Board of Education — November 14, 2023

And thank you for coming tonight. And after we do the Pledge of Allegiance, we would like to have a moment of silence for a former employee. Jim, would you like to go ahead and lead the pledge?

We stand. I pledge your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag

for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Kathleen K. Womack. K. Womack passed away on October 5th, 2023. K. taught kindergarten and second grade at Mariposa Elementary School and retired in 1996. After Kay retired, she traveled the world with her beloved husband, Paul, and doted on her nine grandchildren. Kay was a faithful member of Pathway Church for over 40 years. With us today is her son, Daryl Womack, and his wife, Patty.

Okay, I'll take roll. Mr. O'Neill. Present. Ms. Holahan. Present. Mrs. Renler. Present. Mr. Barra.

Present.

And I am present. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the September 26, 2023 Board of Education regular meeting? So moved.

Second.

Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Alex. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to public participation, this section of the agenda is meant for any member of the public to address the board on any agenda item listed tonight. We have one card. This is the time for 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 in which a member of the public may use in addressing the board to three minutes, unless the chairperson or a majority of the board determines that a different time limit is appropriate. Our first and only speaker on this matter is Mr. Blatchley.

My name is Paul Blatchley. I live in trustee area five and I'm a concerned high school parent. I have no idea what is going to be presented in this CASP presentation, but I've sat through a bunch of these here in front of the board. And I always walk away shaking my head and the reason why I do is because generally what happens is you show the test results and then you compare the test results to San Bernardino County and to the state of California. And I just think that as a district we should be shooting higher than that. The other thing is that you tend to lump the standard nearly met into your performance, right? So if you look at the state website, it doesn't do that, right? It's just showing standard above and standard met, and that's the percentage that it gives you. But in presentations I've watched in the past, you've lumped that standard nearly met in order to pump the numbers up. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to presentation. Let's begin with Mr. Quartz who will be going over the 2023 CASP summary. Mr. Quartz.

Good evening board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet and guests. CAST stands for California Assessment for Student Performance and Progress. The data was released to the public on October 18th, and I'm here to kind of break down some of that data for the public and for the board. CASP is actually a combination of multiple assessments. The one that we're mostly familiar with is the Smarter Balanced Assessment. But there's also the LPAC and the CASP. So we're going to start with the Smarter Balanced Assessment. That contains information regarding common core standards for ELA and math. There are two portions to that test. There's a computer adaptive portion, which is sort of like multiple choice. And there's also a performance task, which is writing. So those are the two main portions of the SBAC. And that's given to all students, grade three through eight and grade 11. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to compare Redlands to the state County of San Bernardino and Riverside County. This is a broad look at how our district compares. And you'll see that Redlands is performing above. And this is for standards met or exceeded. It's not including nearly met. So this is for standards met or exceeded. 50.57 percent of our students met or exceeded standards in ELA, and 39.91 percent of our students met or exceeded standards in math. And you can see that that exceeds that of the state county of San Bernardino and Riverside County in both areas.

So let's break that down by actual grade level. You can see that students starting the SBAC in third grade are starting at 46% at or above standards in ELA and math.

The top line in green represents ELA. And you can kind of see how the progress moves from grade level. It's sort of flat as you move through grade four through seven.

And then you see a bit of improvement between seventh and eighth grade.

But look what happens between eighth grade and 11th grade, where students actually leave us at 63%. So that's a really nice trend for ELA through the years, starting at 46%. 49 percent at eighth grade and 63 percent at eleventh grade. Now, you'll see a obvious dip between grade four and five in math. That's where the learning goes from concrete to conceptual, and that's a standard dip everywhere across the country, basically, for math standards. But something that's interesting, if you look between grade 7, 8, and 11, you see kind of a gradual increase between 7, 8, and 11. That's not common in our county and Riverside County. There's actually a drop between grade 8 and 11. So that's something that we're proud of for that move up. And that's thanks to a lot of hard work by our staff.

In all, students leave us at this. In 11th grade, 63.31% of our students are at standard or above in ELA. 36.53% of our students are at or above standard in math. Although it's 36.53 percent, we're moving up. We're better than last year. And this is actually the best in all of San Bernardino County.

There's no other high school – there's no other district where their high school scores are 36.53 percent.

Okay? So that's to put that into context. So ELA performance by school. So at the bottom, you can see all of our elementary schools across the bottom. The elementary average, district average for grades three through five, is 48.41 percent. So you can see the schools that are above district average and below district average. Notably, you'll see that Cram, Kimberley, Kingsbury, Mariposa, and Smiley are among your highest schools for ELA.

What we did here was we broke out our equity support schools. And the board members are probably familiar that we have four schools that are our highest need schools for students who are on free and reduced lunch.

That's Franklin, Lagonia, Mentone, and Victoria. And what we did is we compared those schools to themselves for the previous year. So you'll see that Franklin actually improved between 31% and 35% between 2022 and 2023. There was a drop at Ligonion, Mentone, and there was an improvement at Victoria between the previous year. So that's the schools compared to themselves. For math, we showed the district average for grades three through five. 41%, and you can see the schools that are above the line and below the line. Notably, you have Cram, Highland Grove, Kimberley, Mariposa, and Smiley. So that's for math. And again, we broke out the ESP schools for math. Franklin, Lagonia, Mentone, and Victoria. And you'll see that there was an improvement between 2022 and 2023 at Franklin. a dip at Lagonia, an improvement at Mentone between 2022 and 23. Look at the improvement at Victoria between 2022 and 2023. That's a really outstanding improvement for Victoria, and I'm going to say a little bit more about that later on in the presentation. So highlighting individual schools, Kingsbury had the highest individual school performance as a whole in the district at 13.7% better than the previous year.

Other schools, by grade level, had really nice, tremendous growth by grade level. So you can see Judson and Brown, fourth grade, improved 23 percent. Cram, 16 percent, and so on. Mariposa, 20 percent. For fourth grade, Kingsbury, 18 percent. Fifth, third, 16 percent, and so on. OK, so those were individual grade level growths.

Highest grade growth in math for Victoria, 14.84% as a whole. Grades three, four, and five combined. And if you look at it by individual grade levels, there's all kinds of individual grade level growth.

And these are just the ones that are over 10%. There were other grade levels that grew. But these are just the ones that grew over 10%. Notably, you'll see Kimberly, fourth grade, 20%. Mariposa, fourth grade, 33%. Really tremendous growth. Other growth, you'll have Victoria, fourth grade, 28%. Victoria, third grade, 21%. So those are really nice individual celebrations.

So if we look at the middle school and kind of break it down by school, this just compares the four middle schools to each other. And you'll see that COPE was the highest in ELA, followed by Beatty, Moore, and then Clement. COPE was also the highest in math, followed by Beatty, Moore, and Clement. The highest gains in ELA was Clement at 2.4%. So they were 2.4% better than the previous year. And the highest gain in math was 3.81%, and that was more 3.81% better than the previous year. And that's the combination of grades six, seven, and eight. High school performance, you'll see that RHS was the highest at 76.94% of students at or above standard in ELA, followed by CVHS and then REV. RHS was the highest in mathematics at 44.24%, followed by Citrus Valley, and then REV. The highest gain in ELA was RHS, and that was 10.6% better than the previous year. And the highest gain in math was also RHS at 2.95% better than the previous year. So we're going to take a look at our student groups, and we're going to compare these student groups to state and county. These are the unduplicated student groups. The student groups that make up unduplicated are English learners, foster youth, and economically disadvantaged. So you can see that our English learners are a little bit above state and county in ELA. Our foster youth is actually below state and county. And our economically disadvantaged is actually quite a bit higher than state and county, again, in ELA. Looking at the same groups in mathematics, you can see that English learners are above state and county at 10.89%, below state and county in foster youth, but again, quite a bit higher than state and county in economically disadvantaged for mathematics. We have two other groups. We have the APAC and we have the Special Ed Advisory Committee. So for APAC, we compared those student groups to state and county. And you can see that for ELA, our African American student group was higher than state and county. In ELA, a little bit lower than state and math, but higher than county and math. For special education, you can see that for ELA, our student groups were higher than state and county. And for math, lower than state, but higher than county in mathematics. OK. So if you remember, the second assessment or major assessment in CASP was the LPAC. That's English Learner Proficiency. The assessment contains or is aligned with the 2012 CELT, California English Language Development Standards. And there are different domains. It looks at oral, listening, speaking, writing, and reading. The participants are all students whose primary language is a language other than English. So we compared this to state and county. And you can see that our English learners who take LPAC are at 56.48%. And there's four levels. These are students who are at level three and level four. So 56.48% of students at level three and level four compared to state and then county. CAST is the California Science Test. That's aligned with the NGSS, Next Generation Science, standards for California public schools. And all students in grades five, eight, and in Redlands, for last year it was seniors took the CAST. Compare that to state and county, and that's 31.39% of students at standard compared to state and county. Some of our takeaways from last year, the 2023 CASP assessment, is we noticed district-wide growth in mathematics. We also are happy with the improvement between 2022 and 2023 in our ESP schools for mathematics. We actually have some schools who have surpassed pre-COVID rates, which is a celebration. Kingsbury has passed pre-COVID rates in ELA. Victoria has passed their pre-COVID highest rates in math. Clement has passed pre-COVID rates in mathematics. And RHS has passed pre-COVID rates in ELA. That's a huge celebration. Areas of focus, we have a new phonics program at elementary, improved mathematics resources for K5, full inclusion expansion, full inclusion and accessibility training, and by name by need monthly data analysis, where we're focusing specifically on each of these student groups that we've discussed.

