Board of Education — September 27, 2022

Good evening, everybody. Welcome. I'd like to call this meeting to order, our regular meeting open session of the Redlands Unified School District Board of Education. I would ask Stephanie in a few seconds to lead us in the pledge. But before we do that, we have a moment of silence immediately afterwards to observe for a couple of our distinguished colleagues and students. Ron McPeck. Ron began his teaching career in Nebraska in 1960. In 1966, he began teaching for the San Bernardino school system. He taught history and coached speech and debate and tennis. He served as secretary, treasurer, and vice president of the California Teachers Association and retired in 1995. Ron, as we remember him, served on the Reynolds Unified School District for 20 years. Patricia, or Tris, you say, tragically lost her life while riding her bike to a university class. She grew up in Little Linda, attending Bryn Mawr Elementary School, later attended COPE, and graduated from Redlands High School in 2020. She was a cherished and beloved third-year student with a major in plant sciences at UC Davis. I personally remember her as one of our most well-behaved, joyful, and friendly elementary students when I was working at Bryn Mawr. I recently attended her memorial service in Loma Linda where she was honored and remembered for her vision, energy, and enthusiasm with ambitions to apply her learning from UC Davis to better the world. So on behalf of the board, I extended our deepest condolences to the Asay family, friends, and the entire community. So immediately after the pledge, would you just please remain standing for a moment of silence to honor these two people.

Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. 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.

Thank you. You may be seated. We're on item D, roll call. For the record, Mrs. Renler.

Present.

Mr. Vara. Present. Mrs. Yellicantaro.

Present.

Mrs. Holihan.

Present.

And Mr. O'Neill is also present. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

So moved.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. So approved. We have no public participation for agenda items tonight. No one notified the board for that. So we'll move on to public hearing, which we have none. And we don't have a presentation tonight. We're going to really go through this. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce the Vice President of our Student Board of Education, Stephanie Schaub. So she's here to give us a report from Orange Wood High School.

Good evening Board of Education. With the start of the school year comes many things. We had our back to school night and our first spirit week this month. Our boys softball team has competed against schools from Reno Valley Riverside Fontana and a few others. We have had four games so far. We won the first two, but sadly lost the others. Tomorrow we have a game against Bayside from Moreno Valley, so fingers crossed we win that one. Orange Wood participated in the 23rd annual HBCU recruitment fair. We've had a few changes to our school so far, one of these being the bell schedule. It was adjusted so that we have more breaks and so that we don't go to lunch so early. Another thing is we are working on campus expansion by adding fencing in the front and back patios with some of the classrooms. Thank you for listening to my brief school report. Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

It's awesome.

Do you have a special guest here with you tonight? Your mom. Where's mom? Well done. Thank you for sharing your daughter with us. We appreciate it. All right, we're ready for our board committee reports. We have the cry-rop. This is Holahan.

OK, so at our CRI-RAP meeting, we recognized new staff and recognition. There was about eight of them because we had to catch up from the summer. And it was nice to have students give testimonies from some of their classes that they had. You were there, too. And they were talking about how great their class is. And it's great to see that the CTE classes are moving on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mrs. Renner, compact?

The first mixer for Compact will be October 5th from 7 to 8 at the Contemporary Club, and you are all invited to be interviewed by students at the mixer. All of you are invited, and if anybody in the audience would like to come, If you have a business, you work at a business, and you would like to be interviewed by these students who are doing their first interviews trying to learn how to do this, you can contact me. Just send me an email, and I can get all the information to you. But we'd love to have you. Steering committee will be this Thursday. And the officers and advisors had their meeting last week. Rev has had a few meetings. Friday, they're having a food fair on campus. And they are arranging for their guest speakers for the year. RHS had their first speaker. Denise Davis came and talked about the Redlands Youth Council. And RHS is also planning to adopt a family from Family Services for Thanksgiving. CVHS has elected their officers, and they're trying to get all the Rushford scholars that attend CVHS to be members of compact. Mock interviews will be in January this year. I'll give you the dates at the next meeting. And multiply your generosity. They're going to do individual projects this year. It didn't seem to work very well to do school-wide projects. So they're going to do individual. They can do individual or team up in pairs. And that's all for my report.

Can I ask you a question on behalf of Stephanie? Do they have a compact club at Orange Wood?

They do not, but I talked to them about having Orange Wood come to one of the other schools. They can't do one at Orange Wood because of how many kids come and go all the time, but I did talk to them about that and I will follow up on that again because I asked them in the beginning of last year and I didn't get an answer. So I will follow up and I'll let you know.

