Berkeley Unified School District School Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, good good evening everybody. Sorry for the late start. I know it's 7 7:13 is it? Um it's so nice to see everyone and we are going to get started tonight. So uh firstly it's the March 4th 2026 meeting of the Berkeley school board. If you want to follow along online, the agenda is posted to the district website. Um, as part of the district's continued commitment to transparency, equity, and meaningful engagement, we have partnered with Worldly uh for translation and captioning. This technology allows students, families, and members of the community access to real-time translation. It's available both in person and virtual attendees. Um, in person, you can see the QR codes. which I think they're still up here um along the walls. Uh virtual attendees can use worldly via the link post on the website. Um so uh as usual, I would like to remind you of our decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meeting. No person shall disturb that order of this meeting. Such behavior includes, but is limited to booing, hissing, creating a or participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn in violation of applicable rules, um 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. So, we will now, and by the way, if you have complaints against specific employees, um please, um use the district complaint process via complaints atber berkeley.net as opposed to public comment. Uh we will now approve the agenda for this evening's meeting. Do we need to do roll call first? Yeah.

Director Anavas, present. Director Kadija Brown, I am present. Welcome. Director Jennifer Shinoski. Yes. Student Director Armana Ardo, present. Student Director Nina Camarino is excused this evening. Vice President Jennifer Korn, present. President Mike Chang, present. Thank you so much. Um, do we have a um motion to approve the agenda? So moved. I'll second. Thank um do have the eyes. I I

I. Thank you so much. Um, all right. And Vice President Korn will present out on the close session. Thank you. Um, close session was called to order at 5:38 p.m. Um, all board members were in attendance during close session. Uh, the board received an update on items 3.1 and 3.2. Thank you so much, Vice President Korn. And we have our superintendent comments. Thank you, President Chang. Good evening, B USD family.

Good evening. Um, I want to be the first to officially welcome Director Kada Brown back to the deis

and congratulate her on the beautiful baby girl, Baby K or Miss Camden. Um, so we are nearing the completion of our annual planning survey. There's a slide that goes with that. Um, I've shared it with you at the last board meeting. So, you've seen the slide. I've shared with you in our bulletins in several other places, and you get the point. Um, as of tonight, nearly 2,000 people have responded. So, I want to first say thank you and yay to all of you who've taken the time to complete it. Um, and that said, there are way more than 2,000 members of the B USD community. And so this is a friendly reminder that the survey closes next week. It's coming up soon, March 9th. And if you have your phones with you, you can take out your phones and uh click on the QR code or the link to see what we've shared with family and students so far. Um your input directly informs our district priorities and planning. So if you have not yet completed it, again, please, please, please take a moment to do so. I should note that of the 2,000 folks who've responded, 1,300 of those responses have come from our BUSD students. And so you can do the math. Per usual, our BUD babies are showing us out and setting the bar for engagement and participation. And so I'm challenging the adults, the staff members, the families, um, to show our babies that we can do, um, hard things, that we can do good things, and that we have a lot to offer and share, too. I'm good if all the feedback comes from the babies, but we're hoping to get feedback from you as well. So, if you can help us uh complete those surveys by March 9th, we'd appreciate it. March is also the month of March Madness. While many folks in uh around the country are filling out baseball brackets, BUSD is filling out attendance brackets. Sorry, not baseball. I was seeing if y'all was paying attention. Basketball. I don't know what a bracket is, by the way. Anyway, on Monday, all of our K through2 schools kicked off the March Madness attendance challenge, which is a friendly competition designed to bring some energy and focus to student

attendance. Throughout this month, schools will compete to see who has the highest weekly attendance rate. And yes, there are once again trophies on the line. So last year, Ruth Acti claimed the champion, sorry, ch claimed the championship and relocated this trophy from Longfellow Middle School to their office. And I'm sure that Longfellow is really wanting this trophy back. Um, so most importantly, this is a fun challenge to remind our students of how important it is to come to school, to stay at school, and that attendance matters. And so every day our students are present strengthens their learning and their connection to teachers, peers, and school community. And if they're present along the month of March, they also get a cool trophy. That one or this one. This is second place. I think this is just an extra one. I guess um to brag about how they understand attendance matters, enjoy coming to school. Um, speaking of showing up, I also want to encourage our juniors and our seniors to attend an important opportunity coming up next week on March 10th from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Berkeley High School will host the Alama County College and Career Fair. Students and families will have the opportunity to meet with representatives from more than 100 colleges, organizations, and institutions to learn about the many pathways available after graduation. And so again, we encourage both students and families to attend. Finally, I want to take um a moment to point out a couple of items on tonight's consent calendar related to what are commonly referred to as March 15th notices, including resolution 26-026 and twoformational memos. Many of you have seen these items in prior years. However, because these notices can create um understandable concern, just want to take a minute to ensure that there's clarity about what they are and

what they are not. Um under California law, school districts must provide notice by March 15th if there's any possibility that certain positions could be reduced or reassigned in the coming school year. It is important to be clear that these notices are preliminary and do not represent a final decision. actions become final only if and when a May 15th notice is issued. Staff will also provide a be a brief presentation this evening to review the process, explain the rationale for the notices being brought forth, and outline next steps. I want to acknowledge that conversations like this can be understandably concerning. Educators, staff, and administrators who serve and are a part of the BUSD family are central to the strength of our schools and our movements towards our mission. And so tonight's item represents a required step in the process, but is in no way an indication of the fact that we know that every single member of our BUSD family is important and valued. That's the end of my comments. President Chang, thank you. Good night.

Thank you so much. Um, next on up, we will have uh public comments. We so far only have one in-person public comment. Tur, is there another Miss Char? No. So, uh Dan would like to come on up. You have two minutes.

So, first something positive which is very unusual for me. Uh I would like just for all the parents listening in at home hopefully. Uh this year Berkeley High School is hosting the Alama County uh college and career fair. Representatives from over 100 uh educational institutions and community partners will be there for uh you and your students to speak to uh this coming Tuesday, March 10th at 4:30 p.m. at Berkeley High School. Uh please come out. It'll be fun. Um good time will be had by all I hope. Um so highly encourage everyone to come participate. Second, um I don't know if you know, but uh once again, colleagues of mine are being subject to a uh witch hunt and harassment by which uh several people have filed complaints alleging that their attire uh by which I can only uh assume they mean these uh are violating student civil rights somehow despite it just being a traditional Palestinian scarf. Um, and third and finally, layoffs. Once again, uh, B USD seems to be balancing its budget on the backs of its lowest paid employees, B USD me, uh, BCCE members. Um, it just seems seems like only yesterday I was complaining about this last year. Uh, please stop doing this. Um, we make the least of your employees. Um,

or at least a lot of the members on the list make the least of your employees. That's all. Thank you. Um, and uh I think we have someone online uh for public comment. Miss Noel, Lindsay Noelt. Okay. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. Uh, good evening. My name is Lindsay Noelt and I'm commenting on the language arts curriculum implementation update. I just wanted to let you know that the literacy instruction that you've implemented with the knowledge building content aligned with how students learn. It's working for our family. From our perspective, reading, thinking, talking, and writing together about real books has resulted in the most successful writing that we've ever had in our family. My kid comes home happy to talk about morphology practice. The word work with an emphasis on meaning is fascinating endlessly to the students. VSD has shown that this is possible with the K through5 fish tank and functional phonics adoption. Extending that coherence into middle school is an essential next step. We look forward to hearing about plans for adolescence as well as improving MTSS so that more students can benefit from this good work. Thank you.

Thank you. Um I don't see any other online commenters. Um do we have um folks from committees? I know we have a committee commenter on one. Thank you. Uh vice Katie Brown. Yes, sir. Katie Brown Johnson. Okay. Hand is raised. Um, and Miss Tarz will we'll sign you as panelist in a second.

Great. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, fantastic. I'm sorry. Your volume is slightly low. Oh, is that Um, not necessarily. It's It's a little hushed. I don't know if that's on your end or our end. I can speak more loudly. Okay, cool. That's better. That's better. Thank you.

All right. Um, fantastic. Um, hello friends and schoolboard members. I'm Katie Johnson with GShack, the Gender Equity and Sexual Harm Action Committee. We are a district advisory committee. Uh, we're recruiting new G-Shack members. Um, in this statement, we're providing an update and an invitation. We want parents here to be aware that we're looking for new representatives. Parents should reach out to their principles for next steps in connecting to our subcommittee. We have a suicide prevention announcement. We are saddened to hear of a suicide outside of our district, but in the Bay Area involving a trans teen. We want to remind our students, parents, teachers, staff that there are resources at each school. Students can go to any counselor or teacher if they need help. There are also resources through P Flag and the Trevor Project that are available with easy web searches. G-Shock has fielded a student survey at BHS. We estimate 10% of gender expansive students responded. About half or a bit less of students identifying as trans and non-binary felt fully supported who responded to the study. The majority reported rarely hearing negative comments about gender expression, but also 75% were neutral or not confident that adults at BHS would respond effectively to bullying around gender expression or misgendering. They noted specific things teachers do to support them. Preventing unintentional outing by having subs use last names. Creating a culture of acceptance by using genderneutral language like hello friends, hello students instead of boys

and girls. We would love to find ways to expand survey reach by making it homework or targeting specific groups. Additionally, Yasmina Vitaek, the district's compliance officer, has a meeting scheduled with vice principal Ambrose at Longfellow and is exploring connections at King Middle. In January, Yasmina's BUSD um Yasmina who is the B USD compliance officer and our committee's contact at the district did one day of professional development with BHS teachers, specifically calling out survey results and ways teachers can be more inclusive. In August, she and principal Regosa will be doing another day of professional development with teachers, which is safety focused. And with this, mental health, safety, and belonging will also be addressed. This is a particularly appropriate moment to rep prioritize LGBTQ plus liaison curriculum for all students in the district. Each elementary and middle school have assigned LGBTQ plus liaison who are teachers or counselors who volunteer for this role. However, liaison need access to updated curriculum. The district is in a two-year long contract negotiation with human rights commission and G-Shock strongly supports moving forward with obtaining welcoming schools curricula district resources for training because right now it is needed more than ever. We are very supportive uh we are very appreciative of the support of this board. We have great allies here and are highly appreciative. Our students being under increased threat, increased mental health challenges, and the BHS climate survey results are troubling in light of recent suicide of three trans public

school students in the Bay Area in the last six months. Urgent times call for urgent actions, and it's time to take action now to support this extremely vulnerable population. Please move forward to give the LGBTQ plus liaison the curricula support they need. Uh another focus and this is the last point of GSA committee this year is prioritizing work on sexual education curricula in Berkeley and we have a subcommittee dedicated of dedicated BHS students, parents and faculty focused on that work. Parents please feel free to contact us if you are interested in helping with that. Again, we appreciate the support of this board. Apologies for my audio. Thank you so much, friends.

Thank you so much. Um, I don't think we have anyone else online. Um, we were expecting African-American Success Advisory Committee rep to speak virtually. Okay. So, we have one healthy. I think I just got a a hand raised. I think this is that healthy. Yeah.

