Board of Education — April 22, 2025

All right, thank you all for coming. We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Bella, would you like to? Emma, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 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. Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility? So moved. Second?

Second.

Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Jeanette. We'll call for the vote.

Member Ayala Quintero? Here, sorry.

No, we're voting. I don't know.

Sorry, I was distracted by the mic not being stuck down. Aye. Here. No, yeah, aye. Aye. Gosh. Member Olson?

Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

OK, now we'll do roll call. Now, Melissa.

I'm here.

Candy. Here. Jeanette. Here. And Patty. Present. And our student rep.

Here.

And I am here. We are all present. In closed session, the board unanimously took action to accept the superintendent's recommendation to appoint Ebony Irving Gardner to the position of assistant principal, Redlands East Valley High School, effective to be determined at step five of the management team salary schedule. Ebony, are you here? Yes. Would you like to come up and say a few words? Would you like to come up and say a few words? Yes. Did you bring your family with you? Oh, okay. Well, welcome.

Thank you so much to the superintendent and to the board and all of the executives in the room. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of the Redlands family, and I'm looking forward to doing some great work here in the community.

Again, thank you for the opportunity. Welcome. Welcome.

In closed session, the board unanimously took action to accept the superintendent's recommendation to appoint Jennifer Moon to the position of assistant principal at Redlands High School, affected to be determined at step one of the management salary schedule. Jennifer, are you here? Do you have any family with you here today? Okay.

Thank you, school board members. Thank you, executives. Thank you, everybody who is here from the community today. I am so proud of being a part of the RUSD community and I am grateful to accept this AP position at RHS. Thank you so much.

Welcome. In closed session, the board unanimously took action to accept the superintendent's recommendation to accept the resignation of certificated employee 2024-25-13, effective April 23, 2025, and to approve the settlement release agreement in connection therewithin. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of the April 8th, 2025 Board of Education meeting?

Point of clarification. Sorry, it's not in there, so it's not your fault. We have to put on record that the vote on that settlement agreement was unanimous 5-0.

But it does say it here. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from April 8th, 2025 Board of Education regular meeting?

I'll move.

Second. All right. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Candy. Any discussion? All right. We'll call for the vote.

Member Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson?

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0. On to student trustee report. Ella, do you have anything to report tonight?

I will begin with Rev. This past Saturday, we had a beautiful celebration of life for our AP Lang and academic teacher, Mr. Malloy. Thank you to the theater for helping with the setup, and to everyone who came and celebrated our beloved teacher. Prom is this Saturday, the 26th, from 7 to 11 PM. Thursday is the last day to buy tickets, and they are currently $120. Our annual staff chili cook-off is this Wednesday. Be sure to vote for your favorite pot. Our Badman varsity and JV teams beat CV at their last match, and they play home versus RHS today. The boys varsity and JV swim teams beat Beaumont last week, and all of our swim teams have a meet today at CV. The softball team plays at home today against ACA, and the baseball team is currently at a seven-game win streak. The track and field team has a meet today at CV. Next I'll do Citrus Valley High School. The Citrus Valley High School career fair held last week went well. Students gained exposure to a variety of fields such as physical therapy, airline piloting, and finance. The CB Esports team also has their last Smash Bros tournament of the year today. Preparations for the senior girls' powderpuff games and next year's girls' volleyball team are underway. Girls' volleyball tryouts will start next week. The Citrus Valley Percussion Ensemble has their final competition at Colony High School this Saturday. They will be performing their award-winning debut show, Curse of Tortuga. Wish them the best of luck. The Blackhawk Theater Company will be performing their 2025 spring musical, Legally Blonde, starting this Friday evening. The show will air on April 25th and 26th and May 1st and 3rd. CV's advanced culinary students will be serving themed mocktails during intermission, so don't miss out. Next, I will be doing Redlands E-Academy. Our E-Academy prom, themed Dancing Under the Cherry Blossoms, was held last Thursday, April 17th at the Yucaiba Performing Arts Center. Thank you to Ms. Ducey and the whole of ASB for making it a night to remember. We will be taking a field trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific on April 25th as well. Our CAASP testing has just gotten underway, and we wish all of our students the best of luck. And please join us for our family movie night on May 15th. Get comfy and let the show begin. Lastly, I will be doing Redlands High School. RHS is currently celebrating the annual Step Up Rally with a Spirit Week. If you don't know what the Step Up Rally is, it is a rally to commemorate the school year. During the rally, our auditorium is split by grade level per usual, and at the end of the rally, each graduating class gets to step up to the next grade level they will be in next school year. Very exciting and fun. Our Spirit Week to celebrate this is Cozy Crew Monday, or PJ Day. Blast in the Past Tuesday, dressed as a 90s character, Way Back Wednesday, Bring Something Retro, California Love Thursday, 90s Spirit Day, and Neon Class Colors for Friday. RHS speech and debate team is having their spring showcase this Thursday, April 24th. Doors open at 4.30 PM. RHS students get in free, and everyone else is charged $5. And finally, ASB is currently holding their elections for ASB cabinet members. If you are an RHS student, make sure to go and vote. And that is all I have. Thank you, Ella.

Do we have any association reports tonight? Steve Caperton, Redlands Teachers Association.

All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral. I'd like to start off by letting you guys know we recently had our annual Spring Fling Festival. That's a joint RTA and RESPA celebration where both associations get together. We get to break bread and have fun and spend time together. And it was great to see our members doing that, especially in these stressful times. Tonight, there are several policies that are on the agenda. Since we are in negotiations regarding these policies, I will not be addressing them directly. I do want to say that I am a little disheartened to see the policies that I thought were tabled brought back so quickly. School boards are a poor place to attempt to resolve the larger societal divisions that we currently face. Not only do public schools have limited impact on these issues, they divert our limited resources away from matters that can improve educations for all students. Our list of critical needs is extensive. Our primary grades, grades one through three, need class size reduction. We are currently at almost a 30 to one average, where we should be closer to a 24 to one average. And these are critical years for student success. We need more mental health support in our schools. Our district currently has one licensed clinical social worker, and she is doing great work with her team, but we need additional support to meet the needs of our students. We need adequate supplies in our classrooms so that our teachers are not buying their own printer ink and their own paper and pencils and whiteboard markers. We need classroom paras so we actually have the support that we need in our classrooms. And we need to support our extracurricular programs like speech and debate and mock trial. I've always said as a high school teacher, every student needs to find a home and these programs are their homes and they matter tremendously. These are areas where our school board can make an actual difference in student lives. And how we prioritize our resources and we spend our time. It's critically important for student success. Finally, I want to take a moment to address the tenor of these meetings recently. Passion is high, and far too often we have speakers who forget the humanity behind the issues that we deal with. I am getting reports that we are seeing the same cultural conflicts in these meetings being replicated on our playgrounds, in our classrooms, and during the passing periods. Our students are watching what is going on in these meetings, and it is affecting them. While I'm a huge proponent of free speech, and I know we have to be able to have hard conversations, we must do so without forgetting the humanity of the person sitting across the aisle from us. Thank you.

Thank you, students. RESPA, Liz, are you here? Oh, there she is.

Good evening. At our last site rep meeting of the year, which is in May, we will be honoring six recipients of a RESPA member scholarship. On May 17th, we will have our annual member retiree dinner at the American Legion. On April 4th, I was honored at State Council for the Paula Monroe CTA ESP of the Year. Thank you. The FACE team and RESPA collected over 500 hygiene items. We can't thank you enough for coming together to support our families. Every donation, big or small, makes a difference. This drive is proof that when RUSD joins forces, we create a foundation of support that lifts every family and student toward success. We look forward to working with our FACE department on the next event. Almost two years ago, I started my journey as the president of RESPA. I am honored to serve our members and honored to be reelected for another term. I want to address an unresolved issue regarding paraprofessional compensation. During the 22-23 school year, the former assistant superintendent of HR and the former RESPA president signed an MOU to move paraprofessionals from a range 15 to range 17. Unfortunately, this MOU was never approved by the board and it included an expiration date. As a result, this increase was revoked after just one year. Last school year, I spoke with our current superintendent who assured me that the matter would be corrected. However, to this date, no action has been taken. Meanwhile, director-level staff have received raises, and new positions have been created. I urge the board to revisit this matter and make the necessary steps to make our paraprofessionals whole. Their work is essential to students' success, and they deserve to be fairly compensated. Thank you. Thank you, Liz.

Do we have anybody from Rapa here? No.

No.

Oh. Yes.

Hello. I'm a Redlands graduate and local – excuse me –

Just kidding.

Oh, okay. We'll see you in a little bit. Okay, moving on to board committee reports. Anybody have a committee report that they'd like to talk about? I do.

Okay. Yeah, CRYROP. So just some highlights. CRYROP had their first WASC pre-visit on REV on March 14th, which went very well. And the ambassadors did an amazing job representing everyone, and they showed all of them to their pathways and where they needed to go. But the big news is REV aviation teacher attended aviation conference, but we were able to receive 18 desktops and one full cockpit flight simulator that was installed at REV at the aviation program there, which is big. So I'm really, really happy about that. That's a great one. And then also on May 14th is our evening of excellence and our student showcase at San Bernardino Valley College, and I hope that you can all attend to that. And that's it for me.

Thank you. Kenny, do you have anything to report?

Yes. For the rep committee, not a lot of activity happened over the last month, but we have the evening of appreciation coming up for the elementary schools. It's Wednesday, May 7th at 6.30 p.m. at the Rev Blackstone Theater, so make sure you mark your calendars to celebrate our teachers there. And, again, the last reminder for the Harlem Wizards, it's going to be Friday, April 25th. You can go to harlemwizards.com. It's going to be a lot of fun, and it raises money just for our teachers in our district. So if you come out and support and have a fun time watching the Wizards play our staff and our district personnel, it's going to be very entertaining, and you can serve the teachers to get them supplies that they need, too. That's it for me.

Melissa, do you have anything?

No.

Just a quick update on the Redlands Compact Club. We had our last steering committee meeting for this school year. And the students are going to be receiving awards and recognition this Thursday night. And exciting news is that CVS and I believe REV, but I know for sure CVS will have a compact club next year. And so they've been kind of working towards that this year. And so that's going to be great for the other schools because it just helps promote professionalism in all their social, academic, educational, college, trades. It really helps promote those skills in the kids, and they work hard to receive the awards that they're going to be getting this year. All right. Thank you.

And I have a report. I attended the Parks and Rec Advisory Commission meeting. They approved a tree dedication in Israel Beale Park for Herbert Israel Rona, who is the great-grandson of Israel Beale. I met Angela Wilkinson, who is the great-great-granddaughter to Israel and the daughter of the late Herbert Beale. Her great-great-uncle, Charles Bill, was the first African-American to play football and graduate from Redlands High School in 1905. And he was also the postmaster at the Brookside Station. So that was pretty neat. There's also one of her grandsons, one of the great-great-great-grandsons, goes to RHS right now. So pretty cool. And I asked her, I said, did you give any information out to our school so they know when they celebrate? Back History Month, kids can maybe pick that as the person they want to research. And she said, oh, I never even thought about that. And I said, well, if you do that, you might come to one of the celebrations that they do, the living museums that our elementary schools do, because you might find your great-great-grandfather as one of the characters, one of the people that they represent. So it was pretty neat. Also, the Redlands Skate Park will be hosting a free event for kids on May 31st from 12 to 6 p.m., They will have BMX shows, skate jam, barbecue, and many giveaways. If you love BMX or skateboarding, come on out and join in on the fun. And that's all I have from the parks. All right, next we have the superintendent's report.

Thank you. I do have a couple of things. One, at the end of May, we will be getting our final report from the DOJ on the work that we've done. There are 96 areas that we needed to make sure that we addressed. And so I'm just letting the board know that towards the end of May, there will be a final report that will be shared with the public. I'd like to welcome Dr. Angle here. One of the things that's on your agenda is approval of the CRYROP agreement, and so Dr. Angle, welcome, and thanks for the great work that you do in collaboration. Also your CBO, Garcia, thank you for being here. And then we have two wonderful presentations that we're going to see, and I'm really excited about them. Specifically, and not to downplay the first one because that's going to be really good, but we have four of our students who are graduating in a few weeks who are going to offer a proposal to the board that I'm really excited for you to hear about. It's something that they've been working on. for over a year, and you're going to hear a lot about that, and so I'm excited. No pressure. Just come up here, you know, and tell the board exactly what you need us to do and be with, you know, come with that kind of confidence, all right? Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cabral. We will now move on to the presentations tonight. We're going to start with Ms. Shea Thompson.

I'm Patty Buckmiller, I'm the Assistant Superintendent of Ed Services, and I'm very excited tonight to introduce some members of our Ed Services team. Ed Services is a very large division, and we encompass many aspects of teaching and learning from curriculum and instruction, special services, instructional technology, and student services. And one of our departments is Special Projects. They oversee multilingual education, community partnerships, and family engagement. And our work with diversity and equity is embedded throughout all of these. So I'm happy to introduce Sonia Belingut. She is the Director of Special Projects.

Hello, everyone, again. As the Director of Educational Services, I've had the opportunity of working closely with the Coordinator of Diversity and Equity, a position that was established in 2020-21 school year. In this role, I provide direct oversight and support as we continue to strengthen our district's commitment to equity and inclusion. This evening, our coordinator will present key updates on the district's ongoing efforts, which are centered around three primary focus areas. The first is building capacity, which is the work that we're doing designing and facilitating professional development that equips staff with practical strategies to ensure every student receives the support they need to succeed. Second is student achievement. So our coordinator will be sharing some data slides, and you have some enlarged slides there in your packet. that you'll be able to reference. And this is partnering with district staff and community members to promote equitable access to resources and opportunities for all students. And then finally, she'll be sharing ideas around family support and how we're engaging with families to address concerns and offer meaningful support, particularly when the challenges arise. We look forward to sharing this important work with you and continuing the conversation on how we can best serve every student and family in our district. I will now turn it over to our coordinator, Nashay Thompson.

Hi, everyone. I'm Nashay. And I'm excited to present some key updates to you tonight. But first, I want to talk about what the word equity means. When we talk about equity in Redlands Unified School District, we just mean that every student has the resources and opportunities to reach their full potential. Every single student has the resources and opportunities to reach their full potential. That's what we're working toward. In a place where equity is a priority, intentional support is given where it's needed, and so we're not necessarily adding extras. We're removing barriers. And I want to acknowledge that some of what I shared tonight might cause discomfort, but that's okay. It's important that we don't look away from this issue. I mean, I know equity work can raise some questions, so I just want to let the entire community know that we welcome questions. And lastly, I want to be clear that we're not introducing ideology when we say equity. We're really just focusing on safety, belonging, and academic success for every single student in our district. As a public school district, our responsibility is really clear. We have to make sure that every student has the right to learn in a safe and respectful environment, and that's required by federal law. No student can be excluded or mistreated because of their race, the country that they come from, their sex, or for belonging to any other protected class. And that's not a suggestion from the federal government. It's actually our legal obligation. There are also some state laws or education codes that mandate this. And so it says that every student has the right to learn without fear of discrimination or harassment. And our schools really have an affirmative obligation to confront racism, to confront sexism and all forms of bias. And so there's an urgency in this moment, and we really need to meet it by educating, by responding, and by protecting every student's access to a safe and equitable education. These are just some additional pieces of Education Code 201. And that these outline our duty to counter discriminatory incidents and eliminate hostile environments in our schools. So if you could, these are two charts. If you could think of the black arrow and the line that goes up the chart as the standard. This is where we want our students to be in English language arts and in math. This data is pulled from the 2024 California School Dashboard, which is publicly available. Anything to the right of the line means our students are where we want them to be. They're exceeding the standard. And anything to the left of the line indicates that students need some additional support. So as you can see by looking at these charts at that top bar, all of our students, they are close to the standard. But when you break that data apart and look at individual student groups, there are some students who are doing really well, and there are some students who need a lot of additional support. They're very far from achieving the standard. The data that you're looking at reflects way more than academic performance. It actually reflects student experiences. When our students don't feel safe or included or welcome, it shows up in their attendance, in their behavior, and in their academic achievement. The groups that are furthest from meeting standards in our district are our African American students. our English learners, our students with disabilities, our foster youth, and our students experiencing homelessness. And these are the same students who are most likely to feel disconnected from our schools. So this isn't just an achievement gap, it's really a belonging gap. And it's what we're working to address. You can see the same pattern in our suspension data. So in this chart, think of the black arrow and the line that goes up the chart as the state average, the average percentage within our state of students who are suspended at least one day, one day or more. When you look at this chart, our whole student group is just below the state average, which is great. That's what we want. But when you break the data apart and look at specific student groups, you can see that some of our student groups are suspended much more often than other student groups. That's not just about discipline. It's about access and belonging. Academic success is deeply connected to school climate, and when students don't feel safe or valued or supported, it can make learning take a back seat. And so we're using this data to drive some targeted support, and our charge is to build systems that allow every student to access the high-quality education that's available in Redlands Unified School District, because we do offer an amazing educational program. And to get there, we're just going to have to address some of the barriers that stand in the way of that access. So as you know, some of the barriers include the use of racial slurs on our campuses. That language really makes our students feel unsafe, unwelcome, and dehumanized. To be clear, a racial slur is a derogatory or offensive term that's used to insult or demean someone based on their race. There's no form of bullying or harassment that's acceptable on our campuses, and it's never been acceptable. And I also want to clarify that we're saying that students have used racial slurs. We are never labeling them as racists. And this isn't a new issue. Unfortunately, in our district, students have been hearing slurs for years. Our principals actually requested some support around this issue fairly early in the year and so we made the decision to begin tracking the reported incidents of racial slurs. And so far 65 students have been documented using racial slurs against their peers. There are different slurs being used against multiple races of students and all of it's unacceptable. That number 65, it doesn't begin to capture the full impact of the use of these words. It doesn't reflect how many students have been harmed. It only reflects how many incidents have been formally reported and properly coded in our student information system. The actual number of students impacted is far greater. Behind each of these incidents, there's a child who came to school to learn, but instead was targeted because of their skin color. Behind each report, there's a family who trusted us to protect their child and watch them come home with pain that no person should ever carry. 65 is too many, and even one is too many. And while this issue isn't new and it's not unique to Redlands, it's ours to resolve. So we're actively working to make sure that this stops because our students' safety and their wellness and their ability to thrive really depend on it. In addition to our responsibility to respond to the use of racial slurs and hate speech in our district, it's also our responsibility to prevent this to the best of our ability. And there's some things that we've had in place all along to start to address this. And we have some good plans on the horizon as well. One of the things we do is we have our site equity teams. So each school sends an equity team to the district office. And at those sessions, we provide some practical strategies and resources that our staff can use to make sure all our students have access to the resources and opportunities that they need to feel successful. After we teach those strategies, the sites work together within their teams to figure out how they're going to implement those strategies on their campuses. There's four equity team sessions this school year. Some teams also meet on their campuses outside of those sessions. and there are 136 people who participate. The teams are made up of administrators and counselors and classified staff members, and some team members include a parent or community member as well. And there's three cohorts, so half of elementary will come on a Wednesday. Secondary schools will come on a Wednesday afternoon for three hours, and then on Fridays, the second half of elementary will come for their three hours. I want to publicly thank the members of our equity teams. They're really amazing, and they're volunteers. They don't have to be on these teams, but they prioritize the work, and what they're doing is super important, so I just want to say that they're awesome. We also offer professional development around culturally responsive learning environments, the No Hate Zone resources, which I'm going to talk to you about in a second, And 157 people have participated in those trainings this year so far. Something else we offer is an equity and inclusion task force. So we've combined some teams that were previously siloed working alone on different student groups' needs. And so we combined those and formed the equity and inclusion task force. It's our first time this year having it in that format. We started small and we really look forward to expanding in the coming years. We're constantly collaborating across departments. Myself, the team at our CSS and special services are constantly working together, making sure that we're aligning our trainings and resources so that we're all saying and reinforcing the same things. And as I mentioned, we started tracking the use of racial slurs in this district at the beginning of the school year. Right away, I started developing resources. Principals needed support. They asked for it. And so in August of 2024, which is a month after I got here, those resources were developed, initially around addressing the use of the N-word, which was prevalently used on our campuses, and then expanding to general hate speech, and that's what the No Hate Zone resource is. We started talking to principals in the principal meeting that was held in November of 2024. In January 24, I gave access to counselors so that they could look at the No Hate Zone resource, which was developed in collaboration with an amazing counselor, Lori Regalado. And then in February, the equity teams received detailed training on how to make their campuses no hate zones, how to combat hate speech, and the use of racial slurs. And then they, within their teams, made detailed plans for how they would roll that resource out. Some of the teams decided that they would start right away, so some No Hate Zone lessons were delivered in March. Other teams made a more detailed plan that took a little bit longer to roll out. And so the intention behind that resource is really that counselors and teachers will have access to something when an issue arises that they can quickly reference. And what we're hearing back so far is overall really great. We're getting a lot of feedback, and some of it is around how students are using the language we taught them to stand up for themselves and others. And then we also are reinforcing the expectation through our staff that campuses remain no hate zones. Um, trustee Wilson, you asked a little bit more about what we did at Mariposa. So I just want to talk to you briefly about that. Um, I started working with the principal at Mariposa early in the school year. So when an urgent need came up to address an issue that was happening on the Mariposa campus, it was easy to jump in and we were able to respond quickly and collaboratively. I'd already met with the staff at the September staff meeting at Mariposa. So me being on campus wasn't unusual. And when it became clear that students needed some additional reinforcement around kindness and belonging and a reminder that racial slurs are unacceptable on our campuses, I visited each classroom twice. The first visit was about kindness and empathy and respecting our differences. And then the second lesson was about, it was the no hate zone lesson with the slides. And the slides are really just a set of slides that reinforce the expectation that no bullying, no hate speech, and no exclusion are tolerated on our campuses. and that every student deserves to feel safe and included. On top of the classroom support that I provided there, I also led two professional development sessions for staff. We focused the first time with teachers on reinforcing no-hate zone expectations and what to do if a problem arises in their classrooms. And then the second one was on our duty to report appropriately and swiftly whenever a student tells us that they have been the target of a racial slur or that they've overheard one. I also relocated my office to Mariposa for eight days to make sure that I was available to provide support to families and students and staff in real time. And during that time I got to work with this awesome counselor named Diane Baker and she provided additional support to the students who needed it. This was a whole school effort to build safety and belonging and it's not over. It will continue and I'm just honored to be a part of it with that staff. So where do we go from here? The No Hate Zone lesson will be shared in elementary classrooms by the end of the school year. And this lesson really just reinforces a school-wide expectation. We expect that students will come to school and not use racial slurs or unkind or mean language toward their peers, and that's the rule, and it's what we shared in the lessons. During these brief lessons, students also learn about the importance of kindness. language they can use to stand up for themselves and others, and that they need to tell a trusted adult if anyone says these things to them or if they hear harmful words being said by anyone else in school. I worked with a counselor named Lori Regalado, like I mentioned, and she reviewed the No Hate Zone lesson for age appropriateness before I showed it to anyone else. She also adapted the original lesson to a version that has friendly language for kids who are in grades TK to 2. So the language is just slightly different from the lesson that's for grades 3 and up. And because we understand that the community may be curious about what exactly is in those lessons, the No Hate Zone lessons are actually available on the district website on the diversity and equity page. So if you go to the district website and you click departments and select educational services, you can click diversity and equity and you can see the exact words that are on each of the slides. I invite you to take a look, and my hope is that families will look too and help us reinforce these expectations from home. I'd also be happy to sit down with any of you to demonstrate the lesson exactly as I delivered it, which is also how I trained others to deliver it. Some other things that we're working on. We're developing some consistent responses and firm consequences for the use of racial slurs on our campuses. We're also creating additional education for students who use slurs at school so that they can understand the history and impact of what was said and so that the expectation that this isn't to be repeated on campus again can be re-shared. Again, never placing blame and always using the opportunity to educate our children on how they can be better towards their peers. And I want to also thank Andrea Jessup for her work helping me develop these things and will absolutely continue to get family input. We're building resources and supports for families, speaking of families, and it's going to take the whole community to tackle this issue. It's a big, huge issue here, and we just want it to stop, so we need your support from home. And we'll continue our work with the equity teams, and I'll continue to offer site-based trainings. We're hoping to expand the Equity and Inclusion Task Force, and then we will also continue providing professional development opportunities, which include anti-racism trainings. Okay, I'm almost done, I promise. This is not going to be easy, but we can do it. We're going to all have to work together, all of us, our staff, our students, our families, our community members, to make sure that every student in this district has full and unobstructed access to the resources and opportunities that they need to reach their full potential. And as we do that, my ask is that we'll all be mindful that even one harmful decision, even one moment where one student feels targeted or unsafe, it can have lasting consequences. If there's a chance that something we're doing could hurt even one single student, then it's our responsibility to stop, to ask ourselves, is this really helping every single student? Is it helping them feel safe and supported? And if the answer is no, then we have to stop and we have to make a different decision. Thank you for listening. And if the board has any questions, we'd be happy to answer them at this time.