Stephanie will hold you to that. That's good. All right. That's awesome. And are you going to send the schedule? We could pass that to her so she knows. Maybe she'd like to go to the mixer.

Oh, yeah. I'll send you the invite for the mixer, too, because that would be great.

All right. Let's go to Section C, the Rep Foundation. Mrs. Ialacantero.

Alrighty, we have the Turkey Trot coming up on November 24th. It'll be around Sylvan Park. It's still kind of early, so there are details still to come. TAGS grants are back. Applications and forms are available online, and principals may submit them beginning October 3rd. Next, Arts Alive Student Showcase note cards are on sale now at RepForSchools.com. And lastly, AAA Academy is planning a two-day Thanksgiving break enrichment camp and a winter break camp. The link to AAA is also at RepForSchools.com.

Thank you. We meet every other month for Cultural Arts Commission, so we're on the off month. How about Parks and Rec?

The next meeting is October 13th, so I have nothing to report.

Sandabs. This is Hallahan.

Sandabs just resumed from the summer break and we went basically over most of the bills that are kind of on hold right now, so we'll have more information. I will for the next meeting. We meet in a couple weeks.

Very good. I have nothing new to report for the CSBA Delegate Assembly and for the coalition

uh... for the rev stadium i believe they are meeting next week so we're up to the superintendents report and ten thank you good evening everybody uh... tonight uh... board of education you'll see on the agenda that you will be approving the comprehensive school safety plans all every single schools being approved tonight as you know that is an ed code requirement And so I want to thank all of the school principals, the school site councils, Mark Blind, Tish Velasquez, Rose and Carrie Ann, Rod Torres, and Christy Hubbard. that was the entire team that worked on getting all these plans are ready and prepared for the board of education to prove tonight so uh... uh... you'll see that the every single plan meets the criteria as listed in the ed coat and uh... rod did an excellent job with mark blind going through each one of the documents making sure that uh... they're meeting their requirements. Now, some of the content you might see during the course of the year as the school year begins and the school safety committees are working with the principals, they may identify changes to those plans. So you might see this year amendments that may come forward during the school year to those plans. But nonetheless, all of them are for approvals tonight. So thanks everybody who worked on that. Really appreciate all your work on that. And then a super big huge congratulations to the Bryn Mawr students and the showing of their 60 minute motion picture titled School Alone that was shown over at the Harkins Theater last week. 550 tickets were issued because of parents and kids that attended. We were there as well. What a great movie, great effort by our students. So I want to congratulate all of the Bryn Mawr actors, script writers, director, and the camera technicians that went into that. But more importantly, I also want to thank Amber Rosales, who was the teacher there who was behind the effort and supporting the kids. Of course, Dwayne Coles was there every step of the way, offering all the support that he provides the students. And of course, Principal Rick Alexic, who actually made a cameo appearance in the movie. So as you know, this is our continued effort of our digital storytelling program. And we are in the process right now. As a matter of fact, Duane and I met early this morning. If you recall, prior to the pandemic, we were poised and ready to do a kind of a academy awards night, if you recall, at the Redlands Bowl. So we are in the process of regenerating that idea, securing a date at the Redlands Bowl sometime in May or June prior to the graduations, and doing some sort of an awards night where we celebrate the best pictures or movies done by students and then actually roll another sixty minute movie. I think it's called Mission to Mars, if I'm correct, and it's a conglomerates of six schools doing this movie, so very exciting. So congratulations to the Bryn Mawr kids and the staff. That was a great moment, great time. As a matter of fact, Ken made me buy him coke and popcorn. He pulled that whole, I didn't bring my wallet stunt, you know, so. Also, glad to report that our students here at Reynolds Unified School District had ample opportunities last couple of weeks to expose themselves to universities for those who are wishing to move on to accelerated learning after high school. At Reynolds High School last week, we had the Reynolds College Fest. And I want to thank our career center teachers, Vanessa Fairbanks from REV, Kari Hill from Citrus Valley High School, Devorah Savaro from OHS, and Krista Padilla from RHS. Fifty-eight colleges were present to provide information about colleges. We had over 700 students and parents from not only our comprehensive high schools and OHS, but also from Grove High School, from Loma Linda Academy, and Serrano High School. So we opened up the opportunity to many of our neighbors. So thank you to those folks who put together that amazing university fair. Then last week also, we were able to have 80 of our students attend the UCAN, which is short for United College Action Network, the Historically Black College and University Recruitment Fair held at the Ontario Convention Center. So 85 of our students attended and was an outstanding event. It was four different school districts were present. Ken, Sabine, Cabinet and I attended to be there of support. And so, again, I want to thank Vanessa, Kari, Kristin, Deborah who put together the event. and Juanita Watkins for the organization of that opportunity. But the chaperones especially, we had teachers and counselors there chaperoning our kids. Jamil Ali, Vanessa Aranda, LaShawn Belton, Lorena Garcia, Sophia Mosher Lopez, Whitney Martinez, Jamie Ochoa, Coach O, Martine Tolbert, and Reggie Webb were all there chaperoning our kids. And so far we have 13 acceptance letters and 10 scholarship offers so far as of this morning. Our kids had a great experience there at the UCAN, so appreciate everybody who made that opportunity available for our students. I want to give another public thank you to the Redlands Police Department. Earlier, or late last week, we had a threat of violence that reported at Redlands High School, and RPD demanded immediate and prompt response to survey the campus and sweep the campus to make sure that the campus was safe, and indeed within probably a half hour They deemed the campus safe. They detained an individual who called in the threat and took care of that situation. So I just want to thank RPD, Chief Catron, men and women of RPD, just job well done guys. Thank you so much for your support in making sure that our kids are safe. And to Principal Kate Van Leeuwen and her team also well done, taking all the right steps that morning to make sure that staff and students are safe. And then the last thing I want to share tonight is just a reminder to our community that we have scheduled all of the parent forums for this year, which is our effort to provide parents the opportunity to learn about different aspects of safety. You may have received the flyer, and I'm showing this for the for the sake of the cameras for our live stream audience. You may have received this announcement either through Parent Square or ARIES, where we have, both in September and October, we have Diane Cranley here doing a presentation on child sexual abuse prevention. The first one was last week. We had about 15, 20 parents there. Great presentation. In November, we have Cassandra Hellmuth, who's a deputy district attorney, doing a presentation on human trafficking. In February, we have the Redlands Police Department doing a presentation on drug prevention and the cautions of fentanyl. And in March, we have the San Marino County Sheriff's Department doing a presentation on cyber bullying and the cautions of social media. So these opportunities are on our website, and we encourage our parents to take advantage of these opportunities and learn as much as we can from the experts to help keep our kids and our community safe. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Let's move to item 11, superintendent's recommendations. First up are business services consent items. Mr. Hill, any corrections or additions to those?

