Oakland Unified School District Board of Education - Regular Meeting

all right on the roll call to establish a quorum student directors are absent director lana present director williams present sir Director Hutchinson? Director Berry? Director Thompson? Present. Vice President Batchelor?

Yes.

President Brohard? Here. Quorum? Present.

Thank you. Mr. Can we have an interpretation check, please?

Yes, moving on to interpretation check. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages for live interpretation. They are Arabic, Spanish, and Cantonese. For in-person, we have laptops here. Please see us. We will start with Arabic. I will lower Artie in his hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Ms. Abdi, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for us for Arabic, please.

May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you. I present to you today's translation in Arabic. I hope you will follow the instructions and instructions as follows. At the bottom of the screen, search for the circle on the bottom of the ball and click on it, then select the word translation and select the Arabic language. However, if you are using a smart phone, there are three points at the bottom of the screen. Click on it, then select the word translation and select the Arabic language. I hope you will write the original voice so that you can hear us clearly. And thank you. Everything is done.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Abdi. Checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start Arabic interpretation. We will next go to Cantonese. Again, please don't raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation. Mr. Yuen, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please.

Hello, everyone. This is a meeting of the Education Committee of Oakland College. If you are new to the scene and need Cantonese translation, please get a mobile phone from the staff and follow the following instructions. You will be able to listen to Cantonese translation with online users. If you need Cantonese translation, please click on the bottom right of your screen, type in a地球形状的符号, and then select Cantonese. You will be able to listen to Cantonese translation. If you need a translation service, please raise your hand. Let us know if anyone needs Cantonese translation. Thank you. Cantonese announcement is done.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Yuen. Checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation. We will next go to Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands. Please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please. Or Ms. Walker-Morquez.

Yes, of course. Buenas tardes. En esta reunión estamos ofreciendo interpretación simultánea al español y les pedimos que pidan el servicio para ofrecerlo. Si están presentes, pidan el servicio y les van a dar acceso a una computadora donde van a poder escuchar su interpretación. Si están en Zoom, en línea, entonces les pedimos que levanten virtualmente la mano para saber que requieren de su servicio. Y si lo requieren, para poder escuchar la interpretación, vayan a donde en la parte debajo de su pantalla van a ver un símbolo que dice interpretación. Presionen ahí y elijan Spanish, que es el idioma español, y la van a poder escuchar. Si no encuentran el símbolo de la interpretación en su pantalla de Zoom, vayan a donde están los tres puntitos y ahí la van a encontrar. Once they are in Spanish, they will listen to the interpretation, but they will also be able to listen to what is being said in English, but at a lower volume. If they don't want to listen to it, they have the possibility to turn it off, where it says Mute Original Audio, and then press Done, and they will only listen to Spanish. But again, as mentioned, we are only going to give the service in this part of the Spanish announcement is done.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Walker-Marquez. Checking attendees to see if any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will now start with any interpretation, and we'll check again later during the meeting. And I turn it back to you, President Brouhard.

Thank you. Tonight in closed session, we will discuss the following items. D1, 25-1864, Conference with Labor Negotiators. D2, 26-1444, Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation. D3, 26-0703, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation. We will then reconvene to public session at 5.30 p.m. Right now, are there any public comments on closed session items?

Yes, Madam President, we have two. Marlene Sachs and Bedrudin Kukuyavik. How much time would you like to allow for public comment?

Two minutes, please.

good evening my name is marlene sacks and i am the attorney representing the oakland jewish alliance and the pending lawsuit against the district for more than two and a half years jewish and israeli students staff and families have reported anti-semitic discrimination harassment and a hostile educational environment we have filed approximately thirty five discrimination complaints Yet the district repeatedly delayed investigations, sometimes by more than a year, and in many cases failed to investigate at all. As a result, the district now faces two lawsuits. The human cost has been significant. Dozens of Jewish families have left OUSD because they no longer felt safe, welcome, or protected. Jewish employees have transferred, resigned, or retired. rather than confronting the problem the district has too often minimized it ignored it and violated its legal obligations tonight's presentation is another example the california department of education's january twenty third decision required the district to take specific corrective actions by march first to discuss the findings publicly. You intentionally delayed this meeting for months until after school was over to minimize the access of this information to the public. The public deserves to know that the CDE has repeatedly found that OUSD engaged in antisemitic discrimination, violated uniform complaint procedures, and failed to remedy a discriminatory environment affecting Jewish and Israeli students. Equally troubling, the presentation omits the district's own December 12, 2020-25 admission that pro-Palestine and anti-Israel visual displays throughout the district, along with biased instruction and curriculum, have contributed to a discriminatory environment for Jews and Israelis. The board has the authority and the responsibility to act. You can direct staff to remove visual displays that create a hostile environment. You can require compliance with board policies governing controversial issues and with AB 715. You can ensure prompt investigation of discrimination complaints and impose meaningful consequences when employees engage in discriminatory conduct. We urge you to immediately investigate the complaints that have been ignored, comply fully with the CDE's orders, and take concrete steps to end the discrimination. Jewish students, staff, and families are entitled to the same protection, respect, and equal treatment that every other community expects and deserves. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker please.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Bedrinco Kuljevic, chief steward of the BCTC. I will just speak a little bit clearly about our bargaining that's pretty much not going anywhere. We've been going for bargaining for almost six months now. There is not one counter back. It's literally last time we had a probably filed for a ULP. They denied us caucus room. at the time we were doing the reservation, that we reserved the room for it. They denied us, so we couldn't coax at the time the matter that we were supposed to. We proposed for a second time a one-year extension in the 12% asking for that year of the extended. And we told Janine and we told Gia and everybody in the management, the OESD, that we need to expect a counter back tomorrow, which tomorrow is our bargaining day. So hopefully they're going to come back with something. because if not, you're going to see today half of the, or even almost the whole unit of BCTC here standing demanding a fair contract, like every other union that exists in the OSD. We are, by the end of this month, out of the contract. We are preparing for a strike. That's something that I'm trying to avoid, but if that doesn't change in these tomorrow for something that they try to work with us. then we're going to probably start taking a different stand on it and pushing it the way that I don't want to push, but clearly the district looks for that. So I just want to state that today you're going to see many members standing behind my back talking about issues that we have during the bargaining, that it's unfair, that it's definitely like being disrespected, that they don't value us as employees. So it's time to say enough. So please talk to the district, whatever it is, but we need to be in communication and change this behavior. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Are there any other public speakers?

All registered speakers for this item have been called. Madam President.

Thank you.

like to welcome everyone to the June 3rd Oakland Unified School Board meeting Mr. Rakestraw can we have a roll call to establish quorum please on the attendance roll call for the purposes of establishing quorum student directors are absent director Lara present director Williams not on the dice okay director hutchinson director barry director thompson vice president batchelor here president brohard here quorum present thank you and mr sechak can we have an interpretation check please

Yes, moving to interpretation check. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages for live interpretation. They are Arabic, Spanish, and Cantonese. For in-person, we have laptops. Please see the person to your left if you need laptop for interpretation. There is also translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption on your Zoom task bar. We will start with Arabic. I will lower all tenor's hands. Please don't raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Mr. Turek, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. If you would like to listen to the Arabic translation, please press the hand button on the screen. If you want to speak in person, raise your hand so that one of the employees can hear you. If no one raises their hand, you can leave the service. After leaving the service, go to the bottom of the zoom box on the globe, which contains the word interpretation, and then select Arabic language. If you don't know the globe, click on More or the three dots, then select Language Interpretation, then select Done. You can also type your original voice, as we heard clearly, by activating the mute button. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Turek. Check attendees to see if any hands are raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start with Arabic interpretation. Next, we'll go to Cantonese. Again, please don't raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation. Mr. Yuen, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please.

Thank you for watching this video.

Great, thank you, Mr. Yuen. Checking attendees to see if any hands are raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we'll now start with Cantonese interpretation. Next, we'll go to Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands. Please don't raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Vargas, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please.

Yes, instrucciones para escuchar la interpretación al español. Por favor, seleccione en la parte de abajo de su pantalla el icono del globo terráqueo que dice Interpretation y seleccione el idioma Spanish, español. Si no ve el icono, si está usando una tableta o teléfono, seleccione los tres puntos en la parte de abajo de su pantalla y ahí encontrará el icono de interpretación.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Vargas. Checking attendees, do you see any hands raised for Spanish interpretation? Seeing no hands raised, we will now start with any interpretation, and we'll check again later during the meeting. President Brouhard, I turn it back to you.

Thank you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize the importance of respectful decorum, communication, and engagement at our board and committee meetings. The work of the board is serious business and impacts the everyday experiences of our students, staff, families, and broader community. It is critical that all of us, both up here on the dais and in the audience, model the respectful interactions that we would like to see our students have in their classrooms, on the play yard, and in athletic competitions. As we open tonight's meeting, I urge everyone present and planning to attend to review and abide by the Board of Education protocols and meeting rules of engagement listed on pages eight and nine of tonight's agenda. At tonight's meeting, there are several allotted items where you may make public comments, provided you preregister to speak online before the meeting started, or if you fill out a comment card, which you can find on the table by the entrance, and you can submit those cards at any time. There will be opportunities for public comment after special orders of the day, California Department of Education uniform complaint procedure findings and district corrective actions to address anti-Semitism. After the superintendent's report, after the adoption of the general consent report, after the adoption of the general consent report facilities, after all non-agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board and after each of the two public hearings 2024-27 local control and accountability plan year two and 2627 fiscal year district budget after unfinished business the report update on the ad hoc control over outsourcing task force and after new business proposition 28 arts and music in the schools annual report school year 2025-26 Please be aware that in compliance with the Brown Act, board members may not respond to comments regarding issues that are not on our posted agenda for tonight. I ask all speakers to keep their comments to the scope of the item. If the speaker speaks to a different item, the chair will need to ask that speaker either to speak to the specific item or hold their comments until the appropriate public comment period. I would ask that my fellow board members help and support me in this regard. If you don't get a chance to speak during public comment, I want to encourage you to use the e-comments feature via the Legislative Information Center on the OUSD website. And of course, you can always email board members directly using this format, firstname.lastnameatousd.org. report out of closed session for june third twenty twenty six labor matters on item d one number twenty five dash eighteen sixty four conference with labor negotiations the board gave direction on this matter motion by vice president batchelor second by director williams the vote of fort abstain one absent two the yes votes president brohard vice president batchelor Director Lara, and Director Williams. Director Hutchinson was absent, Director Berry was absent, and Director Thompson abstained. under legal matters on item d2 number 26-1444 conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation the board approved a settlement in this matter motion by director lotta second by president brohard vote four in favor no abstained and three absent the yes votes were president brohard vice president batchelor Director, I'm sorry, Director Lara, Director Thompson, Director Williams was absent, Director Hutchinson was absent, and Director Berry was absent. On item D3, number 26-0703, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, the board discussed this matter. That is the end of the June 3rd, 2026 closed session report out. Moving on to item H. Are there any modifications to the agenda?

Director Hutchinson Yes, thank you from the consent report I'd like to please pull o2 and o25 That's o2 and o25 correct, thank you Any other modifications under vice president bachelor

I believe you are moving R up before or after N?

Yes, we are moving R to start any time after 7. All right, there were no pupil consent items. We now move to J, special orders of the day. J1, California Department of Education, uniform complaint procedure findings and district corrective actions to address anti-Semitism.

This video prepared for the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education.

Just point of clarification before we start this. President Brohard, can we get an introduction about what's happening here? We just have a video being loaded and it would really be helpful that at least there was some description given or some comment made about what's happening.

Sure, yes, thank you. Thank you director Hutchinson for that. So during the past two years, many of our Jewish community members, students, parents and staff have expressed harm and discrimination towards them. Complaints have been filed. Some of our responses were not in a timely manner and a lawsuit has been filed both on behalf of students and families and by the California Department of Education. We care about our schools being safe and inclusive for everyone, so our learning environments are places where students, all students, feel welcome. When any group shares with us that they feel harmed or discriminated against, we must listen and take action. In this instance, the California Department of Education has mandated a specific report and update on corrective actions included in a response from the California Department of Education due to those complaints. And so I'm going to turn it over to Corey to provide an audio of those updates at this time.

This video, prepared for the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education, addresses antisemitism in our district. We will specifically cover the corrective actions mandated by the California Department of Education, or CDE, and the district's response. Our overview will cover the background and context leading to CDs involvement a summary of their findings, the required corrective actions and the actions, the district has completed to date. We will also outline actions in progress and our future commitments, the issues leading to CD involvement include multiple anti semitic and hate speech incidents in 2024 and 2025. culminating in several UCP complaints. The CDE findings highlighted insufficient training in social studies for high school teachers and at two middle schools, and the need for district-wide remediation. The CDE required eight corrective actions, including sending letters to families and employees condemning antisemitism, mandatory district-wide training, a board meeting information item, assemblies, and training for key staff. Actions 1, 2, 7, and a modified 5 and 6 are completed. Actions 3, 4, and 8 are in progress. The district has completed a series of required trainings for administrators and teachers in late 2025 and early 2026. This includes training on discriminatory bias, non-discriminatory curriculum materials, UCP compliance, and outside discrimination training for the leadership team. A superintendent letter to all families and employees was sent on March 26, 2026. Further completed actions include training for journalism advisors on anti-discrimination policies and assemblies held at specific schools addressing anti-hate, the Holocaust, hate speech, and images. Anti-Semitism training has also been added to the district's online platform. This timeline shows our progress towards full CDE compliance. Regarding the incident at American Indian Model schools, Ames is an independent charter school, limiting OUSD's direct corrective authority. After the October 2025 graffiti incident, Ames promptly contacted law enforcement and addressed the community. OUSD's role is limited to verifying AIMS's compliance with applicable policies. Our next steps involve completing the submission of evidence to the CDE and finalizing the ongoing professional development plan. Completed tasks include the all-employee training launch, student assemblies, principal letters to families, and policy training on flagpole locks and flag display law. The Oakland Unified School District is committed to ensuring all students, families, and staff are treated with dignity and respect. We unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism and all forms of hate, and we will continue taking meaningful action to prevent and remedy it in every school.

There's no time for public comment. Mr. Hollis, do we have public comment on this?

Yes, we do. We have 18 speakers.

We'll give two minutes each.

All right. Let's call the first five. First five speakers are Marlene Sachs, Jonathan Metz-Mutchen, Robert Edelman, LG is the name that they signed up as, and Bruce Stofmacher.

My name is Marlene Sachs, and I am the attorney representing the Oakland Jewish Alliance in the pending lawsuit against the district. For more than two and a half years, Jewish and Israeli students, staff, and families have reported anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment, and a hostile educational environment. We have now filed approximately 35 discrimination complaints. yet instead of taking decisive action this district delayed investigations sometimes for more than a year and in many cases failed to investigate altogether the district is now facing two lawsuits dozens of jewish families have left this district because they no longer felt safe welcome are protected jewish employees have also felt compelled to quit transfer or retire the district's response has been to confront not to confront the problem but to minimize it and continue to ignore and openly violate the law Just as bad is your video presentation tonight, which provides minimal and misleading information about the fact that CDE has repeatedly found that the district has engaged in anti-Semitism, has repeatedly violated the uniform complaint investigation requirements, and has repeatedly failed to correct the discriminatory environment that pervades OUSD. The most blatant and obvious thing that you should be doing to address the discrimination is to stop the indoctrination of our kids. You can and must give a clear directive to administration and staff that the offensive posters, flags, murals, and other visual displays need to be removed immediately. and that the biased and one-sided instruction needs to stop immediately. You can and must impose serious discipline on anybody who has engaged in discriminatory or anti-Semitic conduct, and you must make clear that you will do so in the future. Your failure to have done any of these things so far makes you complicit in the discrimination. Until and unless you do these things, the discrimination will continue.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi, board. JT Meitz-Moshen, proud parent of an incoming Skyline High School senior and three OUSD graduates. What came to me today when I was thinking about what to say was an OUSD slogan, all are welcome here. That is displayed at a lot of school sites and on the website. But it isn't true. Maybe most or at least some. But I feel unwelcome, fearful, and even scared to go to some OUSD campuses because I know that I could be targeted because I am Jewish. And there are targeted political messages that call for the abolition of Jews. I should I shouldn't be afraid and neither should students or teachers. Hate is prevalent all over our district and I'm asking today for you to enforce the CDE recommendations. Do not allow symbols of hate in our classroom. Require teachers and staff to fulfill the basic training to combat anti-Semitism. Some forms of hate are clear and overt. But not all is obvious, and I'm asking you to enforce the completion of a thorough training about the more hidden, covert Jewish and Israeli hate, because anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are hard to recognize if you don't understand the ways that Jews are presently and historically demonized and blamed for societal issues. takes different forms yet that are being ignored in our district. And Jewish students and teachers and staff are paying the price. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi. My name is Lara, and I am a very concerned teacher. I want to say first that as teachers, We should never try to tell students what to think or what to believe. Our job as teachers is to teach students how to think, not to impart our own personal beliefs onto them, whether through an outright statement on our part, through a flag in the classroom, or any other marker of our own personal opinions. Clearly, many OUSD teachers have lost their way on this, and the school board can't seem to control it. Why has it taken this long to implement the corrective actions the court settlement requires? What could possibly be more important than student safety? We have seen how such weakness, as the school board shows, allows ideological takeover of education, and it never ends well, particularly for Jewish and other minority populations. The AI-generated two-minute video underscores just how little the school board feels pressed to act on anti-Jewish hate. The fact that it took a lawsuit to get the board to even begin to act on hate speaks volumes. You must take the actions you are required to take immediately. Thank you.

I believe there were three other speakers in that group.

There were Robert Edelman, LG, and Bruce Stofmacher.

Do you want to call the next five?

Next five speakers. Next five speakers are Sarah Roth, Avi Ringer, Gail Argon,

I've never done this before. Do I just start? Yeah, go ahead and start. Okay. Hi, my name is Sarah Rode. I work in special education and I am a parent of OUSD students. I have faced hostile work environments at OUSD schools because of my Jewish identity and due to my itinerant role, I have seen many instances of anti-Semitism on district campuses that continue to this day. My ask is that OUSD provide real training on antisemitism to staff instead of the barely 20-minute passive video training recently assigned to us on Kenan. I am sure you are already aware that many folks at multiple sites are planning to boycott it, and therefore it will not provide the education our district staff need to be a truly safe environment for Jewish and Israeli students. I am asking that you mandate all staff to attend live, in-person trainings provided by a Jewish organization on anti-Semitism, and to take this issue seriously, the way we take the safety of our LGBTQ students seriously, and the way we take our anti-racist work seriously here in Oakland. No matter what your slideshow says, anti-Semitism continues unabated in our district. I have yet to see a clear memo from district leadership enforcing the end of biased messaging by teachers, demanding the removal of one-sided propaganda posters and visuals, clearly stating the policy on what flags are allowed to fly and what content is vetted to be taught in social studies, history, and ethnic studies classes. Your silence sends the message that anti-Semitism is an acceptable form of hate. Unfortunately, due to your inaction, that it took over a year to hear back about one of my own uniform complaints that I had to file and the many instances of anti-Semitism that I have witnessed at OUSD middle and high schools, including my own neighborhood campus, I cannot enroll my own child in a district middle school. He graduated fifth grade this year and is now leaving our district for middle school. I believe in public education. I work in public education, but I do not trust you all with the safety of my own child. Please fix this so that his younger sister doesn't have to do the same in a few years, and I can trust you to protect and educate my kids once again. Thank you.

Before the next speaker, at the end of this, Mr. Edelman is online. Okay. Okay.

I wish the lady who is protesting in the front row would please bring her protest to the microphone or else please do not protest while I'm trying to think of what I'm going to tell you. Yeah, we're white. That's because when we came from the Middle East, we were brown. We were brown, just as brown as you are. And we're not brown anymore after 1,500 years in Europe. And the gypsies, the Romani people in Scotland are white as well because they're from India, but they've been there a long time. And this is what happens over time. I did not come up here to say this. I came up here to say that... Yes, you're right. I'm born on the 4th of July. My rabbi's wife is born on the 4th of July. My family traveled to Spain in 1999, and during that year we saw the harbor where Columbus left in the Pinta de Nina and the Santa Maria to come to discover this country. At the same time that his ships left the harbor at Barcelona, another ship was sailing in the opposite direction, carrying the Jews who were being expelled from Spain. Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain at that time together. You get out my face. You go out. My family came here.

