that we address exactly how those funds
are spent in the lcap. So you will see this um in each of the lcap actions that include those funds. This is not new for the 26, 27 year, but just a reminder that it was a big change last year. Ok, so again, this covers where you can look to see how an action is aligned to learning recovery and what we are spending, um, and we are constantly revising and updating these plans, and we will provide on the district website, um, the most up to-date draft of the plan, um, each week between now and adoption. So we will have the public hearing draft is already up, um, but we will have a new
draft up later this week, um, and then another following week and then a final that will come the Wednesday prior to the last adoption. First, we want to talk through the significant changes to our supplemental and concentration investments, um, as a refresher, these are funds provided by the state, um, that are specifically intended to address the needs of our highest needs students, which the state has defined as our low-income students, our on-house students, students, um, who are English learners and foster youth. So the significant changes that occurred in the 25, 26th year,
but we will also see in the 26, 27 lcap, where the shift of 5 investments or 4 investments. I have actually this year because we did do the final 5 investments into snc. The first is small elementary schools, um, which is 6 targeted elementary schools and shifting the entirety of their cost of operation into supplemental and concentration funding. The second is alternative education high schools, which includes both our continuation schools and our alternative schools of choice. So that is 7 schools total. The next is our noon supervisors at the elementary level. The next is attendant specialist across the district,
and the last is our substitute teacher incentive program or stipp subs. These are permanent substitutes who are assigned to a specific school or program. And so those shifts all occurred in the current fiscal year in part to ensure that we could balance the budget this year. They also continue into next year so you don t see them in the 25, 26 cell cap. You do see them in the analysis of the 25 26lap spending, and you see them in our new llcap for 26, 27. And all five of these did ultimately occur this current year. For each of these, we need to ensure that there are new
metrics that measure the success of these. We want to add the caveat that this is the 3rd and final year of this cycle, which means that we are not going to have significant data with a single year of measurement to understand whether they are effective in their goals, but we will begin to identify what those metrics should be, so that that can be something that is a starting point for the new llcap cycle. Um, some of those are in this draft, some of them we are still workshopping and they will be in the final draft. Um, and again, noted that that s the last cycle. So we do also want to review and I will try to be brief on this, um, in the interest of
time, but some of the changes that occurred to the use of our snc funds in order to ensure that we had funding available to move these 5 investments in. So these are investments that are ending that either contributed to an action within the llcap or in some cases MAY have been the bulk of that action in the llcap. So that is going to change our ability for that particular action to achieve the metrics that we set out in 2024. As part of this three-year plan Goal 1 um, we are really looking at some of our actions around literacy tutors and literacy teachers on special assignment that were reduced at schools
that were not learning recovery eligible and similarly, math tutors that were eliminated at schools that were not learning recovery eligible. We saw a reduction in the centrally funded middle school electives teachers? Um, the elimination of our director of visual and performing arts, reduction in our early childhood sti subs. Elimination of data analysts of our elementary, 2 of our three elementary networks, which included eliminating, um, the staff associated with these networks. The elimination of our continuous school improvement office and the staff associated with that office. And a reduction in curriculum licensing and other purchasing.
Goal 2, which is around targeted student needs. The elimination of 4 of our targeted student intervention specialists. Significant reductions to funding for implementation of the Disability Access resolution the elimination of our special education engagement specialist, and early childhood special education coordinator and the elimination of our Title ii specialist and our literacy curriculum coordinator and eld specialist in elma. We also saw a reduction in newcomer social workers and elementary newcomer teacher leaders and the elimination of teachers for late arriving continuation students. Um, the draft that you see before you also includes elimination of teachers for late arriving
newcomer students. We do know that this is something that will be restored, um, once the tentative agreement with oea is approved by the board, um, but that is not yet in our budget, um, because we have not yet approved that. Goal 3, which is really focused on students and families in terms of their social emotional needs and wellness. Um, the elimination of centrally allocated additional noon supervisors for our highest needs schools. The elimination or reductions, um, to external safety contracts. Elimination of our restorative justice program manager and of the wellness specialist in Oakland Goes Outdoors program, which was grant funded.
Reduction in behavioral health staffing. The elimination of our centrally allocated additional attendance specialists for our highest need schools and of all of our Central le allocated attendance case managers. Um, the reduction in allo and elimination of our community school managers at the schools that are not eligible for learning recovery. And elimination of 6 of our school technology specialists and our assistant, uh, program assistant for interpretation and translation, who is currently the responsible for scheduling those needs. Um, we also eliminated all of our district family engagement
specialists. One of our Chinese, um, interpreters and reduced our student assignment counselors. Finally, in goal 4, which is focused around staff retention, um, development, and new teacher supports. Um, we eliminated two of our diversity and inclusion coordinators and a retention and employee development coordinator and we reduced our professional development. As a refresher goals 5 through 8 are our equity multiplier goals. They are school-specific that are just about how that specific funding is used at those schools, so we do not cover them in this presentation. Um, we do encourage you to review the llcap to see what those schools are investing in. Um, but we do have 5 new schools that have been
identified for equity multiplier funding, which are Hoover mlk, Prescott, Walms and MetWest. Um, we also have 4 exiting schools, Burkhalter, Markham, Sankofa, and Frick. So you will see that reflected, um, as a reminder or refresher, equity multiplier funds do not expire, so if a school doesn t spend them, they carry over indefinitely for that school. And so you will see some of these schools that are exiting still have funding and investments listed in the llcap. That is because they did not spend all of their funding this year, and it will carry over to next year and they ve made a plan to spend it next year, so
you will see that as well Um, and then briefly, we are required, um, under EDCOde to include metrics for every red area on the state dashboard for these schools. So we ve added those. I m not going to go over them, um, but should you be interested there in the lcap, um, and you can review those. Snc carryover, um, the last 4 years or since post-pandemic, we have had pretty significant smc carryover. We are currently not projecting any carryover, um, and the rationale for that is that basically we have used most of that carryover to move many of those new investment areas into supplemental and concentration
funds this fiscal year. Um, and so that has exhausted those funds. There MAY be a small amount of carryover and we will do the final poll of that information later this week, um, based on final, um, extended contracts and things that people can put in through some summer programming, summer school, all of those costs are going in right now. Um, and we will do our best pass at what we expect to remain. Any funds that remain at the end of the year will carry over into the same program for next year because those are costs that did not. Get expended by JUNE 30th, but will be expended in the first weeks of JULY because they push into the new fiscal year. So that is things like curriculum purchases if we don t receive curriculum by JUNE 30th, we
have to charge it to next year s budget. That is things like licensing, um, those again, if, if they re not in place by JUNE 30th, they have to go to next year. Some of our summer school costs that push into the JULY period. So all of those funds are committed at this point. So we don t expect any significant carryover this year, which is the, a milestone because that is the first year in a number of years that s been the case. And then finally, areas still to be included, um, the engaging Educational partners, that is our community engagement and feedback. I know they have made a request to
present to you next week, um, and typically that section follows once we receive their feedback, um, we ve done a number of engagements of staff of our parent and student advisory committee and other subcommittees through the spring. Um, but they will pull that together into specific recommendations for you all to review and respond to. Um, final data and targets, you ll see they re noted in the draft document is coming soon. Those will all be completed prior to adoption. And then again, we will do a last pull of the budget in terms of where we are for next year s budget and where we are for the current year budget. And we will update all of that information before you receive
the draft for JUNE 24th for adoption. And then anything that is outstanding in narrative sections, we continue and have continued to work through. So I m not gonna go into the appendix. So that is our close. Are there board questions ok. Director Hutchinson Yes, thank you. Um. I m, I m very uncomfortable, especially these days with uh any document that says something like uh snc carryover. And there s not a dollar amount to be found any place. And, um, especially with the real questions about uh the
budget that s coming next. What is the interplay between the lcap and the budget, which one informs which and where would I be able to find the numbers that are mentioned in this lcap plan, so I can cross reference it someplace. Um, so we have a document called the llcap Investment Spreadsheet, um, which we are doing the final revisions to, um, today, this afternoon, I ve been working through that and that will be posted publicly. Um, it is a public document that is required by the county as an attachment to the llcap, um, and the first draft of that will be posted to the public
website, which is ousd.Org/Lcap. Um, I will try to get it up this evening, um, and we will be submitting that to the county as part of our, their review of the llcap as well. Um, that is an annual process. Um, as part of our requirements for their approval of the plan, and that is a line by line investments, um, where that comes from is the budget development process that each of our central teams goes through and the school plans for student achievement that each of our schools goes through. So if you have reviewed a school s supplemental, um and concentration funding in their school plan for student achievement and looked at that document, those will all come
to you for approval next, not in 2 weeks, I believe, um, on the 24th. So that is literally, we have a mechanism to pull that directly. So it is a Google Sheet ecosystem that plugs it into the llcap so that you can see exactly how schools are planning to spend each of those dollar investments. Um, and that is a set of resources that we ve identified as our llcap resources, which are over and above the base. So I recommend that you and us or any members of the community and others who are interested, that is the place to look for that. Um, and we provide that so that there is transparency around that. At this time of year, what we are doing on a daily basis, I spent most of today doing this,
um, is we are reconciling that with what is in our budget model. So I am working very closely with the fiscal team to ensure that if we have something in a line item, that line item is also in the budget model itself so that it is real. Um, the county also is doing a side by side review to ensure that everything that is in escape is also reflected in the lcap and vice versa so that we have not said, for instance, we re going to spend a million dollars on this investment, but then not actually budgeted for that in our budget. And so that is part of the process of review that their fiscal team does before they approve that.
