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

Or, you know, President, it's difficult to hear you.

President Inanna Otilia is saying that she's unable to hear. You were very broken up.

We will be. We've not had an established forum yet, and we'll be waiting until 5.15 to open up the regular meeting for August 26th.

August 26, 2026, regularly scheduled board meeting of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. This meeting is called to order at 5.23 p.m. I would like to announce for the record that this meeting is being conducted pursuant to California Government Code Section 54953, B concerning teleconferencing of meetings. Board member Regler is participating in this meeting virtually from 257 Gerald Drive, East Hampton, New York 11937 in accordance with the Brown Act. This location has been identified on the agenda for this meeting. I would like to ask Board Member Regler to respond to the following questions. Are you able to hear our proceeding on this end? Good evening, yes. Do you have a copy of the agenda for this meeting? Yes. Has the agenda been posted at your location? Yes. Is your location such that any member of the public could participate in the public portion of this teleconferencing meeting from your location? Yes. Members of the board, are you able to hear Board Member Reckler?

Yes.

Thank you. We are informed today that Board Member Smith-Folds is unable to attend closed session tonight and pursuant to just cause, pursuant to government code section 54953.8.3, the board is permitted to allow Board Member Smith-Folds to participate in this meeting remotely under these circumstances. This is despite the matter of remote attendance not being on the published agenda. Emergency circumstances. Finally, there is one last statutory requirement in this relationship to just cause remote attendance. Before any votes on action items this evening, Board Member Smith's votes must identify if there are any individuals 18 years of age or older in the room when voting, and if so, the relationship of the person to the member. I will now proceed with our meeting agenda. Para acceder a la traduccion en Zoom, haga click en el icono del globo de la parte inferior de la pantalla. Si se encuentran en Dijon y necesitan audífonos para la traducción, pueden recogerlos en la esquina trasera del auditorio. The board is about to go into closed session. Before we do, we are here to listen to any public comment and closed session items. Individuals wishing to speak on closed session items listed, if you are here in the auditorium and you haven't done so already, please submit a WCCUSD public comment card, which you can find on the entryway table. Or if you are participating via Zoom, individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app. if you are accessing the meeting by phone press star nine the time allotted to each speaker is two minutes the total time allotted is one hour speaking time shall not be transferred from one person to another there is also no substitution of speakers we alternate between zoom comment and in-person comment the public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed civilly without interruption or intimidation please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect their time as if it were your own be open to another point of view if one is offered Due to the Brown Act, board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment. The items listed on the agenda tonight are Conference with Legal Counsel Existing Litigation Government Code Section 54956.9 Conference with Legal Counsel Existing Litigation Government Code Section 54956.9 um three conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation for liability claims we are removing public employee discipline dismissal release complaint and are moving on to conference with labor negotiators and we will adjourn closed session and reconvene to open session is there any public comment There is no public comment. Okay. See, now we will return to open session at six 30. Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to the open session of the August 26, 2026 regularly scheduled board meeting of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. I am calling open session to order at 647. Para acceder a la traduccion en Zoom, haga clic en el icono de globo en la parte inferior de la pantalla. Si se encuentra en Dijon y necesita audífonos para la traducción, puede recogerlos en la esquina trasera del auditorio. Now, to access translation in Zoom, please click on the globe on the icon at the bottom of the screen. If you are here at Dijon and need a headset for translation, you may pick one up in the back corner of the auditorium. In a few minutes, we will begin public comment agenda item. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, but is not on the agenda. Please prepare now for public comment. If you are here in the auditorium and you'd like to make public comment, please fill out and submit a WCCUSD public comment card. You can find them at the table on the entryway hallway. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of this item on the agenda. If participating by phone, press star nine. After your comment card has been turned in, the cards are placed in the order received and we will call on speakers one at a time, alternating between public comment here at the Dijon and one on Zoom. Public comment generally lasts for one hour. The time allotted for each speaker is two minutes. In the meantime, we are moving on to the rest of our opening procedures. Please stand if you are willing to and able for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item B3, Land, Labor, and Body Acknowledgement. We recognize that we are presently on the lands of the Chicheno, Muwekma, Karki, Ohlone peoples and acknowledge them as the first inhabitants of the land we currently occupy. land labor and body acknowledgment i acknowledge that the burden of environmental exploitation and systematic injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies in the building of this country and its institutions i remember that black and brown bodies were born and died working this land against their will for generations I also acknowledge the continued contribution of the labor of survivors over the centuries to today. Of all immigrant labor, including voluntary, involuntary, forced, and undocumented peoples in the building of what we refer to as the United States. Dr. Rochelle Rogers-Ard, West Contra Costa Unified District's Board Anti-Racism Statement. The governing board is committed to the work of anti-racism in the conscious and active effort to identify, challenge, correct racial inequities in the system and institutions within our schools and community. Racism, explicit, implicit, stands in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of district education. To carry the district education into the future, we recognize that we must constantly renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times. unjust ideas and policies and racial inequities they produce have shaped us our schools and society the board strives to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism individuals and as board members we challenge ourselves to persist through the discomfort necessary for growth and learning to deepen our listening and our examination of racism and oppression and to develop long strong understanding of how we personal experience and feelings fit into the larger picture of continual oppression each member of our governing board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where each student staff member and community partner is a respected and valued member of the district community The governing board is uniquely positioned in its responsibility to identify, dismantle racist ideas and equitable policies in ourselves and across the district. Therefore, we commit to supporting anti-racist policies, programs, and practices for our children's education and well-being while building strong and inclusive school communities. The board commits to holding each board member accountable towards the goals and moving the work of anti-racism forward. We also commit to holding the West Contra Costa Unified School District staff, students, and community to living these standards of anti-racism in our schools. Board approved March 20th, 2024. Roll call, Superintendent. Would you please roll call?

Yes. Trustee Reckler?

Good evening from New York.

Trustee Smith-Foulds. Good evening, everyone. Present. Trustee Hernandez.

Present.

Clerk Gonzalez-Hale.

Good evening, President.

And Board President Inanna. Buenas noches a todos, Presidente.

Now we'll move on to reports to ratification of closed sessions. Superintendent, is there anything you report out?

Yes. Regarding agenda item A21, the board took action to approve the special education settlement agreement in the OAH case number 202-604-1105. The vote was unanimous. Regarding agenda item A24, the board took action to reject claim number 671870 related to an alleged personal injury. The vote was unanimous. That concludes the report.

Thank you, Superintendent. We'll now move on to agenda review and adoption. Does the board have anything that they would like to adjust on the agenda? No. See, now we will proceed with the agenda as published. WCCUSD public comment. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. But not on tonight's agenda. Please. Public comment will last approximately one hour. The time allotted to each speaker is two minutes. Should additional speakers remain at the conclusion of one hour, public comment may be extended. The time allotted per speaker after the first hour is generally one minute. Individuals wish to speak. Please submit a WCCUSD public comment card or participate via Zoom. Individuals will need to raise their hand in a Zoom app prior to the beginning of this item on the agenda. If you are calling by phone, press star 9. Speaking touch should not be transferred from one person to another. There is also no substitution of speakers. Speakers can also make public comment to give for each discussion and action item on the agenda after staff presentations. The public will have 10 minutes per item and one minute per speaker. The same protocols were cited above apply. The public comment period is a safe space where diverse opinions will be expressed in a civil matter without interruption or intimidation. Please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect the time at the podium as if it were your own. be open to different points of view of what is offered. Due to the Brown Act, board members could not discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment. Is there any public comment?

Yes. Mark Herringer, please come to the podium.

Good evening. Are we ready? Good evening, President, Trustee, Superintendent, staff, and community. My name is Mark Herringer. I serve as the Managing Director for GO Public Schools in the East Bay. I spent 25 years in public education, and throughout my career in education, one issue has remained central for me, and that's literacy. We know that reading is foundational. When students struggle to read, it affects their ability to access every subject, their confidence, and ultimately the opportunities available to them. That is why GO Public Schools and our community-led committee, or CLC, are committed to working alongside West Contra Costa Unified School District families, educators, staff, and community members to strengthen literacy. So tonight, I invite you to join us. This year, GO will continue offering opportunities through Sound to Meaning programming, our Family Leaders program, and the CLC. We want families to better understand how children learn to read and community members to have a meaningful voice in supporting literacy. But partnership also requires accountability. West Contra Costa Unified School District's own reading difficulty screener implementation plan makes specific commitments. Every K through second grade student is to be assessed three times each year at the beginning, middle, and to the end of the year. And after each testing window, families are to receive their child's individual results within four weeks, including next steps, literacy resources, and opportunities to follow up with teachers. And importantly, the district committed to publicly sharing aggregate district-wide results within four weeks of each testing window through board updates and public reports. GO and the CLC will be here throughout this year asking, did we assess our students? Did families receive the results on time? What does the data tell us? What are we doing in response? And are students making progress? We expect the superintendent

Thanks for the comments. Salon Harrison, please unmute yourself.