So, thanks uh Miss Chariz if you could elevate the panelist. Greetings. Um, yes, I'm Kamika Goodwin and I didn't know what Zoom account. So, if healthy black families, that is me. So, thank you for having me and I will get started. So, good evening, superintendent, board directors, and members of our Berkeley community. My name is Kamika Goodwin, as I said before, and I'm excited to be speaking before you tonight. My connection to this city and school district goes back decades. I'm a Berkeley girl through and through, born and raised here, so I'm very excited. I'm a Berkeley High graduate. My children are high Berkeley High graduates, and now my grandchildren are currently enrolled in BUSD. I am here not only as a member of the African-American Success Advisory Committee, ASAC, but as someone who has walked alongside this district through many seasons of change, long before the African-American Success Framework was formalized, I sat at the table as part of the original parent principal group that helped shape its earliest ideas. I represent and support families across multiple school communities and I'm deeply committed to doing this work on behalf of all of our babies. As superintendent says, I'm not here to simply talk about the importance of strong community partnerships. I live it, work it, and I breathe it. Through my work with healthy black families, I've had the honor of supporting families and facilitating the partnership between the city of Berkeley and Longfellow Middle School over the last two years. Tonight, I want to share some of these school community partnerships, how they're helping BUSD

keep its eye on the prize, which is creating the conditions where AfricanAmerican students and all students can reach their full potential. So, let's start with Malcolm X and Sylvia Menddees. Our fifth graders are participating in the Step Up to Middle School program, which is sponsored by Healthy Black Families and the City of Berkeley. Our babies in this program are building the academic habits, connections, and sense of readiness they need to thrive in the sixth grade. Over at Willard and Longfellow, educators are engaging in a year-long professional learning arc centered on culturally and linguistically relevant and responsive strategy and learning labs. This work is strengthening culturally responsive practice, improving how subgroup data is used, and aligning student interventions with site goals. Over at the high school, the staff are working together to ensure another successful transition fair this year. These fairs assist our B middle schoolers with gaining more confidence, clarity, and support as they move on to high school. This is just the beginning, though. There's more partnerships being explored uh so more schools in the district can benefit from this level of intentional handson. These efforts show that when we invest in our babies right where they are, we honor the commitment we all share to their success. As I close, one request of the board, um, I ask of you is that as you're making decisions this year and in the years ahead is to keep the issue the issue, which is supporting our students and their families. They've been the heart of this work from day one and our community depends on

that clarity and consistency. I want to thank our board members and encourage you to stay close to the work. Director Korn, like directors Brown and Babbot before her, has modeled what it looks like to show up with intention and learning directly from families, which is so appreciated. I also like to take a moment to honor our superintendent. She's never missed an ASAC meeting and we're fortunate to have her leadership, steadiness, and willingness to sit with us, listen to us, and walk alongside us. We support her wholeheartedly and stand beside her as she continues to lead with thoughtfulness and courage. And as she faces yet another barrier in her role, we our BUSD community, we must stand with her, not apart from her. I invite you to join us. be in community with us and learn and help carve out space, including financial space that ensure this work remains strong. We're here, we're committed, and we stand ready to partner with you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um, not seeing others online, I'm going to shift to the next agenda item with union comments. I know we have a video from the BFT, but we have people in person here, so we'll go with the folks in person first. Um, are there union members who would like to speak first? Thank you. BCC Good evening um board members and superintendent. My name is Frank Hernandez and and I'm the president of Berkeley Council of Classified Employees. I am here tonight to speak about a prop the proposed layoffs in the direction the district has taken to address it budget challenges. First, I want to acknowledge the presentation that Assistant Superintendent Samantha Tobias Espinosa shared with us regarding the budget and upcoming reductions. We do appreciate receiving that information in advance so that we could review it better and understand a district's perspective. However, we also want to be clear about something. Classified employees are not the only group in the district that can be impacted by layoffs. While the processes may look different depending on classifications whether through PKS attrition reassessment or reductions layoffs and staffing changes are not limited to classified employees alone. What what we are seeing now however is classified positions being placed in the center at the center of the proposed uh reductions. Classified employees play a critical role in Berkeley Unified, providing the

day-to-day support that students and families in schools rely on. In just a few days, many classified employees across the district will receive March 15th layoff notices. For them, this is not just a procedural date. It represents real uncertainty certainty um about their livelihood and their future. Before permanent classified employees are placed on layoff list, a district must take a serious look at other areas of spending. This includes reviewing the continued use of outside contractors, consultants, long-term temporary assignments. Those positions often come at substantially higher costs. While permanent classified employees bring stability, institutional knowledge, and long-term commitment to our schools in our community, BCCE is ready to work with the district to find thoughtful solutions that protect student services and work forces, a workforce that supports them. Budget reflects priorities. We are asking the district to show that the people who serve students every day are the one are one of those priorities. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I think next we have the BFT's video which Miss Char is pulling up now. I'm sorry. Do we have another um union speaker? No. Okay. Thank you. We're just double checking. Pulling up the video for BFT in the meantime.

Hello, Superintendent Ford Martha. and the Berkeley School Board Directors. I am Matt Meyer, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers. I wanted to start off tonight with a huge thank you for all the work you did to help us get to a tenant of agreement two weeks ago. After a 13-hour factf finding and negotiation session, we were able to sign off on an agreement that will make a tangible difference in the lives of workers in this district. Many of our other agreements will improve our ability to serve students and maintain our excellent public schools. I encourage you to look through our factf finding binder as it highlights many places where our district can become more efficient in the short, medium, and long run. Later this evening, you will see a presentation about layoffs and reassignments. We believe that with proper planning, most of these can be avoided. Federal funding has come through and our state has the revenue to contribute more to public education. We all need to be politically active in the next few months to make sure that revenue for public schools actually reaches our public schools. Unfortunately, our district still relies heavily on private contractors. We would like to see a plan this spring on how the district will reduce these contracts. And we also believe that in times when the district is facing potential budget cuts, private consulting contracts should not be renewed as long as we have employees on the layoff list, especially when those employees provide direct services and educational opportunities to students. As you'll see in the literacy presentation, there's been a huge shift in literacy instruction and more educator collaboration than ever between sites. This is something to celebrate and can be a model for future curriculum adoptions. The first year of an adoption is always the hardest. We're confident that we will continue to diff different differentiate and modify our instruction

to meet the diverse needs of our students. Lastly, I want to remind everyone that the BFT endorsement process for school board begins in April and that anyone interested in receiving our endorsement should reach out to me at president berkeleyteers.org. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um, not seeing other members of unions here. Um, we're going to pivot on to the next part of the agenda, which are board member comments. And don't typically do this, but as board president, I'm going to speak really quickly first and then we'll have um students um because today is a special day. Uh I want to um mark and celebrate the fact that um our board director, former president, and vice president um Brown is back here next to sitting next to me. I wanted to say um uh congratulations and I'm so pleased to have you back and uh we're excited to meet the little one um very soon in person here and ple so pleased to have you back um and um in addition to that so there's no confusion I I know that a number of months ago we talked about this um uh in uh June we'll uh be having another uh pivot back to uh board member board director um Brown and there will be a process for that as well, but the expectation is have her coming back into her uh position um uh and we'll have a election at that point. Um and currently um myself as president will proceed with um uh Vice President Korn as well until we hit the the next mark in June. Um so uh glad to have everybody here and um just really quickly uh I want to reflect the comment of the superintendent and of the BFT president. Um we as a board are very pleased with the outcome with the negotiations. Um and uh we're also pleased that you know we're prioritizing um our educators um our staff and uh there's still some process involved but um as you heard from the BFD president a lot of hard work was put in and um I think this

board did a great job working with administrators like listening to the needs etc. And we we don't take um notices um lightly. Um uh we do know that that causes a lot of trepidation. Um we also want to reflect that uh notices as will be reflected and emphasized by um Samantha today uh when she does her presentation and as reflected by the superintendent. Um that's part of the first pass. Um and we're pre- flagging it. We're trying to do this much earlier than we did last year. Uh we also provided notice of those um notices to the unions a bit ago. So this is I think a number of months earlier than we did last year. You know last year we uh we as a board felt um uh badly that uh it had come so late and this year we're we're trying to get it upfront very early and we still have some time with additional engagement on these notices as well. So, it's a notice. It's not the final word, but we do take that seriously. Uh, it's not a light issue to receive that and and uh I certainly understand that and I know that this board does as well. Um, and so, thank you everyone who has come here with their hearts and minds. Always appreciate that. I know this is a challenging time um uh in the world and also uh just in terms of here at the district with the budgetary season that we're going through. And I want to hand it off to our student director if she would like to speak.

Great. Good evening everyone. So, I wanted to start off by congratulating our students for working through and finishing state testing this past week. I've seen increased effort from the board and as well as our teachers to make sure that we're increasing test participation. So, I wanted to thank all of our students for putting their best effort into that and I hope to see improved scores and more data coming through in this next year. Um, I'm excited for tonight's language arts curriculum implementation update and the presentation on the March 15th notices. And I truly hope that we'll see conscious district decision-m and hope to see as many positions kept as possible. I lastly want to invite all uh female identifying and non-binary students aged 10 to 14 to Jazz Girls Plus Day. This is an amazing opportunity that I was able to do um as a kid and I was able to join the jazz program in high school. It's happening Saturday, March 7th. It's open to all students, especially in the Berkeley Unified School District where we have such amazing music programs. Um, this is an amazing program to hear from a lot of local musicians and you can win a lot of full or partial scholarships to Bay Area Music Camp. So, I hope to see you all there Saturday, March 7th at 100 p.m. at Berkeley High School. So, thank you.

Thank you so much. Um, are there board members who'd like to go next? Director Schnowasi.

Hi, good evening. Um, I want to also welcome back Director Brown. Um, and congratulations on bringing our first baby into this world. We're all better for it. We can't wait to meet her. Um, I also want to express congratulations um to our negotiating team and BFT for um their tenative agreement and I look forward to celebrating its ratification and agreements with our other labor partners soon. Um, I want to highlight upcoming ESPback meetings. So, if my calendar does not lie, we have one next week at 4:30, Wednesday at 4:30. Um, these are really the meetings where we dig into the budget and um, and really process the information, you know, week after week in excruciating detail. Um, much of that information then comes to the board. So, I encourage folks that are concerned about um layoff notices and budget uh prospects for the coming year to attend. I also want to um point out that I have office hours next Thursday 3:00 to 5:00 at Kasa Latina. Um so that's Thursday, March 12th. And I want to once again highlight um the facility subcommittee meeting that will be next or two weeks from yesterday, Tuesday the 17th and then the board meeting the following day on the 18th um where we'll have quite a few updates on facilities issues including Longfellow. So I just want to make sure that the community is aware of that and can come and and get the news hot off the presses. That's it. Thanks. Thank you so much. Uh, do we have someone going next? Vice President Korn.

Thank you. I'll be brief. Um, I too want to welcome back Director Brown and say how excited I am to meet that baby. Please soon. Um, it's been too long since I got to hold a baby. Um, and I also want to echo what everyone has said about um, how pleased we are to have come to a tenative agreement with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers. Um, and I'm looking forward to that getting ratified soon and to agreements with our other labor partners. Um, echoing the shout out for Jazz Girls Day. Uh, since our last meeting, I got to go to hear the Berkeley Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble at Yoshi's with the superintendent, which was super fun. And, um, all your girls should go to jazz girls day so that one day they can be on that stage at Yoshi's with their with their instruments. Um, and I also, since our last board meeting had the honor of representing the USD at Camino Salexto, which was an event at Berkeley City College for students and families. um to help them learn about all the different college and career options ahead of them and to get really fantastic practical information about how to enter into um different different paths toward community college toward different gapyear opportunities four-year colleges private colleges state colleges there was just a lot of really fantastic organizations there and presenters shout out to Yasmine Navaro who did a fantastic job um really teaching everybody about uh their opportunities post high school. And finally, I too have office hours coming up Friday from 3:00 to 5:00 at Sweet Bites on San Pablo. Come talk to me. Love to see you there.