Can I have a culture keeper come to the front of the room, please?

My family came here from Ukraine, Mesorabia, and Poland. We are part Spanish Jews, but mostly, of course, we are European Jews. Some people tell us we are half German, and that may be true. We are very proud to be in this country. We are happy to be in this country. This country has been such a lifesaver for us, and we're very grateful to be here. My daughter, my granddaughter was... Yeah, genocide to you too. My granddaughter was ridiculed for her name in her classroom when she was at Crocker Highlands Elementary School. She has changed her name from her first name to her middle name. And what the teacher does not know is that both names are equally Hebrew. Jordan is a Hebrew name originally, but so many people have this name who are not Jewish that we don't know that anymore. That was my main complaint. I really don't have that much experience. My daughter did visit with the board shortly after October 7th to be active for her children. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. I need to remind the members of the audience that speakers do have the right to come to the microphone. Excuse me, the speakers do have a right to come to the podium. Go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Gail Argon. I'm an OUSD parent of a kindergartener. I moved here a few years ago in part because of the schools, and I never imagined that I would seriously consider removing my child from this district.

I'm sorry, I'm going to let you start over again. You really can't record in the auditorium. Thank you. We'll reset your clock.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, there's no recording of speakers.

I'll just continue.

Point of clarification, since when are people not allowed to record at a school board meeting where we see people recording every meeting with people standing in front recording? So can we please just have the rules enforced? We have people who are here to speak. I have something that I'd really like to say too. This is kind of reinforcing the point that I hear many of our speakers making. And so it's really important, if we're going to be able to function as a school district, that we have the chair of the meeting enforce the rules when we're conducting the meeting, especially when it comes to public comment.

Thank you, Director Hutchinson. I would like to hear the speaker.

Okay, I'll start again. Hi, my name's Gail Argon. I am an OUSD parent. I moved here a few years ago in part because of the schools, and I never imagined that I would seriously consider removing my child from this district. But today, that's exactly where I find myself because of your continued failure to address anti-Semitism in our schools. If hatred and discrimination were being perpetrated against another group, the response would be swift and decisive, as it should be. But when the targets are Jewish and Israeli, the district suddenly is paralyzed. Why is that? Your own investigations have found that staff engaged in anti-Semitic discrimination, yet there have been no meaningful disciplinary actions. You acknowledge that school spaces have been filled with unauthorized political propaganda, yet those materials remain and there have been no clear directives for their removal. You acknowledged unauthorized teach-ins that pushed inaccurate and ideologically motivated narratives, yet you have failed to enforce the law and your policies and ensure that staff teach only authorized, balanced, and factually accurate material. Why is that? Parents send their children to school to learn. not to be targeted because of their identity. Students are there to develop critical thinking skills, not to have personal political ideologies imposed on them. Every day that political propaganda remains on school walls and every day that a teacher imparts harmful misinformation, every day that harassment goes unchecked, you send a message to Jewish and Israeli students, like mine, that their concerns are secondary and their safety is negotiable. But these are real lives at stake. There is real hurt, there is real families who are scared. Why? Because hatred breeds violence. A list of administrative compliance checkboxes doesn't change how students experience schools in their hallways and classrooms. It doesn't restore trust. and it doesn't make families feel safe. I'm asking you to take real action, enforce your standards, remove the unauthorized political materials, hold employees accountable for discriminatory conduct, and ensure that all students are protected equally under district policies. And what's happening tonight is exactly why we need anti-Semitism training. That woman needs training, And frankly, the sticker on your laptop, if you understood why that was offensive after having gone through training, maybe you would remove it and understand why that creates a biased environment. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Can we get Mr. Edelman online?

Yes, Madam President. Allowing Robert Edelman to speak.

Thank you. My wife and I, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you. My wife and I have lived in Oakland since 1986. Both of our children, now adults, attended Oakland schools. Things were different then. We did not experience antisemitism or political programming of the students. I come from a family of educators. My mother and both of my sisters were teachers. They taught students. They did not bring their own political beliefs to work. The polarization and outright hatred allowed in the Oakland Unified School District is astounding. The leadership, and when I talk about leadership, I'm talking about supervisors, principals on up, not every month, but enough, has delayed implementation of the corrections as outlined by the California Department of Education, which has led to this lawsuit. You're not promoting justice or equity, you're promoting polarization and hatred. The United States flag was taken down from Oakland schools in at least two occasions that I know of and replaced with the Palestinian flag. In one instance, the Palestinian flag was flown for four weeks. Another episode occurred the day after a synagogue in Manchester, England was attacked before the Yom Kippur holiday. Replacing our United States flag with a Palestinian flag is not just a violation of California law. It's a symbolic gesture of how much hatred there is for our country among people responsible for leadership in the Oakland schools and how that hatred is displayed. the flag of the united states symbolizes our democracy and all that it stands for i am not a believer in my country right or wrong but i do love the united states my father served as an army doctor during the korean war his brother served in the pacific during world war ii my father-in-law flew in the eighth air force during world war ii out of england to fight the nazis every time those young men left on a mission there was a 26 chance that they would not return to their base The striking of the United States flag and replacing it with a Palestinian flag angers me, as is an insult to our country and to the legacy of those who risked and lost their lives defending it. It is symbolic of the prejudice, polarization, and hatred that has been present within the leadership of the Oakland schools. Thank you.

I want to remind everyone in the audience to please follow the rules of decorum. Again, we want to be able to hear all of our speakers. Excuse me. And they have the right to be uninterrupted. Thank you.

Next five speakers, please. Yes, Madam President. Next five speakers are Don Ahrens, Josh Halston, John Lynch, Asada Olagbala, David Bloom, David Reed. Oh, sorry, David Bloom.

Good evening. My name is Dawn Aarons. I'm a classroom teacher with a credential in both Spanish and French. I teach in public school, which is a point of pride for me because public school is where America meets. My parents attended segregated schools. They couldn't have met in school. In Arizona, when I attended school, I had black classmates and white classmates among my mainly Chicano and Mexicano classmates. But curriculum-wise, things were white or seldomly black. And what was called black was grotesquely distorted. It did not resemble truth. For this reason, making my classroom welcoming to all young people is a top priority. To do this, I must listen. and some of the loudest say things are black and white when it comes to Israel. Jews state that some situations are not neatly black and white. Please, when someone tells you that there is a boot on their neck, listen. I ask of the board nothing more than I require of myself. Listen and act. Redress substantively the harms against our Jewish children. Anti-Semitism hurts us all. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Josh Bolston, and I am a parent of three Oakland students. And I want to share a story with you because I know stories actually tell the story in a much more, even though they're specific, in a much more universal way. And this is my child at Oakland Tech in 10th grade taking social studies class. there was a discussion of the Holocaust. And she is visibly identifying as Jewish. She proudly wears her Magen David. And one of her classmates said to her, now, I don't know what you Jews have to complain about. I mean, you all got reparations, OK? So this was said to her. Now, this was said by a student to her in front of the whole class. And she froze. in her 10th grade brain, unable to process, looking at her teacher for guidance, a leader, a learned elder to help guide that conversation, and nothing happened. It stood there. It stood there for 20 seconds, 30 seconds. So what does a 10th grader do? She burst into tears and left the room. But I bring up this story because it was reprehensible But it was also a teaching moment. You know, kids will say what kids will say. But when this kind of bigotry and just misinformation and a statement so wrong on so many levels is said in a classroom, you would think that the leader, the thought leader, the teacher, the mentor would stand up and say, well, let's explore that. Not shaming the student who said it, but just what is that about? What is that statement about? None of that happened. And I think it's indicative of the problems that are rampant in this district. You know, bigotry is bigotry. It could be brown, yellow, blue, whatever. It's bigotry. And it shouldn't be stood for. It shouldn't be tolerated. It should not be encouraged. And just as the speakers have mentioned, that video, it really felt, as an audience member and as a parent, that it's like, yeah, we're going to phone this one in. That was phoning it in. There needs to be real change. Look into yourself. Erase the bigotry. Thank you.

Let's speak here, please.

My name is John Lynch. I've lived in Oakland for 26 years. I've been a teacher, a public school teacher for nearly 40 years. I'm here tonight because for more than two and a half years, Jewish and Israeli students, staff and families have reported anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment and a hostile educational environment throughout Oakland Unified School District. OJA has filed approximately 35 discrimination complaints, yet the District has repeatedly failed to address the root cause of the problem. The most obvious step this Board can take is to stop alone schools to be used as vehicles for political indoctrination. The district has already acknowledged that pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli visual displays, along with biased instruction and curriculum, have contributed to the discriminatory environment for Jewish and Israelis. Yet these displays remain. The district policies governing controversial issues continue to be ignored. Students come to school to learn, not to be subjected to one-sided political messaging. The Board must direct staff to remove discriminatory displays, ensure that instruction on Israel, Gaza and Palestine complies with the district policy and state law, and hold employees accountable when they cross the line from education to advocacy. Until this happens, discrimination will continue. Jewish students, staff and families deserve schools that are focused on education, not indoctrination. You also need to provide the same protection and respect afforded to every community, not just a few. The all welcome here poster outside that we all saw coming in needs to be implemented. You've turned a blind eye. You've stood idly by. You need to stop preventing bias and discrimination. It's up to you to act now and create a learning environment. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is David Blum and I have a black and Jewish child entering fourth grade in OUSD. What the Jewish community is asking for is very simple. We want an apolitical classroom where kids are not taught what to think but rather how to think. We want our kids to be able to share their perspectives and lived experiences while at the same time listening to other kids' perspectives and lived experiences. We want controversial issues which include but are not limited to the Middle East conflict to be taught in a balanced way and respecting the approved curriculum, which is a policy of the school board. And when there are issues involving discrimination, we want the district to take it seriously and to address them expeditiously. And we want these things for all students, not just our own children. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hello, I'm David Reed. My name was called earlier. I'm speaking for a parent who feels they need to stay anonymous for their kid's safety. The statement that I was asked to read is as follows. Please ensure that OUSD classrooms remain places where students are taught how to think, not what to think. All students, including Jewish students, deserve to feel safe, respected, and free from political indoctrination while teachers present complex issues in a balanced and age-appropriate way. I think you can, and that's all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mrs. Ha? So, I'm concerned about the legitimacy of all of this. And I'm not going to take the time to find out because I'm too busy trying to deal with you guys for over, I don't know how many years, dealing with the discrimination and racism that goes on with African-American students in this district. And you have been told by the state several issues related to black kids that you need to fix. In special education, as it relates to suspensions and expulsions, and as it relates to the closing of schools, disproportionately, most of the schools you have closed are predominantly African-American. But I'm going to address right now, what are the cost issues related to this? What's the cost for sending out all of these letters to the parents and to the staff? What's the cost for non-discriminatory materials to be presented? What's the cost for the outside training? What's the cost for the outside trainers? What is the cost for any oversight, if any? What is the cost for any cost to develop a plan related to dealing with this so-called anti-Semitic issue? A lot of cost issues related to this. You don't have no choice. And what is the cost for the two legal court cases that you're dealing with? all of this is that the financial burden that we have, I want to understand what is the amount of money we're going to have to put out and where it's going to be coming from.

Okay?

Now, we've got to deal with some issues related to this, but you've got to start dealing with the issues of the African American students that you have created race bias going on in many schools related to black kids. We don't have lawyers. We don't have an organization. We don't have the Anti-Defamation League to support us. We don't even have the NAACP. They're sitting here with them.

Thank you. Next five speakers, please.

Last two speakers are Gail King and Patty Joslewicz.

and did the two speakers online sign up there are two people with their hands up they are not registered speakers all right thank you my name is patty joselowitz i've lived in oakland for over twenty years We don't have to be here. There's no money that would need to be spent if there was not hate taught in these schools and discrimination against Jews and Israelis. None of the lawsuits. We didn't want them. You have the ability to stop this. You had the ability to stop it from the first complaint. You let it go on for two and a half years. You're still denying it. It's unacceptable. You need to be focusing on the benefit of the children in your care. That is all of our future. I could have been at an important NAACP meeting tonight, but I had to be here to speak up for my community. It's unacceptable. There are real problems that need to be addressed. Everyone needs to be treated fairly, period.

I'm Gail King. My husband and I decided to move to Oakland to start a family specifically because of Oakland's diverse community. We had to move to the Bay Area for our careers, and after careful consideration, we chose Oakland because it's the most culturally rich place we've experienced in the US, and we've lived all over the country. My children are adults now, and we support public schools, so there was no question they would attend Oakland Public Schools. Our son and daughter attended Oakland Public Schools from kindergarten through 12th grade, and their entire experience was one of respect, empathy, and appreciation for all cultures and backgrounds. Their excellent Oakland education appreciation of diversity has given them an advantage in showing their success. Our son graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering and he oversees manufacturing for a manufacturing facility that makes 90% of global diabetes continuous monitoring kits. He's also the treasurer of the Atlantic Fulton County DNC. Our daughter graduated from San Diego State University with a journalism degree and she's an editor at Billboard. They're proud of having attended OSD schools and make a point to attribute their success to appreciating all cultures as they learned and lived in Joaquin Miller, Montero, Oakland Tech, and OSA. We're all shocked that anti-Semitism is a problem in this school system. And we never had such experiences when we were in the community. And so please fix this now to everyone's benefit and for a collective society. Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other board comments?

All registered speakers' names have been called.

Thank you. Are there any board comments? Director Hutchinson?

Yes. Thank you, and hopefully if I go over my time a little bit, it'll be allowed. I'm really upset and I'm really frustrated. And so this is an issue that is very important to me and my family. First, let me just say that the reason we're here right now is because OUSD has been found at fault. And we are a sanctuary district, and we pride ourselves on that. And when we say we're a sanctuary district, that means sanctuary for all. And I'm going to repeatedly say that, and I've been saying that over time. I've said this in many settings. When we say sanctuary, we mean sanctuary for all. So for me, I'm Jewish. I was bar mitzvahed at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland in 1986. As far as I know, I was the first person who looks like me who was bar mitzvahed in Oakland. My mom's parents came to this country escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe. Her parents lost most of their family then in the Holocaust. I grew up knowing elders with numbers tattooed to their arms because they had miraculously survived the concentration camps. My mother, when she was growing up, got very involved in the civil rights movement. Answered the call and marched with Dr. King Selma to Montgomery after what had just happened to John Lewis on the Pettus Bridge. My parents met in Mississippi working at a freedom school. They then moved to Oakland, California to be able to raise a family together. And my mom dedicated 40 years to educating all the youth in Oakland. We know that anti-Semitism is the same as racism and is due to white supremacy. As a district, we are supposed to have a non-negotiable stance against all forms of white supremacy. Period, end of story. In my opinion, too many people these days are conflating Israel with Judaism. My own personal experience, I spent three weeks in Israel in 1988. Wow, a long time ago, as a 15 year old. And the thing that stood out to me in that visit is every tourist spot we went to during those three weeks, there were four national flags flying above every tourist stop. An Israeli flag, an American flag, a British flag, and a South African flag. In 1988, as a 15 year old in Israel, I realized that their government was closely tied to apartheid South Africa. And I knew from that point, I needed to stand against the Israeli government and their policies because of that. Just like now today, I continue to stand against the Israeli government and their policies because of the current genocide. And again, too many people in Oakland are conflating Israel with Judaism. What we need to get back to through real leadership, we have failed leadership. If you all stay for the rest of the meeting, you'll see what I mean about the failed leadership we're dealing with. But this has to be an issue that we handle in a rational way. People need to be able to stand up against a genocide without it being anti-Semitic. We need people to be able to step in and broker the conversations that I grew up having in school. That allowed me to have the informed opinions that I now have today. But this is what happens with failed leadership and when we don't address issues. And instead, when the community reaches out to the board or the superintendent, or there's a first court finding, it's not addressed right away. So it's allowed to fester. And even tonight in this hearing, with the video, with the treatment in the room, It's only exacerbating the problem. So we need real leadership in our community. We need people to stand up and say, my experience in Oakland is based on the real liberational unity between Jews and black folk. That's why I'm here, literally. And I will always stand up for that. I'm always a willing partner in all of those conversations. But in order for us to make that happen in OUSD, I need everyone to realize that we have to change the leadership. Because this is one of many problems that's been allowed to occur over the last two years with this current leadership. And out of the pandemic as a community, we are not connected like we once were. So I will always do everything I can to make sure OUSD is safe for everyone. I know personally many of the Jewish families who have left the district. But I'm honestly asking people to partner with me. We can put this together. It's not going to be perfect. There's going to be challenging things that we see and hear. But what's supposed to happen in our schools is we learn how to deal with that, how to learn from that, and how to still come together as a community to really move in the same direction. We always have more in common than we have separately. And it's heartbreaking listening to this tonight and seeing what's happened. Because again, my personal experience is my little white Jewish mother put her body and life on the line in a way that very few people ever have. And it's because of her relationship with my father that I'm only sitting here today. So I don't need to give a larger history lesson. There's enough people who move away from standing up for true equity in every race and every religion. We can hear it all over the place, but it's up to us to demand that our public school district serves the needs that we all have. So thank you, and when we don't get relief, please everyone remember, it doesn't necessarily mean another lawsuit. It means changing the people who we've elected to represent us till we get the kind of representation that we want and we need. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Hutchinson. With that, we will move on to labor partners. Are there any comments from our labor partners? Excuse me, are there any comments from our labor partners? Comments from the labor partners?

Madam President, currently there are no comments by bargaining units on Zoom. I don't see any hands raised.

I think they're coming up this way. Besha, it's time for labor partners.

I'll give you a second, just a second, as God is together. Well, good evening, board, and my brothers and sisters in hand. I will today speak a little bit about how important fair bargaining is and support for all our staff. We are a team and employees are the foundation of the OUSD. With all our bargaining unions within the district, we give hard work, dedication, and skills to contribute directly to achieve our goals. Effective bargaining is not about conflict. It's about finding solutions that are fair and beneficial for all parties. When the staff feels heard and valued, we build the trust that grows and relationship that becomes stronger and stronger. Supporting staff goes beyond negotiations. It actually means safe work environment, opportunities for development, and resources that help staff perform their best. And when districts invest in their people, they create culture of motivation, loyalty, and productivity. I would like to express BCT's support for all of our unions within the district, AFSCME, SEIU, OEA, UOAOS, and Teamsters in the hard work that they've been doing to keep our district keep moving. We are all OESD and we can't continue going without any of you in solidarity. Supporting one another during bargaining demonstrates solidarity and share the well-being of both students and staff. Strong schools depend on strong staff. Fair contracts helps to attract, retain the dedicated staff, reduce turnovers, and create stable learning environments for all our students. The success of our district is built on the contribution of all staff and every bargaining unit deserves to have its voice heard and respected. I encourage our school community to stand together in support of all of our unions as they negotiate a good faith for all fair and equitable agreements. By promoting open communication, fair bargaining practices, and continued support for staff, we can build districts where everyone feels respected and empowered to succeed. Also, by working on all of this, we can strengthen our district and create better outcome for everyone in the district. What we expect from all this, as you see many brothers and sisters behind my back, we expect fair contract that we've been negotiating for six months now, and we're not going far. So please, take a sedation something that the asking you because these many of these members don't live in oakland here if they stay here i'll be able to without the families instead of going home this means something hi nick bogdanoff from uh... gardening landscaping and uh...

I just wanted to bring up how we have been negotiating for the contract for six months now. Management tends to spend the money on contractors for things that we could do rather than giving us a raise. We've asked for a raise. We didn't get one for at least 12 to 14 years. They would save more money if they would just give us a raise and hire more employees. One example is we cut trees, branches. If we do it, it costs the district $100, $200. If they get a contractor to do it, it's $3,500 to $5,000. There was another time where they had plumbing contractors come in from New York, and they spent $1.5 million on 20 schools. Every single sink and toilet installed was installed improperly. Our plumbers had to go and fix every single toilet and sink in every single school, and the contractors didn't come back out from New York to fix anything. So not only did they waste that money, that was more than giving everybody in B&G a raise. They had B&G go and fix it afterwards. So it's twice the work. And so they've offered us almost nothing to bare minimum every time we've went to go talk to them, and they keep changing the subject, and the only thing we've gotten locked down is that they want us to have new booths. And so we would like encouragement from you guys to negotiate a contract with us, something that's fair where we can have a living wage. That's it.