Good evening, boy. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I just would like to tell you all thank you for our board liaison, Demetrio Valenzuela. Thank you for starting off the year right, meeting with us, scheduling time to meet with us. I want to appreciate the cabinet and the superintendent for planning to meet with us. These are really good things. I also want to spotlight our principal over at Steege, who's doing innovative things to bring Black and African American parents into her school site. So I feel that this is going to be a very productive year if we continue to intentionally include our Black and African American students and our parents. I'm complete. Thank you.

Next public comment is Carla Galvez Lima.

Good evening, President, trustees, superintendents, staff, and community. My name is Karla Galvez, and I am a parent and member of GO Public Schools Community-led Committee on Literacy, or CLC. For the past two years, our CLC, made up of WCCUSD parents, educators, and community members, has worked to understand our students' literacy needs and advocate for strong, equitable reading instruction. Last year, we worked directly with WCC USD as the district implemented its reading difficulties risk screener plan. We asked questions, provided feedback, and brought family and community perspectives into the process. We appreciate this partnership is reflected in the plan. As implementation continues, we want to strengthen that partnership. The plan calls for educators to use screener data not only to identify students who may be struggling, but also to provide responsive instruction and targeted support based on each child's needs. For this work to succeed, families must be a part of the process. The plan promises families timely, multilingual assessment results clear next steps, literacy resources, and opportunities to follow up with teachers. We want to help WCCUSD strengthen that communication loop from the district to schools and teachers and ultimately to parents and families. Families should be able to know and understand what did my child, Child's assessments show, what does it mean? What will their teacher do in response? What can I do at home? How will we know whether my child is progressing? The CLC is ready to help by listening to families, providing feedback, strengthening communication, and partnering with WCCUSD as implementation continues. The plan says community voice will remain central to its continuous improvement. We are here because we want to make that commitment a reality and ensure every family is informed and empowered and an empowered partner and helping every WCC USD child become a stronger reader. Thank you.

Next public comment is Skye Nelson. Please unmute yourself.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, this is Sky Nelson, a parent and no longer a teacher, but I'm still very passionate about the work we're doing together in the district and a parent of a senior at El Cerrito High School. So I want to assure you that we're still working on the issues with the state funding, many schools in the state being affected by staffing investments from private companies. And the update right now is that we have a letter for the Senate who's considering, the budget office is considering this letter to add language that restricts contracts from being exclusive in the form of time waiting periods for staff to be able to transition to the district and also fees in that transition. I know WCC is doing a lot of work with some new agencies to have better processes that are better for the school and I appreciate that. I want to remind you this is a statewide issue. It's not just our district that's dealing with the investments. And the issue is not at all special ed, and it's not at all our students or our teachers. It's the financial system and how it operates to make money off of our needs and our students' needs. So that's the effort that we're making, and I think we can all come together on the need to make sure our financial system supports us, our community, and our students. So please consider signing on. I know some of you already have, but as a board, it would be nice to have the whole board support this letter for a budget trailer bill in this year or coming season. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Our next public comment is Mary Annium. Please come to the podium.

I have a lot of shout outs tonight. Thank you to the district for hosting the Steege and Kennedy rebuild update meetings. They are informative and help educate the public about the project. We appreciate all that leadership is doing to fix the issues that are arising. We can't wait to walk those new hallways. Thank you to the IT department. We have started receiving our fobs. Today was the first day I could use my computer off-site. Much appreciation to providing us with this tool so we can do our job duties. Again, the tech that comes to Cameron is very patient with working with me. Thank you. Thank you to leadership for looking into the clerks at Cameron. Dedicated staff volunteered on the weekend before school to register all the SPED students for school so they can start the first day just like all their gen ed peers. I'm very proud to call them my colleagues and they were dedicated to stay late into the night to do that. Thank you to leadership who's looking into our transportation concerns. Our children are the most precious packages ever transported, and we must make sure that the safety guidelines are implemented because safety is our first priority. to the safety team for continually helping the students and staff. You came out and you answered all of Cameron's questions. I had quite a few, but the staff member that was sent, he was very patient. He did a walkthrough around the campus and all the staff at Cameron were very excited to see that someone was there. This is my 21st speech. I will continue advocating for our students in this district. I want to say I'm very happy about the progress that we've made so far because it's been a year since I've been coming and I'm very grateful to everyone who's been listening to the concerns, looking into it.

Thanks for the comment is Trina net Hancock. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening all. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I was hoping that my computer or my video would be on, but we are going to keep going. Uh, thank you for your service to all of our West Contra Costa unified schools, district students, families, and communities. Again, my name is Triana Hancock. Our daughter is Melody Thomas. She's a first grader at Washington Elementary. Go Dolphins. As you guys know, I previously brought to the attention of the board our issues around racism, colorism, and our children being told that they, by their principal, that they don't have a right to protect themselves if they're hit by another student, if they're assaulted with umbrellas, if their body is violated, even if it's potentially life-threatening. The staff ignores, disregards, and walks past our hurt children and crying children and wounded children while on the playgrounds, while our students observe the adults empathetically attending the students who look like them. Why has there been no... intervention specific to the needs of our Black children thus far? Why has the school year started and there's nothing been done when there is an abundance of LCAP and title funding available in West Contra Costa Unified School District that has been allotted to address these issues. PTA funding is unreliable and is mandated to be inclusive, so it can't speak specifically to the needs of our Black children. During our summer session, we had the opportunity to work with a Dr. Angie Barfield with Black Students of California United, a well-established nonprofit in this space, but the PTA refused to fund this program. Ms. LaChante Smith stated during one of our meetings before the school year ended that there was possibly funds available for this area, and yet we have no boots on the ground, nobody to help. What is the holdup? Do we want to resolve the issue and be the change that we want to see or perpetuate it? God bless you all. I am complete.

Next public comment is Ayan Lupo. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening, everyone. Could you hear me? Awesome. Hi there, everyone. My name is Ian Leupold. I am with ProCare Therapy. I just want to thank you all for listening to me tonight. I'm speaking specifically on the 26-27 procurement contract ratification. I want it to be known that ProCare has partnered with West Contra since 2021. As of the end of this past school year, we've had 75 paraprofessionals that have finished the year. in classrooms with your district. Many of those have worked one-to-one with the same child all day every day and have built tremendous rapport with their assigned students. A one-to-one A learns how a child communicates when words don't work. They trust and take a year to build and it can always take one day to lose. Those same students came back to school this month. The savings number in front of you is not accurate. Your packet says $590,000. That was calculated against a rate that was this past school year's rate. However, ProCare in February had presented a rate for this school year that was significantly lower. And that does not appear to be in the materials tonight. The agency's own board documents describe transitioning hour contractors that have worked with the district for years. Several have already been approached. And the ones who move get to keep their job, but the ones that don't, those students lose the person that they know. Either way, the district is not gaining one new person. You're having to pay more for the same workforce onto a different invoice. We're not here to protect our contract. In fact, Procare's updated contract proposal holds no exclusivity, no buyout fees, no cap on contractors transitioning to direct hires. In fact, our shared goal with you as a district is to minimize the district's reliance on contract providers. We ask that the board holds this decision and looks at what ProCare offers. And regardless of what agency you go with, we wish you the best 26-27 school year. Thank you.

Next public comment is Lynn Johnson. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening to everyone, the trustees and the board. My name is Lynn Johnson. I am a alumni parent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. I'm also a parent advocate and a member of the CBOC. Tonight, I came to just stand in the gap for APAC, our African American Parent Advisory Council, in stating the importance of it and how it is needed for our Black children on every campus in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. APAC is more than another parent group. It creates a place where Black families can participate meaningfully in decisions that affect our children every day. And as a parent of children who has matriculated through the district, I understand that not only does representation matters, but access also matters. And parents should not have to wait until There's a discipline issue, an academic concern, a racial incident, or a crisis before they know who to call and where their voices can be heard. APAC creates a consistent relationship between families and schools before something goes wrong. It also gives parents a place to ask important questions. How are our Black students performing academically? Who's being referred for advanced courses or special programs? Who's being suspended or disciplined or chronically absent from campus? The importance of APAC allows our Black students to feel safe and It actually does not create division. It closes the distance between families and administrators. It closes the distance between policy and lived experience. It's important that we have this functioning body on every campus in the West Contra Costa Unified School District so that our Black children can feel safe, heard, seen, and academically successful. Thank you. I'm complete.

