Berkeley Unified School District School Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, folks. Thanks for coming down. Um, uh, welcome to the January 21st meeting of the Berkeley School Board. We're calling the meeting to order now at 7:10 p.m. Um, are there persons here for public comment related to the I'm sorry, closed session as previously. I always do that. Um, that's okay.

Thanks. Uh so if you want to follow along with our online agenda uh it's posted on our district website. Um we also would like to share as we did last week that the district has launched a new um language tool to support access and inclusion to our public meetings. You can um look at our website and access that. It's part of our continuing commitment to transparency, equity, and meaningful engagement. Um, Wordly, an AI based translation and captioning platform. Very cool. Um, if you're in person here, you can use Wordly by scanning the QR codes that are posted on the wall. Um, over there by Oh, by the the front door. Um, and I would like to remind you as usual of our decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meeting. Um, no person shall disturb the order of this meeting. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to booing, hissing, creating, and participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn in violation of applicable rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting, entering into or remaining in the area of the meeting room that is not open to public, or approaching the dis without permission. And I'm sure no one's going to be doing that here. Um, so, uh, if you have complaints also against specific district employees, we encourage you to use the district complaint process via complaints atbererkeley.net as opposed to public comment to address these matters. Um, finally, we will now take roll call uh with Miss Chavez. Thank you.

Director Anna Vasuv present. Director Jennifer Shinoski here. Student Director Armana Ardon present. Vice President Jennifer Korn present. President Mike Chen present. Okay. And next on up um we will now approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? I move. A second. Um, we have a first and a second. And do we have the vote? Do we have the eyes? I

I was unanimous. Thank you so much. I think it's firsted by Director Schnowski and seconded by Vice President Korn. Um, all righty. And we now have a report out on the close session by Vice President Korn.

Thank you very much, President Chang. Um, close session was called to order at 5:42 with um, directors Vasuv and Shinoski and myself and President Chang in attendance. Um, there were two items on the agenda. The first was conference with legal counsel about anticipated litigation. One board member recused themsel. There was a motion by Shinowski, seconded by Korn. Um, and the settlement agreement was approved. And for item 3.2, to the board received an update. Thank you so much. Um, next on up we have the superintendent comments. Thank you, President Chang. Good evening, B USD family.

Um, so first I want to welcome you back. I hope that everyone had a meaningful and restful extended weekend in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Um, we know that many, many families appreciated the extra day with their children. So, we decided to make it a thing. And we want to let you know that again this coming Monday we will not have school. Um so you will be able to be with your babies yet again. Um but seriously it's not just because we want you to be with your babies again but because um on Monday the 26th um there's going to be um professional development for our um district employees are classified our certificated all the folks that get to level and interact with your students every day will have the opportunities to collaborate um and learn and grow as professionals. And so, um, it'll be a day of them strengthening instruction, um, thinking about student support, as well as how to continue to, um, take care of, of your babies and their well-being. So, again, no school on Monday, January 26. I also want to just remind you of a few happenings that are going on in the month of January in BUSD. On Wednesday, January 28th from 6:00 to 6:45, our disability equity and special education advisory committee or DSEK will host a virtual presentation and panel discussion called sound advice featuring members of our local deaf and heart of hearing community. Um, this inclusive session is open to students, families, educators, and community members and ASL interpretation will be provided. Um, and the event is a compilation or a complement to the panels that you see displayed around the boardroom. So, they've been up for um the entirety of this month. Actually, they started it went up right at the end of the um 2025 year. We do encourage you all um before leaving this evening to take a time to walk around and read um the stories about um the amazing um community members and folks um who are a part of the deaf and heart of hearing community. On Thursday, January 29th, we invite families and community members to a free screening of the film Left Behind. Um the film will be shown at the Little Theater at Albany High School. Doors will open at 5:00 PM. Left Behind

tells the inspiring true story of a group of mothers who founded New York City's first public school for students with dyslexia. The film will begin at 5:30, but again, the doors will open at 5:00 p.m. I heard that it's going to be just a hot ticket and so I encourage you to get there as soon as possible. Um, after the film is shown, there will be a Q&A with Kareem Weaver and other literacy experts. Space is limited. Registration is required. You can go to our website for more information. And then finally, I want to share an exciting update about our elementary mathematics in BUSD. Um, we are beginning a comprehensive process to strengthen our elementary math experience with new highly qualif highquality instructional materials planned for classrooms in fall 2027. The work builds on ongoing collaboration and professional learning around um that has already been underway and recent data from the 2025 California State dashboard show that we're actually moving in the right direction. And so we invite um family members, community members, students, um our educators of course to come and be a part of the conversation um to think about what math instruction should look like in BUSD, but more importantly to be a part of the process to identify which curriculum we'll be using to deliver that instruction. Uh the we invite families to share their perspective at a community information um and input session and that will be on February 13th. Um to review um more information, go to our website. Um, this evening I'm excited because we're going to share an update on our continued work to support one of BUSD's focal student groups, our African-American students. We'll present year four of the African-American success framework, highlighting the impact of the work, how it has strengthened um our coherence across our system, and how it continues to be refined over time. I also want to note um an information item on tonight's agenda. It's the P1 school average daily attendance in October enrollment summaries. Um, this report provides an early snapshot of student enrollment and attendance across the district. We know attendance matters not only because it influences our state funding because it directly affects student access to

rigorous instruction, enrichment, and the full school experience. The data helps us better understand where additional supports or adjustments may be needed to ensure students are in school and able to take full advantage of the learning opportunities that exist here in BUSD. So, if you are curious and interested or if you just want to get another data point for our budget conversations, we encourage you to look at that information item. Um, while the board will not be publicly discussing that item um this evening, both the board and staff will be considering this information as part of our ongoing work around instructional planning, student support, and responsible resource allocation. You do not need to thank me, but I want to remind you that yet again on Monday, we have no school in BUSD. Another day for you to be with your babies. Thank you, President Chang. Thank you, superintendent. No school on Monday. Um, we'll now move on to public comments. Uh, and this is the first opportunity. There's also a second one at the end of the towards the end of the meeting. Um, now and at the at the end. And if you do not get to speak at the beginning, you can stay and speak at the end. Uh, you can also email your comments board of edberkley.net. Again, if you have complaints, complaints brookerkeley.net. Um, we don't respond directly to comments or questions made during public comment. Um, board members, the superintendent and staff do take notes during public comment and we may follow up. They may follow up uh with the speaker after the meeting. Um, this is also a hybrid meeting which means that there are public commenters here but also online. Um and uh we've designated a amount of time for the speakers and today I think we're going to do um we have four in person and how many online Miss Chavez do we have so far who would be speaking? Let's double check here.

One hand.

Just one hand. So let's do two minutes a piece. Okay, cool. Poppy. Roger. Roger that. Um I've already gone through the language around disruptions. Um I know that never happens here. Um so uh I'm going to call first by students if there are and I don't see any students here who are seeking to make comment but I do see lots of um our BFT folks etc. BFT, BCC. We have um Dan Brownson will be first if you'd like to come on up and then um Kendra if you want. Kendra Lubalin if you want to come up right behind him.

Cool. Okay. Cool.

Great. Okay. So item on consent number 12.8 approval of master contracts for non-public schools. Um while I expect that this may be the result of uh legal issues um as many such contracts are. Uh it just continues to dismay me that this is uh still a recurring problem. And I looked at uh the costs for those and they're they're very very very high. Um, we have to get those issues under control as a school district because they are an area where the district is hemorrhaging money um on sending students who should be in our schools to non-public schools. Um, and that's it. It's is it's money that could be so much better used in so many so many other areas that is just flying out the door. Um, secondly, um, I would just encourage uh the district to settle up with BCCE. our proposals are quite reasonable. Um, and we would rather not go to impass. Um, we would prefer to just sign a contract and be done with it. Um, thank you. That's all. Thank you so much. Um, Kendra and then after Kendra, can we have Angie Sto?

Good evening. I'm Kendra Lubalan. I teach history at Berkeley High and I'm also married to Amy Lubalan who's a BUD music teacher and we have a kid at Berkeley High. Also living on two teachers salaries, there are months when Amy and I can't afford groceries. the last week of the month. Uh we have to get creative. We struggle with basic needs like car repair, like uh car registration fees. Um I can't even tell you the last time I got my haircut. Um we have to request financial aid for our kids to participate in BHS clubs. Um we would love to be able to rent in Berkeley, but we can't afford to live in this district. Um, and I have to be honest, it really upsets me that the 60 plus hours of good work that I've done this week for our students isn't sufficient testimony for why Berkeley should be competitive with other districts and that instead I have to come down here and share like really personal information about our finances um, in front of like colleagues and fellow parents. If the district covered our health care proportionally, we wouldn't be struggling over groceries. Um there are so many other fights right now to fight and they're enough. Like I I am just asking you please to support a living wage that we deserve and let us focus on the tasks at hand. Like I could be spending this Wednesday night on my curriculum, which by the way includes labor organizing. I could continue planning the herculean task of teaching current events in this political climate. I could be grading because I

certainly can't complete that within my duty day. And it's those activities that uh you know should be uh moving you to support a two-teer family to be able to live in the district where we teach. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Angie and then Yasmin. Good afternoon, Angie. Good evening. Good evening, members of the board and superintendent. My name is Sanji Sto and I am here to speak about the invisible cost of teaching in Berkeley. Cost that are forcing young educators like myself to put our lives on hold. Berkeley's salary is an illusion. Without the 100% healthc care coverage offered by neighbors like Oakland, my take-home pay is constantly eroded, making a long-term career in this district financially unsustainable. I recently reach a milestone that I am incredibly proud of. I bought a home. But in the Bay Area, owning a home on a teacher salary requires surgical precision. Every time the district pushes health care health care cost onto us, I under I don't it doesn't just lower my paycheck, it directly threatens the stability of the roof over my head. This financial anxiety has forced my husband and me to stole our dreams of starting a family. While this should be a time of excitement, we are instead paralyzed by the unknowns of our healthcare plan. Adding a dependent could swallow up to 30% of my take-home pay in premiums alone. Adding a dependent um could be really hard for us. It is a bit bitter irony. I spend my days dedicated to the growth of our Berkeley children. Yet this district's policies make it financially irres make it make it feel financially responsible

for me to have a child of my own. If Berkeley wants to retain young, talented teachers, you must make it possible for us to be whole people outside of the classroom. I am asking the board to close the healthcare gap and compensate us for every hour worked. Please make it so that the teacher and parent are not mutually exclusive roles in this district. Thank you. Thank you, Yasmin. I'm going to take a second to compose myself. Okay, you got this.