Anybody have anything they want to say? Nishay, I just want to thank all of you for your work. I understand this is a very difficult topic to have to address. When your child comes home with bullying of any type, it's painful that your child is suffering through it. And when it's based on the color of their skin or any other sort of bias, it's a special kind of hurt that you wish your child did not have to experience. So I thank you and your equity teams for everything that you're doing to help our students come to school in a safe environment. So I just want to thank you and tell you how much I appreciate you guys.

I also want to thank you, Michelle, for a job well done for you and your team. Appreciate all your hard work in this, and your speaking, your demeanor is so quiet and soft, and everybody was listening, and it was great. So I just want to thank you for all your hard work. Keep up the good work, and thank you for taking us in the right direction. Thank you.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Neche, and I had been dying to meet you because everyone, Juan talks about you all the time, and you just really just came in very promptly and just right in time for our situations that had escalated at Mariposa. I just want to appreciate you. I was very impressed when I met with you, and I really liked what you had to say. I like your mindset, and the approach that you've taken to all of this is very thoughtful, and it's very considerate of all of the kids involved. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

I had just kind of a practical question. You mentioned lessons on the website that parents can access. What was that exactly?

Yes, so the No Hate Zone lesson, the content that's on the slides is also on the district website. So if you navigate to the Educational Services tab at the top under Departments, then you can go to Diversity and Equity. It's on the left-hand side, and that's where you can find it.

Okay, that's great. Good to know. And I do appreciate your presentation and all the information because I didn't realize you were so new in the position. So I really applaud you for getting a handle on it. going forward, full steam, trying to get people educated and involved, and that's great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi, Nishay.

I just want to echo what everybody said. I really appreciate the work you've done and the help you're giving all of our students and their families, too, because they'll take home what they've learned, and it will spill into their families and then come back to school. So I really appreciate it and appreciate all of you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, now we're going to have students. Beatrix Williams, Love Afolbai, I can't say your last name ever, Brigley Gillian, and Nahira Modro. Oh, Ella, bye Ella. Ella, I said Ella. Ella, Ella, I know.

Good evening. My name is Briley Guillen, and I'm the president and founder of the Mental Health Advocate Club at Redlands High School.

Good evening. My name is Nayata Modro, and I am the vice president of the Mental Health Advocate Club at RHS.

Good evening. My name is Beatrix Williams, and I am the advocacy leader for the Mental Health Club at RHS. Good evening. My name is Lava Falabi, and I am the president of the Mental Health Awareness Club at Redlands East Valley High School.

Next slide, please. Oh, do we have? Oh, I didn't realize that. Sorry, guys. We good? All right. Youth mental health is rising in attention nationally and globally, meaning it's also affecting youth locally. Today, we are proposing a tool to benefit our students, but let's take a step back and understand why. So here's our research. Youth depression rates have risen nearly 150% from 2011 to 2021, post-pandemic, about 10 years. Now, that may seem very long for us, but it's not too long in a historical standpoint. Students are still experiencing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 50% of mental health disorders begin by age 14, and 75% are onset by age 25, meaning that this is a very critical time in our students' lives as youth. It's a transformative time. Next, students with depression are two times more likely to drop out of school in comparison to their peers. So not only do you see when this is onset, but you see the outcomes. So you're thinking, why can a school help? Well, we have the two perfect things that make this the best combination possible. Opportunity and access. Students spend most of their time at school, seven hours, even into the night, extra time with their extracurriculars, sports and whatnot. It's where support is most accessible. It's where there are trusted adults to help them. And the most readily available resources for students are typically at those schools and they're most abundant. Now, for students' mental health, you'll see that typically right now, our referral criteria with our counselors to flag students for intervention would be through observable or seen behaviors. Now, that's how we know students are struggling. But what about the ones who go unseen? Well, these observable behaviors would be things like chronic absenteeism, significant academic decline in grades, sleeping in class, noticeably disruptive behavior, and evidence of physical harm on their bodies. To put this in perspective, we have a hypothetical scenario. Maya is a student at Redlands East Valley, and she goes to school every day, turns in all her assignments. She's a perfect role model student earning her high grades. To her teachers, she seems well prepared for high school, the real world. But what they don't see, these teachers, is how Maya experiences extreme anxiety, chronic depression. She has trouble breathing when nervous, a tight chest, and often feels unstable throughout her time at school. Now, at Maya's school, mental health support is only triggered when a teacher refers a student based on visible signs or a bold, initiated conversation by the student. No one realizes Maya's struggling until a mental health screener is introduced school-wide, capturing not only her external behaviors, but her emotional health. And it's self-reported. Maya's screener results reveal a high level of need, prompting a follow-up from a counselor and intervention, directing Maya for the first time in her life to a mental health support or service that she cannot access at home.

As leaders of the mental health clubs at RHS and REV, we're the ones students come to when they're overwhelmed, anxious, or just unsure of where to turn. We hear their stories constantly and all year long. That gives us really personal and ongoing view of what actually is happening on campus. And we've also seen the gaps. Clearly, too many students still don't know where to go until things get really bad. Sometimes they wait until they're in crisis because they don't know their options or they feel like no one will really listen. And even when support is available, it's not always easy to access. We didn't want to just point out problems. We took time to really understand the system. We talked with counselors, school psychologists, and administrators to figure out how mental health support is structured and why some things fall through the cracks. What we found is that there is a lot of good intention, but there are also big challenges, from limited staffing to students falling through the cracks simply because there isn't a proactive way to check in with them. And because of our roles, we get to see both sides. We know what students are experiencing in real time, and we also understand the limitations and pressures that staff are facing. This dual perspective is what makes our voice so important in this. We are not just asking for change. We are offering insight into how to make it actually work for everyone involved. We propose to have high schools implement and administer a digital mental health screener within students' English classes. It will begin with once a year implementation and transition to twice a year. Why should we have a mental health screener at school, you may be wondering. Students currently who deal with unaddressed mental health needs don't have the information available to find their resources that they need to succeed in their communities. At school, counselors are equipped to help students because of their knowledge on mental health and student psychology. With the screener, they could also help process data and give students access to the professionals who could help them with their specific needs. And you may be wondering, what is a mental health screener? A screener is a questionnaire that assesses a student's emotional well-being and mental health to identify students or those who may need support. A mental health screener matters within our schools because it identifies students' needs early and connects them to school-based support to get the access to resources they need. It also provides a safe and confidential matter for students to be screened in and allows students to know that others are there to help them and that their mental health matters.

And so now the big question is, what's the cost? If we use structures that are already implemented or if we create new ones, they vary in results. If the school district decides to create a brand new screener, it would cost roughly $50,000, $100 per student for the licensee fee. However, if the school uses existing resources, such as Kelvin or even Google Forms, it would be essentially free. And an example of that Google Form would be the Rev Student Hub, where students are allowed to fill out this Google Form and assess their needs and get help when needed. Additionally, if the district decides that there needs to be more staff training to address these issues, that would also cost more money. We can also pull any costs, whether the screener or additional training, from the LCAP funds as well. So now let's talk about real life examples and student opinions. First, I'd like to talk about the student opinions. These questions were asked to students from ranges 9 through 12 at our schools. The first question is, how effectively does RUSD meet the needs of students for mental health? One student says, it's neutral. Another says, I think there can be more done. The second question is, are there adequate resources provided by the school district? A student replies, I guess not, because I don't know where I would go to find these resources. The third question asked was, if there was a system in place to help you with that, would it improve your life? One said, yes, I think it would. And the second agreed. Lastly, we asked, would you agree that a mental health screener would benefit yourself and other students? And a student replied, yes. I know people who would really benefit from that. And the second saying, absolutely. Now, I want to talk about these examples. These examples come from our peers, our classmates. We see them. We hear them. First, there is a student who expresses to their teacher that they are struggling with depression. They ask for support, and their teacher is supportive. But without that bold and brave conversation initiated by the student, they would not get any other support otherwise. Secondly, a student is consistently late and falling asleep in class. Their teacher takes notice and refers them to their counselor. Because they had physical signs of struggle, they were given support. But what about the students who don't have physical signs? And lastly, a student athlete is seen with self-harm scars on their body during practice, and their coach refers them to a counselor. And again, the question is, what happens to the students who do not have these physical signs?

As you can see, this project was not one thought of overnight. A lot of time, commitment, and effort has been put into it. It all started in November of 2023 when Briley and Nya began the project. With assistance from Dr. Moore, a professor of psychology at UC Riverside, they were able to begin researching and writing the policy brief. In the summer of 2024, Beatrix and I were introduced to the project, and we both saw the need for the screener. So we began collaborating with them to see this through. In July, we attended our first school board meeting together and gave a public comment about why a mental health screener would be beneficial to high schoolers in the RUSD. And in fall of 2024, we finalized the policy brief and we attended the school board meeting again. After that meeting, we've reached out personally to the superintendent and have met him on multiple occasions to discuss the implementation and process of this screener. This screener is a proactive solution. It is not a reactive one. Too often we wait until students are in crisis to act, but by then it's already too late. This tool helps us catch the silent struggles, the quiet ones, the ones that go unnoticed before they grow into something bigger. And most importantly, this idea didn't come from a policy. It came from us students, from lived experience. We see this need every day, and we are asking for the implementation of a solution that meets this need. Student mental health directly impacts learning as well. When students are emotionally overwhelmed, it becomes harder for them to focus, retain information, and even stay present in class. And finally, this need is urgent. Support systems right now are mostly to catch only the visible signs, but many students are silently hurting. A screener ensures that every student has the chance to be seen and supported before things escalate. Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming and presenting that. I think it's a wonderful idea. I saw about almost 30 letters that you sent. And I read some of them, but didn't have time to read them all tonight before the meeting. And I will get through them all. But thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming and presenting. Anybody else have anything they would like to say to our students? Oh, and one more thing. I'm sorry. When somebody's up here speaking, if you could please refrain from clapping, doing this, whatever you're doing. It's kind of distracting. And at the end, you can just joyously clap for them at the end. Thank you.

I just want to tell you how proud I am of you. I do remember our conversations over the summer about how this was a passion of yours. And to see you guys here in front of us speaking to the board is a real joy. And I want to thank you for advocating for your student peers. Having kids gone through high school and, you know, you see it. Especially we have a lot of high achievers in our schools. And it's really... upsetting sometimes to see how some of them are struggling with anxiety and it's kind of almost self-inflicted competition sometimes pressure to be the best and because they are the best nobody really takes notice and I thank you for noticing and I thank you for advocating for all our students and it isn't just the ones that are suffering in their grades A lot of the times when we have suspensions and expulsions, that's the first thing I kind of look at is their grades to see how maybe we missed something, to see how we let somebody slip through the cracks. But it's not always just that person. So you all are amazing for doing this, and I thank you. And you are so articulate, and you are so well-versed in all of this, and you're just incredible. Thank you.

I think this is a great presentation, and I love the idea of being proactive instead of reactive. And I agree with you that there's a lot of silent struggles out there that we wouldn't catch. I had a lot of questions, though, but maybe at a future date. I know this is going to be a long meeting, but I wanted to know how the screener would work. If this is like a mandatory thing once, how frequent would this be done, and who does it, and how does it get done?

So a while back ago, we handed out our policy memo. We will re-email that to you tonight, and it answers all those questions. Oh, okay.

That'll be great. And then I can email you back any further questions. But thank you for your presentation.

So having you here tonight makes me very proud that this is what we're producing at Redlands Unified School District. You guys are, you gals are amazing. And what you're doing for your peers is even more amazing. You are so awesome to be here. I am so proud of you. It takes a lot to come and speak in front of a big crowd like this. And we thought you were in college already. So thank you so much. Keep up the good work. Let us know what we can do.

Yes, I agree. Thank you so much. I think it's really an innovative idea. And I do have quite a few questions that I would like to discuss further. So I'll look forward to receiving that information and then be able to talk to you all about some specific questions. information that I would want to know because I know it's never easy to roll out something new and something that requires so much follow-up and assessment of the surveys and follow-up with the student and so forth so I have I'm curious to you know how it's been done maybe in other schools and what the results are and things like that so I look forward to getting more information

I could just say, awesome job. I mean, you really did an excellent job tonight. So I know you're getting ready to graduate, and you wish you could have done this probably a year ago, because you really want an answer. Are we going to do this or not? I explained to you all last week, this is step one. The board is now very aware. They have some questions. We're going to discuss it. And you will know before you graduate how we're going to move forward with this. Okay? So, excellent work.

Thank you. Okay, now we're on to public participation. This is the time that any member of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board form to the clerk of the board or his or her designee prior to the time the chairperson calls the item for the board's consideration. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium and announce his or her name. In the interest of facilitating business of the board, the chairperson shall establish the amount of time each speaker may use to address the board prior to the first speaker, but no more than three minutes, unless the chairperson or a majority of the board determines that a different time limit is appropriate. Tonight we'll be doing one and a half minutes. And Clerk Wilson, do you have any speaker cards for those wishing to speak on any agenda or consent item?

Yes, I do. I have very many.

Clerk Wilson, really quick before we begin. A couple of points that I want to just address. There are two different times to be able to speak. This is for agenda items, and we did ask the public to fill out one blue card per agenda item. So we do have some speakers that have multiple cards submitted. You will get one and a half minutes for each item. We have a total of 102 blue cards. And then after the board takes action on the agenda items, you will have an opportunity for public comments. Public comments, we have 55 cards submitted. social scientist, not a mathematician, but that's like three hours of time that we are gonna hear from the public. And we do want to hear from everyone. So I'm starting by asking for patience. We are gonna probably take a break somewhere during this time. And then I will also address very quickly I'm trying my best for everybody to understand that we have students not only present, but we also have students watching. And I'm asking that you keep that in mind when you come up to the podium to speak. I love the freedom of speech. This is why it is awesome to be here. That means that sometimes somebody can go up there and say something that somebody else finds hateful or offensive. And I'm talking to both sides. I'm not talking to one side here. We have two specific sides, and I'm speaking to everyone. Our kids matter. And they are watching and they are listening. So please be mindful of that when you come up to the podium to speak to the board, which is my last reminder. When you come up to the podium, you're speaking to the board, not to the audience. address the five members of the board you're trying to make a point when you speak about an agenda item the whole point of that is so that you can try to give your point before they vote that's why you get that opportunity to speak on agenda items your public comments You can basically say anything you want. It doesn't even have to have a jurisdiction of the board. Public comments, you're allowed to say anything you'd like. However, be mindful that kids are watching and be mindful that there are kids here in this room with us. Thank you.

And I'll just remind you again, when a speaker is up here speaking, please refrain from making a comment or anything you were going to do, snap your fingers, clap, whatever, until they're done. Thank you. So we can get through these. Thank you.

Also, I wanted to clarify what I will do is if you don't need your full one and a half minutes for an agenda item, just let me know you're done with that one. I'll stop the clock. I'll start it again so that we can get through these. So our first speaker up is Christine. And the first topic, should I read out what their agenda item is? Okay. First topic is X. Well, I can't read it. Censure.

Okay.

Welcome, Christine.

Okay.

Okay. So Melissa's behavior. My name is Christine, by the way. Thank you all, board. Thank you again for being here. Melissa's behavior at the last meeting was sad and pathetic. Okay. I've never heard of a board member acting that way. We know what would have happened if Candy or Jeanette would have done something like that. It would have been all over the news. I'm asking that you publicly apologize for your actions and behavior towards Candy. There is a reason that Mr. Hill is sitting between you guys tonight. And I want you to publicly acknowledge that you raised your hand to Candy. And that's it for that one.

Okay. So the next topic you signed up for is talking about the flag displays?

Yes. Okay. Now, the Redland City Council has voted down the pride flag three different times now. I'm not here to put anyone down for flying whatever flag they want on their property. They have every right to do so. At school, however, it is not appropriate to fly the pride flag. The American flag is the most inclusive flag of all. It covers all of us. It represents all of us. Americans are not one color, one race, or one religion. We are one nation under God. Therefore, the American flag should be flown in public schools followed by the state flag only. That will be it for that one.

And then the next one is the Title IX resolution.

Save girls sports. Being here tonight is upsetting. It's upsetting because we shouldn't have to be here. We shouldn't have to come here and say that we need to save girls sports. We shouldn't be begging for common sense. The words are girls sports. It's common sense. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. There are fundamental differences between the two. No matter how you feel, you can't change your gender. There are only two genders, and you are assigned that at birth. This is about nothing but protecting women and girls. The opposition spews hate and says that these facts are hate speech. These are facts. How did we get here? We got here because too many people are afraid of being name-called. We got here because too many people are afraid of the backlash and losing their jobs because of hostile work environments. We got here because too many fathers weren't standing up. And I want to thank every father that is standing up for their daughters. Teenage girls, I'm here to speak for all of the teachers who've reached out over the years who simply don't want to be a target at work and don't want a hostile work environment. Police officers who don't have a voice. I'm speaking for everyone who has reached out over the years and said thank you for being our voice. The little girls who have reached out to me over the years. No one wants to come out and do this. I don't want to be here. I'm missing my friend's daughter's birthday party tonight. I'm going to be here all night. I don't want to be here. None of us do.

Next up, we have Susan Padilla. Welcome, Susan. Speaking about the agenda item 22.

Good evening, superintendent and board members. My name is Susan Pitti. I'm a 25-year resident of Redlands. My three daughters all graduated from Redlands High School, and three of my grandchildren are enrolled in the district. I would like to address the proposed changes to AR 1312.2. First, I would like to say that in an article dated October 4, 2024, Ms. Olson, Board Member Olson, said that we want leaders who don't impose their values on others. You let the families raise their own children. Board Member Olson, I agree with you on that. Thank you very much. In the matter of restricting books, there is a current AR1312.2 policy in place that protects individual parental rights. There is an opt-out policy where parents can ask that their child not read an assigned book or not check out books without parental permission. That policy allows challenges to reading material and protects the rights of every parent. It allows individual families to make decisions for their children for each parent to be in charge of raising their child. This board would like to implement policy changes that give the board full control of decisions concerning which books are appropriate. This is an overreach and neutralizes parent and community rights. Section 1.8 allows the board to override the review committee's decision about a complaint about library materials. Section 2 allows the board to remove materials deemed inappropriate by anyone for 50 days and gives the board full power to decide if the book can remain. I support the current policy.

Next up, we have Valerie Zavis speaking about the girls' sports and SQAMD. Welcome, Valerie.

I filled out an orange card, I think, inappropriately. I wasn't supposed to. It goes along with this. They told me to put it on the orange card, but I think it's all the same thing. Okay. So first, I just wanted to talk about the censoring of Melissa. It's just been one too many times that we've witnessed the same behavior from Melissa. It was extremely inappropriate and disrespectful towards Candy, and it cannot be ignored. This behavior should not be tolerated in what should be a professional setting. A formal censure of Melissa is necessary and appropriate. Her conduct in words, tone, and at the last meeting, a threatening body posturing should not be tolerated. Every member deserves to be treated with respect and in a professional manner, whether they are in agreement with each other or not. If you let this behavior go without so much as acknowledging it, you are sending a strong message that it is acceptable. The gentleman from RTA, I'm sorry, I don't know his name, he raised concerns about the students' behavior on the playground. And I'd just like to suggest that maybe some of this behavior is a reflection of what children are seeing from certain adults, maybe a particular board member and some of her supporters who regularly attend these meetings. It's no secret that before and after these sessions, some of these individuals have been seen engaging in harassment, name-calling, and aggressive filming of others. Children absorb what they see, and if this is the example being set by the adults in their lives, we shouldn't be surprised when they mirror that conduct. Thank you. Thank you, Valerie. Can I talk on the others? Good. Okay. So I wanted to express my support for keeping biological boys out of girls' sports. Females have fought for years to have equal access to athletic competition. Title IX was designed to ensure equal opportunities for them. There are biological differences between the two genders. Males are faster, have greater bone density, more muscle mass, they have longer limbs. Overall, they have a different physical framework. Our daughters train hard and are talented, but allowing boys to compete in girls' sports is taking a chance at first place away from them before they even get started. Okay, I have one more. I'm opposed to the SCAQMD proposed rulings. The district will suffer financially to the tune of millions if this is passed, not to mention the cost to homeowners and the apartment residents who will be displaced while the necessary changes are made. And just very quickly, since it seems like a tally is being kept, I am in support of the proposed flag policy and the new book challenge policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Val. Thank you. Next up, we have Jermaine Miles. Agenda XV1. Welcome, Jermaine.

Good evening. Jermaine Miles. I am a proud parent of a kindergartner here, and I also live in Trustee Area 2. Do you know how many trans students there are between the ages of 13 and 17? Nationwide, there are approximately 310,000. And of those 310,000, only 122,000 of those play high school sports. So I don't believe there are any here in RUSD. I could be wrong. But to my knowledge, we don't have any. So my question is exactly, why are we here wasting our time, our money, and our future money in terms of lawsuits on this topic? And tell me, please, how are we going to enforce this? Will you hire someone at additional expense to check genitalia? And for those people with their protect girls, are you okay with an adult checking girls' genitalia to see whether or not they are female or male? Are you going to forbid the kindergartner that is a tomboy from playing kickball because you think that she might be transgender? Again, all of this is wasting precious time and money that should be focused elsewhere. You heard the list from the Teachers Association. Our students and our schools deserve that money.

Thank you, Jermaine.

Next up we have Sonia Shaw. Am I speaking on all items? I have you down as the first one is XXII, and then I'll reset the timer for the others.

Okay. So we'll start with my boys and girls sports one, right? Yes. Just give me one second. Oh, sorry. You guys do it differently than us. Let's see. I was here. I was outside. Yes, I was in a line, so get over it. Your hate is that much, you don't want my voice. It's her turn. My name is Sonia Shaw. I'm a mom of two amazing female athletes. I'm also the president of Chino Valley Unified School Board, and I am the majority voice for parents all across California. When it comes... I'm sorry. You see the games they play?

I'm sorry. We're going to start... No, it's okay. I'm used to it. No, I'm really sorry.

I asked you to not... Antagonizing, that's what they do when they have a different voice.

I asked you to refrain from that, please, or else I can have you removed if that's what you would like. Thank you.

I know exactly what it's like to be targeted by those who scream tolerance, but show none to anyone who disagrees with their radical ideologies. You're not alone. I thank you guys. Your community showed up. There's a reason why you're here. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. We've heard that over and over. God made each child beautiful just the way they are, and any adult telling them otherwise needs serious help. Stop pushing your own insecurities and mental health issues onto children. Shame on them. This resolution to protect girls in sports is not controversial. It's common sense. We're here to make common sense common again. It's fair. It's about ensuring that our daughters who train, sacrifice, and give everything to their sport are not robbed of the opportunities. That's not discrimination. Discrimination is not letting a boy play in his sports and a girl not playing in their sports. It's discriminating against our girls to not allow the fairness in their own sports. When we have boys shattering their record, what do you call that? That's not fair. I'm a mother of two athletes. I see the blood, the sweat, and the tears. And it's not right to sit here and call it in the name of fairness and equality. It's not equality when you're taking someone else's rights away from them. You know, we are going to win this fight. Whether they want to scream and cry while we do it, our girls will win because we are not going to stop. We're going to continue to grow stronger. We're going to have a louder voice, and we're taking action. This will be seen in higher courts because right now, We've already passed a policy in Chino Valley that says that we are asking Trump to come down and intervene. Thank you.

