Board of Education — March 12, 2024

Okay, I would like to call this meeting in order. Start time is 604. Thank you for coming tonight. We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Paris, would you like to lead us in the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Roll call. We have Miss Ayala Quintero. We have Paris. Michelle. Present. Jim.

Patty.

Present. And I'm present. Approval of the minutes, is there a motion to approve the minutes of the February 6, 2024 Special Board Meeting and February 13, 2024 Board of Education Regular Meeting?

Move. Second. I'll second.

Okay. Thank you. Did you get that? Did you get the names? Okay. Discussion? All right. Student trustee preferential vote. So you say aye or no. Aye. Okay. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. 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 anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. Anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. Okay, I have the cards here. All righty, so community input. This is the time that any member of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board form to the clerk of the board and 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 the policy matter will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall when recognized by the chairperson of the board step up to the podium, microphone and announce his or her name. The chairperson shall in the interest of facilitating the business of the board limit the amount of time which a member of the public may be used in addressing the board to three minutes unless the chairperson or a majority of the board determines that a different limit time is appropriate. Before we begin public participation, I'd like to, uh, make an acknowledgement that the board has received emails from the following individuals which will be included in the published minutes of the meeting, and that's, uh, Helen Lai, Mitchell and Colleen Mitchell. And I would also like to, uh, note that we have received several other emails for the meeting, uh, input, but they came in after the 4 p.m. deadline yesterday and we will be- and that will be reflected in the April 9th, 2024 published minutes. Okay. So, Tricia Killian. Yeah, this is community input here. Did you have two cards? No. Okay.

My name is Tricia, I've got two kids in the district. Tonight, this board has a decision to make. To trust the administrators, educators, and the librarians which make this district what it is, or to side with the people who are literally trying to ban books. The option for parents to call into the school library, thank you. The option for parents to call into the school library and opt their child out of checking these books out already exists. Let's trust their process. All of these books have value for our children. They are not required for curriculum and deal with sensitive subjects, many of which our teens face here in Redlands. Reading this sort of literature allows them to explore these sensitive topics in a safe manner. Yes, some of them are controversial, but that is why they're being offered to students in high school, students who will be very soon facing the realities of adulthood. I've heard the argument that removing these books doesn't equate to banning them, that students can still access them via the public library or bookstore. Both of these options create a barrier that doesn't create equal access to all students. Also, some supporters here tonight are admitting or attempting to ban these books on social media. By banning these books, you would be taking away the rights of students to access knowledge about the world around them, and it's not just going to be these books. If the board caves, it will be more and more and more and more. Anything that doesn't completely align with a very narrow conservative worldview. Now, where does the knowledge of which specific books to target come from? It's coming from a far-right conservative activist group called Capital Resource Institute. It has been stated that the group leading the charge to ban these books has already, quote, done every step she talks about, quote, to take back the classroom. The leader of Capital Resource Institute, Karen England, is both a member of the Council for National Policy and has been instrumental in getting a book banning policy passed in Chino Valley Unified. She wrote their policy, in fact. She flies out to California from Tennessee to do these things. She is a well-known anti-LGBTQ rights activist as well. Ultimately, she's not a member of our community, nor does she speak for me or my children. Please don't allow an out-of-state anti-LGBTQ activist to have this much power in our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Matt Keeling?

Hello. My name is Matt Keeling. I live in District 4 and have two kids in the district. Most of my family works in the public school system, and it never ceases to amaze me how much people expect the school system to parent their children for them. However bad some parents think the content of these particular books are, we all know there's far worse a few button clicks away. If they are that worried about what their high schoolers will have to deal with as far as media, they need to teach their kids to be responsible, not expect them to suddenly deal with the difficult world when they turn 18. Besides, these parents can't think the content is that objectionable. One of them brings their young child up to hear sex scenes that she reads. If they succeed in banning these few books because they find them objectionable, the door is open for this group to ban anything they don't like. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 about just this phenomenon, the dumbing down of media to prevent people from getting offended. Say no to cancel culture, don't ban these books.

Thank you. Michael Pazner.

Hello, my name's Michael Pazner. I'm the son of a teacher that taught fan books. And I'm going to do a quick demonstration. This is The Bluest Eye by Pulitzer Prize Award winner Tony Morrison. This is one of the books that has been complained about. And I'd like everyone to notice that even though I'm holding this up where everyone can see, no one in this room has burst into flame, been struck by lightning, or turned into a pillar of salt. We are all okay. I joke, but my point is serious. These books are not dangerous as some would have you believe. Do not restrict everyone's choices to alleviate the fears of a few. If some parents don't want their kids reading this book, it is their right to make that choice for their kids. But don't let their restricted world view limit my kids' choices or everyone else's choices. And let's be honest, tonight isn't really about banning books. The real goal here is to create a spectacle, foment outrage, undermine trust in public schools, and advance a particular political agenda. I urge you to keep that in mind during your discussion. I also remind the board that reviewing books is not part of your regular responsibilities, just like going into a classroom and teaching kids isn't your job. Your job is to ensure the superintendent is doing his job, and that policies like the book review policy are effective. Just like you don't review each teacher's lesson plans, there's no reason for you to second guess the staff who have thoroughly reviewed these books. If you do want to make the book review policy more effective, let those making the complaints and appealing the decisions pay for the staff's time it took to review these books. This book is a painful but important read. And while I do recommend this book, the truth is I really don't care if you read it or not, because my true agenda tonight is that we all have the freedom to read the books we want. And I assure you, whether you choose to read The Bluest Eye or the Bible, none of us will be turned into pillars of salt in the process. Thanks.

Thank you. Megan Garcia?

Hi. As they've said already, parents already have the choice to call into their school's library and say that this book is not okay for their kids. And by doing this, it's taking that choice away from parents throughout the district, taking that choice away from them from the people that are screaming parent choice. and then banning books not only stifles the freedom of expression but also hampers the intellectual growth of the students. Books can serve as one of two things, mirrors or windows. For the mirrors, it allows those to see themselves in stories, the good and the bad. If a student is suffering and can see themselves in a story and see those characters pushing themselves, thriving and surviving, that can serve as a lifeline for that student. For the windows, it gives the views to the world, allowing students to explore different perspectives, cultures, and ideas. Banning books denies our children the opportunity to learn about the rich tapestry of human experience and history. It's essential for students to engage with diverse viewpoints, to develop critical thinking skills and empathy, and making a choice to remove stories that could be inclusive gives the message to kids that they might not belong. When young people lack positive role models and stories from similar back ones, they are left with narratives that are more likely to predict suffering or ignore their existence completely. When we remove narratives about targeted people, we erase them. When we include, invest in, and celebrate these stories, we give all children better maps for understanding themselves and the people around them. Removing books from students doesn't stop them from having those same experiences. It stops them from having an idea of what to do when those experiences happen to them. Our schools should be places of knowledge and enlightenment, not censorship. And founding books has never been on the right side of history. Thank you.

Thank you. Val Zavis.

So when did it become a right for children to read pornography? I don't think that that's a right that children should be able to read pornography. This is according to UNICEF. Exposure to obscene material at a young age may lead to poor mental health, sexism, objectification, sexual violence, among others. When children view obscene material that portrays abuse, they may come to view that behavior as normal and acceptable. This is from the American College of Pediatrics. Pornography may be defined as the depiction of erotic behavior, sexual display in pictures or writing that is intended to cause sexual excitement in the viewer reader. Pornography has grown common in part because it is so easily accessible, for example, in our schools. Sexual predators have purposefully exposed young children to obscene or pornography for the purpose of grooming the children for sexual exploitation. Pornography exposure on older adolescents and young adults shows that males show increased callousness towards women, consider the crime of rape less serious, and become more interested in more extreme and deviant forms of pornography. Teenage sexting has been linked with pornographic exposure. An article in the Journal of American Medical Association shows neural changes in the brains of pornography users are like changes seen in the brains of those addicted to cocaine, alcohol, and meth. Because of its harmfulness to children, adolescents and young adults, pornography or obscene material must never be used as a tool to teach children human sexuality or to get them used to the world around them, as some parents in this room like to use an excuse for keeping the books in the libraries. Exposing children to this should be forbidden as it violates boundaries and beliefs around body, sexual development, and intimate relationships, as does direct sexual abuse on their body. They risk reenacting or engaging in similar criminal behaviors according to the Journal of Psychiatric Reform. Did you know that Ted Bundy started his murder career with just such pornographic material? A 1985 study of 36 other serial murderers said their biggest sexual interest was reading pornography. The Supreme Court has even declared obscenity is not a protected form of speech, yet it remains in our schools available to our children. And just one more thing, Mr. Cabral, I found it very disturbing that at one of the previous board meetings, Your comment was, well, at least the kids are now reading while we were talking about these pornographic books. It was very disturbing.

Mr. O'Neill has mentioned that it's important when you're talking at the podium, please don't use anybody's name or refer to anybody. And also, don't talk under your breath, because we can hear that. And if it continues, we'll just have you dismissed. We'll have you escorted out from the audience. Okay, Felipe Albertao.

Hello, I'm Phillipo Bertone, Area 5 resident, and my child attends elementary school at Redlands Unified. I'm also a Safe Redlands Schools member. I'm here today to read an email from an educator who could not come here because they are sick with COVID. Good evening, board members. I am a proud product of Redlands schools and a current Redlands resident. I have dedicated my life to public schools as I have taught elementary schools the last 16 years and currently teach in a neighboring district. I have no plans to ever quit this profession. A public classroom is where we learn about others. This is a fundamental element of a functioning society. Sometimes the safest place for learning is not in the home or a classroom, but in a book. Books give us a safe place for thinking, imagining, and growing for oneself. When topics seem difficult, that is when conversations are required for understanding. If we remove a book, we remove the opportunity for conversations and understanding. I believe we are currently wasting time on this discussion. Please follow protocol, trust our librarians, and remind parents that they can opt out of books checkout for their own students versus removing literature for all students. Thank you.

Chris Clotis.

My name is Chris Clotis. I am a Redlands resident, a retired public school teacher, and grandfather to five RUSD students. I am here to urge you to remain true to your mission statement of providing a well-rounded education to the youth of Redlands. I think that it is appropriate and proper to provide education on matters of human sexuality to individuals going through or soon to go through puberty. This is every bit as appropriate and proper as providing driver's ed to people who will soon be given license to operate large machines on our public streets. I believe you should teach American history as it happened, not as someone wishes it had happened, or more to the point, not as someone wishes it had not happened. A politician recently said that while we have never fully lived up to the maxim that all men are created equal, we have never walked away from those words either. I believe that you should teach American history consistent with that assessment because that assessment is accurate. Please do not be intimidated by those individuals who come in here, wave a Bible at you, and insist that you suppress all teachings of human sexuality. I believe that human sexuality may very well be God's greatest gift to the human race. And I believe that we should address this subject with the respect and the dignity that it deserves. Thank you.