Thanks. Sorry. Good evening, distinguished members of the board and superintendent Ford Morell. My name is Yasmin Navaro. I work at Berkeley High as a counselor and former world language teacher. I'm a first generation Latina. Oh, I I support 11th and 12th graders. I'm a first generation Latina with multiple degrees and multiple credentials, a lifelong learner learner and neurodeiverse. I recently had the opportunity to buy a home, a milestone that is further and further away from many of my peers and those who are coming after me. I've realized that with a home and the cost of associated with the elderly with my elderly parents' healthcare along with the debt of my counseling degree, the possibility of having children under our current salary and benefit structure is impossible. Let's not even mention our leave policy. Uh leading me to question whether this choice is something I can live with. It's why I left teaching uh in this district. And I'm worried I might have to leave college counseling, too. Leading me to question whether I can stay in this job in one of the few public school districts that even offer a a dedicated college counselor or two. And leading me to question, what has changed? Because at some point, this used to be possible. Thank you. Um, there don't appear to be other public commenters uh out here at the board. However, we have one person, I believe, online.

And can we

Yeah, promote her to speaker. Hello. I believe you're referring to me. Um, my name is Maline Roberts Rich, uh, Berkeley High class of 2012. I stand with Berkeley teachers always. So, I wanted to express my wholehearted support for that. You guys have heard from me plenty of times before, but once again, I am advocating for you to include comprehensive nutritional education when you overhaul your PE curriculum for the Berkeley high schoolers. I find it ironic that Berkeley High is a mile away from the Gourmet Ghetto, which put Berkeley on the uh world map, and the King of England actually went to King Middle School to look at the edible schoolyard. Yet, uh Berkeley High and as far as I know at the Berkeley Middle Schools as well, um still lack comprehensive in-depth nutritional education. Um this can create enormous inequality among students along socioeconomic lines, but particularly gender lines as well. So I really encourage you to consult nutritionist so that B bus B USD can be a leading school district in the nutritional education it provides. It's really really important to those students. So I'll keep coming back and advocating for this. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I don't think we have other online commenters. Um we're going to move to committee comments. Uh do we have our union speakers here? BFT or BCC? We have a I know we have a committee. Oh, I'm sorry. We have a committee comment. Yeah, perhaps we shall. Okay. So, apologies, BFTBCC. We're going to do the committee comment first and then we'll zip on over to you.

Going over them. Good evening, Berkeley Unified Board of Education. Superintendent Berkeley community. Fellow educators, my name is Spencer Pritchard. I'm a classroom teacher at Berkeley High School, co-chair of the African-American Studies Department and member of the Superintendent African-American Success Advisory Committee or ASAC. And I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of ASAC. I want to start by saying why I do this work. I go to these late night meetings um of ASAC on my own time, not because it looks good on paper, but because I see every day what our black students are navigating in classrooms and in our schools. I also see the effort educators are putting in, and I believe this framework is one of the few district-wide efforts that actually tries to connect those two realities. We're in year four of the African success framework that matters. At this point, the AASF is no longer new and it's no longer theoretical. It has moved past planning and launch and into the harder work of implementation where systems either start to change or they don't. From inside schools, what's important about the AASF is that it's not just another program layered on top of everything else. It's a structure that's trying to create shared responsibility across classrooms, school sites, and the central office. It gives us a common way to talk about academic performance, professional learning, school climate, and family and community engagement, and to see how those things are connected. The data you'll see later tonight is honest. Black student enrollment has remained stable across grade levels, which allows us to look at trends over time without guessing. Academic outcomes in both ELA and math remain below district benchmarks. That's the reality and it's important not to minimize that. At the same time, we're

beginning to see some early signs of stabilization, particularly in ELA at the elementary level. Math continues to be the area of greatest concern, especially in middle and high school where gaps are widest and most persistent. What's new and important for educators is the inclusion of growth data from the California school dashboard. The data shows year-to-year movement that prof proficiency scores alone don't always capture. While growth hasn't yet translated into major jumps in proficiency, it does suggest that some instructional and support strategies are starting to take hold. Chronic absenteeism among black students remains too high, but has stopped getting worse. From a school perspective, that matters because stabilization gives us a clear place to intervene, especially through relationships, trust building, and targeted support. Student focus groups conducted in 2025 reinforce why this work is necessary. Students continue to talk about the inconsistent relationship with adults, instruction that doesn't always reflect who they are, and uneven access to supports depending on the school they attend. These are not individual issues. They are systemic conditions and they require system level responses. What I've also seen in year four is improvement in how this work is supported. There's stronger coordination across departments, better access to data tools, closer alignment with efforts to address significant disproportionality, and sustained engagement with families and community partners through ASAC. That infrastructure matters even when the results take time to show up. So, I want to be clear about what we're asking of the board tonight. As you listen to the presentation that follows later in the evening, I'm asking you to stay open-minded and grounded in the full picture. This is not a success story and it's not a failure story. It's a system in the middle of change, showing stabilization in some areas, early movement in others, and clear signals about what where we need to accelerate. The ASF is doing what it was designed to do. Make inequities visible, create shared responsibility, and keep the

district focused on improvement even when the work is uncomfortable or slow. The work ahead is about deepening impact, especially in math. Instructional coherence and sustained engagement, not abandoning the effort. From where I sit as a Berkeley High teacher, continued commitment to this framework matters, not because it's perfect, but because it's one of the few efforts that doesn't look away from the problem once the spotlight fades. Thank you for your time and for being willing to engage honestly with the findings you'll see in tonight. Thank you. Now we have any other committee comments? I don't see any if Yep. BFT is coming on up. You ready? Okay. Hello, Superintendent Ford Marthell and Berkeley school board directors. I am Matt Meyer, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers. I know I sound like a broken record. Been here, I think, every meeting this year almost uh when I say in order to serve our students, we must have qualified educators and keep them. This recruitment and retention is critical to maintaining the success of our schools. Our compensation is still just like two weeks ago and all year and years before that and still near the bottom of the county which is our competitive labor market. As you heard from our members who spoke during public comment out of pocket um health the cost of out-of- pocket healthcare insurance is a significant pay cut. This has occurred for years and we can't go on like this. With our neighboring districts continuing to cover the complete cost of health care and provide salary increases that outpace ours, BUD will continue to lose out on the already diminished labor pool. Over the last 3 years, our

healthcare went up by 26% with the employee covering 13% of that increase. In real terms, my monthly healthcare payment has gone up $362 a month for the exact same health care plan over the past 3 years. This is not sustainable. Additionally, as a percentage, B USD covers classified staff and classified managers at much higher rates. B USD covers administrators the same, but unlike all the other units in B USD, we do not have a cash and loo option. You would think that not having cash and loo would result in higher healthc care coverage by the district, but that isn't the case. If the district contribution was applied to our medical if that district contribution was applied to our medical benefits, the district would be covering 87% of our healthcare coverage. Our members who do not have benefits are subsidizing the general fund by $3.26 million and that money is not going back to our unit as a whole. That amount would get us to almost 100% healthcare coverage like our neighboring districts. Last year we had at least 10 teachers in various subjects teaching without preliminary or clear credentials. So these are teachers that maybe have had no education training or just started. Additionally, we had two case managers as well as other certificated support staff who the district had to hire from private agencies. These educators are automatically released at the end of the year. They do not form relationships with students. They do not stay at our schools. The 1% offer is nowhere near sufficient to attract and retain our educators. It ends up as a pay cut for some of us that are on district medical benefits. There are new ongoing dollars available next year and because of increased enrollment, new dollars even this year. As we've said all year, the district needs to do a deep dive and figure out a way to make sure we don't fall further behind our colleagues across the county and make this district one where educators can thrive. Our students and

community need us to stay. All of our educational gains that we've had that have been on display in these very chambers are the result of investments in our educators in the long run. Compensation is one of those investments. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, we have another union commenter, Frank PCC. Cool. Thank you. Ready? Okay. Good evening, school board and superintendent Ford Mell. My name is Mild Sharer and I am the vice president for the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees. We are here tonight on behalf of the classified professionals whose work determines whether this district operates or break down and who are increasingly feeling disrespected, dismissed, and deliberately excluded. We want to be clear from the start that what I am describing tonight is not isolated and it's not personal. It reflects a district-wide pattern affecting classified employees across departments, sites, and classifications, including current actions that threaten long-standing protections for classified staff. Classified employees want to be genuine partners in this work, but partnership requires transparency, inclusion, and mutual respect. I want to start with the simple but important question. What does this district wants from its classified staff? The message classified employees are receiving across this district do not match the actions we are seeing. You cannot ask for teamwork while making decisions behind our backs.

