Board of Education — September 26, 2023

All right. I would like to call this meeting to order. Thank you for coming tonight. Um, before we do the pledge, I just wanna, um, ask everybody, um, once we, uh, do the pledge, if we can remain standing. We have a moment of silence tonight. Okay. Um, Mrs. Rundler is gonna go ahead and lead our pledge tonight.

With your right hand over your heart, ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Alex Verhoeven. On Thursday, August 10th, 2023, Alexander James Verhoeven, Class of 2014 was in an accident on the freeway near Sacramento and did not survive. Alexander was a four-year member of the Redlands High School football and track and field teams and is the son of James and Karen Verhoeven. James, RHS class of 1986, has been a history teacher at Redlands High School since 2001. The family would appreciate your support in continuing the legacy of Alexander through a memorial scholarship with the rhythms community scholarship foundation.

Please be seated. All right, I'll begin to take roll. Mr. O'Neill? Present. Ms. Holohan? Present. Ms. Renner? Present. Mr. Barra?

Present.

And I am present. We have no approval of minutes, and we'll move on to public participation. We have one agenda item card. We have one card. This is the time that any member of the public may address the board on any agenda item before or during the board's consideration of the item provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board form to the clerk of the board or his or her designee prior to the time the chairperson calls the item for the board's consideration. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium microphone and announce his or her name. The chairperson shall, in the interest of facilitating the business of the board, limit the amount of time which a member of the public may use in addressing the board to three minutes unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines a different time limit is appropriate. Our one card is Mr. Blatchley.

Good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet. My name is Paul Blatchley. I live in trustee area five, and I'm a concerned high school parent. So you're going to move the meeting up to 6 o'clock, right? That's what this agenda item is about. And I really honestly don't have too much of a problem with that. But your school sites need to understand that if parents are going to be available to address the school board, They've got to have things that they're not scheduling later into the evening. So for example, tonight at RHS was a college fair, right? That college fair was from five to seven. So if the meeting had been at six and there was a parent there and they had a kid who happened to be college bound, they might miss out on attending the meeting. The other thing that I'd like to address around board meetings generally because the attachment to that agenda item doesn't talk about the structure of the meetings, right? It just talks about, hey, you know, you got my law, you got to do this, this, and this. And I've talked to you about this before. Obviously, you moved around the community input because the community was being disruptive. You weren't being able to get your business done. I would like to see that moved back up toward the front of the meeting. You don't have to put it at the beginning, but get the meeting started, get the public participation on agendized items, get your votes on those. If you want to do your committee reports and you want to do presentations by the unions that are rah-rah about what the teachers are up to, that's fine. But do it after you've let the parents go. When you had student trustees, you were cognizant about the fact that they had to go home and take care of business at home with homework and such. Parents are in that same boat. Not all parents, but some parents who are going to be here have to get home. right, and to keep them here while you go through this stuff that they're really not interested in, and a lot of the agenda items the public is not really all that interested in. It's only when you put something controversial on there, because as I've told you before, everything is just a rubber stamp, right? If Mr. Wagner or Ms. Phillips or Jason, Jason, Mr. Hill. If they put an agenda item on there, you're just going to approve it, right? I've very rarely seen you have any discussion or deny anything that they're doing, right? So let the public participate. Move that up in the meeting if you're going to move the meetings up to 6 o'clock. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to presentations. It looks like Mrs. Joy is going to give us a presentation on RUSD's 212 pilot. Mrs. Joy.