Each year, they give us a set of feedback around that, um, and things that they want changed. Um, and basically going through that piece. And so as the information in the budget changes, we update our information so it s iterative, I would say one doesn t come before the other because they really work in sync. Um, and if they change things, they will email me immediately or call me to say, hey, we ve updated this assumption. I just want to get this in before the time s up. I m sorry to cut you off there. Um, thank you. I just really want to cite again publicly, um, my deep concerns with how this is being done. Uh, today is the meeting where there s supposed to be uh a
public hearing on the final budget for next year, so we should be receiving all of these documents together at the same time to be told that there s a plan and that we can get the numbers later, they ll be posted someplace. Um, it s just not good enough, and as a school board director who has the responsibility of voting for the dollars, I expect that when we receive a plan, it should be costed out, and we should be able to receive the information at the same time, especially if this meeting has to be publicly noticed in the newspaper. There s an expectation that this is when we ll receive all those numbers, and it s just not here. Thank you. We
ll also just refer you um in the llcap document itself, um, each action has a cost associated with it, and that does come directly from that spreadsheet. I know, but the, but the issue is we don t have that being presented today, and that s the real issue, that there should never be a plan brought forward. If there is a spreadsheet with the costing, then it all needs to be brought forward at the same time. And this is really a, a failure of governance and, and good management to try to do it in this sort of way. Thank you, Director Latta. Did you have your question? Yes, I did. Um, so I know that this um kind of the presentation you
went over was, you know, a high level of some of the, you know, major reductions and shifts that happened. Um but you also mentioned that for some areas, the bulk of the investment or some action item areas, um, were eliminated or, you know, basically eliminated or reduced greatly. Um, and I again, I also note that the, you know, kind of engaging educational partners section, which I assume will address some of how those decisions were made, will kind of be laid out for the board and for the public, but I am wondering if you can speak to um how um those decisions were made, um, in which areas to reduce or essentially eliminate, and what was the process for making those decisions, like who are, I mean, again, you mentioned a couple
of like high level, you know, students and parents and and you know kind of staff, but I m wondering if you can speak a little bit more to that particular question. Thank you. Sure. Um, throughout the year, we do get feedback from our parent advisory committees, um, but broadly speaking, I think there were two kind of phases of decisions, one of which was, I think, very intentional decision making around leadership direction in terms of which areas to preserve or move forward, which areas to reduce or to eliminate, um, and that comes in JANUARY and FEBRUARY, typically, um, around the same time as budget development because it is
informing what goes into school one pagers. It is informing what continues or what doesn t continue as an investment area. Um, so that s the first phase. Um, and then the second phase that has happened this year is as at a point in the year where we don t eliminate staff at this stage. We only eliminate non labor costs, and so that is what we have been seeing essentially in part of our reconciliation with the budget is to see if we have a line item where we have budgeted something in a non-labor. Section, meaning not a person, not a position. Um, and it is not in the fiscal model. We have to take that out of the llcap. And
so that is where we are right now is really reconciling that, um, and in some cases, um, we have specific actions and you can actually see this in our llcap action tables. If you look on the, the one of the appendices to the llcap, it will show you personnel costs. The actions that have very low personnel costs relative to their total cost. Those are mostly what we call object fours and fives. So those are contracts, those are supplies, those are other purchases. Those are the most heavily impacted actions when we have to pull, because that s where we can pull from. Um, we can t pull from people in JUNE. And so that is sort of the reality of if we are trying to balance
things in JUNE, um, what is happening is we are taking down contracts that might have been in place for next year. We re taking down supply purchases like curriculum, we re taking down things like professional development, and that s because those are the things that are on the table to be taken. Just one quick follow-up, which is, I think, 11 question is just around your clarification is that given that everything is, we re very close to adoption. Is it right to say that there s not the time for feedback and changing what s, you know, what decisions have been made is passed. i think this year I would say
that is the case. I would say in a, in a typical year, there is more breathing room at this point in the year where we do make adjustments, and I think many of you who ve been on the board in past years remember that sometimes we will put something in based on feedback, um I don t know if others would necessarily agree, but I would be comfortable saying that this is not that year, um, and that that is, there is not a. Pool of funding to pull from to potentially fund asks that come in or changes that come in this late in the year. Um, and that is simply a factor of this is the first year in the time that I have worked on the llcap when we have not had supplemental
concentration carryover moving into the new year, and that does significantly change our flexibility and our ability to be responsive, um, and that s just simply a reality of that. I think I guess just to put a finer point on it, and then I will stop as is it s less about the like the final like a last minute request because I do think I think probably in general that s something we should get away from, um, at this point. It s, I think it s more about if there is an action that has been eliminated or so significantly reduced that we re not meaningfully achieving it, that how are we, I mean, and again, this is probably a question for next year, um, but just being really clear about what that was,
because, you know, again, I think because it s in draft, it s a little bit hard for me to kind of like I was looking for the draft to kind of understand kind of some of those changes, but, um, but being really clear about here s the things that we re not doing and how we then address that moving forward because obviously we they re still part of the llcap, but, um, again, one thing the fiscal team will speak to when they provide, um, when they open the budget public hearing is sort of what some of the assumptions are and some of that still to come pieces of the budget are, and I do think there s a space around what MAY happen um with things like the cola, um, at the state
level and as those get integrated into our budget, if there is funding that becomes available, where does that get applied first? And I think that s a piece that is very meaningful. And we talked with Pek about that last night as well, but having a prior prioritized list of what gets restored first. And staff are working on that list as well. Um, but I think that can certainly be braided with board priorities and with community priorities to understand which things are made whole first on that list, if funds become available, as we do expect that the supercola will be approved, um, but once that is, that will give us a little bit more breathing room in the budget. Um, what does that look like in supplemental and concentration specifically.
Um, that s a piece that we can certainly take feedback on. For the presentation. I think I guess my question really is about. Um. I see all the eliminations, but I think the metrics on on what were the student outcomes from that. It s really hard. We just don t know. And there hasn t been a practice of that actually being part of the ecap. I always say, there s a chunk of money that goes here, we re gonna do this, this, this, but there s really no metrics that really tracks what they student outcome is to the cost that we
ve spent. And so, it s difficult as this is, I hope this is going to be a new stepping you know, stone forest, that actually kind of look at the la again and really see what our investments look like, right? And what are the outcomes that are actually taking place with the investments that we re putting in. I, I just I think it s, it, it s time for us to have that conversation and we just really haven t had it. Um, it, it does, it does does not look good, but also we don t, again, we don t have a clear understanding of what
those impacts are. Um, and you know, I hope that as we move forward, we will have that, um, have you and your team thought about looking adding metrics to uh these investments and the outcomes. Can you elaborate a little bit? Yes, and actually this is a really important point because we are coming to the close of this 3-year cycle, and it is the first 3-year cycle where the state has mandated that we do look at those outcomes to understand which things to continue and which things to discontinue. Um, I will say, um, this is my, I think 11th year with the district, um, and one of my very first engagements with
lcap, um, when I was supporting on school plans was listening to Genan Wing, who was our former executive director of our research and data team, um, talk really poignantly about the challenges of measuring effectiveness of our investments, um, and that we are very good at picking metrics and we can watch those metrics a long time, but we are not as good at is understanding whether the things we did were the levers that changed those metrics for positive or for negative. Um, we are not currently resourced in the central office to be able to do the level of analysis that we would need to do to really conclusively say, for instance, early literacy tutors work or they don t work. Um, that is in part because we
need to have the bandwidth centrally to be able to do that analysis. It is in part because we don t have fidelity of adoption, um, across our school sites, Different schools use those positions differently. We need to have alignment around those pieces, and that s just one example of dozens that are within the lcap, um. But to be able to really conclusively say this is working to move us towards this very specific outcome. Um, we need to ensure that we do things with longevity and making sure that it s not just a single year and then we change it again, um, ensure that we are doing them consistently across similar schools, or that if we are not doing them consistently, we are
watching the schools that are doing something different and doing a direct comparison. So i think those are all pieces that we will bring to you, I think in the fall because we will be tasked with taking the data and understanding what did or didn t work within our current lcap and understanding what we can do differently to position ourselves to better understand that moving forward. Yeah, I really appreciate that. It was really the first time that I ve heard that conversation. I ve, I ve sit in on csc, you know, when I can, um, and this is the first time that we re actually having that conversation, because I think, again, so much fear, uncertainty, doubt,
negativity is just flowing in every single decision that we really have it had a true fidelity to h our investments are actually paying off. And I know as a board member I ve sat here for a number of years, and I ve seen very low literacy rates, been seeing some of the challenges of other programs, and no one s been able to really address that, um, and say do an analysis or figure out, do we continue? Do we adjust, or do we eliminate the program. And we just haven t had those conversations. Like I ve heard before, you know, we want to fund everything We fund everything and we don t
know if what s working or not. And now we ve been heavily indebted that we re trying to get back to stability level. And this hopefully will be a first opportunity for us to start looking at those measures, and and it s for everybody though, you know, it s like, for every department, there should be a list of measures that measurable goals that are set, and um that an annual review or not an annual review, a 3-year review, like you said with the ocap, every 3 years, we can say, ok, let s look at what we ve
done. And I hope that will be part of the conversation. I don t know how we start that. Maybe we can bring it to teach and learning, and really, and look at those particular measurement goals, because as a board, we re gonna have to set measurement goals as well. And it s very hard. I, I was I ve always heard these conversations about, oh, here s our board goals. They don t connect to the lap, and they re very simplified as well. So it s not like there s any great goal, oops, it s the time, sorry, just sorry. Um, not there, but thank you. That s what I m looking for because,
lastly, we can focus on the negative, but now we can start building towards the positive and say these are the new steps that we re moving forward. Too many people focus on the negative. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I think one thing that you have made clear in the presentation is the eliminations or reductions. Uh, what would be helpful to see, and I believe the next conversation that we have. About this, there s gonna be a follow-up. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Um, is, uh, what is, what remains in the ecap and why per those goal areas, and it
would also be really helpful to have, I know you have like gold one, gold, you know, the numbers, but also like the goal. Like areas actually listed on the slides. Um, and then I think partnered with, like, again, contrasting what were some of the eliminations, what were some of the things that were kept, uh, would be really helpful for me, um, because I think again, we really need to see as we move forward in the following school year where we do have a deficit. We also do need to make reductions. And so again, like what are the things that are remaining so that we can then make that um um have that discussion about what are some of the things that uh need to be reduced as
well as part of the lcap, um. And yeah, it would be great if that was included in the presentation and also, um, shared with us potentially, yeah, um, thank you. I just had a couple of questions. One, I understood there was a literacy grant coming in from the state or propo I mean, I know that Alice hasn t been voted on. If so, would that be and, and I understand that Oakland would be eligible for that because we have that. Is that that s one thing to think about. Uh, I just had a question about that uh source of income as well as I understand there s something, um, proposed for a newcomer. Students. Um and again, uh, I guess my question is when that, as the, the budget
s voted on, how would that also affect, um, what s in the lcap, but the last thing was something I didn t even think about until you said this, and I really appreciate your analysis of data, and I think we often look at numbers and I m thinking about this as conversations, you know, Gene and I had too about this is that there is that nuance and complexity with data. And I think often when we re looking at goals, when we talk about them in, in on the board and stuff, I think they tend to be numbers and um, you know, percentages, and I think that
we also have to have some other way to look at the nuances of those numbers. So whether that s narrative, you know, whatever that is, but I would actually was thinking in our teaching and learning. That it would be really helpful, I think, if you would be willing to come and really talk to us about kind of the nuances of analyzing this data. Yes, I can certainly speak to that and then of course our ra team, I think, are the experts in what some of the caveats are and what some of the areas there that we can move forward on. Um, your first question again was, was more about perhaps um some um potential incoming resources
from the state. Um, I would defer, I guess, to Doctor Aguilera, if she knows specifically around the literacy grant, the ones I m familiar with the literacy coaches grant and the funding around that as well as some of the screener grants. Um, there MAY be additional grants on top of that. The ones that were known at the time of budget development are all in the llcap. And so you ll see all of the investments there, um, if new grants are received, typically after MARCH 1st or so, um, they will not be in the lcap until we get to the goal analysis the following year and that just has to do with the timeline of when we pull information and when we load it in, and that, to that end, that also speaks to some of the things like costs of
newcomer positions that MAY be restored. What we are doing, which has been our past practice, as we ve had labor contracts in negotiation at llcap time is we have line items to hold funding and fiscal has those same light items in the budget where they are holding funds for what they expect the cost MAY be. We don t know for sure that that cost is what will come to pass, but as we get to the finish line on approving those contracts and we get them implemented, then we actually apply those costs. And so it s basically our best analysis, and we work closely with Fiscal to do that, um, to understand what we expect the cost to be
and to make sure that those funds have not been allocated elsewhere so that they are available. So in the case of the current, um, ta for instance, we are holding funds for additional late arriving newcomer staffing we re holding funds for additional newcomer social workers, NTSAs at elementary schools based on changing ratios, holding funds for additional counselors based on dropping that ratio, and then, of course, holding funds for compensation increases across the board. Thank you. In terms of the literacy funding that might be coming, it is often, um, given to schools, uh, school districts
as a discretionary block grant. And so while there is a line item that says you can use it for a professional development because it s discretionary, districts can decide how they use those funds and so a lot of times the discretionary block grants are used to balance our, um, budget and not necessarily to provide, um, the professional development. Comments? Ok. Uh, public comments. I just want to thank our staff for their presentation, uh, MS. Sherman, and, um, Doctor Aguilera, thank you. Uh yes, uh, there are 2 speakers for the one public comments.
1 and r2 You won t allow them to speak now or after. R.2 presentation. Ok ok, we now have the 2nd presentation of clarification are those speakers gonna have double the time on the next item. I don t understand why we don t have them speak on the lcap. And then I m sure people will have separate comments on the budget, because we re taking them up as one item, uh. Go ahead, MS. Card. Were they, were they noticed in the newspaper as one item, because both of these items required public notice.
Before, before we go, um, further, I just, um, wanted to mention the work that, um, I wanted to specifically speak to the work that Sandra Aguilera Thank you. I m very much aware of the time, um, time involved, um, the detailed work I have seen some of the um. Information. I ve also um been at all the pesac meetings where you ve spent time getting input from the community and also going through the llcap goal by goal, uh, in detail and um so there s been a lot of um shared information that you ve actually done on your own time
to make sure our community, um, partners have been advised of the details of where we are in terms of the current um, utilization of the current implementation of llcap and then the recommendations. So I just wanted to speak to that, um, specifically that it s not just you just just been talking with staff, but it s really also been working with community and it s something that I would witness directly, um, with significant time in preparation to make sure that our average citizen understands the pro the process our parents specifically. Um, so I just wanted to, to mention that that s been a part of the process and Peak is actually um mentioned in our
lcap as um partners around communication in detail. Similarly, I want to speak to the school plans that are required annually that are approved by the board. That s also another process that informs, um, the decisions that are, that are being made or recommended, um, and discussed. Um, so this hearing process is for everybody to look at and hear what s been proposed in our local plan and also give um specific feedback and feedback has been given in all of those ppec meetings. So again, I wanna, uh, thank staff. It s not just, um, Diana Sherman and Doctor Aguilera,
but, um, a lot of staff has, have been working on this, um, feverishly to make sure that we have clear information. Ok. Just give me a moment before, um, I just want to make. Ok. Thank you very much Thank you. You do have to close the lcap and then open right. No. This is one hearing both items. Ok. So if we re moving on to a proposed budget, I need a point of clarification on this item r2. Where when this was listed in the cover memo that was posted with the agenda.
