##VIDEO ID:https://ousd.granicus.com/player/clip/2652?view_id=4&redirect=true## Hey. Hey. Welcome to the January 26th board meeting. I'd like to call it to order at 4 o'clock PM. And mister Sajow, can we have a mister Raikes Prosper, can we have a roll call to establish form, please? Yes, ma'am. Student director Simmons, student director Vasquez, director Latta? Present. Director Williams, director Hutchinson, director Barry? Present. Director Thompson, Direct vice president, Bachelor? Here. President Brothard? Here. Quorum, present. Thank you. And mister Sajak, can we have a, I'm sorry, mister Hollis. Can we have a, translation check, please? Yes, madam president. For tonight's meeting, we have two languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available in Zoom that you can use by click clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will move on to, announcements for interpretation. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language which is being announced, which is Arabic. And I will ask miss Saleh if she could come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Of course. Thank you, miss Saleh. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will now start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all attendees hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need, interpretation for the language being announced, which is Spanish. And I will ask mister Copenhagen if he can come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mister Copenhagen. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Being no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the interpretation check. For the first interpretation check, we'll make more interpretation checks later on in the meeting, and I'll pass it back to madam president. Thank you. Tonight, we'll be recessing closed session. We will discuss the following items, d 1241926, conference with labor negotiators, d 22420, Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation D3, 250-059, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation D4, 25-0167, Conference with Legal Counsel Anticipated Litigation. We will discuss Public Employee Matters, D524-nineteen sixty seven, Public Employment and Public Performance Evaluation Matters, D6 23 dash 1725, public employee performance evaluation, and d 724 dash 1928, public employee performance evaluation. Pupil matters, d 823287, readmission, student d. D 9240292, readmission, student f. D 10 240412, readmission student t, d 1125 dash 0122, expulsion student m, threat to public services or facilities matters, D1223-1977, threat to public services at facilities. We will reconvene to public session at 5:30 p. M. Mr. Seichao, do we have any public comments on this item? Yes. We do. We currently have, 2 speakers. We have Asolo Lobala and Michelle Jeter. And how many minutes would you like to allocate? 2 minutes. 2 minutes. Noted. Good evening. I'm coming to you from AskMe, and I'm, asking, begging, and pleading that you guys speak with Gia and Janine so that they can close our contract. We are still at the table. This is 2 years we've been here. Mhmm. We have a Joe Bates is willing to work all type of hours. She's willing to get this done, but we can't get it done when we have Janine. I'm in a meeting or she doesn't respond or she, you know, she gives us something, but she she she responds to some of it and don't respond to other other things. We just want our contract done. We're the food service workers for the kids. We're the parents here. We're the custodians here that open up your buildings. All we're asking for is a fair contract, and this is doesn't make any sense that everyone has done but us. We started off with Gia. Gia couldn't get it all done together. Okay. She was thrown into a position. She couldn't get it done. But then we get Janine, and we're still not getting any further. And I've been here since November asking for some support from you guys to make people do their jobs or get someone in those positions to get it done. It's really not that hard. We're not asking for the world. We're just asking for a fair contract or someone to sit in to say, this is good. This is not gonna work. But we're willing to we're we're sitting at the table every Wednesday. The contract was for us to be at the table every Wednesday to get this done, and that was 2 years ago. And we're still sitting here, but does OUSD show up to the table? No. And when they come to the table, they're there for 1 hour. These are people who work from home. I go to work every day. I get up every day at 7, and they have a choice whether they answer their phone or answer their emails or not even do that. All we're asking is for you guys to make them come to the table and finish this. That's it. Please help us. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. It is my concern that the 3 students who are being considered for readmission may not have been given an opportunity to keep up with their academic studies. They may not have been given an opportunity to deal with the issue that brought them to the point of expulsion and to guarantee at least that the behavior that caused the expulsion will not be repeated. So when you sit in that room to to look at them coming back, what tools are gonna be provided for them? What services and resources provided for them? Because they are behind. There's no doubt about it. And so I don't know how long they've been out, but I do know that when you ended the community school, you ended the opportunity for what I just addressed to be addressed as well. I'm also concerned about the child or young person who is being expelled. Expelled into what? No opportunity to keep up with class work, no opportunity to deal with emotional traumas or mental issues or issues that cause them to be in the situation they're in presently, and no opportunity to help parents. Lastly, threat to public services or facilities. Last Friday, I was at, Skyline for a basketball game. The bathroom was Sewell was running into the bathroom. I asked the administrator what they were gonna do because it was also out in front of the school, toilet paper and human waste. The game continued. I was told by an administrator I could go home and come back, use my bathroom and come back. That game should have been canceled. There's no way raw sewer and girls were in there changing their clothes. It was all over the place. So I was told that the plumbing was gonna take place, but that's absurd. I didn't get to see the game. I saw the the junior varsity and the girls' game, but I didn't see the varsity game. So we need to make sure under certain circumstances when safety, health, safety is in place, we might have to cancel an activity. And that could be a lawsuit. Thank you. Are there any more speakers? No, chairperson. That com complete the public speakers. Okay. We will now recess to, closed session, and we will return at 5:30. K. Thank you for joining us for tonight's board meeting. I will oh, can I take a roll call to establish quorum, please? Yes. On the roll call to establish quorum, student director Simmons? K. Let's make sure we're on the mic, please. Director Vasquez? Present. Director Latta? Present. Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Hutchinson? Director Berry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. Vice President Bachelor? Here. President Prohart? Here. Quorum, present. Thank you. And, mister Hollis, can we have a translation check, please? Yes. Madam president, For tonight's meeting, we have 2 languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will move on to, interpretations or interpretation announcements. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand on Zoom if you need, the language that's being announced, which is Arabic. And I will ask miss Abdi if she could come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Okay. Arabic announcement is done. Thank you, miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish, I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Also, if you are in the public and you need a translation laptop, you can see the tech in the very back of the room if you are in need of a translation laptop. So with that, Spanish interpretation, I will ask mister Dela Torre if you can come off on mute and give the translation announcement for Spanish. Yes. Of course. Thank you. Spanish is done. Thank you. Thank you, mister De La Torre. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. We will make other announcements later on in the meeting for, interpretation. And that concludes this interpretation announcement, and I pass it back to, madam president. Thank you, mister Hollis. 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 up here on the dais and in the audience, model the respectful interactions that we would like to see our students have in their classrooms, on the play yard, and in athletic competitions. As we open tonight's meeting, I urge everyone present and planning to attend to review and abide by the board education protocols and meeting roles of engagement listed on page 89 pages 89 of tonight's agenda. We will address disruptions consistent with board policy and state law. Per board policy and government code, the board shall not permit any disturbance or willful interruption of board meetings. Persistent interrupt excuse me, persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the termination of an individual's privilege of addressing the board. Persistent disruption includes interrupting other members of the public when they are addressing the board at podium. When there is persistent disruptive behavior by an individual or group, 1, the individual group will be asked to discontinue the disruptive behavior. 2, they will be told that if the disruptive behavior persists, they will be asked to leave the meeting, and 3, if the individual refuses to leave upon request, they may be escorted from the room. But, again, our goal is to conduct our meetings without taking these measures. We appreciate you all for honoring community norms of respect and decorum. The decorum, safety and security of our meetings is the collective responsibility of all of us and I'm grateful for our shared commitment to ensuring that our meetings bring us closer to achieving our district's mission and vision. Meeting rules of engagement for board members, up to 3 minutes speaking limit for board members, no mingling with the audience, address comments to other board members, focus on agenda items, don't repeat what's been said, always be respectful, no interruptions, enforce the norm, and most importantly, model desired behavior. At tonight's meetings, there are several allotted times where you may make public comments, provided you pre register to speak online before the meeting started or if you filled out a comment card, which you can find on the table by the entrance. And you can submit those cards at any time. Closed session agenda items that were completed earlier. 1, on item D2, number 24, 2020, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation. The board did not take up this matter. On item D3, number 25059, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation, the Board approved the settlement in this matter, motion by President Brohard, seconded by Vice President Bachelor, and a vote of 5 to 0. On d 4, number 25, 0167, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, the board gave direction on this matter. The board did not take up the following items. Item d 1, number 24-nineteen 26, conference with labor negotiators. Item d 2, number 24-2020, Conference with Legal Counsel and Anticipated Litigation. Item D5, Number 24-nineteen 67, Public Employment, Superintendent of Schools. Item D6, number 23/17/25, public employee performance evaluation, superintendent of schools. Item d 7, number 24 dash 1928, public employee performance evaluation, general counsel. On pupil matters, on items d 8 through d 11, the board heard these matters and will vote on the matters in public's, I'm sorry, in public in section k on the agenda. Threat to public services or facilities on item d 12, number 23 dash 1977, threat to public services, the board discussed this matter. And with that, we're gonna move I'd say public comment. Right? No. Okay. Sorry. I marked the wrong thing there. Next, are there any modifications to the agenda? Go ahead and read the ones for you. Are there any others? K. First, we're going to alter the order if that's okay with the board. First, we'd like to honor, William f Bill Russell and the renaming of the, MAC gymnasium. Second, we'll have the student report. 3rd, the measure and report. And then 4th, the yes, the the agenda will continue as follows with the consent agendas and new business items. And then we are going to pull items, 30 l 1724 dash 3163 and item l 19, item l 31, 32 sorry, 2934. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? Oh, okay. Okay. We will now move on to public comments on all non agenda items within the subject matter, jurisdiction of the board. Are there any, public speakers, mister Sajah? Yes, President Bruyhard. We have a total of 8 speakers. We have 3 registered speakers online, Mark Gergo, Tonya Kappner, and Ryan Smith. And then follow that the next, 2 speakers are Saul Ola Bala and Francisco Alvarado. Those are the first five speakers. We can give 2 minutes each. Let me unmute Mark Ergood. If you are ready, go ahead and unmute yourself to speak. Yeah. This is Mark Ergood. I'm equal opportunity now by any means necessary civil rights caucus. I'm a virtual teacher at Sojourner Truth in high school, middle school, elementary school. I'm here, we have not gotten any projections at Sojourner Truth for enrollment for our elementary next year. We've got no numbers. We've gotten numbers for middle school and high school, but nothing for elementary. My concern is to ensure that there's not any attempt by the district to close down the elementary virtual program. It's providing a very important, service for for families, you know, who's who have various concerns for their their students including, COVID safety, including other health conditions, including bullying. And now with Donald Trump as president and launching an all out, national attack on undocumented immigrants and including at school sites, hospitals, but especially at school sites. I think it's very important for the District to offer and continue to offer the virtual program. And so I'm speaking I want assurances and we want our numbers for elementary assurances that it's going forward and our numbers for elementary programs so that we can publicize and build and, continue to, to strengthen the the virtual program in Oakland. So, that's it. That's what I that's why I'm speaking about. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next speaker, Tanya Capaley. Go ahead and unmute yourself to speak. Miss, if you could unmute yourself to speak. If you're speaking, we are unable to hear you. Present, should we move on to next speaker? Next speaker is Ryan Smith. Hi there. Good evening. My name is Ryan Smith, and I am the 1st grade teacher at our virtual Sojourner Truth School. I am deeply concerned about the lack of enrollment numbers provided for our elementary program. If the district is considering closing the elementary section, I request transparency, and that these numbers be provided to our principal, missus Cabrera. Without this information, families are left in uncertainty. The Sojourner Truth Elementary program is a vital resource. 1 of my students who was temporarily homeless and living in hotels around the city found stability through our program. Another example, of a student of mine, after losing a loved one was able to continue learning while spending time with family abroad. Families rely on us for a safe, flexible option, whether for health reasons, bullying, or a close alternative to homeschooling with the support of credentialed teachers. Closing this program would harm our students, force families out of the district because they would likely move our students to another public virtual k twelve program. And this would also violate California ed code and the OUSD's 2019 board policy. I urge the board to provide enrollment numbers and preserve this essential program for the families who depend on it. And I also would like to invite the board to come visit my my virtual classroom, to see the great work that we do. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next speaker we have is Asolo Laval, Francisco Alvarado, Lee Thomas, Michelle Jitter, and Ben Tapscott. I chose today to reiterate items that have been brought to you many times for which you have ignored these items. You have ignored the fact that Skyline High School has no evacuation plan in case of a wild wildfire. You have ignored that Ruggsville had violence going on in this campus. You were told about it. You did nothing. And 3 people were shot at that school. 1 died. You've ignored the plea of the principal at Piedmont Elementary School and myself that we needed to maintain Piedmont Child Development Center as a development center. You allowed the city of Oakland to have access for that property at no cost, and it's fall it's falling through, and you're doing nothing. You've ignored the fact that you have not played on the fact that you pay for transportation buses, almost like private buses, to bring some children to certain schools, and other children have to ride the public, transportation system. You have ignored that the vice principal of McKinney, known as prince principal McKinney, who was at McClimans, recognized issues at McClimans, and he had to sue you in order to get it done. And it's still things are still not done at McClimans. You have ignored the prepper the reparations for black students. Is falling apart, and you're doing nothing to put it back in place. You've ignored calls by me related to the Frick School where the black children are mandated to take language other than their English language. Dual language programs should not be mandatory, and I've asked you to deal with that. You've ignored it. You've ignored that the enrollment office purposely has told parents that my climate's was full, and it wasn't full on many occasions. You've ignored the student suicide. That's your 2 minutes. The student suicide. Thank you, miss. The student suicide at Lighthouse Charter School. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Francisco Alvarado. I'm with the Office of Behavioral Health here with Oakland Unified School District. And I'm here to speak, in favor of the CSMs to not be able to reduce those of 12 months to 11 months. From the Office of Behavioral Health, we deal with a lot of crisis on a day to day basis. That range from domestic violence, human trafficking, suicide prevention, extreme drug usage, lack of access to food, community violence, and the list goes on. And usually, the first persons ahead of this, crisis are the community school managers, CSMs. Now all these crisis do not stop during the summer. They continue. All the data shows that all what happens during the summer, it goes underreported because of lack of resources, because agencies are closing down. And by us following suit and reducing those 12 months to 11 months, now we're reducing resources to the families who are in desperate need of someone to talk to, to connect them to somebody to provide the help that they need. So here, advocacy for the community school managers, stay at the 12 months where those can't. And for the families who have access to these resources and not be able to be left and be fended for themselves. Community school managers are the are what makes all USD a community school based model. It is what drives people to come to the schools. It is what motivates students to keep going. Every time there's a new initiative, a new protocol, a new system, anything that comes up from the school board or from the district, the first person that we think of that's gonna deliver these initiatives at the schools are the community school measures, the CSMs. And at a time when we need them to be more prepared, we're reducing more of the hours. So we encourage you all to please leave those, 12 months from CSMs at 12 months and not to reduce them. It would be really difficult for us to do our managed crisis during the summer without the resources necessary for us to be there the schools and engage with the families. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, board. Just less than a year ago, I stood here in front of you guys as the then president of UAS to work out a bargaining agreement to make sure that UAS employees had good pay raises to do the job that they actually needed to do. Now right now, the board is saying we are gonna target a percentage of UAS members and say, the CSMs, we're gonna take that pay away. Let me ask you, what would you do for 60 days if you had no income? Let me ask you, how would you take care of your family for 60 days if you had no income? Let me ask you, how would you take care of your kids, put food on the table, take care of daycare, and put them in summer camps if you had no income for 60 days. The decision that you will make right now is that is going to impact community school managers. But let's put the pain aside right now. Let's talk a little bit about what you heard. I, as a community manager myself, work with families directly in summer because many things are shut down. Just alone, I've had 3 women in my office this year that had to file domestic violent charges because they were scared. The community school manager does that. The community school manager delivers food in the summer. The community school manager makes the contact with those people. If you have not fully engaged to find out what a community school manager does, I ask you to do that. This is not about just a little bit of money. This money that you wanna take away from 70 plus community school managers, it is budget dust. It is budget dust compared to what you will be doing all summer to take care of your people and take care of your employees. Let's not lose the morale of people who are dedicated to work here and serve the people of Oakland and serve the families of Oakland. And lastly, I ask you to abide by the contract you signed. You signed that contract and if you couldn't have signed and forwarded that contract, you shouldn't have did it because right now it looks like a bait and switch. UAS was only weeks away from going away, going on strike and it looks like you signed that contract to keep principles in place and now you're coming to take a little bit off the top. Find out what community school managers should do, reach out to community school managers, and keep open a community school based model. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Michelle coming from Ask Me. As I came up earlier talking about our contract, I hope you guys took a look at that and was able to have a conversation about it. We're still at the table. We still need assistance, open subject. I'm also coming because I need to understand how in food service, we have 3 associates, Roland Broach and Quichette, to do a one man job. I need to understand how that works. I need to understand how you guys are paying for that, how you are allowing Preston to do that, how the how the superintendent is allowing this to go on, and nobody's done anything. This is the second time I've come here about that situation. You guys have a $1,000,000 food service there. Was ran by 1 person, but now you have 3 people, somebody from custodian services who's doing 3 jobs to do one person job. And we wonder why we don't have no money or you say you don't have any money because we're just throwing away money. We have 3 associates. Associates, we brought here to do a job that one person can do. All I'm asking is you guys take a look at it. I come here and I say my due. But if you take a look at it, you will see what I'm saying is correct. I'm not just gonna throw things at you. What I'm saying is correct. As far as our contract, please, we would like that to be done immediately. We're willing to sit at the table if you're willing to come. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Coach Ben Chap Scott. Well, it's a great honor to be here and hopefully, get to see Bill's name go up on that gym. You can look at the date of this. This was back in 2018. If you look down at the bottom, number 31, we started this process of trying to get the gym named after Bill. The confusion that kept coming up that they wanted my name and I made it as clear as I could make it. There's only one name should go on that building, and that's William Felton Bill Russell. And I think, we didn't get it done while we had him. We lost him. I'm sure his family, his daughter Karen, and his 2 sons would be happy to see this take place. So, there are other things on there, you may wanna look at number 5, you may wanna look at number 32. We've been fighting for that school ever since 2016. And the things that are happening over there are disgraceful. The fact that you take boilers away, the fact that you go and don't give us warm water, those children deserve the same things that some of the other high schools have. And as a board, I'm not happy with you. We have 2 newcomers. It's not getting the things done that I feel needs to be done, and all of you are gonna be held accountable for things that are not completed. So maybe we can turn this thing around, and we can start to do the right thing for all of our schools and not just our charter schools. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any more speakers? Degan Cooper, speaker. Thank you. K. We will now move on to item. Here we go. Sorry. Item s 3, which is the naming of the Clements High School gymnasium. Director Williams, are you reading the resolution? Oh, I need a motion. Sorry. Anyone else? So moved. 