That concludes public comment. Thank you to everyone who gave public comment tonight. We'll now move on to our next item. Approval of minutes for the July 15, 2026 and July 28, 2026 board retreat. Well, have a motion to approve.

President, I move that we approve both sets of minutes.

Reckler will second. Okay, we have a motion by Gonzalez Hoy seconded by Trustee Reckler. Do we have any comments on this item? Any additional? None. We'll move on to the vote. Trustee Smith votes.

Smith votes, yes.

Trustee Reckler? Reckler, yes. Trustee Gonzalez Hoy? Aye.

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez? Yes. And Trustee Yaneza, yes. We'll now move on to our, to item 10, 2020, I mean, 2627-17, International Literacy Day.

Thank you very much. Whereas literacy is a core academic skill, a transformational life skill, and is core to West Contra Costa Unified School District's focus on courageous scholarship, and whereas the development of literacy strategies and skills supports the academic success of all students, and whereas International Literacy Day encourages the recognition of literacy as a human right and as foundational to the pursuit of health, happiness, and dignity, now therefore be it resolved that the West Contra Costa Unified School District hereby recognizes September 8th, 2026 as International Literacy Day.

Do we have a motion to approve the report?

President, I'll move that we approve resolution number 627-17, International Literacy Day.

Reckler will second.

We have a motion by Gonzalez-Hoy, second by Trustee Reckler. Trustee Reckler? Vote now.

Exactly, yes.

Trustee Smith-Foltz?

You didn't call for comments. May I make a comment? I'm sorry.

Comments?

Literacy is one of the most important things, I think, that for me as an English teacher. Literacy is highly important as an African-American woman where I know my history that one of the first things that was banned was the the ability to teach enslaved people to read and write because we knew how important this society, America, knew how important literacy was because if you could read, you could advocate for yourself. So I believe that as a district and having a district focus around literacy is probably one of the greatest things that we have done. I am complete. Sorry, I need to vote. Yes. Trustee Gonzales-Hoye.

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez? Yes. And Trustee Llananza, yes. We'll now move on to item 112627-18, Attendance Awareness Month. And that's also Ms. Sanders.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the West Contra Costa Unified School District recognizes September as Attendance Awareness Month. We hereby commit to focusing on our 2026 theme, Every Moment Matters, recognizing the importance of supporting every child to be present and learn every day.

Do we have any board questions on this item? Okay, can I get a motion then?

Resolution number 2627-17, no, I'm sorry, 18, Attendance Awareness Month.

I'll second. Go ahead.

We have a motion by Gonzales-Joy, seconded by Trustee Hernandez. Do we have any board comment?

Just a couple of years ago, we've got a board presentation from about some of the things that prevent children from getting to school based on each area. I would love to know if that has been updated. I would also want us to come up with strategies and resources. Children getting to school is not on the kid. That's on the parents. So we need to make sure that we have resources and strategies for the parents to understand how important it is for their child to show up every single day. So I would like us to think about what those barriers are and how can we correct those barriers and make it easier for our parents to get their students to school every day.

I'm complete.

Any further comment? Well, now move to vote. Trustee Reckler?

Reckler, yes.

Trustee Smith-Fold? Smith-Fold, yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez? Yes. And Trustee Yaneza, yes. We'll now move on to item 12, the 2627-19 National Preparedness Month.

Now therefore be it resolved that the West Contra Costa Unified School District recognizes September as National Preparedness Month. We hereby commit to promoting safety and preparedness at every school site and in partnership with our local municipalities and agencies.

Do we have a motion?

I move that we approve Resolution 2627-19, National Preparedness Month. I'll second.

Okay, it's been moved by Hernandez, second by Gonzalez-Hoy. Do we have any board comments on this item? Trustee Smith-Boltz?

I just want to shout out, thank you to Mr. Booker, thank you to all of our CSS team for keeping our site safe, keeping our students safe, keeping families and employees safe. I am complete.

So we'll now move on to the vote. Trustee Reckler?

Reckler, yes.

Trustee Smith-Foltz? I also want to thank principals who don't have a CSS. Smith-Foltz, yes.

Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez?

Yes.

Trustee Ayanna is a yes. We'll now move on to item 13, 2627-220, Labor Day.

Now therefore be it resolved that the West Contra Costa Unified School District recognizes September 7th, 2026 as Labor Day and encourages all students and teachers to learn about the importance of this commemorative observance and the movement behind it.

I got a motion.

I move that we approve Resolution 2627-20, Labor Day. Second.

We have a motion by land the second by goes on this way. We'll move on to board comments. Any comments? I see none move on to the vote trustee regular.

Correct. Yes.

Just this was votes Smith falls. Yes. Just the Gonzalez boy.

Yes.

Just the.

Yes.

Interesting. Yes. Moving on to item 14 to 6 to 7 dash to 1 proposition 3.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Education of the West Contra Costa Unified School District endorses California Proposition 3 and recommends its approval by voters at the November 3rd, 2026 statewide general election. And be it further resolved that the Board reaffirms its support for stable, adequate, and accountable funding for California's public school. And be it further resolved that the Board urges California voters to vote yes on Proposition 3.

Thank you for that. Could I get a motion?

I move that we approve resolution 2627-21, proposition three. Second.

Motion has been moved by Hernandez, second by Gonzalez-Hoye. Do we have any board comments on this item? Trustee Reckler?

Thank you, yes. I would like to restate what the resolution said, which is to vote yes on Prop 3. If it fails, it is possible that school districts lose between five and 15 billion with the B dollars. None of us can afford that. And so I highly encourage everybody to vote yes this November on three. Yes on three, yes on the. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Any additional work comment, Trustee Gonzales-Hoy?

Thank you. Yeah, and I agree with Trustee Reckler and the resolution. Thank you, staff, for putting it together. Just to add a little more detail as well in public, this attacks on the highest earners in California. It's about 2% of the total population. anyone who's making over $700,000. And this is a current extension of what we are currently taxing. So it's not a new tax, which is important to point out. Like Trustee Reckler mentioned, there's been different studies done that If we were to lose this funding and education for both K-12 and community colleges, potentially one to two educators out of every six would be laid off overnight, including administrators, which could just destroy our public schools. So I encourage everybody to please continue to support this as we have done twice before to extend the current tax bracket for its top 2%. Thank you.

So we'll now move on to the vote. Trustee Regler?

Regler, yes.

Trustee Gonzalez-Hoye?

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez?

Yes.

Trustee Smith-Fold is absent. And Trustee Inouye is a yes. When I move on to item C, consent items, does any board member wish to pull items for the consent to discuss later on this evening? Okay. Well, we will accept then the consent items as posted. And now we will move on to the superintendent report. Superintendent Carter, this is your item.

