Board of Education — April 14, 2026

Thank you all for coming. We're going to start off with roll call. Board Member Wilson. Here. Board Member Olson. Here. Clerk Ayala Quintero. Present. Vice President Hollihan. Present. And Student Rep Bella. Here. And I am here. Would the students from Judson and Brown Elementary School please come up to the podium and 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. Okay, tonight's Empowering Positive Moments, our student highlight, is with Mr. Brian Zander's fifth grade class from Judson and Brown. I'm going to let him come up and say a few words about what they're going to do tonight. Yes, please.

Good evening, President Rendler, board members, Superintendent Cabral. members of the cabinet, and audience members. My name is Brian Zander, and I'm a fifth grade teacher at Judson and Brown Elementary School. With me are seven students. representing our class, that have completed projects this year that they would like to share with you today. These projects are part of our CSTEM classroom. And here they are. Noah, Vian, Caleb, Orion, Ayush, Jennifer, and Tegan. So they're going to take a little bit of time to share with you a couple of their projects each. And then we'll move on from there. All right. Very good. Thank you all for having us here.

And then when they're all done, after we finish, stay up here for a picture.

Very good. Thank you. All right. We'll first start off with Noah and Vian. And they're going to share some of their 3D printed projects with you.

Hi, I am Noah Willumsey and I am a fifth grader at Judson and Brown Elementary.

I have made many 3D projects. I've made this boat. It's a duck.

And I also made this decoration that's like football themed. I'll hold it up so they can see it. And then this is what it looks like in the app. You get to choose the shapes and stuff. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Vihan Gupta, and I'm a fifth grader at Justin Brown. This is my sailboat that has these little bumps which help catch the wind. And I did some research and found out that this shape, which is called a twin hull, is the fastest because it cuts through the water. I also have this bubble wand that's shaped like an L.A. for the Dodgers.

And this is what the boat looks like in the program.

Nice. Very good. Thank you. All right.

Thank you, Vian and Noah. Next, we'll have Caleb and Orion come up and share some of how they use LinkBot Robotics and RoboBlocky Mathematics for a little demonstration.

Hello, good evening. This is my friend Orion. My name is Caleb Lopez. This is my friend Orion Sharma. Today we will be showing you our bot that we made together. It is really different than other bots.

We started in fourth grade learning about basic bots that are called link bots.

These are less complex bots, unlike these bots that are called onion bots.

Today we're going to be showing you this bot that can crab walk, this can, and plus we're going to draw a masterpiece of a Mona Lisa right here. And remember, you can do anything with link bots. of a Z to represent Mrs. Linder.

Very good. Thank you, Orion. Thank you, Caleb. We also employ Lego education curriculum in our classroom. And I have three students that are going to share three different projects that they've created this year using Lego education. So come on up. This is Ayush who will come up first. After him will be Jennifer and then Tegan. So here's Ayush.

Hello, everybody. My name is Ayush Joshi, and I am a fifth grader at the Johnson and Brown Elementary School. And we do a bunch of stuff along with robotics that Orion and Caleb showed and LEGO Spike. And so these we code using our computers. And we code it to move. And so this rhino especially, which we went all out on the decoration, has a force sensor built into it. And so even the slightest touch will make it go on reverse. Fill out the table. We spent a lot of our class time building this. And so there's the force sensor. If anything touches it, it'll go back. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. Like a Roomba.

I guess we'll know what Ayush will be doing tomorrow, rebuilding the Rhino, all right? All right, next up is Jennifer with her break dancer. All right.

Hello, I'm Jennifer Oliveros, and I'm a fifth grader at Judson and Brown Elementary, and this is my break dancer, and I hope you enjoy watching it dance. And that's it, I hope you enjoyed watching it.

And now for our grand finale, our world famous Spike Sickle. which you will see just a part of. I know Superintendent Cabral has seen this in action. Mrs. Rendler has seen this in action. So this is a world-famous spikesicle, and I'll let Tegan tell you a little bit about it.

Hi, my name is Tegan Sorby. I am a fifth grader at Judson and Brown Elementary, and this is my spikesicle. Now it will move forward over this hill, which Mr. Zander is going to build.

What's your spikesicle's name? Oh, you didn't name this one. Okay.

All right, thank you for allowing us to... Yes, yes. Allow us to present our work to you tonight. We hope you enjoyed it. Do you have any questions for us or the students?

Awesome. Good job.

Thank you.

And Orion, I still have my boat. I kept my boat, Orion. Thank you.

Thank you.

One, two, three.

Thank you very much for that wonderful presentation. Now on to the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility, including the addition of item number 18, public comments, which will result in the subsequent renumbering of board comments, superintendent comments, discussion items, closed session, and adjournment. So moved. Second. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Candy. Any discussion? All right. I'll call for the vote.

Thank you.

During closed session, the unanimous...

The Board took unanimous action to terminate the Employment of Certificated Employee 2025-26-13, effective March 14, 2026, pursuant to Education Code Section 44932 and 44939, and direct the superintendent or designee to send out the appropriate legal notices. During closed session, the board unanimously took action to accept the superintendent's recommendation to approve the compromise and release agreement regarding student 2025-2026-5235. Services rendered pursuant to this agreement shall be funded by special education administrative funds. During closed session, the board unanimously took action to accept the superintendent's recommendation to approve or reject, compromise, and release agreement regarding student 2025-2026-3580. Services rendered pursuant to these agreements shall be funded by special education administrative funds. During closed session, the board unanimously... upheld the findings and recommendations of the hearing panel convened pursuant to Administrative Regulation 5125.3 regarding the Challenge Semester 1 Grade Report for Student A. During closed session, the Board unanimously... upheld the findings and recommendations of the hearing panel convened pursuant to administrative regulation 5125.3 regarding the challenged semester one grade report for student B. And we're on to our student trustee report. Ella Ford is here tonight. Welcome, Ella. Do you have anything to report for us?

I do. I'm going to start with REV. A district-wide career fest was hosted at REV this last week where everyone was welcome to come and explore future career inspirations, summer employment, training programs, internship opportunities, and community service hours. With prom season right around the corner, ASB just hosted their annual prom fashion show to showcase prom outfit inspirations and also advertise some local companies including Salon Success Academy and Angel's Closet. This Friday, the senior class will be having a movie night where they will be watching High School Musical and celebrating the start of their last quarter of their last year of high school. Starting April 20th, they will be having their last Spirit Week and Rally of the Year, which is also High School Musical themed. And throughout that week, they will also be having and hosting trivia tournaments each day at lunch. And finally, RUSD's fourth annual film festival is coming on April 29th. Student fiction and non-fiction short films will be displayed at Harkins Theater. Then I'll be moving on to Redlands E-Academy. Our laser tag high school activity will be happening on April 29th from 4 to 6 for grades 9 through 12. Prom will be taking place on Thursday, May 7th from 7 to 10 at the Ukiah Performing Arts Center, which is also open to all high school students. Our big PBIS store will be open from May 4th to the 8th for Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother's Day. And that is all. Thank you, Bella.

And if you need to leave, you are free to go. Thank you for being here. Good luck. See you soon. Thanks, Bella. On to association reports. Redlands Teachers Association. Mr. Caperton.

Good evening board members and Superintendent Cabral. Tonight the board has a ratification vote agendized for our most recent tentative agreement. That agreement was the culmination of almost a year of negotiations involving difficult decisions and sacrifice. I want to thank both of our bargaining teams for their hard work in getting this deal made. This Friday, RTA and RESPA will be celebrating our annual Spring Fling event. It is a joint celebration where our members can come together in solidarity and enjoy good food, drinks, and friendship. Unfortunately, there is a black cloud hanging over the event this year. On April 29th, Redlands Unified will be holding a reduction in forced hearings for the 28 certificated members who are laid off for next year. I bring this up to highlight the stark reality of our budget. RUSD has suffered from a significant deficit for several years. This deficit was not caused by a global financial crisis. Rather, it was caused by a series of decisions by multiple administrations. Between the layoffs and the lack of permanent increase to our salary schedule, the consequences of those decisions have been borne by our staff. At the last board meeting, Curtin Shaw pointed out that the staff reductions and budget cuts have done their job and have placed the district on a solid financial footing. As we prepare for the future, the district must commit to making RUSD employees whole. Surrounding districts without our financial woes were able to provide ongoing raises for their employees. Districts across the state have undergone strikes and reached life-changing settlements. It is time for Redlands Unified to do the same and to take care of its employees. RTA stands firm in its commitment to permanent ongoing salary increases for next year, and we hope that the district will support this commitment. Budgets are a reflection of your values. When you make next year's budget, I urge the board to plan for permanent raises and to prepare for the changes that are sweeping across the state. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. And now we're going to hear from RESPA. Liz Brewster.

Good evening, President Renner, board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet, and guests. Tonight, I stand before you with a simple truth. One job should be enough. One job should be enough to support a family, to pay bills, to live with dignity. But for many of our classified employees, that is no longer the reality. Thank you. Offering no ongoing salary increase doesn't just maintain the status quo, it pushes our employees further behind. Behind on rent, behind on groceries, behind on simply trying to survive in the communities we serve. And so I have to ask, how do you expect us to continue working for a district that does not show that it values its employees? Because value is not just words. Value is action. Value is investment. Value is making sure the people who keep the district running can afford to live. This is not sustainable. It's not equitable. And most importantly, it's not right. When employees feel undervalued, it impacts morale. When morale drops, it impacts retention. And when we lose experienced staff, it directly impacts students. You cannot say you're prioritizing students while failing to support the people who serve them every single day. We are not asking for extras. We're asking for fairness. We're asking for respect. We are asking for the ability to live, not just to survive. Tonight, I urge you to reflect on the message being sent to your classified employees. And more importantly, I urge you to take action by prioritizing classified employees in the budget. One job should be enough. Thank you.

Thank you, Liz. And now we have Jenny Dyer Lee with the Rapport Report.

Good evening, board members. Thank you so much for having me on behalf of RAPA. I first want to say this past weekend, RAPA was able to serve as volunteers at the Redlands Bicycle Classic and be a part of the community event. This year, RAPA is proud to be able to give out five scholarships to Redlands RUSD students across the district, seniors who have worked hard in their academics and education throughout their life here in Redlands. And then also we have the ASCA conference coming up in June. We are encouraging our members to go, our new officers, different members. We will also close our year with a breakfast to honor and recognize our members. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Jenny. Moving on to public participation. I mean, I'm sorry, public participation. We're on public hearing. Public hearing regarding instructional materials challenge, the Holy Bible, King James Version. In accordance with the district's complaints concerning instructional materials policy, the board will conduct a public hearing to... Consider the appeal and determine whether the presented material is appropriate for students at the elementary, middle, and or high school levels. Following deliberation, the board shall vote to designate the appropriate grade level access. If the material is deemed unsuitable for any level, it will be permanently removed from the corresponding schools and district facilities within five business days of the board's decision. The hearing is now open. Is there anyone who would like to comment? Consuelo, do we have anybody?

Michelle, we have 26 registered speakers.

We'll do two minutes for each speaker. Okay. Oh, I thought she was looking for it. Sorry.

Gina Porter, followed by Valerie Savis and Jared Gustafson.

Good evening. My name is Gina Porter. I'm the librarian at Citrus Valley High School, and I'm here tonight to speak on Agenda Item 9A1. Just as I have spoken against the removal of previous books from district libraries, I will continue to speak out against the removal of any books from our school libraries. From a personal standpoint, I am a staunch supporter of the First Amendment, which means freedom of and freedom from religion, but also freedom of speech, which includes the written word as well as the spoken word. Speaking as a parent, I believe strongly that religion, faith, and spirituality are deeply personal and private matters that need to be left to the families and taught at home. However, just because I do not wish my children to be exposed to any religion's sacred texts at school, this does not mean that I get to make that decision for other people's children. As a professional credentialed teacher librarian, I recognize that intellectual freedom, as set forth by the ALA's Bill of Rights, is an important cornerstone of our democracy and our district's mission to empower our students with knowledge to become productive participants in a diverse, multicultural, democratic society. Removing any books from circulation denies students their First Amendment rights, as well as their ability to expand their worldview, enhance their knowledge base, explore diverse viewpoints, and prepare them for the future in a world that values and respects people of all backgrounds and beliefs. Removing the Bible or any book from our school libraries does a disservice to our students and ultimately our society. I respectfully ask that the appeal be denied.

Thank you, Gina.

Welcome, Val. When we talk about sexual content in books like The Bluest Eye and Genderqueer, they sometimes try to place the Bible in the same category, but that comparison misses the entire foundation of what the Bible is. The Bible does speak about sexual sin and human failure, but it never presents sin as normal, acceptable, or as something to be embraced. It calls it what it is, a violation of God's law with consequences and accountability before God. It also offers mercy through repentance and transformation. But the message of the Bible does not stop there. It leads us to the gospel, that every person has fallen short, but through Jesus Christ, God has made a way for forgiveness. Through his death and resurrection, forgiveness is offered, not earned. Not deserved, but freely given through repentance and faith. That is the heart of the message. Unlike the other books mentioned, the Bible does not blur moral lines. It draws them. It does not leave people in their sin. It offers a way out of it. So before calling it inappropriate, we should understand what it truly is. a text that confronts sin honestly, calls people to repentance, and points directly to salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not something to dismiss. That is something to seriously consider, especially for some of you here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Belle.

Welcome, Jared.

Thank you. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15.1. I have actually been a person that has spoken harsh words, even in this space. And I apologize. Because I want to be known as someone in the future... who speaks seasoned words with grace and with truth and with compassion. So I take responsibility for that. Tonight we gather because people are trying to remove the Bible from the public school library. And it's not lost on anyone that these same people complained for months at the idea of limiting literature for children. Now they want to use a policy designated to protect children from grotesque, graphic, sexual, and pornographic material and use it against people of faith. To ban the Bible, the book written over the course of roughly 1,500 years by 40 contributing writers with one divine author, the most historically accurate book with over 20,000 manuscripts discovered, And a book that billions of people throughout history have put their trust for wisdom and guidance. To ban the Bible takes intellectual dishonesty, willful ignorance, and spiritual blindness. That is a deliberate act against the Christian faith. Now this is low even for the people that want to expose children to pornographic material. Nevertheless, I would like to encourage that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it. I'd just like to read two more verses. One, learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the future, the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. And I just pray right now that every heart in this room would actually be blessed by God, that God would bind up spiritual darkness and awaken everyone to his grace and to his love. God bless you.

Thank you, Jared. Next we have Kevin O'Connor, followed by Aaron Fernando and Gregory Britton.

Yes. Welcome, Kevin. Thank you.

It's nice to be able to gather together and speak about a subject that is so well known all over the world. Whether you realize it or not, there's over 2 billion people on the planet that acknowledge the Bible as the Word of God. That's pretty significant in itself. As the pastor of the Ark Church here in the 5th District, we celebrate that you guys are at least having this discussion about the Bible. As Jared had already said, it's the most unique book in the whole world. As he shared also in this, that it's a book that talks about humanity. It's a relationship between God and the creator and humanity. It deals with issues in modern society, even though the Bible has been complete for almost 2,000 years. It's amazing that it could speak to issues that far into the future. There's a lot of examples of consequences within the Bible. I know that sometimes we look at stories and we don't seem to get it at all understanding. And I'll give you one in particular. The story of Lot and that his two daughters get him drunk and they have sex with him and they have children by him. This is to tell you something here. Where did they come from that they were indoctrinated with that kind of behavior? Remember, they fled from Sodom and Gomorrah. that demonstrated that kind of behavior. The Bible teaches those kind of behaviors are dangerous and detrimental to society. My prayer, my hope is that you would see that God has a word for us today in the 21st century, and that word is for all humanity. It is a great book. I recommend you reading it. Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Welcome, Aaron.