Thank you so much. Uh Director Based, thanks.

Yeah, I'll keep my comments brief. want to echo a lot of what my peers said and also um wanted to thank director Korn for going to Camino's Alexito. I was stuck in a blizzard in Massachusetts and was unable to attend but um really appreciated everyone who made that event possible. Also uh the labor organizations that collaborated with Latinos at Berkeley and with the district. I really want to give a shout out to the building trades for being there and um for speaking about the wide variety of careers that our students can have access to postgraduation. And I also wanted to thank our committees that came out both ASAC and G-Shack today. Uh it was great. It's always great to hear updates from our committees and I I'm so grateful to the parents and the caregivers that spend so much time really pushing us to serve our most vulnerable students in the best way possible. So, thank you. your time, commitment to that is much appreciated and your guidance helps us be better leaders. I um especially want to give a shout out to uh just Gjack for for putting a lot of those mental health resources out there for our trans and non-binary students. We know that right now at the federal level. It's a huge attack on our trans and non-binary communities. And so, um really appreciate having the data of what's happening locally that it's not just a federal problem, it's also a problem at the local level. So, thank you. and um for ASAC too for sharing how the committee is going and also for the superintendent's commitment to attending those meetings. Thank you, superintendent. Um also wanted to thank our labor partners for their comments tonight. I know there's more work to do um and very uh happy to celebrate the successes with our BFT negotiations and look forward to doing the same soon with BCCE. And um finally, I also just wanted to update my colleagues that we had a really great policy committee meeting this week. And as part of that committee, I know that there we had a robust discussion about the updates to immigration enforcement policies at the

state level and what we have to do locally to make sure that those match. Um happy for all the proactive work that Berkeley has done on our own immigration enforcement policies as a district, which in many ways moved faster than what was happening at the state level. And now we have to kind of marry those two. And because it's something that's so important and I know that a lot of our community members are going to care about uh Director Chang and I uh discussed having a brief presentation for the entire board about this because it's really important work. And so um instead of just it living in a silo and as a small attachment to our regular agendas, I think it's important that we all um take note of what's happening at the state level and what we're going to do locally to protect our im our immigrant students and their families. Thanks. And I look forward to the meeting tonight.

Thank you so much. Um and next on up is Director Brown.

Uh good evening, President Chang, Superintendent Forel, my fellow board colleagues, uh faculty, staff, community members, students, and families. Uh thank you so much to all of the public commenters who commented uh this evening. And first I want to say I am so grateful to be back. Uh stepping away for maternity leave was a sacred and also transformative time for my family. And so I appreciate the time that I did have um to be on maternity leave. As many of you all know who are already uh parents, welcoming a new baby uh changes you. It changes you in many many ways. And for me it has deepened my appreciation for the work that we do here at Berkeley Unified. When you hold a newborn, the future stops being abstract, but it actually becomes real, very, very, very real. Every decision that we make in this room shapes the world our children will inherit. And I am proud to say that it also shapes the world that my own child will inherit. I am happy to return back to this work with renewed clarity about why we do what we do in here and why it matters not just for now but also for generations of scholars to come. I want to thank my board colleagues and district staff for carrying on the work um during my leave. Quality public education doesn't pause because you have to change diapers and it does not stop for late night feedings. So I am deeply appreciative of your steady leadership. I'm talking to you. Pay attention. Deeply appreciative of your steady leadership display and and the leadership that's always displayed by each of you. And I thank you for keeping things moving for our students, faculty, staff, and community. Coming back tonight, I'm especially mindful of a few

items on this evening's agenda. As we discuss curriculum instructional updates this evening, specifically around language arts, I want to reaffirm my commitment to ensuring that our classrooms reflect both high standards and the diversity of our community. In a district like ours, excellence is the key. student. Every student should see themselves reflected in what they learn and they should feel challenged to grow. So, I'm excited to hear all of the instructional shifts that have been made by amazing educators and I'm excited to hear how they have positively impacted the academic experiences and outcomes of our incredible scholars. I also want to take the time to address the layoff notices that are on tonight's agenda or the March 15th notices, excuse me. Um these of course as you may know are never easy conversations. Behind every notice is a person is a educator a staff member a teacher a pair professional who has dedicated their time and talent to serving students here in the district. I want to acknowledge that the anxiety and uncertainty that this process creates for employees is not one that is favorable and it's one that also impacts their families. I want you to know that we see you and we understand that this is deeply personal. As a board, we have a legal, statemandated, and fiscal responsibility to ensure the long-term stability of our district. But we also have a moral responsibility to handle this process with transparency, with compassion, and with integrity. Tonight's March 15th notice pre notices will be a presentation that aims to do just that. Please keep in mind that tonight is a presentation, not a discussion, which means you will not be

hearing the board discuss, ask questions, or provide feedback. Tonight is just about providing the information with transparency. And in meetings to come, you will see us jump in as we normally do. As we leave here tonight, if you have questions, comments, concerns, or items that you need us to raise, I encourage you to please reach out to your board members so that we may raise them when the time of engagement arrives on a personal well actually I'll just close um in admitting that being back in the board me in the board meeting feels a little less comfy as cuddles with my sweet baby. But I do feel your love and I appreciate to my board colleagues who welcome me back and the superintendent who welcome me back. I appreciate your kind comments and your warm welcomes. I appreciate all the text messages that I'm getting saying you look good. Welcome back. I want to see the baby. Um and I appreciate being welcome back with warmness. Your sweetness of course will tie me over until I get home. And speaking of home, my family is watching online right now. So, hello to my honey and hi to my Cammy Whammy. Mommy loves you. Now, please make sure you go to bed so it'll be easy for mommy when she gets home. But I appreciate that this is also a commitment for them. My absence away from them and my my presence here with you all does mean my absence away from them. And I appreciate my family for making that sacrifice. Thank you again to everyone for being so kind. I'm honored to serve, grateful to be back, and committed to working collaborative collaboratively to ensure that every student in Berkeley Unified School District has access to a safe, supportive, and excellent education. Thank you. Over to you, President Chang.

Thank you so much. Um, wow. Now we just have consent calendar after that. Um uh next on up if we have a motion for consent calendar. I'd like to pull item 12.10. Thank you. 12.10. Okay. And move forward the rest of the consent calendar. Okay. Let's take pull it to discuss. I'm sorry. Yes. Pull it to discuss. So 12.10. You want to shift that to We could do it. What? um at the end is fine. Yeah, after the 13.1

13.2, I second her uh motion to move item 12.10 to a discussion item, making it 13.2 and uh then also approving the rest of the things that are on the consent calendar. Okay, just to confirm, do you want to do a 13.2 or we want to make it at 14.2 after the It's under discussion, so it has to be 13.2. Yeah, 13.2. Got it. Okay, do we have a second? A second. I actually just seconded. She made the motion. Jennifer made the motion. I made the second. All you have to do is call for Excellent. Do we have the roll call? We don't need to roll. Just have the eyes just do this. Um I I I

It looks unanimous. Um great motion. So moved. Uh thank you so much. Um so uh so we will now move on to 13.1 language arts curriculum update which is a discussion item I'm just going to start. All right. as we're getting settled in and um the presentation is getting pulled up. Good evening uh school board. Welcome back, Director uh Brown um and members of the public. Uh we are here tonight to present information on year 1 implementation of our elementary literacy curriculum. Want to recognize that we this has been an ongoing conversation um as we have navigated the literacy settlement. Um we presented at the last board meeting um Dr. Kim Gibbons was here with a mid-year update on our uh literacy monitoring which was specifically around um targeted uh two targeted schools and their implementation and overall tier one implementation and we also shared a little bit about um our literacy work in the context of the midyear LCAP plan. I'm going to turn it over to director Albeck. Um we are here with a number of

uh I just want to recognize uh lady leaders um on in this uh the women's history month. So really appreciate having the team here. And with that I'll turn it over to director Albeck. Uh good evening board of education superintendent. Welcome back Director Brown. We're going to go ahead and introduce ourselves but there's some new faces upon you. Again I'm Chris Albeck, director of curriculum instruction. Rose James, literacy coordinator. Renee Harris, uh, kinder and first, uh, intervention teacher and EL coordinator at John Mir.

Erica Carter, the elementary literacy teacher on special assignment.

And I'm D'vorah Klein Po. I'm the sitebased literacy coach for K5 at BAM Elementary School. So in addition to thanking uh the panelists here before you uh as we go into this evening and we discuss our first year English language arts implementation before we do so I just want to share a huge appreciation for all the BUSD teachers support staff administrators and other folks who have put a whole bunch of time effort and resources into this first year uh as President Matt Meyer said of BFT the first year of implement presentation always the most challenging. Uh we've seen a huge amount of benefits which we'll share with you this evening and a whole lot of hard work. Um folks who have been at this for a long time changing their practices going back to step one to plan with new sets of instructional materials and that is not an easy endeavor. So really shouting out uh all of our BSD teachers, support staff, coaches and administrators. So with that we're going to go ahead and jump into this evening. When I think about literacy, when I think about English language arts, uh the parallel to our mission to enable and inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contribution um really resonates with me without having strong readers, writers, um we're not going to be able to fulfill our mission. Uh so really strong alignment to our mission uh this evening. We want to provide you some three main parts to this evening. The first is giving you some real strong insights into what what's happening in BUD classrooms now. Now that we have new sets of instructional materials, what does that look like? What are these new instructional practices? Why is that an improvement? And how does that differ from what we were using before? So that'll be the first part of this evening. The second part of this evening is to really share with you all of the support guidance that we have put into supporting all of the hard work that our

educators are doing, the systems that we have created to support our educators, the time that we have put in, and all of the other parts that we have put in this year to make sure our educators can bring their best selves to the classroom every day. The last part that we want to share with you this evening is how we are gathering feedback. We know that there is no perfect curriculum. However, we know that getting our educators feedback, hearing from them about what is working and some areas of growth are vital. So, we're going to share with you the infrastructure that we've built to get that feedback, some of the changes that we've made already, and then some of the changes that we're planning to make uh for years to come. So, that is our the structure for this evening. And with that, we're going to bring us back to just framing this conversation on the new set of instructional materials that we adopted last last spring. So, as you see on the slide before you, our decision was based on our literacy framework around four main tenants of cultural relevance and joy, rigor, knowledge building, purposeful skills, and universal access. As we vetted curricula and looked at them and piloted them, we ended up going with fish tank and functional phonics for our 10 Englishonly schools and pairing Ariba Lakura with Espiranza for Sylvia Mendes Elementary School. So those are the new sets of instructional materials that have been placed since August of this year. And now we will share a little bit of what you might see if you were to walk into a BUSD classroom.

