West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education - Special Meeting

There's not doesn't like Good morning everyone and welcome to the May 4, 2026 uh special board of education meeting this morning. Oh,

I now call the meeting to order at 12:03 a.m. Yeah. Or PM, sorry. Yeah. Um, and we will start with the pledge of Wait. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'll now move on to our land and labor acknowledgement. We recognize that we are presently on the lands of the chacheno mmo parti peoples and acknowledge them as the first inhabitants of the land we currently occupy. I acknowledge that the burden of envir environmental exploitation injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies in the building of this country and its institutions. I remember that the black and brown bodies were born and died working this land against the will for generations. I also acknowledge the continued contribution um of the lab labor of survivors over the centuries today about immigrant labor including voluntary involuntary forced undocumented peoples in the building of what we refer to as the United States. Author Dr. Rocher Rogers RS uh the governing board is committed to the work of anti-racism the conscious and active effort to identify challenge and correct racial inequities in a system and institutional without our schools and community racism explicit or implicit stance and direct conflict to the fundamental principles of district education to carry district education into the future. We recognize that we must continually renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the time. Unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequity that they produce have shaped us, our schools and society. The board strives to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism as individuals and as a

board members. We challenge ourselves to persist through the discovery necessary for growth and learning to deepen our listening and examination of racism and oppression and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experiences and feelings fit into the larger picture of continual oppression. Each member of the governing board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racism learning environment where each student staff member and community partner is respected and valued member of the district community. The governing board is uniquely positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle racist ideas and inequities policies in ourselves and across the district. Therefore, we commit to supporting anti-racist policies, programs, and practices for our children's education and well-being while building strong and inclusive school communities. The board commits to holding each board member accountable towards these goals and moving the work of anti-racism forward. We also commit to holding West Kraussa Unified School District staff, students, and community to living the standards of anti-racism in our school. Board approved March 20, 2024. Um, can I get a roll call?

Yeah. Um, Hernandez trustee present trust. Good afternoon everyone. Gonzalez. Good afternoon. President,

good afternoon. I'm present. Um, now we'll move on to Agenda review and adoption. Does anyone have anything they want to move? Okay. So, now we'll move on to item B, action items. Um, we have one item and that's school calendars for 20 27 28 and 28 29. Um, okay. So, um, do we have any questions on this?

Um, parents and teachers just wanted to let you know that they days of the United. Okay. I do have a question. On the 28 29 calendar, I only see two reserve days. It's my recollection that there's usually three and I see that on 2728. So, I'm wondering just am I missing something or was there an adjustment?

Yes.

Yes. double checking. I want to make sure um due to the fact that we do not have um the 2728 calendar has the dates still on there for in case we needed it for fire days in in October, March, and in uh May. In reality, those are prayer days for honestly for all of us to be able to use the October date because there is the resolution from the school board that that is indigenous person's day now and in May it is uh the reserve day is for um the teachers contract the UTL contract. they get to work on that day remotely according to their contract. So we are not able to use that without renegotiating that contract and then it could come on that day. We have it specifically for the state that if we need to would have those two days and we would have to negotiate contracts to have people work on those days. The only true one anymore is the March one. And so that is why that looks that way. So I don't know why they took off in uh the the 28 29 the word reserve day in October but I will find out and have it adjusted to say that but in reality we can use it. I mean it's a huge negotiation they among for for the teachers contract for both those days the October and the May.

Okay. Um the October one would have to come back to you as a board to adjust that day for us to go to school because it is indigenous person's day and we have done that in the past. Just aware of that when we had it as the other person's day. Okay. Do we have any further questions from the board? Do we have any public comment on this item? Yes, sir. I'll put a motion to we have public comment. Okay. Do we have a motion? Okay. I had a question. Did we add what you wanted to add or we didn't add?

Yeah. So, they So, I was going to say that in my comments. So, it was adjusted and in my comments, you know, I want to say thank you and I have a couple of other things to say. So then I have a question before comments.