2nd. Thank you, president, Breauhart. Really appreciate this opportunity. It is an honor for West Oakland and the climate's community to finally get, this naming of the gym, to get in the naming of William Felton Russell, Jim, Bill Wilson, Bill Russell, Jim. Finally, in the record books, his iconic, activism is something that is long held in West Oakland and the climates. He has influenced so many. Just quickly wanna say that, he grew up at a time when he, you know, was faced with many racial hostilities, and he refused to let them demoralize him. And he continued to exceed expectations and excellence and bringing the community together and lived his life as an example for all of us to emulate. So it's an honor to, read, the resolution. K. Great. Whereas, McClimus High School in Oakland, California stands as a beacon of education, excellence, community pride, and athletic achievement for generations and students. And whereas William f Felton, Bill Russell attended and graduated from a climax high school in 1952 where he began to develop a leadership qualities, competitive spirit, and social conscious that would characterize his remarkable life. And whereas, William f Bill Russell's time at McClimitz High School included exceptional achievement as a student athlete, evidenced by his contribution to the school's basketball program and his cultivation of a first team ethos that would guide him throughout his legendary legendary athletic career. And whereas William f Bill Russell, after attending University of San Francisco and leading this basketball team to consecutive NCAA championships, went on to an unparalleled professional career National Basketball Association, winning 11 championships with the Boston Celtics, becoming the league's first African American head coach, and setting the standard of excellence, teamwork, and resilience that that few have matched. Whereas beyond his athletic achievement, William f, Bill Russell champion civil rights and social justice, standing alongside doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Muhammad Ali, participating in the 1963 March on Washington and actively using this platform to challenge racial discrimination and injustice both within and outside of the sports arena. Whereas William f, Bill Russell, as we know him, moral courage, intellectual rigor, and deep commitment to equality continues to inspire generations of students, athletes, and community leaders, reflecting the values of the Oakland community and serving as a lasting example of the transformative power of education, perseverance, and moral leadership. And whereas William Felton, aka Bill Russell, commitment to justice, equality, and human dignity, along with his unmatched achievements in basketball and his pioneering role as a black head coach were nationally recognized when he received the presidential medal of honor in 2,011, the country's highest civilian honor awarded by president Barack Obama as a tribute to his extraordinary legacy and profound contribution to civil rights in American society. Whereas, per board policy 7310, the board shall consider planting commemorative trees, erecting monuments, or dedicating buildings, parts of buildings, athletic fields, gardens, and other district facilities, and memorial of deceased students, staff members, and community members, and benefactors of the district. Whereas naming the McClements High School Gym after William Felton Russell, Bill Russell as we know him, will celebrate not only his extraordinary achievements on the basketball courts, but as his step as his steadfast dedication to civil rights and community uplift. Thereby, reminding current and future students that the commitment to justice, integrity, and common good best compliments excellence in athletes and athletics. Now therefore, be it resolved that the governing body of the Oakland School Board, on the behalf of Maclimate's high school community, schools, alumni, students of future generations, hereby dedicates and officially names to Maclimate High School Gymnasium William f Bill Russell Gymnasium. And be it resolved that appropriate signage, plaques, and educational materials be installed to highlight William f Bill Russell enduring legacy, ensuring that all who enter the gym will learn not only of his athletic triumphs, but also of his profound impact as a civil rights activist, social justice advocate and proud son of Oakland. And be it resolved, those copies of this resolution be presented to Jenny Russell, widow of William f Bill Russell, to McClymonds High School, and the broader Oakland community as a permanent testament to the values, ideas, and accomplishments embodied by William f Bill Russell, both as a legendary athlete and as a compassionate principal champion of equality and human dignity. Thank you. All love. All love. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I also just wanna say as the facilities committee chair, this was something that we reviewed at our last meeting, and just so it's stated on the record, this was reckoned this came from our committee, and it was voted on 20. Director Berry was not present for that meeting. Also wanna just share with the Oakland community. This came out of our our deep partnership with Eat, Learn, Play and our work with Under Armour as well, to upgrade the gym at McClimans and revitalize that community space, because of the rich history that McClimans, has not only within the city of Oakland, but really within the civil rights movement. The process of renaming McClimans gym, will initiate will be initiated by, again, board policy as 7310, which is naming facilities. Part of that policy is we will be engaging with the community. There's already been preliminary engagements, with the community. And for folks that were surveyed, 90 3% were of them were in support of naming of renaming the gym, while 7% of them were neutral in that naming. The committee again will come together. There'll be alumni, staff, community members, faculty, as well as students that will be part of that. And, again, I think this is a great opportunity for us to really celebrate not only an athletic, an an amazing athlete, but also an amazing activist and an author. And from my understanding as well, we'll be we'll also be having some of his literature available at the campus library so folks can continue to share in his, in his great, accolades as we, as we move forward with the renaming of the gym. There has also been a small request by his family, to actually include his full name, in the renaming of the gym. So, the middle name will not be f. It'll be, Felton within the resolution. Can I get a second to that, amendment to the resolution? I gladly second it, and I ask, vice president, if you can add my name to this resolution. Thank you. It can be friendly if the makers if if, director Bachelor and director Thompson Is it a friendly amendment, director Thompson? Accept it as friendly? Yes. I do accept it as a friendly amendment. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And, we also have some community members, I believe, that are, on Zoom and in person. One such person that I'm seeing is, coach Ben Tapscott, and then I also believe I'm seeing, mister Brian McGee. So if you guys wanna come up to the front and if the other names are on Zoom, that would be wonderful. Apologies. Are there also speakers on this item? Yes, there is. There's other speakers also. Should we call the speakers now, or do you want to call later, president Burkhart? Let's let the first group that's here speak first Okay. And then we'll call public speakers. Noted. Hello, everyone. Good evening. My name is Rylanda McGee, proud McClimans alumni. Have a few words to say. So renaming the McClimans High School Gym after mister Bill Russell would be a powerful and meaningful way to honor not just his athletic achievements, but his profound human humanitarian work. Bill Russell was a trailblazer both on the basketball court and in the fight for civil rights. His advocacy for racial equality and social justice was groundbreaking, and he used his platform to speak out against injustices against black Americans. Mister Russell's impact reached far beyond sports, and his contributions to society alongside his legendary basketball career make him an enduring role model for generations to come. By renaming our gym, the school honors its legacy. It inspires students to follow his example of leadership, resilience, and dedication to social change. It also highlights the pride of McClimans High as a place that nurtured such an influential figure, further instilling a sense of pride and connection among the current student body. For these reasons, the school should the school board should vote yes to rename the gymnasium in mister Russell's honor. It's a fitting tribute that not only celebrates his athletic excellence but also reflects the core values of justice, equality, and community that he's championed throughout his life. It's a decision that will serve as an ongoing inspiration for the McClimans community and the wider Oakland community, reinforcing the greatness that extended for mister Russell beyond the court. I ask that you all vote yes. Mister Russell was a amazing man. I'm a proud alumni of my clients high, and he was one of my greatest influences as an alumni. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm on McClimus grad. I know how to do my time. Good evening, board. Good evening. My name is Brian McGee. I am a community school manager at McClimus High School. Let's keep the community school managers here. We need them. Them. Going on in terms of Bill Russell, I am a favor in favor of the renaming of Bill Russell Gymnasium. I am a graduate of McClimius High School, 1985, a graduate of UC Berkeley, a graduate of San Francisco State. So McClimus High School is producing a lot of great folks, but we are standing on the shoulders of Bill Russell. Bill Russell stands for unity. He spelled for justice. He stood for, student athletes being, intelligent, changing the narrative of young people in West Oakland. I am one of those young men that I had a chance to meet Bill Russell in 2008, then again in 2011. He is phenomenal. Here's he is our mayor of West Oakland. Bill represent so many great things. Great father, great teammate, and great leader. He represents so much that I can go on and on. He mentored Veda Pinson. He mentored Frank Robinson. He mentored Jim Hines. He re mentored so many great folks who came to the, hallways of school in McClements High School, which we consider naming the, school of champions. I am in so in favor of renaming this gym In favor of Bill Russell. He is a humanitarian. Oh, an award that's given to folks who've done the work, not in the local level, but the national level. Bill Russell is known throughout this world. He has been around some of the distinguished individuals. We can go on and on. But he stood for education. He stood for righteousness. He stood for sportsmanship. When he played for the Boston Celtics in the fifties sixties, he stood there and say, hey. If we can't eat in this restaurant as a black student athlete, as an athlete, I will not be a part of that. And so we stood for so much, and I'm hoping that you guys in favor of this, for Bill Russell we named it the Bill Russell Gymnasium. Thank you. Bill also has an endowment, I guess I can say it now since he's not here, where he has, interest coming off of a very, very large sum of money, and that money is used for seniors every year at the school, and very few people knew about that. He had a lot of challenges at USF. When he finally got awarded in the room, he called me up and he said, Tapp, I'm getting award over at USF and I want you there. I said, well, who's coming? He said, just you. He had a lot of challenges. He couldn't find a When he went to Boston, he said, if I had it to do over, I would not go to Boston. They wouldn't rent to him and his family. He stayed with Red Arbaut. These people saw him playing basketball, cheering for him. Every time he would try to find an apartment for his family, we just rented it. So he had to stay with Brad Auerbach for a long time. We got close when closer when we started our Christmas tournament. I said, I want you there every night for the tournament. He said, what time and where? So he'd come down, play golf with his buddies, and then he'd come out to Cal State where we had our Christmas tournament. And, the first time he spoke to the team, we were playing Berkeley High, and, he said, tap. And I got a beautiful shot of Marcus Foster, Al Ladles, and Bill Russell sitting in the sand, and I still look at that a lot now. He said, I wanna talk to the fellas. And he said, can I talk to the fella? I said, you can do any damn thing anything you wanna do, Bill. And he went in there and I stood on the sideline and they said, Bill Russell. Bill Russell. He said, fellas, see that trophy? After this game, there's gonna be a name on that trophy, and it better be McClimans. You think I had to work hard that night? No. I didn't. We were in Berkeley out the gym. To the president of the council, to our, board member, and to former board member Dave Kakashi, thank you for all your work in the past, for helping us. We strongly advise you guys to, rename the gym after, mister Russell. It's so much that you guys have yet to learn in terms of how we leverage sports for the advancement. I went to school on a scholarship out of OAL. Brian went to school on a scholarship out of the OAL out of the climates. The 1st black basketball coach in the whole NBA was Bill Russell. The 1st major league baseball coach in all of the major league went to my climate, Frank Robinson. I mean, a guy on the element chart in science, mister Harris, went to McClimus. The first black mayor went to McClimus, Lionel Wilson. Just so much comes out. So we leverage sports. Even our attendance right now, I would guarantee that a big chunk of that is leveraged through sports. Pops had just talked about the endowment and how the endowment that him and Frank Robinson then put up for McLeod's. Even though Frank Robinson went to Castlemont, still gives scholarships over and over and over and over again. Mister Russell, no matter where he went, whether he was at the White House, he was at all these different places, he always mentioned West Oakland and McClimans. If you ever had an opportunity to speak to him because he was a strong spirited person, he always mentioned McClimans in West Oakland. So thank you very much for your consideration. We hope that you unanimously approve, mister Russell, renaming. Thank you. Thank you. I understand miss Russell has joined us. Is that true? Say what? Miss Russell has joined the Zoom? Yes. She is here and should I call the rest of the names also? Yes. But after her after she's here. Yes. Okay. Ginny Russell, if you can unmute yourself to speak. Hello. Yes. Hi. I want to thank everybody. All the lovely words, you're muted, miss Russell. Okay. Is that better? Yes. For some reason, it jumped off, reconfigured. Anyway, I just wanna say, all the lovely words everybody has said about my husband is very touching. And I just I really believe in my heart that he would be so honored to have the gym named after him and, sorry, I think he would be very proud to have the gym named after him to inspire the young people coming behind him, not only in athletics but having his name just associated with the library. Education was so big to him and he really was 2 people in 1. So I think you would be very proud to see all of this come full circle and I just wanted to say thank you to everybody, all the speakers and the council. Thank you, miss Russell. Next speaker, please. Next speakers are Asolo Labala, Dorelli Davis, Coach and Coach Berry. When this matter was brought up in the facilities meeting, I asked the question related to the fiscal impact. Who's gonna pay for the signage? Who's gonna pay for the plaques and the displays? You made it clear that no money could come from any of the bonds related to facilities. So measure b j y fund 25, fund 35, fund 21 could not be used for signage, displays, or plaques. So what would be used, you say, you gonna get the money for this through philanthropic slash community support. So it was identified by mister Preston Thomas that philanthropic money is identified. What is the philanthropic money and identify? And why was it necessary to do philanthropic money when you have over $300,000,000 in measure y, over $32,000,000 in measure j, over $3,000,000 in measure b, not sure about these other. Why would you have to say, we're not gonna use any of this of the funds available in this district to have this completely done. Why was that a decision made like that? Why couldn't we fully support this and fund this? It's not an exorbitant amount of money. But who made the decision, and why was it made that this had to be done through a philanthropic funding process? So mister Thomas needs to identify who's funding this because he said in the meeting, they have the identification of the philanthropic funding. What is it? Who is it? I hope it's not Bill Russell's philanthropic funds that are being used for this. So I just think it's insulting that this couldn't be fully supported by the district through all the funds that you have available to do this. Thank you. Are there any other speakers on the side? No, president. All the name has been called. And we'll take board comments. I'll start with the student directors. I just wanna say I I knew a lot about Bill Russell. I I've been a big basketball fan for a long time, more so a history fan more than anything. I used to be a boxer, so I knew all the work that Bill Russell did with other boxers. I knew how tapped in he was with the community. So I think this is honestly very great and I didn't I didn't know that you were friends with him. I find that very cool. Honestly, I'm nerding out right now a little bit. I was gonna come talk to you after I after I leave so expect expect that. But I just think this is very cool. And yeah. Honestly. I totally agree with Max. But not only that, just seeing, the climate's finally getting recognized, just especially how students at my climates are not really being supported or just being really, like, fully funded, especially by, our governing board is really disappointing. But just seeing that just the little bits of in glimpses of hope or that's high school, it just makes me happy. So I'm really excited to vote for this and just to see this happen. And hopefully, we could see my climates continue and further thrive as well. Director Thompson? K. Director Latta? Director Williams? Director Berry? I just wanna say I'm excited. I think these are the kinds of things that are important and often go overlooked. We're memorializing not just a person, but their values, and this is the kind I'm excited about the oral history aspect of this, the stories that will get told over and over. I my daughter and I have already had a conversation about this. So, let's keep doing more of this and, you know, I'm I believe in giving people their flowers while they're still here, but this is also just as important. Thank you. And actually speaking to that history, we have our living legend here, coach Tapscott, who, at our facilities meeting also shared some beautiful photos and talked about, some of that history as well of, moments that he shared, with Bill Russell. And so I'm hoping that, part of this space, and I'm guessing I think it is part of the space, is we're gonna be creating, some, memorial to that. And so we're gonna be adding, and I'm I literally asked, coach, to make sure that we have some of those pictures to be able to add to that memorial because I think students being able to really see the arc of someone's career, like, the different folks that, shaped that person's career and shaped their understanding of the world, and also just, again, be able to see themselves in someone, that is so powerful. So I'm really excited about all of those different possibilities and, yeah, the continued conversations that we can have. And, again, the additional funds from Eat Learn Play and Under Armour that are gonna be used to commemorate this gym space, as well as the Measure Y funds that we are using to support that campus and really revitalizing that campus. So I'm excited that both of those things are coming together to make sure that we're making an even deeper investment into a campus that has such history here in Oakland, that has such heroes that are coming out of that school. And, to our point about, you know, the future students, I can't wait to see what other, future students of Mac, are able to do. Thank you, president Brohart. You know, I just read the resolution. I kinda was chill. But what came to my mind was that Bill Russell's spirit is alive and well in my climate's. I've every time I go, I see the staff, engagement with the young folks. I see a relationship there that teaches about self. I see a relationship a history there that continues to remind our young folks to be kings and queens. We I have seen so much effort, on our staff's behalf, and generations. We have staff that have been generations in West Oakland, and within the community. And and we had a few folks that actually came to the podium. I can't thank, the McGee's enough for every step in the classroom. They give love to every single student there. And brother Ron Mohammed, he has these community events of love, justice. We just gotta continue to give him that. There's so many great things that happening at McClements. We have to lift up the positive and bury the negative. We gotta stop being negative towards climates and lift up the great spirit that has been seeded and embedded in the community and at the school site. Our young folks are doing community service, and they walk with pride and love for their community. So I just wanna say to all community members, if you come around the climate, you better speak the positive, because we ain't trying to hear anything else, because that's where we are. Thank you, Bill Russell, for providing that and others for that. Thank you. Well, I grew up watching Bill Russell on television, and, I'm hearing coach's story, it's about him and actually meeting him as a as a kid. That was really a player that I looked up to. But I think being able to honor him in this way is significant both in terms of his legacy, but in terms of the future for our students. As you were talking, coach, I, you know, as a former history teacher, I, starting we really need to do like a making history project at McCliman's and really honor that both the legacy of many of McClimans graduates, and build on its future. But I really appreciate you bringing this forward. And Mr. McGee, I don't know if you remember, but when I visited McClimans, I saw you and I was really struck, like director Williams said, with the love that you showed those students. I mean, there were a number of students coming in late and none of it was, well, you don't have to show up on time. It was like, hey, I saw your mom at the store or how are you doing? And I thought, you know, that's the way all of our students should be should be greeted at the school. So I was I came back and I was really, really moved by what I saw. But again, I think honoring the legacy of of Bill Russell is due its time. So I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you moving this forward. Thank you. I just wanted to add, as a Oakland kid who's had an opportunity to also live in Boston, Bill Russell really exemplifies, what we aim to be true for all of our graduates, and that's to be college, career, and community ready, for success. And so, certainly overdue, and appreciate all of the, leadership, all of the foresight, all of the really thoughtful planning and organizing, Byron McCliman's alumni, who continue to show up for the school past, current, and future, for our philanthropic partners, Eat Learn Play, Under Armour, for our staff, board leadership, and also the many community members, who've contributed to this moment. So just wanted to say thank you, and specifically, coach Tapscott, the McGees, brother Mohammed, and all of the, MAC alumni for really supporting this effort. Thank you. Mister Raikstra, can we take the roll call on the vote, please? Yes. On the roll call. Okay. I'm sorry. I believe miss Russell has her hand up again. Yes. Okay. Go ahead and take this. Miss Russell, go ahead and unmute yourself to speak. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm very new to Zoom. I just, I really wanted to thank you again and Bill would be very proud. But I really want to thank I heard that somebody had caught my mistake of being William f Bill Russell, and I always make sure always that his full middle name is in there because he was very proud of that. And so whomever that was that caught that, I just really wanted to say thank you because I know that would really mean a lot to him. That would be a thank you to coach Tapscott. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you again. It's a great honor. Thank you, missus. On the roll call, to adopt resolution number 2425-0204 naming the Bahamas Gymnasium in honor of William Felton Bill Russell. Student director Simmons? Yes. Student director Vasquez? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Berry. Yes. Director Thompson. Yes. Vice President Bachelor. Yes. President Brothard? Yes. The motion is adopted. Unanimously of members present. So we're moving ahead to our future now. We have a student report for us. Yes. Good evening, students, families, community, board members, and super attendants. We'll be starting with our student board report. But before we get started, I would like to first have a moment of silence. We'd like to send love and support to everybody in Los Angeles. I would like to remind everybody that in times like these, it is important the importance of community should is truly highlighted. Many families in the Bay Area have loved ones down in Los Angeles. I would like to further expand our love to all the firefighters risking their lives to keep our community intact. With that, I would like us to all take a moment to bow our heads and sending all our love and support all the way to our fellow Californians. With that being said, our student report would cover student voice, highlighting Skyline bathrooms, student leadership, updates from the middle school meeting, and upcoming student events, which would be the high school meeting and middle school ethnic studies conference. Okay. So for years now, the skyline bathroom has been a reoccurring problem. Students have voiced their concerns endlessly to no avail. Recently, director Vasquez and I received an email from Melody Blackman, a dedicated student that was trying to make a difference in their school. I have spoke to some of our senior staff that it is being worked on, but I would like to take this moment to remind us as a board and as a district that our students are our number one priority. And we often forget that our students are our number one priority because we do a lot and it is it's easy to forget. We're humans. It happens. But we need to remember that there's no reason that our number one priority should be getting ignored by the people who are here that by the people who are here to help them. And this is a reminder to our OUS to our OUSD district that no matter the day, month, or year, our number priority as a district is not money. It is not the staff. It is our students, always and forever. Another project that a the ACC governing board is currently working on would be just having student voice in the hiring process for significant positions in OASD that is directly impacting student lives. ACC cons exist to continue to make sure and remind the board and also OUSD staff that student voices are not only heard, but are a priority in OUSD as a whole. We appreciate all our all the senior staff working with us to ensure our vision becomes a reality, but we'll but we'll make sure that moving forward, this also continues to happen. So moving forward, yesterday, we had our 3rd middle school meeting of the year where we introduced our 27th annual peer resource and ethnic studies conference. Each year, we invite all OUSD middle schools to join us for a day of learning from and with each other. It is an opportunity to meet other student leaders across the district and to be able to highlight leadership skills you carry and share that with your peers. This is one of our favorite events of the year because because you all, all of our middle school leaders get to I'm sorry. This come this comes for middle school. You guys aren't middle schoolers, but this come this is for all of our middle school student leaders to get to plan this conference with us. So I would like to tell you guys that this year's ACC and OUSD's 27th Annual Peer Resources Ethnic Studies Conference, the theme for our conference is fighting for equality means fighting for each other. Last year's theme was you can't spell justice without you and I. Just a reminder that all of our middle schoolers come up with these amazing slogans, titles, themes. They're all the same. So furthermore, the student vote the students voted on who will be the student emcees for this year's conference. And our 4 our 4 emcees will be announced at our next meeting on February February 18th at Inner Brewer. So I can't tell y'all who who are who are emcees are just yet because I have to tell them first. But when I tell them, I'll tell y'all next. I promise. Moving forward for our upcoming student events. We'll have our 3rd high school ACC meeting on January 30th from 11 AM to 3 at Oakland Tech. Here, our high school students will be learning more about equitable grading and giving, feedback on how they believe teachers should be grading their work or just giving their opinions as well as it is something it is a topic that is highly discussed throughout students on a day to day basis. We will be also doing we'll be also having a leadership workshop, just amplifying their leadership skills, and also discussing how they could take their leadership and further expand in not just in high school, but also in college, in their workspace, and more. And we'll also be discussing and more in-depth with our priorities, potentially come seeing how we could implement them more in our high school spaces and just also think about the future as well. All high school students are invited, and we'll the RSP link is on the flyer, and we have been in contact with a lot of all the high school's leadership teachers and principals and staff as well. So I can't wait to see everybody there. Here's a flyer to our 27th annual middle school peer resource and active study conference. Please save the day. We love to see every middle schooler there. And this concludes the end of our report. Thank you so much. And if you guys have any questions, you may contact doctor Simmons and I through our email and also our student engagement specialist as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're now 10 minutes for public comments. Are there any public speakers on this side? Yes, president Burghardt. We have Oso Ola Bala. Don't you have mister Tascott? Did you wanna speak, missus Sonny? I'm checking on something. Do you have, Tascott? Okay. I'm glad you mentioned, taking the time to be concerned about what's going on in Los Angeles. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned taking the time to be concerned about what's going on in Los Angeles with the fires. But why are we not taking the time to be concerned about skyline and the possibility that fire it's the high risk fire area. There's no such thing anymore as fire season. It's year round with these winds. So we do not have the ability to evacuate those students. We don't. And I tell y'all over and over again, the fire chief has said they will shelter in place. They will stand in the foot on the football field. That's it for them. Secondly, I'm glad you mentioned about the bathrooms at Skyline. I have an issue with the bathrooms at Skyline when I attend football games or track meets. And the issue is the safe is safety. For females, you once you leave the stands, you have to walk completely around to a area that has no one available. It's secluded area. It's and you I don't go there unless I have somebody to go with me. Once you get in the bathrooms and the gyms, it's horrible conditions. Okay? And let me tell you about the bathroom at, Oakland Tech on Friday. Sewer started backing up in the bathroom. Charlie paper, human waste. Also outside. I could not use the bathroom, so I had to leave, but it was recommended from the administrator to go home and use the bathroom and come back. And I think it's outrageous that some administrative decision said that we would have an athletic event to continue on with bat human sewer backup being a part. And there were girls in the bathroom changing their clothes, using the facility. Every time you flush the toilet, the sewer would back up. So, again, I'm telling you things, and y'all don't listen. Y'all don't listen either. Skyline has no fire evacuation plan. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? No. That's the only card that was received. K. Board comments? Go ahead. Yes. I just wanna thank both of you for a very, a very great report. And I'm so excited that you talked about student participation and grading. With that, I want you to keep in mind, if you will, and pass on to others looking at mastery grading because that allows for not only, just grading itself, but also allows, how people can develop communication skills and look at the end result or the conclusion. Many times, you we might ask students, and you guys have probably done this too, write an essay, and we want to see what that final, paragraph is all about. Well, this is a visual essay, I think, in Master Grading. And so if you could pass it on, I'd be more than happy. Thank you very much. Doctor. Berry? Thank you for another great presentation. A few things that I that came up for me that I'm really excited about the conference, the session that you all had yesterday, the high school session coming up, the conference in March, and I'm wondering if we can use those as opportunities to recruit students. You know, I know video production is expensive, but I'm wondering if we could do a little Instagram real capture capture some video or something like that at these events to really get our younger students excited about OUSD. And then I also want to thank you for the reminder, about the world around us and the LA fires. I do think it's an opportunity for us to show solidarity, but just as miss Assata pointed out, also an opportunity for us to think about what we might be able to do here to protect our students as well. So thank you for that. Thank you. As always, very thorough report. I just wanna address the issue around Skyline that you all mentioned. Not a day goes by that folks have not reached out to me about the bathroom situations at Skyline. Actually, Preston and I met with, the student that you mentioned, and she had a very thorough presentation that she shared with us. It was actually did an amazing amount of research that now we're using to kind of figure out what do bathroom situations look like in other schools and other school spaces. And so I'm happy to announce that part of our deferred maintenance plan for projects, over the summer includes bathroom renovations at Markham, Franklin, and Skyline. At Skyline, the the scope of the work is gonna be on both a male and female bathroom, that is gonna be located in building 20, and that was identified through conversations with, staff and students at the school site that identified that that was, like, the building that had the most kind of traffic of students and would make the most impact. Again, this is a drop in the bucket as to what Skyline needs, and so we're gonna continue to work on getting them more funding so that we can make sure that every single bathroom is taken care of as well as every other issue there. But but again, for this project, we are already reviewing, what the plans are, and the maintenance team is really thinking about, is really deeply planning kind of the phases of work and what it's gonna look like and how it could all be accomplished again for these 2 specific bathrooms over the summer. So we can make sure that our students come back into the school year with at least one set of bathrooms that is complete that they're able to use. Again, drop in the bucket to what they need, but this is, at least a piece of the work, that we can do with our deferred maintenance dollars this this year. Forget about how you're going back with your students. That's not important. Thank you so much. We're gonna stay with our protocols. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm happy to hear that. I also like to extend not just, like, focusing on, I believe, the 3 schools that you mentioned, but also all OASD schools. I believe that all schools should just have clean cleanliness in their bathrooms. It's a problem that should be fixed and not just focused on the certain schools that you mentioned. Just you know, I'm happy that this is happening. But just putting it out there that every school should be at least looked at, at least, getting fixed up, because I know especially looking at this list that we got passed out for my clients, I feel like they should also get some things fixed up as well. So thank you so much. Just to respond to what Director Bachelor said, my the reason I brought up the Skyline incident was because I was getting emails over and over that when Melody met with you guys, she wasn't it wasn't brought back up with her, and you guys didn't continue to keep working with her. You guys that and that's my biggest problem, that once someone comes to you guys as a with a problem, you guys take it over, and you guys don't continue to work with the students, which this could be a vital learning moment for students for advocacy and learning how to stand up for themselves. So as as board directors, I believe it's our job to not only advocate for our students, but work with our students. And that's why I said that's why I use the word ignore. Because although you did hold to your promise, you didn't keep her in the loop. And that's what the problem was. Yeah. Just adding on just continuing, like, communicating just to get, like, misunderstandings out the way. I know Melody would have loved to also be a part of that, decision as well and or also other students that also see this issue coming up. Same thing with family. I know they you know, football games, they'd wanna join and they see this issue as well. I'm sure they'd also wanna know the further updates that are happening. Just communication, constant communication. We'd love to see more students, you know, be involved in major decisions like these. Same thing with family members. So, like, my like, director Simonson sorry. Just communication is key. We'd love to see that just so we could build and continue to further this trust with you guys as well. Thank you for the feedback. I take that very seriously. Thank you so much. I'm gonna make my comments short. I'm gonna give a shout out to middle school because I love the theme of that middle school. I'm sorry I missed that meeting. But again, I think your push for student advocacy both not just in terms of suggesting ideas, but being a part of planning the solution, I think is important. And I do think the discussion about grades has been one that's long time coming, and I think again as as teachers who are engaged in that, I think it together, I think we could really collaborate and come up with a grading system that was not only just fair, but actually where students knew where they were where their strengths were. So I appreciate that as well. Thank you. Yeah. Equitable grading has been something that we really wanted to push for our high school students, especially considering college is something major. Applying to college, especially from myself, the process has been a little difficult just seeing, you know, implementing grades and stuff and understanding, oh, why did I get this grade in a certain class? I'm sure many other seniors feel the same way. And just also, like, helping our freshman students, like, see the the value of grading, seeing the value of just improving and taking in criticism as well is also very important. Just and just finding a stable foundation on just understanding, oh, this is the grade that I received, and also giving feedback to teachers on how to grade appropriately instead of grading based on biases as well. So I feel like this this workshop will be really beneficial so we could see where students are coming from and where we could find a good ground to to, like, and continue forward. Moving on now to, unfinished business, which we're gonna look at the, I think David Kokeshiva has a report on measure n and h commission. Good evening, board directors. Thank you very much for, having, this presentation. This is regarding, the measure n annual report for the 2022, 2023 fiscal year. So, it's late, obviously. It's almost 2 years old. We will be having a report coming out, in probably in the next month or so, for the 23, 24 fiscal year. So, we'll probably be back again to to share that. I just wanted to highlight just just a handful of points, for, for board directors and for the general public that's listening in. Just to remind folks, measure n, was a, voter enacted parcel tax, back in, 2014. It, provides all high school or it provides high schools revenue to pay for the implementation of career based college preparatory pathways to ensure all high school students graduate and are prepared to succeed in college, career, and in community life. During this 22, 23 fiscal year, Oakland Unified collected, about $11,780,000 in parcel tax revenue in measurant parcel tax revenue. Of this amount, little over $10,000,000 was allocated directly to 20 high 26 high schools, to support their collective implementation of 44 distinct link learning pathways. 88% of all Oakland Unified School District and 90% of all charter school, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students, were enrolled in a link learning pathway during that fiscal year. In, the well, one of the things that kinda, emerged in in, in that fiscal year in terms of the graduation rate, Oakland Unified's, Class of 2023 had a 4 year graduation rate of 74.1%, and 42.2% of those graduates completed the a through z course requirements for UC and CSU admission straight out of high school. Now as a preview for the 23/24 fiscal year, the class of 2024 in Oakland Unified, the graduation rate was 80.6%, representing a 6 point increase over 2023. And of these graduates, 48.7 completed the a through z course requirements, also representing an over a 6 point jump. I did want it because I was here for much of the McClimans High School presentation and discussion. I I wanted to highlight for folks, I I I don't think people fully recognize. McClimans High School for 2024 has a 84.1% graduation rate, which is higher than the district average and is very close to the county average. And it's it's, it's a remarkable, testament testimony to the work of the McClimans High School faculty and the administration over the last 10 years that they've really tackled with the implementation of the link learning approach to high school education, and young people there, and our school district is is seeing a lot of great results, from their hard work and dedication, and their commitment, to doing good stuff. So I'll just conclude right there, and if you have any questions, I'm I'm here to address, anything that you ask. Public comments first. Is there any other public comments? Yes. We have Asolo Lobala and Ben Tapscott. So, McCliman High School has one pathway, engineering. And I don't see the value of tell telling every child at at a high school, this is the pathway you're gonna have an experience with and how that works to be of a benefit. Then you have high schools that have 67 pathways. Then you have, a school like Metwest is you take a knee an inventory of the interest of the child, and you pursue that interest as linking up with some opportunity to learn about that interest. So we have all these different methods of how we explore career pathways. And from a climate, it's not working. What we do have for some students experiencing, this engineering, it's working, but it's a very small number of students. So I I just don't and then I'm not gonna uplift, and that's what y'all are willing to do all the time. Whatever you're doing, you're gonna make it seem like it's working. It is not working. So we're spending a lot of money for a limited amount of experiences. And so while you're doing these career pathways, and I say this in the meeting, yes, I think it was yesterday, day before yesterday, career pathways is a is a a small limited part of where we need to be. That's hard skills, soft skills, teamwork, communication, time management, strategic management. All of these things these kids don't have. And if you do have a career and you don't have some of these substance and soft skills, you're not gonna have a job alone. So, again, I'm not gonna uplift anything just to say it's working because that's your job to do is I don't have no interest in this except the truth. And like I say again, you're ignoring what's going on at Skyline, and I'll keep bringing it up. Children can die because they can't be evacuated from that school. Thank you, miss Posada. Mhmm. Clifford, I'm a little upset at you. You said nothing about Bill Russell. Nothing. And all the civil rights stuff that he fought for and everything else, and you had nothing to say? What's wrong with you, man? I'm looking here at APIs. Public schools are beating charter schools. The first 17 are all public schools, and you see a sprinkling, I'm talking elementary, sprinkling of charter schools. We have 19 or 18 low performing charter schools and public schools. Aguilera said there were 12 low performing elementary schools, and I'm saying there are 18. Teachers are telling me that we don't know how to teach reading coach, but we need to do something. Children should not be passed on from elementary school if they can't breathe at least 3rd grade level. 8,000 adult prisons in the United States. 55% of the inmates are black males that can't read. I was on the juvenile justice commission for about 25 years. Children that don't know how to read after doing 12 years in our system, 4 out of 10 can read above the 4th grade level. After being 12 years in our schools, those that come out of prison and get help, they don't go back in. Those that don't get help go back into prison. There's your pipeline. Thank you. 18 low performing elementary schools. Thank you, coach. Any other public speakers? No, president Burkhart. That include public speakers. Okay. And any board comments? Director Thompson? Thank you very much. Mister Kakashiba, thank you very kindly for your presentation, and it speaks exactly to what I think, measure n does, and it's supposed to help all students. And so I like the fact that you highlighted how, it helped every all students. And also, I like the disaggregation of data because you actually drill down in order to uplift subgroups. Right. Thank you very much. Yep. Thank you. Yolanda? Yeah. Thank you, mister Kakashiba, for all the work that you and the rest of the, commission have done to, realize the promise of the, measure n and now, measure h. I just wanna make a couple of comments. One is that I, just wanna up with 2 unique programs in district 1. The first is the young adult program at Santa Fe, which, I know the commission is, you know, has, given them full funding, and I think, you know, I speak on behalf of, you know, a lot of folks who are really happy about that, because I think that the work that they're doing there to help young people who had minimal access to Pathways in some of our, more comprehensive high schools, get a chance to, really realize the community success that without, you know, the support of that program and also the the measure, NNH funding, you I think for a lot of them speak speak to their families feeling like those those those students would have been at home, and now they're in the community and they're working. So, I also wanna just uplift the work at Oakland International High School, which is a newcomer only program in district 1 who, has a 100% participation in pathways, and very high a to g completion rates, especially for a a group, you know, speaking of subgroups that, at some of our comprehensive high schools have less access. You know, they're less likely than other peers to participate in Pathways, less likely to graduate, less likely to have a to g completion. And so I think also the that work is, really important and has, been applied across the district. The only, you know, thing that I would, love maybe in the next report is a little bit more detail on additional subgroups. So that would be our, you know, newcomers, our disabled youth, foster and homeless youth that are traditionally, you know, higher dropout rates, less likely to a to g have a to g completion, and less likely to participate in pathways. You know, we have a scope of, options at our at our schools, whether that's, you know, kind of, like, the international model, Fremont, where there's a newcomer pathway, for example, and the traditional pathway where people can move out of the newcomer pathway. So I just think, so that we can learn a little bit more about how we can bring that these benefits to some of our most vulnerable students. Alright. Okay. Mister Kokeshiva, thank you very much for the presentation. Really appreciate it. As you know, last year, I've been finally making my way over to Measure H Commission, and I look forward to coming more, listening and understanding. I think a lot of times, we on the board are making decisions, and we don't really know what that impact is. And so I do challenge or I ask the board to visit, to hear the, in-depth discussions, to hear the feedback, and really see a lot of the presentations that our schools are doing with the money. And so I just really wanna commend you and your, and the commissioners, and your committee. Really appreciate that. I like the presentation myself. One of the things that popped into my mind, I was over at Maclimitz, I was talking to a parent, and she has really been asking about how we can expand the pathway model at, Acclimates, which is kind of her survey of staff, parents, students is like a sports academy model, a sports pathway. And when I say that, I think our minds generally is just about sports. But we know that there are industries that are built around sports, such as certification of science of sports medicine, athletic training, personal trainers, physical therapists, dietitians, nutritionists, facilities managers, sports communication that our young folks can learn how to become reporters, write video you know, cut videos. So we really are she she brought this idea to me, and I told her I would seek out some information. So I will reach out to you so we could talk about what it looks like if it's a parent model that starts the process, or is it a school site model, student model? So we want to really look at what other avenues. As we know, McClimitz has historically done really well since we talked about Bill Russell all the way through that had a very good strong essence. And if we're able to tap what they love and show them that there are, you know, things on the periphery that they can use and be part and get skill sets and get certifications, that would be also a definite benefit. So really look forward to doing that work with you and your commission. Once again, thank you very much. Thank you. Doctor Berry? Yeah. Another thank you. I'm biased because I'm the new liaison to this commission, and this is where I focus a lot of my career and my career and my work here in Oakland, but I think there's a ton to celebrate. I've seen the work firsthand coming out of the Linked Learning office, you know, at Fremont. The energy in the classrooms, the real work that they're producing. Me and my daughter on Monday were at Melrose Community Garden where we saw the planter boxes that students built, the signs that they built in their classrooms. I think they were even at Prescott on Saturday. So the the work is real. Right? And we can touch and feel it, and I think it's awesome. And I love That there's interest from the community to expand the programs. And I do, especially in Marlboro, wanna take those conversations seriously and see how we can involve students in building out the future work coming out of the office. I have one question because we were just in the teaching and learning committee meeting yesterday, and a lot of the conversation was around our students experiencing severe housing insecurity, homelessness, our foster youth. And I'm wondering because it's not totally clear in the presentation how some of the programs and services are reaching