I'd like to welcome everyone to the, May 28, meeting of the Oakland School Board. Mr. Raikstra, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please? On the roll call for quorum, student director Simmons, student director Vasquez, director Latta? Present. Director Williams, director Hutchinson, director Barry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. Vice president Bachelor? Here. President Brothard? Here. Quorum, present. Thank you. And, mister Wallace, can we have a a translation check, please? Yes, Madam President.
For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation. They are Cantonese, Arabic and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption feature on your Zoom Taskbar. With that, we will start with live interpretations. I will lower all hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need interpretation for the language being announced, which at this time is Cantonese. And I will ask miss Ho if she can come up on mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese. The Cantonese announcement is done.
Thank you, miss Ho. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hand sprays for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Arabic, I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need, the interpretation for the language being announced, which at this time is Arabic. And I will ask miss Abdi if she can come off on mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic. Arabic interpretation is done. Thank you, miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation.
Seeing no hands raised on Zoom, we will not, start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need interpretation for the language being announced, which at this time 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, mister Copenhagen. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised on Zoom. No one in the room. We will not start with any interpretation at this time.
That concludes the first interpretation announcement for this meeting, and we will have further announcements later on in the meeting. And with that, I'll pass it to mister Bickstraw. Madam president, the, initial availability of interpreters for tonight's meeting has been check has been completed. Thank you. Tonight in closed session, we will discuss one matter, which is, D524Dash67, Public Employment Superintendent Of Schools. Are there any public comments on closed session items? Checking to see if you have any public comment for closed session items.
President Bruhard, no public speaker for the closed session items. Thank you. We will now, reconvene we will go now into closed session and we'll reconvene at 07:00. We've been exposed to so many different levels of education for their age. Kindergarten readiness, getting the kids prepared for kindergarten or TK is important for them to be able to know that it's not gonna be an intrusive transition. It's gonna be a easygoing transition. This space has been a great experience for us being in a clean environment so
that we can present it to the kids and the families and the community and know that they have a good space and a warm environment. I really do believe that if we can give Oakland's Two, Three, and four year olds a quality early learning experience, then we can narrow the opportunity gaps and have more kids ready for kindergarten. The out outdoor space is actually pretty innovative and creative for the kids. They have multiple things that they can do. They can play with the water pump. They can play with that music.
They can play with paint on a wall. And then we have a bicycle on a runway for the kids to ride on. That's popular here too. So I really appreciate the voters of Oakland. That's not underappreciated, especially the neighborhood that supported this project through construction. They're the voters that can see directly what we did and the fact that it's a big improvement to their front yard. If Board of Directors could come to the dais, please. One, two, three. I'll I'll hold on, though. I mean, I just need to place this.
Okay. K. Did they ask you the same question? We can't do. And I believe it's, Brenda Thompson. Mr. Raikstra, can we have a roll call to establish quorum? Here. Student director Vasquez? Here. Director Latta? Present. Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Hutchinson? Director Berry? Present. Director Thompson? Present. Director, vice president Bachelor? Here. And president Brohart? Here. Okay. Quorum's present. Mister Hollis, can we have a translation check, please? Yes, Madam President. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation.
They are Cantonese, 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 announcements of live interpretation. We will start with Cantonese. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced, which is Cantonese. And if you're attending in the public, please raise your hand if you need a translation laptop. Miss Ho, can you come off mute and give the Cantonese,
translation announcement? The Cantonese announcement is done, mister Hollis. Thank you, miss Ho. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language that's being announced at this time, which is Arabic. And if you are in the public and need a translation laptop, please raise your hand if you need, so for Arabic interpretation. And I will ask miss Soleil if she can come off mute and give the
interpretation announcement for Arabic. Thank you, miss Saleh. Seeing one hand raised on Zoom, we will start with Arabic interpretation. Once the announcement is complete, thank you for raising your hand. So now moving forward to Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language that's being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And if you are in attendance and need a translation laptop, please raise your hand so we can get you that for Spanish interpretation. And I will ask miss Walker Marquez if she can come up from mute and
give the translation announcement for Spanish. Of course. Thank you, miss Walker Marquez. Checking the attendees on Zoom to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. And any hands in the room for Spanish interpretation? Seeing no hands, we will start with Arabic interpretation at this time. That concludes wait Spanish Interpretation. Oh, we see a hand on Zoom for Spanish Interpretation. So we will start with Spanish and we will have Arabic Interpretation at this time. That concludes our announcement for this moment.
And I will pass it to Madam President. Thank you. Again, I apologize for the lateness of the meeting. We had, a lengthy discussion in closed session. Reporting back on matters in closed session, public employment matter D524-nineteen 67, public employment, the matter was discussed and no action was taken. With that, are there any modifications to the agenda? I'll I'd like to request to move the student end of the Yeah. Year report. Thank you. To pool, L18, L 40 8 and L50. L18,
40 8 50? L18, L48 and L50. Okay. And we will move the, student report up to we're going to start with special orders of the day, then we'll do the student report after that. President Brohard, might I ask, is it possible that we could move public comment up earlier? We can. We I was moving it up in terms of students. Are there students who were, yeah, coming to to present? To my knowledge, both in in having a conversation with many of my constituents, they discussed the fact that they have to bring their students here. And when they have public comment later,
then their students are not given enough time to rest before school. Right. Okay. So let's do, special orders of the day, then we'll do public comments since there are student presenters. We'll do the student report after that. And then we'll do the superintendent's report. President Brohart, I just heard the students request that their item come first. If we put it after special orders and public comment, it's gonna be at least an hour, if not more, until we get to that. So can we please have the student directors report first before any special orders or public comments like they requested,
please? I believe there are students here for the special orders of the day as well. Am I? Are you okay with that? There is some elementary and middle school students for special orders of the day, and they've been here since 05:30. So good late. Special orders and then Okay. Special orders, student report, and then public comment. And that should get all the students, first. President Mohard, I'd also like to ask that, public, comment from our labor partners be moved up after the superintendent report. I believe they have comment around,
items on the consent. And are there any other modifications to the agenda? Do you need me to read that again? Do you need me to read through it again? Okay. Okay. With that, I believe we have special orders of the day. And this is the California Distinguished Schools twenty twenty five, Crocker Highlands, Lincoln Elementary and Peralta Elementary. And I believe we have a plaque for So if those schools could representatives from Lincoln, Heralta and Crocker could come to the front, please, and we'll honor them with a big hand. This is a really big honor to get a California Distinguished School.
I'd like to make a motion to adopt this item. Is there a second? I second. Thank you. President Boehrd, as we figure this out, would it be helpful to have any of those schools speak about their experience? That would be great. Would, yes, would each of the, I guess, the principals or staff from Crocker will go in alphabetical order. Parker's not here? Here. Oh, one sec. Oh, okay. Sorry. Good evening, assistant superintendent, Sandra Doctor. Sandra Aguilar, board members in Oakland community. I'm Doctor. Winn, the principal at Crocker Highlands Elementary School and a proud alum of Castlemont High School.
We are so honored to be here today, tonight, to be recognized by the board and receiving the 2025 California Distinguished School Award. This award is a true testament to our incredible team of teachers and support staff at Crocker Highlands. They work tirelessly every single day to provide direct services to our four twenty five students, ensuring every child grows and succeeds. This recognition is especially meaningful because it celebrates not only academic achievement,
but also our positive and supportive school climate. Thank you again for recognizing the incredible work that we do at Crocker Highlands every day for every student. Would Lincoln come up, please? My name is Mukta Sambrani. I'm the proud principal of Lincoln Elementary School. We've had the distinction of having been recognized as a California distinguished school in 2025 and prior to that in 2020. And this is a testament to the incredible hard work of our outstanding teachers like
Claudia Hanghas and, our families that come together and support our wonderful students like Joseph. We are a community that's united with a goal of excellence and equity. We are 165 years old this year. We sit in the heart of Chinatown and students that speak over 40 home languages are served at Lincoln Elementary. Thank you, Board of Education, for this honor. We are humbled, and we are proud. Thank you. Thank you.
My name is Claudia Hung Haas, third grade teacher at Lincoln, and this is a really great honor. You know, we're just so honored to serve our community and to be recognized for the hard work and to represent OUSD in this way to show that there's really wonderful things going on in Oakland, in our community, despite the narrative that other people may see. So we wanna change that narrative. So thank you. And Peralta. So, I also want to say that I am very humbled to represent, Peralta the community of Peralta Elementary School.
And like all my colleagues said, this is a testament to each and every person that has worked tirelessly at our site. And one of the things my colleagues did not mention that this was no feat for either of our schools to be able to bring our schools back to pre pandemic excellence. That is something that each and every one of us can be proud of because that is something that we did not see when during the pandemic.
And we are so I am so proud of our students, especially, who have, closed that gap, that learning loss gap. I am so proud of my staff for all the dedication and commitment they had to ensuring that our students were provided with the correct curriculum and that and our parents who have also made sure our students have come to school valuing the learning environment and have 100 got our attendance back to,
pre pandemic levels. So those things are not easy tasks to do, but we managed to do it. And I also wanna give a shout out to my colleagues behind me because they set a model for me as a fairly new principal. And I appreciate all of the hard work that they instilled upon me, and I rest on the shoulders of many educators in the OUSD. And last but not least, I want to thank my husband who is here today, who gave me the encouraging talks on those days where I didn't think I can
do it. And not only was he my backbone and he was my ride or die in this endeavor, but he is actually one of our most active volunteers at our school. He works in our school garden as well as, donates as much as he possibly can. So, thank you. And I appreciate you, babe. So I'm going to read the proclamations for each school and these will be available to you at a later date. Sorry for the delay there. So honoring Crocker Highlands Elementary School as a twenty twenty five California Distinguished School.
Whereas, Crocker Highlands Elementary School, led by Principal Kim Dong Gyuen, will be recognized by State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, in May of twenty twenty five as a California Distinguished School and whereas Crocker Highlands Elementary was given the honor because of its academic achievement, reduction in the opportunity gap and positive climate and culture as an intentionally welcoming and joyful place for all kids and whereas Crocker Elementary was given the honor because of its above average academic achievements,
attendance rates and low suspension rates as documented on the CDE dashboard and whereas, Crocker Highlands Adults regard all students as our kids and always work together on their behalf and the school offers academic, social and emotional programs to support students in need and whereas, Proctor Highlands benefits from high levels of parent community involvement in providing a collaborative effort between faculty, staff and families to support student growth and whereas,
the California Distinguished Schools Program sorry, the computer just messed up here. Based on performance progress in the state indicators including, test scores, suspension rate and conditions and climate. Elementary schools and middle and high schools are recognized in alternate years. Therefore, the awardees hold the title for two years. Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Oakland Unified School District and Doctor. Kyla Johnson Trammell, Superintendent of Schools, acknowledges and honors Crocker Highlands Elementary for outstanding service to the students of Oakland.
Lincoln. Okay. Honoring Lincoln Elementary School as a 2025 California Distinguished School. Whereas, Lincoln Elementary School led by Principal Mukta Sambrani will be recognized by State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond in May of twenty twenty five as a California Distinguished School. And whereas, under the visionary leadership of Principal Sam Brahani, Lincoln Elementary has implemented research based coherent PK-five curriculum aligned with District priorities, ensuring that instruction is rigorous,
culturally responsive and designed to close achievement gaps. And whereas, Lincoln Elementary School serves a diverse population of approximately 700 students, including 54% English learners and is committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment where every child can thrive. And whereas, the school's strong family and community collaborations, coupled with data driven instructional practices and targeted student supports, have propelled Lincoln Elementary to rank among the top performing elementary schools in Oakland Unified
School District. And whereas the California Distinguished Schools program recognizes schools based on performance and progress on the state indicators including test scores, suspension rates and conditions and climate. Elementary schools and middle schools are recognized in alternate years, therefore, awardees hold the title for two years. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Oakland Unified School District and Doctor. Kyla Johnson Trammell, Superintendent of Schools, acknowledges and honors Lincoln Elementary for outstanding service to the students of Oakland.
All right. Peralta. Honoring Peralta Elementary School as a 2025 California Distinguished School. Whereas, Peralta Elementary School, led by Principal Dana Sudduth will be recognized by State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, in May of twenty twenty five as a California Distinguished School whereas Peralta Elementary was given the honor because of its academic achievements, reduction of the opportunity gap and positive climate and culture as an intentionally welcoming and joyful place for all kids.
Whereas, this honor reflects the exceptional learning environment created by passionate classroom teachers, dedicated Classified staff, enrichment teachers, volunteers, students and their supportive families working together. And whereas, this achievement celebrates the commitment, collaboration and care that define Peralta as a community united by a shared vision of excellence, where student success thrives and whereas Peralta Elementary benefits from high levels of parent and community involvement, providing a collaborative effort between faculty,
staff and families to support student growth and whereas, the California Distinguished Schools program recognizes schools based on performance and progress on the state indicators, including test scores, suspension rates and conditions and climate. Elementary schools and middle schools and high schools are recognized in alternate years. Therefore, the awardees hold this title for two years. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Oakland Unified School District and Doctor. Kyla Johnson Trammell, Superintendent of Schools, acknowledges and honors Peralta Elementary for outstanding service to the students of Oakland.
And if everyone would come up to the stairs here, we're going to have oh, public comments, sorry. I moved ahead. It's not public comments, sorry. For public speakers, we have one on registered speaker, Asolo Lobala. How many minutes would you like to allocate? I'm concerned about the element of diversity or lack of diversity at these schools. You described Lincoln Elementary as being diverse. It's 72.5 Asian Pacific Islander and 4.7% black. I'm just gonna mention the black children at these schools compared to the majority group.
At Crocker, the majority group is white, thirty nine point one, and black students are 9.2. At Peralta, the majority group is 41% white, eleven % black. And white's only 10% of the district. So we have schools where white and Asians are the majority group, and they're doing well. And as as the Hispanic numbers are very low at all of these schools as well. So we have to create distinguished schools where we have Black students and Hispanic students being a major part of the school's enrollment.
Are there any speakers online? No. There are a couple of speakers. Okay. Mr. Did you have a comment? Yes. Thank you. First, congratulations to all three schools, to Lincoln and to Peralta. But I'm going to take a minute personally to speak about Crocker. I'm a proud Crocker kid myself. And so, the first year the new building was opened is when I started kindergarten at Crocker Highlands. Crocker Highlands gave both me and my younger brother an education that set us up for our futures. You know, it led to my younger brother going Ivy League and now he's a successful lawyer.
And so if you really press me away from here, I can still sing the Crocker song. And and really rest in peace to, Miss Opaline Mays who just passed away at 102 years old, who actually wrote our school songs many, many years ago. So I just wanted to take this personal moment of pride. I agree with Ms. Assata's comments that, it would be nice to see more distinguished schools all across Oakland. But I really thank all three schools and congratulate you. And for me, it's always great seeing Crocker lifted up like this.