Is it on? Good evening, President Ayala-Cantara, board members, superintendent, cabinet, and guests. I am Jean Joy, the director of elementary education, and thank you for allowing me to present tonight on a pilot that we're implementing here at some of our schools in Redlands called the 212 pilot. Basically, 212 just represents the five days of the school week, four days being full, school days the full schedule, and one day, Wednesdays, a minimum day. So we'll go into a little bit more on how that came about and what it actually looks like at our schools. So we'll go over the background, just which schools are participating, the collaboration activities that occur, and the feedback and next steps after this pilot is complete. So prior to this school year, all of our schools have opportunities for minimum days. We allow schools to choose about 8 to 10 minimum days, typically once per month, to have more time working with staff on current topics, current professional development, data analysis. Those are in addition to some of the contractual minimum days, such as back to school night, parent-teacher conferences in elementary schools. So each school typically receives about 18 to 20 minimum days per year. But they're more random. They're not always on the same day of the week, the same week of the month. So implementing a 2-1-2 model where every Wednesday is a minimum day, except the weeks that have holidays, really provides for more consistency for our families, students, and staff. And we get up to about 30 plus days of minimum days in order to implement this schedule. So that is the purpose of a 2-1-2 model, to have more consistency, more time working with our staff, and to be able to move forward in some of the initiatives that we have at our school sites. So two and two, as you know, there's a lot of things that make our schools unique here in Redlands. Each school has different initiatives that they are moving forward. We have our Redlands 2025 with our STEAM, innovation, excellence in academics, our positive behavior supports, and the list goes on. And so these opportunities are available to students as teachers and staff are planning them, monitoring the implementation, monitoring students that are participating. And so having this weekly minimum day really gives staff the opportunity to really dive into the data and see if the students that are intended to progress with these programs are actually progressing and what kinds of changes we might need to make to make them more successful. So how this came about was actually pre-COVID, we had a few teachers and some administrators that said, hey, we've heard about this weekly minimum day at some of our neighboring districts, and we really feel like we could benefit from having more time with our staff working together to really impact our students. and be able to provide more actually for our students without compromising the required instructional minutes. And that was very important to make sure that our instructional minutes stayed sound and we met the minimum for the year. In addition, we invited the Redlands Teacher Association to work with us and see which unit members really were thinking that this was something that we should move forward with. And so we surveyed many of our school staff and those staffs that had a majority, a pretty good majority, more than just 51%, that agreed to try this for the year, we went and moved forward with those schools. So it really was a collective job between educational services and our teachers union. And so our participating schools, this year we have all four middle schools elected to participate in our pilot. And all of our middle schools typically release around 315, 317. And on our minimum day, they release around 130, maybe 132 at a couple of schools. And then we have six elementary schools that elected to move forward Bryn Mawr, Crafton, Kingsbury, Lagonia, Mentone, and Victoria. Representation of a lot of different areas in our district. And at those six school sites, we're really just, their times have not changed too much other than they get out of school between 1.50 to 2.05 on a regular day, and on the minimum day it's about 12.15 or 12.30. So what happens during those times? Well, currently, with our schools that are not implementing the two-on-two opportunity, we have four one-hour staff meetings, grade-level meetings, per month. So typically a one-hour meeting after school per month at our non-participating sites. When we have the 212 on that Wednesday minimum date, we have about 90 minutes every week to be able to work together for general staff meetings, just information meetings, grade level or department collaboration and planning, professional development. It's an opportunity for some of our teachers on assignment, our tech TOAs to come out and work with staff on new and innovative teaching. Data analysis, we are always looking at various academic, behavioral, attendance data that our teachers can plan around. It's an opportunity to have committee meetings. We have various committees such as safety committee, equity committee, positive behavior committee. So it's an opportunity for our committees to meet. And what's unique and great about this is that our staff does have input on what it is we want to collectively work on during those 90-minute activities. So our staff is engaged with 90-minute activities every Wednesday. While that's happening, the great thing is that, of course, we're still engaging in those required instructional minutes for students, but our students also have opportunities on those minimum days. We realize that Some families may be impacted by having a weekly minimum day. And so all of our schools have expanded learning opportunities available to students, which provide enrichment, STEAM activities. We have extra counselors on hand. Our sixth graders participate in the rascals, intramural sports. And our libraries are open at all of our schools for our students on those minimum days. And this is just some of the student opportunities. There's many, many more, such as outside vendors coming to support students in learning and fun activities. So the beauty of this is that our teachers are able to collaborate, plan, work with one another, and work with district department leads. And our students are well taken care of and engaging in many activities that are enriching for their educational program. So we're seven weeks into school. This is seventh week of school. And the feedback's been great. Of course, there's been little tweaks on schedules and whatnot, but nothing major. Our teachers have really said that they feel like this time is really allowing them more time and feeling more equipped to work and teach with students. They're finding the opportunity to work together as a staff, and then in their department or grade level time, it's just a little bit more time to dig into things instead of just more quickly rushing through in a one hour meeting. So based on that feedback, of course we've committed to the year of having this 212 pilot, but based on that, we want to reconvene here probably mid-year with those that are involved to determine what's working well, anything we need to change right now, is this something that we should look at for other schools in the next few years, and we will work with, of course, our associations to make sure that if this is something we want to extend, and expand upon that we have the input of all to move forward with that. Without our business services, transportation and fiscal, making sure our instructional minutes are sound and that we have transportation for students, we could not have moved forward with this. So I just want to say a huge thank you to those that supported with all of our scheduling and questions we had. I really appreciate it. It's a team effort. So with that, I'm excited to see where this goes for the rest of the year. And at this time, I'm more than happy to take comments or questions. OK. Thank you, Mrs. Perry.

Thank you. My question is, how are the instructional minutes that are lost on those minimum days, how are they made up?

Yeah. So each school could possibly extend their day an extra five minutes on all the regular school days. And within their schedule, they may have shaved off a minute off of a recess. So they made decisions at their school sites, whether do we want to add more time to the end of the day, or do we want to adjust our index in the daytime so that we can get the average instructional minutes sound and we have met all of that. So the staff had some input on that and really it's been very little impact on the start or end time. It's more in the day on recess and possibly lunch. Thank you.

Anyone else? Time's up. You're free to discuss or you can email, but we're not taking questions. It's just for the board right now.

So how many times in a month do teachers have the opportunity to hold grade level meetings and lesson plan?

Yeah, that's a great question. In general, in just what I've worked with the elementary schools and Julie Swan, the Director of Secondary Education, working with the middle schools, we set out a plan for the month with staff input. Usually there's one Wednesday that's a staff meeting, one that may be some data half data analysis half planning one that might prove be Some professional development in there and we're really trying to work on does the full 90 minutes work best for each one of those activities or is it better to separate into 45 minute chunks like maybe a 45 minute staff meeting and a 45 minute grade level or department meeting or a committee meeting and And I think we have schools that are trying it both ways, depending on what works best for their staff. We're really giving them that leeway and the staff is able to provide their input on that.

So the minimum days were created so that the teachers would have I just want to make sure I get this right because it seems like they're having more more meetings, but less time planning and So there's a staff meeting a data analysis meeting a professional development meeting and then there's lesson planning meeting

Those are all options. It really is 50% to answer your question. 50% that is admin or professional development in front of the staff. 50% of grade level or department time analyzing data or planning together.

So let's say out of a month then the four meetings that they have you're saying two of those meetings are used for grade level meetings and then the other two could be used for data analysis and professional development.