How are we looking at not only including moving the calendar to to recognize that we're adding kind of the buffer of the Jewish holiday? How are we looking at the calendar to to adjust it to other holidays, other religions, other celebrations, other whatever we have that we would consider to add or move around that that 3-day holiday or that third day or whatever it is. For example, are we looking at the calendar to adjust any reserve days that we may or may not have around Ramadan when we're having these discussions and negotiations with our labor partners? Are we making it a part of the conversation when we're creating and building out these calendars? Hey, let's take in account Ramadan. Let's take into account Rashashana. Let's take into account Chinese New Year. Let's take into account, are we creating a system to Okay, because we can't, we only have a limited amount of reserve days. Are we putting in something on a rotation? Are we asking our community what's the most important holidays for them that they would like to see us add to the reserve days? What are we doing to increase the visibility of belonging and acceptance with all the cultures and climates that we have within our school district? That's my question.

And I was going to make a comment that tried to I was going to put a motion on the floor and a comment that tried to address that. So maybe while I'll make a motion and then we can talk about it comments.

Yeah. Yeah. As long as we can have that discussion, I'm fine. So I want to put a motion on the floor to accept the 27 28 28 29 academic calendars as presented. Direct the superintendent to go back and look at 26 27 calendar because then the constituent pointed out to me that there's conflict meet this calendar with open house and then um commence a discussion with labor partners and parents to create a sample calendar that reflects other important holidays events to see what it will look like. not to adopt it, but just to see what it would look like. So, that would be my motion. And then I have some comments. I'll second the motion so we can make sure we have discussion. I'll second the motion.

Um, so the comments are that um, this district does really a really good job at being multicultural and we celebrate lots of things and I'm really proud of it. One place where it does or it doesn't show up is in the academic calendar.

And I think that we're at a point where it would be a good idea just to take a look at it and see what that looks like if you were to include other things in the calendar. Just personally, I look my whole life on somebody else's calendar and what you guys take for granted. Your Christmas is always off and Easter is always off and they're baked into the federal holidays. And when you don't operate on that calendar, you're constantly juggling your life to make it fit. And I know other people do it, too. So, I know it's complicated and I know that it's extra work and it's a pain and it may not work out, but I'd like to see the district explore it or encourage the district to explore. Um, New York City is doing it. That's a massive system and they're looking at their calendar and how they can adjust it to be more inclusive. and if they're doing it, you know, I think that we could take a look at it and I'm just looking to see if we can begin the conversation and see where it takes the district. And that's my comments.

Jesse, um, with adding all of these other holidays and time off, are we meeting our instructional minutes that we are required per year?

It's a it's an instructional days that we would have to meet 80 instructional days in the year and we would um when we previously were requested to look at it, it would start us at the beginning of August and end us in July. So there would not be an appropriate time for extended learning for um students to recover. Um that that is a challenge at that point in time. Um but we could revisit it again. That's not a problem. Um, I'm not sure who will take on that task. These two calendars are would be my last two calendars in the district. So, I'll be retiring in two years. So, these are my last two calendars in the district. So, I'm not sure how that's going to look from there. Um, at that point, I just know that that would be more than appropriate for that to revisit those again. Um the spring break calendar was a community request and that request was to have a set week rather than go back and forth. The PTAs, the the LCAP, we went through everybody and had that conversation and it's six weeks after the February break and six weeks before the Memorial Day weekend break.

Yeah. I'm just my my only concern is like those instructional minutes and the time off for summer records. Um is that's just my concern, right? Um I get it. We want to honor and celebrate everyone, but it's how are we making sure we're meeting our annual minutes and days required as well as giving families that opportunity because a lot of people plan vacations during the summer. So now that's just going to push everything off. And then I don't think kids are going to want to go to school all the way till July. They might as well be a year round school district instead of 180 days.

I I understand what you're asking.

Yeah. Um, we have found with ADA and minutes if the students end anywhere after the 12 in reality, we we're losing a lot of ADA minutes after that first week in um June. Families are taking off. They're going to Europe. They're going to um everywhere they can go to because that's where their family is. Um, and that is where they're they get the least expensive flights right around Memorial Day weekend and then they travel and they don't come back until about the second third week in August. And so that's where we have a challenge. Um, so having more days off would challenge those families at that point. Um, so yes, you are correct. Meeting the 180 days is difficult. Um maybe at some point we could start earlier in the school year so that families could do that.