Hello. I am here to speak in support of consistent application of your book ban policy. The board's actions in removing other books give some clear criteria of what they consider worth banning. First, though, I know most of us in the room have never read this book, so I guess I don't need to explain too much because the last guy explained about it. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him that we may preserve the seed of our father, yada, yada, yada. Thus were both the laughters allot with child by their father. Once again, as our previous speaker pointed out, there is a message from this, much like there was a message in The Bluest Eye and in PUSH about how to overcome these adverse scenarios that too many people are exposed to. But I won't talk too much on that. I think the best way to get this across would be quoting people from the last meeting. For example, you've exposed and normalized this behavior, these words, as conduct to impressionable children. It's called the mere exposure effect. When you see it once, you see it twice, you see it three times, four times. Then when you actually see it again, maybe in real life, it's no big deal. I've already read all those words about those acts. There's also many families in our community hold cultural, moral, or religious values that give them legitimate concerns about exposing children to explicit sexual content, regardless of the book's literary reputation. Parents should have the right to guide their children through these sensitive topics at a time and in a manner they believe is appropriate. Jeanette and Candy also weighed in. Jeanette saying, exposing foster youth who have a very high percentage of sexual abuse in their background, exposing them to incest and rape scenes could basically compound their PTSD, and they are reading this book without necessarily having the support, and we can't guarantee that support. Candy let us know that common sense will tell you that if you fill a child's mind with this kind of content, you'll have some poor behaviors. We will see it in aggression. We will see it in violence or sexual aggression, too. The best way to do it is just err on the side of safety because no one can complain because, well, I didn't get to read a book when I can read it for free at the public library or online. And I'll have more to say later. Thank you, Aaron.

Welcome, Greg.

Good evening. That that was the worst part that they could find in the Bible to support their claim and effort to get rid of the Bible out of the government-run schools proves our point. It is in no way comparison to the very gross, explicit material, which I will spare us all again. We've quoted some of those things before. We have them in mind. I'll spare us that tonight. Because what's really going on here is a much longer effort to undermine the foundation of America and Western civilization. And that is Christianity and the Bible. Now, in that civilization, we allow freedom for any and all other religions. But that's not true where the other religions prevail, particularly Islam. In 1978, the famed Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn made a jarring accusation that Western civilization is dying and it's doomed. And the reason he found for that was the mistake in thought of proclaiming the autonomy of man separate from any higher force above him. When there is no God, then your belief of what's right and wrong, my belief, Stalin's, Pol Pot's, or anyone else's belief in what is right and wrong is no better or no worse than anyone else. And even if you do not believe in God, changing the last point here in the time here, is the Bible is the foundation of Western civilization and America. And it's important that the students understand that. Even if they don't agree with it, they at least understand that foundation. So say no to the civilian resolution.

Thank you, Greg. Next we have Lawrence Pebron, followed by Peter Hall and Rachel Ugley.

Welcome, Lawrence.

Good evening. My name is Lawrence Hebron. I live in Area 3 of the Redland School District. I understand there's a move afoot to ban the Bible from Redland schools. Well, I'm not going to give you my opinion on this matter. Instead, I'm going to give you the opinions of some others whose names you might recognize. Governor Morris was a signer of the United States Constitution. He said, religion is the only solid basis of good morals. Therefore, education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man toward God. John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He said it is the duty of all wise, free, and virtuous governments to countenance and encourage virtue, and religion. He also said the Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue, therefore, to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts. Thomas Jefferson was our third president. At that time, the president was also the superintendent of public schools for Washington, D.C. Jefferson ordered that the Bible be included as the principal reader in those schools. Now, I could go on and on and on for quite a long time confirming these opinions about the usefulness of the Bible. But please keep in mind that among the noblest purposes of education is to teach and obey the wisdom of the ages.

You just heard it.

Now, if you presume to be smarter and wiser than those whom I have just quoted, then by all means, kick the Bible out of our schools. But that would be a pretty hard case to make. I urge you to honor the wisdom of some of our greatest statesmen. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Lawrence.

Welcome, Rachel. Thank you. Rachel Eugley, District 1. First of all, you two are assessed what level should the Bible be exposed to the children. There should be no segregation of whether it's a first grader or a 12-year-old because it starts in the home. One way or the other, the children are already exposed to God and the Bible. And so I don't see how you can distinguish that it cannot be made available to all children. The Department of Education put out a book, Free to Speak, And it talks about what the students have a right to do. And this is found under the government section. Students can express their faith in classwork and homework. They can pray, read the Bible or other religious texts and talk about your faith. You can pass out religious literature. You can wear clothes with religious messages. You can organize prayer groups, religious clubs, and announce your meetings. You can be excused from school for religious reasons. And you may be able to attend off-site religious instruction and your exercise accommodating the school day. And you can express your faith at school events. There's also the educators. You can pray at school. You can teach about religion. If we did not have our Bible, we would not be America. Thank you, Rachel.

Welcome, Peter.

Okay, so I was a little bit surprised when I saw that somebody filed a complaint against the King James version of the Bible, especially because the first thing I asked myself was, who's reading this Bible in school? Nobody. It's certainly not being assigned as a reading to students. And the King James Version of the Bible is very flowery. It uses very antiquated language. So many adults would probably have a hard time understanding it if they read it. They could understand parts of it, but they'd have a hard time understanding it thoroughly. So no child who reads it is going to understand it. I understand that some parts of the Bible are very hard to read. The Old Testament, God does in fact tell the Israelites that they are allowed to take slaves, even female sex slaves. They can take women captured in war for wives. He orders them to exterminate many of their enemies. genocide. All that is very hard and difficult to read, but this was during a period of time when everybody was doing this to everybody else. Back then, every civilization was waging genocidal war on other civilizations. Every civilization was capturing people for slaves, was capturing women for sex slaves, and stuff like that. So yes, this is very hard to read, but this is history. Everybody was doing it. And who was it that made slavery illegal? Many of the people who made slavery illegal were in fact Christians. Christians and white people ended slavery. Great Britain was the first country to make slavery illegal. And then Canada and the United States of America followed like a few decades later. White people ended slavery. Christians ended slavery. Christians... fought against genocide. Christians and white people were the first ones to say that genocide, killing anybody who's of a particular race or culture or whatever is wrong. And Christians and white people were the first to fight against it.

Thank you, Peter. Next, Michael Paisner, followed by Pat Molnar and Bruce Smith.

Welcome, Michael.

Thank you, Michael Paisner. Oh, look, a news camera at our school board meeting. Again, let me remind the school board, this is not a sign of a well-run board. But let me be clear, you should not remove the Bible from the library. Just like The Bluest Eye and Push cover difficult content, the Bible raises challenging questions that can spur important, thought-provoking discussions. Just because you erred by banning Push and effectively banning The Bluest Eye does not mean you should ban more books. The one good thing about this challenge is that it lays bare your hypocrisy. Three of you voted to ban books where the main characters are black, but tonight, we all know, you will vote to keep the book that promotes your own religious perspective. This is no accident. Promoting your own perspective while banning stories that represent other communities, that is hypocrisy, and that is cruel. The citizens of Redlands recognize that and do not approve." Do not ban any books. Let credentialed professionals do their job curating our libraries to ensure they contain appropriate material for our students. Change the book review policy back to the way it was and stop this nonsense.

Thank you, Michael.

Pat Molnar, teacher. Welcome, Pat. Hi. And I want to reiterate, just like Mike said, I do not think that this book should be banned. And I do think that it is hypocritical to only celebrate that one one religious perspective, is the book that is okay. It can have violence. It can have sexual depictions in it. But other books that are by other colored communities can be pulled, even though they show somebody surmounting challenges in their life and banding with communities and These books, books like Handmaid's Tale, books like Bluest Eye, these were the things that I read in high school that challenged me, that taught me to think critically, that helped that happen, those values of critical thinking. We have to sometimes challenge ourselves and look outside of our narrow perspectives that we come in. So please stop banning books, especially for the high school level. It doesn't make sense. The effective banning of the bluest eye, Michelle, it just doesn't make sense how you did that. Please consider that children of the high school level are about to be able to vote. They're very, very close to having military people come in and, hey, you can come and join the military and you can go and you can fight and maybe die in a conflict overseas. Treat them like the almost adults that they truly are. I've been teaching for 30 years. I think I know something about this topic. I have seen many, many, many children growing up. And I understand more than I think a lot of you do. They're not babies. Don't treat them like that. Thank you, Pat.

Welcome, Bruce.

Thank you.

the British atheist Aldous Huxley, when he heard that the curriculum of Bible studies was being removed from the schools of Britain, worked steadily to oppose that removal. Much more thorough than what we're talking about, one book in there. He had two reasons why he was opposed to removing the Bible curriculum. One was He said it's the foundation of English society and it will fall apart if you take away that study. While it's not 100% and probably becoming less, Christianity is the majority religion in this country. And it is the best bet for maintaining Christianity. this solidarity that Huxley was afraid Britain would lose. The second thing that he thought was bad was, and this has been mentioned already, that was the literary. The King James Bible has lots of literary references. value, it's probably not being used as just was said nearly as much as it should be just to capture the literary value. When I was applying for medical school, one of the doctors who interviewed me asked me from my resume what Bible version was I using when I studied the Bible with people. And when I said the Revised Standard Version, he had a fit. Because the only version that is really valuable in literary sense is the King James Version. I'll leave that story with you. Thank you. Don't.

What are we doing here?

Don't remove the Bible from the school.

Thank you, Bruce. Next, Joshua Hall, followed by Tim Ormsby and Catherine Appleby.

Welcome, Joshua.

People should be able to decide whether they want to read the Bible for themselves and give it to their children and grandchildren. They should be able to decide whether the Bible is true, false, or just a collection of stories and myths. But one thing is true. The Bible was the foundation of America's creation during and after the Civil War. I mean, Revolutionary War. The founders based our society off the Bible. It's how we got the Constitution, it's how we got common, it's how we got English common law. We got English common law from the Bible. Therefore, if we ban the, if we take the Bible out of the school, and if we ban it from the nation, which we've already done, mostly, but not entirely, society will fall apart as it's currently falling apart now. So, we should keep the Bible because it was the foundation of Western civilization.

Thank you Joshua.

Hi, I'm Tim Ormsby. I live in President Rendler's district.

Welcome, Tim.

Thanks. I think some people are maybe missing the point a little bit of this challenge. I'm pretty sure the point of the challenge is not actually to remove the Bible from the public schools. or to destroy Western civilization or anything like that. But just to show that the challenge policy passed by this board is flawed and impractical and basically kind of silly because anyone could challenge any book for essentially any reason. I oppose banning the Bible. I oppose banning books in general. I support allowing professional librarians to choose books for RUSD libraries and make them available at appropriate age levels. There should be a way for parents to make some books off-limits for their kids. We already had that. There should be a channel for community input, especially parent input. We already had that. The new system implemented by the school board wastes the time of top-level administrators, school board members, and community members. We all have better things to do. There are plenty of things that pose a risk to kids' well-being in the public school system, and books are not one of them. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim.

Good evening, board. I'm Catherine Appleby from Area 4. Like everyone in this room... I don't want you to remove the King James Version of the Holy Bible from our libraries. I do, however, have some questions about the review policy that was put into place here. Out of 10 copies out of the King James Version, They range anywhere between 1,002 pages and 1,785 pages. I am currently still working my way through my second reading of Les Miserables, which is roughly the same length as the King James Version of the Bible. And it is taking me more than the two months that Administrative Regulation 1312.2 that you passed says the committee should take to read any book that is challenged. I want assurances for all of us in here that the entire work was read, not just selections from it, but cover to cover. And I know that the people on the committee have other jobs. So where were they finding the time? If they've not been sleeping, my God, could you give them a day off so that they can sleep? because there is no way possible in two months that with their commitments, they read this entire work cover to cover, which I think should invalidate their entire scorecard. Additionally, there may be bias at work here. I would question the three reviewers... whether they were brought up Christian or whether they are practicing Christianity, and how that has influenced the scores they gave a book that they probably didn't in-depth read because they feel like they already know it. As a reminder, 1611, when this was published, is early modern English. It's difficult to understand for the modern reader.

Thank you, Catherine. Next, we have Sue Headey, followed by Jeff Pogge and Janan Elias.

Welcome, Sue.

Thank you. I'm a parent with kids in this district. I'm in Michelle's area. First of all, three of you on the board clearly stated that the written word have to be evaluated by its own merit, not in the context it was written. Therefore, if you decide to keep the Holy Bible in our high school or whatever school, which I wholly support, then you have demonstrated to all of us that words need to be read in their context, understood in their context, and valued within their context. Keeping this book in the library, but not the other books, show a glaring example of a double standard. We on the side of keeping books in our libraries that have been age approved by our librarian experts, we will insist that you make decisions in a clear and consistent way so that all library material get evaluated by the same rules and standards. not separate rules for books you like and other rules for books you don't like. We all agree in this room, I think, except if that one person who opposed the book is here and will speak out, we all agree that the Bible should be available. I think what is important is how you decide why it should be here. Why is that okay? And what values will that show the rest of us moving forward? Thank you. Thank you, Sue.

Thank you.

Who was next officially? It is Jeff?

Oh, it might have been Jeff. I'm sorry.

I think so. I don't mind, but I'm not cutting somebody off.

Welcome, Jeff. Sorry about that.

Jeff Poggi, Area 1. This fiasco lies squarely at the feet of this board. For some ungodly reason, you decided to implement this policy. By your own standards, it should be removed. By my standards, it should not be removed. I don't believe in removing books from libraries. I believe that the dedicated professionals who run our libraries should be the ultimate arbiters of what we can and can't read. It's ridiculous that we're doing this now. And the sooner the board gets rid of this policy, the better.

Thank you, Jeff. Now, Janann, welcome.

OK. Good evening. Oh, OK. There we go.

My name is Janani Elias.

I am an RUSD educator and a community member from Trustee Area 4. As a dedicated school librarian committed to the intellectual development of all of our students, I respectfully urge you to stop the practice of removing books from our collections that only some may deem offensive. While I do like and value consistency, I do not want this book removed. When we begin removing literature based on disliking isolated passages, we establish a dangerous precedent that can be applied to foundational texts. The Bible does contain passages that have taken out of context and judged by same standards currently being used to judge other books could undoubtedly qualify as obscene. I'm not going to use the lot example, but like Ezekiel 2320. Yet, We as librarians will fight to keep the Bible on our shelves because we recognize that the Bible, much like contemporary and classic literature currently facing controversy, must be evaluated and understood in its complete, nuanced context. This book is found only at our high schools where students are expected to be able to process mature materials using critical thinking skills. I am asking you to please keep this book. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Janine.

Next, Dale Broom, Douglas Hauser, and Beth Smith. Welcome, Dale.

Thank you. School Board and School Board President Prendler, my name is Dale Broom, Area 1. And one of the things that I want to bring a distinction here is that they're trying to draw a moral equivalency here between the Bible and some of the books that were recently removed. including The Bluest Eye and, of course, the book Push. And there is no comparison. We have a very distinct difference between the books that have been challenged versus the Bible. The challenged books, if you take a look at them, are very sexually graphic and describe very extensive information about and descriptions of fornication, adultery, incest, rape, homosexual acts, transvestism. Whereas when you take a look at those subjects that are addressed in the Bible, they are presented as a clear violation of God's law. God's judgment is clearly pronounced in the scriptures about what that should be for those types of sins. And the judgment is not only required of the courts on earth, but also there will be judgment eternal. But God has given us his law in the Bible, and every child can benefit from reading that law because the law is what shows us that we have sinned and that we need forgiveness, we need a savior. And that is precisely why God sent Jesus. to come and die for our sins and provide a perfect atonement for our sins. And so it's so important that we keep the Bible in our libraries because we want children to be able to get that access if they choose to read it and to be exposed to it. Every child can benefit all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade. Now, I want to draw a very important distinction. These books that have been challenged have very graphic material within them. And one of the other things that's very important is none of the perpetrators of the sexual crimes that are in the books that we have challenged ever go to jail. The one case would be the book by Alice Siebold named Lucky, and she falsely accused a person and sent him to jail for 16 years. So it's very important that we keep the...

