Berkeley Unified School District School Board - Regular Meeting

Um, good evening, uh, Berkeley. Thank you so much for being patient and we we really apologize for the amount of time, um, this took. Um, so, uh, it is April 8th and we're going back into, um, open session. Um, so, uh, shall we do a roll call? Board secretary, I think we have. Good evening. President Mike Chang here. Vice President Jennifer Korn. Present. Director Cadia Brown. Present. Director Anna Vosadup.

Um she is here. She's currently um uh occupied and she's here though. Director Jennifer Shinoski here. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. Um, so we have quorum here and um, uh, just as a quick boilerplate overview, everyone knows this. As part of the district's continued commitment to transparency, equity, and meaningful engagement, um, we have, uh, worldly a, um, uh, translation system, and I think there's still posters around um, with QR codes, and if you're online, uh, there should be a button to access it. Um in addition um uh I want just to remind you of decorum expectations during this and all parts of tonight's meeting. Um no person shall disturb the order of the meeting. Such behavior includes but is not limited to booing, kissing, creating or participating in the physical disturbance, speaking speaking out of turn in violation of applicable rules. pre preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting, entering into or remaining in the area of the meeting room that is not open to the public or approaching the dis without permission. Um that's in our bylaws. Um okay. Um and if you have complaints about specific employees, uh please do um uh use our complaints at berkeley.net net versus um raising them here so you have an appropriate venue there with the email address. Um do we now have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved. Go ahead. So uh do you want to call for the second? Yeah. Do you want to call a second? Second. Great. We got a first with Director Vassv, a second with Director Brown. Uh thank you so much. And do we have the eyes? Hi. Hi. Hi. Unanimous. Um, okay. Uh, do we have a report out on the close session, Vice President Corn?

Yes. Um, close session was called to order at 7:08 p.m. No, excuse me, at 5:38 p.m. Um, and item 3.1, the board received an update from staff. Uh, item 3.1.1, Director Brown moved. Uh, Vice President Korn seconded and the item was approved unanimously. Item 3.1.2, Director Vasuv moved, uh, Vice President Korn seconded and the item was approved unanimously. Um, for item 3.2, the board received an update from staff. Also, item 3.3, the board received an update from staff. And item 3.4, for the board received information from the superintendent and agreed to continue this item at the next meeting.

Thank you so much, Vice President Korn. Next up, we have our superintendent's comments.

Thank you, President Chang. Good evening, B USD family. So in April, we continue to um celebrate and recognize and center our commitment to equity and inclusion by recognizing ArabAmerican and South Asian, Southwest Asian and North African, also known as Swana Heritage Month across Berkeley Unified School District. This month is an opportunity, another one of many because we do it every day, not just for a particular month of the year, to honor the histories, cultures, and contributions of ArabAmerican and Swana communities that are an essential part of who we are as BUSD. These communities are not monolithic. They reflect a rich diversity of languages, cultures, and lived experiences that strengthen our schools and our broader community. At BUSD, this recognition is not just about celebration. It is about learning. is our responsibility to make sure that our babies learn and see each other and feel valued um and honored. But it is also a way that we can ensure that our classroom reflect the identities of all of our students and make sure that we are clear that we stand against all forms of hate, including Islamophobia. To support this, we have curated a number of resources that you actually can access at home that are posted on our district website, including grade level reading list, family guides, and instructional materials to support meaningful engagement throughout the month. I encourage our community to explore and use these resources again, not just this month, but all throughout the year. I also want to lift up a few upcoming opportunities before we begin tonight's session and bright spots across our district. We are excited to host our transition fair. Um we host it every single year and these events are designed to support students and families as they prepare for their next chapter um with opportunities to meet staff at new schools, explore programs and services and access resources to ensure a strong and confident transition. So we have a transition fair

for our eighth grade babies who are transitioning into nth grade. High school is a big deal. We want to make sure our babies feel supported and welcome and that will take place on Saturday, April 11th at Berkeley High School. Then we also have a transition fair for our elementary babies who are going into middle school. And so for our fifth graders who are going to sixth grade, that transition fair will take place on April 18th at MLK Middle School. More information about these fairs are on our website. Um I also want to do a plug for our cans to carrots initiative which supports our garden and cooking program. Families can contribute by dropping off bagged aluminum cans at participating elementary schools on the first Wednesday of each month. I'm g say that again. The first Wednesday of each month. Or you can take your CRV recyclables to the Berkeley Recycling Center and designate them for the cans to carrots program and account and then B USD will receive the funds um to continue to support our cooking and gardening program. This is a simple but powerful way to support hands-on learning and healthy foods across um our schools and for all of our babies. We are also incredibly proud # Berkeley proud of our Berkeley High robotics team, both varsity Berkeley 5419 and JV Barerium 5499. Those are team names by the way. They have like a whole play on the whole periodic table. Y'all get it?

Yes.

Okay. Um, they both advanced to the playoffs at the East Bay first robotics league competition. Berkeley placed third overall and earned the engineering inspiration award and we wish them the best as they head to the state championship. Woo. Um, thank you. I was like, come on, little audience participation. Okay, we're wrapping it up. Also, we want to say congratulations to our March Madness attendance challenge winners. The winner this year of the March Mandis challenge is are Sylvia Menddees Elementary, Willard and Longfellow Middle Schools, and Berkeley High School's CAST program with Ruth Ane Elementary as the overall champion with 96.4% ATTENDANCE. And finally, tonight is the third in our series of board study sessions. Um, there are three things that our study sessions have in common. He's so slow. Unlike regular board meetings, study sessions are designed to be interactive and grounded in sensemaking with directors engaging in direct conversation with staff in a workshop style format. And so we will soon exit the deis and sit there and engage directly with our um board directors and a number of folks who you don't typically see who are part of our central office and our site staffs. Um tonight's session will focus on special education and together we will deepen our shared understanding of our special education system including student needs, program designs and outcomes and the fiscal landscape that shapes this work. We are all learners here every day in BUSD, including me. And last night I learned a new word. The word is stotify. Can y'all say

stoify? Sto. Yeah. Are you making comments? She's gonna tell you what it means. Stay tuned. Oh, okay. Let me tell you. You guys know what it means? You ought to be ashamed. Stoaltify means um it basically means it's like dull or draining. And so I'm going to use the word in a sentence that tonight's board study session will be anything but stoifying. It's going to be engaging, interactive, and so so informative. So I do hope you stay around and stay tuned. Thank you, President Chang. That's the end of my comments.

Thank you so much, Superintendent. not stealthifying at all. Um that's an SAT word for you if you take that SAT. Um okay. Um so we have um public comment next. First we do in-person public comment then we do online. I think there's one person possibly two online. Um of course as uh part of our practice is have our students come up first. I'm going to call your name and then also call a second name so that you're kind of on deck to come on up. Um, first sign on up would be, and apologies for misprononunciation, Roslin Yuzer, EU s. And then on deck would be Isabel Mitchell.

I'm sorry. Um, uh, yeah, two minutes a piece. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Before the public comment, we have um one cons. We haven't gotten to consent calendar yet. So, we will get to the consent. Keep going with the board public. Thank you so much. Please go on ahead. Roselin, thank you. Russ is Yeah. Do I start?

Yeah. Hello, my name is Rosie and I am at third grade in Thousand Oaks Elementary and I'm here to today to support Mr. Dante. One of the reasons why I think Mr. Dante should stay at our school is because he's not just a teacher, he is a kind person in our community and helps everyone he sees. I think that um that he should stay because he is very generous and whenever he sees someone he just shows up for them. Um, the second reason is, no, the third reason is that I I really love him and I've been here for the past 3 years in no one year and we rock and I think he has been very generous to everyone and um I really hope that he can stay. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're brave and you're a good public speaker. Next on up we have um Isabel and then um on deck Goodell um Weten. I might have mispronouncing your name. Goodell. Next. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Isabelle and we and I go to Thousand Oaks Elementary School and I'm here today to support Mr. Dante. I believe that Mr. deserves to keep his job because he is kind and generous, helpful and caring and always looks out for us. I hope you would consider. Good job. Thank you so much. Um, and then next on deck would be Lily Jenkissen.

Hi, my name is El Weinstein. I'm in the third grade at Thousand Oaks Elementary School. This is and this is my third year with Mr. Dante as the reruck coordinator. I'm here to talk about Mr. Dante and why he she should stay. My first reason is that he makes all of us feel seen and he makes us feel safe, too. Another reason is that he organizes all the fun things that make Rework so special in many ways. One of my favorite memories with him is when we had the Black History Month Jubilee, and I feel like everyone has a part thanks to Mr. Dante. And my final reason is when you're sad, alone, Mr. Mr. Dante is the first p one person to notice. Thousand Oaks would be a very different place without Mr. Dante and not just wants to see what that would look like. I hope you would consider the choice he made. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um, hi, I'm Lily. I go to Thousand Oaks Elementary. I'm in fourth grade. I'm here to ask that you keep the after school site coordinators because the more staff on site the more kids can attend the program. Our site coordinator Mr. Dante arranges all the extra activities along with the PTA like our talent show '90s night and basketball games and many more things. This is why I ask that you please keep the after school site coordinators. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good job. Next on up we've have um Rachel Rosengarten user and then on deck we um Dante Gallen Adoa.

Hi there. I'm here just to represent from the parent side for Mr. Dante. I have a third grader and a kindergartener at Thousand Oaks. And I mean, we all know that education is strained these days. And the teachers that want to be around our kids and that deeply care about them, I feel like are the most important things. Our kids are going to remember Mr. Dante until for the rest of their lives. For how much he cares about them, for how much he shows up and the programming that he provides. So, as a parent, I feel like it's not just a holding cell for my kids until I can stop working and pick them up. I feel like they're enriched and loved and cared for and safe and that means a lot. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Okay.

All right. I have a guest with me. Uh hello everybody. Um board member superintendent. My name is Dante Gallen Odwa and I am a site coordinator at Thousand Oaks. I'm here because for a second year in a row, I am fighting for the position that the district said it was a priority while simultaneously issuing us pink slips. We fought this battle last year. Um, we are here again tonight still explaining the same truths, asking for basic fairness. This year, we did exactly what you asked. We increased parent fees. We stretched ourselves and our staff's thin to enroll every uh possible student while maintaining legal ratios. If we have more students and higher fees, why are we being told that there is no money? Where did the new revenue go? We have requested to see our budgets for months and have been met with silence. If you eliminate the coordinator role, who is going to run the programs? Management isn't going to be on the ground at 5:00 p.m. One learns manager hasn't even stepped foot on my site since I've been there. So, who will issue and ensure student safety and the program quality? Who will step in to make split-second decisions? This cycle is stressful, taxing, and disrespectful to those of us who make these programs shine. Please do better. Find the path to keep us here doing the work our students deserve. Stop making us fight for our right to save our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Um not seeing anyone um else speaking here in the boardroom. I believe we have uh folks online. Is that correct, Miss Chanda? One person. Um can you uh elevate them as a panelist?

And there is there's actually Okay. There's Yeah. Oh, Eliza is actually committee comment. Is it? Oh, so Eliza might be making a committee comment. And is Kathleen making a committee comment as well? Okay. So, maybe you could elevate Kathleen first and then Eliza, sorry, if you could wait um after uh Kathleen goes as a member of the public. Thank you. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Um, I wasn't sure where I was. It was telling me to change something. Hey, I just like to make one comment. I am a program specialist at Malcolm X, I have been there since 2014. And I want to say that although as coordinators they do have slightly different responsibilities than the program specialists but without the coordinators the program specialists have been running these programs for many years. So I think it's disingenuous to say that without the coordinators there wouldn't be anybody there. So if people became program specialists again you would be saving quite a bit of money. And as a program specialist, I'm doing everything that the coordinators do but evaluate my staff because we are in the same union. I just really want to make that clear that there are I am in charge of safety for children, making sure that staff is doing what they need to do, uh giving enrichment guidance, managing the program, and we will do it for less money. So that's all I've just held my tongue for the last year, but this is true. This is what we all did before most of us did. Some people were not program specialists or originally program specialists were called coordinators. When I was hired, I was a coordinator. Uh but then administration on site did not want to be responsible for our staff. So that's when they created a coordinator position of which they decided to boost the income and change the whole structure of it but not completely just somewhat like they work more days than we do and they have supervisory capacities because we're in a the same union as our staff

as specialists. So just want to really want to make that clear that the specialists that are still working are doing everything Thank you so much. Um you can also send an email. Um apologies we ran out of time. Um and uh next on up I believe we have Miss No for um committee comments. Hi. Hi there.