So then I have you for... I have the flag policy. XB1 and XX11. I don't know which one is which. Go ahead.

Okay. I'm also here to stand and support the flag policy, ensure that the American flag, the symbol of unity, sacrifice, and freedom remains the front and center of every classroom. It's not about division. It's about clarity. It's about ensuring that our schools focus on education, not indoctrination. Classrooms should not be billboards for political agendas. These are sacred spaces for learning and growth and for developing critical thinkers who are proud of their country, not... Not children that grow up to hate their countries. You see it happening all around the United States. My father came from Jerusalem, joined the military, and fought hard for this country. We were raised and taught to love our country, and we appreciate those that served in the military. To say anything else to a child? What is that? That's an ideology that should be left at home, not into the school. We pay taxpayer dollars for this. All of us do. You guys have a big sex scandal that's going on. I think it was a $25 million settlement. What does that show you? That there's secrets, there's an agenda being pushed on, all in the name of what? And you want these people's, others' ideologies flying all over? Okay, then fair is fair. Put the Ten Commandments up. Put the cross up. Put everybody else's beliefs up. Or just make classrooms what they should be, a learning environment, free from any ideologies. That's all we're asking for. And I'm so proud of you guys for bringing that forward. I know that you've gotten attacked. I mean, your own board members are attacking you. We've seen it. But you know what's beautiful is they're exposing themselves. Let them expose themselves because the rest of those seats will be replaced by people who care. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have another? I think that's all. Okay. Thank you, Sonia.

Next up, we have Oscar Avila.

Welcome, Oscar.

Okay. Good evening, board. My name is Oscar. I'm here in support of Adoption Resolution number yada, yada, yada, supporting Title IX. Okay. One of the things that they always say, people that like boys in girls' locker rooms, the people that want to tell children they're born in the wrong bodies, is that it's a 1%, right? But their understanding is that 1% is beating the 100%. We got a boy in Riverside County. He's ranked third in the country, third in the country. So he's beating everybody, even Redlands, Chino, Riverside. So we got this boy running through the whole state. So it's not that just, it's what the 1%, what it means is the 1%, which are boys, are beating the 100% of the girls. So I support this. I know it's against the law. I know that Title IX is defined by sex, not identified gender. It's a biological sex. So we know that boys in girls' locker rooms, boys playing against girls is a violation of Title IX, which is a federal offense. So President Trump signed a second action saying that any state that does not follow that Title IX is going to lose funding. So Redlands, you're going to lose funding, right? We're going to sue Sacramento. They're going to be suing. You're going to see Pam Bonnie come over here and take your money away. You're going to be crying about it. So I'm telling you, support all the girls, support biological girls, stop allowing daughters and girls to be in locker rooms where boys are unclothing themselves, blaming themselves. I mean, I have four daughters, right? So I don't want anybody's daughters to be exposed to that. This is a minority of boys that are beating girls. They're beating all the girls in the country. The boy in this area, Riverside County, is ranked third in the country. Third in the country. So please do that.

Thank you, Oscar.

Thank you. Next up, we have Michael Paisner. Welcome, Michael.

Thank you. Michael Paisner, I've got a lot of topics to cover. Let's start on the air quality one. We have the worst air quality in the entire country, right here in San Bernardino County. No matter how much you want to deny it, no matter how much you want to pretend it isn't true, no matter how many federal agencies our toddler-in-chief attempts to dismantle, we have the worst air quality in the country. The rule you are opposing attempts to improve the air quality for our students, for you and for me. If we improve our air quality, our students will have fewer asthma attacks, fewer emergency room visits, fewer missed school days. Why aren't you prioritizing our children's ability to breathe? Our city council looked at this topic and decided it would be better to engage with this agency during the rulemaking process. Get additional info. Ensure these rules strike an appropriate balance between addressing our worst in the country air quality and the costs associated with slowly transitioning away from fossil fuels. Please follow their lead, engage with this agency, and advocate for our children's health. Oh, and the costs you specified in the resolution are complete nonsense, by the way. It belongs in the fiction section. Next one. the item on girl sports. Let's start with some facts. Sex is not binary. It's better described as a bimodal spectrum. That means chromosomes, hormone levels, and biology exist across a wide range and cluster as traits, often at one side of the spectrum or the other, male or female, but not always. Some people's attributes don't fit into the convenient boxes of male or female. I admit it may be difficult to apply the principles of fairness, inclusion, and respect for everyone when athletics are divided up under the false assumption that sex is binary. But that isn't the fault of the trans and non-binary communities. It is the failing of our society not being informed enough, kind enough, and proactive enough to welcome and include these beautiful individuals just as they are. If you start the conversation saying there are only two sexes and falsely accuse boys of participating in girls' sports, then your ignorance of science and the hostility in your heart precludes us from having a reasonable conversation. And if that is your starting point, then I will prioritize the dignity and well-being of our trans and non-binary community. Instead of judging and vilifying a community you know nothing about, You need to sit with them, listen to them, laugh with them, cry with them, get to know them. Stop trying to regulate and bully them out of existence. And by the way, this resolution conflicts with California law and is completely illegal. I hope you guys are paying attention. Next one. Book banning. When it comes to the book policy, the first sentence starts with a valid premise. Parents have a right to be informed about and involved in their child's education, their being the key word, their children. After that sentence, this policy veers wildly from the premise. We already have processes in place that enable parents to be informed about and control what their child is reading. These policies already exist. They're in place. They are working today. The rest of this proposal facilitates random people to influence what my child has access to. This policy tramples on my rights and my child's rights to access information. And let's be honest about what is happening. The reason we are even talking about this policy is due to one conservative woman in Tennessee, Karen England, and her crazed book-banning crusade. She has people in a frenzy over nothing. I don't co-parent with Karen England. If you want to, that's fine, but in the land of freedom and liberty, our libraries should contain a wide range of information and stories. One random, crazy, conservative woman in Tennessee should not get to dictate what's in Redlands school libraries. Next one. Flag displays. On the flag policy, the entire premise of this policy is illegal and goes directly against our Constitution. Remember, we are not talking about what is on the flagpole. This policy limits what is in classrooms, what's on school grounds, what's on billboards around campus. You forget, you are the government. When you limit teachers' and students' voices, you are engaging in government censorship. If you were to pass this policy, you would get sued so quickly your head would spin. You are blatantly, egregiously violating teachers' and students' First Amendment rights. Our school district already has long-term financial challenges. This policy will trigger lawsuits you are sure to lose. It's irresponsible and reckless. And let me remind you of a related rule. If someone doesn't want to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, they have the option to simply maintain a respectful attitude and silence. Why can't you follow the same rule? You don't have to wave the pride flag if you don't want. Just maintain a respectful attitude and silence. Next. Next. censure discussion. I'm actually excited about this discussion because there's been a ton of behavior worthy of censure. Ms. Wilson expressing sympathy for Nazis and denying that flag is a hate symbol is a great place to start. You could discuss Ms. Wilson's online videos where she judges and vilifies people based on how they pray or who they love. That's worthy of censure. You might discuss how both Ms. Wilson and Ms. Olson participated in illegal activity since their church is now involved in politics. How about censuring Ms. Olson for violating campaign finance laws? specifically case 2024-01279. It's still pending, so censure might be a little premature on that one. You might censure Ms. Olson for the time she was escorted out of this very room by police, but it was a while ago, so I think people have probably moved on from that one. How about the time Ms. Olson destroyed a roadside memorial and delusionally called it a satanic shrine? That lack of human empathy for a stranger simply dealing with grief is worthy of censure. Ms. Olson's blocking multiple people on social media in violation of the Brown Act is worthy of censure. Or how about Ms. Olson engaging in discriminatory and bullying behavior by referring to the LGBTQ community as a cult? or Ms. Olson recently attacking a teacher online simply for that teacher exercising their right to free speech, or her liking Proud Boy post this very day, today. Thank you, Michael. Sorry, I couldn't get through all of it. Thank you. This is for Melissa. You deserve our support. Thank you.

Jeanette, who's next? Next up we have Hannah Edmondson.

Welcome, Hannah. Hi there. My name is Hannah McAnisby-Edmondson. I'm from Area 5. I'm a teacher up the hill. I finished my work day, my after-school math club, and I got here as fast as I could to get a seat because I live in this town. And I didn't have time to change my clothes. Today was Wax Museum at school, at the elementary school. And I am dressed as Sophie Germain, the 18th century mathematician who had to study in secret. Her parents didn't think it was appropriate for a young girl to learn math. math. They even took away her candle so she couldn't read at night. The idea that learning can be inappropriate is exactly why I'm speaking out against book bans. When we remove books from school, we send the same message that curiosity has limits. That certain voices and stories don't belong. Students deserve access to books that challenge them and challenge us. Reflect their identities and open their minds to the wider world. Let us not dim the lights of their education. Let us be the ones who hand them the candle, not take it away. Thank you.

Next up, we have Tricia Keeling.

Welcome, Tricia.

Okay, I have four to make tonight. Hello, my name is Tricia Keeling. I'm a parent of two Redlands students and a resident of East Highland. This is about the anti-trans sports resolution. This is a continued waste of our district's resources and time. There is already standing laws and protection for all girls in sports in the state of California. And the fact that there aren't any trans athletes participating in Redland sports currently, as far as I know, demonstrates yet again board members Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson are focused on creating problems which don't exist and they cannot get any actual governance done. Currently, there are two trans athletes in both Riverside and Harupa Valley. I know their families. I know these girls. And both girls have been the victims of being doxxed, having their personal information shared publicly by adults, publicly mocked and harassed at their track meets. By passing this resolution, this would be yet another Chino... we just had Sonia Shah here, cut and paste policy. They just passed this week. Resolutions such as this contribute to the harassment and discrimination of the girls just like in Harupa Valley and Riverside. Redlands should not and cannot stand for this form of discrimination. Tonight we are seeing numbers of outside groups and extremists from around Southern California who are here to simply encourage you to pass a resolution because it's anti-trans and hateful. This is not what Redlands stands for.

Thank you Trisha. Oh, you have more?

Yep, I've got four. Flag bans next. I'm here to speak in opposition of the continued discussion of the proposed flag ban. I know from a public records request that board member Candy Olson stated this, sorry, that board member Candy Olson is only seeking to ban one flag in our district's classrooms, that is the pride flag, making this policy clearly discriminatory towards LGBTQ students, staff, families, and volunteers. Board Member Olson stated this specifically in September of 2023 in an email to the board and also mistakenly stated that there was no one suing over Temecula's flag ban. Sadly, Temecula spent approximately $100,000 in litigation and lawyer's fees due to their flag ban policy being questioned by the Public Employee Relations Board, which they ultimately lost and then had to rescind. Please don't do that to our district. We simply cannot afford to be so wasteful with our tax dollars over board members Jeanette Wilson and Candy Olson's clear pursuit of culture war politics. Our tax dollars deserve to be spent in the classroom and not in the courtroom. Furthermore, our district has a long-standing tradition of celebrating holidays such as Chicano History Month, Black History Month, even banned book week, Pride Month, and more. With this policy, you will be depriving our students and community of equal representation. These things matter. All right, next one. Book banning. I continue to repeat myself, but this is also another cut and paste policy that was introduced and passed by Chino Valley Unified School Board. We just had Chino Valley's president travel here from Chino as the puppet master to speak on this. It is widely rumored that the individual that wrote that policy in Chino is an activist named Karen England, a member for the Council of National Policy, and the person behind the website Take Back Our Classroom. She is also friends with board member Candy Olson on social media. Karen England lives in Tennessee and flies out to California when these policies are up for debate. Recently, Karen updated her website with an even longer list of books that she wishes to ban in a state she does not live in. She has now included Redlands Unified Schools on her website, where you can click around and see which books she wants challenged in each specific school site. As a reminder, eight or nine books were challenged in 2022 by Board Member Jeanette Wilson and Community Member Dale Broom. Both of these individuals do not have children in our district, and this process cost the district $20,000. We cannot afford the amount of fees it will cost for the number of books that Karen England, again, not even a resident of our state, wants to challenge and ban in our community schools. We need to trust the expertise of our librarians, not out-of-state political activists, and even political activists from Chino. All right, lastly on censure. Board member Candy Olson has spent the last two weeks posting on social media about this. In those posts, she is making the accusation that another board member, who incidentally has been the most vocal in support of all students within this district, has threatened violence against her. There's zero proof of this. There's zero video of this. There's zero evidence this happened because it didn't happen. This is a blatantly clear attempt to silence the board member who has stood publicly in opposition of the most hateful and expensive policies that board member Olson is attempting to pass. Or is it Sonia Shaw? I don't know. I could say that you should be censured, Ms. Olson, for your public support for hateful and divisive policies. Furthermore, your social media has encouraged violence. It is not something that the students in this district can be proud of. For instance, Candy Olson shared a video just today on her social media by an individual named Jason Sanders who goes by JJWhosoever on Instagram. He's a known Proud Boy and has made numerous videos promoting violence. This is shameful and not an example to our students. Thank you.

Okay, next up we have Gustavo Hurtado.

Welcome, Gustavo.

There's a lot on the docket, but I'm mostly going to be talking about basically trans girls in sports. Hi, everyone. My name is Gustavo Hurtado. I've lived in Riverside a good chunk since, like, 2010, but I've lived in the IE, like, since 2000. So I love this area. But first of all, I wanted to say trans girls are girls. And I really want that to be kind of, even if we have ideological differences on other matters, I really think if you care about girls, you include trans girls in that effort to protect girls. The law has been in place for over a decade. And only it's been the recent kind of like culture war aspect. I keep on hearing this thing that girls are in danger. For every Riley whatever, there is Candace Parker, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Dawn Staley. I can name a bunch of kick-ass female athletes who basically are able to kind of testify the fact that they're not threatened by trans women in sports. And also we're talking about youth. I keep on hearing this idea that girls are more deserving basically because they blood, sweat, and tears. That's a basic admission for any athletic competition. So really, in terms of competition, places, community, we really should be thinking about trans girls having a space in community. Do we want to isolate trans girls? Thank you, Gustavo.

Next up we have Finn. Can't read the last name.

Welcome, Finn.

Hello, my name is Finn. I come to you today as a current student at RHS who is truly frightened for the future being formed by these hate-filled policies trying to be passed. It is essentially an act of dehumanization to restrict the representation of diverse cultures and welcoming communities. Additionally, the policy itself is very vague in its writing and can lead to further harmful censorship that will affect all. As a member of the LGBTQ community, taking away flags, which is a key indicator of safety, will be inherently harmful. Not only are these policies harmful to communities, but also the hundreds of millions of students in this district. How do you expect communal clubs like GSA, ASU, and BSU, and many more to be run by advisors if the entire subject matter behind them is censored? These policies are built on nothing but hate and will take with them important funding that can go back into helping these communities and students instead of being wasted on hate. more students should be heard as we are the ones being directly affected. Thank you. Thank you, Sam.

Next up, we have Kathy Jaffe.

Welcome, Kathy.

Kathy Jaffe. Hi. I have two boys that go to Redlands East Valley. They've been in the Redlands School District their whole lives. I actually live in Angeles Oaks, but we do go to Redlands. So I'm here to speak about the... I guess it's not quite a book ban yet, but we're headed in that direction when we start doing policies such as this. So you already have a policy. There's a policy for books to be challenged by parents, and as far as I can tell, it seems like it works. So my concern is that when we move in this direction, we move towards book bans. And when we move towards book bans, let's be honest. What are we banning? We're banning books by... The books that tend to be banned are overwhelmingly target race, racism, gender... Sexuality, LGBTQ. Let's call a spade a spade. That's what you're after. When you talk about things that are offensive in books, what you're particularly talking about are scenes about sexual assaults. We know what's more offensive than a sexual assault are the women who have been through sexual assaults. When women are able to read about those things, they find something that they can identify with. They can find something that they belong. They find something that like, oh, I'm not alone. So I'm much more concerned about all the hate that's getting spread in all these other policies than about that being read in books. So I don't think we should be banning books.

Thank you, Stephanie. Next up we have Jolene Barrow. Thank you.

Welcome, Jolene.

Thank you. Good evening, members of the board and community. My name is Jolene Barrow, and I am a proud product of Redlands Unified School District. I started Mentone Elementary in kindergarten, then I went to Moore Junior High School, and then I graduated from Redlands Senior High School. I also worked for this school district for 15 years, for those of you that do not know. I still work with the school district, and I live in this community. This is my home. I have been watching what is happening to our students, parents, and employees with heartbreak. Schools should be a safe zone for everyone. Instead, it feels like there are few who are trying to create a toxic atmosphere of bullying and unkindness. It seems to me only those who already live in extreme privilege. are not being targeted. All students, staff, and parents should be honored and protected for who they are, because who they are is wonderful. This goes for members of the LGBTQ plus community, people and children of color, people and children who live in extreme poverty, and other folks in historically marginalized groups. This board has shortened my time to speak, so I will say this for now. No. No, you will not be allowed to bully and harass people who already deal with it daily. No, you will not be allowed to spread hate and fear. No, because those of us with hearts will not allow it. You may try, but those of us who truly care about all members of the school district will do everything in our power to stop the hate.

Next up, we have Kim Ormsford. Next up we have Tim Ornsby. Followed by, I'm going to give a couple when they're only talking about one subject, followed by Jared Gustafson.

I'm sorry I didn't hear your name with all that clapping. Tim?

Welcome, Tim. Yeah, I'm Tim Ormsby. Hi. Well, first of all, I want to say that I was so impressed by Nishay's presentation. That was amazing. And I'm so glad she's working in this district. I was really moved by that. Yeah, so I don't know if she's still here. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Neche. I grew up in this community. So did my sister and brother. I raised my kid here. My sister raised her kids here. Those kids are now raising their kids here. I've always thought this was a welcoming, tolerant, compassionate community. I kind of feel not so sure about that anymore. Unfortunately. But I think those are the ideals that we aspire to. And I think we can't uphold them at home or in our neighborhoods or in our churches and not uphold them in our public schools. And I feel that the proposed flag ban and symbol ban does not embody those values and, in fact, embodies the opposite of those values of tolerance and compassion. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. Jared Gustafson.

All right.

We got through that.

Welcome, Jared.

Thank you so much for having me tonight, Redlands School Board. I want to talk about Resolution 43, supporting women in sports. It is an honor to be here tonight. It's an honor. Because tonight, it's not just about civic duty. It's about standing up for women and their sanctity. I stand here for my mother. I stand here for my sister. I stand here for my niece. I stand for my wife back there. Because all across America, women's sports are being eroded. And I could peel to a logic. I could peel to... I could appeal to logic, I could talk about biological difference, or I could appeal to reason and talk about fairness. But I would like to appeal instead to the human spirit. The Bible that 2.6 billion people believe in says that God has formed us and fashioned us in the womb, that he's knit us together, that we're beautifully and wonderfully made. And there's no child born in the wrong body. I keep hearing women share about how they felt defiled, when they were forced to change in front of men. Will you listen to them? I keep seeing young women physically hurt and injured by a man in their sport. Will you see them? There are a lot of ways to measure the success of a nation, but I submit to you today that one of the greatest ways to measure a nation is how they protect the vulnerable, especially in the way that they protect women. Please protect our young ladies.

Thank you, Jared.

I'm going to talk about the flag ban policy. 1.9 billion Muslims in the world and 2.4 billion Christians, just those faiths alone make up over half the world's population. And these faiths are diametrically opposed to the values and ideals expressed in the pride flag. Now, if this pride flag is flown as an expression of inclusion, but it actually excludes half of the world's population. That's a problem. I know many students that do not feel safe when they see a pride flag in a classroom because it does not represent them. It represents the opposite of what they believe and are taught in their homes. Imagine a school where you go into one classroom, see the pride flag. The next classroom, you might see a MAGA flag. The next classroom, you may see a pro-life flag or pro-choice flag. And on and on. The school district opens it up to a flag competition where instead of focusing on academia, it's an ideological war ensues where teachers become less of an educator and more of an activist. My encouragement is this. Remove all politically charged flags from classrooms and cultivate a laser focus on academia. I'd like to talk about censorship of Melissa. This quote, I love this quote. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. That's Longfellow. There has been some hostility in these meetings. This is my personal experience. Last time I showed up to the school board meeting, Tricia stung her tongue out at me like a five-year-old. Then I came in to sit by the only seat that was available. It was next to somebody. And she greeted me with a big F you, Jared. That person was later escorted out of the room screaming the F word. I can't unfortunately say that I'm surprised entirely by this behavior because we have been witnessing the hostility of board members themselves. Patty and Melissa have repeatedly misrepresented and minimized the perspectives of board members Olsen and Wilson. This hostility reached an all-time high when Melissa postured like she would punch Ms. Olsen. Now, it is possible that I misunderstood Melissa's intentions, I agree, but we all witnessed Superintendent Cabral stand up to protect Ms. Olson at the last meeting. That speaks volumes itself. My encouragement is this. Hostility is disarmed when we truly listen to one another in good faith. Please condemn aggressive behavior by a leader and model peace. The complaints about instructional material. I don't believe in banning books. I don't believe in censorship. But I do believe in age-appropriate reading material. And in good faith, I would extend a hand across the aisle and I would say that my opponents here tonight actually agree with me. They believe in censorship. Age-appropriate reading material. Nobody believes that porn books or magazines like Playboy should be in a library, right? So we all acknowledge there is a line. Now the question becomes, where is the line? Well, I suggest that sexually explicit material about graphic depictions of sex acts, incest, and blowjobs for six-year-olds, and we've pointed out the material that has that, crosses the daggum line. The insane, grotesque nature of these books has crossed the line. And I say this as a social worker who believes these books are the distributions of pornography. And I say this as a minister, as someone who believes in the sanctity of children and believes that they deserve to be protected. Please shield these children from these wildly inappropriate books. Lastly, I just say thank you to both of you, Ms. Olson and Wilson. You have just stayed composed while other people have just defamed you, and I just respect you so much for what you're doing.

Thank you, Jared. Next up we have Greg. I know I massacred your name. Abdosh?

Abdosh. Abdosh.

Abdosh. Welcome, Greg. Thank you.

Hi, Board. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. My name is Greg Abdosh. I'm a candidate for the 45th Assembly District, which is this district. And I'd like to speak to you guys in a different way tonight. On the census issue, I don't know what happened up there. I couldn't hear Melissa. I don't know what was said last board meeting. But I do know this. You guys are all elected officials. We got a speech from the superintendent before we started that kids are watching this presentation. Kids are watching this board meeting. We need to hold ourselves to a different standard, all of us. We need to walk in this room knowing that we're representing our young people, knowing that people are watching us, knowing that we have to hold ourselves to a different thing. And if something went wrong, Melissa, apologize. Move on. Let's be adults about it. Let's not take this thing any further. On the flag issue, you know, all of us have gone to school at a different time zone than right now, right? Most of us in here are adults, most of us in here have kids. I remember in history class understanding what the flag represented, understanding that that flag represented my grandparents, my dad, my uncles, my brothers that served for our country. that it represented America, represented all of us. It was not an exclusive flag. It was not a demeaning flag. It was one nation under God. Our country has dropped substantially in our education. Yet we're having conversations about flags. And we've got a very divided room on the issue. Put back the flag that was there because our country stood on it and teach our kids. End of story. There's no more question on it. Let's go to the next one. I'm losing my train of thought. What's the next one? We've got the girl sports, and what's the other one? Oh, the book band. So let's talk on that one first. First, I want to encourage parents. I want to make sure I get the right. Oh, now my thing won't work. Take back the classroom. Congratulations, Karen. All the way in California, we're talking about you at school board meetings several times. Good job. We wouldn't allow kids when we were younger to walk into a 7-Eleven and buy a Playboy magazine. Yet now we're arguing because we want to allow young children to read sexually explicit books and call it education. What are we educating them about? I'm just curious. I would encourage every parent listening to this, go to that website. Check it out. Pull up your kid's school. Pull up the books that are in your kid's school. And understand what this whole entire vote is about. It's not about banning books. It's about protecting children. And I will continue to stand and continue to go to every board meeting and continue running for these district seats to protect every single child. Okay, let's go to the next one. I have two daughters, both of them athletes. And the fact that we are going up and down this state, actually, I want to start off with a story. If we were at a beach and there was a little girl on a beach building a sandcastle, and some little boy came over and knocked her sandcastle down, I would expect every parent in this room to walk over, talk to the two kids, and encourage them to build sandcastles together, right? Okay. You wouldn't tell one little girl she doesn't get to build her sandcastle anymore, you would protect her. Not to mention there's now a federal ban on trans athletes in college sports. Colleges all across this country are losing funding. So what do you tell the trans athlete that you want to allow to compete in these sports when they get a scholarship to go on to college? Aren't you going to get to tell them that's where their dreams end? Why are we having this discussion? Our daughters deserve to be protected. Our daughters deserve to play in sports. If you want to play in a sport, then open up an open division. And I think it's funny that there's so many parents talking about this in here, yet you keep saying there's no trans athletes in Redlands. Then what are you doing here? Stand on values. Stand on common sense. I will continue to stand and protect every single daughter and every single girl in our district. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Okay, we're going to take a five-minute break, and we'll be back. And before we go on, I was remiss. I forgot to do this at the beginning. I'd like to present this to Consuelo. Yay, Consuelo!