An email was sent March 27 saying, every Oakland student must be able to attend an academically excellent, full staff, safe and welcoming school. How can we have a welcoming school when we're understaffed and we cannot provide students the proper landscape, the proper paint job, electricity, sinks, toilets, if we're very understaffed? If we really care about our students, you guys gotta help us out.

good evening everybody my name is alan i'm part of the plumbing division right um i want to speak on the whole hiring new yorker companies to come out here and do the plumbing they just didn't just hire a new york company the new york company came out here and they subcontracted another company from out here so they spent a lot of money right and we had to go back And I swear, three out of all these schools, each school had 10 toilets that were misplaced, right? All the plumbing was wrong. None of the sinks were installed properly. And then we're getting all these tags left and right to go ahead and do these, and we're understaffed. And we're putting all this work in and no money coming into our pockets. But it's okay to go ahead and spend millions and millions to subcontractors out of state. That's not right. You know, how many of you get to go home after your job? Right? I'm just asking you. You don't have to answer. Fine. But I have to. Once 3 o'clock hits, that's my coworkers. I have to drive all the way to Walnut Creek to clean offices just so I can go ahead and provide my kids with food, gas for myself to come over here to work. I live all the way in Pittsburgh. That's a drive. I don't get to see my kids. I want to see my kids. I want to be able to put them in sports, but I can't with the wages we're making. You know, they're just stuck on the VR now. That's not cool. I want to be able to tell my kids, hey, get ready. Come on. I can afford it now. I can't afford it. You know, and I'm sorry I'm getting emotional because it's true.

SEIU stands with our labor siblings for a fair contract. At its root, when you tell labor that one bargaining unit got a raise so another can't, the message is clear. OUSD expects its workers to work for poverty wages and in deteriorating work environments. It expects our buildings to deteriorate because our buildings and ground siblings are being strung along during their bargaining process. Being told so-and-so got a raise so we can't give you one is out. The days of trying to pit labor groups against each other are through and labor solidarity is resoundingly in.

Hi, I'm Phoebe Nguyen. I am an occupational therapist with special education and I also serve as VP for SEIU Oakland chapter. And hearing about this, contracting stuff is really, really, really gross. We're talking about private equity, right? And private equity is about profits. It's not about students, and it's not about investing in schools. And there seems to be a runaway train with private equity everywhere. It's I just don't understand it. Look at all these people. They're here to work hard. They want to do the work. There is work, but yet we're bringing in people from New York so that they have to go back and do the job again? There's something seriously wrong. SEO stands here in solidarity with BCTC. who are currently navigating contract negotiations, many of the challenges they are facing are unfortunately familiar. Delays, superficially prolonged timelines, lack of responses, and other tactics that slow the process rather than move it toward resolution. These strategies are seemingly passed off as constraints that are simply part of the process. This way of doing business is not the experience of labor in other districts. Ours has been described as unusual and costly, both financially and in terms of morale. The hands-on, physical, demanding, and skilled work of BCTC members is consequential. Their work is essential to the safety and maintenance of our facilities. When we invest in the people who keep our infrastructure functioning, we strengthen the experience of every student who walks onto our campuses. Fair contract negotiations are about upholding the values of this board, what you regularly speak about, respect, dignity, and accountability. We should expect leadership at every level, including labor relations, to take the responsibilities seriously. We are asking this governing board to govern and hold labor relations accountable by asking a simple question. What did good faith bargaining look like today, and what will it look like tomorrow? Do not accept broad adjectives, but whether meaningful objectives were met and progress was actually made, because this is where the details matter.

Hey, everybody. Kevin Thomas, Carpenter Shop Stewart. Look behind you. We all have bills. We all have houses and rent. I have a seven-year-old grandson that I just spend time with. I work six, seven days a week. Plus here, it's very challenging. A lot of these guys lost my house 17 months ago. I should be home within the next two weeks. Very hard work, right? A lot of work involved. We need to do something better about our wages going forward for 2027. We all have the same stuff. You all have bills like we have bills. We all need our money. We worked very hard for it. We all are craftsmen, tradesmen, went through schools to get this degree, to get this certificates, to get this money, and we need it. Every last one of us.

I just want to say one more thing. As we speak right now, I got two members actually resigning by Friday because they can't sustain the wages, living wages they're here. They're moving away and actually finding a different company. And that brings us down to 70 members for all the trade that is in the BCTC. which we're not talking about. People that are retiring, they're not getting vacancy back. We got five gardeners, we only got one vacancy back. We got one alarm technician that has been deleted. We're going to two in the whole department, fire alarm and intrusion. We get a sheet metal shop that has only two person for the whole district doing sheet metals, which means ducting, which means the security on the windows and stuff like that. So we are deeply understaffed. And now when we try to fair negotiate the contract that maybe we can bring more and retain people to stay in the BCTC, to actually live in Auckland and work in Auckland, We're having a hard time. We can't get one thing done. And something needs to be done. Definitely talk to your labor relations, talk to everybody that needs to be talked, because we need to get this done ASAP. As we all know, our contract expired by end of the year, end of June. So we don't want to go without a contract. We are proposing one-year extension for 12% asking for one year that is being extended. And we understand the financial stress in the district. That's why we're proposing this. That's the main reason. So please do something about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other labor speakers? No, there's no other labor partners? All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Next up, we have the superintendent's report.

I just have a question. I signed up online. Will we still be called for comments or not? I signed up online. My name is Hilde Spritzer, and I simply want to say, first of all, I want to thank everybody, the gentleman that just spoke, and I want to thank the Jewish Alliance that was here. And I just want to say, and this is a personal note to the head of the school board, and you're not surprised. I have asked that you take the pro-Palestinian graffiti notes off of your laptop. when it goes out to the public, and I didn't even have the courtesy of a response. And I take that as a personal friend, coach in OUSD, as a personal hurt. When I say it's hurtful, personally, I mean it. I've been doing 16 years of coaching. I love all of our kids. And yes, some schools have more advantages. And we all know that PTA also supports different sites. But personal injury on my own behalf is what I want to speak to. Thank you for letting me get out, maybe inappropriately, and say what I needed to.

Thank you. Superintendent's report.

Board members, community,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'd like to share, there's two items that I'm focusing on this evening. We have school highlights and then we'll have a report out on our, excuse me, biliteracy recognition of students. I'd like to start With an acknowledgement of a focus area of attendance, we have been working on chronic absenteeism of our students. And this week, we've been partnering, as you know, with the Oakland Natives Gives Back to support getting students back into school and to support their focus on education. And part of that initiative was to acknowledge students who had improved their attendance throughout the school year. We had several students that have been recognized this last semester for changing their trajectory around attendance at school with acknowledgement of $500 checks. And these checks were actually used for actually life issues, helping family with rent, with food, et cetera. Yes.

If I could ask people who are in the audience to not have the side comments during the superintendent's report. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

I also wanna just let you know, there was a raffle that was given out to students who were a part of that, who signed up to be in this program to acknowledge their attendance. And this is a big deal to get people, students back into school. The organization Oakland Natives gives back raised monies for a final raffle of $5,000 to be given to a student who had participated in this challenge. It turns out that the student who won the prize of $5,000 was a student at McClymonds High School in West Oakland. We're really proud of that student turning things around, turning their attendance around. This is a major area of focus that I have been supporting. I want to thank publicly Oakland Natives Gives Back. You'll see in our report a picture of the student, their mother, and the principal and the Oakland Natives Gives Back student. At our last board meeting, we had a presentation around this where we're focusing in on all of our sites to make sure that we're focused on getting our students on track. And we're using lots of different initiatives to get that done. Next on, again, I want to focus on West Oakland. On the second to last day, our students in West Oakland attended an Oakland Ballers game, and it was actually a field trip. And many students from West Oakland, including Martin Luther King, junior elementary, Ralph Bunche Academy, and McClymonds High School attended. This was a special treat for our students to see another part of West Oakland where the Oakland Ballers play. The first pitch was thrown out by one of our students, and it was an exciting experience. And this is something that impacts students for a lifetime, just having an opportunity to be acknowledged, to participate. together and students who are articulating through our schools in West Oakland had a chance to spend time together. Middle school students, elementary and high schools. The next area that I want to focus on is our Restorative Justice Day on April 29th, which is a major initiative that was held at all of our school sites where we focused on practices that help create inclusive, equitable school communities for our students, staff, and families. I had a chance to visit one of those sites that day, and I was just amazed at the leadership, student leadership, of these RJ circles. This is one of our goals is to work with students on how they can interrupt some of the ways that they have been dealing with conflict and repair harm. This is something that was led by the trainings, were led by staff, and this is something that's been in our schools for several years. The focus at Edna Brewer was one of the highlights. Again, the talking circles, workshops were a part of our day-long activities at many of our sites on April 29th, which was Restorative Justice Day. Now moving on to Oakland Unified's basketball, a beloved sports for Oakland students. And by the way, some of these activities are activities that engage our students to come to school. It was another district, District 5, Fremont High School, Teams of six high schools joined in the fun where it was made up of special education students and general ed working together in games, playing each other, two general ed students and special ed students together. The teams involved came from Fremont, Oakland High, Oakland Tech, CCPA, and Castlemont. Each team played two different games, and all the players clearly thrived with competition, teamwork, and support from fans. I'm really excited about that because we used to have limited activities in the past where all students, special ed and regular ed, played together. And this is a new approach that we're using in all of our schools, inclusion. And it's something that I'm personally excited about. So I wanted to make sure that we highlighted basketball. The last item before we have our recognition is I want to talk about the Northeastern University and I say Mills as an alum of Mills. Northeastern has provided several scholarships to our Oakland students. This is the third year that they've done so, and we have six new students who will be receiving this scholarship, and there has been a support of commitment through 2030. i'm excited about that opportunity for our students earlier in the year i was able to meet several of our students participating this includes a full ride room and board for the full four years for those six students so we have students from oakland tech from skyline ccpa and oakland high And it's a total of an investment of $340,000. I'm really excited for those students. And so I'm going to be there at the beginning of the school year when they're enrolling and participating at Mills slash Northeastern. Okay. I'd like to ask Nicole Knight to come forward and share with us the next part of my presentation will be about the seal of biliteracy and recognizing such. Thank you, Ms. Knight.

Board directors and superintendent, I am so thrilled to be here to continue on the good news thread of this evening to once again celebrate our seal of biliteracy recipients. This year we have a record of 332 graduating seniors. The slides all say 331 and that's because we were alerted that there's a student who's graduating early and wasn't on our list of seniors and so it's now up to 332. And I can speak personally to just the joy and pride that families experience because of this recognition, because my son is among one of the awardees. And so now I'm a proud mama of two OUSD alum and Seal of Biliteracy awardees. you know, just so thrilled for all of our families and students. And just a little bit of context for why this matters for our state and for our city. California, as you may know, is the most linguistically diverse state in the country, and Oakland ranks among the top 10 most diverse cities in the country and probably the world. And so California and OUSD are proudly leading the way in understanding and naming multilingualism as an essential competency in our world today and in honoring and developing the linguistic and cultural assets of all of our young people. So, whoops, not yet. So the California Global 2030 Initiative started eight years ago with the ambitious benchmarks that you see here. You may soon be hearing about a new Multilingual for All campaign, which is working towards legislation with even more ambitious goals that would make multilingual education accessible for all students and the norm for our English language learners. And just last month, a couple weeks ago actually, the State Board of California adopted the long-awaited seven competencies of a learner, which is similar to a graduate profile. And number four on that list is the multilingual, multicultural learner. And so in Oakland, we are also doing this work and leading this work in the state through our programming, our course offerings, and our recognition of our students' linguistic genius and accomplishments. The seal of biliteracy is one data point amongst others of our progress as a system. To earn the seal, students can take different pathways to demonstrate proficiency in both English and at least one world language. including AP exams, four years of high school coursework with a GPA of 3.0 or higher, or the Avant exam, which is offered in dozens of languages. And for students who are English language learners, they also have to have achieved the highest level on the ELPAC, which is a state language exam. I'm so proud I've used this same slide for years and I love going back to it because I keep pushing up our milestone and we keep exceeding our goals. And so you can see that this year we're at, well, I have to change that to 332, which is a huge increase from last year at 281. We surpassed our goal, which was 300 this year. So we're just really excited. And you can see we have grown. our SEAL awards by over 400% in the last eight years, and we just keep growing. So our big ambition is in 2030 that we would reach 450, which would be about a quarter of our graduating class. Here you can see a snapshot of our SEAL awardees across schools. We awarded not only a record number of students, but in a record of 11 languages reflecting Oakland's diversity. So in Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, so on, you can see the languages up there across 11 schools. And I think President Rohart, you were the one who asked, like, how are, who is being awarded in terms of our fluency? Is it our English-only students? Is it our And so I did pull this data. 80% of recipients are either English language learners or former English language learners who have been reclassified. And also a shout out to Life Academy who 55% of seniors earned the seal this year. So just incredibly impressive work. And then wanted to bring in just a glimpse of why the earning the seal is so important to our students. I want to bring in some student voice. We do have links to the videos, so I hope at another time, they're short, you can take a minute to listen to them speak in their length in english and their um their home language so this is uh lulia she is an oakland tech graduate now just graduated trilingual in english amharic and tigrinya and in her interview she speaks about her language journey as she moved she had to move to ethiopia and she learned amharic to be able to communicate with her grandmother And then, of course, here in this country, learned English with her sisters. And so she speaks in the video of how important it is that not only is she learning these new languages that she needs in order to survive and thrive in this society, but how important it is for her to hold on to her home language of Tigrinya. And then, just love this second quote, learning a language is the best thing you can communicate with anybody and everybody. I think that's beautiful. And then here is Derek, who is an Oakland High recent grad from, as of last week, from El Salvador, who used his bilingualism to tutor children in his community and has earned a full ride to UC Davis. He speaks of the importance of the seal of biliteracy and acknowledging his hard work in learning English, you know, coming to this country relatively recently. So lastly, yeah, there is a link. You can see all of the names. We've had to add pages to our programs because they don't fit. And just also to say that we don't wait until high school to begin this work. As I think you know, It's seated in the earliest years possible through asset-based instruction, programming, and celebrations that honor our students' bilingualism and home languages, starting even in pre-K. This year, we awarded 574 awards across our early childhood programs and then in kinder, third, fifth, and eighth grade in our dual-language schools. So we are 118 SEALs away from our 2030 goal of getting 450, and we believe that goal is in reach, and we have at least 332 reasons today to keep going along that goal. So I just want to hope you can join me in congratulating our seniors, and should you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Thank you very much, Ms. Knight. I want everybody to know, while she's standing here, that she is a sought-after speaker. This is something that we can take pride in. staff that's known statewide she's asked by many different organizations she has labored in this area for years and I'm just really proud of how she has advanced our work here in the community I think it's very significant with all of the challenges that we have that we are focusing on students and focusing on outcomes with our students and I love the fact that You did something that's really important to me is acknowledging the work through the voice of our students. It's very significant. So I just want to thank you for your service. You make us proud. You've been very significant in this work in the safety of students, in our work around the academic outcomes, and just being an ambassador for Oakland. I appreciate you.

With that, we'll go ahead and take board comments. Board colleagues, any comments on the superintendent's report? Director Thompson?

Yes, as is always the case, Superintendent, I appreciate what you share with us. I really do appreciate it. I was just thinking about the inclusion that takes place. I was thinking about kids receiving that $500 scholarship. And we found a personality in the picture that we probably all might know, but I think he was on GQ the last time I saw him, Mr. Van Cedric Williams. So we're really excited about that. I'm excited about the Biliteracy Seal. I think it's really wonderful, but I want to ask one question. Which might go into two questions really, but do we have any students who come to you as monolingual students who then become bilingual? And then specifically, if we could narrow it down, do we have any African American kids who have become bilingual and they also receive, I don't mean African kids from other, I mean here in America, African American kids.

Yeah, and I'm happy to get you some of those specific numbers, but yes, absolutely. The other, I shared that 80% of the recipients are English language learners or formal English language learners, which means that the other 20% are English only. So we do have students who are from English only households, right, born in this country, raised in this country, who do many of them as a result of being in our dual language schools or sometimes other language study that they've had. Last year when I presented I was able to share the story of a McClymonds graduate who received his seal of biliteracy in Japanese. So not because of our dual language schools but because of his own drive. And then my son just graduated and my kids went to MLA and so I got to hang out with some of my former MLA parents. And I learned of one of our students, Benjamin, who's now in Concord, so he left us, but he was the only black student in his class who graduated in Concord with a seal of biliteracy because of his study. I don't know, Dr. Sadler, if you remember Benjamin. And so I was so thrilled to see him walk the stage, a little video of it, but yes. We do have black students who are US born who have, and we, you know, a topic for another time, we are very interested in making sure that all of our students have access to dual language programs should their families and the students want that for them. And that is, you know, work that I'm proud of that we're doing, but we have a ways to go to really make sure that we're, that access is fully available to all of our students.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Now, I want us to be able to highlight those kinds of things that Oakland is actually doing so that, of course, it will encourage people to want to come to our district, but also it'll highlight what the kids who are already here, what they're doing and the kind of educational opportunities that are afforded kids because they are bilingual, let's be honest. So I think that's something that we can really celebrate. Thank you very much.

um thank you i just wanted to appreciate highlighting the unified basketball i know it was the um for maybe for folks who don't know it was actually the very first season of that program um and i think i want to first appreciate the cac for special education for really pushing for access for students with IEPs and 504s to have, to be able to participate in the full experience of school and so I think just this realization of this and then I think kind of seeing over the years that this has kind of been in the works that there was a lot of CAC members who were talking about how meaningful it was for their students to actually participate in sports for the first time in like a real tournament setting. So I think just want to appreciate that work. And then I think the other thing that in terms of access for the seal of biliteracy is I think it's, you know, and maybe this is happening already, but you know seeing kind of some of the single digit numbers for certain languages that we have a significant population of in our schools that um making sure that students all understand that even if they aren't you know maybe they aren't classified as an english language learner but that they um culturally know um are you know are bilingual in a different language that is not spanish um but is there um you know kind of you know that they're understanding that you can get it in many many i think is it maybe over a hundred languages that it's maybe and you probably know the number but um but i just think um that's that's the kind of a question i have for kind of going forward thank you director williams uh thank you very much vice president batchelor

Dr. Sadler, once again, I just really want to thank you for your leadership, for your vision, for really, as you come in, you start to bring a new emphasis on lifting up not only our students, but our educators. That is a cultural change, and you're carrying accountability with that. You're able to highlight all of the good things that are going on. not just as a data point, but because it's a real work that you do. Everywhere you go, you highlight individuals doing good work. And so I just want to really commend you again as a director. I think there have been so many misguided folks in the community that only look at negative things. This is like an amazing achievement that we've had, what I still of biliteracy but also with you partnering up with our community to do uh to address chronic absenteeism thank you very much and for your investment in mclimates i cannot tell you enough Uh, you know, with your leadership, we've invested over 120Million dollars. We're having a groundbreaking coming up on a thank you again for moving that forward. You brought in some stable leadership to the high school. I just want to thank you for that as well. And I just really believe, like, you planning seeds. the planting seeds and these roses are growing as fast as you plant them and so i just want to thank you again for all the work that you're doing i appreciate it thank you director hutchinson

Yes, thank you. I just want to say before anything else, I was really disappointed that Superintendent Sadler, there was no statement around that first item, which was addressing a lawsuit and findings from CDE. And I just think there should have been more to it than that. I'm also still really disappointed about the press release that you issued last week around the vote for a positive certification of our budget. I think it's clear looking at the third interim numbers, hearing the conversation at the last board meeting, and then looking at what's coming forward today, it's clear our budget is not positive. Last week I asked one question over and over of you and staff, which was an explanation of a number from the third interim report on projected total expenditures for next year. That number has now become the total expenditures number for next year's budget. And after asking that question over and over last week, I heard nothing from you or for staff over the last week to answer that question. Nobody sent me an answer, nobody reached out, nobody said anything. And so that question now has still been unanswered. But then I was even more disturbed when looking through the consent report for item 02, which I pulled. That sure looks like a change in who is on the executive leadership team, their job descriptions. And it doesn't include a chief business officer anymore at all. I've also been concerned, as I've heard the rumors, that we currently don't have a chief of staff. And so now, in your time as superintendent, it looks like we've lost two chiefs of staff, we lost the chief business officer, we created a new position that we moved the head of HR into, and we're relying on outside consultants for financial advice. If nothing else, it's clear that we've lost two members of the senior leadership team, and there's been no work done to hire new people or replace them. So in the consent report, item 02, new job descriptions and salary schedules for senior leadership, I was really surprised that was there. I know there's been no public conversation or board conversation about it. And currently, you're still the interim superintendent. So why is senior leadership being changed? Why have the job descriptions been changed? Is Lynette McElhaney still currently chief of staff? And it looks like now there's been a decision made to no longer have a CBO. You have a position in an associate superintendent position, a person who we did not put that job out. I have real questions looking at the documents of the qualifications, but yet it's being codified in 02. So I would still like an answer to the questions I asked last week about a certain number. And when we get to item 02, I would really like an explanation about these changes to the senior leadership team and the executive team. We have to be able to do folk better, and it's clear our budget is not positive. Thank you.

