Board of Education — October 25, 2022

Okay? Okay. Good evening, everybody. May I have your attention, please? Thank you for being quiet. I appreciate it. So you can hear me? Still hear a little bit of talking, so I'll wait. Can you hear me out there? If you can hear me, Sort of, is this better if I talk loud? What does this mean? Is that for me personally or is that for you can't hear me? All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your cooperation. Welcome to our board meeting tonight. I've prepared some statements here so that I won't miss anything. I'm gonna read them, but they are my words and my preparation. So if you don't know me, my name is Jim O'Neill. I am the current board president, and one of my primary roles is to chair board meetings. Before starting tonight's meeting, I wanna take a moment to give a brief explanation of our role as a board, and also to review the rules of conduct, since many of you may be attending a board meeting for the first time. It's important to understand that even though we hold our meetings in public, they are not public meetings. No board meeting is. But they are held in public. Our main role is to provide oversight of the district's operations and finances on behalf of our community. We also provide direction through board policies and regulations. The superintendent and his staff create processes, protocols, and programs to achieve board goals. Approximately one week prior to each scheduled meeting, every time we have a board meeting, Superintendent Arellano reviews the agenda with me. The final version of the agenda is then printed and posted for public access 72 hours before the meeting. Trustees receive a comprehensive version of the agenda and have the weekend to study it. Individual trustees are allowed to ask the superintendent for clarifications, explanations, and further details on any item within the agenda. But it's important to note that we are not allowed as trustees to talk to each other on any item with each other prior to the meeting held in public. Ma'am, can you put the sign down please for now? Thank you. Can you lower your sign please? Thank you. As you may have noticed, looking at the agenda, as you have a brief version of it, many of the items are reports and presentations which are meant to be informational, not only for the board but for the public. The action and consent items are the superintendent's operational recommendations. As a board, we have the responsibility to either approve, disapprove, postpone, or pull items for further discussion from the agenda. Prior to taking any board action, the Brown Act allows for public input at our meeting, which I'm sure many of you are the reason that you're here for the public input portion of our meeting. Our agenda provides for two opportunities for public input. The first comes at the beginning of the meeting and allows any member of the public to address the board on a specific agenda item that's in our agenda for that meeting. The second comes towards the end of the meeting, and this is when the public can address any school district issues and any issue that's under our jurisdiction. So anyone tonight wishing to participate in public participation in the public comment section, you needed to fill out one of our green cards, and I have them already, but it's not too late. During public comment, this is important, I am asking everyone here tonight to allow, I need everybody to hear this, thank you, I'm asking everyone here tonight to allow each speaker to deliver their message to the board without interruption. That is their right, and we want to hear it. This is not a town hall meeting. This is not a rally. It's a school board meeting, and we have business to do as a school board, and you are here to participate in that part of it. Unruly or inconsiderate behavior. That's disruptive to our meeting. We can't tolerate it and hold our meeting. You're in violation of a misdemeanor, disrupting a government meeting. Yes, you have First Amendment rights, but you have to be within the confines of what those rules and regulations are. We want to hear you, but you need to be orderly and you need to be conforming to those laws and statutes. We realize that it takes a lot of courage to come up here and speak. I know it takes a lot of courage for me to address you right now. It's a large group. And so I know and feel what you will be feeling as you come up and address the board. But you need to know that we value your time and effort to share your thoughts. With delivering your comments, please keep in mind they are intended for the board, not the audience. You're talking to us. I also want to remind everyone that anything related to the upcoming election is not under the jurisdiction of the school board and should not be any part of any public comment tonight. Some of you may be here because of some disturbing information that you've either seen on social media or heard from other members of the public or during public comment at previous meetings. I'd like to take a moment to shed some light on some inaccuracies of some of these statements. One statement, quote, RUSD high schools are funding drag queen shows. Well, the fact is, the nonprofit organization Stronger Together Now, STN, hosted the Latina Festival recently in Redlands. The event, which was approved by the city, was held from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, October 9th. This event's intent, as written to the city council, was to bring the community together to celebrate Latinas and their contributions to the city with awareness on women and domestic abuse. STN's event included activities, artwork, live music, performers, and guest speakers. A posted picture of a female impersonator performing as pop icon Selena Perez was labeled a drag queen on social media. Another fictitious statement, quote, RUSD is providing condoms and lube to underage children, end quote. The fact is, of course, this is unacceptable as well as preposterous and is totally false. Another statement, quote, RUSD is losing thousands of students. End quote. Here are the facts. Current enrollment is 19,801 in the Redlands Unified School District, down 112 from last year, and 313 down from 2021. These figures are in line with districts and charter schools due to such state factors as declining birth rates, out of state migration, aging population, and the increase of homeschooling during the pandemic. Nearly all California districts are experiencing varying degrees of declining enrollment, some extremely severe, much more severe than our drop in enrollment. Another statement, quote, student academic performance is dropping below the 50th percentile. Well, the fact is that as a district, our district ranks in the top 6% nationwide the top 15% among districts in California, Redlands High School, any Redlands High School graduates here? There you go. They rank in the top 8% both statewide and nationally. Rev High School, Citrus Valley, they're at 11 and 15% respectively, and in our county of San Bernardino, all three comprehensive high schools and the E Academy are in the top 10 out of 140 county high schools. So I'm not sure where the data comes from, but that data has to be checked and we checked several different sources on a variety of data elements. So I wanted to make sure to share that with you. You know, we live in a world of misinformation and disinformation, unfortunately. It's important for our community you to do due diligence in fact checking before forming opinions and spreading rumors. My colleagues, the superintendent, staff and management team, as well as the information on our website, should be consulted when seeking accurate answers to any concerns or issues that you may hear about, especially before forming any opinions. So tonight, once again, I really appreciate your I hope to continue through the nights that we can conduct our business and you can participate in this meeting. On behalf of the Redlands Unified School District and the School Board of Education, I appreciate our families and community members contributing to the public participation part of the meeting tonight. I strongly believe we can continue to work alongside you and our community and continue to provide the best programs opportunities and resources for our students as that is our mission. So with that said, I will ask my colleagues to join me on the stage and let's begin the Board of Education meeting tonight. Thank you. Thank you. like to call this meeting to order. Please join us by standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Aditi, would you lead us in the pledge?

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. So let's minimize the disruption. It's not necessary, but thank you, okay? Now roll call. Let's see. Patty Holahan.

Present.

Melissa Yellicantaro.

Present.

Michelle Rendler.

Present.

Alex Vara. Present. So we're all present and accounted for myself. Yes, I'm here. I would like to entertain a motion for the approval of the minutes from the October 11th Board of Education regular meeting.

So moved.

Any discussion questions all those in favor say aye aye chair votes aye so approved So the first public participation Carrie Ann I'm just verifying with you that we don't have anybody wishing to speak to a specific agenda item No, we don't okay All right, we have no public hearing. And we have a presentation by Jamie Kurtz, Director of Innovative Technology and Accountability. Are we gonna need to come out there, Jamie? The screen's going to be in front. Do we have copies of the presentation? We don't. Okay. Probably because we had to move. Well, shall we move to the side so we can see? Is that all right? We'll get a copy of that. Okay, Jamie, we'll let you go ahead.

Sorry. Good evening board members, cabinet, and guests. Each year we like to give the cabinet and board members and educational community an update on enhanced learning through innovation. This is part of RUSD 2025. I'd like to remind everybody here that when we came up with this in 2017, none of this existed in our school district systematically. There were some instances here and there of some of these things, but none of this existed systematically, nor in 2017 was there a roadmap for enhanced learning through innovation for all students. Here are the things that we set out to do in 2017. All students will use cutting edge technology. All students will explore learning experiences through the use of VR, AR, AI robotics, coding, and programming. All students will respond to the curriculum using multimedia presentation tools. All students will learn and practice digital citizenship, and resources will be committed to supporting 21st century learning. That's all students. The good news that I'd like to share today is so much is happening in our school district in terms of enhanced learning through innovation, we couldn't give a report in just one day. So we're gonna give, what we decided to do is to give short reports each board meeting on a few different things. The focus of today is New Line interactive touch panels in every classroom in the entire school district. and that homage VR dissection tables in our high schools. So the first one, which is the multi-touch panels, this was an upgrade of all obsolete and aging instructional presentation systems, AKA these LCD projectors, smart boards. Some people still have the overhead projectors that you guys remember from when you were in school yourselves. We updated every one of those in the entire school district to 75-inch, 10-finger touch interactive panels. So this next slide is going to show you what that actually looks like in one of our classrooms, the middle school classroom in our school district. Here's the jazz band. You can wave jazz band. Awesome. And the rhythm section is over here. And what we've got up here on the new line board is smart music running. And so what I'm going to do is start this excerpt with smart music and the sound system that I've built underneath the new line board. And we're going to actually rehearse using this. And we'll watch the little cursor go by. Here we go.

And I started it in a weird place.

Oh, there, we get fun stuff coming through. Anyway, there you are. So there's an example of using technology in a band class. Who would have thought? So by the numbers, that was a $3.5 million investment using ESSER II, 953 classrooms. That was a deployment of five months to 953 classrooms throughout our school district. Not only is deployment important, training is important. So our incredible instructional technology team created a comprehensive training video. It's on YouTube. 6,500 views so far, total of 620 hours being watched of this training video. In addition to that, there have been 17 additional trainings, 373 more teachers, and four full school trainings. So not only did we deploy over 900 of these, we've trained hundreds and hundreds of teachers, thousands and thousands of hours of viewing. Positive feedback that we've received. It's a touch screen. You can actually touch it and manipulate it. The picture is so clear. I don't have to work in the dark. I like that I can pinch to zoom. You can see a student there actually working on it. It's great to be able to add annotations on top of the content. And in many cases, teachers still have their LCDs and the touch panel. Considerations that we're continuing to work on is teaching teachers and helping teachers in the placement of them in the classrooms, having it mounted. In some cases, it's hard for the teeny little kinders to reach. Some people like their old projectors, and some people don't like that they have to turn their back to use it. So in looking back to RUSD 2025, yes, this matches the all students will use cutting edge technology now. Just remember, in 2017, these didn't even exist. These weren't even built or manufactured in 2017. Now we have it in over 900 classrooms in our school district. And yes, resources are being committed to support 21st century learning. Secondly, this project is Anatomage. This project was to provide medical grade virtual dissection tables to enhance access to biology, anatomy, and physiology curriculum. Take a look at this next slide to see what's in our classrooms.

The Anatomage table is an interactive display system for anatomy education. It is capable of providing full body anatomy visualizations at a life size scale.

So this is a skeleton of a real patient. It took all the tissue off. So I cut across here. If I press there, I get rid of it, and I can turn the skeleton, and I can see the blood vessels.

Structures can be toggled by tapping the on and off icon next to the desired structure, category,

or system.

401 of our high school students are using this technology today. We can't even find high schools in the country to collaborate with. We have to collaborate with colleges and universities for curriculum. Three tables are being used at REV and two tables are being used at Citrus Valley High School. I interviewed some students yesterday and here's some of the things they said. They couldn't believe how realistic it was. One student said she felt like she just dissected her brain. She actually did. One student couldn't believe how far you could zoom in to see the images. One student said it's really interactive and you can get a better feel for the functions. And one student, this gives me sort of chills, said she wanted to be a surgeon. By using this technology, students are exploring learning through the use of virtual reality. Students are using cutting-edge technology in Redlands Unified School District, and resources are being committed to support 21st century learning. This can't happen without the work of a lot of people behind the scenes, our amazing IT crew, some of which are here today. Did all the logistics set up and configurations. Our ed tech team, all the training and technical support. Secondary ed for the anatomage curriculum support. Purchasing. and service center for deliveries. And that's not to mention our courageous teachers who are going out on a limb and doing these things that have never been done before in the school district. So I just want to thank everybody and just let you know that there's so much more to come that we're going to be doing this at subsequent board meetings. Thank you.

Yeah, Jamie, stay there in case we have a couple questions. We got to watch some of it, but it was all, yeah, it was all, we were still here. It was all backwards on the screen back here. Yeah, we could make most of it out, yes. But we'll get our, I know we'll get an email copy of that, so that'll be great. Board members have any comments?

Simply amazing. Thank you, Mr. Quartz. Like I said, we were able to see a little bit from the back of the screen. What a great way for our students to learn and learn science. It's awesome. Great job.

There was a little brief time where us as a board actually did get to play around with the board, and it is very cool, so thank you for that.

Mr. Vara. I just want to, you know what, since 2016, and I know you said you mentioned that 2017, we started moving forward, but I also want to mention that we've done a lot at the elementary schools. Students are now using a lot of robotics like LittleBits, Makey Makeys, Raspberry Pis, Hummingbirds, Ozobots, Z Space, the 3D computers, Lego robotics, animatronics, And the students are now at the elementary level learning how to code using Scratch. Then they go into Python. And then as they move on through the middle school and high school, it's C plus. We are definitely moving in the right direction. And Redlands is doing an amazing job. And, you know, thanks to the board for pushing innovation. And thank you for making sure that we get to meet the needs of our students, especially for the 21st century and getting them future ready. Great job.

Thank you, Jamie, and all the teams that worked on this. It's amazing. I do have one question. You mentioned that three of the tables are at REV and two at Citrus Valley.

Will RHS be getting one and Orangewood?

So, Ms. Friendly, the way it started was a pilot, and it started with teacher interest, and it also factored in space for the classrooms and so forth. So this is the first phase. Absolutely, as these are being implemented, there will be more training, more interest, and as that happens, there will be expansion.

Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. Yeah, capital I on innovation. Our Redlands, our USD 2025, you know, one of our benchmark objectives. And we're just blowing through that. I'm so proud and happy of your work. And of course, you did mention the countless people who are involved in implementing anything like this. There's lots of these things going in across the district. And the willingness of our staff and teachers to embrace it and learn it. And our kids are nothing but winners when it comes to this kind of innovation. So, hats off, you know. Your board is extremely pleased with all the progress and what you're doing with that area. So, and to your team as well. All right, thank you. Absolutely. So we're on item eight of the agenda, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome Redlands High School senior, Aditi Patlola. She is our student trustee from Redlands High School. Welcome. So glad you're here. And yeah. And they are glad you're here as well. So we would love to hear, this is your turn to give us a report. Did some of the other trustees also give you some information? So we'll hear a little bit about all the schools, and especially Redlands High School. You're on.

Good evening, everyone. I'll start off my report with Redlands eAcademy. They hosted a fall festival just last week, and they had a great turnout. Many parents were pleased with how welcoming and fun the event was. They also had raffles and photo boots, which all ASB students helped to create. The eAcademy also welcomed a few new students as well as new teachers, and all students, including high schoolers and middle schoolers, have gotten together and spread breast cancer awareness and bullying prevention for this month. ASB set up posters encouraging kindness activities for all students. Now on to Citrus Valley High School. There ASB hosted a Halloween blood drive and its annual ping pong tournament. In the spirit of Halloween, they're all dressing up for Halloween Spirit Week, and their ASB and link crew handed out candy to all CV students. Their theater is performing Alice in Wonderland. Their choir participated in the RCC Festival, and their band plays fourth at Colony Band Premier Tournament. onto sports. Their girls' volleyball made it to the first rounds of CIF playoffs and hosted their senior night. Their cross country ran Mt. SAC Invitational, and football coach Bruin celebrated his 200th win. Redlands East Valley. Their marching band placed first in their competition with a 61.6 score on this past Saturday tournament. A multicultural fair is happening on November 4th. Water polo has been undefeated this season and the stadium that's being built just got turf on it. And last but not least, Redlands High School. Our college day is on November 15th. Sign-ups are still open for college application workshops. You can choose if you want to work on your UC applications, Cal State, out of state slash private, or even your FAFSA. College week presentations will be all this week, focusing on the RUSD partnership colleges, and those are open to all grades. There will be a children's theater festival play for a trip to Neverland and Rose and Thorn on November 4th at 6 p.m. in Clock Auditorium. Our last home football game was on October 14th, and there's an increased turnout because tickets were made free to all students for all their home games. Finally, there's a blood drive on November 9th in the girls' gym, and any sign-ups are from this week and next week till November 4th.