Uh my name is Eliza No. I currently chair the Superintendent Disability Equity and Special Education Advisory Committee or Dseek. I'm pleased to announce to the to the BOD community that DC developed a set of recommendations to inform the district LCAP and budgeting processes which we submitted to the superintendent and the board on March 25th in which we request to be to be posted on the DC website for everyone to read. Our recommendations were developed over a year and a halflong process of carefully reviewing and evaluating a variety of data such as student testimonies, performance data, LCAP survey results, and district special education, MTSS, and budget information. We also applied the BUD budgeting principles of equity, impact, and sustainability, yielding a set of eight recommendations. DC determined that three of these recommendations met all three budgeting criteria which are the following recommen recommendation number one. Devote sustainable, appropriate and clearly defined continuum of supports and resources to the inclusion model for students for whom it is deemed beneficial to fully execute their IEP or 504 service plan. Recommendation number two, implement a multi-tered system of support or MTSS framework consistently across TK through 12 to systematize screening, diagnostics, and progress monitoring. Recommendation three, implement transparency and collaboration to foster a culture of trust among staff, students, and their families.

In our report, we also identified resources which we advise the district to allocate to support each of the recommendations such as professional learning and highquality materials, supporting our educators so they have what they need to support our students and authentic capacity building support for families and staff. DC made these recommendations while knowing that today the board will be engaging in a specialed ed study session to consider how to balance the budget. We urge the board to make informed decisions. Study the sped budget as if you put yourselves in the shoes of our students with disabilities and the families who care for them. More practically, I urge you to consider the long-term benefits that would come from institutionalizing alignment of MTSS throughout BUSD. There would be a commitment of spending now, but the returns on investment would be cost-saving in the long run, and we would have lasting positive outcomes for our students. then Berkeley will be closer to actualizing its core mission of achieving equity and excellence for all. Thank you. Please post the DC recommendations on the DC website. It's not there yet.

Thank you so much. Um are there other committee comments? I don't see any other hands raised. Um how about union comments in the room? Um I mean in terms of uh union me uh union leadership are you coming to speak on their behalf? Okay.

So um I'm Dan Brownson. Um, I'm a clerical assistant at BHS. Uh, and I was on the negotiation committee and after a long and occasionally difficult negotiation process, I am glad to see that the contract that we agreed to with the district and ratified is on the consent calendar. That makes me very happy. Um, however, even with the ra the the board should be aware that even with the raises in the contract, uh, many of our members will still be be below the local living wage as calculated by the MIT living wage calculator, which I encourage everyone to look up. Speaking of wages, um, at my site this week, uh, I have been informed that at least 10 of our members that the member who informed me of knows of have been shorted their wages this year. One has been shorted their wages four times just this school year. given that these are mostly IAS and custodians um who are some of the members who do not make a living wage as per the MIT living wage calculator and are often 10 and 11 month employees. Um it's incumbent that the district at least pay them the full wages that they are owed. Um, some members apparently still haven't even been paid for working graduation last year, I was told. I'm not sure if this is true, but if even half of what uh was told to me is true, that is very

concerning. Um, I want to also express my frustration that once again, uh, USD employees are being subjected to spurious witch hunts, you know, for essentially expressing solidarity with a people subject to occupation. This wastes time and money. Um, it never comes to anything and the district needs to put a stop to it. uh or the unions will eventually have to consider doing something ourselves. Lastly, I want to talk about layoffs. The district financial problems are not of our making. Yet, we are the ones being forced to bear the brunt of the consequences for these financial problems. Enrollment while down compared to precoid levels has actually increased since then. Where where will the work of the laid-off members go to serve the students? I'm a clerical assistant and I work in the Berkeley High College and Career Center. I do a lot of the clerical work uh so that the college counselors can focus on college counseling. If I'm laid off, then they're going to have to d avert attention away from the purpose of their job to monitor the college and career center uh and do all of that clerical work. I'm the one who monitors the space, taking passes from students, writing passes to other students, so on and so forth. uh ma making sure that no nothing untoward is happening in the college and career center. Um the college counselors have offices so

that they can discuss things with the students in a more like separate area so that you know their business isn't being broadcast to all of their peers. That's just me. The gardening and cooking program is incredibly popular with our students and if it's taken away, a lot of those students are going to have less motivation to come to school. Will we really need fewer IAS and fewer media techs? This seems highly unlikely to me, especially in our continually evolving uh and technologically um advancing world. As I've said here before, uh, Opie solves many problems before they escalate into much bigger and more expensive problems. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And is attendance really so good that we can do without uh an attendance and student welfare specialist? Um, well, you know, the numbers posted in the March Madness challenge seem good. Um, it doesn't seem wise to get rid of the attendance and welfare specialist. Thank you. Sorry, I went a little over. Thank you.

Um, do we have anyone else online? I don't believe so. And no other union comments in person. So, um, on up next, uh, Is Spencer on? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Oh, yes. So, so, so Spencer is has raised his hand. Okay, cool. Apologies for not seeing you earlier. Spencer, would you like to u speak now?

You hear me? Yep.

Hi. No worries at all. Good evening, board directors, superintendent, and Berkeley community. My name is Spencer Pritchard and I'm a teacher at Berkeley High School and co-chair of the African-American studies department and a member of the superintendent's African advis African-American success advisory committee which I'm presenting on today. Um, so like the superintendent said, I want to briefly share information about the two upcoming transition fairs um um that superintendent has mentioned and champion. Thank you for your support. Uh to reiterate the dates, it's this Saturday, April 11th, is the 8th to 9th grade transition fair at Berkeley High. And then next Saturday, April 18th, we'll host the fifth to sixth grade transition fair at MLK the middle. These are designed to help students and families understand what they're walking into before the first day of school, who the people are, how things work, and where to go for support. They get to meet the dedicated staff and teachers before they reach their classrooms. Um, speaking from the classroom, we always remind our students that 9th grade matters. That there's even a workshop our OB team hosts about it. 9th grade matters now more than ever. What we're seeing in the classroom at our sites is that there's a wide range of readiness when students arrive to Berkeley High. Some feel connected and prepared from day one. They find their footing pretty quickly. A lot of students are in the middle. They're capable, but they're not sure the expectations yet. They're figuring out as they go. And then there are the students who come in already behind especially in math and they feel that right away. And there's also a trust gap and understandably so given the data both here and across our country that our families know do well as well. And that shows up in real ways in confidence and participation know whether students ask for help or start to disengage. If you talk to students you hear the same things. I didn't know this counted. I didn't know who to go to. Nobody told me about that. Etc.

And families will tell you that of course they want to support their kids, but a high school is a very different system. And it's not always clear how to navigate it. But this is also what it looks like dayto-day. Students don't fall off all at once. It happens early and it happens quietly. And we also know the opposite is true. When students get connected early, when they get to know the people, understand expectations, they feel like they belong and they do better. And that's the purpose of these transition fairs. They are preventative upstream solutions to perennial problems. Through the African-American success advisory committee, we're also being intentional about outreach, calling families, sending postcards, and working with student ambassadors to make sure that people know about these opportunities and feel welcome to attend. And this is part of a larger effort under the success framework, not just to run these events, but to build them into how we support students consistently and make this a regular part of how the district operates. Um, and I really just want to give a shout out, especially to the Berkeley Public Schools fund for really helping make particularly the high school transition fair possible. Um, and I just want to end with this. We need people to show up not just to hear about it, but to participate in it. Um, board members, you're encouraged to come. If you're part of the community, you're encouraged to come. Don't come alone. Bring a student, bring a family member, bring someone who might not otherwise show up. Um because this is one of those gaps that can actually be closed with participation. There's nothing abstract about it. This isn't political. It's practical and it's necessary. As teachers, we see what happens and students start uh start behind. This is a chance to change that before it happens. So, we're inviting you. We're also asking you to be part of it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. clapping in the boardroom. Thank you. Um, uh, next on up, um, our, uh, board members have decided to wave their comments today for the sake of time. We did come in like 45 minutes late. Um, our next agenda item is a consent calendar. Um, do we have any Yeah, I'd like to pull item 12.5 from the consent calendar. Okay. Do we have a second on this? And then I'll motion to approve the rest of the consent calendar. I'll second. Okay. Do we have the eyes?

I I I so moved. Um all righty. Uh

any questions? No.

No. Okay. Sorry. Um okay, we're going to Okay. So, um we are um going to go into our retreat now and I'm sure many folks are looking forward to this conversation. Um, okay. We ready to have our third of the board's series of study sessions focusing on special education? Hello. Thanks. This way.

It's not Where's my office? Correct.

Yeah. Joe, can you try that quicker? Oh, you're moving it.

There we go.

And Good evening everyone. We are going to go ahead and start in the interest of time and again thank you for uh joining us for study session three of three. Um this one is likely going to be done in two parts. Um and we are going to focus on special education always grounding ourselves in our mission which everyone at this table knows by heart and our four E and then reminding members of the public as well as members who are present um what a board session is. It's a special public meeting during which the board and staff engage and learn together about important topics. Um the content unlike a traditional board member meeting is shared in various formats and there's no formal staff presentation nor any one staff member who is presenting. Um the board and staff interact and engage with the material at their own pace and in their chosen order. Um these are informal and conversational more like an

interactive workshop than a meeting. A chance to ask questions, share ideas, dialogue and deepen understanding. And just to be clear, there are no votes or official actions taken um at tonight's or at study sessions. The purpose really is learning, listening, and actively engaging in the topics. Um it lays the groundwork for future decisions as we understand and believe that wise decisions deepen depend on clear understanding, not speed, and that good governance requires not just decision- making, but sense making. And so we are here this evening to try to collaboratively and collectively make sense of our special education model and better understand special education in BUSD. Um here in front of you you see the session agenda. But again want to remind you all that this can um be inclusive of everything that we covered today or we might only cover one or a few of them and we also might not go in this order. Before we start, I want just to ground us all um in the fact that BUSD has been um engaged in continuous improvement around special education for some time. Back in 2017, uh there was a report that was done to um investigate, analyze, and better understand the special education program in Berkeley Unified. And in that report were some recommendations that again was in December 19 on December 19th, 2017. Despite the typo that says 2007, there are a couple key things that um came out of that report, um challenges were identified and the challenges are here before you on this screen. Um it was noted that there was a lack of clear procedures in the district. We didn't have standardized written guidelines for special education services and there was often confusion and inconsistent practices at schools. there was limited early intervention supports um as well as high and unsustainable cost around sped and communication and trust gaps. Um there were some recommendations that

were outlined in the report um in response to those challenges and to continue some of the things that the report said were actually working in our system. Um those recommendations are outlined here. uh the creation of a clear roadmap, the establishment of a district playbook um for us to really spend time to strengthen family partnerships to invest in staff capacity and to align resources with the student needs. Um here we are in 2026 and we are still working to address, resolve and um do better in those areas. That said, that report um has been a um a point of reference for some time now. For sure. It's been a point of reference since my tenure here four years ago. Um what we uncovered was actually right after 21107 or right after December 19th, 2017, there was actually um an amendment if you will or an addendum to that report um there was a review by Dr. Gilletki um sorry on Dr. Gillet's uh special education program and services report and that review was prepared by AK um Alitzer who was an educational consultant for the district and it was interesting because that particular uh review uh yielded some different um outcomes. That review actually uh said that the not all the findings in the 2017 report were reliable and that how we and our board um interpret them really matters. Um several conclusions um from that report according to um Alitzer's review um were grounded in inaccurate information. Um the review also said that the uh cost pressures were real but more complex than just mismanagement. It was more complex than just being about staffing or class size or MPS placement. there is um and was an overidentification um I outlined in the report and then the

review said that that overidentification reflects gaps in early intervention not a failure of intent and then it still called out that our charge was to discern and not discard the findings from the report or the report itself um and use what was valid to strengthen the services for our students and our families. So still keeping that 2017 report um in mind uh but with that additional information that there were again a number of inaccuracies found we are going to this evening prepare to share with you some updates about the work that we have been doing um with regard to special education again highlighting information about the program sharing some budgetary um information as well as some areas of improvement and next steps. Um despite the errors that were in the 2017 report, we are committed to again doing better um and doing the best by our students uh who have um the need to participate in our special education services as well as their families. And so where we are now since 2017 is we have really done um a lot to define clear procedures. We've aligned with the SULPA special education procedures manual. key aspects are highlighted by the central administrative team and SULPA through email reminders, a monthly special education bulletin, which is also a new thing. Um, monthly professional learning communities and school site meetings. We've also worked hard to promote early intervention supports. Dibbles and Educ Climber are being utilized to help identify students who may need to be assessed for a possible disability and to track student progress in real time to see if our general education interventions are actually working. And then all of our interventionists districtwide are trained in Orthin Gillianham. We continue to work to strengthen um our family partnerships and to improve uh authentic partnership and trust. Um we have as you heard in our public comments or sorry in our committee reports um DCK which is the disability um equity and special education advisory committee and that was established with monthly

meetings um chaired by parents to build trust, improve communication and ensure families are partners in their children's education. The IEP meetings are the first place IEP members should go to build relationships. We understand that that's not enough and so DC exists to complement those efforts. We also do recognize that there are high costs with special education and that these costs are indeed um unsustainable and you'll hear more detail about that this evening. And so, as with many districts in California, BUSD continues to struggle with containing the budget due to lower case loads, raises, non-public school placements, non-public agency costs, and transportation costs. We continue to invest in staff capacity, which was also a recommendation of the 2017 report. We now have regular trainings provided through district-wide PD. Um, we have professional learning communities and sight specific professional development. We have teachers on special assignments and supervisors that provide additional regular coaching to sites. So we don't have just PD, but we also have coaching. There is a difference with IEP development, building relationships with families and in completing assessments. And then finally, we continue to work uh towards clarity and alignment, aligning resources with our student needs. So our case loads and assessment caps for special education teachers and related service staff um were developed over the last six years and are below state averages. Um, our VP funds provide an additional 5.0 FTE for special education teachers to support assessments and case loads. And so again, just a little context so you know that we're not starting from scratch and this is not the first of this conversation. We are continuing a conversation that happened several years ago. Want to also just remind you all that in the context of this conversation, not only do we have the report and the review of the report, but we also have the reality that we are currently in the state of balancing or moving towards a balanced budget and possibly making some reductions and some um having some hard convers making some

hard decisions about the ways that we allocate resources. Um we uh just reported that we have a budget balancing target of $2.4 million ongoing. And so as we think about this very important critical resource, we do also want to make sure that it is thought about in that context as well. This evening, you see around the table a whole bunch of beautiful faces representative of members of our central office staff as well as our site staff. I will allow them to introduce themselves as they present and answer questions, but you see their pictures and their titles and positions here. And I'm going to pass it to Jill Hogan like to tell you a little bit more about um the special education department and how their mission uh complements the B USD mission that we all started with.