Ah, that's so sweet. Thank you, thank you.

Tomorrow's Administrative Assistance Day, and Consuelo helps all of us so much to keep all of this coordinated.

We are so appreciative of her for everything she does for us.

That was very nice of everyone. Thank you.

Okay, so next up we have Jeff Mays, followed by Jean Saglam. Welcome, Jeff.

My name is Jeff Mays. I live in northern Redlands. I know that several of the board members are people whose Christian faith is very important to them, as it is for many of us. I also know that for many Christian school board members across this country, one of the goals is to create policy to help guide America's children in a godly direction and ultimately to guide students towards Jesus Christ. With that in mind, I would like to offer up the idea that when Christian school board members are behind taking books that students enjoy out of the library, are behind removing symbols from classrooms that are important to students, are behind creating a school environment where students do not feel comfortable being themselves, this has the effect of hardening students' hearts against Christianity. I would like to offer up the idea that when students see Christian school board members taking books that students enjoy out of the library, remove symbols from classrooms that are important to students, and create a school environment where students do not feel comfortable being themselves, this has the effect of driving students away from ever wanting to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Thank you, Jeff.

Good evening. I'm going to talk about Title IX and ICF, or excuse me, CIF and girls' sports. Title IX and CIF regulations have already determined it is lawful to allow transgender girls, because they're girls, to play girls' sports. Don't waste our taxpayer money on frivolous lawsuits. The law is the law. Transgender individuals make up less than 1% of our total population, and even fewer of those are students. So why is Candy Olson pushing so hard to erase all representation of already marginalized RUSD transgender students? Is she afraid of their confidence to be authentically themselves? Their joy to live life to the fullest? Or is it their desire to be seen, respected, accepted as an athlete in their own high school?

Thank you. Next up we have Lorraine Enriquez, followed by Peter Kane.

Good evening, Superintendent and Board Trustees. My name is Lorraine Enriquez, and I live in Area 2. I'm a proud mother to say that my son is a very successful graduate of RHS. So I was reading the Title X is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities receiving a federal funding. It applies to all levels of education, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. The law's purpose is to ensure that no person is excluded from participation, denied the benefits of or... subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity based on sex. And the impact on athletes, Title IX has had a significant impact on sports, ensuring equal opportunities for female athletes. So tonight you're voting on the supporting Title IX and fairness in girls' interscholastic sports. So it's a law. And in California, the current California CIF guidelines allow for trans girls to participate in sports. So it's a law. They're protected. I feel that if it's a law, why are you even having this on the agenda? What is the point that you guys are trying to get to? I'm just not understanding it. Thank you, Lorraine. Thank you.

Welcome, Peter.

Good evening, Redlands Unified Board. This message is specifically for President Rendler. Hello, Mrs. Rendler. You must vote to reject the policies put forth by board members Olson and Wilson. According to their website, Awaken Redlands claims to be a, quote, nonpartisan group to preserve, quote, traditional American values. But let's be serious. Board members Olsen and Wilson represent MAGA and the Republican Party, a party that has thoroughly abandoned any real American values like liberty, equality, honesty, and democracy. The anti-LGBTQ flag policy is absurd and un-American. And there is no serious threat to girls' sports in Redlands Unified. The issue is completely overblown and meant only to cowardly punch down... at LGBTQ students. Pope Francis had this to say this weekend before he passed away. Quote, how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants. On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different from ourselves or come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs of ways of life and ideas. For all of us are children of God. President Rendler, I trust your Catholic faith now and always to protect the best interests of all our USD students. Thank you. And also to Member Wholehand and Ayala Quintero for your support. Thank you.

Next up, we have Lindsay Schmitz.

Welcome, Lindsay.

I have two items, so... I'd like to start by talking about the changes to the challenging media policy. And I'd like to start by quoting P.C. Sweeney from the Library Journal. This is not a good faith discussion. In a good faith discussion, both parties agree to an honest, respectful dialogue with the willingness to change their view if facts and data are presented. However, the board members who are proposing changes to the book challenge procedure are neither acting honestly nor respectfully. They will not consume new information and change their minds once educated on the issue. They don't care about established litmus tests for identifying obscene content. They are not interested in reading the books to put their image of a handful of pages into proper context. I hope, however, Mrs. Rendler, that you will. You represent my area of the district, and I have hoped that you will listen in good faith to the following facts. The Supreme Court has ruled in the 1969 Tinker case that neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, and that your responsibility to maintain a safe learning environment does not equal an obligation to express any material you deem inappropriate. That removal or limiting access to books is a violation of the right to free speech. And finally, that over 40% of challenged books feature minorities. The proponents of this change...

Thank you, Lindsay.

I have a second. Oh, okay. Second item. I am a mother in Redlands. I have two children, ages 7 and 9, who go to Redlands schools. And my children have been raised to treat classmates who are different with kindness and to include them. I want to talk today about the women's athletics motion. Trans adolescents make up less than 1.5% of the population. For the sake of excluding this tiny minority of people, which, by the way, is itself against Title IX to exclude them, those who came to be protecting women's sports proposed to make female athletes jump through additional hurdles to prove they deserve to be there. Whether it is providing additional documentation not required of male athletes or being subjected to invasive extra examinations, including verifying their genitals. This does not feel like we are protecting girls. Girls have natural variations like everyone in bone structure, muscle mass, face shape, and hormone levels. And in this mean-spirited attempt to exclude trans children, who like all children just want to be part of something and play with their friends, you open the door to witch hunts where even women who were born women are accused of being men. We saw this in the most recent Olympics with athletes like Imane Khalif and Kastor Semenya. This does not feel like it is protecting our girls. The proponents of both these changes have created straw men, and they are trying to silence the voices and not represent the constituents. Thank you.

Thank you, Lindsay. Next up, we have Jackie Williams-Reed, followed by Kate Frank. Welcome, Jackie. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Jackie Williams-Reed, and I'm a family therapist in Redlands. I want to speak to the very real mental health consequences of the proposed agenda item banning trans girls from school sports. We know that adolescence is already a critical and vulnerable time for mental health development. For trans youth who face disproportionately high rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts, exclusionary policies like this one send a message that they are not welcome or worthy of belonging. Participation in sports is about more than competition, more than who's biggest, who's fastest, who wins. It's about connection, confidence, teamwork, and growth. It's a social activity for children. It's a protective factor against isolation and depression. When we take that opportunity away from trans students, we're not protecting anyone, we're causing harm. Research consistently shows that inclusive environments reduce mental health risk. On the other hand, discrimination increases it. Policies like this don't just affect individual kids. They send a message to the entire school community about who gets to belong and who doesn't. That message is damaging, it causes suicide, and it's avoidable. As adults responsible for the well-being of our youth, we must prioritize mental health, safety, and inclusion. Please consider the long-term consequences of this policy and choose compassion, evidence, and equity instead. Thank you.

Good evening. I am gobsmacked that I have to come here and tell you not to ban books in 2025. We all remember in history what regimes banned books. None of them were good. Our kids graduated from RSD, were a military family, they were bookworms, they read everything. I read most of what they read. We talked about it. That's how you develop critical thinking skills. You read even things you might not agree with. Freedom of speech. Freedom to read what we want. This looks like you're looking for a problem. Let's spend money on art. Let's spend money on enriching our children's education, not this that's a guaranteed lawsuit. Thank you.

Next up, we have Rue Whitmore.

Welcome, Rue.

Hello. I have several items to speak on. First, I want to start with Squamdy. I know how much money Dale Broom shoveled into yours and Candy's campaigns, and I know that you need to jump when he says, just like you did with his candidates on the Redlands City Council, Candy, your copy-paste is noted, honey. We actually want better air quality for our kids. And I bet it is less expensive than all of the lawsuits we've been trying to settle for our former assault of teachers who were overwhelmingly cisgender, white, heterosexual Christian men. And this will improve their health and not traumatize them. Okay. I also want to talk on Title IX. Title IX, everything in that little thing is full of gender essentialist dog whistles that people who didn't pass middle school science parrot. Candy, no matter how many geriatric bikers or politician preachers your fascist church troops in to intimidate us, we will never stop supporting girls. And trans girls are girls. If you are so secure in chromosomal nonsense, who are you asking to fund the medical testing that we're going to have to do for every female athlete? I'm sure we can't afford it. Or are you actually suggesting that a stranger inspect our girls' genitals? That is very protective of them, right? Absolutely not. I have one more.

Can you do it?

I also want to say you won't censure Jeanette for backing Nazis. You don't censure Candy for leading an organization targeting a 20-plus year veteran teacher. So my question, Michelle, is where is the bottom of your depravity? How many women of color, like Melissa, that you are willing to sacrifice? How many children? How many books to sacrifice to cozy up to Candy Olson, a self-proclaimed CEO of extreme Christo-fascist organization Awaken Redlands? I don't believe that you could protect any children. You have no right to censure Melissa for being passionate in the convictions that you can't seem to find for yourself, ma'am. You didn't have enough of a spine to stop hate speech in front of the queer and trans students who were in the room at the time. in the last meeting. And I do want to say that since you are Catholic, this is blaspheming everything that the last Pope stood for. Everything that you consistently work with Jeanette on is a slap in the face to his consistent lifetime of work. You should be censured for your lack of leadership and allowing such a fractured board. Anyone else could do a better job at being the president of this board. Patty probably could. So Melissa, the community is here for you. the same way that you consistently show up for us. We see you, and the racist pearl-clutching of the other women on this board is fragile white women's syndrome at its best. Thank you.

Okay, so I checked the cards, and that speaker had two cards, so I'm not going to keep letting you speak if I don't have a card for that topic. We just have way too many. So up next we have Valerie Tabor.

Welcome, Valerie.

Thank you.

Thank you. I am a parent in the district and I have a child at one of our elementary schools. The first topic that I have a card on is the South Coast Air Quality Resolution. I think it is... I don't even know how this resolution got on the board. These things, they don't even impact schools. So I'm not sure why. Are we going to start having resolutions for every single bill that comes up in our assembly? This is ridiculous. And it is very clear that you are doing this just to appeal your donors. It is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The IE has one of the worst air qualities in the nation. Not just California, the nation. And you are clutching your pearls about this stuff. It's absolutely ridiculous. So that is my first topic. My second topic is on the Title IX resolution. I'd like to congratulate Candy on your copy-paste work on this resolution. A casual reader might indeed think this is purely about protecting girls' sports if they were unaware that this resolution was originally intended to be written in support of the failed anti-trans athlete bill AB 89. They might also miss the gender essentialism dog whistles of supporting the original intention of Title IX and arguing that biological differences between males and females athletes creates inherent advantages. I would invite you to please think about the logical conclusion to the rhetoric of this resolution. How would you fairly ensure that every single student on a girls sports team is in fact someone with an XX chromosome? How will you require invasive inhumane examinations to join a team? What happens if a student accuses another of being trans? What if intersex students who do not fit in a specific biological box? And what is your solution for these trans athletes, Candy? Do we do as your husband advocated for and give them their own league? Do you have any idea how many trans students there are? There's not even enough to have an entire league, let alone a team, to be on par with the access the cisgender athletes have. Gender essentialism is nonsense. You are harming women with these policies. Please vote no one less resolution and stop being obsessed with our students' genitals. It's so weird and gross.

Next up, we have Kathy Dean followed by Stephanie M.

Welcome, Kathy.

Hi. I'm here to talk about Title IX. You've heard from lots of parents who are trying to appeal to three of your sense of morality, and I just think that's never going to work because three of you have no morals. And so... What I wanted to say is just we recognize those of us in the community who have critical thinking skills that you are trying to put your Project 2025 nonsense at a local level so that it'll get easier passed at a federal level, and we're not letting that happen here. We see you, and we'll stop you. Fuck you, not you, fuck you, not you, fuck you. Excuse me.

Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. Kathy, you are excused.

Thank you. Okay, next up we have Stephanie M. Excuse me.

What's going on?

Welcome, Stephanie.

Hello. I'm speaking in support of trans student athletes. The spirit of Title IX is inclusionary in nature. As a school board, your focus should be on how to get more students involved, how to get them the resources that they need, not looking for ways to exclude them based on their genitals or your lack of biological knowledge. Thank you.

Thank you Stephanie. Next up we have Emma Wolf followed by Erica Grossman. Erica, sorry. Welcome Emma.

So I too am here to talk about Title IX and its need for inclusion. The fact is the reason schools really have sports is because 17% less dropout rate for student athletes. Schools are not about sports. We're about keeping students in school and educating them. And so we need to be absolutely as inclusive as possible and giving as many students access as we possibly can. The fact is, somewhere between 0.5% and 2% of students are intersex. They do not fit what a bunch of you up there are wearing on your back, which is XX or XY. So I would love to know who's paying for the chromosomal testing of every athlete in this district. Because that's the biological fact. I grew up with a girl who did not discover that she was XY until she was a teenager. because externally her genitalia was female. It is not a biological fact the way you want it to be because it makes you comfortable. We can be uncomfortable as we learn new things together. And there are a lot of students who teach us new things, including our trans athletes and our intersex athletes who you may not even know exist. And you need to include them in our school sports so that they stay in school because they have higher dropout rates than anyone else.

Thank you, Stephanie. I mean, Emma. I'm sorry, Emma.

Welcome, Erica. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, this is regarding support and fairness in girls' sport. Sports bring joy to so many children, and every child deserves that chance. Trans youths are facing serious discrimination, and they rarely get to participate in sports. Why do you want to create more barriers for them? It mentions biological differences, but how exactly do you define biological differences? Are you going to require medical testing when sex is questioned? If you truly understand biology, you know chromosomes are only a fraction of the information to define your sex. That is why when chromosome testing was required for all women to compete in elite sports in 1968, Dr. Barr, who developed chromosome testing, himself opposed that regulation. In the UK, where the government is extremely anti-trans, two junior high girls with short hair were accused of being boys playing girls' sports, and they were demanded to expose their genitals to prove otherwise. Is that the direction you want to take? Regarding safety concerns, those who claim trans girls may cause injury ignore the fact injuries occur in women's sports all the time without trans women. You are simply promoting hatred and bullying toward trans girls. Your actions are causing severe and lasting harm to the students you are supposed to protect. Okay, next one. I have another one. Okay, this is regarding book bans. I don't understand why this has suddenly become such a big issue. Books like Romeo and Juliet, which depict junior high-age children engaging in an intimate relationship after meeting at a party and take their own lives, have been in schools for generations. If you are allowed to remove certain books based on your beliefs, will you also seek to eliminate books on Darwin's theory of evolution, or blended families, or step-parents, or working mothers, if some object to those topics? Your argument is irrational. You just want to attack LGBTQ+, because you see them as sexual object, not human. And this is precisely why books are so vital. I urge you to visit a library and read books about LGBTQ+, topics. It's never too late to learn. I recently read a book written by a mother whose transgender daughter endured horrendous treatment by her school district, forcing them to move out of the state. It's just heartbreaking how cruel people can be. I truly hope that no student is ever pushed out of our schools. I'd also like to express my gratitude to Melissa Ella Quintero. She's been not only a wonderful mother, but also someone who's always devoted herself to the well-being of all children. And Kelly Olson's actions are truly shameful. Thank you. Thank you, Erica. Thank you.

Next we have Aya, followed by Greg Britton.

Hello, I am Aya, a trans feminine student in RHS and here to speak out against the flag ban policy. I have here two flags. This flag represents the acceptance of people of all gender identities and the belief that love, no matter the gender, is still love. This flag over here represents the liberation of the Palestinian people, even in the face of settler colonialism and genocide. Then, look at this flag. This is the same flag under which we have people sending bombs to Israel to kill tens of thousands of children in Gaza. It is the same flag under which we are sending legal migrants in El Salvador prison camps. It is the same flag under which we eternalize the lives of tens of millions of indigenous Americans who were executed, ethnically cleansed, and stolen from their very own land. The same flag slave owners used to justify the cotton plantations, build Japanese internment camps, colonize the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, et cetera, in state of Muslim ban, and brutalize young black men through the police. Is this truly the most inclusive flag you can have at our schools? It's as if this isn't really about protecting or educating kids. It's about preserving control of whether you think it or not. And man, you guys really fail at that, you know?

Thank you.

Because no matter what, we will resist.

And if I call you a second up, feel free to be waiting in the wings.

Welcome, Greg. Sorry, I thought he'd go on for a while. Starting off, natural gas, clean. May I begin? Natural gas, clean burning natural gas. And the SCAQMD has a proposed regulation that will force all of us, government agencies like you, homeowners, businesses, to replace them with more expensive electric vehicles. Furnaces and water heaters, when already there's not enough electricity, the grid is inadequate, and electricity prices in California are 92% higher than the national average. I don't know why that is, but that's beyond the scope of discussion tonight. What this board has a chance to do is to weigh in on this, and this is going under the radar. This is not an elected body that's going to do this and impose this massive cost. A home could cost $15,000 to $30,000 if you have to rewire and redo the electric system. A 25-unit apartment building can cost $500,000 to $1 million. And if you are a tenant and you have any doubt who's going to pay that cost, look in the mirror. So this board has a chance to take a stand on this. It's going to be massively expensive. It's going to do Zippo to fix the environment because where do you get the electricity? Well, when the wind isn't blowing, sun isn't shining, you use the same type of sources for your electricity. So I urge you to adopt this resolution. Title IX, start with the law. Title IX protects women. not men who think or want to pretend they are women. And you will get sued by the administration or by a student or their parent. You're going to get sued if you are not in compliance with Title IX. But this is a larger issue. You know, we really don't care. Personal relations between consenting adults, we don't care. But this idea that you can be a different gender, that two plus two is something different than four, that you're an XX or an XY. Now, there's about 0.18% are intersex, but otherwise everyone else is an XX or an XY. And the XXs are at a disadvantage in strength, in speed, in endurance to the XYs. That's why we have separate leagues, to give each a chance to compete. What's the point of competing if you can't win? No matter how hard you win, how hard you work, you can't beat the XY. You lose out on scholarships. You lose out on college admissions. And it's dangerous. Women have been permanently injured because of the superior male strength. See, don't beat up women, yet you put women in the boxing ring with men. It's wrong. Don't do it. Books. No one is banning books. Total misnomer, total mischaracterization of the issue. It is the responsibility, however, of the schools and the board that ultimately governs our schools that we elected to do that, to choose appropriate books for the children. Now, outside of the schools, you can buy, print, publish any book you want to. But we're depending on you. Parents are depending on you. The citizens are depending on you to choose appropriate books. As a good rule of thumb, I have a radio show once a week, and I can't read on my radio show stuff that is in your books. And there's a good rule of thumb. If you can't put it on the public airwaves, it shouldn't be in the public schools. Outside the schools, whatever you want. Inside the schools, that's where you have jurisdiction, and the parents are looking to you to protect this. And we've seen this agenda. We talked about it last time. I don't have time to fully develop it. But there's an agenda all across the country to sexualize children, and it is wrong. And that's what these books are doing. They expose them to all of these different things, really perverted sex acts. I'm not going to read them here. And you, as our elected representatives, as the parents' representatives, should choose appropriate books. You are banning nothing. The flag. The national anthem, he talks about all the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming by the dawn's early light. Why was that so important? Because as long as that flag flew, as long as the American flag flew over Fort McHenry, it meant that the fort had not surrendered. And by dawn's early light, the flag was still there. At great cost. All around the flagpole in Fort McHenry were the bodies of dead American soldiers. who are standing out there trying to hold the flagpole up and were killed by the shrapnel from the bombs bursting in air. The flag is a special and unique symbol. Contrary to all sorts of other symbols, we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, not to some symbol, not to some book, not to some politician, to the flag. That's why it's different. And that's why the other side wants it, because they know the importance of putting that flag there. It is not just to make some people feel good. It is to say, this ideology rules this classroom. That flag says to every believing Christian, every believing Muslim, every believing Jew, that your religion, your God, your Bible, Torah, Koran, as it may be, is wrong, and we, the government schools, are right. It's putting the government stamp on a particular view of things is wrong. It should be only the American and California flag. Thank you, Greg. I think that covers the censorship. I didn't see what happened. But, I know Candy Olson well. Candy, you may disagree with her, she is a woman of integrity. If she says it happened, it happened. You may disagree with her, and that's fine. But she's here, and despite all the stuff that's thrown at her and Jeanette, is seeking to carry out the promises she made during the campaign. And we need more of that in politics, where the politicians actually do what they promise they're going to do. It's also totally consistent violence from the left. Our church. after the last school board meeting, was vandalized by putting a swastika on that. The symbol of the National Socialist Party of Germany. So I don't know what happened, but use of violence is consistent with what happens on the left. We see this. They're attacking Teslas across the country. 55% of self-described right or left of center people think it's okay to murder Donald Trump. So would she have threatened Kennedy? Totally in character with her ideology, and she deserves the censorship because I believe what Kennedy had to say about it.

Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Thank you.

Next up we have John Berry, followed by David Balag.

I'm John Berry, Item 14A. Welcome, John. Okay, Item 14A. Forcing everything onto electric is just plain nutty. Anyone who understands anything about emergencies knows you need redundant sources of power when the electricity goes kaput. Item 22B, the flag. I'm a 42-year veteran of the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserve. That includes combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American flag means absolutely everything to veterans. By allowing the pride flag in the classroom is an absolute insult to veterans because what it does is allow those who haven't served to glom onto the sacrifices of those who have. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Thank you. Welcome, David.

Thank you. It's David Bulldog. But I like the way you pronounced it. First, I want to start with in support of your item 14A, South Coast Air Quality Rules to go away from gasification to electrification. I do support that amendment. Although the South Coast Air Quality Management District and both CARB have done great deals of work to clean up our errors, this is going too far. So I stand in solidarity with you because what will happen, as has been talked about already, is that you're talking about having, if you do this, you're going to have to replace what was a gas line, or not necessarily replace, but bring in a new conduit of electricity charge. You may have to do a new circuit breaker. a new electrical panel. This is going to cost a lot of money. It's going to really bring a huge cost of increase of living for everybody in the area if this goes into effect. So I support what you are trying to do here, and I stand in support with that. In regards to Day of the Teacher 16A, I do support that, even though we are at levels nationally in the low 30s of comprehension for science, math, and mathematics. Science, math?

Sorry, go ahead.