Two would be like a staff meeting and professional development and then two might be data analysis within your grade level team and planning based on that. That's an easy way to say it or half of the time 45 minutes every Wednesday would be the the staff meeting professional development and half of the time would be the grade level and Planning piece, but it's 50% so Okay, I'm trying to think like a like a teacher because if I was a teacher I would want to be able to lesson plan with my grade level team and

and, um, do a-a-a plan weekly. But the way this is set up is like they're only gonna be able to basically plan for the month, because the rest of the meetings you are-are either gonna be staff meeting, data analysis meetings, or professional development meetings.

So the data analysis is not necessarily a whole staff meeting. That is grade level time where we're looking at our own classes' data and determining what our lesson plans need to address based on that data. So data analysis really can go into that collaboration and planning time. It truly is 50%. That's what we have agreed upon in our memorandum of understanding. So staff can provide input on whether it works for their school to have the two Wednesdays to just have grade level and planning and two for staff meeting professional development or if they want to split every Wednesday in half and have half and half. Really the staff has been able to give input on what works best for their school.

So since it's a pilot program in the future, at the end of the pilot, are we going to get teacher input So that way we know exactly what's working and what's not. Because normally in a PLC cycle, it's six to eight weeks and then you go over the data after that cycle, it's not like every two weeks.

Correct. So to answer your first question, absolutely. We always want to take feedback from those that are participating to be able to make anything better or decide if we need to move on or not. Your second question as far as the PLC or the data. At elementary, we're more on a four to six week cycle. And it's not always academic data that we're looking at. We might be looking at attendance and behavior data, which doesn't necessarily have a cycle to it. We're just monitoring or talking about ways that we can better impact some of that data. So it might not necessarily be a four to six week cycle.

Okay, and then last question because you said that during the minimum days we have extended learning opportunities Do you know let's say we have or maybe you might know these numbers off the top of your head But let's say we have an elementary school with approximately 600 students how many of the 600 students are participating at one school site for the externally extended learning opportunities and

Yeah, that's about 200. And on Wednesdays at the elementary school, we're not seeing a big increase just on those Wednesdays. It's available to families on just Wednesdays if that's what they need. We may see some variation, maybe less than 10 students, but about 200, depending on the size of the school. Middle school, it's a little different because there's so many other activities happening after school that there's a lot of students participating. Our ELOP money really extends to sixth grade, but the libraries are open as well as other opportunities for students at the middle school.

So then the ELOP programs are not only on Wednesdays, they're throughout the week?

Correct. Okay.

Thank you.

Till five o'clock every day.

Awesome.

either of you have anything? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Joy. Thank you so much. Um, and Mrs. Olson, someone will be- I've made sure that someone will be reaching out to you for that question. Okay. We have no student trustee report this evening, so let's move on to association reports. Um, is Sue Apt here this evening for an update on RTA? Thank you.

Good evening, school board trustees, superintendent, cabinet, staff, and community. I wanted to share today one of the commitments Redlands Teachers Association and California Teachers Association has is to be an active member of our community. Besides working in Redlands, many of us also live and raise our families in this community. So giving back to Redlands is a big priority for us. One of the ones I want to highlight is Adele Glass. Last year she submitted a grant proposal to CTA and won $20,000 to expand the elementary band program. We helped her purchase tenor saxophones, French horns, bass clarinets, oboes, sheet music, and band shirts. And I want you to keep your eyes open when the elementary band goes by and look for those nice shiny new instruments. This year, we had a ninth-grade student enrolled in eAcademy Rise who won the Cesar Chavez Dolores Huerta essay contest. I want to read what her English teacher, Angela Vasquez, shared with me. Redlands Unified School District High School RISE 9th grade, Maya Harrell, was chosen as the recipient of the 2023 Cesar E. Chavez and Dolores Huerta Education Award Program for her essay entailing her understanding of the vision and guiding principles championed by the two founders of the United Farm Workers. The Cesar E. Chavez and Dolores Huerta Education Award Program is sponsored by the California Teachers Association and provides recognition for educators and their students who demonstrate an understanding of the vision and guiding principles embraced by those two. The award program honors those great leaders and ensures the spirit of their work continues in the classrooms of California. Harold has been enrolled in Redlands Independent Study Education RISE through Redlands USD for the past two years. RISE is an independent study program operated within the district and partners students with teachers to help them access rigorous and meaningful curriculum to support their individual path to success. Harold used her knowledge of the UFW movement and her own personal experience in service to others to weave together an essay that highlighted her deep understanding and personal commitment to the values of Cesar E. Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Harold was sponsored for this education award by her English teacher at RISE and CTA member Angela M. Vasquez. Both Harold and Vasquez were awarded with cash prizes through CTA for Harold's entry into this year's program. Maya Harrell is an all-around outstanding student with the RUSD, and her teacher is very proud of her and wants you to keep an eye open for her in the future. Next month, RTA and RESPA will be working together to have a booth at every school carnival we possibly can get to. And if you happen to be at one of those carnivals, please stop by and see if you can win a prize at our booth. We'll be the ones dressed like superheroes. A few of us on Sunday will be helping out at the Believe Walk by being marshals. Please be sure to wave to us as you go by. And then next month I plan on reporting about our new educator supports and our school visits. I'm very excited to be partnering with RUSD in both of these endeavors. And until then, I want to wish you a happy Equinox. I actually learned something today from one of the science teachers in passing. I know most of us believe that Equinox is on September 22nd or 23rd. However, in Redlands, because of the rotation and the tilt of our Earth, today is actually the autumn Equinox. So happy fall, everyone.

