Berkeley Unified School District School Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. We are ready to begin. I'd like to call our meeting to order at 7.18 PM. Ms. Charis, can you please call the roll? And before you do, you may see a brand new face on the dais with us. And so can you please help us in welcoming, for the very first time, our new student director, Avante Alexander. Welcome. We're very, very excited to have you here. We hope that you feel welcomed and we're delighted that you're on the dais with us. So without further ado, Ms. Chavez, if you can please call the roll of the board.

Director Jennifer Shinoski. Here. Student Director Avonte Alexander.

Here.

Student Director Hannes Lattery. Here. Director Mike Chang.

Here.

Director Beatriz Leyva Cutler. Presidente. Vice President Jennifer Corn.

Present.

Presidenta Khadija Brown. Present. Thank you so much. At this time, is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda?

I'll move to do so.

It's been moved by Director Chang. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Vice President Corn. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of aye. Opposers? Abstentions? The ayes have it. The motion carries and this evening's agenda is approved. Vice President Corn, can you please report from closed session?

Yes, thank you. Closed session was called to order at 532 p.m. All board members were in attendance for closed session. Item 3.1.1 was moved by Korn, seconded by Leyva Cutler, and approved unanimously. Item 3.2 was an update that the board received. And for item 3.3, acceptance of the expulsion was moved by Director Leyva Cutler, seconded by Director Chang, and approved unanimously. And suspension of the expulsion was moved by Vice President Korn, seconded by President Brown, and approved unanimously. Thank you.

And thank you for that report. I'll turn it over to our superintendent for her comments.

Thank you Madam President. Good evening BUSD family. So yesterday, September 15th, marked the beginning of our month-long celebration of Latinx Heritage Month in BUSD. From September 15th through October 15th, we uplift the rich histories, cultures, traditions, and contributions of Latinx communities in Berkeley and across the country. This is a time to honor the many ways that Latinx individuals have enriched our schools, our community, and our society, and to celebrate the vibrant cultures and voices that continue to shape who we are. I also want to provide a brief update regarding a lead paint issue at John Muir Elementary School. We understand and share the concern that families and some of our staff have about this issue. As soon as staff was made aware of the lead paint concern, we responded immediately, engaged our environmental consultant and qualified industry professionals, and sent a communication to the John Muir families outlining what we're going to do, where we are, what we know, and our next steps. We are continuing to work through this as quickly and carefully as possible with the safety of our students and staff at the center of every decision we make. We've also finalized just as of this evening that we will be holding a community meeting at John Muir next Wednesday at 6 p.m., an in-person meeting again at John Muir next Wednesday at 6 p.m. to share additional information, to answer questions and to discuss our next steps. Again, we want to share this information with families who are not here via communication on tomorrow. I see a lot of folks in the room with signs, and so I wanted to make sure that I respond to and note that we did get a finding from the California Department of Education. I want to first start before noting that in previous meetings we have shared, I have shared, that as a district we're proud of the diversity of BUSD and that we are very clear that in order for us to enable and inspire our diverse student body, you should say it with me, to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world, next time say it with me, it requires that all of our babies feel safe, welcome, seen, and are well in our schools. This August, for those of you who might not know, a decision on the appeal from the California Department of Education noted ways that we can do better towards that end and directed that we implement a corrective action. Specifically, the action was to do additional trainings on anti discrimination. It appears that some folks might think that the board is going to be discussing or taking action on that particular appeal or corrective action tonight. That is not the case. However, I did want to make sure to share the information. The CDE's Education Equity UCP office is a civil rights protection mechanism aimed at supporting districts across the state and ensuring that anti-discrimination protections of all of our students are in place. The district BUSD has always and will continue to engage with organizations that are focused on equity, including the Education Equity UCP office, and comply with actions that the office names are necessary, especially when such actions are aimed at preventing discrimination in our schools and in our classrooms. This is on brand with who we are and who we have been as Berkeley Unified, where we honor and uplift our diversity while promoting our practices in love, acceptance, and inclusivity, recognizing, though, that we have diverse perspectives and that requires us to respect our students and each other's voices, activism, and experiences. Now, I've said countless times that BUSD is a district committed to continuous improvement, that we are a place of reflection and try to be as responsive as possible as an organization. And so I appreciate any opportunity for us to get feedback and further examine our practices, procedures and policies to ensure compliance with state and federal laws. But I want to be clear that doing so is not at all in contradiction with who we are as BUSD and that we will do so while maintaining and upholding our BUSD values. We have and we will continue to make sure that we train our staff on how to be inclusive, on how to make sure that our diverse student body again feels seen and heard and responded to, as well as making sure they know how to and continue to teach on controversial issues. The district also regularly updates its policies to ensure compliance with state and federal law. And these additional trainings that have been ordered by CDE, we do not see it as any way in contradiction to who we are and who we plan to continue to be. So again, the CDE decision does not limit our ability to engage our students in controversial issues in line with our district policy, and nothing from the CDE decision is inconsistent with our Berkeley values. As always, if you feel like your baby or you yourself has been impacted by discrimination or bias in BUSC, we do have a complaint website at complaints at berkeley.net for families and staff and students to report. None of that is on tonight's agenda, though, but I wanted to acknowledge it because I want to acknowledge you who are in the room on tonight's agenda. We have two very important topics. We have our board budget update as well as our teaching and learning update. So I do hope that all of you stay around for that. But before closing, Madam President, I do want to acknowledge that September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. And I want to just take a moment to acknowledge something that is deeply important to all of us in this room, as we have the privilege and awesome responsibility of caring for minds, hearts and spirits. We want to make sure that we recognize and that we know that health and well-being of our babies, of our staff and of every member of our community is of utmost importance to us and is a shared and collective responsibility that we take very seriously. We know that mental health matters, and we also know that sometimes people are carrying things that we cannot see, and even sometimes things that we don't know or understand. This month is an important reminder to check in to listen, to take concerns seriously, and to not make assumptions about who people are or why people are the way they are. And so I encourage each of us to, again, check in, to listen, and to check on one another, to make sure people know that they do not have to navigate difficult moments alone. And BUSD remain committed to creating schools where babies feel known, seen, supported, and connected. And for anyone who might be struggling, Anyone who knows someone who might be struggling, student or staff alike, or worried about someone they love, there's a suicide and crisis lifeline that's available across Alameda County, I think across California, perhaps. And that number is 988. So again, the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline. Sometimes one conversation, one check-in, or one person paying attention can make a real difference. Thank you, BUSC family, for the many ways that you will make and have made differences in the lives of so many students and families. And with that, President Brown, I'm done.

thank you superintendent for martel we will now move on to our first opportunity for public comment i just want to remind everyone that this public comment period is only 30 minutes long it's also a public comment period that is shared with our viewers who are online and so we always give priority to those who are here in the audience first and we'll give 20 minutes of our public comment period time to those who are here in person. And then we will move on to our online commenters who will have 10 minutes to speak online. As always, we prioritize our students first because they are the reason why we are here. And so our student speakers will speak first. And then I will do my best to get as many speakers from all of the different categories that you identified On your cards that are green to ensure that we hear from a wide variety of voices, but try to get in as many people as possible and in trying to get in as many speakers as possible. I'm going to limit our comment to 1 minute this evening so that we can try to hear from everyone. Okay. All right. We will begin our public comment period with our students first. And so I'd like to call up Yasmeen Nasir, followed by Felix, followed by Nava. And so each person will be given one minute to speak. And whenever you are ready, Ms. Chavez has already started the timer and we'll welcome your comments. Welcome.

I'll start with a quote, which is one day everyone will have always been against this. It means that when it's safe to speak, then you will speak. When there's nothing on the line, then you will stand up. That is unacceptable. My SWANA peers were brave to organize, to rally, to call for an end of the genocide of Palestine. Now they are condemned for their morals. What is happening here? Do you not want us to care about the murder of tens of thousands of children? Is that the lesson? How much longer can these gag orders be pushed on us? Israel is built on apartheid, racism, murder, and lies, and it's necessary for us to criticize that. Enough of these toxic exceptions for racists. Enough of this... Censorship to my education and enough of the sick Israeli oppression of Palestine. One day everyone will have been against this, but we're not waiting for that day. Free our schools and free Palestine.

Next we will hear from Felix. Felix, are you in the room with us? That's a wonderful question. So we always have a second opportunity for public comment. And so if Felix gets here, anyone who gets here after this public comment opportunity is over, we will then go to the second opportunity for public comment and we will be able to hear from them then. Thank you so much.

Nava?

OK.

I'm in ninth grade. For three years, I helped organize a swan assembly at King. And CDE and BUSD just ruled against us for it. That assembly was the best part of my whole school year. Dozens of us Arab, North African, South Asian, Muslim kids came together and built something we're actually proud of. Our culture gets treated like something to be scared of in movies, in the news, and even our textbooks. This is our chance to flip that. I showed pictures of my ancestors, so did other kids. Our ancestors survived wars, some were refugees. Because of that assembly, my whole school knew I was Muslim and knew my family survived the British partition of India, which a million people died in. And people would ask me questions. CDE took all of that and turned it into something a story about Israel and antisemitism. And it's not fair, especially when tens of thousands of kids are dying in Palestine. And I was supposed to just stay quiet about it. We're still figuring out who we are. That's the whole point about being this age. So what is BUSD actually gonna do to protect us and our stories?

We will now hear from Dan Bronson, followed by Ivy. No, we are done with our students for now. And then Lindsay no film.

C's finding is complete BS. To say that. Israelis are part of SWANA is like saying Pitcairn Islanders are part of the Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander community when they're the descendants of British settlers. Furthermore, the findings about the posters are absurd. One just says stop the genocide. The other says stop the bombing. are to say that they're anti-Semitic is anti-Semitic because that is to say that bombing people and perpetrating genocide are innate to Judaism, which they are not. They are only part of Zionism and there's a whole thousands of years history of Judaism before Zionism existed.

I'm switching topics.

Good evening, my name is Evie Colasi. I have a senior at Berkeley High, a BHS graduate, and a third grader at Rosa Parks. I'm here to talk about math adoption. California's math framework leaves acceleration and pathways to each district. BUSD has yet to meaningfully discuss this critical topic in public. The meeting of the math minds included 22 invited participants whose names are still not disclosed. It was not community engagement. We are already piloting K through five curricula without community alignment. We are choosing curriculum before deciding pathways and extensions for students learning by grade. In 2025, 44% of students exceeded in BUSD state standards for math, yet advanced math doesn't start until ninth grade. Families who can't afford it fill the gap or leave the district. Families who can't go without it. At UC San Diego, freshmen needing remedial math went from one in 200 in 2020 to one in eight in 2025. Most had gaps going back to middle school. Math is a language for every STEM career. Public school students deserve a real math education, and they deserve it in public school. Thank you. Thank you.

We will hear from Lindsey Noffelt, followed by Yvette Filarka, Lou Williams and Judy Greenspan. And before Lindsey begins, I'm going to ask if you can all make your way as close to the podium as possible. That way we can hear from each person after one after another and we can try to get in as many speakers as possible. So again, after Lindsey, we'll hear from Yvette Filarka, followed by Lou Williams and Judy Greenspan.

good evening my name is lindsay no felt living our berkeley values of equity and excellence means that every child can thrive but our math outcomes leaves too many students behind which begs the question what are we going to do differently right now the pilots promote the same failed inquiry heavy practice light ideas wrapped in new packaging Just as BUSD did with literacy, we need a thorough examination of our practices, replicated evidence, teaching methods, and sequencing of instruction to eliminate the ineffective, time-consuming techniques. The ideas that made Joe Bowler rich have a track record of failure, yet vendors continue selling these approaches and BUSD seems ready to put millions of public dollars into ideology. instead of outcomes. Choosing a curriculum is not neutral. We are talking about real children whose futures are shaped by how we teach them. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Yvette Filarka. I'm a teacher at Berkeley Independent Studies representing the Equal Opportunity Now, By Any Means Necessary Caucus. The California Department of Education's ruling against Berkeley Independent Studies, our posters in support of Palestine around a complaint that even include a complaint of one of our posters that stood against Islamophobia. The CDE's decision and ruling around the Swanna Club at King Middle School. and their right and the students' right to chant free Palestine to assert their own history is not just racist at its core, it is also anti-Semitic. This school district itself even found that our posters at Berkeley Independent Studies were so-called one-sided, which is an affront when it's clear that there's more than one side in this issue. There's people who support Palestine. There are Jews and Muslims as well as non-Jews and non-Muslims who stand against genocide. We will not be silent. We will challenge this decision. We plan on suing and we plan on mobilizing. We hope everyone here joins us in that. Thank you.

Thank you. Lou Williams?