All right, thank you. Any questions from the board?

Just one. Did you bring back the smudge pot?

Yes, we did. I heard.

Uh-huh.

You're good, Mr. Barra?

No, I'm good.

Go ahead. Well, Aditi, I... I'm sure after RHS went 10-0 in the season in their volleyball, in their volleyball season, only to get, go to five games and lose it in sort of overtime, the opening round of CIF. How did they take it? I was there for that final game, and I can tell you, it was like, it was reminiscent of the Dodgers. You know, they were the powerhouse, the favorites. Nobody is going to beat them. And suddenly, fate. So, are they doing okay now? Have you talked to any of them? Do you know any of them that, yes?

Yeah, I do know a couple of them. And they were definitely a little sad that they lost. But they tried very hard this year. And they went very far as well. And I'm sure they'll come back definitely next year.

You know, nobody can take away their season. It was an awesome season, record-breaking. So, nobody can take that away from them. So, okay. Thanks for that report. Very well done. Thank you. We're up to item nine, board committee reports. We'll start with CRIROP.

Mr. Anil, I was not at that meeting, but you were.

Oh, I was at that meeting. Thank you very much. Well, actually, we gave the report at the last meeting, so I think the next meeting is coming up. So we have amazing regional occupational programs in our schools, and Mr. Vara was at the last meeting, thank you, as an alternate, and I know that you were impressed with what's going on with our ROP programs within our school district. Redlands Compact.

I'll have a report next week, next meeting.

Okay, I think I heard that. Next meeting, yes. Redlands Educational Partnership.

Alrighty. The Turkey Trot registration is now open, so if anybody is interested, you can go to repforschools.com and go ahead and register. The kids 1K is at 730 AM, the 5K is at 8 AM. Triple A Academy is having a fall mini camp at Kingsbury, and it runs November 21st and 22nd. If you're interested, you can also go to repforschools.com and sign up for that. And just as a reminder for Grants for Teachers recipients, receipts and proof of use of funds are due by March 1st.

Okay, great. Yep. Turkey Trot, big fundraiser for them. Hope people participate in that, it's great. The Cultural Arts Commission meeting is coming up next month. City Parks and Rec. As promised. You want me to read that for you, Michelle?

Sure.

Save your voice. Sure, thanks. Okay, Parks and Rec Commission. Almost all parks were visited on the tour at the beginning of October. The commission will be discussing the priority of what they saw. For instance, ADA compliance at some parks needs to be addressed. Improving seating areas and adding swings at Smiley Park, Texonia is budgeted for renovations as well. Some teens came and spoke about the desire for the pump track here in Redlands. The commission has voted to make that a priority. Michelle, what's a pump track?

For bicyclists.

Ah.

For bicyclists.

Bicyclists, okay. What about e-bikes? There's no pumping on e-bikes.

I don't know if you can take an e-bike.

That's all I have now. Downtown will have their Trick or Treat event from three to five on Halloween night. Next meeting scheduled for November 10th. Thank you, Michelle. Sandabs.

No report for Sandabs tonight.

Letter G, CSBA Region Delegate Assembly. Well, I can just share that we went to the fall the joint meeting last night and school boards from all, school board members and superintendents from all over the region from Riverside County and San Marino County were there and we had a, I guess you'd wanna call it a committee of people talking about issues that are besetting public schools. So that was last night, no other news on that and the coalition to support our USD. I wasn't around. They have not met, right? Oh, okay. All right, so nothing to report there. So we're up for item 10, superintendent's report. So as you've noticed, the superintendent is not here tonight, but I have a statement here about what he is doing, what he is up to. So our amazing superintendent tonight spoke at the city or is in speaking at the City of Redlands Speaker Series at Esri Auditorium. Too bad we couldn't see that tonight. I would have liked to have been there, as I'm sure many of you would also would like to have been there. He was invited to speak and has been invited to speak each year to provide community updates on the district. And his presentation tonight was entitled Moving Students Forward in Pursuit of Achieving Academic Excellence. I've heard him speak at these kinds of events, and I know he did a stellar job. He's also heading out to the National Center of Educational Research and Technology later. It's a fall conference in San Francisco. He's going to be joined by Ryan Rainbolt. We all know Ryan. from the president of Garner Holt Animatronic Education Through Imagination Program. They're one of our biggest partners for innovation. They're gonna showcase our California School Boards Association Golden Bell Award for the Garner Holt Animatronic Labs that we have at Beatty, Clement, Victoria, and Franklin. And those are our demonstration schools, soon to expand to other school sites. And it's also a model STEAM program and recognized already throughout the state and Mr. Varra on its way to being recognized throughout the nation. Mr. Arellano and Mr. Rainbow will also be presenting to superintendents from across the United States. So they're gonna get their full measure of what's happening here in Redlands. So we wish him well and safe journeys and we'll go to item number 12. These are our business consent items. Mr. Hill, any corrections or additions? Okay. So I will entertain a motion to approve all consent items detailed in 12B to 12J.

Moved. Second.

Who wants it?

Patty can have it.

Patty can have the second, okay. Any discussion or questions? I'll call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. So approved. We're up to item 13. We have none for action items. We'll go to 14. Educational services consent items. Dr. Wagner. No changes or additions. Thank you. So I'll entertain a motion to approve 14B to 14E. So moved.

Second.

I have a motion from Alex. I'll second it. Oh, Michelle. You might have to go to hand signals, Michelle. All right, any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Consent items are approved. I'm going to take items A through D, 15 A through D. I'd like a motion to approve. So moved.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye, so approved. Item 16, human resources consent items. Dr. Robertson Phillips, any corrections or additions? Not this evening, thank you. So therefore, I will entertain a motion to approve item 16B to 16AC. So moved. Second. You guys are really competing tonight.

Sorry, Patty.

All right, Mr. Melissa got that one?

I think I did.

Yeah, I think you did, Melissa. Any discussion? Hearing none, call for the vote. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye, so approved. On action items, In closed session, I'd like to report that the board took action to appoint Jessica Lunsford-Johnson to the position of elementary assistant principal, effective to be determined as step two of the management team salary schedule with the following vote. Ayala Quintero, Holahan, O'Neill, Randler, Vara, all voting aye. So congratulations, Jessica. Are you here, Jessica? There she is. Welcome. Look forward to your service to our district. Thank you. Do you have anybody here with you tonight? You can introduce them. Make them stand up. There we go. All right. Great. Thank you. All right, we're up to item 18, discussion items, instructional materials. We've been hearing from the public with some concerns about a couple of library books. And we've been explaining the process for instructional materials or library books or any materials in the district that someone may feel are inappropriate or vulgar or pornographic in nature. And we have had staff, based on those public comments, look at these books, and it hasn't been determined yet that in fact that is the case. However, we have a process in place, and we're hoping that the process is utilized. That's why we have it, and we're still awaiting any formal complaints on these books, which we have not received. Tonight, as part of our discussion, We've invited our legal counsel, Mark Thompson, to help us in determining next steps, if you will, as we go down this path. We also invited a librarian who works in our high schools. And we're going to have her give us, as a board, some input in terms of processes and how things are done so we have it perfectly clear as we move forward on this topic, okay? So I'm going to hand it off right now to Mr. Thompson and you can give us a little bit of information about Is that fly? Is that pesky fly back? I've been keeping track of him for a few minutes.

All right.

I'll turn the mic over to you.

Thank you, President O'Neill, and good evening to the members of the board. As legal counsel to the board, I've been asked to come and address what's ultimately a First Amendment issue. My understanding is that one or more citizens brought concerns to the board at public board meetings about one or more library books, and that's prompted some questions about what are the appropriate standards, what are the appropriate procedures. And although you should probably never trust a lawyer when they say they're going to be brief, I am going to try to be brief. The legal analysis here is based on Supreme Court authority, and what we know is that the standards for including books and instructional materials to put them in play in a school district are policy based and they're within the broad discretion of a school board. There's significant responsibility and discretion involved in identifying approved classroom materials and instructional materials because those are used by the students. They're mandatory for the students. There's less discretion when decisions involve library books as they are optional. They're not a part of the mandatory instructional program in most cases. And the Supreme Court tells us in Board of Education v. Pico that school libraries are the principal focus point of freedom for students to inquire and study and evaluate and gain new maturity, new understanding, and so forth. And so there are different standards for bringing books into the school district. compared to those standards that must be applied if there's a question of maybe needing to remove a book from the library. It really is a First Amendment issue because there is a high standard that must be applied to ensure that students' First Amendment rights are not infringed by later action by the Board of Education. So the board may remove books from libraries. but only if it's objectively determined by an established procedure that's closely followed and precisely followed, under which it's determined that a book is either pervasively vulgar or lacks educational suitability. Unfortunately, those two phrases, those two terms are not well defined in the statutes or in the case law. But those are the standards, and they do provide some flexibility for a Board of Education to make decisions on whether or not to remove a book if a complaint's been received. Now, these determinations must be viewpoint neutral. That means you can base a decision on content. This is First Amendment analysis. You can base it on content, but you can't base it on a pro or a con position on religion or politics or social issues. It has to be viewpoint neutral. It can't rely on personal beliefs or any subjective standards. It must be an objective determination based on nondiscriminatory standards, and it can't be based on religious or philosophical ideas of the Board of Education. The decision must definitely not discriminate against any protected class. So the goal in making these decisions for any Board of Education as dictated by the Supreme Court is not to suppress the ideas of books or materials contained in the library, certainly not to suppress the ideas or the growth or opportunities for learning for any of the students. It must be based on an objective determination following a policy that there's a lack of educational suitability or, again, quote, pervasive vulgarity, whatever that's determined to mean. It's unfortunately not precisely defined. The board may not deny access to ideas and instead prescribe their own standards for politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, including social opinion. So what's required is that there must be a specific complaint process that deals with the question of complaints and requests to remove materials from the library. And that policy must be followed precisely in every case to pass constitutional scrutiny. And the reason for that is that that cements, that ensures that an objective standard has been used. And if challenges come to the decision to remove a book, The challenge can't focus on, well, you're being arbitrary. You're not applying the same standard for every such complaint. So the clear legal mandate in this case is that the board have a policy, which it does, and that the board follow a policy anytime a request comes in to review library materials and consider the removal of library materials. And with that, I think the board is taking the appropriate action under this case, and it should continue to follow its policy as dictated in your board policies under these circumstances. I'd be happy to take questions from the board.

Okay. Mrs. Holahan, any questions? You're good? Yes, thank you. Mr. Vara, any questions?

Just a comment. So in order for us to follow the nondiscriminatory policy, we need to make sure that we don't censor the books recommended by our librarians.

That's an excellent question and that is where it starts. The adoption of materials and the placement of materials is within the authority of your appointed librarians. And they have standards within their industry for making those types of choices based on educational content or based on general content that's calibrated towards the age level at a particular school in a particular library. The more high level scrutiny comes when a request has come in to modify those decisions, because then you have to look at it from a First Amendment standpoint. But yes, it starts with the librarian, and then if the complaint procedure is invoked, there's a process for that that starts at the school site, involves the librarian and the principal, and moves forward in the process, sometimes ultimately to the Board of Education.

So we have a librarian here tonight also to help us understand what this is about. So I'm going to call Carol Ann Allred. Is she here? Carol? There she is. Thank you for coming out tonight, Carol. So Carol, tell us. Tell us who you are and what you do and your role in the district. OK, thank you. Go ahead.

OK, so I'm Carol Ann Reppleville-Allred. I know she didn't bother with the Reppleville, but that's OK. Well, it was hard for me to see on the screen. It's OK. Nobody can do it once they see it. Anyway, so I'm a full-time teacher librarian at Rev High School. I also have three children in the district. They've had their entire education here. So thank you, everyone, and thank you to all the teachers and staff that have been a part of their education. So at Redlands School District we are super super fortunate because at all three of our high schools and all of our middle schools we are fully staffed with teacher librarians which means they are degreed, highly-certificated, multi-credentialed librarians. And I know that our district is also working towards having our elementary schools have fully degreed and credentialed teacher librarians, which is a big difference from what we have had, although we have had incredible teacher, or sorry, parent volunteers and peer professionals in there. But as the council, I'm sorry I didn't catch your name, but as our council was mentioning, you know there is national standards, there is a lot of training that goes into selection processes and managing the matters of a library and what goes into a library and how it is handled. So first let me start by briefly mentioning the resources and rights that all parents and guardians in Redlands Unified possess. So first, the library catalog for the high schools and middle schools is on each of their websites. So you go on the red website, the CB website, Orangewood, whatever it is, you can see the full catalog there, so you can search anything. There's nothing that can't be seen there. No login required. It will show login, but that's if you were wanting to, your student can do that. That's for trying to save a book, check out a book, renew a book, whatever it is. You can search there to be aware of each and every item in the libraries. If there is a book or any other material that a parent or a guardian does not want their student accessing, they can please call or email us directly, the librarians, and we will block anything on their student's account, no questions asked. That is a parental right. They do not, however, have the right to any other student's account due to privacy laws and First Amendment rights. I'm also here to explain procedures regarding the many concerns over particular books in our libraries that do keep coming to the board instead of to us. First, the selection procedure or process. So I brought the process that is used among the librarians here. Sorry, it's shifting away from the thing. Our library material selection process begins with the RUSD mission statement. I won't read the whole thing. And then just our statement reiterating that the media centers of Redlands Unified School District select materials to provide students with a wide range of educational materials on all levels of difficulties. Let me paraphrase a little bit. The library committee endorses the library bill of rights. So libraries have a bill of rights as adopted by the American Library Association, which asserts that the responsibility of the school library is to provide materials that will enrich and support the curriculum, provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literary appreciation, aesthetic values and ethical standards, Provide a background of information that will enable students to make intelligent judgments in their daily lives. Provide materials on opposing sides of controversial issues so that young people may develop, under guidance, the practice of critical thinking and reading. provide materials representative of many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups, and their contributions to our American heritage. Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality in order to assure a comprehensive collection. So this is what we follow based, like I said, on the Library Bill of Rights and the adoption that we have from the American Library Association. As far as the pared down, when we're actually looking at certain books, whether they be from curriculum or just balancing our collections or updating, we try to keep our collection updated so the kids want to read it. We wish they were up there reading more. Obviously, we start with the book B. 9th to 12th grade level. It needs to be within the range of our high schools. So I'm speaking for the high schools, obviously. It needs to be 9th to 12th grade level. It can't be an adult book. It can't be a middle school book. They're asking all the time. They all want Diarrhea of a Wimpy Kid. And we tell them, sorry, your time has passed. You can't have Diarrhea of a Wimpy Kid anymore. You'll have to get that somewhere else. The things we choose are based on student need, based on school need, curriculum need, wide range of materials. Plus, this book must have three reputable reviews. We're talking Kirkus reviews, school library journal, book lists, things like that, not Amazon buyer reviews. Reputable book reviewers, we have to find at least three of those before we'll accept that a book is gonna be added to the collection. So, and this goes also for any donations or gifts. So someone could gift us boxes of beautiful brand new books. They would still have to meet all this criteria before they would be added to the collection. Oh, second thing that keeps being asked of the board, not of us, is the challenge procedure. If there is a concern for a student or with a book, a parent or guardian will please contact the child's school. That is where the process begins and where this work is done, not here with the board. What a parent or guardian needs to do is fill out a form regarding the library material, preferably after reviewing the material in its entirety. These forms are available from the school principal or from us directly in the library. The guardian can immediately block the item for their child, but the item does remain on the shelves until the process is completed of reviewing the book or other material. The form is the only step that is required for the parent. So there are other steps. Just let it be known to the board that I know this is the third meeting in succession where removing books from the library has been discussed, but all the librarians work really closely together and none of us has received even a single call requesting to start the challenge procedure, seeking clarification, asking us any questions, or doing any fact checking. And to add to that fact checking, one of the things that I would like to have become a non-issue in this conversation is Yes, this book is gay, has never been in any of the school libraries. It's become a rallying point of fear and unfounded disgust. I ask that it stop being used as a way to inflame. It's a non-issue. First thing we did the next day was check our catalogs. It wasn't there. So we checked the archives of our catalogs. We've never had it. So I just wanted to point that, bring that as a fact check from the libraries. Like I said, my kids are here. I love working here. We are very grateful. And we love working in libraries. We love working for these kids, for all of them. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Sit way right there. Thank you for your time. All right. So one thing, may I please? Have you forwarded me a copy of the library selection process that you're using? And the other librarians are doing the same with that, right? Okay, perfect. Because that will help us with our discussions about that. And any questions? Michelle?