Welcome, Douglas. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Well, at least we've got an admission that this whole thing is basically a farce, that they didn't like the fact that some people were opposed to pornography in the schools, and so they thought they'd be really cute and try to go after the Bible. But for people who claim to be really interested in teaching and understanding critical thinking, they're a little bit short on that because they keep referring to the ideas or the race of the characters. The ideas and races of the characters are not significant. Very complex ideas can be expressed in simple language, even for middle schoolers or high schoolers to understand and to deal with. What we are talking about is obscene pornography, very graphic sexual depictions. I didn't know Dale was going to say that, but... He stole my line. But that's what we're talking about, graphic sexuality, graphic violence. And you just don't find those things in the Bible or, in fact, in any of the great works of literature. Many of them are full of violent acts and sexual acts, but they aren't expressed in pornographic terms. One last point. Of course they had to go after one of the foundational documents of Western civilization. But let me point out that whether you believe the Bible or you don't believe the Bible, literally or to whatever degree you believe it, it's still literarily one of the most important books. You cannot read Shakespeare or understand Shakespeare without knowing biblical references. You cannot read Dante without understanding biblical references. And I could go on and on, Melville, everything. There are so many biblical references spread through everything that if you don't have at least a rudimentary understanding of the Bible, you are not going to get the entire canon of a whole bunch of Western literature. So that's basically it. But I'm pretty sure you guys will make the right decision.

Thank you, Douglas. Thank you. Welcome, Beth. Thank you.

My name is Beth Smith. I've lived here in Redlands for 30 years. He just stole my thunder. My husband also referred to Aldous Huxley. I am a librarian, by the way. I have my master's in library science. I was a librarian for 17 years in a private school. But I wanted to specifically address the... King James Bible, in that Huxley said, paid the highest tribute to the King James Bible in one of his books, The Devils of Luden, described it as a repository, an edifice of language which towers above its successors. He called it a literary mastery. He prized it for the dignity of its prose and the beauty of its expression. cultural significance. He viewed it as a vital foundation for the English language, prioritizing its stylistic superiority over later, more modern translations. Even though it's hard, difficult to understand, as this gentleman just pointed out, there are so many references in literature that come from the, especially the King James Bible, but there's another atheist Christopher Hitchens, who really had high praise for the Bible, especially the King James Bible. He shows forth his praise. In fact, he paid it great homage in a recent article in Vanity Fair. This was published in 2012. where he argues that the dignity of its prose, the beauty of its expression, and the appropriateness of its linguistic form in its exalted subject matter make it one, if not the greatest works of the English language, a repository of edifice of language which towers above its successors. And that's a quote from Huxley. And also making several references. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Next, we have Ray Culverson, B. Hamilton, and Todd Barnett.

Welcome, Ray.

Welcome. Thank you. Okay, board and board president, you guys have a whole problem that you have to work with. Once you go down one rabbit hole in banning books, then this setup comes to ban the Bibles. This is fundamentally wrong. You'll have to ban Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Rousseau, Kant. All these other philosophers are out there that you would have to ban. You would have to ban almost every single book if you go back and look at the author's background and their histories and different things like that. We already know what this is about. This is about breaking the moral code in a civil society. It's breaking the moral code, and the problem that I have And the reason why I came out here is because of the fact when kids hear you talk about banning the Bible, that means they're not going to go to church. They're not going to have any moral code. They're going to think something else is wrong. You've got a bigger perspective here than just banning a book or banning the Bible. It's the kids that we have to worry about that are hearing what you have to say and how you're conducting yourselves in this situation. I don't envy you. I know it's a tough task, and I know you have to deal with a lot of different things, and there's a lot of material out there that's not good. But when somebody sets it up as a ban for the Bible, we have reached a territory that is fundamentally wrong. That would be like banning individuals from speaking. You have to be able to have some kind of value system that we have. Schools were fundamentally built on religious values and the like from 1642 on. That's when public education started. I want to thank you guys because it's very hard and it's very challenging for what you have to do. You're going to have to be strong, and I'm going to leave you with Joseph. But as for ye, ye thought evil against me, but God mentioned unto good to bring the past as it is this day to save much people a lot. If you don't ban the Bible, you're going to save many people alive.

Thank you, Ray. Welcome, B.

We warned you that this exact thing would happen. We read passages from the Bible to demonstrate that it could be flagged for containing sexually explicit material. We encouraged you to utilize the policies that were already in place to handle materials like this. I personally asked you to at least amend the language that would allow any person in the district to flag any book in school libraries and told you in no uncertain terms that I don't want this book banned. And you chose not to listen. And now here we are.

Honestly, what did you think was going to happen?

Did you honestly believe that only bigoted, narcissistic, power-hungry people would use this policy to ban award-winning books by celebrated black women authors? You are supposed to draft policies that protect everyone with language that ensures no one can abuse them. And because you chose not to listen to the people, because you chose to ignore the expert opinions of teachers and librarians, because you chose to use your common sense, Candy, You are now in the unenviable position of having to either ban a religious text that is meaningful to many of Redland's citizens, including myself and my family, or engage in the mental gymnastics that you have become so famous for to explain why this book, which does include sexually explicit language under your definition, is somehow different from the other books that you have banned that contain similar themes about sexual morality. I don't envy you. However, we warned you. We tried to save you from yourselves and you chose not to listen. And now you're blaming the people who cautioned you for the mess that you made? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not put this outcome on anyone other than yourselves. I urge you to use this situation as a caution and to rescind the policies that are so ill-considered that brought us to this situation.

Thank you, B.

Good evening. Thank you all for your service to our students, our families, our community, City of Redlands, our school district. My name is Todd Barnett. I pastor Legacy Bible Church here in Redlands, and it's a real privilege for me to be here tonight. I want to mention that, as I understand it, the discussion has to do with whether or not the Word of God contains explicit material that might be inappropriate for the minds of students, similarly to other books that contain material that's clearly not appropriate for our students and so I wanted to just appeal to God himself in his word and read to you from Ephesians chapter 4 beginning with verse 31 sexual pornography deviancy is not the only thing condemned this passage begins by saying let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice be kind to one another and tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. I do a lot of counseling, and in my counseling, sometimes especially folks who are dealing with a destruction that's been established in their lives as a result of significant sexual deviancy, they'll ask, what's appropriate for me to say to you and what is not? And it's easy for me to draw a line, and I think that line is clear with regard to how the Bible treats sexual deviancy as well as other things that are inappropriate for really anyone to hear or see. There is no commendation of sexual explicit material in the Bible. It's always condemned. And the line for me in counseling is, I don't want you to say, and I don't want to hear, and I'm not going to say anything that might create images in your mind that would be displeasing to the Lord. On the other hand, in the same way that the Word of God uses general categories for these things, they are condemned. Thank you, Todd.

Daniel Tinajero followed by Ryan and Mark Lear. Daniel Tinajero.

Welcome, Daniel.

How are you? This attack on the Bible is wrong and vicious. This holy book has been in school libraries for decades. This book represents morals and values to all. There is no comparison between the Bible and the books that explicitly show pornography and that are a threat to our kids at school. I have heard people stating that this very room, that there is incest in it. Yes, there is. But these people don't take the time to continue reading to see how God handles sinners and punish them accordingly. This great country was based, was founded upon this holy book. But it seems that some people forgot about that or are ignoring a truth that has been for 250 years when the Constitution was written. The Bible is here to stay. God bless you all. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

Welcome, Ryan.

Thank you.

Thank you guys for all you've done this year. So I just want to start saying the law is punitive, retributive, and descriptive. In the descriptive sense of the law, it is a right or wrong message machine that carries social legitimizing force. The difference between some of these other books and the Bible is the motive. The Bible is laying a foundation for righteousness that leads to everlasting joy. These other books seem to be, from what I've heard, about hiding and normalizing certain behaviors. People going in secret to a book to learn about something that they should be talking about with somebody that has some kind of legitimate ability to talk to them correctly about it. I started reading the Bible a lot in 2016, 17, 18, 19, 20. And so because we're talking about the Bible, I'm just going to bring up a couple of... things about the Bible. It's supernatural. The way it was written proves itself. So it was written by 40-plus authors over different centuries, different millenniums, in different languages, by farmers, kings, homeless people, tent makers, fishermen, and yet at the end of it all, the verses foretell the future. interlink across the entire scripture. So for example, in Chronicles, God tells David, I've been with you wherever you've gone, and now I will make your name great and famous, like that of the greatest and most famous men that have ever dwelled on the earth. Today, David, who slayed Goliath, is as famous as anyone that's ever lived on earth. I couldn't tell you in 3,000 years I'm going to make your name famous, but it happened. And there are a And then the verses interlink. So, for example, it says in Proverbs, my son, do not neglect or forget my teaching. And then in Psalm 119, it says, I will not neglect or forget your word. And then in Deuteronomy, it says, let my teaching fall like rain, my word like gentle dew on new grass. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.

Welcome, Mark.

I thank you. So Mark Laird, Area 2, Michelle. So I'm here because I work in a library and of course banning books is not what I'm going to ask you to do tonight. But we definitely warned you that this was going to happen. And I'm upset about all the time that we're wasting right now, mine included. I have so many things I need to be doing tonight, but I'm here to defend this book. And honestly, I think it's ridiculous. Ridiculous that you guys drafted this policy in such a vague way. There is no way. The way that you had before was sufficient. And now here we are debating the merits of the Bible. And honestly... The gentleman earlier today, it's funny, I found myself really relating to, I don't want to say the other side because we're all on the same side of being humans at the end of the day. I think we've just become too divided. But now we're disgraces in New York Magazine because this exact thing ended up all the way in New York Magazine. I can't believe it. And instead of expanding our opportunities for our students to read, We're taking them away during a literacy crisis. And a gentleman earlier today insinuated that my high school students can't read the Bible and that they wouldn't be smart enough for it. No, that's an insult to them. They definitely can have full understanding of that text. It should definitely be available to them. And banning books unlocks the door to banning any type of book. And Candy, you were just talking about banning a book that like I said, was available through library vendors, truly had no sexual content at all, was just on LGBT history, and you flaunted it on your Instagram. And so I believe every book should be in the library for the students that need it as long as they make collection development. And you're taking collection development and you're throwing it out the window just for some willy-nilly policy to waste all of our time.

Thank you, Mark. Anybody else wish to speak? We have three more. Oh, we do?

Okay. Greg Abdouche, followed by Antonis Christodoulou, and Presley Chapman.

Welcome, Greg.

Thank you.

Thank you, Board. My name is Greg Abdosh. I'm currently the candidate and the leading candidate for the Republican Party for the 45th Assembly District, which is right here. The state of California has gone backwards in our education. And six years ago, we started moving parents and people that were concerned with our kids into these seats. And we moved them there to protect our kids, to focus on education, and to bring back what we want in California as a state. I commend you guys for your book policy. I'm not going to sit here and scrutinize the Bible. I think we all know where I stand 100%. And we need to realize that the books that we are trying to ban are not banned books. We are removing pornography from our children. We are protecting our children. I would encourage this community to focus on what's at hand, to educate our children, and to unify around that subject, rather than attacking a board member because of a policy that she has brought forward to protect our kids. I don't agree with everything Candy does. I'll tell you that right here to your face on a mic and on record. But I support you for standing up for our kids, for protecting them, and to further the education of our kids. Thank you very much.

Hello. I'm Andoni Christodoulou, and I'm running for Congress in this district, for the 33rd District in California. I think the librarians that came here today defend their libraries. I'm here to say that we need to be cautious of the books our schools choose to ban. Your policy to remove certain books the board and a select few do not like seems to now bring us to the discussion of removing this Bible. I do not agree with banning books, and I view the availability of religious texts as beneficial, but I do ask, if you vote to not ban the Bible, will you still vote to ban other religious books? Are you creating a special exception to this policy for this Bible? What other books will fail to meet the special exception? Apply to this one. But I think we all know the truth. You wanted to get to this point. You wanted to set precedent to ban books focused on race and real struggle, but set an exception for a single Bible as you may plan to challenge other religious texts. Also, books are about experience and storytelling. Nothing is more American than books that discuss racial and gender injustice that many students face. And as a 27-year-old who was recently in our education system, students face these issues at school and at home. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Presley Chapman. I'm a sophomore at Redlands East Valley High School, and as a student, I believe the Bible should not be taken out of our schools. If kids have the choice to read about what gender they think they identify as or books with porn in them, then they should be able to read about the Bible and learn about Jesus and his disciples and God. In August of last year, my aunt was killed in a head-on collision. This affected me really badly. but I've grown so much closer to God since then. I started reading the Bible, going to church, and even going to Christian club at my school. You should see how crowded this club is. Kids come in and have to stand on the sides of the classroom and even in the doorway, even on the floor. These kids are so hungry to get to know God, their creator, and I'm here today to speak on all behalf of them. I urge you to keep the Bible in our school libraries. Thank you.

Thank you.

That was our last registered speaker.

Is there anybody else that wishes to speak on this public hearing? Okay.

Just for clarification, if I can. There are two other opportunities to speak today. One is going to be agenda items, and then there are public comments. However, I want to point out this public hearing is for the specific agenda item of the Bible, and this is the opportunity to speak about the Bible. there is not going to be an opportunity under agenda items to speak about this issue again. So I just want to clarify that. You are going to have an opportunity to speak. at public comments. But if you are here right now and you would like to speak about the Bible, this is the opportunity to do that. And so nobody is being denied an opportunity to speak on this issue. However, that time to do that is now. And so we want to ask again of everybody who's present, does anybody else want to speak on this item? Anybody who wanted to speak at the hearing signed up. And everybody who's listening right now has an opportunity to speak if they haven't already spoken.

Would anybody like to speak to this public hearing? Okay. The hearing is closed. Community input for agendized items. The Board of Education values the perspectives and participation of our community members. Public comment provides an important opportunity for individuals to share their views on district matters. The Board encourages comments, feedback, and input from all voices in the community, including those who may have differing opinions and perspectives. The California Office of the Attorney General asked us to share that in their view, matters pertaining to specific, identifiable students or any group of students should remain private to the extent possible. If you have a complaint about an employee or a student matter, please utilize the appropriate complaint procedure. Contact Dr. Rudy Wilson, Assistant Superintendent of Compliance, who can assist you with filing any such complaint. As a reminder, not all speech is free from consequences, and since this is the board's meeting in public, where minors may be present, we encourage all participants to conduct themselves in a civilized, non-threatening manner. Thank you for your cooperation and for contributing to a civil and student-focused discussion. Members of the public may address the board on matters within its jurisdiction by submitting a completed registration card to the clerk or designated staff member prior to the start of public comments on agenda items. When called, speakers may proceed to the podium, state their name and trustee area, and speak for the allotted time. The amount of time will be announced by the board president before the first speaker begins and will not exceed three minutes.

Consuelo, how many speakers do we have? Fifteen. So we will do three minutes. First one is Valerie Sabas with one item, Erin Perez with one item, and Peter Hall with one item.

So I just want to say I'm grateful that someone was so offended by God's word that they asked for it to be removed from our schools because that request had never been made. So it's community and...

Yeah, excuse me. If it's about the hearing, we're done with that part.

Okay. You had 20A registered.

Do you want me to talk about then the 250? Yeah, it's the blue card. Okay. Um, so I'd like to see our schools celebrate America's 250th year anniversary because it's a major milestone that helps students understand our nation's history, government and development over time. It's a chance for them to honor the founding ideals of this great nation. It allows them to recognize the courage and vision of those who built this country and the sacrifices made to protect and preserve our freedoms over generations. It is a way to show pride and respect, and students can feel connected to their country and appreciate the opportunities they have as Americans. They can remember the past while also thinking about how they can help make the future better and be a responsible citizen. And may God bless America.

Thank you, Val.

My name is Aaron.

Welcome, Aaron.

My name is Aaron Perez. I'm a parent and a taxpayer in this district. I'm speaking on the agenda item for the administrative staff raises. It is a particular concern on that list under item F that there is an individual who is a legal analyst. And the fact that we use our taxpayer dollars to pay for this position is a great concern to me. This individual's job is about... keeping families from getting services. I don't want my taxpayer dollars to be used to pay the salary of an individual who is neither a lawyer nor a paralegal whose expertise is solely in the area of keeping families from getting services. So we could take that money and pay for other positions as we continue to lay off people. So I ask that we remove the legal analyst from our staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Aaron.

Peter Hall. Peter.

Welcome back, Peter.

Okay, so I noticed on the agenda that the board is going to be discussing celebrating the 250th anniversary of America's founding. And I was wondering how... People like members of Together for Red Ones are going to make this all about celebrating people who are LGBTQ or people who are of a certain racial or ethnic persuasion. These people always... insist that the least important aspects of ourselves are the most important, like race, skin color, et cetera, or sexual orientation and gender identity. Both of those are entirely invented, especially the last one. If you are biologically male but say you're female, you invented a special category for yourself. Or if you're female but say you're male, you invented a special category for yourself.