All right. Uh good evening everyone. So, alongside of our district's mission um to enable and inspire our diverse student body, our our special education mission is to create and sustain an educational community where each child respecting their exceptional abilities are welcomed, valued, appropriately supported, made to feel safe, can equally participate, and expected and challenged to learn and achieve. Um there are a number of commitments that we make to our our students um with IEPs and to their families um to ensure that they have full participation um in the educational environment. This is also situated in the context of our uh BUSD district plans. Um we have five LCAP goals. We have a number of initiatives and we have our strategic plan pillars and the theme throughout with regard to supporting our students with IEPs is to strengthen inclusion and build independence and then provide the appropriate supports for students to do so. We're going to start this first uh segment of um this presentation. Um there's about three segments, so we're going to pause for questions at the end of each segment, but we're going to start with demographics in the district. Um well actually we're going to start with demographics in the state. Um just to contextualize the demographics in the district. Um this chart is from the Alama County Office of Education and it is showing the statewide enrollment compared to uh to students with disabilities. Um and you can see over time that far lefthand bar is the 2013 2014 school year and that tracks about 10 years of data to 23 24. Um while we have seen some declines mostly that the declines that uh have been experienced

across the state with regard to enrollment postcoid um we've we've experienced declines in enrollment but we have seen increases in the identification of students with disabilities um to uh the about 14% in the last reported year. On the next slide, you can see uh special education or students with disabilities percentages for the other districts in Alama County. Uh we put a little star, although it's cut off there on the left hand side for Berkeley. Um we have moved from about uh 10% in the 2017 school year to 12% in the 24 school year. So definitely an increase, but one note is that Alama County school districts still have a lower percentage of students enrolled with disabilities compared to the state average overall. Um, and our director Sean Mansiger is going to be talking a little bit about um our our special education demographics in BSD.

Thank you, Jill. Uh, so this is uh just a slide that gives us a snapshot in time of our particular student population. um the numbers as well as their disabilities. Um as you can see from the top, we're we we oscillate between 12 and 13% um over the last few years. Um the federal average is 15%. So as um Jill uh noted, we are uh below um the state and the federal average. Um you can see from that first column there, um that's our BOD students with an IEP. Um and across the across the um column the row there we have the different disabilities that are represented. Um please note that uh where you see the blank spots. So for example for American Indian Alaskan Native uh population it doesn't mean we don't have any students. It just means that the there's less than 10 students and that's not data that goes report because we want to protect um the privacy of students. Um, one thing of note to uh to notice is that um we know that we are disproportionately identifying our African-American black students to special education. And you can see that noted in here. We have 303 of our uh our black students versus 276 even though our black students only represent about 13% of our population.

Do you want me to?

Sure. Thank you. Uh, one of the things that um has been also happening, not only have we been seeing an increase across our nation really of students being identified um for special education, um we're seeing also a grow need of students with high need eligibilities. Um so for example with autism. So you can see there with a graph growing up um that this is a pattern um that um that we've been uh experiencing and we are also experiencing here in Berkeley Unified School District. On the next slide we'll highlight that. Um so the number of students identified with prime uh primary of autism diagnosis um we have to remember that there are uh primary and secondary and sometimes um tertiary uh identifications um in special education. But just looking at the primary we can see from 2022 to up to now we have gone from 163 to 282 um students identified with autism. Now, what I do want to really highlight and note here is autism is a spectrum and it does not automatically designate as high needs. Um, it also does not diag um having an autism diagnosed does not also guarantee an IEP. Um, there are plenty of um of students with autism that do not need an IEP. Um, and and um they don't need those services. Um, however, autism is associated with higher levels of related services such as speech and individual counseling. Um, and we are also seeing an increase in onetoone services, instructional aid and services and the younger aids for students identified with autism that may be non-verbal um or having challenges with behavior. So, um, this does have an impact on our budget. It has an impact on how we run our classrooms. Um, and we want to, you know, highlight that as we go so that we can prepare ourselves to do better for our children. Next slide.

Uh this particular slide is interesting because we are we are a very unique district. We there are very few districts um in California that have adopted an inclusion model. Um and what that means is that we have less special day classes than the majority of other um districts. Um and we try and attempt to keep our children as close as they are to their general education peers. Um, so you can see in that column up there that 79.3% of our uh students are in a regular class. Um, as opposed to Alama County or statewide where you have a a lot lower numbers. Um, and this is important because it um it does affect our budget. It may mean that we need more instructional aids to help serve these students across because they're not self-contained in classrooms, special day classes. Next slide. Uh this is just an overall uh broad view of um some of the programs we offer here. We do have special day classes. Um uh we have a resource specialist. resource specialist is is generally just our students that are in gened most of the day and they get pull out or push in supports for a portion of the day to support them. Um what's different with ours is that uh in our district is that many of our um students mod severe students or extended needs students with more um services are in our general a general ed classrooms a lot longer um than in typical districts. Uh we do have prek special day class um that we just developed. We're still trying to hire a teacher for that. Um so uh that'll be a work in the future. We uh over the last couple of years uh we've added a uh at one site Malcolm X we've added a u a pathway for extensive support needs for special day class. So we have a TK through two and a three

through five. Uh we also have something called a therapeutic home base which was formerly a counseling rich classroom. Um but we uh moved away from more of a medical model to a more of a therapeutic model. Um has a uh we have a school psychologist that serves that program and there are students that may have um behaviors that are challenging. Um but our intent is to have them included in the school day as much as possible. We have two counseling rich classrooms. We are going right now through a bit of a name change. We haven't got to change them to therapeutic homebased yet, but that is something that we're um doing um considering right now. Um language does ma matter and and to be frank, a lot of times you call it CC, and there's a little bit of a connotation to the acronym CC. It sounds a little uh uh I guess prison-minded, I guess. So, we'd like to change that language. So, it actually is a a space that's therapeutic. It's a space to help um our students to um you know, learn how to control their emotions and to um communicate in different ways. And we also have home bases um for our extended learning need students um at at at middle and high school. So, uh if you there is a link there so the community can see the different program descriptions that we have right now. Um and we are in the process of attempting to open up different programs as well which we'll explain later on. Um we t we have the same services provided that any other district has. We have speech occupational therapy physical therapy u to name a few. Um we have supplementary aids and services such as accommodations, modifications for students um that are required in IEP pair professionals, assisted technology, augmented alternative communication um and then transition services for students um to transition between um elementary to middle school or middle

school to high and then high of course into adulthood. Next slide. Uh this is just showing a continuum of placement. It's always important um to understand that we our responsibility um as educators, as a district, is to keep students in the least restrictive environment as possible. All right? We we we talk about inclusion and often times we hear the word full inclusion. Um and I've tried to I try to get that language out of my uh head because uh different students need different inclusion looks different for every student. Um, and sometimes they do need uh a special education classroom or they may need a non-public school um or some students do need a residential facility for a time being to um to get back on track. So, but our job is always to move back to the least restrictive environment as soon as possible.

Okay, next slide. All right, we're going to turn our attention to looking at some data for our students in our special education program. Um I am going to turn it over to Dr. Elena Sweeney who's going to share uh similarly to what we've done with our other focal student group populations our California dashboard data. Um we do have um hot off the press 2026 LCAP planning survey data. Um and then uh we are also going to look at IEP goal data. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Sweeney. I think there's a microphone there and I will give you Do you want the clicker or you want the click? Okay.

Yeah. Um, can everyone hear me? Okay. Yeah, I think you have to turn it on.

You just want Yeah. How about now? No.

Okay. Um, let's go back a slide, please. Jill, if you don't mind, let's go back a slide, please. So, some of this data we've shared before. Um, I'll go through it relatively briskly and then if you have questions, um, please ask me. Okay. So, we're going to look at at at data from different lenses. Here we're looking at all of our students in Berkeley Unified School District over three years who took the Smarter Balance assessment in English language arts and in math. This particular graph demonstrates proficiency rates. So it's showing the percentage of students with IEPs in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 who made it over that bar of proficiency um for that given year. So you do see that there's there's some variability here. Um but especially we look at ELA, we had we had a slight rise, then we had a dip and we had a rise back up again. Um and and in math as well, but but overall we see a relatively stagnant um level of proficiency rate both in ELA and in mathematics for for those three years. We'll move to the next slide, please. Here we look at our data in a completely different way. So here we we look at distance from standard. Distance from t standard is particularly exciting to me because we are looking at not just where our students landed in in other words not just whether or not they made it over by their score over that proficiency rate which is of course important but whe but how much they grew how much closer to standard they got. So, um we we note here that all of our students in their aggregate average um form are still below standard um a as as an aggregate group. However, we do note that as far as getting closer to target,

which is represented as zero both in ELA and in mathematics, we do see um a a a slight um progression closer to standard, noting that we have much room to grow. Next slide, please. And here we disagregate here again. So we're we're staying oriented towards distance from standard. Distance from standard means that the closer that you get to zero, if you're in the negative, the closer that you got to reaching the proficiency band, if of course you're above the zero, you you you've gone um above proficient. So here we're looking at our students, all of our students who took the Smarter Balance assessment over the last three years um and their distance from standard separated by grade level. So you will note that um we see some bright spots particularly in the early years. We note that in 11th grade um we were particularly far from standard overall. I do want to add and I always want to add during any time I have anyone's ear that um we have struggled with participation rates at the 11th grade level and um we had a theory of action that the more students who took the assessment the higher proficiency or the closer to standard we would we would become. that theory of action did prove um prove true over last year um overall and um we're hoping this year we we have um we have high participation rates for our students with disabilities as well. Next slide. Here we look at this is a reflection of the um California state dashboard and the state is increasingly interested in looking at how much districts are able to grow their students from one year to the next. Um, so when looking at this reflection, we're seeing our students in grades four through eight. And the state is reflecting to us how

much we're able to grow our particular student groups based on students throughout the state with similar test scores the year prior. And I and I hope I'm explaining that okay, I'm happy to answer more questions about it. Here we notice specifically for our students with disabilities as compared to their um their peers around the state, we in BUSD in English language arts were able to make average growth for our students in English language arts. So they um their residual gain was what would be expected, not above what would be expected or not less than would have been expected based on their year prior.

Okay. Um and here we look at our distance from standard as disagregated by grade level for uh mathematics from the last three years. So you do see that we do have some bright points, some upticks with with some of our grade levels moving closer to standard um as of 2025. noting that we still have much room to grow here again and I'll highlight this as a bright point. Um, as far as our ability as a district to grow our students year-over-year, our fourth through 8th grade students in mathematics, we made accelerated growth for our students with disabilities in mathematics. And next slide. Okay. So, here um this reflects our as as Jill mentioned our fresh off the the presses um 2026 LCAP survey. Um we worked very hard to get many people to take the survey and um of all the respondents that we had which the number was was 295. You'll see that reflected. It's very hard to read this. So, um, if you're able to look at it. Yeah.

Just point of clarification, uh, that's 295 families that took the survey because we had over,

correct? Yes. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, we had over 2,000 humans who took the survey. This is 295 families who took the survey. And this aspect of the survey, the survey asked multiple questions asking questions about each of our LCAP goals. Um here you see reflected the percentage of people who agreed with each of the statements around um BUSD's school culture and climate. So here you'll see and I think what's important to note is the all respondents on the left and then the mirror image respondents of parents of students with IEPs. The total number there is only 72. However, you'll note that particularly for the questions asked here under school climate and culture, you will note that we have um um impressively high responses here from our families of students with disabilities. Um and I'm happy to go into it more. And I I do want to say again, I know this that the the font is is quite um quite small. Um let's move to the next slide. And just also just to note last year there were about 35ish families of students with IEPs who completed the survey. So with our DC really was trying to do a push to encourage more participation from our families with students with IEPs.