Thank you. What kind of questions do you have?

All right. Thank you, Mr. Quartz. Does anyone have any questions?

I have a couple of questions just for clarification and for the audience. Jamie, what grade were you in when you learned how to type?

I can't remember what I did yesterday. I didn't have typing class when I was a kid.

You didn't have, obviously not as an elementary student, right? Figured it out in college actually you figured out okay on a typewriter So and then normally high school students when we were in school, we either took typing in tenth or eleventh grade How old do the students have to be when they take the CAS how good are their typing skills? How good of typing skills do they need to have when they take the CAS and

So I think what you're trying to say is the CASP requires typing skills. Yes, it does. Yeah, it does require typing skills. We actually start these types of things early. In kindergarten, they're typing. They're actually using their Chromebooks as early as kindergarten. So they're learning from very early ages.

And while the students are taking the test online, do they have any flexibility when they have to type an essay? As far as modification, do we give the students modifications or assistance?

As you saw in our takeaways, the things that we're working on, one of the things that we're working on is accessibility supports for students. And so there are actually supports for students who struggle with that that can actually be put in place for students taking the test.

Okay, so then somebody, so back in the day when we were in school, we didn't have to learn how to type until we were like 16, 17, but now we have 8 year olds that are having to know how to type and they're having to type essays and they're having to figure out problems on the computer in math. And I think it's important for people to understand that our students are now having to take on a more difficult task when testing, because not only are we testing them on their typing skills that they don't have because they only have a couple of years of typing, And they're probably typing they probably know how to type their name and maybe a few colors but I think it's important for for Parents and the audience to know that that also has a hindrance on how well our students do because it's not all about their ability to read, write, and know their mathematics, but they just have to have an exceptional knowledge on how to use a keyboarding and the skills and the mouse and everything that goes along with it. I just wanted to you know make reference to that so that way parents understand that you know, it's not just a Paper-pencil test that our students take they're taking they're also taking a technology test Thank you, mr. Barra, does anyone else have any questions comments patty just Outstanding work for our pre-covid schools.

That's amazing with kingsbury victoria clement and rhs Excellent job to getting there

I just want to add that we do have exceptional scores and I know some people in the audience may not think so but we are on the right track and we do have comparable to other school districts and what other school districts are doing and neighboring school districts but we are doing a phenomenal job. Thank you.

Thank You Jamie and your whole team it's a great report Well, I do think it's great that we seem to be top in the county 33% 44% To me that's not good percentage really What are some of our schools doing that others are not that are making their scores go up so much relative? I mean, it didn't go way up, but 18 percent, 20 percent in a year. We have some schools that are going backwards, it seems like. So I feel to be equitable, all the stuff we're doing at those other schools need to be put in place everywhere if it's helping scores.

We looked pretty deeply into those questions, and there's no single answer, obviously. One of the things that we didn't show in this presentation was what we call cohort data. And that's basically how your fourth grade did as third graders the previous year, how your fifth graders did as fourth graders the previous year, and so on. So that's sort of a group of kids moving forward. And those are the types of things that we're really looking at. If they performed this well in third grade and really dropped in fourth grade, that's something that we consider. But one of the things that we did notice is that there is pretty similar performance between cohorts as they move through the years. So that's one of the things that kind of really alter the large swings up and down from grade level to grade level.

Thank you.

OK. Anyone else have anything? All right. Thank you, Jamie. All right, next up we have Mrs. Moore, president of Redlands Educational Partnership, to speak to us about rep grants awards.

It's bad to drop your remarks. Good evening. My name is Jennifer Moore. I am president of Redlands Educational Partnership and the busy mother to four children, some of whom have graduated and moved on and others who currently attend school in Redlands. I have been heavily involved in the district for the last two decades and have seen firsthand how REP's mission to make education a priority in the community, enhance student learning opportunities, and better prepare students to become contributing members of our society has made an impact in my boys' lives. In the 35 years since our founding, REP has given more than $2 million to RUSD schools for enrichment programs which have reached generations of students in every school and impacted countless lives. Maybe I don't know how to advance. Next slide. or not. It's all good. Oh, there we go. Okay, now it will work. REP raises money through community and corporate grants along with fundraisers such as our upcoming annual turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day and our Harlem Wizards basketball game in the spring. We also rely on individual donations and payroll deductions from RUSD employees who are willing to help fund our programs. This year, REP is giving grants to individual teachers throughout RUSD, which is supporting field trips, assemblies, gardens, makers spaces, and many other enriching opportunities for students throughout our district. Additional funding for music education is being provided through our Rescue the Instruments program, and we are pleased to provide grants to the quickest applying 10 administrators through our Grants for Principles, previously known as TAGS program. Additionally, our AAA Academy provides enrichment offerings for grades K through 12 while students are out of school. The AAA Academy works as a liaison with the California Department of Education to oversee the After School Education and Safety or ACES grant programs in our district. I would like to invite Uma Harano and Linda McLeod, our Grants for Teachers and Grants for Principals chair people from REP, to present checks to the principals who are receiving funding this year. They are Rip Alexic from Bryn Mawr Elementary, Wes Colon from Clement Middle School. If you could come forward, that would be awesome. We're going to give you money. Can I sign up for that too? Rick and then Wes Cullen from Clement Middle School, Kate Van Luven from Redlands High School, Molly O'Day for Mentone Elementary, Harley Norris, for Orangewood, Renee Canati from Kingsbury Elementary, Minerva Castorena from Mission, Larissa Gill from Mariposa, and Macy McHugh from Citrus Valley High School. Thank you very much. We are proud to present each of them received $2,500 for their qualifying grant programs. If we're going to do that, OK. In addition, on behalf of the board of the Redlands Educational Partnership, we are proud to present this check for $86,000, representing this year's rep funding to our Rescue the Instruments program, our Grants for Teachers program, and our Grants for Princes. Thank you for your time and critical support as we work together to provide for all our students who will become leaders of tomorrow. I encourage you to visit our website, to explore our programs, and to donate to support our students.

And one, two, three. Thank you.

That was wonderful. Thank you so much. We appreciate rep support. We actually have no student trustee tonight. All right, we have our association reports. Moving forward, we'll only do association reports once a month rather than every board meeting in the interest of being cognizant of everyone's time. All right, we'll start with our TA, Susan Apt.