I'm sorry. Excuse me. What does this have to do with the 250th?

Because people like Together for Red Ones are going to make it all about minorities instead about the country. That's what that's about. They're going to find ways to cast aspersions on the founders, and they've been doing this for decades, because some of the founders were slave owners and stuff like that, even though a bunch of them actually freed their slaves. Because the founding of this country was based on the three-fifths rule, which was used to keep the country from dividing before it even began, and the country divided like 80 years later, the Civil War, they're going to try and talk about that, make the celebration of this country all about America's mistakes, all about its failings and stuff like that, instead of about its successes.

Thank you, Peter. Next, Dale Broom, followed by Gregory Britton and Sue Headey.

Yes, board. My name's Dale Broom from Area 1. And I also wanted to just reiterate support for agenda item 20A, a commemorative resolution for our 250th anniversary as a nation. And as I think back about my childhood going I was, at that time, 14 years of age when we studied and we celebrated the 200th anniversary of our nation. And it was a big deal. It was a really big deal. And many of you may not have lived through that time period. But when we did celebrate it, we celebrated it as a nation. We celebrated it as a state. We celebrated it as a city and even our schools. And I can still remember that we would have just wonderful pageants of music. We'd have singing. We would have reciting of different poems and stories about the United States and its history. And it was a remarkable time. And I think it's something that we really do need to spend a lot of time planning and thinking about how we can do this in our school district. Because this will bring back memories for these children for years to come. They will reflect back on being alive at the 250th anniversary of this country and all the wonderful things that were going on in this country. And I think this will spark, number one, I think it will spark a greater interest in patriotism and support for our nation. and our Constitution and our way of life here in this country. It will expand our students' knowledge of American history because topics will be coming up and they'll be discussed not just in the schools, but they'll be discussed on the TV and movies. I mean, you name it, social media. It will be expanding our students' understanding of American history and also to remember the sacrifices of our ancestors, not only those who fought in our wars but also fought to preserve our rights that we celebrate so wonderfully in this country. And so I think it's really important for us to do something very special for the 250th anniversary, and I look forward to seeing what the board will do with this. So thank you.

Thank you, Dale. I'll come back, Greg.

Thank you. America's 250th is not only an opportunity for justifiable celebration that the founding of this country represented a quantum-level leap in human development, in freedom, and in self-government. The foundation document of the Declaration of Independence We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And the second next sentence is just as important. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. And this is the foundation of the country, and we've seen it became the greatest, freest, most prosperous country as a result. Nations not only have a history, they need a history. There needs to be this sense of this is what we and our ancestors have done. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's never perfect. Nothing is ever perfect in this world. but that we can be proud of what we have done, and we can look forward to doing great things together in the future. And on the left, there has been a concerted effort to undermine that. They think that Orwell is a how-to manual. He who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the past. They want to take away any pride in the nation. It was just all a bad thing. The founders were terrible. It was all based on slavery. There was slavery. There was it throughout the world, throughout human history. But it was all bad. And it's deliberate and very, very negative, but important to them purpose. So not only is it a cause for celebration, and it should be, but it's an opportunity for needed learning. As we talked about, only 3% of high school students in America can pass the citizenship test, which is a relatively easy test. I've taken it. And this is a great opportunity to teach the teachers, but also the children, about the founding and the founding documents and why we have the freedoms that we do today and why they're important to defend those freedoms and defend self-government and defend the republic going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Thank you. Welcome back, Sue.

Thank you. I think I put down the wrong agenda item on this one, but I'm going to talk about the 250th celebration. When I immigrated here, I learned about the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and petition. Usually when you mention something first, the First Amendment, it's because it has first priority. So that makes us believe that the founders were very aware and thought it was important to protect all belief systems by a very diverse population living in the United States. So I look forward to seeing how you will incorporate these diversities into in America's 250th anniversary celebration, not only within belief or faith, but for all our diverse population described through history, giving our students many ways to see themselves depicted as Americans, no matter how they describe themselves, their backgrounds, or when their family arrived here or has always been here. Yeah, short and sweet. That was me for this.

Thank you, Sue. Michael Paisner, Aaron Fernando, and Joshua Hall, all with one item.

Hold on one second, Michael. When somebody's speaking at the podium, can the people sitting there just refrain from having little discussions? Because it's hard to hear. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Welcome back.

Thank you. Mike Paisner. The 250th anniversary of our country is an important milestone that should be recognized. However, the revisionist language of this proclamation has serious flaws. You falsely conflate religion with our founding documents. If you actually bothered to read the first clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution, you would find it prohibits government from establishing a religion. So let's drop the word faith from this resolution, shall we? You don't get to celebrate our Constitution by pretending it's something it isn't. Also, your assertion that the founders established a nation dedicated to the unalienable rights of all is contradicted by Article 1, Section 2, which not only excludes Native peoples, but also counted enslaved peoples as three-fifths of a person. And let's not forget Article 4, Section 2, which states enslaved people who escaped had to be returned to their enslavers. You think the authors of such a document were truly dedicated to the unalienable rights of all? I don't think so. Next, you want to celebrate how we have advanced prosperity. Does the phrase affordability crisis not ring a bell for you? Finally, you talk about instilling respect. I'm sorry, you don't instill respect, you earn it. But I understand how you struggle with that concept. The 250th anniversary is a great opportunity to recount what was accomplished during the founding of our country. In a time when subjects ruled by royalty was normal and conquering and destroying other cultures was celebrated, we declared certain truths were self-evident and the idea that government derived their power from the people and should function for the people started to take shape. These were revolutionary ideas for that time, a huge leap forward. And while they talked about freedom and liberty, those ideals were not reality for most. Black people were enslaved, women couldn't vote, and a host of other inequalities were the norm and would continue to be the norm until wars were fought and those without stood up and demanded to be treated as equals. Before you write a resolution about our history, I suggest you sit in on a history class. Whoever wrote this resolution clearly has a lot to learn.

Thank you, Michael. Welcome back, Aaron.

Hello, Aaron Fernando, Area 2. This is going to be really quick. Just commenting on your mental health policy again. Basically, same thing as last time. It's a really good common sense policy. I'm glad to see it back with only minor changes made for clarity's sake. And I hope you'll pass it. That's it.

Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Aaron. Just want to say that the fact that we're debating about, we're having a resolution talking about celebrating America's 250th anniversary of its inception, it proves that we no longer have a culture. What we have through mass migration is a collage of cultures called multiculturalism. They're all competing for dominance, and American culture and American citizens get sidelined and get crushed in the chaos. We shouldn't be having this debate. We should just, I don't know, be talking about how we're going to go about it instead of whether or not we should. Mass migration has created a shift where other people's cultures are more important than the cultures of the host country. And this is evidenced by the fact that politicians from both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party are posting pictures of themselves and videos of themselves celebrating foreign holidays in America or going overseas to celebrate those foreign holidays, such as Diwali, the Indian poop-throwing festival. Ted Cruz... A bunch of other politicians from the Republican Party, not just the Democrat Party, but the Republican Party, were posting videos and photos of themselves celebrating Diwali and saying Happy Diwali Day to everyone. So this is why we need to get control of our borders, because the more people that come in that don't have a connection to America's history... the more we're going to be debating our own celebrations.

Thank you, Joshua. Next, we have Catherine Appleby with four items, followed by Mark Laird with one item, and Bea Hamilton with one item.

Thank you for having me back again, Board. Heather Appleby, Area 4, parent, resident, alumni. I've actually lived in this city longer than some of our older speakers. My first one I'm going to ask to move. I had had 15 aye, but per Superintendent Cabral's announcement, I would like to change that to 13 aye. So 13A is the approval of the 26-27 board education meeting dates. I'm glad to see this on here. This is what you should be doing according to the Brown Act. Yeah, you. Superintendent Cabral, that announcement was a violation of the Brown Act. It should have been at the beginning of the meeting. So I hope you pass these dates because it is good Brown Act behavior, and I hope you learn from your previous behavior. and avoid Brown Act violations. Next up, 15F. I will wait for my time to be reset. Thank you. 15F is your mobile communications devices policy. I'm actually curious why this is coming as a board policy without the administrative regulation attached to it. I know sometimes the administrative regulations take a little bit of... figuring out and massaging the language and making it all work, but you have brought other policies and administrative regulations to this community, to this boardroom, that together, that we're not as short as this one is and we're more contentious than this one is. There's some stuff here that I really think we as the community need to know in the administrative regulations part. First and foremost, item number two, about halfway through, it follows, however, a student shall not be prohibited from using a device under the following circumstances. Circumstance number two is when a teacher or administrator grants permission to the student to use a device subject to any reasonable limitation imposed by that teacher or administrator. I think I speak for every educator in the room that is ugly and messy. The moment someone down the hall allows kids to use their cell phones is the moment that my holding of them not using their cell phones goes out the window and makes it more difficult because those of us who have had teens or have teens or have grandchildren who were teens know that teens, when they find... An in with one person, they're going to manipulate it with every other person. This board policy is weak without the administrative regulation. I do not want you to consider this tonight. I'd like it to be pulled. If you don't pull it, I'd like there to be enough nays not to get it passed right now without it coming back. Rewrite it. But this, this is bad policy. 17G and 17H are together. I spoke on this last time. The volunteer policy is perfectly fine, except you're choosing to cut positions that you cannot fill with volunteers per Ed Code. And I think you need to sit long and hard with that paragraph in both this board policy and that administrative regulation. And I know Superintendent Cabral told this room on March 10th that, yes, you cannot fulfill positions you cut with volunteers. These policies are fine. Pass them. But sit with that. He made it real explicit. He said it's going to have to be explicit to the principals. It's going to have to be explicit to everyone. And it just, it's there. I just want you to take a moment and meditate on what that means, what that looks like in our schools, how your volunteer policy, legal as it is, is going to restrict and weaken what our students have available to them. But other than that, it's a good policy. And finally, 20A, which has been everyone's favorite. I assume you all have access to the board policies up there, right? Could you please open to board policy 6115? I'll give you a minute to find it. You passed this earlier this year. Find section five, which is the Roman numeral V. This policy states you cannot hold celebrations without emphasizing or endorsing particular political, social, or religious beliefs. Our 250th as a nation is beautiful. It, however, is a social belief and by the policy you passed you cannot have that second to the last paragraph on the first page of this now therefore be it resolved that the redlands unified school district proudly commemorates the 250th anniversary of the united states by declaring the week of something as america's semi-quincentennial week During the 26-27 school year, district schools will engage staff, students, and families in patriotic assemblies, lessons on the Constitution, and founding documents, projects honoring veterans and civic leaders, and activities celebrating America's history, achievements, and future.

Per your own board policy.

That needs to be stricken from this.

You have other board policies you should probably look at. 6144, the entire first paragraph.

6143.1.

This one's really interesting. This one says, time allocation to subjects in grades K through six should be rigorous, balanced curriculum during the elementary years. A week you spoke, I don't know who made the video, but at the State of the Union District you spoke about attendance and three days, three days screws a kid up. It makes it hard for them to academically achieve. You're going to take a whole week out? That is not a balanced curriculum for K-6. You have board policies that you need to hold this against. And you need to look very carefully at them. Thank you.

Thank you, Catherine.

Welcome back, Mark. Thank you. I'm going to change to 28, 250. Okay. So one of the things that I'm happy that she shared before is, yes, I'm kind of confused how we're supposed to do this under our current flags and celebrations policies. It's a little bit ironic. And we told you guys when those policies were getting passed as well, that they were dangerous and that they were going to keep us from being able to celebrate things like this. And in addition to that, we have our own policies on library materials that we brought up two board meetings ago. And it was even more strict than what we were talking about tonight. I'm very grateful it didn't go through. But it was insinuating that the materials within our libraries needed to be wholesome. And then I remember quite firmly holding up a copy of a book from my library. They called themselves the KKK. And Michelle, turning quite white, when I held that up because that book's not wholesome, but it belongs in our libraries, right? And so when it comes to our 250th celebration, we better be focusing where it's appropriate and where the students have the ability to have the conversation and the critical thinking, we better be focusing on all of the history. Our flags and celebrations policy, in fact, I am questioning whether or not this is gonna hold up legally because I don't know if you guys know this, but the Stonewall Monument had flags banned from it. Yeah, where my own movement was formed, yes, the pride flags were removed from my monument. That is why I'm here, right? I know, everyone's like, oh my God, stop making about the gates. Yes, I'm here, I'm speaking up about myself. It's an important part of myself. I would consider my partner to be a very important part of my life, right? And board members before have sexualized my culture. That is not my culture, right? And so I would like for us to focus on our flags policy and maybe removing it so we can have America 250 celebrated as it should be. Because the Trump administration themselves actually had to go back. And I don't know if you know this, but about a day ago, it turns out, Pride flags are back at the Stonewall. And I'm very grateful for that, but that's what all of this is about, you guys. We're dividing each other over stupid things. Why in the world were pride flags ever removed from Stone Flag Monument? That's literally what that monument is for, right? And so now are we gonna go and remove the LGBT history from our libraries under policies? The ones that, might I remind you, we have an obligation to provide our students under California Ed Code, right? When we're passing these policies, they impact all levels. As you saw, this is something that's going to be impacted by policies you passed prior. And we're not measuring that impact as we pass these policies. We're just rushing them through negligently. Do better.

Thank you, Mark.

Oh.

So I wanted to speak on 15H, the mental health policy. This policy needs to be amended to be in compliance with HIPAA. It says that parents and guardians should be notified if a child is referred for mental health services and that they need to approve those services. Parents who do not have parental rights do not have a legal right to view their children's mental health records, nor do they have a right to make medical decisions. And the board needs to amend this policy to ensure that students are protected and that there is no confusion about how counselors, teachers, and administrators should interpret this policy. I also want to point out that this policy is redundant. Anyone who follows APA legal and ethical guidelines knows this and is bound to these policies anyway. They have been trained to follow these guidelines already. They are accountable to the Board of Behavioral Sciences. They are expected to pass a legal and ethical exam every time they are recertified. Perhaps it would be good to consult with them about the legality of this particular policy before proceeding. Thank you.

Thank you, Bea. That was our last speaker.

Okay, moving on to board committee reports. Does anybody have anything to report?

I do. Yes. Just a couple announcements regarding CRYROP. Diana Carballo began her role as career exploration teacher at Beatty Middle School on March 16th and quickly engaged students in a hospitality industry. lesson. And then it was Redlands East Valley. High school held their mock interviews for students on April 8th and 9th. And that was it. And tomorrow a few of our classes from CRYROP are going to be attending the ARMC EMS day. So I'm excited to have them come out tomorrow. Thank you.

Do you have anything?

Yeah, the Parks and Rec Committee, some news that Ryan Samples is our new city senior manager, so we welcome him. Another thing is that the Renegade Volleyball Services is serving like 150 of our kids per month, which was amazing. quite outstanding. And the last significant update was that the Redlands Theater Festival has been placed to high priority now for the city to handle vandalism and theft due to all of the damages and loss of money due to equipment and graffiti that's happened there now they have agreed to put it as a high priority for the city to help them perhaps build a wall around the theater and do take some measures to reduce that that's it

The Compact Club Committee that I'm involved in has been having our regular meetings and the most important thing coming up is the awards night coming up in a couple weeks and I can't speak highly enough about all the work that the Compact Steering Committee does which are members of the community that have just taken this on for years on behalf of our students and They put in so much time, effort, money, and it's really an amazing group of people that work on behalf of our students.

Okay. Superintendent's report. Mr. Cabral, do you have anything for us?