For the attachments, it said 2026 27 Sacks draft proposed budget financial forms. When you click on the link on the agenda. Those documents are not there. Instead, they had numbers for this year though there s a real problem with that, and it s not compliant. And it s definitely not compliant with the public hearing. But now things have gotten worse because I show up here to the meeting. And I pick up a paper copy of this very item. And there s different sax forms included. There s now all the sudden sax forms included for the budget for next year.
Which is different than what was posted in the agenda online. That s not legal. That s changed it. That means we didn t give proper notification for the actual budget numbers for next year, and this is the first time now I m seeing these numbers when I show up here. So how is this different than what was presented online on the agenda, and we can pull up the link if we want and see and how was this posted on the agenda when it didn t even include the information that is required to have and that the memo said that it had. Thank you, Director Hutchinson. Uh,
MS. Garre, do you want to go ahead, please? No, excuse me, I have a point of clarification. We can t go ahead, we can t go ahead and present something that s different than what was posted on the agenda. I deterd you and we re gonna go ahead with the presentation. No, that s not what we, that s not what we do. So I need, I need then a ruling from the general counsel or the parliamentarian or somebody, because this was already a problem when the information it said wasn t included. But now to show up here on the paper copies and and the paper got why I keep saying it until the board PRESIDENT Asks for a ruling like she s supposed to, from the general council or the parliamentarian.
My understanding is it is it is illegal to have different documents on the online version of the Posted agenda, then what s being presented here in person. And secondly, I haven t had any notice now to see these numbers. And I know there s a process, I know the parliamentarian and board staff who made the agenda, they didn t print up a different item now than what was on there. So how come there s a different item? We need an answer and a ruling, and my understanding is if we have to notice in the newspapers about this meeting, that means that notice was improper, and we are not compliant under the law that if you put a period on that, we
can get a a general ruling from the general counselors to bring it up, if you were doing your job with the agenda. Thank you. Yes, um, thank you, thank you, Director Hutchinson, for highlighting uh an error in the document that was linked online. I do believe that has been corrected, and there are, I just went I just went online and it hasn t been corrected. Ok. Can we? MADAM PRESIDENT, if, if you will, um, I would recommend just a two-minute recess. We ll recess for 2 minutes Uh, MR. Rakestra, can we have roll call to establish quorum, please.
Yes, MADAM PRESIDENT, we MAY. Uh, yeah, after I get. All those uh roll calls to establish Quorum. Student directors are absent. Uh, director Lauder, ok, Director Williams. Present, sir. Director Hutchinson. Present Director Berry is absent. Uh, director, uh, Thompson. Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor absent moment Vice PRESIDENT Brohar. Uh, general counsel, do you have a statement? Yes, uh, before you reopen the public hearing, there was an administrative matter for the record, it has come to our
attention. The budget document posted to the district s website in advance, uh, contained an incorrect attachment. There are copies here for the public and the corrected version has been uploaded online for uh to allow for the public to follow along with the presentation. The presentation, um, PowerPoint remains, um, as was originally posted, and uh I ll turn it back to you, PRESIDENT. Thank you of clarification. I just want to point of clarification. I just really want to put it strongly on the record that the fact that we re sitting here and during this
recess, somebody went into the school board agenda and changed the link for this item is a cynical attempt to try to avoid the Brown Act, which requires at least 24 hours notification and to be clear what was changed as originally there were no numbers put up no numbers put for next year s budget in the sa forms. And now all of a sudden that they ve they ve been at it. So even me as a school board director, I ve now been given 2 minutes notice that all of a sudden there s new numbers. Anyone who previewed the budget or the agenda ahead of time. Throw out what you saw before. This is no
notice, and this is a meeting that s statutorily required and was noticed in local periodicals so the community could know. So I just want to state, I ve never seen it happen before, where in the middle of a meeting, the document on the agenda was changed. Instead of rescheduling this meeting and doing it the right way. And the fact that this is around our budget numbers for next year. Is scandalous, and a cynical attempt that I don t agree with, to avoid the fact that there was no public notice of this document or these numbers. So whether it was error by staff or whatever reason, the only remedy is to reschedule this at a special meeting, which you
have the ability to do with 24 hours notice if you call it a special meeting. But just to say we fixed it and changed the documents is not acceptable, and in my understanding, illegal under the Brown Act. Thank you You know, I want to appreciate the work of the people who corrected this. Thank you. I appreciate that, and that we have Grace again for mistakes that are often that are sometimes made. Um, with that, the public hearing is opened, reopened, and MISS Taragarde, would you? Make your presentation Good evening, board, Superintendent staff, and community. I m presenting
tonight with Chief Financial Officer Ryan Nguyen, who is on the Zoom. I wanted to just make sure he is on Zoom. He d been moved up I ll keep going while he s being moved up. We re here to conduct the required public hearing on the fiscal year 26, 27 proposed draft proposed budget. Tonight I intend to walk through each slide carefully, answer the questions that have been raised publicly about this budget and be direct about both what the numbers show and what work remains. Before I advance to the next slide, I want to say this draft budget before you is accurate, documented, and the product of
a real of real work done by our chief financial officer. And district accounting team. Who have been working for our district and with our budget for over 17 years. A We re here today because under Education Code Section 42103. The district is required to display the proposed budget for public view and hold a public hearing prior to adoption. That is what tonight is. Tonight is not adoption. Tonight is the required public hearing of the draft 2627 budget. The budget will be adopted at the JUNE 24, 2026 board meeting. Education Code Section 42127, also requires that the proposed
budget include a review of reserves in the doc in the budget documents. The budget is developed for all funds, not just the general fund, and it establishes expenditure authority for the district in the ensuing fiscal year. I m going to talk an overview of the reconciliation process first. So before I walk through the numbers, I want to explain what budget recon reconciliation means and why it matters to the accuracy of what you are seeing tonight. A proposed budget is not simply last year s budget plus inflation. It is a comprehensive reconciliation process that
updates every position and every revenue projection to reflect the most current information available. For this budget, that reconciliation covered the following. All site and department level budget adjustments developed during the budget development process where every school principal and every central office department. Submitted their budget request. They were reviewed by both the fiscal team and the talent office and the strategic resource team. Uh, and those were posted in our system. Lcff revenue has been updated based on actual enrollment and
average daily attendance trends. The p2 attendance count drives our lcff calculation. State revenue assumptions for 26, 27 projection have been convert, excuse me, have been updated to reflect the governor s MAY revise. We did that conservatively, and I ll talk more about that as we move forward. Another, um, part of the reconciliation process has to do with position control. Position control has been reconciled to actual staffing. This is critical. Buded positions now match the actual field positions as of the reconciliation date. Unfilled vacancies that have
been eliminated through the reduction in force are removed The salary projections are based on who is actually on payroll, not on what was originally budgeted. The fiscal impact of the tentative agreements with oea and seiu have been incorporated. The oea agreement filed with aooe through the ab 1200 process is fully reflected in the 26, 27 salary and benefits lines. The seiu tentative agreement is similarly incorporated. These are not projections, they are the actual negotiated cost of the agreements embedded in the budget. The county offices currently reviewing the district s
certification of affordability through the ab 1200 process. Encumbrances, contributions and inner fund transfers across all funding sources have been reconciled. The contributions from the unrestricted general fund to restricted programs are calculated based on the actual gap between what restricted programs spend and what their own revenues cover. The reconciled contribution figure appears in tonight s budget summary as well. Together, this reconciliation produces a budget that reflects the district s true fiscal position heading into year-end clothes and the adoption of the
fiscal year 26, 27 budget on JUNE 24th. So I m going to go over the draft budget summary Um, this is draft budget summary, general fund. Fund 1 unrestricted. And restricted combined. You were looking at the 26, 27 draft budget summary. And the first thing um we ll name is revenues. You can see are all, um, revenue revenues are all money flowing into the district from 4 sources. The state through lcff at approximately 500 million federal grants at 54 million other state categorical
programs like special ed. Lottery, expanded learning, arts and music at 189 million and local sources, including parcel taxes, interest, and facility rentals at 93 million. Unrestricted revenues total 528. 2 million, restricted revenues total 310.4, and you can see that on the slide. Expenditures are all the money flowing out. Unrestricted expenditures are 370.3 million and restricted expenditures are 506.8 million combined, 877.1. Excess or deficiency The unrestricted slide
shows revenues exceeding expenditures by 157.9 million. Do not be misled by that number. It is not free cash. Every dollar of it flows out as a contribution to restricted programs. The restricted side shows a deficiency of 196.4 million. Given primarily by special education costs of 145.8 million. Self-insurance at $3 million and deferred maintenance at 1 million. The unrestricted contribution covers that gap. The contribution mechanism, um I d like to explain that as well. The unrestricted fund contributes 146.8 million to restricted programs.
You can see that on the, on the screen. After that contribution, the unrestricted net change is 7.2 million. The restricted net change is 49.7 million. A planned spenddown of carryover balances the board authorized as a budget balancing solution. Combined net change is-42.5 million. When we go to the fund balance in the summary, beginning balance, entering 2627 is 153.8 million. 29.6 million unrestricted and 124.1 million restricted. Projected end in balance is 112. 111.2 million. 74.4 million is restricted
reserve, 29.6 million is the reserve for economic uncertainty, which meets the sagitory 2%. And the 7 million unassigned, and we end up meeting the, uh, 3% that the board requires. Two points before I move on from this slide. The growing special education con contribution. Now the dominant driver of that 146.8 million is exactly why controlling it is central to the fiscal stabilization implementation plan. And the 49.7 million restricted drawdown is not a crisis. It is the board authorized spenddown of accumulated restricted balances. Documented in the budget
balancing solutions the board approved. And and I think I would say, so for the 196.5. The revenue, um less expenses. I mentioned that there is Fed there. We also have, uh, spin down for parcel tax, 17 million. The professional development block grant 15.7 million. And then you have the contribution for respect. Ok, so this is a comparison of our 3 interim. Versus the draft budget. This slide is the one I want to spend the most time on tonight. It directly addresses the question that has been
raised publicly about why expenditures appear lower than expected. I m going to walk through both the comparisons clearly because they answer different questions. Reading the table, the left column shows you 25, 26, 3 interim, estimated actuals. What we project to spend and receive in the current year, that is ending JUNE 30th, 2026. The right columns show the 2627 draft budget. Percentage difference column on the right, on the far right compares the two total find the columns. So when you look at revenues total revenues decline from
869.6 million in 2526 to 838.6 million. In 26, 27 a reduction of 31. Million, or 3.6%. The primary driver is federal revenue declining. From 7777.5 million to 54.1 million, a 30%. Reduction This reflects the expiration of one-time federal grants that were never intended to be permanent or federal grants that we have not received and MAY be anticipated, but we have not received to confidently book. These federal grants that are not in the budget for 2627 include well, I don t want to say not fully in the budget, but I m going to tell you how it s reduced down. Title I is down
by 2 million. Essa down by 1.8 million. Csi down by 1.9 million. 21st century, down by 5 million in epa. Um, down by 13 million. It s not, I won t name them all because there s some smaller amounts and larger, but that s the primary driver of that. Other local revenue also declined from 111.4 million to 90.5. Because local state grants like literacy state grant, which is down 3.2 million. Ccspp grant down 2.5 million. Learning emergency down 2.5 million, and some other grants like we
re losing the educator effectiveness. So all of that reduces down. And then when we talk about lcff revenue, you ll see that that increased from 491 3 million to 504.5 million, a 2.7%. Increase reflecting primarily the MAY revision. Kola. We were conservative with this number in our projections. In uh 26, 27, we use 2.87%. And in 2728, we re using 3.3%. And we re doing that as following the guidelines, um,
from school services and others in their county office. Uh, we did not include our special ed differential that we will be should be receiving. And for the discretionary block grant, we booked it at 750, um, ins instead of $900. So these are, um, we re hoping that the MAY revise pans out the way that it should. And with that, we would have um, a better outlook Expenditures, total expenditures decline. From 973.3 million to 877. 1 million in 2627. A reduction of approximately 96 million, or 9.9%.