I'm still friends with everyone I used to run the halls with, way too many years ago. And so congratulations and please send me an invite sometime because I'm always available to go back and visit Crocker. But congratulations to all three schools. Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Okay. On the roll. I just wanna quickly say, you know, Peralta is in my district. So congratulations to Crocker and Lincoln but also to, the team, and the, all the families at Peralta for your work. Thanks. Can we take a roll call, please? Yes. On the roll call, approving the resolutions honoring the three distinguished schools as stated.
Student director Simmons? Yes. Student director Vasquez? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice President Bachelor? Yes. And President Brohard? Yes. The motion's adopted unanimously. One time. So the award winners? Like, everybody take Okay. Director Barry, if you just move in a tiny bit, there we go. Mike, if you wanna take a step down, that'll there we go. Alright. Everybody right here, big smiles on 3.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Perfect. Thank you. Right? Okay. For our next special order of the day, we have I2 and I3. We're going to consider them together. The first one is naming the new administrative building, one at 1011 Union Street, Doctor. Marcus A. Foster Leadership Center, a division of Facilities and Planning and Management. And naming selected spaces, new administrative building, 1011 Union Street, Paul Robeson, I to Louise Jackson, Division of Facilities Planning and Management. And I believe you have a proclamation to read.
Is that right? So first, I'd like to make a motion to move these items together. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. Well, that's not exactly phrased correctly. It's to approve them and to consider them together. I would like to make a motion to approve them and consider them together. Alright. Can I get a second? Second. If you're vote, please? Not yet. Presentation plus public comment plus what she did. Oh, I'm sorry. No. You take the vote. She did. Bachelor and Ladder moved it. There's a motion and a second. The vote will come subsequently. All right. Good evening,
Preston Thomas. I'm the Chief Systems and Services Officer, for the district. And our recommendation, this has already come from the Facilities Committee, is the approval of this resolution. I do want to say it's an absolute honor to be leading this off tonight. As the new administrative building opened in February, there were a lot of issues that needed to be resolved in naming. In terms of the building itself was the Cole Grammar and Cole Middle School And also there's lots of board legislation around naming the next administrative building after Marcus A. Foster.
There's the Paul Robeson building that was previously the administrative center. And so we convened according to Board Policy 07/2010 an amazing ad hoc committee, that was composed of students, it was composed of community members and we're here to talk to you about our process. And a special thing tonight, I'm really excited, is that the students are going to read it into the record. We're going to have our Student Board Directors and the historian, but also Ms. Awele here from Skyline has worked with some of the students from the MLK oratorical
that are here to speak tonight and read it into the record. So, Doctor. Denise Sadler was the Chair of the Committee and I'm going to turn it over to her to talk a little bit about the process. Good evening, Board members and our Academic Officer Sandra Aguilera and the audience here this evening and the audience that is watching this on TV. This is a long time coming. And it's an extremely, emotional and serious matter in that we have the naming of a building after one
of our superintendents who we lost many, many years ago. At one point we did have a school named after him and later that school, was removed and is no longer here. So it's been a long time since we've had anything named after Doctor. Marcus A. Foster. I want to share this evening the work of this committee which met four times, over the year to take a look at the naming of the building, look at the history, and also to acknowledge the building, the new building,
was built on the grounds of Cole Elementary School. My personal feeling is that every school has a soul. There's a rich history. Coles School has significant, there's significant memories. And in fact, for many years it was the showcase of the district. School boards actually had their press conferences and meetings at Cole School. It was absolutely a flagship school for our district. So it is significant that the new Administration Leadership Center is built on those grounds.
This evening you will have special presentations from different people on the Committee who helped us think about this matter of naming the building And we thoughtfully made our recommendations to the Facilities Committee, which voted favorably to recommend the naming of the building after Doctor. Marcus Foster, as well as many special meeting rooms. So, because we have students speaking this evening, I want to limit my comments and continue with the presentation at this point. Thank you very much. Good evening everyone.
My name is Ernestine Nettles. I'm a lifelong resident of Oakland. I'm also a graduate of Cole Elementary School. Cole is a very special place. And the naming of this building is very special because we all are here and still standing on the shoulders of the late Doctor. Marcus Foster and his wife, by the way, who volunteered at Cole Elementary School. This is a very respectful community and this building represents all those things that are great about being in Oakland.
We have graduates from every walk of life. The very first student to sit on the Board of Education representing students, Fred Smith, came from Cole Elementary School, a PhD from Harvard University. He's still active. He comes to the Bay Area every year. We celebrate Cole's School. Coles School is the school that had the community garden. And Doctor. Foster was very, very essential in making sure that not only graduates of Coles School,
but graduates throughout the city of Oakland understood the importance of education and understood all those life skills that go along with education and preparing us for our future. Tonight, we have the distinction of having Miss Nan Morgan here. She attended Coles School. Her children attended Coles School. Her grandchildren attended Coles School. And perhaps her great grandchildren will attend Coles School. Not only did she attend Coles School, she was also one of the student one of the community representatives who was one
of the first assistants at Coles School and had the distinction of knowing doctor and missus Foster. So, that being said, I'm going to present Nan Morgan, who is a pillar in our community. And by the way, we all still live in West Oakland in the Coles School District. Nan? Good evening to everyone. My name is Nanny Morgan, and I am a long time resident of the West Oakland neighborhood. I moved here with my parents from Pine Bluff,
Arkansas when I was five years old, and that was in February 1945. My first school was Cole Elementary School. Not only did I attend Cole, but some of my siblings, children, cousins, and grandchildren all went there or more of all went there of one of the surrounding schools, including doctor Martin Luther King Elementary School and Lohr Middle School, which is now West Oakland Middle School. I have a deep connection to this neighborhood and have witnessed its evolution
over the years. I remember when Seventh Street and West Oakland were a vibrant community with churches, businesses, and families. There were places like Slim Jenkins, Esther's Orbit Room, Earl's Barbecue, Jenkins Barbecue, West Oakland Market, Beth Eden Church, Well Baby Clinic, a Safeway grocery store on Twelfth And Adeline, Liberty Market on Twelfth And Chestnut, the 5 and 10¢ store. All although many of these businesses are no longer here,
they left a lasting legacy in the community of West Oakland. I also remember when the streetcars used to run down Seventh Street, the SP train station on Third Street. The a train used to run down Poplar Street onto Twelfth Street. Bus number 44 on the seventh Street Adeline take you it would take you over the ramp to Harbor Homes projects. For many years, I served the youth of Oakland as one of the first teacher's aide at Cole
School Elementary. I also worked at Martin Luther King Elementary School and Roosevelt Middle School where I retired in 1995 after twenty seven years with the Oakland School District. Oakland Unified School District. Today, I stand here in support of the resolution to name the newly elect Oakland Unified School District Administration Building after Marcus a Foster and the recreation room after the late
Ida Louise Jackson. Greetings, board members. My name is Herman Brown, and I'm a native son of West Oakland. And I attended well, I started to go to Cole Elementary School in September of nineteen fifty six. I grew up in the projects right across the street from Cole. Now here's something for you all, Tahita. I was a teacher in Oakland for forty six years. Just retired three years ago.
I have committed myself to educating the youth in Oakland. I had the opportunity y'all to teach at COB for eleven years. I taught in my classroom, which was my favorite year. At Cole was in the third grade in 1959. I used to walk over to the window and look outside and had many memories of being a little boy in that room. And that same old clock was still up there ticking back in like 02/2008.
And it just remind me of all the times when I used to look up at the clock, waiting to go out to recess and go to lunch and then when school was out. I did eleven years at Cole and then I transferred over to KIPP Academy, which was on the Lafayette Grounds in West Oakland. And I spent, I think it was eleven years there. But I also taught at Westlake Junior High School for twenty six years. But with doctor Foster, y'all, take this into your hearts. As being an old teacher,
I can teach a lesson. And on this, I just want to share something about spirit. When I was in college at St. Mary's College, I graduated from Maclimus in 1969 on a basketball scholarship. I was a bad dude for Mac in 1969. And while I was up there, this is a a spiritual part of all of It's with doctor Foster. When I left Mac, my dreams was to go to the NBA. You know, we all wanted to be NBA players, but those were Vietnam War days and Black Panther Party days.
And over my years at St. Mary's, I participated in a boycott of a game because of racism that was going on on the campus. I became very politically involved. I forgot all about trying to play basketball. I became an activist. And I knew about the things because I graduated from St. Mary's in 1974. I knew what Doctor. Foster was doing. He was in Oakland where I came from. I changed my mind y'all from trying to play hoop, jumping up, getting rebounds, and having people cheer for me.
I destroyed my possibility of going into the NBA because I boycotted for the dean of men who was fired illegally at Saint Mary's. But during those time, board members, I dedicated myself to becoming an educator. I wanted to go back into Oakland and do what doctor Foster was doing. He motivated me. When I was in college, he was the superintendent. I knew what he was doing. I said, I've got to go back. I've got to give back.
I've got to do this. I did it. I graduated from Saint Mary's. I got my teacher's credential, and I went back into Oakland for forty six years to carry on the mission that that man started. I still live in West Oakland. I walk down the streets in West Oakland. I see a lot of my students when I'm taking my walks and they recognize me, and they holler me out y'all. This is spiritual for you. Mister Brown, mister Brown, they stopped their cars and they come over,
and they tell me if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have made it. You was my spiritual leader. You was a father I never had, and I'm gonna end this up because I'm a old school teacher. I could teach a lesson. I can go on and on and on, But I want y'all to just feel this one. Okay? Three weeks ago, I was in the Colonel Sanders, KFC, and I was buying, you know, what was on the the menu, whatever I was getting. And one of my students in there recognized me when he was at Kohl. And he came over and he said, mister Brown, mister Brown. And I said, yeah. You know, I couldn't remember him because he had grown up,
you know, from the time he was a kid. And, when when I went to pay for my meal, he came over and said, no, mister Brown. I got this. I got this. And, I said, I appreciate that. It made me very emotional. He said, mister Brown, everything you did for us, this is nothing. This is the least I can do. And I told him this. I said, I appreciate it. But what I did for you all, what was done for me, I'm pass I passed on to you all what was passed on to me. Growing up in West Oakland like Ernestine said, in that community,
like the the the great lady said in West Oakland, that's what built our characters to do what we have done in our lives. It made me be dedicated to be a teacher for forty six years. And I see students all the time, and they say, thank you, mister Brown. And I say, I just pass it on. And doctor Foster is who motivated me. I was at cold school in the beginning of my life, and that's where I got exposed to a wonderful education.
I became dedicated to that. I hope you all take that into consideration. And when I still walk by the school, I have, sorrow that I don't see the building there anymore where I was a kid. It's gone. It's just all up here in the in in the mind. But when I see the new building and I see his name up there, it will live on in my heart and everybody else who comes by there. Thank you all for listening to me. Thank you. You can imagine the ad hoc committee would like this every single time we met where we heard story after story and deep reflection around powerful impact that Doctor.
Marcus Foster had. And we'd like to right now turn it over to Director Simmons, who is going to start the reading of the resolution into the record. So I'll turn it over to you, sir. Resolution number 2425Dash0132. Name in the new administrative building at 1011 Union Street located on the historical site of Cole Elementary School in honor of doc in honor of doctor Marcus a Foster, a groundbreaking educator and a visionary leader.
Whereas, doctor Marcus a Foster, born in 1923 to 1973, dedicated his life to transformative power of education, championing Oh. Championing high standards, community engagement, and equitable opportunities for students of all backgrounds. And whereas, as superintendent of Oakland Unified School District from 1970 to 1973, doctor Foster was a was a pioneering educator and administrator and the first African American to lead a major urban school system,
bringing a bold, compassionate, and forward thinking approach to educational leadership during a period of significant social change and challenges. And whereas, doctor Foster worked tirelessly to foster strong relationships between schools, families, organizations, and broader communities, believing that every child's academic success was in ex linked to the health and well-being of the entire neighborhood, and which laid the foundation for Oreste Community School's vision. And whereas,
the historical site of Cole Grammar School, eighteen seventy eight to 02/2009, which is reestablished as Cole Middle School, nineteen eighty to two thousand nine, stands as a testament to the educational legacy in Oakland, having served countless students and families over many years. And whereas doctor Foster's commitment to students and the district was reinforced by the involvement of his wife, Albertine Ramser, affectionately known as Abby, who worked at the Cole Elementary site,
reflecting a true family partnership in the mission of uplifting the educational environment and community of Oakland. Hello. My name is Anaya Nero and, from Montero Middle School, and I'm a sixth grader. And tomorrow, I'll be a, rising seventh grader. Whereas, per board policy seven three one zero, the board shall consider dedicating buildings, part of parts of buildings, or other district facilities in memory of deceased students, staff members, and community members, and benefactors of the district memorials.
And whereas on 06/10/2015, the OUSD Board of Education unanimously adopted resolution number one four one five one one six six, in part authorizing to name the former Administration Building in honor of doctor Marcus a Foster. And whereas, naming the new administration center after doctor Marcus a Foster will ensure that his legacy of visionary leadership, unwavering integrity,
dedication to social justice, and community centered educational reform will guide, present, and future generations of educators, administration, parents, and students. And whereas, doctor Marcus a Foster gave his life for the children of Oakland on 11/06/1973. The memory of his courage, empathy, and trailblazing services provides a meaningful model for all who believe in transformative power of education and a central role of equity and collaboration in our schools.
Whereas the Oakland tribute wrote at doctor Foster's death in 1973, doctor Foster believed that all students could learn. He was committed to the vision of students being enriched by teaching, then passing on the that treasure to future generations. It was no castle of dreams he built in the city. It was a solid edifice fashion brick by brick of academic improvement of trust among people of inspiration and enthusiasm and confidence.