Thank you. Up next, we have Respa. So Liz Huerta Brewster.

Good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet, and guests. So a couple of weeks ago, weekends ago, our board members and some members attended a conference out in Palm Springs to enhance our local on various topics, such as site representation, budgets, treasurer duties, how to run an effective meeting, and various other topics. We will continue to do site visits at various sites throughout the district. And myself and Candy Blanco will be visiting sites this coming up week. Thank you, Alex, for attending our site rep meeting yesterday. And Sabine has confirmed for next month. It is my hope that everyone will be able to attend one of our site rep meetings. At RESPA, we believe in giving back. Our members have been actively involved in community outreach initiatives, supporting causes that matter to us and making a positive impact beyond our professional roles, such as asking our members to bring in a canned food item in support of face. RUSPA and RTA are participating at the fall festivals offered at the elementary sites. These festivals are not only a time for fun and enjoyment, but also an opportunity for our community to come together, celebrate our schools and strengthen our bonds. Let's make this October truly special by celebrating the beauty of fall and the spirit of community engagement at our elementary schools. The students cannot wait to see us. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Rapa, Rebecca Acosta.

Good evening, President, Board, Superintendents, and guests. I'm excited to share with you that last night, AXA Region 12 held the very first leadership conference in the Ontario Montclair School District. Dr. Lennart, Jean Joy, Sonia Balinga, and myself were in attendance. We're really excited for our first gathering for women in leadership, which is coming up next weekend. And we definitely encourage all of the female leaders in the district to attend. We also discussed the admin of the year and student scholarships and we can't wait to get applications started to honor those who serve and then also our students who stand out as leaders. One of the fun things that I love about getting to present each month is spreading sunshine and sharing the joys that are happening around the district. We know that you guys do get board reports each week by each department and schools, but you can't see everything in there. We know we have social media accounts for you to follow. but I also get to highlight some of the awesome things that are upcoming and invite you to them. So last week I had mentioned that Lagonia has an upcoming fair and Toyota of Redlands was supplying backpacks. Not only are they backpacks, but they are filled with supplies for every single one of those students, which is absolutely incredible. This fair is scheduled for tomorrow evening and Mr. Aponte, the principal, has invited you all to join if you can make it. Something else exciting is that Arroyo held their very first 100% attendance day, and they had a pancake breakfast sponsored by CNS. And they did increase their attendance and served over 300 students an awesome breakfast that morning. And the kiddos were heard saying, this is the best day ever. So they really liked starting their day that way. From MNO, Mr. Covey gave a great report to me that the outdoor learning space is completed at RHS. And so they are really excited to enjoy that area now. And Franklin's preschool and kindergarten outdoor learning space will be breaking ground on Monday morning. So that's really awesome as well. And then as Susan had mentioned, the Believe Walk is this weekend, and we wanted to let you know that Mission does have a team that will be attending the Believe Walk. It is this weekend downtown, Redlands, starting at 8 a.m. And RAPA wants to extend our heartfelt prayers and love to those currently fighting the fight and to honor those who have lost their battle with cancer. As we come to a close on Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we do invite you all to wear gold or yellow this Friday to honor those students who are fighting and just to keep our current RUSD students in your prayers. And we want them to know we love you, we support you, keep fighting. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to board committee reports, and we'll start with Cryer Up. Do you have anything?

Alex? I do. I went last month for Alex. So at Rev, the new scoreboard that was on there, the video production pathway along with the film club Helped operate the scoreboard on there. So it was our students who were the ones doing it on their first football game in the new stadium Which was awesome and that was part of the program from our ROP. So that's a big one RHS Mechatronics students are excited to enter the bridge challenge competition hosted by workforce SBCSS Caltrans SB County Public Works and Professional Engineers and But the big news was our students that were out there running the program and what they had to do to learn to do that, to operate the big screen. So it was very good.

Thank you, Mrs. Holland. Mrs. Renler.

I'll start with compact. Their first mixer will be held at the Burge mansion on October 12th at 530. The Compact Steering Committee welcomes new members Susan Duran and Steven Crane from the Redlands Police Department. The first officer's meeting was on September 18th, where RHS club reported that they held their first meeting the week before and they had about 30 students in attendance. They're very optimistic that they can get their club going strong this year. They introduced officers and told the new students what compact is as well as what all the processes they have to go through to get certified and what the mixers are and all that stuff. They're also going to be adopting a family through family services for Thanksgiving. And many Compaq students were able to earn community service hours by driving guests in the golf carts at the venue for dinner in the Grove. That was last weekend. And that's all I have for Compaq.

All right. Thank you, Mrs. Redland.

Do you want to go ahead and move on to REP? Sure. Redland's Educational Partnership. I want to congratulate Jennifer Moore. She's the new president of REP this year. And I want to thank Marilyn Page for all her hard work and dedication to REP as the president for the past four years. This year, $60,000 will be given to 120 teachers. Through the teacher's grants program, each teacher will receive $500. for use in their classrooms. The TAGS program has now been changed. It's called Grants for Principals, and they will give out $25,000. Ten principals each will receive $2,500 for their school site. This is the tenth year that REP has been a partner in the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, which is November 23rd this year. I hope everyone can attend. It's open to the public, and they'll also need volunteers, so if you're so inclined.

OK, thank you. We will jump to Mr. O'Neill for the Cultural Arts Commission.