those students, and to what extent you're seeing success or what's working or or if there are gaps that the board, in collaboration with staff can help address? I, so I I can't tell you with, you know, any kind of numeric detail. I think it it's different from school to school in terms of the the the level of engagement of, all students, particularly those young people that are more underrepresented or less engaged in, the pathway program of study. The, that is something that we when we looked at when the commission looked at, graduation rates, because there was a a few years where it was relatively flat, and given that, you know, everybody went through the pandemic, there was an issue of, much of the the data for these outcomes is is fairly well disaggregated, on a on a number of, factors, and what we found that special needs, young people, and it was Latinos in general, but the term Latinos is like saying Asian. It's not that meaningful. And so as staffs we asked staff to dig deeper and disaggregate that, and they start, we went through a study session on the disaggregated data. Newcomers, were the kind of subpopulation that were had the lowest outcomes and within the newcomer population, those from particular countries and with less or no formal education in their home countries, had had, the most challenging outcomes. So now the questions, now that we disaggregated that and we we know a little bit more, what are we doing about that at the district level and at the school site level? And that's one of the big challenges that I think that I'm hoping that the commission that we will, collectively say, we have 2 or 3 different priorities going forward in the next year or 2, and particularly going into our next 3 year cycle, funding cycle for, the pathways, but addressing the disparities of engagement and low, lower student outcomes, from these different population groups is something we do wanna focus on. As well as, the issue around, there are 3 major kinda pillars, if you will, about what constitutes link learning, work based learning, the whole kinda continuum of work based learning from just kinda career exploration on the web, and in, in in field trips to all the way to, paid internships where you actually got a job description, and you're being supervised, and you're being you get a performance evaluation. That whole area work, my personal opinion is, while there's a lot of things going on, it's probably the area that we need to develop much more rapidly, than the other 2, pillars of work that we, we have. So, that is something that the commission has been, trying to grapple with with staff. We just haven't put, enough, focus on that. And, yeah. So Thank you. Director Bachelor? Just checking. I do wanna really commend you on the work and the commission. I was not an early believer in measure n until I talked to Andy Nelson about it, But I think that the work has really, panned out. I think that it's really developed. But I'm just gonna I really wanna thank you for the work that you've done with the young adult program. Mhmm. I think that really represents to me, really looking at how many of our different some are different students. I know you mentioned some are our McKinney Vento students and our, foster youth. I I think many students will approach they will approach pathways in a very different way, And I think that, I just wanna say thank you for approaching the young adult program. I know there were some discussion about it early on and some questions about, you know, funding programs that were you know, that existed and things like that, but I I think that, you and Vanessa Suapointe, I think, really did visit the school often, I think engaged with with, David Cammarata, and I I, you know, I think that really expands the work of how we see pathways. So I appreciate that. I just wanna say thank you. Yeah. Thank you. There are no other comments? Thank you. Thank you for being patient. Great work. Thank you. Mister Hollis, can we do a translation check, please? Yes, madam president. As stated prior, we have two 2 languages available for live interpretation. They are Arabic and Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need the languages being announced, which at this time is Arabic. And and I will ask miss Saleh if she can come off on mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. I'll ask miss Apti if she could come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Sure. Thank you, miss Abdi. Seeing one hand raised on Zoom, we will begin the Arabic, or we'll turn on the channel for Arabic interpretation, after this announcement. So thank you for that. Alright. So I will lower all hands again. Please only raise your hand if you need the languages being announced, which at this time is Spanish. And I will ask mister Copenhagen if he can come off on mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish. Thank you. Thank you, mister Hollis. Thank you, mister Copenhagen. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised with Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Spanish interpretation at this time. We will start the Arabic interpretation, and that concludes this announcement. And there will be a further announcement later on this meeting, and I'll pass it back to madam president. Okay. Going back to our agenda, the next item is, item k, which is adoption of the people discipline consent report. Is there a motion? So moved. Seconded. Thank you. And we will now take public comment on the adoption of people discipline content consent report. Yes. Speakers. Yes. We have Asala Abala and Ben Tapscott. Okay. 2 minutes each, please. That skyline will die if you keep ignoring it. And I'm a say it every time I come up here. You have no right to ignore that those children have no evacuation plan. McClimans has an evacuation plan. They made arrangements to move those kids to a park several blocks away in case of any type of emergency. Missus Saenz, I'm gonna ask you to speak on the the consent report. I will, darling. Okay. Thank you. So those kids who are being readmitted to the district, I spoke to this during a closed session, how prepared are they to reenter into their schools? What tools and services and resources have been provided for them to step into the classroom and immediately be able to pick up where every child in the classroom is, they will be also ready to be involved. I don't think they're gonna be ready. And you have done this process over and over again, and have you collected any data that speaks to how these young people are returning and how their behaviors have been changed to so that they don't reenter the possibility of being suspended or expelled again. I I have no faith that we're doing this in an appropriate manner that serves these young people. And you won't speak to it. You won't address it. You won't explain it. You just go about the business of saying, okay. We're gonna vote, and we don't know as public what you're doing. And at some point, you need to explain what are you doing to help these young people. Oh, by the way, there's a possible strong possibility that the majority of them are African Americans. Thank you, and thank you for speaking to the item. Next speaker, please. The black population, school population is 28, 29 percent of the school district, if I'm close. How, how, how are we, 25%, 24% making up 57% of the students that are disciplined? The office of equity, I call it the office of inequity. And if we don't study it, how do we know how to solve it? Are the largest percentage fights, so we need to talk about conflict resolution, other ways of settling disagreements? 27% black, last time I heard, made up 59% of their suspensions. I wonder how much of that is connected to not being able to read and not being able to get out of a room and be embarrassed with girls if they're asked to read. We need the research if we know it's fights. We need to sit down and talk to our students about are there other ways that you can solve differences without fighting. And girls, when I was at Mac, fought more than the boys. I think maybe because of the sports. And coach knew the kids knew if we got in trouble and they were on a team, and I'm sure the girls too. So we need to research. I keep asking for some of this research to be done. We go on business as usual. We don't solve any problems. The board doesn't come back and respond to some of the questions that put you work for us. I think you forget that. You work for us. You work for the students. So when we ask for some stuff like 16 schools, low performing and reading. Thank you, coach. Are there any other speakers? No, President Breauxite. Dan Coupa. Speakers. Unless there are any other board comments, are we ready to take a vote? Can we have a roll call and vote, please? On the roll call to adopt the pupil discipline consent report, student directors are recused. Director Thompson. Abstain. Director Perry. Yes. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Lauter? Yes. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. President Brolhard? Yes. The people's consent report is adopted. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the, adoption of the consent report. L minus l 17, 19, 29, 32, and 30 31, 32, and 34. Oh, and 35. Is there a motion to adopt the consent report? I motion to adopt the consent report with the minuses that were listed by the president. 2nd. Unless there's any board discussion, can we take a roll call vote on that, please? There's public comments. Oh, public comments. Sorry. For public comments, we have Asolo De Bala, Ben Tapscott, and Jeffrey Sims. Excuse me, 2 minutes each, please. Okay. Y'all y'all gotta start looking at these agendas. Look at l 4. L 4 is portable relocations that started in 12 15 of 2022. Tonight, you're asking for an extension of the date. The date of completion was supposed to be December 31st 2024. Now you wanna extend it to June 30, 2025. This is relocation of portables. Then it says that there's no, price inch increase or in change. But then you identify the source of funding as fund 31, 35, the county school facilities fund. So that's a conflict. You're saying there's no money involved, and then you identify that where the funds are coming from. But when you go into the contract, this contract you've used you've increased since the original contract. You've increased this on 2023 February, 11 of 2023. You increase it again. And 5 1320, 2024, you increase it again. A total of $100,000 increase. That's one item. One item. You're continuing to approve contracts for which they have already started. Then you have, McCliman's contract for measure y and j, where you're increasing, an amount additional amount of $34,430 for fire and intrusion along. And what is that about? We're getting ready to do some work. Why do we need this? We need to get that soil contamination issue dealt with. Lastly, look at all the items that go for English learners, refugees, immigrants. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 items. And for African Americans, you got one item with the king's maker, 6,505,000. A doll. You gotta have some equity. Do whatever you wanna do, but make sure black kids get the services that you're giving to other kids in this district. It's not happening. Thank you. Next speaker, please. We were at the, facility meeting this week. They had 10 items down there. We don't have the money for those projects. Why we why why are we listening? I've asked over and over again This came from Tim White. You see the date on it and there's about, what, 32 things on here including the boilers that you let them move. So where are the top five projects for Oakland and how much money it's gonna use instead of all these 10 things on there, and we don't have the money for it. We we had it at one point. If you don't have this, I'll give you one. Over $1,000,000,000. Mac was number 1 on the list. Tim died. Mac came off the list. What what's our top 5? I know the lead in the water in 40 schools has to be near the top. You have deferred maintenance budget over here for routine stuff, and then you got all of this. There are 10 things on that item that Valerie showed us. And do we have the money for those? Why don't we take 5 of them off and do the top 5 if we're ranking them or which one needs to be prioritized? And Mac is the only school that this board has delayed for 2 years. Not no other project in Oakland except Mac. And they're saying now 25 come starting date. Do we have the money? You gave Mac $91,000,000. You gave Cass Fremont 100 and $137,000,000. The the 91,000,000 is not even a parking lot, you guys. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Jeffrey Sims rep representing the new McClimans Committee. Just to break the monotony, in 1965, I was going from the 3rd grade to the 4th grade during that summer. Culture Ben Tapscott and Sam Skinner brought Muhammad Ali to McClimans High School. And I wanna publicly thank coach Ben Tapscott because that was a very instrumental moment in my life to meet Muhammad Ali, and he did that. So, coach, thank you. Thank you for making an instrumental moment in my life. That's FYI. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? That include public speakers. So unless there are any board comments, we'll vote on the consent calendar minus those items. Can we take a roll call on the vote, please? The roll call to adopt the pupil pardon me, the general consent report, minus the items named by President Brochart. Student director Vasquez? I'm sorry. I didn't hear your response. Oh, abstain. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Student director Simmons is absent. Okay. Director Berry. Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Thompson? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. President Brohard? Yes. The general consent report is adopted minus the item's name. I'm recusing myself on, item l 17 via service agreement with Ignite Reading. It sounds terrible. I, had lunch with the person who actually ended up doing this contract, so I don't feel that's right to vote on this, so I'm recusing myself. Thank you. Do we have any public comments on this agenda? Do we have any public comments on this agenda item? I do not have any sign of speakers. Board colleagues, any comments on this specific agenda item? L 1724 dash 3163. Yes. I do. Thank you, vice president. Bachelor, thank you. What what I would like to do is make a motion to move this contract to next board meeting. I would like to have further investigation, in regards to, why we are spending, a $100,000 for a reading program to support 61 students for 15 minutes of tutoring. That to me is appalling, and there has to be a better, use of resources. I think what it actually shows again is why we're in $95,000,000 deficit. There have been times and times again that we've been slipping in on consent items. These, variable contracts to, outside contractors to do minimal service. So if we're spending a $100,000 for 15 minutes of reading for 60 students, it makes no sense. What we can do is spend a $100,000 on our in house paraeducators. We can spend a $100,000 on the literacy tutors that make up SEIU and ask me that is doing the work. But our district refuses to actually invest in the in the workers who are doing the literacy work, and we go outside again and give the money away. So I would like for us to postpone this to next board meeting a time certain so we can have some better questions of why our district continues these practices of giving away 100 of 1,000 of dollars to outside vendors when actually we're doing the job. We have I Ready program. We have literacy tutors, and now we're spending additional $100,000. I just think that we need better answers than just this contract. I would ask, mister Rakshaw, can I post, time certain date? I don't know what that date is. Yes. You may state it in the motion. I would like to postpone this particular vote on a contract until next board meeting so we can get clarification on what this actually entails. I think our board members deserve Madam madam president, acting president. I didn't hear a second. So I'll second that because I also do have some concerns about the continuing contracting out that we're doing, especially around literacy Okay. Seeing as how our literacy scores haven't risen because of that. And then I would, bring to the board's attention that director Williams said next meeting. Or do you mean next regular meeting, of the board? Because our next meeting is a special meeting. Correct. Next regular meeting. So that would be February 12th, which is our next regular meeting. And we also have, director Sandra Aguilera online as well, that could maybe answer some of these questions. So miss Aguilera, would you like to, If you motion to postpone it, then we should move to postpone. Okay. Wonderful. You've heard some of the questions that we have, and so we've motioned to postpone it. And so we're gonna go ahead and take a vote on that, and we would like those, those responses for the next board meeting. So, mister Raikstra, can you go ahead and take roll call for the postponement of l 1724 dash 3163 Service contract for ignite reading. Yes. Go to directors who are absent. Director Lauder? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Berry? Yes. Okay. Director Thompson? No. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. And president Boehhardt is recused. The the matter is postponed to to the next regular meeting on February 12. Thank you. Director Brohard, wherever you are, you can return to the podium. As we wait for, director Brohard to return, the next item will be l 19, and I think we also have a recusal for that item as well, so that individual would like to speak. Yes. I'm recruising myself from this, vote. I have a very, close friend who's on the board of Soccer Without Borders. So under, advice from general counsel, I'll be recusing myself for this vote. We need a motion and a second on this aft and direct a lot of I'd like to motion to approve this contract. I second. Do we have any public comment on this? No no, public comment received. Unless there's any board comment or comments, can we take a roll call vote on this, please? Go ahead. I would just like to say I really appreciate this program because it really, supports students in understanding not only how to be team players and how to play the understanding not only how to be team players and how to play the sport of soccer, but also to reach across different, divides and different borders, whether it be language, whether it be, you know, again, just all the different things. And so, really excited to be you know, again, just all the different things. And so, really excited about these programs and really excited about some of these campuses that are receiving, the support. So I'm excited to continue our, work with, Soccer Without Borders. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Alright. Can we take a vote, please? Yes. Director Williams on the roll call to approve this, item l 19. Yes, sir. Director Berry? Yes. Director Latta, is recused. Director Thompson? Yes. Director Hutchinson is absent. Vice president, Bachelor? Yes. And President Brolhard? Yes. Motion is adopted. And the next item is L29, I believe. Service agreement 202425 with Reading Partners, Lockwood Steam Academy. And is there any discussion on this item? Oh, I need a motion. I'm sorry. Is there a motion to adopt this, Lockwood Steam Academy contract? Yes. I move the adoption of this particular contract L29 service agreement 2024-twenty 25 reading program Lockwood Steam Academy. And is there a second? I second. K. Thank you. And are there any board comments on this? Oh, I'm sorry. They're public comments. No problem. No public comment received. Okay. Thank you. Is did you submit a speaker card, miss Susana? Okay. If you wish to speak on the item of l 29. Okay. Thank you. Director Williams. Yes. Thank you very much, miss Brohart president Brohart. Once again, my concerns is that this contract term started in August 15, 2024, and it ends in, May 15, 2025. We're halfway through the contract, close to 60% done, and it's just now being brought to the board. I think, again, if we're really considering what how our particular, practices are, our best practices, I think we really need to evaluate what we've been doing. It's been a consistent pattern with our school district to bring us contracts halfway already settled. I think some of the things that I was concerned with, again, is that, is using community schools' money to actually fund this. And what we know about the pillars of community schools is that it's not the principal that's making the decision, but it's actually the advisory group of the parents, students, as well as out outside community that all come together. And I'm just really, concerned that our particular practices in our community schools at our various sites are not, not well maintained. And so it it tells me again that either our teachers who are in the classroom, haven't been trained well enough, and we should be spending money on actually training our teachers to be great reading teachers. Or 2, we have just chosen to spend the money in additional computer time for students. And we know that those outcomes do not produce, academic achievement. So I really feel like, this is a cause for concern, and I ask you as well as the board to continue to look at when these contracts are being presented. Maybe we can write a resolution, to really hold district staff accountable for, presenting the contract to us in a timely manner that's not 6 months down the line. Thank you very much. Director Williams, I I agree. I mean, I think there's there is I understand there's there's board policy on this, but I also think this is something to bring up in teaching and learning as the chair of the committee that I think looking at our academic contracts and looking at our community schools grant. And I know this is something we've talked about, again, as we go through the process of assessing what's working in our district and where things aren't working. So, this might be something to think about to put on the agenda for, teaching and learning. Yeah. Thank you. Any public comment? No public comment received, but if we have any. I think I see that. Did you have something you wanna say, director? Madam president, we have no public, speakers on this item, and none appear, to be, present in the audience. Can we take a roll call vote on this? Yes. On l 29.dash29. Student directors are absent. Director Williams. Yes. Director Latta. Yes. Director Berry. Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brochart? Yes. Motion is adopted. The next motion that we're taking up is l 3125 dash 0023. Services agreement to 202425, EL Education Academics and Instruction department. Do we have a motion to adopt this? Point of point of, clarification. Because 32 is also we we also 32 is also pulled. Can I make a motion to consider those 2 as 1? I'm sorry. What what is I second. So there's a been a motion to combine 30 l 31 and l 32, motion, made by, director Latta and seconded by director Berry. They're both to, service agreements to EL Education for training. So can we can we take a vote on that? Who moved? Barry and who else? Lotta. Lotta made the motion and Barry seconded. Alright. We have to offer public comment. We have public comment on l 31 and l 32. Do we have the Public comment, excuse me, on combining the, 2 items. Well, I madam president, I'm gonna assume that the intent here is to take them up to approve them and not the vote to combine. Is that correct? No. My intent was to combine them into 1, instead of voting on them separately, to consider them together. I I think we're saying the same thing. Yeah. But we're we're we're choice it's a choice it's a choice of words. When you said combine them, it wasn't clear on what we were combining, combine them to vote or combine to approve. So it's combined to approve. Is that correct? Okay. Alright. Public comment. Is there any public comment on this item? No public comment here. Alright. On the motion to approve items, 31 l 31 and l 32, concurrently, student directors are absent. Director Lauter? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson, is absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice president, Bachelor? No. President Brolhard? No. 1, 2, 3, 4. The motion's adopted. Motion the matters are approved. The votes were Derek A Lotter, Williams, Barry, and Thompson. Yes. That makes it 4. Right. K. The next item is l 3425 dash 0026. Services agreement 202425 with the Oakland Public Education Fund, for United Language Academy of Language. Is there a motion to adopt this? A motion, similar to my last motion, which is to postpone to next regular board meeting. I think that there's further investigation. Madam president, I didn't hear a second. In a second? Not debatable until or explainable until there is a second not on the floor. Can you reiterate your motion, director Williams? I would like to make a motion to postpone this contract to next regular board meeting for further investigation. 