Yeah, I just want to bring it back. I really do appreciate the work that Nicole Knight has done. And it was really definitely an honor to teach her son, who was also on this list, and to hear Benjamin. Sorry, I mean, he was like, that's really, he was also another one of my students. So I think again the depth of our work that we're doing in this is really pretty amazing and I think really speaks to the work that we're doing in Oakland, speaks to the staff that we have and again our students coming out fully biliterate and seeing some of those students in the very early years at MLA and now realizing they're on this list that was I think it's a real testament to the work that we do in the district. I also was pleased to see the basketball game. Again, I think when we have participation of all of our students in sports, it really does make a difference to that. I know sports was really important in my growing up, so I know it's a real sense of belonging, I think, for our students to feel a part of a team. So thank you again for your report, and that's it.

Yeah, I just like to add a little bit as well. So I want to just start off with congratulating the skyline high school varsity team for their 5 to 1 victory in advancing to the I CIF northern regional basketball championship semifinal. That's going to be tomorrow at 4 PM at skyline high school. Tickets go on sale, they are anywhere from five to $9, and you can go to gofan.com, .co, sorry, to purchase those tickets. Nicole, I just quickly did the math, and I'm proud to say that our CCPA, Skyline, and Sojourner Truth students, or 89 of those are, graduating with a seal of biliteracy yay um and of course those students are from all over the city but it's really great that our programs in district six are really strong as well um and i fully support this our by literacy program one language that i know um many many of our students speak is mayan mum um and um if you could uh answer the question as to like Is there, are there steps that we need to take as the district to increase the number of biliteracy languages that we can test through? Is there any additional steps that folks have to take? Because I just went to the my and mom graduation, there was 140 honor roll students, and many of which were not only bilingual, but trilingual.

Yeah, thank you for the question. I mean, one is, and this is a role that you, you know, everyone can help with, is to spread the word, because the more students and families who know that this is an opportunity within their reach upon graduation, will seek out the opportunities to, one, develop in their language, but also to be assessed for it, right? Because we do have more students, I know we have more students who could pass our Avant Test or meet that mark, but they have to take advantage of that opportunity. So getting more of our families as excited as one The Avant Test is what we use, again, for languages that are not about AP classes, right, or that are not taught in terms of course offerings. And so that's how we're able to offer the sealed-by literacy in languages such as Amharic and Tigrinya. Last year we had a student from Yoruba language, and so those, you know, tend to be students' home languages. And there's, yeah, there's dozens of languages. We're talking to the Avant Company about including a Mayan Mam component. And in previous years, we were able, we did offer Mayan Mam. We were able to recognize a student through a different process. The state allows us, if there is not an exam available for a certain language, then we can use local criteria. We were using like an elders, you know, my and mom group to actually assess our students and qualify that way. That, you know, requires a little bit more infrastructure and time. So I appreciate the push so that we make sure that that is in our system for next year so that we can celebrate those students as well.

Sounds good. Thank you so much. And with that, we'll move on to R, which is the public hearing. And I'll return it back to Director Brevard.

Thank you.

I apologize. We did not do public comment. Thank you, Ms. Asada, for holding us to it. Are there any public comments on this agenda item?

Yes, Vice President. There are three. It's Jonathan Mates-Mutchin, Sheila Haynes, and Asada Olagbala.

All righty. Two minutes each.

I would really want to thank you for looking at the basketball. I found out my grandson's playing AAU ball. It's very expensive. And what I found out too, I thought this was the black thing, but all the kids, Asian, Latino kids, of the asian pacific they participate with very few black because of the cost for the fees in the game costs parking costs a lot so continue to pursue that as well as our soccer and volleyball i see it in the agenda that we are going to be given some attention to that Whenever I see an African, I always ask him, first question, how many languages do you speak? The average African speaks three to four languages. I find that amazing. We're making a big deal out of this bilateral. But I just learned that the average African speaks many languages. So it's good that we have this bilateral opportunity. The thing I take A CHALLENGE OR DIFFERENCE WITH IS WHEN WE HAVE DUAL LANGUAGE WHEN IT'S MANDATED, LIKE SCHOOLS, LIKE, I CAN'T THINK OF THE SCHOOL, WHERE KIDS, PARTICULARLY AFRICAN-AMERICAN KIDS, HAVE TO LEARN THEIR CORE SUBJECTS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE. AS LONG AS IT'S VOLUNTARY OR YOU TEST KIDS TO SEE IF THEY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO LEARN IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE, AT LEAST DO THAT. I'M CONCERNED ABOUT, I DON'T PARTICULARLY CARE ABOUT THIS PAYING KIDS TO COME TO SCHOOLS. I mean, when you go on your job, nobody's going to pay you to show up. And this is supposed to be preparation for real life. A lot of people disagree with me, but that's old school me. You are ingrained through your training. That's how I was training. You go to school because that is a necessary element to your total development. That starts at home. uh... i have a problem with the chronic absenteeism not including truancy truancy is a different level of being absent and we don't concentrate on that thank you for everything you're doing next speaker

Hi, Jonathan Mates-Mushen. I just wanted to appreciate Dr. Sadler's report. There's a lot of negative and bad, and the news generally is not great to watch, but you were able to bring aside of oakland and our school district that more people need to see and i know that we have a lot of work to do we have a i'm very concerned about next year uh... how we're going to make it through and I'm concerned about the upcoming budget discussion but what I appreciate is how hard you're working and how you're uplifting these amazing moments and I'm excited when I talk to my friends, my parents at Skyline who just went to graduation on Monday and they were thrilled I mean frankly I loved our graduations on the football field but I understand that is a time of the past and I'm sure I will love having my graduate at the Paramount next year but it sounded like it was an amazing event and I'm looking forward to more collaboration on you know, making all the schools a place of not only joy, but just like we want kids to, you know, have fun learning. And I think that that's what I see you're trying to bring, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last speaker I think is online, Sheila Haynes. Can I unmute yourself?

Yes, Vice President. I will allow them to speak.

Hi, can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Hi, thank you. So I actually thought I was signed up for the earlier discussion and just wanted to highlight part of the findings for the CDC with the lawsuit having to do with hay speech in regards to hay speech. But I do appreciate, Superintendent, one of your highlights on your report. being around restorative practice. As the board probably knows, as outlined in my resolution around safer environments, it asks for restorative practices and district-wide through the arts and with no hate speech. I do see later on the Prop 28 report about a real shortage in staffing and availability services for students. And Black students with disabilities are the most impacted. And I hope that with the financial state of the budget, I can only hope that help is on the way and soon for my student who's been learning online for over six years. But it doesn't cost money to mandate love and respect. So if you can please help our students be in the best mindset, it starts with being able to respect each other. There should not be any hate speech of any kind against any groups of people. And school is supposed to be a nurturing environment where students feel happy and willing to learn, not an abusive environment where hate speech is tolerated. So I just ask the board to continue to try to work on this budget situation and not cause further harm to our students through services that'll help them stay safe. And thank you for your ongoing work and support. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, we will move on to our, which is a public hearing on the local control and accountability plan. I see Ms. Sherman, I see I'm opening up both one hearing on the Local Control and Accountability Plan and the fiscal year 26-27 budget discussion.

Good evening. My name is Diana Sherman. I'm the coordinator of the Local Control and Accountability Plan, or the LCAP. So tonight we are here to present to you the first draft, or the revised draft, I guess you saw the very first draft last week. But this is the public hearing draft of the 24 to 27 local control and accountability plan for our third year, the 26-27 school year. And we're not going to spend too much time on these front slides, but this is just a reminder of our vision and our mission that guide this cycle of the LCAP. We are coming up on a new LCAP next fall, and so that will begin the start of our new three-year cycle where we will have an opportunity to revisit all of our vision, mission, goals, and actions. Tonight, we are here to present the closeout of this three-year cycle, our last year. So we're gonna review changes to our 26-27 LCAP and conduct a public hearing of this plan. So briefly we'll be talking through some of the context, some of our recent legislative changes, the changes to goals and actions and metrics that are proposed, the projected carryover of our supplemental and concentration dollars, and the areas that we will still be addressing before we bring this back to you for adoption in three weeks time. As a refresher for those who may be viewing this for the first time, the LCAP is developed by every school district in California. It is the overall district academic strategic plan for our vision towards quality community schools. This third year will be the final year of this three year cycle, closing out our goals, metrics, and actions that we developed in 23-24 to launch the 24-25 school year. We each year also have to integrate any new legislative requirements that have changed, and we will review some of those as well. So this is just a refresher of last year's significant change, which had to do with the spending of the learning recovery emergency block grant. We refer to this more casually as learning recovery funds. This was a block grant that was a post pandemic award to school districts across the state and was the subject of the Kayla J versus state of California lawsuit. which the state settled by adding some additional provisions around expenditure of these funds. We can expend these funds through the 27-28 school year if they're not exhausted before then, but beginning this current LCAP 25-26 year, We must ensure that they are allocated based on a needs assessment that looks at English language arts mathematics and chronic absenteeism There is a template the state provides that guides us around identifying which schools may receive those funds and which may not It also requires that we address exactly how those funds are spent in the LCAP So you will see this in each of the LCAP actions that include those funds. I This is not new for the 26, 27 year, but just a reminder that it was a big change last year. Okay. So again, this covers where you can look to see how an action is aligned to learning recovery and what we were spending. Um, and we are constantly revising and updating these plans and we will provide on the district website, um, the most up-to-date draft of the plan, um, each week between now and adoption. So we will have the public hearing draft is already up, but we will have a new draft up later this week and then another following week and then a final that will come the Wednesday prior to the last adoption. First, we want to talk through the significant changes to our supplemental and concentration investments. As a refresher, these are funds provided by the state that are specifically intended to address the needs of our highest needs students, which the state has defined as our low-income students, our unhoused students, students who are English learners, and foster youth. So the significant changes that occurred in the 25-26 year, but we will also see in the 26-27 LCAP, where the shift of five investments, or four investments, five actually this year, because we did do the final, five investments into S&C. The first is small elementary schools, which is six targeted elementary schools and shifting the entirety of their cost of operation into supplemental and concentration funding. The second is alternative education high schools, which includes both our continuation schools and our alternative schools of choice, so that is seven schools total. The next is our noon supervisors at the elementary level. The next is attendance specialists across the district. And the last is our substitute teacher incentive program or STIP subs. These are permanent substitutes who are assigned to a specific school or program. And so those shifts all occurred in the current fiscal year in part to ensure that we could balance the budget this year. They also continue into next year, so you don't see them in the 25-26 LCAP. You do see them in the analysis of the 25-26 LCAP spending, and you see them in our new LCAP for 26-27. And all five of these did ultimately occur this current year. For each of these, we need to ensure that there are new metrics that measure the success of these. We want to add the caveat that this is the third and final year of this cycle, which means that we are not going to have significant data with a single year of measurement to understand whether they are effective in their goals. But we will begin to identify what those metrics should be so that that can be something that is a starting point for the new LCAP cycle. Some of those are in this draft. Some of them we are still workshopping, and they will be in the final draft.

And again, noted that it's the last cycle.

So we do also want to review, and I will try to be brief on this in the interest of time, but some of the changes that occurred to the use of our SNC funds in order to ensure that we had funding available to move these five investments in. So these are investments that are ending that either contributed to an action within the LCAP or in some cases may have been the bulk of that action in the LCAP. So that is going to change our ability for that particular action to achieve the metrics that we set out in 2024 as part of this three year plan. Goal one, we are looking at some of our actions around literacy tutors and literacy teachers on special assignment that were reduced at schools that were not learning recovery eligible, and similarly math tutors that were eliminated at schools that were not learning recovery eligible. We saw a reduction in the centrally funded middle school electives teachers, the elimination of our director of visual and performing arts, Reduction in our early childhood STIP subs. Elimination of data analysts of our elementary, two of our three elementary networks, which included eliminating the staff associated with these networks. The elimination of our continuous school improvement office and the staff associated with that office. And a reduction in curriculum licensing and other purchasing. Goal two, which is around targeted student needs. the elimination of four of our targeted student intervention specialists, significant reductions to funding for implementation of the disability access resolution, the elimination of our special education engagement specialist and early childhood special education coordinator, and the elimination of our Title III specialist and our literacy curriculum coordinator and ELD specialist in ELMA. We also saw a reduction in newcomer social workers and elementary newcomer teacher leaders, and the elimination of teachers for late arriving continuation students. The draft that you see before you also includes elimination of teachers for late arriving newcomer students. We do know that this is something that will be restored once the tentative agreement with OEA is approved by the board, but that is not yet in our budget because we have not yet approved that. Goal three, which is really focused on students and families in terms of their social emotional needs and wellness, The elimination of centrally allocated additional noon supervisors for our highest need schools. The elimination or reductions to external safety contracts. Elimination of our restorative justice program manager and of the wellness specialist and Oakland Goes Outdoors program, which was grant funded. Reduction in behavioral health staffing. The elimination of our centrally allocated additional attendance specialists for our highest need schools and of all of our centrally allocated attendance case managers. The reduction and elimination of our community school managers at the schools that are not eligible for learning recovery and elimination of six of our school technology specialists and our assistant, program assistant for interpretation and translation who is currently the responsible for scheduling those needs. We also eliminated all of our district family engagement specialists, one of our Chinese interpreters, and reduced our student assignment counselors. Finally, in goal four, which is focused around staff retention, development, and new teacher supports, we eliminated two of our diversity and inclusion coordinators and a retention and employee development coordinator, and we reduced our professional development. As a refresher, goals five through eight are our equity multiplier goals. They are school-specific that are just about how that specific funding is used at those schools, so we do not cover them In this presentation, we do encourage you to review the LCAP to see what those schools are investing in. But we do have five new schools that have been identified for equity multiplier funding, which are Hoover, MLK, Prescott, WAMS, and MetWest. We also have four exiting schools, Burkhalter, Markham, Sankofa, and Frick. So you will see that reflected. As a reminder, refresher, equity multiplier funds do not expire. So if a school doesn't spend them, they carry over indefinitely for that school. And so you will see some of these schools that are exiting still have funding and investments listed in the LCAP. That is because they did not spend all of their funding this year, and it will carry over to next year, and they've made a plan to spend it next year. So you will see that as well. UM, AND THEN BRIEFLY WE ARE REQUIRED UNDER ED CODE TO INCLUDE METRICS FOR EVERY RED AREA ON THE STATE DASHBOARD FOR THESE SCHOOLS. SO WE'VE ADDED THOSE. I'M NOT GOING TO GO OVER THEM, UM, BUT SHOULD YOU BE INTERESTED THERE IN THE LCAP, UM, AND YOU CAN REVIEW THOSE. S&C CARRY OVER. UM, THE LAST FOUR YEARS OR SINCE POST-PANDEMIC, WE HAVE HAD PRETTY SIGNIFICANT S&C CARRY OVER. WE ARE CURRENTLY NOT PROJECTING ANY CARRY OVER, UM, AND THE Rationale for that is that basically we have used most of that carryover to move many of those new investment areas into supplemental and concentration funds this fiscal year. And so that has exhausted those funds. There may be a small amount of carryover and we will do the final pull of that information later this week based on final extended contracts and things that people can put in through summer programming, summer school, all of those costs are going in right now. And we will do our best pass at what we expect to remain. Any funds that remain at the end of the year will carry over into the same program for next year because those are costs that did not get expended by June 30th, but will be expended in the first weeks of July because they push into the new fiscal year. So that is things like curriculum purchases. If we don't receive curriculum by June 30th, we have to charge it to next year's budget. That is things like licensing, those again, if they're not in place by June 30th, they have to go to next year, some of our summer school costs that push into the July period. So all of those funds are committed at this point, so we don't expect any significant carryover this year, which is a milestone, because that is the first year in a number of years that's been the case. And then finally, areas still to be included, the engaging educational partners, that is our community engagement and feedback. I know they have made a request to present to you next week, and typically that section follows once we receive their feedback. We have done a number of engagements of staff, of our parent and student advisory committee, and of their subcommittees through the spring. But they will pull that together into specific recommendations for you all to review and respond to. Final data and targets, you'll see they're noted in the draft document as coming soon. Those will all be completed prior to adoption. And then again, we will do a last poll of the budget in terms of where we are for next year's budget and where we are for the current year budget. And we will update all of that information before you receive the draft for June 24th for adoption. And then anything that is outstanding in narrative sections, we continue and have continued to work through. So I'm not going to go into the appendix. So that is our close.

Other board questions? Okay. Director Hutchinson.

Yes, thank you. I'm very uncomfortable, especially these days, with any document that says something like S&C carryover, and there's not a dollar amount to be found anyplace. And especially with the real questions about the budget that's coming next. What is the interplay between the LCAP and the budget? Which one informs which? And where would I be able to find the numbers that are mentioned in this LCAP plan so I can cross-reference it someplace?

So we have a document called the LCAP Investment Spreadsheet, which we are doing the final revisions to today, this afternoon. I've been working through that, and that will be posted publicly. It is a public document that is required by the county as an attachment to the LCAP. And the first draft of that will be posted to the public website, which is OUSD.org slash LCAP. I will try to get it up this evening, and we will be submitting that to the county as part of their review of the LCAP as well. That is an annual process. as part of our requirements for their approval of the plan and that is a line by line investments. Where that comes from is the budget development process that each of our central teams goes through and the school plans for student achievement that each of our schools goes through. So if you have reviewed a school's supplemental and concentration funding in their school plan for student achievement and looked at that document, those will all come to you for approval next, in two weeks I believe, on the 24th. So that is literally, we have a mechanism to pull that directly. So it is a Google Sheet ecosystem that plugs it into the LCAP so that you can see exactly how schools are planning to spend each of those dollar investments. And that is a set of resources that we've identified as our LCAP resources, which are over and above the base. So I recommend that you and us, any members of the community and others who are interested, that is the place to look for that. And we provide that so that there is transparency around that. At this time of year, what we are doing on a daily basis, I spend most of today doing this, is we are reconciling that with what is in our budget model. So I am working very closely with the fiscal team to ensure that if we have something in a line item, that line item is also in the budget model itself so that it is real. The county also is doing a side-by-side review to ensure that everything that is in ESCAPE is also reflected in the LCAP and vice versa so that we have not said, for instance, we're going to spend a million dollars on this investment, but then not actually budgeted for that in our budget. And so that is part of the process of review. that their fiscal team does before they approve that. Each year they give us a set of feedback around that and things that they want changed and basically going through that piece. And so as the information in the budget changes, we update our information so it's iterative, I would say. One doesn't come before the other because they really work in sync. And if they change things, they will email me immediately or call me to say, hey, we've updated this assumption.

Thank you. I just want to get this in before the time's up. I'm sorry to cut you off there. Thank you. I just really want to cite again publicly my deep concerns with how this is being done. Today is the meeting where there's supposed to be a public hearing on the final budget for next year. So we should be receiving all of these documents together at the same time. To be told that there's a plan and that we can get the numbers later, they'll be posted someplace, it's just not good enough. And as a school board director who has the responsibility of voting for I expect that when we receive a plan, it should be costed out, and we should be able to receive the information at the same time, especially if this meeting has to be publicly noticed in the newspaper. There's an expectation that this is when we'll receive all those numbers, and it's just not here. Thank you.

I will also just refer you, in the LCAP document itself, each action has a cost associated with it, and that does come directly from that spreadsheet.

I know, but the issue is we don't have that being presented today. And that's the real issue, that there should never be a plan brought forward. If there is a spreadsheet with a costing, then it all needs to be brought forward at the same time. And this is really a failure of governance and good management to try to do it in this sort of way.

Thank you, Dr. Lana. Did you have your question?