And whereas doctor Foster's daughter, the reverend Marsha Foster, PhD, supports the recommendation that the new administration center be named in honor of her father. And Hi. My name is Elma, and I'm a second grader at Chabot Elementary School. Whereas naming the new administrative center for doctor Foster in a fitting tribute to a man who said, in a message to all OUSD employees, when the pieces are in place,
when we are done with the temporary preoccupation and the catchphrases, when we feel the power and acceleration of real movement toward our objectives, then will come an important realization. Our success will come not because of board directives or the superintendent's notions or the staff's creativity's or the community's yearnings. We will make it because we have the common need to draw on each other and the audacity to believe that in concert we are equal to the great tasks.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Oakland Unified School District community, its students, alumni, staff, and future generations hereby dedicates and officially names the new administrative center at the historical site of Cole Grammar School as the doctor Marcus a Foster Leadership Center in the superintendent's conference room. The doctor Marcus a Foster conference room and How are you doing? My name is Kaleb Kefusi, and I'm a sophomore from Mac. Be it further resolved that appropriate signage,
plaques, and educational materials be installed to highlight doctor Marcus Marcus, a father's extraordinary contributions, ensuring that all who enter these facilities will learn not only of his innovative leadership and enduring influence on public education, but also the critical role his family played in strengthening community ties and being further resolved that appropriate plaque and educational materials be installed to memorialize the legacy of Cole Grammer in middle school. The original site, the new doctor Marcus a Foster Leadership Center. And be it further resolved that copies of this resolution be presented to the Reverend
Marsha Foster, PhD, doctor Foster's only child, to the Oakland Unified School District, and to the broader Oakland community, sung as a permanent tribute to the values, achievements, and compassionate vision embodied by Marcus a Foster. Thank you. Honorable members, my name is Reverend Doctor. Dwight Webster. I am the proud pastor of the 135 year old Beth Eden Baptist Church on Tenth And Adeline, 1183 Tenth Street, the oldest Black Baptist church in Alameda County and the mother of all Black Baptist
churches and right down the street from the new headquarters and, in stone's throw of what was Cole Elementary School. This is my third iteration in the Bay Area. I came here originally to do grad graduate work at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, served as minister of youth and young adults, forty years ago, met and married one of the finest women south of heaven and north of hell, and, got her out of Beth Eden Baptist Church. But names mean something. A rose by any other name somebody said would still smell as sweet,
but there's a gravitas that is attributed to brick and mortar. When people can see identity, they can see heritage, and they can see legacy. And it is no small matter that you have considered to attach a name where children going and coming, my members who grew up in that neighborhood, who went to that school, their great grandchildren and children went to that school. You have do you have done something by attaching the name with such significance to
something that seems inanimate. You have given it life. You have given it something that will continue on to continue to inspire others who will come to West Oakland, historic West Oakland, and know that somebody by the name of doctor Marcus Foster left an indelible impression. And I don't think I could do any more than introduce the next speaker who is the one that he brought into this world, reverend doctor Marcia Fox.
Good evening. I'm honored to stand before you as the only child of Albertine and Marcus Foster. My father was 50 years old when he was assassinated in 1973. Let's not forget why we're naming this building tonight. We're proposing this naming because he gave his life as was stated for the children of Oakland. He loved Oakland even for just the three years that he and my mother,
were here. My mother stayed in Oakland and was very active in the community and as was stated, very active at Cole Elementary School. So all the stars have aligned as far as I'm concerned. And the ancestors, my parents, brought me back here eight years ago, almost nine years ago and it was like they were pulling me back to Oakland. I've lived this is the third time I've lived in this area. And I felt that there was something that I was here to help bring to
fruition. And now I know. It is this building. 52 Years ago, he died, and it has taken all these years to have some type of memorial in this city in his name. There is a post office, yes, named for him. I know that. But the school district is now saying, we thank you, doctor Foster, for giving your life for this city and more importantly, for the children of this city.
I wanna thank Denise Sadler in particular for leading this effort and for this beautiful committee and all that you have heard tonight, you can only imagine how I feel. I'm so proud, I'm so honored and I'm so thankful that Albertine and Marcus Foster brought me into this world and I've tried to hold up the legacy that they have given me and tonight prayerfully you will bring to fruition a part,
an important major part of that legacy. Thank you. I would just like to have the total committee that's here in support to stand and be acknowledged. They have worked on this long and tirelessly. All committee members, please stand. Thank you so much. We have time for ten minutes of public comment. Do we have any speakers? Yes. We have for speaker for I. -two plus I. -three, Wanda Stewart, Herman Brown, Nan Morgan and Asolo Lobala.
Two minutes each, please. Good evening. This is the first time I've ever even attended an Oakland Unified School District meeting. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm Wanda Stewart. I'm the Executive Director of Common Vision, and we work in school gardens and school communities to nourish, the future for our kids and for that community. And I was invited to be a part of, this committee. I have to say I'm not from Oakland. Only been living in the Bay Area for twenty five years.
It's not real long, but I'm originally from Philadelphia. So I gotta say, I'm standing here proud for Philadelphia for Marcus a Foster. He's a Philadelphian. Paul Robeson is a Philadelphian. And another point of pride, one of the gardens that we are working most in right now is the Prescott Elementary School. And it is the professional home to Ida Louise Jackson. I'm obligated to say one of the divine nine, but Prescott is thrilled to be honored in that way and to see her legacy
upheld as well. So I encourage you to pass this resolution, and we look forward to the work that it inspires. I don't know how I got back up here again. But being here again, I just want to say one more time that for forty six years of my life giving back to kids in Oakland, it all started with I discovered who the doctor was. It changed my life. And that's the kind of motivation that we have to have for our elders to pass down to our children.
And I respect the doctor, but he's still that in me. I gave it back for forty six years. I have students now, like, 59 to 60 years old. Some of you possibly could have been a student of mine once upon a time because I'm a OG. But I got all that you guys from, the the drive at the time and what the doctor gave to the community and what he was doing. It inspired me. I loved every single day of giving back to children. Doctor. Foster was the man.
Thank you all. Have a good one. President Brujah, we also have Jamoca Hinton. Please. She couldn't wait the four hours. Okay. Okay. And my name is Vivica, Jamoke Hinton. Word for word. She told me that I gotta put some passion in it. So let me see if I can do this. Okay. Doctor. Marcus A Foster. To me, being a West Oakland resident and a Black mother, representation matters, Especially when we're memorializing an African American male educator, an educator's educator. Because right now in this country, less than 2% of our educators are African American and men.
Where might we be if he had been allowed to thrive and lead Oakland the way that it could be? We have now this opportunity to honor his legacy, an OUSD administration building that will carry the name of a champion. Words and names have power. Thank you for not forgetting his name, Doctor. Marcus a Foster. Jamoke Hinton, school board, and Marissa. I'm also not from here, so I'm not familiar with, doctor Foster. I am familiar with, his legacy. And I'm I I listen to the community describe West Oakland and the thriving African
American community, which doesn't exist anymore because of gentrification. And my one point is Doctor. Foster was here today to see the status of African American students in OUSD and how they are not getting the needs and opportunities, the staffing, the resources necessary, what would he say for what's going on? I made 80 years old last week. I'm tired. But I will continue to come here with a main purpose of talking about African American students. And I don't want this to be the agenda for how we recognize African Americans.
This is what they do at City Hall. They name streets after Black people, but they don't do nothing for Black people. So this is great that we're naming the buildings after these beautiful and deserving African Americans, but there are African American students in this district who are not getting the support they need. And I will be here till the end of the meeting discussing every aspect of that as it comes up. And I'll be at the next meeting and next meeting and next meeting. So congratulations to what seems to be a very deserving
person, a great loss. What would he say if he could stand before you about what's going on with African American students in this district? President Blueheart, all in name has been called. And other board comments? Director Hutchinson? Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight. You know, it is long past time that Ida Louise Jackson is honored in this sort of way. And so, I am very happy to see this. But as far as Paul Robeson and Doctor. Marcus Foster, this is now righting a wrong that's existed for way too long in the district.
The building across the street shouldn't have been allowed to be intentionally flooded and in the state that it's in now. That is the Paul Robeson Building. And, Paul Robeson has always been a hero of mine. But it has been unacceptable that that building has been allowed to fall into disrepair like that. And it's been unacceptable that there has been no desire from the school board in twelve years to do anything to address that wrong. I would say the same thing about when Foster School,
Marcus Foster School, was leveled to build an instructional farm. It was disrespectful and should have never been done in the first place. And so I am very happy to see this wrong finally righted. And, you know, for me, Doctor. Foster was assassinated eight months after I was born. And so I grew up at a time in Oakland where we literally grew up in the shadow of that legacy. We heard the stories. Hopefully, people heard tonight not only was he the first African American superintendent in a major
city in this country, this was at the time when the Black Panthers were at their strongest here, too. And that shouldn't be lost on anyone. There was this interconnection in what was going on here in Oakland at that time. Unfortunately, I we've lost a lot of that. But I don't think it's too late for us. And again, this is long overdue to right this wrong. I really know that I personally benefited from Doctor. Foster's legacy. My mom was a brand new teacher when he was here. She still talks about him to this day.
And so, for those of you younger in Oakland, please take some time to look into this legacy. This is what helped build OUSD and what helped build Oakland. And if we can get back to leaning on these foundations, it should be able to set us up for a much brighter future. So thank you. Especially, thank you to the Foster family. And again, I am very happy to right a wrong that's gone on for way too long. Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'm the immediate past president of the Oakland Alliance Of Black Educators.
I'm the present president of the California Affiliates Alliance of Black Educators. And you might ask me, why would I even mention that? It's because doctor Foster decided to step out. He was one of only 12 superintendents in this entire nation who stepped out and said, we need to form an organization that will highlight and uplift our black students throughout this nation. He was right here in Oakland and did that.
That's why I think I'm in the position that I'm in now because he laid the groundwork, and I'm standing on his shoulders. So I wanna say to the Foster family, thank you very much for lending us your dad because he was an absolute wonderful individual. And because of him, the National School the National Alliance of Black School Educators, which holds a conference every year, of which I'm a life member, it has about 5,000 black educators from around the world that will meet in different places in The United
States. And it's because of his vision. He looked down the tunnel of life and said, in 02/2025, they might recognize me for having done something, but I'm gonna put in the work right now. So he put in the work many, many years ago, and now we are honoring him. Thank you again, family, for allowing us to have your father with us. Director Williams? Thank you, President Breaux Hart. I just wanna thank the community for really, holding this work, to make sure that,
doctor Foster's name is, will be a centerpiece, in the community. And at every time anyone goes into the headquarters, they will know that his, legacy lives and it lives brightly. You know, the thing that I think about I'm I'm not born in Oakland, but I've been, living in West Oakland for eighteen years. And the conversations I've always had with educators as such is that, doctor Foster really, had a community based engagement, made sure the community was involved. He brought neighborhoods together.
He brought young folks together to teach hands on experiences about life. You know, he was very much a forward thinker. And I I think that we, as a community today, should really be studying, what as a board, as educators who come into West Oakland, should really be studying and understanding the impact that Doctor. Foster had. Not only on, you know, black students, but on all of the students within OUSD.
I feel strongly that, you know, we have to the model we have now as a community schools to really engage the essence of community engagement within the neighborhood because our kids are missing out on opportunities of learning, not just graduating, but actually learning about self, learning about community, and learning how to work together. Having that, a respect with, adults, having adults actually, be the teachers like mister Brown as he's he's done.
That sense of, like, engagement, interaction, community identity is really important. And so, I appreciate hearing the history. I will continue to tap into, a number of folks here to just, lift it up. I'd like to make sure as the director for District three, all of our West Oakland schools should know, the students should know about doctor Marcus Foster. And I will continue to move that conversation with each of our principals. I just wanna thank, miss Marsha. Thank you very much for your words. And I hope that at this moment,
you're proud of us, and we'll continue to lift his name up, as a fighter for all of us. Thank you very much. Just forty five seconds or less. I just wanted to say thank you all for holding this work for the emotional labor. I've always felt like I had a special connection to Marcus Foster because I started my career in education in Philadelphia. I became a student of Oakland as a result of his leadership and his legacy, and I take that very seriously. And I also want to encourage you all to hold us accountable, not just for honoring his legacy by naming the building,
but we're also at the very beginning stages of a superintendent search. And I think we have an opportunity to honor the legacy of his vision and the way he engaged with community. All the stories we we heard today, I think we have an opportunity to honor that in the process we set up for selecting the new superintendent and in imagining who and what that person should be. So, thank you. Thank you. I also wanna thank the committee that, put all this together. I know that, there was a lot of, West Oakland community members as a part of that committee.
And as a part of, the report back to the facilities committee, I had asked, since this is gonna be a district building, a district wide building, we need to include other folks throughout the whole district, into that process. And so I'm really glad that we were able to make those moves and include the rest of our community in that. I also believe, as Doctor. Sadler mentioned, that, like, our public spaces, our public buildings, our sacred spaces within our community, they have souls, they have lives, they have, a way in which they have supported us, whether they be a building, a train station,
or differently. And I think really honoring that, by making sure that we're using those spaces to the best of the community's needs while also, remembering the history. I think Doctor. Sadler and I talked at the Facilities Committee a little bit about how we can honor that history maybe within the building, whether it's showcasing pictures from different eras of Oakland, showcasing student artwork or student work, in those spaces as well, to really, again, keep the history of our community alive, but also honoring what is coming up and what is happening in our community right
now. So I am excited that we are moving forward with these spaces. I know there's many other spaces within the building, so really thinking about what are other community members that we wanna honor. And, as we move forward in all of our facilities work, how can we be honoring those, that came before us and making sure that those spaces are the best for our students? But thank you so much, for the committee's work on all of this. Student directors. I I didn't know doctor Foster, but I can tell you that it is black men like him who
inspire activists today. And we black people in general wouldn't be where we are without brave men like doctor Foster, who was willing to give up his life and his children and family for an entire race of people. For his people. And, it gives you and instills a sense of pride in being black. And it gives black pride, and that's what they taught when doctor Foster was around. So
I'm very glad that your father is being honored. And I feel honored too. So thank you. Good evening, everyone. I would also like to thank the committee. I do want to share that, Doctor. Foster's leadership is, truly inspiring. A few years ago, we were given as administrators, we were given a postcard of, Doctor Foster. It's a picture of him reading to a group of students. And I have that above my desk and, I look at it every day before I leave. I have a couple of copies of it because I find his leadership to be
so inspirational. So I wanna thank you for sharing, your father with us especially, and to let you know that his leadership does truly inspire our district. There's also on the web, you can find excerpts of his opening speech to, the staff of Oakland. And I've played that for our own staff, because, the words that he said many years ago still ring true and really focuses on the work that needs to happen. So thank you for sharing your father with us. And, please be assured that we will continue to lead in the way that he has
taught us. So thank you. I just want to briefly thank the community and thank Doctor. Foster, as well for sharing your father I keep turning this down. Sorry. When I first moved to the Bay Area, I think it was right after your father was assassinated. And I didn't know much about him at the time. I mean, I was new to the area, but I think, teachers that I've worked with over the years, taught me a lot about him and how they it modeled their teaching, similar to what Mr. Brown was saying. Some of them have been teaching that long too. So, I think again that your father's legacy does live in our classrooms today.
So thank you. And I think it's a really beautiful thing to be able to name the building after your dad in that community. So thank you. On the roll call to adopt I two and I three. Student director Simmons? Yes. Student director Vasquez? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Latta? Yes. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Breaux Hart? Yes. Motions adopted unanimously. Yeah, if the committee could come up and we can take a picture.
You know, we love to take pictures here. So, if we can come up to the stairs and we can, I think, Mario, take one? President Brevard, I'd also like to invite the students who are still here that spoke earlier if they would like to take a picture with us too. Pastor Weber. There you go. That works too. If all board members could come up to the dais, please. And we have next on the agenda is the student report. Thank you so much. I'd like to call up all city council student board members up to the dais. Hi, everyone. My name is Adriana Villegas. I'm the student engagement specialist, and I work with, our All City Council Student Union Governing Board.