Thank you. Regarding support, I'm in support of agenda item 16C, Title IX in girls' sports. This is very basic. Men with an excess chromosome have stronger capacities. They're stronger. They have bigger muscle mass. They have an increased... oxygen supply, it's not fair to girls to have to compete against them. So I do support this amendment, and I thank you for bringing it forth. Now, in regards to 22A and 22B, complaints concerning the structural materials and flag displays, I was talking earlier about the level of comprehension that we have across the nation is in the low 30s for mass science and English. And also in California, we're doing a little better at 35%. So anything that disrupts the basics of what you're here to do is to educate our students in the basics of science, reading, and math. Anything that distracts that, I would suggest that you just get rid of. There's no need for it. It's not helping anybody. It's not helping anybody go forward. It's not helping these kids in their lives to prepare to be adults. If there's any issues that people want to bring about, you should have a debate club. DEBATE CLASSES WHERE STUDENTS CAN GET TOGETHER AND LEARN HOW TO TALK TO EACH OTHER AND LISTEN TO THE DIFFERENT EFFECTS, LISTEN TO THE DIFFERENT ISSUES THAT THEY HAVE AND THEIR VIEWPOINTS AND BE ABLE TO DISCUSS THAT. I WANT TO END WITH 22C, BOARD MEMBER CENTER MOTION AGAINST ANOTHER BOARD MEMBER. LADIES, PLEASE BEHAVE. BE GOOD TO EACH OTHER. YOUR SUPERINTENDENT TALKED EARLIER ABOUT THE FACT THAT OUR KIDS ARE LISTENING. And you want to be the example. And now if you have a disagreement with each other, bring it to the dais. Speak in respectful tones. And make your point clear. And leave it at that. You're not always going to agree with each other. You're going to disagree with different people. And that's fine. But let's do it in a respectful manner. Let's be kind to each other. And I know we had another person here who's wearing a shirt that talked about cussing out school board members. She dropped some F-bombs. I just want to say I love and appreciate all of you for all the work you do. If you do or do not agree with me, it does not matter. You've done a lot of work to get to those seats that you're in right now. And I appreciate the efforts that you're putting forth and the fact that you're listening to everybody and taking into consideration what we're all saying. So thank you all.

Thank you, David. Next up, we have Patty Cabeda, followed by Patricia Wilson.

Hello, my name is Patricia Cabeda. Welcome, Patricia. I'm here to support your resolution for girls' sports. I think it's important that you are acknowledging that there are biological girls, because there Boys and girls are just not the same. And it is not hateful to tell the truth, which seems to be something that many people here are refusing to believe. And it's very disgusting, as a minority woman, to continue to listen to a lot of these people talk poorly about you because you're white women, those of you that are supporting girls' sports. That's racism. That's discrimination. The same discrimination that the girls are facing for not being allowed to play with other biological girls. It is the most un-American thing that you could possibly do to take away the rights of a biological girl. Why was it okay for us to fight for our rights only to have them taken away because a man says that he is allowed to play with girls? It is disgusting. And I want to applaud you for taking the initiative to move forward with this. Because girls, biological girls, are being robbed of the experience of setting goals. They are being robbed of the experience of breaking them. They are also being robbed of college tuitions that might be paid to them. Too many experiences are being robbed to a biological girl simply because a biological boy feels like a girl that he feels entitled to play with girls when that is absolutely wrong. Thank you, Patricia.

Hello, my name is Patricia Wilson, and I'm a parent of an RUSD student. I'm here to oppose the flag ban policy. I'm very concerned about the negative language that occurred at the last board meeting directed toward our LGBTQ students. I think it's very important that our school board make it clear that they won't tolerate any hate speech or bigotry toward the LGBTQ students in our community. Implying or outright saying that something is wrong with students in the LGBT community is dangerous. I know there's been a lot of discussion about allowing the display of the pride flag. I think that the comments that we heard at the last board meeting, and even this one, illustrates why it is important for teachers, staff, and students to be able to display a pride flag if they want. Students will know that those classrooms and those teachers are a safe place a place where they won't experience bigotry. All of our students deserve to be in a place where they are accepted, seen, and valued. I think it's important to remember that this is a public school that is for everyone, not a private religious school. Also, please don't ban books. Those who ban books are never on the right side of history. Trust our librarians and teachers' professional judgment. There are already procedures in place if you don't want your child to check out a particular book. Please don't dictate what the other students can read. Thank you. Thank you, Professor. Thank you.

I know many of you came in late due to seating, so I just wanted to remind you or let you know that Superintendent Cabral asked that clapping and booing or whatever you need to do should not be done during a person's speech to please save it for the end. Thank you. Next up we have Joshua Hall.

Okay, I'm here to ask the Redlands Unified School Board, huh? I'm here to ask the Redlands Unified School Board to, I'm calling for the immediate permanent censure of Melissa Ayala-Contarro and possibly termination because at the last school board meeting on April 8th, Melissa Ayala-Contarro made hand gestures that indicated that she was dangerously close to physically assaulting Candy Olson to the point Juan Cabral had to intervene. Good on you, Juan Cabral. Melissa is dangerously unhinged and displays fascistic tendencies that are often projected onto Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson. Her behavior was reprobate, degenerate, reprehensible, and repugnant, and she doesn't deserve her post. I'm also here to speak on the flag policy. The United States flag, as previous speakers have indicated, is the most inclusive flag there is. It's not perfect, but it's the best one we have. And last I checked, schools are government buildings and institutions, and government buildings and institutions should not take sides in political and social affairs. So that leaves out the LGBTQ plus flag. I'm also here to speak about book banning. There's no such thing as banning books. Books that are left out of public school libraries are still available for checkout at city and county libraries. You can still go to Barnes & Noble and you can still buy books on Amazon. There are a ton of books... written by conservative authors that Amazon bans, but people often say, well, Amazon's a private company. They can do whatever they want. Well, if Amazon can ban certain books, then what is the problem with a school board banning books that are age-inappropriate for kids? Now I'm speaking about the gas furnace. California, while it's true that the Inuit Empire in California have the highest rates of air pollution in the nation... Getting rid of gas furnaces is not going to solve the pollution problem. It's only going to make it worse. Requiring all houses and businesses to convert natural gas, which is the cleanest burning, natural gas furnaces and water heaters to electric heaters and water furnaces. Well, that's just going to destabilize the electric grid even further. California has the most unstable electric grid in the nation, and if we convert all gas furnaces, natural gas furnaces and water heaters to electric, we're going to lose power, permanently, perhaps. And finally, I'm here to speak on Title IX girls' sports. It is imperative that we keep Title IX because girls routinely get injured, sometimes seriously when competing against men, but that's also not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that by letting boys and men who think of themselves as girls and women compete against girls and women, A lot of men who identify as the opposite gender do so because it gives them easy access to little girls and women. We are giving wolves access to the sheep. Thank you, Joshua.

Next up we have Jesus Cisneros.

Welcome, Jesus.

Hi. Thank you for having me here today, Candy. You're doing such a great job, Jeanette, you too. Michelle, please do the right thing. So I'm here to speak on two things that are basic. You know, growing up as a child, I grew up watching soccer with my dad. When our team, the United States women's team, became the number one team in the whole world, it was amazing. It was awesome to see our country become number one in the world for the women's national soccer team. But when they played... against a high school boys team that was mediocre, and they got beat 5-2-2. When these women, they beat every single country in the world. That was shameful. And it taught me one thing. No matter what, men will be stronger than women. So now, how can we stand here today and have girls get robbed? Because for a lot of girls that grow up, people here are speaking about minorities. So let's speak about minorities. One of the only ways to go to college for some women, especially minority women, is for one thing and one thing only, to join a sport, to succeed in a sport, and to go to a college that's going to pay for their college because of what? Because they succeed in sport. Then here comes a boy. He identifies as a girl. And he takes that girl's dream away. That is happening every single day. So for the people that say we want to protect minorities, then do protect minorities. Do that, please. But don't sit here and stand and say that you stand for truth and justice when you believe men can get pregnant. Thank you, Jesus. Now on the flag policy. Oh, more. Thank you. So this beautiful flag here, it stands for everybody. I served in the military. I was in Afghanistan. And when I came home, this flag represented myself, the gentleman back here that served too. And it serves every single person here. I don't send my children to school to learn LGBTQ or their agenda. I send them to school to learn the basic math and English and history and science. And we stepped away from that. Why? Why are we teaching them politics now? Why are we teaching them about the gay agenda? It's basic. You're a school board. We teach math, English, science, and history. That is it. We shouldn't even be having this right now. I shouldn't have this gentleman cussing at me right now. I'm sorry. I apologize. You should. We shouldn't have that. We really should not have that. We should just go back to basics. Teach them education. Don't teach them about this gay grooming or gay agenda. If parents want to do that at home, that's great. If your family wants to do that at home, that's great. But it's not the school board's job. It's not. Again, they want to speak about minorities. We're not graduating high school anymore. Only half our kids are graduating high school. That is sad. That's a shame. We're lagging behind the rest of the world. We're arguing about a rainbow flag when we should be arguing about test scores. Again, thank you for all you do here. Michelle, please, ma'am, do the right thing. I know where your heart stands. Don't fall for this pressure. We stand behind you, please. Elections do have consequences, so I hope, ma'am, you do the right thing. Thank you, and God bless you guys. Thank you for being here.

Have a good night. Next up, we have Brianna Robinson, followed by Susan McCarley.

Hi.

Okay, so I've come to speak in support of Jeanette and Candy and their decision to remove the pride flag in classroom. I think the purpose of taking down the flag is to remain impartial. I think we can all agree that we represent collectively is the American flag, which itself represents equality and freedom of speech and expression. And so I think that what we're getting at here is that nothing is to be taken away from you If you believe in your flag, you can represent your flag. You can wear your flag on a T-shirt, a backpack, post on social media. You can have a pride LGBTQ plus at school, just like there was in high school when I was 20 years ago. And I'm a Christian, and we have a Christian flag. We can wear what we believe in a T-shirt. We can say Jesus loves you. We can read our Bible and pray in public. And we have our own Christian club. We can do all these things, and it does not take that away or excludes anybody else. So I think something to consider, even if you don't agree, is the importance of maintaining impartiality, neutrality, and representing the country. Keeping the American flag represents our belief in being indivisible in liberty and justice for all. So if you want to represent what you believe, then you can do that. And I think that's what this is all about. It's not taking away from anybody, but it's making sure that the flag that is posted in the classroom is what represents us all, not a flag that just pertains to one group and excludes others.

Thanks.

Thank you, Brianna.

Welcome, Susan.

Good evening. I just wanted to clarify some things. So I brought some definitions for the issue of censorship. Assault is generally defined as an intentional act that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent, harmful, or offensive contact. It is an intentional act. A person committing the assault must intend to cause the victim to fear imminent harm, not just intend to cause physical contact. Threatening body language. Aggressive posturing, like raising a fist, can be a form of nonverbal threat that creates the fear of imminent harm, even if no physical contact is made. Disorderly conduct. The crime of disorderly conduct is also known as disturbing the peace. It's governed by California Penal Code Section 647. Disorderly conduct is a crime that involves public activity or behavior that's offensive or disruptive and interrupts other people's ability to enjoy a public space. Fighting in public or challenging someone to a fight in public is a crime in California. Making unreasonably loud noise to intentionally disturb others and using offensive words in a public space, particularly when those words... Thank you, Susan.

Next up we have Christy Dodson followed by Rachel Ugly.

Welcome, Christy.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for the long evening we have here and for hearing all of the voices. My name is Christy. As you heard, I live in Redlands. I have two school-age children. I'm also a public high school English teacher and have been for 25 years, although I don't teach in the district. I've seen a lot of things change in my time in 25 years, but the last 10 have been really surprising. There's a lot of ebbs and flows, as there always are in education, but as a junior English teacher, one of our core projects was a controversial issue project. So kids were put into groups of four, they had to choose an issue, and they had to learn about it, have dialogue, discussion, and have a formal debate. Now, I always have opinions, we all do, but we were actually not allowed to share our own opinions. We were not allowed to show any kind of bias, and I never did, because it was about really teaching the kids that they needed to learn and they needed to critically think. I feel like where we are today, the fact that we've allowed politics and definitely not neutrality to come into the classroom is what gives us this division we feel today. My heart is beating walking into the room thinking that there's people that have assumptions about us because we might not want certain things in the classroom. But as, again, a teacher of 25 years, I didn't even put music band posters or anything in my room because we weren't allowed to influence students. So I feel like if we got back to the basics and we just kept the neutrality, you could walk into any classroom and not make assumptions about a teacher one way or the other because it does fly that way too, that a student might have an assumption. Thank you.

Thank you, Christine.

Welcome, Rachel.

Hello. I need to speak about Title IX. Title IX first was coordinated with civil rights by President Nixon in 1972. And the wording in that is very similar to what has happened with the presidential actions of January 20, 2025. And it is here. It does not address anything other than children or girls and boys that that's the only way they're listed and identified. If the wording is changed, it's not legal, nor does it come from the federal government. So we have to respect the federal government because that's what our country is all about. Now, when people say that other kids get bullied, I think sometimes they hear constantly the same verbiage from everyone around them. Next, I want to go ahead and I want to address that our country was created by our founding fathers. It is not a living constitution. It's one nation under God. They decided on our flag because it represented the battle, the blood, the sweat, that when the people left Britain and other countries, that's what it represented. And this is something that people say it doesn't belong to all. It does. If you live in the United States, it belongs to everyone. If you wish to honor another country, you have alternatives. You can do it in the privacy of your home, or you can visit that other country. We are bound by our Constitution, and we should follow it even at the school board level. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel. Next up, we have Douglas Hauser, followed by Katherine Appleby.

Welcome, Douglas. Hi, thank you for the opportunity. My name is Douglas Hauser. I want to talk about the Title IX issue. I am the biologist that everybody else here is pretending to be. I spent a career doing biomedical research at City of Hope National Medical Center, at Women's Hospital in Los Angeles, and the bulk of my career at USC School of Medicine. So I know where of I speak. I've never heard the term until tonight, gender essentialism or something crazy like that. But I can assure you that somebody who said earlier that 1-2% of people have some kind of sex chromosomal abnormalities, incorrect. It's somewhere between 0.15% and 0.25%, around one in every 500 or so. So it's an extremely rare condition. For the rest, XX equals a woman, XY equals a man, and it's as simple as that. I would also note that on a straightforward political scale, we noticed that the argument that was made as recently as just a few months ago, that men don't have any advantage over women in sports anyway, That has vanished in the obvious observation that over 1,000 places on the podium have been taken by biological boys that should have gone to women. And so now they've fallen back on the feelings of the people involved are being hurt, and there are so few of them that what difference does it make anyway? But even Gavin Newsom just recently admitted that it's not fair for biological boys to compete against women, and so they shouldn't.

Thank you, Douglas. Thank you. Jeanette, can you confirm how many cards I have?

Let's see.

Welcome, Kathy.

Four.

Thank you. I would like to start with 16A and B. It is the resolutions 40 and 41 for the day of the Teacher and Educational Support Professionals Day. I would like to start by saying that I deeply respect and value the work that our teachers and our educational support staff do in this district. But I am going to urge this board not to pass these resolutions. Since January, you have disrespected the professionalism of our teachers and our support staff, and they do not need your empty words in these resolutions. So until this board can change and respect our teachers and support staff, these resolutions are empty and meaningless, and I would encourage you not to pass them. Next one. This is for resolution number 42. This is 14A. This is the opposing adoption of the SCAQMD proposed amended rules. I would like to point out that you have an existing board policy. It is policy 200, the goals for the school district. I don't know if you have the board policies available to you right now, but you might want to turn to this. Specifically, number seven says that your goals are to maintain fiscal integrity for this district. I believe that this resolution is at that heart. However... At no time have you asked our assistant superintendents, our superintendent for the hard numbers. You owe us fiscal transparency and you do not give it when you pass resolutions that are worded in such vague ways as These mandates would impose a significant financial burden on the Redlands Unified School District. What is significant? What are those numbers? You as a school board have to maintain our fiscal integrity. You have to be transparent with those fiscal numbers, and you have not been. Until you are, this resolution should not be passed. The next one. This is 16C, resolution number 43, supporting Title IX and fairness in girls in interscholastic sports. Again, it is another vaguely worded resolution. I have questions here. We talk about biological differences between male and female athletes. I'd actually like to know how our trans or non-binary or gender fluid students will be identified. This school district has a problem with adults sexually assaulting and abusing our children. And if you're going to ask my child to pull down their underwear for their gender to be identified, I have a problem with all of you. You also say that the district will uphold its protections by ensuring fairness and equal opportunities in girls sports. Bella, last two weeks ago, asked what those numbers were. So does this include funding commitments by the district? Your priorities say that you will provide opportunities for every student to participate fully. Does this allow that? Policy 410 also states in the first two paragraphs, and I would suggest you read it, that you cannot discriminate based on gender or gender identity. And finally, this is number 25A. This is the Transportation Act. for the California State Speech and Debate Championships. Bella Salazar spoke two weeks ago about this. I don't know if you've noticed what's in italics here. It says to be funded by donations. That is crap. That is absolute crap from this district. Funded by donations? This is an award-winning speech and debate team, and they're funded by donations. You can't even find the funding for them? What is wrong with you? Let's support our kids. This is support. I would like to point out that in 2016, there was this lovely little sentence. And it is actually on the board page of your website. So you might want to open up this document. It's your CVRA and move to by trustee area. But one key sentence in here. The Redlands Unified School District's Board of Education preference is and has always been to avoid expenditures that do not directly benefit the children, families, and communities we serve. Spending money on our speech and debate team is benefiting our children. Thank you, Catherine.

Okay, up next we have Bethany Reiling, followed by Matt Appleby.

Hi. I feel a little out of place. I think I'm really in the middle of everyone here tonight. So I guess I just wanted to talk about the flag issue. I just wanted to offer to the board that I feel okay having flags up in the classroom that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with. That might be a pride flag. It could be an L.A. Chargers flag. But I... I'm willing to accept it. One thing that as you put together the policy, I would just encourage you to remember that please don't discourage teachers from putting things up in the classrooms because our Redlands classrooms are mostly white cinder block. And so a lot of what makes going into the classroom fun and enjoyable is being able to see color and something to look at and encourage you to start learning. Also, I just want to say that I am a Redlands High School graduate, and I have three students in Redlands right now. And then I guess I would like to speak on the Title IX. I feel very nervous. You guys have a lot of strong feelings. I just wanted to switch to Title IX. I noticed it was only men up here. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I didn't have a card for you to speak on that topic. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I cannot speak then. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you. My name is Matt Appleby. I wanted to speak about Title IX. So I think we all want our student athletes to be safe. Like, we can all agree on that. The issue is that this policy really is just seeking to protect some students by also harming trans students. According to the National Federation of State High School Association, there are roughly 8 million high school students in sports, which is great. Studies show that there are 300,100 trans students from the ages of 13 to 17 across the nation. About 40% say they play sports. That equates to 122,140 trans athletes. So if we do a little bit of math, what we see is that comes out to about 0.15% of students in the nation being trans. who are athletes. The issue with that, of course, is that that's not even 1% of our students. Not only that, but it doesn't take into account the fact that Redlands is probably going to have much less than that. And we're not even looking at all trans students, but also just in general female students. The other thing I wanted to bring up is in terms of the abilities of trans girls, the National Library of Medicine and Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism say that both after HRT, hormone replacement therapy, after 12 months, the strength of trans women goes down by 5%. After 24 months, two years, there's virtually no advantage in comparison to cisgender women. Thank you, Max.

Next up we have Daphne Hawkins, followed by Michael Grossman. Okay, Michael Grossman. Go, Michael.

Thank you. Michael Grossman. I live in Area 2. I want to actually just start out by thanking both the presenters from earlier in the meeting. It was really inspiring to hear both of those presentations. It gave me a lot of confidence in the district. And, of course, those students were really spectacular with all the work that they've done. So a big shout out to them. I'm here tonight mostly, though, to speak about draft policy 6.1.1.5, ceremonies, observances, and flag displays. It's obvious to any informed observer that this new policy is being introduced for the sole purpose of banning the pride flag in classrooms. Multiple speakers tonight have confirmed that fact. The policy states that its intent is to maintain a patriotic, safe, appropriate, and welcoming environment. The board should explain to the community why we need a written policy for this. Do our schools somehow fall short of this goal today? If so, how? Give us an example. Please. You owe us that much. If you can't give us an example, well, maybe it's because this is really being introduced for just one purpose, ostracizing our LGBTQ students, teachers, volunteers, and community. Please vote no on this discriminatory policy proposal. Thank you.

Next up, we have Manuk Gregorian.

Welcome, Manuk.

Hello, Board. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Me and my mom, excuse me, me and my mom refuged from Soviet Union in 1987, so I cannot be a fascist. This flag right here gave me the safety and security to take refuge under. And this flag right here is under attack right now in our streets by being burned. This flag is under attack in our universities by being burned and replaced with foreign flags. Doesn't matter what kind of flag it is being replaced with. There should be only one flag in this country that everybody should respect. They might say it's on my First Amendment to burn a flag. Well, that goes both ways. If I burn any other flag, you guys will attack me for hate speech, hate act. But you burning the very same flag that gives you the right to exist, that gives you the freedom to come up here and say whatever you want, you don't want that flag. A lot of men have died for protecting this flag. And you guys are disgracing it by saying, oh, that flag is a hate flag. No. You live in the United States. You've got to respect the flag. And thank you, Port, for allowing this to happen in our schools. Because everybody should know and learn that in order to live in this country, you've got to have respect for the flag. I want to speak about Title IX. I'm a father of four beautiful daughters, and this resolution affects me through state level, okay? All these boys, trans women are men, bottom line. I could sit here and say... You're not going to believe me. If I say I'm a woman, then something's wrong with my head. Instead of intervening with these kids and pushing them to believe that a boy could have actually become a girl and give birth is a lie. Instead of doing that, we should actually help them, find help and see what's wrong really with them, okay? And I just don't understand how you're going to compare boys and girls together. It's not comparable, okay? Boys play rougher, they play harder. Girls are very soft and delicate, okay? Okay? And I'm just being real. If you cannot make a movie from a book because it's called child pornography, maybe you shouldn't read it to our children. Okay? We're not after banning no books. We're after banning pornography from our schools. I started being an activist when they tried to introduce to read a sexually pornography book to my four-year-old daughters. Okay, and I said, no, it's not going to happen. I encourage this board to take a stand. President, board president, please do the right thing. God is watching. Candy, Jeanette, thank you very much. God bless you guys. Jesus Christ, love you.

Thank you, Mario.

Next up, we have Michael Cooper, followed by Sam Tradd.

It has become evident, based off the attempts of the fellow educators here, that you all need education. The fact that you can't get past basic biology and learn past that, past the high school level, so you actually understand the minutia of science before you start pushing your beliefs on others. Ms. Olson, I'm over here. She can move away. Thank you. One, two, three, eyes on me, as we say, right? Research shows that transgender students experience higher rates of depression and anxiety, but those rates drop significantly when they are affirmed in their identity and allowed to participate in activities as their true selves. This isn't about giving one group an advantage over another. It's about making sure every student has the opportunity to participate, grow, and thrive. With a thoughtful policy, clear guidelines, and empathy, we can protect fairness and support mental health at the same time. Your own mission statement says that it is necessary to confront the changes of our changing world. And you guys shy away from it in your bigoted church. To everybody that says, under God, because of this flag, I again, you... urge you to get an education. Under God was not added until 1954. Thank you, Michael.

Welcome, Sam. I just wanted to ask about the orange cards. Are we doing those now, or are we going to be called up again later for orange cards?

These orange cards here were misfilled out, so they actually should be blue, and then these are the orange.

Okay, so I'm just doing my blue cards now?

Yes.