Good evening. Unfortunately, I do not have checks to pass out, but I will try to keep it short. Good evening, school board trustees, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet, staff, and community. As you may know, this week is parent conferences for all our elementary students. It is one of my favorite times of the school year. It's a chance to honor each student for their gifts and work with their families on how to help them achieve their full potential. Then, just four weeks next, we're going to have our secondary students getting their first semester grades. Before we know that, half the school year is gone. I don't know where this year is going. It's going very, very fast. Tonight I want to give compliments to our ELO program specialists and staff at Bryn Mawr, Crafton, Franklin, Kingsbury, Laconia, Mentone, Mission, and Victoria, plus all of our middle schools, for working with their ELO staffs to create the amazing after-school programs that are helping to meet the needs of our students and their families. I want to give a shout out to the RHS band and their director Brandon Hansen for qualifying to complete in state championships. We all wish you the very best of luck, not that you'll need it. And then I want to recognize our school psychologists. Last week was School Psychology Week, and I'm afraid I'm a few days late for thanking them for all they do in our district. And I especially want to thank all our paraprofessionals that support our students. Tomorrow is National Education Support Professionals Day, and we want to be sure that we recognize them for all the hard work they are doing. And finally, I want to invite the board trustees to join RESPA, RTA, and RUSD in this year's Redlands Christmas Parade on the school bus or the float as we partake in the parade. Start looking for your very obnoxious holiday sweater so you can join us. And with that, I want to wish everyone the very best break next week. I hope you are all able to spend time with your families and friends, but mostly, I ask each of us to honor ourselves with some extra kindness, nurturing, and a rest during the break. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue. Up next, we have a respite, Mrs. Martha Brewster. It doesn't get any easier getting up here. Board members, Mr. Cabral, cabinet, and guests, as we continue to focus on the overall success and growth of our educational community, I would like to bring attention to an integral part of Redlands School District that often work behind the scenes. our classified employees. These dedicated individuals from custodians, paraprofessionals, campus monitors, safety officers, CNS, to administrative support staff. They play a crucial role in maintaining the smooth operation of our school district. Their hard work, commitment, and passion for our mission deserve recognition. In light of National Educational Professionals Day, which is tomorrow, Wednesday, November 15th, I propose that we take a moment to formally acknowledge and appreciate our classified employees. Their contributions often go unnoticed and it is essential to highlight the significant impact they have and on the overall success of our educational system. I suggest considering a special announcement or a small token of appreciation to express our gratitude. Whether it's a simple thank you note, a brief ceremony, or another thoughtful gesture, it would go a long way in showing our classified employees that their efforts are truly valued. Thank you for considering this proposal. And I look forward to celebrating the hardworking classified employees of Redland School District. Thank you, Mr. Brewster. Up next, we have our report from RAPA, Dr. Acosta.

Good evening, presidents, board, superintendent, cabinet, and guests. I'm going to stay short and sweet tonight. I think Sue took a lot of the same things that I was going to say right now, but I just wanted to point out that this week is a big week on elementary campuses with parent-teacher conferences, and it is a time of celebration. And it is a time that's one of my favorite to see our teachers partnering with parents and to see that involvement. And I just thank all of the teachers and those who are here tonight still sitting here for all their hard work and dedication putting in to each and every single report card and conference as they talk about the students. Also, secondary, just getting ready to finish up that first semester. Fall sports are done. Band is kind of rocking and rolling right now, but more important than anything, I think this is a time for us to truly look at one another, the people sitting next to us, and show our gratitude and appreciation. And over Thanksgiving break, I hope that you all take the time that we so desperately need to relax, rest, and recharge. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Acosta. OK, we're moving on to committee reports, board committee reports. I have one for CRIROP, as I guess I'll get started. And if anyone else, or do you want OK, cry-rop. CV high school EMR2 had 52 students complete their basic life support and CPR certifications. It's a remarkable job. Rev eSports teams continued to dominate and are now ranked number four in the state. So we're very proud of them. Rev video production teacher hosted Valley College video production faculty chair to tour the classroom and studio and allow Rev students to participate in the Valley College film festival in March. The – oh, CRI-ROP is going to actually be in the Christmas parade on December 2nd. And we have the counselor road shows coming up. Unfortunately, the initial dates had conflicted with CSBA and are attending the conference, so we've received alternate dates. They all start at 10 a.m. RHS is November 28th, REV is December 4th, and CV is December 5th. So if we can all, you know, find some time to make one or all of them, that'd be fantastic.

I just want to add to that one. Um, also, CRIBOT purchased three vans. Um, transportation was getting pretty expensive, so they decided to buy vans, so they were able to get some from, um, Sacramento. And they cover I believe it was 10 seats. So they have three of them now So that whenever they're doing transportation with the kids they can get them so I was really happy about that Mrs. Renly, do you have anything?

Nothing for compact tonight, but for rep Triple-a Academy will be having their fall mini camp November 20th through the 22nd You can do half day or full day register at rep for schools calm And just a little reminder, Turkey Trot is on Thanksgiving morning on the 23rd. This is the 10th year partnering with Phoenix Hope International. This year the goal is to collect 10,000 pounds of canned food, I believe, to donate to Inland Harvest. And if you would like to do some charitable giving before the end of the year, REP is a worthwhile one. All the money donated goes right back to our schools and to the students. Employees can also sign up for their payroll deductions if they haven't done so yet. And this is in support of Redlands Educational Partnership. And as you heard tonight, $86,000 has been given this year alone. So that's all I have for REP.

Do you have anything for Parks and Rec?

Just a little thing. All the field allocations for AYSO and RBY have been set for spring and everybody who requested field allotments in our district, I mean in our city, got it. One of the commissioners, Joanne Lessard, proposed that they have a volunteer coordinator position in the city and the committee agreed and they'll be taking that to the city during their next budget talks. And that is all.

And thank you mrs. Run there we have next mr. Cabral Yes, good evening.

Start off by thanking rep. That is phenomenal. Thank you so much Your partnership means the world to us Can we give rep a round of applause? $86,000 Also, a very nice presentation by Mr. Quartz. Appreciate your time, sir. We have to compare ourselves to those that surround us because it's comparing apples to apples. If there were other states that took the same tests as us, it would be easier to compare ourselves to other schools that are not in California, for example. As long as we have apples to apples to compare we're going to do that and it's always great to see us at the very top when we do that and that's a testament to our teachers And our staff our support staff that helps students and so it's it's phenomenal data. Mr. Quartz. Thank you for sharing that with us Quick thank you to the City of Redlands and the City of Highland. We had Civics Day a couple of weeks ago. We had about 50 of our high school students from all of our high schools participate in getting to know more about government through the City of Redlands, City of Highland, and then also our board members. We had a mock board meeting here with all of our high schools and each of them got to participate as a board member, as a superintendent, as a cabinet member. It was a lot of fun. Not surprisingly, our students are super impressive and I urge you to try to find a way to see our students perform either academically or athletically or in some performance because you will be amazed at how impressive our students are. And that was a lot of fun and thank you board members for participating that date. It was a full day of activities. I invite everybody to our superintendents awards. The last one for this semester is on November 28th. It's going to be a little bit bigger than we've had in the past. Not only are we going to celebrate two students per school who are top students, but we're also going to celebrate our fall sports athletes who are at the top of their game. We're also going to have all of our students who scored perfect scores in the test that you just heard Mr. Quartz give a presentation about. We have over 100 students that are going to be celebrated on November 28th. We have students that scored perfect perfects, we call it. That means they got a perfect score in ELA and perfect scores in math on the state test and they're going to be celebrated. We also have several of our schools that are getting PBIS awards. We were just at in Ontario to get those banners. Those will be celebrated that night, too So it's going to be a huge celebration if you're not doing anything on November 28th, you can write it down right now I don't see anybody writing it down But this is recorded so you can go back and you can catch this recording so you don't miss the date It's 5 30 at the RHS clock auditorium. We'll see you there That's all I have tonight. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Kipral. I will now move on to superintendents' recommendations under business services and consent items. Are there any changes or additions? No. OK. OK, then can I have a motion to approve item 13A, consent items B through P? Approval? Second. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion?

Well, I wanted to highlight O, the donations. I don't have my notes pulled up, so give me just a moment here. Not only are we celebrating REPS, great support for our school district and our schools, but that list, oh yeah, good, I can't pull it up on my phone right now, but there's some substantial, Crafton received some significant donations for Science Camp, and Science Camp is one of those things that's near and dear to me. as a former administrator at school sites. So Corina and Steven and Faye White and the engineering resources of Southern California, nearly $10,000 in supporting Science Camp at that school. That's amazing and much appreciated, I'm sure. And then working with Costco out there at Mission. I'm sure Victoria. I hope they're not taking Victoria's money because Victoria is really the neighbor of Costco. So there's a shout out to Victoria to go ask Costco for money, but they're supporting Mission out there with almost $700 and a couple of other donations. you know, really good things to see for that kind of support for those kinds of programs because Science Camp is expensive and it takes a lot of, we can't always use the school monies, academic monies to support those kinds of activities. And if you ask any elementary kid what they remember most about elementary school, if they went to Science Camp, that's going to be on their list. So thank you to those groups.