This is the number that has generated the most public attention, and I d like to explain it. On the unrestricted side, expenditures decline from 406 to 370, a reduction of approximately 36 million. The year over year reduction reflects two things working together. First, the riff and the Paris early retirement incentives take full effect in 2627, as those positions go unfilled. The layoff notices issued MARCH 15th under Education Code Section 44955. Affecting approximately 700 physicians. Physician actions, and that doesn t mean full elimination. Sometimes it
s the reductions. And the 160 plus retirements through pas. These employees were paid through JUNE 30th, 2026. In 20627, those positions are gone. You can see the result directly in the certificated line and you look up there. Uh, which is 192.3 million in 25, 26. Versus 183.3% in 26, 27, a reduction of 9 million and in classified salaries, 73.2 million to 63.5% reduction of 9.7 million. Um, and we also have not really reconciled yet the pars. Um, it s where we want to be
really careful with that because some of their retirees uh, we, we also brought eliminations, so we need to, we don t want to double count anything. And we re just making sure that we re not bringing back some of those positions as well. So we will, we should see a little bit more of an upside on our position reductions with the pars, but we re waiting until this closes out a little bit more so we can. Uh accurately account for it. Uh, second, the funding source realignment, as we discussed previously, that includes MediCal billing parcel taxes, attendant
specialists, small schools, etc. that moved approximately 37 million in reoccurring annual costs from the unrestricted general fund to restricted sources and continues into 2627. We did this in 2526, which also allowed us to reduce our expenditures there. On the restricted side, expenditures decline from 567.1 million to 506.8. A reduction of approximately 60 million. The majority of restricted funding sources must balance to zero by law. When grant revenues do not recur. As with expiring federal and local programs, the budgeted expenditure also disappears
from both sides simultaneously. This is not a service cut, it s a natural conclusion of time-limited grants. The restricted side always shows expenditures exceeding revenues because it draws on prior carryover balances. Restricted programs accumulate unspent balances when grants arrive before expenditures are incurred. The board directed the district to spend those carryovers for their intended purposes rather than leave them idle. The restricted ending balance of 74.4 million. Represents the remaining carryover that will be spent in future years?
This is not a deficit in the solvency sense. It is a multi-year spenddown of money already in the bank. Now, I want to address the comparison that has been cited publicly. How does the 26th, 27 draft budget compared to what was projected for the 26, 27, 1st interim last DECEMBER. At first interim, the 2627 multi-year projection showed unrestricted expenditures of approximately 470 million. The draft budget shows 370 million. This appears to be $100 million difference. Here is an explanation for this. 470 million first interim
figure included 103 million line item that was not a real expenditure category. It was a budget balancing. Placeholder a reverse engineered line that said, in order for revenues to cover expenditures under our current assumptions. We will need to find 103 million in additional cuts, and we had not found them yet at that time. That placeholder was a disclosure of a projected gap. When the strategies were implemented through the approved Financial stabilization implementation plan that the board approved.
Reduction in expenditures? Funding source realignment workforce reduction restricted carryover utilization. That placeholder became unnecessary because the gap had been substantially closed in 2526, which is what you would expect us to do. And this work carried on to 2627. Removing it accounts for the majority of the projected 100 million difference. The actual change in the real expenditure lines between first interim and the draft budget is approximately 40 million on the unrestricted side. I want to be sure and clear with the board that we still have a 30 million pending budget balancing solutions reflected
in our myp. You can find that online, b10. It s critical that we continue the path that we ve been working towards through the Financial stabilization plan. The other financing sources and uses section shows contributions as well. But regardless of the contributions that are there. We need to remember that we still have a deficit going into the following year. And the reason why we um we certified positive is because the question is, is the deficit manageable? Can we
reduce 30 million going into the next year. And I believe that we can. Especially since we were able to ba, we were able to uh balance our budget for 25, 26. People thought we would be insolvent and bankrupt by 25, 26, we are not. And we re going into 26, 27, and i m thankful for the MAY revise because that helped. And then we re gonna have to continue to make some difficult choices. I m looking forward to us, um, also talking in the budget and finance because part of the um financial
stabilization plan is not just looking at what the board approved to do, but also going back and looking at what has the board approved prior? That perhaps we started and we didn t finish. Or we haven t started. Um, and maybe opportunities that we can also bring forward because we do need to consider everything that s we have. Told ourselves we would do and make the correct plan for our staff and our students. So what brought us here really, excuse me, is the la and the budget draft. And so the local control and accountability plan and the
budget are legally connected documents under Education Code 42127. The board cannot adopt a budget that does not include the expenditures necessary to implement the approved lcap. Both documents must move together. The first draft llcap was provided to parents and student advisory committee, the governing board, and the Alameda County Office of Education and was posted publicly. There is a timeline that we are following and you can see the timeline here. Back again on JUNE. 4th for adopted budget. And this again briefly is the
adopted budget timeline. So today we re doing the draft, JUNE 24th, we will be at the adopted budget. And, um, what I d also like for the community, um, and board to consider um, because I, I do understand there s um, different opinions about where our budget is, different understanding, and it s hard sometimes to, to understand how did we go from projection of 100 million. To where we are now Um, but we have been working with her
county office. And, um, our county office will be going through our budget. We re submitting it to the county. We ve had our, we ve been working closely with our auditor. Chief financial officer has been working through our budget, again with our teams. And um our support of hya as well. And so that our next steps is finishing, adopting our budget. And then letting the county take a look and come back with what they believe And I d just like to end with um, saying that regardless of where you re
sitting in this budget are Oakland students deserve a district that is financially sound. They deserve adults that can talk to each other about this budget and work through the issues together. And they deserve the classrooms and the resources. That they need so that they can achieve what we all want them to achieve. So we did not arrive here easily, but we arrived here honestly. I thank you for your time Thank you. Are there board comments? Director Thompson
Yeah, I just need a clarifying question answered if you could help me, please. Um, I was it s under um the federal revenue in, uh, in 2025, 26. It was 77 million, and then you said, uh, in 26, 27, um, it was a reduction of, I think, the 54 million or something, so I think the variance is about $23 million and so and I I just be a little clarification, excuse me. Can you help me understand why that was the case, and, and what i m really looking at is, did our staff know that
the reduction might take place? Did they know of, did we MISS Applying for grants or anything of that sort. Um I don t know, just anything like that Um and I can t blankantly say that all the staff knew and also some of these grants, um, it just MAY be that we haven t, we didn t get the award letter yet. It could be just that it s um we received it, but the dollar amount s reduced down. So what I could do if you d like, is when I come back with the final budget, I can do a detail. Ok, let me just, yeah, that would be wonderful if, yeah,
because I think that s something that we want to see because, you know, since we re looking at how, um, the, the deficit. Or how we re making the cuts in the expenditures, I think it would be kind of really good to see the positive growth in, uh, in what we re doing. So just a list of um of the resources. Ok. Ok. Just to be clear, that s a list of the federal revenues. i m sorry. Just that I just want to be clear for myself, that would be a list of federal revenue, the federal revenues that were ok. Thanks.
Director Hutchinson Thank you Um I, I gotta figure out where to start after what just happened because literally right before this presentation, we were given documents. For this presentation And uh you know, there s a time stamp of when this was changed on the agenda online. Um we have a real problem. Now, first, there s a statutory requirement. That s why we have a public hearing that s noticed, uh, in local newspapers, and what s supposed to happen today is there
s supposed to be a presentation. Of the final budget a first reading of it and the reason that s supposed to happen today is so the community, the unions, and the school board have time to ask questions about the details. Of what it means and how it s going to impact next year. And also be able to ask those questions in time where then the board can introduce a budget adjustment resolution. So right now, we still don t have a final budget yet Not only do we not have a final budget what was presented is not what was presented.
Online 72 hours ago when the agenda needed to be posted. So when what was posted in your presentation. There s no assumptions page. So again, we don t know what assumptions went into making this agenda. You didn t have the proper sax forms which told us in detail things like what our projected deficit for next year is, according to these numbers. And I was asking questions at the last meeting about a total expenditures. Never got that question answered. I just heard your explanation now, and you basically made it
sound like the $103 million projected deficit was a placeholder that we don t need anymore. So I know if there was a projected deficit of 103 million back in DECEMBER. We ve also added in two new contracts that would add roughly 50 or 60 million. To increasing expenditures and costs. How come that s not accounted for here at all? Where is the accounting of how we address the over $100 million projected deficit. If we re using our restricted dollars first instead of unrestricted dollars. That doesn t change the total expenditures. And you have yet to explain why that number is down by 100 million.