Good evening. Um so as director Albeck just shared um just about one year ago exactly I was in front of you sharing the recommendation of our adoption committee to implement these curricula. And now that we are over a little over halfway through our first year of implementation. We wanted to share what this looks like um and what it means for students learning as compared to what we were doing in the past. Um, something that we're all very proud of is the emerging collaboration, coherence, and rigor in our elementary classroom. So, that those are things we're going to highlight tonight. Um, so here you can see on this slide um some of the artifacts that we see across classrooms, including common student response booklets, which are created inhouse by us um for the fish tank units. lots of artifacts of the common vocabulary instruction anchor charts. Um you can see two anchor charts, same charts, different classrooms. Um and so to continue to take you through what some of these big shifts look like um and how they're impacting teaching and learning, I'm going to hand it over to our amazing literacy coach and ELD specialist at John Mir, as well as our kindergarten cohort lead, Renee Harris. Good evening. Um, one of the most significant shifts we've made to our literacy instruction is that we are now working with a knowledgebuilding curriculum. Students are no longer asked to read level text or write about anything they want. Students are engaging with contentrich topics early on, ensuring every student develops a robust background knowledge necessary to excel in complex subject matter as they advance. We aren't just teaching students how to read and write. We are giving them the essential knowledge that makes these skills meaningful. This is equity at

work. Here you can see on the slide uh the text used in the second grade unit animal habitats and on the left is a target task produced by a second grader which is directly related to the content taught that day. This framework of meaningful contentrich texts paired with foundational skills is vital because it aligns with evidence-based practices and district equity goals. Ensuring that all students receive receive the rigorous systematic scaffolding required to become proficient readers. It represents a significant shift that guarantees that every child receives direct instruction and the necessary support to grapple grapple with complex and grade level material. This specifically supports many of our focal students in writing who have struggled to gain traction with the workshop model. In the past, I would often see students struggling to get started or writing about the same experience every day. And what we're seeing now during fish tank is that students are able to launch right into writing because of the collective learning and inquiry from rigorous texts. Another s uh significant shift we have made is teaching foundational skills through a systematic phonics approach. All the subs skills needed to learn how to read are all rolled into one curriculum. In kindergarten through 2 grade, students are working on foundational skills daily. They move through a fast-paced sequence throughout a lesson, which includes phmic awareness, explicit phonics instruction,

fluency practice, reading decodable texts, and dictation. Students move instantly from practicing isolated sounds to reading texts. Every text is strictly aligned with the phonics scope and sequence. Students are not asked to read anything that has not been explicitly taught. Structured practice is built into the scope and sequence, allowing teachers to catch and correct decoding errors early. In this video, you will see students uh working on fluency and building automaticity in kindergarten. A letter is J. Sound is J. Letter is H. Sound is letter I. Sound is letter M. Sound is letter C. Sound is letter I. Sound is M. sound.

And now to talk about our uh three through five foundational skills is Erica Carter.

Thank you. So by bridging the foundation of functional phonics in kindergarten through 2 grade with daily morphology in third through fifth grade, we now provide a single rigorous sequence that spans a student's entire K5 journey in BUSD. Morphology is the study of word parts like roots and affixes. This learning empowers students to apply meaning of morphines to read, spell, and understand multi-elabic words such as microscope, where micro means small and scope means a tool used to view something. In years past, our third through fifth grade teachers were trying many different things to engage their students in word study and spelling practice. Now with functional morphology, we have systematic and cohesive teaching across third through fifth grade classrooms. One fourth grade teacher shared with us that every day students are getting exposed to key spelling patterns. Additionally, the morphology curriculum isn't just about spelling things correctly. It encourages students to think creatively about the world around them and the meanings, the word meanings, and generating new words. There are lots of avenues for success for students within the morphology curriculum. On the slide is a picture of a student in Miss Medina's fourth grade classroom at Emerson Elementary as they engage in morphology instruction. In our new set of instructional materials, we are transitioning from fragmented benchmarks to common curriculum embedded assessments. These curriculum embedded assessments give our teachers a unified yard stick to measure student progress against state standards in real time, ensuring that our instruction is always driven by

consistent evidence of learning. Data from these formative assessments help teachers to tailor their instruction to meet their student needs. On the left side of the slide is an example of a first grade weekly spelling check, a curriculum embedded assessment from functional phonics that gives teachers data on which spelling patterns their students have mastered. On the right side of the slide is an example of a third grade end of module assessment, a curriculum embedded assessment from Maria Laura that gives our TWWI teachers data on which standardsbased objectives students have mastered. After analyzing how her class performed on efficient curriculum embedded assessment, one BUSD classroom teacher shared with us that looking at focal student writing and identifying strengths, challenges, and next steps was really useful and actionable. In years past, our writing blocks were about 10 weeks long, focusing on a single writing genre at a time. This year with fish tank, we've shifted to a more dynamic model. Students are now moving fluidly in and out of different genres, ensuring that they're not just storytelling, but learning to write for various purposes and audiences. One of the biggest shifts you'll see in student writing instruction is that all kindergarten through fifth grade students are now writing from texts. Even our youngest learners are practicing citing evidence first orally and then in writing. This just isn't about performing on the ESPback. It's about building the analytical foundation they'll need for high school, college, and their future careers. On the left of the slide is a writing sample from the first grade

friendship unit in Fish Tank. After reading rich texts like the name jar and big al together as a class, students write an opinion piece using examples from the book to define what makes a good friend. In the middle of the slide is a student's writing sample from the fifth grade fish tank unit on plastic pollution. This student cites evidence from the book Trash Vortex, statistics from a Newella article, and quotes conservationist Nicola Hajins to support their opinion to ban single-use plastics. This approach levels the playing field because the entire class learns content together, giving all students a knowledge bank to draw from during independent writing. One first grade teacher reflected that almost all students are writing something every day. Last year it felt like there were multiple days where students would spend the whole time thinking and were not able to come up with something new to write. Each day feels like a fresh start and each kid has some ideas to write. To share more about implementation support, I will pass it over to D'vorah Klene, BAM sitebased literacy coach. Good evening. Um, I'm going to talk tonight about the systems of support that have been enacted to ensure a strong start in our first year of implementation. This is a multi-tered approach that involves regular site level collaboration, grade level subrelease days for planning and assessment calibration, co-eing and modeling at the classroom level, and teacher leadership. I will go more into each of these systems system level supports in the following slides. In an effort to support firstear implementation of the new curriculum,

teachers have been released from the classroom for a full day prior to the coming unit. The literacy coaches have now led 20 subrelease days or three days for each of the first three units for each grade level. Between the two-way immersion subrelease days for Ariba Lura and the ELA program, the coaches will have facilitated facilitated 33 of these days by the end of the year. For each unit, teachers are released for a full day to come together as a team. At each grade level, teachers are given time to reflect and connect on what is working and what has been challenging with the current unit. Then, for example, in the fifth grade subrelease day on February 19th, teachers spent the morning analyzing student writing and scoring the writing assessment. Then, in the afternoon, teachers were given time to look ahead to the coming unit and intellectually prepare for the content and the skills they will be focusing on. This is how we support the integrity of the new curriculum with teacher preparedness at the unit and the lesson level. As one teacher said, the time to read, process, digest, create, plan, and collaborate was not only our with not only our school site but across school sites was so so helpful. This room has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Teachers have especially enjoyed the time to collaborate with colleagues across district and to share materials such as in Google Classroom which is a digital archive for resource sharing. This has been a substantial investment of time and we know that time is our most precious resource. We also know that implementing lessons in a new curriculum requires a lot of preparation. Rather than doing this in silos, we bring teachers together to build the collective efficacy of the

whole grade level team and to increase cohesion across BUSD sites. We also have our literacy coaches providing direct daily support to teachers and students. Coaching supports looks like lesson study and supporting grade level collaboration. In the past, as a coach, most of us have provided coaching to new teachers and teachers who may have needed extra support, such as being new to a grade level. Now, everyone is new to the curriculum. This has offered an opportunity to go about supporting teachers in a different way. For example, at BAM, principal Molina has provided opportunities for teachers to take an additional subrelease day or a partial day. On these days, teachers use part of the day to collaborately plan a lesson together. Then in the second half of the day, teachers got the opportunity to watch each other teach the same lesson that was planned in the morning. It was amazing to see how teachers how the lesson changed over the course of each presentation and how their colleagues they got to see how their colleagues brought their unique talent to the lesson. As they watched each other, the lesson gets better and tighter. This is an example of true collaboration and building on one another's strong practices. As a teacher, as a coach, I'm helping to facilitate this process. Teachers are providing each other with positive feedback and grappling with questions on how best to support all students. The new curriculum implementation is also being supported by clear instructional minutes and schoolwide master schedules. This allows sites to protect students access to core grade level instruction and to have designated

blocks where students can receive support. All of our specialists participate in launch training. In addition, the fact that all practitioners are able to operate from the same set of instructional materials across grades and schools means that for students who are receiving layers of support that the support is aligned across tier 1, tier 2, and tier three. This provides equity within and across classrooms and schools in that all teachers are using the same language and working towards the same shared learning outcomes. The clear instructional minutes also include a designated time as we call it BAM tipsy time which is targeted focal student instruction for independent reading and targeted support. The scheduling has also allowed students to receive push-in services to help students with target tasks or the writing portion of the curriculum. Pushin supports teachers, students, and the specialists. Teachers see how coaches support focal students and coaches can see how teachers are teaching the lesson, thus helping us to provide better instruction for the focal students. We have a schedule where literacy support staff can push in to part of the fish tank core literacy instruction. As one teacher said, "We have worked hard to design a schedule that supports vocal students across grade levels. In the upper grades, an intervention teacher pushes in during the second half of the fish tank lesson to provide targeted support in writing and language and to reinforce key vocabulary. In the lower grades, students receive Orton Gillingham support during the independent reading block, allowing all students to remain in their classrooms for core instruction in fish tank and functional phonics.

Uh so this curriculum implementation is a perfect example of large complex school change. And as two researchers Norton Grub and Linda Treadway point out in their piece on school change efforts, teachers and teacher leaders play critical roles because only they have the deep knowledge of a school, its students, its history and previous reform efforts. Only they can determine if a particular reform can really work in that school. Only they can act from inside out. And in the same way that teachers were at the center of our curriculum selection decision, we wanted to ensure that teachers were leading this change effort at every site. That is why this year we created the role of literacy teacher leader or LTL. Um literacy teacher leaders are a group of classroom teachers representing all the sites and all the grades and we come together every other week. They engage in shared learning in the new curriculum and to share challenges and needs that are coming up at the sites. Um, this is one of the feedback channels that I'm going to say more about in a few minutes. Um, they also develop and plan monthly professional collaboration around the new curriculum to take place on early release Wednesdays. And you can see an agenda for one of those collaborations on the bottom right of this slide. These sessions are designed around what is coming up at the classroom level and sharing best practices of how to address particular needs or challenges. The November collaboration, for example, featured videos of BSD teachers teaching the new curriculum and focused on learning from their colleagues practice. The February collaboration which we just had um was focused on analyzing student writing to inform providing specific feedback for students. Literacy teacher leaders are the practitioners teaching these programs

day in and day out. They bring a critical perspective themselves as practitioners, but they are also able to talk to their colleagues um and elicit feedback and challenges from them in ways that not everyone is apt to put on a district feedback form. Um, now I'm going to talk a bit more about the feedback infrastructure. Um, every site or districtwide convening is an opportunity for teachers to stop and reflect on how it's going, on how implementation is going. Um, on subrelease days, teachers debrief the unit they just completed, noting what worked and what challenges arose. coaches, um, some of whom are here tonight, that specialize in that grade level, as well as literacy teacher leaders review that feedback and determine what adjustments might be made to the support, the pacing, um, or the resources that are provided. And this is why the LTL position in their role in implementation is so critical. This team of literacy teacher leaders and literacy coaches together function as a dynamic and responsive implementation team. In addition to bringing inform the informal information to our collective meeting spaces to problem solve in our literacy coach meetings, we also pour over the formal feedback collected in these different channels examining trends by site but also by grade level so that we can respond with action and support where needed in a timely manner. Uh in addition to collecting feedback on each completed unit, we have collected general implementation feedback uh on the program at five points throughout this year. Um in this data, teachers identify what needs immediate attention or adjustment while keeping integrity to the program and what challenges should be addressed in year 2 implementation which I will talk about um at the end.