Thank you, Mr. O'Neill. Is there any other discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Under business services action items, we'll start off with item 14A. Designate Tuesday, December 12, 2023, 6 o'clock PM, as runs Unified School Districts Board of Education Organizational Meeting per ed code sections 5017, 35143, and 72000C2A. Can I have a motion?

Moved.

Second. All right, thank you, Alex. Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Item B, adopt resolution number 14, 2023-2024, emergency resolution to award contracts without bids pursuant to public contract code 20113.

Approval? Second.

All right, thank you, Patty. Well, I think that was Jim. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to consent items under educational services. Dr. Wagner, do you have any changes or additions?

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

OK. All right. Can I get a move? Let's see. Approve consent items as detailed in items 15B through 15E. Can I have a motion? Moved.

Second.

Michelle, thank you. Alex, any discussion?

Not so much a discussion, but a request. I was wondering, Superintendent, if I could get, for me, I'm not speaking on behalf of my colleagues, but if I could get printed copies of the school improvement plans for my area, for Area 5, it helps me. I mean, I've tried to read all of them, of course, online, but I'd like to make notes. And I know that these plans, you know, administrative staff and everybody works hard on getting those plans. I know that I'd like to be able to be a little bit more knowledgeable on them just by being able to take notes on the printed copy. We can do that. That's OK. All right.

No problem.

Just area five.

I wrote that down. Thank you.

Is anybody else going to want a copy of their school safety plans before we're at it? I already have them. Okay. Sounds good. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to educational services action items, let's go ahead and take items 16A and B together. Approval. Okay. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Alex. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, 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.

Okay, can I have a motion to approve item A, consent items B through AI?

So moved.

Second? Second. All right, thank you Alex, thank you Jim. Any discussion?

I just want to say it's really nice to see all the volunteers. There were over 200, I think, this time with fingerprints and regular volunteers. So thank you all the parents for volunteering at our schools. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Mrs. Renner.

And we still have the policy in effect where once they've gone through the process, even though they're not board approved, they can start without the approval. We still have that in place, right? Yes. Yes. Good. Thank you.

All right, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I'd hope not. Chair votes aye and so ordered. We have no human resources action items tonight, so I'll move forward with the closed session readout. In regard to the public employee appointment part of the agenda, I would like to report the following. In closed session, the board took action to appoint Maria Fernanda Navas Arias to the position of director one, accounting and payroll effective November 15, 2023 at step one of the management team salary schedule with the following vote. Ayala Quintero, Holohan, O'Neill, Renner, Varro, voting aye. Fernanda? Are you here tonight? Did you bring anyone with you tonight? Did you bring anyone with you tonight? Well congratulations. Okay. Um, we're on to discussion items. We don't have any discussion items on the agenda, so we'll move on to the community input portion of the agenda. Before we begin, I'd like to note the following e-mail rece- was received for public comment for tonight's board meeting and will be reflected in the published minutes of the meeting, and it's Kristalina Prado regarding flags on campus. Public participation. 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 to the clerk of the board or his or her designee prior to public participation. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems related 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 or microphone and announce his or her 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. Up next, or sorry, our first card is from Belinda Sunny followed by Candy Olsen. Okay, you're good.

Hi, my name is Belinda Sunny. I am a parent of two Ritland School District children. I am here tonight as a concerned parent and very disgusted of the books that are being allowed in our children's school. The current policy in place is not functional and allows for filth and sexual explicit material to continue to spread. I have questions for all of you. How are parents? made aware of the books being added in the libraries, how do parents opt out? As a parent, I have never once been given a list, an email, or a flyer with any information for such. The district talks about transparency. Tell me how this is being done here in regards to this matter. This district has a responsibility, it has a duty, please do the right thing. Stop exposing the innocent and immature minds of the children that we are here to teach. Now, in one of your schools, or maybe in a couple of the schools, you have a book by the name of Beyond Magenta by Susan Cookland. It has sexually graphic scenes, prepubescent and teen sexual touching and oral sex activity, pedophile solicitation. On page 80, Mariah states, I was sexually mature. What I mean by sexually mature is that I knew about sex. From six up, I used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood, make out with them, and perform oral sex on them. I liked it. I used to love oral, and I touched her you know what. We were really young, but that's what we did. At six years old, how many children know about oral sex or touching other people? These books should not be in our schools at all.

Thank you. Up next, we have Candy Olson followed by Val Zabus.

Good evening. Jim, I know it's time. I think you know it's time. Melissa, we definitively knew it was time the moment you said if someone has a flag you don't agree with, you just avoid that person. You don't talk to them. You just walk away. Our children certainly can't do that to their teacher, now can they? This board bows to the state regardless of the cost and heavy tax on young souls, regardless of the harms. It is time to stop the destruction of our children. You were set in that seat to protect and govern our kids' education. Instead, you declined to do so without remorse. Masks should have never been forced onto a child's face. This is a parent's choice. Pride flags should not be displayed in a classroom where kids cannot escape from it. Young minds should be protected from literary porn. There are things in this life that are worth standing for. The good Lord has put into motion some plans for our children to prosper and thrive, plans to keep them safe and free from harm. And thus, it is time. The time has come to announce that I'm running to unseat Jim O'Neill in November of 2024.

Okay, thank you. Up next is Val Zavius followed by Lauren Seabron.

I find it disheartening that this board will not even put on the agenda a time to discuss a new book review policy. I cannot understand how you're okay with the content of these books being so accessible to children that you are not willing to even discuss a new policy. The eight-step process in place is outdated and useless. Books were brought to your attention last March and the process is still not complete for some books. Why would you not want to protect the kids first by pulling the books and then evaluate the book and then decide we can put it back into the libraries? Parents are merely requesting a new policy to review books that the average adult who has some common sense finds inappropriate and offensive, books that you all probably wouldn't read with your own kids. While reading, of course, is a benefit to children, content matters. If these books were given to a minor on the street, it would be considered a violation of Penal Code Section 311, which states in part, a person who knowingly possesses or controls any matter representation of information, data, or image involving a person under 18 years of age, knowing that matter depicts a person as under 18 years of age, personally engaging in, or simulating sexual conduct, shall be punished by imprisonment or fine or both. The books that have been brought to your attention clearly depict underage children in sexually explicit acts and situations, from child rape to incest. Not only are these books not being pulled, it's being added. Push, what I handed out to you, is now available at Crafton Elementary. I handed you copies, as I will not stand up here and read one word from that disgusting book. But feel free to go home and read it with your own kids, since you see nothing wrong with reading about a father molesting his three-year-old daughter. And vote for Candy.

All right, up next we have Lawrence Hebron followed by Rachel Ugli.

Good evening, my name is Lawrence Hebron. I live in area three of the Redland School District. I'd like to address a profoundly troubling and serious problem in the Redland School District, namely pornography in our school libraries. Like other speakers tonight, I will address one book in particular. Unlike some other speakers, I will not read aloud some of the vile content found in it. It's unfit to be heard even by adults. But I have made copies for you of a complaint lodged by some concerned parents in our district. You can see for yourself what I am talking about. The book's title is Push by Sapphire. The excerpts I am providing you are clearly pornographic and disgusting. Unless you think I am some kind of overly modest puritanical prude, let me tell you that I am a United States Marine veteran. Marines are no stranger to coarse and graphic materials. They're probably in every barracks around the world, and we've seen them all. Accordingly, we can be considered authorities on the disgusting. And believe me, this qualifies as being disgusting. And if a marine finds a subject disgusting, it certainly does not belong in a library for our kids. The presence of such books in our middle and high school libraries raises some troubling questions. Who authorized this? Who could possibly think this was appropriate for children? And what is the ultimate purpose for allowing this filth in our children's libraries? It used to be that an adult could be arrested for exposing children to material like this. Now we use taxpayers' money to buy it for the children and place it where they can see it for free without their parents' knowledge. Anyone who thinks this is acceptable should not be working with children. In fact, they probably should have to register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives and kept away from children. Now, since some of the efforts of concerned parents in this area to remove this pornographic material from our libraries has been resisted by certain librarians and even principals, I urge this board to take the lead in removing this type of material from our schools. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Up next we have Rachel Ugli followed by Jonathan Marcus.