Yes, I did. So I know that this kind of the presentation you went over was, you know, a high level of some of the major reductions and shifts that happened. But. You also mentioned that for some areas, the bulk of the investment or some action item areas were eliminated or basically eliminated or reduced greatly. And again, I also note that the kind of engaging educational partners section, which I assume will address some of how those decisions were made, will kind of be laid out for the board and for the public. But I am wondering if you can speak to... how those decisions were made, in which areas to reduce or essentially eliminate, and what was the process for making those decisions? I mean, again, you mentioned a couple of high-level students and parents and staff, but I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit more to that particular question. Thank you. Sure.

Throughout the year, we do get feedback from our parent advisory committees. But broadly speaking, I think there were two kind of phases of decisions, one of which was, I think, very intentional decision-making around leadership direction in terms of which areas to preserve or move forward, which areas to reduce or to eliminate. And that comes in January and February, typically, around the same time as budget development because it is informing what goes into school one-pagers IT IS INFORMING WHAT CONTINUES OR WHAT DOESN'T CONTINUE AS AN INVESTMENT AREA. SO THAT'S THE FIRST PHASE. AND THEN THE SECOND PHASE THAT HAS HAPPENED THIS YEAR IS AS THE COSTING OUT OF COMPENSATION INCREASES HAS OCCURRED THROUGH THE SPRING, THINGS THAT CAN BE TAKEN DOWN HAVE BEEN TAKEN DOWN. AND SO, FOR INSTANCE, IN THIS CASE, WE ARE AT A POINT IN THE YEAR WHERE WE DON'T ELIMINATE STAFF AT THIS STAGE. WE ONLY ELIMINATE LONG LABOR COSTS. AND SO THAT IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SEEING ESSENTIALLY AND PART OF OUR RECONCILIATION WITH THE BUDGET IS to see if we have a line item where we have budgeted something in a non-labor section, meaning not a person, not a position, and it is not in the fiscal model, we have to take that out of the LCAP. And so that is where we are right now, is really reconciling that. And in some cases, we have specific actions, and you can actually see this in our LCAP action tables. If you look on one of the appendices to the LCAP, it will show you personnel costs. Actions that have very low personnel costs relative to their total cost, those are mostly what we call object fours and fives. So those are contracts, those are supplies, those are other purchases. Those are the most heavily impacted actions when we have to pull because that's where we can pull from. We can't pull from people in June. And so that is sort of the reality of if we are trying to balance things in June, what is happening is we are taking down contracts that might have been in place for next year We're taking down supply purchases like curriculum. We're taking down things like professional development. And that's because those are the things that are on the table to be taken.

Just one quick follow-up, which is I think one question is just around your clarification is that given that everything is very close to adoption, is it right to say that there's not the time for feedback and changing what decisions have been made is passed?

I think this year I would say that is the case. I would say in a typical year there is more breathing room at this point in the year where we do make adjustments, and I think many of you who've been on the board in past years remember that sometimes we will put something in based on feedback. I don't know if others would necessarily agree, but I would be comfortable saying that this is not that year, and that there is not a pool of funding to pull from to potentially fund asks that come in or changes that come in this late in the year. And that is simply a factor of this is the first year in the time that I have worked on the LCAP when we have not had supplemental concentration carryover moving into the new year. And that does significantly change our flexibility and our ability to be responsive and that's just simply a reality of that.

Yeah, I think, I guess, just to put a finer point on it, and then I will stop, is it's less about the final, like, last-minute requests, because I do think... I think probably in general, that's something we should get away from at this point. I think it's more about if there is an action that has been eliminated or so significantly reduced that we're not meaningfully achieving it, that how are we... And again, this is probably a question for next year, but just being really clear about what that was. Because, you know, again, I think because it's in draft, it's a little bit hard for me to kind of like... was looking for the draft to kind of understand kind of some of those changes but um but being really clear about here's the things that we are not doing and how we then address that moving forward because obviously we are still part of the LCAP but again.

One thing the fiscal team will speak to when they provide when they open the budget public hearing is sort of what some of the assumptions are and some of the still to come pieces of the budget are and I do think there's a space around what may happen with things like the COLA at the state level and as those get integrated into our budget if there is funding that becomes available Where does that get applied first? And I think that's a piece that is very meaningful, and we talked with PSEC about that last night as well, but having a prioritized list of what gets restored first. And staff are working on that list as well, but I think that can certainly be braided with board priorities and with community priorities to understand which things are made whole first on that list, if funds become available, as we do expect that the Super COLA will be approved. But once that is, that will give us a little bit more breathing room in the budget. What does that look like in supplemental and concentration specifically? That's a piece that we can certainly take feedback on.

Thank you very much for the presentation. I think I guess my question really is about I see all the eliminations, but I think the metrics on what were the student outcomes from that is really hard. We just don't know. And there hasn't been a practice of that actually being part of the LCAP. I always say there's a chunk of money that goes here, we're going to do this, this, this, but there's really no matrix that really tracks what the to the cost that we've spent. And so as difficult as this is, I hope this is gonna be a new stepping stone for us to actually kind of look at the LCAP again and really see what our investments look like, right? And what are the outcomes that are actually taking place with the investments that we're putting in? I think it's time for us to have that conversation and we just really haven't had it. It does not look good, but also we don't, again, we don't have a clear understanding of what those impacts are. And I hope that as we move forward, we will have that. Have you and your team thought about looking, adding metrics to these investments and the outcomes? Can you elaborate a little bit?

Yes, and actually this is a really important point because we are coming to the close of this three-year cycle and it is the first three-year cycle where the state has mandated that we do look at those outcomes to understand which things to continue and which things to discontinue. I will say this is my, I think, 11th year with the district, and one of my very first engagements with LCAP when I was supporting school plans was listening to Gene Wing, who was our former executive director of our research and data team, talk really poignantly about the challenges of measuring effectiveness of our investments, and that we are very good at picking metrics, and we can watch those metrics a long time. What we are not as good at is understanding whether the things we did were the levers that changed those metrics for positive or for negative. We are not currently resourced in the central office to be able to do the level of analysis that we would need to do to really conclusively say, for instance, early literacy tutors work or they don't work. That is in part because we need to have the bandwidth centrally to be able to do that analysis. It is in part because we don't have fidelity of adoption across our school sites. Different schools use those positions differently. We need to have alignment around those pieces. And that's just one example of dozens that are within the LCAP. But to be able to really conclusively say this is working to move us towards this very specific outcome, we need to ensure that we do things with longevity and making sure that it's not just a single year and then we change it again. ensure that we are doing them consistently across similar schools, or that if we are not doing them consistently, we are watching the schools that are doing something different and doing a direct comparison. So I think those are all pieces that we will bring to you, I think, in the fall because we will be tasked with taking the data and understanding what did or didn't work within our current LCAP and understanding what we can do differently to position ourselves to better understand that moving forward.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. This is really the first time that I've heard that conversation. I sit in on CSC, you know, when I can. And this is the first time that we're actually having that conversation. Because I think, again, so much fear, uncertainty, doubt, negativity is just flowing in every single decision that we really haven't had a true fidelity to how our investments are actually paying off. And I know as a board member, I've sat here for a number of years and I've seen very low literacy rates. I've been seeing some of the challenges of other programs and no one's been able to really address that and say, do an analysis or figure out, do we continue? Do we adjust or do we eliminate the program? And we just haven't had those conversations. Like I've heard before, you know, we want to fund everything. We fund everything and we don't know if what's working or not. And now we've been heavily indebted that we're trying to, get back to stability level. And this hopefully will be a first opportunity for us to start looking at these measures. And it's for everybody, though. You know, it's like for every department, there should be a list of measures that measurable goals that are set and that an annual review or not an annual review, a three-year review, like you say with the LCAP. Every three years, we can say, okay, let's look at what we've done. And I hope that will be part of the conversation. I don't know how we start that. Maybe we can bring it to teacher and learning and look at those particular measurement goals. Because as a board, we're going to have to set measurement goals as well. And it's very hard. I was... I've always heard these conversations about, oh, here's our board goals. They don't connect to the LCAP, and they're very simplified as well. So it's not like there's any great goal. Oops, that's the time. Sorry, just sorry. Not there, but thank you. That's what I'm looking for. Because lastly, we can focus on the negative, but now we can start building towards the positive and say these are the new steps that we're moving forward. Too many people focus on the negative. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. I think one thing that you have made clear in the presentation is the eliminations or reductions. What would be helpful to see, and I believe the next conversation that we have about this, there's gonna be a follow-up, yes, thank you, sorry. is what remains in the LCAP and why per those goal areas. And it would also be really helpful to have, I know you have goal one, the numbers, but also the goal areas actually listed on the slides. And then I think partnered with, again, contrasting what were some of the eliminations to what were some of the things that were kept would be really helpful for me. because I think again we really need to see as we move forward in the following school year where we do have a deficit we also do need to make reductions and so again like what are the things that are remaining so that we can then make that have that discussion about what are some of the things that need to be reduced as well as part of the LCAP and yeah it would be great if that was included in the presentation and also shared with us potentially yeah thank you

I just had a couple of questions one I understood there was a literacy grant coming in from the state or I mean I know it all has been voted on if so would that be and I understand that Oakland would be eligible for that because we have that is that that's one thing to think about I just had a question about that source of income as well as I understand there's something proposed for newcomer students and again I guess my question is when that as the budgets voted on how would that also affect what's in the LCAP but the last thing was something I didn't even think about until you said this and I really appreciate your analysis of data and I think we often look at numbers and i'm thinking about this as conversations you know gene and i had too about this is that there is that nuance and complexity with data and i think well often when we're looking at goals when we talk about them on the board and stuff i think they tend to be numbers and um you know percentages and i think that we also have to have some other way to look at the nuances of those numbers so whether that's narrative you know whatever that is but I would actually is thinking in our teaching and learning that it would be really helpful I think if you would be willing to come and really talk to us about kind of the nuances of analyzing this data yes I can certainly speak to that and then of course our rad team I think are the experts in what some of the caveats are and what some of the

areas there that we can move forward on.

Your first question again was... Was more about perhaps some potential incoming resources from the state.

Oh, right. I would defer, I guess, to Dr. Aguilera if she knows specifically around the literacy grant. The ones I'm familiar with are the Literacy Coaches Grant and the funding around that, as well as some of the screener grants. There may be additional grants on top of that. The ones that were known at the time of budget development are all in the LCAP. And so you'll see all of the investments there. If new grants are received, typically after March 1st or so, they will not be in the LCAP until we get to the goal analysis the following year. And that just has to do with the timeline of when we pull information and when we load it in. And to that end, that also speaks to some of the things like costs of newcomer positions that may be restored. What we are doing, which has been our past practice as we've had labor contracts in negotiation at LCAP time, is we have line items to hold funding, and fiscal has those same line items in the budget where they are holding funds for what they expect the cost may be. We don't know for sure that that cost is what will come to pass, but as we get to the finish line on approving those contracts and we get them implemented, then we actually apply those costs. And so it's basically our best analysis, and we work closely with fiscal to do that, to understand what we expect the cost to be and to make sure that those funds have not been allocated elsewhere so that they are available. So in the case of the current TA, for instance, we are holding funds for additional late-arriving newcomer staffing. We're holding funds for additional newcomer social workers and TSAs at elementary schools based on changing ratios, holding funds for additional counselors based on dropping that ratio, and then, of course, holding funds for compensation increases across the board.

Thank you.

In terms of the literacy funding that might be coming, it is often given to school districts as a discretionary block grant. And so while there is a line item that says you can use it for professional development, because it's discretionary, districts can decide how they use those funds. A lot of times the discretionary block grants are used to balance our budget and not necessarily to provide the professional development.

Comments? Okay. Public comments.

I just want to thank our staff for their presentation. Ms. Sherman and Dr. Aguilera, thank you.

Yes, there are two speakers for one public comment, one in R2. You want to allow them to speak now or after R2?

Allow it after the second presentation. Okay, we now have the second presentation.

A point of clarification, then are those speakers going to have double the time on the next item? I don't understand why we don't have them speak on the LCAP. And then I'm sure people will have separate comments on the budget. Because we're taking them up as one item.

Go ahead, Ms. Gard.

Were they noticed in the newspaper as one item? Because both of these items required public notice.

Before we go further, I just wanted to mention the work that, I wanted to specifically speak to the work that Sandra Aguilera. Thank you. I'm very much aware of the time. The detailed work, I have seen some of the information. I've also been at all the PSAC meetings where you've spent time getting input from the community and also going through the LCAP goal by goal in detail. And so there's been a lot of shared information that you've actually done on your own time to make sure our community partners have been advised of the details of where we are in terms of the current utilization or the current implementation of LCAP and then the recommendations so i just wanted to speak to that um specifically that it's not just you've just been talking with staff but it's really also been working with community and it's something that i would witness directly with significant time in preparation to make sure that our average citizen understands the process, our parents specifically. So I just wanted to mention that. That's been a part of the process and PSAC is actually mentioned in our LCAP as partners around communication and detail. Similarly, I want to speak to the school plans that are required annually that are approved by the board. That's also another process that informs the decisions that are being made or recommended. and discussed. So this hearing process is for everybody to look at and hear what's been proposed in our local plan and also give specific feedback and feedback has been given at all of those PSEC meetings. So again, I want to thank staff. It's not just Diana Sherman and Dr. Aguilera, but a lot of staff have been working on this feverously to make sure that we have clear information. Okay, just give me a moment before, I just want to make sure. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. You do have to close the LCAP and then open, right?

This is one hearing, both items.

So if we're moving on to the proposed budget, I need a point of clarification on this item R2. When this was listed in the cover memo that was posted with the agenda, for the attachments, it said 2026-27 SACS draft proposed budget financial forms. When you click on the link on the agenda, those documents are not there. Instead, they had numbers for this year. So there's a real problem with that, and it's not compliant, and it's definitely not compliant with the public hearing. But now things have gotten worse, because I show up here to the meeting, and I pick up a paper copy of this very item, and there's different SACS forms included. There's now all of a sudden SACS forms included for the budget for next year, which is different than what was posted in the agenda online. That's not legal. That's changed it. That means we didn't give proper notification for the actual budget numbers for next year. And this is the first time now I'm seeing these numbers when I show up here. So how is this different than what was presented online on the agenda? And we can pull up the link if we want and see. And how was this posted on the agenda when it didn't even include the information that it's required to have and that the memo said that it had?

Thank you, Director Hutchinson. Ms. Gard, do you want to go ahead, please?

No, excuse me. I have a point of clarification. We can't go ahead and present something that's different than what was posted on the agenda.

I deterger and we're going to go ahead with the presentation.

No, that's not what we do. So I need then a ruling from the general counsel or the parliamentarian or somebody. Because this was already a problem when the information it said wasn't included. But now to show up here in the paper copies. You've already said that. And the paper, I'm going to keep saying it until the board president asks for a ruling like she's supposed to from the general counsel or the parliamentarian. My understanding is it is illegal to have different documents on the online version of the posted agenda than what's being presented here in person.

And secondly, I haven't had any notice now to see these numbers.

And I know there's a process, I know the parliamentarian and board staff who made the agenda, they didn't print up a different item now than what was on there. Would you like this resolved? So how come there's a different item? We need an answer and a ruling. And my understanding is if we have to notice in the newspapers about this meeting, that means that notice was improper and we are not compliant under the law then.

If you put a period on that, we can get a general ruling from the general council.

I shouldn't even have to bring it up, Board President, if you were doing your job with the agenda. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Director Hutchinson, for highlighting an error in the document that was linked online. I do believe that has been corrected, and there are... No, I just went online, and it hasn't been corrected. Can we have a ruling on this, please? Madam President, if you will, I would recommend just a two-minute recess.

We'll recess for two minutes.

Mr. Rakestar can we have a roll call to establish quorum please Yes Madam President we may Roll call to establish quorum student directors are absent Director Lara.

Present.

Okay. Director Williams. Present, sir. Director Hutchinson.

Present.

Director Berry is absent. Director Thompson. Present. Vice President Batchelor absent at the moment. Vice President Brewhart. Here. Warren present.

General Counsel, do you have a?

Yes, before you reopen the public hearing, there was an administrative matter for the record. It has come to our attention. The budget document posted to the district's website in advance contained an incorrect attachment. There are copies here for the public, and the corrected version has been uploaded online to allow for the public to follow along with the presentation. The presentation PowerPoint remains as was originally posted and I'll turn it back to you, President.

Point of clarification, I just want to point of clarification. I just really want to put it strongly on the record that the fact that we're sitting here and during this recess, somebody went into the school board agenda and changed the link for this item. is a cynical attempt to try to avoid the Brown Act, which requires at least 24 hours notification. And to be clear, what was changed is originally there were no numbers put up, no numbers put for next year's budget in the SACS forms. And now all of a sudden that they've been added. So even me as a school board director, I've now been given two minutes notice That all of a sudden there's new numbers. Anyone who previewed the budget or the agenda ahead of time, throw out what you saw before. This is no notice and this is a meeting that's statutorily required and was noticed. and local periodicals so the community could know. So I just want to state I've never seen it happen before where in the middle of a meeting the document on the agenda was changed instead of rescheduling this meeting and doing it the right way. And the fact that this is around our budget numbers for next year is scandalous and a cynical attempt that i don't agree with to avoid the fact that there was no public notice of this document or these numbers so whether it was error by staff or whatever reason the only remedy is to reschedule this at a special meeting which you have the ability to do with 24 hours notice if you call it a special meeting but just to say we fixed it and changed the documents

is not acceptable and in my understanding illegal under the brown act thank you thank you i want to appreciate the work of the people who corrected this thank you i appreciate that and then we have grace again for mistakes that are often that are sometimes made um with that the public hearing is open reopened and miss tara guard would you make your presentation