I do wanna take a quick minute, to address the board before they get started, and this is not part of the report. But I do wanna make it clear, and I'm not speaking for any of these students. I'm speaking for myself when I say as the ACC coordinator. They have been waiting here since 05:30. They came after school after a full day. They're trying to enjoy their last week. And I don't say this because you don't know this. I know that you know this, but I also know that something was scheduled during closed session that I know you know was gonna take a long time.
And that should not have been rushed, but neither should we and neither should my students be here because their parents are texting me. We have students that were pushed out of Oakland, so they don't live in Oakland anymore, and now they have to commute outside at this hour and it's it's not safe. So I say this because I need to make sure that students are not just prioritized to speak for decoration, but because they've been working all year and they wanna report what they did this year, and I know that you all knew that this was on the agenda. And this happens every single year. So I'm gonna let them speak.
They have been working on their report, and they're very proud of what they've done this year. And this is my first year in this position, and I'm very proud of them. But I just wanted to make that clear because I am upset. Okay? Thank you. Thank you so much. So we'll get started. Good evening, board members, superintendents, students, parents, and community. Welcome to our last board report for the school year, which has been very long awaited today. We will invite our governing board members to join us and give the end of the year report, where we will have an overview of ACC,
talk about key accomplishments for the school year, general updates around our priorities, and we'll be announcing our new governing board for the twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six school year. But before we get started with our report, I would like to invite our ACC governing board members to introduce themselves, starting off with our president. Hello, everyone. My name is Mariana Smith. I'm a upcoming senior at Oakland Tech, and I am all city council's president for this school year. Vice president? Hi. My name is Ashley Chaney.
I'm an upcoming senior at Oakland Tech, and I am all city council's vice president for this school year. Dorian? My name is Caleb Cafusi. I'm a sophomore at Mac and upcoming junior. I've I've I forgot my position. Culture and Oh, the other Culture and climate director. Oh, and I'm current historian. Secretary? Hi. My name is Stephanie. I'm a senior at Coliseum College Prep Academy. I will be attending East Bay this fall, and I'm secretary for ACC. Culture and Climate Director. Hi. Good evening. My name is Inara. I'm currently a sophomore at Skyline,
and I serve as the Culture and Climate Director. And I'm a upcoming vice president for ACC's All City Council Governing Board. Health and Wellness Director. Hello, everyone. My name is Sophie Moilette. I'm a rising senior at Oakland Tech High School, and I am All City Council's Health and Wellness. Media director? Hi, everyone. My name is Amina Tongwoon. I am a rising junior at Oakland Technical High School, and I'm ACC's media director. LCAP directors? Hi. My name is Ariana Estorga Vega. I am this year's LCAP one of the LCAP directors, and I am currently a official graduate of Oakland Tech.
Good evening, y'all. My name is Lina Nguyen. I'm a rising senior at Skyline High School, and I serve as one of the LCAP directors for the school year. Last but not least, just as a reminder, my name is Michelle Vasquez, or formerly known as Director Vasquez, and I'll soon to be a MetWest alum after tomorrow, and I'll be attending the University of Irvine this fall. And next to me was Director Simmons, or also known as Maximus Simmons, and he'll be a senior this upcoming school year, and also
our student director for this upcoming school year as well. So for our agenda, we'll get an overview of ACC, we'll then move on to our key accomplishments of this past school year, and then we'll be introducing our ACC governing board for this upcoming school year. ACC, which stands for All City Council, is a student union that represents about 34,000 students in the district. We are the bridge between students and adults' decision making. The governing board is an elected student body that comes from different schools across the district. We are a team that represents the voice of the masses of students in our
district, and we organize together to address the needs of students, the needs of students to allow them to participate within leadership at their school sites and at a district level. Next slide please. Over the course of this school year, we've had many key accomplishments. We've met with seven OUSD departments, such as the Health and Wellness Department, Academics and Innovation, Community Schools and Student Services, Office of Senior Business, Strategy and Communications, the Talent Department, and with the High School Network Department. We've also collaborated with the Oakland U Vote Coalition to lead the candidates forum in
November of twenty twenty four, which was held at Fremont High School with over 160 attendees. Collectively, we've committed seventy two hours to our ACC governing board meetings, one hundred and fifty hours with check ins with staff and adult allies outside of these meetings, and over sixty hours facilitating engagement with middle school and high school leaders, as well as through our annual events, including two overnight retreats, our peer ethnic studies conference, and our youth action summit. We had our four general high school meetings out of 17 high schools. We were able to successfully engage with the students from with 11.
In addition to our general high school meetings, we also hosted our fifteenth annual Youth Action Summit this spring. Attendance from eight high schools including Tech, Skyline, Mac, Midwest, Fremont, CCPA, Oakland High, and Castlemont. Going over ACC's goals achieved at the retreat including campaign development, action planning and RJ circles. Now elect the GB for twenty fourth to twenty twenty five governing year and discuss new ACC twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six year priorities. Students began to brainstorm new ACC priorities for the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six governing
year at the Youth Action Summit. We're working on restructuring our priorities and how we will be strategizing for next school year. We began discussing we began discussion about the following: civic engagement, the student decision making such as the expansion of the student director role in voting, teacher retention, and the student bill of rights. We look forward to solidifying our priorities at the next overnight retreat with our OUSD student leaders. Again, throughout the year, we were able to engage with 11 high schools all over OUSD, conducting discussions over our 20 four-twenty five ACC priorities of career exploration,
staff and student relationships, along with climate and culture. Through these engagements, we're generally able to foster youth leadership and advocacy around school issues that affect them directly because some principals wanted to hear what students had to say from our engagement. In addition, we were able to spread information to students about what ACC is and who we are. As college and career exploration was one of our priorities this year, we were able to ask high school students on their feelings surrounding the topic of the pathways at their schools and preparedness for life after high school.
These are the results of what students have expressed. At some schools, college classes used to be only for upperclassmen, but now they're offered to lowerclassmen. However, they feel that regular academic courses need to be more academically rigorous. There's also a desire for more events targeted towards careers, like career days, field trips job to job sites, panels of guest speakers, and shadow days to shadow professionals in industries that the students are interested in. Another one of our priorities for this school year was climate and culture in school.
This is what schools had to say. Culture keepers to some people are seen as unprofessional or unwelcoming, and they would like to see culture keepers participate in training about cultural responsiveness, de escalation, restorative justice, appropriate relationship with students, etcetera. School facilities should be a priority to the district to change old pipes and ensure water quality as well as building frustrating meeting safety standards. Students want more safety protocols and don't want to feel or be but don't want
to feel or be policed. Students want to be included in making decisions about new safety protocols implemented at their schools, not just randomly decided by, that students continue to mention that school bathrooms are a majority concern at all school sites due to the conflict arising there and vaping. Another one of our priorities for the year was staff and student relationships in schools and our high school students said they have difficulty building relationships with teachers because they don't stay long enough. Students pointed over turnover rates being a major issue at most high schools.
Most schools were in agreement that bonding was necessary on the school and the classroom level. RJ should be more RJ should be focused RJ should be more used often to build community in classrooms for discussion and conflicts. Administrators that walk around the hallways and are physically present on their campus are more approachable. More movement incorporated classrooms and community building like icebreakers and games. Throughout this school year, ACC has facilitated four middle school general meetings where we held workshops for middle school students to work on public speaking skills,
workshop development, conference planning, and restorative justice circle keeping. This year, we had a core group of students that regularly came to ACC meetings. We want to appreciate all 12 schools that engaged with ACC and give a special thanks to Westlake, West Oakland Middle, and Monterra for their consistency in joining our general meetings and their role in the Ethnic Studies Conference. Personally, I would also like to highlight the individual efforts and ideas of each middle school student that we work The magnitude of their ideas and voices are is something that we cannot ignore.
Thank you. During our planning for the Middle School Ethnic Studies Conference, we had three committees that the middle schoolers could join. The Outreach Committee, the Entertainment Committee, and the Program Committee. The the Programming Committee led by Maximus or Director Simmons and I looked at planning the overall day of the Middle School's Ethnic Studies Conference, such as the arriving time, the leave time, the number of workshops there would be, and what time lunch would be at. The out the outreach committee led by Ashley handled the outreaching aspect by emailing schools, organizations, and high schoolers that would like to attend or hold a workshop.
The entertainment committee led by Mariana and Sophie handled the education and entertainment portion of the event by telling the outreach committee what type of workshops we would like to see, but also planning the lunch activities. There were 56 youth workshop facilitators with interactive workshops about mental health, climate change, youth power and culture, arts activism, and more. A highlight from this year was our first ACC high school meeting, which was an overnight retreat at NatureBridge. We welcomed 20 students from nine different schools, including Fremont, Dewey,
Oakland Tech, TCPA, McClimans, Life Academy, Oakland High, Skyline, and Met West. We were also able to help hold special elections for our secretary and media director. We focused on We focused on strategizing our ACC plans for the school year. We facilitated ACC held workshops, and we did lots and lots of community building. 77 students from nine high schools received their state Seal of Civic Engagement. This is this is a decrease of about 15% from last year's 91. We hope that next school year, more students are completing civic engagement projects and apply to obtain the seal that are
recognized on their transcript and diploma upon graduating. To support this work and expand civic engagement in the district, we are excited to share that OUSD received a two year California Serves grant. In 2019, Oakland Youth Vote or OYV was first thought of and worked on by students follow following this teacher strike. A year later, Measure QQ was passed by Oakland voters. The Core Leaders Committee or otherwise known as CLC was created in 2021 to involve student leaders in facilitate
and implementation of OYV from organizations that make up the OYV Coalition. In November 2020, Measure QQ passed by two thirds vote, but it failed to be implemented until recently in 2024. We are given we were given a short notice, but even so, we worked hard alongside teacher champions at nine different high schools to reach the OIV curriculum and get youth registered to vote. Some highlights from what CLC has accomplished this year includes the student led candidate forum
at Fremont High School, where we welcomed over 160 attendees, many of which were first time youth voters. CLC also met with Jennifer Brohard, Raquel Jimenez, and Vonzelle Reed to discuss the future of OIV and ensure that student vote will be supported by OUSD. From our initial meetings, we are working on a proposal alongside the OIV committee to present to the district. Two more highlights include the media day where the first youth voters dropped off their ballots, and that we registered over 1,000 youth voters, and 30 teachers were trained in the civic engagement curriculum that is available to be
downloaded on the oaklandyouthvote.org website. We are happy to report the following numbers as the official youth vote in the first election according to Alameda County Registrar of Voters. One thousand four hundred ninety four total registered youth and 575 total youth ballots counted. We are waiting for the finalized report from an evaluator to share the key takeaways and suggestions. Please look forward to that next school year. We would we would also like to thank everyone who has continuously supported Oakland Youth
Vote. A special thank you to the OYB committee that is made up of APAL, Oakland Kids First, Oakland Youth Commission, Californians for Justice, and All City Council. Additionally, although Josh Daniels no longer works for OUSD, he has consistently shown up to advocate for the implementation of OYV in public forums and conferences, so we would like to thank him as well. Slide, please. Now I'll be reporting on the health and wellness updates. Peer wellness programs have been expanded to many school sites.
There are currently four established peer wellness programs, and more schools have signed up for next year. Oakland Tech has secured a $1,000,000 grant over three years for developing their peer wellness program, as well as creating a health center inside of their school's campus. First Student There was the First Student Health Advisory Committee, which works to support components of the Healthy Oakland Kids and Teens curriculum and program and covers topics such as mental health, health access, culture and climate,
hate speech prevention, and LGBTQ access. A quick recap for our year includes attending eight PSAC, presenting about ACC engagements and events, which include middle and high school engagements, alongside representing the student voice in budget related discussions, and lastly note taking to report back to our youth. So our LCAP suggestions for future LCAP and budget engagement will include for future LCAP directors that will plan to conduct classroom visits with high school leadership to explain the
LCAP, collect feedback, and invite students to PSAC meetings. Essentially, our mission is to teach students about the LCAP, LCFF, and the district's budget for more transparency. We will collect student feedback to bring back to PSAC and invite more students to PSAC meetings in order to advocate for greater transparency around the district's budget. In conclusion, we'll mostly push for anti tokenism and ensure youth participation is authentic and impactful within LCAP. Thank you. So how can OUSD champion meaningful student engagement and support All City Council more?
And you guys can share more about what all city council is across OUSD, provide more funding for student leadership plus improvement projects. And for the OUSD school board, please be more present at our engagement, especially with schools in your district. Some of you guys were really good with that this year. And, of course, please reach out to us or our student engagement specialist, Adrianna, if you'd like to know more or get involved in. We wanna say thank you to our All City Council Governing Board for serving your full term and representing your peers in OUSD.
This year, we say goodbye and see you soon to our three graduating seniors, Michelle, Ariana, and Stephanie. This year, we also officially get to welcome our new Governing Board for next year's school year. We have three new students joining the board, Iman from MetWest, Louis from Oakland Tech, and Nala from Skyline. To conclude our end of the year report, we would like to reflect on what our experience in governance has taught us as student directors. Throughout our term as elected student representatives, we faced ongoing challenges in communication between the board and us.
This persistent issue taught us the importance of self advocacy. We learned to speak up, hold the board accountable for its lack of transparency, and consistently push for improved communication. We decided to do something a little bit different, so we'll both share our experiences from different points of views. So as this was my first and unfortunately my last year as student director, I have seen and learned a lot. One of the most persistent challenges throughout my our term was the lack of communication,
which which did not even more. However, what troubling what was a troubling lack of honesty from the board. This disconnect created much of the stress and confusion experienced by our community this school year. Advocating for our community became a constant effort, one I knew I'd take on, but not one I expected to carry throughout the entire year. In ACC, we studied the Adam Fletcher's Ladder of Youth Engagement, which outlines two which has very different ways adults engage with youth. Reflecting on my time on the board, two tiers stood out the most to me,
decoration and assigned but informed. The decoration tier is defined as adult led activities in which you understand the purpose but have no input in how they are planned. From an outsider perspective, the committee might assume that the student directors have the same decision making authority as the other board members. That isn't the case. It It wasn't until the second semester that we were included in the two by two meetings that other board directors retune routinely attended. Our inclusion came only after we raised concerns publicly and advocated for ourselves in board
meetings. While we had a general understanding of the district direction, we were not invited to help shape what those outcomes could or should look like for students. The second tier, assigned but informed, as defined as adult led activities in which youth understand the purpose decision making process and have a role. In our experience, this is more accurately assigned but not informed. While both director Simmons and I understood our roles and the board's decision making processes, we were often left without meaningful participation or influence.