Okay. Oh, I didn't even see it. Okay. Right? Okay. The California School Success and Opportunity Act, also known as Assembly Bill 1266, was signed into law in 2013 and went into effect in 2014. It clarified the rights of transgender students in California schools, ensuring that they can participate in activities and use facilities consistent with their gender identity. In other words, the law on the books in the state of California makes it very clear that transgender girls who are girls can play girls' sports. So I don't know why you're wasting our time tonight even discussing this policy when it's illegal in the state of California. It's embarrassing. Why are you talking about this? It's, again... Just so you know, write it down maybe. California School Success and Opportunity Act, AB 1266. It's been law since 2014. So I don't know why we're here talking about this policy. It is discriminatory, hateful, and it's going to cost our school district millions of dollars in legal fees when our schools are already underfunded. This is so embarrassing that you're talking about a policy that is illegal in the state of California. All right, for my next, I'm talking about, I have another card. So book banning and banning flags, I am so grateful for our librarians. They work so hard. They know what we're doing. And again, it's so embarrassing that you're talking about book bannings and banning flags. These policies infringe on free speech, and they are going to cost our school district millions of dollars. Why are you trying to ban flags and ban books when you can't even ban hate speech in this boardroom? People are coming up here spewing hate, and that is against code policy. According to Redlands Unified School Board policy, BP4119.21, these are the signs people have been holding up all night as people spew hate speech. It says, failing or refusing to intervene when an act of discrimination, harassment, dehumanizing people is harassment. Intimidation or bullying, also when you dehumanize people, that's what it is. It's against as soon as observed. It is your responsibility to stop people when they come up here and spew hatred. People are listening to this. All here, they're watching it, and they're just hearing hatred at one person after another. Meanwhile, you're considering banning books because they make kids think critically and they're written by LGBTQ plus people and black and Latino people. It doesn't make any sense, and it's just going to cost our school district millions of dollars. Please stop moving forward on this. Stop wasting our time. Finally, I want to talk about the censure. How can you be discussing censuring Melissa Aiello Quintero of all people? All she has done is stand up for people.

I don't have a card on that one. Excuse me? So I don't have a card on that one.

I had three blue cards, and one of them was for censuring.

You have two. No, I have trans girls in sports, book banning, flag banning. And then this orange one says the illegal policies they are considering.

Am I doing my orange card now? Because I thought that you said we weren't doing my orange card right now.

This just got brought to me to insert because it has your name, but the topic says the illegal policies they are considering. Is that an agenda item?

No, that's why it's on the orange card. Should I talk about my blue card or the orange card?

The blue cards.

I don't have the blue card. No more blue cards. I had three blue cards.

Is there three blue cards?

Yes, three. How many times is... Trans girls in sports, book banning, flag banning.

How many times have you spoken?

Those are the three blue that I have.

Twice. She gets one more. I think she spoke. But she's not, you can speak to those three items. I think you've spoken to two items.

But she wanted to move on to another topic.

I'm just correcting that you can talk about the third item now.

I mean, I've been here since 345. Can I just finish my speech about censoring? We told someone else they couldn't. It's ironic that it's about censoring and you don't want to let me speak.

Actually, censoring and censoring are two different things. What do we think?

I'm sorry, Sam, we already told somebody else they couldn't speak when their card wasn't here.

Okay, then I'm going to talk about flog banning because that was one of them, right? Keep talking about that. Why not? Alrighty, so you want to ban all flags. I've already spoken about this before. This has been done in other school districts, and it's going to cause the district millions of dollars because it infringes on free speech. Why are you trying to ban flags when the person who allegedly authored it, even though we know it's copied and pasted, Candy Olson, has literally done... Fine, I'll talk about censoring in the orange one. I really want to talk about censoring. Thank you for censoring. Thank you, Sam. Up next, we have Anita Rhodes.

Welcome, Anita.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you once again. I'd like to speak to four items. The first agenda item I'd like to speak to is the flag. No, excuse me, girls sports. Okay, let's not mince words. We all know the difference between male and female, boys and girls. My recommendation for the resolution is that we make it extremely clear for every reference to boys, females, girls, males, and boys, can we put the word biological so that it's clear? And if that's unacceptable, can we add another whereas? Whereas it is intended and understood that... that all references to females, males, males and boys, females, girls, males and boys is intended to be a biological reference so that we can clarify once and for all that that's what we're talking about because to my mind, they will come back and talk and present themselves as girls again. That's my comment with respect to the flag. And also, with respect to the flag, I'm sorry, no, girl sports. So I'll move on to the flag. The flag, let's not mince words, it is to advocate, promote, and allegiance to a certain chosen lifestyle, sexual lifestyle, and that's fine. My recommendation would be put your sex life back in your private business, in your life. Get it off the public square. You don't need our permission. You don't need our approval. That's why everybody's talking about it. Nobody's interested. Nobody cares. Why aren't you telling the kids that? They should keep their sex lives private. With respect to judging the children to determine their gender, there's a very simple test to do that. Nobody's going to be pulling your children's clothes down. That's silly arguments. And with respect to hate speech and all of that, can we please get some definitions of these terms? Hate speech. Hate speech to me from what I'm hearing, but it's hateful. Okay, we don't have a card for that topic. Well, talking about the girls in sports, I hear hate speech when you refer to the boys being in girls' sports. That's hateful to say. So I'm saying let's get some real definitions of the term hate because to tell the truth is not hateful. To share facts is not hateful. It's truthful and it's honest. And we have to be emotionally strong enough to hear an opinion different than what we agree with. I'd like to move on to my next item. Okay, the flag sports. Book bans. This is another instance where we need to understand and be better educated about terminology. It's been made abundantly clear that we're not banning books. We're objecting to sexually explicit books that age are appropriate. We're smart enough to know the difference between banning. I'm beginning to think that people are deliberately using terminology to confuse everyone, but we're smart enough to know the difference. Either this is willful ignorance on their part, or they need to get more classes on vocabulary and definitions. Censoring. Oh my gosh. Miss Melissa, your disappointment, bullying your colleague, emotional immaturity, disrespectfulness, violent tendencies, jealousies perhaps, or you don't like your teammate having a different opinion. Your pretty face with a very nasty disposition. Your very horrible representation for the people that you support. Be a better role model. I don't see any remorsefulness or repentance. So I see a lot of emotional immaturity and belligerence that's shameful. I wish you had the strength of character to do what's right, to prove us all wrong, or at least we can have a better opinion of you going forward. All of that to say there's corrupt character. That's corrupt character, miss. You guys are suspending a student for willful use of force. You would be in that same category if that gentleman had not stepped in front of you. You spoke of this meeting last month being an embarrassment. Your behavior was to cherry on top of that embarrassment. You did that to this meeting. Define hate speech. I beg of you guys, please give us a definition of hate speech. Now, is that my four items?

Yes.

Okay.

No, you did four.

I did four? Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Anita.

Thank you. Next up we have Kevin O'Connor.

Good evening. You all have a very hard job. Tonight I want to connect into three issues of girls' sports, books, and the flag. And I want to take a little bit of a history from the world and from the United States in this. As we look at girls' sports and boys playing in them, As we go through this process, it reminds me of how important the history of all that took place. The historical aspect of in all sports, if men would juice themselves, if they're taking something to enhance who they are as a man, they would be banned, they were fined, but yet we want to put someone that already has the testosterone in their system playing in girls sports. This is part of the history of our world here in America for sports, that we just don't allow that kind of advantage, even in male sports, to do something to enhance. And so it seems like historically we should do something along that line that shows common sense in that realm. I'm actually going to move to my second thing of in the books. Historically, books are so important. Do you realize how historical the last board meeting was on April 8th, 2025? See, it was April 8th, 1945, that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung for not staying silent in his churches like the rest of the churches. And so when we come to books, the media has said about us is that we're wanting to ban books. No, we want to historically say that pornography has no place in education of children. And if children have to get to a certain age where they've got to get married, they can't get married without their parental consent, should we allow things in the library to be there without parental consent for them to learn things at night and throw the switch of their sexuality way before while they're still minors? This is, again, historically, it should be a role of a parent. And so pornography, you have to be a certain age to go purchase it or get it online or you're in trouble in all those different things. Why do we not want to historically protect our children's innocence in that? And then in the last aspect here of really the flag situation, Let me give you three things that I've learned over, by the way, this is 114 years in this community, our church, in all five school districts in this. And the flag should be something that represents all people. When just like in Germany in the 1930s, when they introduced the new flag, they had it for more than 10 years. I've heard the statistics out there. But the reality was they were a nation that was going to go under because they were going to try to destroy the world. I believe that if we look at history, here's what you see, a confusion of heart, a madness in thinking, and a blindness to the history that many nations follow and go to defeat. You stand at a historical point. Bring us back to sanity. Bring us back. Get rid of the confusion of heart. Get rid of the madness that we see in people's thinking and the blindness that we have to the historical value of what we've had here in America. I hope you guys will vote to keep it the way it always was before we got crazy.

Okay, next up we have Charlene Knappenberg, followed by Bea.

Charlene here?

Okay. We'll take, come on up, Bea. Welcome, B.

My name is B. I'm a member of Together for Redlands, a grassroots organization who is bringing members of the community together to vote for a better Redlands. And I'm also a parent of a student in the district. School board member Rendler recently made the assertion that she had reviewed the letters the public had written regarding board member Olson's flag ban policy proposal and estimated that roughly half of them were opposed and the other half were in favor. Our organization conducted a thorough review of the letters submitted and prepared a detailed report challenging this assertion. We wish to submit this report to the board. According to our analysis, nearly 60% of the letters and postcards the public submitted are opposed to the policy. Of those who identified as parents, students, or teachers, 100% of them were opposed. Many of those wrote two- to three-page handwritten impassioned pleas to the board to oppose the policy. The only sizable population who wrote letters and postcards in support of her proposal are residents of other school districts. Many of them simply signed pre-printed postcards, and these individuals represent 16% of the letters that were submitted and artificially inflate the amount of actual people who support this policy. Given that you represent the residents of this district and the people of this district have made it known they are overwhelmingly opposed to this policy, we ask that you remove it from any further discussion. Thank you. One of my favorite moments in sports.

Excuse me. Did you have more than one blue card? Do you have any blue ones? Oh, here it is under here. Okay, got it.

Okay. One of my favorite moments in sports happened during the 2008 Olympics, and during the height of the Russian invasion of Georgia, Natalia Paterina of Russia and Nino Salkozovac, I can't pronounce that, of Georgia embraced. Moments like that are what the Olympics were originally about. The Romans brought athletes from all across their vast empire, not to celebrate its dominance over them, but its diversity. And that's what sports is about. And yes, we compete, and yes, there are winners, but at best, it's about connection. It's about camaraderie. It's about celebrating diversity. Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in sports. That means you cannot discriminate against people like me and exclude us from participating. So far, the circuit courts support my interpretation of the law. We're all God's children. We all have humanity. Trying to say that people like me don't have a right to participate in sports or that we're crazy, as one other person put it, is an attack on us. It's saying that we don't deserve to connect with others. It's saying our accomplishments and our abilities should not be celebrated. You say it's unfair to women athletes. I would argue that it's far more unfair, hurtful, intimidating, and frightening to be excluded from sports entirely. Thank you.

Okay, next up, Finn. Okay. And then we have Isabella. Sorry, can't read it. Pastras? Yeah. Welcome, Isabella.

Hello, I'm currently a sophomore at Redlands High School and I'm here at almost 10 o'clock at night on a school night because I'm very frustrated and honestly kind of surprised by the push to ban books and flags from our school. Because banning pride flags doesn't make anyone safer. It sends a loud, harmful message that being LGBTQ plus is something to be ashamed of. And that's not okay. For many students, especially those who are questioning, struggling, or just trying to feel accepted, seeing that flag in a classroom can be the one thing that makes school feel like a safe space. Taking that away doesn't protect anyone. It isolates, it excludes, and it hurts. And let's not ignore the facts. These bans don't just cause emotional damage. They cost money, real money, money that could go into things that actually help students. We have seen in districts like Chino that banning flags has cost them so much money. And I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say Chino's problems can stay in Chino. In fact, I think it's important to address the concerns of the people in Redlands and not Chino. Because is it really worth it to monitor decorations, to pull inclusive books off of shelves, and enforce policies that don't make schools better, just more hostile? We say schools are supposed to be a place for learning and growth, but how can we learn when entire identities are being erased? How can students grow when the only message they hear is who they are is controversial? The job of school board isn't to cater to fear or bias. It's to protect students, all students. Thank you.

Next up, we have Corrine Payton. Corinne Payton.

Hi. Really quickly, I want to thank board member Melissa Ayala-Quintero on behalf of all students. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for fighting us. Thank you for protecting us from hate speech. And on behalf of all students, I want to thank you for your efforts as well as Patty Hollihan. Moving on. Hello, board members Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson and Michelle Renler. Before you decide to ban books that teach us how to think, that encourage us to question the world around us and to understand nuanced topics, please actually read the books in our libraries. Because if you did, you would know that we only have age-appropriate material. There has not ever actually been any books removed from our libraries. Why? Because there's actually no problem with what's going on, despite what the people from Chino or Glendale or Yucaipa might tell you. When we ban books, we don't just remove stories from shelves, we erase voices, ideas, and histories that challenge us, inspire us, and help us grow. Books are meant to provoke thought, not fear. And censorship has never been a sign of strength. It's a sign of fear. A fear of change, of difference, and of truth. Your ignorance and fear are not justification to harm students or to rewrite history. Banning books sets a dangerous precedent that says that your discomfort makes it okay to silence those who are different from you. Your cowardice doesn't protect students. It deprives us of our freedom. Because the freedom to read is the freedom to think, grow, and to understand the world around us. On the issue of transgender athletes in sports, because a vast majority of the people this evening who support discriminating against transgender athletes don't actually live in Redlands or know what's going on in our schools, I want to clarify a few things. One, there have been zero reported issues with transgender athletes at any of our schools. There have been zero injuries caused by transgender athletes in RUSD. The most significant issue that actually threatens girls sports in our district is a lack of funding. Every single year, school athletics rely mostly on parent fundraising because their budgets have been significantly cut. Not to mention the fact that this proposal this evening is illegal. It will incite lawsuits that will cost this district hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be going to girls' sports. On the point of the supposed unfairness, are you planning on also banning girls who have private trainers who help them get better, or girls who are above the height of 5'3", because that's higher than the average height of a cisgender woman? Because that would also offer them unfair advantages. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of having an adult inspecting anybody's genitals. Considering the amount of sexual abuse that has occurred in our school district, the issue has never been with transgender athletes in our schools. It has always been about adults disrespecting students' rights to privacy. And it violates students' privacy. To the people this evening wearing Save Girls Sports t-shirts, you want to save girls sports? Give them money. Donate to an RHS, a REV, a CVHS boosters program because they need the money. It is not common sense to bully children. Do better.

Next up we have J.B. followed by Daniel. J.B. followed by Daniel.

J.B. Good evening, board. Thank you for being here. As the left doubles down on their insanity by continuing to support pornographic literature for children, they should remember it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and be cast into the ocean than to push children to sin. Whether it's supporting bringing back deported gang members or pushing men and women's sports, I'm confused. I'd like to ask a question. Are we still promoting electric vehicles this week to save the environment, or are we keying and burning them down? When you promote something one week and then burn it down the next, or can't define a woman, etc., then your lunacy is on full display. Fun fact, in girls' high school, high jump, the number one high jumpers in California, Oregon, and Connecticut are males. I hope these girls are safe in the locker rooms with these boys and the restrooms. These girls who have dedicated their whole lives to perfect a sport in hopes of scholarship or Olympic aspirations are getting their lifelong dreams crushed. If I punch a girl in the face, do I even get in trouble anymore? Or do I get a gold medal from the Olympics? These extreme radical and perverted ideologies are why you are losing elections nationwide. The masses are tired of the insanity and want to get back to common sense policies. Thank you for your dedication to the children in this district. Now please step up and protect them from this lunacy.

Thank you, Jamie. Next up is Daniel Teneharo.

I'll come, Daniel.

How are you?

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in front of you. A couple of decades ago when I used to play semi-professional soccer, I remember that there used to be two leagues. It was either boys or girls, right? So I don't remember having transgender people playing in either sport. So I think it's just a common sense that neither belong to the other team. Yeah, sure, we had these co-ed games and all, but we were taught that we as men had to be, not to play as rough with the ladies. Why? Because we understood that we were stronger, we were, our masses were, you know, our bodies are bigger. So we understood that. Why can't we just come back to common sense? Now, if telling the truth and stating the fact is hate speech, I just don't see how that is true. I just don't see it. Now, another thing that I wanted to point out is that if you haven't realized, there are more Latino people showing up to these meetings. Why? Because now we're understanding that this policies and this evil do not go with the morals. I'm one of them. That community does not represent me because they keep on playing the race card. The Latino people, these, the Mexican-American people, these and that, they do not. And I'm glad and happy that they are showing up. Ms. Render, God bless you. Keep doing your good work. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

Those are all our blue cards. We have these orange cards that also want to speak to some of the policies or they want to speak to the censor. But in an orange card, you can still speak. You're just going to speak at the next section after we go through the agenda. So everybody who has an orange card that hasn't spoken will still get a chance to speak. The blue cards are intended for you to have a chance to speak before the board takes action on any item. And I feel confident that we've accomplished that. These cards will be called. There's more than 40 that will be called after the board reviews the agenda and takes action.

Okay. We're now going to continue on to the superintendent's recommendations. First, we have consent items under business services. Mr. Hill, do you have any changes or additions?

No changes or additions tonight. Thank you, President Renler.

Is there a motion to approve items 13A, consent items B through O? So moved. Second?

Second. Any discussion? Yes, I just want to thank Cryop over here, sitting here, Dr. Jason and our CBO for enduring in this meeting. I'm so happy that we can do the JPA, that we can continue our partnership that we've had with Cryop over the years, over so many years. Thank you so much.

I had a question on F with the strategic solutions for school safety. I would have called sooner, but I just happened to notice this afternoon it doesn't, the appendix item doesn't list the scope of work. And when we're asking for an increase of, what is this, 35,000? 35,000. not to exceed 85, I couldn't look at what the scope of work would even be. What would that be spent on?

So this particular contract is to provide safety services. So it's consultant work. It's also training our safety officers, our campus officers. They pay per hour, and so we only utilize what we need from this. This is just the cap. What we did is the contract ended as of June 30th, and we're extending it through the summer because we're planning on some training for our safety officers and campus monitors throughout the summer. That's what this covers.

So it was originally $50,000?

Yes.

So it's $35,000 over the summer.

We're adding additional $35,000 just to cover anything that we need. We most likely won't use that. This is a not to exceed. We just wanted to make sure we didn't have to bring it back to the board if we needed to extend it.

Well, one thought I had, without knowing specifically what they do, one thought I had was could they in any way assist with the bullying issue that we've been talking about so much?

They could. He does. This particular contract helps oversee our campus safety officers and our security officers. And so anything that also interfaces with the Redlands Police Department and the county sheriff. And so anything that extends to that level of need, this person steps in.

He was actually here today. He may still be here. Rod Torres, are you still here? Yeah, he's back there. He's in the back. Yeah, he's still here. Oh, he went home.

He was the one who helped coordinate all the safety today.

Okay, that was my question. Any other questions? Okay, we'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala Quintero? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

Moving on to action items under business services. Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions tonight. Thank you.

Adopt resolution number 42, 2024-2025, resolution opposing the adoption of SCAQMD proposed amended rules of 1111 and 1121. Do we have a motion? All moved. We have a second. Second. Any discussion on this? Okay. We'll call for the vote.

Remember Ayala Quintero? No. No. Member Olsen?

Yes. President Rendler, I need to abstain because I have a family member in the energy industry. Vice President Hollihan? No.

Senator Wilson? Yes. 2-2-1 does not pass.

2, 1. Not pass. All right. Moving on to consent items under educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, do you have any changes or additions tonight?

No changes or additions tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve item 15, consent item A? So moved. I'll second. Any discussion on this? I have one thing. I have one thing. I did notice that it said funded by donations. Is there anything we can do to help with this as a district?

Typically, when I see something like that, I don't know that it's fully funded by donations, but I agree that if it's something that our kids have competed in and have earned, we should help support that. And so if there's a way to do that, I'll work with Mr. Hill to see what we can do.

I heard it was the transportation. It was the bus that they were trying to do.

Yeah, the only times that if we have buses that we can send, but then they would prefer using a charter bus, for example, which is significantly higher cost, then donations may fill that gap. Or if they have that preference, they may have to use donations for that. But I will verify all of that. The key is to get this approved because I need to take the trip. But I assure you that I will look into the funding and see what we can do.

Thank you. So any more discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote. Board Member Ayala-Quintero?

Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

All right, moving on to educational services action items. Mrs. Buckmiller, do you have any changes or additions?

Changes or additions in this area either.

Thank you. All right, adopt resolution number 40, 2024-2025, Day of the Teacher, May 14, 2025. So moved. Is there a second? Any discussion? Any discussion?

Thank you for working so hard for us every single day. And I know some of our teachers are here today, and you've got work tomorrow, so I'm very grateful for everything that you guys do, and everyone who's watching at home as well.

Yes, I would like to just state that... You know, I'm very frustrated at times when the teachers or the public is implying that because I have a concern or a worry about something in the district that involves a teacher or a librarian, that it means I... distrust all teachers and librarians that I don't respect what they're doing, that I don't respect what they do for our schools because I greatly do respect what the teachers do for our schools. The thing is, we can't make progress against having some of the problems we've had in the past. You've all mentioned it tonight about the sexual abuse cases, et cetera, without wanting to look at all of our district employees and their performance. You can't have it both ways. So I really do support this resolution, and I, again, take... offense and I think it's sad that that would be the interpretation because I have a concern about this issue or that issue it becomes a blanket statement about teachers and I just I'm really upset that that happens but I definitely support that resolution anything else okay we'll call for the vote

Board Member Ayala-Quintero? Yes. Board Member Olsen? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

Adopt Resolution Number 41, 2024-2025, Education Support Professionals Day, May 20, 2025. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? No discussion. I'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala Quintero. Aye. Board Member Olson. Aye. President Rendler. Aye. Vice President Hollihan. Aye. Clerk Wilson.

Aye. Motion carried, 5-0. Adopt Resolution Number 43, 2024-2025, Supporting Title IX and Fairness in Girls' Interscholastic Sports. Do we have a motion? So moved.

Second.

Any discussion? All right, we'll call the vote. I'd like to say something. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

Well, as a high school athlete myself, I broke three swimming records in high school, and I broke the triathlon record that was in place since the 1970s. I was also a competitive gymnast all through high school. And I trained with boys when I was training for the triathlon. And I was always far, far behind the boys. And I am just so grateful and so thankful that this insanity had not entered into our society or our schools at the time when I was growing up because I would be never had the recognition or the glory of the achievement of all of my hard work and training. So I really appreciate that I was able to be recognized Back in my day, every single one of my children has been an athlete, and I have watched hundreds and hundreds of boys' games and hundreds of girls' games. You would have to be an absolute science denier to say that the boys and the girls are of equal strength and of equal speed. It's just not the same. It's not about discrimination. I see all of your signs. It's not discrimination whatsoever. It's about common sense. It's about safety. And it's about fairness. Let it be known that I will always stand for our girls. And I will do everything within my power to push for fairness. I will do everything in my power to push for fairness and their privacy and their spaces. Anything else?

Okay, we'll call for the vote. Board Member Ayala-Quintero? No. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan?

No.

Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried with the ayes being Board Member Olson, President Rendler, and Clerk Wilson, and the nays being Vice President Hollihan and Board Member Ayala-Quintero.

Is there a motion to approve stipulated expulsion regarding student 2024-2025-25 through the remainder of second semester of 2024-2025 school year with the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year? I mean school year suspended. Sorry. So moved. Do you have a second? Second. Any discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala Quintero? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

All right. Is there a motion to approve the stipulated expulsion regarding student 2024-2025-26 through the remainder of second semester of the 2024-2025 school year, and all of the first semester for 2025-2026 school year.

Moved. Second.

Any discussion? Okay, we'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler?

Aye.

Vice President Hallahan? Aye. Clerk Wilson?

Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0. Moving on to the consent items under human resources. Mrs. Bruick, do you have any changes or additions tonight?

No, I do not. Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve item 16A, consent items B through AD? Move. Second. Any discussion? All right. We'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala-Quintero? Aye. Board Member Olson? Aye. President Rendler?

Aye.

Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye.

Motion carried, 5-0. Moving on to human resources, action items. Mrs. Bruick, do you have any changes or additions?

I do not, thank you.

Thank you. Approve revised student attendance calendar for the 2025-2026 school year. Do we have a motion? So moved. Any discussion? Okay, we'll call for the vote.

Board Member Ayala-Quintero? Board Member Olsen? Aye. President Rendler? Aye. Vice President Hollihan? Aye. Clerk Wilson? Aye. Motion carried, 5-0.