Thank you. Dale Broom? Dale Broom? Yeah you can go ahead and do it now.

Thank you, school board. Dale Broom. And I have, as you are aware, I have submitted most of the complaints regarding the library books to the administration. And we've been working on this for over a year now. We started back in February of 2023 and we have since that time filed nine formal book complaints with the Redlands Unified School District. And we've only had success in having three of them removed from middle schools, but they all remain in high schools. And the process of going about getting these reviewed and potentially removed from our school libraries is a very arduous process. There's a ten point complaint form that has to be filled out. You make an appeal to the principal, you have to make an appeal to a school committee, you have to make an appeal now to the district, and now we've exhausted that and we're here to present that to the school board to make a decision about this. you know these books contain sexually graphic material rape adult sexual intercourse sodomy prostitution teen fornication incest and pedophilia acts and pedophilia is not a normal sexual activity okay even the committee has reviewed the books uh... admitted that the books contain sexually graphic material but they gave it very lame response sing although they're not sufficiently arousing they're not sufficiently graphic that there's greater literary value that outweighs the sexually graphic material. The books actually condemned sexual acts and they gave a whole lot of excuses about why they wanted to retain these books in the library. We have provided direct quotes to the committee and even read excerpts to you as a school board to your chagrin. And the administration has refused to allow parents to participate in the review process of these books. Instead, they've relied on committees that are composed of people who work for the school district who have an intrinsic bias to not remove these books because they don't want to buck the administration. So in any event, this also I want to bring up is not a violation to have these books that are sexually graphic removed from the school library. This is not a violation of AB 1078. because we're not complaining specifically about LGBT content, authors, or discussion. We are primarily making this complaint because the books are sexually graphic. They are not appropriate for teens to read, and we would like to request that you remove these books. We're not banning books. These books are available in Smiley Library and available on Amazon. But we think that it's important that you have a responsibility to protect our kids from this pornographic material. And we expect you to take an action on this. If you refuse to do so, the voters of this district will hold you accountable. And I will also mention that God will hold you accountable. Because you are accountable to God for your decisions as leaders in this community. You're elected and we expect you to do what's right for our kids. Thank you.

Candy Olson.

All right. Good evening. I'm Candy Olson. We all know that there is such a thing as age-appropriate content. If it weren't so, adult movies, porn sites, porn hub, adult bookstores wouldn't be named adult. It's called adult, with adult only signs and prohibition of minors. Adult means 18 and up. No one wants to ban books. Let's just get that straight for the record. We don't want to force our beliefs on others. You are all free to read pornography as much as you like and obscene content as much as you like to your children at home. A couple points, parents don't know which books are in the libraries. The district's advice to opt out doesn't work for the vast majority of parents because they are unaware. An opt-in option is far more appropriate when dealing with harmful material. Second point is AB 1078 has been used by this district to hide behind, yet not a single complaint is discriminatory towards the LGBTQ class. Our complaints, as Dr. Broome has just mentioned, have been regarding obscene pornographic material. It is heavily incestuous. In fact, the large majority of it is incestuous and pedophilic, and this is not normal sexuality again. Countless studies demonstrate, as Val had mentioned, that this is harmful to young minds and it significantly increases sexual violence and deviant behavior. It is not the district's place nor at your discretion whether to sexualize our children. You board members know that parents have a constitutional and God-given right to the upbringing and education of our kids. Thank you.

Thank you. Andy Simmons. Josephine Swanson.

Good evening board members, my name is Josephine Swanson. I'm a third year student at UC Riverside majoring in education with a concentration in social justice. I'm also an aspiring elementary school teacher. But my education started in Redlands Unified where I spent my K through 12 years. And I'm eternally grateful to the amazing education I received in this district that got me to where I am today. Speaking of my own education, I was a chronic SparkNotes user. My apologies to English teachers everywhere. However, one book that I do remember is Fahrenheit 451. And while it has been seven years since I read it, I do remember that the main point was that the people banning and burning the books were not the good guys. Dr. Rudy Sims Bishop became famous in the world of education for her metaphor about mirrors and windows. Books are mirrors when readers see their own lives reflected back at them. Books are windows when readers are allowed to view lives and stories different from their own. It is essential for all students, but especially minoritized students, to have access to books that are both windows and mirrors to get a clear understanding of the world around them. Even in my own K through 12 experience, I had very few mirrors in the books I was reading. Almost every single book I read in my K through 12 experience was written by and about white men. It was not until my sophomore year of high school when my English teacher, shout out Mr. Jackson, allowed us free reading time where we could read the book of our choice. And I chose a book written by and about women. It is not a coincidence that these groups obsessed with book bans or book limitations have come out when books are becoming increasingly diverse and providing diverse students with representations in the books they read. Just look at the books that this group of individuals is trying to ban. The books have black, brown, and queer characters. Even if certain parents do not want their children to read books that have queer characters, characters of color, and other characters who have different experiences from themselves, that does not mean that they can make the decision for other parents. We cannot allow a small group of hateful people to decide what over 5,000 high schoolers are or are not allowed to read. I urge the board to remember that the most important group that you represent are the students, not a small group of our adults who are pushing their own bigoted and hateful ideas onto others. Thank you.

Rebecca Rodriguez. Rebecca Rodriguez.

Hello, my name is Rebecca Rodriguez. My son attends an RDS school. I would like to address the topic of racial discrimination and bullying. My son has been a victim of bullying several times. We have went to the school, spoke to the principal several times. The incident that is most recent, we have come to find out there are multiple students involved that are being bullied as well. We have addressed what we thought we can and taken some kind of consequences or action. But in the end, we have had to inconvenience our son and move him to another classroom. We have also requested a no contact contract from the school. which I had to call another superintendent of another district to get insight on. I feel that parents have lack of information regarding what they're able to do for their students to be able to make them safe. We send our students to school to make sure that they get an education, that they're safe mentally, physically, and emotionally. And I feel that this school is not meeting my goals. I would like to know as a parent what I can do to further help make awareness in the school district for every school. My main concern and my main priority is my son's safety. There's multiple statistics that I have printed out that I do have for the board members. One in five students consider attempting suicide in the grades fifth through eighth. One out of 10 attempt the suicide and carry it out. Violence isn't just physical, it can be mental, physical and psychological. In the form of bullying, we are lucky to have a son that has the 20% statistic that will speak to an adult regarding this issue. I think that the schools do need to better prepare parents for different situations, whether it's meetings, announcements. What are rules in place to keep these kids safe in classrooms? There's different education for different, there's different, sorry, there's different rules and I guess consequences that you could say that need to be in place, but we're not aware of them as parents. I've had to go to the school several times, and I still have gotten no results. So that's why I'm here tonight. One of the consequences, they said, was taking away recess next year, that they're bounding that. I don't know how true that is, but I really strongly hope that that's a lie. Sorry, thank you.

Thank you. Paul Blatchley.

Good evening, board members, superintendent, cabinet. My name is Paul Blatchley. I live in trustee area five, and I'm addressing you as a concerned high school parent and here, here for bullying and safety at school. On the red stadium, I just want to renew my call that some or all are part of that stadium be named after Glenn Johnson. Glenn was a beloved teacher at REV, moved over there in 1997. He established the video production program, REV Week, and a school film festival for students. I don't know if any of those things are still happening at REV. When REV won the state championship in football, the helmets had a J. a J decal on them in memory of Glenn. So I don't think there's anybody more deserving of recognition. Some all are part of that stadium, should be named after Glenn Johnson. We got another attendance notification from REV, the number of tardies for first period, reminding parents what time school starts, duh, 8.30 AM, and telling us to get our kids there on time. And I'm wondering what role the REV administration has in this whole deal, right? You'll notice that the parking lots that are most accessible to the front of the school are reserved for who? teachers and administrators, right? Have you ever been to a store, right? Like the people that work at the store park way far away, right? So they can leave the spots up close for customers. There's one entry point. There's no traffic control. And look how the campus is laid out. So kids got to park far away from the school, go through the front gate, and then get back to the J wing for if they have a class in first period at a portable. The other thing that I have concern about is Prop 28. You surveyed us on Prop 28. And I'm wondering where that money went, right? Has it been spent? Is it allocated? What is going on with the Prop 28 money? Have you been to a production in the Blackstone Theater? It's in bad need of upgrades to its sound system and to its lighting. And it doesn't sound like the choral programs or the theater programs at REV, received any money from Prop 28. So I don't know where that money went. I told you to get it to the programs, not hire some administrator for the district. Again, Glenn Johnson, Rev Stadium. Thank you.

Mr. Blatchley, did you want to address the handbook? That's the agenda item. You can have another three minutes for that.

I don't need another three minutes. Well, you can have it if you want. OK. Well, I read the handbook, right? And the only thing that caught my eye, and we've heard it already from another parent, In the handbook, under the governing team, governance team, responsibilities, it talks about giving students a well-rounded education. I just object to the idea, I don't object to it, I question whether or not this district is capable of a well-rounded education and I know Dr. Wagner knows what I'm talking about and I've talked to the board before. about the nature and positions that are underrepresented in the district. So if you want to provide a well-rounded education, you need to do something about that. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Joshua Hall.

To say that fighting to remove books from school districts that are pornographic and sexual in nature is banning them is misleading. If we were to pull every pornographic book that had sexually explicit material from the school districts, you could still go to the Smiley Library and rent them. You could still go to Barnes and Noble and purchase them or buy them from Amazon. So we're not banning books, first and foremost. Secondly, everyone's saying that, parents can up their students out of like reading this material if it's on a required or A rereading list? Well, that's true, but parents cannot opt their students out of receiving education regarding gender and gender identity in the classroom. They can opt them out of receiving education on how to prevent HIV and other STDs, but they can't opt them out of receiving gender identity education. They can't opt out of that. So it's also misleading to say that parents can opt their students out of that when they can't. And I'd also like to point out to the people that say banning books are not the good guys. Our side was being deplatformed and blacklisted and losing jobs for two years for saying that the mandates, the COVID mandates, were violating the First and Fourth Amendments. The mandates and the vaccines were dangerous to people's health, especially children. Our side was losing livelihood. being threatened with job termination in some states and counties, being threatened with jail time. So that's the actual censorship right there.

Thank you. Is there a bail mall?