You cannot ask for collaboration while undermining the very system that protects workers. And you cannot ask for trust while treating classified staff as if they are optional. interchangeable or expendable. We want to state this plainly. A school district cannot function with administrator administrators and certificate of staff alone. It never has and it never will. When classified employees are disregarded, systems fail across this district. Classified staff open the buildings. They support students and families. They manage operations, payroll, budgets, compliance, safety, food services, technology, and facilities. They are the people administrators rely on when something goes wrong and something always goes wrong. And yet across departments and work sites, classified employees are treated as though they are replaceable by people who have no understanding of the work, no institutional knowledge and no connection to the community. That is not leadership. That is not collaboration. And that is not respect. Many classified employees have given decades of their life to Berkeley Unified. They have trained new administrators. They have carried this district through crisis, budget cuts, leadership turnover, and constant change. They are not temporary. They are not disposable. And they are not invincible. Our superintendent often speaks about the four E, excellent, equity, engagement, and enrichment. And I have to ask, where is that commitment when it comes to classified employees districtwide? Because it is not showing up in practice across our school sites. So tonight, we want to be clear about BCCIS because these are not suggestions. These are expectations. Integrity. Classified employees across this district expect honesty and transparency in decision-m, not backroom efforts that harm workers while asking them to remain loyal. Inclusion. If a decision affects classified employees, they belong at the

table before it is made, not after the damage is done. Institutional knowledge. Classified employees are the living memory of this district. When that knowledge is ignored, systems fail and students suffer. Impact. Classified staff are not support extras. They have a direct impact on student safety, stability, and success every single day. Investment. You cannot weaken protections, destabilize jobs, and still expect dedication, innovation, or trust from your classified workforce. And finally, integrity and labor relations. Respecting classified employees means respecting their union, not sometimes, not selectively, but consistently, publicly, and in practice. And let us be clear about this as well. BCC will fight to protect our personnel commission because it is one of the last safeguards ensuring fairness, due process, and accountability for classified employees across this district. A system that has existed since 1943. BCC understands exactly what is happening and so do classified employees across Berkeley Unified. And we will not accept a culture that sidelines the workforce that sustains this district. If this district values true teamwork, then it must start acting like classified employees matter, not just when it is convenient, but when it is uncomfortable. Efforts to dismantle the personnel commission supported or enabled by those in positions of authority without the involvement, consent or consideration of the classifying employees who would be harmed by its removal are deeply troubling and unacceptable, especially when those efforts do not carry the same risk or consequence for individuals advancing them. This district does not function without classified employees and that reality will no longer be ignored. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um I don't think we have other committee commenters. So proceeding on to board member comments. Would our student board member student board director Armana Ardam like to speak first? Yeah.

Good evening everyone. I wanted to start by taking a moment to thank all of our Berkeley staff that came in to speak today. Um, there were a lot of vulnerable comments that were made and I hear them and I'm very thankful for you guys for coming to share, but also for all of the work that you do in our community. It does not go unnoticed. Um, I was lucky enough to attend the MLK breakfast ceremony on Monday alongside some of my board members here and it was amazing to see our Berkeley community show up and celebrate Dr. King's legacy and celebrate our middle school and high school awardees for all of their amazing achievements. This week, I was also able to reach out with the Berkeley High National Alliance on Mental Illness Club to work on expanding mental health services and getting students more connected and educated on mental health issues within our community. So, I really hope to see that work be um accepted by our community and to continue to work on with that. So, thank you all and I look forward to the rest of today's meeting. Thank you so much, student director. Um, next on up,

who would like to go next? Yep. Oh, Dr. Schnowski.

Yeah. Good evening. Um, I would also like to thank all of our speakers who have come and shared so many of their stories with us repeatedly at these meetings. Um, I was also able to attend the MLK breakfast and I was really excited to see some of our students win awards um for the great work that they're doing in our schools. Uh, I also was able to attend a community event at BTA uh last week regarding improvements to Mullering Field, including finally finding a home for our tennis teams. And I look forward to another community meeting tomorrow um on Zoom uh in the evening. Anybody interested in attending that meeting can find the link on our BUSD community calendar on our website. Um I want to highlight the first ESPback meeting of the year which is next week. So ESPback the superintendent's budget advisory committee meeting. Um this is as we all know a year with a lot of decisions that need to be made including how to um settle fair contracts with our labor partners. And so I encourage folks to come attend the um ESPback meeting to hear about um the projections for the coming year and uh start to grapple with some of the difficult decisions we have ahead of us. And finally, I just want to echo some of the comments made by BFT President Matt Meyer. Um I agree the situation that we find ourselves in is not sustainable. um healthcare c costs across the country um continue to increase in an unsustainable way both for members um for staff and for the district itself. Uh the rich keep getting richer and the gap between working families and billionaires just keeps growing and growing. Um our costs at the at the district continue to

increase when there's a 26% increase in benefits, right? And it's split between the district and the employee. The district is also bearing those costs. Uh California is now the fourth largest economy in the world and we should not be having to make choices between raises and layoffs. We shouldn't have to be making choices between paying our mortgages and having babies. Um so I really want to sort of ignite a fire. I call on everybody here, everybody online, and throughout the whole Bay Area to start really getting together and collectively fighting for fully funded schools and free healthcare for all. We need to tax the rich and fund our communities. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Director Schnowski. Who would like to go next? Looking left and right, Vice President Corn. I'll keep my comments brief in the wake of my colleagues fiery words. Well done. Um I echo the gratitude for everyone who came out tonight to make comments, our labor partners, um the committee comment. Um it it's really important for us to to hear from all of you. Um, and I want to echo the invitation to the events that the superintendent mentioned that are coming up for disability awareness month at the end of the month. The event um about uh it's called sound sound advice sound something. Thank you Jill. Um and the film screening left behind about the school for dyslexic children. These are both really important events that I am hoping to attend. And finally, I just want to say that I'm really excited to be um learning about the progress on the African-American success framework tonight. I've been sitting on the ASAC this year and it's been a real honor to be in that space with all of you and I'm really excited about tonight's presentation.

Thank you so much. Uh, Vice President Korn, Director, um, no substantive comments tonight other than just to thank everyone who came out to speak. Um, to our staff, to our committee members. I just really want to appreciate you all and I'm also looking forward as to hearing about the progress on the African-American success framework. So, thank you for coming tonight.

Thank you, Director Bastip. Uh, same here, no nothing substantive. Uh again, looking forward to the um African-American success framework uh conversation. Excited to hear of their um continuing work. Um also uh I'm really uh pleased to hear from this board and which I'm not surprised of of their um concern and passion around the importance of full funding for our labor partners. Um this is a of course a very challenging and complex area in some ways in other ways is it's not and I think as a board um we understand that our uh teachers and our classified employees they they run the school district. So um that is something that's on our mind front and center as we go into this budget season which is challenging. um at the same time recognizing that there's a bigger picture here. Uh so thanks so much to bring for bringing your hearts and minds and um I'd like to shift us on over to our next part of our uh agenda here. Um is there a motion for the consent calendar?

No questions on it. So moved one. I'll seconded. Do we have the eyes? I I I unanimous. Great. Um and we'll now move on to item 13.1. Yes. Everyone ready? Cool. I know it came up so quickly. It's kind of surprised like whoa, it's only 7:53.

Good night. Guess we've changed the slide. A different slide in the beginning. Is there a first slide before that? Should be another slide. It doesn't matter if it's not, but that's the first slide.

It's another first slide. That's not first.

Yeah. Apologies. Can we just have a second? We That's not the right That's the first I'm going to reshare. It's a different think. The meat is the same, but yeah, for some reason it's fine. You know what? We're just going to go ahead and go. So, good evening, Board of Education, Berkeley community, and staff. Uh you you can put that up. That's okay. Thank you. Uh tonight's presentation is on the African-American Success Framework. It is a year four in the implementation of the framework and so we're coming to you this evening to provide an update. Um at this point, the AASF or the African-American Success Framework, as you heard Spencer say in his committee comments, is no longer new. We are past launch and alignment and really starting to dive deeply into the work of refinement, coherence, and measurable impact. This update focuses on three things. what the data shows, how the system is functioning, and where sustained attention is still required. Um, we always start our presentations off with our mission statement. Um, this is what moves and drives all of our work collectively. And this mission also grounds the African-American success framework within our broader commitment to academic excellence for all students. The framework operationalizes that mission by focusing on African-American students whose outcomes have remained predictably inequitable in our district. The African-American says framework is not separate from district priorities. It is a lens for fulfilling them and for identifying practices that can ultimately scale across student groups.