Here on the left hand of this slide, you see an example of how we took feedback collected in October and November and we're reflecting it back to in this case fourth grade um on our January PD day. In addition to sharing the trends in their feedback, we shared the actions that we took as an implementation team to respond. So, one example um of this responsiveness that touched every grade level was around pacing. Pacing was a big one. Um, and part of the support this year has included our team creating Erica and I creating uh very detailed pacing guides for each grade and each unit. Um, and this has allowed for much more productive collaboration this year. Um, as it allows teachers to be able to be on pace together across the district and bring the same student work to these collaborations to analyze and discuss. Um that said, these pacing guides during trimester 1, we heard from teachers that the pacing was moving too fast. Um and so we adjusted midy year to add in flex days where teachers could reteach or build upon the lessons. Um this meant that this year we would teach four units rather than the five planned in several grades and in arrival lectura we would teach nine modules as opposed to 12 this first year. Um, another example is around feedback we received from kindergarten teachers, um, which was that there wasn't enough variety in terms of the modalities and ways that they could respond to target tasks. And so, um, we added with guidance from the curriculum developer some projects aligned to the unit goals and objectives that were more hands-on and engaging. Another example, um, there was a a trend around needing additional handwriting support in the primary grades. This has been a theme. So, the lead team of Erica and Renee integrated handwriting lines

from the functional phonics program to kindergarten fish tank target tasks um in order to improve their transfer about what they were learning about letter formation into their writing in fish tank. So this brings us to um you know kind of summarizing what we've collected through all of these feedback channels and there's some very positive themes that have emerged. Um teachers are reporting some real strengths when it comes to what they're seeing from their students. Um teachers are are reporting that students are demonstrating strong engagement with highquality text and shared thematic units. We hear teachers say a lot kids love the books. Um, we are hearing from teachers that students are writing with greater clarity, purpose, and they're drawing on these shared texts. We're hearing that students are engaging in deeper text discussions, using evidence to support their thinking, as we mentioned earlier, and developing strong vocabulary and background knowledge. Um, clear, consistent instructional routines are really also supporting all students, especially our neurode divergent students. uh shared content and collaboration. So, there was a lot of positive feedback around all of the opportunities for collaboration on the subrees and the Wednesdays. Um and then as for our themes for continuous improvement, um we these include very much continuing to have an eye a realistic eye toward pacing within instructional time. Um secondly, while writing growth is an observed strength, it is also an area of attention as it presents a really huge pedagogical shift for our teachers. Um and especially now that it's embedded in the content learning and reading and writing are being taught together as opposed to two different times of day. Um, our third

theme is around making sure that teachers and students have the tools and supplementary text to build skills, meaning and knowledge using the rigorous, very rigorous at times grade level core texts provided in Fish Tank. Um, as well as tools to differentiate for our focal students and diverse learners. And finally, to make sure um that district guidance, materials and support are easily accessible for teachers um digitally and and also in our shared learning spaces um and that for students as well and that we continue to learn and iterate from the continuous feedback that we receive. So in the words of the great Maya Angelou, um you do the best you can until you know better and then when you know better, do better. After initial implementation, we certainly know a lot more and it is our hope that we can leverage all that learning and do better in year 2. That is why um in January at each grade level, we recruited uh groups of educators at each grade level to take part in what we're calling year 2 adjustment teams. Um if you think of a better name, let me know. Um these teacher teams will help lead the work of refining our implementation for the 2627 school year. Um based on the themes that emerged in the feedback, we asked all the teachers at each grade which specific adjustments we should prioritize at each grade for year two. And so these teams will begin meeting next week to begin the work of mapping the units, repacing, um, in some cases identifying in supplemental materials, texts, and tools to support the work next year so that our implementation can continue to improve in quality and consistency and coherence for the benefit of all of our students here in BUSD. Um, and I think that concludes our presentation portion. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share about this

work. we're all very deeply passionate about. Um and now I believe we will turn it over to you for questions.

Um thank you so much. That was um really really great. This is a a real bright spot. Um I think and um also want to reflect that you know of course as we all know um reading and literacy is really a um the door to like lifelong learning and love learning. And I want to reflect that um on this panel aside from all of you guys as being teachers um and who have u many much much passion in teaching. Um one of my family's favorite teachers is here D'vorah Klein. I'm not surprised. Um she taught my son in two different school years. Um she was so dedicated to ensuring um his support. you know, he was uh trying to get his fluency up and she would take her lunches and and he would come and visit her and uh we still talk about, you know, fluency, you know, in reading. I thought that was a really great great term. So, I'm really excited to to see her here and uh perfect um as a as a coach. Um the feedback aspect is is really interesting to me as well. That's um uh this is a great way, you know, to create that type of um that loop for uh continuing change and ensuring that you're you're hearing from folks on the ground that the instructors themselves and um their daily interactions with students, which is so important to understanding, um what's working and what might need to be pivoted. Um so, I'm really excited about this. This is a real um bright spot to me. And you know, you heard we don't normally comment on commenters, but someone made a very positive comment on um her own personal experience and her family um with I believe a elementary school student uh with with this the shift. So um without much further ado, I'm going to shift to my colleagues. Would anyone like to ask questions or

Dr. Braum?

Yes, they're laughing because they know me. I have a ton of questions, but I'll save some for you all. Uh first I just want to um appreciate the the presentation. It feels really um good to know that all of the important work that you all did um around adopting the adopting the curriculum and taking our feedback around adoption is actually true and alive and well uh through the vehicle of implementation of the curriculum. So thank you so much for that. I appreciated hearing all of the different aspects of implementation um from the embedded assessment to the shifts in the writing block models like it it all was just so good and made me super super happy. Um I do want I I have a few questions. So my first is what happens when students leave our campuses? So how is learning continued to be supported at home? What does that look like? and what does does the curriculum make way for that and how is it being implemented? What are bright spots that we can share around that? So, I can speak to a couple of ways um that these curriculums enter the home. Um one is that you know I think a big benefit of a knowledgebuilding curriculum is that kids are studying a topic really deeply. like my second grader at Oxford is studying immigration and she came home and talked to me about it. Um I I think you know having these content centered units is a natural entry point for students to come home and talk about what they're learning and as we know just talking about learning at home is a huge way of making that homeschool connection. Um, Fish Tank provides and we have sort of added to there's like a letter that goes home for each unit that lists books that families can check out from the library related to the topic. Um, lists the reading and writing skills that they're working on.

So, we are sending those letters home this year. Um, I will also say that our foundational skills curriculum has home connect pieces as well that go home that show what um, phonics concept the student is working on or or morphe that they're studying that week. So for K5, there are also those connector points. Um, I think there's a lot of work that we can do to build on those pieces and then to increase the sort of homeschool connection with this curriculum.

Thank you. And I would love to hear um you know more just about those connector points and how they could be used. I appreciate the letters. Um but I want I think I'm really focused on skills like building those skills and continuing those skills at home with families. So I'd love to hear more and then maybe even after you think about your um can't remember the name of the group for next year. Year two adjustment teams.

The year two adjustment teams that we may change the name for. um how they could focus on that um to make sure that the skills that are being built in the classroom are continuing at home because sometimes what happens is we'll build those skills in the classroom and then we get home it'll there'll there will kind of be a breakdown and um we know that learning happens everywhere and I think it would be great if we um use the vehicle to empower learning at home as well. Um, I did want to ask about the pacing guides. You know, as I, as a teacher, as myself, I know all too well how often we need to make shifts to our pacing guides. Um, but I also know that in making those shifts, sometimes we miss out on important information. And so, do you have a plan for um making up the units that won't be taught uh based on those um shifts in the pacing guide? Yeah. So, um, we were able to to make sure that students had practice in all the important standards, teaching four out of the five units this year, especially because the standards are spiraled throughout the units and the three genres aren't just covered, you know, the way they were before. They're again spiraled throughout the units. Um, I think that definitely as we look toward next year, we can use um the assessments, the end of unit assessments, which are standardsbased and the essential questions to help us in guiding the the repacing work so that we're not missing essential content when we do want to give educators a little bit of room to breathe and to to be able to respond to the student needs that we're seeing. So, I think um to answer your question, really using the the standards alignment in the curriculum and the big picture takeaways that we want students to have to help us repace the the content.

Thank you. I I appreciate hearing that and I know that it'll probably will really help like if you if you're starting in um let's say third grade or whatever, I know that it'll help in in years to come especially with the progression of the standard. So, thank you for answering that. Um, and then finally for now, um, I appreciated, uh, the feedback structure and hearing or actually two more, sorry. I appreciated the feedback structure and hearing the feedback from our teachers, but I want to know how student voices and perspectives are being included um, as we evaluate the initial implementation. And if we have not yet thought about that, I do want to highlight that it would be great to hear from our students about how they are um receiving the information, receiving receiving the um curriculum uh the comparison of this curriculum to curriculum in the past um and just how they feel about it overall.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we we have just started to pull some focal groups together um of students, mostly fifth graders at this point to kind of hear from them and and like you said really like think about what was it like last year and what is it like this year and what's changed for you? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Those conversations that we started actually this week. So the last two days I was able to meet with some fifth graders at John Mure and some fifth graders at Emerson. Um Erica was with me. was it was very it was incredibly illuminating and very cool to hear from their perspective how their experience has changed. I can share anecdotally that they love the texts and they love that the curriculum allows them to investigate and learn about hard topics. Um which we thought was really really interesting. And I'll also say that I think there's a sense among a lot of the older students that it's preparing them for what's coming. Um, in middle and high school, some of them have older siblings who, you know, they see reading books like they're reading whole books. Um, which is a big topic right now, being able to read whole books as opposed to excerpts. Um, I think this is really important work, um, Director Brown, that I really want to continue doing of hearing from students. So, I think we know how we can talk to fifth graders and it's also just figuring out the right way to collect that same data from some of our younger students as well.

Great. Thank you. And then finally, for all this time, um I appreciated hearing um about all of the support for um our focal students. Um first of all, I think that um the push and support by our intervention team or intervention teachers rather is um really necessary and powerful. Um, and I think that it gives power to our students to be able to remain in the classrooms and get that support um that they need. And it doesn't um create spots of othering for our students, which I think is just so so meaningful. And I see what that will do for our students and build their academic confidence. So I I do want to highlight that and appreciate that. Um, and I'm also left wanting to know more, right? So I'm wanting to know um what training happens for our prayer professionals um who are supporting our teachers with implementation. Um I know that that coal model um the the the modeling and co-eing model is like really amazing and how do we loop them in like how do we support them in supporting our students? Um and then also I want to know more specifically about our focal students because um differentiation is great but differentiation means something for every single student. So what does it look like for our English language learners? What does it look like for our English proficient speakers who also need additional support? Um and I know that probably time didn't pro you know provide you to be able to answer that but I am like oo give me more give me more give me more. So, if you can give me a little more, I would appreciate that.