Hello. I, too, am totally upset that I am going to read part of it, even though the others did not choose to read some. I am quite a bit older, but I'm going to take the role of John Kennedy, senator from Louisiana, because when he read some of it, the shocked look on the faces of our representatives in Congress were astonishing. Somehow, Alice DuBois was lucky chose to feel comfortable to be very sexually graphic, to use graphic language and graphic scenes that included rape, and sodomy. I'm only going to read one page. because of my age is one thing and I did not allow any of this in my house or in really in the neighborhood and I am astonished that I am living to see this be the normal conversation amongst children. I do know that a parent can go ahead and request that their child not be allowed to check out a book. But you know, these kids are smarter sometimes than we are, especially if they want to do something and get something. So nothing's going to stop them. And who's to know? We don't know who's checking them out. It could be a student. Is they going to look to see whether or not their parents are going to allow them to listen and hear to them? So I don't know. When you were younger, if you went something like this, especially if it was a young lady, and I mean a lady, not just a girl, Because ladies, my father taught me, behave a whole different way if they wish to be respected. He says, take off your clothes. I'm a virgin, I said. He didn't believe me. Repeated his command. Take off your clothes. My hands were shaking, and I could not control them. He pulled me forward by my belt until my body was up against his, which was up against the tunnel's back wall. He reached out and grabbed them, my breath. And please, forgive me, if there are any children, this should be with their ears closed. In his two hands, he piled him in, squeezed him.

I'm sorry, time ran out. That's all right.

I hope everyone remembers their childhood.

Up next, we have Jonathan Marcus, followed by Dale Broom.

I'd like to thank the board for inviting us to be here tonight. Thank you for waking us up. We the parents...

Sorry, my fault. We have to reset the clock. Okay. My fault. Sorry, I apologize.

Are we ready?

Yeah. Go ahead.

Okay. I'd like to thank the board for inviting us to be here tonight. Thank you for waking up we the parents and getting us more involved in our children's important health and curriculum decisions. especially in decisions about dangerous curriculums and topics like the ones being pushed in this government-run public school. These dangerous topics have no place in our young children's lives. Topics like CRT that teach kids division and hate based on the color of someone's skin. Topics like same-sex relationships pushed by books with graphic depictions of rape and incest. These books sexualize children, take away sexual innocence, predispose children to premarital sex, pornography, STDs, HIV, AIDS, homosexuality, and sex crimes. Books like the ones found in this district titled Tricks and Looking for Alaska. If your district didn't have these pornographic books, we would not be here. So thank you for getting us here to point it out and to talk about it openly with everyone. Page 455 of Tricks. I hate Oscar too. He breathes beer, sweats onions and there is no love, no kindness, nothing but greed to his sex. He grabs my wrists, holds them over my head so I can't move when he bites my neck and lower. I wear his teeth marks for days. Stop, you're hurting me. You think that hurts? You ain't seen nothing yet. His teeth close even harder and his hands squeeze my arms like a vice and now his knees force my legs apart and there's not pleasure to what he's done. Only pain, bruising, I give myself to the morphine shroud, denying the pounding between my thighs. Do you guys think this is appropriate? Come on, man. You guys got millstones around your necks and you're going in the ocean.

Thank you. Up next we have Dale Broom. I'm sorry, we can't have any helpers from the audience. If we have another one, we'll ask you to leave. Up next, we are going to be respectful of everyone's time. Up next, we have Dr. Broom, followed by Jeanette Wilson.

OK, school board trustees and superintendent, as has been mentioned earlier, we have been complaining about these sexually graphic books in our school libraries for almost an entire year, beginning back in March. And we've submitted nine formal complaints. And we actually have a list of many other books that we've not yet reviewed that are in our school libraries that have been flagged in other districts. So, however, we've had three of those books removed from the middle school and now, obviously, now we've got another book that's in an elementary school that needs to be removed. That needs to, of course, be investigated. Hopefully, Dr. Wagner will do that. But the point is that we have appealed these complaints because the school principals and their committees that have reviewed these books have found them perfectly acceptable for high school students. We disagree very much so we have shown Texts of these books to many people in our in our citizen or in our city and I would say venture venture to say at least 70% of people feel that these are not appropriate books and So even though the school committees have approved these we disagree we want them appealed at the district level and to my knowledge we have not had any feedback from Julie Swan and who was designated to head this up, and this needs to be taken care of. I wanted to bring up a point that I don't know if there's a legal loophole or a legal wall that's being built so that these books cannot be reviewed, but this AB 1078 bill that was recently passed and signed by the governor does not preclude a school district from removing sexually graphic books from the library. All it says is that the school cannot discriminate against books that have LGBT topics, content, roles, and contributions, and authors, and characters, and people. So just because they have those does not necessarily mean that those books are off limits if they have sexually graphic material in them. And to be honest with you, having reviewed almost all these books that we present complaints to you about, most of the books that do have the LGBT content also have sexually graphic material in them. And I wanted to just bring attention to one book that was recently recommended by the NEA. Now, fortunately, we don't have this book in our school libraries and I hope it never gets in there, but this is a book called Gender Queer and it was recommended reading for teachers for summer reading by the NEA. This book has full, frontal nudity of a girl, a young teenage girl in it. Now it's written in a cartoon format so that it's more attractive to young readers, but it still also has pictures of oral sex, I mean graphic pictures of oral sex in it. These books are inappropriate. So what I want to urge the school board and the administration here to do is we really do need to take these books out of the school libraries, particularly at the high school level. They're not appropriate. We need to have parents involved in reviewing these books and not just have school committees where you have teachers and principals that are making these decisions. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have Jeanette Wilson, followed by Joshua Hall.

Good evening. First, I'd like to make a disclaimer that any of the complaints that have been filed about certain books being in the public school libraries are filed due to being age inappropriate and content that is unnecessary for children. We're not asking that these books be banned, so I would just like to put that on the record. They're still fully available to parents who so choose to have their children read these books. I do request that you would put the complaint policy on the agenda to hear some of the good ideas that we have to make it better because we've been going through the process. We want it to be fair, effective, and putting the safety of children first. So one of the problems with the current complaint policy that I personally experienced is the first meeting with the principal, the principal has not even read the book. So this is a waste of the community member's time and actually feels somewhat punitive to go to a meeting where the person you're meeting with has not even read the book. All they can say is, we received your complaint. Totally a waste of time. However, I will say the Moore principal did seem interested and asked to see some of the excerpts we had from the book that actually did get pulled from middle school because it was age inappropriate. question how it got there and what guidelines the librarians are supposed to use to put the book in, I hope you are investigating. At Orangewood, the principal didn't want to hear any excerpts. I mean, the meeting literally would have been seriously five minutes if we had not forced her to at least listen to us read the excerpts. So that's one problem with the policy. The other big problem we have is that during this somewhat lengthy process to review the book, to go through these steps, which I understand is going to take time, the book is still in the library. Why not, one of our suggestions is temporarily pull the book until a decision can be made. Because if you pull it, then you're like giving access to that book during those months of the review process. The other thing I would say, problems with parents stating they don't want their child to check out a book. They could also read it in the library without checking it out. And how often are the parents supposed to check? How are they supposed to read hundreds of books to see what's in the library and navigate the database to find out if it's even there? And then one just got put into an elementary. that we've complained about for high school. Why would it be in an elementary? I mean, that really needs to be investigated. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have Joshua Hall, followed by Paul Bletchley.

I have some passages from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I was going to read some passages, but there's a six-year-old girl here, so I'm not going to. But it has graphic depictions of a man on page 162 committing incestuous rape on his daughter. On page 181, there's a description of a man mentally justifying his pedophilia with two little girls. to himself and before God. I gave them this money, and they'd eat ice cream with their legs open while I played with them, and there wasn't nastiness, and there wasn't any filth, and there wasn't any odor, and there wasn't no groaning. For those little girls, it is all clean and good and friendly." That's probably one of the tamest passages. I've been flippant about pulling this book from the high school because I don't think it's, I think high schoolers should be sheltered from these realities, but at the same time, They may have younger siblings whose minds would be currently scarred if they came into contact with this book and books like it. So on the grounds that these high schoolers might have younger siblings, I'm recommending that the bluest eye be pulled from a high school library. Because, yeah, it's pretty bad. It's like some of these passengers are just disgusting. Incest, rape, fornication with teenagers. Why are these books in elementary and middle schools to begin with? This particular book is in a high school, but it could be read by a middle school or elementary school. It would damage their young mind. So I think this book should be pulled. I was debating with myself about whether or not it should be available to high school seniors with parental consent. But I think it's just too dangerous. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have Paul Blatchley followed by Lawrence Hebron. Speaking on a separate topic, I would imagine? Sorry, Mr. Bozzie, go ahead.