Thank you, I see it's getting pulled up right now. Right next slide please. I do wanna take a moment to recognize that August 23rd, 2005, well, August 23rd is recognized as, or observed as Terrence Martin Memorial Day. Terrence Lionel Martin was the West Contra Costa Unified employee for 22 years, serving as a maintenance worker, custodian, head custodian, and warehouse driver. On August 23rd, 2005, the first day of school, Terrence gave his life protecting a teenager from harm near Dijon Middle School. His courage and selflessness remain a lasting example of compassion that defines our West Contra Costa Unified School District community. In his honor, West Contra Costa Unified School District observes Terrence Martin Memorial Day each year on August 23rd. Next slide, please. We have been out and about. Myself, our board, our cabinet members have been out saying hello, meeting and greeting starting from the first day of school into the second week of school as well. Getting out to as many sites as we possibly can just to welcome students. staff back to campus we've seen great examples of routine building and introductions but we've also seen great examples of instruction very strong instruction happening across our district really impressed with the fidelity and commitment to Eureka math that we saw multiple examples of across multiple sites. It was really exciting to see the commitment to and focus on literacy has been very exciting to see as well, as well as learning more about our robotics and our CTE programs. So lots of good work happening in just week two of our school year. Next slide, please. I do want to continue to lift up our vision and our mission. We have our true north, how we are going to get to and maintain being one, West Contra Costa. Our vision moving forward is West Contra Costa schools foster courageous scholars who create solutions that improve and enrich our community and the world. And our mission, how will we get there? That we actively welcome our students, families, and community into coherent, interconnected systems of support that care for the whole child and nurture every student's intellectual, social, and emotional growth. I just want to, again, you'll hear more and more and more about this, but just wanted to lift this up to the board and to the community as our true north this year. Next slide, please. Again, we maintain our commitment to literacy. We know that literacy is the foundation of all learning. West Country Costa remains committed to ensuring every student develops strong literacy skills from early foundational reading in elementary school through advanced literacy across all content areas in middle and high school. This commitment reflects our belief that literacy is not just an academic goal. It is a gateway to opportunity, critical thinking, and lifelong success. Next slide, please. We also maintain our commitment to anti-racism and our journey to becoming an anti-racist district. We continue that journey. We are not there yet, but we are committed to lifting up and developing a strong sense of belonging amongst all of our students and our staff and our community. And so some of those ways that we do that are through our land acknowledgement, our labor and body recognition, our anti-racism statement, but also we'll hear more this evening about our anti-racism, anti-slur work that we're doing in our schools. And so just want to continue to lift that work up. Next slide. We do want to remind folks, school is back. So we need parents to submit your annual forms to make sure that your school has updated contact information. Make sure that you're downloading ParentSquare to stay informed about events and notices and communicate directly with your teachers. Also, please complete the educational benefits form. That is very important in terms of helping us understand and provide funding for our Title I schools and other funding opportunities. So please complete the educational benefits form. Keep your eyes out for our parent advisory committees. Information is coming out soon about ways that we can that parents can be involved in their school community and in the district. And then finally, a reminder to all staff and students, wear badges when visiting schools. Modeling our safety expectations for all students is very important. Next slide, please. Also want to remind you about back to school nights are coming up elementary September 10 middle school September 17 and high school September 24 I will be out and about visiting our back to school nights I invite board members to definitely join me and cabinet to join me as we check out. All of the information that our sites are sharing right now next slide please. We've had this slide previously, and I just want to continue to lift this up. Juniors, it is time now. So I know that I have had some conversations with recent graduates and asked, how can the district, how can West Contra Costa best support you in being prepared for college and career? One big piece that came up from our students was we just need to be prepared. Coming from a household where possibly no one else has gone to college, understanding that process of applying for colleges and making sure that our students are aware of what's coming and also to talk to them about what to expect when they go. to eliminate some of the fear and hesitancy around leaving home or around stepping into something that they perceive may be challenging. Life is always going to be a challenge, and we encourage folks to step out. This is what being a courageous scholar is all about. We encourage juniors to get started on your college applications now, right now. Next slide. And also getting ready for pre-K and TK and kindergarten, making sure that parents and community members that you're reading together every day, that you're having students practice writing their name, learning their letters and their alphabet, building independence. with daily routines. That means that mom and dad or grandma or grandpa or auntie or uncle can't do everything for the little guys. You got to let them learn how to do things on their own and then talk positively about school, making sure that our youngest learners understand that school is a safe place. It is a place to learn and grow and to be their best selves. That is what's key. Next slide, please. We shared that one. So we're going to bring it on to a close. Next slide. Are there any questions from the board?

Yes.

I'm not sure if you're going to talk about this later. So if you are, please just redirect me to wait. But could you tell us some of the highlights of the schools that you saw this first and second week on your visits?

I shared a little bit, some of the good work that we saw, we saw a lot of kind of routine building, right? Understanding how to access things at school, understanding the rules of kind of how do we work together. We also though, dug into our, Our associate superintendent of ed services, Dr. Gaines, he says, I want to see some teaching and learning. And we found it. It's happening across our schools. I was very impressed. You and I actually were at Greenwood Academy and watched an amazing math lesson week one. of digging into and helping students understand some very algebra math concepts that they needed to learn. We've also seen examples of reading, walking into a math class this morning at Helms Middle School, and across the board, students were reading books in math. That's the focus on literacy and learning that and each content area they are reading throughout the week. That's a commitment to literacy. And that also shows that importance of really understanding how to engage literacy across our content areas. So those are some of the ways that we've seen.

Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I missed that part of the slide. I went to go potty, but thank you for repeating it. I'm complete. Any other questions?

Well, thank you, Superintendent, for your presentation. I just want to reiterate and say thank you to all our sites for welcoming us this last week and this week. On our site visits, it's been really awesome to be out there and visiting with all the schools, seeing all the students engaged. So thank you very much to our sites, and we hope to be able to come through and visit many more. We'll now move on to... Our action items. First item would be education code 4425.3 variable term waivers.

Good evening board. The variable term waivers allows the district either to grant applicants more time to complete their credential requirements or to provide district additional time to hire an appropriately credentialed individual.

Thank you for that. Do we have any more questions? Do we have any public comment on this item?

There's some public comment.

Do I have a motion?

President, I move that we approve all the variable term waivers.

Reckler will second. And we have a motion to approve by Gonzales-Hoy, seconded by Trustee Reckler. Do we have any board comments? Seeing none, we'll move on to the vote. Trustee Reckler. Reckler, yes. Trustee Smith-Foltz? Smith-Foltz, yes. Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy?

Yes.

Trustee Hernandez? Yes. Trustee Hanyana say yes. We'll now move on to our discussion items and reports. We have our first week of school. Do we have any public comment on this? No. We'll move on to our first week of school report.

Just to get us started while that is coming up, there have been questions that were asked about our staffing. We've had questions about enrollment. We've had questions about the new cell, well, not new anymore, the year-old cell phone policy that's in place. This is an opportunity for our cabinet to share out and staff to share out where things are with our opening school. So next slide, please. Go back one place yep right there so today, we will be looking at beginning of your operational needs we're doing around attracting and retaining quality educators update on our fiscal reductions focus on whole Community support for the whole child cell phone policy implementation and then upcoming district events next time. So I will pass this to, actually, we just talked about this. We're really focusing and I'm gonna let Liz go ahead and pick up this slide and I'll let the cabinet go from here.

Absolutely, thank you very much, Superintendent Cotton. As Superintendent Cotton lifted up in her superintendent's message, we are moving forward with our True North this year that we are one WCC and that WCC standing for the three parts of our True North, welcoming schools, Courageous scholarship and connected systems of support and you will hear throughout this year that we're really focusing on making sure that all 3 aspects of our true North are tightly interwoven that we are moving together as 1 team and 1 coherent system. And so that's part of why the updates that you will hear from us tonight. As we present about different aspects of opening schools, we are presenting as a whole team. Opening schools is a team effort and it's taken lots of teamwork across our departments and divisions to make sure that we were able to successfully have a good opening of schools. Next slide. I'll pass it to Jeff Carter to talk a little bit about some of the operational efforts as part of the beginning of the year.

Thank you. Yeah, so start of school, we've been out to all the sites, walked around, toured, and heard discussions from staff and principals alike. We've done a lot of maintenance and operations, as well as multiple departments coming together to ensure a smooth start to the school year. At Richmond High, we did some maintenance and operation in the auxiliary gym. At Shannon Elementary, the new kitchen is officially operational. At food services, we hosted an all-day PD event for a welcome back event for the food service staff, and they were able to do some training, and they're anticipating the reopening of the Central Kitchen later this year. IT addressed a lot of the PowerSchool and ParentSquare syncing issues, as well as updating the email list for the new school year. and communications provided edit access to all principals for the start of this school year as well. So all around many areas of items needing to be updated and in place for the start of school were able to come together last week. Next slide. And I will pass this over to Dr. Greenwood.

So Human Resources has been working diligently to fill positions. We've had 21.6 remaining vacant positions, and this is a good reduction for 42% in vacancies from last school year. So we have 11 remaining for SPED, which are very hard positions to fill, but we're still working with looking for those positions to fill. We also are trying to work closely and collaboratively with education services to figure out how to support our staff and students with retention strategies. So our next steps, we held in-person sessions today for classified staff, and we'll be holding another session tomorrow so they can test in person. And special education and human resources are working to audit our paraprofessional allocations so that they can be more accurate. Next slide. So I'll pass it back to Jeff.

Thank you. So the business services team has been working hard to close the books for 25-26 school year. We'll be finalizing that up this week and then presenting the unaudited actuals in the first September meeting at the board agenda. In early preliminary results have met our 10% reduction in force in positions that were closed for the start of this school year, 26-27. And we will continue to monitor the fiscal solvency plan. Once we have August's payroll processed this month, we'll have a better look at the salaries that have been paid out and the encumbrances for the remainder of the year. in order to see the trends of where those salaries are going. The first update on the budget will be at first interim in December. That's as of August 31st data. So we're still working and looking into the expenditures and we're continuing to monitor that each payroll cycle. And then the district will continue monitoring contract expenditure reductions and trends as well in line with the fiscal solvency plan to ensure that we're on pace and on track for what the board approved in the spring. Next slide. And I'll pass this over to Booker.