I'm here to address the school board on behalf of the pornographic material that remains in the high school libraries. Even though the disturbingly obscene and graphic sexual contents have been brought before you all for nearly two years now, As a citizen of Redlands since 1963, a grandmother, a local business owner whose customers are 95% teenagers, and a pastor of a church in this town, I am extremely concerned about the welfare of our children in this community. I've counseled and mentored hundreds of teens and adults, both male and female, who have suffered lifelong trauma from experiencing sexual exploitation as children. Over 90% of the teens and adults I've counseled who have deep-seated emotional and relational struggles had been molested by a parent, a family member, a family friend, a sibling, a clergy member, a teacher, or a fellow student. Rape, molestation, incest, and other forms of sexual abuse break down the very soul of a human being and can scar them for life, causing devastation in every area, causing them even to want to take and to take their own life. Virtually every teen I have ever counseled who was cutting themselves are victims of rape and molestation and much of that happened within the home. These violent actions are the cause of many addictions including alcoholism, drug addiction and sex addiction. Without protection, these children become adults who have great difficulty coping with life and healthy relationships. The books we are demanding you to look at and remove are the ones that graphically, graphically describe pedophilia, rape, incest, sexual abuse, and other morally and psychologically induced actions. Patty and I went to school together. We both went to Clement together. I looked up to her. She was in student government. I want to look up to the leaders in my city. I want to look up to the school board, the city council, the mayor, the police department. My father retired from Redlands Fire Department. I have family and friends who even teach here at the University of Redlands. I own a business here. I train children how to drive. But have you ever sat and listened to a 13-year-old tell me that her father taught her how to have sex? Now if children are reading books about this in school, it's triggering them. They will act out. They're hurting Let's get these books out of the school and get them Educated in the areas they need to be trained in before they have to come to me at the end of their rope I love this community and I really want to see the kids prosper Heather Griggs

Good evening. My name is Dr. Heather Griggs and I'm a resident of Redlands in trustee area one. Tonight I come to you very disheartened from what I'm seeing from a very small segment of our community. I come to you as a community member and an educator of 34 years. I've been a teacher, a coach, a site administrator, and even a superintendent. In retirement, I now serve as full-time faculty at University of Redlands. Free exploration of ideas are at the core of maintaining a democratic and educated society. Through authentic inquiry, learning is solidified. In other words, people learn and grow as a result of their experiences and their interaction with the world. That inquiry requires open access to materials, unsuppressed by political activists and those who want to present a limited perspective on the world. When we attempt to suppress thoughts and feelings of others, we are simply indicating what we ourselves are indeed afraid of. And as a society, we have been afraid many, many times. In the 16th century, we were so afraid of rising Protestantism, we banned Machiavelli's The Prince by the Catholic Church. As a former history teacher, I would love to walk you through 600 years of text suppression, the political and societal ramifications, but I'll save that for my graduate students. However, you would see repeatedly again and again that the banning of text is a mirror of what we are indeed are afraid of. Every decade, our country sees factions attempting to suppress text. Go back to 1850s when we tried to suppress Uncle Tom's Cabin for fear that evils of slavery be exposed. Or in my own lifetime, the entire state of Mississippi attempting to ban Sesame Street because of an integrated caste in 1970. In my coming of age years in 1980s, it seemed we were afraid of whatever we called obscenity, including the Great Gatsby, the Grapes of Wrath, and all things Judy Blume. And now today, what are we afraid of? Most of the books being questioned are by LGBTQ authors or authors of color. Are we afraid of life beyond white or straight or middle class America? Our sheer fear should never dictate our inquiry, our understanding, and ultimately our learning. Retired, I swore I would never be in another board meeting, but I would be morally negligent if I didn't advocate for our educators and for our children in this matter. Education must be open to ideas, to histories, and inclusive perspectives. Board, do your best to support your educators and the people that you have hired. Help maintain a community that we can be proud of.

Thank you.

John Swanson. John Swanson.

Good evening. My name is John Swanson. I'm not sure how to follow my daughter and now the retired superintendent, but I'll do my best. I would like to share my thoughts on the latest news or efforts of some among us pressing for book bans or limitations. Our US Declaration of Independence published in 1776 advanced the notion that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are cornerstones of a free society. These words were memorialized centuries ago now in a much different time, but were already not thought to apply to everyone equally with significant meaningful exclusions etched in the founding documents. Progress since these foundational times only came through struggle and protest, including labor and civil rights movements, women's rights, African American, LGBTQ plus and the disabled. These facts are irrefutable. Progress was not given and is not assured. Only through persistence have we overcome resistance of those who seek to conserve primacy over the different other, twisting their existence or presence into a threat, like comparing great works of literature to pornography. Yet despite progress, we know critical early errors in our founding moments fed centuries of policies that shaped an unmistakable history of systemic disparities and inequity. Still, a critical tool of progress has involved storytelling, narratives that give voice to lived experience for those who may struggle for validation otherwise. Books are a critical method for this to be achieved, while also drawing parallels for those seeking liberty, including the right to live and pursue happiness. This is, of course, not lost on those who'd seek to ban them or limit them. It also shouldn't be lost on us that there was a don't say gay law settlement in Florida today. While some parts of this grossly unjust law were maintained, it's critical to note that ban books and school clubs will apparently come back in. Turns out bigotry is still both wrong and harmful. As our elected school board, you face resistance today not unlike those who have resisted every moment of progress this country has ever experienced. Supporting liberty for all is apparently not so easy as it sounds. I hope you will choose well. We are capable of acknowledging. Learning from and repairing history, we do not need denial to protect us and cannot accept or allow the harm it brings, including in the form of book banning, no matter how sincere the fear and ignorance. We are capable of living up to a vision that embraces every individual for who they are. Breaking down barriers while locking arms and adding seats to a table representing all our communities. Writings about historical and current experiences are critical to enabling such a vision. Those who will ban books rebuke not only these goals, but the very seeds that gave birth to this country, however imperfect the growth. I implore you to stand up to their misguided and harmful effort. Don't fall for the historical distortions that oddly seek to over sexualize everything. Thank you.

Dominique Swanson.

Hello, as the mother of two children who attended Redlands Public Schools from K through 12th grade, who is devoted hours upon hours, not only to my children's education, but to the education of their classmates as well. I would like to add my voice to those requesting that you not allow the perspective of a small group of people to restrict access to books for everyone's children. I also care deeply about our community and our children. Particularly for those of us who don't find ourselves widely reflected in the pages of traditional textbooks and curriculum, and really for all children, books that represent a variety of perspectives and experiences are invaluable. I support you in standing strong against the forces of closed-mindedness and erasure. For far too long in our country's history, the voices of people of color and LGBTQ people have been marginalized and have been excluded from the narrative. Please don't empower a minority to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. Please help us keep moving forwards, not backwards. And I would also like to say that as my daughter spoke earlier, her articulate critical thinking, that's what comes from reading books and experiencing things beyond just your own immediate life experience. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jeanette Wilson? Or Janetta? It's Jeanette, but I wanted to speak to the agenda item. Yeah, yeah. You can, go ahead. You can come up and speak to the... So you're able to respond to me then? No, no, none of us are able to respond. The protocol is for us not to respond, but you can go up and speak. But under agenda item, you are able to respond, correct? No. So right now, I shouldn't even be having a conversation with you. Yeah, but you can. So if you want to speak on it, you can go up and go ahead. Go ahead.

I can clarify. Your comments can be made, and then the discussion item, when the board discusses it, they may address comments that were made at this time. But they're pertaining to the discussion item, which is agenda item.

Thank you for clarifying that. My name is Jeanette Wilson and the question I hope you will respond to later when you are discussing this issue is one speaker, earlier speaker's comments, he stated as fact, as if it were fact, that you have no jurisdiction or responsibility over the books in the library as the board. And my understanding is that you do. There is board resolution, board policy that explains what you expect of books in the library. So I just would like that to be clarified so that the audience doesn't assume what he said is correct. So I've been talking to many parents and community members as of late, and I keep getting asked, why is the school board so interested in keeping pornographic and sexually graphic books in the school libraries? They have stated this is not what I pay taxes for and I do not agree with this at all. And lastly, they say I may just have to bite the bullet and pull my kids. Now, some may say that we're a small group. I can tell you from talking to people in the community, this is not the case. I wish I had an answer for them. I do not know why you persist in allowing books with sexually graphic descriptions, pedophilia, violent rapes, unlawful sexual acts, child rapes, group sex, instructions about anal sex, and blowjobs in the library. And please don't say our objections only serve to make kids want to read them. The REV website promotes the reading of such books much more than anyone else can. Why do you want to be responsible for making this information available to children? Let parents do that. The majority of those served by the Redlands Unified School District believe the books do not belong in public school libraries. You are on the wrong side of the majority of your constituents, taxpayers, and parents. So inversely, you are on the right side of making sexually perverted materials available to children, which thus normalizes this behavior that they are learning from reading in the books. And that, as we have stated before, is very damaging to the psyche of a child. Thank you.

Hillary Tabor.

Hi, thank you for having me this evening. I am a parent in this district and I am a resident of this district. There have been many thoughtful and well-spoken comments tonight from parents, educators, and concerned community members about book banning. I stand as a parent with many of these folks here tonight to urge you to trust our librarians and our educators as experts in their field who have taken part of multiple committees that we have paid for, that have reviewed these books and found them to continue to have value for our students and for their education. The Library of Bill of Rights said it best, I think, librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents and only parents have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children and only their children to library resources. Please continue to prioritize the right and responsibility of parents to decide what books are appropriate for their students. Please end this discussion here tonight. Further, I wanted to say that I attended the safety forum hosted by the district at Moore Middle School on adult and student boundaries. I want to say that I appreciate that you have made anti-grooming and student and adult boundaries a priority, so much so that you had someone who is an expert in identifying grooming precursors and keeping students safe, host a forum here in our district. Unfortunately, there were not very many familiar faces there. I think I could count the attendees on my hands. And many of the people here tonight who are so concerned about student safety and student boundaries were not in attendance. And I wish we would put our efforts towards that rather than policing our books. Books are not one of the things that were identified in this very expensive, I'm sure, forum that lasted, I think maybe two, three hours as something that is a grooming precursor. There are many reasons why folks can't attend these forums, so I want to acknowledge that. And it is also something that I wanted to request you consider in the future as well. I would love for there to be a Zoom or a live stream option for these forums. Really, there was like 10 people in attendance, which is unfortunate because it was a lot of really great information. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Lawrence Hebron.

Good evening. My name is Lawrence Hebron. I live in area three of the Redlands School District. If you had asked people just a few years ago whether there was any chance you'd have to beg and plead with a school board to remove pornographic material from children's libraries, I don't think anyone would have even imagined that the topic would ever even arise. And yet here we are tonight begging and pleading with you to remove pornographic material from children's libraries. How did we get to this point? And as disgusting as is this material, what is even worse is that there are public employees who have been entrusted with caring for our children who think it's OK to make this material available to them. A few years ago, you could have been arrested for providing pornography to kids. Today, we pay librarians to seek it out and stock our library shelves with it. And we pay teachers and other administrators to deny the protest made by concerned parents. This is not merely an issue for puritanical prudes who have hangups over sex. Study after study has shown the damage pornography does to people. But I don't need an academic study to know this. I have a friend who has struggled for over half a century with an addiction to pornography. He said it has ruined his life, destroyed his marriage, and he still goes to counseling weekly to try to keep it under control. He began looking at porn as a young adult, and it still did all of this damage to him. Can you imagine the devastating effect on a child? Well, you were called trustees. And you were called trustees because you were entrusted with protecting and promoting the welfare of our children. All we're asking is that you do your job, protect and promote the welfare of our children, and get this filth out of our school's libraries. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Samantha Trad. Samantha Trad.