Reports tonight for either that or the delegate assembly. But I was going to ask Michelle, was it the 12th was the mixer? Is that what you said? October 12th. At 5.30? Yes. OK, thanks.

OK, thank you, Mr. O'Neill. Yeah, we're missing Parks and Rec. Do you want to go ahead and?

OK. Um, the advisory commission voted not to fund the fencing project at the theater at Prospect Park at this time. Um, RUSD and the city will be working together to do some much needed work at the baseball fields behind Orange Wood High School and the fields behind Clement Middle School. and more information to the timing of that will be coming. Uh, the city is looking for name suggestions for the new park that will be dedicated to the city as part of the Bergamot housing development project north of Citrus Valley. So, um, suggestions need to be submitted through a survey by October 9th. The link to the survey, if you would like it, it's POC. Oh, this went wrong on me. p-o-l dot, wait, p-o-l dot, it's totally wrong on there, it auto-corrected. polco.us forward slash scd285 and you can take the survey and if you didn't write that down you can go to all their social media pages as well as the City of Redlands website and find that there and take the survey and put your suggestion in and maybe it'll win. And that's all.

All right. Thank you, Mrs. Renner. We will move on to our superintendents report. Mr. Cabral.

Yes, thank you. Good evening, everyone. First, I want to say thank you to all our students because month number one attendance was at 96%. That is phenomenal. Congratulations, students. Let's keep it up. Yeah, that's a round of applause. Also, this month's looking like it's close to 96. I think it's a little above a 95. But that means that we're going to stay – that's a goal for next month to be at 96 again. So remember, we ended the year last year at 92 percent. So to even be at 95, 96 percent is phenomenal. Kids, keep it up. Parents, thank you so much. Please keep helping us. And to all the principals with all your incentives, I love it. um we had a great event a week ago superintendents awards first inaugural or the inaugural superintendents awards i invite everybody to our next one which is october 17th it's going to be at rhs at 5 30. uh congratulations to if you didn't know we recognized over 50 students a couple of weeks ago and we'll recognize i think almost 60 in a couple weeks over at rhs and you're invited to see that And then December 5th, mark that date down. We're going to have our State of the District event. There will be announcements that will go out everywhere, especially on social media. So if you don't follow us on social media, it used to be called Twitter. And I don't know what it's called now, X or you could say 10, right? Room numeral 10. But our hashtag is this is our USD. I invite you to just punch that in and check out all the wonderful things that are going on in our school sites and in all of our district events, including those that I just spoke about. So thank you very much. Kids, make sure you go to school tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cabral. We will now move on to superintendent's recommendations under business services consent items. Mr. Hill, do you have any changes or additions?

Thank you, President Aiella-Quintero. No changes or additions tonight.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Can I get a motion to approve item 13A, consent items B through O?

So moved.

Second. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Alex. Switch that. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Next we're on to business services action items. We only have one item tonight. Approve revised 2023-2024 Board of Education meeting dates. Can I have a motion?

So moved.

Second. Thank you Alex, thank you Michelle. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Under educational services consent items, Dr. Wagner. Any changes or additions?

Thank you, President Aiella-Cantaro. No changes or additions.

OK, thank you. Can I have a motion to approve items 15A, consent item B?

I moved. Second.

Um, I think we're gonna give that one to Jim. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Jim. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to educational services action items. Approve the stipulated expulsion regarding student 2023-2024-001 expulsion through the remainder of the first semester of the 2023-2024 school year with the second semester for the 2023-2024 school year suspended. Can I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

All right. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. We're moving on to consent items under human resources. Dr. Robertson Phillips, do you have any changes or additions?

I have no changes or additions this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve item 17A, consent items B through Z? Move. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Jim. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye, and so ordered. We are now on human resources action items. Item A, certificated ratify adopt revised resolution number 7, 2023-2024, action regarding teaching outside credential authorization. Can I have a motion?

So moved. Second.

Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Alex. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. We have no discussion items this evening, so we'll continue on with the public participation section of the agenda. 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 he or she resubmits a completed registration card to the clerk of the board or their designate- or their designate prior to public participation. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium, microphone, and announce their name. The chairperson shall limit the amount of time which a member of the public may use in addressing the board to three minutes unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines that a different time limit is appropriate. we will quickly acknowledge the emails that were received for tonight's board meeting and they were From germane miles and trisha keeling our first card is from mr. Blatchley

Good evening, board members. Superintendent Cabral, cabinet. My name is Paul Latchley. I live in trustee area five and I'm here as a concerned high school parent. So I thought after the last meeting, I'm all about transparency. I think a lot of issues that the district has between parents and the district is about transparency. And so I think after the last meeting, perhaps the district ought to publish a list or put together a form that parents can sign at the beginning of the school year that will tell the parents what the district is going to keep secret from the parents, right? So it's obvious that we want to keep gender, any gender kinds of things secret. If the teacher is abusing, if the teachers are abusing the student, we want to keep that secret from the parents. If the kid is smoking, vaping at school, using illegal substances, is that something you're going to tell the parents about or is that something you're going to keep secret from the parents? Because I've told you, it's real, this idea that you're putting yourselves in between the parents and the students. And it's not a good place for you to be as a district. And it's certainly not very comfortable for a parent. I'm 31 years into a 31 year relationship with the district as a parent. So I've only got a little bit more time to try and fix some things that I think are problems with the district, at least the way things are going right now. So please, try and be transparent. Stop trying to put yourselves in between the student and the parent, because you're not going to be there, right? If the student is screwing up, guess what? I don't know how many times I've come to school sites where my kid is screwing up and they're like, Mr. Blatchley, you gotta help us, cuz we got a problem with your kid, right? You're not gonna stand up for the kid and say, well, Mr. Blatchley, I know your kid's screwing up, but you don't need to be involved. We'll take care of all of it, right? And then, obviously, you have this contention between these two groups in Redlands, right? And you hear a lot from the folks about, hey, you know, all these people are coming from out – they live outside the district and blah, blah, blah. So last time I – at the very end of my talk, and I'm running out of time now, I talked about surveying, right? Survey – not the teachers. Keep the teachers out of it. Survey the parents on these topics. And then find out where the parents stand on some of these topics that are controversial within the district, right? Then it's not he said, she said by these two groups of folks, right? It's the parents speaking to you directly, right? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lashley. Up next we have Val Zavis, followed by Candy Olson.