Yeah. And they did a great job. Um also Lena can just explain that the the middle column there just color just means people did not respond. Well it means that they neither agree nor disagree.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So, so they're they're in the and thanks for pointing that out, Sean. So, red is is of course in the negative. Gray is they neither agreed nor disagree. They had no kind of firm opinion about it. And then green is um in the affirmative. So here um we'll see a a bit of a different pattern, but we we notice um when families are responding in agreement that Berkeley Unified School District is building relationships um with their students and with their families. you'll see the respondents of all 295 families who answered on the left and then um and then on the right the parents of students with with IEPs. Um overall again you'll see by and large the the the numbers um or the percentages of parents responding in the negative in the gray area or in the green are are are quite commiserate with each other. um of course with with some variance but they're not they're not wildly different overall and the and the disagregated by parents of students with IEPs. So happy to drill down more into that and we have our whole survey now um represented. So this is just little snapshots from it but it's it's kind of fresh off as of I don't know yesterday. So so yes happy to dig into that more later too. Okay,

good.

Yeah. So, we're going to we wanted to get through demographics and data. We're just we've got two more slides to go over special education IEP goals. And then we're going to pause for questions on demographics and data. Second chapter is going to be about budget. Then we're going to pause for questions. And then we're going to talk about cost drivers. And then we'll pause for questions. Okay. Uh before I jump to this next slide, I do want to say one thing. So I tend to create a lot of slides. So I have a feeling one slide was taken out for brevity reasons. Uh but uh I want I want to point out that we actually are perform our our students are performing above the state standards. Our students with IEPs um by quite a lot. Um so I just think that's important to remember and um it could be an inclusion model. There could be many reasons for that. Um but I just think you can go to the California state dashboard and you can look more closely at that information um for the community that's interested. All right. Uh so this particular slide um shows that we have an increased demand for initial evaluations from 2019 to 2025. And this is um a pattern we're seeing across our nation across our state and nation. Um so if you notice there we in in in the first uh column there we have from 194 um up to from 2020 to uh 2025 we have 260. Uh one thing of note is that uh you'll notice that the columns don't actually add up. So if you'll see the total eligible and the total not eligible don't actually add up to the total assessed. And there's a few reasons for that. Um, one is, uh, there may be an appending status in our system at that time when this particular data was pulled. Uh, could be due to signature like a parent didn't sign and agree to the IEP. So, there's a lot of variations to that. Um, but in general, what we're seeing is an increased pattern every year um, for uh,

initial evaluations for students, which puts on a a big demand on our sites. um puts a big demand on our school psychologists and our case managers as well as our general education teachers. Uh and we wanted to really highlight um you know our when our students come in in preK um we wanted to highlight again this increased um request for assessments. Um we saw in 2023 24 we had um about 35 eligible eligible um three didn't qualify at about 38 total assessments and now in 2025 26 as of 6 um uh 6 2026 46 2026 a few days ago um we have uh 67 at this time. So again, that's a huge jump. Um, and it's a lot of resources and time that are being put on um, our teams. Um, and oftentimes we have to work into the summer um, and pay and that affects our budget because we have to um, in order for us to meet deadlines and to not start the school year um, being slammed with assessments, we often do portions of them during the summer. Uh, this is a IEP goal progress to date. So um I one of the questions that the board requested is how are we doing on our goals? Um and I think I think to note with goal progress is not the only way we look at the success of our children. Sometimes they can meet partial goals. However, as you can see up here in the middle um in the yellow there, our goal progress is uh we have 71% of our goals being met. Uh we have limited progress on 25% of them and no progress on 4%. Um and some of the critical elements um of IEP goals is that we make sure we make their smart goals. Um and when progress is not met, IEP teams should analyze the cause and explore these options. So they can

either update the goal, they can increase services, they can change accommodations to consider a more restrictive placement. Um it's always a work in progress with these IEPs. Um and that's why we meet annually. That's why we meet um sometimes every 30 days to to go over those um uh challenges and how to address them. All right. So that is the conclusion of our first segment on demographics and data. Um so we're going to pause here to see if there are any questions before we turn our attention to budget. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Do you have the um microphone though? Otherwise, they can't hear it. Yeah.

Turn it on. Does it work? Can you guys hear me?

I have a question on slide 19. And I um was surprised to see the large number of Latinx students with speech and language issues. So wanted to know if you knew the breakdown of how many of those students are dually identified students also as English language learners. Would love to see that. And then my other question is about the survey and wanted to see the demographic breakdown of that and if it's reflective of the demographics in our district. I

I was just answering that as far as for the LCAP survey, I can send that information to you, director, and um and for the first part, I was going to check the data system and just see if I could find it. If not, we'll send it to you later. I have a a few questions. First, I want to um go back to I believe it's slide uh 23 when we talk about um the program and service options. Um and when we click on the link um there uh some information it says mild to moderate um for the high school and then you know upon reading more um it talks about the CLC um and I wanted to just unpack that a little bit before I ask question

what is the CLC? Yes. microphone.

Hi. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay, great. So, the CLC stands for collaborative learning center and that is a class that counts as an elective towards high school credit. It is a class where students are in a receiving their specialized academic instruction. They also receive their college and career readiness and trust their transition goals. In addition to that, that's also a time where they can receive any other related services, pull outs such as speech, counseling, etc. Um, and that's a regular class period. So, it's like 50 minutes 5 days a week. Um, it addresses executive functioning skills, any math, reading, writing goals, accommodations, separate setting for tests, that kind of thing. Does that help?

Yes, thank you so much. Um, and and so at the high school level, um, they students are offered this class like for one period a day. um and then what other supports um are offered for them as it relates specifically to like differentiated um differentiated instruction. So in the in terms of their general education courses that they're taking, they'll have accommodations with that are within their IEPs. There may or may not depending on the amount of students and the types of students that are in the uh student needs that are in the classrooms. There may be an instructional aid. Um there may also be some push-in support consult between the general education teachers and the special education teachers. And um yeah, I think that's a good summary of the other supports that are available within that realm for special ed. And there were there were professional developments that were done over the last few years um with our general education teachers um around accommodations and modifications.

Thank you for answering that. So, pretty much kind of like the standard approach to um supporting um all students in general education, but specifically um students who may have IEPs um that are that are in gened classes. The reason I'm asking is because um as Dr. Sweeney presented specifically on the SBA data, um I'm concerned really about the gaps that are happening uh at our high school level versus our elementary levels. Um, and I think I'm pretty pretty aware of the additional supports that are happening at the elementary levels, which I I'm sure helps to kind of close those gap for gaps for our elementary students. I'm really concerned about um just what's happening or what what the need further need is uh for the high school. I will to your point, Dr. Sweeney, say that um we did have more students who participated in the SBA last year and so that's great. That's that's wonderful and I appreciate all the work. um that was done around that um and as we because when more students participate we we do learn more. So I'm happy um that we have that but I am really concerned specifically about the distance from standard um and that um distance from standard you know that that was represented last year for our 11th grade students. I do want to recognize that students do not take um the SBA in 9th grade or 10th grade, but there are opportunities to take um intram assess assessments which we don't really utilize as often as we probably should. And I'm also wondering what additional uh instructional support should happen to help us be able to kind of like close those distances and to be

able to help students meet the their grade level standards. Uh one one thing I wanted to add that question. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean

brief. Yeah. Of course, there's uh a lot on the general education side that special education. Um we work as partners, so it is a collaborative effort. Uh but one thing I do want to note is over the last couple years, we have set a section aside for our struggling readers. Um we have an amazing teacher, Rachel Mandahar, um that meets with around 20 of our students. I've visited a few times and they've created a very amazing community and we are seeing um some fantastic growth. And we've paired this with the work that we've been doing with Orton Gillingham and ensuring that because we know that we have, you know, we're we expect that as we've initiated um our literacy action plan over the last few years that we will see less and less of our students arriving in high school with reading challenges. So, in the meantime, the way we're trying to alleviate that is by having this section that we set aside. I I could add to that that we've just recently started working with Rachel and some of our other colleagues to further train additional program um special education teachers to also provide reading support for students who are needing more additional reading support beyond the just what they would receive in terms of accommodations or um you within that specialized academic instruction. So, we have a few more teachers who are being trained in that to support that. And we're also expanding looking at expanding options for co-taught.

Um, so there'll be an kind of a bigger model, more range, more models to support. I'm getting really tired now. Yeah, I was just going to add quickly that um Director Brown that we um we have had an increase in the use of IABS with our our younger learners and even into the middle school. Unfortunately, that that hasn't translated as much into the high school yet. Um but we have um done the work of having people conduct the IES and then helping um teachers analyze those to see what instructional moves they'll make from those. So that's been some incremental but exciting work. And then I just want to while we're on the topic Oh, she's

Yeah, I appreciate that. My and I'm aware of what's happening at the lower levels, but my question was really around what's happening at high school specifically because they missed that ninth grade and 10th grade year for um for assessments. And I know IABS of course help to inform instruction for for um our educators. Um and so that would be great at the high school level, but it also helps students to get in the practice um of of taking these exams and they have the opportunity to do it three times a year um versus not versus doing it in eighth grade, not doing it at all in nth grade, not doing it at all in 10th grade, and then being expected to perform at a high level in 11th grade. Um, I think that we uh set our students up for failure if we don't utilize all of the tools that are out there for them and provide them with the support uh in that way.

Yeah,

I think overall just one thing uh director Brown, we have really been working with the high school about doing the screening assessment. So, there has been a big shift um you know, it's a culture shift for Berkeley High for sure. So last year we piloted the screening assessments at the 9th grade for both ELA and math. Um and this year it was 10th and 11th or it's 10th 10th and 11th um three times a year at 9 and 10 and we've we've gone to twice a year for 11th grade because there are a number of other assessments that the 11th graders take. Um but that has been a shift to your point right and I'm also having to work with our teachers to understand the nature of the STAR assessment is standards aligned which um I think has been somewhat of a challenge because not everybody feels like it's aligned to the curriculum that they're teaching but that how that information is important to help us understand the skills that students um are strong in and the ones that they need additional support for. Sorry,

I I hear and I appreciate that so much. Um, and I think it is so important. And when we look at the dashboard, the California dashboard, unfortunately, there is no place where those um like those identifiers or those um like th those assessments show our students and how well they're doing. The dashboard unfortunately only identifies how students perform on the SBA. Um, and so while those are important and we should do those, I think that there is more work that needs to be done to support what is actually what our students are actually going to be producing as it relates to the California dashboard. Y

um, so I think it's a both and like we could still continue to do those and there's more room to do more, right? And I so what I will say Yep. So I don't have control over what goes on the dashboard. That would be that would be policy level. That said, we did when we initiated the current three-year LCAP, those screening assessments are now part of the metrics that we hold internally. So, it's you're right, it's not on the dashboard, but we are tracking them internally and growing. Yeah, I was just going to add one thing that use the mic. Okay. um

um that of our students with speech IEPs um 12.8% or 45 students are dually identified. So just just because I was able to find that I wanted to share with you and do we know if that is typical you know I don't off hand no I don't

I have a couple questions um about I want a follow-up question on the CLC and then also the special day class. Um, so regarding the CLC, I've just heard this is anecdotal, but there's a lot of variation in the experiences of kids who um go to the CLC's. And I'm wondering if we have any kind of standardized curriculum, especially we hear a lot about a lack of executive functioning skills for our IEP students. Like, do we have a standardized curriculum? Is there some kind of routine in these CLC's? and you know or what I've heard is it's basically a study hour for students. So what how do we look from classroom to classroom and ensure that those those minutes those hours are really being used to support the students in their growth towards their IEP goals. That's my first question.

Because you answer the other Yeah. No, and we can we can dovetail off of each other. Um yes, we do have a executive function that they start off every class by um by going through different types of executive function skills that they need to learn. Um and there is a portion of the time where it may feel like a study skills and that's cuz the teacher is going around and supporting or other people are pushing in and and pulling out. So I would just say that you know any classroom is going to have that. Um, and we're always trying to improve our CLC and we've done some um, so we've done a lot of work in the last two years because of that. Um, when you say they're spending time in every class, is there a curriculum right there?

It's not a I don't know if it's a curriculum per se. It's something right. I didn't know if they had developed it or if it's something we bought. So you can

we have a recommended um executive functioning skills curriculum that we use and share with each special education teacher and case manager. Um I do think there's a variation in terms of skill sets experience. Um and that is an area for continued training and improvement and alignment across all of the special education teachers. I think one thing to kind of think about is that that exists, you know, in across any district, but I think it gets more examined more closely in terms of Berkeley High being one comprehensive site versus and all of those special education teachers are within one site versus across sites. So, you have all that wide range within that one comprehensive site. But yeah, we have a a recommended and share um executive functioning curriculum that we use and is available to teachers and for training I think there and we also have a college and career readiness curriculum that is used and each week as well. So there are two kind of main curriculums within that time period. Also there's a lot of flexibility within that space and time because that is also a time that students rel receive other related services. So students are kind of coming and going um and so a lot of flexibility has to be experienced within there. Yes,

that's also the time that we pull um our students that are having reading struggles um because you know one of our greatest challenges at the high school is well when do we provide all these services? We're not going to pull them out of AP calculus, right? We're not going to have a adult go sit in there. So having this um space um is a time to uh it's multiaceted. Um but yes um two years ago we really started on uh a big improvement um of of our CLC classrooms.