Yes. Very serious matter having to do with school safety. Right before spring break, as we all know, over at Moore Middle School, a student brought a loaded handgun onto campus. And I want to first acknowledge the brave student who made staff aware to the point of going out of their way to make sure that staff became aware of that situation. And I hope to acknowledge and celebrate that student soon. Also, the teachers who, during the lockdown, were able to keep our students not only safe but calm and allow them to continue with their school day, our classified staff that were in the classrooms also, and then our tremendous safety team who not only acted quickly but did everything correctly. And then, of course, our principal, who did a great job of communicating with parents, and we are getting really good feedback about how communication went that day. Director Yost happened to be on campus that day and was tremendous in his leadership also. Having said that, thankfully, we were able to have no incident. But moving forward, we did a couple of things to ensure that we are getting input from the community and from our staff. We had a survey sent out to our staff so that they could specifically tell us how they feel we could make the school safer, and that was valuable input. We sent a survey out to all parents of Moore, and even though we only received about 80 replies or responses, valuable input that includes what they feel can help us moving forward. What we've already done and will continue to do is limit the entrances onto campus. Specifically at Moore, there were four different ways to enter campus. We've limited that down to two. And we are making plans to go to a single point entry, not only at Moore, but at all campuses. What a single point entry will do is it will allow students to only enter campus in the morning through one gate. That will help us concentrate all staff, that we can have eyes on every single student that enters campus as the school day begins, which will allow us to also identify any pockets of students who are not okay so that we can get them support and possibly even look in their backpacks or in their belongings if we have any suspicion. We also contract currently with a K-9 unit who comes on campuses periodically for drug detection. That same company also has the ability to have canines do random searches for gunpowder. And we are going to increase the days that they do those random searches. coupled with single-point entries. We are going to ensure that our kids know that bringing a handgun onto campus not only is not okay, but you're going to get caught, you're going to get recommended for expulsion, and you won't, you know, you'll have consequences. Additionally, I sent a letter home last week asking all families to help us We understand that families own guns, and there is no criticism on that. What we're asking, though, is that you please lock your guns up appropriately and not have violence. your minor child have access to a weapon like a loaded gun. And so we want to educate our families, help them understand that that gun isn't being given to kids at school. They're bringing it from home, and we need your help. And so we will continue to send that kind of messaging out so that parents can help us. And we will also continue to ask for input so that you can let us know how it's going as far as our single point entries because that is going to be different than what parents are used to right now. When you have a school that has five different ways for kids to get in, and now you have to drop them off at one gate, it's going to look different. But there's a purpose to that, and there's a reason that we want to do that. And so we will gather input from our community. And I urge you as board members to continue to reach out to me to see what else we can do. But I wanted to make sure not only the community but the board knew the actions that we're already taking. Director Yost has taken the lead in many of this. Principal Dyerly over at Moore has incorporated these changes already. And we've met with principals last Thursday about incorporating single point entries at all secondary schools. As soon as we can identify that. and then implement within the next two weeks. All sites should have single point entries. The most challenging school, everybody could guess. Redlands High School, which is basically two campuses. And so single point entry is not possible at RHS, but it's possible to have single point entry at both campuses. And that's what we're going to be looking at. And so that's actually two ways to enter campus, but kids do enter two different campuses over at RHS. What we are going to focus on is making sure that there is only one way to get on either campus. And I will update you if we feel like after Director Yost helps administrators, you know, identify how to do that at each site, what that will look like specifically. I will share that in a superintendent's update on Friday. But I also will give an update at our next meeting on the 28th. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you very much. Moving on to business services consent items. Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions tonight, President Randler.

Do we have a motion to approve business services consent items as listed under 12A through 12R? So moved. I'll second. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? Any discussion? We'll call for the vote.

Motion carried, 5-0. Business service action items.

Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes tonight.

Approve the 2026-2027 Board of Education meeting dates. The appendix is board meeting dates for the 2026-2027 school year are in packets. Do we have a motion to approve the 2026-2027 board of education meeting dates?

Move approval.

Do I have a second? Second. Are we going back to the drawing board? We don't have a second.

Are we having a discussion? Sure.

Yeah, we need to do an approval for these guys.

Second.

Oh. Okay, so we have a first and second. Any discussion? Any discussion?

I would like to go, I just think that months that we're not in session, I think we should be going down to one meeting a month. I understand that we went, there were certain situations where we needed to increase them, but I don't know that it's helpful for the community. or even us to even really get a break between these things. So like specifically like July, I would hope that we can just go to one meeting, maybe move it towards the middle of the month. So it's not, but if we're not in session, I don't think we should be meeting more than once a month.

My comment is that I think we should not have months with just one meeting. I didn't really, to be honest, didn't really think about July. But I find that having such big gaps between meetings makes, well, number one, we all know it makes so much more information having to be digested and studied and questioned. and gather more information about when there's only the one meeting a month and also so many things happen in this district. We're a very active, busy district that having two meetings a month whenever possible will make it more efficient so that we can address issues more quickly as they come up. So my suggestion was to add a date in February, add a date in March, and in May. I know in the past that we've heard that some of the cabinet members prefer more frequent meetings to get their work accomplished. I know I want the community to be happy too with the meetings, but the purpose of our meetings is to do board business. And so I would like to respect also what is good for the cabinet. And I know that I had talked to Jason and In particular, May would be a month that his department would be able to do a much better job at what they do in terms of reporting out to have two meetings.

So I agree with that. I think that we will be more efficient and be able to move through things more efficiently with two meetings a month. That's a standard. I would suggest, I believe that March we can't have one because of spring break, but February, I'm not sure why we wouldn't have one there. And then November, I would suggest... having two meetings just avoiding the Thanksgiving break and just move it up to, like, November 2nd and then November 16th. That would be my suggestion for November in order to have two meetings. And then same with May. Why wouldn't we have it? What was the reason with that?

We had testing. We did your activities, basically. We have a lot of activities that we're going to be invited to in the month of May 4th.

We are testing, too. That's the reason. So there's no, like, state of the district?

State of the district, typically, that's what the second February would have been. It was this year. That's what we did this year. So we just have to schedule something.

Well, then I would think that we should definitely have a second meeting in May. That's my opinion.

So can I ask, if you're saying that we should avoid breaks, why are we having more during breaks? Like you want to add another meeting to November, but we're off a good portion of it.

I was saying we should have two meetings a month is how I feel.

Well, with having respect to breaks, correct? So we're not scheduling one during a break. Okay.

Yeah, I understand. Well, with March, we could actually move that up, too. Just move up instead of March 9.

We could have March 2nd and March 16th.

Why is it March? Oh, I'm in the wrong year here. Let me look. We could move that up, though.

March 2nd and March 16th.

Yeah, we could move it to March 2nd and 16th to avoid that.

When is spring break that year? Spring break.

When is the...

I tried to look. I have it here.

It's 23rd on. At least this year it was the 23rd and on.

Well, but historically.

Yeah, next year it's the third or it's the fourth week in March and first week in April. Right. It kind of goes from the 22nd.

Yeah, one day. But we could do that. We could do March 2nd and then we could do the 16th. And that would work out to squeeze two meetings in the month.

Juan, have you put any of our workshops on there? Usually we do. I don't see them.

No, we don't have any workshops reflected on here. That would be something we would determine. What we did this year is we said it was either going to be a regular meeting or a workshop, and I think all of them were converted to regular meetings.

I don't think they all were.

After we talked about it, I think. I think we counted one or two. We didn't have the meeting. We didn't have the meeting. So the only other thing to consider is we typically save Tuesdays because everybody's generally available on Tuesdays. So we have superintendent's awards also on Tuesday nights. And so that would be one of the in-between weeks of the month. We try to have six per year. And so we generally would do this calendar first, and then we would kind of go around it, yeah. But that's just something to consider. And then a state of the district, we also usually do it on a Tuesday also. They don't have to be on Tuesdays, but we typically would just so the board has one night.

And superintendent awards, too. That's superintendent awards. I would be good to only have one in July. Just because people are on vacation and give a break. August, we only had one, I believe, this past year. Do we have two? Do we have two in August and leave the November 10th? December 1st, that would be really tough because we're probably going to be going to... And CSBA.

CSBA starts on that Wednesday.

So the next day we would be gone.

December 1st is actually a Monday so that we could meet on that Monday and then go to CSBA.

Unless that's a travel day. That Wednesday. Unless that's a travel day for anybody attending early.

It could be.

It's in San Diego, though.

Yeah, luckily it's in San Diego this coming year, so it's not... January, we had one. There's no flying.

Correct. We had one in January because of the holiday this past year.

I believe we had two. I think the only months we didn't have two is February because we had the State of the District, March because of spring break, and then May because of... activities. Like this year, we have one in May, we don't have two in May. This sort of mirrors what we did this year. We have had in the past, I think two years ago, we only had one meeting in July. Last year, this board added the July meeting. So we had two last summer.

I would like to take it back. We encountered a lot of problems during that meeting specifically because we were meeting during break. and it's not like we're not going to get business done. We're still going to get it done, but I think it would be nice to give people an opportunity to have a summer break.

Well, I'm hearing a couple of different things, but if we take the July one away, I'm also hearing two in November, two in February, two in March, and two in May, and the dates can be worked out.

If you look at the Tuesdays, it would be November 3, November 17, and then February. Well, you said the state of the district would be on the 23rd, so we wouldn't have one then, right? But March would be March 2 and March 16 to avoid spring break because people are gone on their vacations during those times. The November dates would avoid the Thanksgiving break too.

But if we have the November one, we're only a week out from the last one.

No, that's two weeks space. November 3 and November 17.

No, from October. October 27. October 27 to November 3 is only one week.

November 3, I wouldn't want to be here. It's election night. Oh, yeah.

All I'm asking is to go to one during breaks where people are allowed to take a break, even us. If we just move... The break ones. During the year, yes, I'm fine having two meetings.

When you say breaks, plural, what are you referring to? Summer and what?

August, I'll even make an allowance for August because we meet the day before school starts, usually.

Usually meet the first week of school.

Yes. So that one, I understand we have to get that one done. And I know we do need to meet during the summer. So all I'm asking is just for one. So during the summer, one. And everything else I figured was fine because those are all happening during the school year. She's saying July.

I'm just saying July.

So right now it's July 14th and July 28th. Are you saying we should eliminate one of those or proposing a whole different date?

If we move it to the middle and make it the 21st, I mean, that would be, I would hope, capture anything that Jason may need. July 21st is a Tuesday?

Yes.

That would be a Tuesday.

Do we have... We try and do the second and fourth, so to make it consistent. Just leave one of those, then.

Well, that's good. I mean, we do them off schedule. I mean, it'd be the 22nd or the 21st would be a month from the June 22nd meeting. And I think that gives even us a nice cushion to, like, have a break.

I would suggest just keep July 14th, and then you're a month away from having to buy both sides.

No, the 21st would be a month from both sides.

For the business, like of staff, the 21st probably is better because people are back at work, closer to being back at work.

Oh, okay.

It's just not the second or fourth Tuesday.

Which we've done. I mean, June 1st and December 1st are also not on schedule.

Well, the March dates I proposed aren't either.

Which we have spring break, which is one of the reasons I would say to avoid it.

Do you have the dates for administrative advance?

That would be the week of the 24th. Sorry. Of what? Of what? Thank you, Patty.

July 29th.

July 29th.

July? So that's another time. Not June. July.

July 29 through... And I mean, if we needed to... 29 and 30. Cabinet absolutely needed to. We would just need a quorum, right? So we could always schedule an emergency meeting if we needed it.

If Jason... A meeting on July 21st sounds... Doable. Okay, yeah. Okay. Having two meetings in August, two meetings in September, two meetings a month, I'm not opposed to that, whatever the board wants to do. I want everybody there for superintendent's awards also, so that's three times a month.

Three times a month?

And then also for State of the District, it doesn't have to be that second or that fourth Tuesday in February. We can make it a different date. We can have a board meeting in February. I just want everybody at the State of the District whenever we do set that date.

Well, the months where we have had two meetings and we've had superintendent awards, it's been okay.

But then we have site visits. I'm just saying I think it kind of clouds our schedules a little bit, and it makes it so that it makes it more difficult for all of us to be at everything, which I'm sure we want to be. If we have two meetings, superintendent's awards, site visits, and any other thing that we, you know, I mean, we also have other committees that we kind of want to go to, want to be at, and I just think we might be overloading ourselves. It was kind of difficult for me this year to make everything. I did have to make some concessions to my schedule. And so I would just like during the summer to have a break because I feel like I didn't get one this year.

I remember also that the board voted to give themselves a raise. So you kind of have an obligation to... And have I missed anything? So if we have two meetings a month, if that's the obligation...

I'm only obligated to be at board meetings, and I'm allowed to miss them, but I've missed almost nothing in the last six years.

I'm not saying you have.

No, I know. I'm just saying. But you're kind of implying that because I took a raise, I need to just...

Oh, you're just saying you want to reduce the amount of meetings so that you have a break.

Over the summer. I'm asking for one less over the summer.

I don't think anyone's saying they won't go for that. One less meeting in the summer.

I don't mind that. If that's the compromise, I would like to try to do as many as is agreeable with the majority. I would like two meetings a month generally, but if we can't make it happen. I think March, we could do March 2nd and 16th because the meeting before the March 2nd really isn't a meeting. It's the state of the district in February, so we could February, we could have one meeting, and then the state of the district at the end, you know, the next two Tuesdays from that, and then March, too, won't work out. That's fine with me.

If we take off the July, I'm fine with an extra in March.

What about May? I'm not here that 16th.

What's your situation with the May? March. I won't be here on the 16th.

What did you say, Michelle? I couldn't hear you.

Did anybody have an option for May? Okay.

May 11th and May 25th.

When is Memorial Day?

Pardon?

Memorial Day is the 24th. I don't know how they change.

May 31st is Memorial Day.

Oh, is it? That's when we get off?

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I wondered about that with Memorial Day and will graduation still be that first week?

Usually it's the first week of June. Do we have the dates for next year already?

For graduation?

We start later, so it's actually later. So it's going to be the second week of June.

Oh, okay.

Then that would work. The last day of school is June 10th.

Next year, the last day of school is June 10th?

Wow. Sheesh.

Wow. Wow. So for May the 11th and the 25th should work?

That does work.

But then we're only a week out from the first.

First?

June 1st meeting.

I have June 8th as the next meeting after that.

June 1st. It was moved up for some reason.

Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong one. Because of graduations.

Because of graduations. Well, no, because he just said the 31st is a holiday. So, oh, graduations, that's why.

So June 7th.

June 1st. June 1st. There's five Tuesdays in June 2027. Yeah, that June 1st is not graduation. I mean the following is graduation. Graduation is the 8th.

It would have to be June 1st.

Or the 15th or the 29th. 15th and 29th. Or the 1st and the 15th? Well, no, you have the 22nd already.

We do need two meetings in June.

I would rather keep those.

If we have two in May, we could get LCAP done without having one in June.

The reason we had two meetings in June was to get LCAP done.

Okay. And budget before the 15th.

So we do need two meetings in June.

We can just leave them as they are because that works around graduation, right?

Yeah, so first graduation, the second week.

It doesn't really matter if we have meetings back-to-back. It's not that, I mean, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

And maybe if we move the May 1 a little further in between the months so that we're not getting too close. I mean, still keep it at 1, but maybe move it so it's not so far. I don't know.

Well, May 11th now, their proposal is to have two. May 11th and May 25th. That's what I thought that was.

The meetings we want, and then we'll go back.

A total number?

25.

No. Sorry, Jason. Just joking.

Did we have anything that second week of May? I thought like we had testing and I thought

Don't we have like... It's a busy month overall. So yeah, there's nothing specific that the board would be required to attend. But staff? But there are... Well, our requirement would be the board meeting. But there's award ceremonies. There's performances. There's... So... That's why we typically don't have the meeting, but it doesn't mean we can't have a meeting. We just would miss those things.

Can we add the second March date then and then leave May as a tentative date?

That doesn't work for me. In March, I'll be gone. If you did the 16th, I'm not there. So if you put the 23rd, I could make the 23rd, but not the 16th.

That's spring break, though.

Oh, that's spring break.

We don't all have to be at every meeting, though.

So February, there's only one on the 9th?

Yes, because of State of the District on the 23rd.

We could do May 11th, May 25th, June 15th, June 29th.

Does that work for the budget? June 15th. Does that work for the budget, Jason?

15th. What was it again? You said May 11th. So then you would prefer June 1st? It just spreads them out. So we got May 11th, May 25th, June 15th, June 29th. That work?

Yeah. Okay. Is that June 5th? That's a Saturday. June 15th. June 15th. Oh, okay. So the whole week of graduation...

It's prior, yeah, and then a board meeting.

And then are we getting rid of, we're doing July 21 only for the month of July?

July 21 only, yes.

August is the same. September is the same. October is the same. November 10th.

There's only one meeting. We're not adding November 17th? No, because we have to move Thanksgiving.