Safety has achieved full staffing across secondary sites, established the single points of entry at the majority of our school sites and assisted West County Mandarin with traffic flows. Community engagement and communications and business services collaborated to get nearly every community school in Hispanic learning providers in place prior to the start of school. Worked with the city of Richmond to have Steege use Booker T. Anderson Center in place for the afterschool program on day one. And community engagement, I will pass it to Ms. Sanders.

Thank you very much. So as Mr. Booker mentioned, we did make sure that we were able to get nearly every community school and expanded learning provider in place for the start of school. And we also worked together with safety, human resources, and business services to build a quick solution as needed for increased supervision. The Javita Lane bus stop, that was the bus stop that was the time transfer point for our students who are going from the Elsa Browning Hills to Pinole Middle School for our Betty Reed Sask in the Pinole Middle community. And so we worked with our transit partners and across teams to make sure that we've got more supervision there so that every student makes that time transfer. Next slide. Um, communications and facilities also work together to make sure that Betty at middle school campus has its updated signage for the start of the year. And the Kennedy high school campus has also received updated signage just to boost the visibility of that site and its entrance or community knows that that school is still open. And I will pass it to Dr Chang for a special education update.

Good evening. So in special education, we are kind of vamping up our response to intervention supports for students in general education. We're identifying four school sites where we could provide speech therapy to all students in kindergarten in general education and in special education. In addition to that, we're working on the special circumstance instructional assistance guidelines, which is our SCIA packet to determine if a child needs a one-to-one aid. And the purpose of this is to encourage students' independence in their least restrictive environments.

Good evening everybody. So here's an update on our cell phone policy. We gave a survey to all of our schools. We had majority of the schools respond and the results were good. We saw that most of our schools are implementing a strong and have a strong and common expectation for students' cell phone use at their sites. And we also saw that there's some opportunities to build greater consistency across the board at our sites. Some of those opportunities include standardizing procedures, particularly around common response and progressive consequences for violations, strengthening our documentation of those violations and defining repeated violations, establishing a consistent district-wide definition of what that is. You can see the results of a couple of results from that survey. And as you look at that, what you'll notice is that majority of our schools have consistent implementation, but there is an opportunity for us to tighten up a little bit and to make this policy very strong and lived across the board.

We have a number of upcoming district and community events. So we want to encourage all families and community to join us at our back to school nights. Our first back to school night is for our elementary schools on September 10th. And middle school back to school night is on September 17th. High school back to school night will be on September 24th. And we also really want to encourage all of our schools and especially our student clubs to join us at the Fiestas Patrias parade on September 12th. So we look forward to seeing our whole community there. Next slide. Thank you. Any questions?

Do we have any questions from the board? All right. Just just directly.

Thank you very much. Thank you for the report. For the 21.6 vacancies, are those all certificated or how do they break down between teacher, vice, vice principal, principal?

What's all our teacher vacancies at this time?

Okay. So 21.6 is all the teacher vacancies are, and there are other vacancies.

We have about 80 classified pair of vacancies at this time that we're working on. So that's why we opened up the in-person testing sessions for today and tomorrow.

Okay. And then do you have any information on the success of the hiring incentives that were baked into the contract? Yes. for new hires, grads coming back, bonuses for SPED. Do you have any information on that and whether you think it was successful?

Yes, I do have information on that. Let me pull it up, please. For our recruitment incentives, we hired a total of seven received the stipends, one for SPED and one for being a graduate or alumni of the district. So six, seven total, one for SPED and one for alumni, six for alumni, excuse me.

Okay, six for SPED, one for alumni. Okay.

No, I'm sorry. It was the other way around. One for SPED and six for alumni.

Okay, one for SPED.

Or a total of seven.

Six for alumni, a total of seven. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then on the cell phone policy, thank you. I'm glad to see some information. And as I told the team in my agenda review, I'm reading The Anxious Generation, which I know came out a couple of years ago, but I just never was able to get through it. But I'm reading it now. And I think this year, and we can discuss it more, but I think that it's really important to get some really good policies and procedures down because um this book is very sobering about like electronics phones social media and kids especially girls um and so you know we can't solve it alone but we do have a part to play and to hold a high standard to keep kids off cell phones um i think it's really important so thank you that's all i have i'm complete trustee atlantis

In regards to the cell phone policy survey, I know that you mentioned that 19 of our 56 schools participated in this survey. Do we know why 37 of our schools didn't participate? Did we follow up with them? Because that's 34% of our schools participating in the survey.

Yeah, we had 34 schools participate in the survey.

So 34, not 19. Sorry, what was that? 34 schools, not 19 schools.

Oh, the 19 were the ones that reported consistently, or reported back that they consistently had a policy.

Okay, so what's being presented is confusing, or I was confused.

We had 34 schools respond to the survey. What was found is that 19 of those 34 schools have reported consistent implementation of the cell phone policy.

Okay. So for the other schools that did not report back, did we follow up with the school sites to see why didn't we get all of our schools? Because this implementation is within all of our district schools, correct?

That's correct. And yes, we will continue. This was a survey that we initiated last week. So we will continue to gather information, but did want to share some initial findings that we were able to kind of pull from the data that we were able to collect so far.

Okay. And then in regards to the Fiestas Patrias, Superintendent Cotton, do we know if as a district we are going to be tabling at the final event just for purpose of this is a great opportunity to put out information in regards to our schools and even about the vacancies that we have in the district? So recruiting our own right into these schools. Certified classified positions. I think it'll be a great opportunity for the district to go out there and put out information and recruiting for students, bringing them back into the district of what are all of our schools are doing.

Yes, we are planning to do that. I want to be sure that there is an opportunity for tabling. I know that it is the focus is around the parade itself, but we definitely can do tabling. We've done tabling at other community events and we'll continue doing that throughout the year.

Yes, so I'll go ahead and email you Juan Munoz contact information who is in charge of the final event towards the end of the parade. So you guys can get in contact with him if you guys would like to.

Do we have any final questions? Okay, seeing none, do we have any public comment on this item? There is no public comment. Do we have any board comments? Trustee Gonzales-Hoy?

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I just, I love the first few weeks of school because, I mean, I've been able to go see some schools with the superintendent and my colleagues and some on my own. And you just see the care that our staff puts into preparing for our students. I saw principals working on the weekends, moving furniture. I saw, you know, classrooms just so beautifully decorated and just having materials ready for students. And our students just so ready to learn. I think what I was really impressed about in some of our schools, and I was talking about this with Superintendent Dr. Gaines, was when I visited some of the El Sobrante schools, we saw math being taught at every one of the schools. We saw kind of like the teacher's way of doing it, but every single one of them was teaching it simultaneously, which was very interesting to see. And when we pointed it out, I was like, oh yeah, we've only seen math so far, which is so interesting. which is great because we have been falling on math, right? So this focus on Eureka math seems to be really working and it seems like our educators are really digging deep into this curriculum, which is good news. and just the consistent factor, which we've talked about being a huge problem at WSU in the past, about curriculums and the elementary side. It seems like math is heading in the right direction, and hopefully we'll see the same in literature, in literacy, sorry, in the next few years, once we're able to do the same. So I wanna thank all of our staff. for all the work they've put in to making this last two weeks successful at the sites and at the central office. I know it has not been easy for some sites more than others like Kennedy, right? And some that just had to move or had turnover. So thank you for everything you're all doing for our students and for our parents and for being such welcoming places. That's it. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you. Any further comments on this item?

I just wanted to, again, thank you for that. I do want to say thank you first to the board for your interest and engagement in walking our sites and visiting classrooms to kind of see the work that's happening firsthand, see what governance looks like in a first grade classroom or a fifth grade classroom or a, you know, 12th grade or ninth grade law classroom. I do appreciate that. your support and your interest in what's happening in our classrooms. I also want to just a huge, huge thank you to my entire cabinet. We've got a whole new group of folks that are here, some returning, some new. And I feel like every time you have a new team member, you have a new team. And I think I have an awesome team. We have an awesome team. And so I just appreciate each of you tirelessly working, leading up to dealing with the issues around Kennedy High School, but also getting schools ready for our students. And just thank you for all of your interest leading up to and through these first week and a half. And just thank you to all of our teachers, all of our paraprofessionals, all of our security, all of our custodial, all of our IT, all just nutrition services, everyone for really stepping up. Our AV team and electronics as well for really stepping up and just being there all in support of our students. And that is why we are all here. So just thank you. Huge thank you to everyone in this space.

Thanks.

All right, thank you for that. So now we'll close out the item and we'll move on to item two, the continuing the focus on safe, equitable, supportive schools, anti-slur initiative, and district-wide discipline framework.

Thank you. And with that, our new executive director, LaShante Smith, is coming up to present on this item.