And just another comment about the CLC's and then I'll move to the SDC. And that's just it's just a comment that I've heard again and again from parents and kids that it really limits your access to electives like the things that give joy to a lot of kids. You know if you have to take PE and you have to take a language you basically get no electives. And one of the real highlights of Berkeley High are all of these amazing opportunities that we give kids. So I I know that that's a big question or a big issue, but I think it's something we need to really give some thought to um to make sure that our kids have access to those those kind of joyful experiences too. um the SDC and this relates a little to the CLC too, but um I know that Malcolm X has special day class now and these were these are new and um being implemented and I think they're really successful and supportive and helpful. I've heard great things about those classrooms. Um, but what I'm wondering is how they fit into like our overall vision of what we want sped to look like and how we want it to grow and how those teachers are being supported to make sure that it fits into that that bigger vision. And the same with the CLC's, right? So instead of it just sort of being a band-aid or or something that we're putting in place because we know we need something how we're integrating it. Yeah, I would

I know that's a big question. Yeah. No, and I appreciate it. U and I'll let Sheena dovetail with me a bit. She's our um our supervisor at the middle school level has been to Malcolm X. She about Malcolm X. Sorry. Malcolm X Elementary. Floren. That's Floren says elementary. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I meant I I don't even Did I say Malcolm X? I meant middle school. She's asking about the SDC at Malcolm X. Oh, Malcolm X. I'm sorry. Yeah, I was thinking of

Okay, so just I mean I think that I mean just a brief answer is that we we are ultimately we want to support our students through a broad range of appropriate services. And so we don't want to create situations where students are isolated on any IEP. um there has to be a percentage of time that students spend with their general education peers and that would be true in any of the settings that they have. Um so what we're trying to do through those SDC classes is to broaden our continuum of services. Um and Floren, I don't know if you want to say anything about how that um how that works and how it's integrated um at Malcolm X. Okay.

So, we have two. We have TK1 and 35 and those are our babies. Um, the 35 class, this is our third year doing it and the TK1, this is our first year

and I can say that both are highly successful, but especially the TK1. This last week alone, we've had three students who will now we've had IEPs that they will now be transitioned next year. they will transition back to the full inclusion because they're ready. But prior to that, they go to uh they mainstream and that's part of the plan. They mainstream for an hour a day to the gened class. Um and so now we've we we wanted five, but parents are still not ready for their children to go, but we're working on them, but three are ready and we're very we're very happy with that with the 35 class. the students there are a little bit more um challenging both in behavior and in health. So they we feel that they are still not ready but um we are now moving towards more mainstreaming for them as well if if they can with all the support that they have. And also for some um context all of our students in the SEC classes have have AAC devices meaning they they have like support with with with their language. The biggest thing that I've seen as progress is that the kids at the TK1 level before who did not use any of their AAC's or were just beginning to use them. I I go there every week and sometimes twice a week. They're now actively using it and they're using more language. So now that's when they determine that yes, they can now participate and be fully included in the K or first K classes.

Yeah. Can I ask a really quick followup, Florian? What about second graders? Uh, there's two five, sorry. TK1 and 25 or the other one. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, yeah. And now that I know what we're talking about, um, I do want to highlight I think the importance of the importance of uh having a a TK through two or one is that we're starting a lot earlier and that's helping them build those functional skills that they need. So we see from our older students that didn't have those experiences. And I and I think it highlights the general need of inclusion is really important, but we also need to provide spaces for our students with higher needs to be able to obtain those skills and have those um those more intimate experiences in order to build them back up so that they can um operate more with our general education classrooms.

Yeah. I just hope that we will all like think well think more deeply about how how this model fits into the rest of the model and we'll continue to develop that that vision for special ed. And my last quick question is around the survey. I'm just wondering how what were the mechanisms that um the survey went out through like how did we ensure a broad distribution of families were responding and also about the survey when you said like so many families but there was a thousand people like how was that students and parents and then how did you like norm the data based on that it I was just confused because I'm a nerd Yeah. Yeah. And I can show you the

presentation. Okay. Yeah.

We created a a Tableau using um Looker Studio. It's it's a data tableau. Um, but essentially we had we advertised through every means that we possibly could and with lots and lots of repeat begging, pleading, advertising, sharing, resharing, um, contests, um, goals we did, I mean, I'm not trying to be funny about it, but like in in a lot of ways with with all of our parent advisory committees, with our principles repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, and and with with every group that we could talk to, um, we did have um, a significant number of secondary I can pull the numbers up, but a significant number of secondary students that that took it since we only asked that middle and and high school students took it. Um Mr. Rigosa did a did a fantastic job um having his high school students take it. So we had a we had a great number great showing of high school students. We had um many teachers took it um and then um a smaller number of of families. And then from there we can also based on the tableau that we created we can we can then disagregate um by ethnicity by parents of EL parents of of students with IEPs etc. So um

so when you say the family does that make sense? I'm just when you say like so many families responded would that if I'm like a high school parent would that include me and my kid and then how would our data be I just

the students took a separate survey at shorter so there's similar questions we have required sets of information that is required as part of the LCAP um but we um have also included some goal reflections and then specific for BUSD we were getting some feedback on our emerging graduate profile. So, there was a separate um and slightly longer survey for families and adults. Um and then students had a shorter survey. So, we're comparing those those two, but I can take this offline. I I don't want to get too in the weeds, but I don't understand the 300 versus the thousand. That's what I'm I'm But I can ask you later. It's it's okay.

Okay. Okay. We we and we will be sharing these data in more detail on the LCAP presentation, but we can we're going to turn our attention to budget. Um, superintendent, do you want to do these opening slides? Would you like me to? Oh, I'm sorry. We have two chapters left. So, we're going to So, we can turn our attention to budget. Okay. 43. Okay. We're going to skip to 43. the situation we're in and the budget. Okay.

Reminded Okay. Um we do want So in this section of budget, um we just want to contextualize that rising cost and declining revenues are happening across California. There was a recent last week Ed Source article um that is linked here for people um to see. but also, you know, in an a hopeful moment, a recognition on the part of our governor that while the federal government had a promise in 1975 to provide for 40% of the cost of students with disabilities, um the reality is is that has been less than 13%. Um and you're going to see across these slides just the trends for California with regard to um the federal federal and state contributions um remaining relatively stable or in some cases decreasing over time while the local expenditures have increased over time. Um so you can see there from 2021 to 2023 um the increase on the cost per pupil um and the local contribution per ADA. um those special education expenditures by resource uh source. This is just that information in a different format with a graph. But again, um overemphasizing or you cannot overemphasize enough the local contributions that are being made um not just in BUD but across the state um to support the programs and services that are necessary to serve um our focal students in um who have IEPs. In Alama County, 14 of the 18 school districts um have a total general fund uh contribution of at or above 20% um for their special education services. Um and on this slide you can see the cost per student compared pre- pandemic. The

2018 2019 bar is on the left hand side. You can see B USD there with the star. Um the cost per student at that time was about 24 almost $25,000. Um those are ranked from lowest to highest. And then on the right hand side that table is from the 23 24 school year. And you can now see that BUSD um has the highest amount of cost per student at about $43,000 um which is a a pretty significant increase. Again, that information um just visualized in a different way, but looking at the percentage increases across the other districts in the county. Um BUSD has had the highest increase in that percent change. Uh Pleasanton is uh shortly behind and I think there was one district up there where there had been a slight decrease and I think that was New Haven. Um so uh again significant local contributions to support special education services. Uh and then Sean is going to go over um the the big budget picture for uh B USD.

Right. So this just shows over time um our revenue expenditures um and the contribution from the unrestricted general fund. You've seen this for the last few years and we just add another column at the end and we see that it's continuing to rise. Um so the general fund contribution has gone from 24 million and changed to 33 uh million. Um you can also you track across for employee costs, NPS costs, NPA costs. Um and we're going to jump a little bit more into strategies that were have been using over the um last few years to uh contain these costs um and the complexities of that. Uh this is just another visual graph um of that information to show um one thing you'll note is our employees that line that across there is the amount of FTE we've added um part of that is the instructional aids that we added um at the beginning of the year um as well as um midway through the year to uh be able to hire our own um internal instructional aid staff and not use as many contractors. Um uh and there has been a trend over time when I came here where we had many more contractors um for example occupational therapists um or uh our counseling for um for our um education related mental health services were being done by contractors and we've slowly brought that inhouse. So, we've hired more psych school psychologists, um more occupational therapists, um and you'll see in a f future slide that we have additional work to do um for job descriptions that we don't have in our district that we're relying on contractors. As for example, uh at the top there, registered behavior technicians. Um so revure behavior technician is an instructional aid that works with our um students that often could have um

behaviors um like leaving from the classroom um or uh aggressive behaviors per se or um also could be um a student who maybe needs toileting support things like that. um or not sorry not toilet support but maybe more uh major disabilities that that they would need somebody with them all day long to support them. Um but many times it's around behavior. Uh you could see our instructional aids uh we have internal FTE about 144 FTE and contra out of that are we have we're still contracting about 43.6 um FTE from um a couple of different agencies. In the past, we went through uh in the past, we were using, especially after CO, we were using up to eight or nine agencies because they didn't all have enough people. And this last year, we've really funneled it down to a couple. Um and then by the additional FTE, we're starting to hire our own folks. You'll see in a little while um in a bit how much we've done. Uh speech and language pathologists, uh you can see we have a total internal uh internal FT of 18 FTE, but we still have about 4.2 two that are like specialty um areas that we're still um utilizing. Um some of it's covered by one of them is covered by a PCN, but we still have about 3.2 that um we'll likely try to bring in house um either this year or next year. Um and then assisted tech technologies and augmented alternatives where it says no current classification. We don't have a job description our district right now. Um um these are often hard to staff positions as well. our our SOPs do do some of that work. Um but we often are led to contract out some of it. Next slide.

Um before you move to the next slide, um yes, please.

Is this working? Okay. Um, I wanted to share that we are actively in um, collaboration with BCCE leadership working on creating an RBT um, registered behavior tech job description um, as well as increasing the support position which is the BCBA position um, to support those positions. Then the plan is to have those that job description before the board for approval um within the next month and then have those jobs be open so that we aren't having contractors in those positions starting in the fall. So we're working on that. We're also working on um a similar um plan with um local 21 to create a physical therapist um job description and position so that hopefully we can also do the same for that position. Um, and so we're we're doing this in stages because we want to make sure that we're concentrating and and spending our energy in the right places. Um, and um, I just wanted to point out that the information in terms of the um, IIA special ed um, numbers, it was reverse of that a year ago. Um, so it was more of like we had 43 people that were actual employees and 10 and something that were um, contractors. So, we have done a lot of work and I know that we have more facts later on um regarding that, but I wanted to make sure I pointed that out.

Absolutely.

Uh thank you um Sam. Uh so there's a few other positions here you'll see um of um there's a few things. One, uh some are hard to staff positions. So even if we had the position available, we may still be looking for contractors to fill those positions. Um, and then one area I really want to point out is our certified nursing assistants. This kind of goes in line with this trend of having more severe students over time that we're supporting. You can see we have actually have eight um CNA or LVNs that are working with those students um due to different needs, diabetes needs, um that maybe feeding needs, things of that nature. And 8.0 FTE, we don't have classifications and that's quite a bit of of money. Um, in the past we had three or four and we've gotten up to eight at this point. So, it's just one of those budgetary things that happens due to just increased need over time.

All right. Well, back one more the end of the but so we're going to pause here for any questions um from the board on uh the budget

section. I have questions. Um, okay. I have a a few questions, but um, I'll start with what I think is maybe most important. Going back to slide 47, really just thinking about our per student per year cost. Um, and thank you for for going through and talking about, you know, our budget and what we are spending our money on, but specifically what um causes our cost to be higher than the rest of um the rest of our surrounding districts. Like when I look at other school districts, they have um very similar um services and positions that we have. Um, however, some of those districts have more students um than than we have um which I would think that they would their spending would be a little bit higher per student than hours based on maybe need or based on area or based on um some other things. And then also, how does our cost per student align to our um just going back to like our student performances um on on the data that you provided earlier? Because if I think back to a presentation that we had a little while ago, like even just thinking about the one that's closest to us, Pedmont, they spend less per student. um but their data looks differently than ours. And so overall, like what um causes our cost to be higher than that of surrounding school districts?