So as you all know, the Brown Act states that all speech is allowed here while speaking, except that which is against the law. It is against the law stated by California Penal Code Section 653.2 to dox individuals. which you continue to allow. Defamation of characters also against the law. We've seen several examples of your board allowing this. Please reconsider how you handle individuals who break these laws while speaking here. And I really look forward to the next meeting to, I expect the flag policy to be voted on next time. Thanks.

Thank you. Up next, we have Candy Olson followed by Michael Pazner.

OK. So the longer that you guys go refusing to vote in a parental notification policy, the more time everyone has to see that you're truly not on the side of families. The absurdity that you believe a lawsuit can place our rights on pause would be comical if it weren't so serious. From the ruling of a federal judge in California, the Escondido school policy is a trifecta of harm, which is similar to your policy. Number one, it harms a child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention. Number two, it harms the parents by depriving them of the long recognized 14th Amendment right to care, guide, and make healthcare decisions for their children. And finally, number three, it harms the teachers who are compelled to violate the parents' rights by forcing teachers to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students, violating the teachers' religious beliefs. The judge further added, A student who announces the desire to be publicly known in school by a new name, gender or pronoun and is referred to by teachers and students and others by said new name, gender or pronoun can hardly be said to have a reasonable expectation of privacy or expect non-disclosure. Everyone from the bus driver to the cafeteria worker knows about the child's status except for the parents. How nonsensical to call this an outing policy? We look forward to seeing you vote on the flag policy in the next meeting. The American flag represents every single one of us from the trans to the straight, from religious to atheist, and represents every minority and race out there. There are no lawsuits regarding this policy, which has passed in two school districts with more to follow. In addition, the Redland City Council understands this is a personal speech issue, not city speech. As you should understand, this is not district speech either. Teachers should not be allowed to influence our children with displays of pride flags badges banners, etc You all know the classroom should be neutral For years, you've had teachers getting away with pushing climate change and Democrat ideology. My older kids experienced this at Mariposa from two different teachers there, Moore and at Rev. It's time to get back to academics. It's time to purge the pride flags and stop towing the party line because we're not tolerating it anymore. And to be clear, those new policies just passed by Newsom, no one is tolerating those either. They're just completely unconstitutional. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have Michael Paisner followed by Dr. Broom.

Hello. My name is Michael Paisner. I have to say, all of these efforts to erase the LGBTQ plus community really makes me wonder, what traumatic personal experience are people trying to deal with? Did a lesbian outperform them at a sporting event in high school? Was their romantic partner stolen by a gay person in college? Their obsession with eliminating signs of the LGBTQ community clearly requires therapy, but I've only got three minutes. So let's sum up, shall we? We've seen hatred of the LGBTQ community wrapped in benign sounding dog whistles like parents' rights. This group has tried to ban LGBTQ themed books. They've called for a forced outing policy specific to trans and non-binary kids. And now they want to limit flags in a desperate attempt to avoid seeing a rainbow. In case you haven't noticed, all these requests are coming from the same group that has publicly described the LGBTQ community both as sinful and as having mental health disorders. So let's set the record straight. If they want to describe being LGBTQ as a sin, they can say that. But that is their personal religious belief, which has no place in setting public policy. As for their mental health argument, the APA has publicly stated discrimination and prejudice against people based on their gender identity or expression detrimentally affect people's well-being. And they advocate for providing safe and secure educational environments that promote understanding and acceptance. Bottom line, psychologists are saying there's nothing wrong with being LGBTQ plus. The problem is with the people who hate them. I believe it's row four behind me. Let's also clarify that LGBTQ plus is not an ideology, it's not a fad, it's not a choice, it's not a religion, and it's not political. The community is simply more visible because they are tired of hiding. And one more fact check, the pride flag is not sexual. Red is for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, indigo for harmony and serenity, violet for spirit. If people weren't so scared of books, they might crack one open and learn what they're trying to erase. The pride flag promotes inclusion, which thankfully you include in your 2025 vision statement. I do believe in the ideals that the American flag represents, but we also need other flags to remind ourselves how we frequently fail to live up to those ideals. Native people whose land was stolen, black people enslaved, gay and lesbians denied the right to marry, among many other examples. The American flag doesn't represent everyone equally because historically we haven't treated people equally. We need reminders like pride flags that we have to do better.