Now on top of it that I only get these documents beforehand and just so we re clear and the Sachs report that was just included now. It s a different number of total expenditures. Than what you presented in this presentation wre here you had 877 million, and the Sachs reports it s 874. And so the numbers aren t even the same. And again, we don t have a final budget So what am I supposed to do as a school board director when my schools ask for clarity over what do these numbers mean? How do I have the ability to introduce a resolution to change this. And again, I know as a school
board director I did not vote on $100 million in cuts for next year in spending. And so I ve yet to see any documentation to explain why this expenditure number is so much lower. Lastly, what I would really like you to do on the Sachs report. is for you to point out which line the community and the school board is supposed to look at. To identify what are projected deficit is for next year. Because I know that that number solely exists in the unrestricted general fund. And when I ve heard you speak before I ve heard you identify different numbers. You ve said 30 million
So I would just like a clear identification of according to your numbers, which I don t really agree with because I ve seen no justification. But your numbers, and you just said there s still a deficit for next year. Which line can we find that number and how much is it? Because lastly, this is really important. If we have a projected deficit in the budget by definition that means we re not positive, because when there s a deficit in the budget, that means we can t meet all of the financial obligations that we re budgeting for. And if we don t understand that basic principle, it s really, really difficult So please identify where we can find the deficit for next year,
and please explain how if we have a deficit, how does that mean we re still positive. Thank you. In sync with us, uh, as far as the lcap, um, everything, all the numbers here will be uh reviewed and audited by the county, uh, that s first. Uh, to answer your question, uh, uh, um, Director Hutchinson, if you, uh, navigate to the nyp um uh, unrestricted uh, you can go to line b10 for other adjustments. And in line b10, there is a line for $30 million. That is the pending uh uh budget balanced solution that we must, uh, uh,
identify, uh, next year. And as Tara uh presented earlier, um, uh, it, it, this 30 million uh in our opinion, is uh not a, an, an issue uh where we um are not able to uh certify as a positive. It s a uh it s a balance, a large balance, but uh with the continued work that uh uh that the, the board has instructed us to do in regards to uh spending down restricted resource, uh, shifting costs, uh, out and reducing uh uh actual expenditure. Well, we believe that the 30 million can be achieved. And uh bear in mind there are revenue, uh, uh, sources that
are coming in that we have not fully implemented because we want to be conservative as terror has presented again on lcff will, will increase. We ve only uh budgeted uh 2.8 and uh and so um that s gonna go up. And then uh a special ed, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, what do you call that budget goes up and then uh we have uh other sources uh such as the uh the uh professional uh development uh block grant, uh, and a few other places. Um with that, uh, uh, I ll stop there uh for questions. So I just want to clarify for everyone. So on this budget, which is not a full draft budget at all, final budget. Staff is telling us that we re
still anticipating a $30 million budget deficit next year, and that is separate from we re still projecting to overspend in total expenditures over total revenues because when we talk about the deficit, that is only our unrestricted general fund, and the reason that we haven t a deficit and our unrestricted general fund. Is because the amount that we take from there. To supplement our spending on special education continues to grow every year, so this idea that we re gonna use our restricted dollars first when the reason there s a deficit to begin with is because we don t have enough restricted dollars
to cover the costs is kind of fool s gold in this whole thing. So just so we re clear, even with this, even after all the work that s been claimed, we are planning on passing a budget that contains a $30 million deficit, which is a larger amount than we keep in our reserve, and which would violate state law which requires we pass a balanced budget by JUNE 30th. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Director Hutchinson. I, I would say though that we can have a positive budget. I ve talked to the county, we can certify positive. We can show and demonstrate
that we are able to achieve the reductions that we need to make coming forward, and um if we can all find a way to work together again as leaders and adults and people who care about our students, I feel like that we could do that. Yeah, but, but let s be, but let s be clear to this date, to this point, it hasn t been done. That s why the draft budget for next year shows a $30 million deficit so to say, well, maybe we can figure out something next year is not the way the budgetary process works, and there s at some point, there needs to be an admission that the work hasn t been done this
year to address the deficit for next year, and this idea that will pass a budget and then next year we ll figure out how we need to cut the budget in order to stay solvent is not proper fiscal and budgetary management. And we ve known that this budgetary shortfall since we adopted this year s budget a year ago. So let s just be clear, we have not done that job, and now what we re being told is, it s ok to just pass a budget anyway with a deficit. We ll figure it out. Fingers crossed. That s what we need to be very clear about, and I ve never seen it as a district, we have never approved a budget with a sitting deficit. That s why we ve always made cuts going
into it before then. Thank you. I want to go on and I know other board directors also have other comments as well. Director Latta, yes, thank you. Um, so I have I think I just wanna first off, just appreciate the work of our fiscal team and also I think of my colleagues up here, many of whom made the very difficult decision to pass the reduction in force which contributes to the lion s share of the reductions that we re seeing in our deficit. Um, so I just think that it s important that while I understand that people are concerned, and I think I understand why not all of our board colleagues agree that we
have a budget that is um cer t ify ing positive that I do think it s important that people hear loud and clear that the very difficult decisions that have been made by the board and then implemented by staff, our get are rolled up in our 26, 27 budget. Um, I would also just, um, clarify that I and again I ve been somebody who has 4, even before I joined the board has been quite frustrated with the pattern of certifying our budget qualified when in fact we were always um almost always going to meet our fiscal obligations, and I understand that. Having a deficit, having a placeholder for reductions for next year feels like that means that we re saying we re not
stable, but I would just, um, for me, appreciate that we re having, there is a change in practice that s happening, which is that we have cash flow and we almost always have had this quite a large buffer to cover our expenses, and ultimately that s the definition of what it means to certify positive. It means that while we have a deficit, we re not projected to run out of money and not be able to pay our expenses. So I think it s important that as we close out this first year out of receivership and over 20 years or trusteeship, um, that we re also confidently standing on our own
2 ft and saying that we will meet our obligations and that the board by adopting this budget and staff as well is committing to that work to address the 39. And again, I think I am somebody who has been more positive, um unintended about our budget for quite some time because I knew that I knew that we were being quite conservative on the MAY revise. We re still being quite conservative. I knew that the pars savings, which again, all of us board members have had the opportunity to see the savings that will come when we not only offered the PARs, the retirement incentive, but also when we don t fill those positions, and so I think that
all of us have understand that going into next year when we maintain that position control that I know has come, it s happening, that there will be even more savings in that way and that the 30 million will likely reduce significantly down. So I just, um, want to, um, I know we ll talk more about this at Budget and Finance tomorrow, but, um, and I don t, I will uh Deputy Superintendent. Oh, I like how that s uh. Deputy superintendent MISS Guard. Uh, thank you very much for the presentation. Um, I think it is you and your team just really want to give you a kudos for really staying
focused on that, um, I remember when we first, uh, came onto the board and uh 2025, I think what s that, uh, JANUARY 25. We had over $200 million deficit. I think that we inherited we inherited a board previous of us that actually self-certified negative. And we ve made decision after decision after decision that moved us qualified. Qualified, qualified. And now we re very on the cusp of being uh positive And I just really want to thank you and your leadership for staying
really focused on, uh, moving our budget in the right direction, because at one time we were just getting told that everything was the end of the world was about to happen. Uh, the whole budget was going to explode in front of everybody, and we were going into uh uh date receivership So we, we have really worked really hard and I think a lot of times we don t give Ryan yourself, your team. Uh enough credit, and I just want to put that out there. It s not easy. It s very hard. Um, and I appreciate where we
are right now. We do still have work to be done, and as we spoke with our lcap, Diane Sherman, that we re finally getting to a place of stability, and now we can really start to look at uh what our priorities are. And and match our spending with our priorities. I appreciate that. We also, um, are, I appreciate you doing the review and reduction of existing contracts as well, really looking on that because, uh, prior to that, uh the previous board was given away kind of contracts like they were, uh, like it was Halloween, trick or treat. It was just a contract for you and a contract for you and a contract
for you we we brought that back in. And we actually have more of a focused analysis of how to prioritize our particular budget. So I just really want to thank you again, um, we have, we do have a long way to go, but it is promising and uh I believe in the work that you re doing and what Doctor Sadler s doing as well as uh PRESIDENT Brohart, thank you, uh, for your leadership. I just want to just quickly echo, I think that um even though I think this budget process, um, represents real change in how we ve done things, and I know that change is always uncomfortable. We
like things done the way we ve always done them. I feel um much more clarity about the process. And more clarity about where these line items are. So I am looking forward to the budget and finance discussion tomorrow, but um, I, I do feel, um just a difference in, in the way that the numbers are being. Guessed and explained. And again, I also appreciated uh Director Thompson asking for the list of the federal revenues cause I know that s something we ve also talked about. Oh, thank you. Thank you Uh, public comment Uh, yes, MADAM PRESIDENT, we have 2 speakers.
Ave Ringer and Asada Olugbala. MADAM PRESIDENT, I recommend that you provide additional time per speaker. Uh, we can do 3 minutes because people didn t get to speak on on the last one. So it should be, it should be 2 minutes plus 2 minutes, especially since we can see we only have one person here, and there s only like 10 people on Zoom, but it s ok. MRS. So, would you like 4 minutes? I do not think I need it. Thank you thank you. Um I don t think a fair process exists when the public is asked to speak.
On two different public hearing items. And you speak on them individually, but I have to speak on them combined. That s not a fair process. It says in your meeting procedures, all board meetings shall begin on time and shall be guided by an agenda prepared in accordance with board bylaws and posted and distributed in accordance with the route ph m. Brown Act The Ralph m. Brown Act California Code Section 54954.2 42 hour rule, legislative bodies must post a clear Pacific agenda containing all items of business to be transacted or
discussed at least 72 hours before a regular meeting. You didn t do that. There s nothing in the Brown Act at the point of the meeting you can correct the agenda. 72 hours posting. I m not gonna address this. You require me, you correct me when I m inappropriate out here. But when you are inappropriate by not even following the Brown Act. You, you think that s that you can do it. You have no right to violate the Brown Act. And that s what you have done tonight. And the other thing, I sit here as a participant, and I know when it s time to vote, 4 or 5 people are gonna vote on whatever is presented to you.
You never challenge anything. I depend on MR. Hutchinson and the Doctor Berry. To give me some information about this budget. You rubber stamp everything and you got the nerve to tell me about my behavior. You are in violation of the Brown Act requiring 72 hour notice. And you come up here and create a method of solving something that uh MR. Hutchinson brought up. This is entirely inappropriate. I can t even think. I ve got all this combobulated because the items being presented is
not being done right. And I know how the vote s gonna go. You cannot be identified as positive when you got a deficit. That does not make sense. MISTER Williams always talk about think positive. How can I think positive with this shinakism going on here. Thank you Uh, yes, uh, Avi Ringer, I see his hand on Zoom. I will allow him to speak. Thank you, MR. Asada You know, align myself with her comments. Um, you know, earlier your general counsel called for a two-minute
recess and it took 10 minutes. So I can only imagine what that conversation sounded like. My guess is that she s telling you you re at high risk of being found in violation of the Brown Act and having this public meeting voided. Because whatever letter of the law you think you might be skirting by on, you re certainly violating the spirit of the law. After last meeting, ignoring the 72 hour notice period and giving only 24 hours This time you ve given zero advance access to these crucial numbers. And after two meetings ago, and he pulled all sorts of shenanigans and extending the superintendent s contract. And
on and on, the whole time this board has been seated. Now the the Brown Act begins. The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people in delegatg authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know. And what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they MAY retain control over the instruments they have created. But it seems you actually have no regard for the public and their interest. It s perfectly clear So when you ask for grace, PRESIDENT Gerhart.
That s actually not what this is. And this is all on you. When somebody makes a mistake, you give them grace. When somebody time and time again violates your rights, you do not give them grace. You raise up your voice and call them out. Ok Some people would like to believe that this was done by mistake, or perhaps incompetence. But when you put it at the end of a long line of all these sorts of moves by this board, we see it for what it really is. Just another dirty political trick. And so you ll get no grace for that. Thank you.
Comments? There are no further registered speakers for this item. With that, the public hearing is closed. And MR. Sechow, can we have an interpretation check, please? Yes, PRESIDENT Brohart, moving to interpretation check, uh, we ll start with Arabic. Our arts hands. Please don t raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. MR. Tareq, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please. Or MISS Abdi a rare sima la talima Italia. He actually shares have an
indeirana Shekir al Kuro orlia Ewataleja from oars and keri Mamotale to karia is a sort of had that system that we check perfect announcement and keri Mamotale to karia is a sort of had that system that we check perfect announcement is done and keri Mamotale to karia is a sort of had that system that we check perfect announcement. Great, thank you, Abdi, check attendees to see if hands raised for our air brake interpretation seeing no hands raised, will not start um Arabic interpretation. Next, we ll go to Cantonese. Again, please only raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation. MISTER Ewan, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please. I got Oakland up how Wayu. You got to sayang tongkaindu yang pingaohafong koi kaoyingzhong of uho, you know,
Xinjia Guangdongwale ahoyao teno gong to magapan it. Young tongwaan Young uo yang yu and so you want to go find it for more to Can this announcement is done. Great, thank you, MR. Ying, checking 10 d to see if any hands are raised for Cantonese interpretation. See see no hands raised, we will not start Cantonese interpretation. Next, go to Spanish again, please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. MISS Walker Marquez, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish please. Yes Buenasardess estamussoreciendo interpretacion simultania a espanol parapodereescuarlabaena la parte de bajo santa sum don
devise interpretation is common globo terracchio this interpretation preionennaiibayan a luciiomas visa Spanish osea espanol ya Ivana podereescucharla interpretation sinon cuentra el symbolo de la interpretacion Baela don Baela don de Baela don Baela don de san don lustres puntito suspensciosa illaban contra. Our assistant presentesuddenedir queles preste una computraposcure computraposcure computraposcure computraposcure servisio Arabien para servisiolespedimos que por favor lebante la mano parapevilose in persona or virtual maintenoe muchas gracias. Spanish announcement is done, MR. Secha. Great, thank you, MISS Walker Marquez,
check attendees, I mean checking continues if you ve any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, uh, we will not start Spanish interpretation, and that concludes interpretation announcement. I turn back to you, PRESIDENT Bruhar. Yeah And with that we are moving on to section 0. Which is consent items. um minus 02 and 025. Is there a motion to adopt? 2. Is there any public comment We have Jonathan Masmuton. Um, if Jonathan makes much in is available online. If you can raise your hand. I don t think he s online. On
registered speaker ok speaker Go ahead, MRS. I did I not sign up It s ok Thank you, MADAM PRESIDENT Uh, on this agenda, you have $81,000 being spent uh to determine or try to find out who will enroll in ousc next year. And you re only gonna do outreach to 1000 parents who are in the district in another uh group of parents who are not. I don t know if that s a good thing to do, to spend that kind of money and what
s the source of funding? Have y all reviewed it and found that to be appropriate. You have 161 nonprofits that are doing after school programs. Are they included as far as training that has to be done with this anti-Semitic mandate. You have in you have uh Saturday programs, sports programs with soccer, volleyball, basketball. I think you re doing a good job of, uh, outreaching to our children to have some substant creativity, uh, to do during the summer. Uh, you have, uh I looked at all of the funding
sources, and I hope you re doing this in this agenda tonight, measure h measure g1 you have grants you have extended learning, 9 items based on the extended learning a program. You have the uh Zuckerbe Family Foundation uh, doing family support, Me aa comport. I m gonna stop there because you have to look at your responsibility. To even though the funding is from a different source. Is it appropriate? Is it fair? Is it equitable? It s not just enough to say, oh, we didn t have to pay for this, ok?