Good evening, board members again. So the RHS stadium, Dodge Stadium, is really poorly lit on the visiting side. It's dropping my student off for the smudge pot game. I know it's probably because there's houses around that area, but anything the district can do to make the lighting better on the visiting side of that stadium would be good. I appreciate the thought exchange around visual and performing arts. You guys know I'm a big supporter of visual and performing arts. But I've talked to you about these surveys and the idea that you and it's like, oh, we want to get the whole school community in there. And I noticed that there's several calls for a visual and performing arts coordinator, and I'm guessing that there's no parent that's asking for a visual and performing arts coordinator, that those are teachers that are doing that. So please, don't spend money on some high-paying administrative job that essentially is going to do nothing. Get the money to the programs and to the teachers. A Williams complaint. Why do we even have a Williams complaint? I actually was surprised. I researched it because you report on it and the reports were all zero. And so it's like, how come they're all zero? They're zero going back way, way, way back. I made a Williams complaint to Rev about the school bathrooms. Now you've heard parents talk about getting back to the basics, math, English, science, teaching that, and forgetting about all this other stuff. Well, there's nothing more basic than maintaining the restrooms. These kids are there for six hours, sometimes longer, and you don't have working restrooms. I just I don't get it so I'm interested to see I haven't heard any follow-up from my student who attends rep So I'm interested to see whether or not you report it and what the status of it is in January And then back to this this Testing right so 37% It's not good. When my students entered high school, I talked to Dr. Wagner about the way that the high schools are teaching math. And it's different than other school districts in the state of California. And it's like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this math program the way they are? The math book is terrible. I understand now why teachers at REV are not using it. Because I've tried to use it and I'm pretty smart at math and and I don't think it's usable So you you definitely could be doing better Yeah, okay. We're great in San Bernardino County and I know you have to compare to districts around but 37% is just not good enough in math, right? These are future leaders not with 37% proficiency in math

Thank you. Up next, we have Lauren Seabron followed by Dorothy Loman.

Good evening again, and my name still is Lawrence Hebron, and I still live in area three of the Redland School District. I'd like to correct some mistaken information that was read into the record of the last board meeting on October 24th. I was surprised to hear my name mentioned by a speaker during the community input portion of that meeting. Normally I might be flattered to receive such attention, but since nearly everything she said about me was hostile and inaccurate, it was hard to feel flattered. The speaker, Tricia Keeling, I believe, said, and I quote, I read a book by an individual who doesn't have kids here, but he keeps coming to Redlands meetings. It's called The Dangers of Islamophobia. It's filled with hatred and bigotry. She wrapped up by saying, the author of this book is Lawrence Hebron. He is running for school board. Let's consider her departures from the truth. I have written a few books, but if you can find one entitled The Dangers of Islamophobia, I'll eat the bug of your choice. This leads me to suspect that she never, in fact, did read the book, or at least anything more than the cover, which she still got wrong. You see, I did write a book entitled Islam Exposed, What You Need to Know About the World's Most Dangerous Religion. So I suspect this is what she was talking about. She said it's filled with hatred and bigotry. This, in a strange way, is true, but not in the way she likely intended. By my rough count, the book has over 300 quotes, over 97% of them from the Quran, the Surat Rasul Allah, or a hadith, which are the three main sources the Muslims themselves use to guide every aspect of their lives. I honestly and accurately detailed the beliefs and practices of Islam. So if one were to conclude that the book is filled with hatred and bigotry, that would be a personal conclusion by the reader herself about Islam itself. She also mentioned that I do not have kids here and that he keeps coming to Redlands meetings. Well, admittedly, I'm a little old to have K through 12 children, but I do have a child who graduated from Redlands East Valley High School. Now, when you put together all this personal information Tricia has accumulated, it seems that I may have a stalker. Now, that could be a little flattering, especially at my age, if it weren't so creepy. I think Tricia's real motives were revealed when she announced before I formally had that I am running for school board. How did she know that when almost nobody else did? If this is how the campaign is going to run, I'm just asking that question. Is this how we're going to run this campaign over the next year, with lies and personal attacks? I intend to stick to the issues. And there are plenty of those, as we've been hearing tonight. But if my opposition has nothing better to counter me than lies and attempted character assassination, well, then why don't you just admit defeat now? Thank you for your consideration.

Excuse me. Can I please get order? Thank you. Mr. Hebron, we allowed you to speak. Unfortunately, that community arguments or disagreements have, the board has no jurisdiction over them, and those aren't topics that can be discussed during community input. Our jurisdiction stops at the district, so as I said, anything else can't be discussed. Again, I'm just saying we aren't allowing any sort of community arguments. He was allowed to speak. I'm just saying it's not something that falls under the jurisdiction of the board. Up next, we have Dorothy Lohmann, followed by Daniel Tinojero.

Good evening. I have provided a copy of a document that I just found, the 45 communist goals as read in the congressional record in 1963 from the communist manifesto by Karl Marx. Here are some of the highlights pertaining to our schools. Item number 17, get control of the schools, use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda, soften the curriculum. Let's confuse the children with critical race theory, gender ideology, and LGBTQ flags. Item number 20, get control of book review assignments. Item number 24, eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech. RSUD actually promotes banned book week in order to entice our children to read these obscene books. Item number 25, break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books. Not only does our district allow obscene books, but RUSD actively promotes them. Item number 26, present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as normal, natural, and healthy. I don't care what adults do by themselves, but teachers and other adults should never be allowed to influence the mind of other people's children about sexuality. Item number 28, eliminate prayer in any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principles separation of church and state. Item number 32, support any socialist movement to give centralized control over the education system. Guess what Newsom's trying to do? To control the local districts. Item number 36, infiltrate and gain control of more unions, the teacher's union. Item number 40, discredit the family as an institution. RUSD's current policy is to promote parent secrecy. And finally, item number 41, emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of the parents. This one hits hard because all across the U.S., LGBTQ activists are saying that parents are the enemy, and RUSD is not standing up against this insane narrative. I want you to ponder this list very carefully. Although this board has made some steps in the right direction, much more needs to be done because they don't want our children to be strong. They want them to be confused and they want them separated from their parents. You have to make a decision. Are you going to aid and abet them or are you going to stand in their way and fight for our children? Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Daniel Pinajero followed by Michael Pazner.

Good evening, everybody. I'm standing before you today to humbly ask you to please replace the current book policy since the current one does not work and does not serve to protect our kids at all. As a concern that of three beautiful kids currently enrolled in the red light district, I ask you to please not return a blind eye to this evil that has infiltrated our classroom and is not in any way in the best interest of our kids, and all kids for that matter. I ask the board to please help me understand why are there books that have a heavy sexual contact in the school libraries? Would you have these books at your homes available for your children and grandchildren? Would you let them read them? Would your mom, dad, grandpa, grandma have read these to you back when you were little? How are these books even beneficial to our kids? What is the goal that the district is hoping to accomplish? Is it a secret agenda that us as parents don't know about? Has common sense being kicked out of the window? It seems to me that common sense is not that common anymore. I urge you to please take action and protect our kids. Please replace the current policy for one that really works. Also, it's under my understanding that the current policy states that any parent can prevent kids from gaining access to these books. But if I'm working full time and get home by 7 PM every day, how am I supposed to know what books are available at the libraries? Is there a specific place at the district website dedicated to that? It is a very difficult process trying to find these titles of any of these books. I kindly ask you again to please not to turn a blind eye to this madness. Do not take lightly the request of all parents who believe in morals and order. I, as a man of God and common sense, will always protect my kids. Please stop this dangerous policy.

Thank you.

Thank you. Up next we have Michael Paesner, followed by Susan McCarley.