I don't know that we would be able to answer specifically without having done a costbyc cost comparison across districts. But in the next segment of the study session, we are going to talk about four cost drivers. One is our non-public school placements, uh our non-public agency dependencies, transportation, and then labor costs. So those are all I think we've identified those things along with legal as being some of the significant contributors to our costs. Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um do we also think that our model that we have plays a role in that? Um if so can we unpack that a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah. So we can look at Alama Unified School District, right? It's in our SULPA pretty much same size. Um they have a significant more special day classes. Um however, you see that they've also have 31.69. So yes, lower than us. Um but they um certainly, you know, one of our big costs is the uh amount of instructional aids we have because when you have special day classes, you can have students in a room um with like a 3:1 ratio, a 4:1 ratio, whatnot. Um, and in a district like ours where we have our um more uh severely impacted students that are in our general education classroom, we need to have uh you know, they often have more aids that are serving them. So, I do think that's one of it, but um as uh Jill pointed out, it's very complex. Um and there are many factors that could lead to, you know, higher costs. Um but I do agree. I mean I do think we all agree that having the inclusion model um is a more expensive model and that's um that's what research shows as well.

Right. And I was I was hoping today that um during our study session that we could really dig deep and think about our model and think about um the the cost of our model and and really just um put our heads together um in thinking about our future really. Um, and for me when I see um going back to slide I don't know if that was slide um sorry going back to slide sorry slide whatever it was slide 35. And even just with our pre kindergarten assessments and that 36 turning into 67, that tells me that there's going to be a trend that there are going to be more students um who require more needs and require more services. And so the model that we currently have, is it working for our students um support-wise, academically, and is it working for our district financially? Um, so I I was hoping that today we would really dive deep and unpack that um during our study session. And I'm going to give it to Director Kor before you answer.

I just want to add on to that a little bit. The other slide that really stands out to me is slide 20, which shows the growing numbers of students with disabilities with high need eligibility. And I'm wondering how that relates to growing cost

and the intersection with the questions about whether full inclusion is whether inclusion, pardon me, is is the for which students inclusion is the appropriate um program model and for which students it's not and how we think about that. Um, just quickly to respond or at least try to respond to the initial parts of director Brown's question regarding diving deeper into our motto. Um, I think I'm not sure Joe said it today, but we often say that it is hard to tell that story because as we know correlation is not causation. What we do have are slides that um definitely make some connections between um our model and cost. So, the IIA breakdown is not necessarily here. Um, but there are definitely are some conversations that could be had around the the the desire for non-public school placement or MPS's and the fact that we have fewer uh spaces for our babies who have who might have higher needs or needs that cannot be met in the general education classroom that might compel a family or that might compel the team sitting together at a table for an IEP to make that other assignment. So though I can't guarantee you and say that because we have a full inclusion model, even though I know we're trying to say it differently, that families go to NPS. No, I'm I'm agreeing with you. What I'm saying is that there are some connections, but we won't make them directly today and say because we have this model, these costs are high, but I do want to surface that you call that out because there are some ways that you can see that there might be some implications that our model has to the cost that we're going to break down inclusive of transportation as well. You are right though that IAS um I think maybe Sean said it that IAS are a big cost in a full inclusion model or an in a school district that predominantly has inclusion because right there is the need to support that baby in class while the general education teacher is teaching the class in its entirety and some of us at the table are many of us here at the table are actually and have been classroom teachers and so we know that that extra need and care um is

required and so our move to special day classes are having starting to uh create special day classes and even the CLC and some of those other programs that we have are big of that are part of that bigger larger conversation that I just want to put on record. We do have to have we do need to kind of dive deeper to see if the MPS costes or just the desire and the request for MPS's or the IIA costs um are directly related to the fact that we have this inclusion model and we don't have as many um spaces for the different needs of our babies. we have general ed and for a while we had general ed and then nothing else and now we're trying to do the SDC class. So I wanted to say that but and I you can respond. Can I say one more thing um really quickly though I just thinking about also so we are exploring that I just want to say that we're exploring it. We think that there's ways that our model has been amazingly um appropriate for so many students and right as our population changes, as our circumstances changes, as our data changes, we need to ask ourselves, is it still the best model for the babies in BUSD? Um and to your point, for the resources that we have to support it. But in terms of just across the the the state and the nation quite honestly there are more and more students being referred to special education um with specific u disabilities and for specific reasons. One of the things that we have to do just as educators not unique or specific to Berkeley but in general is to then rethink what is special education and what becomes what is tier one and what is actually tier three. Um ideally special education is tier three. It's this the it's the all the extra, right? And what we're seeing is that as student needs increase and change, our model again in education period has not evolved to reflect that. And so we're still saying that's a tier three need when actually if the majority of the students or more and more students are showing they have that need, it becomes a tier one need and therefore it is not a special education need. We need to figure out how to meet those needs in the tier one classroom. And so just wanted to name there's some philosophical pieces of it too. um but

also don't want to ignore the opportunity to say that we do need to re-evaluate our model um and some of the costs will be explored here but for sure more in the future as well. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Um especially because you know we adopted this model at a time where our needs were different right and so as our needs changed I think to your point um we we have to make some shifts. I do want to say and I want to be clear um I love our IAS. They're amazing. They're incredible. I don't know what we would do without them. And so I don't want the conversation necessarily be about IAS. What I do want the conversation to kind of be about are NPS's. Okay. So I just want to be be clear about that. Thank you.

Okay, next slide. Uh hold on.

Wait, I have a couple questions. Of course you know me, Sean. Um, okay. One is I just don't really understand slide 50 and I want to see if I'm looking, this might be a question for Sam actually. This 32 million in employees cost. So then if I look at slides 51 and 52, I think these are the employees that are generally encapsulated in that cost. So does that 31 million include the contracted employees? because I I see on slide 50 the contractor's cost, but that's super low. That can't possibly be for all of our like contracted IIA

sped 2. So I I'm just not sure I'm understanding the breakdown of the cost. So the NPA cost is what would be the um cost of those IAS um the the contracted ones. Um the RBTs, the positions that are on 51 and 52 would be under NPA. Okay. Um and in that so if you combine that with that contractor's cost and the MPA cost that would be those costs the what the 31 uh million or the light blue employees cost would include all the teachers all the service providers all the includes the teachers additional additional

all of our special ed staff including the people who are sitting around this table right now. Okay. Um who are paid for by special ed funds. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I understood slide 50 in that breakdown and that contractor costs too. So the MPA piece would be like the contracted staffing positions. The other contractor costs that we have are to pay for additional assessments to pay for contractors for PD and training. Um so there are other contracts that we have. Yeah.

So we're still spending 6 million on contractors on those next two slides on that right column. Okay. And then a comment uh at I just saw on slide 52 this um CNAs and the LVN's this is just totally a comment. Um and these are hard to fill positions except that new grads, new CNA grads and new LVN grads there, it is very hard for them to find jobs and we do have a community college system in the area that graduates CNAs and um nurses. And so it might be an opportunity to get a pipeline because you need to start somewhere and often new grad nurses can't find anything because nobody wants a brand new nurse that they have to train.

Yeah, I I appreciate the comments and I and I appreciate that and that's actually um I haven't even talked to Sean about this, but um one of the things that I want to do is put that as our one of our next on the list after we get the RBTs and the um PT in place is to start working on the CNAs and people at Merit College. So, we can work on that. Um, but that is one of our goals is to do that because we haven't tried to recruit them. So, calling them hard to fill, we're basing it off of like past experience, not right. We don't have that position created in our So, um, it it's hard for us to say whether or not it's hard for us to fill because we haven't tried. Got it.

So, that's why it would be one of our next. I do know that RNs are harder to find because of the fact that they have to have the school nurse um certification to go along with their RN. um and so they are harder to find but the um the LVN's and the CNAs I think um we just haven't tried recently and so we need to do that and that's one of our goals for this next year. Yeah, it would be a great opportunity also to build a pipeline from you know many of our students going through the community college pathways. Thanks.

All right, are we ready to move to cost drivers? Okay. Okay, we're we're going to spend a little time with cost drivers. Uh just wanted to contextualize though this again is a slide that was shared with us um by ACOE just identifying some of the cost driver trends across the state. So some of these will look familiar to many of us including um the behavioral needs um that we are seeing uh the capacity supports that are needed requests for services that are bypassing SS SST processes and the continuum of available services. So, um you're going to see some of those themes um show up as we talk about some of the cost drivers. Um since it's 9:45, we're going to be focusing on these first four. Um starting with non-public school placement to uh director Brown's earlier question. So,

all right. Um and again, just to orient everybody, um these slides are going to be set up the same way. We wanted to give a sense of things by the numbers, but recognizing that with any of the cost drivers comes a focus on what it is that we are trying to improve. Um, that's what you'll see on the left hand side of these slides. In the middle, we've identified some of the strategies that we're working on and the status that we have to date. Um, and then we have also identified some of our implementation challenges. So um there's definitely all a work in progress and there are a number of constraints factors changing dynamics um as we're trying to address uh these major cost drivers.

Yeah, there's a lot of information on the slide so um you know feel free to ask questions. Um uh so if you look by the numbers um from 2022 to uh 23 to current um we had 43 um non-public placements non-public school placements 35 and then 53 um a big spike in 2002 25 um we're at 46 now so we've gone down a little bit um there's been some great work happening at um by sundown at the high school level um one of the things um that you'll see Um on the implementation challenges on the other side is is that majority of our non school placements are at the high school level. So that is an area of focus and work that we'll talk about in a little while. Um so t current total costs um is 4,720,000 for nonpublic school placements. Um that is to this date. We could have more students placed in the next couple months. So, or we can bring students back, but that's where we're at right now. So, um our big improvement focus is of course like how do we build stronger relationships with families so that they're not doing unilateral placements or um or that we're they're building trust that their students will be successful. We know that we're always going to have some students that will be served by nonpublic schools. We do have really challenging students that we don't have the capacity to serve, but we have certain segments of students that we could serve in this district um if we have the right programs and the right um support. Um and this cross this is not just special education. This is our general education class. This is how we serve students as as whole students and the strategies use. So that's where we need to come together as a um as a community. Uh we want to increase the continuum of services in B USD. That's a big area of improvement which we've been doing slowly. Um, keep students close to

home, right? Most of these non-public schools are across the bridge. They're really far away. It takes an hour to get there. That's um a huge cost for transportation, which we'll go over in a little while. Um, and we would need always need to improve our delivery of monitoring of um tier 2 and tier three support and of course tier one as well. Um so uh you know some of the work we've done over time is we've done tiered counseling support by our school psychologists. Um when I came in this district we didn't have any counseling happening by our school psychologists. They were just testing machines. Um and when you have outside contractors doing this work um two things are happening. First of all our budget is um much higher but also we're um you're not having that personal connection. Our school psychologists are on the ground. they're working with our teams regularly, they can they can connect with families and not having people from the outside come. Not not to say that that work from outside agencies is not good work, but um so that's some work that we've done with Shaina's um leadership um through this time. So um we also have our behaviorists our AACAT um we have seen a sharp increase every year of referrals to our behaviorists um to um come to school sites and support with students. Uh we really need to increase our PBIS and our tier one strategies in our classroom so that we're not getting as many referrals. Um but they um later on you'll see a little link of a slide of all the great work that those behaviorists are doing. Um we've also increased our AAC um at the sites. Um we have iPads. We had a big purchase of iPads to support with um augmented alternative communication for our students. Uh we've opened uh special day classes to keep students in BUSD schools. Um for you have to remember those special day classes are for our students with very severe disabilities.

It's not uh like a mild class. And one of the things that um that uh uh one of the things we should be aware of that every student that has those moderate um those severe disabilities also has a lot of uh related services go to it and and the cost for each of those MPSs is probably around 150,000 each. So by having these special day classes we are keeping those students here um closer to home but we're also um saving a significant amount of money. Um uh we have uh about you can see in there the amount of students that we have in each class. They're not quite full, but we have a few. So we have these spots now that we can place students, which is fantastic. Uh we're also doing something we'll talk a little later. We're building out um a CEC. I don't know why this says CDC. It should be CEC. Another reason why I want to change the language um for this program. We don't Yes. That's not good. um uh program at BHS. We're uh it's planning in progress. It's actually going to be estimated to be open in the winter of 2026. And you'll see in a later slide, we um essentially are building a uh a module in the middle of the Berkeley High School campus. Um that will be a place for a counseling another counseling rich classroom which we'll rename later on. Um that will be very focused on our students with more internalized behavior, more anxiety behavior, um more uh uh our uh students who uh maybe don't want to leave their bed in the morning. Um one of the things we hear from families is Berkeley's high school is too big. Um so we did take a trip out to Tamop Payas and we visited some of their sites um the last couple of years um and they have a program dedicate they have different CCS one for students have more you know outward behavior and then what those internalized behaviors so that's uh work that we're doing and it's it's going to be open at winter 2026 so it's super

close and exciting um we've we try to place within the SULPA to keep students closer to home um but guess what nobody has any boom, there's no space, you know. Um, so and then, uh, of course this work that we've done with literacy instruction, I think we really need to highlight that work that has really, we had a lot of placements that were like, we don't have a reading program to teach our children with dyslexia. Well, now we have these strategies. So, it gives us, you know, parents still place unilaterally. Um, um, but now we have a program. We can say, well, actually, we have fantastic teachers here that can teach this. So that's been a big improvement. Um so implementation challenges um again is uh limited space in local districts within the SULA. Um we don't have any of our students placed within the SULPA um that are not non-public schools. Um in increased transportation costs for NPS placements. Um and then you can see 71% of our NPS placements are at the high school level. Um so that is the area of focus. uh non-public agencies. I don't

uh do we want to stop for each of these because it's let's go let's go through all of them and then Okay. Okay. I saw head shakes.