Trusty as well. Thank you. Yeah. I mean I think that the request is that we explore it, right? If it's if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out but at least we can show like you know we try it and look and um we might learn quite a few things through that process, right? and obviously needs to be done with a lot of players in the you know in that room with all the unions and you know hopefully also with a way to incorporate parent perspective and feedback. So you know it gives us two years to explore it and who knows maybe it'll be something good will come out of it and if not maybe we can there can be some introduction not the whole calendar affected but

um you'll explore and go from there. So you'll have to have a calendar prepared before the end of the 27 28 um 28 29 for the next three years to make sure that those three years are available. CDE and the county office of ed that is their requirement so that they can prep and make sure that we're meeting financial minutes and days. Um, and can I ask a request to make sure that I give the next person, cuz I'm training up the next people, um, the appropriate days that you're looking to have looked at for holidays or um, superintendent.

Yeah,

that was I had two questions. One of them was we're talking about city and who are we including because somebody is always going to be left out of that and so if we are including Ramadan if we're including um you know Passover Roshana are there other there there are I don't know how many languages that are spoken in West Pakistan alone and how many cultures are represented Here is something that is our strength, our superpower, but it's also taking and deciding who's power is our value and who's I think that's the work that I think that's the work that needs to be done before we actually touch the caliber. So what I would look for, so on a small lip, low hanging fruit, don't have testing during Ramadan. We know students fast. That's a low hanging fruit. Just move it because we have a testing window. We can easily shift that around. We can ask for a waiver. We do whatever we want to say that when students are testing during Ramadan, we know they fast. So anything that impacts student academic success, we low hanging fruit. We deal with that first. The thing about family vacations and things of that sort that goes down the list, but things about where we know that they are praying at night, so they stay up late, that they're not doing so things that we know that impact the students the next day. That's something I think that should be higher on the priority list of what we're doing because our goal is to ensure that all of our students have the appropriate sleep, rest, food, whatever to increase their academic achievement during the day. We know that religious holidays and celebrations impact that. So we know that when our and we can I think we should go out and ask our community if we're not clear about what happens in the celebration. I know what happens during Lamadan, but I don't exactly know

what happens during Diwali, right? But I do know what happens during Chinese New Year, but I don't know what happens during Rashidan. I don't exactly know what happens and if Hanukkah is lined up with that or not. I know Quan is always cool because we right after Christmas. So there's things that I know and there's things that I don't know. But I think the value of the value of our district is we can pick up the phone and ask Harriet. We can pick up the phone and ask so we can pick up the phone and ask MSI. We can pick up the phone and ask you and say, "Hey, can you give me a little insight to this? We're just trying to put some stuff down because we're working on a calendar for student success. And we know that that includes their home life, which includes their holidays, their religions, their celebrations. So that's the pre-work that I would like to see done before we go into this next threeear cycle. And in it, I know we can't mess with minutes, but we can move the furlow days around or whatever they're called. I don't know what they're called. We can move those days around. That's the kind of thing that I'm talking about. Not that messes with the structure that's going to get us FPM dinged or CD, but things that are within our control. And moving those dates with when we talk to our unions are within our control and we can say this is why we're moving it this year. we can like kind of uh narrate that to our community. This is how we are moving towards anti-racism. This is moving how we are moving towards belonging. This is one of the action steps that you can see. That's how I looked at this whole thing. I'm completely the other question that I have is on the calendar. It says indigenous day. We want to since we're about to adopt a calendar, do we want to change that to indigenous people's day? Which is what happened.

I thought we had already passed a resolution to do that, didn't we? We did that long time ago. Yeah. So, it should be indigenous people. Maybe it just didn't fit because the whole line was small. I can't fit it in the little line. But that's what it's intended to be. Yes, it's intended to be that day, but I can't fit it and you read it actually into that day. I mean, I can put it in there, but it it it legible. It'll be hard to see.

You can't I I I can't. It's all the way down to a four in order to get it all in there. But I will. That's not a problem. We'll put it in there. And I would also say to look at what New York City is doing because they've got the biggest school system in the country with the most diverse population out of everyone. Just see what they're um uh it wasn't easy and I know there was lots of you know you know anytime you change something somebody may I know there was definitely push back but it would be interesting to see what they've done and where they're where they're going. So and they have 180 days too. St. Calvin the St. C.

Do we have do we have any further comment? Okay. So, we have a motion on the table by Trusty Regular, second by Smith Folds um to go back and look at and come up with I think uh calendar or look at dates that could potentially be added or moved around. Um so, that was the motion. Um, so now we'll move on to the vote. Uh, Trustee Ednandez, yes. Trusty Regler, yes. Trusty Gonzalez, yes.

Trusty Smith folks. Trusty, yes. Um, so motion passes unanimously. And now we'll adjourn this meeting. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. for synagogue.