We've already seen examples of this scaling such as transition supports and strong start practices. Next slide, please. Tonight's presentation moves from origins and rationale though we will share a little bit about the origin and rationale of this framework to student data implementation highlights and finally to where we are headed next. This mirrors how the work itself operates in our framework grounded in data informed by community voice and focused on continuous improvement. Our goal tonight and always is transparency and shared understanding. Next slide please. Those of us sitting before you and the names on this screen represent um a cross I was say crosscultural a crossroad leadership group district administrators site leaders educators families and community partners. The mix this evening is intentional. The framework is implemented with the community not to the community. Shared ownership is essential if this work is going to last beyond any single role, department or individual. Next slide. Here you see a quote by um Mr. Singleton from his book Courageous Conversations: Raising the Achievement of Black African-American Students while narrowing the disparities between the highest and lowest performing students and eliminating the racial predictability and disproportionality of which student groups occupy the highest and lowest achievement categories is how we in B USD along with Mr. Singleton define equity. It's really about raising achievement while narrowing disparities and eliminating the racial predictability that still exists in BUSD. This framing continues to anchor our decision-m, our prioritization, and our accountability. Next slide. For those who might be new to the framework, um I do want to share that the framework consists of 51 strategic

actions across four goal areas implemented through collaboration across the district and across our Berkeley community. The macro, messo, and micro structure allows for district-wide coherence while preserving responsiveness at the school and student level. As previously shared, 68% of actions in our of F51 are completed, 21% 24% sorry, are in progress and 8% have not yet started, which gives us a clear road map for refinement. Next slide, please. The framework was launched in December 2021 and board approved in June of 2022. So, I had the privilege of walking into this district as superintendent, walking into a district that had a clear commitment to the outcomes and experiences of African-American students and lucky for me had a framework and a plan of how to make real and true on that commitment. It was grounded in both data and community voice and adopted with clear timelines and accountability. Year four this year allows us to ask a deeper question. Is the system behaving differently because of this framework? Are our students experiences and outcomes changing because of this framework? Next slide. Um we're going to pause here just to take a moment to look at the root causes. Um these root causes are um informed by feedback from our students um from many of our staff members and from a number of our community members. These root causes are not new. In fact, they were established and documented years ago prior to my coming on board to BUSD. Um not just to inform the framework and its work, but also in response to questions about um the disproportionality existed in our cesafees plan. And so wanted to call attention to these uh these root causes because they are not of the past. They are still experiences that our students and our families have in BUSD um every day and they still speak to our need for systemwide coherence. bias,

discrimination, and institutional racism is one of the main root causes. Relationships and trust, the lack thereof, instructional practices with their inconsistency, their lack of cultural responsiveness, and a lack of multi-ter systems of support or MTSS, um, where students have variable experiences in BUSD that definitely again impact their outcomes and their experiences. The persistence of these themes validates why this framework remains necessary in our district. Good evening, board superintendent and the community that's sitting alongside of us this evening. My name is Robin Fischer and I'm part of the facilitation team of the African-American success framework and now the sustainability plan. As you see here, the AASF or the framework has been guided by three principles. And these principles emphasize moral urgency, accountability, and student well-being. The question that we ask ourselves in all the work that we do is how are the children? Our students center the work that we do. Our student experiences are our primary outcome. These principles both shape the strategy of the framework in the implementation plan and the culture of the way in which we do the work. Next slide please. The framework tracks two core outcomes academic achievement and reduced disciplinary disparities. These outcomes reflect both academic and relational dimensions of success. Progress in one without the other we have found by research is insufficient.

Next slide. Good evening. Kamar Gwyn, manager, African-American success project. Uh the framework uh is made up of four strategic uh recommendations. Uh and for a second I want you to imagine that that first one that you see up there that says improve academic performance uh that is essentially the star by which all of the other recommendations kind of constellate around. Uh and so uh if you begin to think about this in terms of uh change leadership if you think about uh if we provide highquality professional learning create safe and inclusive climate and culture and engage our families and communities will increase the likelihood that our students can succeed. Next slide please. Uh and so when we think about the work, we know that uh partnership is paramount. Uh everybody knows something, but no one knows everything. Uh we can't do this without everybody who's sitting here uh and everybody who's contributing across the district. Uh and with that in partnership, the partners that are around the table for the African-American success framework are both uh intentionally uh structured and aligned. Uh the goal here is not program proliferation, not the fact of bringing more people to the table for the sake of doing that, but rather it's about strategic integration. Uh thinking about uh what makes a framework partner different than any other partner. Uh and this is uh a bit off script for me, but this is what it means to me. It means that you have to be deeply invested in issue resolution as well as problem solving. uh in fact you have to be a beacon and been willing to be able to model what it means to be mission aligned to collaborate on such an issue like this. Uh and with that we know that alignment reduces fragmentation as well as increases our collective impact. And so what you see here are folks that have been around the proverbial round table since day one and continue to be involved in this tremendous work.

All right. Thank you and good evening. Um I'm Lena Sweeney, director of Berkeley Research Evaluation Assessment, and I'm pleased to be with you today to um present on our data metrics around the ASF. So um for this first slide, we we represent the enrollment at our elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools over the last three years. Um enrollment has re remained, as Mr. Pritchard mentioned, relatively stable across grade spans over the last three years. This stability allows for reliable longitudinal analysis and strengthens confidence in observed trends. Here we represent enrollment data for our students who are listed under the singular category of African-American as well as those students in addition to all students who identify as black African-American in the black African-American descent category. These students include our Hispanic, Latinx students who also identify as black and our students of two or more races who also identify as black. Those students will be represented as well in some of our subsequent slides. Um, next slide please. So here we synthesize what some of the data is telling us. Um, as mentioned the enrollment stability allows for reliable longitudinal analysis. We recognize that academic performance remains below district benchmarks for both ELA and math at at all of our grade spans. Um ELA is showing early signs of stabilization and we're seeing some signs of modest improvement particularly in some of our internalized um data metrics such as star intervals. Math remains currently the most in significant challenge. Although we do recognize some bright spots, including um recognizing that on the data dashboard at Longfellow, our black

African-American students are showing accelerated growth. And um and we and we also finally recognize that learning loss seems to have stabilized with chronic absenteeism numbers um remaining stable at this point. Next slide, please. some of our emerging bright spots. Um, we will review these in subsequent slides as well, but we have new to the California state dashboard in 2025 some of our growth metrics which highlight year-to-year progress and are giving us a fuller picture of our data alongside of our proficiency and our distance from standard data. And with that, we're seeing incremental movement within some of our performance categories. Um, I also recognize or we recognize that we have a bright spot under our college and career readiness with in 2025, our black African-American students are under the green indicator, which is an improvement of of two indicator colors from last year. And next slide, please. Um, we do recognize our persistent barriers. Um, as mentioned, black African-American students remain over represented in in our lower performance bands in mathematics and English language arts. Um, and additionally, our distance from standards remain greater in mathematics than in English language arts. Um, we recognize that although chronic absenteeism numbers have largely stabilized, there's been some increase year-over-year since um since last year, I should say. All right, next slide. So on this slide, we observe that in English language arts, our proficiency has increased steadily overall from 2023 to 2025. While black African-American students

show consistent year-to-year growth, increasing from about 26% to about 30% proficiency. Students of black African-American descent also show continuous improvement with proficiency rising from about 37% in 2023 to about 42% in 2025. In mathematics, black African-American students math proficiency remained around 20 to 21% proficiency from 2023 to 2025. Overall, students of black African-American descent demonstrate steady gains in math over the three-year period, increasing from about 28% to about 34% proficient over the same period. Next slide, please. And here we represent the same data, but as disagregated for elementary school students. In elementary school, only our third through fifth graders take the Smarter Balance assessment. So, this data set does reflect um those grade levels. We notice that in ELA um black African-American students increased from 20 20% in in 2023 to 27% in 2024 and then made a decline to 21% in 2025. while students of African descent increased from 28% to 34% and then held steady in 2025. Um in math we saw student gains from 24% to 32% and then a dip to 26% in 2025. And along that, black African-American students or students of black African-American descent proficiency increased from 35% to 40% over the three-year period and then made a slight decrease to 38%. Next slide. And here we see again the

same data set but disagregated for our middle school students. We see a similar pattern with largely um proficiency maintenance for our black African-American students and some increases when looking at all of our students of African descent. And next slide. Here we see our smarter balance assessment data for English language arts and mathematics representing proficiency rates for our 11th grade students. Um, we have had an increase in participation for our 11th grade students, but still recognize that as a barrier. We are still not testing 95% of our of our students at this point. So, here we see a representative data set, but not all of the students who who who could be assessed. Um, and let's move to our next slide, please. Okay, so these charts show our raw score average distance from standard in smarter balance assessment, English language arts and mathematics for our black African-American students and students of black African-American descent across 2023, 2024, and 2025. And this data represents the scores without the participation penalty that we can see represented on the subsequent dashboard indicator slides. In English language arts, the average distance from standard improved slightly over time, moving from below standard 63.53%, excuse me, points in 2023 to below standard 52.99 in 2025. While students of black AfricanAmerican descent show