Uh, so you have something that does deals with Title One, that s very important. That you have to make sure that s being done correctly. So I encourage you, board members to spend some time. I took the time to look at this. Where these funds were going. You have some of the same funds going to the same school, Skyline. The uh did somebody want this baby Thank you. Are there any other speakers? All registered speakers have been called. With that, MR. Rickstock, can we take a roll call on the vote,
please. There is no vote on this item. Tonight. Oh, ok. Oh, you moved on from the hearing. I m sorry. I m over here talking. Well, I, I had, I had bored comment before the vote, please. Ok. One board comment from Director Hutchinson. Thank you Um, so again, I m gonna not be voting for this consent report. I think each meeting that we ve had, it s become clearer and clearer to the people watching. Why I stopped voting for consent reports over a year ago. Um, many of the items in the consent report do not have a fiscal impact analysis.
Many of the items approved over the last year are the very items that drove the over $60 million in overspending this year? And all while we ve been told we re in crisis tonight when we re told at the last minute. That we have a $30 million deficit still for next year. We re still spending more money with no real understanding where it s coming from. And one of the things that i ve been asking for now publicly at every meeting for the last 3 months. Is an accounting of some of these things that are being told us, told to us that have happened. So at last meeting, people bring up the rift in the layoffs of employees. At the last meeting, even though I was treated in a very rude manner.
Doctor Fructos, the consultant, I made him clarify that in total there have been $65 million found for both this year and next year. In the savings that everyone s been working on. And of that 65 million, 45 million of it is for next year. Largely through the rifts and the layoffs. So to keep throwing these things out like they re going to actually change these numbers when we re told there these numbers are inclusive of those things. I don t really understand. But when we re living in a world where we re told you have a deficit, but it s positive, I guess anything is possible. And the reason why I
ve started polling items more and more from the consent report is so I can highlight the most egregious items. I read through everything. And if I felt comfortable voting for these items, if I felt comfortable with staff vetting these items and telling us the impact, if I felt comfortable with PRESIDENT Rouhart putting these items on the agenda, I would have been voting for consent reports all along or just uh pulling out individual items that I didn t want to vote for. And so the fact that I haven t been able to vote for a consent report in over a year is indicative of how I think these items are being treated, how I firmly believe we have no guard
rails within the district anymore, and every presentation that we receive from the superintendent and staff only go to prove that point evermore. Let s not forget the superintendent Sadler promised us there d be a fiscal solvency plan approved by FEBRUARY 22nd. No plan was ever approved. And the update for the work that they ve done is not here at tonight s meeting It was thrown into tomorrow s budget and Finance Committee meeting. And if you look at that document, you will see every item on there says pending and to be determined. There are $0 in that update that have been identified as
part of our savings plan and efforts. Thank you. MR. Rakestrack, we have a roll call on the vote, please. Yes, on the roll call to adopt the general consent report minus uh 0.2 and 0.25. All right, on the roll call, student directors are absent, Director Lauder. Yes. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson abstained Director Thompson. Yes. Director Barry s absent uh, to Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor. And PRESIDENT Brohart motions adopted. Uh, next up is item 0202 uh 26-1441 classified confidential administrators and executive cabinet salary schedules, talent and human resources
department and I believe Director Hutchinson, you pulled this. Um, and we have a motion first. They I m Decon I motion Thompson s seconds. Um, prior to the uh question by, um, Director Hutchinson. I m gonna ask, um, Taro Gard to review this item, uh, for the board. Here, could you come forward and just give an update on um clarification. That s a, um, we re cleaning up our salary schedules. And um some of our job descriptions, and it has to do a lot with people retiring, um, and so let me, as an example, um
asks me when they got their salary increases and the contract is approved. The salary schedules go with the contract. So it goes to board, so then when they retire and Purs asks for a copy of the salary schedule that s board approved. We can pull it from that but with um confidential we had not been bringing the salary schedules. After they ve gotten raises. That s one part of it. And then the reason why you see job descriptions is because some of the, there was a time when everybody almost everybody, I think in the executive team were on employment contracts, and then
the board decided that they did not want employment contracts, so people moved off of it, but the job descriptions still say contract. And so it s caused people a problem when they re retiring. Because it says contract, but they re actually on a salary schedule and pers if it s classified. Isn t giving them the rate that they ve been paid because of how the job description isn t reflecting the correct salary scale. So that s the work that we, and you re going to see more of that, some of um seiu I think we brought last meeting and also another thing, you ll probably see this come even
back again because um we find that it s easier to work with purs if we also do a salary schedule reflective of how they work. So our classified works 7.5 hours or classified employees 7.5 hours, but Purs is an 8 hour. Calculation, so they also want to see, um, our salary schedules at 7.5, and then we re gonna go back and create eight-hour schedules. So it just helps when people are retiring, um, that they don t run into problems because they have been Thank you Are there public comment on
this item? So You, you called my name. I waited for the motion. I waited for the explanation. I thought I was gonna have the time to speak as the person who pulled the item. And then we ll come back to yours. Well, I would much rather be able to speak so then if there is public comment, the public knows why I pulled this item. Which is our general practice. Thank you. If it was as simple as explaining it to you as a district and as a board we wouldn t be in this situation. Unfortunately, you don t like listening. So the reason I pulled this
item, this item actually only has one, therefore clause included in it. And it says therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Oakland Unified School District hereby approves the updated district salary schedules for classified confidential administrators and the executive cabinet as well as the corresponding updated job descriptions. So I got really curious because I know there s been no conversation about job descriptions. So when I look through it one of the job descriptions. That according to the page numbering I have is page 23 of the document is for Deputy Superintendent Business and
operations, which is a position that we didn t have at the start of this year because we had a chief business officer and within the duties that are listed here. It mentions overseeing the budget and the finances and divide, uh, providing strategic advice around the budget and finances. But if I m correct, that s the position that MISS Gar is currently in. So I have a real question when there s a new job description, because we didn t have anyone in that position. And the one presenting on the item. Is the person who benefited from that new job with this new
description. Who developed these new job descriptions. Did MISS Gard develop her own job description for her own job? Why wasn t this presented some other way? And when I see the jobs here for the executive cabinet, not only is there no chief business officer. Like I mentioned before, my understanding is we currently don t have a chief of staff. We have currently 2 less people on the senior leadership team than we did at the start of the year. Uh, in JANUARY, you told us you were appointing Ryan, the cfo to the senior leadership team,
and then a month later, you appointed MISS Gard to supervise him, which means he s not really a part of the senior leadership team. And now, while you re still under a contract as interim superintendent. We have a rewriting of the job descriptions of the senior leadership team. Now, I don t know if there s been a change in salaries through this or a financial impact. But these are the kinds of things that don t pass a smell test when we have senior staff, it appears from the presentation developing their own job description for a job that didn t exist a year ago. We have to be able to do better and especially when tonight s
budget document was not posted in time. Neither was last week s. We have questions about the budget. And now this is the job description that we re talking about. So I d like some clarity about why these changes are coming, why it s buried in the consent report? Where is our flow chart of district leadership. And it really creates the appearance of self-dealing in a conflict of interest if we don t have those guardrails in place. Ma if I MAY, I just wanted to to clarify for Director Hutchinson since he s referring to, um, the position that Tara Gard is
in at this time. So I think you mentioned the job description for deputy Superintendent Business and operations, and you were wondering if, um, MISS Gard had written her own job description and to clarify, this is uh some cleanup that is required for retirement purposes, retroactively and the the job description you re referring to Deputy Superintendent Business and Operations is not a new job description. It is an existing job description in our system and was previously held by a previous, previous employee. So it was not newly drafted, but as a part of all of the job descriptions attached to the salary schedule, it s included here.
Can you, can you please let me know that when it was previously held because I know it was not one of the positions at the start of this school year and just pull it up on the screen, see how it says created JUNE 2010. Um, so it s been previously held. So that means predating anyone s knowledge or anyone that can reference anything. You re just saying it was created in 2010. But, but we re also being told that this is an update to the job description and a cleanup. And so these are the things where it would be much cleaner if it wasn t presented by one of the members who are listed here. And this thing of presenting a salary schedule and job
descriptions from the same people who are benefiting from it. It just really creates a problem. And so that s great, I could read that it was created in 2010. That doesn t answer the question of when was the last time that somebody actually held that position, because I know since at least Lisa Grant Dawson was the cbo, and we did not have this position and a cbo at the same time. So just to clarify for uh any of senior leader level folks who were previously on a contract, moved to a salary schedule. This cleanup was required, and that applies to this job description as well. Um, and that s why you see it here. You you see the Javascription now
includes a salary schedule listed, um, for the purpose of addressing that issue. And lastly, uh so one way to avoid this perception is to make sure that somebody who benefits from the document coming forward is not a part of the presentation. This, this creates the impression that the staff that was designated by the superintendent to speak here was involved in the creation of this. And so if we can t have guard rails in place to prevent that impression to the public, that s the whole problem here. And so I wouldn t have to ask these questions if it was done in a different way and it was made clear that senior staff
were not involved in this. But when we don t have that, i don t know what else to think, but I just heard MISS Guard present on an item that included her new job, which was a job that was not filled until the last couple of months within ousd. We re going to move on to public comment. Any public comment on this? Um, comments, open to the public or comment. Is anyone from the public who would like to comment? Ok With that, MR. Rakestra will take a roll call vote. Ok. On the roll call, no comments from the public, uh, on the
roll call of 0.2, which is 2614. 13 uh uh 1441. All right. Student directors, they absent. Director Lauder at the Hutchinson? No. Director Williams. Yes, sir. The Director Barry is absent. Director Thompson. Vice PRESIDENT Bachelor, and PRESIDENT Brohar. Motions adopted. Now moving on to 25, uh, which again I believe was pulled by Director Hutchinson. We need a motion in a second, this is going to be considered motion to approve 25. Director Hutchinson Thank you Um, I would again like an explanation about why this is
coming forward and why in this way. You know, there was a time where it was the practice of the board not to include board policies in the consent report. Because that prevents a real conversation. This is now, if I remember correctly, the 2nd time that President Brohart is putting forward a change in the agenda order for board meetings. Um, I have to say honestly, it doesn t look like it s working when we have one community member here. On the night when we re discussing the draft budget. No community members, no unions, no nobody when this used to be the most important meeting of the year. And when we made a major change
to the order of agenda. It was actually back when uh uh director Gary Yee was board PRESIDENT. And when we were coming back to in-person meetings after the pandemic. And what PRESIDENT Yee did was he consulted the board. We formed a committee and 3 of us, including myself met. Uh, including PRESIDENT Yee, met with both, um, uh, MR. Rakestraw, our parliamentarian, and Doctor Franco, who was consulting us, and put together a revised list of the order for agenda items in the meeting in order to facilitate getting our business done and to facilitate. Uh public comment
It was an inclusive process. We took months and a number of meetings, and it produced really good changes. Now here we are. This is the 2nd time PRESIDENT Brohart, for whatever reason, is changing the order of the meeting. We can see it hasn t worked. It sure hasn t increased participation, and I fear this is being done as part of a larger effort to make sure there aren t people here and nobody s paying attention. So I would at least like a, an explanation about why this is happening in this sort of way. And, and what was the theory and intent behind changing again the order of items on the school board meeting agenda. I counsel would like to say a
few words about this as well. I, I also really would like PRESIDENT Brohart, whose names on this to answer it so people can ask something else, but I asked a direct question, and I would really appreciate an answer before Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor moves on to somebody else and then as the person chairing the meeting, that s fine. I made my question very specific and if we want to talk about how the chairing of the meeting happens. So there was not even a public acknowledgement that we were moving from PRESIDENT Brohart to Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor. That s all right, recess won t help. I ll say the same thing when we come back. All right, um, MR. Rakesar, can
you take a roll call to establish Quorum. Yes, on the Quorum call, uh student directors are absent, Director Lauder. Director Williams PRESIDENT, sir ok. Director Hutchinson present Director Barry is absent. Director Thompson. Vice PRESIDENT Bachelor. He and PRESIDENT Brohart warm present. Thank you. Go ahead. Sure, yeah, I merely wanted to weigh in on the procedural question. I thought I heard Director Hutchinson asking and if there s a separate question, um, I ll turn it back to him.