2nd. And is there public comment on this item? Your speaker first. I I've signed up under l. I I I appreciate what you guys are doing right now, but I don't have the opportunity to specify what numbers. I only put l as directed. Okay? So how do we eliminate this in the future if you're gonna pull items and you didn't ask him for public comment? And I know that I'll have an opportunity to speak to specific items under consent agenda is my question. Madam president, at the particular moment, the agenda is available to the public. And since the board members have pulled items, to, act be acted upon separately, the public has an opportunity to look at the agenda and then come up and speak to the item if they wish to do so. We filled out we fill out the agenda before y'all come back, Bailey. Ma mad madam president fill out the the speaker cards before we come back. You come back. One second. Let me get clarification on this. Madam president madam president, I'm offering an opportunity for the public to who didn't fill out a speaker card, specifically as she is indicating that they didn't. If the item has now been pulled and you wish to speak to it, the president will issue an invitation for you to come up and speak on the item, which gives you the opportunity to exercise your right. Understand. Okay. Okay. Did, can we reset the clock in 2 minutes? Let me do one minute because you Thanks. I'm really proud of you guys, for doing this. In other words, don't rubber stamp everything. Look at things that are concerned to you that that you wanna deal with separately and do that. The only problem is this contract or these contracts started in September and getting ready to end. So what do we accomplish at this point where we we you really don't have anything you can do except cancel a contract. And I don't I I just don't understand the process being legitimate. I appreciate that you're taking under consideration things that need to be taken under consideration. But we have to approve contracts before they become, active contracts. I think that's by law which is supposed to be doing. I don't know how y'all do it this way. And lastly, with Frick, I'm concerned about Frick. I've seen a number of issues that have come up where issues, conflicting issues are going on at that school. So, I hope we can get to the bottom of them and help them be, a better functioning school. Thank you. Are there any more speakers? Are there any more speakers in the audience? There are no speakers, I presume, mister Slice. None? Are there any board That is correct. Other than, miss O'Baugh. That is correct. Alright. Student directors, are absent. I think there are board comments. Just a second, please. Okay. My only comment is that I I'm gonna move based on my desire to support my colleagues getting questions answered, but also do want to invite community to give us feedback about the impact of us delaying a decision if that ends up happening on the work that they're already doing, especially given some of the public comments that were made. So I wanna understand. I wanna give us an opportunity to understand Are there any other board comments? Thank you, president Buraghard, and I appreciate that, director Berry. I think my rationale for, again, postponing the second contract is that we are having, major decisions coming up. And for us to get our budget right, we have to get our practices right. We have to get how we're going to engage, our contracts and understand what those outcomes are going to be ahead of time. I think that it is, most respectful, as, as one of the community members said, is that have an upfront understanding of how we are doing this work and how it connects to lifting up these academic achievement and academic skills, is most important. And if we're just here to be a rubber stamp and just sign off on contracts that's given to us, then I think that's very problematic. And so although it feels difficult at times, and that there are processes to email a question in. Can you answer this question, why this contract? Why you wait until now when you actually started in August? I think our public don't get a chance to understand what's going on in our communities because what they see is our students are not reading that grade level, and we are spending so much money trying to lift up the literacy scores, and we as board members don't have anything to say. We have nothing to show in that regard. So I think if we start to, raise our standards, raise our expectations of how we are, visioning what the impact is, what our assessment looks like, or a framework to actually use and give to the board as how many students, what steps is it gonna take, where we're gonna do a midterm assessment, what is the after assessment, what what progress has this contract actually impacted our students. We don't know any of that. All we're doing is approving contracts. And so I think that there hopefully will become opportunities where district staff will engage us ahead of time to say this is what our goals are. This is how we're gonna assess our goals to be successful. And this is what we're gonna do to go forward. So I I'm just, again, looking forward to having conversations with the staff in regards to what our game plan is, especially in restorative justice. We have a student director that is leading a lot of the work here, And, we have, multiple schools and sites that are doing the work. How does this align with that is what I'd like to know. Thank you very much. Are there any other board comments? So we're now voting on the motion to postpone. And did you give a date, a certain date certain? Okay. So we're voting to postpone this until the next, board meeting, which is February 12th. We will roll poll on the vote. Yes. The student directors are absent. And on the motion to postpone until the next regular bid board meeting, Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchins is absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? No. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. And President Pearl Harbor? No. Okay. Motion to postpone is adopted. Madam president, just in general, I'm not taking any sides here. The current board policy as to how contracts are handled is board policy, which is in the business section 3312. I would recommend that, all board members review that policy and then come to some decision as to whether or not you want to modify it. Thank you. I appreciate that. The next item on the agenda is l 35, which is amendment number 1 sir I'm sorry. L 3525 dash 0027. Amendment number 1, services agreement 202425, Bay Area Community Resources, Elmhurst United Middle School. Is there a motion to adopt this item? Yes. I motion, that we adopt amendment number 1, service agreement 2020242025, Bay Area Community Resources, Elmhurst United Middle School. And is there a second? Second. It's been motioned, to adopt by director Thompson and seconded by director Williams. Is there any public comment on this item? Thank you. Is there any board comment? K. We are ready to take a vote. On the roll call to adopt l, dash dash dash 35, student directors are absent. Director Hutchinson is absent. On the remaining board members, director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Thompson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Vice president, Bachelor? Abstain. Okay. And, president Brohard? Yes. Motion's adopted. K. Thank you. Moving on to item m, which is the adoption of general consent report, general obligation bonds, measure b, j, and y. There has been nothing pulled on this item. So as we have a motion to, adopt the consent items under measure m under, item m. Sorry. Yes, president. I move that the adoption of our general consent, report including measures I mean, the consent bonds b j and y. Thank you. Is there a second? 2nd. K. Thank you. It's been moved by director Thompson and seconded by director Latta. Are there any public comments on this item? Yes. We have Fasalo Abala Okay. And Ben Tapscott. K. Two minutes, please. Okay. Let me try to do this in one minute for you. Item, m 3 and m 6 reference West Oakland Middle School, And it had already been predetermined that West Oakland Middle School was going through a process of window replacement. Now we're saying that we got an m three additional inspectional services due to increased scope of work. I mean, how many y'all got you found extra windows that needed to be attended to? I thought you were replacing all the windows. Then m 6 and that's 43 over $43,000. But, m 6 is $598,000 to provide additional architectural and engineering design services. What are you designing for $598,000? Designing windows because I think that's the only scope of work going on over there. But, I'm just confused about West Oak. And that and last meeting, you had something to say about additional money for West Oakland, related to the windows. So these must be some wonderful windows, my my time's up, that y'all putting over there. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? Yes. Peter Chapscott, if he's still here? No. He just left. Okay. And that's it? Yes. That includes public speakers. Okay. Thank you. Are there any board comments? And with that, we will take a roll call vote, mister Rakestar. Yes. So on the roll call to adopt the general consent report measures B, J, and Y. Student directors are absent. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director, Thompson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. And President Brohardt? Yes. Motion's adopted. Thank you. K. We'll now move to item s 1, which is new business, and this is the district financial audit. And I am not sure how to pronounce the first name on this, but the I'm sure the speaker will do that for me. So if you come forward. Thank you. Okay. This is a voting item, madam president. Can I have a motion to adopt the audit report? I move that we adopt the district financial audit report. Is there a second? I second. Okay. So it was, moved by Director Thompson and seconded by Director Berry. Go ahead, please. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about accounting for for a little bit. My name is Nathan Edelman with Ide Bailey, and I am the independent external auditor. So some a bunch of audits. Let me just try and give you the 10,000 foot executive overview of the scope and the results of the audit. The slides these slides are really just about the parcel taxes, but a lot of it is, a lot of it overlaps. The district's financial audit and really what I'm, what we have in the packet is the district's financial audit fiscal year ending June 30, 2024. There's also separate audits for each of the parcel taxes, G, G1, Measure N. And really, I'd say, we've I've met separately and gone over this in quite a bit of detail with the audit committee. But really the scope of the audit, I stand here as the auditor and our job is to report The results of the audit. There's a page in the report there's some pages in the report, and they have some text that talks about whether or not the financial statements are and actually, let me just so I'll go back here. Whether or not the financial statements are fairly stated. And kind of the analogy that I like to use, the legs, the audit is kind of like the you go to the doctor and the doctor gives you a blood test, They they tell you whether or not you're healthy. They may tell you some steps that you need to to work on. We call those audit findings. But at the end of the day, the district is responsible for those financial statements, for setting up an internal controls, and the auditor really just reports back the the results of the audit. So on the topic of timing for a a moment, one thing that's significant here, the date of the audit is December the date that we issued the report is December 14, 2020 4. The reason why that is meaningful is because for those who look back a few years, I've been doing this for a little while now, but not that long ago, this audit wouldn't have been produced for some times even a couple years after that. And this audit was completed on time, consistent with all of the other school districts, which I actually think is a really good thing for Oakland Unified and something that, you know, just a few years ago, honestly, was was not possible. In fact, we meaningfully finished field work by, I think it was Halloween, which is probably as early as it has ever been. So that is a good thing. Without going into all of this, you know, first and foremost, the scope and the purpose of the audit, it's really to make sure that the financial statements are complete and accurate, that they accurately represent the financial position of the district as of, you know, in this case, June 30, 2024. There's a number of compliance things in there, including specifically those those parcel taxes, you know, measure g, g one, measure n. Scope of that audit, it's make sure that the district is using the funds consistent with what is allowable. Yeah, and then results of the audit, the slides are a little bit incomplete because it's just for the parcel taxes, but there's a few conclusions, a few takeaways. One, the opinion on the financial statements and what we call an unmodified or clean opinion, that is really what you want the auditor to be telling you. That I use that health analogy, which is a little bit inaccurate. A clean opinion on the financial statements means that the information is good, it's complete and accurate. Technically, theoretically, the district could be any entity, could be 5 minutes from insolvency. As long as the financial statements are accurate, as long as they are reliable, they have good information, the auditor will have a clean opinion on the financial statements. There were no no internal control deficiencies, which is also really good because just a few years ago, I would have been standing here with lots of internal control deficiencies. And that really means that the district was able to put together the information on its own, which is what the which is really what is expected. And it means that the numbers were were reliable when we when we started the audit. So all in all, a very good thing. On the on the compliance side, with all of the parcel taxes, there were no findings. There are a few findings with regards to state compliance. And the the good thing there is that those findings are consistent with other school districts. Because again, a few years ago, the types of findings that Oakland had were unusual, just more severe than lots of the your your peer school districts. And and you don't want any findings obviously, but there's been a big improvement, just a reduction in the severity of the findings. So, yeah. So really with that, that's an extremely and and and express overview of the the scope of the audit. So I can go into a lot more detail, but I'll turn over to the directors. And if there's any questions or if there's anything that you would like me to talk about in more detail, I'm happy to do that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna take the audit committee report, and then we'll do public comments. No. Nope? Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Are there any other are there any comments, public comments from And are there any board comments? Yes. We have public speakers currently. Yes. We have Asolo Bala and Ben Tapscott. Okay. Alright. Oh, she said okay? No. No. Are there any board comments on this? Oh, okay. Sorry. I'm sorry, miss Grant Dawson. Did you have anything you wanted to add to the audit report? Thanks. And are there any other board I need to be taller. I'm sorry. I can't can't see over that television set. Yeah. First of all, I wanna say thank you for the report. And I'm trying to put all of this in perspective. And so what, you say things specifically like make sure that the report is complete and accurate. And then when you talk about the fact that there were no inconsistencies in the internal control, It makes me feel very good because we're moving, I think, in a positive direction. So if we can right this ship and have everything go that way, it would be absolutely wonderful. So I just wanna thank you for your report, and I just wanted to mention those two things that stood out to me. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Director Lottam and director Berry? Yes. Thank you so much for your work. I yeah. I think I'll also echo other people's applause of, I think their parent in the district remember the many, many audit findings and was around for midyear budget cuts, so I think thank you for the work of the financial team, for improving our findings. I think the one thing that I will just note in the and I think it's actually from the, audit committee report, which are we gonna review the so I'll I'll reserve the my comments for that, but thank you. Doctor Barrett? My comment is actually about the report. I'll wait. Right. Thank you for your report, and, next, I guess we'll hear from the audit committee. There's no vote. I'll move on the speaker. On the roll call to, approve the or accept the, district's audit as stated in the, agenda for the year ending June 30, 2024. The, student directors are absent. Director Latta. Yes. Director Berry. Yes. Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Thompson. Yes. Director Hutchinson is absent. Juror vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brohart. Yes. The reports are approved. We'll have a report from Elizabeth Ross on the audit committee. It's actually gonna be, my name is Caroline Lee, the vice chair. K. So unfortunately, miss Ross is not able to be here tonight because she's rotated off the committee. Oh. Yeah. Her term was up, as of our last meeting. So if you have these friends that wanna be on the audit committee, we do need bodies. So you guys do you guys all have this letter or do you wanna do you want us to put it up? Do you wanna put the letter up? We're working on it. It'll be up in a minute. Okay. You want me to go ahead? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So, yeah, as mister Edelman pointed out, we definitely see that the finances are, the audit, you know, year after year, the the audit is improving. So the auditors are able to get the information. They're able to get it timely. A lot of the things that the finance team has been working on, you know, over the last couple of years is really showing, in the audit, you know, that it's it's working, what they're doing, the controls that they're putting into place. So we had the audit findings drop from 7 to 6 from last year, which is good news. Also, the severity of the, audit findings has lessened, so that's also really great. And, yeah, we pointed out that one of the things that was, was a problem, which was the, you know, teachers having their appropriate certificates. So the audit found that some teachers are teaching without the appropriate certificates that they're supposed to have. So that, created a pretty big penalty for OUSD of around $800,000. So we did point that one out, specifically in the letter as a piece of concern because in 2021, we had a similar finding and that was a $300,300,000 fine as well. So yeah. I just wanted the board to be aware of that. We also stress like we did last year. We know or I hear that budget cuts are coming and the finance team is pretty small as it is. So we would just urge that we at least keep the finance team intact because obviously with these huge fines, if we don't have a finance team that's on top of these things and doing doing their own internal audits throughout the year, it's gonna cost way more at the end than, you know, one person, one salary. So, yeah, those are kind of the main points in the letter, especially and then also at the end that we noticed that the their reserve funds at the end of the year was 13%, which usually, you know, you guys like to keep it around 3%, 4%. So we just thought that that number was high and it's been consistently high since 2021. So we just wanted to bring that to the board's attention. It's more of a budgeting and finance issue, than an audit committee concern, but we just wanted to point that out because we noticed it. Thank you for your report. Are there any, is there any let me take public comments on this. Any board comments? Questions? Miss Grand Austin, is there anything you wanted to add to this? I I did have one question about the reserves, and I, I think that is an interesting she pointed out that the reserve funds were at 13%. We can address that. Yes. Good evening, governing board president Brohard, vice president, her absence, and our board of trustees. So as it relates to, the reserve, but, I mean, we're looking at the total reserve, which also includes the amount that we need, the 3% reserve, again, which is about 26,000,000 based on our spending. That reserve, as you know, for 20 4, 25 budget, we have used that reserve to adopt our budget, and that remains, as such. So what that means is is that, again, as we've already talked about with the as was already noted, the budget reductions, we're using our reserves this year in excess, and again, which is why we're recommending the 95,000,000 because it includes us being able to maintain the reserve. So hope that answers your question. Okay. And are there any other questions? I know, director Latta and director Berry, you both had questions on the audit report. Yeah. I mean, my my only question was specifically around the reserves being, you know, kind of being, you know, kind of, I think, over projecting. And I know I've I've shared with you, miss Grant Doss, in my and if I think a general concern that I have around the balance of being conservative, versus money not going to schools, I think, as we move through the budget process, we'll get more detail. But So this this again, when we're auditing our our our actuals, that's not budget. It's actuals. It means that's money that's not spent. There's a very big difference between when we're budgeting budgeting conservatively and when we budget and don't spend, then that's what falls to the bottom line and or moves to the to the next year. So, you know, as it relates to money getting to schools, we do have that, you know, follow-up as far as how much money goes to schools. But then we also have a very significant conversation, which is why I was in the budget balancing solutions about what we don't spend, back to carryover in other areas and those challenges that that live there. So the money being there and us being able to, manifest the plans has been a challenge. But as it relates to the unaudited actuals, it's what this was what the the final, amounts, revenues, and expenses were. So we definitely can see that conversation about money to schools and the use of it they're in. Director Berry, did you have a question? I didn't have a question, but I did wanna make a comment and flag something that, I think Caroline brought up, which was, you know, it's not considered a material weakness, but the $800,000 penalty, which I think is material in within the context we're currently in, and just wanted to flag that this is like another reason why we do have to pay attention to attracting and retaining teachers. And that is challenging in a context where people don't have sort of like the stability they may need in the district. So there's a little bit of urgency on my part to do the hard work we have to do to stabilize the finances so that year to year teachers don't have to look over their shoulders, and we can therefore attract more teachers to the district. So that particular finding and and definitely as we move forward back to some of the internal controls is also about placement. So again, when we are recruiting, which we have done for teachers in many other positions, And they are cleared for a specific, position and role and scope. And then once they get to their school community, maybe placed in another placement where they're not credentialed. That's where the finding comes in because we are doing and we have to do that legwork in the beginning. It's when there's a change, to where the placement of that particular professional is that we're running into that. So just to put context around how we get there, the issue that we need to work on back to is our capacity of reviewing our master schedules and reviewing the same placement of those professionals that we have recruited for a specific purchase based on their credential and then where we've placed them. So that's the synergy, that we need to build. And again, back to primarily this would lie with our talent team, that capacity that we have to try to regenerate with, our staffing the way that it is and the way it is becoming. So that is where the root of that finding comes from, is that piece and us being able to do, as was mentioned, those internal reviews and audits and having the right, staff to be able to do that ongoing. Very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. Can I just ask you an I I'm just wondering, and this may be more a question for TeraGard, Is when teachers are hired and then they're placed in something where they're not credentialed, does that also include teachers who are on emergency credentials or waivers or working towards their credential? So if if in the same breath, she might be online. I'm not sure, Janeen, if you see or, the team, if you take Tara on, right now. So so with that, that that would include that. Again, what position they're applying for and then placed in, and if that's changed, you know, at the site for whatever the reasons, the sections that they're trying to fill, you know, our internal control has to be you have to walk back through the talent door to make sure before that placement happens that that individual is eligible to be placed in that position. If not, then again, our talent partners will be able to help with that placement or, you know, work with the teams on what to do as an alternative. So with that, that is, you know, what we have to kinda work on with that robustness. There are several findings that we have now with the remaining 6 that, could be very easily addressed. And so the although as mister Edelman said, you know, some of them, especially, like, with the immunizations because of some of the the changes in in the in the law, you know, after school program being an, ongoing finding, but getting a repeat finding, but getting better. Right? And we that's what our goal is, is to try to clear them. By the time you hear the audit report, we're halfway through the year. Right? So that's where us being able to do more review and having that capacity throughout the year helps us to see it before we get to, the spring when we're reviewing, this data. And also teaching, which we've done, our departments how to review their compliance. And so I think we've done a tremendous job in being able to, teach and learn, how to do those things, but we do have to build that internal capacity to make sure that we can do it consistently. You're welcome. Are there any other comments? Thank you. I wanna thank Caroline Lee I'm sorry. Elizabeth Ross. Welcome, Caroline Lee, for your service as the chairperson of the audit committee, and welcome, Caroline Lee, as the new chair of the, audit committee. Thank you. Okay. In another learning experience here, I am going to go back. President Breauxhall, should we check for public speakers? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. We have Assalo Lobala and Bem Tapscott. Something just came out in the news today, and it's a story that says that you got a letter from the Alameda County Office of Education saying that you could be out of cash by November and unable to meet your financial obligations. It also states that the district may have a total loss of control of the district if it needs bankrupt bankruptcy loan. So I think you guys need to look at your financial audit, but you need to look at this because when people start reading this, a lot of trust is gonna be eliminated in terms of your capacity because it also says that you've done nothing to resolve the issue. So take some time to look at that because you got to work on, I don't think the Alameda County is really, serving our best interest. But anyway, this is serious because, you can't do it alone. You need community and support and backing and buy in for your capacity to deal with these issues, and this doesn't help. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? No. President DeGarcob, public speakers. So again, in a mistake on my part, I skipped over, item p, which is comments by, collective bargaining units. I believe we have at least 1 online. And you asked me. Sorry, Carrie. President, did you want to take that online first or in person? Yeah. We'll take that online first. Thank you. We have Trish Billinson. Hi. Good evening, Board. Trish Billinson. I'm a library technician, also serve as the SAU chapter president. I wanted to give congratulations to the reelected and welcome the newly elected board members, director Latta and director Berry. I'm hopeful that this board will be able to move policy that reflects the needs of students, staff, and the community and hear the concerns that get brought forth from all stakeholders. SEIU is excited to collaborate with new board directors and to continue to build strong working relationships with existing board directors with the aim to understand the support our classified professionals provide to our schools and the challenges that we do sometimes face. 2 ongoing concerns that SEIU often raises are 1, ensuring employees are always working within their classification. We often hear from members who are being asked or told to take on job duties outside of their classification. We have to do better as a district and understand job descriptions and the scope of work expected. And 2, contracting work out to outside contractors for jobs we already have in house. We see this in the student assignment center where independent photographers are being contracted out instead of SEIU in house producers fulfilling that work. We see it in the various service agreements being drafted up and ran through the Ed Fund, to contract restorative justice practices rather than utilize our restorative justice facilitators and the RJ coordinator. This was pulled in item L34, the service agreement, for a restorative student ambassador at Frick United. And just to be clear, it's just a renaming, a rebranding of whom we already have in house, the RJ facilitator. And the services, quote, are to initiate restorative justice practices. So I wanna be really clear. This is contracting out in house work. I really appreciate director Berry, giving question, as to, you know, wanting to understand the impact for pulling consent report items and kind of delaying the process in that sense. And in this instance, there is no impact because Frick United actually already has an RJ facilitator at that particular school. So there is no need for another RJ facilitator. We do have early literacy reading tutors who already provide literacy tutoring to our students. So why are multiple service agreements being drafted and enacted upon prior to board vote for literacy tutoring in both of the items that were discussed earlier, l 17 with ignite reading for 15 minutes of online tutoring for 61 students and item l 29 with reading partners at Lockwood for 40 students. Really wanna give a a special shout out to director Williams for lifting these items up and pulling them and discussing them and not rubber stamping them and having, you know, postponing to the next board meeting to have a deeper discussion, to gain more analysis, to make more informed decisions. That is so appreciated. That is necessary. And I hope I am actually in process of looking over the board policy regarding contracting as well as all the amendments made and hope that further amendments can be made on that, contracting board policy to protect, you know, when service agreements are brought before the board and that dates are in alignment, you know, to the best that they can possibly be. So thank you for that. Also, retention issues remain when workers are being tasked with the work of 2 to 3 workers. We'll continue to see this as long as we keep hiring outside and not utilizing those who are in house. Lastly, on behalf of all of SEIU classified professionals, we reaffirm our commitment to student safety and we care deeply about our immigrant and LGBTQ students, their families, and our members and other workers and we promise to stand together against any threat to their sanctuary. Thank you. Thank you. Corey? Sorry. Carrie. You. Thank you. Good evening, board. My name is Carrie Kaufman. I am, president of, United Administrators of Oakland Schools. Our union represents principals, assistant principals, community school managers, and central office managers, coordinators, directors, and supervisors, among others. First off, I wanted to congratulate the board president on your new role, the vice president of your new role, the new board directors, director Berry, director Latta, and the returning members who who also, won their elections as well. Prior to talking about concerns for the union, I do want to appreciate actions that the district and board, took this evening to ensure that UAWS members have equitable access to, pay when they're being directed to work outside of their week and, day. Oftentimes, we are directed to work at nights and weekends, and, there has been a long history of not being paid to do that, and I appreciate the district and the board's action today on resolving that. I now wanna focus on on some of the concerns. Over the next month, you as the board will be tasked with making very challenging decisions that will impact students for years to come. You have heard from a couple of my members about some of the proposed cuts, and the negative impacts that, students. So I wanted to reiterate the importance of community school managers, especially during the summer months, and I wanna request reconsideration of, moving them from 12 months to 11 months. Our CSMs are crucial to keeping our schools running and ensuring we're a full service community school district. We are not a full service community school district only for part of the year. Many might wonder what our CSMs do over the summer, especially when schools are closed. And, I know you heard a little of it from a couple of members earlier. At times, CSMs are one of the only staff members at the sites working. They are while principals, assistant principals, and teachers are out for the summer, many of our CSMs are the main point of contact for our families. CSMs support mental health crises, food insecurity, housing insecurity, enrollment, and many other things. And these deep need needs do not stop in July. In fact, a lot of them increase in July. CSMs also work to prepare schools for a for a smooth school year start, and that work also happens in July. When you're tasked with balancing the district's budget, I implore you to reconsider the cuts to the summer work because it is extremely valuable to our students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Alright. Back to the agenda. The next item on the agenda is the, make sure, the 2025 Oakland Unified School District California legislative platform. Is that Patty and Leilani? Okay. Mister Satchout, can we, update or, promote, Patty Herrera as a panelist, please? And thank you. Yes. I promoted her, but she declined, but I will promote her again. Give me one second. Okay. I think she might have missed the invitation, time bounded. Erica, she's rejoining as a panelist. And we have, Leilani Aguinado, here in the audience with us, and she's gonna be running this live for us. Great. Thank you. Thank you, missus Seichow. So good evening, board, and community. We, are looking forward to having our colleagues from School Services of California, present this evening. There's 3 outcomes for tonight. The first one is to do a retrospective, review of last year's key outcomes and progress, aligned to the legislative cycle adopted, in 2024. The second outcome, is to provide a board to provide the board with a primer on the typical budget and legislative timeline, so that there's a clear and calibrated, understanding of the process. And then finally, the third outcome, is to provide the board with some strategies and tools for evaluating policy and advocacy efforts, and really thinking through that both through a 360 degree perspective and also just a strategic perspective. I'll say before I hand it over to Leilani that, all of this information, is really teeing up, the development of the board platform, legislative platform for 2025. And so there'll be a slide that sort of articulates that process. But I've begun, in 1 on ones with board directors, beginning to hear, your priorities and thoughts and interests. And the same will happen with staff, over the next couple of weeks before we bring, a draft platform for 1st read in February, and then for a board vote, at the end of February. So with that, I will hand it over to you, Leilani. Thanks for being here with us. Great. Thanks, doctor Moran. Happy to be here, with you all today, this evening. What do you need help with, kiddo? Was that me? No. Okay. So doctor Patty Herrera is also, joining us remotely. I apologize. We our school services, our firm, did our one of our big budget workshops down in Southern California. So I flew up so I could be here in person, and doctor Herrera is joining us remotely. So she's still, joining us, from the hotel room. But she will also be available to answer any questions that you all may have. So as doctor Moore stated, one of the goals for today is to just kind of review 2024 for Oakland Unified School District, and some of the key outcomes that came out, as a result of board action from last year. So, the board last year adopted the legislative platform. And as an outcome of that, there were some successes that came out, And as an outcome of that, there were some successes that came out specific to the state budget, and that directly benefited the district. We started a year ago when the state was contemplating the state budget for 24, 25. There were significant concerns about an operating deficit for the state budget and specifically also for k 12 schools around California. Despite that, the enacted budget, that came to fruition for, the July 1, 2024 start of the fiscal year did maintain funding, for education programs, particularly programs that are very key for Oakland Unified, such as transportation, expanded learning, career technical education, and community schools. In addition to applying the statutory COLA for the local control funding formula, the equity multiplier, special education, and universal school meals, just as an example of some of the programs that are included in the budget and are integral to Oakland Unified. In addition to that, there were a number of bills that the board last year had taken action to, support. And these bills are listed on the next few slides. These are bills that were signed into law by governor Newsom. And, again, these were all bills that the board take a took action last year to support. The first of these is AB 2711, which revised, school suspension and expulsion policies, specific to alcohol, tobacco, and drug related infractions, to shift to a focus on assisting students who may have substance abuse problems. Another key bill for the district last year was SB 9 76, which had to do, with shielding minors from the harmful effects of social media. AB 2268 was a bill that exempted TK students from being assessed the developmentally inappropriate ELPAC. I say developmentally inappropriate for our 4 year olds in TK. There was another legislation, AB 1930, which allows child development associate teacher permit holders to renew their permits, without limiting the number of renewals prior to this bill. The, permit holders were only allowed to renew their permits for the child development associate teacher permit 3 times, a maximum of 3 times. And then 2 final bills, a b 3 AB 3089, which was a formal apology on behalf of the state for, gross human rights violations related to human slavery. And then finally, the school bond. AB 247, the districts, supported this the legislation that placed the school bond on the November ballot. And then finally, of course, we'd be remiss if we did not add that through the board's priorities and district leadership. Advocacy also led to successes for the district as you, continue to undergo discussions about the 2025 legislative platform. And as doctor Moore mentioned, here we will run through the timeline for 2025 moving forward. So these are the dates, that I believe are in mind. Today is obviously January 22nd, which, is kind of the official kickoff of talking, at the board meeting about the education policies for 2025. And then later in February, there's an expectation that the draft policy platform will be discussed at a regular board meeting and then adopted at a later meeting in February. In line with that, once the platform is formally adopted, there is a process in place, for, adopting formal positions for the district to adopt formal positions on legislation. So once the, policy platform is adopted, then legislation will be identified that aligns with the platform for board consideration. And, of course, individual directors, certainly may suggest legislation that will be put forward for consideration by the full board. As part of that process, once legislation is identified, then feedback is solicited from district staff so that the impact on students, families, staff, and the communities of the district, the implementation considerations can be analyzed, and that feedback provided by district staff. And then after that, the legislation itself, there will be a list of legislation, that is available for board discussion and then formal adoption. And then once that list of legislation for the year is adopted by the board, then doctor Herrera and I will advocate on behalf of the district to convey those positions that were adopted. And I'll also add that even though, you know, there's this timeline, these steps and formal adoption of board positions for legislation can happen throughout the year. So this is something that happens just once throughout the year. As many of you already know, legislation is amended multiple times throughout. New bills will come, bills are amended. So, please know that it's not, you know, just a one one board meeting, one board vote to adopt legislation. This can happen throughout. And this is also made clear I'll go through in another slide the legislative bill process. Here is just summarizing the process for the state budget because these are two parallel processes that happen. So, you are here. Right? We're still early in the budget process. The governor just released his budget proposal for 25, 26 on January 10. And then tomorrow, actually, we'll kick off the legislature's first hearings to evaluate the governor's budget proposals for 25, 26. And then the next milestone will be by May 14 when the governor, issues a May revision to his budget proposal. And then that's when, negotiations with both both houses of the legislature will really heat up, with the intent of the legislature passing a budget by June 15, and then the governor, ideally enacting the budget, by June 30 so that it is in place by the July 1 start of the 25, 26 fiscal year. As far as the process for bills, this is the flowchart, for bills. We're still in the middle of bill introductions by assembly members and state senators. After the bills are introduced, they will go through the policy committee hearing. If there are fiscal implications for the bills, then they go to the appropriations committee and then the floor vote, and then the process is repeated in the second house. Here, on this slide and on the next slide, we summarize, or we detailed the dates, for the 2025 state budget and legislative timelines. So, the ones to note here, February 21 will be the deadline for senators and assembly members to introduce bills for 2025. In the spring is when, budget subcommittees and policy committee policy committees will evaluate, legislation and budget proposals, and public testimony, is heard. As I mentioned earlier, the May, May revision is due by the governor by May 14. And then let's see here. In June, there are a number of key deadlines. June 6 is the deadline for legislation to clear the house of origin. And then, of course, as I mentioned earlier, June is also when, budget negotiations are heating up between the governor and the assembly and the senate. This year, September 12, is when the legislature will be ending session for 2025, and then the governor will have until October 12, to sign or veto legislation that comes before him. We also wanted to make sure in addition to that formal process that we just went through, there are key decision makers that are all part of this process. Right? Some of these are the ones that we've already stated and are very obvious, like the governor, the assembly, and the senate. But then we also wanted to take a moment to summarize, you know, some of the other key decision makers that are part of this process and that also interact with Oakland Unified School District as the district, articulates its its policy priorities and during the year. So among those are the Department of Finance and the State Board of Education, which, are under the umbrella of the of governor Newsom's administration. There is the legislature, and that is not just the elected officials of the legislature, but also staff and the legislative analyst office. And then, of course, there are also state agencies, such as superintendent Tony Thurmond, the California Department of Education, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing as examples. And then in what we call, or what are frequently referred to as the 3rd house, there are other educational partners that are also part of this process that doctor Herrera and I, interact with. Those could be statewide associations, such as the California School Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators as examples. They also include, other districts. So for example, Oakland Unified often, communicates with other districts such as San Francisco Unified across the bay, Los Angeles Unified, Fresno, Sacramento City, other, urban school districts, with the intent of trying to collaborate. Right? Because there's strength in numbers often when it comes to advocacy for for things that would impact, the the district's communities. So that is just one summary there. And then as the board directors for Oakland Unified, over the course of the next few weeks, continue to contemplate, the policy platform for 2025. And then also, once you reach a point where, platform for 2025. And then also once you reach a point where there is consideration of legislation, we thought it would be helpful to to include just some some considerations as you consider priorities, that your board will eventually, consider and and vote on. Right? So some of these some of these questions that we thought would be good to uplift as part of these considerations and part of these communications are a fiscal impact analysis. You know, what are the impacts potentially of proposals, short term or long term for the district? What are some of the staff impacts or implementation considerations, whether it's workload, timelines, etcetera, on staff, on district staff. Are there resources available to support implementation of these proposals? You know, is the request based on, or is it aligned with the current legislative priorities and platforms, just as another example? And then here also, you know, has the board taken prior action or positions on these issues? What are some of the state and national dynamics? Will the request make or require negotiations with the district's labor partners as another example? So just summarizing here again some of the questions that we think, or we suggest might be helpful, moving forward as you contemplate some, priorities for consideration in the platform or legislation as well moving forward. And with that, I know I threw a lot of information out at you, but happy to answer any questions. And like I mentioned, doctor Herrera is also available for questions, if that makes sense. Any board questions? Go ahead. Hi. Thank you so much. And it was nice to meet you at a prior call. Good to see you again. One of my questions relates the to the timeline that you showed, not the budget process timeline, but the other the ledge timeline. Is there any opportunity for the board to weigh in on ledge priorities that we might drive here in Oakland versus setting a ledge agenda according to legislation that has been presented by other people or already has secured authors? I wanna make sure I understand the question, director Perry's or director Barry, is that in relation to, for example, if the district wanted to sponsor legislation? Is that what you're saying? We had an idea Mhmm. For something that affects Oakland students, but we know that the state, the rest of the state could benefit from, and we would do the work of finding the author and finding other folks to build power with to to put forth legislation. Yeah. I think that for something like that, we would wanna make sure that, you know, of course, as the board contemplates taking action on sponsored legislation as opposed to just supporting or opposing legislation as an example, you know, wanting to make sure that if there is a spot a potential sponsored legislation that would be in alignment with the board platform, that's certainly something we could do. The, the deadlines are are looming for that. Right? Because the the deadline for bill introduction is February 21. But there's always ways to work work with that. Right? I think our main consideration as staff or advocates that support the work of the board and the work of the district is to make sure that those conversations and action is taken by the board to enable us, you know, doctor Herrera and I to move forward, you know, as as desired by the board. I mean, I think that would be our main consideration to make sure we have the appropriate direction to move forward. But that's certainly those are certainly conversations that we could have. Yeah. Next year. Because it's, like, 24th when you have to have an author. Right? Before yes. Before February 21. So it would be right now, basically, that we would need to be finding authors and stuff. So, it would be difficult, but certainly not impossible. But, yes, ideally, you know, it would be something that would probably be better suited for 2026, right, just because of the timing. But, again, definitely not, not impossible depending on the urgency of what what this the potential legislative idea is. I have 2 kind of clarifying questions. 1, on the 3rd house. 