Hello, school board. My father went to Berkeley High, graduated in 34. I graduated in 61. My kids graduated. 2000s, my grandkids about to start, so I have good credentials here I think. So I'm questioning what was said about not a contradiction between Berkeley values and the CDE policy. It's an absolute contradiction. You know, there's a genocide going on. Whether people recognize it or not or want to call it a different name, call it mass murder, call it mass killing, whatever you want to call it, it is happening in the world. And our young people object profoundly, the same way when I was young I objected to the Vietnam War. So, you know, it may cause discomfort, you know. So, you know, but that's okay. Let the truth come out.

Thank you. After Judy Greenspan, we'll hear from Rachy Lee, followed by Megan Werner, and then Vanessa Vega. So if you'd like to please go as close as you can to the podium. Whenever you're ready, Judy.

I can go. Okay, so I am Judy Greenspan, and I am a Jewish parent. Both my daughters went through the Berkeley school system. I am currently an Oakland teacher. And the reason I say that is because I'm here representing Bay Area Labor for Palestine, but I'm also on the executive board of the Oakland Education Association. We are facing the same mandates from the CDE that you're facing here in BUSD. And I think that The Band-Aids call not for obedience, but they really call for civil disobedience. Because they're talking about limiting student freedom of speech, they're talking about, as a Jew, I do not believe that antisemitism should be exceptionalized above anti-black racism. It should not be a higher concern than the ICE raids that are happening all over this country and the mass incarceration of immigrants. It should not be above the treatment of transgender people. I believe that we should unite and fight what the CD is saying.

Thank you so much. Felix, excuse me one second, Richie. Felix has now joined us, and so Felix, we give our students priority to speak first, so please go ahead, and Richie, you may begin after Felix is done. Welcome.

Hi, I am a seventh grader in BUSD. I am Jewish. My teacher has a free Palestine sign in our classroom. I totally support that sign. As a Jewish student, it makes me feel safe to know that my teacher wants to protect others from violence. I am not naming my teacher or my school because I know they could face a complaint investigation, and I want them to focus their time on teaching about world history. not defending themselves. I know other Jewish families are saying that support for Palestine is making them uncomfortable, but discomfort is a part of the learning process. For example, we have puberty ed coming up in science. I think people are going to be really uncomfortable then. But it's necessary to learn key information. Similarly, we have to learn about Palestine because kids are dying and starving. And I completely reject that Jews like me should be protected from learning about this.

Good evening everyone, my name is rachie Lee and i'm a parent of two students in the usd i'm looking forward to the curriculum teams. update tonight and review the slides in advance and commend the team for rightly emphasizing writing complex text. Conceptual understanding, problem solving, collaboration, perseverance. The very skills that we just heard of discomfort that students need to develop for themselves. But what is happening with AI right now is undermining these efforts. BUSD students freely get on ChatGPT and Cloud during the school day, and some of them are asking the chatbots to do the problem solving for them. This is not acceptable, but it's not the student's fault. Okay, New York City has prohibited student-facing generative AI through eighth grade and limits high school use to approved teacher-vetted programs. BUSD should act now, we can't wait. Restrict unrestricted student-facing AI so that we can actually strengthen teaching and learning. Thank you.

hi good evening superintendent and members of the board of education i'm a district parent of a middle schooler i'm here to express serious concerns regarding student data privacy and how our district handled third-party edtech consent last year third-party apps went unchecked by the district in my middle schoolers account this year when students use the district account to log back into third-party apps like canva pinterest spotify they encounter that they're blocked. They encounter a prompt warning that signing in shares sensitive personal information. It says, how Google helps you sign into Canva, sign in with Google. When you sign in with Google to sign into your Canva account, you're sharing some sensitive info with Canva. By placing these complex consent prompts directly in front of minors, the district effectively shifts data privacy vetting onto our children. Why are parents not being asked for explicit consent? Thank you.

Thank you. Following Vanessa, we will hear from Alisa, Annie, Ed, Skyler.

Good evening. On June 17th, in the board meeting tech update, BUSD announced that an AI working group has been meeting over the 25-26 school year. I respectfully request for this BUSD AI working group to be inclusively open to any member of the BUSD committee who wants to serve, including students. And for their work to be transparent in the spirit of developing a shared understanding with our community about how AI is being used at BUSD by students, teachers and admin and staff. I also request for families to be able to provide informed consent and to be able to opt out of AI services where their children's data are concerned. We already know cloud and chat JPT are used by students on school computers. What should we be teaching kids about AI and should kids be using AI in school? When your child's data are shared with generative AI or third-party data vendors, it can be sold or used however they want once it's de-identified. Data doesn't need to be personally identifiable to be valuable. The data that kids share with data harvesters can be triangulated with other data such as location, time, credit card purchases, so a model can know a lot about them without any personally identifying information.

Thank you so much.

My name is Alisa Novick, and I'm a Jewish parent here. I have a 12th grader in Berkeley High School. As a Jewish parent, well, my father and grandmother were Polish Holocaust survivors from Warsaw, so my family knows about anti-Semitism, and there's nothing anti-Semitic about saying stop at genocide. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Annie Johnston. I taught history at Berkeley High School for 22 years and both my daughters went through Berkeley High. I'm here because Berkeley has a history of standing up for our beliefs. Berkeley was the first to start African American studies, ethnic studies. Berkeley has a stance to hold onto in the world around free speech, around what it is we believe in that is the right thing to do. When we get told that we should do something like use anti-Semitism training that's developed by the ADL that's really about promoting that we're conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, criticism of a genocide as some kind of political polarized, imbalanced thing, we have to say no, and we can.

Thank you. We will hear from Ed, followed by Jonas Lamateri-Brownell.

Hello to the board. My name is Ed Sklar. I'm a Berkeley resident. I have three kids who are going through or have gone through the Berkeley public school system. My two oldest sons graduated from Berkeley High School. I think that their excellent experience at Berkeley High School is what prepared them for college. And I thank Berkeley Public Schools for that. Their brother, however, my youngest son, who is currently a junior, at Berkeley High School is having less of a wonderful time. And the reason is that he's placed in the International Baccalaureate program and the district won't let him out. The IB program is an incredibly academic, rigorous program. While he was a strong student, he simply doesn't want to be there. He was placed there in his sophomore year. He tried to get out and couldn't. And at the end of his sophomore year, he re-entered the lottery and was told that he could not leave the program. I very much believe that Berkeley is trying to accomplish a system where the most academically rigorous programs are not limited to kids from affluent families. He is a kid from a relatively affluent family, and I would like him to get out. I'd like an explanation as to why he can't get out of the IB program, and I just want to let the board know about it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And we have reached 748 PM and I did my best and so I'm sorry to the four speakers who will not be able to speak in person, but we will have our last in person public comment with Jonas and then we will move on to our online commenters. Thank you all for understanding.

Jonas Lemaitre Brownell, BUSD's Herrick Hospital teacher. Free Palestine, freedom from being bombed, from military snipers shooting kids, genocide. Free Palestine, free, free Palestine. Dear California Department of Education, according to your recent ruling, my chanting free Palestine makes me a perpetrator of antisemitism. California Department of Education, you ruled that when our students chant free Palestine, our students are showing that they are antisemitic. And the proper thing for us Berkeley Unified educators to do is to shut our students up, or at least try to. But I'm sorry, California Department of Education, I will not do what you have ordered. I will not speak hurtfully to children. I will not tell my Palestinian students they are anti-Semitic when they call for freedom for their land and people. I support our students chanting and advocating for freedom.

Thank you. We will move on to our public commenters, our online commenters, excuse me. We will begin with Emma, followed by Paula, followed by Ti-Sung, and then Stephanie, Deborah, Dahlia, Hillary, and we will end with Christina. May you please promote Emma?

Good evening, board and superintendent. My name is Emma Swashay. I'm the mom of a fifth grader and an eighth grader in the district. About a month ago, I came for public comment and told you how, for the last two years, my eighth grader has racked up countless hours watching Netflix, playing the video game Five Nights at Epstein's, and scrolling Pinterest during class time. I asked BSD to adopt common sense tech policies to help keep kids on track to learn. This week, I heard directly from my fifth graders teacher that he actually carves out class time for his students to use their Chromebooks for unsupervised free play. These are 10 year olds and they're allowed by their teacher to watch YouTube, surf the Internet or use chat GPT on their own, unsupervised during class time instead of instruction. I think we can all agree that there's no educational justification for 10 year olds to binge watch YouTube shorts or play with ChatGPT for 30 minutes during class. In fact, OpenAI's own use policies say that ChatGPT should not be used by children under 13 and that parental consent is required for 13 to 18 year olds. So why is this happening in my child's class? For one reason, because BUSD has failed

Thank you, Emma and all of those who are online. I do apologize. It is hard for you to be able to see this stopwatch that's behind me. And so if you Miss Chavez will put one on. But if you could also those of you who are getting ready to speak, if you could just put your own one minute timer on, that would be great. That way, although I try to do it politely, that way I don't have to interrupt you. Okay, Paula, whenever you are ready, you may begin. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. We can't see you, but we can hear you.

Okay. My camera's not working. Okay. Anyway. Ready?

Yes, ma'am.

OK, good evening, board members. My name is Paula Phillips. I'm a laid off employee as a PD coordinator. I'm here to address a troubling trend. The USD is consistently bypassing qualified permanent staff in favor of substitute workers, violating the merit rules of the Ed Code, undermining your workforce, and destroying morale. Permanent employees know and understand district culture and prove their dedication daily. Yet when vacancies open, whether for advancement, temporary roles or reemployment after layoffs and medical leaves, we are sidelined so positions can be given to temporary workers. Look at tonight's position control report. A new executive assistant position funded from the superintendent's budget was promised to a substitute, the same substitute who should have been released when a permanent employee returned after four years of costly litigation. After spending hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars on a legal battle per rule you lost, district leadership simply created a backdoor role to keep the temporary worker. Creating new positions to bypass permanent staff isn't sound management. It is outright favoritism. Does the superintendent truly need another EA or is this role custom made to circumvent proper procedures? I urge you to hold cabinet leadership accountable and reinforce transparent merit-based hiring before you're faced with another writ of mandate. Thank you.

Thank you so much. T. Sung followed by Stephanie. To some you are muted.

Hi, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can. Welcome.

Hi, sorry about that. This is Chisung Wu. I'm a BUSD parent. I would like to mention private math tutoring. Many families in Berkeley are finding workarounds when it comes to learning math. And this is probably among the best explanations, one of the best explanations for our chronic and growing racial education gap. We have a large selection of tutoring centers, all apparently doing quite well with nice storefronts, classroom manners, Kumon, Mathnasium, Linnemood Bell, which is a block from Chez Panisse. Berkeley Math Circles has about 606 elementary students with 500 families on the wait list. Math Taught the Right Way has up to 250 students. Others include the Russian School of Math, the Art of Problem Solving, UC Scout, and Silicon Valley High School. This doesn't count the private tutors hired by many families and not the least the countless hours caregivers spend online in order to help their kids with math. It's very likely that over 10% of USC families pay hundreds of dollars per month, their kids spending up to 10 additional hours per week on their math education. With such high levels of participation, this is not just enrichment for high achievers, it's the privatization of essential math education that our community needs to address. Thank you.

I thank you as well. We will now move on to Stephanie, followed by Deborah.

All right. Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Welcome.

My name is Stephanie Schaudl, and I'm a BUSD social studies teacher, and I'd like to just offer a teacher's perspective. I have been to numerous trainings that have been labeled anti-discrimination, but really have focused on equating anti-Semitism with with discussion about current events that include Palestine and Israel. I'm deeply concerned about the CDE ruling and support was so incredibly moved by the young people who already said everything so eloquently. But as a teacher, what I want to demand is that the district take a bold and necessary stance. Apparently it's bold. to support, to truly support our SWANA students. And that includes looking at the actual instances of Islamophobia that are so normalized within Berkeley that our students and staff, the handful of staff who are in that category have to face. And if we're gonna have anti-discrimination trainings, they have to include discussion about honest focus on Islamophobia and removing this equation of criticism of a nation state with a religion. I believe that the majority of Berkeley families and my students certainly are in line with this. And I would like the board to take a bold stance in response to the CDE decision. That is just.

Thank you, Stephanie. We'll move on to Deborah Russell.

oh hi can you hear me yes we can welcome oh sorry hi my name is deborah russell um i'm a resident of berkeley and a excuse me parent of a first grader at john muir elementary school where the lead abatement is all of a sudden happening um i'm also a professional engineer and in my um professional opinion, I want to strongly advise that an alternative evaluation is performed to determine whether it's recommended to remove the lead paint or to leave in place. In my opinion, it's safer to leave the paint in place, perhaps sealing with another layer of paint instead of displacing the paint, aerosolizing the lead and exposing the students and faculty. I've sent the questions to the assistant superintendent. I'm very much looking forward to the uh community meeting last week but my questions are why are we doing this right now all of a sudden a rush job can we not have an alternative analysis can we verify the environmental contractor is lead abatement certified can we confirm that it's permitted by cdph and in align with epa's lead-based paint reservation repair and painting wall etc thank you thank you dahlia followed by hillary

Can you hear me now?