Thank you. Good evening, President and Jana clerk, Gonzales, Hawaii, and board members and superintendent. I am excited to be able to present to you an update on what we have been doing as a district around slurs. And I want to also reintroduce to you our district wide discipline framework, which we reference as our discipline matrix. Next slide. So we have a commitment and it was outlined in our original school climate policy that in West Contra Costa, we do use data-driven decision-making as part of our multi-tiered systems of support framework, which identifies three tiers of support for all of our students in the district. And our approach has always been to prioritize relationship restorative practices and healing centered practices embedded in that three-tiered model we have remained committed to fostering safe equitable and supportive school environments And our goal has always been to create emotionally safe school environments that reduce exclusionary discipline and emphasize teaching and learning for all of our students. With that, we want to make it very clear to all of our community members, families, and students that slurs and harmful language of any kind are not accepted at any of our sites across our school district. Next slide, please. So when we think about aligning our priorities, we want to, again, emphasize that all of our sites are safe spaces for all of our students. And we have actively been monitoring our student perceptions of belonging, caring adults on campus and safety on all of our campuses. And our policies align with not only our board policies, but state and federal laws that require us to provide all students with access to education that is free from discrimination on the basis of real or perceived race, ethnicity, natural origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected characteristics. Next slide. So we have really looked at this work as multi-tiered and multi-level. And so when you're trying to change any system or implement any policy or program, we know that there are phases and we know that changing a system can take some time, but we also know that we don't have a lot of time to change what's happening at our sites. So we have prioritized this work. So in the area of policy and leadership, we created a working group last year that consisted of some of our site leaders, some community members, and we also had students. And we really wanted to just first identify what is happening on our campuses related to racialized harm and harmful language. And then based on that feedback, we revised our district matrix to include how to respond when hate speech is identified on a campus. We also surveyed all of our site leaders on their current responses and what they were using to respond when these instances happened on campus. And then we worked with our students to better understand how they were experiencing our policies, because we know that sometimes policies can just live on paper or they're on posters or walls, but we want to make sure that the student perception is actually really helping us to identify what we are doing well and what we are needing to work on. We have created resources and supports for all of our sites to guide them through this process. And based on all of the feedback that we received from all of our interest holders, we have created some new protocols for how to respond to harm on site. Next slide. So I wanna take us through what we heard from our principals when we surveyed them around, look, we know that we have a varying level of issues across our sites, but we really wanted to understand like, what are you seeing on your site? How are you responding in the moment? Is that response consistent? And we wanted to do this on a holistic level across the district so that we can understand patterns. And so what we found was that the feedback revealed that from the principal side, that we must name and confront specifically anti-black racism and racial slurs directly. And we must provide sites with guidance around how to do this in the moment and how to do it in a way that not only gets rid of the problem for a day, but prevents the problem from occurring in the first place. Our survey that we did with the principals, when we looked at that survey, what was highlighted in that survey was that principals did want clearer guidance on identifying and responding to all forms of bias in the moment. So what do I do? What do I tell my teacher to do? How do I disrupt it? Give me some guidance to do so. They also wanted support for differentiating classroom versus office managed behavior. So what should be handled in the classroom versus what should come to administration to handle? And then what are some research and evidence based strategies to again interrupt harmful language in the moment? What does that look like and what does it look like for every adult on campus? And then we were really excited at the end of the year to get all of our students together. And we convened a youth action forum. And it was specific around the use of harmful language and slurs on campus. And we wanted to know, again, as young people in our system, how are you experiencing school? How do you feel when you walk on a campus? Do you feel like you belong? Do you feel like you have some identity to that campus? Do you feel supported? And so what we gathered from that data is that our youth stated that they wanted clearer expectations across our system around the use of harmful language and slurs. They also wanted robust student reporting systems. meaningful consequences so from that working group what we came out with was really three top priorities that we wanted to start the school year with one was a simple anonymous reporting system and so we are going to be rolling out an anonymous QR code this came directly from our young people and saying that they wanted this at every site and we are still working out the logistics of how that QR code will be rolled out and what it will look like and what the response will look like. And again, we will be working with our leaders on that. They also very clearly stated that they want adults on campus who listen, who respond in the moment and close the loop. So if something happens, how do we go back to our students to say, this happened, I'm acknowledging the harm and this is what I'm doing to repair the harm. And in that, we talked a lot about adult training. We talked about how do we train the adults on the ground that are working with our students each and every day. The last thing that came directly from our students is that they wanted to see consequences that were consistent, meaningful, that were consistent and meaningful rather than relying solely on suspension. So a lot of young people said that you can suspend a student and they come back and the behavior does not change. And we know from research when we exclude students and push them out of school, that does not necessarily change the behavior. So how are we implementing consequences that are geared toward changing behavior and not just repeating a cycle of behavior that, you know, we don't want to address in the moment. And so we send a student away and we hope it goes away. Next slide. So when we think about any behavior and when we think specifically about slurs and racialized harm on our campus, our focus is on tier one, and that is universal. That is every student, every classroom across our district receives this. And so again, we've revised our principal guidance. We have clear family guidance on what to expect. And so we are working with our communication team to put that guidance out to families. We also have family facing material on our district consequence system And I think this is a big one because sometimes we just assume that families know what happens when a child engages in a certain behavior. But we want to make it clear of what behaviors families should know that, again, we don't tolerate and then what consequences will happen if a behavior occurs. And then the last thing is we have been working on explicit student education that not only covers our policies, but also covers how to report something when a behavior or harm is done to you. Next slide. So then how do we intervene? So intervention is really how do you intervene in the moment and how do you respond? And so our response protocol mandates immediate family notifications, same day logging, and there are some non-negotiable timelines. So we are retraining and training our principals on something we are coining as the first 60 minutes. And so what should happen when harm is done on campus in the first 60 minutes. And we are making sure that we're separating the students. We are securing the student. We are assessing impact because we know that impact is greater than intent. And so yes, I didn't mean to say in the moment, but it had an impact on me. So how are we addressing the impact? We are also making sure that sites are documenting verbatim what happened, what the students said, going through a true due process so that we understand what happened in that moment instead of waiting to better understand the situation, we are notifying both families. And so families should be notified immediately. And that is not only the family of the victim, but the family of the student who did the harm, right? And not vice versa either. Both families should be notified. And then we're logging in PowerSchool. new this year is we are monitoring all of our responses and all of our power school entries. And so we are going through retraining to make sure that sites know how to log into power school and log the incidents. And I'm going to be talking about the reports that will give back out to community and board around these incidents. Um, and the later slide. So last year we did introduce administrative guidelines. And so this year, as I stated, we have updated our guidance to support sites to ensure consistency. And so I already spoke to you about the first 60 minutes. We have provided sites with key questions that can guide them through and support a thorough investigation. We've provided scripts now, so prepared scripts so that you know what to say in the moment, you know how to contact families and you know how to be a disruptor. And then clear documentation procedures. So when these things happen, where you need to document the information so that we can better support data analysis and looking at trends. Next slide. So from principal feedback and from feedbacks with different groups, we know that we have to be consistent. And consistent means we're following the same process. So whether your child attends school in Hercules or El Cerrito, you can expect the same process. And so you can expect the same response process, the same timelines, the same written documentation. And we know that every incident should move through a predictable sequence, and that should not come as a surprise to anyone. We also want to make sure that we do take into account some individual life's judgment. And so when we're working with our kids and families, we know that it's important to think about age, developmental history, impact, and any other history that may be relevant. And we also know there's other legal standards that we need to follow related to students who have IEPs, 504s, and other legal procedures if we should get to that point. So we want to make sure that that's very clear too. Next slide. So on the left, you'll see, it's just a snippet. I wanted to show like what our new guidance looks like, but we really created these guidelines with some core principles. And so again, it's always impact over intent. So impact has to be recognized as distinct from intent. So yes, I didn't mean to hurt you, but I did hurt you, right? I still impacted you. All of our responses have to have a level of accountability and repair. And so when we talk about restorative responses, that does not mean children do not receive consequences. It means that there's meaningful learning to be accountable and then to then engage in repair. And I want to make sure that I overemphasize that support is not determined by a tier level. So a harm student is going to receive support, whether we classify it as a level one or level three, every harm student should receive the same access to the level of support. Next slide. Sorry. So I just wanted to restate and reintroduce that we do have a district adopted discipline matrix. And in that matrix, it defines actions and responses for all behavior in alignment with our positive school climate resolution. Our matrix provides restorative other means of correction before exclusion. And it is a leveled response. So level one is classroom managed. Level two is administrator supported. And then level three is really major infractions or infractions that require a safety response. And the goal is always the lowest appropriate response that can repair the harm. And so that is emphasized throughout our matrix. Next slide. On the left side again is a snippet of what our matrix looks like and I just want to, I kind of already said this, but it's progressive, it's structured and it is in alignment with all education code requirements and required notifications for any major offenses on campus. I wanted to include a note on restorative practices because sometimes we can misinterpret what restorative practices are and sometimes it can be confused with restorative justice alone. So when we think about restorative practices, it really focuses on voluntarily being accountable for your actions. It is meaningful in relationship to the repair process, and it's a robust process to really think about what a student needs to be safe. When we think about student supports, I want to say that farm students should always receive supports, whether or not they want to participate in a restorative process. And restorative practices only work when there's consent and choice. So no student or family should ever be forced to sit in a restorative mediation or restorative meeting. It has to be something that both parties and both families are willing to engage in. Next slide. So this is just calibrating. So last school year we spent a lot of time on training, data collection, developing some tools, and listening to our community. So every fall we are committed to training our leaders to be in alignment with our guidelines so that we not only train our leaders but that our community knows about these initiatives and that our community knows what to expect. Ongoing, we are training our leaders. We are practicing how to respond in the moment. We are practicing discipline scenarios. And then we are going to be launching our reporting and response supports and really looking at the impact that is having. And then quarterly, we're reviewing our incidents and our reporting data to determine what follow through do we need to do with sites? What does it look like in response to like equity? Like, is there one group being more impacted than another? And then we want to look at our student feedback. And this is in alignment with a coherent district standard to preserve welcoming schools for all.