1, who makes up the Ed Coalition? I've heard that mentioned before. And then our unions, our our CTA in particular, included, as part of that house. I saw other associations and Yes. Okay. Yes. So our labor partners would definitely be included. I apologize if they weren't explicitly listed on that slide. As far as the Ed Coalition, those are the statewide management organizations. So if I remember correctly, it includes ACCESS, CSBA, CASBO, the California County Superintendents. And then, on the labor side, it's CTA, CSCA, SEIU. I know I'm just rattling off letters. I I apologize. I You're good. Yeah. And I think maybe the PTA is on there. It's alphabet soup. That's what we always call it. But luckily, we're all speaking the same language. So, I believe that's all of the organizations. But they're all basically statewide organizations, not individual districts. And then my last question is, what is the suspense file? Uh-huh. The suspense file. So, legislation, if it has a, fiscal price tag associated with it, then it goes through the appropriations committee. Right? So that was one of the arrows on the flowchart. And what happens when legislation goes through the, appropriations committee is assuming it surpasses a certain dollar amount, it's a really low dollar amount. I wanna say it's like $10,000 or $5,000. Then the appropriations committee puts it on what they call the suspense file. And then the suspense file is heard at a later date right before the deadline for bills to pass the fiscal committee. The idea behind that is the appropriations committee members are able to vote on legislation comprehensively with a better understanding of what the aggregate fiscal impact is of all this legislation they're passing. Right? As opposed to if they're passing legislation one off, but then they don't at that if they do it that way, they don't really have a sense of what is this price tag that they're amassing for the state. Right? So by, this is, of course, the stated reason, right, for the suspense file. It's also, there's a lot of behind the scenes that goes on as you can imagine. But that is ultimately the reason so that they have, a more of an aggregate price tag associated with legislation that they approve. Mhmm. Are there any other questions? Go ahead. Director oh, Bryce. Thank you. So I guess, I just had, like, a few things I wanted to uplift because these aren't, like, natural places where we might natural bills that we may wanna, like, look at or areas that we want, to support. And so I I wanted I want to uplift them because of what the climate is at the moment. So first and foremost, director, Barry's point of earlier about, you know, housing instability for our students, really looking to see if there are any bills or any authors that support funding affordable housing, housing, unhoused community members, and also capping rents. We are already seeing price gouging happening in, Southern California because of the fires. And so thinking of, or are there any bills that are coming up that you can see that have any of those components? Also, specifically, if there's anything in there to support, school districts in converting an unutilized spaces into housing. Next, because of the fires that are going on again in Southern California and could be happening really anywhere in California because of our fire season, is the legislature thinking about any sort of disaster relief fund for school districts that will have to rebuild entire school sites, entire communities, and maintain funding, for those school districts, while attendance data is not possible, to identify. Because, again, students are either hopping to online learning or they're not participating in school because of natural disasters. And lastly, unfortunately, because of our change in a federal administration, if there's also any, bills around, the, support from those state around attendance for our students or immigrants, because again, you know, as folks may be fearing, attending school or having families being detained, potentially by ICE agents throughout the state of California that sends shock waves all over the state. And so sometimes students and families may not feel comfortable in sending students into school. We still need those resources to try to get those students come back into school to support those students. And so if there's anything that the state is thinking about doing or any senators thinking about doing, to support the, our, immigrant populations in that way. And then lastly, I, this morning, state senator Adagin mentioned, hey. He's introducing a bill to continue to provide sanctuary to, spaces, to hospitals, and he also mentioned that there is a sister bill that will continue to provide that sanctuary space to school sites. And so if there's any, anything like that that's also introduced that can continue to support our immigrant and refugee families, that would be really helpful to know as well. Okay. Yes. So let me try and share what I know. And for this one, I will rely on the phone a friend for doctor Herrera because she is an expert more on the attendance assistance as an example. But as far as, legislation on any of these topics, I will reiterate that it is early in the process. Right? So as far as specific legislation, to address some of the housing instability that you mentioned, director Bachelor, I personally haven't seen any yet, but that's not to say that it's not to come. We fully expect that there will be plenty of legislation introduced, specific to housing instability. Disaster relief, just as an example, I was just going through some special session legislation. And as one example, there's already a $1,000,000 that's being proposed specifically for LA Unified and Pasadena Unified. Right? Because those are specific examples right now of 2 districts that have lost schools to wildfires right now. So that is definitely at the forefront, of the legislature's mind. So I'd list list those off as as just examples. And then, as far as the sanctuary space considerations, we'll definitely keep an eye out for the legislation that you mentioned by the assembly member. But there is also, in addition to that, there is already a senate bill and an assembly bill that, would, what's the word I'm looking for? That would clarify or prevent ICE from coming on to school campuses specifically. So that legislation is out there, and we will certainly make sure that those types of legislation, are on the list that come before you for board consideration. Doctor Hur, do you wanna speak a little bit to the attendance relief issues and any anything else that you wanna detail that I missed, in response to director Bachelor? Are you mute? Did? Maybe she's muted. Well, she said her her Zoom just froze. My phone a friend was not technological difficulty, so I apologize. Let's see if she comes back. She did mention earlier that the Wi Fi at the hotel is unstable, so, of course, Murphy's Law. It's trying to reconnect, she just said. So, but hopefully, those give you, director Bachelor, a few responses to, to to what you lifted up. So thank you for highlighting that, and looking forward to continuing the conversation on those issues this year. Thank you very much for that, presentation and and response to the questions. I think one of the things there there are many things that, I would definitely look forward to further conversation on, which is, we just passed the school bond, and just trying to understand what that looks like and how it will, how will we navigate that for our district. You know, we're looking at asset management as well. We're looking at housing. And I think all of those are kinda in the same area. Right? Just trying to fix up our schools and the ones that we can't fix up. There might be possibility of utilizing housing. I don't know if there's anything, out there as a bill that will support schools to build housing. I know we have assemblywoman Mia Bonta as well as Buffy Wicks Mhmm. As well as, Liz Ortega. I've talked to them, you know, personally, and they're all a go. They're ready to do something. So it's just connecting the dots and seeing what what the energy is Mhmm. And down in Sacramento. So hopefully, those conversations will come back to us. Also, I've been really doing a lot of advocacy with friends in regards to AB 2901, which is 14 weeks of paid pregnancy leave for our women educators because they are, over the span of their careers, are easily, losing a $100,000 or more out their pension, because they've been penalized to take days off. They're not getting paid. They're using up their pay for sub days. And so that's something I think was started, last year, and I think it's gonna reboot again coming up in the springtime. I don't know where those conversations are just yet, but hopefully, we get some feedback from yourself. Also, I did go through your presentation, and I I think we were, I think we gave you a list of wish items. Right? There was a list of wish items. I don't know which ones did not pass. I think you just kinda shared some that we actually got some wins on. But, you know, I'm not sure if those are coming back, in the following year, if they've been put on hold or have been canceled altogether. So that would be really helpful to kinda understand our progress. As as an educator myself, I'm always looking for reflection, or an assessment or a self evaluation. If we start something, let's reflect and see where we've gotten to and how do we make it better, or where do we need to go to, extend our relationships with with other partners in the game. Also, I think it's really challenging, I'm sure, and I appreciate the work that you do. And I'm a get off the microphone. Thank you very So just in response to one of the legend one of the the bills that you mentioned from last year, AB 2901, the paid, pregnancy disability leave. So that has been resurrected this year. I believe it's AB 65. 65. Did doctor Herrera make it back on? I wanna make sure she has an opportunity to to weigh in as well. Doctor Herrera, were you able to hear director Williams, questions about, like, local bond and the impact on affordable housing and all of that as well. I don't know if that's something that you wanted to weigh in on. I mean, the the great thing is Patty is one of the state experts on facilities and affordable housing for, employees, etcetera. So it'd be great to to get her to weigh in on that that item. Yeah. I'm here. I apologize. I lost, can you can you hear me? Can folks hear me? Yes. We can hear you. Okay. Great. Thank you. I apologize. I'm in my hotel room as Leilani mentioned and I ended up losing connection. So, yes. I think this question actually came up from our other trustee about really, policies affecting affordable housing. And I will share with you all that, as Leilani had mentioned, she and I work very closely with our, colleagues, in other statewide organizations like the California School Boards Association. They reached out to us just to chat about workforce housing, specifically educator housing, not necessarily housing that includes just general community affordable housing or even student housing for that matter. And they were indicating that they are looking at potentially introducing a bill this session, to, address some issues that came up with being able school districts being able to leverage, prior legislation that they successfully got through, in term, to be able to, have school districts, potentially build affordable housing for their educators. That was really I didn't really get a lot more, from my colleague about what the details of that that would be. So we will have to wait until after the bill is introduced. It hasn't been introduced by the legislature yet. Yet. With respect to the statewide school bond, unfortunately, the statewide school bond is not a resource for building educator housing or even student housing for that matter. And that's because the provisions of the state bond that the voters approved are tied specifically to instructional spaces or ancillary spaces that support instruction. So in that, insofar as housing, educators and housing students is not an instructional space or ancillary space to instruction, it would not be eligible for state bond support for example. And I just wanna maybe just take a moment here to address the issue that I think is coming up because of the LA fires and the impact on school facilities in LA. There has been a recent article about, potentially school districts that have been impacted by that fire to, encumber much of the bond funds that were just approved by voters with the passage of proposition 2. It's too early to tell how those districts and their need for replacing their school facilities can potentially impact the statewide school bond and other districts' desires and need for state support including Oakland Unified, particularly with one of the programs that we lobbied heavily on your behalf to get included into the statewide school bond, which is lead in water mitigation. It's just too early to tell at this point. I will share that the governor's administration is down in Los Angeles right now assessing all of the damage and in an effort to try to, help, the governor make informed decisions about how California can support how the state of California can support, the fire victims, but we just don't know that. And then if if I I I got booted off, right when this issue was being discussed, but I know the issue of immigration, that was is of concern to the district particularly because you have a very high, newcomer population. And as you suggested, you know, ice rates that are happening in the Central Valley right now could have, you know, what, sorry, it's been a long day. It could have a wide effect across California. So there are ways that school districts can continue to provide support for their students that are impacted. They may be afraid to come to school. They or their families may be deported, because of immigration policies. And there are existing laws that allow school districts to continue to offer instruction and learning for those students, particularly through independent study. And if a student should find themselves deported or having to leave the state because their families, their parents are deported, there is a very obscure law in the education code that allows a student to reestablish residency even if they are no longer living in your boundaries. We would be happy to take, the district through that. And as Leilani mentioned, there are already 2 bills introduced, both 1 in the assembly, 1 on the senate side, to try to reinforce the sanctuary space, of schools. With the recent Trump administration decision to repeal the safe space policy, I think there's questions about, you know, how much the state of California, could do to protect their students. And this just I think that just happened yesterday. The policy was the federal policy was repealed. So I believe that there are attorneys that are starting to look at this issue now. So this is like fresh information. And then of course, as Leilani and I pour through legislation for you to bring to your attention, all of these things will be top of mind. And then the final thing, director Williams, and as salons to, for example, the, the pregnancy disability leave that you referenced and that I mentioned is has been resurrected, for this year. I think that provides us with an excellent example as well, for some of the discussion, right, and the staff feedback and and the step that that or the role that that step plays, as part of the process for the board taking action. Right? Last year, there was a robust debate on the the the position that the district would have on AB 2901, and certainly we'll be getting staff feedback again on AB 65 to bring it before the board, recognizing that this is a huge game changer. Right? The policy considerations as you detailed, are it's a huge game changer for for staff of the district. But then also wanting to fully understand what the impacts are for the district as well, if whether or not there are resources provided by the state, etcetera. And so just wanting to make sure that those are also part of the conversation, whether it's that bill or any other legislation that comes before the board. 2nd round of questions? You have 8 questions. Alright. Go ahead, director Williams. 30 seconds. Thank you very much, president Brochart. Also, I wanna bring up IDEA, funding. Because one of the things that in addition to us having challenging, budget, outlooks and and, having a challenge in balancing our budget is that we're often moving our general funds over to our restricted funds to cover the increased cost. And so the question is, is there any you know, we know that the federal government had promised to actually cover up to 30% or 40% and has only covered 14%, which put a lot of pressure on state governments to to do something. But it actually puts more pressure on local school districts because the more resources that leave our general fund and go over to spend, which is needed, means more cuts for our general ed classrooms. Has there been any conversation to supplement or support, school districts to, cover the difference at times? Because we were told I was told from our, CBO that, you know, we moved at least 10,000,000 over from 1 from category to another. Thank you. Sure. So doctor Herrera and I actually don't do federal advocacy on behalf of Oakland Unified School District. However, for this particular issue that you you described about IDEA and special education funding in general, it's certainly something that we could couple as part of our advocacy at the state level as part of state budget negotiations. If I remember correctly, I believe, doctor Moore, the district is very active in the Council of Great City Schools, and I know that they are often an excellent resource. I used to work at a district that was similarly active with them. And, I know that they are a great resource and do very strong advocacy on behalf of districts like Oakland Oakland Unified nationally on this. And the great thing about Council of Great City Schools right now, particularly with the change of administration, is that they're bipartisan. Right? So that is something that I know, Oakland Unified will not be alone when it comes to advocating for more federal funding. But as I said, doctor Herrera and I, definitely, that is something that we will lift up as part of state budget negotiations on behalf of the district. Patty, I don't know if you have anything else that you wanna add on on that point, and doctor Moore, I don't know if there's anything else you wanna add on the federal part. Okay. Let's say that's a no for Patty. Okay. Thank you. Are there any more board comments? Go ahead. All right. I just wanted to say thank you again, to Leilani and Patty for joining us. And just for the board, just a few things. We, school services provide some really great, bulletins and updates, throughout the year, and so we try to be diligent about including those in the biweekly message to the board. So specifically around, some of the newcomer updates that Leilani shared, we have, 2 updates or 2 bulletins that most recently came out. So I can re forward those over to you. And then director Williams, just to your question around some of the, facilities bond dollars, we have been in touch with, some of our elected officials about, accessing Prop 2 and Prop 4, particularly thinking about, some of the water some of the lead mitigation and how we can partner with some of our local municipalities, including East Bay Mud, around accessing those funds too. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. What do you want me to do with the clicker? It here. Okay. Thank you. I also wanna thank you for a really good presentation on the budget, on Tuesday. Alright. Next item on the agenda. President Bruhar, public speaker. Yes, we have Salo Obala. So, just came out in the news. Department of Justice threatens to prosecute local officials for resisting immigration and for enforcement. Now this is the position black women are taking anytime y'all gotta deal with Trump. 93% of us voted against Trump. 82% black men voted against Trump. 53% of white women voted for Trump. 60% of Latinos voted for Trump. Trump is your problem. It's not our problem. So I'm not gonna have no discussions on what y'all gonna do to deal with him. I am gonna have this reparations was a part of the legislative agenda for black people. It had on that agenda education for black students with resources and supports. It had on that agenda housing issues related to redlining and domestic domain. It passed. Your governor vetoed it, said we didn't have enough we don't have enough money to deal with this reparations issue, but y'all gonna come up with money to deal with this sanctuary issues. These newcomers, you're gonna find the money. He's already said he's got $50,000,000, 25,000,000 for legal issues, and 25,000,000 to support newcomers. And you know what we're getting for reparations from the California state of California? A letter of apology related to slavery and a plaque. Thank you. Are there any other public speakers? No President, thank you for public speakers. The next item on the agenda is S525-fifteen, Application for for provisional internship permit, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, named employees for the school year 2024, 25. Is there a motion to adopt this? I make a motion to adopt, the Board of Education Resolution number 2425 dash 0069. The application for provisional internship permits. 2nd. Is there any public comment on this issue? No public comment here. Thank you. Is there any board comment on this? K. Mister Raich Raichstra, can we take a On the roll call? On the roll call to adopt, s dot dash 5 as stated by the chair, director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. President Brohart? Yes. Motion's adopted. Next item is s 6, application for, 25 dash 0016, application for variable term program waiver, c best and b clad, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, named employees for school year 2024, 25. Is there any public comment? Motion second. Oh, I'm sorry. Is there a motion to approve? Yes. I motion the adoption of the Board of Education of resolution number 2425 dash 0070, the application for variable term program waiver. 2nd. And is there any public comment on this? No public comment. Is there any board comment? Mister Rickster, can we take a vote, please? Yes. Just note for the record that the student directors and director Hudson are absent on the last matter as well as this matter. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brolhard? Yes. Motion is adopted. Alright. Thank you, president Brohard. Good evening, board, staff, students, and community. My remarks tonight will preview superintendent Johnson's midyear impact report releasing next week. 1st beginning with highlighting one of our long term and dedicated educators. Just before winter break, principal Roma Grows Waters of Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School, received a really well deserved award, when school staff came together for a luncheon at which she for a luncheon at which the Urban League of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area presented her with the educator of the year award. Urban League president Ken Maxey presented the award to miss Grow's water and sang her praises, calling her out as the school's quarterback and coach who leads with tenacity and compassion. Elementary school network superintendent Leroy Gaines also shared what make what makes her such a wonderful leader, sharing how she manages the many, duties and responsibilities and challenges that, principals constantly juggle. Miss Grove's waters is emblematic of a successful long term OUSD educator whose years of growth and experience in the district benefit not just our students and their families, but school support staff and colleagues. She's in her 29th year in OUSD, having started her career as an academic mentor, then teaching at Roosevelt Middle School serving as a TSA or a teacher on special assignment for high schools, acting as the assistant principal at Garfield Elementary, and now she's in her 16th year as principal at MLK Junior. She notes the strong support and development that educators receive when they are part of OUSD as a district benefit that really stands out. Groves Waters is known for paying this level of support and mentorship forward by always being available to newer teachers and by facilitating leadership opportunities for teachers and even students and their parents. I also wanna highlight 2 stories from the community at McClimans. 2023 McClimans high graduate and former football star, JV and the Jett Thomas, is now a star running back for the California Golden Bears, where during the season, he was honored as a Jonathan and Judy Hoff Scholar Athlete of the Week for his dedication both on and off the field in the classroom. JVN was called out for regularly checking in with academic support and its coaching staff to ensure he remains on top of all of his work. He also uses academic resources and strategies to enhance his learning. And this past football season, JVN ran for 626 yards and 7 touchdowns. JVN is studying psychology and social welfare with an eye toward working as a therapist in the future. In next week's impact report, you will also learn more about current McClimate senior, Cecilia Vasconin, who recently received the outstanding news of earning early acceptance to MIT, also known as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the fall. Cecilia has attended LUSD Schools in West Oakland since kindergarten, matriculating from Prescott Elementary to West Oakland Middle School, and will be attending MIT tuition free in the fall as she's interested in studying linguistics. Reflecting on her time in OUSD, Cecilia has nothing but praise. She says I've lived in West Oakland my entire life, and I've only had incredible experiences at West Oakland Schools from Prescott Elementary to West Oakland Middle to now in the climates. On the note of our commitment to supporting empowered graduates, next week's impact report will feature a new KDOL produced video chronicling the stories of 3 students from Castlemont, Oakland High, and Oakland Tech who exemplify our commitment to developing students who are college, career, and community ready. During the January 8th meeting, superintendent Johnson Trammell highlighted high schools who achieved increases in the 2024 cohort graduation rates, but we also wanted to give a shout out to the high schools that continue to maintain graduation rates at 80% or higher. Those schools are Life Academy with a 95.1% graduation rate, CCPA, 91.5, Oakland Tech, 91.3, Skyline, 91%, Madison Park Academy, 88.5, Metwest, 87.5%, Oakland High, 86.1%, McClimans, 84.1%, and Fremont at 81%. Aligned with our joyful schools initiative area, you will read more about our partnership with the Oakland Lacrosse Club who is responsible for including the exciting sport of lacrosse to students across our district. Specifically, Oakland Lacrosse Club or OOC is is committed to providing coaching, training, and equipment in our PE classes to promote the sport for girls and boys. We are excited to share that we will also be expanding boys lacrosse in middle school this year and anticipate 6 schools filled in boys teams in addition to 3 high schools fielding boys across teams this coming spring at Oakland High, Oakland Tech, and Skyline. Community partnerships remain integral to our collective work with organizations like the Oakland Reach and Collaborative Classroom who have been essential community partners in our tier 2 literacy liberator programming support, providing our early literacy tutors with professional learning and coaching support. The Oakland Literacy Coalition is another community partner that has continued to be a strong advocate for aligning Oakland literacy ecosystem. The team supported us with launching our external OUSD literacy partner partnership process in October and has been and has been meeting with supplemental providers to help them make shifts to ensure that their direct, support to students aligns with LUSD language and literacy framework, in our curriculum. Together, these highlights provide a glimpse into the strong progress being made. I invite you to explore the full mid year report upon its release next week to see the depth of our achievements and the stories behind those successes. Thank you for our continued partnership and commitment to our students and their futures. That concludes the superintendent report, and I will now hand it back to you president Breaux Hart. Thank you. Are there any board questions or comments? I'm sorry, public comments. Yes, president Bruhart. We have Assalullah Balar and Bim Tabakar. Thank you. 2 minutes. Thank you for uplifting some good good things that are going on in the district, particularly in the climates. Always gets me going. Unfortunately, there was a mother who came here today with her 2 sons. They haven't been in school since October. And, the gentleman here, he'll speak to you because I directed him to speak to her. There should be nothing going on in this district where a child is not in school. And if a dis a decision is made not to have the child in the school, you somebody needs to be notified at a higher level as to why this is happening. And it has to do with vaccinations. Okay? So please look into this. And, again, I'm gonna say this. Every child has to be in school. If there's an issue going on, we have to work through that issue and get that child in back in the classroom. And they didn't even have independent study recommended under this vaccination issue. So thank you again for the, the upliftment, but please work on this. And these are black 2 black boys. Thank you. Are there any other speakers? No no other speakers. Any board comments? I'm really glad to hear about the lacrosse. People in my family played lacrosse, but, I am concerned that it's only the open club that is open to girls. And if we can develop a boys' lacrosse program, I don't know why we can't also address that with girls. There are many girls who play lacrosse. It it is a really popular sport. And, just a little push to the Oakland Athletic League to also make that available to girls as well. But I I think it's the graduation reports, graduation re reports were encouraging, really excellent. And again, to echo, as Asada, I think the news about the the climate students, was really encouraging, and and thank you for reporting that. The next item on the agenda is the president's report, and I am going I know miss Assata referenced the, letter from Elise Castro, and I'm going to read that letter in keeping with the tradition of reading communications from Elise Castro. It's addressed to doctor Carla Johnson Trammell, superintendent, and members of the Board of Education, Oakland Unified School District, OUSD. RE 2024 2025 First Interim Budget Report review. Dear Superintendent Johnson Trammell and members of the Board, OUSD filed a negative certification of the district's 2024 2025 1st interim budget report. A negative certification means that the district projects it will be unable to meet its financial obligations in either the current or subsequent fiscal years. ACOE has reviewed the report and concurs with the district's negative certification. This is not an abstract problem. Without significant intervention, the District is projected to run out of cash during the 2025 2026 school year, leading to significant destabilization for students and staff, necessitating another bankruptcy loan from the state, and forfeiting local decision making authority. The next 6 months provide a narrow window of opportunity for OUSD to complete its planned re envision, redesign and restructuring 3Rs process. Both the OUSD board and district leadership have appealed to the County Superintendent for additional support to accelerate this process under local control. We all agree that the best course of action is for the locally elected board to lead re envisioning decisions for the next generation of Oakland students. We also agree that this is a last opportunity to provide additional intervention to support the board in their decision making efforts. A negative certification triggers required intervention from the county superintendent. Specifically, ed code section 42127 dash 6, parenthesis e, requires that the county superintendent of schools shall take at least one of the actions described in paragraphs 1 to 5 inclusive, and that all actions are necessary to ensure that the board that the school district meets its financial obligations. 