uh... yes president i do have a change in uh... the business service consent item b under the description the last line says doctor howard will speak to the administrative team at their advance on current matters of equity in schooling that should read doctor howard will speak to all four middle school staff on current matters of equity in schooling okay

So I'll approve, excuse me, I'll entertain a motion to approve all consent items as detailed in items 12B to 12O. Moved. Second. I have a question. Question.

Do we know the two high school students who have been selected on G? Okay, I just thought about that today, sorry.

All right, any other questions or comments? I'll call for the vote. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye, so approved. We have no business service action items. We'll go to ed services consent items. Dr. Wagner, any corrections or additions?

Thank you, President O'Neill. No changes or additions.

I will entertain a motion to approve all consent items detailed in 14B to 14J. So moved. Second. Discussion? I just want to do a shout out to the comprehensive school safety plans and the work that involved and the people behind that. It's an involved process and it's always the best thing to be prepared for the worst scenario. And so I really appreciate all the hard work that's going into that and just pray we never have to activate any of those or rely on any of those safety plans. But it's good to know that they're there.

I'm just thrilled to see our kids being able to travel again and going to prospective colleges to view, ban competitions, and being able to get out finally. So that's good news for that.

Ditto on that. All right, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye, so approved. We have a couple of action items. And let's do A on its own. Adopt Resolution Number 14-2022-23, National Red Ribbon Campaign Supporting Red Ribbon Week. Say that fast three times. Red Ribbon Week, October 23rd through the 31st.

I'll move. Second.

Discussion? It's just a comment. I looked at all of the activities that many of the schools are going to be participating in and I think that's awesome how they're already gearing up and ready to do some exciting things for our students. So there's a lot of fun celebration and What are spirit weeks that the kids always look forward to and participating in? So great job to all the schools out there that are participating.

I have a comment too. I like how some of the schools use the anti-bullying in with the red ribbon where you can tie it all in together.