We can. Welcome. Oh, great. Thank you so much. So if you look around at the teenage students that are there speaking tonight, and good for you guys because you look very proud and confident and as you should being in an environment like this. But I can't help asking why you don't see any students that are pro-Israel speaking. The answer is because they know that if they speak up, they get targeted, they feel intimidated, and they're afraid. And this is exactly why we needed the CDE ruling because it didn't just come out of a vacuum. These problems went to the CDE for a ruling because we can't handle them correctly here. So just like you said in the beginning that you want all of our babies to feel safe and supported and included, I feel the same way. We have to honestly ask ourselves, what is creating a hostile environment? And when people say we won't be silenced, we're here for school. This isn't for politics. So what do we need to do to make the students in school feel safe and let schools return to being places of education, cooperation, and working together as a community?

We will move on to Hillary, followed by our last public commenter, which will be Christina Harp.

You may unmute yourself, Hillary.

Sorry about that. Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Welcome. Okay, great. Hi. I'm a parent of two BUSD students at DHS and one recent grad, and I, along with many families, welcome the CDE's recent decision requiring corrective action in response to complaints of discrimination at BHS and King Middle School. Students should never be taught that it is acceptable to erase a people, a country, or student's identity from the classroom, yet that happened at King. Israel was literally erased from a map during a school celebration of the region, and it happened multiple times. Teachers absolutely have the right to teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but students deserve facts, history, context, and multiple perspectives, not political slogans or one-sided narratives. The CDE ruling makes clear that BUSD has responsibility to address these concerns. They require training is an important step toward ensuring that every student, including Jewish and Israeli students, can learn in an environment free from discrimination. So thank you.

Our final public commenter is Christina Harbaugh.

Hi. So I was the advisor for the King Swanna Club and I helped with the Swanna Assembly for three years. I was the, I was helped a little bit with the 2026 assembly. You just want to state for the record, it did make an effort to include Jewish students. Judaism was explicitly named and recognized in the assembly as having historical significance in Jerusalem. Israel was on one of the maps, even though not a single map in BUSD includes Gaza or the West Bank. And I know this from subbing in multiple schools. Israel is not an Arab country. It does not need to be celebrated during Arab American Heritage Month. The slides accurately describe current events that deeply impact Arab and SWANA students. Those students should not be forced to celebrate a colonial entity that is actively murdering their people. The CDE ruling is an act of forced normalization and BUSD needs to continue to fight it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all so much to all of our public commenters. for coming out this evening for sharing and for respectfully sharing your viewpoints. We do invite you before you get up to please stay for the rest of the board meeting. We have a special presentation that will take place at this time. So I'd like to invite Benjamin Goff as well as Stephanie Allen to the podium for this special presentation. Welcome.

All right, good evening members of the board Berkeley community Benjamin golf program supervisor for garden and cooking with the district and here I have my.

Stephanie Allen actually his partner in crime.

So we're here tonight because we wanted to acknowledge Superintendent Anikia Ford-Morthell for your support of our Cans to Carrots fundraiser for the Garden and Cooking Program.

When we first came up with this idea, we weren't sure anybody was going to go along with it. So we had a conversation with the superintendent. And her enthusiastic response convinced us that maybe this was a good idea. And I have to say that over the summer, while schools were pretty much not involved my neighbors and friends have flooded me with cans and wine bottles that i've been hauling down to the transfer station so i'm looking forward now to handing it over to john so that he can transport if you what we what we do is collect cans and the money goes to the gardening program so the cans support carrots And we have an award.

All right, we will continue on with our agenda. Congratulations, Kansas Secure Champion on your award. We will continue with our agenda and move on to committee comments. Is there anyone here for committee comments? I believe we should have one person online who will make comments for ASAC. Okay. Give us just one moment to promote. In the meantime, Dan, can you help me close those doors? Yeah, I'm asking you to. All right, can you please promote Antoinette?

OK. Antoinette, can you please unmute yourself? Oh, I see you are being promoted now.

Cool.

You may unmute yourself, Antoinette. We're ready to receive your comment.

Good evening, board director, superintendent Ford-Morthell, district staff, and members of the Berkeley community. On behalf of ASAC and members of the Superintendent's African American Success Advisory Committee, known as ASAC, I am here to give an update. ASAC is beginning its fourth year of service in Berkeley Unified with purpose, optimism, and clear eyes. We are encouraged by the spirit of Berkeley Rising, and we are also clear that rising requires more than a theme. It requires shared responsibility, disciplined follow up, disciplined follow through, and the courage to look honestly at the Black students and families experience across the district. This past Saturday, we held the fifth annual Black to School event at Willard Middle School. It was a beautiful day, both literally and figuratively. Families, students, school leaders, district staff, community partners, literacy organizations, the City of Berkeley, Berkeley Public Library, AASF partners, and nonprofit organizations came together to help families begin the school year connected, informed, and supported. We thank the Willard team for hosting us and every person who helped make this day possible. We also want to name the work behind the gathering. Black2School was supported by posters at every school, direct emails to families, 875 postcards mailed to homes, principals including the event and school announcements, OFI specialists sending messages and making phone calls, community partners sharing the invitation, and ASAC members reaching into their own networks. That matters because too often the first question asked about Black family engagement is, how many people came? The numbers matter, but the number alone does not tell the story. It does not measure the trust building. It does not measure the outreach. It does not measure the fact that the families are balancing work schedules, caregiving, transportation, school transitions, and all other priorities that shape whether they can attend one Saturday event. It does not measure the importance of a new family walking into the space for the first time and leaving with information, connection, and a reason to come back. Black2School is not simply an event where people sit and receive information. It is a village building space. It is a place where families share, ask questions, connect with one another, meet district and community partners, and begin the year knowing they are not expected to navigate Berkeley Unified alone. The fact that new families attended matters. The fact that families had access to resources matters. the fact that the invitation reached homes schools and community networks matters at our september 9th asac meeting superintendent ford morthel grounded us in the district's current priorities and asked us to think carefully about what should feel different for black students and families as a result of this work that message was important because it reminded us that information is not enough if it does not reach families and priorities not real in and priorities are not real if families do not experience them this is where ASAC is asking the board for explicit partnership We ask the board to continue investing in the African-American success framework and to help ensure that every school treats this work as district work, not as a responsibility of one committee or one office. We ask that principals, district departments, and school communities continue to actively support outreach to Black families. We ask that Black family engagement be evaluated with the same seriousness Fairness, context, and respect apply to other district priorities. We ask that success not be reduced to a single attendance count, but understood through the full picture of outreach, access, relationship building, new family connection, and sustained partnership over time. We are not asking for a lower standard. We are asking for a fuller and fairer one. Our next meeting is on October 14th. Thank you.

Thank you as well. We will now move on to union comments. Is there anyone here for union comments? Seeing none, we will move on to board member comments. As always, we will invite our student board members, student board directors, excuse me, to speak first. And, Avonte, since you are our newest student board member, I'll invite you to speak first if you'd like. Okay. Would you like to go first, Anna? And then you'll go second, okay?

Hello. So this past Monday, the Youth Commission hosted board members Korn and Chonowski. We discussed the lack of education on Israel and Palestine in BUSD that students had articulated in the survey that the Youth Commission conducted last year. The survey was of students in Berkeley middle schools and high schools regarding education on the topic in relevant classes. The results found that an overwhelming number of students believed they were not being taught enough in schools on Israel and Palestine and wanted to learn more, especially compared to the influx of information they had seen on social media. Through this week's meeting, we were able to gain insight on what prevents teachers from being able to teach about the subject and what the restrictions and guidelines are around it. I wanted to say thank you again for Director Shanasky and Korn and for attending our meeting and acting as a helpful resource as the Youth Commission works to improve the situation. Thank you.

Avonte, would you like this?

Hello, my name's Avonte Alexander. I'm a senior at BTA. And this is my first time on a school board, so I low-key have no idea what's going on, really. So I'm here to just learn. And then hopefully, the next meeting I'm here, I can give a better opinion on what's going on.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

We just pretend like we do.

I would like to start by reminding folks that we have a couple of back to school nights next week. So Berkeley Independent Study is Wednesday and Berkeley High School has their back to school night on Thursday. So please attend. And then I want to just make a couple of comments about the about the CDE decision that was recently brought to light. I was also surprised by the decision, but the decision made by the Department of Education, not BUSD does not stop our commitment to what the superintendent labeled love, acceptance and inclusivity. And I'd also like to reiterate our commitment to student activism throughout our schools. The superintendent testified in front of Congress, what's it been a year and a half ago now, and continues to engage in support of all of these values, Berkeley values. President Brown and I attended that hearing before Congress because we also wanted to stand in solidarity with her and with those values. It was courageous for her to stand up and it was courageous for many of the students that spoke today to also stand up. And even though everyone's gone, maybe you're listening somewhere. And I'd like to encourage everyone that came here to speak out to really use their energy and activism to continue to engage over Assembly Bill 715, which allowed for the types of decisions and lawsuits that folks were here to discuss. And I would like to welcome Avante to our board. And I would also like to thank Hannah for including Director Korn and I in that discussion. And really, it gave me a lot of hope about the future of our country and our world. So thank you.

Thank you. Director Liverpillar.

I'd like to thank the superintendent for welcoming the celebratory month that we have. I don't know, many of you know in 68, the United States under Lyndon Johnson began the celebrating the Hispanic Heritage Month, which now is Latinx Heritage Month here for us in Berkeley. to honor the history, culture, and contributions of people from Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. And then it surprisingly was Ronald Reagan who extended it to 30 days celebration in 1988. Hard to believe. We have 22% of our population is Latino. Latino, Hispanic, and we as a district celebrate through the continued focus on student achievement and excellence and the engagement and the welcoming of our students and our families to our schools. Not only our Latino, Hispanic students, but all of our students and teachers. A sense of unity of history and values grounded in grounds our students. excuse me, scroungs our students, gives them perspectives, and gives them a lens to view their world. I encourage families to talk to their children. How many generations has your family been in California? Tell a story of your family's early memories. Last year, I was fortunate enough to work for six months with Latino BHS graduates. Back in the 70s, they graduated. And curating an exhibit of 100 years of Latinos in Berkeley. It gave me a sense of pride through, though I wasn't born in Berkeley, I learned that many of our families have been part of Berkeley's fabric and vibrancy to this day and have third and fourth generation Berkeley students in our schools. So today I celebrate this legacy of families who have come to Berkeley schools, graduated and seen improvements in our education services and the welcomes that they receive. We have more work to do as we have seen and we hear, but I trust that our superintendent, our school board and our staff are committed to continually improve our district and I'm fortunate to work with them all and with you all. This group has made, we've also made a video of this exhibit and soon we'll be able to distribute it, but we're working on it. I also want to thank teacher Jessica Hahn from the adult school for inviting me to an adult school government class last week and for her students asking questions about what the school board does. I was also asked a few questions to which I can answer and relay them to the superintendent can there be an adult school representative on the school board? We don't have that in our policies, but it's something to consider. Also, if an adult student from the adult school wants to speak to the board, can they be also first with our students? And yes, they can also be first in line to speak to the board. So I welcome that visit and all of our adult school students who came to who are pursuing their education. And in some of those cases, they were Berkeley students that we failed and are going back to school. So it makes me proud that they have given us another try to get their diploma. Thank you.

Thank you. We will move on to Director Chang and then Director Korn.

Thank you so much. I want to also welcome our new student director, Mr. Alexander. And also it took me time to figure out what we're doing. Sometimes I'm so confused up here. If you see me squinting, it might be because I'm confused, not my vision. I do support also and I want to amplify the superintendent's comments on the mission and the core values of our district and of our town and of our community, what we've been calling Berkeley values. In light of even formal findings by governmental jurisdictions, we are still here to provide students and community and families an inclusive and welcoming and open environment while also ensuring that we continue to For example, implement our controversial issues policy. It is a challenging task for not just folks at a governance level, but of course, for folks on the ground, the students themselves, young people who in this generation are really trying to understand the challenges of the world and how to engage on it in a manner that is also inclusive. So that's always been a challenge. And I think Berkeley has always been a place where we've been able to do so in a manner that is authentic and is open hearted. And us talking about these controversial issues in your classrooms, contesting them, on all sides with the multiple stakeholders and running them through process such as the California Department of Education, whether we agree or disagree with the outcome is an example of how Berkeley really has always grappled with these type of issues that are so relevant to each of our generations and to our experiences today. So I thank you for bringing your hearts and minds and for continuing to be courageous. So thank you so much for that. And without much other ado, I'm looking forward to the discussion today and pass it on to Director Korn. Thanks.