Hi, Carolyn. My question is, you were talking about parents filling out that form. Do you allow a student to fill it out on their own behalf?

Am I good to go?

You're good to go.

Okay. You had mentioned that before we are allowed to have books in the library, they have to be reviewed by three reputable, I guess, processes. Can you expand a little bit on that? What exactly does that?

Right, so when we, so for example, Someone will say, oh, I really want to read this book. Like, kids will come to us and say, I really want to read this book. And we'll look it up. And we'll see, OK, first of all, yes, it's ninth to 12th grade level. Then we'll go start looking. First, we'll go to Kirkus, which is a highly regarded book reviewer, and see if they have a good review of it, if they've even looked at it. And if they have, then we know it's not. That's a start. Not that I personally would ever want to, you know, not want to support small publishers and self-publishers, but this is a public school and we need to stick to more well-known, more well-exposed and utilized and looked at materials.

And then you also said that, I guess, I'm assuming there's a list of books that we get that are recommended through the American Library Association.

I don't think we get recommendations from them. We get recommendations of procedure from them. Now I could be wrong because I'm newer to this than some of the other librarians. Corey Crone has been in this the longest. We have subscription services that help us keep our The idea is you don't know what's coming, but we always go and check because we want to make sure that it's keeping a balance in our library, that we're not having too much of one thing or not enough of another or if there's been a lot of requests for something. But no, American Library Association, as far as I know, does not send us recommendations. We get a lot of requests from students, or teachers will say, oh, have you heard about this? Or also, there's so many books that the next one has come out, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. So we try to make sure we keep, because if a kid gets interested in a series, then hopefully they'll keep reading.

Right, right. Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for that. That was very informative. Would you be able to direct us or maybe forward us that the Library Bill of Rights? I'd be very interested in reading that. And approximately, if you could just give me, I mean, I apologize if you can't, approximately what is the percentage of library books that are recommended by teachers or students that are actually in the library?

Oh, that's tough to say because we, so many of the books I mean, I can speak to Rev, because that's where I work, and I'm looking through that collection all the time. When they started it, you had to put something on the shelves, so they ordered a wide variety of many, many things, and we've started looking through some of those novels from 1996, and even sometimes we just put a different cover on them, because it's just so cringy the kids won't even give it a chance. It's a good story, but it's got that 96 cover on it that makes nobody want to read it. So that, I wouldn't even know what to say.

Thank you.

Yeah, sorry.

On your process, when you're getting together to determine what books are gonna be presented, or accepted, is that ongoing, or is it just one time, beginning of the year, mid-semester, or can we say, hey, we want you to look at this book and see if this is gonna be a possibility to be able to bring it there?

It's ongoing.

It's ongoing, okay. So at any time, anyone can bring a book and say, can you look at this in your committee? Perfect. Thank you.

All right. Melissa has one more question.

Sorry. One more question. Please. Just say, a student, you bring in a book in a series, and do you order or do you review each book individually as it's requested? So just say, I'm going to use Diver with Big Kid, for example. We started with the first one. That one, you know, you review it. It's accepted. Do you review the next one? Because I'm a little concerned of what if the content changes. I know there are some books, some series where the main character starts out young in school and then the content does change and evolve to more adult content as the readers get older. So are books reviewed individually or are they just accepted because they're in a series?

I think it's done in a quicker version. So for example, the McManus books by McManus, which have become very, very popular. In fact, they're being turned into Netflix shows. The kids are all still in high school, still all drama-ing each other. So we go through the process a little quicker.

Thank you.

Have you ever been involved in a challenge process?

No, no one has ever filled out a form.

How many years have you worked in the district? Only two. Only two, okay. All right, fair enough, fair enough. Any others? No? See, we really appreciate you coming tonight and giving us the information. I'm sure we'll be talking to you more and your colleagues, so thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Have a good night.

Okay.

All right.

All right. Well, board members, I think that wraps up our discussion on that topic for now. Any other discussion, any questions? Okay. Mr. Thompson, thank you very much for your input here tonight. I'm sure we'll be talking to you again. So thank you so much, and of course Carol for coming tonight. And Aditi, what I'm gonna do for you, because you're a senior, you have a lot to do tonight, don't you? You still have homework. So you can probably watch the rest sometime in the future on streaming, see what you missed, but I'm gonna excuse you as well for tonight, okay? If that's all right with you? Yeah, I think it would be, okay. Thank you. And yeah. Could we get one of our people to escort Aditi out to her car, please? Thank you. All right. Wow. Okay. So we're up to public participation. Item 19. Would you like to stand up and take a stretch out there? I think I would. Everybody can stand up and take just a little one-minute stretch. I'd like to call this meeting back to order. Thank you. I'll wait for a little bit better quiet. Thank you. Thank you. Still waiting for just a couple people to get settled in. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'd like to commend and compliment each and every one of you for allowing us to conduct the business of the board tonight without disruption or interruption. It was very impressive and I do appreciate it. We all appreciate it. So we're ready to go into public comment. I would expect you to continue on this line of behavior and be courteous to our speakers so that we can hear them and hear everything that we have to say. We are on item 19, community input. This is the time that any member of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, provided the person submits a completed registration card, of which we have many. We set the record tonight. This is not meant to be a debating period. You're not gonna hear us say anything. This is your time to make your comment to the board. We're not gonna interrupt you. We're not gonna question you. We're just gonna listen. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium or microphone, announce your name and trustee area in the Redlands Unified School District, if you know it. The chairperson shall limit the amount of time which each member of the public may use in addressing the board. I briefly discussed this with the board members tonight. And because we have so many speakers and we want to hear every single one of you have that opportunity to say something to us, we're going to reduce the time by one minute. You're going to have two minutes. Now, wait. We would encourage you that if you don't get to finish your thought or your message in two minutes, we want you to email us. And we want you to continue to complete your thoughts, and we will all read it. If the board feels like you need a little bit more time, we can decide that. But we have approximately 75 cards, and we would be here until Wednesday before everybody gets to talk. It's going to be late anyway. So just be succinct and direct. And we're going to do our best to get through these cards. If people are saying the same thing over and over again, you can go on record and say, I agree with what he or she said. And we'll take that and mark it down on the card that that's what you wanted to say too, but it's already been said. I hope everybody feels that's fair enough. So, that being, oh. And one more little thing. We have people who couldn't get into this facility because more came than we had seats for. And we even after moving to a bigger facility. So that being said, there are people out there that also want to address the board. So we're going to go back and forth. They've been standing out there watching the meeting on their phones or whatever streaming device they might have. And maybe some haven't heard the board meeting, they're just waiting to talk to the board. So I'm gonna go back and forth between these two stacks of cards. So we're gonna start with those people who are seated here, then I'm gonna go one outside, they're gonna be called in, back and forth, back and forth, okay? I'll try to call the on-deck person so that we can rapid fire this as much as we can to let everybody have an opportunity to speak. So I'd like to welcome podium, first up Sue Apt. Candy Olson, you're on deck.

Hello school board members, cabinet, and community. I'm Susan App from Trustee Area 2. I'm a current teacher with RUSD and a parent of three former RUSD students who are now happy, productive adults. I'm also honored to represent the Redlands certificated staff as their elected president. During elections, it is easy to be distracted by the noise of misinformation around us and forget the focus. Redlands Teachers Association is focused on providing the highest quality education for all of our students in our community. We do this in partnership with the Classified Association, the Redlands School District, and the community. We are proud to have weathered a pandemic together and come back even stronger. dedicated to making sure our students, all of our students, have everything they need to be successful. What we are doing is working too. Public school review ranks RUSD in the top 30% of all California public schools. We outperform the state averages and test scores and graduation rates as well. Can we do better? Of course. There's always room for improvement. And we can make even greater progress by staying student-centered, valuing our staff, building on our successful programs, and working together through our strong partnerships with the unions, district, and community. We will not lose focus. We are educators for all of our students. Thank you.

Thank you. Candy Olson. Jonathan Schidler on deck.

My name is Candy and I'm here in Jim's area. I wanted to address something that you had misquoted that drag queen performance. You said it was an impersonator. No, she was advertised as drag. It was drag queen. It's all over the flyer that everyone got. Also, you said there was no free HIV condoms or lube. Here it is. It was there at the event. So those were not accurate, Jim.

I said that we don't distribute those.

No, it was at the festival that was promoted. We don't distribute those.

I'm sorry, you know what, you're right.

So you took some of my time.

No, that was my fault. Sorry, go ahead.

So, when we have a school board, we want everybody to be honest, trustworthy, upstanding, out, you know, respectable members of the community. And that's what we want. We don't want criminals, we don't want thieves, we don't want anything like that on our school boards. So, you know, we had a lot of our errands signs stolen, so then I put some tags

Erin, Erin, Erin, Erin, I mean Candy, Candy, we're not going to talk about campaign stuff here. This is not, I already gave you that warning. So, I'm going to mark that a disruption. Yeah, no, no, listen. The election is not under our jurisdiction, so stick to what you want to talk to the board about, but don't bring that up again or I'll cut you off. I'm sorry, Candy, you're done. Thank you. Next. Next. Thank you. Yeah, I made that very clear at the beginning. We're not to be campaigning here or talking about any of that, so. And, exactly. No interruptions. I promise from now on. I'm sorry. So that's Jonathan, are you Jonathan? You're up. Welcome. Jared Gustafson is on deck.

I wanted to, and time. I wanted to just come in and appreciate, I am a child and a product of the private school system here at Redlands. I've mixed half my time in the public, and I want to say how much my observation with my child and his how great of a program the Redlands Unified School District happens to be in comparison to my own private school education and the loving and accepting community that you have been developing. I know there's a couple of rough spots that happen from time to time and you can't control all those items, but I want to say that the culture is there and it's observable. And I wish to voice my opinion of saying thank you very kindly for that from things from the Rotaract interactive programs that we've now post-pandemic been able to bring back into some of the high schools. I say that as a rotarian. I genuinely appreciate the ability to know that my child is maybe a little bit different, but he's not afraid to be who he is over here at Unified School District. I appreciate you. I appreciate your efforts. I understand that taking on a public duty is not easy, and I appreciate the work that you do. Thank you, Karen.

Thank you. Jared, you're up. Maria Figueroa on deck. Jared is here. Okay. Is it Gigi B.? Yes. Maria Figueroa. Oh, Gigi, are you right there? Okay.

Good evening board. I'm actually becoming more grateful over the last couple of years. While there have been so many challenges, it has revealed the moral assault on our children and the poor education that they are and have been receiving in our district and state. It is the responsibility of our board members to create a safe learning environment However, we have read articles published this year with headlines stating, Grand Jury says Redlands Unified still lacks proper training to combat sexual abuse. Apparently our district has paid out $41.3 million in the last five years to settle sex abuse cases between the years of 1999 and 2016. The Grand Jury in that case stated that district personnel still struggle with their legal duty to weed out predators within their raids. You might assume our board members would go above and beyond to create a safer learning environment, but instead they have allowed sexually explicit books in our school libraries, and let me say, no one cares about the sexual orientation of those books. They are not age appropriate, do not belong in our school libraries. Let us not forget about the drag show two weeks ago that they did endorse with our high schools. I'm 100% okay with teaching anatomy, age-appropriate sex education, but nothing I have stated previously falls into those categories. With all of this, I am not shocked by our most recent Smarter Balanced test scores. Redlands Unified has a 92% graduation rate, which is very good. However, only 51% met or exceeded requirements in English and literature, only 35% met mathematic requirements, and science at a low 32%. You might assume this is because of COVID and school closures, but that is not the case. In 2019, English literature was only 57%, mathematics at 44%, and science at 35%. In fact, the California has the lowest literacy rate in the entire nation. Our district receives approximately $268 million to educate our children, and I believe it is safe to assume we can do better with our state funding to educate our children in math, English, and science, instead of district personnel striving to be social warriors at the expense of our kids, and a community that begs for diversity and equality. We have none on this board.

Thank you. Maria. Mario presents is on deck.

Good evening. My name is Maria Figueroa.

I'm a resident of the Redlands Unified School District and I am here to address a concern regarding the pool access at Citrus Valley High School. Redlands, or RST, has access to all the pools in Redlands, and roughly 80% of the CV aquatics athletes come from clubs other than RST. Citrus Valley administration supports the use of the pool by the Inland Empire Aquatics, but has been turned away from the district office regarding pool use at Citrus Valley. RST head coaches are also the head coaches at REV and Redlands High School. And this creates inequality with access to Citrus Valley and RST's ability to serve CV athletes. So we are here to request access to the pool at Citrus Valley for Elaine Empire Aquatics. We haven't had a pool for a while. We've requested the use of the pool and it has been denied each time.

Okay, thank you. Mario, and for all speakers forward, make sure that you're speaking directly into that mic because our streaming audience is having a hard time hearing that. So get close and speak.

Can I ask the clerk to please distribute these to the board?

Authoritatively. Yes, of course. And Wiley Smith is on deck. Your time's starting. Go ahead. Oh, is it? I'm sorry.

I'm waiting for you, actually, for you to finish. You have your stuff. We'll reset my time when you all have it.

Thank you. We'll reset the time. Go ahead.