improvement from below standard 38.67 to below standard 22.71 across the same period. In math, the average distance from standard for black African-American students improved from negative 94.51 to below standard 73.20 in 2024 and then declined to negative 83.88. 8 83 in in 2025. Um, and let's move to the next slide. Okay, so this view shows English language art growth classifications for all student groups using the new California dashboard growth metrics, which represents year-to-year change in scale scores. And this represents data for our fourth through 8th grade students in Berkeley Unified School District in 2025. African-American students are identified in the moderate growth category, indicating that on average their English language arts scores increase from the prior year at a rate above minimal growth but below accelerated growth. And next slide. On this slide, we see represented our California state dashboard color indicators for mathematics, ranging from 2023 to 2025. We do see it increase this year, moving from the red indicator color in 2024 to the yellow indicator color in 2025. We also we want to recognize here that only 91% of our students um or black students were tested. So we were penalized for 4% of our students. Even with that however we we do see an indicator color jump all

the way to yellow. Okay. And next slide. And here finally we see our growth metrics for in the area of mathematics. And in this area, our African-American students made what would be considered average growth year-over-year in 2025. And again, I want to shout out Longfellow there that at Longfellow, our students made accelerated growth in mathematics. Okay, so moving to our next slide. Um here we see that in 2025 our chronic absenteeism rates for our African-American students remain elevated. Our students made a an increase in chronic absenteeism which is represented as a decline. So this remains an area of of improvement for us. And next slide. College and career readiness are based on multiple metrics including a C a CTE pathway and an academic pathway as well as proficiency on key assessments. Readiness indic indicates a reflection of the cumulative effect of earlier academic and engagement improvement. We observe here that in 2025, our black African-American students have moved to the green indicator, reflecting an impressive improvement since 2024. Okay. And I'm passing to So, you see at the top the word that says uh service. Uh I'm going to take some liberties and uh just substitute service for support. I think that when you use the word service, it uh it maybe confuses things because the way that I want to frame this for you is that uh the African-American success framework operates across uh the district school uh and as well as classroom levels. Um

this model really maps out both the breath and the scope of what the framework is intended uh to accomplish. Calling attention to not only the needs of students but the needs to evaluate our inputs as being both comprehensive but also viewed as a whole. meaning that each effort compounds over time to help spur our momentum. Uh this approach uh ensures that the framework touches every African-American student and their families. Not one, not two, not some, but all right, micro, messo, macro. Uh in addition, uh you might say, well, how does this differ from MTSS, tier 1, tier 2, and tier three? Uh, in some ways it is the same, but what it does is it maps a lens on top of MTSS that helps our system be able to sharpen and clarify who we prioritize and how we respond. Excellent. And as we look at those three levels that we just mentioned, the micromeso and the macro, if we look at the portfolio of supports that are provided by not only the partners that you see here at the table and sitting with us, sitting with us, uh it really is about that we need to emphasize and we are emphasizing adult learning, data literacy and professional judgment with respect to the types of supports that are being provided. It's in alignment with the sim for significant disproportionality so that we're strengthening coherence in the work that we are doing as well as looking at how we're working with our early vision scholar data showing that there is promising signs of the coherence in the work that we're doing together. These reflect a combination of one-time and ongoing interventions a as well as single school versus school whole district student versus adults. Next

slide. Thank you. To give us a little bit more of an idea of what's happening at our school sites, we have Miss Lori Clark.

Thank you, Dr. Fischer. Uh, as she said, I am Lori Clark and I am the principal at Willard and I am excited also to be a new employee here in BUSD. And from this perspective, I have in a unique position to share with you the impact of this work on the practice of the Willard teachers. The CLRR learning labs have not only given my teachers time to practice, they are also giving a time to utilize their learning and build coherence and clarity to the work as a whole. And that is gold for me as a leader. This is resulting in our growth of all of our students across our subgroups and particularly of our African-American students. Next slide, please. Most importantly, these practices are occurring outside of the CLR labs as well. As I'm in department meetings and team meetings, I'm hearing teachers continuing the conversations that they started during our sessions with Dr. Fischer and her team. They're leaning in to asssure equity is evident in their practices and supporting each other with their ideas so their strategies can become embedded into their practice. And it's and it's working. It's having a big strong impact not only on how well they feel about what's happening each day but on what's going on for our students which is our ultimate goal.

Uh last year we we uh decided to expand the partnership and and expand the work of the African-Americ framework to um also partner with the work that the district is doing around SIM for SIG or CESACE. As you might recall, the district disproportionately refers um black students to special education and the SIM for SIG plan is to uh for us to figure out uh why and to address that. Um and you know, we had been doing this work for some some time. Um and last year it was a decision uh to bring uh partners from the African-Americess framework to the table with district folks who are working on the SIM for SIG. Um that was the first level of that work and then we saw changes even then um as we as we brought more perspective and ideas to the work to think about how we might implement the plan and and where the plan might have some gaps or areas of improvement. Um this year we took it a step further and partnered with our with our family our family leaders our ASAC group um and and included them as what we call ED partners for the SIM forig disc work. Um the ED partner is a requirement of the SIM forig uh plan. Um but prior to this year um our partners didn't always reflect the community and didn't always center the voice of the folks who were impacted by the work or their babies. Um just from doing those two changes, we've seen some significant shifts in the implementation of the simp plan as well as the outcome of the babies who are referred to as vision scholars. I just wanted to highlight that because that is another example of how we are making system shifts um and how we're making sure to not just look at the quant the qualitative data sorry the quantitative data but also to bring some quality and some different voices and perspectives to the data as we implement plans to disrupt um the system systemic inequities that plague our district. Um and so again the actric framework and simp um dis teams work together to align school-based and partner supports um our work is embedded in the SIM forc plan and the ASF framework. work. So again, they're not two separate plans, though some might present it to you in that way. They are all intentional about changing the outcomes and experiences of our African-American students and

lifting inequity while addressing the disparities that create those inequities. Um, our collaborations target systemic disproportionality and special education through academics, attendance, discipline, and belonging all at the same time. And early data again, as I said, suggests there's some promising um impacts of these alignments, including that when we look at our vision scholars, our African-American vision scholars, um we see some growth that is actually different than the growth that we're seeing in our in our African-American students who are not vision scholars. Both groups are growing and showing progress, but we actually already have some lessons learned from the vision scholar work that we might actually be able to apply to our non-vision scholars as well. Next slide. Now we have a series of folks who are part of the ASAC that want to share some of their experiences. We'll go with Nicole Spencer and then Wamina. Hi, I'm Nicole Harris. I'm on ASAC and I'm also a parent of a eighth grade King student. I wanted to mention that co-sponsoring of the Sigma SIG disc community forum helped expand an African-American parent voice and resulted in several parents joining the committee. This form, these forms provide African-American parents with a welcoming space to ask questions, share feedback, while also offering the district additional perspectives.

Um, good evening school board members. My name is Willamina Wilson. I'm the executive director at Healthy Black Families. Um, we are a nonprofit organization based in the Adeline Quarter. um we operate through the lens of the social determinance of health which as you think about it is everything that helps happens outside of the medical institution. So it's education, it's workforce development, it's health at a community level. Um so it was a natural um segue for us to step in. Um I was invited to sit on the committee um about three years ago and began to identify the alignment with a program I had developed during my master's degree called the village cultural academy. It's a cultural self-empowerment program for black children based on a question how might culturally competent education impact how black children feel about learning. Um, so as the framework was being operationalized, we were invited to apply for funding to do that and we've been doing it at Longfellow Middle School for two years. Um, and we just extended our um, offering to Sylvia Mendes and Malcolm X as a pathway program. So now we're in fourth and fifth grade supporting children transitioning to middle school and in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade supporting children transitioning to high school. Um in that we teach children how to build their own learning community based on their own values, to bring their own voices forward in cultural competent ways that support them. Um how to take those values and activate them in the world. Um and our hope is that when they go to um Berkeley High, they'll be able to build those types of learning communities in support

of their academic success in high school. And I'll pass it to Spencer. And so you're getting um parent, family, and community expertise that is advising um district staff and monitoring the implementation of the framework. And you've seen the four key roles and responsibilities there. And then there's also been many different milestones of course year for um throughout as well the superintendent highlighted which I think was a very impactful community meeting in particularly because you were bringing communities that not necessarily have been at the table at the same time with district staff advising. You're hearing very different diverse voices um as staff member of nine years in the district that I have not I think seen such impactful district what I mean that's been able to gather these different um communities all in one space. So, I really just wanted to tip my hat to that sim for sickness community forum. Um, what they are al um we're also doing is um making sure that our voices um families community members representing ASAC are part of different committees throughout the district as well to center um African-American parent family community experiences as well. So, ESPback and many other um ones that we also make sure to attend. Um, and then we've held student and family focus groups where we directly heard from their their experiences and their stories. And it's been really powerful because they're often not again represented at these tables and different um district team meetings such as meeting math minds um for different uh see the impact for students this year, years before. Um there's been many other of course events too. We we'll have the transition fairs happening and then of course the um really powerful stepup community um step up academy that will be shared as well. Oh and we have one more thing to share before you switch slides. I just wanted to share that the teacher for the village cultural academy at Longfellow School is in the audience Akila Shahid. So I just wanted to shout her out. She holds the children in that program.

Next slide, please.