The problem with going second to last is that you end up just repeating what everyone else already said. So I will be brief. I first want to also welcome Avante. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm excited that you're sitting next to me. I am also, to echo Director Chinoski, really grateful for the opportunity to join the Youth Commission this week and get to collaborate with the young people led by Hannah on that commission and the good work that they're doing. And I also really want to acknowledge the passionate public commenters this evening, particularly the students who joined us tonight. I want to echo Director Leyva Cutler's comments about the importance of Latinx Heritage Month And I'm really looking forward to all the ways that our students and our families will be celebrated and lifted up by our schools this month. And I will just say that I'm looking forward to tonight's presentations about teaching and learning and about the budget, which is important.

All right, we'll move on to my comments. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for those of you who spoke to the Board of Education this evening and who always speak to the Board of Education. Your comments this evening do not fall on deaf ears, and so we appreciate you taking the time out and taking time away from your families and your loved ones to be here to speak to us on very important topics and issues. Last weekend, I had the privilege and the honor of attending the Black to School event that was hosted at Willard Middle School. The comments this evening from ASAC really highlighted it more beautifully and more eloquently than I could, but I will say that it was a tremendous turnout, a well-organized event. and just a great time to be in community with not just students and their families, but with other organizations that represent the Berkeley community. There were tables there all the way from the rent board to Healthy Black Families and everything in between. And so it was really great to be in community with folks on Saturday. And if I just could take a moment of personal privilege to thank Healthy Black Families who took the time to create coloring pages of black leaders in Berkeley and created a coloring page of our superintendent and of me, which is actually so cute. I did take it home and I'm going to frame it and then I'll let Camden color one and I'll frame that as well because I think that's so sweet. Anyway, back to Black to School. It was an amazing event. The last time we were on the dais, I invited as many families as were able to come and visit. And so it was nice to see some of those families who were there. But I do want to identify that a lot of families were able to make it because of the mass communication efforts that happened for that event. And so I want to take the time to thank all of those who work behind the scenes to make sure that happens. There are a lot of events that are upcoming and my board colleagues have already named them as well as a lot of events that have already passed and I do just want to highlight what the superintendent shared earlier in terms of the town hall meeting that will take place next Wednesday for John Muir. We have been receiving lots of emails regarding this instance and we also received some comments this evening. during public comment period and so I really would like to invite all of our families to please come to the town hall meeting not just to receive information but to also get your important questions answered in real time. Finally, I want to speak directly about the recent decision that a lot of folks came out to speak about tonight and I want to just state first that we have to We have to be very careful to let our students know that regardless of the decision that was made, it's important that they, number one, do not lose their voices. Number two, do not shy away from controversial, even painful or politically charged conversations. And I want them to know that they have the right to ask questions, to express their views, and the right to organize, protest and to engage in difficult conversations about the world around them. At the same time, I think it's also important to know that we have a responsibility to maintain a school environment where all of our students feel safe, all of our students are heard, all of our students can feel seen and respected and feel included. And those two principles are not, in my opinion, mutually exclusive. Our answer cannot be just to silence our students because we as adults are uncomfortable with what is going on in the world and our commitment to free expression means that we can't ignore conduct that may make others feel uncomfortable, intimidated or unsafe. The recent decision in particular is hard for me and i'm just going to be honest as a board member because it is our responsibility to understand the rights of our our students understand the rights of those within our district and understand that it is not appropriate to make people feel targeted or harassed but it was also not appropriate to shy away or silence issues and It is not appropriate to not treat people with dignity and with respect. Our students are watching how we respond to controversial issues. They are learning from us and learning whether democracy means only hearing speech that makes us feel comfortable or if democracy actually means that we're learning how to protect and support others' views, viewpoints, their rights. and how they are feeling even when we disagree. It is my firm belief that Berkeley Unified School District should be a place where students can learn how to have those difficult conversations and not a place where they will shy away from difficult conversations. Out of this decision that was made, I think it hopefully will encourage our community to come together and to strengthen together. It will encourage us to think about training, not just for the students in our school district, but also for the adults in our school district. And ultimately, I hope it will help to strengthen our commitment to student voice, strengthen our commitment to free speech, strengthen our commitment to speech without hate, and strengthen our commitment to supporting and uplifting rather than silencing. We have a couple of other agenda items that are going to happen this evening, and I look forward to engaging in them, so I'll save my comments for when that time comes. But we will now move on to our consent items. Is there a motion to approve this evening's consent calendar? That means that we cannot start before 830. Yeah. So again, is there a motion to approve this evening's consent calendar? I move that we approve the consent calendar. It's been moved by Vice President Corn. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Seconded by Director Shenoski. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of aye. Aye. Opposers? Abstentions? The ayes have it and the motion carries. All right, we will move on to our only discussion item for this evening. And it is the discussion item on teaching and learning. It is an update for our teaching and learning discussion item. And so I am going to invite our team to join us here at the dais. for this evening's presentation. This evening's presentation just as an overview will really highlight what academic excellence can look like in practice, key improvement efforts that are already underway, and the work that they will do to strengthen teaching and learning in our school district. And it will also focus on how Berkeley Unified School District's focal students are being centered As the district continues to work towards its three by five target. And so without further ado, I'd like to welcome our team who engages in early learning literacy and mathematics as our fall teaching and learning update. Welcome.

Thank you, President Brown. Good evening, board directors, student directors, President Brown and our superintendent. I am very pleased to be joined by my colleagues this evening to share our annual fall teaching and learning update. Before we begin, we'll take a moment to introduce ourselves.

Good evening, board members. Rose James, literacy coordinator. Hi, Beatriz, nice to see you.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Madeline Rogan. I'm the principal of early childhood for Berkeley Unified School District.

And hello, I'm Mandy Hubbard, the TK5 math TSA for Berkeley.

And I'm Chris Albeck, and I have the privilege of serving our district as the director of curriculum and instruction. In Berkeley Unified, our mission is to enable and inspire our diverse student body to achieve academic excellence and make positive contributions to the world. In this evening's presentation, we are leaning into this mission statement and highlighting the ways in which academic excellence looks in three domains, early education, literacy, and mathematics. We will illustrate the ongoing work to support academic excellence and highlight how our efforts are centering our focal students. To achieve our ambitious BUSD mission, we have our theory of improvement that you see before you. We believe that in order to enact change and to accelerate outcomes, that we have multiple levers and buckets of works that must happen simultaneously to produce the outcomes that not only our mission statement outlines, but our three by five target calls for. As you will hear from my colleagues, the themes of tier one instruction, collaboration, continuous improvement, et cetera, will emerge. We believe that when our theory of improvement is implemented, we can continue to uplift the brilliance and potential of every single BUSD student, and close patterns of predictability that currently exist for our students furthest from opportunity. With that said, we know that this work starts early, and I mean really early, and to share what academic excellence looks like in BUSD's earliest childhood education classrooms, I'll pass it off to Principal Rogan.

Thank you so much. So in the early childhood world, we ask ourselves what does it mean to be academically excellent as a 2.7-year-old, which is where we begin. and it's really about fostering school readiness skills but in early childhood we think of those school readiness skills specifically as being confident being curious and being caring and for us how do we foster those skills of becoming confident and what does it mean to be confident as an early learner and that is about developing certain skills pre-academic skills that are math related, such as early number sense and phonological awareness, which we do in multiple ways. But the most important part of it is that it's integrated through play. And we do that because that's mandated from the state of California, that play-based learning is really what early learning is about. But we also do that because we know that to be academically excellent is to know how to be a friend. It's to know how to regulate yourself in class. It's to know how to advocate for yourself. And all of those skills are what then prepares our students to enter transitional kindergarten or kindergarten and continue and live out the BUSD mission. So we've adopted creative curriculum in the early education landscape in pre-K last year, and we're doing another adoption this year of a new social-emotional learning program called Kamochis, which is really about giving our youngest learners a universal language to be able to recognize their emotions and become more self-aware. Creative curriculum is also about play, and it's project-based learning, but it's really about amplifying play in the classroom. And a lot of this is really about protecting academic instructional time so that they can build the cognitive stamina required for elementary school. And then we ask ourselves how our efforts made to increase and support academic excellence in early education. I'm super excited to talk about this. This is a little bit new for the district and I'm very passionate about it. So this year we are implementing trauma informed practices through trauma responsive professional development and trauma responsive coaching. And that is happening for pre-K and TK because we recognize we share the same ages. TK has now kids turning four. We also have three-year-olds. We also have four-year-olds. So it's also about aligning in the early learning landscape for BUSD. Trauma responsive practices is really about shifting from managing children's behavior to understanding what's happening on a biological and emotional level for a child so that we can create healthy systems and that children can, again, learn how to regulate with co-regulation. So a lot of it is also supporting our staff Every TK teacher, every TK IA, every pre-K teacher, all the preschool IAs will have a trauma-responsive coach that will observe the classroom and then work with them in supportive, non-evaluative conversations about what's happening in the classroom. The other piece that I'm really looking forward to is a leadership meeting that will happen once a month with the coaches, and site leaders are invited to join that, and district leaders are invited to join. so that we're talking about the system itself and how the system itself can be more trauma responsive. The other piece that I'm excited about is it's aligning really nicely with some social emotional learning that's happening in elementary schools and middle schools this year. And so the two together feel to me to be, again, laying the foundation in early learning, but then supporting the work for students as they age. And then, so this quote I put up here is from the Center for Optimal Brain Integration, which is Julie Kurtz is leading the trauma-responsive work for our district this year along with many other trauma-responsive coaches. I grabbed this quote from her. because really implementing trauma informed practices is an explicit act of educational equity because it ensures that children experiencing trauma are given the foundational support they need to enter kindergarten and transitional kindergarten. And we know that trauma affects children who are living in poverty, children who were trying to close the opportunity gap before it expands. So anybody experiencing trauma is going to be is going to benefit from this, from the trauma-responsive work, and that's because chronic stress, when it floods the brain with cortisol, which disrupts the prefrontal cortex, which interrupts the ability to learn, and so getting students to academic grade level in pre-K and TK is imperative for the rest of their academic career, and the commitment to our earliest students is a commitment to our focal students, thank you.

Good evening. So tonight, I want to share a peek into classrooms to see what academic excellence looks like in literacy. As you know, we are in our second year of implementation of our new curriculum in K-5. And at the end of last year, after collecting a lot of qualitative and some quantitative data on students and teacher experience in the language arts program, we have adopted a focus on writing. and this focus actually takes us through eighth grade so also at the middle schools and there's been a big sort of pedagogical shift in the way that writing is taught in the new curriculum and it asks teachers to focus less on volume and more on quality right and so we have a really big focus on supporting our students and being able to craft strong sentences that fully communicate their thinking about the content they're learning in fish tank units. It asks them to study complex syntax in text and then bring that to their own writing. So here you can see both across our English and our TWI language arts program, as well as in our middle school humanities department, we're studying sentences as containers for thought. sentences can be simple and short, but they can also be long and complex and even hold multiple opposing clauses. So here on the left, you can see this marrying of grammar and content focus. Fourth graders are learning about conjunctions, the connecting words that allow you to join related clauses meaningfully. another way that we're seeing excellence in our second year of implementation is that we're now seeing the work come to fruition of the year two adjustment team so the teachers that met for each grade level at the end of last year to really collect all their experience and the feedback from all of the teachers and really this year you can see that especially in kindergarten with creating these projects around the fish tank units that are hands-on we have also a very innovative way of assessing vocabulary in kindergarten because the way that it was assessed really depended on where students were in their developmental progression of writing and so we want to be able to see what all students know about their word and world knowledge that they're learning in fish tank so you can see debbie rogers here on the right assessing a kindergartner's vocabulary at the end of unit one. And then you can see on the bottom there one of the projects designed for kindergartners at the end of unit one where they're studying being in school and how to make the classroom a joyful place to be. um so just over the past week i have witnessed in classrooms and meeting rooms elementary through secondary how our aligned focus on explicit writing instruction is unfolding and that's through the leadership and the hard work of our literacy coaches our literacy teacher leaders and all of our hard-working classroom teachers so in third through fifth grade We've just begun, and Madeline's very excited about the trauma-informed practices. I'm very excited about our literacy learning labs. And you'll hear me say that a lot, the triple L's. And these are led by the literacy coaches. Last year, what we did is we divided each grade level into three cohorts of about 10 teachers. And we asked site leaders to host these professional learning days at school sites. What these days look like is that this cohort of teachers and the coaches meet at a site for a full day. They do some shared learning. Host teachers share information about their students, especially their focal students. And then the teachers engage in some collaborative planning using that shared learning and they go in and enact a lesson. And it's really allowing us to really engage with with access and extension within the curriculum. And as you can imagine, these days require a lot of logistics and have required a lot of careful and strategic planning on the part of our coaching team, but they're proving to be a really powerful form of in-classroom professional development. Simultaneously, just today we had our first literacy collaboration during Wednesday staff meeting, and last week we had our first middle school collaboration. Both K-5 and 6-8 are focusing on writing and both collaborations focused on looking at student work. and doing some shared learning from the writing revolution which is a method for explicitly teaching writing it's also called the hockman method and both of these opportunities were for teachers to really analyze student work at the sentence level and think about specific strategies from the hockman method that they could use to address some of the sentence level skills that students needed and that they needed to be supported with Last slide. So one of the most powerful things about the writing revolution that we're finding is that it really spoke to our teacher leaders and our coaches because it's systematic, it's explicit, and it's differentiated. So it provides levels of scaffolding and deliberate practice activities that allow teachers to more responsibly provide support and extension for students and where they are as writers. The lab days also, and that professional development structure, are providing a really unique opportunity to center our focal students. Being intentional about talking about our focal students with an asset-based lens, who they are, what strengths and needs they're bringing, and we're able to come together as classroom teachers to really think about how we can experiment and try out new methods to provide access to complex texts at grade level, um and ways to provide extension for students as well during our middle school humanities collaboration last week we asked teachers to bring samples of baseline student writing so before much instruction had taken place and select some case study focal students or student groups who had specific needs that in need of strengthening at the sentence level in their writing and we introduced them to some of the hawkman method strategies and i will say they were really excited about the writing revolution and they felt like it really provided them an explicit pathway for addressing some of the the skill needs that they saw with with our middle schoolers and now i'll pass it back to mandy or to chris thank you rose we will now shift to how we are strengthening elementary math across busd