I was asked to speak to you tonight because your school board and your agents have bullied these parents into silence, calling them homophobic, transphobic, and anti-LGBTQ. It is not anti-LGBTQ to tell a child who is 18 to make permanent bodily alterations. It is anti-LGBTQ to tell a girl who's interested in science, technology, engineering or mathematics that those are boy things. My name is Mario presents and I'm the West Coast lead of Gays Against Groomers. It has come to our attention that some of your schools are making vulgar content available to teenage school students. I'm sorry that your lawyer's gone, but in 1982, the Supreme Court case of Pico versus the Board of Education states that pervasively vulgar or even random vulgarity is inappropriate for teenage school students. The court similarly concluded that your retention of these books gives those volumes implicit endorsement. Does your district implicitly endorse teaching a child how to perform fellatio or encourage masturbation in class? The Conejo Valley School District seems to think this is normal behavior for teenage school students. It's not. California test scores show that two out of three students don't even meet the basic California requirements in mathematics, and your district is concerned with pronouns. I guess if you're teaching children how to add sexual partners and subtract abortions, you're on the right track. Districts are hiding pronoun use from their parents, but you can't even give a Tylenol to a child. Gender dysphoria is a medical disorder classified in the DSM as 302.85. You are not therapists. You are not licensed to treat these children, nor do you pay for these children's medical care. Educate them in math, science, and language, and not pronouns or race homosexuals by pushing your son to become a woman and sterilize him. They do enough of that in the Middle East.

Wiley? Wiley? No Wiley? Donna Crowley? Is that Wiley? Come on down, Wiley. Frank Rodriguez is on deck. No, on deck, on deck, on deck.

Okay, welcome. Wylie, go ahead. My name is Wylie Smith. I'm the pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church. I've been a resident of Redlands since 1996. Great preschool. I've had three children go through our beautiful district, first at Crafton, then Moore, then Redlands East Valley. I'm very much invested in education here in Redlands. I assume that it's your first love as well that you are equally invested in educating our children in those things which are deeply true, lasting, that is going to prop up not only their intellect but also our society. And those things are objective, true, eternal. But there's also a bit of a flirtation with those things which only one section of society endorses, and it seems as though y'all want the school to take the place of the family, where those things are imported, encouraged, discussed, where children are molded, and it's not really, you know, The school doesn't derive its authority unless parents give it to them. That is, parents are the ultimate authority. We see that authority to you. And when you use it justly, then the common good is served. But when you embark on a program that is contrary to a universal acceptance, then it's a fractious result. And that's what you're seeing by virtue of your own decisions, focusing on those things which are basic, which we've known for generations, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history, teaching our children how to produce a paragraph that means something as opposed to following some other agenda. So I encourage you very much to go back to that. Thank you. Thank you.

Frank, you're up. Mr. Crowley. Wait a minute. Frank, are you Frank? You're up. Donna Crowley is on deck.

You are all pedophiles shading these kids away from their parents. If you guys would not adjust the way that you talk to these parents, I would not have to be here today. Parents are the ultimate authority over children. They do not have the same rights as adults. These parents have rights over their children, regardless of what your opinions are or any of these radical people that are in this building today. Children that come to school are here to learn and understand, not be indoctrinated into a program where ideally a boy can become a girl and a girl can become a boy, which is medically impossible. Gender affirming care is anything but. Gender affirming care is anything but. Gender affirming care is castrating and chemically inducing children into a life that rips them of the benefits of being a human. All under my name, all under my community. Why? Because my community is filled with mental issues, drug addiction, un-aliving rates, all under the umbrella of wanting to be prideful. This has nothing to do with acceptance, it has nothing to do with my rights. In areas where my community flourishes, we still experience the same results. If you were to be respectful to the parents that stand on my side of the aisle, I would not have to be here today. Going against my community, going against the transgenderism does not make you homophobic and it doesn't make you transphobic. But what does happen is when you encourage this behavior, you become homophobic yourselves. Leave the fucking kids alone.

So future use of vulgarity, we'd like to avoid that. Thank you. Go ahead. Is this Donna? Welcome. And wait a minute. Maria's on deck. Go ahead. Okay.

When my twins were young, they had the opportunity to play club soccer. They had one coach who taught them and mentored them through the years. My husband and I said we gave our parent card to this coach as we trusted him to guide our children to learn soccer. and all those extra things one learns through playing sports, like sportsmanship, hard work, and perseverance. However, there came a time when we could not trust this coach to lead our daughters. Because of his action and his words, he forfeited our parent card, and we had to take it back. I feel the situation with public schools is the same. We as parents entrust our children to those of you in the system, and we hope we don't have to take our parent cards back from you. Now I have sat in church pews with a couple of you, and so I don't mind saying to all of you that as civic leaders, you should rule with righteousness that is virtuously and morally upright. For example, you probably should not go to the country club to meet socially with the school administrator and gossip about teachers. As leaders, shine with goodness on those you contact. Establish guidelines that focus on the beauty of human endeavors. It is in the second book of Samuel that we are reminded he who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as light of the morning when the sun rises. Schools are established to teach our children so they can go into the world and thrive. That is so important to us and to the state that our children are tested on what we expect them to learn, reading, writing, arithmetic, science. Our schools have gotten off track from teaching the things that our children need to know to teaching what some believe our children should believe. I was looking at the RRUSD's test scores this morning, and they range from abysmal to mediocre. Obviously, what we are doing is not working. Now is the time to make up for that. Now is the time to focus on what school is all about, reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. Thank you.

Maria Montes. Is Maria coming forward? All right. Shelby Sullivan. Oh, welcome.

All right, good evening board. I know now that we are kind of in that time of year, everyone's wondering, what does the school board do? And we all show up here and we want to speak to things, but we have to first know what you do. So, Jim O'Neill opened it with, and I appreciate, I'm gonna paraphrase to try to get there, but he pretty much said his job, or your job, is to regularly review the district's accountability performance of student achievement and monitor district policies and budgets. There we go. So what that means is we can take a look at how our students are doing and whether they're thriving or not, and we can come to this board and say, why? You are accountable when they are not doing well, because you are in charge of the superintendent, who is in charge of HR, who then hires the teachers that we trust our children to. However, we look at the results that this board has brought us, and a couple people already mentioned. In our school district, we only have Gosh, the number's so small, I have to really look for it. 57% of our students have met or exceeded English grade level standards. And for math, we're looking at 35%. That's a third of Redlands students can do math at grade level. So we need to take a look at the board and who you're hiring and your policies that are helping and not helping our students. However, I do have to give a shout out. There were three schools that maintained and didn't lose. but we should all be thriving. We shouldn't be celebrating maintaining. I'd also like to share that it's obvious for everyone coming up to speak that there definitely needs to be a school board policy over what is posted on social media. So just like if we were to post a flyer at Minton Elementary, we'd have to get it approved by the district first if it's off campus. If it's Peachtree and we want to do a Boys and Girls Club flyer, it has to be approved through the district. So social media should be the same. So I implore you to create a school district policy on what is being allowed to be posted on social media via school accounts, whether it be an academic program or if it's a club. But it really needs to be maintained and overseen by school district staff.

Thank you. Erica Batista? That's Eric, not Erica, correct? Sorry. And on deck is Kenneth Prado? I'm sorry, I can't read the last name. Okay.

Good evening. My name is Eric Batista. I work at an after-school program. I'm mostly here to make a statement. to not think about ourselves. To think about, for the children, this doesn't come as a religious view or a political view. I'm thinking for the kids. They're our future. We are not. Respectfully, in 20 years, a lot of us are not gonna be here. So the decision we make and implement today will definitely affect them in the future. You guys have grown children. I'm gonna have children of my own. I definitely don't want to send my school with rules and laws that have been implemented by the school board and my kids asking me why is this here. I'm going to be blaming myself for why I didn't step up for my community, for talking, giving my voice to the community. I want the best for my kids and for the kids of the community. I say this in a sincere way. We shouldn't be cutting any fundings for the school. We should fund the schools more to keep them off the streets, to make programs, to encourage them to join programs. I work at a program, and I enjoy working with kids. Like I said, they're the future. I'm not. So they're really important. They're important. Yeah, we just want to keep our kids off the streets from drugs, pedophiles, et cetera, et cetera. And that really means a lot. The school shootings, everything in today's communities, in today's world, it really affects us. It really affects everybody. And I don't want to be a parent one day and to hear the news that my kids have tragically died of a school shooting. Thank you.

Thank you. Kenneth Prado and Ryan Sorba is on deck. Kenneth, how do you, what's your last name?

It is Prado.

Prado, it is right. Okay, thank you.

All right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, board, superintendent that is absent from tonight. When you watch this live, hopefully you see me. My name is Kenneth Prado and I am the president of the Inland Empire chapter of Lexit. So upon the request for us to show up tonight, let me just give you some basis of what Lexit is. Lexit is the nation's largest conservative Latino and Hispanic movement in America. We represent over 500,000 conservative Hispanics and Latinos. And what we do is bring mindfulness to Hispanics and Latinos that you do not need to vote based off the color of your skin. And so tonight we were asked to come out and stand up for parents, for students, because we do not stand behind as an Hispanic and Latino individual behind this curriculum that is being imposed upon our children. Yes, we know that you bow down to the state and funding that you receive goes to you teaching this type of curriculum. There are individuals in this audience that have mocked us. Before we showed up tonight, there's a group called Safe Redlands School sent out a letter on social media stating that they should come out and protest against Lexit showing up. Standing up for parents. You see them. I'd like to reclaim 10 seconds of my time for that. Alright, thank you. Also, there's an email sent out today to over a thousand teachers by a Teachers Association member asking them to come out and support this curriculum and this whole LGBTQ thing that is going on. Antifa is now outside waiting for us to exit. They laugh why you tell me to hurry up. All right. I just want to read your board policy that states that you should Protect our children against grooming. It's in your board policy that you wrote and that's what's going on. And lastly, sir I am requesting for you to reclaim the time of this lady right here candy because I Here it is, ready? Baca versus Moreno Valley Unified School District in 1996 states from a California court that a school board cannot censor particular speech at its board's meetings and the board's policy could not impinge upon the public's First Amendment rights. She needs to reclaim her time, sir.

No, not yet.

No, please sit down.

You don't have you don't you're being disruptive. Yo. Okay, this is the disruptive behavior that I was talking, this was the disruptive behavior that I was talking about. Mrs. Olson, have a seat, have a seat. We'll go in order, all right? She was being disruptive, she didn't follow the rules. Candy. Have a seat. I'll let you come back up maybe later, but right now we're going to... What you're doing is you're really stepping on everybody else's First Amendment right. No, you're stepping on them right now by being disruptive. By being disruptive. Mrs. Olson, please sit down right now. Just sit down. We're going through these cards. I'm not censoring your speech. You are being disruptive. All right. You know what? I'm gonna say it right now. We want to hear what people have to say, but if it's gonna be disruptive, sir, you're excused. You're excused. Yes, you're excused. Thank you. You're just squashing everybody else's right to speak, so please leave. I was in my right. Thank you. Can we continue? You know, And we would love to be able to hear them, sir. All right. If there's anybody else who is going to be disruptive, we will be forced to just cancel the meeting and adjourn. So I would like those people who are going to be disruptive and disallow anybody else from speaking to please your excuse or be quiet. You're welcome to stand there and be quiet as long as you're quiet. All right. We're going to take a five-minute recess and let these people either calm down or leave. We want to hear everybody else. Five minutes. Session. I would like to remind everybody that we're here to listen. But you cannot disrupt the process of this meeting. This is your opportunity to make comments to the board, not to the audience. So we'd like you to stay orderly, control your emotions. We're going to have people come in who are wanting to talk to the board. because now we have some empty seats. If you're not here, we'll just keep it rolling along. If the mood of the room loses control again, it becomes disruptive and disallows anybody from making their point or talking to us, then we'll have to adjourn this meeting and they'll either have to rely on their emails or come to another board meeting, unfortunately. No, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I mean, unfortunate for them that they would have to spend another time. So don't misinterpret what I just said. That's not what I meant. I meant unfortunate for them to have to spend more time. Not that we resent having them come. Okay. Let me find where I left off. Anna McNaughton, are you still here? Oh, we'll wait. Oh, we're still filing some people in for empty seats, okay. And I'll remind everybody when the meeting does end that Our brave law enforcement and security people are here to make sure that you are safe. So if you feel at all intimidated or threatened in any way, please walk up to them and ask them for their assistance to get to your vehicle. Give them a round of applause. All right, we're ready to move forward. Thank you very much for your cooperation and your adherence to our protocols. Anna McNaughton. Okay. Tyrone Wells. Ryan Soriba.

All right.

All right, welcome.

How are you guys doing tonight?

We're doing.

All right. In the Bible, the role of a judge is to bring peace between opposing parties. You guys are adjudicating decisions. And it doesn't appear that you've been very successful at that.

Oh, you've got to make sure you're talking directly into that mic. And this. I don't want to get. Wait, just a minute. No, no, we're going to start your time. Just a minute. Okay, we'll give you your time. Here we go.

All right. In the Bible, the role of a judge is to bring peace between opposing parties. Not only you guys, but many across our entire nation have failed to do that relating to this issue. Because you're stuck in a false dichotomy. Okay? People want you to argue about whether homosexuality is innate or a choice. It's a false dichotomy. It's neither nor. I'm an undercover journalist. I work for national news organizations. And I've served as the executive director for the San Bernardino County Republican Party. I know school board members across this county and the state. And in one of my undercover journalism projects, I went to gay bars. And I said, do you believe being gay is strictly genetic? The answer the very first guy gave to me was, I became gay when I was raped. And I said, whoa, wait a minute. I said, when did this happen? He said it was in Mexico. I said, did they catch him? No. We moved to America. You think you became gay because you were, quote, raped? That it was when he was a kid, because he was a big dude? Yes, he said. Went up to the next guy. Deeply being gay is strictly genetic. Okay, this is at a bar in Vino Veritas in Weiner's Truth. He said, oh my God, I could tell you I was molested in second grade and it affected me. I went on to interview 40 some odd different individuals that self-identify as gay and they admitted that they had been sexually abused. Okay? So there's a pattern there. And that's what concerns people. And you're not allowed to talk about it because of stigma created by the media, by the establishment, because they have more money than the grassroots. The grassroots is pure. They're interested in truth. And the establishment has money because they do pay for play. Quid pro quo all over the place. You do this for my campaign. I do that for you. This occurs. So if you wouldn't. So am I done? Well, I have some interesting stuff, but I can wait.

It's time, I'm sorry, but we'd like to hear your email or get your email on those thoughts. Thank you. And we did extend your time, just so you know, we did have that extension in there. Next we have Jeanette Wilson and then Gregory App.

Good evening. The last couple of meetings have included a young man from Red and many parents objecting to certain books being in the public schools due to graphic and obscene sexual activities, violence, drug addiction, sexual rape, etc. And I know this has caused the group, say Redland Schools led by Amber Easley, to post very angry and untrue information. For example, they posted that these books are health information and that they are gender affirming. These books are not health information, nor are they gender affirming. They have not been written by professionals or peer reviewed. They have information of pornographic content that does not need to be provided at school. And I read excerpts of some of them. It's both heterosexual, homosexual, graphic, obscene sexual information. So I just say, let parents provide it at home if they wish. The intolerance I see is so surprising. These are the same people who circulated a list of small businesses to cancel, quote, not support. They're continuing to defame businesses today for having their own beliefs and values. And I just wanted to let you know, these books are rated, there's many organizations that rate the books, but they're, by book looks org, as all of the books we've been talking about are rated as number four and five, five being the most obscene. And many state that they're not even for people under age 18. And I know that the president and Michelle responded to the, the people, the boy that came from Rev, and now he states that the books aren't on the shelves. However, many are listed.