President Vara, members of the school board, Superintendent Cabral, my name is Samantha Trad, and I grew up in Redlands. I'm a product of Redlands Public Schools. And some of the books that they want to ban were books that really affected my life when I was a geeky AP English kid in high school. These books helped me in a really positive way. Now my kids attend Redlands Public Schools. I can't call them geeky because one of them is here tonight, and actually they're a lot cooler than I was. But I'm glad that as a parent, I have the right to decide what books my kids can read based on my own personal values and beliefs. It's important that parents have this right, but it's really important too that kids are able to access these books if the parents are okay with it. The majority of people complaining about the books don't even have kids in the school district. The way that they talk about it, you would think that there's Hustler and Playboy at Redlands High School Library, and I just don't think that it's there. These books are in schools for a reason, and we actually have a separation of church and state, and that's really fundamentally important. They say that they aren't here to ban books, so then why are they here? Parents already have an ability to decide what books their kids read. And if that process needs to be reviewed, then I encourage you to make that incredibly transparent and make sure that everyone has a say on it. We cannot let a small group or even a religious community dictate what books people read. My children's grandparents grew up in Czechoslovakia and what they did as dissidents under the Cold War was that my mother-in-law, she had a typewriter and she would type Lord of the Rings with carbon copies and they would give it to their friends as an act of dissidents because Lord of the Rings was actually banned in Czechoslovakia under the Cold War. We heard other books that have been banned over time. Who gets to decide this? How do we decide? This is supposed to be a free country. We're supposed to have freedom of speech, which includes being able to read books for high school kids. And I'm glad that we do have a review process and parents are able to decide what books their kids read. It's really, really important. So with that, I encourage you to hear what one of the last speakers, Valerie, said. Please, it would be great to be home on a Tuesday night. I'm here with my son because my husband had to work late, but I'm going to keep going because our freedom is really important, and we need to be able to have books in our schools, in our high schools, that kids can access if their parents are okay with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Anthony Dodd. Anthony Dodd.

Good evening, Redland School Board. My name is Anthony. I moved here two years ago and I love this town very much. I'm here tonight because for two years I've been listening to these Christian Trump supporters lecture you about pornographic books in the high school libraries. Their melodrama does not reflect reality. Here are five fun facts about teenagers reading books. One, most teenagers don't read books. Two, and bless those that do. Two, teens that like to read will not read every book in the school library. Three, nor will they finish every book they started. Four, if they finish the book, they'll forget most of it within a few years. Five, very few books, if any, change the course of a teenager's life. So, the chances of a Redlands teenager reading an unassigned school library book from cover to cover that profoundly changed the course of their life in a way their parents would deem dangerous, next to zero. Bad books in this sense are a myth. So is the idea that teenagers seeking arousing pornographic material would head to the school library to read sexually explicit prose instead of simply reaching for their phone and viewing far more provocative material. So these Christian Trump melodramas are a complete farce. And why do these people get to choose which books are good and bad? I know of a book in the school libraries that is with a very offensive story in it. It's about a dad and his two daughters that are living alone in a cave. The dad is old with no wife, and his daughters have no prospects for marriage. So the daughters get their dad drunk, they date rape him, committing incest, in order to become pregnant and continue the family line. Maybe a child shouldn't read that book. It might give them ideas. But you won't hear these people complain about that story, because that story is from Genesis, inside their favorite good book, the Bible. I'm sorry, but these forsaken Redlands' parents should parent their own children, not the school board. Thank you.

Ellen Mitchell.

Good evening, Redlands School Board. My name is Helen Mitchell. I'm here tonight as both a parent of an RUSD student, as well as the spouse of an RUSD substitute teacher named Colin Mitchell. Just a bit of my own background and perspective, I'm an intensivist, which means I'm a doctor who specializes in caring for the most critical patients in the ICU. I frequently have to break devastating news to patients' families, and they're often stuck in a tough position deciding whether they can afford to take time off to see a loved one on life support. Over the years, I've met many teachers, all who share similar stories about having to scramble to find emergency substitute coverage, which allowed them to come see their family members in the hospital. I know I am preaching to the choir about the importance of our teachers as well as the need for a robust substitute teaching force. Thus, you can imagine my shock when my husband received a call that there was a complaint filed against him and that he needed to turn in his ID badge pending investigation. This was nearly one month ago. Since then, there's been zero communication from the district regarding the nature of this complaint and the time frame to expected resolution. The only emails he's received contain vague reassurances that this is how the process goes. He's essentially been told to wait it out or look for work elsewhere. This is unfair and unacceptable to me on multiple levels. As a parent of an RUSD student, this makes me wonder what recourse I would have if my child brought up a concern which I then brought to the district. As the wife of an RUSD substitute who is very passionate about the job and who wants to pursue a full teaching credential, it disheartens me to see the toll this process has taken on my husband. And as a physician who frequently meets people under the most tragic circumstances, many of whom are the teachers to whom we entrust our children's futures, I know there has to be a better way to investigate any incidents or complaints with full due process without taking qualified educators out of the workforce for a burdensome length of time. Thank you.

Thank you. AB Marcus.

Hello, thank you, Board. Kids do need literature that helps them to understand their life's experiences. This must be why RUSD insists on kids reading about rape and pedophilia, just like the kids in this district have been raped and buried with hush money. If you doubt it, just watch Pledge of Silence on mainstream media, which specifically talks about this district covering up sex crimes against its own students. We like history, so let's talk. Let's look at history. The people indoctrinating young children's minds have never been on the good side either. We're not banning anything. We're asking that graphic pornographic literature not be confused with textbooks and or sex ed. To keep these books, you show your true intentions of numbing children's minds to rape and pedophilia so RUSD can stop paying out so much hush money. I'm glad some of you have the right to choose what your child reads because right now, in this district, we don't. As long as these books are encrusted in the RUSD libraries. If these perverted books are removed from the libraries, then the chance of a child reading it is absolutely zero. Simple math, isn't it? Only one of the nine books appealed deals with LGBTQ. We hear that tossed around like we're some sort of racist or something. Beyond Magenta and that graphically describes preteen and teen sexual touching and sodomy. Okay? So, you guys got to think about this. You guys have been up there a long time. You're not going to be there much longer. Okay? Jesus is at work. Okay? I don't want to hear about Bible thumping or anything else either. Okay? You guys are going to have millstones tied around your necks and cast into the ocean. Is that what you want? We're just here trying to help you guys. Luckily for you, Jesus is long suffering. Think about it.

Thank you. Okay, next we have our student trustee report. Paris, welcome to our exciting board meeting. Thank you. Tonight our student trustee is from Redlands eAcademy and we're glad to have you here. Would you like to give us a report?

Yes. So for E Academy, we have our prom coming up on April 25th. The theme is fairytale. Our knowledge fair is coming up on April 15th. It's going to be awesome. I'm just going to say that now. And we had our senior laser tag on March 2nd. It went really well. Good, good, good, good. We had our student versus staff dodgeball on the 29th of last month, which was really fun. Now for rev we have prom coming up on April 6th tickets are selling really well And it's going to be hosted at the Indian Wells Country Club in Palm Springs On the 8th and the 10th. They had their James the giant peach March play and theater Next thing, the boys soccer team made it to CIF division in two semi-finals. The boys basketball team had five special honors. Rev's Avid Annual Junior Overnighter is on the 14th, and yearbook has been finishing up this year's yearbook. For Citrus Valley, juniors took the SATs last Wednesday. Instead of taking the tests in their English classrooms, there were three areas that they went to and a few complained about the delay of starting the test, but most stayed neutral about it. They have the becoming the Blackhawk orientation event and multicultural festival 90% of the Blackhawks are using the five-star app to record attendance for sports games club meetings and Performing arts concerts and then they have their prom on April 13th. The theme is dream for Redlands High School the JV cheer team won nationals in their division and Percussion Ensemble took first place with a score of 78.4. They had a blood drive in February that went really well. They had a speech and debate team and they went to UC Berkeley, also went really well. They had a student versus staff basketball game and the staff won by 30 points. This Friday, they have their prom kickoff, and last Thursday, they also had their cultural fashion show. Then for Orangewood, the BSU visited Victoria Elementary for a read across America. Their engineering class taught students how to launch paper rockets for leap day the basketball team Defeated two of their biggest rivals and then tomorrow is the championship game Orangewood versus Sierra And then lastly the fire fair is coming up for new students on April 11th Association reports

all right I must have missed a green card here so Colin Mitchell

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Colin Mitchell and I am a substitute teacher. On February 16th, 26 days ago, I received a call from District HR telling me that I had been placed on administrative leave based on a complaint that was filed against me. Needless to say, it was an upsetting call. I've asked the district about the nature of the complaint and have not received any information other than vague assurances that the process is playing out. This was 26 days ago. I take this matter extremely seriously and although I appreciate the intent of the investigative process, And despite the district's claims to the contrary, this is a punitive measure. I've been unable to work and I am concerned that someone other than me may have been wronged and has not found closure. The lack of communication and the extraordinary amount of time, 26 days, that this has taken to resolve is unsettling. As an employer, the RUSD is unprofessional and its lack of transparency does not engender trust. The RUSD has not furnished me with a formal procedure and I can't rely on an employer's intentions when it suspends employment without explanation and describes it as non-punitive. The language from RUSD does not faithfully describe reality. I dismiss the idea that I should have to work elsewhere without a reason for why I should do so in the first place. I no longer have a desire to work for the Redlands Unified School District. But I am here tonight because I want this resolved and I want it cleared. This concerns me not just as an employee, but also as a parent with a student in the district. And I am reluctant to believe that this should be considered normal. If it is, then the approach is confusing and hurtful, and I am not sure who is receiving any justice. Board, please do your best to support Redlands Unified School District teachers and employees, and please re-evaluate these complaint procedures. 26 days is just far too long. And since I have a minute remaining, I'm going to sort of ad lib a little bit. I have a friend and colleague who is also a teacher at McKinley Elementary School, and he is going through something similar. He received a call about a week ago. suspending him for an unknown reason and he's still not heard anything back. He's a well-loved teacher with a 42-year career as a kindergarten teacher and he was abruptly pulled from work with parents this week asking where he is and if he's okay. And he knows no more today than he did a week ago about why. And parents are asking him, where are you? He's still doing lesson plans from home and delivering school projects for pre-K kids because you need a person who knows what they're doing to do that. Again, I'm speaking on behalf of somebody else who's going through a similar situation as me. In conclusion, this whole process and the way the district handles it, the secrecy and the time it's taking is completely careless. And I appreciate the time that you've taken to listen to me. Thank you.