Let's stop trying to erase each other and maybe do something really crazy like actually talk to each other Thank you We're not gonna can we please not just talk to each other if it's gonna cause an issue All right, mr. Broom followed by Olga Romero. I

Yes, my name is Dale Broom, District 1 and school board and superintendent. Thank you for the opportunity to talk. I am once again here to complain about the sexually graphic books in the school libraries. Awaken Redlands has submitted nine formal library complaint books or book complaints. All four of our high school principals have decided that six of these books are perfectly acceptable reading material for high schoolers, even admitting that they contain sexually graphic scenes and dialogue. These books have graphic descriptions of teen sexual touching, teen fornication, adult sexual intercourse, anal and oral sex, rape, prostitution, sex trafficking, pedophilia, incest, and masochistic sex acts. We were successful in getting one book removed from the middle schools. We have appealed all six of these books to Julie Swan for district review at the end of July, but have heard nothing but crickets. The three other books have not even been reviewed at the school level. Tonight I'm going to read to you an excerpt of one of the books, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which can be found in three of our middle schools and three high schools. This is the story of the freshman year of a gifted high school student as he interacts with older students. During this time, he begins chain smoking and drinking with his friends. He gets stoned on marijuana brownies at his first party, consumes his teacher's soup that's laced with magic mushrooms, and later trips out on LSD. And he also manages to have sex with two girls during his freshman year, and he still manages to get straight A's in his freshman year. What an example for our kids.

More importantly,

There are six sexually graphic scenes, including the following date rape scene. During a party hosted by his brother, Charlie is banished to his room, but a drunk teenage couple stumbles into his rooms to make out, and they strip naked and have sex in front of him. They started kissing hard, kissing very hard. After a few minutes, the boy's hand went up the girl's shirt and she started protesting and the boy kept working up the girl's shirt and as much as she said no, he kept working it. Pretty soon, he took off her bra and started kissing her breasts. He then put his hand down her pants and she started moaning. He reached to take off her pants but she started crying really hard. So he reached for his own. He pulled his pants down to his knees and she grabbed his penis with her hands and started moving it. After a few minutes, the boy pushed the girl's head down and she started to kiss his penis. She was still crying. Finally she stopped crying because he put his penis in her mouth, and I don't think you can cry in that position. and they kept doing other things and she kept saying no. So this, I want to ask you personally, is this the type of book that you want in our middle schools and in our high schools? Who let these obscene books in our school libraries in the first place? And all I see in this administration and this school board are a bunch of cowards who don't have, who don't really care about our kids being sexualized in school. We need to take some action and stop stonewalling and parents, call your principals and superintendents and demand these books be removed. Thank you, Dr. Broome.

Okay, up next, our last speaker is Olga Romero.

Good evening board members, cabinet, trustees, and superintendent Cabral. My name is Olga Romero. I am the parent of a student currently enrolled in Redlands Unified. I'm going to go a little bit off of what I came here today because of the 212 program. I know that this is not debatable, but what some of the points that I want to make and I hope that Mr. Cabral having him here and it's so hard to get a hold of him can take some of these into consideration. One of the things is Talk about staff input, but what about parent input? We should have input on some of these. Also taking away minutes from lunch and recess when it comes to special education, that's not right because special education kids do need their minutes to socialize. Our kids already lost a lot of um schooling a lot of interaction a lot of them had a lot of regression during covet um they did not attend almost two years of schooling so now we have minimum days that are taken away from not only services class interaction let's consider the special education kids not just you know normal able kids that's one of the things that i fight here with relins unified is that Everyone also always talks about inclusivity, but I always stress that our special education kids are not considered in a lot of these things. Another thing is I heard her say they're extending learning opportunities available. Are these opportunities available also for our special education kids? Because I don't know about them. When I pick up my daughter, no one told me that she could go to the library. Now she does have a para. Do I tell the para to take my daughter to the library? Do I tell her to go to these other opportunities that are given to the other children? Like how does that work with special education? We really need to consider those minutes that the kids are being robbed of, not just make up these new policies without any kind of parent input. And one of the last things that I do want to point out is I want to say that parents and guardians do have the right, We do have the fundamental constitutional right by the 14th Amendment to control and direct the core upbringing of our children. And our schools should not teach or encourage students to lie and keep secrets from parents. Parents should be notified when or if their child wants to change their name, pronouns, or gender. There should be a level of trust between teachers, counselors, and parents. It's sad to see that that is not the case and the division is getting bigger and bigger. I also want to point out that there are no long term studies on the mental effects of these new policies or what they will have on our kids in the future. I can't stress enough that our kids cannot be social experiments. We should focus more on math reading levels because they are at an all time low. Not confuse our children by asking them what pronouns they are. There is nothing wrong with sticking to subjects like science, history, math, and English. Thank you.

Okay, that concludes our public comment. Um, we are on to board and superintendent comments. Mr. Paul, do you have anything?