Good evening board, superintendent, staff, and community. I'm presenting tonight with Chief Financial Officer Ryan Nguyen, who is on the Zoom. I wanted to just make sure he is on Zoom. He'd been moved up. I'll keep going while he's being moved up. We're here to conduct the required public hearing on the fiscal year 26-27 proposed draft proposed budget. Tonight I intend to walk through each slide carefully, answer the questions that have been raised publicly about this budget, and be direct about both what the numbers show and what work remains. Before I advance to the next slide, I want to say this draft budget before you is accurate, documented, and the product of real work done by our chief financial officer and district accounting team who have been working for our district and with our budget for over 17 years. We're here today because under Education Code section 42-103, the district is required to display the proposed budget for public view and hold a public hearing prior to adoption. That is what tonight is. Tonight is not adoption. Tonight is the required public hearing of the draft 26-27 budget. The budget will be adopted at the June 24th, 2026 board meeting. Education Code section 42127 also requires that the proposed budget include a review of reserves in the budget documents. The budget is developed for all funds, not just the general fund, and it establishes expenditure authority for the district in the ensuing fiscal year. I'm gonna talk an overview of the reconciliation process first. So before I walk through the numbers, I want to explain what budget reconciliation means and why it matters to the accuracy of what you are seeing tonight. A proposed budget is not simply last year's budget plus inflation. It is a comprehensive reconciliation process that updates every position and every revenue projection to reflect the most current information available. For this budget, that reconciliation covered the following. All site and department level budget adjustments developed during the budget development process where every school principal and every central office department submitted their budget request. They were reviewed by both the fiscal team and the talent office and the strategic resource team. And those were posted in our system. LCFF revenue has been updated based on actual enrollment and average daily attendance trends. The P2 attendance count drives our LCFF calculation. State revenue assumptions for 26-27 projection have been converted, excuse me, have been updated to reflect the governor's May revise. We did that conservatively, and I'll talk more about that as we move forward. Another part of the reconciliation process has to do with position control. Position control has been reconciled to actual staffing. This is critical. Budgeted positions now match the actual filled positions as of the reconciliation date. Unfilled vacancies that have been eliminated through the reduction in force are removed. The salary projections are based on who is actually on payroll, not on what was originally budgeted. The fiscal impact of the tentative agreements with OEA and SEIU have been incorporated. The OEA agreement filed with ACOE through the AB 1200 process is fully reflected in the 26-27 salary and benefits lines. The SEIU tentative agreement is similarly incorporated. These are not projections, they are the actual negotiated cost of the agreements embedded in the budget. The county office is currently reviewing the district's certification of affordability through the AB 1200 process. Encumbrances, contributions, and inner fund transfers across all funding sources have been reconciled. The contributions from the unrestricted general fund to restricted programs are calculated based on the actual gap between what restricted programs spend and what their own revenues cover. The reconciled contribution figure appears in tonight's budget summary as well. Together this reconciliation produces a budget that reflects the district's true fiscal position heading into year-end close and the adoption of the fiscal year 26-27 budget on June 24th. So I'm gonna go over the draft budget summary. This is draft budget summary, general fund, fund one, unrestricted and restricted combined. You are looking at the 26-27 draft budget summary. And the first thing we'll name is revenues. You can see are all, revenues are all money flowing into the district from four sources. The state through LCFF at approximately 500 million, federal grants at 54 million, other state categorical programs like special ed, lottery, expanded learning, arts, and music at 189 million, and local sources including parcel taxes, interest, and facility rentals at 93 million. Unrestricted revenues total 528.2 million, restricted revenues total 310.4, and you can see that on the slide. Expenditures are all the money flowing out. Unrestricted expenditures are 370.3 million and restricted expenditures are 506.8 million combined, 877.1. Excess or deficiency. The unrestricted slide shows revenues exceeding expenditures by 157.9 million. Do not be misled by that number. It is not free cash. Every dollar of it flows out as a contribution to restricted programs. The restricted side shows a deficiency of $196.4 million, driven primarily by special education costs of $145.8 million, self-insurance at $3 million, and deferred major maintenance at $1 million. The unrestricted contribution covers that gap. The contribution mechanism, I'd like to explain that as well. The unrestricted fund contributes 146.8 million to restricted programs. You can see that on the screen. After that contribution, the unrestricted net change is positive 7.2 million. The restricted net change is negative 49.7 million. A PLAN SPEND DOWN OF CARRY OVER BALANCES THE BOARD AUTHORIZED AS A BUDGET BALANCING SOLUTION. COMBINED NET CHANGE IS NEGATIVE 42.5 MILLION. WHEN WE GO TO THE FUND BALANCE IN THE SUMMARY BEGINNING BALANCE ENTERING 2627 IS 153.8 MILLION. 29.6 MILLION UNRESTRICTED AND 124.1 MILLION RESTRICTED. Projected end in balance is $111.2 million. $74.4 million is restricted reserve. $29.6 million is the reserve for economic uncertainty, which meets the statutory 2% and the $7 million unassigned, and we end up meeting the 3% that the Board requires. Two points before I move on from this slide. The growing special education contribution Now the dominant driver of that $146.8 million is exactly why controlling it is central to the fiscal stabilization implementation plan. And the $49.7 million restricted drawdown is not a crisis. It is the board authorized spend down of accumulated restricted balances documented in the budget balancing solutions the board approved. And I think I would say, so for the 196.5, the revenue, less expenses. I mentioned that there was SPED there. We also have spend down for parcel tax, 17 million. The professional development block grant, 15.7 million. And then you have the contribution for SPED. Okay, so this is a comparison of our third interim versus the draft budget. This slide is the one I want to spend the most time on tonight. It directly addresses the question that has been raised publicly about why expenditures appear lower than expected. I'm going to walk through both the comparisons clearly because they answer different questions. Reading the table, the left column shows you in 25-26, third interim, estimated actuals, what we project to spend and receive in the current year that is ending June 30th, 2026. The right columns show the 26-27 draft budget. The percentage difference column on the far right compares the two total fund columns. So when you look at revenues, Total revenues declined from $869.6 million in 25-26 to $838.6 million in 26-27, a reduction of $31 million, or a negative 3.6%. The primary driver is federal revenue declining from $77.5 million to $54 million This reflects the expiration of one-time federal grants that were never intended to be permanent or federal grants that we have not received and may be anticipated, but we have not received to confidently book. These federal grants that are not in the budget for 26-27 include, well, I don't want to say not fully in the budget, but I'm going to tell you how it's reduced down. Title I is down by $2 million. ESSA down by $1.8 million. CSI down by $1.9 million. 21st Century down by $5 million. EPA down by $13 million. I won't name them all because there's some smaller amounts and larger, but that's the primary driver of that. Other local revenue also declined from 111.4 million to 90.5 because local state grants like literacy state grant, which is down 3.2 million, CCSPP grant down 2.5 million, learning emergency down 2.5 million, and some other grants like we're losing the educator effectiveness. So all of that reduces down. And then when we talk about LCFF revenue, you'll see that that increased from 491.3 million to 504.5 million, a 2.7% increase reflecting primarily the May revision COLA. We were conservative with this number in our projections. In 26-27, we used 2.87%. And in 27-28, we're using 3.3%. And we're doing that as following the guidelines from school services and others in their county office. We did not include a special ed differential that we should be receiving. And for the discretionary block grant, we booked it at $750 instead of $900. So these are, we're hoping that the May revise pans out the way that it should. And with that, we would have a better outlook. Expenditures. Total expenditures decline from $973.3 million to $877.1 million in 26-27, a reduction of approximately $96 million, or 9.9%. This is the number that has generated the most public attention, and I'd like to explain it. On the unrestricted side, expenditures declined from $406 to $370, a reduction of approximately $36 million. The year-over-year reduction reflects two things working together. First, the RIF and the PARS early retirement incentives take full effect in 26-27 as those positions go unfilled. The layoff notices issued March 15th under Education Code section 44955 affecting approximately 700 positions, position actions. And those doesn't mean full eliminations, sometimes it's the reductions. and the 160 plus retirements through PARS. These employees were paid through June 30th, 2026. In 26-27, those positions are gone. You can see the result directly in the certificated line when you look up there. which is 192.3 million in 25-26 versus 183.3 in 26-27, a reduction of 9 million. And in classified salaries, 73.2 million to 63.5, a reduction of 9.7 million. And we also have not really reconciled yet the PARs. We want to be really careful with that because some of the retirees, we also brought eliminations, so we don't want to double count anything. And we're just making sure that we're not bringing back some of those positions as well. So we should see a little bit more of an upside on our position reductions with the PARs, but we're waiting until this closes out a little bit more so we can accurately account for it. Second, the funding source realignment, as we discussed previously, that includes Medi-Cal billing, parcel taxes, attendance specialists, small schools, et cetera, that moved approximately $37 million in reoccurring annual costs from the unrestricted general fund to restricted sources and continues into 26-27. We did this in 25-26, which also allowed us to reduce our expenditures there. On the restricted side, expenditures declined from 567.1 million to 506.8, a reduction of approximately 60 million. The majority of restricted funding sources must balance to zero by law. When grant revenues do not recur, As with expiring federal and local programs, the budgeted expenditure also disappears from both sides simultaneously. This is not a service cut. It's a natural conclusion of time-limited grants. The restricted side always shows expenditures exceeding revenues because it draws on prior carryover balances. Restricted programs accumulate unspent balances when grants arrive before expenditures are incurred. The board directed the district to spend those carryovers for their intended purposes rather than leave them idle. The restricted ending balance of $74.4 million represents the remaining carryover that will be spent in future years. This is not a deficit in the solvency sense. It is a multi-year spend down of money already in the bank. Now, I want to address the comparison that has been cited publicly. How does the 26-27 draft budget compare to what was projected for the 26-27 first interim last December? At first interim, the 26-27 multiyear projection showed unrestricted expenditures of approximately $470 million. The draft budget shows $370 million. This appears to be a $100 million difference. Here is an explanation for this. 470 million first interim figure included 103 million line item that was not a real expenditure category. It was a budget balancing placeholder. A reverse engineered line that said in order for revenues to cover expenditures under our current assumptions, we will need to find 103 million in additional cuts and we had not found them yet at that time. That placeholder was a disclosure of a projected gap. When the strategies were implemented through the approved financial stabilization implementation plan that the board approved, reduction in expenditures, funding source realignment, workforce reduction, restricted carryover utilization, that placeholder became unnecessary because the gap had been substantially closed. in 25-26, which is what you would expect us to do. And this work carried on to 26-27. Removing it accounts for the majority of the projected 100 million difference. The actual change in the real expenditure lines between first interim and the draft budget is approximately 40 million on the unrestricted side. I want to be sure and clear with the Board that we still have a 30 million pending budget balancing solutions reflected in our MYP. You can find that on line B10. It's critical that we continue the path that we've been working towards through the financial stabilization plan. The other financing sources and uses section shows contributions as well. But regardless of the contributions that are there, we need to remember that we still have a deficit going into the following year. And the reason why we certified positive is because the question is, is the deficit manageable? Can we reduce 30 million going into the next year? And I believe that we can. especially since we were able to balance our budget for 25-26. People thought we would be insolvent and bankrupt by 25-26, we are not. And we're going into 26-27 and I'm thankful for the May revise because that helped. And then we're gonna have to continue to make some difficult choices. I'm looking forward to us also talking in the budget and finance because part of the financial stabilization plan is not just looking at what the board approved to do but also going back and looking at what has the board approved prior that perhaps we started and we didn't finish or we haven't started and maybe opportunities that we can also bring forward because we do need to consider everything that we have told ourselves we would do. and make the correct plan for our staff and our students. So what brought us here really, excuse me, is the LCAP and the budget draft. And so the local control and accountability plan and the budget are legally connected documents under Education Code 42127. The board cannot adopt a budget that does not include the expenditures necessary to implement the approved LCAP. Both documents must move together. The first draft LCAP was provided to parents and student advisory committee, the governing board and the Alameda County Office of Education and was posted publicly. There is a timeline that we are following and you can see the timeline here. Back again on June 24th for adopted budget. And this, again, briefly is the adopted budget timeline. So today we're doing the draft. June 24th, we will be at the adopted budget. And what I'd also like for the community and board to consider, because I do understand there's different Opinions about where our budget is different understanding and it's hard sometimes to understand. How did we go from? projection of a hundred million to Where we are now but we have been working with her County Office and And our county office will be going through our budget. We're submitting it to the county. We've been working closely with our auditor. Our chief financial officer has been working through our budget, again with our teams, and our support of HYA as well. And so our next steps is finishing adopting our budget and then letting the county take a look come back with what they believe. And I'd just like to end with saying that regardless of where you're sitting in this budget, our Oakland students deserve a district that is financially sound. They deserve adults that can talk to each other about this budget and work through issues together. And they deserve the classrooms and the resources that they need so that they can achieve what we all want them to achieve. So we did not arrive here easily, but we arrived here honestly. I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Are there board comments? Director Thompson?

I just need a clarifying question answered if you could help me please I was it's under the federal revenue in two thousand twenty five twenty six it was seventy seven something million and then you said in twenty six twenty seven it was a reduction of I think 54 million something so I think the variance is about 23 million dollars and so and I just be. A little clarification excuse me can you help me understand why that was the case in in what I'm really looking at is did our staff know that the reduction might take place that they know of did we miss applying for grants or anything of that sort.

don't know just anything like that I appreciate the question and I can't blanketly say that all the staff knew and also some of these grants it just may be that we haven't we didn't get the award letter yet it could be just that it's we received it but the dollar amounts reduced down so what I could do if you'd like is when I come back with the final budget I can do a detail on

Yeah, that would be wonderful if, yeah, because I think that's something that we want to see because, you know, since we're looking at how the deficit or how we're making the cuts in the expenditures, I think it would be kind of really good to see the positive growth in what we're doing.

So a list of, just a list of the resources. Okay.

Just to be clear, that's a list of the federal revenues? I'm sorry? I just want to be clear for myself, that would be a list of federal revenues?

Yeah, the federal revenues that were- Okay, thanks.

Director Hutchinson?

Thank you.

I got to figure out where to start after what just happened because literally right before this presentation. We were given documents for this presentation. And you know there's a time stamp of when this was changed on the agenda online. We have a real problem. First, there's a statutory requirement. That's why we have a public hearing that's noticed in local newspapers. And what's supposed to happen today is there's supposed to be a presentation of the final budget a first reading of it and the reason that's supposed to happen today is so the community the unions and the school board have time to ask questions about the details of what it means and how it's going to impact next year and also be able to ask those questions in time where then the board can introduce a budget adjustment resolution so right now we still don't have a final budget yet Not only do we not have a final budget, what was presented is not what was presented online 72 hours ago when the agenda needed to be posted. So in what was posted in your presentation, there's no assumptions page. So again, we don't know what assumptions went into making this agenda. You didn't have the proper SACS forms, which told us in detail things like what our projected deficit for next year is, according to these numbers. And I was asking questions at the last meeting about the total expenditures. Never got that question answered. I just heard your explanation now and you basically made it sound like the $103 million projected deficit was a placeholder that we don't need anymore. So I know if there was a projected deficit of 103 million back in December, we've also added in two new contracts that would add roughly 50 or 60 million. to increasing expenditures and costs. How come that's not accounted for here at all? Where is the accounting of how we address the over $100 million projected deficit? If we're using our restricted dollars first instead of unrestricted dollars, that doesn't change the total expenditures. And you have yet to explain why that number is down by 100 million. Now on top of it, that I only get these documents beforehand and just so we're clear in the sacks report that was just included now it's a different number of total expenditures than what you presented in this presentation where here you had 877 million and the sacks reports it's 874 and so the numbers aren't even the same and again we don't have a final budget so what am i supposed to do as a school board director when my schools ask for clarity over what do these numbers mean How do I have the ability to introduce a resolution to change this? And again, I know as a school board director, I did not vote on $100 million in cuts for next year in spending. And so I've yet to see any documentation to explain why this expenditure number is so much lower. Lastly, what I would really like you to do on the Sachs report. is for you to point out which line the community and the school board is supposed to look at to identify what our projected deficit is for next year because i know that that number solely exists in the unrestricted general fund and when i've heard you speak before i've heard you identify different numbers you've said 30 million So I would just like a clear identification of according to your numbers, which I don't really agree with because I've seen no justification. But your numbers, and you just said there's still a deficit for next year. Which line can we find that number and how much is it? Because lastly, this is really important. If we have a projected deficit in the budget, by definition that means we're not positive. Because when there's a deficit in the budget, that means we can't meet all of the financial obligations that we're budgeting for. And if we don't understand that basic principle, it's really, really difficult. So please identify where we can find the deficit for next year. And please explain how, if we have a deficit, how does that mean we're still positive? Thank you.

in sync with us as far as the LCAP. Everything, all the numbers here will be reviewed and audited by the county. That's first. To answer your question, Director Hutchinson, if you navigate to the NYP unrestricted, you can go to line B10 for other adjustments. And in line B10, there is a line for 30Million dollars that is the pending. A bunch of balance solution that we must identify next year. And that's our presented earlier. Uh, this 30Million in our opinion is not a an issue. Where we are not able to certify as a positive. It's a. It's a balance, a large balance, but with the continued work that. That the board has instructed us to do in regards to spending down with the resource, shifting costs out and reducing. Actual expenditure well, we believe that the 30Million can be achieved and bear in mind there are revenue sources that are coming in that we have not fully implemented because we want to be conservative as Tara has presented again. Our will increase. We've only budgeted 2.8. And so that's going to go up and then a special way. A budget goes up and then we have other sources such as the. The professional development block grant and a few other places. With that, I'll stop there for questions.

So I just want to clarify for everyone. So on this budget, which is not a full draft budget at all, final budget, staff is telling us that we're still anticipating a $30 million budget deficit next year. And that is separate from we're still projecting to overspend in total expenditures over total revenues. Because when we talk about the deficit, that is only our unrestricted general fund. And the reason that we have a deficit in our unrestricted general fund is because the amount that we take from there to supplement our spending on special education continues to grow every year. So this idea that we're going to use our restricted dollars first when the reason there's a deficit to begin with is because we don't have enough restricted dollars to cover the costs is kind of fool's gold in this whole thing. So just so we're clear, even with this, even after all the work that's been claimed, we are planning on passing a budget that contains a $30 million deficit, which is a larger amount than we keep in our reserve, and which would violate state law, which requires we pass a balanced budget by June 30th. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Hutchinson. I would say, though, that We can have a positive budget. I've talked to the county. We can certify positive. We can show and demonstrate that we are able to achieve the reductions that we need to make coming forward. And if we can all find a way to work together again as leaders and adults and people who care about our students, I feel like that we could do that.

Yeah, but let's be clear, to this date, to this point, it hasn't been done. That's why the draft budget for next year shows a $30 million deficit. So to say, well, maybe we can figure out something next year is not the way the budgetary process works. And at some point, there needs to be an admission that the work hasn't been done this year to address the deficit for next year. And this idea that we'll pass a budget and then next year we'll figure out how we need to cut the budget in order to stay solvent is not proper fiscal and budgetary management. And we've known that this budgetary shortfall since we adopted this year's budget a year ago. So let's just be clear, we have not done that job. And now what we're being told is, it's okay to just pass a budget anyway with a deficit. We'll figure it out, fingers crossed. That's what we need to be very clear about. And I've never seen it as a district. We have never approved a budget with a sitting deficit. That's why we've always made cuts going into it before then.

Thank you. I want to go on. I know other board directors also have other comments as well. Director Lara.

yes thank you um so i have i think i just want to first off just appreciate the work of our fiscal team and also i think of my colleagues up here many of whom made the very difficult decision to pass the reduction in force which contributes to the lion's share of the reductions that we're seeing in our deficit um so i just think that it's important that while i understand that people are concerned and i think i understand why not all of our board colleagues agree that we have a budget that is certifying positive that i do think it's important that people hear loud and clear that the very difficult decisions that have been made by the board and then implemented by staff are getting are rolled up in our 2627 budget um i would also just um clarify that i and again i've been somebody who has for even before i joined the board has been quite frustrated with the pattern of certifying our budget qualified when in fact we were always almost always going to meet our fiscal obligations and i understand that having a deficit having a placeholder for reductions for next year feels like that means that we're saying we're not stable but i would just for me appreciate that we're having there is a change in practice that's happening which is that we have cash flow and we almost always have had this quite a large buffer to cover our expenses and ultimately that's the definition of what it means to certify positive it means that while we have a deficit we're not projected to run out of money and not be able to pay our expenses so i think it's important that as we close out this first year out of receivership and over 20 years or trusteeship that we're also confidently standing on our own two feet and saying that we will meet our obligations and that the board by adopting this budget and staff as well is committing to that work to address the 30 million and again i think i am somebody who has been more positive um pun intended about our budget for quite some time because i knew i that i knew that we were being quite conservative on the may revise we're still being quite conservative i knew that the pars savings which again all of us board members have had the opportunity to see the savings that will come when we not only offered the pars the retirement incentive but also when we don't fill those positions and so i think that all of us have understand that going into next year when we maintain that position control that i know has come is happening that there will be even more savings in that way and that the 30 million will likely reduce significantly down so i just um want to um i know we'll talk more about this at budget and finance tomorrow but um and i don't i will um my time is up so i will save my questions and since we'll have more time tomorrow but thank you again thank you director williams thank you um

uh director uh deputy superintendent oh i like how that sounds deputy superintendent this guard Thank you very much for the presentation. I think it is you and your team just really want to give you kudos for really staying focused on that. I remember when we first came onto the board in 2025, I think it was that January 25, we had over a $200 million deficit. we inherited a board previous of us that actually self-certified negative. And we've made decision after decision after decision that moved us qualified, qualified, qualified. And now we're very on the cusp of being positive. And I just really want to thank you and your leadership for staying really focused on moving our budget in the right direction. Because at one time we were Just getting told that everything was, the end of the world was about to happen. The whole budget was going to explode in front of everybody, and we were going into... state receivership. So we have really worked really hard. And I think a lot of times we don't give Ryan, yourself, your team enough credit. And I just want to put that out there. It's not easy. It's very hard. And I appreciate where we are right now. We do still have work to be done. And as we spoke with our LCAP, Diane Sherman, that We're finally getting to a place of stability and now we can really start to look at what our priorities are and match our spending with our priorities. I appreciate that. We also are, I appreciate you doing the review and reduction of existing contracts as well. really looking on that because prior to that, the previous board was giving away contracts like they were, like it was Halloween trick or treat. They're just a contract for you and a contract for you and a contract for you. We brought that back in and we actually have more of a focused analysis of how to prioritize our particular budget. So I just really want to thank you again. We do have a long way to go, but it is promising. And I believe in the work that you're doing and what Dr. Sadler is doing as well as President Brohard. Thank you for your leadership.

I just again want to just quickly echo I think that even though I think this budget process represents real change in how we've done things and I know that change is always uncomfortable we like things done the way we've always done them I feel much more clarity about the process and more clarity about where these line items are so I am looking forward to the budget and finance discussion tomorrow but I do feel just a difference in the way that the numbers are being discussed and explained, and again, I also appreciated Director Thompson asking for the list of the federal revenues, because I know that's something we've also talked about, so thank you. Thank you. Public comment.

Yes, Madam President, we have two speakers, Ave Ringer and Asada Olagbala.