The process-wise, this is, this has been brought before um the board multiple times, um, even since, um, former PRESIDENT Gary Gee, and it s essentially up it s at the discretion of the PRESIDENT To bring it on as a consent item or um otherwise special order of the day, um, with the PRESIDENT S discretion to set agenda. So just on the procedural question of whether this was allowed. Thank you. Thank you. I m, thank you. I m, I m, excuse me, general counsel said, and if that wasn t it, she was referring back to me. So I m answering back to her.
So thank you very much. I understand the procedural aspect of it. That s why I said the normal practice used to be that we didn t do board policy within a consent report and my specific question, because like I noted in my comments, this is the 2nd time I m aware of PRESIDENT Brohart bringing a change. I was asking her what brings this change for? What is her intent, especially since our meetings seemed to be empty now, and um the board PRESIDENT To go ahead and speak when you interrupted me. So go ahead, Director Berhard and speak. Ok, I m going to answer that question. So I think the first time we did bring a question, uh, we did bring in a, a change in this was to accommodate peac that we
d put pesac on, um, a different, um, week than they were able to accommodate with their meeting schedule and their prep time for the slides. So in looking at this one tonight, um, what I think has been happening as we ve been having public comment at 10:30, 11 o clock at night, and I think I wanted to be able to move up our public comment, um, after all of our report outs from the um uh closed session. So that again, I, I know that a lot of people and this happened tonight too with the um some of the workers here who were from, uh, from building trades who are driving a distance and want to make their public comments and can t wait
until, you know, 10:30 when we get to them. So this was an attempt to bring in, you know, start up our meetings again, kind of couching or or um putting in context our public, um, uh, engagements. So, um, then the next thing would be to move the special orders of the day, but after public comments, again, this is a celebratory time and we um want to be able to have that time with the people who are celebrating their awards in or tonight is we have the presentation as well. Um again keeping the same order for the student report trying to keep that as early as
possible because again students do have to leave to go, um, pursue their, their studies and their homework, um, after that would come Peak. The order doesn t really change that much. We have the bargaining units, um, the public hearing, we actually moved up, um, after the bargaining units again because we do have that time sensitive to those. Uh, unfinished business, and then, um, new business again, um, moving, trying to put those after, after people MAY have the, the time to comment on them. Um, so this is why the order was changed again to accommodate um some of the things I ve heard from different community people that they want to have something to
say. They want to have a comment about something, and I think what had been happening prior to that was, um, a number of people were coming to speak before, uh, closed session, so they would speak about items they wanted to be able to speak about that were in open session, um, but the time they had to do that was 4:30. So again, if we can do this earlier, accommodate our public so that people can, um, make their comments and not have to wait until 11 o clock. So that s the rationale behind you. And the other, the other thing that would help is if every meeting that we have PRESIDENT Brohart, you changed the order of the
agenda right when we start. So that will stop also and that would really alleviate the problem as well. Director Hudson So when, when, when Vice PRESIDENT Batchor cuts me off whenever she wants. That means it s open season to speak whenever you want. So hopefully you will change your practice of rearranging the meeting every night when we show up, and that would really facilitate the community as well. Director Hutchinson, these types of comments also make the meeting so much longer than your recesses tonight. Any other comments, others, other board directors. Public comment on this agenda item. I see two, actually 5 community members. Anybody want to make a public comment? On this item
Amazing. Um, let s take a roll call on this item. Ok, on the roll call to adopt 0 25 which is 26 -1321 Student directors are absent. Director Berry is absent. Director Thompson. Yes. Director Hutchinson. No. Director Williams Yes, sir. Director ladder. Vice PRESIDENT Bashor. Yes. And PRESIDENT Brohar. Motions adopted. So there are no um consent items under p, so we ll move on to o, which is public comments, um, are there any public
comments? On non-aggenda items Yes. Uh public comment on non agenda items. We have Sheila Haines be Rudin Kukoyevik. Sara Olugbala are all the speakers for this side. Wonderful, we ll do 2 minutes each. Are any of those speakers online? Yes. Uh, we have Sheila Haynes their hand is raised, I allow them to speak. Sheila Haynes, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Hi, uh, is this the music section? This is a public comment on non agenda items. Oh, so are you gonna get to the music section?
Uh, that is, uh, 2 more items. Ok, I ll, I ll wait. I ll wait till that time. Thank you. Next speaker public commenters names have been called. Wonder Uh, with no other additional public comments. We ll move on to s, which is new business, uh, s1, which is the ad hoc, um, control over outsourcing task force. I believe Director Latta, you have a short presentation. No no presentation. Um, this was just, um, so to back up, um, about it, you know, over a year ago, um, the board adopted a resolution creating the ad hoc task force to reduce outsourcing as a way to, um, address the um, year over year growth, um,
in contracted spending and part of that resolution calls for an update to the board timed with our, um, interim fiscal reports. And so this update serves as, um, uh, that report kind of in time in line with our 3rd interim, um, which came at the last board meeting. So it just includes, um, an update on the 8 recommendations of people remember back in the fall, the, um, ad hoc task force which includes um uh students, um, representatives from all of our lcap, um, uh, advisory committees, representatives from every one of our bargaining units, um, and then, uh, several, um, designees from the superintendent
s office, um, uh, agreed by a consensus on 8 recommendations that would um that we identified as part of our review of contracting and so the memo includes a kind of a review of each of those 8 recommendations and then what, um, some of the responses from staff have been, so people can look over that and see what some of those are, um, and then the other thing that, uh, came up was that there is, uh, several other, and this is, I think this has come up previously at the board, that there s other, uh, lea s, um, and school districts that are also working on reducing their, uh, reliance on contracted spending and the ways in which it is um
increasing from, you know, kind of the adopted adopted budget all the way through the um unaudited actuals. And so, uh, we also received, um, an update from one of our, um, representatives who is a teacher about their, um, review of publicly available documents, mainly our budgets and interim reports around the, um, contracted spending and just showing that again ohusd, like many other districts, has, um, um, has increases within our contracting spending over the last 4 years, and um, a recommendation to have a variance report at each budget reporting period, if not more,
as a way to ensure that we re not being surprised essentially with how the contracted spending. So if we are having increases that we should as a board see those more regularly instead of having it kind of roll up in the unaudited actuals, which has kind of been what has happened over the last 4 years that we reviewed. Um, and then I think the other thing that came up, which we they just affirmed what we know and again what kind of even like school services has told us, which is that ousd spends more than other districts on contracting on a per student basis. Um, so that is the update, um, and I just want to appreciate, um, not only the other members of the committee, um, but also
the folks who, um, worked to co-write this memo, so even though I m submitting it to the board, um, it was actually worked on and reviewed by, um, all the members of the task force. Thank you. Uh, board comments. Director w Director Hutchinson Thank you You know, it s, it s like the book, 1984 in New Speak, where each thing that happens, it seems like there s uh uh people forget the history of what happened before itery recently. So when this item was passed over a year ago. It was passed by the board over the objections of general
counsel Lindsay. Who advised the board not to adopt this measure and this resolution. Because she cited that it was not ok to have a prescriptive ad hoc committee like this where it was determined who the members would be. And it was not made open to anyone. And the other issue that was cited was it was a potential conflict. To have union representatives discussing items that impacted whether that union itself would get the contract or not. General Counsel Lindsey warned the board not to approve the
resolution as written. The board ignored that advice and approved it anyway. Now that happened as we heard a year ago. So not only is this ad hoc committee have no authority also. Let s now look. If this happened a year ago, that means we ve been through a yearly fiscal cycle. Of everything While this ad hoc committee has been on the books. What s changed in the district Which contracts has this committee lifted up? To not approve or to look at differently. What items have school board directors pulled from the consent report? Because they didn t agree with contracting out those services.
Once, when does that happen So now here we are a year later, and we re still talking about it, even though nothing s happened because of it. In fact, what this board has done is they ve actually contracted out more services. Like paying hya to be financial advisors now on their second contract for a total of well over $100,000. Instead of hiring staff internally or even taking free help from the county. This board decided to pay outside consultants through a contract. Pushing a million dollars but they want to review contracts because they think that s where
all the bad stuff is happening. But they haven t done it And if anything they ve approved more spending and more contracts than ever. So let s just remember uh, the advice we received from legal counsel was not to approve this resolution. The board, like they do, didn t listen, approved it anyway, and now after over a year. Nothing s been done and it s no impact on the budget for next year. Not even a part of a fiscal solvency plan, which we don t have. Smoke and mirrors only work so long. Fake virtue signals and fake outrage is getting old. But the proofs in the pudding and the track records are the
track records. Thank you. Um, yeah, I, I just want to make one comment, um, about, um, the impact because I appreciate that it is not listed in the memo, and I think we will, um, be coming with that likely in the fall specifically, but I also just want to note there s been a couple of things that have changed process wise this year, the first, um, is that there s a second tier contract review. So when a contract gets initiated that s over $15,000. This current year, um, Doctor Sadler has been taking a second review of that so that it doesn t, um, go through our typical process where it only comes to board, um, at that time and then if you look, um, at the 26, 27, um, adopted
budget, you ll see a significant decrease in, um, spending in the 5000, so certainly I appreciate the comment that we could, we could use some more specifics, um, and I know those will be forthcoming, but I just also want to lift up those two specific things that, um, we have, um you know, kind of collaborated with staff on. Director Thompson or Director Williams? Any additional comments Director Williams. Oh, no, ok, um, I guess the one just point of clarification that I will make is that, um, unions have collective bargaining agreements. They don t have individual contracts with the school district, so there will
be no conflict of interest of our labor partners being in these types of conversations. They re also at school sites every day and they re the ones that are, um, engaging in uh with uh contractors so they would also know uh quality contractors versus non-quality contractors, and, um, they would be able to see over time how much uh contracting has happened and what that impact is on school sites. Um, director Brohart or superintendent Sadler, I just wanted to, um, say it is true that I do check um all of our contracts over $15,000 and if you check in with, um, leadership, this is clearly something that um I will have a discussion with sites or even
central office staff around how they can work with maybe another school or um figure out different ways of utilizing the funding. So there has been, if you go back and look at um the um contracts, um. Um, in the last, actually last semester, have been reduced significantly as a part of this process. So if you can go back and just counting this, it s just a fewer groups and maybe you MAY not be aware of that Director Hutchinson, because you usually do not vote on that section of the contra um of our uh agenda that then because, because you can t say because I don t vote on the excuse me
because I don t vote. Point of clarification. You cannot say, because I don t vote on a consent report. That means that there s less things there. So we need a document then to show I d love a document that shows how that review has impacted the budget, how many contracts have been thrown out through it, but just talking about how there s a new review that hasn t changed our financial outlook, and that s not the work product of this ad hoc committee. 100 million to 30 million is actually yes, go ahead there. I just wanted to say this, one of the things that I m working to do is to
change the culture of sites and central office, just making a contract for, for lots of different things that they d like to do there is a lot more review and staff, um, definitely has been having conversations with me. I have a spreadsheet where I look at every single contract and approve or disapprove it. So, um, I just wanted to just make note that this particular policy has had an impact on the bottom line. Thank you. With that, we will go to public comments. Do we have any public comments on this item? Ok, I wonder if is she online? Ok Then no public comment on this item, um, then we ll go to new
business, which is t, uh t1, um, proposition 28, arts, music, and schools. I believe Masheilla had a public comment on this item. So we ll take her during that time. Is there a motion to approve? I move that we approve the, um. Annual report for proposition 28. Is there a second? Second Thank you. Um, is there a presentation from staff directors? Ok. There s no presentation board comments. Sure There is a presentation Thank you for that clarification. Um, I saw, uh, Director Hutchinson. Yes, thank you Um this is like many items, so I m
not quite sure why we re not getting a presentation, which um there should be around this item. If you read through the presentation, even though the presentation talks about uh uh the percentages and how we got here, where the funding for Prop 28 is supposed to be 1%. Of the funding that uh goes into Prop 98. And that as a district, we re supposed to use 80% of these dollars on staffing. All we have in this report is a number of FTEs. There is again not $1 amount in this presentation. So if we