So, what you have here is starting to see where the direct support. So, we're looking at the data. We're looking at the actions that take place. We have the partners at the table that are doing the work. We have partners like Collegebound who are doing the work again from middle through high school. We heard about healthy black families. And then we started to ask ourselves, but where do we start to see the apex of the intervention? Where are we starting to take a look at the data and identify, well, where is it that our students need the most support? And what we found, as we've been saying from the very beginning of looking at what the needs are is that those transition years are critical. The data says so, we just saw it this evening. From fifth to sixth grade and from 8th to 9th grade, we have transition fairs. But what we saw was that wasn't enough. We needed to identify ways to intervene not only from an academic perspective but from a social emotional um ways of being habits of being for our students to be successful in those transition years and through a partnership of the partners the city of Berkeley YEP Nina Goldman and healthy black families. We just heard from sister Willilamina is to think about how do we do that and at Mendes and at Sylvia excuse me at Sylvia Mendes and at Malcolm X. I beg your pardon. We started to think about who were those fifth graders that we needed to work with very closely, intensely to ensure that they were as prepared as possible for sixth grade. Again, on all those three levels, academically, social, emotionally, and again ready for the rigor of middle school. And so this particular initiative is we're hoping a pilot to begin to determine how best to do that. So, as you can see here, we're meeting with students. They are engaged in uh math, language arts, as well as cultural activities to ensure that they are as appropriately prepared as

possible. So much so that we just left a professional development very similar to uh what we do at Willard at Longfellow. They're preparing for their information night for fifth graders to come to middle school. and we were already able to have conversations about how best to transition the folks that are in the step-up academy to Longfellow and eventually to Willard. So, these are the ways that we're starting to incorporate all that we've learned from the time that we've been uh part of the framework and beginning to think about implementation in a very systemic and systematic way. So, we still have a lot of work to do, but we wanted to highlight what's working. Um, as you heard here, some examples of uh cross- departmental ownership. Um, we did not say cross-d departmental collaboration. We said cross departmental ownership. that across departments in the district, across school sites, folks understand and see a responsibility to think about the experiences and outcomes of black babies and to take responsibility in the fact that if our babies are not demonstrating what we know is their inherent brilliance, it is by no fault of theirs. It's something with us and our system and our practices. And so that ownership word to me is really important, particularly as a superintendent. So that's something that's working that we know we can expand and scale more, but we see a lot of kernels of that happening and already those kernels are popping out and our babies are seeing the difference because of it. Improved data access for sure is working because now we can talk about how our babies are doing and where they are in real time. We don't get a chance to tell ourselves stories and make up things that make us feel good as adults or pat ourselves on the back, right? We are looking at data in real time. Different types of data. Some of the data you saw here today, but also a lot of data that we have not shown you here this evening. Qualitative data, quantitative data, formative data, and summitative data. That gives us a better story. And that again makes us go back to that ownership to figure out what we're going to do to either continue to

to grow and improve where we see areas of improvement or what are we going to do to address where we see areas of um decline or gap. So that improved data access is another thing that's working. And I would say again just the improvements that we've seen though incremental in the data is something that I'm excited to celebrate as well. And then stronger educational services integration. I gave you the example of the CESACE or the SIM for SIG plan as well as the framework. And in many places that we go we talk about this work that is really complex work. Um and we think about it all in isolation and silos. And so I'm happy to be a part of a team um again folks who are here but folks who are not here that understand that it has to um have it be a collective and integrated effort and see a lot of examples of that strong educational services integration in our model. That said, we're learning a lot. Um we are we are definitely learning that we still for for whatever reason and probably for lots of reasons need to clarify and clearly articulate why we continue to focus on African-American students, their experiences and our outcomes. why we continue to need a plan and a framework and a commitment to action to disrupt the narrative that has been true uh for decades. A narrative that I think quite honestly folks have gotten used to and become complacent with. And so um this need to continually articulate is something that we have no problem doing. Um there is clear rationale. We started off with the root causes um as to why we need a framework such as this. You heard Spencer talk about our student focal group that came out. These are babies that are in AP classes. These are babies who are who, you know, quote unquote figured out the system, right? And those babies still have the same story as students who are struggling, as students who don't feel seen, as students who are not doing well in our system. So, we know that we have a lot of work to do um to both articulate the rationale, but also to move on what we know is our responsibility for black babies. Um, we also know that we're learning a lot around balancing targeted and inclusive strategies. You've heard about the macro, the miso, and the micro. There's a lot of things happening in this framework and I know a lot of folks just want a direct connect. If you do this then this will happen and doing so I

think is disrespectful to the complexity of the issue that we're trying to address and solve. And so we ourselves are always engaged in continuous improvement to figure out what is that balance between the the targeted um strategies and the inclusive strategies, the micro work, the messo work, the macro work and um what does it look like? And so we're not going to be able to answer that for you tonight, but we know that we we're seeing a lot of evidence of those various things impacting our babies and the experiences of our educators too. And then we know we still have a need for ongoing uh data literacy. Um we we now have and we celebrated the bright spot of having real-time data via Educ. Um but what do we do with that data and how we respond to that data and do we understand that data are still questions that we know we need to answer and improve on as a system. Next slide please. So, we are in year four of the implementation of this plan. Again, it was approved by the board in June 2022. Um, we we showed you a lot of data in three-year increments. Uh, not um by happen stance, but very intentionally. One, we've been together as a team um for three years. Again, this is year four. And again, the plan was approved in June 2022. And so, in many ways, the data that we showed you over three years tells the story about the framework, our learning, our growth, and its implementation over the four years. understand again where impact has happened. Um the ASF is functioning as a district-wide improvement system. I want to say that over and over again, not a collection of programs. I've been in many districts where we just had a collection of programs for black kids. This is a strategic and an intentional strategy um again to improve the system and if we improve the systems, we know that we will improve again um experiences and outcomes of our students. This framework also is um a matter of targeted investments and those investments are producing measurable progress while surfacing still some persistent challenges in our system and our beliefs and in our mindsets and then alignment across schools, departments, families and partners are strengthening. Um, this is year four for me and I will tell you that that African-American

success advisory committee has definitely grown. Um, not just in terms of the numbers, but in terms of their efficacy, in terms of their feeling, I believe safe to to give me all the business to tell me what we need to do to bring their best thinking and their ideas. Um, those those members just like their babies are amazingly brilliant and have so much to offer us. And just by sitting in the space with them once a month originally, but now uh you know periodically um I walk away and I learn so much about what their true experiences are in our district um and also what we can do to change and improve those experiences. So um you know thankful for our staff and the team, but I'm especially thankful and proud of the work that our families and our partners have brought um and again the way that they are not just in that space but in a number of spaces improving the work that we're doing not just for black babies but for all babies in our system. Next slide, please. Uh, that's not the next slide.

It is. No, it's not. We're supposed to return to the mission. Oh, yep. I see.

But you don't even need the mission because you all know that our mission in BD is to enable and inspire diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world. And so I wanted to return back to that um to emphasize that that mission is aligned to and a part of the African-American stat frameworks mission. They are not separate bodies of work. And year four confirms that the framework is still relevant and necessary. But also for me more importantly as a person who's been in many districts who had many plans. Um it is this is not the first place where African-American students brilliance is not evident by traditional measures. It is not the first place where there's plans and ideas and strategies to figure out how to do something different um as a result of that, but it is the first place I've ever been in where I can say consistently we've done something and we've studied it and we've learned from it and I can see evidence of its impact um across the system. Not just at the end of the line student outcome, so there's evidence of that too, but also in mindsets and beliefs and in implementation of um teaching and learning. Um the work ahead is really about deepening, refining and sustaining impact and staying committed even when progress is incremental. Thank you all for your time and we are now ready for questions.

Thank you so much. Um uh thank you for that very detailed um presentation. Um, I'm very excited to hear of the ongoing intentionality and successes of the framework. Um, I'd like to first start by asking if our student board director would like to ask questions.

Hi everyone. Thank you for the presentation. Um, as a black student at Berkeley High and that's been in this district since the beginning of my educational career, I have noticed a lot of changes in how, you know, the district is going about engaging black students in activities and getting accurate data. And so, I wanted to thank you all for doing that. Um, I've been pulled for a lot of focus groups and had these conversations, especially a lot more in recent years, and I think they have been making an impact. With that being said, there's a lot of work to be done. I mean, when you look at the data, yes, there's improvement, but you're seeing that what only 50 47% of students are prepared for college, right? That's not something that I think we're c that is worth celebrating. I mean, it's not a great stat by any measure. Um, and I just wanted to ask if there's any data or if it's possible to have more data. based off of Berkeley High small schools and how black students are performing there because I've noticed in my own experience as a student that there's big community differences in how teachers engage with students, what level of support there is for students at Berkeley High. And I think that definitely relates to black students. And so I'm wondering if in the future there's ways to collect more data about that. And I think that would help us move forward in a more positive direction. So thank you.

We're nodding. We can definitely get the data by small school. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Um, uh, other board member questions, Dr. Schnowski.

I also want to thank you for all the work you've done and also for the presentation. Um, I want to ask a follow-up question on that. I also think that if we find that students are, um, selecting particular schools in high school, um, you know, that our black and African-American students are doing that, that we're more intentional about putting resources in those schools. I I feel like AC has more um black and brown students. So, really thinking about being intentional with the resources that we have because we all know we don't have enough. Um, and then I also the data was really confusing to me because it sort of seems to go up and then down in different ways, especially the elementary ELA data that you showed where two years ago, right, we had a baseline level and then it increased significantly last year. Well, I guess two years ago and then last year's data decreases again, which is a little confusing considering our new um literacy curriculum. So, I'm just wondering if we have any understanding of that that pattern of associated with the data and if not, if we're going to be intentional about digging into that because that seems like a really um important data point to me. And also um if we've done any kind of intentional like looking at the data correlating like the overall data trends with our black students um and if we have any understanding of of how they do or do not correlate and then I have one last question after that and and I don't know if you know I mean I know that the data is really hard to look at and correlation and causation right like I I maybe you don't know but just struck me as really interesting.