And Madam President, I recommend that you provide additional time per speaker.

We can do three minutes.

Because people didn't get to speak on the last one, so it should be two minutes plus two minutes, especially since we can see we only have one person here, and there's only like 10 people on Zoom, but it's okay.

Don't worry about it.

Mrs. Otto, would you like four minutes?

I do not think I need it, thank you. Okay, thank you. I don't think a fair process exists when the public is asked to speak on two different public hearing items and you speak on them individually, but I have to speak on them combined. That's not a fair process. It says in your meeting procedures, all board meetings shall begin on time and shall be guided by an agenda prepared in accordance with board bylaws and posted and distributed in accordance with the Ralph M. Brown Act. The Ralph M. Brown Act, California Code Section 54954.2, 42-hour rule. Legislative bodies must post a clear, specific agenda containing all items of business to be transacted or discussed at least 72 hours before a regular meeting. You didn't do that. There's nothing in the Brown Act at the point of the meeting you can correct the agenda. 72 hours posting. I'm not going to address this. You require me, you correct me when I'm inappropriate out here. But when you are inappropriate, by not even following the Brown Act, You think that you can do it. You have no right to violate the Brown Act. And that's what you have done tonight. And the other thing, I sit here as a participant, and I know when it's time to vote, four or five people are going to vote on whatever is presented to you. You never challenge anything. I depend on Mr. Hutchinson and Dr. Berry to give me some information about this budget. You rubber stamp everything. And you got the nerve to tell me about my behavior. You are in violation of the Brown Act requiring 72 hour notice. And you come up here and create a method of solving something that Mr. Hutchinson brought up. This is entirely inappropriate. I can't even think. I've got all discombobulated because the items being presented is not being done right. And I know how the vote's going to go. You cannot be identified as positive when you got a deficit. That does not make sense. And Mr. Williams always talk about think positive. How can I think positive with this shenanigans going on here?

Thank you. The online speaker?

Yes, Avi Ringer. I see his hand on Zoom. I will allow him to speak.

Thank you, Ms. Asada. You know, align myself with her comments. You know, earlier your general counsel called for a two-minute recess, and it took 10 minutes. I can only imagine what that conversation sounded like. My guess is that she's telling you you're at high risk of being found in violation of the Brown Act and having this public meeting voided. Because whatever letter of the law you think you might be skirting by on, you're certainly violating the spirit of the law. After last meeting, ignoring the 72-hour notice period and giving only 24 hours, this time you've given zero advance access to these crucial numbers. And after two meetings ago, and you pulled all sorts of shenanigans and extending the superintendent's contract. And on and on the whole time this board has been seated. Now, the Brown Act begins, the people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people in delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. But it seems you actually have no regard for the public and their interest. It's perfectly clear. So when you ask for grace, President Brohard, that's actually not what this is. And this is all on you. When somebody makes a mistake, you give them grace. When somebody time and time again violates your rights, you do not give them grace. You raise up your voice and call them out, okay? Some people would like to believe that this was done by mistake or perhaps incompetence, but when you put it at the end of a long line of all these sorts of moves by this board, we see it for what it really is, just another dirty political trick. And so you'll get no grace for that.

Are there any other public comments?

There are no further registered speakers for this item.

With that, the public hearing is closed. And Mr. Slachow, can we have an interpretation check, please?

Yes, President Brewhart, moving to interpretation check. We will start with Arabic. I will lower our audience's hands. Please don't raise your hand if you need Arabic interpretation. Mr. Turek, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Arabic, please. All right, Ms. Abdi.

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. We present to you the translation of the Arabic language. Please listen to the following instructions. At the bottom of the screen, search for the circle on the shape of the globe. Press on it, then select the word translation and select the Arabic language. Then if you are using a smart phone, there are three dots at the bottom of the screen. At the bottom of the screen, there is the word moon. Press on it, then select the word translation and select the Arabic language. Please press on the original sound so that you can hear us. Thank you. I will shut down the sound.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Abdi. Checking attendees to see if you need hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start Arabic interpretation. Next, we'll go to Cantonese. Again, please don't raise your hand if you need Cantonese interpretation. Mr. Yuen, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Cantonese, please.

Hello, everyone. This is a meeting of the Oakland Unified School Education Committee. Great. Thank you, Mr. Yuen. Checking attendees as if any hands are raised for Cantonese interpretation.

Seeing no hands raised, we will now start Cantonese interpretation. Next, go to Spanish. Again, please only raise your hand if you need Spanish interpretation. Ms. Walker-Morquez, if you can come off mute and make the interpretation announcement for Spanish, please.

Yes. Buenas tardes. Estamos ofreciendo interpretación simultánea al español. Para poder escucharla, vayan a la parte de abajo de su pantalla de Zoom, donde dice interpretation, es como un globo terráqueo, dice interpretation, presionen ahí y vayan a los idiomas, dice Spanish, o sea, español, y ahí van a poder escuchar la interpretación. Si no encuentran el símbolo de la interpretación, vayan a donde están los tres puntitos suspensivos y ahí la van a encontrar. Ahora, si están presentes, pueden pedir que se les preste una computadora para poder escuchar el servicio. Ahora bien, para dar el servicio, les pedimos que por favor levanten la mano para pedirlo, ya sea en persona o virtualmente en Zoom. Muchas gracias. Spanish announcement is done, Mr. Sechuk.

Great, thank you, Ms. Walker-Morquez. Check attendees, I mean, check attendees if you have any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands raised, we will not start Spanish interpretation, and that concludes the interpretation announcement. I turn it back to you, President Brewhart.

And with that, we are moving on to Section O, which is consent items minus 02 and 025. Is there a motion to adopt? Yes. So moved. Second. Is there any public comment?

We have Jonathan Mates-Mutchin. If Jonathan makes much and is available online, if you can raise your hand. Okay. I don't think he's online. Only registered speaker.

Okay. Are there no other speakers? Go ahead, Mrs. Long.

Did I not sign up? It's OK. Thank you, Madam President. On this agenda you have $81,000 being spent. Off to determine. I'll try to find out who will enroll in OUSD next year and you're only going to do outreach to 1000 parents who are in the district in another group of parents who are not. I don't know if that's a good thing to do, to spend that kind of money. And what's the source of funding? Have y'all reviewed it and found that to be appropriate? You have 161 nonprofits that are doing after-school programs. Are they included as far as training that has to be done with this anti-Semitic mandate? You have in... You have Saturday programs, sports programs with soccer, volleyball, basketball. I think you're doing a good job of outreaching to our children to have some substantive creativity to do during the summer. I looked at all of the funding sources, and I hope you're doing this. In this agenda tonight, Measure H, Measure G1, you have grants. You have extended learning, nine items based on the extended learning op program. You have the Zuckerberg Family Foundation doing family support, Measure AA, com support. I'm going to stop there because you have to look at your responsibility. Even though the funding is from a different source, is it appropriate? Is it fair? Is it equitable? it's not just enough to say oh we didn't have to pay for this okay so you have something that does deals with title one that's very important that you have to make sure that's being done correctly so i encourage you board members to spend some time i took the time to look at this where these funds were going you have some of the same funds going to the same school skyline the uh... Did somebody want this?

Thank you. Are there any other speakers?

All registered speakers have been called.

With that, Mr. Rickshaw, can we take a roll call on the vote, please?

There is no vote on this item tonight. Oh, you moved on from the hearing? I'm sorry. I'm over here talking.

I had board comment before the vote, please. Okay.

One board comment from Director Hutchinson.

Thank you. Three minutes, please. So again, I'm gonna not be voting for this consent report. I think each meeting that we've had, it's become clearer and clearer to the people watching why I stopped voting for consent reports over a year ago. Many of the items in the consent report do not have a fiscal impact analysis. Many of the items approved over the last year are the very items that drove the over $60 million in overspending this year. And all while we've been told we're in crisis, tonight when we're told at the last minute that we have a $30 million deficit still for next year, we're still spending more money with no real understanding where it's coming from. And one of the things that I've been asking for now publicly at every meeting for the last three months is an accounting of some of these things that are being told to us that have happened. So at last meeting, people bring up the rift and the layoffs of employees. At the last meeting, even though I was treated in a very rude manner, Dr. Frutos, the consultant, I made him clarify that in total, there have been $65 million found for both this year and next year in the savings that everyone's been working on. And of that 65 million, 45 million of it is for next year, largely through the rifts and the layoffs. So to keep throwing these things out like they're gonna actually change these numbers when we're told these numbers aren't inclusive of those things, I don't really understand. But when we're living in a world where we're told you have a deficit but it's positive, I guess anything is possible. And the reason why I've started pulling items more and more from the consent report is so I can highlight the most egregious items, because I read through everything. And if I felt comfortable voting for these items, if I felt comfortable with staff vetting these items and telling us the impact, if I felt comfortable with President Rohart putting these items on the agenda, I would have been voting for consent reports all along, or just pulling out individual items that I didn't want to vote for. And so the fact that I haven't been able to vote for a consent report in over a year is indicative of how I think these items are being treated, how I firmly believe we have no guardrails within the district anymore. And every presentation that we receive from the superintendent and staff only go to prove that point evermore. Let's not forget that Superintendent Sadler promised us there'd be a fiscal solvency plan approved by February 22nd. No plan was ever approved. And the update for the work that they've done is not here at tonight's meeting. It was thrown into tomorrow's budget and finance committee meeting. And if you look at that document, you will see every item on there says pending and to be determined. There are $0 in that update that have been identified as part of our savings plan and efforts. Thank you.

Mr. Raikstra, can we have a roll call on the vote, please?

yes on the roll call to adopt the general consent report minus uh zero dot dash two and zero dot dash two five all right on the roll call student directors are absent director lotta yes director williams yes sir director hutchinson abstain director thompson yes Director Berry is absent. Vice President Batchelor?

Yes.

And President Brohard? Yes. Motion is adopted.

Next up is item 0202, 26-1441, Classified Confidential Administrators and Executive Cabinet Salary Schedules, Talent and Human Resources Department. And I believe Director Hutchinson, you pulled this. We have a motion first. Is there a motion?

Move. Second.

I motion. Director Thompson seconds.

Prior to the question by Director Hutchinson, I'm going to ask Tara Gard to review this item for the board. Sarah, could you come forward and just give an update on O2 regarding the salary schedules for clarification?

That's it. We're cleaning up our salary schedules and some of our job descriptions. And it has to do a lot with people retiring and So let me, as an example, AFSCME, when they got their salary increases and the contract is approved, the salary schedules go with the contract. So it goes to board. So then when they retire and PERS asks for a copy of the salary schedule that's board approved, we can pull it from that. But with confidential, we had not been bringing the salary schedules after they've gotten raises. That's one part of it. And then the reason why you see job descriptions is because some of the, there was a time when everybody, almost everybody I think in the executive team were on employment contracts, and then the board decided that they did not want employment contracts, so people moved off of it. But the job descriptions still say contract, and so it's caused people a problem when they're retiring. because it says contract, but they're actually on a salary schedule, and PERS, if it's classified, isn't giving them the rate that they've been paid because of how the job description isn't reflecting the correct salary scale. So that's the work that we, and you're gonna see more of that. Some of SEIU, I think we brought last meeting, And also another thing, you'll probably see this come even back again because we find that it's easier to work with PERS if we also do a salary schedule reflective of how they work. So our classified work seven and a half hours, our classified employees seven and a half hours. but PERS is an eight hour calculation. So they also want to see our salary schedules at seven and a half, and then we're gonna go back and create eight hour schedules. So it just helps when people are retiring that they don't run into problems, because they have been.

Thank you. Are there any public comment on this item?

So you called my name. I waited for the motion. I waited for the explanation. I thought I was going to have the time to speak as the person who pulled the item.

I was going to go to public comment, and then we'll come back to yours.

Well, I would much rather be able to speak, so then if there is public comment, the public knows why I pulled this item, which is our general practice.

Why don't you take your three minutes and explain that to us? Thank you.

If it was as simple as explaining it to you, as a district and as a board, we wouldn't be in this situation. Unfortunately, you don't like listening. So the reason I pulled this item, this item actually only has one therefore clause included in it. And it says, therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of the Oakland Unified School District hereby approves the updated district salary schedules for classified confidential administrators and the executive cabinet as well as the corresponding updated job descriptions. So I got really curious because I know there's been no conversation about job descriptions. So when I look through it, one of the job descriptions that according to the page numbering I have is page 23 of the document is for deputy superintendent business and operations, which is a position that we didn't have at the start of this year because we had a chief business officer. And within the duties that are listed here, it mentions overseeing the budget and the finances, and providing strategic advice around the budget and finances. But if I'm correct, that's the position that Ms. Gar is currently in. So I have a real question when there's a new job description, because we didn't have anyone in that position, And the one presenting on the item is the person who benefited from that new job with this new description. Who developed these new job descriptions? Did Ms. Gard develop her own job description for her own job? Why wasn't this presented some other way? And when I see the jobs here for the executive cabinet, not only is there no chief business officer, like I mentioned before, my understanding is we currently don't have a chief of staff. We have currently two less people on the senior leadership team than we did at the start of the year. In January, you told us you were appointing Ryan, the CFO, to the senior leadership team. And then a month later, you appointed Ms. Gard to supervise him, which means he's not really a part of the senior leadership team. And now, while you're still under a contract as interim superintendent, we have a rewriting of the job descriptions of the senior leadership team. Now, I don't know if there's been a change in salaries through this or a financial impact, but these are the kinds of things that don't pass a smell test. When we have senior staff, it appears from the presentation, developing their own job description for a job that didn't exist a year ago. We have to be able to do better, and especially when tonight's budget document was not posted in time, neither was last week's. We have questions about the budget, and now this is the job description that we're talking about. So I'd like some clarity about why these changes are coming, why it's buried in the consent report. Where is our flow chart of district leadership? And it really creates the appearance of self-dealing and a conflict of interest.

if we don't have those guardrails in place madam president if i may i just wanted to to clarify for director hutchinson since he's referring to the position that tara guard is in at this time so i think you mentioned the job description for deputy superintendent business and operations and you were wondering if miss guard had written her own job description And to clarify, this is some cleanup that is required for retirement purposes retroactively. And the job description you're referring to, deputy superintendent business and operations, is not a new job description. is an existing job description in our system and was previously held by a previous employee, so it was not newly drafted. But as a part of all of the job descriptions attached to the salary schedule, it's included here.

Can you please let me know then when it was previously held? Because I know it was not one of the positions at the start of this school year.

I can, just to pull it up on the screen, see how it says created June 2010? So it's been previously held.

So that means predating anyone's knowledge or anyone that can reference anything. You're just saying it was created in 2010. Yes, because I read your question. But we're also being told that this is an update to the job description and a cleanup. And so these are the things where it would be much cleaner if it wasn't presented by one of the members. who are listed here. And this thing of presenting a salary schedule and job descriptions from the same people who are benefiting from it, it just really creates a problem. And so that's great. I could read that it was created in 2010. That doesn't answer the question of when was the last time that somebody actually held that position, because I know since at least 2020, Lisa Grant Dawson was the CBO, and we did not have this position and a CBO at the same time.

So just to clarify for any of senior leader level folks who were previously on a contract, moved to a salary schedule, this cleanup was required and that applies to this job description as well. And that's why you see it here. You see the job description now includes a salary schedule listed for the purpose of addressing that issue.

And lastly, so one way to avoid this perception is to make sure that somebody who benefits from the document coming forward is not a part of the presentation. This creates the impression that the staff that was designated by the superintendent to speak here was involved in the creation of this and so if we can't have guard rails in place to prevent that impression to the public that's the whole problem here and so i wouldn't have to ask these questions if it was done in a different way and it was made clear that senior staff were not involved in this but when we don't have that i don't know what else to think but i just heard miss guard present on an item that included her new job, which was a job that was not filled until the last couple of months within OUSD.

Okay, we're gonna move on to public comment. Is there any public comment on this?

Thank you. Public comment open to the public for comment.

Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment? Okay, with that, Mr. Rakestraw will take a roll call vote.

Okay. On the roll call, no comments from the public. On the roll call of O dot dash two, which is 26, 14, 13, 14, 41. All right. Student directors absent. Director Lara?

Yes.

Director Hutchinson?

No.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Berry is absent. Director Thompson? Yes. Vice President Batchelor?

Yes.

And President Brohard? Yes. Motion's adopted.

Now moving on to O25, which again I believe was pulled by Director Hutchinson.

We need a motion and a second. Is there a motion? This is going to be considered.

Motion to approve O-25. Second. Director Hutchinson?

Thank you. I would again like an explanation about why this is coming forward and why in this way. There was a time where it was the practice of the board not to include board policies in the consent report because that prevents a real conversation. This is now, if I remember correctly, The second time that President Brohard is putting forward a change in the agenda order for board meetings. I have to say honestly, it doesn't look like it's working when we have one community member here on the night when we're discussing the draft budget. No community members, no unions, no nobody when this used to be the most important meeting of the year. And when we made a major change to the order of the agenda, it was actually back when Director Gary Yee was board president. And when we were coming back to in-person meetings after the pandemic. And what President Yee did was he consulted the board, we formed a committee, Three of us, including myself, met, including President Yee, met with both Mr. Raikstra, our parliamentarian, and Dr. Franco, who was consulting us, and put together a revised list of the order for agenda items in the meeting in order to facilitate getting our business done and to facilitate public comment. It was an inclusive process. We took months and a number of meetings, and it produced really good changes. Now here we are, this is the second time President Brohard, for whatever reason, is changing the order of the meeting. We can see it hasn't worked. It sure hasn't increased participation. And I fear this is being done as part of a larger effort to make sure there aren't people here and nobody's paying attention. So I would at least like an explanation about why this is happening in this sort of way and what was the theory and intent behind changing, again, the order of items on the school board meeting agenda.

I believe General Counsel would like to say a few words about this as well.

I also really would like President Brohard, whose name's on this, to answer it. So people can ask something else, but I asked a direct question, and I would really appreciate an answer before Vice President Batchelor moves on to somebody else.

As the person chairing the meeting, I will take it to General Counsel first, and then Board President.

As the person chairing the meeting, that's fine. I made my question very specific. And if we want to talk about how this chairing of the meeting happens, so there was not even a public acknowledgement that we were moving from President Brovard to Vice President Batchelor. We'll go ahead and take a recess. Thank you. Five minutes. That's all right. Recess won't help. I'll say the same thing when we come back.

All right. Mr. Raikstra, can you take a roll call to establish quorum?

Yes. On the quorum call, student directors are absent. Director Lauder?

Present.

Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Hutchinson?

Present.

Director Berry is absent.

director thompson president vice president bachelor here and president brohard here quorum present thank you general counsel go ahead sure yeah i merely wanted to weigh in on the procedural question i thought i heard director hutchinson asking and if there's a separate question um i'll turn it back to him the process wise this is this has been brought before the board multiple times even since former President Gary Yee. And it's essentially at the discretion of the president to bring it on as a consent item or otherwise special order of the day with the president's discretion to set agenda. So just on the procedural question of whether this was allowed. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to answer your question. Excuse me. General counsel said, and if that wasn't it, she was referring back to me. So I'm answering back to her. So thank you very much. I understand the procedural aspect of it. That's why I said the normal practice used to be that we didn't do board policy within a consent report. And my specific question, because like I noted in my comments, this is the second time I'm aware of President Brohard bringing a change. I was asking her what brings this change for, what is her intent, especially since our meetings seem to be empty now.

Correct, and I was directed, the Board President, to go ahead and speak when you interrupted me. So go ahead, Director Brohard, and speak.

Okay, I'm going to answer that question. So I think the first time we did bring a change in this was to accommodate PSAC, that we'd put PSAC on a different week than they were able to accommodate with their meeting schedule and their prep time for the slides. so in looking at this one tonight what i think has been happening is we've been having public comment at 10 30 11 o'clock at night and i think i wanted to be able to move up our public comment after all of our report outs from the closed session so that again I know that a lot of people and this happened tonight too with the some of the workers here who were from from building trades who are driving a distance and want to make their public comments and can't wait until you know 10 30 when we get to them so this was an attempt to bring in you know start our meetings again kind of couching or putting in context our public engagements So then the next thing would be to move the special orders of the day but after public comments again this is a celebratory time and we want to be able to have that time with the people who are celebrating their awards in or tonight as we have the presentation as well. again keeping the same order for the student report trying to keep that as early as possible because again students do have to leave to go pursue their studies and their homework after that would come PSAC the order doesn't really change that much we have bargaining units at the public hearing we actually moved up after the bargaining units again because we do have that time sensitive to those unfinished business and then new business again moving trying to put those after after people may have the time to comment on them so this is why the order was changed again to accommodate some of the things I've heard from different community people that they want to have something to say they want to comment about something and I think what had been happening prior to that was a number of people were coming to speak before closed session So they would speak about items they wanted to be able to speak about that were in open session, but the time they had to do that was 4.30. So again, if we can do this earlier, accommodate our public so that people can make their comments and not have to wait until 11 o'clock. So that's the rationale. Thank you.