The 10th up, and then we're only a week out from the last October moving.

Thanksgiving's there. That's great.

December 1st and 15th, January 12th, 26th, February 9th, and possibly the 23rd. Is that what we're saying, possibly? No, the state of the district. The state of the district. It's like our workshop. March 2nd only, April 13th.

Wait, I thought on March we said 2nd and 16th.

Yeah. I won't be hearing the 16th. Can we change that? No. No. Well, because of spring break. I mean, spring break. Can we go week, week, week, back-to-back weeks if you have to?

March 2nd and March 9th?

Mm-hmm.

It's up to everybody.

It is a workshop then. If we don't need it, we don't need it. And if we do, we just need a quorum. We turn that workshop into a meeting?

We don't have to be at every single meeting.

I don't think that it would... No, but I think it would be nice to respect everybody's schedule.

We are being respectful, but I'm just saying... A week away, a week of meeting, one week later.

All I'm saying is that I think if Patty is saying she absolutely cannot be there, I think it would be nice to make at least some sort of adjustment. I mean, it would be no different than if you said you couldn't make it. I wouldn't say, well, you don't have to be there. I would say, okay, well, we can explore another date.

Well, when I was going on vacation, I did say that I won't be at this meeting. I didn't ask everybody to change the date for my vacation.

You're here.

What?

You're here. You said today. Not this date. I was talking about a different vacation.

I said I just won't be there on that date.

Okay, so February is the 9th and State of the District on the 23rd. March 2nd could be a workshop. March 9th is the actual meeting. How about that?

March 16 is a workshop then?

March 2nd could be a workshop if we need something to do, you know, if we have to. Yeah, and then the 9th is a regular meeting. April 13th and 27th are meetings. 11th is the retirees and our student reps meeting. May 25th, June 15th, June 29th, and we're done. 11, May 25, June 15, and June 29, you said, right? May 11th, May 25th, June 15th, June 29th, yeah. What was the April 8th? May 13th and 27th. So the only workshop that we have listed on here is March 2nd. Do we need one of those other ones to be a workshop?

Juan says that he picks workshops after we approve this.

Oh, last time we had workshops. Already in.

So that's why I asked.

We're going to have to work in, like, superintendent's evaluation on some of those.

We don't need to do those, actually.

Yeah, unfortunately. I'm sorry.

Can we do that on this?

No. When is your evaluation due?

June.

June.

Well, the mid-year one.

Mid-years can be done in December or in January.

We did do it.

So June is when his...

So the workshop has to be before January because that's when it's due.

And we change the December 1st one to... Because we start July.

We'll just have to add one in June. One of the August ones could be a workshop.

Talking about workshops, whether or not we want to make some workshops.

I don't want to add another date just for another workshop.

One of the August ones could be a workshop.

Because that one's the day before school starts, so I think we need to approve anybody starting last minute. And I don't know about the 25th.

Are we able to change one to a workshop if we need to later?

It's better to put it in as a workshop and then change it back to a meeting?

It'll say proposed workshop. The first, maybe? December 1st?

December?

December 1st.

I'm fine with any of them being a workshop then, whatever you guys want to do.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't we this year, didn't we change the December 1st meeting anyways?

Yes.

So technically that's not something that we're married to. We can always just make that one a workshop.

Summer 1st is a good date to make a workshop, especially because we have CSBA that week. So if we need to meet, we will, and if we don't.

Okay. So you want me to read it again?

Yes, please.

July 21st, August 11th, August 25th, September 8th, September 22nd, October 13th, October 27th, November 10th, December 1st, other than a second Tuesday, and it's a workshop. December 15th, organizational meeting. January 12th, January 26th, February 9th, February 23rd is State of the District. March 2nd is a workshop. April 13th, April 27th, May 11th, May 25th, June 1st, I mean June 15th, I'm sorry, June 29th.

You missed March 9th.

March 9th.

Oh, yes, I did.

March 9th, I did. Wait, June, was June 1st? Yeah, it's 15 now.

June 15th. 15th and the 29th. And the 29th.

15th and the 29th.

All right, that sounds good. Okay. It's very messy. Sorry.

I need a motion for that amended. Second.

Well, I should amend my motion. Technically, I should amend. Yes. Okay. Because I approved it. So I'd like to make a motion to amend our calendar based on what Michelle said. Second.

Okay. Any more discussion? All right. We'll call for the vote.

I'm sorry, who was second? Jeanette? Yes. Thank you. Motion carried. 5-0.

I'm sorry, Consuelo, I didn't hear you.

Motion carried, Fiebel. I'm sorry.

Thank you. Now consent items under educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, do you have any changes or additions?

No changes or corrections. Thank you.

All right. Do I have a motion to approve educational services consent items as listed under 14A through 14E? So moved.

Second.

Thank you, Candy. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? All right, I'll call for the vote.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Action items under educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, any changes or additions?

Not tonight, thank you.

I have a motion to approve educational services action items listed under 15A through 15E.

So moved. Second.

Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Melissa. Any discussion? Call for the vote.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Do you have a motion to approve new board policy 5131.8, mobile communication devices? First reading. So moved. I'll make the second. Thank you, Jeanette. Any discussion?

Well, I just had a question based on some of the community feedback. Is an AR required for every policy?

Technically, no. We have the practice of bringing ARs for board approval. However, ARs are not technically – they don't technically need board approval. It's good practice, though. I'm not suggesting that we not do that. When a board policy is passed, the AR can come after, and it just speaks to how it's going to be implemented and cannot go against whatever the policy says. So it just has to be in line with the board policy.

Because I thought that was good input as far as teachers making different decisions about cell phone usage and kids using that.

I think I've said this before. Implementing this policy is going to be super challenging, which is why I made the suggestion that we bring experts to the table and see what they suggest. That meant bringing teachers and staff so that they're the ones that have to put this into practice. Even with, I guess what I'm saying in short, is any policy that we implement or implement, However process we want to follow, it's going to get challenged. Kids are smarter than us, and we'll have to just figure out how to best support our teachers and our staff in trying to get students not to have their cell phones out.

We did have teachers look at this, correct? That was the last? Yes.

Well, I like this a lot better than before. I appreciate all of the changes very much. I did have one minor, just two minor suggestions that shouldn't change it enough to go back. But I just thought in the section on one, two, three... The third paragraph, it's talking about TK through 8. And then it talks in that paragraph about being placed on the silent setting and not being visible. And then on the... fourth paragraph we're talking about grades nine through twelve and I just would recommend like the fifth paragraph should just be part of that fourth one the devices shall be placed on silent since it goes with that group just like a previous one did so I would recommend bringing this sentence that says devices shall be placed on silent and not visible during the instructional time I would just recommend bringing that up to the back of the previous paragraph That's my first recommendation. And then down towards the end, after the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, then you have 1, 2, 3, the third paragraph after the numbers. It's a little bit wordy, so I just felt like we should say on that top first sentence of that paragraph, maybe say where it says, except. and then say in the following cases or situations, and then a colon, because the rest of the language that follows is quite lengthy. I just thought that might be an easier read if we did that. What one? So will you see the one through four in the middle of the page? So then you go down to the one, two, the third paragraph. I feel like the third paragraph's pretty lengthy, like a very wordy sentence. So I just felt like if we said on that top line of it, we would just say the student's parent slash guardian except in the following colon. And then listed all of those situations that are listed. So that's it for my suggestions. I appreciate cleaning up the language a lot. It makes it way better the way that now it's just devices, much cleaner. So I appreciate your time.

I just have one comment, maybe directed to Assistant Superintendent Mrs. Buck-Miller. What grade do students start getting phones? Because it says TK to 8.

I guarantee you there's a 5-year-old. Do you have students of all ages that have cell phones?

Really? I guarantee you a five-year-old in our school has a phone.

Wow.

Okay.

I can't believe these kids have them.

Middle school for sure.

A new middle school for sure, and probably fifth grade, but... They may not all, the younger ones may not have access to the internet, but they can still use it for calls and texting, games.

Who has phones at five years old?

Parents that are worried.

Would those changes necessitate bringing it back?

Looking at them, it's really just about wording, and it's not actually adding any language. It's just shifting it around, so it's not really changing any meaning. So I don't see any significant changes that would require us to have to bring back as a first read. With those changes, if everybody's okay with them, then we would bring it back as a second read, but we would just make those changes. This is a first read. Oh, because it changed so much from the first time? No, no, no. Yeah, because it did change significantly from the last time. So this is technically a first read. If it's approved as it is right now, then it'll come back on the 28th as a second read.

But are we in agreement?

Yeah, I'm hearing from everybody that we're in agreement with the changes that have been discussed tonight.

I just had a quick, really quick, in that portion that Candy had brought up, when a school official in good faith believes that the emergency involving danger, death, or serious physical injury to the student or others requires access, it doesn't have to do with the policy necessarily, but as part of the AR, I guess, the implementation of it, would we be able to ensure that... I'm just a little concerned for the staff member in a situation where they do go in for access. I don't know if there's a way that they can verify with another staff member so that, like, two people are aware of it. I just think it would be a little weird that someone could just say, oh, well, I had good faith and have somebody challenge that.

Kind of like the searches. We always have two staff there.

I think it's just a good practice to make sure that there are two people.

We'd be able to describe it, but generally speaking, anything that has to do with the search would have to go under all the parameters of a search, which for us, we're not allowed to just grab somebody's...

No, I know.

Or even look at somebody's back.

Yeah, I would never just want one person to be questioned as to whether their good faith was actually in good faith or if it was done maliciously if someone accused them of doing it in a malicious fashion. Yeah.

But if you're saying that, you know, I mean, there's so many scenarios that are going through my head, but, like, if somebody, the kid doesn't want to listen, and they just grab their cell phone out of their hands, and, you know, they're trying to say that I did that all in good faith because they weren't listening to me, it's probably going to be a problem because they shouldn't have grabbed it out of the student's hand.

No, but this is just the search of the phone. Yeah. The search of the phone, not confiscation of the phone, but searching through the phone.

Yeah, even today, we just are not allowed to just, nobody can just look in somebody's phone. We would just follow the same guidelines we follow now, but those can be described as we implement it specifically.

Thank you.

Motion carried, 5-0.

Do I have a motion to approve new administrative regulation 5141.5, mental health first read?

So moved. Second.

I'll second, but I just have a question. Um, it was in regards to what we brought up about, um, parents having access to, um, a student's records. If they're not the non-custodial parent, I just want to make sure that everything does say parent slash guardian. I'm not sure what that section was.

More says it. Parent slash guardian.

In our SIS, there is educational rights. That's who we speak to. It's not parent or guardian because you can have parent guardians that are not educational rights holders.

Right.

So what we're speaking about, we would never speak to just anybody. It's always people who hold the educational rights to the student, which is the legal guardian.

I just wanted to make sure that it didn't just say parents when it should say, you know, just trying to be clear.

So it should say, are you saying it should say then based on that input legal parent slash guardian?

Yeah, what I'm saying is we don't now speak to let anybody make educational decisions without being identified within our SIS. There's lots of policies throughout our board that refers to parent guardian, but that's still not who we speak to. Generally, your parent or guardian is the one who holds ed rights, but not all the time. Our staff speak to the ed rights holders. Does that make sense? You can spell that out here, but it would be unique to this policy when we hold the same rule to all our policies. For everything.

I see what you're saying. Okay.

I did have one thing. Under 8, evaluation and continuous improvement, the word may, superintendent may conduct an annual needs assessment, and then he may conduct an annual evaluation. But then at the bottom, it says a summary of the results is reported to the governing board annually. Well, if he may, and he didn't do it, Like if it's an option and he didn't do it, then there's no report at the end. So do we want him to conduct an annual needs assessment and annual evaluation? Do we want that to happen?

Well, you could just say a summary of results may be reported.

Or if an evaluation is done, a summary of the report.

I thought we had already discussed because it's done not only at the site level. I believe we talked about it in the committee. It was done not only at the site level, but it was also done through the district. So the district, I believe that was the report that was going to be given to us, but... I don't know if this one, if it speaks to the same thing.

It says superintendent or designee.

I'm still here. Oh, I see what you're saying, Melissa. Where it says the second little paragraph, each school site and district level team routinely review referral.

That was the language we changed.

Yeah, so that doesn't really... sound exactly like what the summary of results would be. We could put a summary of results of the...

I think it's just, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a separate assessment rather than the referral volume, response times, and outcomes, correct?

It would be, it looks like if the superintendent did one, it would be more detailed, it sounds, it looks like.

Yeah, Melissa is correct, it's a separate assessment. The superintendent may conduct an annual evaluation. And if the superintendent does want that, then the results would be reported to the governing board. I think it is solved by changing the word in the bottom paragraph as a summary of results may be reported. Okay. That makes sense.

Well, I think they should be reported if the evaluation's done.

Yeah, we had changed the language so that it did. It was coming to us. But I think the superintendent's assessment is separate from the referral volume one. So this is in addition to.

A summary of superintendent's evaluation results will be reported to the governing board. I don't know. That allows you more flexibility.

It's just part of it says may, and then the other part said is.

I think it just, my understanding of it is if there is a report that is initiated by our superintendent, that is then reported to the board.

That's what Jeanette's trying to say is, then do we put that on there? If there is a summary of results, then it will be reported to the board? Instead of like...

It shall be.

May means that if there is a summer report, I don't necessarily have to...

I'm not giving it to you. Where does it say May? It says it is reported to the governing board.

Oh, I know, but there was a couple of suggestions. One was May, which would go with... The top part that says may. But if that stays as may have a report done or an annual evaluation done, then the bottom one would say if that happens, then it goes to the board.

So you want the bottom to say a summary of results may be reported to the government?

If an evaluation is completed, the summary of results will be reported to the board.

It will be. This sounds nicer.

That kind of implies assessment or evaluation is done.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we understand what we're trying to say. If there's a report, the board gets it.

Okay. I had a couple. Just one minor thing was on the last page there with those bullet points, right, in that area we were talking about. Okay. On the second two sets of bullet, actually all sets of bullet points on this page in particular, they all have semicolons, which I didn't think was, didn't seem normal to me with bullet points use. And then like on the other page, the page on the left, there's like periods, like homeless youth period periods. Bullet points usually don't have periods because they're not complete sentences. So I would get rid of... There's a couple with periods, like the first three bullet points on the left page. And then the others don't have periods. So I would just clean it up. No, the last one doesn't.

The last one does, and the first one does.

Bullets shouldn't have periods or semicolons or colons. Just minor thing. And then the only major thing I had... regarding my recommendation for this policy was on the third page of it. I didn't like the under number one collaborative approach. On the third bullet point there, the requirement of parental notification would act as a barrier to care causing the student to reject or cease necessary treatment due to fear of the parent's reaction. To me, that's not a reasonable or strong enough reason to not include a parent. And who's to say what necessary treatment is? I think the parent is in charge of whether or not there's necessary treatment. The school is really not the ultimate authority on what is necessary for a child's care. So I would remove that bullet point. That would be my suggestion as an example. Those are just examples anyway, so it's not necessary to the body of the

When I was rereading this after our meeting, when it came out in print, to me that whole area, parent, guardian, notification, and consent, the collaborative approach really could just be put into the first paragraph. I mean, some of it is very redundant to what's in the first paragraph. like the second bullet, is basically saying the exact same thing as what's in the first paragraph. I thought we had gone over that.

I know.

But, like I said, when I saw it in print and read through it and see the redundancy, that I just think it should be combined. Because, look, it goes into parent, guardian, notification, and consent, then collaborative approach, then notification, consent, And it's just, there's quite a bit of redundancy. I don't really think we need the examples because one example is just a restatement. The first example I think is strong, but could be just combined up into one paragraph, that first paragraph.

I would agree with that. Are you talking under collaborative approach? Yes. The first bullet? Yeah. And delete what?

Well, the second one is just a restatement, and then the third one is, to me, is also a weak example because it's so vague.

Weren't you on this committee? Pardon? Weren't you on this committee? Yes.

For the third time, after I see it in print and read it again, that's my input. This was a very burdensome policy to begin with. I mean, we've made a huge amount of progress. But yeah, that's my input.

Well, there's significant changes that are being proposed. And so it would take a discussion here on the dais to decide to accept the changes or not. So what I'm suggesting is that there's been a motion for this a second. So now I would ask Member Olson to who made the motion?