Drugs could be considered the ultimate bully in some ways. Well, I'm glad that we're still celebrating this. I think it's such an awful, awful stain on our society and the control and the damage that drugs do to our citizens and students and families. I have personal experience in my own family with that. And it's just an awful, awful thing to go through and how it controls and takes over lives. And I don't think we can do enough. to get the message out there to please, please, please don't touch it. It's poison and it's a destroyer of lives. So think how much better everything would be, how much that impacts if we could just somehow correct that dilemma. But anyway, we keep striving, we keep hoping, And if it helps one person to say no, then that's worth it. All right. With that, I will call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. The vote's aye and so adopted. Let's take item B and C together. So I will call for a motion to approve 15B and C.

Move. Second.

Any discussion? all those in favor say aye aye so approved we are on sixteen human resources consent items Dr. Robertson Phillips do you have any corrections or additions? I have no changes tonight thank you thank you then on the superintendent's recommendation I'll call for a motion to approve all consent items as detailed in items sixteen b to sixteen ae Moved.

Second.

Any questions or discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Chair votes aye, so approved. We have a couple of action items here. Let's take 17A. Certificated ratify slash adopt amendment to resolution number nine 2022-2023 approve employment of certificated personnel effective 2022-2023 school year based on approval by the Commission on teacher credentialing and code credential requirements. Motion to approve.

So moved.

discussion all those of you ever say aye aye chair votes aye so approved 17b for classified established position and approved new job description for maintenance and swimming pool worker to specialized at range 27 of the classified salary schedule and 12 months of the classified work year calendar effective September 28 2022 motion to approve of second the question should

It says we're approving the position. What did we do before for pool maintenance?

The pool maintenance was done by one of our just maintenance worker to specialized but now we just need more support so we're doing a position to allow the specialized person to maybe do some other things and this position would focus on the swimming pools.

Call for the vote, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye, so approved. On item 18, we have a discussion item. Last meeting we talked a little bit about doing something about the board policy and administrative regulation 4229 governing volunteers in our school district. We've had some issues come up and we looked at the policy and the regulation and realized that the wording could be improved and certainly the regulation updated so it reflects our support for volunteers and helps them out. So I think on behalf of the board, Superintendent Ariana, we'd like to have your staff try to pull together some ideas that we could work on the wording, come up. We did have a little bit of a discussion, but we can have it right here so that we know what we're talking about, so we can review some of that.

So, may I interject here? Know what? Just to prompt a discussion. So, to remind the board, regulation 4229, titled volunteers. I believe there was three items on that administrative regulation that you've asked us to come back to you at some point. with some revised language. The first one being the item that speaks to persons approved to serve as ongoing volunteers more than five times per year. I believe that's one item that the board would like us to take a little different direction in terms of not having the five times per year approach. So I'm sure at the end of the discussion you'll validate whether or not that's what you want me to move forward with. Then I believe there was some confusion as to how this was written in 2005 regarding the 60 days prior to recommendations for approval. Of course, I wasn't here in 2006, but I believe what they were trying to say was that the tuberculosis test had to be within 60 days, but the way it was written, it sounds like there's a 60-day waiting period. So I believe the board wishes for me to rewrite that to have it reflect within 60 days. So I'll wait for your validation for that. Then I believe the third part of the regulation that you want me to look at is some sort of a window period, perhaps at the beginning of the year or not. or no window period ongoing, some sort of a grace period that would, as long as a volunteer has submitted all of the proper documentation, and it's been validated by the individual in our district of validates, the person could begin volunteering before formal board approval because many times there are months in the year where there's only one board meeting, correct? And so we want to be able to have the parents start. Sometimes it's a field trip or a class activity that the board does not want someone waiting if they've met all the conditions and they're just waiting for the formality. So I preface it with those three. If there's any other items of that AR, please let me know. If you want to validate that that's exactly the three sections of the AR that you want me to, then we will move forward and I'll put a proposed statement in the next superintendents update for you.

I think you nailed it. I think that's it. Let's see, was there anything else? Michelle? We'll go down around the corner here.

No, but I just wanted to talk about something else really quick since we have Stephanie here. Maybe we can come up so she can participate more with a student preferential vote. So as we're voting and going through the process so she can participate more or any student that, you know, comes so that way they're more involved in the process. So in the future like when we have any agendized items, we can front load them with what they are and then we can say student preferential vote, you know, how do you vote and then they could say aye or no or you abstain. So that way they go through the process and they just learn what it's like to be a board member and participate.