And the other thing that would help is if every meeting that we have, President Brohard, you change the order of the agenda right when we start. So hopefully that will stop also, and that would really alleviate the problem as well. So when Vice President Batchelor cuts me off whenever she wants, That means it's open season to speak whenever you want. So hopefully you will change your practice of rearranging the meeting every night when we show up, and that would really facilitate the community as well.

Thank you. Director Hutchinson, these types of comments also make the meeting so much longer than it used to. So do your extra two recesses tonight. So Director Brovard. I'm done, I'm done. Any other comments? Other board directors? Public comment on this agenda item? I see two, actually five community members. Anybody want to make a public comment?

this item amazing let's take a roll call on this item okay on the roll call to adopt 0-25 which is 26-1321 student directors are absent director Berry is absent director Thompson yes director Hutchinson no Director Williams. Yes, sir. Director Lara.

Yes.

Vice President Bastian.

Yes.

And President Brohard. Yes. Motion is adopted. Thank you.

So there are no consent items under P, so we will move on to O, which is public comments. Are there any public comments on non-agenda items?

Yes Public comment on non-agenda items. We have Sheila Haynes bed Rudin who call you Vic Sada Ola Gvala are all the speakers for this wonderful to two minutes each are any of those speakers online. Oh Yes, we have Sheila Haynes their hand is raised allow them to speak Sheila Haynes, if you can unmute yourself to speak.

Hi, is this the music section?

This is a public comment on non-agenda items.

Oh, so are you going to get to the music section?

That is two more items.

Okay, I'll wait. I'll wait till that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Sheila. Next speaker.

All public commenters' names have been called.

Wonderful.

With no other additional public comments, we'll move on to S, which is new business. S1, which is the ad hoc control over outsourcing task force. I believe, Director Lotta, you have a short presentation.

No, no presentation. This was just so to back up about it over a year ago, the board adopted a resolution creating the ad hoc task force to reduce outsourcing as a way to address the year over year growth in contracted spending. and part of that resolution calls for an update to the board timed with our interim fiscal reports and so this update serves as that report kind of in time in line with our third interim which came at the last board meeting so it just includes a update on the eight recommendations of people remember back in the fall the ad hoc task force which includes students representatives from all of our LCAP advisory committees representatives from every one of our bargaining units and then several designees from the superintendent's office agreed by a consensus on eight recommendations that would that we identified as part of our review of contracting and so the memo includes a kind of a review of each of those eight recommendations and then what um some of the responses from staff have been so people can look over that and see what some of those are and and then the other thing that came up was that there is several other and this is i think this has come up previously at the board that there's other leas and school districts that are also working on reducing their reliance on contracted spending and the ways in which it is increasing from you know kind of the adopted budget all the way through the unaudited actuals and so we also received an update from one of our representatives who is a teacher about their review of publicly available documents mainly our budgets and interim reports around the contracted spending and just showing that again OUSD like many other districts has has increases within our contracting spending over the last four years and um a recommendation to have a variance report at each budget reporting period if not more as a way to ensure that we're not being surprised essentially with how the contracted spending so if we are having increases that we should as a board see those more regularly instead of having it kind of roll up in the unaudited actuals which has kind of been what has happened over the last four years that we reviewed and then i think the other thing that came up which we they just affirmed what we know and again what kind of even like school services has told us which is that ousd spends more than other districts on contracting on a per student basis so that is the update and i just want to appreciate not only the other members of the committee but also the folks who worked to co-write this memo so even though i'm submitting it to the board it was actually worked on and reviewed by all the members of the task force thank you board comments director will director hutchinson thank you

It's like the book 1984 in Newspeak where each thing that happens it seems like there's people forget the history of what happened before it very recently. So when this item was passed over a year ago it was passed by the board over the objections of General Counsel Lindsey who advised the board not to adopt this measure and this resolution because she cited that It was not okay to have a prescriptive ad hoc committee like this where it was determined who the members would be. And it was not made open to anyone. And the other issue that was cited was it was a potential conflict to have union representatives discussing items that impacted whether that union itself would get the contract or not. General Counsel Lindsey warned the board not to approve the resolution as written. the board ignored that advice and approved it anyway now that happened as we heard a year ago so not only is this ad hoc committee have no authority also let's now look if this happened a year ago that means we've been through a yearly fiscal cycle of everything while this ad hoc committee has been on the books What's changed in the district? Which contracts has this committee lifted up to not approve or to look at differently? What items have school board directors pulled from the consent report because they didn't agree with contracting out those services? Once, when has that happened? so now here we are a year later and we're still talking about it even though nothing's happened because of it in fact what this board has done is they've actually contracted out more services like paying hya to be financial advisors now on their second contract for a total of well over a hundred thousand dollars instead of hiring staff internally or even taking free help from the county This board decided to pay outside consultants through a contract, pushing a million dollars. But they want to review contracts because they think that's where all the bad stuff is happening. But they haven't done it. And if anything, they've approved more spending and more contracts than ever. So let's just remember, uh... the advice we received from legal counsel was not to approve this resolution the board like they do didn't listen approved it anyway and now after over a year nothing's been done and it's no impact on the budget for next year not even a part of a fiscal solvency plan which we don't have smoke and mirrors only work so long fake virtue signals and fake outrage is getting old but the proof's in the pudding and the track records are the track records thank you um yeah i i just want to make one comment um about um the impact because i appreciate that it is not listed in the memo and i think we will

be coming with that likely in the fall specifically, but I also just want to note there's been a couple of things that have changed process wise this year. The first is that there's a second tier contract review. So when a contract gets initiated that's over $15,000 this current year, Dr. Sadler has been taking a second review of that so that it doesn't go through our typical process where it only comes to board at that time. If you look at the 26-27 adopted budget, you'll see a significant decrease in spending in the 5,000. So certainly I appreciate the comment that we could use some more specifics. And I know those will be forthcoming, but I just also want to lift up those two specific things that we have, you know, kind of collaborated with staff on.

I guess the one just point of clarification that I will make is that unions have collective bargaining agreements they don't have individual contracts with the school district so there will be no conflict of interest of our labor partners being in these types of conversations They're also at school sites every day, and they're the ones that are engaging with contractors, so they would also know quality contractors versus non-quality contractors, and they would be able to see over time how much contracting has happened and what that impact is on school sites. Director Brohard, or Superintendent Sadler, go ahead.

I just wanted to say it is true that I do check all of our contracts over $15,000, and if you check in with leadership, this is clearly something that I will have a discussion with sites or even central office staff around how they can work with maybe another school or figure out different ways of utilizing the funding so there has been if you go back and look at the contracts in the last actually last semester have been reduced significantly as a part of this process. So if you can go back and just, counting this, it's just a fewer groups, and maybe you may not be aware of that, Director Hutchinson, because you usually do not vote on that section of our agenda.

So please provide that document then, because you can't say, because I don't vote on the- Excuse me, because I don't vote. Point of clarification, you cannot say, because I don't vote on a consent report, that means that there's less things there. So we need a document then to show, I'd love a document that shows how that review has impacted the budget, how many contracts have been thrown out through it. But just talking about how there's a new review, that hasn't changed our financial outlook and that's not the work product of this ad hoc committee.

I feel like going from $100 million to $30 million is actually... I didn't finish my comment regarding this.

I just wanted to say this. One of the things that I'm working to do is to change the culture of sites and central office just making a contract for lots of different things that they'd like to do. And that has happened because of the review process. And what I'm saying is that it does take time to change that culture of spending money just because they have the budget for it. There is a lot more review and staff definitely has been having conversations with me. I have a spreadsheet where I look at every single contract and approve or disapprove it. So I just wanted to just make note that this particular policy

has had an impact on the bottom line thank you with that we will go to public comments do we have any public comments on this item okay i wonder if is she online

She is not, correct.

Okay, then no public comment on this item. Then we'll go to new business, which is T1, Proposition 28, arts, music, and schools. I believe Ms. Sheila had a public comment on this item, so we'll take her during that time. Is there a motion to approve?

I move that we approve the annual report for Proposition 28.

Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Is there a presentation from staff directors? Okay. There's no presentation. Board comments? There is a presentation. Thank you for that clarification. I saw Director Hutchinson.

Yes, thank you. this is like many items so i'm not quite sure why we're not getting a presentation which uh... there should be around this item if you read through the presentation even though the presentation talks about uh... uh... the percentages and how we got here where the funding for prop twenty eight is supposed to be one percent of the funding that uh... goes into prop ninety eight and that as a district we're supposed to use 80 of these dollars on staffing all we have in this report is a number of ftes there is again not one dollar amount in this presentation so if we're supposed to track how prop 28 dollars were used and to make sure that we're compliant under the state guidelines as a school board director i need a document that actually includes dollar amounts You just can't have a list of FTEs and present it and say, here, this is how we're showing we're compliant. So where are the dollar amounts? Where's the total funding for Prop 28? Where's the amount that we spent and how we spent it? That isn't included here at all. Not at all. So how is this a report out on how Prop 28 dollars were used when there's not one dollar amount on there? So I think that's a really important question that hopefully somebody can answer because this report is supposed to have a spreadsheet with dollar amounts. And it's not included at all. There's not even a link to go to refer to.

I believe there's staff online that has their hand raised. Phil, are you there?

Yes, I'm here. And again, let me let me share a little bit about this report and hopefully I can answer some of those questions. So the Prop 28, the Jim report is actually a relatively simple report and all that they asked for is the number of FTE. That is currently being funded by Prop 28 and they are. the number of schools providing an arts program and that's it it's actually really a very simple template that they give us to fill out and um for this report the um the report then has to be you know approved by the by the by the board and um and then transmitted to the state. The more comprehensive report comes in October once the fiscal year has closed and we have actual numbers for the Cycle 1 funding of Prop 28. We're currently in Cycle 2 and we are spending the carryover from Cycle 1. And so once the books close, then we can actually compile the information that has all of the expenditures from from Prop 28. So the so so when you when you the report is asked for by the state and to be in compliance with the law is actually rather simple. And so tonight the ask of the board is just approval to submit the report to the State Department of Education.

Thank you.

so superintendent sadler like i've asked on every other report that's come forward today i need numbers attached to this so this should be an easy work for staff to see this list of ftes and turn it into a dollar amount we've also heard over the last year that a million dollars was taken out of this money to help with water quality and other issues there needs to be an accounting that uses dollars so i understand that the state might not ask for it But I need it as a school board director with fiduciary responsibility. And we need these numbers now as we're in budget adoption making decisions for next year. So even if it's a year to date, we should have some number for how much we've spent under Prop 28 and what that spending has entailed. And it makes me very worried where every report that's come forward tonight, there's been real problems with either having dollar amounts attached, going back to the LCAP. or that the dollar amounts came so late that we didn't have a chance to preview it. So this is essential, and it shouldn't take extra work. This should be something that the financial team can readily make available.

Board colleagues, any other comments, questions? Director Williams.

Thank you, Phil, for that presentation. Appreciate it.

Board President? Superintendent Sadler, did you want to add anything as well? Thank you. We have a motion, a second, and we've done board comments. Members of the public, I know Ms. Sheila wanted to speak. If we could raise her up.

Yes, Sheila Haynes and Osada Olabao sign up for this item. I do see Sheila Haynes. I will allow them to speak.

Thank you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead, Ms. Shane.

Hi. So the report, I'm hoping we'll get more of a detailed report to understand the breakdown of school sites. And when you say arts, like what is considered as services, how much is music? I'm concerned that the very low numbers of students receiving arts education and the low numbers of staffing and support to the students. But I wanted to actually just honor Miss Deborah Barsotti. I give a huge honor to her because she was really detrimental in helping my son with music. She taught him how to play the violin, and he also played keyboard and another instrument. She really helped him even into covert times to adjust to being online. And I was sad to know that she was 1 of the staff members that. Has just recently left the district I'm concerned of more. Services not being available and really just want to understand. How you guys plan on hopefully implementing more. I mean, like I said, music and arts is very critical for our students. Prop 28 funding should allow for funding for all students. And I've been asking for the district white arts and music for all students along with that official ban on hate speech. I really wish I could get more of a breakdown of. what's happening and hopefully you guys can provide that soon. But music and arts and language is also an art. It has to be positive in order for our students to have the best chance of growing. So my hope is that through restorative practices, you can implement music and arts as a positive way to keep our students in a consistent loving place and also really help our students with disabilities who rely on music as an outlet and arts as an outlet to get better. And I hope that we can all tie in that music, arts and language as positive for our students because there's been too many decades of respect And the culture of respect has really been lost over decades through not only the music, but the arts and the words, which are all ways of expression. So I'm hoping that the board will consider my resolution and use it as a way to implement a culture shift and really just let Oakland lead the way in a respectful culture of love and respect through all of the arts, including the language, because our city has been plagued for decades through hateful words, through music and violence. And fatalities are the end result. So please help us. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll go ahead and take a vote on this item. Mr. Rigstraw?

So on the motion to adopt T.1, student directors are absent. Director Thompson? Yes. director barry is absent director hutchinson no director williams yes sir director lotta yes vice president bachelor yes and president brohard yes motions adopted all right with that we will go to the president's report there's nothing else president's report

As we wrap up another school year, many of us have been busy celebrating graduations, promotions, and end of year events across our district. This is always a time to reflect on both our accomplishments and our challenges while looking ahead to work that remains before us. The 25-26 school year brought more change than any year that I can remember in my nearly 40 years in OUSD. Many people have said it before, change is never easy, but I am proud of the work this board has done and the growing collaboration between district leadership and the board. For the first time in many years, I feel that we are truly moving in the same direction, united by a common goal to build a financially stable and sustainable district that can provide every OUSD student with the education they deserve. Throughout this year, I attended numerous community engagement meetings. Families consistently shared how much they value the staff at their schools. The people who greet their students every day build relationships with families and create welcoming school communities. Again and again, we heard that a stable workforce is essential to student success. And this year we took important steps in making workforce stability reality through our bargaining agreements with AFSCME, OEA, and SEIU. We continue negotiations with BCTC and UAOS, and we remain committed to reaching agreements that support both our employees and our students. We also maintained local control of our budget and continued the difficult but necessary work of restructuring our finances and improving our budgeting practices. This work is ongoing and will require continued engagement with families, staff, students, and community partners as we move forward. On to more board business here. We have openings on several commissions and committees. The 7-11 committee to look at several vacant sites will be taking applications online beginning tomorrow at noon. There is one opening for measure G, two openings for measure B, J, and Y, three openings for the audit, and seven openings for the 7-11 committee. These committees and commissions offer the community a great opportunity to participate in the work of the district. I also encourage everyone to join us at the board retreat on June 15th from 9 o'clock to 3 p.m. in the committee room. We will be discussing the board's vision, priorities, and the work ahead as we continue building a stronger district together. As we head into the summer, I also want to highlight OUSD's Summer Reading Challenge in partnership with the Oakland Public Library. Details will be available on the OUSD website soon. The first 10 OUSD staff members or board members who complete the challenge will have the opportunity to donate 10 books to a classroom of their choice. Jamila Sanchez and I worked together with the Oakland Public Library to make this happen. I also like to challenge my fellow board directors to participate. At our last teaching and learning committee meeting, directors William Thompson and I challenged each other to complete the reading challenge. and I hope that others will join us. To help support the effort, I will be donating $100 towards the challenge. If other board directors would like to contribute as well, perhaps we can provide even more books for classroom libraries across the districts. Thank you to our students, families, educators, staff, community members for another year of partnership and commitment to Oakland students. I wish everyone a safe and restful, enjoyable summer for those who are now finished with school. And that concludes the president's report. Are there any board members' reports? Director Batchelor.

Thank you. As you talked about graduation, I have to bring up Johnny, who is the salutatorian from CCPA, who not only graduated with a 4.5 GPA, and again, the salutatorian, not the valedictorian, but was also part of the recent cohort of Oakland Town Leaders Youth Apprenticeship Program, where he got to attend college-level courses on early childhood education and accomplished his internship hours at one of our elementary schools that had no permanent teacher for the whole year. For that third grade class, Johnny was the constant in their classroom. So I would like to thank Johnny for stepping up and wishing him the best at UC Merced in the fall. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. You know, I actually wish everyone would take the challenge of reading. We could start with just reading the agendas before the meetings when we come here. that would really lift the bar for the board. And it's great that we're finally gonna have a school board retreat. Last year, President Brohard, you canceled the retreat, so we've been through this year without having a board work plan, and it's shown. Just like Superintendent Sadler has not had a superintendent's work plan this year, and it's shown. So in today's meeting, we had two recesses for no reason. We had the budget documents illegally substituted with what was posted online during the meeting. And this is following the last meeting where the numbers for the third interim report were only posted 24 hours before the meeting. We got no budget numbers today. We didn't see a full budget. It's shocking that there were no unions here to ask, because this used to be the meeting where more people showed up than anyone. When people talk about the famous meetings that used to go to 2 AM, they're talking about the meetings in June, like the famous one where the floodlights had to be brought out, because the lights in the building shut off. But now here we are for the budget and nobody's here. That should be a tell. I don't know why Superintendent Sadler and President Brohard, you didn't put out a notice to the community to make sure they showed up to hear the agenda. Made sure everyone showed up so we have an opportunity to go deep into the numbers so we understand what's being paid for next year. So there's ability to change it if we don't agree with it. But that didn't happen and we don't even have the numbers to tell us that. Instead, we have leadership telling us even though we have a deficit, it's positive. I know there's no numbers there, but I promise you we'll get it done. Don't worry about the law that says you have to post information ahead of time, because who cares about community engagement? Let alone, how am I the only school board director to bring it up? Because none of you had enough time to go over the numbers to understand the budget. Because they weren't listed on the agenda. So everyone else was okay with not getting those numbers ahead of time? Everyone else was okay, it doesn't matter. But let's just wax poetically and praise everyone for all the progress we've made. It doesn't even make sense, and that nobody is concerned about the changes in the numbers when we're talking about the billion dollars we receive a year. Nobody's concerned that we currently don't have a chief of staff, we don't have a CBO, we're relying on outside consultants who have an awful reputation, all you have to do is Google them. It's bizarre a world up here, but there's a statutory deadline from June 30th, and when this board fails to pass a balanced budget, budget with no deficit, I expect the county superintendent to finally do her job, because I don't care who you are. If you're mismanaging the district's finances, you need to move out of the way, because we as a community know how to do this. We've proven it, and we're not the problem. It's the people who've been in charge since we actually left receivership.

all on this year all on y'all good job so i'm gonna go back to the reading challenge who's in i know director thompson is All right, Superintendent, Director Hutchinson, you can actually count in the budget reading if you want to.

So yeah, let's have a challenge. Who can show up at the next board meeting having read through the whole consent report and all the attached items and be prepared to discuss them? Because I didn't see it yet. Nobody else realized that the SACS forms were wrong on this document, which means you all didn't read it or you did and you didn't understand.

And with that, the meeting is over. Any other board comments or board reports before we do introduction of new legislative items?

Yes, I just have one thing. Dr. Williams. Again, I want to thank this superintendent who gets things done. We have a groundbreaking for McClimates to kind of move this renovation work. It's been, let's see here, Let me count the years that it hasn't gotten done, and I just want to thank, again, the superintendent for moving that forward. June 12th, we will actually move forth to do this particular groundbreaking. You are invited. Check out my Facebook. I have all the information there.

Any other board colleagues, board comments? Wonderful. Any introduction of new legislative items? Anyone? Going once, going twice. All right, adjournment of the meeting after the superintendent speaks.

I just wanted to mention again the last, loss of a well-respected staff person Deborah King Cooper her services will be in July and so that information will be available many of you who've been around work very closely with her and it's a tremendous loss so I just want to recommend closing the meeting in her memory thank you so much superintendent for uplifting that yes and board colleagues does that sound good we will close the meeting in her name thank you

All right, with that, Madam President, would you like to adjourn the meeting? Wonderful.