That said, we have seen some improvement over time. We now receive biweekly updates from superintendent doctor Kyla Johnson Trammell, including links and schedules for two by two meetings, but these practices should have been in place from the very beginning. We want to remind the board, we are a part of the board directors. The only real difference between us are age and power. Yes. We are students. We all are adults, But that doesn't mean our voices should be sidelined. We are the ones in classrooms and on campuses every day. We understand firsthand what students and community members need,
and we deserve a seat at the table where those decisions are made. So how was my first year as student director? It was a lot better before tonight. I just I'm a just put that out there. So well, on one end of the stick, it has been the most impactful and insightful year of my life. On the other end, it has been the most character testing, back breaking, ideologically changing year I might ever experience. First, self reflection. This year, I've really learned how important not only self reflection is,
but the action you take after self reflecting. How important it is to be able to set a time aside to rerun your day through your head and look at all of the actions you took throughout your day. Why did I say this? Why did I do this? What could I have done differently? How might I change this? How could I have interacted with this person better? Even if it's just you accidentally close the door on someone. You know, I might have to be more mindful next time that someone's walking behind me. I've seen how derailed
a team can get without self reflection. And I've seen how derailed I can get without self without self reflection. And it's not pretty. It doesn't look good to the public nor does it look good to ourselves. And I just want to kind of emphasize this first piece that I'm saying. I got three more, but I just wanna emphasize this first piece about self reflection. Because we up here make a lot of decisions. And
within those decisions, we might self reflect. We might reflect upon ourselves and our own decisions, but I don't think that I know that a lot of us up here might self reflect, but we don't reflect on how our our on how our action might affect others. For example, tonight. You all sat in closed session for over four hours. Four hours before you came out. I got here at 05:30 and I left and I came back and I still
saw the same faces sitting here from when I got here. And don't say y'all didn't know that it was gonna take that long. Because I know y'all talked about the time in there. I know y'all talked about how long it was gonna take in there. I know y'all did. And the least y'all coulda did, send someone down to say how long it was gonna take. That's the least y'all coulda did. You didn't have to tell us that you guys were interviewing interim superintendent. You didn't have to tell us that. The only thing you had to come down and tell us
was that it might take long. And you told us that you might have that that was gonna take till 07:30, but guess what? It took till eight. Now if you guys know y'all are gonna go over time and you guys say 07:30, which is already two hours late, the least you could do on that subject is put a hard stop at 07:30. We're not asking much. The community who who put you all up here are taking the times out of their day. You might say,
well, they don't have to come here. They're choosing to come here, and they chose to elect you. So what does that say about you guys? What do you have to say about yourself? It's not about what we have to say about you. It's about when you go home and you look at yourself, what do you wanna think about yourself? What do you want when you in bed at night? How do you wanna go to sleep? Secondly, I would like to speak on some personal hardships that I've had. I'm a keep this real short. I've had hardships with balance with going home and having to do my homework after being in meetings all day
because I'm exhausted, like, right now. Because it's 10:00. I have finals tomorrow. I don't think y'all care. It's 10:00. I gotta go home, take a shower, eat, get ready, and actually fall asleep, which is probably the hardest part after consuming so much information, which I don't know if y'all care. But I got up at 08:30, went to school, had finals, had to leave school early to go to a transition team meeting, left that meeting, had to come and write what I'm talking about now, and then I had to come back here,
thought that you guys wasn't gonna start until 07:00, go back home, came back here, and now we're here. And we're still not going. So with that being said, my mental health is terrible because of you guys. I just want you guys to know that because I'm always exhausted. I never have any free time. I don't I don't the time that I get to myself and the free time that I have you know what I do? I don't go I don't go out with my friends a lot. I stay inside and rest, because you know why? I can't do it after school,
because I got meetings and I got I got thousands of people that I represent. And I represent I represent them because we because we got to. I represent them because I love representing them, and I'm a continue to do that. But I just want you guys to know the part you all play in that and the part that you all seem to forget that you guys play in that. So with that being said, the morale on the board and how you guys interact with each other, and if you guys might be arguing or lashing out on each other,
and you guys are speaking over each other, that not only, one, stresses me out, stresses Michelle out, director Vasquez out, but it looks terrible. How many times do you guys see me removing myself during the meeting? When when you guys get angry, yeah, peek over each other, lash out. That don't make no sense. Because guess what? If I did that, y'all woulda kicked me off first thing. First thing the next morning, I woulda got an email that I gotta get off the board. Thirdly, I wanna speak about you guys' communication.
I don't know nothing that don't I don't I don't know anything that go on. Nothing. Y'all know how I y'all y'all know how I know? From gossip. I know what goes on from gossip. And from some board members who come and tell me, because they know. And I'm a call y'all out for it. And I'm a make sure that everybody knows because no one knows anything. We don't know anything that goes on. How long was it gonna take you guys to tell us that y'all were interviewing interim superintended? I don't know. I don't know if we might have known it until we got hired.
And you guys might say, well, you know, there's bylaws. We can't tell y'all. Y'all break bylaws every other time. Y'all only care when it's gonna affect when it's gonna affect you. Y'all don't care about who it affects. Y'all know there was y'all know there was kids here. Y'all didn't care that y'all took long. Some of y'all got kids. That don't even make sense. And your kid at home sleep right now. But they kids is sitting here losing sleep because they wanna present to you guys. That don't make sense either. Lastly, I'm a repeat the board expectations to you guys.
And, actually, my bad. I'm not even supposed to say that yet. But I wanna thank you guys because you guys have taught me so much this year. You guys have changed my character and have forced me to grow up. So I appreciate that because of you guys, I'm a better speaker. I'm more mature. I have a more balanced life. I've seen that I'm able to work through hardship. I'm able to overcome challenges, like, no matter how hard they are and despite how bad I wanna give up,
I've shown myself that I don't have to, and I'm not going to. So I thank you guys for that. So I just want to read the board expectations one more time for you guys because I don't hear them being ready at the beginning of the meeting. Up to three minutes speaking limit for board members. I don't know how many times we follow that. No mingling with the audience. We don't follow that either. Address comments to other board members. We do that a lot. Focus on agenda items. No. Don't repeat what's been said. I have no comment on that.
I don't know if you guys do that or not. Always be respectful. No interruptions. Enforce norms. And lastly, model desired behavior. So as I say that, I want you guys to please go home and reflect tonight. Not just on yourself, but on everybody you affect. As we're finally wrapping up our board report, I will just like Director Simmons, I would like for you guys to take what we have said and all our criticism into consideration for this upcoming school year.
And I hope that our time management does improve. I really wish I could have gone home tonight and celebrate a little bit with my family before I graduate tomorrow, but that couldn't happen, unfortunately. But we would also like to thank everyone who has made our year in ACC successful. Throughout the year, we collaborated with OUSD student groups and many community based organizations that specifically work with our OUSD youth. Through our various collaborations, we were able to mobilize more students and find areas to really uplift student voices
and perspectives. We're housed under the Office of Equity, so we'd like to thank Raquel Jimenez, Jerome Verdin, Jamal Mohammed, Phyllis Coase, Araceli Gonzalez, Sabrina Hassan, Steve Delphine, and the rest of the equity team for continuously showing up for OASD students and taking the time to support all of our events. Without all our students and our adult allies, none of our events would be possible. These adult allies not only make sure students are brought to our events, but also make time during their classes to continue working on projects related to our
work. Thank you so much for listening to our report. And if you'd like to contact us, please reach out to the emails listed above. And please follow our social media accounts on at OASD News and at all city council OASD to look, see, and listen to more updates and events that we'll be hosting in the future. Thank you so much, and we'll finally take your lead and rest. Thank you for your report. Are there any, public comments? Yes, President Brughard. We have one registered speaker,
Asado Lobala. Two minutes, please. Are there any board comments by Director Hutchinson? Thank you. And thank you to the student directors. Please go ahead and go home now. But thank you. I'm excited about director Simmons having a second year on the board next year. And director Vasquez, congratulations on graduation and congratulations on Irvine. I just wanna say this was, I agree, this was totally unacceptable that the student report occurred at 10PM tonight. Totally unacceptable that we as a board were in closed session until 08:00 for four
hours. Unacceptable that the student directors were not invited to the interviews that happened today. And unacceptable that the student directors were never notified of the special meeting last week. And that's why they weren't able to attend. And we've heard the student directors, we've heard their adult allies say the same thing over and over, how disrespectful it is the way that the students are treated here. And again, it tonight was the worst example. When our high school students are in the middle of finals, when tomorrow is the last day of school. And, as a board,
we couldn't figure out a way to be more respectful to our students and to the community who was sitting down here waiting. On the agenda, it said open session would start at 06:30. We got down here at after 08:00. This is entirely unacceptable, especially since we didn't even solve anything in closed session. We just went around in circles. So I appreciate the students for speaking up. I share their concerns. And hopefully, maybe the adults will get it right in the future. But it's not looking very good right now. So like the students and like Director Thompson, I'm also done. And I'll be going home as well.
Thank you. For the students who remain in the building, I just wanted to say, I apologize. I think an hour into closed session, I looked at the agenda, and I did notice that the math wasn't mathing. The you know? And it which should have been at that point that we updated you all down here. And so I just wanna say I apologize. It is not our proudest moment, but I can guarantee you that there isn't a board member up here who will leave here, without the intention of doing better. So I just want you all to hear that from me.
Yeah. Congratulations, director Vasquez for your accomplishment, and, wish you best of luck at Irvine. Really excited for you. You are good peoples for sure. And, I'm sure wherever you go, you're gonna be successful. So really appreciate that. Also to, director Max well, I mean, to both of the directors. You know, one of the things I just want to be, say is that there's always two sides to a conversation. Right? And we have to really, work on actually the communication, I think,
from the board level. I think there it starts at the beginning of our cycle, which should be a Board orientation for student directors. I think that's really important that we can, as a Board, institute an orientation about, the practices, protocols, and expectations. I think sometimes, you take on the job and, there's a lot more that comes with it if we're not actually engaged with the process is. Also, I understand your frustration. I think that, you know, when we get to that level of love to,
you know, be engaged in some conversations of how we institute maybe some restorative justice, and just try to rebuild the relationship. It takes all of us to work on building relationship with communication. So, I think that would be really important. Thank you very much. Are there any other board comments? Yeah. I'd like to thank all of the students that presented tonight. I think it was really powerful to have students at, the different places within our agenda. And I apologize, just like Director Berry did, around the timing.
We do have some critical business that we need to get done, but that doesn't mean that we should put our students to the side while we take care of those, items. So for next time, I will be more mindful of time, and I think we need more timekeeping. I will also say, personally, I think self reflection is incredibly important and I have reflected on the many years that I've been on the board now and, will continue to do so. I do ask my colleagues to also do the same because it does take seven of us to have a thoughtful conversation, around the things that we need, to do in our district,
and the challenges that we have ahead. I do agree that our student board directors need to be integrated more into our, conversations, especially as we have additional work ahead of not only, as Doctor. Berry mentioned, the superintendent search, but also as we head into, our budget, processes for the next, school year. And so I will be working closely with board staff to ensure that our students are engaged as much as possible in on any of those two by twos and any of those special board meetings. I would've assumed that that would've been part of the work, but now it's made clear that that is an additional item that I will be
supporting our board staff in making sure that that happens. I know that there's a lot of moving pieces and sometimes, things can get, disconnected, but I don't think it's appropriate for our school board directors to continue to be on the outside when they really need to be a part of these conversations. But I appreciate, all the comments from our students and I do take those to heart. And I am excited to celebrate, with our graduates of 2025 at our, upcoming graduations, many of which are coming in the next few days. So with that, I will take it back to President Breaux Hart. Again,
I'll make it short. I do want to apologize for the lateness of the evening and, I apologize again. I know finals time is, very hectic. So I think our job is to do better on our time management. And as board president, that's my job. We will move to item we're going to do first, we'll do labor, which is five minutes for each representation each bargaining unit, then the superintendent's report, then the adoption of the general consent. Oh, public comment. President Brohard, I would ask that, maybe we skip the superintendent's report for the timing?
There are presentations here for that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good evening, board. SEIU urges the board to pull, and thank you for doing so, the following consent report items. L18, L18, OUSD should not outsource the work of RJ facilitators L48, OUSD should not outsource the work of case managers L50, OUSD should not outsource the work of college and career readiness specialists. In regards to item L68, SEIU has not yet been engaged with the Brookfield and Urban Montessori Charter merger idea and the upcoming school year's design plan.
It's imperative that labor's equally engaged as school sites and community stakeholders are in this process. Labor needs to understand and provide input as this impacts our bargaining unit and other bargaining units as well. The district uses flowery language to describe its intent and mission to build community with its stakeholders. This includes this includes oh, sorry. To describe its mission to build community with its stakeholders, this includes SEIU. Words such as collaboration, shared vision, and accountability are only as good as the actions taken to realize them.
If it weren't for a school board director asking us about this, SEIU would have been left in the dark. The SEIU ten to one bargaining team met with the district on May 21 to continue negotiations for the new SEIU ten to one OUSD contracts. We presented a proposal to establish a minimum hourly rate of $25 for all classified employees represented by SEIU ten to one. Because we do have unit members who currently make the minimum wage of $16.5 per hour. In addition,
we also proposed necessary ongoing increases to all unit members' wages, which are long overdue. We presented a video that has also been shared with all of the board directors and has garnered support of our union siblings. Our members spoke on the harsh realities of living on current OUSD poverty wages. Classified professionals shouldn't have to work two to three jobs just to make ends meet. No agreements were reached, but we remain steadfast in our commitment to dignified, livable wages and cultivating the just environment that our members deserve.
Currently, many of our members are working to exist, meaning that they work only to fill their basic needs. Is this the district's vision for their instructional aide assistance? Early early literacy reading tutors, attendance specialists, and library technicians? The fact is the annual living wage for an adult without any dependents is $62,220, While the average annual salary for the SEIU Bargain Unit is 43,500. OUSD, where students thrive,
it's also important that the people who care for and serve them have the right to thrive as well. OUSD, it's time for a living wage. Thank you. Are there any other bargaining units? Good evening. Please respect the speaker at the door. Please respect the expector. It it sounds like J is public comment for item J is coming after this. We are really tight for time. I'd like to hear the speaker at the podium. Excuse me, miss okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker,
please. Next speaker, please. Thank you. I too have been here since four, and I've been doing these comments for labor. But what I haven't heard is what's going on with our TA. See, it's on the agenda. Are we gonna talk about that tonight? AFNI have been dealing with this for almost two years now. And it is, again, a shame if we were going to overlook this tonight. We were pulled at the last board meeting, and we're back on. And we went over this,
and we went into labor comments. So when are we going to deal with this? This is a this is a shame. We were told that we would get this done. We came the last meeting. It was pulled. Nobody told AFNI it was pulled. We heard it from other bargaining units, which was a shame because we shouldn't have heard it from people who shouldn't know our business. Now here we are tonight. I made a phone call. Yes. It's going to be on the agenda. I'm here. I've been here since 04:00.