Um, hi. Um, I primarily support third, fourth, and fifth grade students, um, both in the classroom and out of the classroom. Um, what I love about this new curriculum and this shared vision we all have, in the past, I felt like I was teaching isolated skills and they weren't translating into the classroom. I would teach like about a vocabulary strategy or I would teach about um uh like fluency and then it wasn't getting back in the classroom. Now, because I'm really teaching to what they're doing in the classroom, like I'm reading all the books that the kids are reading. I'm preparing ahead of time. I'm reading all the third grade text, the fourth grade text, the fifth grade text. I'm going into the classroom and supporting the students that need extra help in real time as they're finishing the lesson like right there. And I feel like the best thing that has come out of all of this is that when I go in to support the students, they know what they're writing about. They know what they're talking about. And my ground, the place where I'm starting at is at a so much higher place than I've started at the past. Like it used to be what are you gonna write about today and they're like I don't know and they felt like for a lot of the students I work with that their voice wasn't valued because they were writing a shared about a small moment about they weren't writing about going to Sha Penise. They didn't have something special to write about. Now every student I work with even the struggling vocal students have something to say and I'm supporting them as they need it in real time. So whether it's a multilingual learner or a um student that needs extra help because they process a little differently, I'm able to provide that help. I'm watching what the teacher does. I come right in. I

finish the learning and help them so they're successful. Like I finished I worked with a student today and she was so proud to finish her three paragraphs and finish her paragraph about solutions for plastic waste that she can make her own Google slide presentation now that she got her paragraphs done. So to me I find it really helpful that I'm able to support in real time and then take what they're doing in the classroom and support it out of the classroom as well. I don't know if I answered that fully but I tried. While I do really appreciate hearing um just your personal narrative and what it what it looks like and feels like, um I I think what I am looking for is maybe more examples of like what differentiation looks like from the curriculum um and how that differentiation is provided to to students. I do recognize that it was um noted as an emerging theme for next steps, but I know that something is happening now. So, I think I'm thinking about like spec like specific intervention models and tools that are happening for our students and I do recognize that we may not have time so we can probably come back to that but I want to think I want to know more about that and how it aligns with our MTSS model. So there's that. And then if anyone wanted to answer the question about how we support our pair of professionals in providing um support in the classroom too, that would be great.

I just wanted to add to what D'vorah said that um because teachers are all teaching the same lessons, right? We're all paced. We're we're walking together through this. Um what we've been doing at John Mir for our English language learners is a lot of pre-eaching. Um, and that's really only possible because um, teachers are all lock and step really and working together on that. So, what I'll do is pull a group of English language learners before a lesson. We'll actually read the text together. We'll look at our high lever vocabulary. We'll dive into that and then they'll go into their classroom and they'll be more prepared for the lesson. Um, which, you know, increases engagement, participation, and all those things. So that's just one example of how we've been leveraging that.

So I know you're asking the question about PAR educators specifically. So there's a lot that we have done and I hope that that I think definitely showed in today's presentation. I think the notion of how we train our PAR educators is one that we're going to need to turn attention to. So, they haven't necessarily had specific training um on all of these components, but it's definitely something that we can turn our attention to in year two.

Thank you so much for answering that and thank you for um answering how it supports our English language learners. I would take it a step further to think about um our African-American scholars, specifically our vision schools. Like what is this looking like at our vision schools? um how does it differ or maybe not even differ but if we know that they are our our focal focal schools like what is it looking like there as well so thank you thank you other board members have questions looking oh yeah okay directors

I just have a couple comments one I really enjoyed the presentation and I feel like I understand the implementation so much better so thank you so much for doing this putting the work together. I know it takes a lot of time to put these presentations together. Um I'm really excited to see the coaching and the way that you're talking about coaching in such a different way. Um both times I met with Mr. Ellis, that was a big and and he presented that to the board. So I can just tell from the presentation and the way you're talking about it, that shift has really happened. So I'm really grateful for that. Um and I was really grateful too to see the adjustments to teacher feedback. Um, I know that there are growing pains with new curriculum for everyone. It is really hard and I think, um, it's important that we're listening to that feedback and making adjustments. And I'm wondering if we plan as part of that with those year 2 adjustment teams if we're going to include voice. Sometimes there's a tendency in that kind of thing to include the people that are already kind of rowing in the same direction to make those adjustments. But I'm hoping we're going to get some diverse voices in those teams um to reflect, you know, some of the issues that teachers see in their classrooms with the curriculum. um a especially as we go into year two and some of the growing pains are lessened and it's more about you know autonomy and selecting texts or adjustments based on the groups of students that are in those classrooms. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how those adjustment teams are being made put together. Um yeah and that's it. Um, so yes, I think we want everyone, right? We want all the all the voices at the table. Um, and so we we started the recruitment in January, but we've also really put it out to teachers that if folks had feedback and they couldn't

make it to those meetings that we would come and meet with them and hear from them. Um, we also when we collect feedback, we follow up with folks like where there are real challenges or points that are surfaced, we actually reach out to them directly to to offer support and to hear more. Um, so I think for this upcoming adjustment team meeting that we're starting this month, we've really recruited specific folks that that are coming with some of these challenges so that we can problem solve together. So, we're really trying to bring a lot of differing voices to the table and so and recruiting intentionally for that. And I think also going out and meeting folks at the site and talking to them about what's coming up.

Great. Thank you so much. And I'm really excited to see how our data changes over the I mean, I know that change we're not going to see change this year or probably next year, but I'm really excited to see how this implementation really um manifests itself in better learning outcomes for our kids. So thanks

same during this whole presentation I was like I know I want to see the results for kids and I know it's it's early days but um yeah thank you all so much. This was really um informative and inspiring to hear about the work that you're doing and the work that our kids are doing and that our teachers are doing. Um I just have a couple of comments questions. Um, okay. This is just I'm totally curious. So, all the talk about writing was so was was very exciting and the idea that kids are are practicing all the different genres of writing. It made me wonder about the writing process and how much emphasis there is on editing and revision or are we moving away from that in the way that we're teaching writing? you can start and then if one of you wants to build. Um so yeah that's a really great question. Um and I think that definitely that also represents a shift. So in the same way that we were teaching one genre over many many weeks there were a lot of rounds right in a row of the publishing getting to the publishing process. And in this curriculum um kids are writing every day. The majority of the first part of the unit is spent writing, responding to the reading that they're doing, right? Makes making making sense of the text through writing, but there are opportunities there to teach writing as well. And then later in the latter half of the unit, there are several writing projects that are taken through the full writing process. So, kids are going through that recursive process multiple times in one unit. I think what's been a big shift for our teachers is that that's not happening in one concentrated time at one part of the day. It's happening in this part of the unit. And and um yeah,

I think one of the biggest shifts also in our writing curriculum, it's about process, not necessarily product. So in caukins in workshop we would spend three months to get one published piece. Some kids would only work on one piece for those 3 four months. Whereas now everybody's finishing pieces. They may not be published pieces but they're getting the experience of working through all the genres repeatedly. And I think that's been a big shift for teachers because they're so used to this finished product where it's polished and it's for parents. And I know for myself as a teacher, those pieces were sometimes too much of my say and not enough of the students words. And now it's all the students words. And it may not be pretty and polished, but it is a piece. They're doing so many different pieces. And I think that's powerful. Thank you for sharing that. That is really powerful. And what you just said actually makes me wonder, kind of building on Director Brown's questions about parent engagement. It makes me wonder about opportunities for kids to go public with their learning, to do to have demonstrations of learning, to publish their writing, to share it with their families. Um, and I I also when you were asking questions about families, this is connected but different, found myself wondering about whether there are opportunities to partner with OPI staff to do more parent education about this new curriculum and how parents can support their kids at home. Yeah. So, just a couple of kind of related questions about families. I don't know if anybody wants to respond to any of that. So we have been working with the office of family engagement and there has been a series that um Lydia has been leading specifically a series over at Sylvia Mendes uh around family engagement. Uh

literacy is a focus not only for us but for our our organization and OP has a focus on literacy as well. So there's been quite a few family engagements. Um, the other part that I would just like to bring up as it relates to family engagement, and many of the folks here can speak to it as well, is that each of our school sites throughout the year has a literacy night. So, this is a huge opportunity for us to be bringing families in. One of the components of feedback that we didn't get to uh tonight is that we're also looking for feedback from families. We have an active survey. So, we want to get feedback from our students, our educators, our administrators, but also from families to see uh what they are seeing with their with their students um and what they are hearing. So, opportunities to engage families, uh, more the marrier. So, every time that you all share an opportunity, we usually try to show up to get some feedback and and talk to folks as well.

That's great. Thank you. I have just one more question. Um, on the I think D'vorah, it was you that was talking about the subrelease days and how how teachers are using those to collaborate with each other across grade levels. And there was this quote on the slide about how it was great to be able to collaborate with both the special ed department from our school and second grade teachers from across the district. And I thought if you're doing this 33 times, you can't have every special ed teacher there every time. So, it made me wonder how you're how you're coordinating that kind of collaboration because I can see it being so incredibly valuable and important for our students with IEPs to have our special ed staff collaborating with our gened classroom teachers to think about how to support those kids. But I also see that it's kind of a logistical challenge. Do you want me to?

So yes, we we were not able to bring our SP educators along on all 33 of those days. However, we did really try to leverage some collaboration across those roles on our January day. So we we had a morning session where sped teachers were really looking ahead at the coming unit and thinking about accommodations and supports for students. and then they went into the grade level sessions and shared some of those supports and ideas and and talked about sh their shared case load their students um with the gened teachers. So I think that was a taste of something that we really want to dig into deeper in the coming year. Um so I yeah thank you for that question and I definitely think it's something that we're going to really be focusing on. Yeah.

Um, and you know, year one imple implementation is different than year two and year three, but I would say one thing as an ELD coordinator that we did do this year is get extra materials. Um, at John Mir, we have 5A, which is our, you know, our magic room where all the magic happens. And um we have a full set of all fish tank materials, all functional phonics materials that are used by our intervention uh team, our ELD team and um our TI and SPED. So um I feel like we're we've got a little start going and probably have more to do, but um we did get a foundation I think there.

Thanks, M. Director Basv. Yeah, I'll keep my comments brief because a lot of my colleagues asked some of my same questions around English language learners. Thanks, Director Brown for highlighting those issues and Director Korn for talking about family engagement. Uh, I think it would be great if in our newsletter we had like little clips or little updates that we could share with families, especially if they can't make it to those literacy nights. I know that some families may want to attend, but it could be hard um to come after hours to just an additional event. And shout out uh to Miss Wisman too since director Chang gave a shout out to one of his former educators. She was my son's educator. I'm so happy to see her as a literacy um teacher leader. And uh just wanted to know like what are we doing with the data that teacher leaders are gathering at the site from like their colleagues of areas where they might need additional support and what h like how are we looking for trends maybe across the sites and then coming back and providing that support like what does that process look like so that there is continuous improvement I love the model I love the consistency and I know there's a lot that's going into professional development but I'm just curious kind of like how do we engage um teacher leaders to see like what are the common threads and and um points of feedback that are coming from the sites where we can improve.