Member Wilson.

So Member Wilson, the motion, like Member Olson could say to Member Wilson, are you willing to amend your motion to include my changes? Then you have to accept it. And then if you accept it, then somebody can second that. And then if we get a second, then the motion now becomes the new version of

We already had an opportunity to see this in the committee, but this is already late. No, it's due in July. No, it was due in January.

It is late. We said that before. But what I'm trying to do is just trying to guide us because what... What could happen is we could end up not having anything decided, or let's go to a committee again, or we can spend the time we need to here to finalize. But the only way to know if somebody accepts a change or not is to vote on it, is to just say yes or no, I accept that change. And then we can move on to the next change. We can, like, we have to, otherwise we won't have any, like, conclusion to this discussion.

So do you want to just vote on?

So what has to happen is, like, Jeanette needs to accept Candy's changes. And then there's got to be a second. Right. So for future reference, if we have changes to something, we should motion for it to... Well, we haven't really done this in this way because... Well, no, because we typically end up not passing anything. We typically end up having to bring it back. I'm trying to see if we can go from a first read to a second read.

So I make a motion to Jeanette to amend her motion. Is that right?

Accept my changes. Accept my changes.

Yes, I accept your changes.

Is there a second to the amended motion?

To the amended motion. Second?

You can second it, yes. Okay, I'll second it. Okay, there's a second. Now we have on the table an amendment. So that means that this, what you see in print, is different. What the suggestion was is that under Section 4.1, Bullet 3, it be deleted. So now what we would be voting on is this policy without Section 4.1, Bullet 3.

And I thought you said the second bullet, combine it with the other paragraph.

The first bullet.

Now that's a separate change. Okay. So that change has been accepted. That's what's on the table now. If Jeanette wants to make another change, then she can amend her own motion now. to include the changes that you want to see. And then we need a second for that. And then that will be the new thing that everybody is voting on. Ultimately, what I'm trying to get us to is to a place where we're going to have a vote. And if you don't agree with the changes, you just vote no. And if you agree with the changes, you vote yes. And in this way, if we get three votes, we have a policy. If we don't, then we'll have to bring it back anyway. But it'll save us probably... 30 minutes tonight.

But you're saying with the way the vote's proceeding, if we have three votes, we actually don't have a policy because then it'll be pulled for revision?

No.

So it's to push it through with changes like that? Yes.

That doesn't seem... It's just removing one example. It's not the policy. It's an example.

Oh, it's deleting a whole section and then moving that second bullet into the first paragraph.

No, that's not what's on the docket right now. That was a separate thing.

One example.

Section 4, number 1, bullet 3.

Oh, I get that, but... Requirement parental notification.

It is. And so now, Jeanette, are you wanting to amend yours to the changes you want?

Don't we have to vote on that one first?

No, no, no, no. We're not voting. You just accepted the motion. The vote in the end is for the policy itself.

All of it?

Yes.

Oh, yes. I would like to amend my motion to delete bullet two and combine... bullet 1 into the first paragraph.

Of section 4.1?

Yes.

No, you said delete bullet 3.

She's suggesting another change. This is a different thing.

But that was the first change that was made, suggested. So why are we going back to...

So the motion was amended and seconded. Now we no longer have section 4.1 bullet 3. Okay, we're still in discussion mode. Jeanette wants to amend her own motion now to also take section four, one, bullet two and delete that and take bullet number one and incorporate that into the paragraph.

So there won't be any bullets there. Correct. So Candy's saying to entirely get rid of bullet three.

Already gotten rid of it.

Okay, and then... And now Jeanette is wanting to take out... And put two into that paragraph.

Yes.

Because it's already up in the top.

So she's amending her motion. Did I get that correct? Yes. Okay, is somebody going to second that? I'll second it. Okay, now we have the policy now. If we were to call the vote right now, you would be voting on this policy in its entirety without section four, number one, bullets two and three. And the first bullet would be incorporated into that paragraph. And also we would clean up the summary report, the annual summary report.

It just doesn't make any sense because it says a non-existent, exhaustive list of common examples where parental involvement may be deemed inappropriate includes situations where, and then it lists them. So if that's the case, the entire paragraph needs to be reworded.

So what has to happen is you can make that suggestion. I don't want to make. Yeah, but we've experienced this. I'm just trying to help us.

No, I know. I know. I just, but like the new motion doesn't necessarily make sense is what I'm saying. But okay, we'll just do what we're going to do.

Well, we have to work the wording in and that might change. Yeah.

Conceptually or like the way that it's being proposed right now, would we have to wordsmith it? Yes, but it's not going to change what you're voting on. What you're voting on is clear here in front of you. You're deleting section 4.1, bullets 2 and 3.

Yeah, but that's changing.

It is. That's changing. So if you don't agree with the change, you vote no.

I understand that. But for me, there's a committee that put in time, including yourself and yourself and other people who are on this committee.

Totally understand which the board could decide to table this and do another committee. They could stay. I'm just trying to get us to vote. And if it doesn't pass, then we come back. If it passes, then we move forward.

So without us doing anything, this collaborative approach, the paragraph would get cleaned up. Because right now it says it's referring to these bullets. And so that would just get cleaned up to reflect?

It would get cleaned up to delete bullets two and three, and the first bullet would be incorporated into the paragraph.

Okay. The last sentence in that paragraph needs to be gone.

Yeah, and it would be wordsmith.

But I look at it as a committee came together to do this, which I understand it changes, but there was a purpose for those bullets that are there. And it would be, I wasn't there, but he said there's conversations, but I'm saying they're going to go back and say, hey, what were we, chopped liver? We didn't get it. Our input was in there and you took it out. I don't know why you're laughing, Candy. I'm just saying.

I'm not laughing. I just find the logic. Yeah, I wasn't on the committee, so I don't necessarily agree with everybody else. I don't think I'm obligated to agree. I think I'm obligated to be my own.

I'm not saying that you need to agree.

You're just saying that we're mocking people who put work onto something.

I didn't say we're mocking them. We're not taking their time. Time is valuable.

Yes, it is. I have a question. It's better than it was before, for sure.

By taking these parts out? Does that do anything legally? Because I know legally there's parts you have to have in there. So taking it out doesn't do anything legally. It's just providing examples.

Those are examples.

I think out of respect, I'd like to pull to bring the committee back.

We have to vote on the current motion.

Okay, we'll vote for this and then...

The current motion has to be seen through.

Yeah, and if it does, okay. Call for the vote, Michelle.

And call for the vote.

May I just point out one thing? It's really... I mean, like I said, the second bullet is totally redundant to wording in the first paragraph. So it's changing one thing that the committee had left in the third bullet.

You and I sat there, and I even asked you as we were wrapped up, because we finished in a relatively reasonable amount of time. It was rather easy to get through these. I even asked you if you or anyone else had any notes on any other areas, and you said no.

I understand Jeanette's point, because sometimes when you read something after it's all been moved and whatever, and then you read it and you go, oh, that's...

But that's the point of working on committee, that you have an opportunity. You had our notes from the last meeting. I know staff went through the meeting, and that wasn't even brought up in the first meeting. We went through everything, and I just think it was... How are we going to... The whole point of having the committee was so we can work through these things, and now on the dais, you're going to go ahead and change it without even trying to pull it back to work it back into the committee.

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

Do we have a motion to approve new board policy 5141.5, mental health first read?

I have some suggestions, so I don't know. Do we have a motion to approve it?

I need a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, now discussion. Anything that we changed in the other part reflected in here somewhere that needs to be changed?

I had a few things. I found that this particular policy was very redundant and wordy. I would personally don't even think that like the third and fourth paragraph are necessary. But for example, like under information and training, I think that the last paragraph there under information and training should, additionally and annually, I think that should go underneath the first paragraph because It seems all related to that. That's just a minor suggestion. And then under information and training, the second paragraph, it seems like it should be more appropriate to go under information. Because it's talking about the superintendent and designee shall provide school staff and students with information. And that seems to go much better down here under the information category where it says at least twice per year the superintendent or designee to do the training and information. It seems like that paragraph would be better suited under information. I also had on the next page... Under mental health counseling and referrals, then you go down to those numbered items. Number two directly contradicts the AR because here it says it's to be used as an alternative to disciplinary action. And in our AR, it clearly says it will not, it says referrals shall not be used as a substitute for disciplinary action. So I think that we should stick with the idea that referrals should not be used as a substitute for discipline. Since that's what we just passed in our AR, it should match, our BP should match. Because one says it will and one be used as an alternative and one says it won't.

So the second one, let's just think through it. It says the district specific referral protocols shall adhere to ed code, blah, blah, blah. Reflect a multi-tiered system of support process and positive behavioral interventions and supports.

What are you talking? You're on mental health counseling and referrals?

Yeah. It says to be used as an alternative to disciplinary action.

As appropriate.

As appropriate.

What number are you talking?

Two, number two. And I don't think that I personally don't agree with that either. I agree with what our AR says, where it shouldn't be used as an alternative to disciplinary action.

Where is that? Do you know what page?

Well, there's no pages, but it is the second page on the AR that we just passed. It says referrals shall not be used as a substitute for discipline.

Wait, wait, wait. Let's finish that one. Okay. Where is it on that page?

After the first set of bullet points, the next sentence after the first set of bullet points.

Oh, okay. Right there. So it says, referrals shall not be used as a substitute for discipline, special education identification, or emergency services. Okay. Do you have anything to weigh in, Patty?

I think they're referring to two slightly different things. Yeah. Just in reading them, right? So the first, the AR is referring to a mental health referral.

Referral, yeah.

Right? This is referring to the multi-tiered system support and a positive behavioral intervention, right? So when you implement an MTSS system or a PBIS system, their whole intent is to try to reach the student in multiple ways, in multiple levels, right? as opposed to limit behavior, right, to improve behavior. I think one's referring to a system of support, and the AR is referring to mental health referral.

Well, it's under the category of the district special referral protocol, so it's under referral.

I see it's weird sitting there, but I think bullet two is referring to a process. And the AR is referring to a mental health referral.

Well, it's listed under referral. I know.

I'm just saying I think there are two different kinds of referrals.

It's under the same title, which makes it confusing, but it's referring to two different things. Oh.

All right, and the last thing I had was on the last page. The last sentence, I feel very strongly that we should have the superintendent or designee, only with explicit approval from the board, be able to expand or enroll in federal, state, and county-level billable services.

Well, yeah, isn't that how it would be anyway?

No, it says that they can do that. A superintendent can do it on their own, may expand or enroll in federal, state, and county. I just would like as an extra safeguard, there's a lot of talk about CYBHI, and I think that we need to be sure and explicit and know if our superintendent... We did have a discussion about that in the committee, and...

I would like to expand on your issue with the CYBHI grant because we had a conversation about that. And just because our superintendent shall explore funding doesn't mean that he can enter into that contract without the board's approval.

I understand, but then it comes to the board for a vote and then we're having to decline it.

So why does he have to talk to us before finding that funding?

I think it's a big deal, and we should be on board with that process before applying to all the enrolling.

But we don't do that. That's his job. So what is your issue with the CYBHI funding?

That's not a conversation for right now. Conversation for right now.

Are we not discussing this? If you want to change the language, you specifically mentioned it. I want to know.

I think it's a big deal, and we can talk about that later. We can't, actually.

We have to have this conversation now.

No, I'm talking about CYBHI.

Well, I already explained it in our committee meeting. You brought it up. I didn't. You brought it up.

That doesn't mean I think we should have a lengthy conversation right now when that's not the purpose of this point. The purpose, I think, that we should be on board with even the superintendent enrolling or expanding in federal billable services.

She'll explore.

It doesn't mean that... Or enroll in federal, state, and county-level billable services. She's talking about the last sentence, not the first one.

I'm just talking about the last sentence. I think that it should say with board approval, if you disagree, that's okay.

It would always be with board approval. He can't enter into any contract without the board approval.

And then it comes to us, and then like a lot of things.

So if we have a program that we are able to get funded with a, let's just say the CYBHI funding, he needs to check with us before?

It's kind of a big deal, that one. That's not just like regular routine operation. It's not at all. It's a big deal.

And I would like to expand on that.

I don't. It's not for this day, Melissa. We can talk about it later.

Well, and there could be other programs, too.

No, we can't. Like, this is the point. This is the opportunity for us to have this discussion. Whether or not we agree with that. But here's the thing.

Okay. No, but here's the thing.

We did discuss this in the committee. We very specifically discussed this section.

But Candy wasn't there. That's why she's discussing this now.

I understand that, but no one else should really say anything about it because we had this discussion and the whole point of us doing the committee was that the board authorized two people to make these changes. Well, the committee can never be the final.

You must misunderstand the point of a committee.

Excuse me, I don't misunderstand anything, but I do want to have a conversation about why you're picking on this specific funding when the superintendent doesn't do anything without our approval. So suggesting otherwise or suggesting we deny funding from our students because of what? Why would we deny our, what's the problem with CYBHI?

There's a lot of problems with it.

Does it say CYBHI?

No. No, but that's what that's talking about.

So then that's a separate conversation we would have with the superintendent, but it doesn't mean he can't explore other options.

That's fine. We disagree. It's fine. Would you like that to say... At the very end, without board approval, would that help you? I would like that, yeah. Would that help you?

Yeah, you could do that too. Right? Yeah.

Right. So just take it out, and then it's the same thing.

Okay, so that's what you're asking, to take that sentence out? The last sentence, yes. I'll be fine with that, too.

That is the only thing in the board policy.

Well, I guess we're going to leave that. This is minor, but number five on that second, whatever, second. One, two, third page. I'm not sure why we always are saying what the definition of evidence-based means. I think we should scratch what the definition, everyone knows what the definition is of evidence-based, but that's just super minor. If you guys don't care, then that's fine. It's just like adding a definition of a word that everybody knows the meaning to already. Yeah, but not everyone knows it. Oh, well, a lot of people do.

A lot of them don't.

Okay, then we should have a glossary at the end of our appendices here. Maybe we should. Maybe we should have an appendix.

All right, any more discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote with this change.

So you didn't like any of the suggestions about reorganization?

I didn't write anything on here, so that's why I asked you if there was something else.

I mean, that wouldn't change the content.

Yeah, it doesn't change anything. It's just moving this paragraph down here where it belongs under information.

So that's your opinion that it belongs there?

Where it seems to belong because it's talking about the same exact thing. So under information and training, the second paragraph, it appears to go right along the lines of what it's talking about under information. So I'm not changing any wording or removing anything. I just think it would be more appropriate there.

Well, it says superintendent or designee shall provide school staff and students with information and training. It goes under information and training. Whatever.

It can go either way. There's a lot of crossover because, again, this thing is extremely wordy. Very lengthy. Yeah.

Okay, so are you okay with that strike in that one sentence? Okay. All right, we'll call for the vote.

Are we calling for just the striking of the thing, or what are we doing?

No, technically to follow the same procedure. Who made the motion?

I think I did.

Jeanette needs to accept the amended version of the policy, which is to strike that. Do you accept it?

No, I accept the amended version. I'll second that.

Now we're voting on the policy without that very last sentence, with the last sentence deleted. Yes. Did you catch that? The amendment?

Yeah.

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

Okay. Do we have a motion to take action to determine the appeal of instructional material, the Holy Bible King James Version? We have a motion.

So moved. Second.

Thank you, Kendi. Thank you, Jeanette. All right. Any discussion on this?

Well, I would like to state that I don't feel that it's hypocritical whatsoever, because while the Holy Bible does reference sex, it speaks in a manner that is not sexually explicit or graphic, and it says words like laywith and whatnot, whereas something in the previous books that were mentioned are very sexually explicit with explicit content, so... I definitely do not want the Holy Bible removed because it is not sexually explicit or graphic.

And I'm grateful to support the committee's recommendation to keep the Bible in our school libraries. As a Catholic Christian, I am humbly proud of my faith, just as I'm sure others are proud of their different faiths. The Bible does contain complex and at times challenging passages, for sure. At the same time, it's widely recognized as a foundational text with significant historical, literary, and cultural values. Evaluating it required careful consideration of its full context and purpose rather than isolated excerpts. Again, I want to thank this committee for all their valuable time. Thank you.