Good evening, my name's Michael Paysner. Thank you for the time to speak today. I hadn't actually planned to come out tonight, but I recently watched the comments from the previous meeting. And I was so outraged by the continued lies and misinformation that you've seen here tonight and at previous meetings. I just couldn't help but come out and speak. Thank you for resisting the calls I know you've gotten for book bans, for restricting flag policies, and for policies targeting marginalized communities. Thank you for resisting that. I want to thank the superintendent for pointing out the policy that people have the ability to restrict what books their kids take out. And I don't fall for the line that they don't have the time to get the list of books. Some of the speakers here referenced they already have the list of books. They have it. And it's on conservative websites. If there's some books you don't want, they have the list. They can restrict what books they have for their kids. I get the feeling, I understand the feeling of wanting to protect our kids. I'm a dad. I feel that with every fiber of my being. I want to protect my kids. I just do it a little differently. I don't wrap my kids in bubble wrap. I can't protect them from the world forever. I protect my kids by preparing them, by letting them grow up a little bit every day. by letting them face challenges. Some of it intellectual, some of it emotional. They're going to face challenges and they're going to grow up. And I think our libraries and our schools should have the widest resources available of different challenges for them to face. Some of the books referenced, like The Bluest Eye, I've read. It is challenging. And they read selected passages as a stunt in order to elicit a response. That book in particular, it teaches empathy. It's a hard read, but when you're ready for that challenge, I want those challenges to be there for my kids, for them to tackle when it's ready for them. And if they don't want their kids to tackle it, that's fine. That's their choice. But don't restrict my choices as a parent about what my kids have access to. The other point I want to make is I'm really tired of the lies about LGBTQ indoctrination. A week ago, I had two people knock on my door preaching about Jesus. I'm sorry, there's no LGBTQ people out there knocking on doors preaching to people. But here I am, people knocking on my door, trying to indoctrinate me about Jesus. And then the very next day, I had two separate vandalism incidents at my home, people tearing down LGBTQ symbols. People ask, why am I acting like a victim? Well, maybe I was attacked twice in one day, and I'm a little pissed off about it. Thank you.

Thank you. We aren't going to do the comments, please. We're going to run a civil meeting. All right. Up next, my apologies, is Susan McCorley, followed by Valerie Tabor.

Good evening. I'm so glad that you let us come and voice our opinions here about different things. I really appreciate that. I also want to speak about some of the books that are in our schools. And while some people may call it banning books, I think it is more a choice as to what we allow for our kids. I read the book Looking for Alaska and I was very disturbed by the amount of graphic sexual Excuse me. I can't even talk. OK, never mind. It was very graphic. Let's put it that way. And it says in one of the reviews that it was a good learning experience for this boy that is called Pudge in there that he learned how to grieve properly. But the grieving that he did for the person, Alaska, who was this 16-year-old woman that he did not get to complete the sex act with. And so he said, oh, this is terrible. I have not been able to finish this act, and therefore I'm grieving. It's like, that is not healthy grieving. That is obsession. That's psychosexual obsession. And so that's one of the things that I objected to about this book. Also, if women are reading this, or girls are reading this, and they have already been molested, imagine how this triggers them. This is not a healthy thing for them. And I'm asking, along with the other people here, that you would reconsider your book policy, that you would remove the books that are extremely sexually graphic, and that you would protect our children in this way. And I thank you for letting me speak. Thanks.

Thank you. Up next, we have Valerie Tabor, followed by Thelma Snodgrass.

Hi, thank you for letting me speak today. I have a child in this school district attending Kingsbury. I was super excited to see all of the progress that they've made and I also live in district five. I wanted to first of all say thank you to board member Vara who has left for pointing out the technological foundation that a lot of kids need. That's something that I've heard a lot from like early early elementary school teachers that there's a huge gap that they're having to bridge even before they actually get to the content because so much of our learning and testing is technology based at this point. So I just wanted to say thank you for pointing that out. The other things that I also wanted to mention, I think it's interesting that a lot of the parents speaking tonight are saying that they really don't have the time to review the books or find the lists of the books, all of this information. However, I don't think it's a realistic expectation to have the principals read every book as either. I think even our librarians, it's not possible for them to read every single book in our library. So I don't really think that that is a realistic request of our or a really good use of our administrator's time. Also, I would just like to say that the proposed policy of pulling the books automatically is really the end game here because then you can get any book pulled by saying it has pornographic or it has racial ideology or it has hate speech, something in it that is morally opposed, and you automatically get it pulled, whether it actually has that in it or not. And so I think we all know that these really long policies and difficult policies are in place for a reason, and that is to make sure that books are not unfairly pulled. from our schools and are properly reviewed before we remove access to them. The very last thing that I wanted to mention that actually came up on my newsfeed and got sent to me in a message while I was listening to the comments is that I was notified that there was a child arrested on Cote Middle School grounds for having a loaded gun today. And I would love for us to focus on academics, and yet we're here talking about book bans, we're talking about all these other things, but I'm also really worried about the safety of our students too. The fact that this just happened, it really fills me with dread and fear thinking about my own TK'er, who is eventually going to be in middle school, going to be in high school, or we've even had occurrences across the nation of guns being brought into elementary schools. And with this loaded gun being brought on campus just today in our district, I'm hoping that you as a board will consider ways to keep our students safe. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our last speaker is Thelma Snodgrass. Last call for Thelma Snodgrass. Okay All right, um We are moving on to superintendent comments, uh Mr. Corral, do you have anything?

Yes. Thank you. I'll keep it long Actually, last speaker, thank you for talking about student safety because it does allow me sort of a segue into giving our safety officers who you see here every board meeting a big thank you because what we've done is have a top-notch safety team. They're the ones that keep our students safe day in and day out. And so please, let's give them a round of applause to all of our safety team. And they look good doing it. They really are top notch and we really appreciate you, so thank you very much. A couple of things were pointed out. First of all, anytime somebody takes the time to come to speak, you know, we appreciate that because it means that you're passionate about something. But we do have a policy that is being carried out. And so I'm hearing a couple of things. One is we don't like the policy. Okay, copy that. But we do have a policy and it is being carried out and outcomes of that policy maybe are also not, we're not agreeing with them. Um, when a committee does review a po- a book and decides that the book is okay, um, the policy doesn't work because we don't agree with it and I understand that. So but thank you for pointing out that there is a policy and that it is being carried out and I thank you for respectfully disagreeing with that. I appreciate pointing that out though. I do love the fact that we're talking about reading because one of the number one things that kids do not do enough of is read and so that is good hopefully because I know some of these books have been read more now Because they've been brought to light than they ever have been Probably not checked out in years But now kids maybe want to read them because they sound pretty interesting to them so Talking about reading is good. And then last I want to say Thank you. We're about to take a break next week and take some time to reflect and say thank you. And so I am now in my fifth month or finishing my fifth month and all of the people, I mean, just a wonderful community here in the school community of Redlands, all of our parents, some that we hear at our board meetings, some community members that may not have kids here but are very passionate about in the school community, and then the numerous amount of parents and community members that I've met not only at school sites but at city events. Just I love Redlands and I thank so much everybody for giving me the opportunity to be here and to work with such wonderful people my cabinet team. Carrie-Ann, if you haven't met Carrie-Ann, the only reason why I even know what I'm doing is because Carrie-Ann, so thank you. And so I'm very grateful then of course to my family who also, when you take on a position like this, they take on the position with me and so publicly thank my family. Thank you for taking me, for letting me have the moment to thank everybody. That's all I have. It wasn't too long.

Thank you, Mr. Cabral. All right. We'll go on to board member comments. Michelle, do you want us to get started?

Oh, glasses would help. Couldn't see. At the end of October, I attended fall festivals at eAcademy, Mission, and Mentone. They were all a lot of fun, and each were very unique. All the booths at eAcademy were student-driven, and it was really neat to see all the kids out there running the booths for all the younger kids. At Mentone, the game booths were done by the teachers and grade level outside the classroom doors, which was really different. Not on their playground, it was in hallways. It was really neat. The fire department was there and kids of all ages got to see the truck and go up on the truck. It was pretty fun. I loved missions. They had theirs on their playground, and they had many, many food vendors. Entrepreneur High School in San Bernardino was there, and that school, if what their culinary stuff there was, any reflection on the school, it was wonderful. I'd love to go take a tour there. It was nice to see the community out there supporting all our schools. I saw character parades at Franklin and Judson and Brown, which were cute. All our students are very creative. My two favorite costumes, the secret garden at Judson and Brown, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at Franklin. They were really cute. I got to judge Smiley's Western Day chili cook-off, and I have to say, wow, what a well-run event that was. It was so organized. Teachers and PTA parents bringing crock pots full of chili into the NPR. Some were very fancy, had crackers and cornbread and onions, avocados, chili, Fritos and much more. Needless to say, that night I didn't need any dinner. And civics day, you mentioned civics day, that was really fun. I'm always really impressed by our students and the abilities that they have in government and in their public speaking. Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing a Native American presentation at Mentone by Assemblyman James Ramos and his son James Jr. and another gentleman by the name of Trevor. They sang songs and taught the students a dance. I learned some things about the Native Americans, the Serrano Indians that I didn't know before. I was very appreciative of Mr. Ramos for his time dedicated to teaching students about Native Americans in San Bernardino. They will be at Judson and Brown on Thursday if anybody would like to go see them today I watched a bit of the softball game between cope and Clement and Cope won the boys softball today and girl Clement won the girls I attended CSBA fall meeting a new member was voted in onto the committee and so I also want to thank Jamie courts again for his report and want to say happy National Support Professionals Day tomorrow and And congratulations to all the principals who got grants from rep and I'll say it again rep is very worthwhile if you want to donate do some charity Donating at the end of the year. That's a good one to donate to I want to thank the entire rep board for all that they do for our USD and all the children in our district and Also, thank you so much to everybody that came out to talk tonight and I appreciate your passion always and your dedication to this educational journey of all our Redlands Unified students. We are listening to your concerns and just keep coming and speak your passion. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Renner. Jim, do you have anything?