Before we jump into the progress being made, I would like to do a brief rewind to share we have been over the past few years. The last significant shift to BUSD elementary mathematics was 13 years ago when BUSD adopted Eureka math. Over that span, a lot of efforts have been made by BUSD staff and community to support and develop math teaching and learning. With that said, in 2003, California adopted the new California Math Framework. Following this framework, BUSD initiated a TK-12 year-long collaborative named The Meeting of Math Minds. This collaboration between teachers of all grade levels, families, administrators, and regional math professionals was tasked with conducting a district inventory, learning about the new California Math Framework, There it is, and also thinking about our clear instructional framework and vision, we knew that the CD was going to release a new curriculum list and based our learnings from literacy we knew how important it was to have a unified vision and instructional framework before going into considering other materials. In November of 2025, the CDE released their approved state list of aligned curriculum to the California math framework. Following the release of that list, BUSD began putting together our formal curriculum adoption committee. Since then, a significant amount of time, research, and planning has gone into where we stand today. And to share some of that work, I'll pass it off to BUSD's elementary math PSA, Ms. Mandy Hubbard.

Thanks. Our vision for teaching and learning mathematics outlines our commitments to creating challenging, accessible, relevant, and engaging learning experiences for all BUSD students. Formerly called rigor and reasoning by our meeting of math minds committee that Chris spoke to, the C in this revised care framework captures the core of what excellence in mathematics means. all students developing strong conceptual understanding, fluency with facts and procedures, and the ability to apply their knowledge and skills in meaningful contexts. This is the definition of rigor that's in the California math framework, and that's in keeping with what is in the Common Core State Standards, which did not change with the release of the new framework in 2023. I would like to linger on fluency for a moment because that was a definite prominent theme that came up both with our educator groups and other stakeholders, families. Fluency has played a key role in our ongoing work to prepare for the coming adoption and will continue to do so. And I just wanna briefly highlight two key actions that have taken place in relation to that. First is a group of elementary math specialists formed a fluency working group. And throughout last year, 25, 26, they dug into the research on fluency development and started test driving resources for tiered interventions in first through third grades. This work has showed promising results both in increasing students' fluency, but also on our general math screener. And secondly, in our focus for professional learning, our adoption committee last spring did a dive into thinking about fluency, focused on some of the recommendations from a publication entitled What the Science of Learning Teaches Us About Arithmetic Fluency. And this fall, all elementary educators will engage in PD around the progression of standards in fluency and strategies based in research for developing fluency. It's a curriculum agnostic experience, so regardless of which curriculum we choose, they'll be able to move forward with that learning. The A in our care framework is our commitment to providing access to grade-level mathematics, both by leveraging students' assets, as Rose spoke to, and offering the necessary supports. We know an essential foundation is having high-quality, coherent instructional materials across the PK-12 continuum. These images you see on the left offer a glimpse into the work of our TK5 math adoption committee who engaged in collective analysis and lively debate around state approved materials last spring. The committee came to consensus around two programs to look at across TK five and additional programs geared toward early childhood, one of which is creative curriculum that Madeline spoke to that's already being implemented in our preschools. Based on feedback from our literacy process, we wanted to expand the group of educators who were filled testing materials. So our 26-person adoption committee grew to a group of 57 pilot educators. They represent all grade levels and all sites and intentionally include early career educators, special ed case managers, response to intervention coordinators, and other math coaches and specialists. We are currently collecting data around our first pilot program, Bridges by the Math Learning Center. And that's through classroom observations, analysis of student assessments and serving pilot teachers, their families and students. Our educator feedback data particularly has a focus on access. Again, this is such a key theme for them, often bringing up their focal students and really wanting to know if the materials would help them better support their students. So they're looking at things such as do the materials offer guidance around explicit language goals, a variety of scaffolds to help facilitate students' increasing independence, and structures that support reviewing prior content, frequent checks for understanding, and providing students feedback. Our second pilot program Desmos by Amplify will begin in December after all pilot teachers have completed initial training in that program. The last two commitments in our framework are relevant and engaging. These again are common themes that we heard from educators, caregivers, and students in our community when we did our inventory. And our vision of math instruction attends to students' multifaceted identities and to the social nature of doing mathematics. In addition to the core elements of rigor that I spoke to earlier, We're seeking to cultivate interest, enjoyment, awareness of how mathematics impacts our lives, and the skills to construct and communicate clear mathematical arguments. And again, some of our teachers in high school in particular met with focal groups of students to really ask them about their experience learning mathematics. And a lot of those themes were around not necessarily feeling as though it was relevant and engaging and that they were represented. And so that's another key thing that we're analyzing in these curriculum. The photo here shows from the second day of school in a first-grade pilot classroom. Students' self-portraits, that common activity that you might see at the beginning of the year, were used in this case to construct their August calendar. And this integrated social-emotional learning and community-building activity also helped teachers establish routines for active engagement in mathematical discussion and establishing routines like turn and talk and choral response and coaching kids in using precise mathematical vocabulary. Our adoption committee and pilot team are analyzing many aspects of the curricula in relation to relevance and engagement, including whether or not the materials contextualize math in culturally and linguistically responsive ways and provide resources to help families understand the expectations for student performance. THROUGHOUT THIS ADOPTION AND PILOT PROCESS AS DISTRICT AND SITE LEADERS WERE ENGAGED IN ONGOING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT WE'RE LEARNING BOTH FOR THE TK-5 IMPLEMENTATION NEXT YEAR OF MATERIALS AND THE NEXT STAGE OF MORE DEEPLY CONSIDERING THE NEEDS OF OUR SECONDARY PROGRAMS AND WE KNOW THAT THAT'S IMPORTANT TO BUILD A STRONGER AND MORE COHERENT PK-12 MATH PROGRAM IN BUSD.

THANK YOU.

Thanks, Mandy. We will now shift to how our BUSD community can get involved, stay involved, share their input, review materials that are currently being piloted in BUSD schools. As a part of our continuous improvement stance, we are shifting our approach to how we are seeking community input. Instead of asking BUSD families to come to us, we are going to BUSD families. Over the past few years, we've held various one-off information sessions, typically attended by 15 to 30 families. This was great. We learned a lot from these events. However, we know there are a lot more families out there that we want to hear from, talk to, and share information. And we know where to find them. They are at their student schools. So with this, district staff will be attending. sharing materials, answering questions, and being available at math events across our elementary schools throughout the year. In just two engagements already this month, Oxford on September 2nd, and our annual Black to School event this past Saturday at Willard, we have engaged with significantly more families than we have had in our previous standalone events. The table on the slide before you shows the events that we are planning to attend down below at the school sites. and the district committees that we plan to learn and share from as well. As we close, before opening up for questions, we want to share other ways BUSD families can stay connected. In addition to coming back to present to you all the Board of Education later this winter with a mid-pilot update, here are some resources families can find by QR code or webpages to stay informed. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to meeting more BUSD families throughout the year. Thank you, and that concludes our presentation, and we are available for questions.

Thank you so much. We will begin our question and answer period, our discussion from the Board of Education. Who would like to go first? I know I have questions, but I'll call on someone else to go first if you'd like to. Director Leyla Cutler.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Thank you. One of the things that I'm always a big proponent and supporter of is the parent part. And the parent part, knowing about this math, how to do the math, but also about our aftercare programs who help students and give the students time to work on their homework. How are they being prepared also in this math and how they can support students in the afterschool, in our own bears and learns programs. how they can support the children that are attending. I think that that's important in terms of the outreach and to the other people who are supporting, besides those children who do go home with their parents. It's great we're having these family math workshops with families, but also in terms of our aftercare programs. I think that's something that perhaps we can figure out how to support them better, especially because that's where they're doing their homework. The other part for me is the trauma-informed practices. How are we sharing that wonderful kind of curriculum that seems to be happening and that is happening, it's the kimochis, sharing with parents those tools and how to support the children when they're at home.

Thank you. That's such a good question. It made me realize that earlier when I spoke about how we think about academic readiness, the family engagement piece is crucial. And so we say that we cultivate confident, caring, and curious learners in partnership with our culturally and linguistically diverse families. And in the early childhood world, we are extremely diverse. linguistically and culturally, but to speak to your question about how we're sharing specifically about experiences like Kamochi's, every curriculum that we adopt, creative curriculum and Kamochi's have a component that's about family engagement, both in terms of how teachers communicate with families, but also how I as the leader engage with families, whether it's through my monthly or weekly newsletter, but also we're doing something called parent cafes in preschool, which is a time for families to come We do it about four or five times in the year. And there's always a topic for discussion. And this year, since we're doing a Camoches, there'll be more that I will do and lead around social emotional learning. But that's also a time for parents to just talk more broadly and caregivers about what's coming up for them. So family engagement's super on the front of my mind all the time. And we see our families a lot. And it's often the first time that they're saying goodbye to a child. So it's a huge, huge important part of what we do. Thank you. Thank you.

Just one more question. I think this question has come up to us in terms of the TK, the pre-K to fifth grade math, correct? But what is the transition to the middle school and the high school? How is this foundation that we're building, how does that help and support the transition to middle school math and high school math? How is that?

Sure, thank you for the question so we actually well we didn't bring in this work this works been happening for a long time. But since the California math firmware came out, we actually began this work with that tk 12 perspective, so the meeting of math minds brought together educators that. were TK teachers, kinder teachers, all the way up to 12th grade teachers. And we worked together to sort of build that vision of mathematic teaching and learning. So the elementary curriculum adoption is not happening within isolation. At the same time, curriculum adoptions and course pathways, they are related, but they are distinct decisions. And I do think it's important for us as an organization to be realistic both about the human capacity and the financial resources that it requires to shift TK-12 programming all at the same time. like our superintendent often shares, I'll use one of her quotes, we can do anything in BUSD, but we cannot do everything. And we certainly can't do everything at once. And we firmly believe in coherence and alignment and our intentions like Mandy shared is to extend into secondary. But I think we have to do so thoughtfully and carefully and be aware of the resources that we do have.

Can I just piggyback? I absolutely 100% agree. And I think that this is an opportunity to share how our students will propel when they get to middle school because of the work that is being done here. And so I think Director Olivia Cutler, maybe that is your question as well. And so if we could take the time to just highlight and share what work we're doing right now in the elementary school. how it will help carry them as they get to the rest of the grades, especially when we think about progression of standards.

I mean, I could talk to you about this all day, but I do think that foundational fluency is a huge piece of it. I mean, we know that kids knowing their facts is not the be all and end all of what it means to do mathematics and that when kids are missing some of those key pieces. And, you know, I think. The team is thinking in really nuanced ways also about that. It's not, you know, it is that we need automatic recall and that kids need to understand and have that relational thinking and be able to connect some of those facts and procedures to larger concepts and understandings about operations. And again, how we apply that to context. So I think. That key like number and operation sense is really the heart of the elementary curriculum. We're also thinking about kind of that pathway to algebra and that's, it's in the operations and algebraic thinking standards but I think it's a piece to really bring out and that these curriculum do is to help kids again be having those conversations where they're generalizing and also just thinking about representing in multiple ways. and the current work being done also with rti around that algebra pathway thinking so we're kind of trying on multiple fronts and again as chris said i think i know his hope was that we could do tk12 all at once and i think in a way though the thoughtfulness of being able to collect some more data and hear more from our community and move into some of those secondary decisions really thoughtfully while we're building this strong foundation in elementary, I hope in the end is going to be for the best.

Thank you. Since I'm here, I might as well keep going.