Left work. Got here. We were supposed to talk about that, but now we're in again, we're in labor comments. My comment is, when are you going to vote on this? Do school year is almost over. You're not gonna do it when you're on your vacation. We worked hard to get this contract. And now here we are at, what, 10:30 at night, and it looked like a ghost just ran through the room. It continues to look like you all don't care. It is a shame that that young man
had to tell y'all you don't care. Fact that I've worked hard for the money I deserve to do all a deal, beating, pushing the can up the hill. I don't know what we need to do. Get this figured out tonight. But now, I'm tired. I'm tired. Because, again, you all have just made it look like you don't care. And that's a problem. That's a problem. And we can talk about next steps, next reelections,
because it just don't make sense. So I don't know. Are we gonna figure this out? Are we are we dealing with this tonight? It's on the consent agenda. It's item l 60. So we'll vote on that after, the superintendent's report. It's on the agenda. So I knew you got notes on the agenda, but but it looks like we're jumping around. We did. I apologize for jumping around, but it is on the agenda for item L. Are there any other, bargaining units? Next is public speaking. Do we have how many public speakers do we have? No, I'll make it clear.
The next item is Jay. And how many speakers do we have? We have 10 speakers. 10? Okay. Let's give them one minute each, please. First five speakers are Sheila Haines, Stephisia Yecoy Walton, Cynthia Adams, Vilceka Yecoy Walton and Asado Lobawa. John called somebody else before I did before me, right? So I have my person on the line. Sheila Haines, if you could unmute yourself to speak. Hussain, are you there? Miss Saint? Hello? Can you hear me? We can hear you. Hello? We can hear you, miss Saint. I would just like to say that,
many people told me they tried to e comment in support of no cuts to music, and the time had already expired. It's really hard for people to navigate the process of signing up to speak, But at least you should give them more time for people to e comment used to allow more time. So I'm I'm just saying, this is just another example of how you silence people like myself who's speaking up for children who can't speak for themselves. So I'm the voice for my son and all of the countless students who can only learn through music and art to hopefully get better.
And I asked the board to resend the actions of taking a million away from music and arts funding. I received one email in response asking for clarification of the item I was referring to and nothing ever since. Like I said before, it was taken in a way that violated the process and without any thought to our children. So I continue to ask the board to take action by using music and arts funding as it was intended to be used and allow all children to have a daily positive experience through music and arts right along with mandating a loving environment.
You know, it's it's just it's it's hard to trust the lord to do the students without allowing them the opportunity that should be available to them. So, again, as you figure out this budget, please take a stance to implement ongoing music and arts education that our students need, especially those in special education like my son. He he he needs so much help and consistency. Please please get back to me about my request. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Tafisha Ekoy Walton. I am a member of the NAACP Oakland branch,
and I read this, press release, which is for immediate release on behalf of the education committee. Dated 05/28/2025, this is an open letter to the Oakland Unified School District, the Board of Education. It's a demand for transparency and inclusion following following superintendent termination. We write to you as a commute as community organizers and advocates representing the voices of OUSD families and students. We are deeply troubled by the board's April 23 vote of four to three to terminate superintendent Kyla Johnson Trammell,
an abrupt, an abrupt and destabilizing decision that has left a leadership vacuum in our district. Superintendent Johnson Trammell's contributions were not only historic but stabilizing. She successfully led OUSD out of twenty two years of state receivership and oversaw a hundred million dollar state loan repayment, an extraordinary accomplishment for our district. Her removal two years before her contract was set to end, was executed without a clear secession plan, and has triggered widespread concern throughout our community for the past few years.
Many now question whether this was a decision made in the best interest of our students or one influenced by political agendas and behind the scenes union maneuvering. Since that vote, the continued lack of accountability and transparency has only deepened public mistrust. Families remain in the dark despite repeated calls for openness and inclusive engagement. We have urged the board to proud provide timely and clear communication to parents regarding leadership changes, ensure transparency in all decisions surrounding the appointment of an interim or permanent superintendent,
form a diverse search committee that includes parents and community leaders to reflect the voices of valued To date, these requirements remain unmet. The May 28 meeting agenda includes item D five number 24 dash nineteen sixty seven listed for closed session under public employment, superintendent of schools. However, the description is vague and arguably misleading. If this discussion involves considering interim leadership or superintendent and candidates,
the public, especially parents, should be informed in advance and included in the process. In the spirit of keeping students centered in this conversation, we urge the board to recognize that decisions about district leadership, especially hiring a new superintendent, have a direct and lasting impact impact on our student outcomes. Oakland Students are already contending with persistently low literacy rates and other academic challenges. Any interim permanent leadership decision must be made with a clear public commitment to improving these outcomes. Prioritizing student success means ensuring that leadership transitions are guided not by political agendas,
but by the urgent academic needs of our children. This pattern of exclusion is not only disappointing, but also a violation of public trust. The families who supported you and voted you into office expect leadership rooted in transparency, collaboration, and integrity. Instead, we are witnessing unilateral and politically motivated decisions with little regard for the community that will live live with their consequences. We call on the board to immediately clarify publicly the scope of closed session discussions related to superintendent employment that impacts the OUSD community. Number two, commit to forming an inclusive search committee with parent and community representation.
Three, a town hall mean town hall meetings hosted by NAACP with your with our help, Oakland branch. Each director shares a written timeline for public engagement and leadership updates, including interim or permanent superintendent selection. We stand ready to work with you on good faith to ensure stable student focused leadership for OUSD. However, continued disregard for community voices will only deepen division and dysfunction in our district. The students, families, and future of Oakland deserve better. Sincerely, the NAACP, Oakland Branch Education Committee. Please don't forget that there's also State of Black Education that is a part of
this press release, Families in Action for Quality Education in Oakland, and Latino Education Network. Thank you. Are there any other public speakers? Yes. Cynthia Adams and Osalo Lobala. I just wanna uplift the respect I've had for the work of, Lisa Grand Dawson. And, I don't understand what has happened that she's being identified as an issue, related to her work. Also, I'm concerned about attending meetings where members of the principals association are identifying racism
and identifying that they are being harassed and bullied by members of OEA. I'm also concerned when a teacher from Fremont speaks about, racism that's going on in the school where Black students and Latino students are not working together and having problems. So if we have racism in this District of any form, it has to be addressed. So when those principals brought that up, what did you do? What have you done? How have you stepped up to look at the issues and they came more than
one time to talk about Next five speakers are Sol Hauser, Malia Jackson, D'Shawn Davenport, Clarisse Harr and Zuri Zulof. President Breauxhall, all name has been called. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report. Great. Thank you for being here this evening. We have a few updates to share, in our superintendent's report. We've had a busy couple of weeks. We I'm not gonna go through each of the slides. For sake of time. I'll give most of the time to the network, presentations. But okay. I will give just a high overview.
I'd like the motion to extend the board meeting until 11:45. Is there a second? Second. Can we have a roll call? Call to extend the meeting to 11:45, PM. Director, the directors are absent. Director Ladder? Yes. Director Williams? Yes. Yeah. I I I got your vote, director Latta. I'm waiting for direct director Williams. Thank you, sir. Yes. K. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brohard? Yes. Meeting is extended to 11:45.
Max? K. Good evening. We have a few updates to share on our superintendent's report. We had a busy couple of weeks. I won't go through each of the slides, so that way we can give more time to our network teams. We had a groundbreaking agreement with Cal State East Bay. We also celebrated our young adult students who attended their prom. You'll also see pictures of the custodial and grounds team who honored 17 students with scholarships. We also highlighted, literacy that lifts up the importance of inclusivity and neurodiversity. And we also celebrated,
some of our administrators who are clearing their There, were also some photos of a recent upgrade at Madison Primary. Please go check out the new playground renovation that was, done there last week. I especially just want to lift up the work of the seal of biliteracy. Every year, we award our graduating seniors, a, special seal that is affixed to their, official diploma and their transcript if they've reached the threshold of, being bi literate. And this year, we celebrate 281 students that are receiving the seal.
That is a 300, increase over the last, seven years. And our goal is to reach 450 students by 02/1930. We celebrated nine different languages including Japanese, Swahili, Tingrini, and Vietnamese. There were 14 different schools that were represented. Additionally, along the way, so that way we're motivating our younger students, we also give out progress, where students are demonstrating that they are on track to receive the Seal of Biliteracy. And we issued five fifty one Biliteracy Pathway Awards to Pre K,
K, third, and fifth grade students. So, really wanna celebrate our students that are graduating from our, our high school's biliterates. But now I'm going to invite our network team up, so they can, give us an overview of the work that they are leading. First, we will hear from our, high school network team. Vanessa Cifuentes is here, to provide us the updates, and I'll pass it to her. Thank you. Good evening, directors, Doctor. Aguilera, members of the community that are with us. I'm going to give myself some accountability here on my timer.
So, thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening, to speak on behalf of the High School Network and the Linked Learning office. So I am Vanessa Cifuentes. I serve as the High School Network superintendent. I'm in my third year in this role, ten years supporting the High School Network in Oakland. Here to share the work of our collective team, which also includes Doctor. Vanessa Butrago and Mr. Gary Middleton, other members of the High School Network team. So let me get to our slides. So I'm proud to share insights with you this evening about our network, the schools and the students that we serve,
and the systems and strategies that we've put in place to support student achievement. To begin, just for context, our network supervises 19, schools and academic programs, and we support our leaders to manage the supervision and operations of those school sites and programs on a daily basis. These include our comprehensive high schools, our six through 12 schools, continuation schools, and alternative schools and programs as featured on this slide here. Our network also, serves over 10,000 students, and
reflects the district's overall demographics in a couple of key, student populations, including students receiving special education services, English learners, and newcomers. Additionally, the high school network does exceed the district average and the percentage of students who are unhoused, in foster care, or socioeconomically disadvantaged. As a high school network, our work really centers around advancing the district's vision by supporting students in developing the competencies that are named in the graduate profile, which you see on this slide. We're also committed to improving key student indicators in a few,
very important areas, including graduation rates, dropout rates, A through G completion rates, and college and career readiness as measured by the California School Dashboard. We also advanced the district's mid vision. Excuse me, I forgot my glasses. We also advanced the district's vision by implementing high quality linked learning pathways at all of our high schools. As you may know, linked learning is a comprehensive academic model that's built on three core components, an integrated program of study, comprehensive student supports, and work based learning. One really strategic approach that we've adopted in the high school network is one of
unified supervision. This is what sets our network apart from, some of our other network teams. The way that the high school network is organized is that the high school network and the Lynch Learning Office are actually one team. So there was a point in time about ten years ago where, there was a decision made to both, to join both the high school network and the linked learning office, to align and to have a unified vision and supervision approach.
So prior to 2015, both departments operated, as separate just teams, in a bit of a silo. We were unified in 2015. And and by doing so, the high school network superintendent was positioned, to be the leader of a broader vision for both high schools and linked learning because they are very much interconnected. This was a really critical move because the Linked Learning Office manages teams that provide direct service to school sites like dual enrollment. You see on our org chart here, we also manage counseling, master scheduling, academic recovery,
measures n and h, all really integral elements of ensuring a high quality student experience. And so, by bringing those teams together on the supervision side and the linked learning side, we've been able to create some greater coherence across the departments. It's we've definitely been able to improve the quality of support and instruction that our students and our staff receive. And, it really has contributed to stronger student outcomes and more consistent implementation of linked learning pathways. So in all of that oh, as a network,
our key work really centers I'm not sure what's, I think, my clicker Oh, there we go. So, through that united vision, really what drives the work of the High School Network team is the direct service that we provide to school sites. So what what do we do? We really work to take the district's vision, operationalize it, make sure that we're able to implement it at our school sites. We partner with lots of different departments, provide services deployed to school sites, in order to improve service to students and,
teachers and leaders. As you saw with our other network colleagues, we also keep track of a set of really important key performance indicators. In addition to the long term indicators like graduation rate, a through g completion that we track to measure our overall success, we also keep track of a series of leading indicators that give us a sense of how our students are doing on their way along to graduation. So the key performance indicators that you see here are, metrics that we track on a regular basis throughout the school year.
Some examples, for instance, percentage of students that are enrolled and passing, dual enrollment courses, the percentage of students that are on track for a through g eligibility at the end of each school year, percentage of students with satisfactory attendance, students making their reading goals on the I Ready assessment. These are all metrics that we use as proxies to ensure that we are keeping our students on track to reaching our long term goals. And in all of these areas, there's a bit of a spoiler, we are seeing progress in all of these areas as compared to previous years.
So I do wanna share a couple of highlights, in terms of the impact that our network has had on our school sites as a result of the coherence work that we've been able to do over the last couple of years, and through the direct supervision that we provide to school sites. So our headlines here, if I leave you with anything, data's increasing and improving where it needs to improve and numbers are declining where they need to decline, across our network. So as many of you know, our graduation rates and A through G completion rates have been on a steady increase
over the last number of years. We're really proud to share particularly that over the last three years, both sets of data have increased, five percent in our four year cohort graduation rate and four percent in our A G completion rate across the network. Additionally, our dropout rate has decreased by seven percent over the last three years as, and our college and career readiness indicator has improved from 2022 through 2024. So, there's a number of different support systems that we put in place in order to
help improve these long term outcomes for students. And so you'll see we have them at multiple layers. We've got site level communities of practice, cross site communities of practice for principals, one on one coaching for our principals that they receive from their supervisors, and, strategic coordination of central office supports. So, together, all of those efforts create a responsive and aligned system that's meant to provide support to, teachers and, leaders so that way they can provide support to students who need additional attention.
I'm happy to also just highlight a few sites that, as a result of these systems of coherence, have demonstrated significant growth over the last three years. You will see schools from your districts reflected up here. But I think it's worth noting all of our schools have made progress. But, worth sharing this evening is a couple of sets of schools that have made, over 10% growth over the last three years. You'll see our Gateway to College program, Fremont High School, Castlemont High School, and Rudsdale have all increased their four year cohort graduation rate over 10%,
by more than 10% over the last three years. Similarly, for A G completion, Castlemont, Fremont Life Academy, and Madison Park Academy have increased their A G completion also by more than 10% over the last three years, all of that contributing to our empowered graduates' priority as a district. Continuing on with the importance of building strong and, literate and numerate leaders in our community. We're also seeing students demonstrate improvement on their I Ready assessment. So we're definitely working hard to improve student literacy.