Well, thank you, Michelle. You know, I'm going to suggest something to you, Michelle. I think it's time for you. to sit down with Jamie Quartz and do a podcast, a weekly podcast, The Week with Michelle Rendler. And I would definitely tune into that because I get a real snapshot of what's going on in the district just by listening to you make your comments.

Well, I have a lot of fun going to that. Well, I appreciate that. I'm very fortunate that I'm able to do that every day.

Yeah, and we appreciate it too. So Jamie, there's the next podcast this week with Michelle Renler. How about that? Yeah, okay.

I need to take a lesson from students on public speaking because I'm not good at it.

Podcasts are kind of fun. Well, I just have a couple of things here. Let's see. So Jamie, to your presentation, I know that your data gets to the principals and the principals take it to the teachers and the teachers commensurate and figure out how they can do better. Certainly those percentages, we all want them to be as high as they possibly can be and we want to see big improvements and we are seeing improvements and it is going in the right direction for most of those student groups. And I know Dr. Wagner's office and his team are really on the principles in terms of instructional programs and improvements and all the rest. So, you know, I appreciate all the data. It's a lot of work to get that data. So thank you for that report. I was... Michelle, you didn't mention the football games, but...

I wasn't here, actually, for that.

Oh, well, but you're always going to those football games, I know, because we would depend on you for the score updates. No. So, we had a couple of schools, you know, Citrus Valley and RHS were in the CIF playoffs, and then the week before that was round one. It's amazing, they've done very, very well, but for me being a former band nerd, I make sure I'm paying attention during halftime when everybody's running down and getting something to drink and get a hot dog or something like that. And, you know, it just reminds me of the amazing people, the visual and performing arts people that we have working in our schools that produce such amazing performances, if you will, the color guard, the cheerleaders, all of those individual student programs, and of course the bands, you know, they're all award-winning bands. But our people that run those programs, and the other visual and performing arts as well, you know, the theater groups and the music groups, the choirs, I love attending those and I encourage everybody to attend those because first of all you can't beat the price and the entertainment is stellar. They do an amazing job and I know it also takes a lot of parent support too, all the boosters and everything like that so I really appreciate what they're doing in that area. Certainly the Rep Foundation Amazing support through the years as an administrator in the district. Look forward to their donations. We were able to do things and have assemblies and things that we wouldn't have normally been able to do. So, a wonderful organization and we certainly appreciate their support and how many people are going to do the turkey trot. There's one hand went up, thank you. Two hands, okay. That's a good fundraiser and I know that they'll do great with that. Let's see. Oh, the Super Awards. Thank you Superintendent Gabriel for those Superintendent Awards. I think it's a great way to recognize students and I'm glad you're doing that and brought that to the district. It's a great thing. And I look forward to the next one, certainly, even though it's going to be a marathon. I would like to request also and Jason's not here to get that response but I meant to email him today but I forgot I'd like like to get some kind of an update on our crosswalk signage refreshing and enhancement project that we have going with the city but I'll call him tomorrow so you don't have to worry about that. Is he going to be in tomorrow? Not until Friday. So I'll give him a call Friday. But it's nice to see some of the enhancements. Kind of been one of my little projects is to go around different schools to improve the visual impact of crosswalks and signage. Today, for example, I was at Orange Wood, and I noticed that there's a crosswalk that crosses Texas, but it does not cross, what's that street that goes to the theater behind the car place? Well anyway, huh? Stewart. There's not one that crosses Stewart, which is interesting. It is a four-way stop sign. But here's all the Orangewood kids. Do you think they're walking across the other way? No, they're walking right there across Stewart with no crosswalk. So there's places. So if anybody out there sees a dangerous spot for street crossings, There goes somebody else. Please either email me or let Mr. Hill know so we can add that to the list of things. I noticed tonight we approved a partnership with CSU. Fresno and the nursing program. That's fantastic. It's great to see that. So I think that's all I'm going to say tonight, except that I wish everybody a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I know everybody ought to be able to find plenty of things to be thankful for. And I think I wish everybody a safe and enjoyable family time next week. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. Patty? It's going to be pretty much due to what Michelle and Jim said. I'm going to start with Juan and I attended the Optimus meeting a couple weeks ago where Juan spoke, so thank you for speaking on our behalf. You did a great job. and thoroughly enjoyed Civics Day. It's always great to see our students come and learn about the government, and I was hoping you might be able to send a letter, thank you letter, to the Optimus Club for sponsoring and for hosting it for whatever year, 50th year for now, because they well deserve it and they're big supporters of ours. So if you could do that, thank you. Congratulations to all the rep grant award winners without rep. I don't know what we do and those that money will go great one of them was science camp to science things and performing arts Congrats to our HS and Citrus Valley football for making the CIF playoffs really proud of you Unfortunately didn't go our way at the end, but it was great and we had great great support from our students and our families attending For National Support Professionals Day. Have a great day tomorrow to everyone out there. Thank you for all your hard work day in and day out And then Jamie, thank you for your presentation tonight We'll keep on shooting shooting for the stars and we'll get there. We had some great improvements and then also Rta and I think I see you still out there. I'm happy to ride on the bus So count me in on that one on the parade I'll be there and then just to wish everyone a wonderful thanksgiving with your family And I am so grateful for all our hard-working rusd staff that we have day in and day out and enjoy your break And in time with your family and your loved ones. Thank you

Patty, I'm going to keep it quick. I just want to congratulate our football teams from CV and RHS and our RHS band. It may not seem like a big deal, but some of these seniors started their freshman year online. with COVID and it's taken a lot of dedication and time perseverance and they worked really hard to get where they are and I am very proud of them and they've shown how wonderful and how truly exceptional they all are so I want to just congratulate them again Um, I also want, again, Civics Day because, you know, we all got to talk about it. It was wonderful. I really appreciated everything that Carrie Anne and Christine and Juan and everybody did to put it together. Um, I don't want to say I had the best kids, but I did. Um, uh, so Melanie, uh, from CV, Christian from Orange Wood, and Caitlin from Rev, and Gabby from RHS. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you so you guys can get to know what we do. Um, but they definitely have a spirit. They are passionate. And they have a future in government. And I think it sounds boring. Civic State doesn't sound particularly like something anyone wants to do. But then they get here. They take a chance on it. And then they get here and they see just really what we do. And they all, I mean we have the reviews. Every one of them enjoyed it. Every one of them had a good time. They wouldn't change anything except for going into the CNS freezer, which we only did it for like 30 seconds at a time, and it was killing us. But I also want to thank CNS, because they fed everybody. They gave us a tour and showed us exactly what they do. And not even my own kids appreciate that. But I went home. I made sure I told them exactly what I saw. And it's real food. I told them that they were silly for not eating it because I did and I thought it was wonderful. And the book character parade, Mr. Rossi. I really want to thank him for allowing me to be a part of that because that was wonderful. I haven't had that much fun since I was actually in a classroom volunteering and that was just wonderful to see the kids and the parents go all out and they have such a passion and they were so excited and they have the most creative books out there and their best costumes. So yeah, I just want to thank everybody for coming out. I wish you a happy turkey day and make sure you eat a lot and you have such a good time spending time with your family. And I want to remind everybody, I understand that things are getting a little hot out there, but I want to remind everybody to please exercise kindness. We are still people. We are all still human with feelings. And I- I just wanna make sure that everybody remembers that, um, at the core of it, we all do love and care for each other and our students. So, um, with that, I'll let everybody go at 752. Hope you have a good evening. Safe drives, everyone.