Well, Mr. Varner, they're meeting next week and that is going to be discussed.

So- Great, all right, awesome.

I'm glad you brought it up, so thank you. Yeah. Mrs. Yalick, did we have anything to add to the- Nothing to add, I think everything was spot on. Okay.

volunteers are valuable to the success of our district so whatever we can do to make the process easier for them I'm all for that without our volunteers we can't do the field trips we can't do the extra things that we need to do so whatever we need to do to make that process facilitate a little bit faster and easier let's work on that and I'm so happy that they spoke up and

made us aware that there was a problem, which is good. These policies that we have, some of them are old. We try to keep up on them. And I know your staff works hard to keep them updated. And we get updates from the California School Board Association. But if something isn't working and it's a policy or a regulation, we want to know about it until we can visit it and make it work right for our students, right?

When I have my marching order, sir.

Oh, wow. Did it come across that way? I apologize.

One more thing, Mr. O'Neil. Thank you to the parent who brought that up to us. Absolutely. And made that aware. Ms. Valentino, I believe it was. So thank you very much.

I believe it was two or three parents. I don't remember their names right at the moment, but yeah, it was all good. So we're on item 19? Yes. I have to review my Roman numeral numbers to make sure I'm reading them right. It's time for community input. This is a time that any member of the public may address the board on any agenda item before or during the board's consideration of the item, provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board. to the clerk of the board or our designee prior to the time the chairperson calls the item for the board's consideration. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy and matters will be referred to the superintendent. So this, did we get any more cards? OK, so we have four cards here. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium or microphone, announce his or her name and district area, if you know it. The chairperson shall, in the interest of facilitating the business of the board, limit the amount of time which a member of the public may use to address the board to three minutes, unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines that a different time limit is appropriate. So first up is Mr. Paul Blatchley. Welcome.

Good evening board members, Superintendent Arellano, cabinet. My name is Paul Malatchly. I live in trustee area five and I'm a concerned high school parent. So last week after I talked, a parent got up and talked about the sex education curriculum and said how, you know, that they were good with it. I just want to remind parents that all of the curriculum that the district offers is all taught by individual teachers. So I think it's important that parents continue to stay vigilant in conversations with their students about what's actually happening in the classroom. I sat through a whole bunch of board meetings where people repeatedly came up and said, talked about the racism that exists at Citrus Valley High School. So last week we got an update on Citrus Valley High School. We didn't talk at all about racism. I'm sure the district has a more diverse hiring policy now. I'm sure your promotions are more diverse. I know you've wordsmith all of your policies. I know you're going through what I've talked about before with this boilerplate kind of school site plans. But like I said last week, school safety is more than just the plans, plans are important, fences, school resource officers. But I'm wondering whether or not the racism that those people came up and talked about, especially at Citrus Valley High School, whether or not those things have really been addressed. Can you do a Kelvin survey to find out whether or not people still feel like racism is a real problem at all the high schools, but specifically Citrus Valley? And then finally, I know you guys, there was an agenda item about Red Ribbon Week. And we normally associate that with drugs and alcohol and that sort of thing. But there's a device that all the students have, I'm sure middle school and high school students, and it's right here. And so I would recommend that you add social media addiction, device addiction to what you're doing during Red Ribbon Week. I might suggest that the district sponsors an off the grid day where the students are encouraged not to bring their devices to school and just go back to the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s and interact with each other in person rather than using these devices. Thank you.

Please have Braxton Foley is next.

Welcome. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Braxton Foley. I live in trusty area number one. And I'm here today to regard the curriculum in your guys' libraries. For example, you guys have one of these. It's a book titled Beyond Magenta. And in this book, it explicitly says, It brings up references to gay pornography where it says things like, from 6up, I used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood, make out with them, and perform oral sex on them. I liked it. I used to love oral, and I touched their you-know-whats. We were really young, but that's what we did. This is the stuff being taught in your schools and you guys aren't stopping this. this is disgusting and this is a reason why you guys should resign and it's not just like it's in the corner of a library again it's on the front shelf of the library in your high schools and it's not the only book there's one titled two boys kissing where it has more gay pornography and one you guys recently took off the shelves because it was getting a lot of attention titled this book is gay where it explicitly shows a naked man and it shows the process of gay sex and it says stuff like penis that you need to get it ready and get it hard before you have sex this is the stuff being taught in your libraries and it's being pushed in the classrooms too it's not just the kids that go in the library The teachers are showing these books for Banned Book Week, where we stand up for our freedom. But this isn't freedom to have pornography at schools, even if it's homosexual or straight. It's pure evil, and I encourage you guys to look at this or resign because it is evil. Thank you, school board, and I close my case.