All right, moving on to public participation. This is the time that any member of the public may address the board on anything that falls under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, provided the person submits a completed registration card to address the board form to the clerk of the board or his or her designee prior to the time the chairperson calls the item for the board's consideration. This is not meant to be a debating period. Complaints and problems relating to policy matters will be referred to the superintendent. The person wishing to address the board shall, when recognized by the chairperson of the board, step up to the podium and announce his or her name. In the interest of facilitating the business of the board, the chairperson shall establish the amount of time each speaker may use to address the board prior to the first speaker. No more than three minutes unless the chairperson or majority of the board determines that a different limit is appropriate. So tonight we're going to do one and a half minutes. We have, I think, 40 cards.

Pardon me, how many cards? I think we have 40.

134.

Huh?

134.

Oh. They were renumbered.

Oh, they were renumbered.

I think there's about 40. Sorry.

It's okay. First up we have Pat Molnar, followed by Janann Elias.

I'm back, and I wanted to start out by saying, as an English teacher, words matter, English and language teacher. And one of the words for tonight is representation. The flag is great. It flies. Pledges are pledged. That's good. It is representing an aspect of America. But some people are left out. I heard all of you cheering or, like, giving the thumbs up to the person, Nache, who came up and said that there are students that need belonging. There are students that need to feel safe. This says we're American. This says you guys count, too. I've talked to you, I have a trans son, that when he saw this flag, this let him feel that he was safe. Because words matter. We heard from Nache about slurs. You know one of the slurs that people use? Oh, that's so gay. That's taking a person's identity. Oh, that's so blonde. Or that's so being in a wheelchair. You don't do that. And that happens in our school. This does not hurt. It does not rub off. Yep, still straight. Okay? Representation matters. Who are you representing? Michelle, you're representing people, constituents. You're representing the fact that you have a multicultural, diverse place. This is not going to turn a kid gay. Reconsider. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome, Janann.

Hi.

Good evening. My name is Janann Elias. I am the teacher librarian at Moore Middle School. As we celebrate National Library Month, I want to take a moment to thank all of our incredible school librarians. Your dedication, creativity, and unwavering support for our students and staff make a tremendous difference every single day. We all work hard to foster a love of reading and learning across our schools, and this district is lucky to have so many highly educated, caring, and passionate librarians. So families here tonight are watching from home. If your student loves their school library, please let your librarian and the principal know. But I'm really here tonight to thank our amazing community for voting for the Moore Library and the KI Furniture Contest this past fall. Because of your support, Moore received over $40,000 in beautiful new furniture, and it looks fantastic. The updated space is more inviting than ever and better supports our students' needs. We now have soft seating areas for students to read, study, and relax on, as well as flexible tables and bookshelves. Last night, we hosted a library open house before our family fun night, where families and community could come stop by and see our new furniture. And we were thrilled to have AK Smiley Library join us to help families get public library cards, strengthening the connection between our school and community. Special thank you to the school board members who were able to attend the open house. Your support of our library means so much and helps reinforce the importance of libraries and librarians in our schools. Thank you all again, and happy National Library Month. Thank you.

Next up we have Maria Cariello. Sorry, I can't read the writing very well. Followed by Sonia Shaw. Is Maria here? Is there anyone outside, sir? And followed by Sonia Shaw.

I think she left.

Next, we have Mallory Wallen, followed by Brittany Hill. Neither won. Martha Romero, followed by Greg Abdosh. Dr. Christopher Kane, followed by Jared Gustafson.

Good evening, Dr. Christopher Kane. As a political body, the school board is obliged to learn what the voters at large think of your proposals in a calm and unbiased manner. To that end, today's meeting reminds me of a similar board meeting 33 years ago. That's when I was 40 years old, my oldest child was in sixth grade. We parents and friends from second high school argued the need for a second high school. This included a presentation by the speech team. That evening, the board voted to fund a professional survey addressing what was important to the voters in funding the school, a second high school. The previous month, the board was negative to the survey. The survey showed that voters wanted to know where the school was going to be built. Based upon the survey, the district bought land in December, and in March, the school bond was passed with 66% of the vote. In the 1980s, the school board elections failed five times. None of those bond elections delineated the location of the school. I suggest the board member fund a professional survey to fund to learn what the voters at large think of your proposals. And if you don't do that, I fear backlash will cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. Please ask the voters of the district. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Next up we have Kevin O'Connor, followed by Errico Grossi.

I want to thank you on this very long night that you've put in. You know, one of the things that I've been hearing since April 8th through other churches, especially through all the young families in our church, is that there needs to be a place where we can come publicly and speak on behalf of our young families and not go home, feel intimidated, or that... You know, we might get a tag on or sign or something that's trying to move fear. And so I want to thank you as a board because I believe that you guys are learning to sift through all the things that it has to be what's best for all, not for a minority, so that the best can come to the school. And the best is really what we want. We're not out to get any subgroup or other cultures or other things. Our church as the city of Redlands, if you didn't know the history, was called the city of churches. Many of the churches have been intimidated to be quiet. I want you to know, I thank you for your voice. I'm open to all those other voices, but I want you to know the church will never stay silent.

Thank you. Thank you.

Excuse me. Erica, welcome. Okay, hi.

RESD has... failed to learn a lesson of protecting students even after facing costly lawsuits. Many students are still without IEPs or 101As. I just met a student who was kept in a wheelchair most of her day, even though she loves to walk with assistants because her classroom is understaffed. And the board members who care a little about our students are making things even harder for our schools by promoting hatred and bullying. At the last meeting and again today, two board members showed up with shirts with a widely recognized anti-transgender symbol. For context, the XX symbol was recently banned in a New Hampshire school district, a decision upheld by a federal judge. Also, Kenny Olson claimed that the existence of a young trans girl is inappropriate. There is no human being who is inappropriate for simply living. Kenny Olson's Instagram post is inappropriate. Over the past several years, I've encountered many who promote anti-trans agenda ideology. I have observed that they are hateful, dishonest, racist, misogynistic, and abusive. Some are even sexual predators and enablers. If you align yourself with them, that's your choice, but you shouldn't be working for our students.

Thank you.

Next up we have Ayako, followed by Greg Britton.

Hello. Contrary to what was just said, my name is Aya, and I am a student at Redlands High School. All of this talk about grooming, saving women's sports, pornography in schools, family values, etc., etc., all of this talk is nothing but that talk. Insidious dog whistles based on this fallacy that people like me, a trans woman, are dangerous, poisoning whatever American values you happen to believe in. But what kind of values predicate themselves on dividing people up and claiming one to be inferior to the other? What happened to love thy neighbor? You keep muddying our intentions, but here is what we believe in. We want a world where people are free to express themselves, free to love, and free to forge their own destinies in a world where our differences unite rather than divide. We will continue fighting for a world where we all stand on equal footing, rid of all these forms of oppression. Because I'm not just a trans woman. I am a woman and a human just like you. This is just the beginning of our struggle. Certainly, I did use profanity during the last board meeting. But when you have biker gangs coming about in your school board meetings, is that truly the thing that matters? Often, often, once you put everything you say and do into account, of which specifically targets people like me, I don't give a fuck about profanity.

Welcome, Greg.

Evening again. Well, we have to deal with leftist culture war and the campaign across the country of indoctrinating and sexualizing students. How is the school system really doing what we're paying you to do? Way back in 1983, the National Commission warned of a rising tide of mediocrity in the government-run schools. And where are we now? Just this past week, we learned that Harvard now offers remedial math. The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that for eighth graders, only 30% were proficient in reading, 28% in math, 33% in science. Professor Tony Lima from Cal State East Bay said that Cal State University today is graduating students who cannot do basic algebra, supposedly a requirement for admission to the university. They also cannot compose a paragraph, much less compose an entire research paper. So consider that, and consider also, let me find my... I'll paraphrase that memory. Martin Luther King said, there are popular things, there are political things, but there's a time when everyone has to stand up and do what's right. And as we see what's happening in this school board, that's going to come back to you again and again and again. And I commend Jeanette and Candy, and I implore Member Rendler to do the same. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have John Berry followed by David Bollig. I don't know if I said it right that time.

Kudos to the staff and security this evening for ensuring that friends and fro alike were able to exercise their First Amendment freedoms in a safe environment. The irony is I was coming here tonight to actually compliment the Redland School Board for its newfound respect of California's open record laws. I say that because in civilian life, I was a newspaper reporter for about 20 years, including nine at the Press Enterprise. I spent a lot of time battling bureaucrats over open records access and open record laws. That's important because in 2021, I filed a complaint with the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office for this board's flagrant violations of open meeting laws. The DA investigated, but unfortunately, they didn't have the guts to pull the trigger in what needed to be done. The good news is, and as tonight shows, the Redlands Board has learned its lessons, and I commend everybody for the way you've run this meeting, the way everybody's been allowed to speak, and the way you've It's been organized. Really impressed with all your staff running around to make sure they got the cards and everybody got a chance to use their First Amendment. The bad news is, as elected officials, it's almost impossible to win a libel lawsuit against slander. And that's really unfortunate because we've heard a lot of that. It would be wonderful if the same audience member holding signs would mind their F-words. But they don't have to because hate speech... that they're spouting is actually protected speech. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

David here. No? David? Next. Go on to the next. Let's see. We have Patricia Wilson followed by Abby Bosworth. OK, thank you. Abby Bosworth. Addison Lohman, followed by Paula Brannon.

Can I start? Hi, my name is Addison and I'm a fifth grader at Mission Elementary. Thank you for giving me a moment to speak tonight. When I look at the American flag, I know that I am important. That flag means me in the lines liberty and justice for all. The history I've been taught has shown me that. Well, at least since women got the right to vote. But some groups of people who are not white, who are not straight, who have been left out of liberty and justice for all, need our gentle and often unspoken reminders that their lives matter. Please do not take any of these reminders away. When these reminders are removed, you remove parts of the people. With this one action, you make our classrooms less welcoming, our schools less welcoming. Is this how you want Redland School District to be? Thank you for listening. Have a good night. Thank you.

Welcome, Paula.

Hello, Superintendent Cabral, board, cabinet, and community. My name is Paula Brandon. I am a parent of a trans child, and I have lived in trustee area two for over 15 years. I'm also an educator and have been for over 23 years. I wonder if you know that April is Autism Awareness Month. I know that there are many others to recognize in April, including National Stress Awareness, Minority Health, Child Abuse Prevention, Arab American, Middle Eastern Heritage, Pet and Garden Month. But for now, I'd like to celebrate with the folks in the autism families of our communities. Did you know that characteristics of people with autism predate the first official recognition of autism in 1943 as a distinct developmental disorder? There's been genetic research that indicate that individuals may have exhibited characteristics of autism even earlier than the 1700s. When I first attended university classes for my credential, I watched as a journalist exposed what passed as education for people with developmental disorders such as autism, Down syndrome, and even cerebral palsy. It would curdle your blood. The Willowbrook State School was exposed to the public in 1972 by a journalist named Geraldo Rivera. When you speak about keeping classrooms neutral of politics and representation, you eliminate truth of whence we came. Thank you, Paula.

Next up we have Chris Klanfuss. Sure. I think so.

Show it to Patty. Wait, don't start the time yet. No? S-I-W-H-E-E-D?

My eldest child is sick, so they couldn't be here tonight. But they've asked me to read this aloud on their behalf. My name is Aster, and I'm a trans student at Redlands High School. I cannot believe I have to sit at home while adults that do not and will not know me debate the ethics of my existence. If I were feeling better, I would be here to advocate for myself and every other queer student in RUSD, but I'm not. If you truly want to protect the children, you might want to consider how many students you see here now. Awakened Redlands and other hate groups cannot be the majority of parents, and they are certainly not the majority of students. These banned policies have one thing in common, to prey on one of the most vulnerable, Marginalized minority groups there is. These banned policies tell this marginalized group they are not wanted, they don't belong, you don't want them safe, you don't care if they are safe. Preying on a marginalized group is poor policy, poor style, and the polar opposite of being a caring human being.

We're going to need to take a five-minute break.

We're going to continue. Next up we have Val Zavis. Followed by Cindy Van Horn. Kelsey McGee.

Good evening, members of the board, faculty, and guests. Like so many of the educators standing with me tonight, I became a teacher to inspire students. I became a teacher to build meaningful relationships with them, relationships rooted in trust, compassion, and respect. I did not enter this profession to betray that trust by being forced to out students, ban thought-provoking literature, or censor symbols of belonging. Teaching is a beautiful, exhausting, relentless, and deeply meaningful profession. And at the heart of it is one goal, to make students feel seen, heard, safe, and respected. The proposed policy of being forced to tell parents of a student's gender identity would undermine those very principles. It would violate the core of what it means to be a trusted adult and teacher in a child's life. To me, and to so many of my colleagues, it feels not only unethical, it feels immoral. Similarly, banning the pride flag or any cultural or identity-based symbol sends a damaging message. It tells our students that their identities, their cultures, and their truths are not welcome here. This creates division where there should be unity. Instead of celebrating our differences and helping them feel valued, these bans isolate them. As for the potential of banning books, if we want students to be engaged citizens, we must allow them to engage with the world as it truly is, not a sanitized version of it, the real one, the one they are already living in, the one they will inherit, the one that includes joy and pain, beauty and struggle, clarity and complexity. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up we have Jay Diarico. Gina Porter. Welcome, Gina.

Hi. Hi, Gina Porter. I am the Citrus Valley High School teacher librarian. I wanted to clear up some misinformation because this was information that was shared about two years ago by one of our other librarians. When we buy books for the library and when we get rid of books from the library, we follow established guidelines for doing that. We do not have pornography in our libraries. We do have books that explore difficult topics that may make some people uncomfortable. But nobody is forcing kids to read those books that are in the libraries. However, for some students, reading about those topics may give them the courage to leave an abusive relationship, to empower them to help a friend, or help them feel less alone. Adopting any policy that leads to the removal of certain books creates a slippery slope that opens a door to censorship. Nearly every piece of American literature, every classic American literature from Gatsby to the Grapes of Wrath has been banned or challenged somewhere in this country. Banning books is not only just, it's also an equity issue because libraries make books accessible for people who can't afford them. As a parent, I agree parental rights are important, but making the decision you think is best for your family should not infringe upon my rights to make decisions that are best for my family or for others to make the decisions that are best for their families. You already have the right to control what your children read. Have those conversations with them at home, then call us and tell us.

Thank you, Tina. Thank you.

Next up we have Paige Mann.

Welcome, Paige. Thank you. This is a marathon meeting. While I support parental and community input on educational materials, I think the proposed revision to AR 1312.2, the one about library books, oversteps the purview of our school and library employees. Building upon many of the statements and arguments that people have made tonight and in previous meetings, these are my most pressing concerns. The proposal fails to incorporate and sometimes opposes guidelines from the American Library Association. As currently written, the proposal states that a person needs to only submit a formal complaint with a book's title to temporarily remove a library book. All other form fields could be left blank, and there is no requirement that the complainant read the entire book nor provide a compelling argument. Furthermore, should the district vote to keep a book in the library, a person can keep the book out of the library indefinitely by repeatedly submitting the same complaint. Lastly, I'm disturbed by a proposal, eight seconds left, a proposal that enables one person's concern to strip all students with access to, okay.

Thank you. Next up we have Valerie Tabor, followed by Rue Whitmore.

Welcome again, Valerie.

I'm not going to waste my breath on the policy edits up for discussion. You've heard every argument under the sun at this point, and you've made your choice to be complicit. I'm not sorry for disrupting the last board meeting, and I think anyone who cares for our students' well-being should have immediately stopped the vile hate speech. And I'm fine being thrown out any time if it means our students know that there are adults around them who will stand up for them. You failed our LGBTQ students who are present in this room by not stepping in when they were told they needed to be cured and their identities likened to a broken leg or lung cancer. That speech was violent in its meaning, and you did not protect our students. You will continue to fail our students tonight. The only saving grace is that this resolution you passed has no teeth and no impact on student participation because luckily California has more common sense than this board. It's clear from the removal of trans rights at the federal level, the harassment of trans students, athletes in the neighboring Riverside School District, and the passing of this disgusting anti-trans resolution that our trans students are living in an increasingly hostile environment. Board members Ayala Quintero and Hallahan I ask you to go on the offensive and protect our transgender and gender expansive students. I ask you to work together to put forth a policy and administrative regulation protecting our transgender and gender expansive students' right to autonomy, privacy, and fair and equitable access to all school activities including sports. Please.

It's me again. The one thing you stay doing, Michelle is disappointing. Um, your transphobia is noted the way you refuse to protect our children, the way our queer kids, the way our trans kids are unsafe in your district is well known now. Candy. It's always been known. You even invite proud boys from your fascist church to come here and harass people in our parking lots. Ma'am, we see you. Jeanette, you are also filled with hate. The way that you are trying to erase children's identities when they are in danger is horrific. You should be ashamed, especially you, Michelle. You talk all the time about being a Catholic. Your pope spent his dying breath asking for liberty for marginalized people, and you just said, nah, screw those trans kids. That's what you just said. You should be embarrassed. You should be ashamed. So many people have stood up here and you have listened to little earworms in your little Nazi Barbie. It is insane that you are letting people outside this city tell you when we have been here over and over and over, we stay coming and we will not leave. We will stand 10 toes down for our queer kids and our trans kids. And I hope when this district gets sued, it has all your names on it. You will deserve it. Have the day you deserve.

Next up we have Kathy Dean. Kathy Dean. Stephanie McLean. Followed by Emma Wolf.

Hello. So for at least three meetings and an ill-scheduled workshop, we have been hearing from students, teachers, librarians, parents, asking you to not consider or move forward with these book bans and these flag bans. They've appealed to your compassion, your humanity. They've shared relevant research. They've warned you of potential lawsuit risk. And yet, here we are, still talking about it. This all, it's pretty clear to me at this point, this is all just theater. We're gonna say what we wanna say. We're gonna beg you to listen. We're gonna beg you to see people as fellow humans and you're just going to do what you were going to do anyways because it just is getting incredibly frustrating that it just feels like you don't care about your own constituents. You're so focused on bringing in people from out of town, from your churches. You obviously put more weight to what they think than the people who elected you and I don't know what to do about it anymore. And I think people are getting really frustrated and really tired. And eventually something's going to have to give. Thank you. Thank you.

I had what I thought I was going to say, but then I listened to person after person come up here and denigrate the profession of being an educator. And I heard you, Jeanette, say that you don't believe that. You hold our educators in high regard. And as somebody who chose education as their career... and left research science so that I could inspire students to choose science who might not have thought they were scientists. I don't understand why you've allowed people to call education indoctrination. We do not indoctrinate in our classrooms. I do not know a single educator who sits around and thinks how they can indoctrinate their students. What we sit there and think about is, how can I help this student take the path they want to take and be the best version of themselves and go out and become an incredible citizen in this country? I say to my students all the time, I want to see you in the news someday for something great. And instead, we let people come in here and say that we teach gay? I don't know how to teach gay. I don't have a certification in teaching gay. There's no CSET I can take to teach gay. It's ridiculous. You're not on our side anymore. And it's causing a problem. And the board needs to fix it.

Next up we have Shanna Higgins followed by JB. Shanna Higgins? And I think JB left. How about Christy Redding?

Hi, I'm Christy Reddick. I'm a fifth-generation Redlands, my husband's fourth generation. My whole family has gone to Redlands High School. His whole family has gone to Redlands High School. Our kids have gone to Redlands High School, and I'm going to have a new little kindergarten grandson that's going to go to the school district. And I'm here because of the flags. I guess I should have done it in the other one, but I don't know. It was a mix-up. Anyway, this whole thing is crazy to me. It's all crazy. I thought it was about all flags that were going to get banned, but apparently it's just one certain flag. So I don't understand, like, how are you just going to just ban everything? So when I was in civics class, I went and had every single flag Of every single country, so now in government, that's going to not be there? The history teachers are not going to be able to put every country up? Come on, Michelle, our kids went to school together. You're going to ban that? It's ridiculous. We are in a turning point in history. We can't let churches tell us what to do. I went to Catholic school, and I also went to public school. This is getting out of hand. We've got to just... Let the churches stay in the church and let's teach our children if you want to go to a public school, fine. If you want to go to a Catholic school, fine. They don't belong together. This is getting ridiculous. Stop banning everything. If you want to ban stuff, send them to schools you want to ban them.

Next we have Joshua Hall. Rachel Ugly. Pablo Hernandez.

Good evening board. My name is Pablo Hernandez. I'm from Cuba. I came over here when I was 14 years old. I escaped communism, and people here don't appreciate nothing about freedom. Freedom is taken from you. You don't get it back. And that's why these communist democrats, I call them comunistas de moratas. That's what they are, communist democrats, okay? And that's why they want to push this freedom. bisexual to play women's sport. No, women to play against women, men against men. And if they want to have their own league, let them have their own league, but don't be taking away the chance for these girls to compete and be something different. get an education, go to school, you know? I don't have nothing against gay because I have gay family in my family, okay? And I do not discriminate. But what they're doing, and that's what I tell the liberal, the communist democrat doing this for us, and that's not right. And another thing about the flag, I served in my country here for 38 years, and a lot of my friends died serving Our country, and a lot of these people here, they don't appreciate it. You know, and I tell them, you know what? America, love it, or if you don't love it, then get the hell out of here.

Next up, we have Doug Hauser, followed by Lawrence Hebron. Is Doug gone? And after Lawrence, we'll have Matt Appleby.

Good evening. My name is Lawrence Hebron. I live in Area 3. The last meeting was certainly entertaining, wasn't it? Raucous, uncivil behavior, obscenities, demonstrations, expulsions. And it didn't end inside these walls. One person was seen walking around the parking lot after the meeting with his cell phone out, apparently recording the license plate numbers of people he disagrees with. And three nights later, the Ark Church, which had been targeted by one side, was the victim of a depraved and cowardly act by some degenerate who spray-painted swastikas on the church property. I found it interesting that all of this disreputable behavior was perpetrated by one side represented here that night. Ironically, it was the side that accuses its opponents of being haters, intolerant, and fascists when their behavior so exquisitely portrays these very traits. And sadly, President Rendler became the target of criticism from both sides. President Rendler. I get the feeling that you are striving for a consensus among the members of the board before proceeding with actual policymaking. As commendable as this goal is, I'm afraid it's not very likely. Ayala Contero and Holohan are not likely to change their views, and neither are Wilson and Olson. So unless you are content to be paralyzed by stalemate for the next two years, I urge you to make a stand for what you know is right. You'll cut the criticism in half and pave the way for some real progress here in the district.

Thank you.

So again, Matt, welcome back. Thank you. So having a pride flag or sticker in their classroom doesn't hurt anyone. In fact, Psychology Today reports that for marginalized groups like LGTBQ students, it helps them feel safe in school so they'll attend it statistically by about 30% more, and it brings their GPAs up by about 0.5%, which I don't know for the district, but for me, half a letter grade for a sticker or a flag seems like a pretty good deal. The second thing is I know there's parents and I try to understand both sides. I understand parents are worried a flag is going to turn my kid gay. Will not happen, right? Not unless they're already feeling that way. I also know that they're worried that this is a political statement. The identities of people are not political statements. It's just people, right? The last thing is next year, Assembly Bill 5 from California is going to make sure that all teachers and certificated staff in the state of California are going to be required to be trained on LGBTQ students and how to support them best. We cannot afford, as a district, given that we already have so many issues with governing bodies looking at us, to continue to put ourselves in danger of policies that are going to cost us money. With more things coming down supporting inclusion of our LGTB students, we are just putting a target on our districts back, and we are going to hurt our students time after time, is what we've seen tonight. Please, let's go back to the students. Thank you.

Next we have Katherine Appleby, followed by Sebastian Pestras.