re supposed to track how Prop $28 were used and to make sure that we re compliant under the state guidelines. As a school board director, I need a document that actually includes dollar amounts. You just can t have a list of FTEs and present it and say, here, this is how we re showing we re compliant. So where are the dollar amounts? Where s the total funding for Prop 28? Where s the amount that we spent and how we spent it. That isn t included here at all. Not at all So how is this a report out on
how Prop $28 were used when there s not $1 amount on there. So I think that s a really important question that hopefully somebody can answer because this report is supposed to have a spreadsheet with dollar amounts. And it s not included at all. There s not even a link to go to refer to. I believe there s staff online that has their hand raised fill. Are you there? Yes, I m here. Um, and again, um, let me, let me share a little bit about this report and hopefully I can answer some of those questions. Um, so the Prop 28, the uh Jim report is actually a relatively simple report and all that they ask
for is the number of fte uh, um, that is currently being funded by Prop 28, and they are and the number of schools providing an arts program, and that s it. It s actually really a very simple template that they give us to fill out and um uh for this report. The um the the report then has to be, you know, approved by the, by the, by the board and um and uh and then transmitted to the state. Uh, the more comprehensive report comes in OCTOBER once the uh once the fiscal year has closed and we have actual numbers for the cycle one funding. Of, of uh Prop 28. We re currently in cycle 1, well, we
re currently in cycle 2, and we are spending the carryover from cycle one. And so once uh the books close, then we can actually compile the information that has all of the expenditures uh from uh from Prop 28. So, um, um, the, so, so when you, when you, uh, the, the report is asked for by the state and to be in compliance with the law is actually rather simple. Um, and so tonight, and so tonight the ask of the board is just to, you know, um, uh, approval to submit the report to the State Department of Education. Thank you. Superintendent Sadler, like i ve asked on every other report that s come forward today. I need numbers attached to this, so this
should be an easy work for staff to see this list of FTEs and turn it into a dollar amount. We ve we ve also heard over the last year that a million dollars was taken out of this money to help with water quality and other issues. There needs to be an accounting that uses dollars. So I understand that the state might not ask for it. But I need it as a school board director with fiduciary responsibility, and we need these numbers now, as we re in budget adoption, making decisions for next year. So even if it s a year to date, we should have some number for how much we ve spent under Prop 28 and what that spending has entailed, and it makes me very worried where every report that
s come forward tonight, there s been real problems with either having dollar amounts attached, going back to the lap or that the dollar amounts came so late that we didn t have a chance to preview it. So this is essential. And it shouldn t take extra work. This should be something that the financial team can readily make available. Comments, questions? Director Williams Thank you, Phil, for that presentation. Appreciate it. Uh, Superintendent Sadler, did you want to add anything as well? Thank you. Um, we have a motion, a 2nd, and we ve done board comments, um, members of
the public, I know MISS Sheila wanted to speak if we could. Raise her up Uh yes, Sheila Haines and Asada Olaba sign up for this item. I do see Sheila Haynes. I will allow them to speak. Thank you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, so the, um, report, um, I m hoping we ll get more of a detailed report to understand um the breakdown of school sites and when you say arts, like what is considered as services, how much is music? I m, I m concerned at the very low numbers of students receiving arts education and the low numbers of staffing and
support to the students, but I wanted to actually just honor uh Doc, MISS Deborah Barsati. I give a huge honor to her, um, because she um was really detrimental in helping my son, um, with music, um, she taught him how to play the violin, and he also played keyboard and another instrument, um, she really helped him even into covid times to adjust to being online and I was sad to know that she was one of the staff members that has just recently left the district. I m, I m concerned of, of, of more um services, not being available and really just wanna
understand um how you guys plan on hopefully implementing more, I mean, like I said, music and arts is very critical for our students. Prop 28 funding should allow for funding for all students. And I ve been asking for the districtwide arts and music for all students, along with an official ban on hate speech. I really wish I could get more of a breakdown of um what s happening and hopefully you guys can provide that soon. Um, but music and arts and language is also an art, you know, it s, it s, it has to be positive in order for our students to have the best chance of growing. So I, I, my
hope is that through restorative practices, you can implement music and arts, um, as a positive way to keep our students in a consistency of loving place and also really help our students with disabilities who rely on music, um. As an outlet and arts as an outlet to get better. And I, I hope that we can all tie in that uh music, arts and language as positive for our students because there s been too many decades of uh respect and the culture of respect has really been lost over decades through not only the music but the arts and the words, which are ways of expression. So I, I
m hoping that the board will consider my resolution and use it as a way to implement a culture shift and really just um let Oakland lead the way in a respectful culture of love and respect through all of the arts, including the language, because our city has been plagued for decades through hateful words, through music and violence, um, and fatalities are the end result. So, um, please help us. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we ll go ahead and take a vote on this item, MR. Rigstraw. So on the motion to adopt uh t. Dash. One. Uh direct student directors are absent, uh, Director Thompson.
Yes. Director Barry is absent, Director Hutchinson? No. Uh, Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director lot. Vice PRESIDENT Batchelor, and PRESIDENT Brohart motions adopted. That we will go to the PRESIDENT S report. There s nothing else. PRESIDENT S report. As we wrap up another school year, many of us have been busy celebrating graduations, promotions at end of year events across our district. This is always a time to reflect on both our accomplishments and our challenges while looking ahead to work that remains before us.
The 2526 school year brought more change than any year that I can remember in my nearly 40 years in ousd. Many people have said it before. Change is never easy, but I am proud of the work this board has done and the growing collaboration between district leadership and the board. For the first time in many years, I feel that we are truly moving in the same direction, united by a common goal to build a financially stable and sustainable district that can provide every ousd student with the education they deserve. Throughout this year, I attended numerous community engagement meetings, families consistently shared how much they value the staff at their schools. The people who greet
their students every day, build relationships with families and create welcoming school communities. Again and again we heard that a stable workforce is essential to student success. And this year we took important steps in making workforce stability reality through our bargaining agreements with afse, oea, and seiu. We continue negotiations with bctc and uaos, and we remain committed to reaching agreements that support both our employees and our students. We also maintained local control of our budget and continue the difficult but necessary work of restructuring our finances and improving our budgeting practices.
This work is ongoing and will require continued engagement with families, staff, students, and community partners as we move forward. On to more more business here. We have, uh, openings on several commissions and committees. The 7-Eleven Committee to look at several vacant sites will be taking applications online beginning tomorrow at noon. There is one opening for measure g, two openings for measure bj, and y. 3 openings for the audit and 7 openings for the 7-Eleven Committee. These committees and commissions offer the community a great opportunity to participate in the work of the district. I also encourage everyone to
join us at the board retreat on JUNE 15th from 9 o clock to 30 P.M. In the committee room. We will be discussing the board s vision, priorities and the work ahead as we continue building a stronger district together. As we head into the summer, I also want to highlight ousd s summer reading challenge in partnership with the Oakland Public Library. Details will be available on the usd website soon. The 1st 10 ousd staff members or board members who complete the challenge will have the opportunity to donate 10 books to a classroom of their choice.
I, um, Jamila Sanchez and I worked together with the Oakland Public Library to make this happen. I also like to challenge my fellow board directors to participate at our last teaching and learning committee meeting, Directors William Thompson and I challenged each other to complete the reading challenge, and I hope that others will join us. To help support the effort, I will be donating $100 towards the challenge. If other board directors would like to contribute as well, perhaps we can provide even more books for classroom libraries across the districts. Thank you to our students, families, educators, staff, community members for another year of partnership and commitment to Oakland students.
I wish everyone a safe and restful, enjoyable summer for those who are now finished with school. And that concludes the PRESIDENT S report. Are there any board, uh, members reports? Director Batchelor Thank you. Um, as you talked about graduation, I have to bring up Johnny, who is the salutatorian, um, from ccpa who not only graduated with a 4.5 gpa and again, the salutatorian, not the valedictorian, uh, but was also part of the recent cohort of Oakland town leaders Youth Apprenticeship program where he got to attend college level courses on early childhood education. And accomplished his internship
hours at one of our elementary schools that had no permanent teacher for the whole year. For that 3rd grade class, Johnny was the constant in their classroom. So I would like to thank Johnny for stepping up and wishing him the best at uc Merced in the fall. Thank you. Yes, thank you You know, I actually wish everyone would take the challenge of, of reading. We could start with just reading the agendas before the meetings when we come here. I would really lift the bar for the board. Um, and it s great that we re
finally going to have a school board retreat. You know, last year PRESIDENT Brohard, you canceled the retreat, so we ve been through this year without having a board work plan, and it s shown. Just like Superintendent Sadler has not had a superintendent s work planned this year, and it s shown So in today s meeting we had two recesses for no reason. Um, we had the budget documents illegally substituted with what was posted online during the meeting. And this is following the last meeting where the numbers for the 3rd interim report were only posted 24 hours before the meeting.
We got no budget numbers today. We didn t see a full budget. It s shocking that there were no unions here to ask, because this used to be the meeting where more people showed up than anyone. When people talk about the famoustings that used to go to 2 A.M. They re talking about the meetings in JUNE, like the famous one where the floodlights had to be brought out, because the lights in the building shut off. But now here we are for the budget and nobody s here. I should be a tell I don t know why Superintendent Sadler and PRESIDENT Brohart, you didn t put out a notice to the community to make sure they showed up to hear the agenda. Made sure everyone showed up so we have an opportunity to go deep into the numbers so we
understand what s being paid for next year. So there s ability to change it if we don t agree with it, but that didn t happen, and we don t even have the mon the numbers to tell us that. Instead, we have leadership telling us, even though we have a deficit, it s positive. I know there s no numbers there, but I promise you we ll get it done. Don t worry about the law that says you have to post information ahead of time, because who cares about community engagement. Let alone, how am I the only school board director to bring it up because none of you had enough time to go over the numbers to understand the budget.
Because they weren t listed on the agenda. So everyone else was ok with not getting those numbers ahead of time? Everyone else was ok. It doesn t matter. But let s just wax poetically and praise everyone for all the progress we ve made. It doesn t even make sense, and that nobody is concerned. About the changes in the numbers when we re talking about the billion dollars we receive a year. Nobody s concerned that we currently don t have a chief of staff. We don t have a cbo. We re relying on outside consultants who have an awful reputation. All you have to do
is Google them. It s bizarre world up here but there s a statutory deadline from JUNE 30th. and when this board fails to pass a balanced budget to with no deficit I expect the county superintendent to finally do her job, because I don t care who you are. If you re mismanaging the district s finances, you need to move out of the way because we as a community know how to do this. We ve proven it. And we re not the problem. It s the people who ve been in charge since we actually left receivership, all on this year, all on y all. Good job So I m going to go back to the reading challenge. Who
s in I know Director Thompson is All right, Superintendent, Director Hutchinson, you can actually count in the budget reading if you want to. So yeah, let s, let s, let s have a challenge. Who can show up at the next board meeting, having read through the whole consent report and all the attached items and be prepared to discuss them because I didn t see it yet. Nobody else realized that the sax forms were wrong on this document, which means y all didn t read it or you did and you didn t understand. Any other board comments or board reports before we do introduction of new legislative items. Doctor Williams.
Uh, again, I wanna thank uh this this superintendent who gets things done. We have a groundbreaking for McClimates to kind of move, uh, this renovation work. It s been, uh, let s see here. Oh, let me count the years, uh, that it hasn t gotten done and I just want to thank, uh again, Superintendent for moving that forward. JUNE 12th. Uh, we will actually move forth to uh do this particular groundbreaking you are invited. Check out my Facebook. I have all the information there. Any other boards, board comments? Wonderful. Any
introduction of new legislative items? Anyone going once, going twice. All right, adjournment. Of the meeting after the superintendent speaks. I just wanted to mention again, um, the last, a loss of a well-respected, um, staff person, Deborah King Cooper. Her services will be in JULY and so that information will be available. Uh, many of you who ve been around work very closely with her, and it s a tremendous loss. So I just wanna, um, um, recommend closing the meeting in her memory. Thank you so much, Superintendent, for uplifting that. Yes, and board colleagues, does that sound good? Um, we will close the meeting in her name. Thank you.
All right. With that, MADAM PRESIDENT, would you like to adjourn the meeting?