Thank you. Mrs. Candy Olson. Welcome.

Hey, it's good to see you guys. You're not hiding. Since last time I was here, you were hiding still. My name's Candy, and I'm in Jim's area. The perverse nature of these books that are in our school libraries really leaves me speechless, and it should for you guys too. Not only are these soft porn books available, but they're on display being promoted to read on the top of the counter at the library. Why aren't we advocating for science or academic exploration? Why aren't the books up there being promoted for academics? There is a reason that kids cannot enter an adult bookstore to view sexually explicit material. It's not appropriate. The acceptable age is 18 when a young adult can make those decisions for him or herself. I've seen pictures of several teachers from different parents of different RUSD schools having pride flags in their classrooms and wearing pride flags on their badges. The sexual indoctrination of our kids is hugely inappropriate. No teacher or staff should be discussing or promoting any type of sexuality, including heterosexuality. This is a parent-child discussion. If an employer is discussing or promoting their sexuality to an employee, it's considered sexual harassment. So again, we see that the rules of society are being bypassed in our government schools, because our educational system does not protect the children as they should. You're either uninformed, you're unaware, or you're promoting it, so please take care of it.

Thank you. Steven Becker. Did I say your last name correct? Is that right, Mr. Becker? Yes, you did.

Welcome. My name is Steven Becker. I was born and raised in this valley. My family has lived here for 25 years and my children went to school here. I'm here tonight to actually thank you folks for the hard and difficult work and the kind of criticism that you're subjected to. When I walked in here today, it was jarring. It was jarring to walk through a metal detector, to see the very considerable police presence that's all around us, and what is even more disturbing, that the events of the last couple of years have made that necessary. There are people that just have not engaged in civil discourse. I think that there's people that want to burn books, and I think you, they teach history still in the Redland schools, and the history of the Third Reich included burning books. I think good judgment is used. You folks don't do your work perfectly, but you have really done it well, and I would The courage that it has taken for all of you, both staff and certainly the elected members of the board, to maintain civility when you are under constant ad hominem attacks by people who won't even give consideration to the fact that you're doing this because you care about our children and you care about your your community, our community, and our children. My family and I are grateful for the hard and difficult work you do. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We're ready for board comments. Item 20. Let's start with, Michelle, you're on the end. Let's start with you.

Bye.

About a week ago, I was able to attend the Republican Women's Association's meeting. That was really nice. Had lots of questions about a lot of different things from many people there. Yesterday, I went to Respa's meeting. Thank you, Gladys, for the invitation. It was very informative, and I loved hearing what the different schools and the different departments, I loved what they were talking about and the questions that they asked. I attended the dinner in the groves. Patty went to that also in support of family services. That was a great event. Dave was there. I've enjoyed going to all the football games the last few weeks. The last football game at RHS, there were 1,000 students, so that was amazing. Thanks to the students at Citrus Valley who came up with that idea and the LCAP committee for paying for that, the ASB cards for all our students at all our high schools so they can all attend these events. I also want to give Karen Burke from Victoria. She's the Garner Holt Lab instructor. Shout out. She's a finalist for a Golden Bell Award. So it's very exciting. And that's all I have tonight.