Can I just add one more thing? Sure. Just thinking about and going back to the meeting of the math minds and Director Albeck stressed that that was a early ed to 12th grade conversation that engaged educators at those various levels as well as folks, mathematicians, from the colleges, et cetera. And so as we think about and focus on our TK-5 math curriculum, we definitely know that we have to continue to engage that group even with the curriculum that's being piloted, but also the decisions that are being made or what we're seeing with the curriculum being piloted so that they can start to make those connections even now and be able to better answer that question of what is the bridge, what are the gaps, and what might we do next? Ultimately, we are going to have a TK-12 math curriculum, and so I just wanted to make sure that it's clear that that meeting of the math minds wasn't done and then done. It was done to inform what we're doing now. We will continue to engage TK-12 educators in the conversations.

Throughout the presentation, and not just this presentation, but many presentations that we've seen on student data and student information, We continue to call out our focal students. We identify our three by five target, which I think is greatest and one of our leading factors to having no students in the red for BUST because we're a district on the rise and it's very exciting. But as we talk about our focal students, I'm wondering what interventions we are using to address specific barriers experienced by different groups and subgroups of students rather than treating maybe all of our students who are struggling with having the same needs. And I know that we are probably doing a great job of that. And I'm wondering if we can just unpack that a little bit more to talk about like what specific things that we are doing to address the needs of different focal groups of students who may all fall within that three by five target.

Speak.

So I know in times past when I've been before you, I've talked a bit about our structured literacy interventions. So Orton-Gillingham is one of the main tools that we're using for students who have decoding needs, fluency needs, for comprehension needs. What's really nice about having a new tier one curriculum is that interventionists have a common text that's at grade level that they can front load, they can pre-read, they can unpack, they can close read with students. So I think when it comes to literacy and reading specifically, those are some of the tools that we're currently using. I would say for writing this exploration of the Hockman method is another one that both our tier one instructors will be using and now our literacy coaches will be trained in that is very explicit. It includes a lot of deliberate practice with sentence composition and then eventually with like full composition planning. So there's a lot of really supporting writers and developing both the revision strategies, the planning strategies, and the sentence level.

syntax we're following in the footsteps of literacy and we I think I think we might have mentioned this at a board meeting a while back but we were piloting new diagnostic tools in math because that I think to your point is a key piece that we didn't have great data to really talk about like what was happening for kids in math beyond there in the red and So there's been really incredible feedback from workshops we've done with a company called Integro, formerly Math Recovery. They are really, it's a curriculum agnostic and they're really about resources for detailed mathematics assessments and thinking about the kinds of scaffolds that we give to kids. So from all sites there's been a representative at elementary level that went to training in addition and subtraction concepts and this October we're doing multiplication and division. So I think that's a really key first step in thinking about meeting the needs of students is just being able to have a shared language and better assess and really pinpoint what their needs are. I think as you speak to the kids in those vocal groups for a variety of reasons, you know, we know there's sometimes it's relationships or relevance or language. So I think there's a lot more to be done, but I think it's a good starting place. I think in our TK labs actually that we did, that was another thing that came up similar to what Rose is talking about, that centering of vocal students and there were some really, really rich discussions about how teachers reviewing students and thinking about who needed support and why. And again, sometimes it was about the math and sometimes it was about their comfort and having more trauma-informed responses and thinking about the kinds of connections they needed. And really also thinking about it from an assets based lens again, like that they might be struggling or not engaged, and that may not have anything to do with their ability or their capacity to learn. So I feel like those are really key conversations that I'm excited that are happening across all areas. Thanks for that question.

Yeah. I want to just add one thing that comes up for me as it relates to that question, President Brown, is our superintendent and associate superintendent Hovindike have been talking a lot about organizational clarity. And when you're discussing the needs of different types of focal groups. One thing that comes up for me that I feel we are moving in the right direction. And it's a challenge in any district organization is how can we make sure that all of the departments are working together and aligned towards the same goal so One thing that we've been really working on is I've been working with Executive Director Shawn Manziger around special education and that's why you heard sort of in Mandy's presentation making sure that all SPED is represented, making sure that ELD is represented, making sure that our different groups from different departments are aligned and I think that is a challenge in organizations and through our work around organizational clarity. We're trying to bring that alignment closer together to making sure that we're not just thinking about tier one for this focal group or that focal group, but as representation to be thinking about, well, what about students that are multilingual learners, so on and so forth. So that makes me think about that at the organizational level.

Thank you. I have one, well, a couple more questions, but I'll go to one other and then I'll go to my board colleagues. But I was excited to hear about the learning labs or hear more about the learning labs. And I'm always interested in how we preserve our stories of excellence, like how do we continue to to share those stories how do we capture them so that we can know what is working what is working in that specific environment and how we can also share that with other folks who may want to follow what it is that we're doing and so as it relates to our learning labs how are we tracking the effectiveness of them? Are we tracking changes in teacher pedagogy and teacher approach or teacher practice? Are we tracking student work and student achievement and how can we as a board know what those results are to not just celebrate them but to also help inform our practice throughout the district.

So yeah, I think thinking about tracking the effectiveness of the lab. So there's a couple things that come to mind. So one of the metrics that we looked at last year was teacher confidence level, but teacher confidence level across different student groups, right? Students who are currently performing at benchmark, students who are below benchmark, right? Like how does How does my confidence level change with different PD experiences based on those different student groups? So we are collecting that data. We're also, because we're doing a lot of work around writing, writing is a great focus where we can go in and enact a fish tank lesson that we collaboratively taught and then actually collect the writing that students do as a culmination in that lesson and analyze it based on the teacher moves that we saw. Like, how do we know that they worked? how do we know that they didn't work so part of the afternoon of the labs for the third through fifth grade teachers which they're doing right now is actually taking the the artifacts the student work from the lesson in the morning and looking at it in the afternoon to kind of think about what the impacts of the different instructional moves were for different students And I will say that just the debriefing among the teachers after going into the classroom has been extremely powerful in terms of recognizing the impacts of those moves and those engagement strategies for focal students. And the lens for these labs is focal students. So when we have the host teacher share we're just sharing first names, we're not sharing any privileged information about students, but we want the educators going into the room to know and to center the students who are most historically marginalized in those classrooms and who we are not yet reaching. And so those labs, I think we're gonna continue to refine them and improve them. Every elementary classroom teacher is gonna have two of these full days. So one in the fall and then one in the spring. So I think they'll only continue to get better and more honed in terms of how we can really see the impact of them on teaching practice. I will also say, it's really humbling to watch a group of 10 teachers come together and teach in front of one another, but it's incredibly powerful and it's really surfacing, I think for folks, a lot of habits, things that we do in the moment that we don't necessarily think about, but have big impacts for kids. And I think it's been, I've just seen a lot of really powerful reflection just in the few labs that I've been at.

I really appreciate that response, especially the first part of the response, especially because sometimes, you know, even as a teacher myself, a lot of times when we look at student work, the conversation then shifts to about student ability or gaps or needs. And it is so important and powerful and really, really necessary to talk, yes, talk about student needs and maybe where some gaps are, but more so talk about the approach. What are we doing instructionally that helps to reach the needs of the students and takes away the conversation from, well, this student has this gap here, this student can't or did not achieve in this place, to talking about, okay, my instructional approach needs to be different and this is what worked with eight other people and this is what worked is gonna work with me or this is what worked this morning and it's the afternoon so it's different. We may need to make a different approach and so I really appreciate that, especially when we talk about continuous improvement. Continuous improvement doesn't just happen for students, it happens for adults as well. I'm very grateful that that's the approach that we're taking. Thank you.

Director, what's almost like you like teed me up for my question. So I, you probably don't all know, but I teach chemistry at the community college level. And one of the things that I struggle with my students is that they come in and they're scared of the math. And the math is actually really simple in my class. It's like multiplication, division, a little bit of algebra. But the math isn't actually what they're scared of. They can do the rote sort of divide by 10 or multiply by 10. It's that the numbers scare them. And I think one of the things that President Brown just hit on is the need to use many different teaching styles and also, So many different approaches with the material and also to recognize that different instructors have different styles completely so my question for you is to really is about the math. i've been really concerned about math since I learned in my first year that only 15% of our African American seventh graders are proficient in math. Um, and I'd like to understand a little bit better about the curriculum design, you know, and what we're choosing moving forward and what the options are that are available to teachers so that they can tap into those different learning styles and different teaching styles, including we've heard a lot about the direct, direct, direct, explicit modeled instruction and how that can be incorporated into this particular. curriculum? Sorry, long, rambly question.

Sure, I'll take, I'll start. So, as it relates to the question around styles, methodologies, approaches to the math, I think it's important to recognize that this is a complex question. And it's not a simple either or between explicit instruction or student exploration, inquiry, student sense making, whatever one wants to call it. Like you shared, Director Chernosky, we know that effective instruction, mathematical instruction, but I'll stick with math, includes both. There are moments when students benefit from direct modeling, worked examples, guided practice, immediate feedback, and even memorization of the standard algorithm. But there's also times where we need students to reason, make connections, explain their thinking, and apply mathematics in unfamiliar contexts. And I don't think that These elements always occur in the same systematic order in the same place in every lesson. They intersect at different points depending on the segment of the lesson, depending on the lesson and the unit plan. So when I'm thinking about bridges, let's just go there. There's a component called number corner and focused fact fluency that lend themselves to very explicit forms of instruction. And in Desmos students are regularly engaged in like analyzing worked examples and they work a lot with structured math language routines. Again, leaning very towards that explicit language or explicit math instruction. And I think that's what we're really trying to examine in this pilot right like do these curriculum create the right balance and give teachers the tools to provide explicit instruction when needed. So students can master and become proficient in the skills that they need to while still getting mathematical understanding in a way that works for different types of learners. And I would ask us to not simplify this to a binary question, which can often lead to polarization. What we want is the evidence from BUSD classrooms to help us understand what the balance is and if we can get that through the instructional materials that we're using. So it's complex. There's a lot to it. And I know sometimes we want simple answers, but the answer is, There's a lot of different methodologies that you shared. There is times that we need to lead towards one, towards another, and they do show up in this instructional materials that we have. It might show up differently, and that's what we're trying to figure out what works best for our students.

I think I would add, I think I've said it over and over, that a curriculum is never the end all be all. You just heard about the learning labs or literacy labs for literacy. And what we really want is to make sure that our educators themselves understand the math. You talked about students being afraid of math or scared of the numbers. And what oftentimes you find is that students are sorry that educators overly rely on the basal or the curriculum because they themselves don't feel efficacious as math teachers. So what my hope is for our educators is that they develop their own nimbleness in terms of teaching mathematics so that even if the Bayes or old school, even if the curriculum says teach it this way, then they still understand like Chris needs to do it this way. And so I want them to be able to be nimble and have different strategies and methodologies to teach students even if the curriculum itself prescribes or recommends something different. So for me, it's really important that it's the both and, that we find a curricular tool that has that balance and that we continue to commit to developing our educators so that they can say, like, hey, there's a gap in this curriculum, but feel OK and know tools and ways and based on research and data to actually to actually fill that gap. So I just want to let us all know that there's never going to be nor has there ever been a curriculum that does it all. And that again is where the art and science of being a teacher comes into the play in play. And we want to really leverage our coaching and professional development and the time for teachers to get in and actually teach together with each other to get that feedback so that they can complement whatever the curriculum is missing.

Thank you so much for that. That's super helpful for me. And I actually think that too much reliance on direct modeling a particular problem and having students sort of emulate that same behavior is part of our problem in math, personally. I also want to just... Again, reiterate, I'm really glad that we are focusing on early through grade five like we did with literacy so that we can be sure that we're getting it right and then rolling up to the higher I think it will help us with teacher buy-in. I think it will help us with district buy-in and again, just capacity issues. So I know that it feels too slow and like we should be doing more and we should be doing it all now. And I do hear those criticisms and those comments, but I'm glad that we're trying to do it right and moving a little bit slower so that we can do it right. So thank you.

Director Quinn. I have both a literacy question and a math question. I'll start with the math because it sort of builds on this conversation. So acknowledging what the superintendent said about the curriculum not being the be all and end all, we are engaged in a curriculum adoption process. I'm curious, I think you've spoken to it, but I would like to get a little more granular about the process up to this point and the process from here. So I know there was this meeting of the math minds that had lots of conversations broadly about our approach to teaching math. And then the state comes out with its list of approved curricular materials. and there's like 20 materials on that list and now we've narrowed it down to two that we're piloting in first through fifth and another one in Kinder and another one in TK. So I'm curious about how those decisions were made and then how you anticipate the decisions being made about the efficacy of the curricula being piloted and I imagine this will follow closely to what, to how the literacy curriculum decisions were made. Is my question making sense? Yeah.