Next slide.

And so when we think about accountability, again, we're going to be doing quarterly climate audits and power school monitoring to ensure compliance across all of our school sites. And really there's four questions. We want to know where are these incidents happening? Is there a particular group being targeted? Is the discipline disproportionate by race, disability, or another identifying criteria? And then finally, One of the most important things that we want to monitor is, are we meeting our response timelines? Are we documenting? Are we connecting back with families? Are we ensuring that everyone is supported from incidents that happen on our campuses?

Next slide.

So our next steps is we started some principal training, but we will be doing in-depth principal training on our response protocols along with power school training and a rollout of our anonymous reporting system. We will be doing student education on every campus. So my team has already created videos that we are going to be launching at our site so that every classroom, every campus gets the information so that it's very clear across our system. We have a family guide and some community-facing materials that are going to be sent out to our community, again, so that all of us are supporting our students' development, and we know that our community is very diverse, and so we want to make sure that everyone has the information and everyone knows what we are doing. We are going to be adding some more resources for student education, so after harm is done, what can I use in the moment for student education? We're going to be collecting materials data on our student or anonymous reporting system and then we're going to reconvene our youth summit students who participated in that to discuss actions and impact and so we're going to be doing that in september and so again it's not sometimes we establish systems but we don't look at the impact it's having on our students and so we want to make sure that their feedback is taken into account And that is all.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you for the presentation. The board will now take a five minute break. Thank you, everyone. We will now be resuming item two, continuing the focus on safe, equitable, and supportive schools and text learning initiative and district-wide discipline framework. So do we have any comments? I mean, do we have any questions from the board? Trustee Gonzalez-Hoy.

Thank you, President. Thank you so much for the presentation. I have a few questions. I'm only going to ask three, but I'll email you with the rest of my questions if that's okay. Director Smith, thank you. So the first one is, you talked about the importance of consistency in the implementation of our policies in these issues. How are we ensuring that responses to racial slurs are consistent from school to school and then from staff to staff, ensuring that teacher from one school is responding the same way as a teacher and another or a principal is holding staff and student accountable the same way.

Thank you for the question. so i think that again consistency is going to be our biggest focus this year and i think consistency starts first with visibility so we have to know what is happening and where it's happening in order to hold folks accountable to our process And so a couple of things. I'm looking at several data points. So when we think about data, we're looking at just our day-to-day data, and that's in our PowerSchool student information system, right? But then there's also the data that we get from parents, from community members, kind of like the qualitative data, if you will. And then the third set of data we're looking at is that perception data. So we're looking at how our students are feeling these responses on school sites, and we are looking at our intended systems having an impact. So with all three data sources, we'll be able to identify where are we not doing well at and where do we need to go provide additional support to our sites. And this year and everything related to like all of our climate initiatives that we've been really implementing over the past few years, racial slurs and harmful language is an initiative. So, again, with that, you know, we have goals. We have the training. We have the follow up with school sites and we. are just starting off again with a shared sense of commitment, you know, starting from the cabinet level down to every department around these are our responses and this is what we do in every single incident. And so I hope that provides some clarity on that.

It does. Yeah. Thank you. Let me then move to the next question. following up an incident with the student who, can you hear me? Is that better? Yes. Following up on an incident, the student who is the aggressor on a racial slur, for example, it's pretty clear through a disciplinary matrix, the consequence and the restorative justice practice. What about the one that was harmed by the incident? What is our follow-up at the site and the district level with the student and the families in those instances?

Yeah, that's a good question. So every student, again, regardless if it's level one response or level three, every student will have the same access to support. And that access can look like counseling, that can look like regular check-ins with a trusted adult, that can look like a safety plan. And so actually sitting down with the student and asking them, what do you need from this environment to feel safe? And then working with the adults around them to ensure that that plan is implemented. And then it can also look like a designated point of contact for the family, a designated check in person, and then follow up with the student to ensure that the conduct from the other student or the conduct that they were experiencing has stopped. And I think I just want to overemphasize that part because sometimes we'll do that initial check in and then, you know, we it's over. Right. But we want to make sure that you do the initial check in and that there's consistency where we're not just leaving it alone and we follow a student through this process. And that's available district wide. And we do have the support available to make that happen.

Thank you. And my last question is, how are we distinguishing between a one-time developmental inappropriate comment and conduct that constitutes bullying or harassment or patterns of racial harm? How are we handling that type of issue long-term with a student and a psych?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's something, again, I want to emphasize. So we do have instances of students younger, you know, engaging in some harmful language or harm based behavior, if you will. And in that response, we do prioritize education and bringing in the families and teaching and reteaching in a developmentally appropriate way. So is that videos? Is that cards? Is that showing them what they did and how it hurts or how it impacts someone else? Once a student has been educated and the family is on board and we have done our due diligence in ensuring that really they know right from wrong and they know that we don't say those things here, we don't use that language, then that's where we are leveling it out. So then it's no longer considered an oops or I didn't know or, you know, whatever in the moment it is now we we've educated you we have gone through other means of correction we have really truly done the intervention and so the discipline does become more progressive because we've already implemented the other means of correction and if that is not stopping the behavior then that can lead to more severe consequences because it can be considered harassment. It can be considered contributing to a hostile school environment. And that's all in alignment with Education Code 220, which is what we follow.

Thank you so much. I'll email you. There's my questions. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any trustee record?

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. What kind of expectation setting is done for both students and parents? And I'm thinking beginning of the year assembly or classroom. expectations for parents, perhaps? This is what we value on our campus. Is there anything along those lines of getting partnership and setting the stage?

Yes, so that is what we'll be rolling out to our leaders when we have them all convened again. So we have created videos and we have created some student-facing material that we want to be presented to every student across our school site. And then again, working with our communications department, we will be putting out some family-facing guidance so that families in our communities know our stance. And that's really what it's about. What do we stand for and what are we, what are our core values here as a district, as West Contra Costa? So families will be receiving that and then students will receive the education piece, which will be required for every student to view and to participate in.

Okay, thank you. That's all I have tonight. Thank you.

Trustee Smith-Ford. Thank you so much for the presentation. I just have a couple of questions. One is what if it's not student to student? What if it's an adult to a student? Is that the same matrix? What does that look like? How have we kind of parceled that out?

yeah so in our guidance, we say if it's an adult to a student, the first recourse is that talking to the site administrator and the site administrator should then be in contact with human resources around next steps and guidance for adult to student behavior.

Okay, thank you so much. And the same thing if it's student to adult. So adult to student, human resources, et cetera, student to adult, it goes through the matrix that you presented to us.

Correct. Okay, thank you. And then I have a question about...

What's the appeal process? Let's say that you call me within the 60 minutes, right? And you say, Ms. Smith-Fold, your child has been found saying X, Y, Z, right? And I say, well, okay, can you prove it? Or what's the result or what happens? And then if it goes on and on, what's the appeal? Can I appeal? Can I push back? What is that on the parent's side?