I want to give a shout out to Mr. Minors, the band teacher at Citrus Valley High School. This weekend they're having their, I believe it's their fourth annual classic band competition. It's this Saturday and four years ago when it started, they started with approximately four bands competing against each other. And this Saturday they have I believe approximately 17 to 18 bands showing up. So it's going to be a huge event, which is awesome. I also want to give a shout out to all of the band parents at all of the high schools. They do an outstanding job of making sure that the band students have everything that they need on a daily basis. They're out there practicing throughout the week and practicing on the weekends. Parents are loading the trailers, unloading the trailers. They just go above and beyond on a daily basis and my hats off to all of the parents and the band parents. and what they do to support all of our students, really appreciate their efforts. And I also want to just take this time to talk about when I was elected, my first year going through the process of getting elected, I came across a man I was knocking on doors and I came across a man and he said, you know what, Alex, I'm going to go ahead and vote for you. And then I said, why, you didn't allow me to explain anything to you yet. And he says, well, I want you to know. that you're running for a position where a lot of people don't really care about, and you're running for a position where nobody really knows about, and you're running for a position where only somebody who would want to run for it cares. So I know you care, so I'm going to go ahead and just... I just want you to know I'm going to vote for you. I have... I was... Shocked and surprised that he made those comments to me. I have 30 years of education experience. And when somebody starts in the education field, all they want to do as an educator is help because as a teacher, all we're constantly doing is trying to figure out ways to better the lives of our students, improve their academic performance. When we become teachers, unfortunately, We realize that we are more than teachers sometimes to different students and even parents because we become their social workers sometimes. Sometimes we go home and we pray for them so we become the priest for them. We become a psychologist. Sometimes parents come to us and they have us read legal documents because they're going through divorces. Then we become the attorneys because we have to know the legal jargon. There's a lot that goes into education, and as an educator, I just want to say that for the last 30 years, I've done my best to ensure that all of our students that I ever taught, all of the students that I currently work for, and all of the students in the Redlands Unified School District, that we make sure that they have safe environments and All of us work together as a team, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, to ensure that we do everything we can in our power to make sure that all of the students have everything that they need. And we've been doing an outstanding job, and we've been looking at many of the things within the last six years. We've done an incredible job of doing a lot of innovative things. And one of the things that I said back six years ago, and I still push today, I would like Redlands Unified School District to be noticed as the number one district. In the state of California, then in the nation. And that's what I'm going to still strive for and push for. But we're headed that way and I'm proud of all of the employees and all of the staff. Continue working hard and know that we are behind you all 100%. Thank you.

is the other candidate i have nothing to do you think you know i think you very much flan thank you president o'neill i want to start off by saying my deepest condolences to the family of mister ron mcpeck ron was always so kind and i would seek his help and assistance when i was first elected to the board ron was so knowledgeable had so many years of experience serving on the board over twenty And one of my fondest moments and memories was driving to CSBA when we went to San Diego. Before we were in the car and we chatted the whole way with his wife Susie. And before we knew it, we were in San Diego. And he's just always been a stellar person and he was always a mentor for me. And I want to thank him personally and publicly for everything that he did for me. Thank you, Ron, for helping me and teaching me the ins and outs of RUSD. I am very grateful to you and you will be truly missed. I want to thank Jason and his staff, Mr. Hill, for your budget workshop the other day. Three hours of budgets, reviews, and status on what is already committed is surely an eye-opener. So thank you very much, and thank you for taking the time and staff. I know Mr. Gugersberg's here tonight. Thank you for putting everything in the numbers. Thank you to RESPA. Mrs. Kirschel, I think Gladys is still here.

There you are, you're in the front row.

Yes, thank you for inviting me to your ice cream social. I know that Mr. O'Neill and I were there together. It was great to see the old friends and old staff, and Jim and I wasted no time making sundaes, so thank you very much. I really appreciate that. I attended the CV homecoming. Thank you, Maisie, for the CV rally towel. I know that every time I talk about CV and I sit there, but you truly have to be in the moment because when the sunset goes down and the mountains are right there, what a view. It really is phenomenal. So go Blackhawks, and they're doing very, very well actually, so. I attended the RTS game. It's always a highlight of mine to see the young cheerleaders out there. So this was the event that the young kids, girls and boys, want to be a cheerleader can go out. And it's in elementary school and middle school and everyone comes. I think they practice maybe once and then they get to cheer. I was blessed to be able to see my great niece out there, so I think she's in third grade, so she had a blast. And I thank Pam Kettering from Redlands High School for always keeping this program in this tradition, and that's how the blue line always goes. I attend the Family Service Association where I saw Mrs. Randler as well. Thank you to the Dandramans for hosting this great event and even better for a wonderful cause. And tonight I'd like to thank Mr. Becker and Mr. Blatchley. I'm sorry that he left for your comments tonight. We really do appreciate it and we do listen. That's my report. Thank you.