And I think director Schnowski, you're referencing the elementary school. They have it up on the slide. It's cool.

Yeah. And and and we did with with other student groups, we did see an increase in um a slight increase in 2024 and then did see a subsequent dip in 2025. So this was not the only demographic that um for for which that was true. However, overall when when we have done comparative analysis of our overall numbers with our black African-American students, we can see that the overall trends are are kind of slowly and and steadily moving up. And so we they didn't see that same pattern of of dip as we see with our um with our elementary school students in grades three through five. However, we will be deeply curious this year after the first year of full curricula implementation. So that implementation started in August and our students are just as we speak getting prepared to start taking the the SBA. Um we are seeing some promising internal data looking at STAR and looking at our Dibbles data and seeing some growth there which we hope will translate into our SBA data this year for 2026.

Great.

Particularly in ELA I should preface. And as a followup to that, just um I think it would be really interesting to get another um presentation with Educ Climber data really trying to look at like where our students are s you know our successful students like which programs are they in you know trying to I don't know put some of those pieces together so we understand better. Um, and finally, I really just had a comment. Um, this is to follow up on Spencer's comments about um, inclusion of diverse v voices in our committees. Another space that I would really love to see a more diverse group of parents and students in are our PTAs and our um, school site councils because there is a lot of resources, right? there's a lot of money in those particular spaces and when I have attended some of those meetings I don't always see um a reflection of all of our students. So it's a place that I would love to support getting Yes.

It definitely varies by school site. Yes. So we have some um I know at Longfellow is diverse at King is diverse where I am. So it varies on the school site and the time of meetings the time of day the meetings can meet. So that makes that is very impactful modality with that what parents are working. So that makes a huge impact. So like for myself PTA is in the evenings on a certain day of the week and I can make those and we do re also do um remote

um meetings. So that makes a big impact on parents participation and so that's something that needs to be thought about. So I think maybe our school site council is also right where the school funds are, you know, determined. It would be really good for us to be intentional about the scheduling of those meetings too. Thank you so much.

I just wanted to go back to our student director's question for a brief moment. Um, we have been interested in disagregating and looking at small school enrollment and and some of our data metrics there. And I just want to make a kind of a plug, an encouragement. We started um ninth grade and tth grade English language arts and mathematics star testing at Berkeley High School last year and this year we began um testing our 11th grade students as well. Part of the the reason for this is to get a better sense of how our students are doing using a norm reference evidence-based measure not solely relying on on grades which can be more subjective. So, I I um I do want to kind of mention that and also make a plug for participation in taking and taking that STAR test as well.

Thank you so much. Um other board member questions, advice, should we just go in order? Do you want to go next?

I feel like you're next. So, you can go we'll go this way and then we'll we're gonna we're gonna be very orderly. Um I want to echo everybody else's gratitude for the presentation. Um I particularly appreciated the emphasis on complexity and systems and um superintendent as you said this is about this is about changing a system not about a collection of programs and I think um it's just really important to think about the work in that way and that's what's going to make it sustainable over the long term. Um I also had a couple of data questions. The first one is about the the new growth metric.

Um, so this is slides 22 and 24. I just want to say back to you what I think I understand this growth metric is telling us and make sure I have it right. It's my understanding that yeah this one that there's like a statistical analysis that is done that's that looks at students with a certain score and says on average based on years of data from the state we expect these students to make this amount of growth

and then our actual students are compared to that expectation. And so what this is telling us here for example, so average growth would be this is like the average that we expect most students to grow in a year, right? And so if our students made moderate growth in English language arts, this is telling us that they made less than average growth. Is that that's correct? Am I that's correct? Am I understanding that right?

Yes, that's correct. and and this was created to measure students um not just by their proficiency level where they land but but by how far they have grown. So the state developed this relatively complicated metric to compare students to all other students throughout the state in grades four through eight based on their scaled score in the SBA compared to all the other students who who who scored at that same scaled score the year prior. the the state assigns an expected growth score and um and their their actual score is then subtracted from the expected growth score to to create a residual gain score and then from there um students are assigned a level of growth and and so you are correct. I mean what basically what I'd like to say is yes you are correct and I was just adding a little bit more.

Yeah. No, I totally appreciate that. So the thing that really strikes me is that our our growth in English language arts is below average, but in math, our growth is average even though our overall achievement of our African-American students is lower in math. That's right. And I'm wondering how you've thought about that

or if maybe we haven't maybe we don't have an analysis of that yet. Well, I I think the the the the curiosity that we have and the questions that we have is how do we use growth data to better understand how to to um to act and and um so it's promising to see that we're at average growth right now and that the growth is is is where students are expected to have grown. So, we're we're we're I think we're more in a state of curiosity about how this ties into our action steps. Yeah. Um we do recognize that overarchingly our students in Berkeley had accelerated growth. So, we're one step above that. So, to recognize that as well.

Um and and then that there are schools with with each school has a different designation as well. So, um going back to Longfellow as our example, we have we have an example of accelerated growth there. I don't know if you want to add something. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I was going to ditto that and and just say that yeah, different school sites have different they place differently. Um, and so it's definitely a curiosity, but it's also an opportunity for us to reflect uh to see what what what we're doing with those babies, you know, if there was something differently done for African-American students or African-American students at Longfellow in math. Um, so that we can see if there's anything that we might glean from that to see what we might want to try to do again. It's still in test phase, right? And so even if we reflected and said, I think it was because we did X, we want to try X again to figure out that's really what the what the what the um where the impact came from.

Great. Um I guess I' I'll just make two last quick maybe suggestions. Um, so thinking about this idea of of impacting our system, um, the first is just I heard math brought up multiple times, Spencer, you brought it up in your committee comments at the beginning and then it came up in the data presentation as an area that we're concerned about. I heard you say that there was a joint meeting between ASAC and meeting of the math minds, but I know that's going to continue to be that that meeting of the math minds committee is going to be doing some really important work. So, just to say that I I hope that there's continued collaboration there and African-American voices on the meeting of the math minds to make sure that um whatever whatever work we end up rolling out in the area of math is really addressing this important need. Um and then the second was following up on Director Schnowsky's question about representation on school site committees. I wonder if we have demographic data about, for example, who serves on our SSC committees and if it would be possible for us to get a report about who who populates those committees at each school site.

We can try to get that. Yes. Thanks. I'm going to ask a very quick question since we're going linearly. Um uh Spencer, you you'd said at the start um that uh this is an important year as a fourth year. Um in terms of implementation, uh why is the fourth year particularly important? I'll let our um facilitation lead take that question.

The fourth year is really important. What we've noticed in in the work that we've been able to do across the state is that it takes 3 years for any initiative to really take hold to be able as you heard in the data and what we see especially as you saw how the data is um fluctuating. It tends to start to stabilize in that third year. The fourth year you've had all of the gleaning of the learning from the first three and you can begin to improve upon those pilot efforts. you could begin to go deeper, invest a little bit deeper into those areas that seem to really be taking hold and it allows you to be able to broaden your uh interventions to be able to meet the needs that you see. So the fourth year really gives you an opportunity to not um sometimes it feels in those first and second year of of any kind of initiative that you're not quite sure exactly what it's saying. By that fourth year, you're able really to see whether or not what you what your hunches were, what you what your conjectures were, is it actually what you think it is. And that's where we're in this fourth year. That's why the folks around the table are here because they've been in place now, stabilized for that first three years. This now is when we're going to be able to see, we think, especially in the new data that you start to see some of the progress um changing significantly based on uh the work that has been invested as a whole. And I just will add just culturally at the high school, you can you can see the um students entering their senior year with with um Collegebound all four years, you're able to see students entering the high school with these different interventions and programs and strategies that have been um brought through. And so you're able to just talking to teachers witnessing anecdotally

the difference in dynamics and how students are prepared and the programs that they've been part of throughout their elementary mill years impacting their experience at the high school. And then of course with the concerned parents parent alliance and collegebound you're seeing students and their impact and their awareness of college and how focused they are in their studies now that they are more engaged in that college process taking hold too. So, I'm seeing some anecdotal just difference of that, too.

And I think you'll also be able to see for at least the teachers at Longfellow who have been involved in what we call our clear learning labs, this is their fourth year. And so, we'll be excited to share with you the data from those that have started in the first year and where they are with their actual practice, their instructional practice. we'll be able to see how that potentially there's some causation with what's happening in with respect to their classrooms and what that looks like and we did hear principal Clark start to talk about this is their third year and so that fourth year is critical I I just want to add one more thing I think one two and three was really about infrastructure right just understanding the system and the and the just you know the layout of BUSD and what's going on in B USD and then then play strategically um different structures and systems right into the system. We we have an infrastructure now. We have an ASAC that again is is not just a you know a group of folks coming together but a group of folks coming together with intention understand they have something to add and to offer to um the work that we're trying to do. And now because that infrastructure is in place definitely we can send some families to the meeting of the math minds but the meeting of the math minds comes to ASAC right because now it's in the system and it's a part of the routine of did we ask the perspective of our black family leaders right and so them just having that structure for now three years allows us to now say like what can we do now that we actually have a really strong parent group right leaders who who understand how they are and critical you know partners at the table and now the system is oriented to go to them for feedback when before it was like who's in the room we don't know who's in the room right the room now comes to you I think I'm just excited to see what we can do from there also just thinking about the data right three years now we have a pretty solid data infrastructure and not just because our our educators can access the data but we actually have data routines that say you need to specifically look at how our African-American students are doing our other focal groups as well but who we're

here talking about right so how our African-American students are doing and so now what do you do what can we now do when it's now a part of who we are to not just look at data but to specifically ask and how are the children and how are our black children then have a sense of responsibility to do something about whatever that data shows. So for me year four is exciting because we have some key infrastructure in place and once the infrastructure is in place once you have mindsets and belief systems and a sense again of responsibility to do something about this data then I'm like let it take off. I think year four is also exciting and important because there's the infrastructure in some areas, but as the as the presentation demonstrated, there's still a lot of work to do. And so, we have a chance to build on what we've built, but also figure out what we need to build next in service of our black babies.