Thank you. Out of time. Thank you. Carol. Carol Avila. Carol Avila? Or is it I'm sorry, Caro, right? Or Caro, Caro Avila. Welcome. Nicole, Nicole Serres on deck.

Okay, good evening board. My name is Caro and I'm with Lexit. I'm the Latino group that does not like leftism. We're for free country, democracy, not socialism. You started this meeting violating one of the bylaws of the board, board bylaws, 9323B. Individuals, speakers will be allowed three minutes to speak. There's a board on each agenda of an agenda item. The reason why people can't finish what they want to say because they came prepared to do three minutes, because that's kind of what California has allowed and you're violating their rights. We're here because we heard that adult content was being passed out or allowed to children. Now you say that this didn't promote it or didn't fund it, but I think in a time of decreased learning and the kids went through a pandemic, you know, and we have a pandemic right now, a pandemic of perversion, a pandemic where people are allowing children to be, you know, trotted out and, you know, just abused, you know, physically, mentally, you know, we know that, As a Latino, right, 79, because we took out the state records last week, right, a few days ago. 79% of Latinos did not meet the state standards for reading, right? And two-thirds failed the math. So instead of us promoting and wanting to be inclusive and exclusive to all these small perverted groups, we should pretty much instruct our children, you know, make sure that our records are, testing records are higher you know and I know you talked about something about the books that the books don't get put in there through the attorney right unless it passes through some librarian who knows what that person's mindset is you know so all I'm saying is protect our children don't exploit them because there's little and the frontal lobe is still not developed and when you show them these figures of these people these men showing their their body parts you're literally traumatizing them and you're making them question who they are thank you

Nicole Ser. Gina Puerta. It's hard for me to read some of these. Molly Calukkianni. Yes. I guess my Hawaiian is off a little bit, so sorry.

Hi there, I'm Maile. I'm a parent in the Redlands Unified School District and I wanted to speak to the board today because I've been watching a lot of the live streams of the board meetings online and first wanted to thank the board for hearing the community's concerns and thoughts. I wanted to start with the things that I'm proud about being a Redlands parent. I'm proud of being a Redlands parent because of diversity, inclusivity, and having available literature in our library that speaks to many different kinds of people, rather than one group. I'm proud to be a Redlands parent because of inclusivity at school groups, the groups that my children are allowed to be in, and they can pick whatever group they want to be a part of. They can be in middle school, and they can be a part of the Pride Club, They can be a part of drama, they can be a part of a bunch of different clubs that appeals to them. I'm proud to be a Redlands parent because reading is important in this community and diversity and reading is very important. And our books have a variety of different options to read and they're not, there's no glass ceiling for them. Children can read and children can pick books that are best for them to read. Some of the things that have been said in these board meetings are literally not having to do with the education of our children. They are going outside the bounds and bringing in the outside world into our children's education. And I think that today, as much pressure that's being put on kids, these adult things, adult issues, honestly, political issues, are starting to leak into these meetings. And it takes away from the education of our children. And so, again, just really appreciate the board, appreciate your patience, appreciate your thoughts, and the things that you do for our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Andy? I just have Andy, no last name, and John Berry's on deck. Is John Berry here? And Kareem Hitter is on deck, or Karen, sorry, Karen Hitter.

All right, cool. So I'm John Berry, and I was a newspaper reporter for about 20 years in civilian life, including nine at the press enterprise. I'm well versed in freedom of speech and applicable laws. Also relevant, in 1983, I enlisted in the Army and took a note to defend the Constitution against enemies, foreign and domestic. So in 2011, I was in Baghdad, and I had a rocket land right above my head. I was unnerved and okay, but I've shown I've done my bit to stand up against enemies, foreign. Now it's time to stand up against threats domestic. Jim, your dictatorial behavior of freedom of speech violates freedom of speech as defined by the US Supreme Court. Officials, and a good attorney should tell you this, officials can regulate time, manner, and place, but they can never regulate content. So your behavior tonight of arbitrarily banning cameras was unconstitutional. Further, you had no authority whatsoever to shut down Candy Olson from discussing Patty Holohan's association for stolen food. In my opinion, you're dodging your ethical responsibility as an elected official to deal with an important matter with your board. You are dodging, you are hiding the ball, just like Redlands Police is, just like the City of Redlands. I've written two foias to the city. I'm thrilled this has been deferred to the San Bernardino County District Attorney. The public has a right to know about these allegations, Patty, before votes are cast, not after.

Karen. Jonathan is on deck.

Good evening board members. My name is Karen. I'm here because I want to talk about the restrictive use of the facilities in Redlands School District, specifically the pool use. We have about 30 swimmers now post-COVID, but we have had as many as 105 swimmers in the past. We began in 1994, but we have not been able to find a permanent home. We started at a community pool in Highland and then to Pacific High School, and finally we were at Indian Springs High School until we were pushed out by another San Bernardino high school. Some of the things I would like to discuss with you is the fact that Redlands Swim Team has been given exclusive use of the pools in Redlands School District based on some contract that they have that's been dated back many, many years ago. Our team, Inland Empire Aquatics, has kids from Highlands, Redlands, Yucaipa, and other cities that attend Citrus Valley but are unable to use the home facility outside of the high school swim season. The major of the Redlands swim team swimmers go to Redlands High School and Rev and Mount Citrus. We just want a fair opportunity to use or share the facility. The administration of the school supports fair use and should be given the right to choose who uses the pool. Thank you for your consideration.

Jonathan. Jonathan, no last name. Joseph. Moreno? No, we'll start it when you start talking. Are you Joseph Moreno? Yes, sir. Okay, go ahead.

I'm a single father. I have custody of both my daughters. I've had so since they were about one years old. A lot of what's going on with the school district, I don't agree that you guys have a say in the matter How would I teach my kids? And I don't believe that you have that right to teach my kids anything that I don't want to teach them. I'm all for whatever people want to teach their kids and whatnot, but you guys have no right to teach my kids anything. Anything that I don't want them to learn. Okay, you guys want it you guys wanted separation of God and state cool We want separation from you guys trying to tell us what work what our kids are gonna learn. That's not happening You think we're gonna let that happen. It's not happening. Okay, we are rising up. We are being woke We are rising up in this place. We all have kids. You've got kids sir. I you got kids then you know you would do anything in your power to make sure that they're protected and that they're okay and that no one's trying to groom them and that no one's trying to do anything that they can to try to swindle them from being just normal human beings everyone is just a normal human being they're just living their own life and we want to separate what you guys are trying to do from what our parents, we have our rights. Those are our kids. God gave those kids to us. No one else. God didn't say, hey, these are the government's kids. These are the school board's kids. God said, these are your children. Okay, you teach them in the ways of where I want them to be taught, period. Thank you.

Tina Senero Norby, Tina. And Susan Broom is on deck.

Good evening. My name is Tina Escobedo Norvie, and I am the proud mother of a craft and cougar. I am also a former RUSD student. I am an actual member of this community, and I wasn't asked to come here because I can speak for myself about my concerns and for the calls to center the knowledge available to our students. There's a lot of homophobic rhetoric and misinformation being spread at these meetings. These ideas suggest that pornographic material can be found in libraries of our school. As members of this board know, that is false. Pornography is the visual or written depiction of sexual content with the sole intention of sexual arousal. A book containing sexual content does not immediately make it pornographic. This is a matter of free speech. There are books with heterosexual sexual content in our school libraries. Members of our community were silent until it involved LGBT-related books. That is discriminatory and can't be stood for in our district. I'm thankful for our district's equitable policy on review of library books and for our librarians for protecting parents' rights and our children. I have heard the word groomer when members of our community speak out against homophobia. I find it ironic they're calling queer community members groomers considering the cases involving inappropriate employee-student contact and the cost of Redland School District $41.3 million in lawsuit payouts were committed by heterosexuals. Heterosexual groomers. I want to end my statement by emphasizing my firm support of a continued inclusive access to knowledge. I want our LGBT students and our students' queer families to feel safe to exist in our community. Thank you all, and have the night you deserve.

Thank you. All right. So, I'd remind everybody it's important to keep quiet while they're talking so that we can hear them and not interject your own thoughts or feelings or comments while they are talking. Thank you. Listen. If you're going to be disruptive, don't ruin it for everybody. You'll have to leave. Excuse me. Who's talking? You're. We wanna hear people. Please, Susan, are you, Susan? Yes. Susan.

Thank you. My name is Susan Broome and I live in District One. I'm the parent of two former RUSD students. And I also want to urge the school board to investigate and reprimand the administrators and the clubs who promoted and endorsed the drag queen event at Ed Hill Park recently. It desensitizes children to hypersexual images and situations, glorifies transgenderism, and destroys their sexual innocence. The school board should immediately pass a policy that forbids hosting or endorsing such events in the future. I'm also demanding that all explicit sexual content and pornographic books and books that normalize aberrant sexual behavior be immediately removed from all the school libraries. We need to remove all gender ideology and clubs that celebrate sexual orientation. None of this has anything to do with education. The social and school sanctioned indoctrination of children is resulting in a massive spike in gender confusion and transgenderism in children and adolescents. And we know that is a huge money maker for many, many people. So big pharma, social workers, you name it, lots of people benefit financially from the spike. And I'd like to just really quickly say that when my students were at RUSD, I had a child with ADHD who stole some office supplies from her fifth grade class. And you know what I did? I turned her in. And you know what happened? She got suspended.

And you know what she is today? She is the most honest person on earth because I didn't tolerate her life. I never tolerated her lying. And we need to not tolerate, I don't care who they are or what their position is, to not tolerate people lying about things that they shouldn't even be involved in in the first place. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. And one of these criminal acts took place in front of my home. So you need to be accountable for that. And you know who I'm talking to.

Sarah Beaton. Sarah Beaton is up. Sarah's not here. Jonah Martinez.

Good evening. My name is Jonah Martinez and I am and I still will be a member of the Inland Empire Aquatic swim team. I'm here to address our access to the Citrus Valley High School pool. I've been a member of this family for six years. We have all grown close together. Even through COVID nothing had broken us apart. And now thanks to the relevant and old contracts exclusive clubs. and decisions made by the district and its boards, we are ultimately being torn apart. All of my will, ambition, and growth has been rooted in IEAQ. We have become more than high fives and pats on the back. In these past six years, I have found value in this sport and in this club. Much of my life has revolved around swimming, around not just swimming, but the people on my team have always supported me. We should not be going through all this trial and hardship in order to become a team with the same opportunity as every other one in the swim community. RST currently occupies every high school pool in RUSD. They control the Citrus Valley High School Pool, a pool that has been built by our coach. Our club has pushed through and through, only to be denied and denied in these past couple of weeks. It is a simple request to find a new place we can call home for our team. This issue is beyond contracts and rights and laws. I just want to be with my teammates again. I want the advice and guidances of my coaches again. And I want to be able to feel the thrill of racing again. We're all a group of kids voicing our needs to be together as a team once again. Thank you.

Mark Hitter. Bryce Hitter. Bryce Hitter. Mark Hitter.

Hello, my name is Bryce Hader and I'm here on behalf of my club swim team, IAQ, the Inland Empire Aquatics. Currently I'm here trying to get a pool for my fellow teammates. I've been on IAQ for 12 years now and have moved pools several times and now successfully, but we've been left without a pool because another school has had instruction done at their home pool. Me and many other swimmers on our team want to go to Citrus Valley High School, and lots of us want to go to a college or a university. Recruiters come down for club swim meets to come see us at swim meets such as Winter, Age Group, or Junior Olympics, even small league meets, but they do not come down to watch high school swimming. And now without a pool, we don't have the opportunity to get scouted by recruiters and we are losing another opportunity for our future in college. Our team is considerably more affordable than most other swim teams in this area. This gives our swimmers more chance of swimming in college. Thank you.

Mark, Mark hitter. Mark Hitter? Sonya? L or C, I can't tell. Oh, Mark, are you Mark? Oh, welcome.

Good evening. My son's the one that just spoke, and I'm very proud of him. He's achieved a lot. All these kids back here have. I am the former head coach of that team back when it started in Highland. We've gotten pushed out of multiple pools, multiple things, and we've always come back strong. COVID hit us. We're coming back. Right now, we've gotten pushed, but we don't have a home. Majority of these kids all go to Citrus. My son, when he He competes in Junior Olympics. He medaled. He competes in winter age groups. He makes CIF. He is representing, even in the off season, he's representing Stitches Valley. He is a product of that. He started that team when he was five. A lot of these kids have started when they were little. It's not just a team, it's a family. I've gone to weddings, I've gone to graduations, and I've gone to funerals, and they're all family. Given these kids need this opportunity, what's holding them back is a extremely archaic contract that does not allow them to use their home pool and help build that team, help build that school up stronger. It's time for that to change. These kids love that pool. That coach has built that team up. And he has them all year long. They all look up to him. He's helped building this town. You got one team that is tying up every single pool. I don't think that's fair. We also take a lot of kids who can't afford that team, can't afford these larger teams. We give them that opportunity to come with us. and give that opportunity to grow. Thank you very much.

Can I get in? My name is Hannah McAnus the Edmondson. I'm a Redlands Unified School District graduate, and I own a home here in town. I stand on the side of love, knowledge, inclusivity, and most of all, kindness. Banning books is a road sign on the highway to fascism. Do you know why they ban books? To keep people ignorant and isolated and afraid. Books are powerful because they help kids understand that the world is bigger than their parents or their church or their town. It is a world full of possibilities. It's a world where children can find the love and acceptance for who they are, even if their parents or church reject them. Thank you for being our brave board members who continue to show up for the kids of our beloved city, despite people who come to disrupt themselves.

Okay, just a minute. We're stopping your time. People that are interrupting and disrupting her speech, you're excused. If my security people can see them. Have a good night. Thank you. Goodbye, otherwise we're going to have to quit. Let's go. You cannot interrupt her. I'm asking you to leave. Thank you. You're excused. If there's anybody else who can't control themselves, you're excused. Ma'am, are you ready? Okay.

Thank you. Thank you to our brave board members who continue to show up for the children of our beloved city, despite people who come to disrupt and sow unfounded anger and fear into our community. You inspire me and you give me hope. You are not alone. Our community is bigger than the few who are filled with hatred tonight. Thank you for serving our students. We may not show up in the numbers like this for every board meeting, but we are here cheering for you from our busy homes, grateful for your integrity. Thank you.

Lily Flores. Max, Max Perry, you're on deck. Lily's up. Welcome.

Hi, my name is Lily Flores and I'm a four-year member of Inland Empire Aquatics. Recently, we have been removed from our previous home pool and I'm here to ask for the opportunity for my club team to swim at St. Louis Valley High School. Inland Empire Aquatics has had an impact on the Redlands community as we have had to send many athletes to the collegiate level and recently we have had a swimmer participate and earn a bronze at the Down Syndrome International Swim Championships in Portugal. Being on this team has inspired me to continue my swim career in college, and without a pool to train in, I will unfortunately not be able to continue my athletic career. As a senior at Citrus Valley High School, I think it's bizarre that my coach is both the head coach of Illinois Paraquatics and Citrus Valley High School, and we cannot use that pool to train in. Swimming is a big part in both my mental and physical health, and even knowing there is a possibility my club team may have to end because we don't have a pool to train in is beyond worrying. Thank you.

Max Perry and Jermaine Miles is on deck.

Hello. I'm a community member that was raised in Redlands and attended Redlands High class of 2000.

Get really close to that microphone, please.