Uh, yes, thank you. Uh, I always appreciate being held accountable, uh, especially publicly. I pride myself in being available almost to anybody in the public. And so invite, uh, all parents or anybody who speaks here at the podium, uh, to meet with me. I would love to meet with you. I actually have met with many of you who have spoken at our board meetings. There is probably nobody easier to get a hold of. I have a wonderful assistant who helps me with that. And so thank you for holding me accountable to that and I look forward to hopefully meeting with you as soon as you reach out. And that goes for everyone in the community. I do appreciate hearing from everybody, parents, community members, as we try to improve what we provide as far as the education for our students. I am charged with helping our district move forward and I pride myself in taking that very seriously. Um, thank you to the presentation on the 212. I know that we have a limited amount of schools, uh, that are on that program. I happen to believe that the program can work and so I appreciate that presentation and look forward to seeing how we might, uh, have more of our schools participate next year. I failed to thank the communications department earlier for the campaign on attendance and so I want to make sure I don't leave our communications department out because they've done a great job. I also invite parents to really understand what it is that we do provide. When we talk about what a school district, what Redlands Unified will do for parents, it's very clear in our policies that you are invited to be a part of your child's education at all times, which includes meeting with anyone at the school at your request anytime that you would like. You are also invited to come to the school and look at your child's records anytime that you would like. We will communicate with you. We do communicate with parents. That is very clearly, there's a lot of evidence of that. Any parents who feel like we have not communicated with you I believe last meeting somebody said that there was, uh, possibly a physical altercation that they were not made aware of. That would be an example of something that I would love to hear about so that we can make, uh, those corrections as needed. Um, but we do communicate with parents and we invite parents to communicate with us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gabriel. Uh, we'll start on this end, Mrs. Renner.

Okay, good evening, everybody. Although we've been in school now for seven weeks, I feel like we just returned. This last two months have gone by really fast. This month, I've been able to attend the State of the City where Judson and Brown received an award for their beautiful mural on their campus. Garner Holt fall school kickoff, RUSD was recognized for their Golden Bell Award at four of our Garner Holt schools. Um, I attended a presentation on the district's parent and family engagement. Thank you, Sonia Balinget for, um, this presentation and it was very informative. I encourage everyone to go on the RUSD website to the families tab and read the policy. Melissa and I attended the Dinner in the Grove Fundraiser for Family Services. I had a great time meeting the students who drove the golf carts, and I had my life in my own hands when I went on that golf cart. It was pretty scary. And all the students who helped around and seeing all different community members. Anytime we can support nonprofits and businesses who support students and families in our district, it's a good thing. Our FACE Department's Parent University six-part series titled Effective Ways to Advocate for Your Child's Education begins Monday, October 9th. It's on Zoom and you can listen or watch at 10 a.m. or at 6 p.m. It'll go for six consecutive Mondays and you can call the district for more information on how to get on that Zoom call. I had the opportunity to watch a few of the middle school volleyball games. It's very heartwarming to see the students at the schools cheering each other on and wanting them all to do really well. I want to thank all those coaches who are helping these kids every week. You're making a positive impact in their lives. And thank you, Juan and Carrie Anne, for our very first Superintendent's Award night. It was fabulous. And I, as well as many parents and students that I spoke to, were so happy to be there celebrating the over 50 students that we have that got awards. One young man I talked to said he was so nervous before it started, and then his principal told him that he was going to be shaking hands with the superintendent. And his eyes got so big, and he got so excited. And I hope this is just the beginning of our USD celebrating our youth. I hope everyone who attended the college fair tonight and military service academy portion tonight at RHS had a great time and I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there. Thank you Jean Joy for explaining the 212 pilot program. And I want to congratulate Adele Glass on receiving her $20,000 scholarship grant for the elementary music program. And I believe it's Hispanic Heritage Month still going on until middle of October. So I want to just point that out to everybody. And congratulations to Arroyo Verde on their perfect attendance. Thanks to CNS for helping make that possible, the party possible for them. And Susan Abt, I just, I'm going to keep all the RUSD students in my prayers. And I think that's all.

That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Renler. Mr. Barra.

No comments for tonight.

Mr. O'Neill.

I think she's covered it.

I have a bonus tonight. OK. Thank you, Mr. O'Neill.

Ms. Holhan. Okay, thank you. I attended the meet and greet for CRIROP's new superintendent, Jason, last month, which was great. It was well attended. Thank you for staff from Redlands Unified who showed up. I also attended State of the City with our colleagues here, and it was great to see Judson and Brown being congratulated on the mural that they have. It's absolutely beautiful. If you have a chance, please go visit that. I attended the scholarship reception for the National Orange Show. Last week went to rev homecoming which they won which was exciting 10 at the RHS poly game this week and I'll be happy to go this week when Redlands is playing Citrus Valley at RHS and just a couple announcements October 28th is the Redlands Bowl golf tournament and 8 o'clock tea time, this supports the Redlands Performing Arts, which they do the musical. Our kids have been going to, it's a free outdoor, we celebrated 100 years program, and if you could help out, that'd be great. And I will be participating this week as a survivor of the Believe Walk on Sunday, October 1st, 8 AM. And I ask that you still, and I know there's a couple people in here too that are along that path, and keep our prayers for those who are still fighting for them. Thank you.

Okay, um, mine is quick. I just want to, um, let Mr. Cabral know that I was actually approached by someone at the RHS game who thanked us for having the Superintendents Awards. They thought it was fantastic, um, and was excited that we are gonna continue that. Um, it was a really good event. Um, there was a lot of very well-deserving students, um, being recognized, so I love that. Um, I wanna thank Mrs. Renner for accompanying me to the Dinner in the Grove. Um, and to shout out to Joyce, Roshni, Alex, and Bernice for engaging with us in conversation for quite some time, a lot longer than I thought high school students would wanna talk to us for. Um, but they were fascinated by our job and, um, were eager to, you know, share, uh, with us. So, um, I wanna thank them for taking that time and also driving everybody up and down, um, that road because it was pretty bumpy and it was pretty dusty and I'm pretty sure they all ate a lot of dirt in the end- by the end of the night. Um, and with that, I guess I will thank everyone else for coming this evening, um, and hope you have a good rest of your week. This meeting is adjourned at 807. Thank you everyone.

Thank you.