Yeah, it's similar to literacy but, Also different because they had a short list and we had 20 things. I think it's multifaceted. Chris and I joined a couple of cohorts in both Alameda County and through an organization called Unbound Ed and that was across the state and really just to see what other folks' processes were, try to join, meet more minds together to think about how to cull through all of the resources. I managed to get a bunch of math specialists and coaches from the buildings to give a bunch of extra time to work with me. So we went to curriculum fairs and we requested samples and we spent hours and hours pouring over materials and looking back at all the survey data from families and educators. So we also looked at tons of examples of tools, but basically created a draft of a tool to use that we took to our committee. And along with that was a recommendation of like, here is a shorter list of programs that we think we should dig into more deeply together. So we didn't give them any, like, you know, here's our favorites, but really, you know, here's how we came to these decisions and, you know, how we took out particular programs because they, you know, relied entirely on digital, like we're not one to one. And obviously there's a lot of talk about that within our district. So there was, you know, some kind of clear cut points that were non-negotiable. And then of course there was a lot of, You know, these are complex curriculum with a ton of strengths and weaknesses. But it felt to me like throughout the process that educators really felt heard and felt like, for instance, there are people who would like Eureka squared that was on the list like for us to be looking at that as we went through like the list of all the really commonly heard complaints about again from both families and teachers like what wasn't working. We just felt like a lot of those things were still true of that program. So again, we shared with that committee, like, here's why we didn't bring this to you. Like we're not trying to gatekeep, but we imagined that we could spend a lot of time looking at it and it might be time wasted. So in the end, it felt like from our, obviously we were serving the group and having tons of conversations, but we were getting feedback that folks felt like the, was it six?

I should really know that.

The group that we dug into more deeply, learning a lot from Rose. We shortened what the publishers were able to present to the group so they got the basics but not as much of a sales pitch and could really ask questions and dig in. And again, just spend multiple days reading and looking at materials. Of course, we also pulled from ed reports and looked at what research is out there. And as you may know, it's difficult to find a lot of high quality studies of particular curricular programs having certain effect sizes with large populations and so like there were certain things that you know would have been lovely to say like oh look this one so clearly is the one that gets results everywhere and that just wasn't the case but we definitely again it was like things are all rated really highly on ed reports there is some research looking at their effectiveness You know, things that a lot of other districts are also considering. We are also talking to other people who are piloting about, you know, what happened with their decision making folks are a little bit ahead of us. So, I guess, just to sum it up, like, it's a very, I think, complex process and we did our best. And I think the team is feeling like. whatever we land on, it feels like it's a good move in the right direction. And like Superintendent Ford-Morthell said, there's gonna be strengths and there's gonna be weaknesses, but we feel like any choice would move us in the right direction and strengthen our coherence and help teachers continue to learn together about how to better support our students. Hope that kind of answered.

Thank you, that was helpful. My literacy question is about this kind of shift in the way that we're teaching writing. I was a teacher of fourth and fifth graders in the days when we were all teaching the five paragraph essay. And there was a big emphasis, as you said, on volume. And this shift to really focusing on sentences is a really big one. And I guess I'm thinking a little about the conversation earlier about K five math preparing kids for middle school math and i'm sort of having some of the same questions about K five writing preparing students for middle school writing and what the volume expectations of students writing are in middle school and high school and how that sentence level work. Like. how you do that work and also prepare them effectively for the demands as they get older?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. And I think right now, because of that shift in thinking more about using sentences as vehicles for communicating our thoughts, we are focused on sentences right now as a learning community. It's not to say that in the curriculum and in our professional learning this year we're not gonna talk about longer compositions, but I think the shift is more thinking about instead of we're gonna write a five paragraph essay, what is the task, who's the audience, and what's the purpose of what we're writing? And we're really trying to help students internalize that as like a planning mechanism as opposed to here's a five paragraph essay and here's a formula for how to write it. And I think that's the shift that I'm really hopeful that like many of our teachers have already made. But I think that our curriculum asks of us to like, what is the purpose of this writing? And who is it for? And that that should determine the form, not so much of an assignment, if you will. I think the writing revolution as a methodology is recursive. So even while sentence work is happening, we're still writing longer pieces. But we want kids to attend. We want to teach them to attend to how to write a complete sentence and how to speak in complete sentences in kindergarten and even in TK. And so the importance of oracy, too, as a building block for writing is also something that we'll be talking about.

Thank you so much for your work. And I don't have questions, but I want to send you appreciations for the hard work and the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you all so much for your presentation this evening. Thank you. All right, we will move on to our next agenda item, item number 14.1, which is the public hearing for the sufficiency of textbook materials. Is there anyone who is here to speak on that item? Seeing none, we will close the hearing and move on to item number 15.1. So as you all know, Annually, there is a resolution that comes to us as the board that is really around our textbooks and instructional materials and our compliance for each fiscal year. We're in the fiscal year of 2627 now, and the resolution really just outlines that we have a sufficient number of textbooks and instructional materials, and that they are consistent with the content that they are provided for, as well as are consistent with the curriculum framework adopted by the State Board of Education for the following subjects, English language arts, mathematics, science, history, social studies, social science, foreign language, and that we have the materials that are needed and necessary for a science laboratory for science labs and we have the science laboratory equipment available through grades nine through 12. So this resolution really just kind of outlines that and shares that and ensures that we in BUSD are following the compliance needs for our instructional materials and our textbooks every year. And so at this time, is there a motion to approve the resolution?

I will move to so.

Okay. Moved by Director Cheng. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Director Shenoski. All those in favor, please signify with the sign of aye.

Aye.

Opposers? Abstentions? The ayes have it. The motion carries and the resolution is approved. All right. Now we will move on to item 15.2. which is our presentation from our associate superintendent, Pauline Falinsby, for our unaudited actuals. And so she will give us the summary of our district's financial status for the year closing the fiscal year 2025-2026. And I'm going to stop there. Are you doing them all in 1? Yes. Oh, okay. So we'll also receive item 15.3 as well at the same. Time, which is our both our actuals for 2526 and the game limit for 2627 and then we will after we will do a 1st vote on that and then we'll come with the 2nd vote for the gambling.

Okay. Whenever you're ready, Megan. Thank you. So good evening, everyone. I'm here with Mary Rivsey, who's our executive fiscal director. And I think this is your second or third time presenting to the board. So Mary did the heavy lifting with closing the books. I tend to get, or my role, not necessarily me, tend to get more involved when we're doing budgets during the interims. So this evening, we're going to be presenting the the 25-26 unaudited actuals and the GAN limit as well as a 26-27 budget update. So again our presentation is grounded in our mission and our four E's excellence, equity, engagement and enrichment. our agenda tonight. We're gonna look at our budgeted or estimated actuals and compare it to our actual expenditures or unaudited actuals. So that can get a little bit confusing. It's basically looking at budget versus actuals. We're also gonna look at the LCAP balances and the general fund summary. Take a quick look at other funds and how they actually ended the year. The GAN limit, as mentioned earlier, we're going to review the GAN limit and we're also going to look at the board policy for committed reserve. And our ultimate objective is to seek board approval for the unaudited actuals. and the GAN limit resolution. And of course, we're also gonna do a budget update. And just as a reminder, our focus tends to be the unrestricted general fund, but we'll be looking at other funds as well. So as an overview for the unrestricted general fund, we met the 3% state required reserve, and our ending fund balance is $1.8 million less than projected. Usually when I'm presenting, we focus on the undesignated ending fund balance. In this case, it was $2 million higher than projections. It was $2 million and 0.4 higher than projections, but that's because of how we treated the designation for labor adjustments at the second interim or the estimated budget versus the unaudited actuals. Other highlights, LCAP had an unspent balance of 0.8 million, which was due in part to transferring costs to expiring grants. And we have a detailed slide on the LCAP unspent balances. And we're gonna focus on the variance report. And the variance report looks at our actual financial results, comparing it to the budget or the forecasted expectations. And then we look at the variance report, we have to remember how we actually the. The items that we looked at in 2526 including our negotiated raises we gave raises in 2526 and you may remember when we're doing the target for 2627 we increase that amount to take care of 2526 so you would expect that when we're closing. the books that we would be negative because we're actually cutting in the subsequent year for current year raises. But we did have a positive outcome due to underspending in supplies and contracts and the BSEP contribution. And now we're gonna look at the variance report in detail and I'll hand it over to Mehdi for his report.

So this is a very big slide, lots of numbers here, but there is a main block where revenue numbers are available for estimated actual or the budget for 2526. The next column is unaudited actual, which is the actual result that we are presenting. And then there is variance. So you could see that the revenues are main source of revenues and CFF revenues, which were 117.6 million and which was slightly higher compared to what we budgeted. And on the right side, this yellow blurb that you see is a kind of an explanation as to what has happened that led to this variance. So this LCFF that we saw that it was kind of a combination of factors between the grade span and how these students were distributed or assumed at the beginning of the year and how the week came up at the end of the year, which actually gave us slightly more revenues, around $226,000. The next revenue, main revenue item, or here we have come to the next revenue item is the other state revenues and the local revenues, which you could see that they are kind of Other state are little less, but the local revenues are little higher. The less revenue is due to some, um, a budgeted item from a that was the, and we say that the beginning of the year that we will receive a grant from them, which did not materialize. And then the other local revenues is basically through the interest and leases and other. revenue items that came to us. So it's still the bottom line for the total revenues was $243,000 more than what we budgeted.

She's doing it for us.

Then this is the expenditure slide where we have the main expenditure items. There are details for each of those lines, but these are the four or five or six line items where main expenditures are captured. And on the right side, you could see that we have an explanation as to what happened. If we look at the total expenditures, they were higher by $2.7 million. And you could see that this has come up from higher salary and the benefit costs. both for certificated and the classified staff and the associated benefits for them. And we know that it was late that the bargaining agreements were done in the year. So that led to these negative variances. But at the same time, you are able to have some under-spendings in services. And in books and materials, partly as Pauline highlighted, it was partly due to LCAP where the money was transferred into expiring grants. Here in this third slide, what we go is basically what is the impact of that revenue and expenditures. We saw that The expenditure was higher, but then we have these transfer ins and transfer outs. They actually have an impact on the bottom line as well. Those results are there. And then we have the contributions. And we have contributions in, which came to us from BSAP, from... What contribution direct support and and those those from those other, um, parcel tax measures. So, what we could see that we were able to receive more contribution from, and that was basically due to, um, as we spend more on the. salaries and benefits but then the contributions from bcep were a little bit higher as well and then the contribution out that what we do that there are three lines that you could see but the biggest line item for us is the special ad And that was slightly higher around 27,000 more than what we budgeted, but it is kind of in the same ballpark number. And then we will come to this last slide. And what we are seeing in this slide that the net increase in fund balance was $1.7 billion. Then we have our beginning balance and what we came up with that we have our ending fund balance. We have amounts committed and assigned, and we came up with an undesignated fund balance, which is $412,000 more than the budget. We budgeted at $1.5 million, but we actually ended up with $1.977 or $2 million. When we go into the components of these Fund balance we keep 100,000 for the revolving cash and the undesignated fund balance as we just discussed was around $2 million. Okay. Then there is an analysis of LCAP, which is starting from year 2014-15, and there are multiple slides on it. So on this slide, we have 2014-15 to 2020 and 2021. The next slide then go on all the way until 2025 and 26, and we have a total column. And if we see here that there is some unspent balances of $98,000 that over the years we have accumulated, and we are looking into some of the detail as to how to deal with it.