And you can see as compared to '23, '20 '4, currently we've got a higher percentage of students that are reading above, at or above grade level. As compared to the start of the year, thirty three percent of our students are meeting their I Ready goals. So we're making progress. We're seeing similar trends in, math as well, not only seeing increased percentages of students demonstrating proficiency, but also increased participation rates. Two schools to spotlight here in terms of improved proficiency, Oakland High, Skyline. All students working really,
really hard with their teachers to demonstrate growth in Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. Literacy, do wanna highlight this slide has a significantly higher number of schools highlighted because, because growth, we really value growth and wanting to make sure that we're not just celebrating the students that are reaching proficiency, but also, growing, and meeting their stretch goals. So stretch goals are, ambitious but attainable goals that are designed to help students, particularly those that are reading below grade level. So all of these schools are working really,
really hard, launching their literacy PLCs to ensure that students are getting the support that they need to make multiple years of growth in one year. Contributing to our Joyful Schools initiative, we are seeing improvements across the network in increases in satisfactory attendance, decreases in chronic absenteeism. The thing I'll highlight here, some of these percentages are single digits but I do wanna capture that, that, the percentages, while they may be in single digits, they do translate to hundreds of students. So when you see 3.3%,
that amounts to three forty one students. So three forty one more students are attending school 95 of the time. 5.4% is five fifty eight students that are fewer five fifty eight fewer students that are chronically absent. Schools that are making gains in this area are McClimans High School and Fremont High School. We're also seeing improvements and contributions to our Joyful Schools initiative by decreasing our percentages of suspensions and the number of suspensions across the network.
Schools that have made significant growth in this area as a result of the PLCs and, communities of practice, and professional development in these areas include Fremont High School, CasaMonte High School, and Skyline. And finally, I really I would like to close in sharing our contributions to the district's initiative around diverse and stable staff. So our network takes to heart and actively supports this particular initiative. We have had a long standing commitment to developing and nurturing leaders within our district.
Beyond coaching and mentoring, that we provide, we've also created opportunities for teacher leadership through monthly coaching collaboratives, professional development for path linked learning pathway leads. We are proud to maintain a 95% principal retention rate. And I also would love to highlight that a real unique strength of our network is that 75% of our principals are women, which is really uncommon in the high school landscape. It's a predominantly male dominated area in leadership in education. And so I think that's just a testament to the leadership of our principals.
80% of our principals are also people of color who come from Oakland or are, from communities that are similar to, the students that we serve. Additionally, I think the last point that I'd like to close with is just sharing that, 75% of our principals began their careers in Oakland as classroom teachers. I think that's really important because, this teacher to principal pipeline has proven really invaluable because it's given our principals some first hand classroom experience that they bring into the work every day to serve our
students and our teachers. So with that, I will pause. And, happy to take any questions or, questions or comments from board directors at this time. Thank you. So first, I appreciate the numbers, especially with the retention rate. I think in a future presentation, I'd like to see the retention rate when it comes to teachers in high school as well as classified staff. Because I think that we've heard from, at least multiple, students in ACC that the teacher retention is a big challenge because then they aren't
able to connect over multiple years with those educators. I'm glad that we're retaining our administrators, but it would be good to see, like, what we're doing with other classifications. I did have a question. I think it was slide 19 around the A through G requirements in the tenth and eleventh grade. Can you explain more why those are, like, the lowest, versus the ninth and twelfth grade. I just wanna make sure that I'm understanding. Yes. So, that Yeah. Back up. Yeah. So, some of the trends that we see over time with A through G completion rates
is that, you know, we want students, to start high as much as possible, at ninth grade. And then given the increased number of courses that students have to take for graduation rates in tenth and eleventh grade, we do tend to see a bit of a decline, but then we see, an uptick as we get back to twelfth grade. So it is a, it is a trend that we've seen year after year. But one of the strategies that we're implementing to try to disrupt that trend is by launching and and really continuing or having our schools continue to participate in the
Breakthrough Success Collaborative, which is a community of practice that focuses on ninth grade on track rates. So our theory of action is the higher our ninth grade on track rates are, the more likely students are to remain on track in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. And we have seen that uptick. You'll notice that currently, our ninth graders are 71% of our ninth graders are currently on track to graduate. And that is a significant increase from the last three years, which was about fifty four percent. So we are seeing, improvement in ninth grade and expecting to see the maintenance of that as that cohort
of students persists in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade in subsequent years. Okay. Thank you so much. I have three questions. I'm just gonna ask them back to back. So one question that came up for me is to what you credit the growth, particularly for the on track rate you just mentioned, the cohort graduation, and the a three gs readiness. Related to that, what do you think we need to do in order to sustain that growth and perhaps even accelerate it, like, if that is even an ambition?
And then finally, in this climate, what do you see as sort of, like, the biggest threats both within your locus of control and outside of it? So, Director Berry, to your first question. We attribute our growth to our growth in the on track rates, pretty pretty heavily to our participation in the Breakthrough Success Collaborative. So the schools that participate in that collaborative include Skyline, Fremont, Castlemont, McCliman, and Oakland Tech. And so, proportionately, those are the schools that serve the largest number of high school students in our
district. And, those participating in that community of practice allows our principals and teams, the ninth grade teams specifically, to implement equitable grading practices and to innovate around the types of strategies that teachers are offering students to have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery. And so, we know that many times, students need more than one try at something. And so, bringing these innovative ideas into the ninth grade teams that give teachers and students multiple opportunities to support student learning in,
more, holistic ways, I think, has definitely given our teachers permission, to try different things that allow them to, give students multiple chances. So I think that has definitely helped with the improvement of the, on track rates. As far as cohort graduation and a through g, some of the things that we've done internally, are just doing more transcript audits. Our counseling team, is paying closer attention, to our on track rates and intervening with our site based counselors on a more regular basis as a result of the data that they're seeing,
on a quarterly basis. And so those check ins and more regular touch points with school based staff help us catch students earlier who may be in need of additional intervention. Last couple of years, we have, piloted what we call the CAR team, the Central Academic Recovery Team, which is a team of centrally based teachers on special assignment. And their job is to go into our focal schools and teach credit recovery courses during the school day in a student's schedule. And, it prevents students from having to take summer school to have to wait until summer
school to recover classes and to recover credits. That, I think, by far, has been, you know, the biggest incentive for students to recover their credits because they don't want to give up their summers. And they are met with teachers that are very high capacity, very creative. We know that if students had a hard time passing the class the first time, we have to do that we have to teach those courses differently. And so, our TSAs do a phenomenal job of taking standards aligned content but presenting it in
ways that are accessible for students. And we have seen an impact, the impact of their work in our A through G and cohort grad rates. How do we maintain and accelerate? I think we would like to be able to grow, our central academic recovery team to offer right now, we have three teachers on special assignment. I would love if I could double or triple that, in order to be able to offer more courses during the school day at at more sites. As far as challenges, I think funding continues to be a threat to us being able to scale some
of the strategies that we know are working. We have really creative leaders and and educators on the high school team and the High School Linked Learning Office team, and, we just don't have enough of them. And and it's not necessarily materials or curriculum issue, it's a people issue. We just need more people so that we can, have more folks wrapping their arms around our students. Thank you. Director Latta? Yeah. I guess I just have a quick question. In looking particularly at your, literacy and math scores in the high school network, I think, I hear you that you're seeing improvement.
I don't I am curious about the ways in which we are somehow further ahead with A to G completion if students are also behind there's fewer student percentages who are meeting their I Ready growth scores or their math scores. And so I am curious about the ways in which we're investing resources to accelerate students' growth so that when they graduate, they are truly ready for college, community, and career success. Yes. So we have also, noticed that pattern. And one some of the initiatives that we've put in place are ones that we
believe are gonna take some time, for us to be able to see the long term impact. Specifically in literacy and math, a big push for us has been to really raise the floor, around, the implementation of our adopted curriculum. In recent years, we adopted math, the illustrative math for Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. And after it was a long overdue adoption, but we recently adopted the fish tank curriculum for English Language Arts. And so, we are seeing growth in the school sites,
where particularly those curricular materials are being implemented more consistently. And we believe that we are gonna see growth longer term to raise the literacy and numeracy rates for students, because we are seeing that discrepancy. And what we want are students' skills and capacities to match the, the diploma that they're walking out with. So it is a bit of a long term, investment that we're making on that front. In terms of short term, where resources become available,
a lot of our school sites are implementing, small group focal literacy, intervention programs during the school day. And we are seeing growth there as well. Yeah. Thank you. And I just think one thing for us to think about for our board work plan is having some, I think, you know, kind of a vision for how we accelerate that that growth, and how we can, shift resources to ensure that students are getting that. Thank you, Esa Fuentes. Really appreciate that. Very informative. I have, I think, probably three questions. See if I can get it in in two fifty two minutes and fifty seconds.
The first question is, have you had a chance to have a conversation with our student directors in ACC? Because they've been mentioning that, students are not as satisfied with their curriculum. They've mentioned it a couple times that they haven't felt like the engagement in the classroom. And so what some of the critiques they were saying is that, you know, there's no one that is actually listening or communicating with them in regards to the challenges that they face. So, my question is, is there a pipeline or is there a bridge in which your office directly talks
to some of the student directors from ACC to really understand the challenges? I think that's one of the things I was hearing earlier this afternoon is that they felt that no one's listening. And so, hopefully, there's an opportunity to bridge that gap. Do do that's one question. So let me just put that out there. Second question, I was really looking for something from the Office of Equity. We have the, ALMA and the the f the AA, EFI program, in regards to supporting our young folks.
But we also have our Latino program and our Asian Pacific. So just wanted to know what impacts they are those programs are having on our students. I'm not able to tell from the presentation. It's like if they're left out, then it doesn't seem to me that they are making a difference. But I I've talked to directors, and I've talked to the leaders of the group. They're they're really doing the work. So I just wanted to make sure we highlight, you know, that participation because although it you know,
if we, look at some of the reading scores or like, I I think where we are as as a board is trying to understand the impact of the programs. Are they producing results or not? And, we've had community members who actually consistently advocate for groups of students and, just wanna make sure our community members know that our programs are working or have an impact in high school. And so I just that's the second question.
Time is running out. Oh my gosh. Time is out. I only have two questions for you then. Thank you. No problem. And Oh, and last. I'm sorry. I can get in two seconds. Teaching about culturally relevant curriculum, how is that going? Are we, focusing in on that as well as part of the curriculum to help young folks read? Thank you. Yes. Happy to talk offline about further conversations, or about further questions. So, to your first question, director Williams, that is a really good one. That has been a priority in terms of connecting with all city council and the
governing board. I had the benefit of connecting with ACC Governing Board numerous times at the beginning of the school year as they were, kind of putting the final touches on their priorities for the school year. And so, they did share, similar feedback. Some of the steps that we took after sharing that after they shared that feedback was having them connect with our secondary academics team, that is very deeply embedded in the high school work. And they were able to connect and talk specifically about curriculum and,
what they would like to see, coming from the curriculum that's being delivered to them in the classroom. So, prior to this, I was also in conversation with, miss Villegas, our student engagement specialist, about setting up our next touch point with all city council, especially as the new governing board is coming in. So that is definitely a priority. We've also connected with ACC this year, through a number of listening sessions that we did across the high school network. And similar feedback, similar touch points. And so, as we're getting feedback from them, we're incorporating that into our plans for next year.
But ongoing, I'm really excited to work with our young people. They're a real high caliber group of of folks, that can that offer some really tangible solutions. So, I appreciate the the lens on that. In terms of highlighting and disaggregating the data, that's something that I can definitely bring forth to, like, a future report if the board wishes. But I can share offhand that we do see, greater success rates and student outcome rates as it, pertains to post secondary outcomes.
So, for instance, our students that are part of the AAMA, the AFI classes, LSA and the APISA program have higher rates of completion of post secondary plans. They have higher graduation rates, and they do have higher a through g completion rates. So we are seeing the direct impact of the, targeted strategies programs on our, district outcomes. And we also work pretty closely with our office of equity team, both mister Gordine and miss Jimenez, around aligning our strategy so that our, targeted strategy specialists are familiar with the priorities that the high school network is pushing
across the board, across the network. And then, culturally relevant curriculum, our academic specialists I'm sorry. Academics coordinators, in the different content areas do provide professional learning to our teachers on second Wednesdays, not just on the technical delivery of the curriculum but also how to adapt it, how to adapt pacing guides, how to adapt units so that they are more accessible and engaging for our students. But that's always that's an ongoing area of work for us. Thank you. Alright.
So at this time, do you want me to Yeah. I just wanna remind board members that we are literally going to end at 11:45. We are down to the minute. So if you could keep your questions even under the three minutes would be Keep your questions under the three minutes. Focus, y'all. Okay? I am doctor Sabrina B Moore. I'm going to talk about network two. Please call me doctor Brie. Come on, network two. Where are you? The clicker is tired like me, y'all. Those are the network two schools.
I'm not gonna say those. I wanna start right here. So one of the things that, many of my peers have done is, like, talk about the mission and vision and the work that we are doing in elementary. One thing that has been true about my leadership since forever, I think I was a kid, my mom will say, But is that each year of my life, there's always a theme. Like, I don't know. It just happened. Sometime around December, there's a theme, and so the same thing has been applied to my leadership in network too. It was applied when I was a teacher, when I was a principal at Madison, and now I'm here.
When I started this job last year in September, right away, meeting with principals and families and community members, I, the thing that was shared with me is in in, like, was get into good trouble. Like, how does network two get into good trouble? Then we did some really great work and built a team, and we're building a team. And this year's theme was stronger and clear. How are we how are we being stronger and clearer about the ways in which we're building on the foundations that have already been set around our curriculum align alignment work, around the rigor and quality schools work that we're doing in school.
And then a few weeks ago, the theme for 2526 came to me, and that is delivering on our promise. And I will say, I'm not gonna take forever because I know people behind me are like, girl, stop talking. But, anyway, tonight, I was supposed to be here. It was on purpose because the the what, mister Brown said what that committee said around, doctor Marcus Foster is the promise that we are trying to deliver. And I think that that's not a network two thing. That is a district thing. That is what we should all be up to. And so our theme next year for network two is delivering on our promise.
This slide says that there are 5,668 babies in my network. 5,668 babies who we have a promise that we are not always delivering on, but we are committing as a network to do that better. You've seen this slide before. It was in color for the other two elementary networks. I wanna name here that what is true across elementary is we are aligned. That every time when we talk about quality, every time we talk about learning and instruction and curriculum, we're saying all 49 elementary schools.
So what is true for network two is the same thing that's true for network three and network four. It's not and that and the reason why that is important is because also tonight, we celebrated two schools from network two with the blue ribbon. How did they get there? What are they doing that's different than other schools? What is true is what is aligned is our curriculum. We have adopted rigorous curriculum for math and for ELA. What is true is every principal in my network, those two schools, Crocker and Peralta, are also receiving the same learning and building their capacity just like we're doing in all schools, all 48 49 elementary schools.