All right, I'll wrap this up tonight. I was able to attend Citrus Valley's presentation of Frozen Junior. And I attended it with a house full or theater full of kindergartners and first graders. and uh... i gotta tell you something i'm not sure which was more entertaining uh... the audience or the performers but i can say that uh... the cast and the crew that put that performance on a citrus valley was superb uh... you know mrs uh... and i and mrs via who run the theater arts department out there uh... put together an amazing show And it's one of their recruitment musicals, because you know we're kind of struggling. Probably pandemic had a lot to do with that and the feeding the elementary, middle school feeder going to the high schools enrollments are down and all of those programs in the theater arts and music programs. So I think this kind of an opportunity for young kids to see what can happen and what they can do and maybe plant seeds for future interests and want to be part of that. And I know we as a board, we truly do support the arts and our music programs and it's one of those featured opportunities. And so I know we've got to just find more ways to really bolster those programs and keep the interest going. So congratulations, they did a great job. And yeah, and part of the audience was that when those songs came up, like Let It Go and that kind of stuff, I mean, I could tell that there were some future choral and theater performers there because they didn't just sit in their chair, they were standing up and belting it out. So it was amazing. I was able to attend almost all of the preview of champions hosted by the Terrier Marching Band and Color Guard. You know, besides our bands that were involved, They had bands coming from Colton, Yucaipas, San Gorgonio, North, there as well. And they finished the program with the band from RCC. And there's like 250 band members in color guard. Wow. Wow. So that was pretty amazing. So my hat's off to Brandon Hansen, who's the director out there. He put that together. I think they've done this over 40 years. It was great. Great crowd. It was enthusiastic. And did my heart good. I'm an old high school band nerd, so it was like I was feeling really comfortable up there in the stands watching the bands perform. Did a great job. And all of our band directors are amazing talents, so thank them for their endeavors. I did my very first podcast. I've talked about it for years. I know, Melissa, I know, well, I want you to listen to it when it comes out and you can give me a critique, okay? Yeah. I was basically the historian. I was brought in because I'm old. People wanted to hear what technology was like when I was an educator. So Jamie Quartz, who's our director in that department, and let's see, Jen, Caleb, and Nicole, they were part of the tips and salsa. And the thing that I remember most was the delicious salsa that Caleb had prepared for the meeting. I don't know if I gave any tips out or not, but anyway. It was a great thing, and I provided a real-life history lesson, still around to talk about what it was like. Most of the things that I brought up, they'd never heard of. It was kind of bad for me. Yeah, I don't think I mentioned next computers. Yeah, that's right. You were there. Now you're dating yourself. No, we talked about dissolved units in 35 millimeter film. Somebody's laughing. They must be old, because they'd get it, but nobody else is. OK. Or remember filmstrip projectors? Remember those? Yeah? When you were kids, maybe. I used it to teach. Yes, Patty, thanks for bringing up our fun little time at respite. Thank you, Gladys, for inviting us. My wife's probably watching this stream, and now you said there was ice cream there. So she's going to know that I got off my diet, and she's, oh well, I'm going to pay for that later. But thank you very much. Gladys, it was a fun event. People looked like they were really enjoying themselves, and I did as well. So thank you so much. Yeah, the Bryn Mawr movie, unfortunately, I didn't get back in time to see the start of that. So I just kind of waited and knew it was going to come out for my streaming service. So I made my connection with Dwayne and he set me up with the link. Yeah, it was great. It was fantastic. And I'm so glad on the big screen. I'll bet it was really thrilling for the kids. And yeah, my shout out to Dwayne, Mr. Coles, and Mrs. Rosales. They did just a superb job. It's really exciting when kids can get that kind of big recognition in that kind of venue. Yeah, it's got to be inspirational.

I'll have that link, Jim.

Yeah, you want me to send it to you? I'll send it to everybody in case. Did you go to the movie? I'll send you the link.

Yeah.

You sit down, be comfortable, get your popcorn out. I don't know, school alone, just that is scary, you know. And let's see, finally, oh, one more thing, the parents forums, wow. I just can't emphasize enough to any parents to come to those. There's just such great information, and it's on topics that we all need to know about to protect our kids and to know what's going on in our community with everybody. So I don't know what we can do to get people to really make this a high priority in their evening plans, but thank you for offering them. They're just incredible offers. You know, we're kind of in the middle right now of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Every year from September 15th to October 15th, we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by appreciating the community's history, heritage, and contributions of the ancestors of American citizens who came from Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, and South and Central America. Hispanic Americans have been integral to the prosperity of the U.S., without a doubt. Their contributions to the nation are immeasurable and they embody the best of American values. The Hispanic American community has left an indelible mark on the U.S. culture and its economy. I want to be sure that we're all very grateful to have a Hispanic American superstar as our superintendent. We appreciate him. We should all be grateful. And I personally am grateful and proud of my colleagues, our employees, and all of our families, the students of Hispanic heritage, and hope they feel valued and appreciated. Well, I have nothing further. Thank you very much. I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you everybody. Have a great evening.