Good evening, board. Buckle up. I suggest you pull out your proposed revisions to AR 1312.2 because I don't know why I have to do your jobs for you, but let's talk about this. So, page one, I still want a definition of pervasive pornography and that whole phrase. You don't have one, which means you limit it to people's perceptions. You can do better than that. Page two, let's talk about the review committee. I'd like there to be an application for community members and that this team be randomly chosen and community members cannot serve a second time till every community member on that team has served once. I'd also like to know what happens when a community member does not read the entire book. Quite frankly, I think they shouldn't get to serve again for a whole other year. Let's move down to number six there. A district review committee will be appointed. There is nothing in there that says that district review committee has to read the entire book. They should not get to decide anything until they read the entire thing and discussed it. Same goes for number eight with the governing board. You all should not get to make a decision about it until you've read the entire book. Let's move down to section two, number four. The public hearing must be scheduled outside of the school day so that students can attend. None of this crap that happens during the school day. And finally, who should matter more? students and parents, or just citizens.

Thank you.

Hello, board members. I'm a sixth grader in RUSD. I came to talk about the unfair policies that people are trying to pass. One of the policies says that there cannot be any flags other than the California flag and the American flag in our schools. According to the policy, you can't even bring a flag for a sports team. We need to be represented at our schools. On top of being illegal, this discourages students from standing out and being themselves. This is not okay and will put us in debt. Flags represent who we are, what we like, and what we stand for. They have already tried this in Chino and it put them in millions of dollars in debt. The second and final policy I'd want to talk about is the book banning policy. Books are great for someone to relate to and not feel alone. This policy takes a lot of that from students. Taking away books from public libraries is horrible and will greatly affect people who feel safe reading books Parents can already ask librarians to not let their child check out certain books so that banning them isn't even necessary.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next up we have Sarah Cooper. Is Sarah here? Followed by Michael Cooper.

I want to start by addressing Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson. The fact that you two are wearing Save Girls Sports on a board that is supposed to represent all students, indiscriminately, unbiased... is disgusting. You should be ashamed. It is gross that you care more about sending along a personal agenda than you do about all of your students. You've made that perfectly clear. And an important point that I really want to drive home that was brought up last time is that you are not in control of these children. Your parents, your family, society, nobody's in charge of that child except for themselves. And once they're old enough to make their own decisions, they're going to reflect on all that they saw amongst all of you, and they're going to go, wow, that was messed up. And I don't ever want to be like that. You want to know the kids that don't talk to their parents anymore, that don't come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas? It's the people that treat them the way that all of you are treating them. And that is sad. It's really unfortunate that you would choose a personal agenda over your own family, your own kids, everything. It's so disgusting. And I just want to say that the hypocrisy on this board is astounding. The hypocrisy in this community is astounding. There's a mission statement on the wall that specifically says that there needs to be diversity. And instead, everybody is just

Welcome back, Michael.

It's ironic, isn't it, that you welcome everybody? You guys have failed the students repeatedly. You just took away so much from students. Involvement, feeling like they are part of the school. For what? Because you felt like it? It's really disappointing. You have continued to fail students by not vetting teachers properly. I speak of this from a personal account, as I am one of the victims of Laura Whitehurst. Thank you for that. It wasn't a book. It wasn't a flag. And it wasn't the good teachers, the ones I see here standing up for students. It was some random blonde white woman that thought she'd blend in with everybody else. You're all fucking fascist.

Next up we have Samantha Trad. Samantha Trad. Followed by Blanca White.

I hope you're all still paying attention. I know that it's after 11 o'clock at night, and if you don't want to be here this long, then stop putting terrible cultural policies on the agenda for us to have to show up and spend our Tuesday nights here painfully, emotionally, trying to ask you not to do this. So many people came here tonight to speak out against these terrible policies, and a lot of people had to leave early. One of the people who left early, I'm going to read her speech. It was her first time coming. I am a parent of a child at Redlands Unified. I come to you with a deep concern that this board is being distracted from the real work it was elected to do. We found ourselves bogged down in endless debates about flags and books and now trans athletes. This is performance. And our students deserve better. Even more troubling is the growing presence of outside agitators. So many people didn't even live in Redlands who came here tonight. Often under the guise of religious authority, who have decided that their personal beliefs should dictate what our kids can read, say, or even be. These adults are not just disagreeing with policy, they're harassing and intimidating students and trying to legislate their morality into our public schools. It will not improve test scores, address absenteeism, or feed a single hungry kid. Not only is the debate not improving student outcomes in any way, it's upsetting that grown adults are obsessed with other children's identities, what they wear, and their sexuality. Stated a different way, why are grown adults discussing any child's sexuality? This is not normal and not appropriate. Our kids are not your culture war. They are not your political or moral battleground. They are students, human beings, deserving of safety, education, and respect. So let's get back to doing what's best for them.

All of them, thank you.

Next is Blanca Wright here. Blanca Wright. Rebecca Lohmann. Anita Rhodes. Followed by Rain Mendoza, if that person is here.

Anita's here. Welcome back, Anita.

Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. I commend you for the work that you do. Thank you very much for it. I reiterate a couple things. The sexuality, you and everybody else talking about these young people's sexuality is because they've put it in the public square. They're being urged to do it by adults here complaining about it. Number two, trans men are not trying to get into normal men's sports. They know the truth that hits them dead in the face every time because they know they're not men. They know they're still women pretending to be men. being outed. The children are outing themselves. Once they decide to change their pronouns, change their dress, the whole world knows it, and then they're telling, don't tell my mom and dad. Okay? Be encouraged. Don't be intimidated. Because you have the high moral ground, you're winning the argument, all the ad hominem attacks, name calling, anger and all of that is because they're losing and they understand their argument is failing. Be strong and very courageous. You are winning. Trans people, you are pioneers, trailblazers. Understand it's difficult. So you don't have the luxury of being fragile in your mind, emotional, complaining. You're trying to make it better for the rest of the trans people coming around. Are you not? So the people that are encouraging you are teaching you to be emotionally and psychologically crippled and weak, unable to withstand truth and opposition. You're stronger than that.

Thank you. Is Rain here? Ready?

Okay, I'll try.

My name is Rain Mendoza, and my family has actually lived in Redlands for generations. And many of my family members are teachers, so I'm very familiar with what goes along in the school district. I have also began working in the school district myself. I work in a fifth-grade classroom. I will tell you, these students know what's going on. They are more aware about the world than I was when I was their age. And I remember being a fifth grade student. It really wasn't that long ago for me. I might remember it a lot more clearly than most of the people in this room. And I know what it's like. I don't know if you can tell, but I am trans. It doesn't impact my work whatsoever. Sometimes you don't even know if a person is trans. You don't know a person's history just by looking at them or what they sound like. I just go to school, to work, to make sure that I'm supporting the students that I'm responsible for. I know they need help with math. I know they need help with English and science. I know they need help with navigating a world where people speak for them, but they don't even listen to them. There were students talking today. Did you listen to them? What did they say? Thank you.

That's all the speakers we have. Is it okay to skip this?

No. Okay.

So it's 1115. So I just want to clarify some process. We have three discussion items that we want to discuss. The last time we had discussion, it took about five hours. So I'm willing to be here until 3 in the morning. However, I do want to let the board know that you can stop a meeting as long as we let the public know when we are going to continue the meeting. So you would have to decide before we leave the dais what date that will be if we want to choose to do that. We can choose to get as far as we can and then make that decision later. I think that if we go till midnight... I would be recommending that we meet another time to continue the meeting. However, that's not my decision. That's a decision that you have to make collectively. Another option is to go straight to the discussion items now and see what we can get through and not do the board comments or the superintendent's recommendations. But I'm just trying to throw out options because it is 1115.

Or do we want to move to it another day?

I actually want to go through the discussion items. I'd actually ask that we do C first.

I'm okay with going, and if we need to stop, we do.

So there's two different things.

Minus the board reports, just go straight into discussion items. Discussion. Just go straight to discussion.

Agreed. Is everybody okay with starting with C? That's what was also put on the table. Everybody else okay with that? Yeah, I'm okay. Okay.

So we're going to start with C, discussion regarding board member request for censure, motion against another board member. Candy, since you brought this to the agenda, do you want to speak to it first?

Okay. I requested this item because we need to hold each other accountable for poor behavior while up on this dais. Ms. Ayala-Contero verbally threatened me and physically postured as if she was going to harm me at our last board meeting. Juan Cabral jumped in front of me and blocked her from any further interaction. I will not be disrespected or disparaged, nor will I disparage or disrespect anybody else on this dais. Ms. Ayala has proudly stated that she will continue doing this to me as well in other board meetings. And I feel if we tolerate bullying and threats of violence up on this dais, then how can we honestly say we will try to protect our kids from the same type of behavior? So I feel that we need to lead by example. I feel that behavior has consequences. And we need to put a stop to the bullying up here.

Okay. Melissa, do you want to speak to that too?

Absolutely. Okay. I'd like to just begin with an apology to Jean Saglam. Are you still here? Okay. I did see you here this evening for not giving my full attention to your public comment. It was my intent to give my full attention to your very heartfelt remarks, and I did go back and listen to your comments. I hope I did not offend you. Next, I will address this topic of censure. In the 53 months that I have been serving on this school board and in the 10 years prior to that serving in our school's PTAs, I have never been accused of anything close to what is being alleged today. To suggest anything of the sort is a misuse of this board's time, and I'm really disappointed that Board Member Olson would bring this forth without admitting her own behaviors in said meeting. I vehemently deny any allegations of violence or aggression and will say that they are simply a prejudice and defamatory. In the time that I have served on the board, we have all had many discussions and disagreements and never has anyone seen anything close to what Board Member Olson is claiming. It is true that Board Member Olson and I both engaged in an exchange while a member of the public was speaking. And therefore, if I am to be censured, Board Member Olson should be as well. The people that come to engage with us on a bimonthly basis are speaking from their hearts on many differing issues. And while there are some that we may not personally agree with, and some of it is hard to not respond to, we are duty-bound to listen to each and every one of them with civility, dignity, and respect. And that was not the case on that particular evening. I was appalled by board member Olson's behavior that evening, scoffing and laughing at members of the public that offered differing opinions to hers. So I turned to ask her why she was laughing and it escalated from there. I do, however, think that this entire board is worthy of censure. We have not spent any time working on a new governance handbook in which we all set up and all agree to norms and expectations. We have moved so quick to pass politically divisive policies before ensuring this board can even effectively govern this district. In our board handbook, we have a list of norms. And I know it's probably something we don't look at all the time, but we should. And in our norms, we are supposed to have 10 things that we do. One, we have no unity. Two, we do not have open communication and we do not communicate well. Three, there is no trust in each other. Four, there is no transparency from board members. Five, there is no respect for confidentiality. Six, we do not work collaboratively or cooperatively. Seven, we started to set goals and that has since been stalled. Eight, I would like to see all board members committed to continuous learning. Nine, that we listen. Maybe we hear, but we do not listen. And most importantly, we do not show that we are open to new or opposing ideas. This lack of collaboration does not serve the superintendent, our staff, or our students. Every student that comes to public school has a right to a free and safe education. This board has worked very hard to get us to where we are and put the horrors behind us. We have a superintendent that has worked tirelessly and beyond the scope of normal expectations to try to unify this board. And here we are today. I will admit my own actions have only been in defense of our staff and our students of every background. I do not appreciate the slander or mischaracterizing of either. I can admit we don't see eye to eye, but I am willing to work together to come to a medium on these topics for the betterment of our students, not to polarize or politicize this entity. My proposition to this board is that we first do the work on ourselves as a governing body so that we can effectively, efficiently, and productively serve this district before passing policies that have only thus far proven to cause distress in the community as a whole. Can any board member here honestly say they are happy with what is happening here in this room or in the community? When discussing these policies that we can't even agree on, collaboration is missing. No one is willing to negotiate in order to serve the majority, whichever side you deem that to be, while honoring those with opposing viewpoints. I honestly believe that there is a middle ground somewhere that is not going to make everyone happy, but will serve to both. Where is the compromise? How has this become our new normal? We are here at 1130 at night, and we are cutting items from our agenda. How does this serve our students, and how does it serve our schools? How can we be a positive influence on this community if we aren't willing to listen and accept every board member's contributions? I move that we table any further policy discussions until this board can effectively govern as we were elected to do so. Thank you. I actually would just like to say something.

Melissa? Hey, this is a discussion among ourselves.

Melissa, I take offense to you saying the whole board needs to be censored. I don't know what you mean by that. But also, it bothers me because I haven't heard an apology like, oops, I messed up or whatever. I'm just hearing you blaming somebody else for what you did. What did I do? When you lunged at her like that. Okay.

Superintendent Cabral, did I lunge? In your chair. No.

In your chair. You went like that.

I turned my seat. Yes. I turned my seat. And the allegation that I had postured was, or even lunged or even threatened anything of violence? Michelle, in all the disagreements that you and I have had, in all the situations where I put myself in the middle of a tense situation, have you ever seen me?

No, and that's why I was very surprised. Did you see me?

You saw me?

I saw your chair turn and you do this.

Only Superintendent Cabral was the one watching.

No, I saw you turn. You saw me turn? Yes. I did. And I heard you say that to me one more time. I heard you say that one more time. Yes. Yeah. So I just, I was almost hoping that you would have called me the next day and said, hey, I'm really sorry. I'm not board president. I was hoping you would have called somebody and said, hey, I'm really sorry that happened. And I didn't hear anything. So for two weeks, nothing happened.

Why would I think that I would get a fair assessment of the situation when you assumed that I stood up?

You could have said, hey, I didn't... No, I didn't say you stood up. I did not say you stood up. No, I said you...

Okay, but the only person that was paying attention here was Superintendent Cabral. So can you please describe what you saw?

But I saw. You can see out of your peripheral vision. You can see everything that's going on.

You postured at me, Melissa. You also said, tell me one more time. Did you? Yeah, because I'm not going to be bullied by you. And I turned and I said, are you serious? You accused me of something I didn't do. You accused me of laughing at a speaker, which I did not laugh, okay? So we're going to turn this into a she said, she said, because I did hear you. Just like you want to allege that I lunged?

I had a sigh.

I had a sigh which was totally about something different. Okay, that's not the topic. You were accusing me of laughing at a speaker, which I did not. And then you said, tell me one more time, okay? So I'm going to tell you one more time. I didn't laugh at the speaker. You flung your phone on the floor. You turned your chair. You postured at me. And it was severe enough that he had to jump out of his seat and insert himself in between us. Now, it's almost too bad that he was so quick in that to see what maybe you would have done because we can sit here all day and say maybe you would have, maybe you wouldn't.

Why is it that because you said I did, do I have to be punished? Just because you said something happened.

No, you said tell me one more time. And you said it again. You didn't have to engage with me, Candy. You're not going to bully me. You are not going to sit there and bully me.

What do you call this? What do you call the things that you've been doing online? Okay.

Let's stay on point. I am. Let's stay on point.

No, I am staying on point. No, the reason I said the entire board needs to be censured is because we aren't doing anything according to our governance handbook. We should have spent the time working on it. And we haven't. So why am I going to be held to norms that no one else is being held to? Just like Ms. Olson wants to say that I lunch at her, I'm not going to lie. Why would I lie? I have said nothing that is false here this evening. But what I will say is that I did hear Ms. Olson sigh, laugh at the public.

You weren't even facing me. You don't know what it was about. I wasn't laughing, which was the accusation. I did not laugh at the speaker. You kept accusing me of that, and I'm going to tell you that I didn't do that because I didn't. And then it turned into a thing. I'm sorry. We need to respect each other.

Which, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but it's not even... your place to be questioning and admonishing another board member while we have a person of the community speaking. I know it's very difficult.

And I just apologize to that person.

Right. You apologized to that person. Yes. But you're also disrupting us and the people. I disrupted that person. So I think, you know, I take exception. First of all, I've been asking several times to get the board handbook revised since I started on this board. And I get resistance. And I've been asking for norms to be established. Right. over and over again. Obviously, to have norms, you need to be able to trust that people are gonna adhere to them and support others and encourage others to follow the norms. But to say that, We are, the whole board is not transparent that we're not acting confidentially like we should. Why do you make those type of broad accusations? What does that even relate to?

Do I really need to go into this right now?

we need to do is establish how we're going to move forward. So the discussion should help with that. So it's really up to you.

Well, you brought it up. Why can you bring up something and then not be countered? I think that we need to hold ourselves to high standards of transparency, which the community is begging for and high behavioral expectations. And we have bylaws that go over meeting conduct. Um, we have, uh, An AR policy that talks about the standards for the board. Tell me what I violated. Pardon? Tell me what I violated. I feel you were disrespectful, which is one of the things that's listed in there.

But being respectful is such a broad term, and it can mean so many things. I can say that board member Olson was disrespectful when she was scoffing. Again, whether or not she acknowledges she did it or not, I mean, I can absolutely claim, and she does it now.

Whether or not I acknowledge I was scoffing, whether or not I acknowledge that I was scoffing, do you see what you're saying? You're saying I was scoffing and whether or not I want to acknowledge it is the question here. Yeah, because I did it to be disrespectful. No, that's not what happened. I didn't scoff, Melissa. That's the problem. And I didn't lunge at you, Candy. You postured at me. No, I did not. It was so severe he had to insert himself, okay? If it was nothing, why did he jump over here? No, no, ask him. Because you threatened me verbally. Ask him. And then you threw your phone on the floor, you twisted your chair, and you postured with your shoulders at me, okay? That's why. Because it was a threat, okay? Who knows what you would have done? I don't know. We'll never know. The fact is he blocked you from acting, and then you had to turn your chair around and face that direction the rest of the meeting. If you felt so threatened, why didn't you switch seats? I'm not going to be bullied by you, okay? I'm going to sit right where I want. Because there was nothing there. Well, then don't threaten it. you're talking about. Don't threaten me with your words. No one threatened you. You did. You postured in that way.

No one threatened you. If me voicing my opposition to your policies feels threatening, I don't know what to tell you. You tell me one more time is a threat. And you did. You did not have to engage with me. Okay.

It's always the victim's fault, right? This is a bully mentality. I would not consider you to be a victim.

That's what you're acting like. Superintendent Cabral, why did you get in between us?

I heard the exchange, and when I saw you turn your chair, I thought it would be best for me to get in between you so that I could stop the exchange.

Did you see me lunge? Did you see me posture?

No, I saw you turn your chair. At the moment you turned your chair, I was fast, and I got in between you. I reacted.

But this is the thing. It didn't even disrupt the meeting.

I reacted just from the verbal exchange. I heard everything. I mean, I can tell you exactly what I heard, and I have gone over it with both of you. And I actually have told President Rendler. Those are the facts. Why did I get up? I decided to get up because there was an exchange going on, and I wanted us to focus on the speaker. And so I got up and got in between you.

it didn't disrupt the meeting you didn't get up you didn't lunge but you did turn your chair as you see it did disrupt the speaker and it disrupted I know for myself because I was disrupted by the loud noise of your phone flying so I watch I watch the meeting the speaker did not stop at all didn't notice the phone I don't I didn't notice phone I heard about that afterwards did you see the phone

phone was on her lap so when she turned it fell off her lap i happened to notice the phone because i was looking at that direction it just was sitting here so when you turn to it went kapui i think it just kind of boils down to when we're up here we need to

Show respect for each other.

And I absolutely understand that. And under any other circumstance in the 52 months prior, I have. I have. However, no one will say that that wasn't a difficult meeting. I actually did ask for us to clear out the room during that meeting because it was getting increasingly difficult to listen to the hate speech. And it was upsetting, absolutely. We had students sitting in the audience saying, that were literally being dehumanized. And so I was very emotional. So to hear, again, allegedly, board member Olson laughing, I just asked why. I was actually going to bring it to the board's attention because this isn't the first time. And so I've never laughed at a speaker. So that's not true. It's because you say it's not true doesn't mean...

I'd really love to wrap this up.

I mean, it's 1135. It's been a long night. And I only have a few things to say. That governance handsbook does have to be, we have to look at that and review it. But you also have to follow it. I have sat here through six board members come and go. I've been here with four superintendents, and this is pathetic, that we are sitting here wasting time when some of our teachers are here and they want to be there at work tomorrow, that we have to go. I am embarrassed for this board that we have had to do this today. And your comments about censoring the whole board, I did my part. You know, I'm not part of that. But it's just pathetic and an embarrassment to all the time and all my predecessors who have sat here before me and superintendents that we are the laughingstock here at Redlands Unified.

I just want to clarify that when I say the entire board needs to be censured, it's for not sticking to our norms, which I really want to ask if anybody looks at those, if you can tell me that we are honestly sticking to them.

Well, I think we're messing up a little bit.

Yes, and I really would like, that's the thing. I understand that the DOS board meeting was tense, yes. I'm not going to apologize for anything that I didn't do. Whether or not people believe me, that's not for me to dictate. I know what I did. I know my character, and I know what I have done and how I have served this district. And so what I'm suggesting is that this board really does try, actually try, because when we're going through these policies, we're doing it like this. We've not spent any time trying to really find a way to navigate as a unified board. I'm willing to do the work. I am. I don't know that everybody else is, but I would hope that we are. And I really do think that there needs to be a middle ground somewhere because we're hurting not just the people that we agree with, we're hurting everyone. And yeah, this is insane, but we are, we all are in violation of our norms. Whether or not you agree, I'm not asking for a censure of everyone, but it's really unfair to hold me to a standard that not everybody is being held to.

used to be we would have a little piece of paper here with our norms years ago and you would sit there and you could look and am I doing that am I doing that just a reminder so maybe superintendent we can get that you know just like when you're in kindergarten and you have your rules and you have to put them there to make sure you're following

Because I think it needs to be said that the board meetings are stressful and heated in different ways for all of us. So we all have to be willing to adhere to certain norms. I mean, that's not a reason to be able to act inappropriately or disrespectfully and to call someone out on something It's not professional. Once we have norms that we're following, there has to be a way even to acknowledge that those aren't being followed.

So are we ready to just take a vote on this?

There's not a vote. It just needs to, the board needs to, at least three need to decide whether this is going to move forward for an action item, which would then be brought forth at the next meeting, which would be in the form of a resolution that would call for the censure of Ms. Ayala Quintero. So that's for at least three of you that want to do that.

Yeah, I would like to move forward. I would like to move foreign.

No. And I would like to move forward. Okay. Um,

Do you want to try and do it?

This is not going to be a fast conversation. I'm letting you know now.

That means we would have to bring these topics back again and do this whole meeting all over again.

Pick another day to finish this meeting.

There's two options. If we stop the meeting now, we can continue the meeting, for example, tomorrow, as long as we let the public know. Or we can continue it Thursday, Friday, not next week. Or we can table these two items for the next agenda, which our next meeting is May 8th. 13th? Oh, 13th. Okay. But we wouldn't be able to leave this dais, is my understanding. And if we're going to postpone for another time, we need to tell the public today when that's going to be. Otherwise, it automatically will go to the May 13th meeting. Because these are not action items and they're discussion items, we are not – Like we don't have to have another meeting tomorrow or the next day, technically, because we're not. But if we want to move forward with these items, then the sooner we discuss them, the sooner we'll have an answer as to whether we're going to move forward or not.

I'm working the next two days. which is after we get back. May 13th.

That's not May 8th.

May 13th, I mean. May 13th.

We already all know how we felt. We've all discussed these policies before. I just feel like it would be quick because we already all know how we're going to feel.

I hope we wouldn't all know because that's a violation of the Brown Act.

I know how I feel. I've read the agenda.

May 15th, is that what you said? May 13th. Okay. I'm for pushing it to May 13th if we can't meet the next day or two.

I mean, I know I don't have much to say because we have talked about it, and so I'm fine with finishing up tonight. Okay.

Melissa, what about you?

Sorry to push you to the next meeting. It is late. We have educators here.

I said May 13th. 13th?

It is.

I'd say if we could go into closed session for about 10 minutes, if we could. President Rendler.

Please. With me. Thank you. Yep, I'm with you. Okay, this meeting is adjourned at 1140. I think that's our record.

Board is going to go into closed session, which means that after closed session, we do have to report out if we took any action in closed session. So just making sure everybody knows that part of the Brown Act, we're going to go to closed session. We're going to have to come out and report if we took any action during closed session. You're welcome to stay is what I'm trying to say.

No action was taken in closed session, and the meeting is adjourned at 11.50. Have a good night or a good morning.