This whole, learn it, expect it, monitor, support it, this implementation framework is a framework that we are using across all 49 elementary schools. In network two, every single time I show up to a school site with a principal, I say, have you set the expectation? No. I don't. I start with learning. Have teachers learned it? Has the TSA learned it? Has the principal learned it? And then we set the expectation. That framework is what we're using to guide high quality implementation across all of elementary. These indicators you've seen, for literacy, for math,
for language, for in stand for student engagement. These are what we are paying attention to. We're paying attention to this in network two, network three, network four. I know I'm supposed to focus on network two, but I want you to hear me saying that reason why we are progress monitoring for specific indicators is because all kids deserve. So when we say delivering on the promise, we are very much tying that to how are we monitoring and holding ourselves accountable to outcomes for our babies. Here are my progress headlines. I could spend a million minutes on here, but I kinda wanna move forward to our impact slides.
Actually, let me go back. Keeping me honest. I wanna talk about this, actually, I'm lying. I'm going for it. Team development and principal support. There's three words that came in my mind when the group was talking about, dedicating the building to doctor Marcus Foster. Literacy lead no. Leadership, legacy, and learners. Right? Literacy. Leadership, legacy, and learners. I just kept thinking about those three words. One thing that's true in network two, we spend a lot of time making sure our leaders' capacity is built to do this work and do it well, to understand how to get in the classroom and observe,
to understand how to give targeted feedback to teachers and build their capacity to do this work in ways that change outcomes for all kids. So we have we have done some real created some really good systems for new principals coming in. How do you develop a thirty, sixty, ninety day plan? But not just saying to them, develop a thirty, sixty, ninety day plan, but sitting with principals to say, here's how to plan. Here's the structures and systems that need to be in place. Here's how we help you. One thing that has been important for me as a as a network superintendent,
and as just like a kid who grew up in Oakland, right, is that folks, principals need to know and be able to support everybody in the building. That's my job. We have assist a structure in our schools, in our networks that's called the coaching collaborative. That is a space for our teachers on special assignment to get trained to support our co our coaches on-site. So when we talk about capacity building and leadership development, our math coaching collaborative and network 90% of the folks who are in that collaborative,
90 folks percent of the coaches that are in that collaborative have said, this is actually helping me on my site. This is helping to improve my practice with observation feedback, being in professional learning communities, helping teachers to fully understand how to implement curriculum and look at this curriculum embedded assessment's data and use that to inform what they do next. That's our math coaching collaborative. For English language development, the work that we're doing in network two says that we have had 44.2% growth in our ELPAC, pass rate. What that means right? There's a lot of words on this slide.
What that means is in network two, last year, we set a priority for this year when we said stronger and clearer for language development to happen. That is for every school. There are some schools in our networks who don't have tons of students who are multilingual learners. Given an example, Chabot. At Chabot, they have they they're called an low EL count school. Doesn't mean that we don't focus on our students who are learning multiple languages in those schools. So you if you look if you look at Chabot's data, you'll see that they have targeted those students to make sure that we're putting systems and practices in place to develop language and literacy in tandem to support all learners.
So that across all of our network to schools, every single school, 100% of the 16 schools in our network for our 5,668 student has prioritized what it means to have language supports in every single classroom. When I walk on a campus, I'm expecting the principal to take me into any classroom, and I can see where language supports are present. Dual language. We have quite a few dual language schools in my network. What does that mean? We're expecting folks students to be bi literate. One of the things that I'll highlight come on now. Sara, work with me.
80% participation of network two schools using our benchmark Adelante curriculum. What does that mean? That means that though that our schools, who are dual language schools, have a line curriculum as well. Everybody's not doing their own thing so that we can all learn together. So this year, we've been able to have professional development with our dual language schools, all dual language schools. We've done cross, school learning walks where we're having principals go to all the dual language schools, go into classrooms together, bring out the teachers, do some professional development, give some coaching and feedback back to the teachers so principals are growing together across
all dual language schools to fully understand how to support all of our teachers in that way. Family engagement, parent leadership. So I put on this slide, because I think this has come up in many board meetings, about the subcommittees at schools. Shout out to network two who really last year only had two freestanding subcommittees. And this year, we have 12. And that up up only I think it is, let me not tell a lie. I think it's 14 of our schools that have to have subcommittees. But of our 14 schools,
12 of our schools have freestanding cells. That's a huge win from two from last year to 12. Climate and Culture. 12 of our 16 schools have had heritage celebrations. 16 out of 16 have had academic celebrations for our students and cultural celebrations tied to learning. So how are we celebrating math, literacy, but also in making sure that we're bringing in the cultural relevance of, students and families? One of the things that I'll share on the next slide, as soon as it turns, is that this year,
every year, we do a beginning of the year learning walk. And historically, it hasn't said on our learning walk, how are we paying attention to what's on the walls? Can students see themselves? Is culture represented? Are there different languages present? We put that on our learning walks so that every time we're in schools now, we're actually paying attention to where is the representation. You've heard our students say tonight, representation matters. We know that. I know that as a student who grew up in Oakland Schools, representation matters. We should also be able to see that show up on the bulletin boards, in the hallways. One of the things that we are prioritizing network too is every time any one
of the partners steps on the campus, to see that as present. And if it is not, let's give feedback to the school. Let's give it to the community school manager, to the principal, to the team to say, how are students being able to see themselves on every single wall? Wait a minute. Okay. That's early early literacy. 100% of network two schools have tiered supports and and that's true for all elementary schools. But I'm just saying, a % is is a huge accomplishment to make sure that in every single one of the schools in network two, we we now have you for I adopted. Shout out to the board for getting that handled.
But that's tier one. We also have tier two and tier three to support. We're making sure that schools, principals, school teams understand what it means to have data that tells you where or not students are for tier one. Like, all of this all students get tier one support. But if and when a student is not at grade level for early literacy, foundational skills, what are we doing to make sure that they get what they need in order to get to grade level? To make sure we reach that North Star goal of strong readers by third grade. Every single one of the principals in my network have been trained to fully understand what it means for differentiated supports in classrooms and how do you support your teacher
on special assignments, the coaches on the ground to support teachers with that same understanding. And as we are building our systems across elementary to ensure that that is true for all kids, network two is winning at a %. I'm just saying. That's how we do it. With it. Core literacy. Another part of this. Right? Kids like, reading is fundamental. Duh. In May, there was a just this month, we had our Lit Fest. Eight hundred and fifty students and families, all of these folks in the building. I shared that because one thing that was important to us was ensuring that we're
celebrating the literacy outcomes. We're celebrating our students' writing. We're celebrating all of the hard work that our students are up to. And in network two, I was to every principle, let's make sure we are paying attention and partnering with our literacy our academic team to be a part of the celebrations. At KDA and TCN, they are schools where, all block, which is a part of our literacy structure, they're they're basically creating lab systems so that other schools can come to their schools, do a visit, learn from the principal and the teacher on special assignment, the coaches about what are you doing to build the systems out?
How can we they're observing teachers. We're observing the practice so that we can build the capacity across our network. And that is something that, to me, feels very important. How do you visit other schools and learn from best practice? Learn from each other. Teachers with teachers, teacher prince coaches with coaches, principals with with principals. I think that's it. I killed that. Was it under seven minutes? Because I feel like I did that. No. Shout out to Bree. Last thing. All our work is aligned to the LCAP goals because that's how I roll. Network two, delivering on our promise. Mic drop. It is 11:00 at night.
I'm tired. Oh my god. No. Director Barry, don't come with another little smart card question. I don't have it. No. We don't. I'm sorry. Tone it. I'm gonna just say we this is I tell you, I I had coffee with with Bree, and then I would really recommend sitting down and having a conversation because it was really But I think y'all everybody who hasn't had coffee, I need a steak. Alright. Okay. Very good. I'm gonna hold questions because we really have about it was excellent. Thank you so much. I'll send an email. Yes. And go have coffee. It's fun. Of course, take I'm gonna move now. Oh,
are there any public comments? Yes. We're Faisal Ola Bala. How many minutes? One minute. Wrongly object dual language being mandatory, particularly what happened at Frick and how those Black students had to take on speaking another language in order to learn their core academic subjects voluntarily. And it was stated at the meeting when they were considered it that it would be voluntary. When it went into action, It was forced on them. I'm concerned about principals, support. If principals were getting the level of support they need,
they wouldn't be standing here at this meeting talking about racism, harassment, and retaliation. So something's going on. I'm concerned about it's not important to include in the discussion parental engagement, how it works so students to stay on track with parental engagement properly in place. I don't like the fact that you choose to use this term on page 32, 80 percent BIPOC. In case you don't know, Black people consider that very offensive, that term. Because it means everybody's having the same experience,
and we are not. It is being said that you have pushed Black teachers out and Black principals out. We have a what the last statement is, give you example. Increased percentage of students reading at above level by 84 8.4%. What is the percentage of students reading at above, or below grade level? The numbers. See that trichology where you throw that percentage in there and you don't really give the number, doesn't give you the picture you need to see. Thank you. I'm gonna move to item L,
which is the adoption of the general consent minus L18, L48 and L50 and we're going to move L18, L48 and L50 to next Board meeting. The adoption of general count Can you resend that? Yes, he can resend. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the adoption of the general consent? I move to adopt the general consent report. Second. And is there any public comment? Yes. We have Daniels Bissonette, Lay Daniels, and Asaro Lobava. Okay. We're gonna keep it super short. So I'm the principal at Brookfield.
I really just wanted to, talk a little bit about Urban Montessori coming over to us and asking the board to just kind of support this venture. Daniel and I have been kind of doing some work together already in anticipation of this merger kinda happening and just thinking of what would be the best things of both of these schools to allow this merger to give an opportunity for students who typically would have to pay a lot of money for a Montessori, maybe often can't afford it.
Giving those students an opportunity to actually have something that typically black people and other people. I'll just also add that for perspective. Since the beginning of existing twelve years ago, we've been in conversations with OUSD about creating a pathway to become an in district Montessori program. And so this is a really exciting opportunity for us and working with the Brookfield community, who's made our staff and families feel so welcome, has been a real honor of ours. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have a motion to adopt the Oh,
we have, Sabol Balra. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ms. Balra. I'm concerned about the item, l 12 personnel report where it's being reported that a hundred and four, staff mostly teachers and paraprofessionals are separating or leaving the district. And we have 71 persons who are not on now going on leave as a result of the actions you take tonight. We have, also a number of issues I'm sorry. A number of items that have to do with, legal, representation or services. There's several of them,
almost six of them. You do have on the agenda, agreement with labor, and I don't know if labor or custodial services. I know they're greatly underpaid. I hope this means that they're gonna get better payment, for their work that they give to us. L 67, service managers in case conducting hearings. You got a lot of money you're spending for legal stuff. And lastly, support l 17, support for Latino students. That's great. I never see any kind of support for our African American students. And last night,
I saw a lot of support for our newcomer students. You've got to create equity in everything that you do, and some of the things on the agenda don't seem to be, say equity. And I I'm just sorry. We got to look at y'all y'all don't have no discussion on them, this stuff. Do you read these items and say, look, I need to intervene on this, this particular item. I know you pulled something, mister, Williams. Am I gonna give a chance to talk about what you pulled, madam? No. He rescinded it. You rescinded. Oh, god. Help me. Mister Raichstra, can we have a roll call on the vote,
please? Yes. On the roll call to adopt the general consent report, intact, full. Student directors are absent. Director Ladder? Yes. Director Williams? Yes. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Berry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president, bachelor? Yes. And president Brohart? Yes. Motion is adopted. We do. Next item, L, can I have a motion to approve, please? I mean, I'm sorry, M. Motion to approve adoption of general consent report, general obligation bonds measure BJY. Second. Is there any public comment? Yes. We have Asado Lobala.
Okay. Y'all got to tell me what in the hell you're doing with McCliman's Football Field. The item on the agenda says that you're gonna be hiring someone to deal with the football field. And when you go into the contract of actually what they're gonna be doing, they're gonna be laying out the football field. Now you know that soil is contaminated. And I asked you, mister Williams, what did they do to deal with the remediation of the soil at Cole? So tonight, what is going on with this football field? Are you moving forward to put the field contaminated,
this turf on top of the contamination? Somebody, mister Williams, tell me what's going on. Because you had taken it off the agenda. Now it's back on the agenda for this company to come in and do these and it says in the contract. It doesn't say what you're looking at that they're gonna look at laying out the field, putting it over the turf. I'm sorry, the contamination. Tell me what is going on because you have Oakland Tech and some of these other schools having their fields dealt with. Y'all y'all gotta stop this.
It's too disrespectful to do this. Mister Williams, speak up and tell us what's going on, please. Mister Raikstra, can I have a roll call on the vote, please? Yes. On the motion to adopt the, general consent report, general obligation bonds. Director Latta? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Director, Berry? Yes. Director Hutchinson is absent. Director Williams? Yes. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Brodhard? Yes. Motion's adopted. Thank you. The last talk about the fact that you got a contaminated soil over that climate. And you have on the agenda,
you just voted to have that turf put over that contaminated soil. We will talk. I will talk to you. Yes. We can talk. Okay. No. No. You asked for it. Excuse me. We have one more item on the agenda. I will come talk to you. Item s two, application for provisional internship permit, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing named employees for school year twenty twenty five-'twenty six. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Is there any public comment on this issue? Yes. We have Asolo Lobala. Talk about that with climate. We're not gonna talk about that.
You got a hell of a nerve because that school is 70% black. If that was a newcomer school and they were playing soccer, you would not let them have a a field with contaminated soil. That is racism in its highest form. There's a school I forget what state it is. They just voted last week that they will not allow the football field to have a contaminated soil. They're gonna remediate. What kind of people are y'all to do that to children? And you didn't have no problem with remediate remediation of the coal site.
And you sit there silently, and it's okay. We can meet tomorrow morning. I don't wanna meet tomorrow morning. I wanna public statement of what's going on so everybody can understand what you're doing. Yes. I'll give you a pub public statement. Mister Raikstra, can we have a roll call on the Yes. On the roll call, to adopt the, motion as stated. Director, Berry? Yes. Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Latta? Yes. K. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. Director Hutchinson and, Thompson are absent. President Brohar? Yes. Alright. Motion is adopted.
Sorry. There's no president report and I don't know if there are any board reports. We didn't call case. And there wasn't okay on the agenda. I mean, we didn't do student pupil. We didn't do pupil discipline. No. Are there any voting items that we missed? That's right. Doctor. Berry has a question about new business. I'm sorry. The leg report is moved to next week, our next meeting. And the, task force is also moved to I put the eleventh, but it's the fourth. So the task force report is on June 4. There is media on the fourth. And the,
legislative platform is also on the fourth. What are you putting on the ledge? June 4. Both of these are on June 4? Yes. Both are on June 4. Okay. All right. Just want to make note. All right, Madam President, we have With that, with that, the meeting is adjourned. Director Hutchinson said he wasn't committed to coming. I would