Yeah. So I think um the literacy teacher leaders a lot of the meeting time that we've had together in addition to kind of digging deeper into the materials has been looking at feedback um so bringing feedback from and looking at the feedback from their colleagues around what challenges are coming up um and then trying to design our Wednesday sessions around those challenges. Um, so yeah, I can remember, you know, the first half of the year a lot of teachers were really wanting to see what it looked like, what, you know, academic discussion routines in fish tank looked like. And we so we had some videos that we put together of their colleagues engaging their classrooms in in those structures. Um, so I think that's that's one of the ways that we're using that feedback is looking at it with the literacy teacher leaders and them kind of collaboratively planning the upcoming sessions. Thank you so much. Are there other questions or comments? Uh thank you very much. That was uh super informative and and we really appreciate the hard work that you've been doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for all your questions. Yeah. Next on up we have 13.2 which was uh pulled from the consent calendar um to have a chat. Director Shinowski, did you do you want to?

Sorry. Um, yes. So, I just wanted to pull this because it's a $3.4 million contract for contractors um to um do additional services. Um and I wanted to verify ask that this is not a change to our budget. So I know we had a change to our sped budget at the first interim and I wanted to make sure this was inclusive of that. Correct. Um this reflects that change. So we could not um create thatou without that the shift in that budget that happened at the first interim.

Great. And then I also just want to again highlight a desire for us to bring these positions you know in person so that we're or or in house so that we are actually using B USD employees uh to to do the work and not contractors.

Correct. So, this contract represents about eight different types of service work. Um, and three of which we do not currently have those job descriptions um for, but the other ones we are working on and I can vouch for the fact that I got six new names for special ed IAS on that list um over the last two weeks. So, we've definitely been getting getting candidates in to fill those positions. And just to follow up to that, can we if those are job descriptions that we don't have, but we anticipate ongoing need of those jobs then that we can create inhouse.

So we are working with the unions on creating job descriptions and creating those positions. Um some of them are more difficult than others, but yes, we are working on that. Thank you. I'll move to approve. Thank you so much. Is there a second? I'll second. Um do we have the eyes? I I I I unanimous. Um thank you so much. We're moving on to um 14 the 14.1. Thank you so much. Um which Samantha will present Samuel. Thank you.

How are you? You too. All right. Good evening, um, board and superintendent. Um, I'm Samantha Tobias Espinosa, and this is

Alex Billet, director of human resources. and we are here to present tonight um on um the reduction in force or otherwise known as March 15th notices. Uh this is an important reminder that this is um our first presentation on this. This will not be our only presentation on this. Uh we will be coming back multiple times over the next four or five meetings um as we go through our budget planning and our budget processing and creating our strategies around um the budget. Um so this is just the first meeting um that we will be presenting at. We um want to connect to our mission um and make sure that we are providing highquality educators to help our students to achieve their academic goals and um make positive contributions. Um we aren't able to do that unless we are remaining fiscally responsible. So, we want to make sure that we are um dealing with this difficult process. Um making decisions that will impact staff and making sure that we make our staff feel valued, seen, and respected as part of this process. Um but also following within our allocated budget and resources. Uh tonight our objectives um are to provide clarification on the resolution that you approved um a few minutes ago um and other March 15th notices as well as to explain some of the rationale and implications for specific positions that are unnoticed on those lists as well as clarifying what the next steps are. As you may remember, we've covered this before. Um about 80% of our U budget is paying for people. Uh so that is why

unfortunately this topic comes up in terms of talking about these notices is that the um more than a super majority of our um budget is tied up in people. And so unfortunately that's one of the places we have to look um when we are looking at um making budget decisions. Next and I do have a clicker. I keep forgetting that I have one. Um all right. So the next is um this is the timeline. And so this is to show you um how things are unaligned um in our um with the budget process and um the layoffs. So the governor gave his budget in January. We are now at the very beginning of March. And so um in late February, early March, we have to figure out who we are going to notice in this process and what that notice is going to look like. whether it's going to be a layoff notice or other notice um and all of that. We then have to come to you and get your approval on this and then we have to actually provide those notices by March 15th on our about May 7th. Uh we have to hold hearings that um for the employees who are involved in the actual layoff and then we have to come back to you again in May for you to issue the final notices. Unfortunately, that generally happens before the May revise actually even comes out and the budget doesn't actually get decided until June. So, we have this whole process that has to happen before we actually even determine what are our final choices in our budget. And so, that's why we'll be coming back multiple times over the next couple months to discuss all of this. Uh this is a graphic about the timeline

involved. So we provide preliminary notices by March 15th. Before May 15th, we have to provide final notices if we get to that point and need them. And then they don't become effective till the end of June. And so the employees get noticed. Um it's a requirement if we want to make changes to our staffing that we do the notices by March 15th. we don't have another deadline um or any other change. If we miss the March 15th date, everybody continues status quo. Everything stays the same, which is perfectly fine and how we survived for many years before we had to go through these layoff processes. But when we have budget challenges, we have to then go through this process. Uh the school board makes the final decisions um and tells us who to notify and what the final outcome is. Um, who gets notices? There are two different types of notices. There are certain types of notices that go to certificated and types who go to classified. We are going to go into that in more detail. Um, and then these are often positions that are on soft funding, meaning that the funding either has an end date um or it's running out or it's a grant or we don't have full control over whether or not we are funded for a future year. So here we're looking at what March 15th notices are and what they are not. So what they are specifically is an attempt to protect employees in education to give them advanced notice. That's what we're doing now in advance of March 15th. The possibility of a layoff or a change in work and FTE. It's a practice used across the state. All school districts are using this. It's required through ED code. And what they are not is they're not related to job

performance in any way. They're not related to the evaluation process. They're also not final notices of uh layoff or reassignment. Samantha highlighted that on the last page, but we thought it'd be very important to keep uh reiterating this point. Again, it's preliminary. The notices that staff will receive uh postmarked on March 15th uh or earlier are again preliminary and the decision lies uh with the school board. Uh and that's only whenever um that decision is made and then a final notice is issued prior to May 15th. on this slide is the language that is the overarching March 15th notice um language in ED code as well as two pieces of the BFT contract that apply to these types of situations. There is contract language that uh requires us to notice all of our teachers on special assignment or TSAs every school year. Um, and then there is also language regarding involuntary transfers, which would be what we're referring to as reassignments. The ED code also has a separate section for um, educators who hold an administrative or supervisory credential. Um, and so they are also required to get a notice even if they are only getting reassigned. Um and then classified they changed it a few years ago into creating this so it matches the the certificated and March 15th. The biggest change is that for classified it used to be you only got noticed if the district actually had intent to lay off your position and had already pretty much made up the decision. That is not true with the March 15th notice. it is a potential and you have all the way until May till you get that final notice. Um, and so it's very um different than it

used to be because it's um it's somewhat more nerve-wracking for our classified staff because they're still getting used to this concept of getting a potential notice versus it being something that's already been processed and basically decided. Next.

So before we highlight the two uh types of staff certificate and classified, what I want to share with the board is that um we've worked collaborative collaboratively with cabinet, with principles, with other district leaders, and with supervisors across the district to ensure that we have consistent messaging when we're informing staff about these preliminary notices. One of our goals is that every single employee that receives one of these notices, has that one-on-one touch point with the supervisor that knows them, knows their work, recognizes their work at their site and program. Uh we led those conversations right here in this very room. Uh I know as a former principal what it was like to have those conversations last year. Uh given the this same scenario. And on these next next two slides, I'll actually be working from left to right. Um this slide specifically talking about certificated notices and the different types. Samantha noted that we're specifically uh calling these reassignments as it pertains to certificated staff. So that applies to administrative credentialed staff and also other credentialed staff that that you'll that you'll see and hear about. And the implications for that as we work to the right are that the employee will have a position within their credentialed area that they will be made whole. Meaning that if 0.4 FT of their position is reduced or eliminated for whatever reason, we will work to ensure that they have that other point4 within their credentialed area. It may not be their desired position and unfortunately there may be times when employee doesn't have options. However, like I said, they will be made whole and we will will have that opportunity for them. The next type for certificated staff are temporary releases. Those are certificated staff that are on a contract in the district. It already has a predetermined end date. They've been aware of that contract uh contractual end date since they joined uh B USD.

And in that time right now, what we're doing is we're reminding them reminding them of that end date that they may not be rehired. And this also includes probationary zero employees, which um which what that means is staff on an intern credential. And that means those are folks that usually have some of the requirements met and then they've worked with our staff to obtain the intern credential often with the h help of Alama County Office of Education to to get that. The next type is probationary non-reelection. Those are staff that are in their first or second year of service to the district and they've been provided an opportunity to resign in lie of the notice. So, probationary one, those are staff and looking at the right side of the slide here, those are staff that are in their first year. They can be released uh by their last day of service in this school year, which this year is June 4th. And for probationary 2, those are staff that it's their second year and when they're non-reelected, they are not eligible for rehire. And then layoffs. We're highlighting this. However, we'll talk more about it later. And that this type of specific notice is not being provided to certificated staff this year. Those notices are called particular kinds of service or PKS. You may remember those from last year. It's based on credentiing and it must be linked to funding. Um the that's when the position on the right hand side I'm speaking to now. That's when the position is eliminated. That's when they that's when they may be offered another position based on credential if they have qualifications. Now we're looking at the classified notices which there's solely one type of notice in this case. Those are the layoff notices again preliminary. Um and those can only be for two reasons for lack of work or for lack of funds. And the preliminary notice is by March 15th as I mentioned earlier postmarked by that date. And then the final notice after uh recommendations made to the board and your approval. Uh those would

be uh on or before May 14th with the 15th being the deadline. I mentioned in terms of implications that it can only be for lack of work or lack of funds. So can be rescended and uh as has been highlighted several times tonight, our goal in working with everyone in the district is to have those be rescended as as much as possible uh until May 14th. Employees have hearing rights which we will outline. Uh more employees are noticed than positions due to potential bumping. The reason for that being if a positions eliminated if someone has held previous classifications in the district in classified roles they can bump back to those to those roles which can impact others. And then lastly that uh reductions can be negotiated with union leadership in lie of any layoffs. All right. How do we select who gets these notices? So, in the classified world, we first um identify a lack of funding or a lack of work. Um all of our notices this year are based on a lack of funding. Um we then connect it to the job classification um which is looking at the job description. It may be a different department or a different location, but the same job description. We then look at the employees and based on their seniority we determine who gets noticed. We always start at the bottom of the list of the seniority. For certificated it's a slightly different process where we identify a particular area of service that based on funding student need or compliance we don't need. Um and we then connect that to a credential. Then we look at the job classifications that use that credential. And then we look at seniority. So it's a little bit different um in certificated because the credential comes in there um which adds another layer.