And. So thanks, Mehdi. So it's important to look at the unspent balances in LCAP year over year. But the year that we're focusing on is 2526. And as Mehdi mentioned, there's a balance of $898,000. This is a very difficult slide to read because it's small. But you can see it's listing the different goals for LCAP. And then it's also listing the areas where there were savings. So for goal one, there were savings of $313,000. And that was due to the ELD TSA being the compensation for that particular position was less than projected. And for goal two, there was a savings of $298,000. And that was, What was this now? The TSA compensation was less as well. We just got this slide so it's a little difficult for us to understand. And for goal three there wasn't a significant overall balance but the $131,000 was used due to moving costs to a restricted grant. So this is an interesting slide and an important slide because even though they had budgeted to spend the $6.4 million, they have an unspent balance of the $898 million. which is adding to the overall balance of $2.4 million. And you may remember there's a board policy for setting aside a million dollars. We have not set it aside for the last few presentations because our fund balance just does not allow us to set that aside, but we will take board direction on that as well. Next slide. I mentioned earlier that we are focusing on the unrestricted general fund, but when we're looking at our SACS reporting, they're looking at the unrestricted general fund, the restricted general fund, and the parcel tax funds. So the last three columns are actually what you would see if you pick up a SACS report for Berkeley Unified. They will be focusing on the total unrestricted and the total restricted balances, but our focus is the first column, which is the unrestricted general fund. And what's interesting on this other slide is that Mehdi explained how we ended up with an ending fund balance of $2 million. We can go to the next slide, Liz. Of $2 million for the unrestricted general fund. However, you can see that the restricted general fund had a $12 million balance, and that balance has to be spent specific items. Fund 2 had an ending fund balance of $401,000 which is very low for this fund so that's going to bear, we're going to need to watch that closer. Then we come to BSEP. The BSEP actually has That's a $10 million balance for BSEP and Barrier Hazard 2. So that's $12 million. So this shows you like the difference in fund balances between the general fund and BSEP. And if you look in our budget book, there are detailed budget to actual variances explained or at least listed for funds 2 and funds 4 as well. So again, the focus for this presentation is the unrestricted general fund, whereas overall, when everyone is looking at our SACS form, they're focusing on the last three columns. Next slide. No, we should look at the ending fund balances for all funds. The $14 million that looks really good for Fund 1, remember $2 million of that is unrestricted and the balance is restricted. So overall that's a $14 million balance. Visa Pendera is $12 million. The child development, I'm just looking at the larger balances. ADULT EDUCATION AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT CHILD DEVELOPMENT ACTUALLY HAS 3.6 MILLION AND CAFETERIA HAS FOR SO. THE SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION FUND 21 THAT'S FOR ALL OUR BUILDINGS THAT'S 115 SO WE ACTUALLY CLOSED WITH A PRETTY GOOD BALANCE BUT WE HAVE A LOT OF PROJECTS. that we have to be spending on that amount. So most of the funds that are sizable, they're above over $2 million for the unrestricted general fund. But it's important to note that the district overall had $212 million and the unrestricted general fund has $2 million. That next slide takes us to the GAN limit. And the GAN limit, you're being asked to approve the resolution along with the unaudited actuals. And this just gives you some background information on the GAN limit. Mike was at the audit committee yesterday and had questions on it, so we provided some information. It's basically limiting or it's a constitutional spending cap that restricts the amount of tax revenue states and local revenues can spend each year. And every year you're required to adopt a resolution identifying estimated appropriation limits for the current year and actual appropriations for the preceding year. So along with tonight's unaudited actuals, you're being asked to present, to approve the GAN limit resolution as well. And then this brings us to our committed reserve or Josh Daniel's reserve policy. And this was a board policy that was, why is everybody giggling, in 2017. And this was basically to set aside, it is Josh Daniel, yeah. To set aside 1% if certain conditions were met and basically this is the district's attempt to build a rainy day fund for setting aside funds for more stringent times. And the three conditions, the committed reserve is less than 1% of the combined general fund well. That's not met because we haven't ever set aside a committed reserve. The adopted budget does have a positive certification. However, the third test, the undersigned general fund balance after the 3% reserve has to be greater than 2% of the combined general fund expenses. And in the bottom section, it identifies 2% of the general fund is $4.8 million. and the unassigned funds in the unrestricted general fund is two million. So we're not required to set aside the funding. We're not required to fund the committed reserve this year. That's the end of the unaudited actuals on the GAN limit. This next section has us looking at 2627, which was shared with the board. We brought that to you in June when you adopted the budget, but this is just a reminder of the year that we're actually in right now and the challenges that we're facing. So the final state budget, we did not have to do a 45-day revise because the final state budget did not provide any significant changes in funding from the May revise, which the adopted budget was based on. And as a reminder, we actually implemented $11.2 million in budget in board approved budget balancing solutions and we have to remember that 5 million was ongoing and 5.2 was one time, which means that. The 5.2 is kind of revisiting us in 27, 28, because it was just a temporary solution. And when we did the multi-year projection at adoption that showed that we do actually require up to $7.5 million in budget balancing solutions, which is trying to address the former era's one-time solutions as well as increasing costs. And the, hold on. We're missing a slide.

But I haven't talked about the pregnancy.

Okay yeah to yeah yeah it's auto auto sequence sorry about that so we'll go to to next slide laser and then we'll go back to pregnancy disability. So another part of the budget updates, I mentioned that we didn't have enough. One more is. One more is. Another. yeah no. That one. And then we're gonna go back. Sorry, the pregnancy disability leave is out of sequence. So I mentioned we have insufficient funds to set aside the LCAP reserve for 26, 27 and 27, 28. And then everybody should remember the spud bug or this discretionary student support. You remember this grant that was one time restricted funding. And as a reminder, because it's restricted funding and we are using this as a budget balancing solution, we have to transfer expenses from the unrestricted general fund to the restricted general fund to take advantage of that. So we negotiated with two unions any 70% of the increase from the January number to the may revise that the that's a that will be paid out to the unions, so the district is benefiting only from 30% of the increase or $1.3 million, which means that. we are not getting the entire increase, only 30% of that. And then we're gonna go back to the LCAP, I mean to PDL. So part of the spot bug is they're requiring us to introduce the pregnancy disability leave effective January 1 and this is the requirement of our pregnancy disability leave. We're still trying to come up with an estimate of the cost, which will be included in the first interim, but right now we're required to pay for pregnancy disability leave for a maximum of 14 weeks. For certificated and classified employees and there's no eligibility requirements to access a leave and the fiscal impact is being determined, as I mentioned earlier. um. Yep great so next steps we, we have to revise a target know that our our ending fund balance came in one one over a million dollars less. than we had estimated when we came up with the target, the target is going to be affected by we'd have to increase the target by the amount. That we lost when we close the books and then I talked about budgetary headwinds and one of them obviously is the cost of the PDL which I mentioned. There were also having to correct sick leave accrual for certificate and managers, because when we went to escape somehow the accrual was at the wrong rate. So that may be a significant amount. We do have increasing costs. I've been asked to increase our budget by $600,000, which I'll be bringing back at the first interim. And then we also have increasing legal costs due to settlements and claims. Next slide. And of course, we're having our near and long-term challenges, not only the state budget and the state revenue forecast. Our ADA has decreased from pre-pandemic and we're no longer benefiting from the state's mitigating measures. So now we're funded, we're being funded exactly what our P2 and our PE attendance reports are. We also have expiring one-time grants and as usual, our costs, program costs are outpacing our revenue and our contributions. And again, we have to safeguard the district's financial health, and we have got to continue to formulate and execute strategic plans for long-term fiscal stability. And that brings us to the end of our... Oh, no, it doesn't. Next slide. I forgot this one. I'm dying to finish. So I want to acknowledge Mehdi and his team for putting this together. It was a lot of work. But now we're kind of doing it within work hours, not a lot of overtime. Well, Mehdi did a lot of overtime, but his team didn't. So we just want to mention Mehdi, our director, Craig, Ben, Sue, Monica, Jingying, Miguel, Mario, Russell, Harvey, Richard, Sadie, and Vivian. So we want to thank our team for doing that. And with that, we're ready to take questions on the next slide.

Thank you so much, and thank you to your team for all of the work that went into, not just presentation, but the work that you do year round. So thank you so much. Board members, do you all have questions regarding the unautodidactuals? Yeah, Director Shanofsky.

I would just like to thank you and also to compliment the photos that you have on your slides 21 and 22. It wasn't her. I was like, look at the photo. Thank you for that.

I know who did that. Oh, you're welcome.

Are there any questions? Is the PDL unfunded mandate?

It is. Well, we have to pay for it.

um so it's not unfunded but it's basically they said use some spud bug money towards it um so that was it's not unfunded it's just currently only funded for one year I thought it was part of the Super Cola, not the Spud Bug. So the Super Cola, they said you could also use for it. But the money that they actually said was set aside was in Spud Bug. But they also said, and we're giving you a Super Cola, so you have plenty of money, was the response. So it's not unfunded, it's just, it's gonna be a question of what continues to come next year. But we are looking at an analysis of how many people currently take pregnancy disability leave and trying to determine this. But a lot of our staff doesn't take pregnancy disability leave because it has been, An unpaid leave previously, and this is now a paid leave. It's also fourteen weeks versus being two months. So it's a difference that we will be figuring out as we go into January.

BARRA measure can't be used with this to retain our teachers?

I don't think. That's a stretch. I know it is.

So there's two pieces to BARRA. So the majority of the money that's left over is in the part that goes towards salaries. And that would have to be negotiated with our unions for us to add a percentage. We've used it the last two cycles of negotiations to give a bonus. because it's really just one-time funds that carry over. So it doesn't really work itself into us being able to increase the pay. The other 5% that we use for stipends and retain, recruitment and retention, the funding fund balance is, I believe, was probably very small if existent. Because we were overspending, deficit spending for the last few years.

Thank you.

I guess I would be remiss if I didn't give my usual, make sure that you call your legislators and tell them to fully fund Prop 98. In the news this week, a lawsuit was actually announced by one of our largest statewide teachers unions against the state for not fully funding Prop 98. And I think that that, along with continued advocacy on our part, can make sure that we get at least the money that they promised us, and that this doesn't continue to happen in the years ahead. Thank you, Khadijah.

You're welcome.

Thank you both.

Any other questions? All right. Is there a motion to approve the unaudited actuals and budget update? I move to approve. Moved by Director Shinoski. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor, please signify with a sign of aye. Aye. Opposers? Abstentions? The ayes have it, and the motion carries. They, Pauline, excuse me, Assistant Superintendent Follensbee already shared a lot about the GAN limit and the information regarding that. We do have a resolution that is associated with that, and so can we please have a motion to approve the resolution?

I move to approve the resolution.

Moved by Director Schnatzke. Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Seconded by Director Cheng. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposers? Abstentions? The ayes have it. The motion passes and the resolution is approved. We have an important item for information on item 16.1. Please take some time to govern yourselves according to it. We may see it again in a different format on our agenda. And we've moved to the second opportunity for public comment. Is there anyone who would like to speak to the Board of Education. Yamoda, please welcome. You are the only public commenter during this time, so you will get two minutes. Oh, I'm so sorry, there are two online.

I'm still willing to ramble for two minutes. No, just kidding. First, I wanted to thank all of the students for being part of the board. It really makes a difference. Then I wanted to thank the board for supporting Black to School, which happened this past Saturday. I found it was an amazing way to spend my birthday. And I learned lots of information. And what I really got out of Black to School was how many families got new information and then took it back to their school sites. And so it was able to be shared. And I learned a lot myself. So I just wanted to thank you for that and for having the math adoption curriculum also being there because it was very informative and some families may not listen to it, you know, through a board meeting. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We will move on to our online commenters. We'll begin at first with Lindsay and then go on to Daniel. Please promote Lindsay.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Welcome.

I'm going to zoom into that timer so I don't speak over. I'd like to start by saying that we're grateful for the hard work and effort that's gone into the math process. Everybody wants the same thing, student success, and that's very clear. But I'd like to add some more nuance. Labels are unhelpful, but common definitions are essential. Otherwise, we'd be saying the same words and meaning different things. We are not asking for the K-12 adoption to happen at once. We're asking for an open, transparent plan and vision that includes K-12 and dismantles the inequitable two-tiered system. We agree that understanding and fluency are both important and mutually reinforcing, but historically, fluency has been pushed aside. Curriculum choice is important because it dictates a sequence of instruction and we need to get closer to practices based in replicated evidence and not studies paid for by billion-dollar companies. There's no perfect curriculum choice, and it's not fair that many of the options are faulty, but before we adopt and modify something we spent six figures on, we must be clear-eyed about the structural problems rewrites create, the waste of time and inconsistent instruction. This is an opportunity to try to stop band-aiding a broken system. How we spend classroom time is our most precious resource. When the bulk of math instruction is spent on lightly guided exploration in elementary school, there's no time for the rest, no time for practice or fluency. The meeting of the math minds used SBMI, the same professional development vendors as always making sure that we didn't consider true improvement. investment in teachers is the most important thing we can do to close the achievement gap but we haven't been clear about what best practices look like otherwise we would be piloting more diverse options so it's important to view this task as a whole k-12 system rated by the qualities of replicated research looking to solve specific pain points and end goals and not based on opinion papers by joe bowler thank you for your continued curiosity

Thank you. And Daniel will be our last speaker for this evening. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome.

Thank you. So thank you, the board, for the time. And I want to make a statement about the kind of CDE ruling. The board members, like the measure of the district's commitment to equity is how it responds when students are excluded or targeted. The CDE rule should be a turning point. Listening to Jewish families follow the required collective corrective actions and provide meaningful antisemitism training. We want honest conversations about Israel and the Middle East with room for different perspectives, not teachers telling students what to think or making Jewish children answer for government's actions. We welcome this training and want to work with the district to make it effective. Staff need to recognize antisemitism, respond consistently, and make sure students can speak without fear and feel included. Jewish students deserve the same care, respect, and belonging as every other child in this district. Please turn those promises and those statements into actions. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any extended board member comments?

Just quickly, Saturday at Berkeley High School, there was the Biotech Partners Showcase. So I forgot to mention that in my earlier comments, and I wanted to make sure that I highlight that important work.

Thank you so much. All right. Seeing no other comments from board members, we will adjourn our meeting this evening at 1018 p.m. Thank you, everyone. Have a great night.