I attended Redlands High School class of 2000. I identify as gay but didn't come out until I moved away from Redlands because of the culture of shame and fear that I felt growing up here at the time. I wasn't sure how my family or church would react to the news and waited until I was safely in another city before coming out. I was lucky that my family accepted me. But knowing I would be leaving was the light at the end of the tunnel, which is sad to say about this town. Knowing that the culture of fear and shame around sexuality that is sown in this city by fear-mongering and fear-based control is what leads to LGBTQ youth having disproportionately high levels of suicide and houselessness. I've lost two queer friends to suicide, one here from Redlands. Some of you might have known Josh, a beloved server, for years at Benjirong, and before that, Caprice Cafe. It's sad that he never made it very far past his birthday of 30 because of depression in a society that villainizes and demonizes us. As a teenager, I too was depressed and held suicidal ideation because of fear of being rejected by society. I thought it would be easier to die for my own hand than to get murdered by an angry neighbor or than to disappoint my family. But luckily, my love of life was stronger than my fear of rejection. I came out with the resources I received in my new home in the community of Santa Cruz. I didn't know depression or ideation again for nearly two decades until my father got sick and passed, and I moved back to become a caretaker for my mom. It's very troubling to face these dark thoughts again, and Redlands does not have a strong community that provides adequate resources for the needy. Queer youth of today deserve better than fear and shame, and to see something besides suicide is the way out. We deserve the same basic dignity as everyone else, even though and especially because we have unique challenges. Thank you for your time. Please don't feel pressured by these fascist individuals that do not care about basic dignity of queer children. And please do not silence the liberty of our libraries. Do not silence the students' or the teachers' abilities to aid queer youth. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mandy Parks. Before we start, who was the person that was interrupting the speaker? You're excused. Excused. We're trying. Mandy, is that you up there? No. Who's that? Mandy? No. Are you Mandy Parks?

Jermaine Miles.

Oh, you're Jermaine. I'm sorry. I had the wrong card. So Jermaine Miles.

Yes.

Okay. And then Mandy Parks is on deck. Thank you, Jermaine. Go ahead.

Good evening and thank you. I want you to know that we are here in support of our LGBTQ students. We support you as our school board. and the amazing and wonderful teachers throughout the Redlands Unified School District. I am here because the distressing things that I've been hearing, the hate and the bigotry that's being expressed in these meetings, not only in the last meeting, but again tonight, it's very distressing. It's time to stand up against this hate and this bigotry. Thank you for clarifying the untruths that were told at the last meeting. These outrageous statements are literally risking these students' lives. So we ask you to please, I urge you to please make a statement as the school board, a statement of inclusivity, especially as it relates to our LGBTQ students. Full support for you is so important. And I know, I've watched, I know the abuses that you have endured over the last couple of years in your board meetings. And I want you to know that I support you, we support you, we believe in you. But it's time to make a statement as a board that our school district is inclusive of everyone. Please make that statement, protect these students, respect these students just like every other student in our district deserves. And lastly, on a personal note, I want to say to all the LGBTQ students out there, we support you. We will stand with you. We are here. We're not going away. And we love every one of you. Thank you.

Curtis. Curtis Dyson. Mandy is up. Curtis Dyson on deck. Mandy, are you here? Okay, Curtis, you're up. Tracy Wise. Jen Yehubian. Oh, hello, Tracy.

Good evening. I'm Tracy Wise and I'm a resident of Redlands. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you tonight. The future of our community, the health of our community moving into the future is education. Building a robust cradle to career structure that involves the entire community is key. I was very pleased to see on the agenda some of the organizations and partnerships that RUSD is involved in. But the backbone of our pre-K through 12 education is our public education because it provides access to everyone regardless of their income level. And so every student who is provided with access needs to have access to that information. data, history, knowledge, all of that there, and not to have it censored. And in addition to the access, because that is not enough, is ensuring that children can learn in an environment where they feel safe, and supported based on who they are, that they are not being othered or outed or bullied for their differences. And so I want to let you know that I truly believe the people of Redlands is proud of our diverse and growing diversity of our community and that we want to provide a robust public educational system. And I want to thank you all for your work.

Thank you. Jen, are you here? Rebecca, we're on deck.

Hello board members and cabinet. I want to thank you for the work that you're doing, particularly your work in equity And Mr. O'Neill, I would like to thank you for your attempt at bringing decorum to this meeting. I decided that I wanted to speak after hearing some of the live feeds and watching and some of the behavior and some of the comments especially about the LGBTQ community. I am here for our little maxes and for our children of the future so that they do not find themselves in places where they don't feel like they have a safe space, where they are looking for options out of life rather than to get into life and to live it and to explore it and to really find themselves truly. So I appreciate, I'm a proud member of the trustee area too in Redlands. I live there here. I am the counselor, an elementary school counselor at Mentone Elementary School and I love it and I love the work that we are doing. We just finished our bullying prevention unit and I will tell you, What we do is we recognize, we report, and we refuse. And what I have seen in these board meetings is a lot of bullying. So I'm here to report. I recognize that it's happening, all of the signs of bullying. I'm reporting. I need to report that bullying is happening. And I'm refusing. And I'm saying, we're not having it. We're not having it in Redlands. Most of these people who are coming, they don't live here. They're coming from outside of our community. to disrupt and to bring in their hate and to bring in their exclusion rather than inclusion. And I love that our board and I love that our district is moving towards equitable practices with our equity teams, which I'm a part of. And I really just love all the work. And so I thank you for the work that you're doing. I commend you for listening. Thank you, thank you. Nonsense, so thank you, thank you.

Rebecca? Ingrid Moreno is on deck. Ingrid Moreno is on deck.

Good evening, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. This is my first board meeting and I regret that I felt compelled to come because I have been watching and listening and reading and I'm really saddened to see the kind of discourse that has been happening, especially here tonight. And I felt like it was important to come out and say that I am a lifetime Redlands resident. I am a graduate of Redlands Public Schools. I went to Mariposa, Moore, and RHS, go Terriers. And my children go to Mariposa, they're proud monarchs. I also attended the University of Redlands, and after that went to our nation's capital and worked for Congress. Congressman Gary Miller, to be exact, who was a Republican that represented Redlands for a while. I'm now an attorney and I spent 10 years of my career in public service and I'm teaching business law at a local university. So I know a little bit about what it is to be a public servant and an educator in 2022. And it is a thankless, tedious job as we have seen tonight. So I wanted to come and say that I support you. I believe in you. I thank you. I want you to stay the course and do what's right for all of us, not just a vocal minority of non-residents, for the parents that actually have kids in school and that are depending on you to keep this an open and inclusive public education system that we can all be proud of. Thank you again for all of your service.

Thank you. Ingrid. Ingrid Moreno. Audrey Richter. Tracy Lowenthal. Nicholas Hall. Oh, Tracy. Nicholas Hall on deck.

I'm a clinical psychologist. I have worked with queer people, trans people, and people of color for two decades.

Right into the mic, please. All the way up. There you go.

I have provided LGBTQIA trainings to mental health and medical providers at higher education institutions including Loma Linda University. I know the impact on communities and schools express acceptance and inclusivity through acts such as flag display or stocking relevant material on library shelves. These materials represent a lighthouse or a small sign of potential safety and value. For kids who are not queer or trans, it demonstrates that all of us deserve representation in the classroom. Senate Bill 48 mandates inclusive education, including instruction about diverse groups and names, specifically lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Americans, and persons with disabilities, along with other ethnic and cultural groups and their role in the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America. Vague references that LGBTQ books are satanic or pornographic are uninformed and serve to create ideological, fear-based education in our community's public schools. This is unacceptable. It's also not something that school boards decide. It's something that happens at the state level, and in the state of California, inclusive education is the law. Research tells us that queer youth who live in communities that are accepting and inclusive of all people report significantly lower rates of suicide than those who do not. The opposite is also true. The propaganda we heard tonight will cause mental anguish and lead to suicidal ideation among our youth. Ignorance is the parent of fear and fear is the parent of hate. Do not let ignorance of our diversity as human kind feed your fear and your hate. It is causing our children harm. Inclusive education represents hope. If you are a part of the LGBT community, you matter, you are worthy of love, respect, and representation in celebration.

And Matt Keeley is on deck.

Great. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Speak right into the microphone loud and state your name, please.

Thanks. Thanks for allowing me to speak. I think with all this time, we would have figured out exactly what I wanted to say, but you know, I don't really know. I just felt compelled to come up here and speak my mind. My name is Nick. I'm a resident here in Redlands of district one. I'm an educator. I work with college-age students, but I know the importance of education. I have a degree in political science and one in education, and it's really cool to see both those things kind of combined here with this school board meeting. It's the first one I've attended, and it's been interesting to witness. But I just wanted to say that I think it's important to support our LGBTQ youth in our schools. I know that one of the most important outcomes for a successful education is that students feel safe and supported in their schools. So I ask you to continue to prioritize that. And yeah, that's really all I have to say. Thank you.

Gretchen Andrews on deck. Oh, are you Matt? Oh, I'm sorry. Let's wait. Matt? I'm sorry. So, Matt and then Rudy. Okay.

Hello. My name is Matt Keeling. I have two kids at RUSD and live in Area 4. I would like to thank the board for keeping schools an inclusive space. After attending the last school board meeting, I wanted to address the extreme homophobia some in the community presented last time. Why are these people so afraid of the LGBTQ community who has not done anything to them? It's the same phenomenon of the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s, which was proven false. There were children taken away from their parents and people falsely imprisoned due to irrational fear. It's the same phenomenon that led to witch hunts and pogroms of the past, a fear of a minority many do not understand. So they blame them for unrelated problems and claim they're protecting their children by persecuting them. Schools have worked to include LGBTQ students because the suicide rates amongst these youths are so high. According to the NIH study, 82% of transgender individuals have considered suicide and 40% have attempted it. That is what should offend parents, not sex scenes in literature. I leave with one more statistic. According to a survey by the Trevor Project, LGBTQ youth who do not hear their parents use religion to say negative things about being LGBTQ were at half the risk of attempting suicide. Last meeting, some told us that LGBTQ youth do not exist. When they tell you that God does not want them to exist, it's easy to see how damaging that could be to a young person. As a Christian myself, I implore you, choose love, not hate.

Rudy. Gretchen Andrews. Gretchen Andrews is on deck. Gretchen Andrews. Rudy, this is Rudy.

Hi, my name is Rudy Whitmore. I'm a licensed clinical counselor in your town. I'm also a queer person, and I specialize in seeing queer and trans students and people of color. One of my colleagues has already spoken about children's mental health. A few other people have as well. The thing I want to say is that I am so tired of my children coming in and saying they want to die. We have already had a child kill themselves this year in a Redlands middle school. This kind of rhetoric increases those numbers over and over and over. The National Institute of Health has shown it over and over. There are 10% of all the students in California schools identify as LGBTQ. Everyone knows that reported numbers are low. So if 10% is reported, what is not being said? And what those children are hearing is that they don't deserve to live, that they don't deserve to be here, that they are unsafe. I have never once had a client tell me that they hated who they were. They were afraid of what the people that they loved would think of them. Their teachers, their peers, their parents, and their siblings. And I know that there have been students who have had teachers in Redlands schools save their lives. By being that one person who looked at them and said, I see you as a whole person and you are safe and loved here. Children need that. They need to know that they are safe. And I know that you guys are doing the best work you can. I really appreciate that. These kids shouldn't hate themselves and live in shame and fear that the people who are supposed to unconditionally love them won't.

Gretchen and Laurie Ann Doll is on deck.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to address you guys. My name is Gretchen Andrews. My kids and grandkids have gone to school and led with public schools and have had a wonderful education. Thank you so very much. Books are a gateway to anywhere you want to go. And when somebody decides to ban books, That just doesn't work. Children need to have the opportunity to read whatever books they want to have. Clearly parents have the opportunity to say, I don't want my child to read that book. But nobody has that opportunity to tell my kid they can't read that book. Please, no censorship. Thank you.

Lori and Joseph Parsons is on deck.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Laurie Ann Dahl, and I live in the Michelle's district. First, I wanted to commend our school district for allowing teachers and staff to have pride pins and plagues in classrooms, as well as reading LGBTQ plus materials on campus so that our LGBTQ plus students can feel fully involved and included. Those materials and items can foster discussions and lessons that do not only help the LGBTQ plus students but their peers. It is important for students to learn about and interact with a wide range of social groups so that they learn to have empathy for people in their community as well as confidence in themselves so that when they are older they feel comfortable in interacting with others. I have always felt that it is important for my children to be accepting of others. No one is being groomed or indoctrinated because the classroom has a pride flag, a teacher wears a pride pin, or students are asked what their pronouns are. Second I would like to ask why our district and board has not made a statement to support our LGBTQ plus students. I am sure you are aware of the high suicide rate among them. Words hurt and our vulnerable students deserve to know that they are appreciated and supported by the adults in our district. To any student who is a part of the LGBTQ plus community, please know that you have a whole lot of people in our city who stand with you and will make sure you have a safe, welcoming space to learn in. We will not let hate win. And to the Board and Cabinet, I know your jobs are not easy. The work necessary to make our schools safe and inclusive is difficult. I appreciate you for the work that you have done. I just ask that you make a stand and work just as hard to support our LGBTQ students. They matter.

Joseph Parsons. Wendy Ingram is on deck.

I want to talk about how my name is Joseph.

Get right into that microphone, Joseph, and speak loudly. Thank you.

My name is Joseph. I'm from Redlands High School. I'm in 11th grade. I want to talk about a few things. How one, my teacher, she didn't have an American flag in her classroom, which was very, very disrespectful. And I know it's against the education code as well. I also want to talk about how I get dress coded for wearing patriotic things to school. And people around school are wearing dog colors, wearing things that you can use as a weapon during a fight, or just things like that. It's just around their necks. There's things hanging off their backs. And if they're really wanting to protect our children, then they shouldn't be wearing that. As well as I want to talk about how one of those, just a security guard that is on district leave right now. Wendy Ingram.

Dina Jensen. Arisa Owen. Kristen Stevens. Pat Molnar, you're on deck.

I've waited 30 and a half hours. Hi! All right. Thanks for sticking with us. My name is Kristen Stevens. A little background about who I am. I've grown up in Redlands. I graduated from Redlands High School. I work in Redlands. And I have several family members in the Redlands School District. Right now, I am in my senior year at CSUSB. Go Yodis. I am studying to be a teacher. I have questioned Okay, I have a question for the teachers in this room. What would you say is the most important part of writing a lesson? For me, I'd have to say it's the objectives of the lesson. We created objectives to track our students' progress and to challenge them to understand topics deeper. So, next thing I did was I thought, okay, what are Redlands School District's objectives and goals for their students? So I went online and I found them. They're listed as priorities, not necessarily goals or objectives, but we're going to go with it. The last priority on Redland's USD website listed, or it says, provide opportunities for every student to participate fully. For students to participate fully, children need to feel safe, comfortable, and free to be themselves in the classroom. That's pretty much it. Lastly, I'd just like to thank every teacher who's in this room tonight. I see you, and I see the energy and the work and the love that you pour into those kids every single day. And I appreciate you.

Thank you. Pat Molnar. Tristan Clark is on deck.