All right. Um soft funding. We've talked about this before um and we're going to probably talk about it many times in the future. Um but soft funding basically means that the funding is either finite or is being exhausted. Um examples of this are grants. they have end dates or they have a certain amount of time you have to spend the money or the money runs out. Um they may be dependent on a decision or vote or parties that are external to BUSD. So this is often our grants. Um we have grants with multiple different outside agencies where it's up to them whether or not we get the money. Um, it also, um, includes our PTA, um, and making sure that those, um, decisions are made prior to us determining whether or not we can continue to have the position. They also might be plans that are pending approval. Every year, our school sites approve a site plan. Their school site councils approve it. Um, and so, um, those also include funding for positions. And so we are waiting for those approvals to happen. Uh we give examples here some PTA funded positions, things that use the BEP site discretionary funds which are in those site plans I was talking about. Uh we have many federal and state grants that we've talked about that are um expiring or dwindling. Uh we have ACES. Um we have AMIM, the learning recovery emergency block grant, LCAP and educator effectiveness which are all impacted for this um upcoming year. Uh implications implications I'm going to say it correctly tonight. Um I always want to add to that word. Uh some positions pending approval or confirmation of funds. So, for the PTA, we're going to talk about this again later, but we need the funds in hand before we resend the pos the notices. And then for school site plans, we need

the plan approved um by the school site council before we can resend those. Um some positions may need to be eliminated, reduced, or covered by other funding sources. So, that's one of our things that we'll be talking about over the next few meetings in terms of looking at that piece. So this slide highlights our work and partnership with ACOE as it relates specifically to credential misassignment and expiration. So our staff in the HR department, we work with folks at ACOE. We look at what the credentials are that our staff hold, what their assignments are within the district. Uh and then what we do is we're in communication with staff throughout the district. If their credential is about to expire or it has expired, we provide them with reminders. We work with them on the steps for renewal. Uh and then with that, ACE notifies us if time has passed and those steps have not been achieved or taken. Uh and and with that, the district can receive fines if we're not renewing credentials, ensuring that people are in assignments with the appropriate credentials. One new piece of information that we've recently learned uh from ACE is that as of July 1, if we don't have folks with the proper credentials and assignments for the upcoming year is that even if we're keeping them in the roles, they'll withhold the paychecks at ACOE. So, we're working diligently with our teachers and credential staff throughout the district. That includes counselors, administrators to ensure that the credentials are renewed or that they're in the assignments that are appropriate for their credential.

And this is a new thing that we are um it was slightly unexpected and we are um working through it along with every other district in Alama County. Um but we are planning to do um notices and make sure that our staff are aware of this change and make sure that we are not asking people to work who are not going to get paid. Um so we are working on that.

So earlier we talked about that there would be no particular kinds of service notices or quote unquote layoff notices for certificated staff. Fortunately uh this year Berkeley Unified School District were in a great place with this and that's due to attrition. Those reasons are highlighted here. That's retirements that have been submitted thus far, separations for other various reasons, non-reelections, and temporary releases. So, we're confident that we won't have a need to for that to happen. Uh we would be doing that this evening as March 15th is approaching. uh unfortunately there is not a similar process for classified staff in the state of California and that they do not have a reassignment process similar to what we've highlighted for certificated staff.

Uh and for certificated staff we cannot involuntarily transfer them due to

the opposite classified staff we cannot involuntarily transfer them due to lack of funds. All right. So, let's look at some um numbers here. So, tonight we had a resolution and two memos. Uh the resolution was for classified eliminations um slashred reductions. Our union has agreed that reductions fall under the um the layoff language, the March 15th layoff language. It is not actually an ED code um that reductions fall under that, but our union has stated in their contract language that they want them to be treated as such. So we are treating them that way. Um the other two the memos were for certificated potential reassignments of administrators as well as non-reelection of probationary to teachers. Um so the numbers right now we have 120 identified classified notices. 107 of them are going to BCE members and 13 to local 21 members. That does not include the bumping. uh we are still working on doing all of the um seniority charting and hierarchies and figuring out all the scenarios for the bumping. So that number will go up on the number of notices but the number of positions noticed will not go up. So 120 is the number of positions but the number of people who actually receive notices will be higher than that. Uh the number of certificated notices is 231. That will not be going up. Um as we have identified everybody who needs to get noticed. Um we also have our FAQ attached on the bottom of that slide for uh further reference.

So so just highlighting some impacting some impacted groups. That's what we'll be doing on the next several slides. We'll be looking at cooking and gardening, the before and after school program, OPI and counseling. So specifically looking at cooking and gardening highlighting the positions noticed that's 1.0 FTE for nutrition education program supervisor 10 and 700s FTE instructional specialist cooking and gardening and 7300s FTE instructional technician for cooking. The rationale for that being the increased costs for the programming, the dependence on grant funding which may or may not be uh granted again. Uh limitations on the funding specifically that it can't be used for the program supervisor. And then those implications being the need to reduce the program to align with whatever available funding that we do have in addition to the supervisor function to effectively uh manage the grant requirements, applications, and other administrative tasks for the program. All right, before and after school programs. Um, so I want to say that unfortunately, um, we are having to notice um, many staff members that are in our before and after school programs. Um, we will be coming back in late April to do a presentation on the before and after school program as there is a lot of work being done um, to address our re-evaluation of the program and of its staffing structure. Um we have noticed nine afterchool program site quarters. We will be noticing sorry um after school program site coordinators 20.49 FTE of instructional technicians which is approximately a fourth of our instructional technicians. Um 1.0 FTE of a manager of extended learning and 1.0 of the afterchool program supervisor.

Um we are in the process of a re-evaluating the staffing structure. We have been in that process now I think for three years. Uh we are hoping that we are going to get um to a place that will help us to be able to maximize our enrollment capacity and solve some of the issues that have been brought up u previously. Uh we are looking to align our staffing with our available resources and make sure that we are comparable to other districts. We are currently deficit spending in these accounts. Um, another issue that has come up very recently is ACES pays for about half of the afterchool program and the ACES grant is up for renewal this year. Unfortunately, we've received notice from ACE about some possible issues with that renewal um which we are exploring and we'll bring back to the board for further information um at that April date. The implications are um that we have an opportunity to reorganize the department staffing to align with both the pro programmatic needs and in alignment with funding guidelines. Uh unfortunately, OFI is also on this list. Again, uh this is the office of family engagement. Uh we have seven family engagement specialists um that are being noticed. um one bilingual family engagement equity specialist and one supervisor of family engagement and equity. These positions again are on softunding. They continue to be on the same softing on LCAP BP site funds at BHS. They have a specific position and we also have a position that is on the MHSSA grant um which is not being renewed um that so we need to find other funding. Um, we also may need to prioritize specific services in alignment with our resources and staffing.

Counselors are also receiving these notices and these are certificated staff. That's uh all counselors at the secondary level. That's middle and high school. Uh, regardless of the program location, whatever role they're specifically doing within BUSD. And just to provide some examples, those are intervention counselors, academic traditional counselors, and then program specific counselors such as bridge or point. This also includes the restorative justice counselors at all three middle schools. The rationale is that some of these positions are also on softunding. uh the re-evaluation of staffing structure and service delivery model in these settings at the secondary level and the possibility in the change of site where services are provided. That's why the reassignment letter is necessary and then the implications are aligning staffing to available resources that we do have and considering the staffing structures in general to reduce redundancy and streamline uh service delivery at the secondary level. looking at some other programming just to transition us again. We're about to talk about BP central funding, BEAR LEBG, which is the block grant funding and other expiring grants and then PTA and site funding. So again, we know that in years past you've been aware of BP site funded teachers receiving these notices. The reason that the word new is here and bright yellow orange in that blob is that uh this year we're looking actually at centrally funded BP positions. Uh and again this is to ensure flexibility in different services that we're providing within the district. Um personnel that were not noticed include the BP library staff, VAPA which is visual and performing arts and IT instructional

technology with the exception of um TSA's teacher on special assignments uh to continue meeting uh the measure language. Uh no personnel was assigned to the class size reduction funds that we have. Uh therefore no notices were necessary there.

All right. um Barra positions. Um so to ensure flexibility in making our budget decisions um regarding Barra, we are noticing everybody who is being paid by Barra as a FTE um not the raise. This does not impact the raise for um Barra. This is due to deficit spending and the need to absorb expenses from the now expiring educator effectiveness funding. that funding, the educator effectiveness funding currently includes uh the cost of our legally mandated teacher induction program. So, we need to uh make sure that we're still doing that. And we also have an increased cost of mentor stipens that are happening. Um and so we need to make sure that we're able to do those things. We also need to address support for intern teachers who do not qualify for induction. So, they do not get coaches in the way that our induction teachers do. Um, we need to make sure we're addressing our recruitment and retention, but not all of the funding, um, can come from Barl. We need to, um, look at other resources as well. All right. LBG, uh, learning recovery emergency block grant, um, and other, um, expiring grants. So, um, to make sure that we have flexibility in making our budget decisions, we've noticed, um, personnel who are being paid by dwindling or expiring grants. This includes that learning recovery emergency block grant, the educator effectiveness funds, and the arts, music, and instructional materials block grant. Next, we're talking about PTA and site funded positions. Uh, this is no different than in years past. All PTA funded positions are noticed, but they'll be rescended as soon as possible. That's specifically whenever PT whenever site PTAs communicate with business services and

provide the funds to the district. And then all site funded positions are noticed, but they'll be also be rescended as soon as possible. And that's through the school site council process. So school sites right now are about 80% of the way there throughout the year process. I believe they're required to hold I think it's five at minimum meetings and then typically in May is when they hold the meeting where the site budget is approved. Um and at that time they'll notify us uh and those will recommend to you all that the notices are rescended. And then finally information and support. So earlier Samantha talked about an FAQ that we have on the district website. We've provided that to all union leadership throughout the district for their members. Uh that was also discussed and provided at length whenever we met here in this space with leaders throughout the district. Uh at that time we're also talking with employees about ensuring that they're referring uh their staff to the employee assistance program as necessary. We recognize that this is a really difficult time that it's extremely challenging for folks to receive this news and they should be able to reach out and get support as necessary. We will be holding two differentformational webinars. One for classified staff on March 19th and one for certificated staff on March 26th. Both of those will be held via Google Meet and in collaboration and partnership with union leadership for each type of staff. The links are included in the FAQ and that again that's also on the district website. And then in terms of specific support for classified staff, our executive director of classified staff, Erin Arenz will be available to schedule meetings with impacted staff once final notices in May are approved to review their options, including bumping. And then I, Alex Billet, director of human resources, will be available for um

supporting certificated staff throughout the process as we go. And I believe that's our last line. Thank you. And we want to thank you for the time and um for listening to us and we look forward to coming back and presenting more information as needed.

Thank you so much. So, I just want to remind folks that um this is the the presentation today uh was part of the notice requirement um uh informing the public of um why we are sending these notices out and u it is just a presentation. Um we appreciate the work and um I don't think there's any kind of vote at this point, right? Yeah, there's a presentation and there'll be several other opportunities where the board will actually engage in in discussion. Thank you very much. And so uh we have extended public comment. Is there anyone here for public comment? I don't believe so. How about online? Nope. And so I I think we are adjourned.

Oh, I'm sorry. the extended board comments used as director Shinaski. I forgot it in my earlier board comment. So, for those of you in the back of the house and listening at home, I just want to once again um as we're hearing this presentation and talking about budget cuts and layoff notices, um remind folks that we are the fourth largest economy in the world and that this is a manufactured austerity problem and that we need to fully fund education and demand that um our legislators and our governor in Sacramento um commit to our schools, our communities, and our kids. Thanks. Thank you, sir.

Yeah. And that note, we adjourn. Thank you.