1, develop and impose a budget revision that will enable the district to meet its financial obligations in the current year. 2, stay or rescind any action that is determined to be inconsistent with the ability of the district to meet its obligations in the current or subsequent fiscal year. 3, assist in developing a financial Governing Board a budget for the subsequent fiscal year. And 5, as necessary appoint a fiscal advisor to perform any or all of the duties prescribed above. To date, as the county superintendent since January 2023, I have attempted to provide the minimum but necessary level of oversight to a board that has placed a high value on ending a lengthy period of trusteeship. While the board has made meaningful progress on many fronts, it has also continued to change direction and postpone difficult decisions. Indeed, in its most recent evaluation of the county superintendent's oversight of OUSD, FICC MAT describes a troublingly familiar pattern. Although the county superintendent remains focused on the district's recovery, governance and operational dysfunction within the district continue to hinder effective oversight. A key example is the district's failure to develop and implement a coherent fiscal solvency plan. The recovery process relies on using long range recovery plan or FCMAT's comprehensive review as planning and tracking tools. Instead of using these resources, the district has created multiple alternative plans, which it continues to alter or bypass when faced with difficult decisions. As a result, the District Board defers necessary decisions and when made, they are either rescinded or their implementation is delayed. OUSD ceased to follow the standard long range recovery plan or fiscal recovery plan expected of districts with a state loan. Instead, a locally defined fiscal vitality plan was created to cover 2018 to 2020. This was replaced by the fiscal sustainability plan for 2021-twenty 24, which required actions to be identified in May and approved by the board every June on these 5 broad priority areas. 1, budget and operational practices, 2, budget development and stakeholder engagement, 3, school quality and enrollment 4, use of restricted resources 5, ability to make difficult decisions. This did not get completed, which led the Board to approving the 2023 to 2026 fiscal sustainability plan that expanded to 10 priority areas: 1, redesign plans 2, enrollment stabilization 3, complete remaining 6 vitality plan areas 4, securing an unqualified financial audit 5, address one time shifts from 2023 to 2024 and impact of one time investments back into the General Fund 6, address deficits and deferred facility maintenance investments 7, initiate and complete the fiscal systems audit 8, continue finance department implementation plan 9, develop multi year plan of how to adjust the District's size, programs and initiatives, including a review of the exponential growth in special education. And 10, invest in competitive compensation for all employees. In January 2023, the Board rescinded the planned closure of multiple schools without addressing the fiscal impact. Later that year, the Board approved significant compensation increases for educators without identifying trade offs to fund these ongoing commitments. In both cases, Board members expressed an understanding of the need to make hard decisions and appealed for more time to engage in better decision making processes. This time will run out soon. If the Board does not make these decisions now, it will rapidly lose the ability to make them at all. I have a deep respect for the commitment of the Board of Trustees and the enormous effort required to govern in challenging circumstances. These are not new challenges and they are exactly the challenges you and I were elected to address. The 2009 restructuring process identified three reasons for restructuring. The district operates too many schools for the number of students in the district. The district operates too many underenrolled schools and very small schools not otherwise designed to be small. The district does not provide a quality program with adequate services to meet student and family needs in every neighborhood. For the last 15 years, every OUSD board has reached the same conclusion, but created a new plan to address it. Many lessons have been learned. Some are useful. Community schools are effectively meeting community needs. Some are complex. A school choice system creates better options for many, but may reinforce inequity. Some are reactive. Despite frustrations with the status quo, every revised plan reduces confidence in change. This is the current reality. In June 2024, the OUSD Board passed the re envision, redesign and restructure 3Rs resolution, which commits to 3 separate processes by June 2025. One, redesign, utilizing the sustainable community schools model to improve equity and student outcomes, identifying 1 school for transformational school redesign in 2024, 'twenty 5. 2, re envision, a citywide assessment of OUSD's operational footprint to address overcapacity. The Board, with the support of the superintendent and staff, will lead a citywide reenvisioning process in 2024, 25 to solicit recommendations for the district's future footprint by June 2025. A reenvisioning process to determine Oakland Unified School District's future footprint and a restructuring plan for the district are 2 of the 10 strategies listed on the district's fiscal sustainability plan. 3, restructure, aligning district services, staffing, and resources to long term fiscal fiscal goals. The superintendent is directed with the support of the board to engage key stakeholders in a process to develop a plan for the restructuring of the district by June 2025 to be implemented in the 20 5, 20 6 school year. The plan shall include restructuring of staff formula to schools, restructuring of the CSI division, restructuring of business operations, and restructuring of school site allocations. During fall 2024, the superintendent proposed and the Board adopted significant restructuring measures, which are being ready for this spring for full implementation in 2025-twenty 6. If successfully implemented, this restructuring will make a significant, but not complete positive impact on the district's long term viability. Successful implementation is a massive undertaking requiring many hours of staff time. Also during this period, the superintendent and staff took some steps toward re envisioning the district footprint, but the process stalled without action. During spring 2025, ACOE will provide significant support to the OUSD Board and staff to complete the re envisioning plan. This is the last opportunity to support the Board to make its own decisions on its own self determined timeline of June 2025. Actions to ensure the district meets its final obligations. As mentioned above, the county superintendent is required at this time to select from a list of legally mandated interventions as well as to take all actions that are necessary to ensure that the school district meets its financial obligations. The interventions below were selected to support the board and staff to complete their own three r's process. Both Board and staff have identified a need for more capacity and expertise for the Board to complete the reenvision process, which is the last best hope for the district to make decisions locally. Per Ed Code Section 42127-six Parentheses, ACOE will assist in developing a financial plan that will enable the district to meet its future obligations. Specifically, the county will support the district board to finalize a reenvisioning plan that enables the district to meet its future obligations, both for educational equity and economic viability. To appoint a fiscal advisor to perform any or all of the duties prescribed above, specifically the county will appoint an advisor or team of advisors dedicated to moving the reenvisioning plan to completion by the end of 3 r's timeline of June 2025. All actions that are necessary to ensure that the school district meet its financial obligations, specifically the county, through the support of the fiscal adviser, trustee, and county superintendent of schools, will support OUSD board and staff to streamline and focus board decisions making and staff implementation of the 3 r's process. OUSD will be the only California school district to have both a fiscal trustee and now a fiscal adviser. The fiscal advisor scope is tailored to support the Board's re envisioning work through June 2025. For the last year, I have spoken of OUSD as approaching a fork in the road. One path leads back to full local control, paying off the loan, exiting trusteeship and embarking on a new era of sustainable community schools. The other path, one paved by refusing to make trade offs and by deferring hard decisions, leads quickly to another bankruptcy loan from the state and a forfeit of local decision making authority. We are no longer approaching the fork. We have arrived at it. This spring will require an extraordinary push to make clear decisions toward a vision of a district that prioritizes educational efficacy, equity and sustainability. The addition of the fiscal advisor is focused exclusively on supporting the Board to engage in meaningful and decisive re envisioning support towards this service. OUSD next steps, technical actions. In the coming months, OUSD must continue to make new decisions, implement recent decisions, and sustain work towards ongoing commitments. In a 3 year budget cycle with multiple overlapping legal timelines, many things must happen at once. Actions are focused on the following Board approved OUSD fiscal sustainability plan and grouped into 1, balance the 2025 budget. By February 28, 2025, the staff will fully implement the 2025-twenty 6 budget solutions approved by the Board at the December 11, 2024 Board meeting that do not require subsequent layoff or personnel actions by the Board. Staff will take the necessary actions to secure Board action on the remaining 2025-twenty 6 budget solutions approved by the Board at the December 11, 2024 Board meeting. The Board will vote to approve staff recommendations or present and adopt equivalent budget solutions that alternatively address the $95,000,000 deficit be ongoing. Staff will meet with fiscal trustee and ACOE to provide updates on progress toward balancing the 2025-twenty 6 budget. Staff will take actions to conserve cash to prioritize and extend its ability to meet payroll obligations to staff, including developing and refining 24 month cash flow projections 2, develop and approve recommendations for OUSD's future footprint by June 2025. Immediately, ACOE to appoint a fiscal advisor to support the Board with this re envisioning process. The fiscal advisor with the support from OUSD's superintendent and county superintendent will establish a work plan that prioritizes the board's time on reenvisioning process and minimizes non essential work through June 2025. In particular I'm sorry, in partnership with ACOE and fiscal trustee, OUSD leadership will execute work directed by the fiscal adviser to support the re envisioning process. By June 30, 2025, Board with the support from the fiscal advisor and OUSD superintendent to complete a citywide re envisioning process for OUSD's future footprint. OUSD's superintendent will assign staff support to complete this process. The Board to approve a future footprint for OUSD that will be operationally sustainable for the foreseeable future. ACO is highlighting concerns in the following areas. Unsustainable budget. The 2024-twenty 25 operating budget has over $959,000,000 in expenses planned, but only $807,000,000 in revenues anticipated. This is a $152,000,000 difference between money going out versus money coming in. Unfinished work to balance the 2025-twenty six budget. The 2025-twenty six budget solutions approved by the Board on December 11, 2024 contained 155.1 $1,000,000 impacting personnel, some of which will require personnel actions to be approved by the end of February and $39,000,000 in one time temporary budget solutions, meaning sizable reductions will again be needed 1 year from now. Running out of cash, without finishing the work to implement the 20252026 budget solutions, the district projects to run out of cash by an excess of $30,000,000 as soon as November 2025. Increasing deficits by making commitments before trade offs. The Board continues to improve compensation increases prior to providing budget reductions to pay for those compensation increases, thereby continuing fiscal distress. Please see the attached report for details we wish to highlight for the Board in support of performing its fiduciary duty. We are standing by to support in every way possible. In community, Elise Castro, Alameda County Superintendent of Schools. If there are any board comments, I wanna make sure everybody has a copy of the letter. Yeah. And I've Go ahead. I I believe there were copies that were printed out, but if you don't have one, I can Okay. I don't have one. You don't have one? Okay. Do you want me to forward this or do we have We also yeah. We could we we we can get a copy and give it to director Thompson before he leaves. We also attached it to the president's report. It will come out in a minute, but in the meantime, if you need to see it, on tonight's as part of tonight's agenda attachment, you won't see it at the bottom. But if you click the file ID number in blue, you will be able to see the attachment because the report was attached after the stagnant agenda was published. I'll just get it from the attachment. Yeah. Just attach the file ID demo of the president's report, and it will lead you to the page that and at the bottom of that page, you can click the attachment of which is a letter. A lot to read, so I'm I wanna make sure everybody does take a look at the letter and, in a future discussion about it. The next item on the agenda are, board reports. Public. Sorry. Public comment. No. No public comment. I'm sorry. That's right. No public. Excuse me. I've got that one highlighted. If there are individual board, excuse me, board reports and the director or vice president, Bachelor, you had Okay. Yes. Thank you. I just wanna give a shout out to the Unity Council Centro De Gall De La Raza La Clinica and directors, Barry and Brohard along with city, county, state, and federal electives today who gathered at Fruitvale Village to commit our support to our immigrant refugees, students, families, and staff by ensuring that we provide resources and support that they need during this time. Thanks to staff advocacy, director Aguilera and I were able to share that our district stands in unwavering support of all of our students, families, and staff regardless of their background, race, country of origin, and immigration status. Every student in our district deserves a safe, welcoming, and nurturing environment to succeed. And that's why in 2026, our board passed a sanctuary resolution reaffirming our commitment as a sanctuary district. This policy ensures that we protect the confidentiality of our students and families' immigration status and provides clear guidance on how we respond to events around immigration activity. I'm proud to say that we are not alone in supporting our community. The Unity Council's website has now more information as to how folks can get resources and tap into, resources from Centro De La Raza, La Clinica, and again, other city and county supports. And these supports are for all immigrants and refugees and their community. We know that many of our families have mixed immigration statuses, so any of these organizations can, can be reached out to to get support and get information, get very timely information. This community support and people power is really the way that we're gonna preserve and protect our entire community, and I wanna thank those folks that are that were at the press event. And again, just reiterate the fact that this is not just an issue for our immigrant community. This is our issue for the entire Oakland community because it is really in our DNA that we are a diverse community, and so we need to ensure that every single person in our community feels safe, supported, and loved regardless of their immigration status, regardless of their race, regardless of their sexual orientation. So, again, I was really proud to be there and I'm proud to have my board colleagues stand with us to make sure that our community understands, their rights and has the information they need, to be able to protect themselves and their families. Yes. Thank you for sharing that. I thought that was really And the work continues. And I, you know, would love to have a board wide conversation about what we can do moving forward. I could have said this in response to the reading of the letter, but I, in my district have been trying to meet, especially with principals, but also with parents and other community members because I don't I don't love that I don't have the benefit being a few weeks into the role of having more nuanced conversations to understand the implications of the decisions we have to make moving forward. But I do believe it's still possible to gain some of that understanding so that we can make really sound thoughtful decisions, and then I still have that responsibility right now. So I'm doing that work in my district right now. I'm eager to talk to community school managers in my district, some of whom I've already started talking to. I used to have that job, and do that work. I do understand the value of the 12 month position. And so I still I wanna make sure that we as we make decisions along the way, we don't we continue to be creative. I think the spirit of the 3 r's process is something that I value. I think the we we are in a place where we're making decisions that sound like there are things that we have to cut. I still think with the months ahead, there's an opportunity for us to do some visioning around how we can ensure quality education for students with the resources that we have and then backwards plan into some of the decisions. And I want I really wanna do that work with communities and wanna understand how as a board we can work together, but also continue to listen to people in my district about, the things that we can lift up. I also just wanna flag that I really love the teaching and learning committee meeting yesterday. I hope that we can use these spaces to have some of those dialogues as well. The it was sobering to hear about the 24100 students who are experiencing homelessness right now. It was sobering to hear how much work it really does take across the system of care in order to to serve our foster youth. These are the kinds of services that I think are at risk given the landscape that we're in right now. And so I really want to figure out how we can protect some of those services, over the next few months. And then the last thing I wanted to say for the pub the benefit of the public is that as I'm continuing to have conversations with folks in my districts, I am starting to have these office hours in in my district, and it's the 3rd Saturday at 10 AM. The first one will be at Asta Muerte in, my district, and, you know, we may change location after that. But February 15th at 10 AM, folks will be able to drop in and find me there, and I look forward to seeing and hearing from community at that time. Thank you. Any other board reports? Yeah. Just share a little bit, in regards to teacher and learning. Thought it was really, powerful, presentations we've had to really understand the work that is actually going on within our district. We had a a really powerful presentation by director Raquel Jimenez, for office equity, and it just really talks about the target strategies, that are taking place, our targeted strategy student specialists, that are supporting our African American, Latino students. We have, you know, American African American female excellence is working in 13 schools, African American male excellence working in 22 schools, Arab American, is working in 19 schools, Pacific Islanders are working at 14 schools, and our Latino student achievement is working at 22 schools. It just shows the hard work, and the really deep investment that our district, our office equity is doing. And they had 8 positions reduced from last year, and they still are very strong and passionate in doing the work, because that work is really needed, especially in the economic times that we have and the social times that we have. Just really trying to tap into our young folks and help them develop a sense of belonging, confidence, and, the ability to continue to, have hope that, investing in themselves, will produce results down the line. And so it's been such powerful work that has been taking place with our, Office of Equity. I'm just so proud of that, and I will continue to advocate, for our coaching facilitators, our collaborators, and just continuing to build a relationship, with lots of data, that it is actually working. Just really quickly, wanna read out the theory of action. It says, if we implement targeted strategies and anti racist, anti ableist learning, language access, focus on engaging students furthest from opportunity and partner with their families, then we will create a culture and conditions needed to increase the literacy attendance, a through g completion rates for African American, Latino, Arab American, and Pacific Islander students. I think we need, as a board, to continue to think what is our theory of action as we move forward, to make the decisions that are necessary to really move our district forward and stop kicking the bucket down the line because there's no more room to do that. And I am done. Thank you. I just wanted to quickly state in my, board report, that tomorrow, we're gonna be having our 1st Charter Matters Committee meeting. And so, director Johnson, director Williams, looking forward to talking with you there. Invite community to come. We just had 9, went through a process where 9, charter schools renewed. We're gonna be having another 6 come before the board this fall, and so, tomorrow, we're gonna be talking about some of the updates from the charter office, and talk about some of the, learnings that we had from that to potentially propose changes to policy. This would be a good time to come, talk to the committee, and also start talking about our work plan, for the committee as we, again, prepare for, the next renewal cycle and, Prop 39, requests, as well as updates on appeals, from any charter schools that, were not renewed by ourselves and the county. And I will, I'll leave it there for now. Thanks. I wanna thank you, director Williams, for watching the clock. That was that was great. I've been I appreciate that. I also wanna thank, mister Riggstra for helping me through the, arduous process here. With that, there's no new is there any new legislative matters? There are no new legislative matters. And with that, the meeting is adjourned.