All right. Non-public agencies. Uh we we've dipped into a lot of these topics. So I'll I'll try to be um a little more brief. Um but right now we've spent about at this point 4,720,000. um we will have more costs for that um as we pay the bills. Um our improvement focuses of course increase FT to hire our staff internally and decrease our contract costs, identify efficiencies for our IE assignments, you know, really making sure that we're um changing mindsets to to say like, well, does the student really need an instructional aid or are there other strategies that we can use um before that that's offered? um and to strengthen the IP team's understanding of the importance of moving students towards independence. Having instructional aid is a more restrictive environment and it can have very uh delotterious effects on children um because they have an adult with them all day and if we're not careful they build that dependence on that adult. Um so we want to be very any our whole purpose of special education is to build independence with children period. Um, so we've been doing IIA audits at each site every year, which is a ton of work. And I'm sure everybody wants to stop doing it, but it is work that we need to continue to do because um it uh our I think our job or our minds work in a way of like when something's really challenging, we want somebody else to deal with it. So we start assigning instructional aids and it and that's not what the purpose of instructional aid is, to take a kid off to the side. instructional aids there to build independence and work with the team as a in a collaborative effort. Uh we we've been cohorting um so we for example at the middle school level um when we have our intervention classes that we create for math and language arts we cohort students into these classrooms so we don't have aids all over the place. We have maybe one or two that support in the classroom. Uh professional development for instructional aids and case managers on building independence. We've done a ton of work those last few

years through uh Wednesday PD times and making sure our instructional aids are actually in those. In the past, they would just leave and go home and now they're actually within working with our community um and our case managers have time to work with them. Our district-wide PD days, we've put a lot of um support in making sure that our instructional aids are getting very good um PD um based on um the surveys that they put out of what they would like to do. And then we have a lot of site behaviorists do a lot of the verbal deescalation and trauma trainings. Um right now we have 72 instructional aids that have been um that have been uh this year that have been trained in verbal deescalation. If you click on that link at some point you can see all of the trainings across the district that um our behaviors have done. Um and uh of course decreasing reliance on contractors by adding FT FTE um and a process for doing this a clear process um that was something that we've been working on lately and we're still working on with human resources um and and the BCC and um and special education. So you can see we added uh 47.2 FT in June and while I was out we added another 31.6. Um and then we've hired since then we've hired about 60 instructional aids. We've lost a few um due to you know different issues. Um but ultimately we're we we are building a lot as Sam pointed out earlier. Um limited candidates to fill open hard to staff positions is um going to be an implementation challenge. Um we know it's hard to find I mean we can build special day classes but can we get the teachers to fill those special day classes? Um it is a challenge. Um, and of course shifting mindsets to to uh importance of developing independence all of our students is um is going is a constant challenge for for all of us. Even for us that are in the work and and love doing the work, you know, we're we're humans. We have to we need a community to remind us and bring us back

to the table. Transportation, we got uh we have 195 students that are being transported now. It's a a 2 million and uh $2.5 million budget. Um it does increase. It has been as you see from the previous slide, it does has been increasing every year. Um uh our improvement focuses are decrease the number of no-shows. Um what we find is sometimes students don't want to get out of bed or and then nobody the parent doesn't call and transportation shows up and well we get charged for that. So, one thing that we've been doing is um we, you know, we're thinking considering sending email reminder at the end of the year. Here's the reason why we really need you to call in. Um and then of course we call families and say if they don't show up like, hey, really need to, you know, what's going on. Do we need to hold an IEP? Do we need to provide some additional services? Um so, working closely with transportation on that. Uh ensuring transportation criteria is being followed through IEP process. Uh I would love if we could provide transportation to every person on the planet, but we have a criteria and the criteria is very specific. There are some several areas that need to be checked in order to meet that criteria and one of them is not parental need. Um we would love that to be for that, but transportation for special education is very selective process and we need to make sure our IEP teams are following that. Um, and we do have a process for that and I um will be actually reminding in an email in the next couple days everybody on that just to to remind folks. Um, we also uh you know are expanding our continuous services to our decrease our NPS placements, kids are closer to home, less transportation costs. Um, so uh right now working closely with the transportation department to double up rides for students going to same destination. That's something that transportation brought to us. So, for example, right

now we have three routes that are doubled together at NPS schools that are transporting six students. So, we're not doing single transportation for each of them. Uh, parentable parental transportation, we have parents that we reimburse them. It's actually not as expensive to transport parents. You know, we know that's not easy though to pay for parents to

pay for parents to transport. We know that's not easy. Parents work. So, it's it's getting late. I've been up since 5:30 this morning. Okay. Continuing to ensure site teams are following criteria for qualifying for special education transformation as I mentioned. Um so some of our implementation challenges for this is again we need a bigger continuum of services so that we can keep our babies as uh our superintendent says closer to home. Um and our NPS um are often they're a great distance. They're not just like down the street. We have a couple. you have like Bay Hill that's very near right but u most of them are significant um um way away and then I I just assume that increased costs for transportation companies like gas hikes but um I'm not transportation is getting more expensive every year uh finally labor costs this is uh one of our largest expenses um we have 3,781,712 is that number accurate I think I might have I'm All right. Messed up. I fixed it and then somehow got unfixed.

Um but it's Yeah, we'll fix it. It's 30. Yeah, it's missing a digit. So, apologies.

I work so hard on this deck. Um so, our improvement focus is ensure case loads are being fully maxed out according to labor negotiations. Um so, we are constantly monitoring our case loads. So, that for example, when as we're moving into next year, we are right now monitoring our case loads. We're like, okay, who's leaving and who's coming in and and could we decrease FTE or do we have to add FTE? Um identify efficiencies for IA assignments. That goes back to our audit process and making sure that we're not over um over uh providing uh services that don't need to be and eventually um taking them and gradually decreasing them over time to build independence. um ensuring employees are providing quality of services. Um you know we're all we're constantly in a improvement cycle. Um so uh we have our TSA's coach mentor support um for new staff in order to increase retention. Um we know if our um teachers leave then we spend a lot of money retraining teachers so we want to keep our staff as much as possible. Um we're also cohorting so instructional aids work with multiple students. So some of these strategies of course cross over because it's all connected. Um so for example middle school we didn't have uh we um didn't have uh a section for English language arts and math several years back and now we have those and so we can cohort our students. So uh we do have some implementation challenges that we'll go over in a little while. We have labor agreements for class size and case loads um that lead to additional FTE. Um but we also um we have leaves that might require contractors um and increase in students who require intensive services. Um so this is interesting. Um Assembly Bill 560 is requiring our local educ education agency. This is hot off

the press. Um they're asking districts to really start looking at um the case loads of our special education staff. So, we are actually ahead of the game on this because we have um we actually have lower case loads than our surrounding districts that you'll see below there. Um we also have um assessment caps as well. Um and that is one of the reasons why we have that five additional um uh and this was done prior to me those five additional FTE that are supporting with FTE and um or with assessments and with case loads to ensure that um we're sticking to our 21 average for Berkeley Unified School District for mild moderate. Um you'll see the state average is 28. Most districts stick to that 28. doesn't mean every um case is at 28 in all districts, but you can go up to that. So, you see Oakland, their resource is 27. Uh New Haven 28, Alama Unifi is 28, we're at 21. So, if you have lower case loads, it requires more FTE and I've had to add FTE um over the years um in order to um ensure that we stick to those case load averages. Um, so in some ways we are doing that to retain our staff and keep them, which was the purpose of that. And it also can drive up costs.

All right, we're going to pause there and see what questions we have about our cost drivers and then we will close out.

Is it on? Yes. Um, I really appreciate this last slide that you just showed, Sean, comparing our case loads with other districts because I find that the question that's coming up for me over and over again kind of throughout this whole conversation about cost drivers is how do we compare to other districts? because that that slide I think 47 is so alarming that shows our rising costs from 2017 to now rising at a rate significantly higher than any other district in the county. So I find myself kind of wi with so with many of these data points wanting to know for example like our NPS placement rates how do those how do they compare to other districts in the in the SULPA are um NPS and NPA costs can we compare those with other districts in the SULPA I'm curious about our ratio of students with IEPs to IAS like do we have I think we're we're the there's a kind of an implication in this data that we have a high rate of IAS for the number of students we have with IEPs. Do we have data to compare with other districts? Um, yeah. So, I think that's that's kind of my big question is like

all of this information about cost drivers is really helpful. And what really stands out about our rising costs is that somehow our costs seem to be rising faster and higher than our neighboring districts. So now I want to understand those cost drivers in relation to our neighboring districts. So, I have a question on slide 57 with the MPS placements. So, when you're looking when we're looking at these placements, grades in the grade region, so K5 is 11%, 6 to 8 is 18%. And then we see in high school this huge jump that's 71% of our placements. So, I'm just wondering if we've analyzed maybe what's not working in the earlier grades that's leading to that or is there something that's not working in the high school that's leading to that? Like that's a huge jump. So, I would like more information which we may not have right now, but on what's that jump coming from? What have we looked at? Right? Are there issues with our CLC's? Are there issues with the earlier interventions? You know, what's happening there?

Do you want to

I think so somebody can pass the microphone down, but I think one of the things that we did cover here is that we don't have an alternative placement at the high school, right? So, similar to what was happening at the elementary schools, um we now have an SDC class which in year 1 that 25 class was not full and now both of those classrooms are full. So, there was a transition in getting families back or identifying families for those services. And I think that's the same thing that we're hearing at the high school. We don't have an alternative placement for our high school students. So that that's part of it. I'd send I don't know if there's anything else you want to add there.

Yeah. So within the high school program, the high school students that are placed in non-public schools, that goes all the way up to 22. So it's our job to maintain education for students with special education all the way to age 22. So um much of that programming goes to non-public schools as well. So that's a good portion of those that number that we see.

We have uh contracts with non-public schools and other and another agency for our post-secary programming for our students. We also have seen a rise as most districts have in non in our um mental health support needs and students who are engaging in deep school refusal and they're finding another placement type through onetoone instruction in non-public schools. So we've seen some increase in that um or other type of programming models similar to what Jill said that we don't have within our continuum of placements at having one large comprehensive high school and a continuation program. Some exploration with that is looking at what um our independent study program can maintain or expand with expand to what our counseling enriched program can expand to as well. that was previously completely contracted out through Senica and now this is we're in our first full year of bringing that program within the USD staff and so next year we'll continue to expand and grow that program and I I have high hopes and deep passion for that program. So those are and I I can see that we'll start to bring more students back that way. um and have already started to another area of students that we see in non-public schools um are students whose family has

connected with that kind of have sought out another type of program um and just and pushed for that. our district has um is small and closely connected and word travels fast around programs and alternate programs and when you have one kind of comprehensive high school that captures that like for example our neighborhood dis our neighboring district that's a comparable size has um three high schools you know so there one of which is much smaller than the other um and then one of which is a continuation program that also houses a counseling enriched program. Um, one area that we see also is students who are sent um who who go to more residential or more intensive mental health support. Um, creating step down pathways for them as well will be something that has an area to be built upon as well within our district. fast actual followup.

Oh, to to what um associate superintendent Huggen Dikeke was referencing and also um Sean um isn't there there is a process in place already for an SDC at the high school. Is that the reference you were referring to? I was trying to figure this out with building out the CEC program at DHS.

Yes. And on the next slide we'll we'll check that a little bit. So right now our we have two counseling rich classrooms at the high school. Um and they're more a little more geared towards um uh outward behaviors. Um and we really um what we see is a lot of our students that I feel like we could serve more closely in our school or in our school are really our students that have high anxiety. Um they may not fit in with the crowd um at the high school. Um and because of that they want to find an alternative space that's smaller. So this particular program um we'll talk about we're not going to go deeply into it because we're in the development stages it but we'll you know give an introduction to it um will hopefully be that space that we can start bringing our students back keeping them in our that step down.

It's definitely exciting in terms of broadening the scope out of Yes. placement. Absolutely. Yeah, I just had a quick followup just on this topic. When you went to that other high school to study that space for students that have um those like high anxiety emotional needs and that were going through withdrawal, was that a high school that was comparable in size to BHS? And then I want to know what kind of work are we doing proactively right now with middle schoolers that might fit that profile that are going to be transitioning to BHS to tell parents about that offering.