Thank you so much. I I appreciate that that broader context around strategy and programmatic change and the cohort nature of education as well and the the critical mass that you're beginning to hit with data and practices. Um, director Vasid.

Yeah, I just want to thank everyone for the presentation and definitely want to acknowledge the small the gains that we've seen. There's still more work to be done, right? And we see that a lot um particularly when it comes to math in general. Um, I see this also with our Latino students, right? in fostering a sense of belonging in those advanced placement classes and in math competitions and in those places where oftentimes we don't see a lot of black and brown students. And so, you know, I was happy to hear the report about Longfellow and the gains that we've seen there, but the same way that I have I have this comment with regards to ELA improvements also for English language learners at Sylvia Mendes. when we see a school doing something well, particularly for our focal populations, how are we using that to influence what's happening at the other campuses at Willard and at King, right? So, I would love to see if we could take a deeper dive or if the board could get deeper information about what is specifically happening at Longfellow that we can replicate in the other middle school campuses. And then I appreciate um Director Shinoski's comment about making sure that we're welcoming our diverse parents in all of our different parents spaces. I think that's incredibly important and would love to see that data about all of our focal populations. Equally as important, I think that we have spaces, we have STEM spaces and math spaces where we don't see a lot of black and brown students. I know there have been gains in the CTE program, particularly at the high school level, but you know, my son graduated from Willard. Love the school. So, I love all our middle schools. Willard definitely has a special place in my mama heart. Um, but I know there there are programs like math circle where we have a Berkeley High mentor come and work with Willard students and oftentimes those math circle kids go and compete in competitions like Math Count. every year that my son was there, there

was other than him, there were no other brown students or black students in those competitive math spaces, right? And so that sense of belonging needs to translate to all of our math spaces and particularly um if we're talking about closing the opportunity gap, which is why these programs exist, why these targeted interventions exist. would love to also better understand and I know I've had private conversations with you superintendent about this but I know that at other districts this has happened is how we form mentorship programs. I love the transition fairs and I think it's really important for the parents also to understand the importance of the transition years and what are the different opportunities available to their students when they go from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school. would love to also see if um if as part of year 4 or creating you know other models that we can do internally um and I know that we've talked about reducing you know dependency on consultants. So, this is something that districts do internally all the time is create mentorship opportunities between black students at BHS who are in different tracks and black students at our middle schools as they're coming in so that when they come in as freshmen, they have a mentor there that's in the upper grades because students are the best adviserss to each other. Oftentimes, like adults, we model things and I think like when they talk to each other, they um they thrive more. So, how are we setting up those mentorship relationships during the transition years, too? Um, and I think it's important for parents too to have to have that kind of mentorship. And it seems like it's happening within the committee, which is beautiful, right? If you're a middle school parent and you meet a high school parent that they can mentor you through like the college process sometimes having those conversations and I've seen it too um with our Latino families is incredibly important to to form that parent mentorship relationship, but the student mentorship relationship, have we thought about that? How will how can we set that up? And that's something that we can do internally. Thanks. I'm I'm just smiling because during our student focus group uh at ASAC that was

actually one of the ideas that the students came up with as they were talking about their director corner members as they were talking about their experiences and they had some great experiences to share but they also had some experiences of if we would have or if we would have had this resource etc. And so mentorship definitely came up. Um I will I will say just very honestly that at ASAC there's always a million ideas. Um and so we're always like okay we can do it but we only can do so much at a time. But that is definitely on the list because not only did it just come from you but it came from the babies directly. And so we're trying to figure out um what that looks like. I would say just listening to you also what's exciting about year four is that um the the CLR lab that has been in Longfellow for three years. Right. This is the third year. Again, what what is exciting about year four is is is now you have, you know, three years under your belt. You've had some some learnings and some improvements. And so now that lab is again at Willard. And so we are trying to take what we've learned. Again, correlation is not causation, but we think we got something there, right? To see if we move it over to another space if those same um changes and improvements can be seen. So again, that's the power of year four. You don't want to start moving around willy-nilly and applying things. You want to have some time to really study it. And I think Longfellow has been an a great opportunity for us to learn um try and study some things particularly to these uh cultural linguistic responsive uh uh professional developments and PLC's. And then finally I would say um yes the transition fair has been amazing. The black to school has been amazing and and to your point there's still an um you know just a lack of representation in so many spaces um for for our babies. And so one of the things that we're really trying to to leverage is what does it mean to make sure that our families have the information about programs, about resources, about services, and we still see that to be an issue um a gap, right? Even when you're thinking about the various small schools at BHS, there's still so many students who I picked this school because of X. And so um one of the things that our ASAC has really been supporting us in is one just understanding how communicate how information gets to them and and what are some better ways to get information to them. But that I think is an ongoing

issue that we're trying to address is how do we make sure that our families and students really know the resources available to them. And I would just say really transparently another step year four maybe year five is thinking about the mindsets and the expectations of the larger community because again um as you know uh director there are many spaces that don't have black and brown faces because they don't necessarily care to have black and brown faces and if there are black and brown faces there they are very um probably subconsciously um intentional to to make sure that those faces don't have voice and so um the ASAC is special for that reason because again our families can come and be their their most authentic selves and give all their ideas, but they're also helping us to then kind of break down some of those barriers and get into those other you heard Nicole PTA. They're they're they're in places and spaces, but we want to make it where it's a thing that is just because it's Berkeley, not because they're forcing their way. And so, just to be really honest, that's still work that that we have to do. PTAs, SSEs, and folks really caring um to make sure that there's diverse voices in this in the room. And with respect to mentoring, again the beauty of the partners around the table that Berkeley has asked to participate uh in this initiative, it has been the mentoring that happens with under Dr. Willis's leadership with Collegebound with middle school and high school students working together within the context of peer mentoring and what that looks like uh with um I'm going to say professor uh Pritchard and the work that he does with the um African-American studies program that two of his students are mentors in the StepUp Academy elementary school and they were absent yesterday because they went on a field trip um went on a field trip for a BSU conference and those fifth graders were like, "Where are the high school students? How come they're not here?" So, again, really starting to build those relationships uh that we know are

important. So, to that end, we're really being thoughtful and intentional about how to begin to stack some of these resources and services that are available so that we because we know that that makes a difference. So being very thoughtful about how to do it though uh and intentional strategic about how to leverage the resources that are around the table.

Thank you so much. Any other questions? Thank you. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you everyone. and giving folks time to settle in. But our next action item is 14.1 approval of the increase in FTE.

Um so we do not have a formal presentation on this item. Um but I am here to answer any questions that any of the board members may have. Great. So board members there um Sam is um opening it up for questions on 14.1 approval increase in FTE for instructional assistant 2 special education positions at various sites. Any questions? I think I just have a comment. I just want to thank um thank you for pulling putting this forward and highlighting this and and continuing to move forward with more uh B USD staff instead of um paying for contractors. So, thank you.

Thank you for that reflection, Director Schnowski. Um this is uh part of an important board um uh priority to continue to um increase uh staffing here in the district. Are there other questions? And of course our instructional assistant twos are are critical play a critical role. Yes, director. I'd like to move to approve. Great. So we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Go ahead. I'll second. Okay, we got a second. Do we have the eyes? Hi I second

uh Dr. Basadv we have unanimous eyes thank you of so 14.2 two is approve local assignment options for 2025 2026 resolution 26-21.

So there's again not a formal presentation on this but this is a um option for when we don't have enough um fully credentialed speech language pathologists. Um it allows us to um give a basically an emergency credential coverage for um the people who have licenses and master's degrees um and to um make them uh considered highly qualified as u speech and language pathologists. This is also a great way to pull in um necessary u labor. Any questions or comments? Board members? No. Do we have a motion to approve?

I have one quick question. Um, so this is a local 21 position. No, these are um BFT positions. They are BFT positions and and they're fine with this. These are their members. They're not contractors. Um, and so it it's um it does allow for us to fill these jobs. Unfortunately, there's just not enough people who are fully credentialed out there. I just wanted to make sure we had checked with our labor partners. That's all. I'm move to approve. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Great. Do we have the eyes?

I It's unanimous. Thank you. Um and uh moving on to public comment, extended public comment. Um are there any board members who have Nope. Nope. Okay. And uh let's go to our online folks. Is there anyone online? I don't I don't see anybody. Thank you so much. Um, so I think we're ready to adjourn. So adjourned at 9:07. It's a record. Thank you. cracks. So,