Thank you. Association reports. Redlands Teachers Association? Does anyone have a report? No? Okay. Redlands Education Support Professionals.

Good evening, President Vara, board, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet, and guests. Our safety officers, campus monitors, office staff, payroll technicians, fiscal and tech paraprofessionals, CNS, health care technicians, and custodians play a crucial role in ensuring the smooth functioning of our educational community. Safety officers and campus monitors, your vigilance and dedication to creating a secure environment for our students and staff are commendable. Your presence ensures that everyone feels safe and protected within our educational spaces. Payroll technicians, your role as payroll technicians is instrumental in maintaining the financial well-being of all staff. Fiscal and technology in a world that relies heavily on technology, your role is pivotal in ensuring the seamless functioning of our daily operations. Office staff, your organizational skills, multitasking abilities, and friendly faces are the backbone of our administrative operations. Your efforts contribute significantly to the efficiency and effectiveness of our daily task. Paraprofessionals, your support in the classroom and dedication to the success of our students is invaluable. Your impact on individual growth and learning is immeasurable. CNS, your commitment to providing nutritious meals to our students contributes not only to their physical well-being but also enhances their overall learning experience. Health technicians, you are on the front lines providing essential support and care that directly impacts the overall well-being of our students and the smooth functioning of our schools. Your responsibilities extend far beyond health services. You are often the first point of contact for students with medical needs, offering comfort, care, and guidance. Custodians, your hard work often goes unseen, but it is a fundamental maintaining a clean, hygienic, and welcoming environment for both students and staff. Your efforts do not go unnoticed. Your hard work is truly appreciated. Thank you for your dedication. Your efforts are truly valued. And I am grateful as the president of RESPA standing here before you all. Thank you.

Thank you. Isacosta?

Good evening, President, Board, Superintendent, and Cabinet. I wanted to start by giving a shout out to Medley Station last week coming out to many of our schools and serving kiddos during National School Nutrition Week. It was phenomenal to have them out there with the new brand and just sharing and spreading joy with everyone. I'd like to reiterate what our student trustee stated tonight with our secondary schools, well into spring sports now, planning for prom and upcoming graduations, because it's already that time of the year, which is so hard to believe. We have upcoming band and orchestra concerts. Rev is hosting RevFest on April 11th from 9 to 1.30, and we have many of our fourth and fifth grade students going out to the schools to participate in that. We're also planning a lot of fun activities across schools, such as the Redlands Bowl Sing Along. We are currently all scheduling when we're going to have them come to our campuses and serenade our kids and get them to join in. We also have the Redlands Bike Classic that is coming up that we love to support and partner with in our local community, as well as the Redlands Education Foundation's Harlem Wizards game. That's always a great time. Just last week, well the past two weeks, we had Read Across America. We wanted to thank board members as well as cabinet, district, who all came to our school sites to support and read to our students and just share the gift of literacy. That was incredible having you out there. We are holding currently a fifth grade writing contest with the topic, why you think living in America is great. And we have all of our elementary schools sending submissions in to our director, Jean Joy, to pass that on to the boards. We're excited about that as well. So we are officially in trimester three, what we call the home stretch, and it is, once again, hard to believe. Our report cards became visible to parents just yesterday for them to see trimester two. We've got a lot of exciting things happening with RCSS right now. They are holding a lot of trainings. Just last week, our counselors participated in trauma-informed practices. and tomorrow they will take place in the youth mental health first aid. So we are constantly giving them the supports that they need to help our students thrive at school. This last week, as well as this week, teachers are finishing up administering that second benchmark and we are preparing for CASP at the end of next month and beginning of May. And finally, with the SERP that happened, we are talking as an organization about how we are going to honor and recognize all of the incredible administrators who are going to be stepping down and leaving and moving on to that next journey in their lifetime. So we are looking at special ways to send them off. So we'd like to wish you all a wonderful, restful spring break. We hope that you take some time as well to recharge for that final home stretch. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Rebecca. Board Committee reports. Does anyone have anything they would like to report?

This is Redlands Compact. The Dinner Mixer was held last month. There were over a hundred students and adults participating and one was there. It was very nice. Students used what they'd learned in the Compact Club to network and interact with adults in many different fields such as the medical, banking, education, law, public service and more. mock interviews last month went very well. Um, Jim, you were there, right? Thank you for- for helping out with that. Thank you to all the adults who were there to conduct the interviews with students. It's always such a great learning experience for our compact and average students, as well as rewarding for the adults too. And i'll mention again that the steering committee is in search of a dedicated staff member who would like to be the advisor of compact club at cv and rev It's such an important and long-standing club at our high schools students in this club gain knowledge and skills that they will use throughout their lives So if any teachers or anybody at the school sites are listening, please consider being an advisor also for redlands educational partnership Um, the wizards basketball game is set for april 19th at rev at seven o'clock. So hope you're all there To see our teachers and administrators playing against the harlem wizards.

It's a great event And that is all I have The reports Okay All righty now on to board comments Um patty

Thank you, President Vara. I want to thank all the principals, staff, and parents and students for attending February Superintendent Awards. It was pouring rain that night, and we had great turnout considering all the rain that was out there. I really appreciate it that we were recognizing our TK kids, the real small ones, but it's usually the older ones. So that was such a highlight to see that students getting recognized. It was very awesome. Attended the dress rehearsal for the junior Lion King at cope You wouldn't know that it was a dress rehearsal. You would have thought it was the real one. I couldn't attend the actual night It was leap year leap day. And so I went on that Monday and they did a great job It's a wonderful program the costumes and I hope that a lot of those students continue on in Performing arts when they get into the high school system Tonight we are going to Accept or not accept our retirees tonight, and we've got a lot of them actually one of them sitting in the back. Mr. Massaro Is going to be retiring on us? Should we take it? And we've also got you know couples we've got Julian Chuck Mendoza Chuck has been here the longest 38 years of Teaching in our district. So there's lots and lots of people that are leaving taking advantage of the program that we offered and So we will miss you all. I thank you for all your hard work and dedication. To our students in our district, we will miss each and every one of you. And personally, David, thank you for everything you've done with me when it came to IT. You were always very helpful, so I truly appreciate that. And your team always still, so thank you. And then just on a side note those we have a wonderful spring break and enjoy some downtime and some Relaxation and we'll see you for the last one the last quarter.

Thank you You know I as well did go get to see Lion King jr. It was actually quite special for me. I was 10 when the original movie came out and I it was actually It was actually quite special. I had gone with a community group and we had gone to El Capitan in Hollywood and we saw this great big musical and production. And I want to thank Katie Cook for inviting me out there to witness that because, you know, I get to attend a lot of my own kids stuff and I very rarely get out to see shows and events that my kids aren't in. But this one was special. This one I very much appreciated and it took me back to that. And so again, the time and dedication that not only the staff but the students, this is a student-led production. And it was wonderful. The costumes were great, the acting was great, the talent was fantastic. And so I just want to applaud those students for all their hard work. And thank you for allowing me to witness it. And I got to witness it with Jim and it was... All the more fun. But after spring break, next week is spring break, and after that it's all kind of downhill for the rest of the year. I have a senior this year, so it's going to get real serious real soon with graduation and prom and grad night and everything. So I just want to remind everybody to take a breath. During spring break and make sure we appreciate it every day as it comes because it's it's going fast and it's gonna get faster and Yeah, hope everyone has a pleasant evening. Thanks Michelle

Over the last two weeks, I was able to visit 10 of our elementary school sites and participate in Read Across America, which for me is a highlight of the school year. I want to thank all the PTAs and volunteers for making them successful at each site. Special thanks to Amazon for their donation of books to Victoria the day that I was there. It was pretty fun. And I also want to thank Mrs. Sherman for the invitation to see the African American Living Museum a few weeks ago. I was so impressed by the fifth graders' knowledge of the individuals they were portraying. Their projects and speeches were well done, and some students even memorized their speech. I was very impressed. Um, and I was happy to attend some of the middle school soccer games. Congratulations to Clement Boys, Moore Sixth Grade, and Beatty Girls for their league wins this year. I'm looking forward to basketball starting up soon. And a reminder, the Redlands Bicycle Classic is coming up. The public races with the school duel will be held on Saturday, April 13th. The school with the most participants will get bragging rights and a trophy for the next year. All elementary schools will have an outdoor assembly with a visit from a professional cycling team. Parents don't forget to register your students. You can go to the website redlandsclassic.com or click on the QR code on the sign that's in front of your child's school to register. A special thanks to Brian Zander a teacher at Judson and Brown for organizing the kids races year after year. I wish everyone a restful and fun spring break. Enjoy time with your family. Um, we'll see you next month. Oh, and I also wanna, uh, just talk about Mr. Smith at McKinley, 41 years, retiring. I think he's the oldest, uh, longest, uh, person working in the district, retiring. And I'm- I was also kind of thinking, could we vote no on some of these and make them stay? But I guess that wouldn't be very nice. Um, some- I- I hate to lose some of the people that are retiring. But also just wanted to wish everybody a happy St. Patrick's Day next week. So i'm wearing green first at pantryk state. So and that's all I have tonight.