Good evening board and community members. I am Pat Molnar. I am a 27 year veteran teacher here at Redlands High School. I am a proud advisor for the GSA Club at Redlands High School. I want to say thank you very much. The last time I spoke was to say thank you for keeping our kids safe. with COVID when it was especially virulent. I want to also say, speaking up about LGBTQ students, because I have children of my own. Yes, the kids are in danger. They're in danger of bullying, harassment, the kids in my club and my own children. They have considered whether their life is worth living. Please speak out in favor of the students. They deserve your support. I want to say also that in terms of reading, students deserve a wide and diverse reading, and they deserve to be challenged. My goal is not to keep everybody comfortable. History is not comfortable. When you look at the history of the United States, there's much to celebrate, but there's much to question as well. We deserve to have books, the children deserve to have books that help them look at the world, not from the small lens that they're of life as they know it now, but the life that they're growing into. High schoolers don't deserve to be coddled and only be given a milk toast, simplistic view of the world. They need to be challenged. I, if I was good at indoctrination, all of my kids would have their homework every day. They don't. They really don't. They really don't. And if they were, if they were, if they would follow my rules, obviously you tell a kid don't do something, kids question that's their nature. And in our society, you just have to look at highway 10. You give a rule, people don't follow it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tristan Clark. And Anel Albertao is on deck.

Hello, everybody, and thank you for taking the time out of your day to hear everybody speak. I'll keep it short and sweet. I have two young daughters in the Redlands School District, and I believe that every child deserves representation. Gay, straight, LGBTQ, whatever it is, we're all human. And we deserve the opportunity to be safe and secure and the resources to do that, whether it be books, our teachers' education. I think that it's very important for us to just be a society and be diverse and just carry on and learn about each other rather than just one narrow aspect. So, yeah, thank you very much.

Felipe Alberto is on deck.

Hello, good evening. I am here representing Redlands. I am a resident of Redlands. I'm a graduate of Redlands High School. My name is Anelle Albertao. I live in District 3. I have a child who currently attends Redlands Unified School, and I just have to say thank you. I have seen him flourish. I especially love everything you're doing with technology. He is coding. He's 10 years old, and he's coding. I mean, that's amazing. And I love that. I am myself a technologist. I've made every effort to make sure my son is learning, and I love that you guys are focusing on the future. We can argue about what we think is right right now at this moment, but the truth is, ten years from now, life will be different. We need people who are prepared to work in the jobs of the future, such as working on electric cars. So, I am grateful that this school district is investing so heavily in technology and developing students and being diverse and being able to problem solve because those are the jobs that are going to be able to pay so that our kids can have their own homes. We need to talk about the reality of the world, and it's kids learning, kids being able to participate in society and being able to take care of themselves. But that starts with education, understanding other people, understanding that the world is bigger than just that little block they're from. When I was a student in Redlands Unified, I had the opportunity as a Latina first-generation college student here to participate in clubs and activities that opened my mind and read books that just changed my world, such as The Scarlet Letter. I love that book because it taught me that just because you're a religious person doesn't mean you know everything, but you can't deny it. You can't deny it. Thank you so much.

All right. Felipe and then Audrey Richter.

Good evening. First of all, I'm a proud Latino-American, and these Latinos here do not represent me. Second, Redlands Unified is literally under attack today. There is a plan. to defund our public schools. Their plan is to reduce the teacher salaries, decrease funding for school programs while keeping attacking schools on diversity and inclusion issues. The candidate that we are opposed is supported by the Redlands doctor who donated almost half a million dollars to defund our public schools. Their plan is to use our collective tax dollars to educate their children in private schools. That's why they call it voucher. That's the plan. They keep coming here, bullying us and attacking us in public schools of every chance they can because they cannot accept schools for all. For all. They want schools that they can control and they want us to pay for that. Their ultimate goal is to destroy public schools so the public is forced to pay for private schools for them. We must defend our public schools and LGBTQ plus kids belong here. Thank you.

Audrey. Steven Kemp, you're on deck.

Words are not—my own words fail. I'm just a human. There's many things I'd like to say, but I will use the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Leviticus 20, one through five. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel, any one of the people of Israel or of the stranger or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given one of his children to Molech to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do it all, and if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. Let him who has ears hear. Not everyone who hears these words can understand them. But let him who has ears hear the word of the Lord. I'd like to just say this to Patty Holahan. I don't know your heart. I don't profess to know anything about you. But the proverb that came to mind when all of this was happening this past week was, and I'm not claiming that you're evil, but this word came to me that in Proverbs 29, verse 6, it says, evil people fall into their own tracks.

Thank you. Thank you.

I was done.

Julie, thank you. Julie Houston is on deck. Steven Kemp, is Steven here? Is Julie here? Julie Houston? Julie's coming up. Kelly? Yes, thank you. Goodbye. All right, Julie.

Hi.

Hi.

Good evening, school board and fellow residents. As a member of this community in District 3, As a licensed clinical social worker and fellow public servant, I recognize the importance of the seat you hold in serving this community. You guys have tough jobs, and I can only imagine how tired you must be. You have a duty to ensure the children of this community have a safe environment to learn and have representation in their curriculum, and this includes our LGBTQ youth. LGBTQ youth have a right to feel safe and included in the classroom. LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. Transgender and non-binary youth face elevated risk for depression, thoughts of suicide, and attempting suicide compared to youth who are cisgender and straight, including cisgender members of the LGBTQ community. Books with representation matter. Inclusive classrooms matter. I appreciate the efforts that have been made and ask that you continue to support our LGBTQ youth. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Katie Egan. Katie, are you still here? Rosemary, is it? I can't read it, but I think it's Toohey? Or Touchey, Toohey? Toohey. You're on deck. Go ahead, Katie.

Good evening, board members and Redlands community members. I am a licensed clinical social worker who works in this very county, and I grew up attending school in this very district. As a social worker, I am bound by an ethical code to advocate for social justice, equality, and inclusion. And as school board members, you have a responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive environment for children in the community. Recently, there has been an increase in hate and discrimination towards our most vulnerable children, particularly the LGBTQ plus children. As we've heard, and I will reiterate, the Trevor Project estimates that at least one LGBTQ plus youth attempts suicide every 45 seconds. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 12, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth are at a significantly increased risk. Knowing this, I urge board members and community members to move in a direction that makes these children's lives easier and not harder. Move in a direction that is accepting and not ostracizing, safe and not dangerous. Lastly, I just want to say, let's give these swimmers their pool. I appreciate your time.

Rosemary?

I'm so impressed with how you handled this. I had planned something, but we're not going there. I live in area five. I'm a retired special ed teacher as well as a retired attorney. And for the last 16 years, I have been a private tutor for Redlands Elementary, Middle School, and High School students. An 11th grade I worked with from Redlands High School's mother was gay, and he was bullied at his high school that he was gay, and he killed himself. And if I could give it, I mean, you would all know who he was, and it's dreadful. It's a dreadful situation. So I fully support the curriculum we have, the access to books. The main reason I decided to come here to speak tonight is because I believe bad things happen when good people do nothing. And if you look at Nazi Germany, the first thing they started to do, students in the early 1930s burned books. I found pictures online today of piles of burned books with the Heil Hitler symbol out there. We cannot have acceptance for our students if they can't see themselves represented. I think you're doing a great job, and I do wish you'd come out, you know, with a statement in support of everything you're doing, and I just appreciate it. Thank you.

Erin Durr. Erin, are you there? Erin Durr. And then, oh boy. I'm Erin.

I'm not that Erin. I'm a Redlands resident, an educator, and a parent to three kids that attend schools in RUSD, and I am here for them Hate and intolerance have no place in Redlands or anywhere else, and it definitely doesn't belong in any position that influences how and what our children are being taught. I won't let a noisy few speak for all the parents and guardians of students in this district. We have a diverse community that we should be proud of. This includes a rainbow of different cultures, races, religions, and identities. We have students of all backgrounds, and their education should reflect that. They should feel represented, seen, and most of all, safe. They should have access to an education and materials where they can see themselves, and they should have access to an education where they can see others. They should be allowed to be They should be allowed to be exposed to different ideas, beliefs, histories, and experiences, not a narrow-minded, single-focused, unsafe education and climate that's being pushed by a hateful view. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Taryn. Taryn's up, and then we have Kane Jamison on deck.

Hello, my name is Tiaran Comerford. I was born here in Redlands and raised, you know, throughout my whole life, even a Redlands High School graduate myself. I've grown up through the school system, and I can tell you I was never groomed or traumatized to be the way that I am, nor was I influenced by all the straight media that I have seen throughout my entire life. I was born this way, gay, and have lived trying to suppress my sexuality in hopes to find not to feel wrong and to avoid bullying. If kids were born like this, or weren't born like this, then why was I? I realize that most of these people that don't care, or to empathize, or even try to understand something different from them, some want to pretend that we don't even exist, or even say, oh, not my kid. And ignorance like this enables bad futures for all of us. All that people like me want is representation and available knowledge for the future generations dealing with issues just like us. Supposed LGBT propaganda, as we've been pushing, literally go to the books such as Gender Queer, All Boys Aren't Blue, and Push, which all only speak about LGBT issues and growing and finding yourselves. These are things in which I have experienced. They can be great for teens that are struggling to find themselves or feel completely outcasted like I did. The people against these books aren't here to protect our children from pornography. They're only here to attack our city's diversity. I wish I had these resources when I was in school because maybe it would have been much less of a struggle. You know, just because some parents don't want their children to read books like this doesn't mean that we should cut it off from everybody, especially when it can be very helpful to certain kids Again, I think it could have been a lot more to myself. And I just wanted to exist. Thank you.

Payne Jamison. And Jennifer Lang's on deck.

Hello, thanks for sticking around for us tonight. My name is Kenny Jamieson. I'm a resident of Redlands for 15 years. I'm a global traveler. I've worked in aerospace for over 12 years. I'm an artist, a volunteer in the community, and have kids in the public school system here in Redlands and District 2. I'm here to speak to the board as a supporter from the community, not to instill fear or pose threats. I'm here to represent a larger group of people that can't be here with us tonight. I'm here to delineate between the diverse and rational parents of the district who have a meaningful stake in what you choose to do with this system and show contrast to those that only serve to perpetuate fear mongering, bigotry, and represent the past. I'm here with members of the community that recognize that women's right to vote, the Civil Rights Act, and legalization of gay marriage were all positive and necessary steps. Now that sentiment extends to the LGBTQA plus community that exists here in Redlands and across the country, both young and old. Pacifism and neutrality supports the oppressor, which is why it warms my heart to see the supporters behind me tonight. They represent the future of a diverse and caring web of people across the city and elsewhere that object to the radical policies we see in red states, policies we do not want to see infect our education system locally. We're here to support a school board that maintains a policy of an inclusion of all children, children that will accept one another regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, or class. In your school's mission statement, it says, RUSD is committed to preparing students to become productive participants in a diverse, multicultural, democratic society as they become leaders of the 21st century. This requires a system that actively supports policies and provides inclusive content where all children can find something that relates to them. Diverse books are not something to be feared, rather ones that teach empathy and a greater understanding of the world and the people that we are lucky enough to coexist with. The hardest subject a child can face isn't history or math. The hardest subject a child can face is being accepted for who they are and how their family and their community accepts or rejects them. We as a school system, school district must serve as a safe space for all students to grow.

Thank you.

And become tomorrow's leaders.

Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer Lang, right here. Pastor Heather Bumel. Tricia Keeling. Hi. Erin Mason's on deck.

Hello. My name is Tricia Keeling. I have kids in this district, and I live in Area 4. I'd like to thank the board for continuously making our kids feel safe, allowing for inclusion and diversity to be at the forefront of their educational experience, as well as doing their part in creating new innovative ways for our kids to learn. I'm appreciative of Patty Houlihan for her dedication to continuing the arts programs and bettering them here. As a parent in this district, I'm very worried about the anti-LGBTQ and anti-CRT rhetoric coming from the usual crowd at these meetings. It's not just us in this room that hear these things. These words trickled through our community and do harm. Tonight, for instance, many of the people in this room are not from Redlands. They have been asked by the same group of people who complain to come here and agitate from outside areas. I've heard the same group speak again and again about parent freedom and parent choice, but in reality, all I've seen is they want to take away the rights of our kids, the books out of our libraries they deem unacceptable, the rights of our teachers, the rights of us parents in this district that want their kids to have an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone, and especially the LGBTQ community. The parents, the students, the community of Redlands have shown tonight that we will not stand for hate. Thank you.

Oh, we'll get you in line here, okay? We'll get you in line.

Hello, my name is Erin Mason. I'm from Area 1. I have two Kimberly Cubs. And that was the last board meeting where I heard a lot of people during public comments say that they were there to speak for the parents of Residence Unified. Tonight I came to speak for myself. The last meeting I was horrified at the homophobia that I heard coming at this pulpit. We know that bullying affects a student's ability to learn by limiting their ability to focus on their classwork. We know you cannot create a safe learning environment for children that ignores the impact that emotional stress and bullying can have on that child. Having adults come into our school board meetings make claims such as there are no such thing as LGBTQ youth, that people will have to pay some moral price for promoting acceptance of that community, implying that their children will be harmed in some way if they are forced to coexist with pride flags and pins. That is bullying. That is bullying. Bullying is seeking to harm or intimidate. Bullying is ongoing misuse of power through social behavior. Bullying is cheering each other on and spreading lies about our school district as they target one of our most vulnerable protected classes. I keep hearing the word indoctrination being thrown around, and so I sat with that word. And I thought, what is the result of promoting an environment of acceptance of the LGBTQIA community in our schools? And ultimately, I realized that their fear is their children will be more accepting than they are. That is what they are afraid of, acceptance. Our schools are not meant to be driven by extreme religious or political viewpoints that aim to justify exclusion. They are meant to provide a safe and effective learning environment for the kids. You are under no obligation to provide any form of protection for religious-based bigotry. I'm asking RUSD to continue to stand firm on this stance, be proud with these kids, make our community more accepting, more safe, shut down these hateful voices, let our kids learn in peace. Hate has no home at RUSD. Thank you.

Andy, no last name. What's your last name? Okay. And Susan Carl is going to be on deck.

Hello, board. I want to speak to, I just want to speak to the state of the education system in California. It ranks dead last in the whole nation, pretty much 48th to 50th, like rock bottom. And I believe the priorities of the school board should be on educating the kids, math, English, writing, all of that, teaching them trades, teaching them skills, teaching them life skills, and everything that's important, setting them up to be responsible and productive citizens in society. Also, I would like to speak to the LGBT community. It is a lie that the conservative community disparages or dislikes the LGBT community, that is not true. You are included and loved. Everyone is protected and included within existing laws. And to say that, you know, to say that you're being ostracized from society is not true. Everyone's loved and included. So to bring up that this is happening is absolutely not true. Everyone should be included and loved. That should not even be stated because it should be common knowledge. It should be known. It should be common sense. And I do also want to address another point that somebody brought up, speaking about the suicide rates in the trans community, which is true. It's very high. It's 50%. And that's very unfortunate. That's because children should not be indoctrinated with that type of material at a young age. When you're teaching children, that a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy at the age of five or even younger, you're confusing them. You're setting them up for disaster. What happens when you do a gender change on a child who doesn't know what they're really doing? They're gonna regret it. They're gonna grow up and they're gonna end up regretting that decision because it was never a decision for a child to make. I understand if you wanna do that as an adult, you're perfectly fine. Let that be a decision for adults to make, not children.

Thank you. Please let us control the time. Thank you. Becca Spence DeBias. You are. I'm sorry. Yeah. Susan Carl's up. And Becca Spence DeBias is on deck.