So I'm going to address the question in two ways. So one is that first 60 minutes is acknowledging what happened. Your child allegedly said X, Y, Z, right? That doesn't mean that full investigation is going to be completed in the first 60 minutes. What it means is that you know now that your child was accused of something. Once the site does due process, and they finish their investigation, they will be in contact with the parent on next steps. Consequences, et cetera. We do have a board adopted. Policy in our school climate resolution, and then essentially has an appeal process outlined. And what that appeal process says is that if a parent does not agree to a disciplinary consequence that was issued to their child, they can appeal by putting their concerns in writing and then appealing what, like, was it the actual action? Was it the consequence you're appealing? Or was it, you know, you don't believe it happened?

And then we'll follow up accordingly. Thank you. My next question is racialized harm shows up in so many different ways. There's macro, there's micro. So when we're talking about slurs and harmful language, we're talking about on the macro level, right? Someone is calling you something or someone wrote something about you. I'm assuming writing something, saying something. singing something posting something all of that is under the same type of matrix right what about the microaggressions and i really don't i think aggression is aggression but if we say for example a little girl on the playground pulls another little girl's hair um and then keeps their hands in the hair even though the little girl said keep your hands out of my hair Stop touching me. And then the little girl the next day turns around and then calls a little girl a slur. Is it stacked or are we just talking about the slur? Was that clear, Ms. Smith?

It was clear. So you're saying there's other ways. Covert things that you can do that is not as explicit as calling someone a name but there's these other actions that can happen that are also races on campus and how are we responding to those action so. Yes, so in our discipline matrix, there's behaviors listed and you can pretty much find most behaviors that are most often occurring on school sites in that. But I think the answer would be that if a student is doing something that is racist, whether it's micro or macro in your face, we're still going to respond. And so if a student is, you know, touching someone's hair when they've been told not to touch the hair and they're still touching the hair, that can be considered harassment, right? And so we are still going to respond and we're still going to have the same response protocols in regards to investigating what happened. And then again, it's always thinking about the impact over intent. And so if the impact was that this child now felt harassed, they felt harmed, again, there's still a response in that.

My final question, which is sort of a comment, but don't you think that the upcoming back to school nights would be an appropriate, if not right time to roll these things out, or at least to reiterate the anti-slur policy in the district, because that is a prime time where you have the most parents that show up at a school type. Do you agree or disagree that that would be a great time to hit this topic?

Absolutely. And we want to provide all of our sites with the family guidance, the family facing materials. And me and Ms. Sanders will be meeting to roll that out so that sites have those materials and they have them for the back to school nights.

And my very last question is, at some of our sites, we have student leadership. So in high schools, we know it's the leadership class. In middle school and some elementary schools, we have the leadership around student council. Do we have appropriate materials for those students to I think in education, we call it train the trainer. Right. Or the train the trainer model. Are we creating. modules, guidance, paper to help navigate the students to help students because they are in front of the students, especially in leadership classes. And when we have our student council, we're training these young students how to be advocates, how to be social justice models. So do we have that material already created or is that something that you're working towards? I am complete. Oh, I have one more question after that. Sorry. Do you want me to answer that question? Yes, please.

Yeah, so we are going to be meeting with our All-Student Congress on September 14th. And in that, we'll be giving them some material. And something that we talked about last year and something that our superintendent has brought up is what is the connection between our All-Student Congress at a school site and the student leadership teams at school sites, right? And so we want to make a very clear connection that whatever is happening at All-Student Congress is then brought back to the student leadership. And so, yes, that is something that we can include.

My very final question is, when I walk on a school site, how do I see this show up? How do I see our anti-slur policy, our anti-racism policy? What does it look like on campus? I know that some campuses have signage, we stop, you stop. Some campuses, all campuses have our anti-slur policy up in a prominent spot. What should... I see, feel, hear. What are the senses that I feel when I know that this is working at our sites? Besides the data and the numbers coming down and the incidents is coming down. What do I see when I'm on campuses? I'm complete.

That is still something that we're putting together, that exact thing. So when I walk on a campus, how do I know that these policies are even being implemented? What should I look for? What should I expect to hear in the classroom? But then I want to overemphasize, like, what should I see? And so we have been looking at signage. What does it look like for the young kids? Like, what should that signage say all the way up into... The older students, our youth summit, they did give us some great suggestions on like language that we can use. And so right now it's really just trying to put together something that's meaningful and something that will work across our system. So that is still something we are working on.

Thank you so much.

Okay. See no further questions. Do we have any public comment on this item?

Yes, we do.

Our first public comment is Salon Harrison. Could you unmute yourself? Hi, thank you.

for the presentation. My concern is, as the ASAC Chair, we've been getting a lot of concerns from parents that have elementary children. We're looking for more of something where I didn't see a lot of parent involvement engagement. In 2022, we brought the youth to the board several times, 2023, there was an incident where an adult saw to the child for calling him the N-word. The children and the youth, the older children have spoken. We stopped, you stopped, we just said. We've done things to listen to the older children. They've come up with things. We still just are finding it hurdles to implement things and I don't understand why and parents are telling their children to defend themselves. I would like for something a couple of things I would like to see when we do our parent walkthroughs ask them. Do they see that in the environment when they go on the campus? Like trustee Smith phone said, and then. I would also like, when we were protecting our children, we gave parents a one pager on what to do from ISIS. Let's give our parents a one pager on what to do from racial harm. So they'll know what to do when they have elementary children. I'm complete.

Our next public comment is Marie, please unmute yourself.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. I'm very happy to hear this system being rolled out. Thank you so much for listening. It has been brought up at many board meetings and many at the APAC meetings about the concerns we have for our children. And so I'm really glad to see the district is moving forward and getting a protocol in place. I hope all the admin and the teachers are trained. This has to happen every year, just like we have to do all those Keenan training. Oh, no. This also needs to be included to make sure it's a safe, supportive environment for all children. I'm not just talking about black children, but no child should be called outside. They named that their parents gave them. And also, I really like what Trustee Smith-Folds was saying about how are we going to see this at the school? And it just brought up, I know that, I don't know if every school gives out a student or a parent handbook for each school, but it also could be added in there as a resource. So if you have a problem, an issue, go to the handbook and bang, it tells you what to do. Thank you.

Next public comment is Devin Witten. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening. Nice to see you guys again on this side. First of all, I love the presentation. I love the work that we are doing. I like that we're pushing it forward. I think that is absolutely amazing. My question was the same as Trustee Smith-Fold's about staff and admin to student racism. That's not something that's really talked about, but I do know that it is harmful, especially as a student who's going through it himself. So I know that that's probably something that needs to be done and we need to see a procedure for that. And I also wanted to kind of Make it known like students are touchable when it comes to this issue, but upper levels aren't. And it's kind of impossible. Then one thing that I was also always saying is that the playing field is fair, especially is not fair, especially in the field of racism. We have the ability to make it fair and why won't we, which I believe that is a contract issue. But I'd like to see the focus. I would love to also help continue this work as well. And then I have more questions, but I'll email you about that. Thank you. You guys have a good night. Peace.

Our next public comment is iPhone 2. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening. This is Ivy Winston. And I just want to say that I've been meeting with parents We've been having discussions because these are issues that we've been dealing with for quite some time. And what I mean by quite some time has been years now. We would like for something to go into place immediately. Our kids are feeling really unsafe. We have two groups of parents that one group is organizing to pull their kids out and another group is organizing to teach their kids how to defend themselves. I, in my opinion, feel that neither one of them are a great fit for our district. And I think that we should wrap our heads around how we can support these parents to help keep their kids safe. Things are really out of control, especially when it comes to the black kids from day one. We're going on school sites. Parents are coming to me and they're very disturbed about what's happening with their kids. They are being targeted and they're not feeling safe at all. Whatever we can do to move forward with resolution or trying to fix this, we're willing to work and participate with that. In the meantime, we need an alternative for our kids. We need to be able to send our kids somewhere online or somewhere in a different space because it's not feeling safe for them. Thank you.

Our next public comment is Lynn Johnson. Please unmute yourself.

Good evening again. And what I just heard regarding the rollout sounds amazing. I agree with the questions that Trustee Smith-Fold also asked. My additional question would also be in the concerns, even with what Ivy just shared. is how do we access these things or a part of what's being rolled out immediately for our students? And then how are parents being made aware that this is coming, that this rollout is coming and what their options are in the interim until this has taken place. Last question would be, if a parent disagrees, because I heard that presented, if a parent disagrees with what the discipline is, is this being put into a student's permanent cue folder? But if there is a disagreement, who is Who's responsible for the solutions to the appeals and what options do parents have if they still disagree? I'm complete.

That concludes public comment. All right. Thank you, Juan. Thank you, everyone, who gave public comment on this item. I will now be closing out the item, and I am adjourning the meeting at 8.56 p.m. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for September 9th at LaVonna DeJohn Middle School. Thank you.