Thank you. Jim Well, thank you very much alex. Um Dovetailing on what you said about the Lion King. Yeah, it was fun entertaining The talent was amazing and I'm so glad that I was there and I was glad to spend the evening with you. It was really a lot of fun Those kids I wish you all could have seen how those kids just embraced their their roles and the singing and and then what I noticed is that Melissa and I were singing some of the songs which she kind of you know with my kids it was always lion king and for her as a kid uh gee whiz you could have been my daughter that's like whoo anyway um it was uh and there were the peers of the cope kids were in the audience and they were so into it, supportive, applauding, standing up, cheering, you know, their fellow students. And it was really great. So congratulations to Ms. Cook and her team for helping to put that on together. Read Across America, I was heading out on a planned vacation from, we'd planned it a long time ago. And then we had scholarship, Kiwanis scholarship interviews. but I was able to get a couple of schools in and I went to Judson Brown and it was a day early but surprisingly they were allowing me to read with some of the kids anyway because I know a lot of the teachers there and who's there but the superintendent and his team and they're having a competition with Legos and the little robots are racing up the Wow, it was fantastic. There was a teacher entry and she came in last. So the kids outshine the teacher there, but that was pretty cool. I also read it at Crafton. So I had a little bit of read across America, but not a lot this year. Student trustee meeting, Paris, we've been meeting regularly once a month and they've been very, what do you think, Paris? I don't want to say too much, but I think they've been productive and they've been interesting. The last meeting before this Monday, we had a student trustee from San Bernardino City Unified School District. She zoomed in so she was part of our meeting and they're doing some interesting things with student trustees and then Mrs. Macklemore here is doing a lot of research to help us reinforce the direction that we're going to go and help plan. So Paris, I appreciate your time and a great report tonight. Excellent job. I see your principal from eAcademy is still back there, Mr. M. And I know you're very proud of of her as a student. Yeah, I know you are. So well done. Some of the things that I'll share with my board members, some of the things that we talked about at this last meeting, I always ask them what their concerns are on campus. So it's like, what concerns? Mr. M, you'll be happy to know, she didn't have any major concerns this time. But we'll let you know the minute she does, OK? But vaping continues to be one of the big issues for our students on our campuses. And I know the superintendent is looking into ways with his staff to try to combat. Because our restrooms, evidently for students, for most of our students, are just unusable because of what's going on in the bathroom. So something we really need to continue to address. One of our student trustees is one of the critical people that put together the stage crew up at REV, and they had James the Giant Peach. This last week I was out of town. Did anybody get to see that? Didn't get to see it? Out of town. I heard really good things about it. But he did voice a complaint to me that the roof leaks in the Blackstone Theater. So they had to deal with leaks, but I don't know. I think sometimes all of my 38 years as an educator, Rain leaks are part of the business in schools for whatever reason. We definitely need to continue to patch those roofs up.

Are we sure it wasn't a 4D effect for the show?

Oh, maybe it was. Didn't think about that. He didn't say that. I like to ask them if they feel safe at school. You feel safe at school?

There you go.

That's been the answer and I'm waiting for the other answer, but so far our students, at least from the trustee point of view, they do feel safe and I think that's very important to be able to come to school and feel safe for sure. The Kiwanis Club, I know it's not school board stuff, but our Kiwanis Club gives away scholarships to readily unifying school districts and two weeks ago we interviewed kids that applied for our scholarships and we awarded $73,000 in scholarships to outstanding high school seniors. It's so hard to make choices because they go through and they interview and then We have a rubric, but I mean, we're deciding of tenths of a point. They're so, so, so good. Yeah, they're also worthy. At Qantas, we look at not only their academic success, but also their volunteerism and their community service activities. Our kids are out there and it really does give us hope for tomorrow. Hey, did you run through Redlands? Did anybody run through Redlands last week? No? Well, that was a Kiwanis-sponsored event. It's our big fundraiser. We broke records. I think 3,500 people ran, and it was raining. I mean, it was misty and everything. But that money goes right back into the community because we do a lot of community-based projects, including scholarships. And then something that I did on a personal level, but I was able to work with Redlands High School students, pretty interesting, the Optimus Club, another service club in our community, sponsored a Optimus Youth Shooting Day. Now don't panic, okay, we're not teaching kids how- how to mishandle weapons of mass destruction, but it's down at the Redland Shooting Park where we do clay target shooting and they sponsored this event for kids that wanted to be introduced to that kind of sport because in many areas it's a big sport and we have one right here in town and it's something that I have done most of my life and so I'm very familiar with it so I was able to volunteer We had a group of Redlands high school students come through and they got to learn how to safely handle a gun, how to shoot a shotgun, how to hit a clay target. If we ever want to have a shooting team, we've got some real potential. In fact, we have a couple of RHS students who also are state champions. in this sport. So it's pretty amazing. One's a girl. So, you know, girl power. So that's really important. But it was a great experience for me to see those students, and I've probably spent enough time talking about that. So I'm going to pass now to you.

Thank you, Jim. Paris. So Mr. O'Neill asked you a question, but he didn't give you an opportunity to respond. Do you want to make any comments? You can make any comments on anything and then make any comments on the question he asked you on the student trustee meeting, how it went.

Yeah, so the meetings and the student trustee and everything, I've been to, I think, three of them. I've been out of town a lot. But the meetings, I think they're always productive. Everyone that I've been to, always productive. I think that we get a lot of information across. That's really good. We always bring up comments and topics and stuff like that. That's like, what can we do to improve the school? Or what's going on with the school? And problems and everything. It's just nice to hear what other schools are doing as well. you know being an e-academy it's very small you know we don't we have stuff going on but not that much so hearing about other schools and everything it's it's it's good to like know that other schools are doing things as well and i would i feel like it would be nice if like schools had more collaboration with each other instead of just like not just like um Sports teams and like competitions and stuff like that But it would it would be a nice little idea to collaborate more because I know that another student trustee from Orangewood also thinks that a school Collaboration would be a good idea. So yeah, that's

Great idea, great idea. You need to share those collaboration ideas so maybe we can get started on some of those. So, February 16th, I attended the CIF semi-final game. It was a nail-biter of a game. We lost in PK 6-5. Yes. I also attended the superintendents awards which was awesome at CVHS. It's nice seeing, like Patty said, the little ones being nervous about coming up and shaking our hands. It's cute, very cute, yes. One of the things that I think we need assistance from our parents is As school administrators, many of our school site administrators deal with a lot of social media issues. And it's hard for us to contact Instagram and have them remove a post or have them remove an account knowing how damaging it is to our students and families. So if you are able to monitor your child's Account social media account it would help us tremendously because there's a lot of false information that's posted There's a lot of reposting of false information. There's a lot of bullying that that goes on and our hands are tied when it comes to the posting of many of the social media items, you know that are on there and And it's across the United States. It's not just a red lens thing, it's across the United States, but it's a huge issue. So parents, please be vigilant, assist us, help us out in reducing the social media accounts that exist out there only to hurt our students and families. That's another way of ensuring that we keep our school safe. Okay, so that's it for my board comments. Superintendent's report.

Yes, thank you. Read Across America, one of my favorite times of the school year. I was able to speak or to read my book to so many different classes at Smiley, Crafton, Arroyo Verde, Highland Grove, Franklin. It was really just a lot of fun. Shout out to Mr. Flynn's class though because his kids actually wrote me thank you notes. and they're the best notes. I mean, they made my day. I actually teared up when I read a couple of them. Uh, it was really a nice touch and so shout out to Mr. Flynn, thank you. It's always fun and next year, I promise all the other schools I didn't hit, I'm going to hit five more different schools, okay? I'm keeping track. Um, April 10th, I mentioned it last month, we have another parent forum, uh, and this one's specifically on social media and so I invite as many folks that can that are available to get to Cope Middle School, 5 PM on April 10th. I do think live streaming some of these is a great idea just like we do our board meetings. I'm going to look into seeing how possible that is for the 10th because it is hard for families to get out in the evening and these topics are hugely important. We do need help in tackling what gets put on social media. I'm a parent and so I get it my kids have had phones since they were in sixth grade I mean, they're like 27 and 25, but you know, I'd love to still monitor them but uh It's difficult. It's a difficult thing to do. And when they had their phones back then, it was difficult. So I get it, but if we could partner with parents and somehow work together to figure out how to help our kids be more responsible on social media, that's what we're seeking. And this parent forum is an attempt to start a partnership for anyone who comes out on that evening. The parent bullying is something we cannot tolerate, and so I'm glad that it was brought to our attention. Somebody from Dr. Wagner's office is going to reach out to that parent immediately to find out if there's more we can do for the situation that was mentioned this evening. And then I want to ahead of time, thank our CBO, Mr. Hill, who's going to do a presentation on our second interim report. A lot of work goes into that report, and I just want to give the board a heads up that you're about to see a magnificent report. Is that enough lead in there, Mr. Hill? So thank you for that.

Right, before the presentation, I want to take a five minute recess, and then we'll come back in five minutes.

All right, so we're going to resume back at 754.

Go ahead, Mr. Hill.