Hi, four children graduated and two step children from Redlands Unified. Obviously I've had my complaints over the years, but I just really came here to support you guys. What you're putting up with here tonight is not okay. It's not okay for the students to end up here. It's really not okay for you guys to sit here and have to listen to it. It's abusive, a lot of it's fascism, and I just want to thank you. Thank you for listening to people, but also thank you for the job you do. And honestly, I hope you keep doing it, because what's scary is that the people we have talking here tonight might be in your seats soon. And that's what we need to keep from happening. We need people like you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Becca, are you here, Becca? Becca's not here. Kathleen Brennan. And then on deck is Aksir Kamalabadi.

Well, first of all, I just want to thank you all for staying here this late and for the job that you do, the dedication that you guys have to this community, to the kids. Like Susan said just before me, you guys don't deserve this. This is not what you signed up for. And what terrifies me is who in their right mind now is going to want to run to be on a school board after witnessing the last several weeks of what we witnessed, which is why I'm here tonight. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when the video clips were sent to me, which scares me because I know the kids are seeing the same videotapes. Completely unacceptable. I can't believe that in 2022 we have adults spewing that kind of hatred. It just shocks me. I was raised in a very strict Catholic family. I went to Catholic school. I was indoctrinated with heterosexuality, but somehow I came out perfectly gay. So I don't know what these parents are so concerned about. I'm glad I made you smile, Jim. But you know, Here they are, these adults spewing this hate and worried about LGBTQ and wanting to defame and to bring these poor kids down when just yesterday we had another school shooting. They're wasting all of our times right now when we should be focused on getting to the root cause of what's causing these school shootings and I can guarantee you some of that hate speech that they're spewing is definitely part of the root cause of these school shootings and they should be goddamn ashamed of themselves. Excuse my language. I'm a little bit emotional because, like Max said, I was one of those kids too growing up where I'd rather kill myself than destroy my family and upset them and disappoint them. And I can't imagine how many kids have watched this bullshit the last couple weeks are now going to have the same damn thoughts. We have to stop. And you know what? They are the loud minority. And I want every LGBTQ kid to know that we are the silent majority. And we are going to wake up, and we're going to protect them. and not to listen to this nonsense, because they are the minority. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Exir? Exir, are you here? Michael Pazner? Ramell Folmer? Fuller is on deck. Ramell? On deck.

Thank you. My name is Michael Paesner. I live in this school district. At recent board meetings, there was outrage over supposedly pornographic materials in our public schools. There was lots of accusations thrown around at the board's expense. I would like to thank the board for keeping cool heads and taking a measured response on this topic. among the many criticisms of the board was not acting immediately, but as you explained, there is an established process for reviewing and removing materials, and no one condemning the board has taken the time to actually start that process. Still, right now, this instant, no one has, it's worth repeating, no one has filed that form to start the process. None of the criticism of the board holds up to scrutiny. It's clear that all of this drama is simply a publicity stunt. that has nothing to do with objectionable books or our children's well-being, it's not difficult to notice that many who are so outraged at the board wear matching shirts. I'll be blunt. This is a publicity stunt designed to stir up passions, advance the agenda of banning books, rooting out undesirables, advancing one particular religious viewpoint, and winning a board seat. It also lets be clear how dangerous it is when a publicity stunt targets a vulnerable group like the LGBTQ community that is already a frequent target of hatred and violence. I ask that the board publicly reject hatred and prejudice by making a statement of their support for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Finally, I wish to give kudos to my mother, who as a middle school teacher 30 years ago once taught a lesson on banned books. So for one day in one classroom, She changed the conversation from you can't read this to why are people upset by this? I think that is a lesson we need to relearn tonight. Thanks, Mom, for leading by example.

Thank you. Rommel or Rommel? Rommel Fuller. Rommel Fuller? Oh, okay, thank you. Serena Schwendeman. Lauren Sheehan. Jen Kim. There we go. Kathy Sandinalla is on deck.

Good evening. Thank you for waiting it out with us. My name is Jennifer Kim. I'm in district five. I have children in RUSD. I just wanted to voice my support for you as a board. Thank you for everything you have endured. I just want to apologize to Patty for being accosted in the way that she was. I don't believe that was fair or right to do. And so I just wanted to apologize for that on behalf of that person. I wanted to echo some of the statements about issuing an anti-homophobic statement. I had the privilege of serving on the anti-racism committee statement. And I believe this is just as important. We need to, just like with being anti-racist, we need to be anti-homophobic. It's not enough to just say, sure, anyone can love whoever they want. We have to be anti-homophobic with everything we do in the culture of Redlands. And it's been a really long night, I had a lot more to say, but if there are any queer children listening to this, I just want you to know you are loved, you exist, you are valid, you are heard, you are seen, you belong, and no matter how many hateful or sophomoric comments that you may have heard tonight or you will continue to hear, just know there really are so many other people that are behind you and support you and are cheering for you. Thank you for your time.

Kathy, are you here? And on deck is Janelle Guerrero.

Hi, my name is Kathy. I had a really cool speech plan, but then I had a mini panic attack over here because it got really violent. So now I'm just going to wing it and just remind people that a lot of us grew up in the 80s when we remember the gay panic and the AIDS pandemic that happened because of that. And the reason we don't have a lot of gay male elders today is because of that panic. They died in the AIDS crisis. And I feel like when you start trying to exclude a specific group, you're going to go down that same exact road. My dad lived through, was one of the kids that was segregated and was had to have the FBI follow him around because he was the first black person to go to his school. And I don't want us going back down these types of roads where we're excluding people out of fear. Queer kids have always existed, they'll always continue to exist, and they need to know that they're loved. So I'd like this board to speak out on that and just make sure that the kids know that they're loved. Thank you.

Janelle? Is Janelle here? Jack McPhee? Joe Hennihan? Oh, are you Jack? Okay, welcome.

Hi. Thank you all for staying as long as you are. I was supposed to go grocery shopping. But I am a retired schoolteacher. I'm 58 years old. And when I was a teacher, we had students in our district, not my students, but students from other schools. We had two young people, a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old who died by suicide due to the fact that they were afraid that their parents wouldn't love them anymore or they couldn't go home and tell them how they really felt. Yes, kids at a young age do figure out their gender. My son figured out his gender at a very young age. I figured out my gender at a very young age. I didn't know that I would know so strongly who I was, and I did. And I think it's really important that we all know who we are, and that's why books are so important. We need to have that literature, the books out there, for us to really see who we are as people, because we have to see beyond what's in front of us every single day. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, and I moved to a new suburb at a young age, it was all white. My mom said, well, what was the school like? And I said, well, everybody looked alike. They were all white. For me, we need that diversity. I have to see that for my kids. I have grown kids. We're going to have kids. I've got to see that for all the kids in this world. When I was a teacher, that's what I had to do. I had kids from all over the world in my classrooms. I couldn't just look at one kid and go, well you fit this one box, you all have to stay in this one box. All our kids deserve to be who they are because innately we are born who we are and we need to adjust accordingly to everybody, you know, for ourselves to help other kids. So thank you.

Welcome.

Is it one minute or two minutes? Two. Two. It's only 60 seconds. My name is Joe Hanahan and my wife and I live in district one. Thank you to the board for listening to our comments and concerns. We had a campaign sign defaced on our property with hate speech. We removed the defaced sign and responded to the Redlands Police Department as evidence of potential hate crime. We subsequently put up two more signs. This incident led to electronic tracking of other signs, which were stolen, which led to the misdemeanor arrest of Mary Ethel Bell.

Is this going to be about the campaign or because?

No, this is about a police report.

Well, if it's about campaigning, we can't have it. It is not. It is not.

I'm urging you to take action on some things. Okay. So I'll continue. Start restructuring.

I'll give you an extra 30. Go ahead.

which let the misdemeanor arrest of Mary Ethel Bell as these stolen campaign signs were found at her residence for the copy of the letter that I have in my hands from the resident city attorney. Mary Beth was connected to the District 1 incumbent. The City of Redlands has referred us to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office. I urge you to work with the resident city attorney and the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office and commit to a speedy and complete investigation prior to the election so that the facts are discovered and the truth is made public well before the election, which is only two weeks away. We the people deserve to have the truth be known and to be made public.

Thank you. Thank you. Janelle Guerrero. Carol Olson. Candy Olson. I have an email that's to be read as public comment. So I'll read it into record. Did you turn in a green card? Come on up. State your name, please.

Thank you for staying here and listening for all of us. I appreciate your public service. and for listening to all of us tonight. My name is Ana McNaughton. I am a resident and a mother in Redlands. My child is too young to be in school. I came here with certain pieces of information, but I'm thankful the librarian broke most of them. Most importantly, that the book that was talked about does not even exist in our school libraries. She also mentioned that parents can request for certain information and books to be taken out or not given to their children, so that's their parental choice. No matter how you school your children, I hope that after they get out of school they thrive in our society and they will be influenced through something that is not their parental filter. They will be surrounded by different people. And I hope they will treat each person they meet and they go to all places and bring love and that's what I hope to give to my child. What I learned is that proximity and exposure is one way to take away fear and promote understanding. So what is tonight really about and who really brought this into our community and what do they want to do? Let's instead of creating teams and tribes, which I was outside and that was exactly what was happening, let's encourage as civil leaders discourse, communication, even if it's sometimes on very tough issues. Looks like we have a lot of work to do and I hope that this is an opportunity to create that in our community. And look who is in the room right now. That just speaks for itself I think.

Okay. Thank you. I'll read this email. You can time me for two minutes and I'll quit at the end of the two minutes. I'm here tonight to commend the board in management for navigating us through a most unique and challenging time and recognize the teachers and staff who stuck with it and executed the plan. I served on this board 13 years from 2003 to 2016. Our biggest challenge was the Great Recession after 2008 when we had to implement a variety of deep budget cuts, including pink slipping over 100 teachers. That painful process forced us to look at the core values, define what we had to keep, and decide what we could downsize or remove. As difficult as the process was for us, COVID has been worse. Our goal is to keep cuts away from the classroom. COVID shut down classrooms. But navigate you did, and after spirited discussions and hard decisions, You kept the core of providing a quality education to all students intact. Also during that turmoil, the district did not sit passively and wait. An example of this, without students in classroom, the district had the opportunity to freshen up campuses. I've never seen Clement Middle School look so good. The superintendent and senior staff had to think out of the box and bring you solutions to problems as well as new opportunities. You stayed focused, looking as evidenced by our USD 2025 excellence for all students. This is an outstanding piece, a roadmap for the future that focuses on five key areas so students can excel. This is not passively waiting by this as proactivity defining the future. You board members are critical to this and you set the tone for the organization. I was fortunate to join a board with several longstanding board members to show us the Redlands unified way. That institutional memory is critical as we hold strong to the values that got us here and be flexible to adopt new strategies and ideas. It takes all of you working together as well as you know. The motto of RUSD is excellence in education and implies it is for all students, not a select few. Our society. So that was submitted by Neil Wehner, former board member. Okay. That concludes our public comment. And. We still have a little bit of our business to do, so it's not gonna take very long, and I'd like to be able to make some closing comments, so if you can stick around. We have to complete this meeting before it's Wednesday, because we can't have board meetings on Wednesday. Anyway, so board comments. Start with, I'll start at this end. Michelle?

And she can't, she can't talk, but.

Do you have comments? Okay. Mr. Varro?

No comments for tonight. Okay.

All right, you guys are going to have to forgive me because I don't do this very often, but tonight's been a rough night. I just want to say that there was some things that were said tonight, obviously, that, you know, we all don't agree on everything, but there's one thing I want to say, and it's just me. I'm not speaking on behalf of the board, but I want to speak to any past and present and even future students. my heart breaks for the experiences you may have had that made you feel less in love for being exactly the person you are today, or being the person you may be a different person tomorrow, I mean, or the person you want to become. Whoever that may be, you are human, and your feelings and experiences are valid. And if anyone is dealing with thoughts of suicide or depression, please reach out. We are here to help. Someone is always listening and someone will hear you as long as you just reach out. Thank you.

First of all, I just want to thank Mr. Cullen, who's not here right now, for hosting us here tonight at Clement. Brings back a lot of memories. Most of you may know that I was a student here at Clement Middle School. And it looks absolutely fabulous, as mentioned earlier today. So thank you, Mr. Cullen. Thank you, staff, for everything. Just a few notes, I just want to thank publicly the Optimus Club of Redlands for inviting me to speak last week. We have such a great partnership with the Optimus Club and the tradition of Civics Day is always a highlight for our seniors at Special Olympics, so thank you Optimus Club for the invitation. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has stayed tonight. I appreciate your comments on everyone. And I also want to say thank you to our staff in the back who was live streaming, so staff IT back there. Thank you so much for everything that you've done. Mr. Massaro and his team, so thank you. And then also to our security who's here with us today, and to Redlands PD for keeping us safe tonight. Thank you very much.

All right. Well, I do have a couple of comments. I want the board to know that I met with our outside auditor who explained the process to me this week. And, of course, his job is to provide us assurances regarding the district's transactions, internal control processes, and that we meeting federal and state legal standards. So they're in that process, and I expect we will soon be getting a full report. from the auditors. Before I finish my other two, Michelle, I'm gonna come back to you. Do you wanna try to say a couple things? Get right in the microphone and whisper it. I think we'll hear it. Okay.

That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. I'm gonna save it for next time.

All right, save it till next time. I heard that. All right. Well, get well soon. I got an exciting email I wanted to share with the board and everyone here tonight. There's, and everybody out there in web land, the fall fundraiser, this is from Daniel Brown. And he is a special ed adult teacher at Citrus Valley. And every year they make candles. And it's amazing what they do. And they learn a lot of life skills as well as art skills. and fine motor coordination, making these wonderful handmade candles. So, I think there were some of these flyers, were there? And also, where can, Carrie Ann, where can they see more of this information? Is it posted on our website? It will be. Okay. We hope you support them. They do an amazing job out there at CV in that class. So, thank you for that. And also, we have a celebrity. This email is from Principal Van Luven at RHS. And she said, I just had to share because one of our amazing students is currently competing in the Down Syndrome International Swim Championships in Portugal. And, yeah, she was, yeah, you heard somebody mention that in their comments tonight, but Kayla is a student in our mod severe special ed program, and there's a picture of her that we got in the email. She looks very fit and very fast, so we wish her well. That's fantastic that our special needs kids are excelling. All right. Well, it's hard for me to speak. It was a rough night. You know, even at my age, I can learn things, learn new things, and I didn't expect to have to be challenged the way I was tonight, and I'm sorry if in any way you were, you felt fearful or didn't feel like your voice was going to be heard, but I'm grateful for the board for sticking it out and making the time to hear everyone. and give everybody that opportunity. We didn't hear everyone because some people obviously have jobs and needed to go home. And we would encourage them to email us. But thank you for participating in that comment section. And especially if you were one of those that followed our protocols and were well behaved and respectful of the people making comments tonight. Our democracy is alive. The First Amendment is alive, and we appreciate it very much. So thank you, board members. Thank you, staff. It's a long night. Sorry about tomorrow. You're all going to be tired, but I'll bring coffee. Boys in the back, thank you so much for all your hard work tonight, and our men. in blue as well as our men and women in blue, I should say, and our security people for keeping everybody safe tonight. Have a great evening. Happy Halloween in a while if you celebrate that sort of thing. And don't forget to get out and vote. Good night.