Well, we haven't we just I mean we re recently found out it's going to be built in the winter of 2026. So, it's a little bit of a weird time, right? Cuz it's in the middle of the school year. So, we're going to have to really think about is it going to be possible to to staff that classroom and do and whatnot. Um, Tam Pias is a different type of district. It's just a high school district. Uh, but what I do know is that they've significantly reduced their number of students that do go to non-public school placements as well as residential facilities um because they're providing a space. But if you go there, there's huge wide expanses of lawns and they have, you know, they can build cubicles out there. And then and the intent is is not to keep them away from Berkeley High School. The intent is to have a space that's smaller that as time goes on they can slow they can still take classes but they have a split a space that they can come back to where they can get support get you know counseling have a space they can you know deescalate um and work on their anxiety. Um, but the intent is always to get them back into, you know, taking classrooms with their general education peers.

Is the cost for staffing that space coming to the board now or next year? Uh, it's a great question. We're just I think some of that Yeah. I mean, but we're also going to be using some of the existing stuff. I don't know. Shana, you picked up the microphone like you you were going to add real quick. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Jane is gonna talk a little bit about middle school as well. Well, we can So, I'll tell you a little bit. I don't know if you can hear me, but put it closer. A little bit closer. I don't like microphones. I know. There you go.

Uh there's a therapeutic home base at Longfellow. Um there's an awesome teacher there right now and a school psychologist is attached to the program and there are two registered behavior technicians that are part of the program as well. Um and then they meet um every other week they meet to talk about the data that they're collecting on the students and just any talking about their behavior goals. And we have a number of students that are non-attenders. Um and the school psychologist attached to the program is Jonathan Tennyson and he uh headed up a program here called space. It's supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions. So uh there are five of five school psychologists. There's five of us that are are um trained in this model. It's from Yale. Um, and we've been running parent groups for the last three years and it's really fun. We love it. And we we had a parent um training in the fall just for anybody who has anxious children cuz a lot of times when um you have an anxious child, parents um we love our kids so much and we we don't want them to ever experience anything difficult or you know expect that they're they're going to do something very hard. We want to protect them. So, it's very very good parents that are participating in our program and we have to kind of rethink about, you know, the the cycle of uh reinforcement. If we take away the hard things, um our kids don't become independent and they we have a handful of students that don't leave the house. And so, we're trying to work on ways to how do you build that stamina and that capacity to become independent? How how can you go?

Okay, let's talk about this. Oh, I just wanted to because one of the questions that came up was how do we transition students from middle to high? So, if you could talk a little about that because we did do some significant work with the previous um the previous person that was in the position before Sundown took it between the two supervisors in that school.

Yes. Yeah. So, we just had a meeting today actually. Um so, we we have transition meetings. We talk about every student and their needs. We have the high school represented, the middle school, and we have a a thoughtful meeting around goal, services, and what is offered at the next site and what the services look like. So, that's I'm exhausted. That's all we've been doing for the last couple weeks. So, I'm going to slur my words in just a second because that was just back to back to back of transition meetings and so we're all going to die

on this table. But but yes, yes, it is thoughtful. It's a lot of work. It's hard and uh we've put a lot of planning into it, a lot of time, and a lot of organization. So, that's where we're at with that.

This is slightly out of left field, but I I'm sitting here thinking we've been talking a lot about high school. Um you guys also showed us a lot of data about rapidly increasing numbers of small of our babies who are being identified for IEPs very young. We haven't talked about preschool at all. Do we offer do we have an SDC at the preschool level? I Yeah, I'm curious what's happening in preschool. Yes.

So, we just um just this year um start u basically created a a opening for an STC class at preschool. Um we've been interviewing candidates for about two and a half months and um so far we haven't settled on the teacher yet, but we're getting close. And um and the goal with that classroom really is what we're seeing in preschool, particularly this year, we had a really huge increase in the amount of assessments and initial evaluations that were coming to us. And not just that, but like the level of needs are really significant. Like we have students who are arriving that have never had any kind of services, not regional center or anything. And so we wanted to create a space for those families um so that we're not having to contract out to like non-public schools and and also um just to make sure that families know that we have options and there's like a continuum of supports at the preschool that include inclus inclusive supports in a general ed setting. Um you have integrated classrooms where half the class is like IEP students and half the class is um general ed students. And then we have now the SDC option that is a smaller class that's got, you know, like 10 students and then you'll have a lot more instructional assistant support in that classroom. Um, as and we also partner with our general ed teachers to have inclusion with all students. Um, because we did have some underenrollment for general ed in one of our preschools this year.

Um, and that's been really great. Our general ed teachers are phenomenal and and partner with us all the time. So yeah, but we're working on it. Yeah, it's it's been determined to be a hard to fill position. Um part of that is because of the ECE portion plus the special ed credential. Um but the other piece to it is um that we are looking at um whether or not the SDC model um would be something we would be um changing some of the integrated classes to because of the fact that we have had a hard time finding the general education population to fill up the other half the class. And so we're limited to only eight students um with special needs in those classes versus the 10 that can be in the SDC class. So we're looking at those models and how do we u make sure that we still have those inclusion um opportunities and and all of that as well. Over the last few years, we've had I've had several people come and visit our um our uh preschool programs, um including our supple director just recently, and I've got nothing but positive news that we have some really great programs. So, I encourage you, I'm sure you visited, but I encourage you if you want to do a tour, we can always set that up as well. All right, we do want to close out with um some highlights and next steps. Um so I do want to shout out January was disability awareness month. Some of you were able to join us um for the sound advice uh presentation panel that um was recorded and is on our district website and was really an amazing opportunity to hear from members of our deaf and heart of hearing um community. Uh we are currently again as Sean stated in collaboration with the HR department

department um and our relative labor groups um to look at developing more internal positions for which we do not currently have job descriptions. So going to be focused on the registered behavior technician um and supervising BCBAS um as we look ahead to the next school year. that will allow us to bring um more of these positions in house. We are collaborating um with BFT and the special education department um to help improve our service delivery model for our extens extensive needs um students. Um we are working on the development of a counseling enriched classroom that serves students with those internalizing behaviors. Um Sean had mentioned a couple of times. You see some of the renderings of that um space there on the right hand side um for Berkeley High. Um and then do also want to shout out uh Shaina and uh Lena have been working really hard with a group of people as we're building out our MTSS process guide. Um, this was also an area that was called out in our DC uh recommendation was really how do we elevate and implement a strong MTSS um to ensure that students have that continuum of services. Um, we are looking at building out a component of that that's focused on SEAL. We do have academic screeners for our uh English language arts and mathematics content. Um and we've been piloting a social emotional screener um at Longfellow and we're looking to expand that as we head into next school year. Um the team and uh other relevant staff are going to be reviewing the DCEK um recommendations. The link to that is there and we are working on getting that on our website as uh our chair of the DC Eliza no mentioned in in the committee comments.

Um and then just apppropo of how the superintendent um opened uh this session when we were looking at that 2017 report and then parts of these addendum documents that came in. We do recognize that we need um an updated program needs assessment sort of more broadly. Um that will come with an investment. Um, so thinking about what that program redesign will look like, it's going to take resources of time and talent and personnel to really be thinking about that. I will say that is an area that has come up with our principles as we've been doing some budget balancing work with them and thinking about what are some areas of program need that we could be rethinking and redesign. Special ed comes up pretty consistently. So I think our site leaders are seeing that too and you know they um have a lot of really strong perspectives about how our students are being served at their sites. So we're excited to be thinking about that among a number of other priorities that we're going to have to you know put in the queue. Um but want just to acknowledge that that is something that is is been top of mind at least for me but I think the staff. Um, and so I do want to close out by acknowledging the SPED team who is here this evening. Um, and also all of our, as Dr. Sweeney said, sped educators across the district um, who show up every day um, to serve our students with IEPs and engage with their families and really are working on the supports and interventions that are needed to ensure that our students can participate in our classrooms and other enrichment programs on the day-to-day basis. So, thank you.

Thank you so much. Um, I think this is a really informative um treat study hall and I learned a lot in study hall. I was trying to listen and pay attention. I didn't talk too much. Um, thanks again. Um, uh, and we look forward to future conversations um, about special ed. I'm not actually on, you know, we're still technically in a public session. Um, I'm not Thank you. I'm not inside of the webinar. I dropped off as a panelist. I can't tell if there's anyone who is Yeah, I'm public comment online, but inside this room, is there someone who would like to provide? Hello, Tatiana. It's here. Um, so, oh, thank you. Sam is going to go do the timer. So we do, if you don't mind, we'll set two minutes um for extended public comment and then if someone is managing the webinar, if they can try to elevate me to panelists in case there's a online commenter.

Great. Would you like Thank you.

Uh thank you. Thank you for all of this information. It's been super helpful as a community member, parent, um, bit local person with expertise in many of these areas. Um, I have to say that it's incredibly frustrating that there isn't more of a focus on executive function starting in third, second, third grade. The the re one of the biggest reasons why we have issues at Berkeley High is because these kids don't develop distress tolerance. They don't develop metacognition. they don't develop cognitive flexibility and the all of those things could be addressed. So, and as a parent with I one of my kids had an IEP, never met his goals in all three years. My brain finally exploded in right before his senior year. Um, and I am a deeply invested member of this community. I am it's it is It's 10:30. I'm a single mother with three children, one of whom is home now. I could be spending time with her. And I am here investing my time and energy. And the fact that so many parents in this district are dismissed. Our concerns, our expertise is dismissed and not taken into consideration is incredibly disheartening and demoralizing. And it makes us feel like um our opinions and our voices don't matter. And and it doesn't actually matter what your intention is. What matters is how it lands. And I want to encourage all of

you to think really hard about that as you try to develop a vision. Thank you very much. Um I cannot see whether anyone else is here to speak. Oh online. Thank you so much. Uh no two now. Oh two. Cool. And first one is Eliza. Assistant superintendent. Would you like to you want to? Yeah. Multitask. Got all the skills. And would you mind um whoever first raised their hand? Hi. Am I first? Yes.

Am I first? Who's Yeah, you are first and we can hear you.

Okay. This is Eliza again. Um, I sent this in email, but I want it to be recorded in the record. Uh, another way to interpret the increasing distance from standard numbers correlated with advancing grades from 3 through 11 is through the documented phenomenon of the Matthew effect. In 1983, Wahberg and Sai first coined the term Matthew effect to describe the fact that without intervention, some students rapidly develop and build on strong literacy foundations and other students languish behind their more fortunate peers. Given that the Matthew effect within special education is well documented, I find that explaining the increasing distance from standard through diminished student testing participation ignores the research literature on this trend. Please consider this as to why NPS placements are happening more often in high school. If you provide interventions earlier, the NPS issue will decline. Thank you.

We have two Lindsay Noel and then Vanessa Morero. Great. Thank you. Um, it's Lindsay and X and N. Lindsay, if you don't mind coming online.

Hi. Um, thank you. I also sit on DC with Eliza and a lot of other talented people and people who are sitting around the table right now. And um I would just like to mention that early intervention as part of an MTSS is uh is an overlooked sometimes solution. And while our reading MTSS is um very very promising and getting stronger in the elementary schools, it is not available um for the most part in the middle school and high schools and really needs to be developed. Our kids upstream of these changes do not deserve to be left behind. And the answer is to improve resources both for our teaching staff and our support staff and and our students and therefore outcomes will change. I feel like and I'm so sorry this wasn't a planned comment. I wasn't going to speak at all, but I feel like sometimes we miss the potential of our students and sometimes the ways we measure them are are sloppy and they don't take take into account the full potential of our children and CASP certainly is one of those measures, but it is a standard measurement that's relatively objective. So when we see that our outcomes for our students are 25% of students

with IEPs can read or do math on grade level. Same for Alama Unified who spends 5k less. Piedmont has much much better outcomes and spends a little bit less than us. And there are some other districts that are similar to us like um Castro Valley and Davis. If we can look at those, I I would really appreciate inputs versus outputs that that look because early intervention and continuation of support can really help us. Thank you. Thank you. You can also of course email. We have one more person.

Yeah, Vanessa. Vanessa. Vanessa, are you ready?

Hi there. Good good evening everybody. My name is Vanessa Morero. I'm a parent of three kiddos. One is still at Berkeley Independent. I'm also a rent board commissioner. Um, and I do work around parent advocacy. I am feeling a a bit concerned about how we're talking about families, especially families who are in populations that have historically been disadvantaged. we um as a district have failed our black and um brown young people and we continue to do that. And I'm going to press upon the leadership of special education to reframe the way in which we speak about families through a more growth mindset model. Um, also want to appreciate Jennifer and um, Mike for supporting the 2 by 2, which is a joint committee with the rent board about how we can explore more work around policy and housing in Berkeley. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Um, uh, assistant superintendent, are there other folks online? Great. Thank you so much. I think we're done, but um, any extended board member comments? And again, I want to thank the um staff here, the superintendent and her team for taking the time to do this um study hall. It was a special request by the board and it's very informative and I think it's really important for the members of the public to see that we're in conversation as well. So, thanks again. We are injured. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for staying up so late. Thank you. Sorry about our