All righty. Thank you, President Vara, board. I apologize to everybody who's still in the room. I do give a short presentation. It's always been eight slides. My new director has made it 11, so we'll blame him. I did get four texts, by the way, that I need to speed up. The problem is I'm required by law to give you the information. That's eight slides. So I got to get through the eight slides. All righty. So every June, we provide a budget. Then we do all of our work through the end of October. I provide you a first interim, and then we do more work through the end of January, and I provide you a second interim. By law, I have to provide you that second interim by March 15th, which is today. So what we're going to do today is cover all of our books from basically June all the way through January 31st. This slide, it's kind of hard to read on the numbers now looking at it. It really is just our enrollment in our ADA. The blue is the enrollment, so you can see the enrollment across our district has been decreasing pretty consistently. That's not abnormal for the state of California. What is a little abnormal for us is the greenish color there. That's our ADA. So we're funded based on a percentage of students actually attending school. So you'll see kind of a dip through COVID. And then as of 2023-24, our first mark within this year, our enrollment started to creep back up. So our funding is heavily based on our enrollment as well as the students who are attending our schools. Our local control funding formula, which is what pays how districts get funded off that ADA, you can see a base increase of a little over $10.5 million. Total LCFF revenue of $251 million. This is moving into next year, supplemental increase of 847 and a concentration decrease. When we refer to both supplemental and concentration, we're referring to the unduplicated students in our district which we receive additional funding for. So those unduplicated students are dropping which means we receive less funding for that. This slide covers where we are currently. You have beginning balances. The first column, 2223, is the actual revenues from last year. 23-24 revised budget is our first revision of the budget we gave you in June. And then the second interim is the third column that we're looking at is where we're as of January 31st. You'll notice our beginning balance started at about $108 million. We have revenues of 357 at a revised budget, 357 million and 346 million is what actually came in up until this point. I want to take note at 22-23 at 384 million. A lot of that was additional monies coming in through COVID and that was kind of one round of some block grants that we got last year. That's why there was a large increase that we don't see in this current year. That is going to complicate our expenditures. So you'll notice our expenditures continue to increase from last year at $356 million to our second interim at $392 million. That surplus or deficit that you see in line number four there is basically just the difference between how much we spend and how much came in that current year. I'm gonna take note back at the revenue of 2223, 384 million came in. You'll notice we only spent 356 million. So a lot of that money came in as surplus. We're spending through that surplus in these out years. So that deficit doesn't cause any alarm. It just means we're burning through some of the one-time monies that we got in the past that sit on our restricted side, which you'll see in later. slides. Ending balance at the very bottom is the ending fund balance that carries year to year. You'll notice how it is going down. Again, we're using some one-time monies on the restricted side. We also don't have all COVID monies, so any money that we got through the course of COVID has to be encumbered and spent by September 30th of 2024. So you'll see us burning through the remaining portions of that money as well. When we look at our ending fund balance, there are two sides to it. Unrestricted, which is basically money that doesn't have a lot of strings on how I can spend it. And then you have restricted, which basically is money that kind of has handcuffs to it, where I can only spend it on certain items. So of our total ending fund balance, the majority of it sits in the legally restricted items, which means the money comes in to be spent for a specific reason, and we use it in that specific reason. On the unrestricted side, that's money that we kind of have set aside. You'll notice that we have revolving cash, non-spendables, our multi-year agreements, things that we spend through multiple years that we have to set aside money for. The 3% reserve for economic uncertainty at 11.7 million, that is a set amount of our total gross expenditures. So as we spend more, our reserve has to increase as well. That's if something catastrophically happened. We can dip into that section right there. And the signed items I'll go over in a minute. Here's the signed items. So we have $3.4 million in items that the district has set aside for a specific reason. We have about $928,000 left in school sites' SSP money for the year. Furniture equipment is what we use to replace basically furniture and equipment throughout the district. $1.7 million in lottery. Lottery is exactly what you think. Lottery money that comes to the district through people buying lottery tickets. And that money is set aside for books and materials and supplies. And then the amount we set aside for security in addition to paying for our security officers. Committed items, we have two pieces still in committed items. REV stadium phase two, we have a portion of monies. Phase two for REV stadium is the bleachers as well as the ADA parking to accommodate. So we're implementing that piece now. So you'll notice you have a board item on that tonight So that's the amount remaining still in that portion of it We'll expect to spend all of that once we finish phase two and then we have a money set aside for future textbook concurrent future and current textbook adoptions Next thing we're going to talk about is multi-year. So we look at this year, next year, and the following year. Here are some of our assumptions. LCFF, COLA is pretty low for next year. It's expected to be around 0.76. In 25-26 we're still predicting it to be about 2.73. There's an increase in PERS. That is the public employee retention. So all of our classified members retirement system and then STRS is our teacher retirement system. So that's our contribution into that retirement system. That's a percentage of each employee's salary. Step and column is how much we plan to increase in terms of All of our employees every year get additional year and then move over in columns. 5% to 8% in utility fees that we increase, 15 to 20% in property liability insurance that goes up, as well as any programmatic changes. These are assumptions that we use to build our multi-year. Here's our multi-year analysis. So right now we're at the second column for second interim. Beginning balance of $108 million. We'll have revenues of $346 million. We'll have expenditures of $392 million. So you'll notice that our ending balance drops on that bottom line from $108 down to $62. As we move into next year we continue to burn through some of our we have higher expenditures than we do revenue and then we do as well as in 25-26. Now a couple of the things that we're doing to kind of mitigate this spending down of reserves is over the last couple years and during COVID we used a lot of COVID monies to hire people in temporary positions. So we're starting to let some of those temporary positions go. You heard a couple of times tonight the term PERS or PARS, that's Early Retirement. So basically what we did is we offered a retirement incentive for our highest earners to voluntarily leave the district. So we have a lot of people retiring as well as eliminating some of our temporary positions which will get us back right funding in our out years. So ultimately, at the end of 25-26, we have an ending balance of 55 million. So we're still carrying an ending fund balance. It's just decreasing every year as we burn through those reserves. At this point, you have three options to certify the budget, which is what you do tonight. Positive, which means we can meet our financial obligations for this year plus two out years. Qualified, which means we're in danger of meeting our obligations this year and out years. And negative says we can't meet our obligations. So I'm going to recommend that tonight when you take board action that you give us a positive certification because we can meet our financial obligations this year as well as our two out years. And the last slide that was added, May revision. So we'll know more in May when the governor comes out with the May revision. District will adopt its budget tentatively in the mid of June. Legislature delivers their budget to the governor by June 15th. State will adopt their budget by You'll have our budget by mid-June. So we have you approve a budget before we actually have a state adopted budget, which is always kind of a little bit backwards, but it's the law, so. Any questions?

Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

My question is about a textbook. Future and current textbook adoption monies. Do we get additional funds from the state right now for textbook or not?

We're not getting anything from- The only money we get from the state for textbooks is lottery. So you get lottery in kind of two pots. One pot's for textbook and one pot's for other supplies. So we'll get additional money through lottery funds to purchase textbooks.

Well, the 1.6 looks low to me in a textbook budget. Is that- It is, it is.

Our next textbook adoptions will be ELA and math, which is probably two to three years out. Before that gets done, we'll probably need about $4 to $7 million at that point. Okay. To purchase a full curriculum.

Okay, thank you.

Questions?

Thank you to you and your staff. Sitting in the back, thank you very much, I know.

Thank you very much. He's our new director, as you guys know. And then Fernanda, who works under him, kind of put this whole thing together.

Yeah, thank you. Good job, Jason. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we'll now continue with the superintendent's recommendation and let's begin with business consent items. Is there a motion to approve items 15A, consent items B through M?

I'll move. Second.

Did you get that? Okay. All right, thank you. Discussion?

Just a quick question. Mr. Superintendent, I wondered if we could find out from Jason his estimate on the completion of phase two for the stadium. Best guess.

My understanding is they're trying to get it done by the fall. However, delays like rain, the rainy season, may push it into the middle of the season, actually. if we schedule all of our away games we're trying to do what we can to have the first home game be the latest as possible but it's okay unfortunately it's even worse than you think because the construction is going to cause us to not even have the seating we currently have and so we're really trying to push them to finish but some of it they're not really you know they're not in control of

You know the team will have a standing ovation whether they win or lose, right?

It's whether it's week six, week one, week seven. Bring your own chairs. Yes. Okay, thanks.

All right, student trustee preferential vote. So you say aye or nay. All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay. Now we're on to adopt the Board of Education Governance Handbook. Is there a motion? To approve it?

I'll second.

Thank you. Discussion? Nope. Okay, student preferential vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, approve the revised 2023-2024 Board of Education meeting dates. Is there a motion?

I'll move. Second.

Thank you. Discussion? question so we're we're not doing the avid that that was taken out the avid night correct okay and we also did not have a special board meeting the fifth okay okay student trustee preferential vote all those in favor say aye aye opposed chair votes aye and so ordered Adopt resolution 25-2023-2024 with Public Agency Retirement Services, PARS, to design a supplementary retirement plan, SERP, S-R-P, for a certificated non-management, certificated management, classified non-management, and classified management employee, which was initially approved by the board on December 12, 2023. The SRP SERP was designed as a retirement incentive program that encourages eligible employees to retire early. The goal of the program was to generate savings or at a minimum create a no cost to the district by increasing the number of retirements in the 2023, 2024 school year. Is there a motion? Move approval. so that was patty and melissa got it huh it was tied they both tied with the second so it was patty and either me or michelle but okay thank you discussion all righty student preferential votes All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Approve 2023 Redlands Unified School District Transportation Plan. Is there a motion?

I'll move.

Second? Second. Thank you.

Discussion?

2023, 2024.

You better make sure.

Yes. No discussion? Okay. Student trustee preferential vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Approve and certify the second interim financial report H251 per assembly bill 1200 and education code 35035G. Is there a motion?

Second.

Alrighty, discussion? Good job, Jason. Student trustee preferential vote?

Aye.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered.

President, really quick, just to clarify on that vote, AVID night is still on, it's just not as a board meeting. Just as a clarification.

Are they individual nights or is it still all one night?

One night.

Okay, thank you. Educational services consent items, is there a motion to approve items 17A, consent items B through I?

I'll move.

Go ahead, Patty.

It was me, Jim. It was Melissa, then Jim. Okay, discussion? Student trustee preferential vote? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Moving on to action items under educational services. So we're going to go ahead and take all of the ed services action items together. Is there a motion to approve items 18A through 18I? I'll move. Second. Is it L?

I second. Aye to me.

Aye.

Yeah, online ed services consent items. Action, expulsions.

Okay.

All righty. Thank you for double checking though, Patty. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second.

Thank you, Patty Jim. Discussion?

I'm confused.

It hurts my heart to see these numbers going up, that kids are making very bad choices. It's spring time, I don't know. I hope parents and students have discussions about making good choices, that every choice has a consequence. And good or bad, these are bad.

Okay. Any other discussion? No? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Just so you know, there's some things that we can do preferential vote and some that we can't. So on the ones that we can't, I won't ask you for preferential, okay? Just so you know, I'm not ignoring you or forgetting you, okay? All righty, so is there a motion to approve item 14A, sorry, 19A, consent items B through AI?

I'm going to, I'll second and I'm going to abstain on item E as in Edward.

Okay, discussion? Student preferential vote. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. All righty, so now we get to Okay, HR action items. Approve increase for board compensation education code section 35120 and board bylaw 9250. Allow the board to increase its compensation by 5% per year. The recommendation is to increase board member compensation by 5% as allowed by law effective July 1st, 2023. Is there a motion? To approve. Okay, thank you. Discussion? Okay, student trustee preferential vote. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Yeah, opposed. A chair votes aye and so ordered. Certificated ratify adopt revised resolution number 7, 2023-2024 action regarding teaching outside credential authorization.

Move approval. I'll second.

Thank you. Discussion? Student trustee preferential vote. Aye. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye and so ordered. Certificated approved 2024-2025 declaration of need for fully qualified educators for submission to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Is there a motion?

I'll move. Second.

Thank you. Discussion? Okay. Student trustee preferential vote. All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye and so ordered. Okay, reading out of closed session, in regards to the public employee appointment of part of the agenda, I would like to report the following. In closed session, the board took action to appoint Kelly Baker to the position of elementary assistant principal Kingsbury Elementary School effective April 1st, 2024 at step five of the management team salary schedule with the following votes. Ayala Quintero, Holahan, O'Neill, Rendler, Vara voting aye. Is Kelly in the house? Are you here by yourself or with family? All right, you want to introduce your family? All right. Congratulations. All right. Welcome to administration. In closed session, the board take action to release and reassign employee number 2023-24-04, effective the 2024-25 school year. The board directed the superintendent and his designee to send out appropriate legal notices with the following vote. Ayala Quintero, Holahan, O'Neill, Renler, Vara voting aye. We will now move on to the discussion items. Complaints concerning instructional materials. Juan, could you give us an update on the instructional materials?

Yes, to provide context, this request came in which falls under the jurisdiction of the board which is to consider the matter of the decision by the committee to approve books or to allow books to stay in the library that had been challenged. So what's before you and what's on the agenda as a discussion item is to consider the matter of the process that our district follows regarding book challenges. To give you some background, in October of 2022, the board had a discussion at a board meeting, it was October 25th, that described the current process that we're following. At that time the board what the discussion led to is allow for the process to be carried out to see To make sure that we're just following what our current policy says which is what we did And I think that one of the criticism is that it's not as timely or is not as quick as maybe it could be however the process includes a complainant making a principle aware of a book that is to be challenged and The principal then reviews that with the complainant. If the principal is not going to take that book out of the library, then the complainant has the option to file a complaint, an official complaint. At that point, then the principal will put together a site committee. The site committee will read the book, review the book, and then make a decision, and the principal will then provide the complainant a decision. That decision includes specifically the reasons why that site committee felt like that book was okay to stay in the libraries. If there's an appeal to that site committee's decision, then it goes to a district committee. The district committee then is made up by ed services and the staff does the same thing or the committee does the same thing, excuse me. Which is to read the book review the books The committee themselves are made up of staff and parents where there might be a little bit of Again a critical eye could be that nobody knows who the panel is or who the committee is and that's by design so as not to provide any kind of pressure on any particular committee member. But it is composed of parents and of staff. They read the books, they review the books, that does take some time. I will say maybe not a year, but it did take us some time to do that. The district committee then makes a recommendation. The final outcome or the final response is provided by our director of ed services, and that is provided to the complainant. At that point, the decision is final. However, the board can consider just about any item as the governing body of the school district, any item that falls under your jurisdiction. And that is why the matter can be placed on the agenda for discussion to review either the process or to review if anything is to be added. Or if the board feels like the process was followed, carried out in an appropriate way, and there needs to be no changes. It's really up to the board.

Okay, when you're talking about the committee at the school site, the principal puts a committee together. So every time a complaint comes in, is it a new committee being formed? So different parents could have a chance to be on it, or is it one committee that stands for however long? I don't know.

My guess would be that it's dependent on the site, so it wouldn't be the same committee by site. But the district committee would be the same committee.

Okay, so like at a school site, say a book, somebody wants the principal to look at this book, and they put a committee together. And then two months later somebody has something else they want to look at. Is it that same committee or do they make a new committee? Yes, same school.

So if somebody at rhs, uh, if uh, our principal at r just puts a committee together It's that is it that same committee for any book that comes in?

Yeah, that's what i'm wondering. So would that get to give more parents or more? Teachers or whatever a chance to be on that committee at one point or another or is it just one committee through the whole year?

Uh, dr. Wagner, do you know the answer to that?

Yeah, the school site committees are at least four certificated staff that's written in the procedure Honestly, the principal is looking for anybody that is willing to be on a committee. So it's not always the same people Some are more willing than others just to participate because it is their time And it's outside of their work time that they're doing this committee work to review these books so it could be different different people on

This month than in this month or that month and is that how it works at the district too?

Um, I mean we've only done this process once at the district.

So, uh, it's been the same Larger committee group that has worked on all of these ones that have come to the district level But this is the first time it's ever happened.

So Um any other comments or discussions

Go ahead, Jim. Well, first of all, I wanted to thank the public comment, people who brought public comment to the board tonight. I appreciate their civility, their honesty, the way they express themselves, and I respect their beliefs on both sides of this issue. I think it's fair that they understand kind of what our role is and what we think about. This policy really hasn't been tested before, to my knowledge. This is the first time we've been through this process. And so I'm glad we have been able to actually put the policy to a test, if you will. I think there were some concerns brought up tonight that I made note. First of all, I think consistency is really important for us to maintain, that we have something that's consistent. So if we're talking, Michelle, you bring up the fact that maybe school sites might have a different approach in terms of their committees or how they meet. I think, Juan, that could be something that you could have discussion with principals that we have some kind of consistency out there. when these when this issue comes up and the policy is put into play on how committees are selected who serves on the committee and those kinds of things at the site level and of course you know Dr. Wagner takes care of the district level. There was also concern brought up about opting in and opting out. I think our policy that allows parents to pick and choose with the librarian what they want their child to be able to or not be able to check out of the library. That system needs to be easy to use, accessible, and that it actually works for parents who want to either request that a book not be allowed to be checked out by their student. I'm not sure we're there yet. I mean, we hear that at other board meetings that it's hard to find the card catalog. I don't know if anybody calls it a card catalog anymore, but the book, you know, that dates me right there. But the books that are available in our libraries, where is that? How can they access that? That needs to be really easy for parents to look and review. and then make the request. I'd like that to be as easy as possible for parents to be able to do that. I also trust our staff and librarians to know what books are allowed to be in our libraries because there is a list that comes from the State Department of Education and I expect them to adhere fully to what's legal and what's right and what's proper to come into our libraries and I trust them to do that. So I would like to trust our parents to be totally involved in their child's lives. And when controversial books are accessed by a student, that the relationship with the parent and the student should be that the child comes home and said, hey, I read some stuff that was enlightening and somewhat disturbing to me and have a discussion with their parents about that and have a meaningful conversation about if it's sexuality or about respecting parents' expectations about what that child does in class. That really needs to be a family discussion and a deep and meaningful one with our own kids to know what they're thinking and what they're experiencing. and the things that they get from books that they read. I would really like to hope that that would happen. You know, I think our policy is being tested. I think it's good for us to really step back and take a look at it and see how it's weathered this. I know we're a board that likes to follow laws and statutes, and I hope that we can continue to do that. Think that's comments that I want to make so far tonight either comments No

So so I've never been shy away from how what I think about the books in the libraries and what I think is appropriate for people children under 18 that it's my personal opinion and I do have to you know go along with what the whole board wants and understand that we have parents in the district that They get to do what's right for their children. I can only do what's right for mine. I'm here to advocate for kids and there are things that books I don't believe should be in the library, the ones that are sexually explicit. That's what I've been saying all along. I don't even think they belong in the high school library, but that's me. You might call me a prude or something, but that's just my belief. But I am part of a five-member board and I would like to see the policy that we have be a little more streamlined, a little easier, a little quicker for parents. And I do like the idea of having more parents be able to be part of the process. And I know that that's difficult, you know, to sometimes get parents to be able to do it even though they really want to. It's hard. It's time consuming, as Kim said. It takes a lot of time. So I don't know how we can streamline that a little bit. And I would like to see each school site have the same kind of follow through the same kind of committees and do it the same at every school. I just think that would be fair too. So that's all I have to comment.

Thank you. I think we have a robust process in place. I know earlier somebody said it's like 10 steps that they have to take in order to go through the process and we don't take anything lightly. It's important that we continue to have the committees that we have and the process that we have and the policies and the procedures. Because we need to have systems in place to figure out what's going to be in the best interest and needs of our students. I know you talk about streamlining the process but if the book was maybe 15 pages long with 200 words then let me tell you that'll be it'll be easy to streamline and to take care of but if it's a 500 page book you know we need to give the committee the teachers the parents time to read um because it's not something that they can just sit and read for uh eight to 12 hours straight you know it it's it takes time uh so i'm i'm i'm very proud of what we've done as a redlands unified school district and um like jim mentioned i'm very proud of the process that it takes and I'm very proud of the librarians because they do a lot for our students and they ensure that we have the best books in place for all of our students. Go ahead.

My comment, we went over our LCAP review today on our prior meeting before. And on there, one of the comments was, I'm happy to see that we have librarians again. So I remember a time, years ago, that we had to lay off. And one of the ones that we did lay off were librarians, especially in the middle school. And parents were upset. So I'm just happy to see that we've got librarians back and following the process to keep what we've had going. So thank you.

I kinda just wanna touch on something that Michelle had said, um, that just because we don't agree with something that's, you know, something that we choose for our family, um, it doesn't mean that we can impose those beliefs on- on anyone else. Um, as you guys have witnessed, Michelle and I have had many a conversation about things that we consider appropriate, um, for her family and for my own. And they are different. And, um, we still- even though that's what we believe, we don't impose them on other families. Um, I would never, you know, Give a kid a book that I knew was wasn't something their parents wanted to read But if that parent so chooses that they don't want their children we have it may be a difficult process right now And yes, we can look at possibly streamlining that so that it is easier But it's still a process that We have right now. It's part of our policy and As far as trusting our librarians, there's a lot of things that we entrust others in the community to help us with. Doctors and lawyers and even the people that make our food. We don't know how to do it. It makes it easier for us. And we entrust those things to those people. And I trust our librarians. They are there because we ask them to be there and they are there to provide our students with books that they help identify with. And if a student doesn't identify with the book, they don't check it out. I mean, there's plenty of books that I bought my kids that, you know, I thought maybe they'll like and they don't get past the first few chapters. I think we all have to protect, I understand where everyone's coming from, but I also think we have to protect the rights of everyone. It's not just what I believe, it's not just what Michelle believes, Alex, Jim, Patty, it's what's okay to ensure that all students have access. And just because you believe something doesn't mean it's right for everyone. That my real issue with this is that my real issue with this is that it's very subjective and Well, we are excuse me. Thank you.

This is my time Can you guys just escort him out you

There are some situations in where, I understand this is a very sensitive talk that we're talking about, but there are also some situations where families think witchcraft is something that they do not believe in, they don't want their kids reading, and that is absolutely acceptable for you and your family. However, there are plenty of people who think Harry Potter is a wonderful series for their own children to read. And it is our duty as a public institution that we make those things accessible to our students as long as they are grade level appropriate. If someone has an issue with the appropriateness of a book, I suggest you take it up with publishers, authors, those are the people who set those standards. But for right now, I trust our librarians, so thank you.

Mr. Barr, can I clarify something really quick? As far as the opt-out, I think one of the challenges that I'm hearing is that parents don't always know what book to not have their child check out. I think that's where the challenge is. It's a blanket, well, I don't really know what book to tell the school that I don't want my child to check out. What I can suggest that may help There is there are lists of books. I did a little bit of research I googled You know books that that maybe folks don't find appropriate and there's actually a pretty nice list that you can get online it also this this documentary came up to called 96 books 96 or 97 books and And that's actually a list of books that were trying to be banned or limited in libraries, I think in Florida. And as an example, if a parent were to print that list out, take it over to RHS and say, all of these books on this list, I don't want, I don't even know if they're in your library, but I don't want my child to check these out. That's something that we would honor. That's that's what we mean by by opt-out. It can be that simple. It's not really a Process that is meant to be difficult But the challenge of knowing which books I don't want my child to read. I'm just offering that as a suggestion that the board could Recommend to parents when they reach out Thank you All right, any other board comments?

Just really quickly, in an effort to make this easier, while I understand we're providing, whether it's 96 or 97 books, would we be able to just give those books, that list to the library so that if a parent comes in, it's readily available for them to challenge?

Yes and no. If a parent reaches out to my office and they want to help locating a list, I think we can help with that. But really it's the onus is on the parent to provide whatever list they want to provide to the library. And that list may be different for every parent, which is what we've been saying is that parents can have control over what students check out of the library at our schools.

The question that comes is, is there a list of all books that are at each of our schools somewhere? Is there a list?

You do have a?

That parents can get to easily.

An online card catalog? Is there a link to that for parents to view? I'd have to double check. Just trying to make that process easier, sure.

Then they could go to it and go x, x, x, you know, whatever.

I could double check that.

Any other comments? No? All righty. Let's adjourn the meeting at 8.40. Thank you.