Do I get to talk now? Okay, so obviously the intent of this challenge was not to actually remove the Bible because no one's actually going to remove the Bible. But it did obviously point out the hypocrisy of this board because why are we going to uphold the superintendent's recommendations or the committee's recommendations for this book but not others when other books were deemed appropriate but we just threw that out the window. And... I think it is a little weird that we're talking about this book when there are other Bibles that I'm sure would be up for question. And I know no one's going to challenge them because no one's going to pick on a religion like that. So, I mean, if we were talking about the Koran, I'm sure we would have issue with that. At least some people would. But what's in front of us isn't necessarily about banning it, but I think there does need to be a conversation about whether restricting it for certain age groups. Because there's not exactly... What I'm going to bring up is a conversation I had with a board member a few years ago when we first started talking about book banning. And I had asked that board member if they thought that the Bible was appropriate for our students to be reading, and they told me no. But here we are, having the same conversation, and clearly that has changed. So I want to bring up what is in the Bible. And yes, from my understanding, the committee did not read the entire text. It was sections of it. Am I correct in that?

One committee member has read the Holy Bible in its entirety.

After it was not in their lifetime.

I think recently, okay, I am on the committee and did not read the entire Holy Bible. I read the book of Genesis.

Okay. So we are talking about... But we're not supposed to judge on certain excerpts. We're supposed to take the book in its entirety, correct? That is one of the questions on the challenge. Okay. So when we're talking about what's appropriate, tell me if we're supposed to be, if appropriate, is violence and genocide, sexual violence and rape, misogyny and the objectification of women, slavery and servitude, incest, child abuse and sacrifice, extreme vengeance and cruelty, and cannibalism. So do those sound appropriate for... our elementary school kids. And I want to just stress this. This is not me asking to ban the Bible. However, I really want to highlight this board's decision making because you guys want to claim that you're protecting children and you are the utmost authority to do that. Whereas I'm going to say, if a parent wants their kid to read the Bible, then by all means, I have no issue with that. What I'm not going to do is sit here and ban books like other people. So can I get answers as to if you think all those things that I listed are appropriate for an elementary school child to read?

What the challenge... Book policy is removing anything with sexually explicit and graphic, sexually graphic material. So stoning of women isn't... That's not sexually graphic at all.

No, it included violence. It included violence.

But that is not descriptive. It included violence. That is not descriptive.

Our policy says sexual violence.

It's not sexual in any way, shape, or form.

So... I love how you guys get to dance around this.

That is what the challenge...

On the rubric, it states age and developmental suitability. And are the materials appropriate for the current placement? So is that looked at in terms of high school?

Yes. The King James version that was challenged only exists at the comprehensive high schools currently.

But that doesn't mean that it couldn't go to the elementary. No, but that's the... So isn't that a conversation we should probably have then?

That's the perspective that we had. It is part of the policy for the board to decide... where the book should be if it's to remain so it is an appropriate question to say if it exists right now at the comprehensive high schools are we saying keep the holy bible only in our comprehensive high schools or are we going to say something different or are we going to say it can exist at every single so i do agree that that's an appropriate question to ask as a result of the decision but the context that we are using is that it exists at our comprehensive high schools

I don't mind if it was at the elementary school or middle schools either. The Bible should be in every library. Children read the Bible at Sunday school all the time. There's nothing sexually explicit or sexually graphic in the Bible.

Would you have, and this is just me asking a question, would you have an issue with the Koran being at the elementary school?

We are not to discriminate about religious preferences. All I wanted was an answer.

Thank you.

As a Catholic, yeah, as a Catholic, the Bible should stay. What I'm appalled at is that the time it took for our superintendent, who is extremely busy, is here tonight at 9.45 p.m. And for those who did the rubric, I thank you for the time that you took. But it's going to happen every single time we come on a book, and they're going to have to sit there and read it and go through and give their opinion and the rubric on it. What a waste of time.

So because somebody put in a book challenge for something that everybody knows we're not going to remove just to come and waste our time, that's not what you're talking about. You're saying this is a waste of time because of a prior book policy which removes basically literary pornography for our children to read.

In your opinion, that's the difference. Because what we're talking about is a policy that does not allow for a parent to make their decisions for their own child. We have gone and made ourselves the utmost authority for book reading in this district when that should not be the case. It should be the parent. So I don't care what you and your kids read, but you have absolutely no right to mine.

You still have the right to read those books at your house, Melissa. And also... Are you going to purchase them for me? Please don't interrupt me. You interrupted me. Also, no, I'm not interrupting you. Most parents, which I found on the... Anytime I talk about this subject with anybody, most parents do not know the... incredibly graphic content that is in their school libraries for their kids so yeah that's true that a parent can come along and say I don't want my child to check this out but there are thousands of titles and the parents don't know which titles there are and which ones are the ones they wouldn't approve of or not so therefore we can't have harmful material just because a parent doesn't know about it and can't so why wouldn't we be able to why couldn't you provide that information

What are you talking about? You just said a parent doesn't know what's in our library, what could be harmful. What I'm saying is that what else could we be doing to inform parents? I mean, our libraries are online, so what else could we be doing?

We don't need harmful material. Three out of five of us agree that it's harmful, Melissa.

Because you say it's harmful does not mean it is.

Well, three of five of us think it is.

And that means that you get to make the decision for everyone in this district.

Well, I would like to say that I truly hope and pray that the policy continues to be used for the sincerely intended purpose. It's a majority of the city appreciates getting rid of sexually graphic books, and I hope it doesn't continue to be used to make a point because it's also then just making a point that people in the community want to just waste valuable time.

But my question is, why do you guys get to decide which committee recommendation we get to listen to? What are you talking about? Because the last recommendations that came to us were to keep the books, and we just disregarded that.

Would we have that right? Yeah, because we have the policy that says sexually explicit material. And that book had sexually explicit material in it.

Okay, but this also has adult content.

It's not sexually explicit.

So then that's when we get into the weeds about what is deemed to be sexually explicit. We get into language.

Graphic and sexually explicit, it's pretty clear.

For the record, I just want to thank our certificated, wonderful librarians that we have who work very, very hard to keep our books. And I want to thank them for all the work that they do.

Are we ready to call for the vote on this?

I need to just clarify. So the motion was to... Take action to determine the appeal. Okay, so there actually has to be a motion on what to do. Oh, okay.

So either keep the book... It was just to take action to determine the appeal.

So now somebody has to actually motion to either keep the book, keep the book at certain levels, or...

I motion to keep the book and if a librarian allow it in any level of schooling, elementary, middle, or high school, if a librarian chooses to place it in there. I'll second that.

Okay. Any more discussion? All right. We'll call for the vote.

Motion carried. Five-0.

Okay, we're halfway through, everyone.

Okay. Moving on to human resources consent items. Mrs. Bruick, any changes or additions? No changes or additions. Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve human resources consent items as listed under 16A through 16C?

So moved. I'll second.

All right. Thank you, Patty. And I seconded. Any discussion? You're welcome. No discussion? I'll call for the vote.

Motion carried.

Five-0. Okay. On to Human Resources Action Items. Mrs. Brooke, any changes or additions?

I don't have any changes, but I wanted to offer a clarification for 17F. On the Management Team Salary Schedule, We have a change on there that we wanted to bring forward, but I wanted to make sure that it was clear that it notes at the very top a 1.5% increase. That increase was for the last negotiation cycle. I just didn't want it to be confused or interpreted that there was an additional increase. There is no increase to that salary schedule. It's just a correction at the very bottom of the page to remove an asterisk.

Do you understand that?

Yes.

So we'll start with A. Do we have a motion to ratify or adopt revised resolution number 2025-2026-3, action regarding teaching outside credential authorization?

Moved.

Second. Thank you, Candy. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? Oh, it was Jeanette. Jeanette. Okay. Any discussion? Call for a vote.

Motion carried. Fievel?

Do I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between Redlands Unified School District, RUSD, and Redlands Educational Support Professionals Association, RESPA, effective July 1, 2026?

So moved.

Second.

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

Thank you all for the hard work on negotiations.

I kicked out. It's being sent back.

Huh?

I'm sending it again.

Sending it back to redo because it got kicked out.

It was recorded. There's five votes. Yeah.

Did it catch it now?

Five votes.

Mine says five votes, aye.

Motion carried, 5-0.

All right, moving on. We have a motion to ratify approved collective bargaining agreement addendum between the Redlands Unified School District, RUSD, and Redlands Teachers Association, CTA, NEA, RTA. Effective July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028, and public disclosure of proposed collective bargaining agreement in accordance with AB 1200.

So moved. Backhand.

Patty, thank you. Candy, any discussion?

Again, thank you to our negotiations team and everyone who was out there all the time and hard work they put on. Very happy. I wish it was more.

Call for the vote.

Motion carried. 5-0.

Moving along. Do I have a motion to ratify or approve collective bargaining agreement addendum between the Redlands Unified School District, RUSD, and Redlands Education Support Professionals Association, CTA, NEA, RESPA. Effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028, and public disclosure of proposed collective bargaining agreement in accordance with AB 1200.

Widely approved.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

Thank you to the negotiations team. Appreciate all the hard work.

Call for the vote.

Motion carried. Five-0.

All right. I get a motion to approve a one-time off-schedule payment for management team members and executive cabinet in a paid status on April 14, 2026, in alignment with other employee groups' agreements. Equal to 2% of each employee's base pay for the 25-26 school year and increase the district's maximum contribution to health and welfare benefits by $2,000. Effective July 1, 2026.

Gladly approve.

I'll second.

Any discussion? Thank you for your hard work, management team. All right, we'll call for the vote.

Motion carried. Fievel?

Do I have a motion to approve revisions to the management team salary schedule For the 2025-2026 school year effective April 15, 2026. And that's the 1.5% you're referring to.

So moved.

Second. And do you use a second? Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Candy. Any discussion on this? Call for the vote.

Motion carried. Fievel?

I have a motion to approve revision of Administrative Regulation 4229, Volunteers to Administrative Regulation 1240, Volunteer Assistance, the second and final read.

I'll move approval.

Second. Any discussion? All right, well, No discussion? Okay, we'll call for the vote.

President Rendler, was it Patty that moved? Yes. Okay, thank you.

Motion carried. Five-0. Okay. I have a motion to approve revision of Board Policy 4229, Volunteers to Board Policy 1240, Volunteer assistant, second and final read. Didn't I just do that?

So moved.

Oh, that was the administrator.

Yeah. Second. I'm sorry. Who did the first? Jeanette. Okay. Thank you, Jeanette. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion?

I was just wondering, there's a couple paragraphs in here that are duplicated on the AR. So I was wondering if we should remove them just for, it's like the one, two, three, four, fifth and sixth paragraphs are just duplicates of what's stated. I don't know, do we need to say it again or just kind of, and then the other thing I wanted to mention.

On the AR, where?

Yeah, on the board policy, it's,

Oh, on board policy, not the AR.

We're talking about the board policy right now. So on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th and 6th paragraphs, those are also in the AR. They're like duplicate paragraphs. And if we need to have them in both, that's fine, but it just seems like it just adds extra words that we didn't need to say twice. Okay. Also, I was wondering about where it says the superintendent is going to implement a plan for recruiting and screening volunteers, which includes strategies for reaching underrepresented groups of parents and guardians. I was wondering how we were going to do that.

Develop and implement a plan. We don't know. He's going to develop something. And we need that.

So that's my suggestion was just those two paragraphs to delete them since they're duplicates. But if you guys want to keep them, I'm okay with that too. Just trying to clean it up a little.

Do they belong in one or the other?

Well, we already voted in the AR, so might as well leave it in the AR.

I do recommend keeping them in both just in case someone is only referring to one document. It doesn't hurt it to keep it there.

No problem.

Any more discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote.

Motion carried, 5-0.

time for public comments public comments are permitted upon submission of a completed oh no after public comment how do you plan on doing that yeah

Okay.

All right.

Public comments are permitted upon submission of a completed registration card prior to the start of public participation. This is not a forum for debate. Policy concerns will be referred to the superintendent. When called, speakers may proceed to the podium, state their name and trustee area, and speak for the allotted time. The amount of time will be announced by the board president. Time for... Oh, no, nothing.

Consuelo, how many cards? We have 14 registered, but a lot of them have left, but it's 14. Okay, so three minutes.

So you'll get three minutes.

Erin Perez... And I think I have Jared Gustafson after him and Peter Hall, but I think they're gone, so it's going to be Greg Britton.

Welcome back, Aaron. My name is Aaron Britton.

I've been dealing with the Special Services Department for a number of years. I have had actions against me by that staff, and there's been no accountability for that staff. So I want to take a moment and start calling out some of those staff. So the first person I'd like to discuss is Jeff Ray, because Jeff Ray relates directly to the cease and desist letter that I discussed last time. So Jeff Ray has a history of lying and bullying parents, and he did this as a coordinator in IEPs. And now he is the principal at my daughter's school. He cares more about winning than doing what's best for the child. And when he gets directions from those above him that make him think he's going to lose the interaction, he ignores it. He's gotten directions from Todd Rossi, from Jennifer Brondosky, telling him to provide a response to the cease and desist letter in writing. He has chosen not to. This is a problem. He refuses to take direction and he has the wrong temperament for leadership. He should not be principal and he should not be promoted to any position in the administration. We need people who put the care of the children and the families ahead of their own personal ego. And Jeff Ray will always choose to do what helps him win and helps him feel validated rather than what is in the best interest of the child. So Jeffrey has been directed multiple times to put in writing a plan for my cease and cease letter. And he has refused. He's gotten direction from Todd Rossi. He's gotten direction from, I think, Juan Cabral, and he's gotten direction from the SELPA in East Valley, and he's chosen to not do it. So I need the board to direct the staff member to do what he has been told to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Aaron. Welcome back, Greg.

Thank you.

I'd like to start with a thank you to Jeanette and Candy and Michelle. Things have calmed down. That's good that things have calmed down here from some of our earlier meetings. But you guys went through and you were the point of focus of the most vicious, vile, and concerted attack and attempt at intimidation by the people on the left here. And you hung in there and did what you think is right. And, you know, particularly as to Michelle, because you were the one that was most targeted by the left. And while I don't always agree with all of your decisions here, I appreciate that you've always tried to do what you think is right for the district, for the students, and for the parents. There's a fundamental misunderstanding that we've seen from the audience comments and even from the board comments about representative democracy. So maybe celebrating America's 250th and going back and understanding the founding documents and what a republic means and what it is would be a really good thing. Because we the people can't. take charge and go through all these line items on the budget, and we're going to do a contract for this, and we're going to repair this roof, and all those type of things. So we elect you. We elect the legislature or the Congress or the mayor, whoever it is, to supervise most of the things. But there are things where the people do care about.

Point of order. Point of order. I'm not able to hear the speaker while we have a lot of conversation going on over here. So would you just pause for a moment, and maybe we can get that situated, whatever is happening over here.

I had a question for the superintendent. He's answered it. I don't understand why it has anything to do with you interrupting the meeting.

It was extremely distracting because you guys were all talking here.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I see the two of you talking. Thank you. Thank you.

Always fun. We the people elect you. We control our government in a republic through our elected representatives, and then they make those decisions. For example, if a book is appropriate or not appropriate in the library, which we are talking about tonight, well, there's a majority on the board elected by we the people who say that some of these books are inappropriate. Maybe after a different election, there'll be a different board that will think that some of these books that were removed are appropriate. But however it is, that's how we the people exert our control over our government. Not unelected librarians or superintendents or assistant superintendents or in other governmental contacts to various unelected bureaucrats. You, your people's elected representatives, properly exercise your judgment on our behalf, and if we don't like it, we, the people, will find other people who will do so. So keep that in mind, and it's a good lesson for America's 250th in how a republic is supposed to work. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Erin Fernando, followed by Sue Headey, and then Catherine Appleby.

All right, hello again, Erin Fernando, Area 2. Welcome back. This should be quick. I just wanted to say, so from my understanding, because of the policy that Candy, Jeanette, and Michelle approved, the Bible was removed from school libraries for a period of time. Superintendent Kerbala could probably tell us exactly how long that was, but I'm sure you would all be very happy to put that on your campaign posters that you all voted to have the Bible removed. The challenge went exactly as that policy demanded. Someone identified a book that seemed to fall under the policy. It was immediately pulled from the shelf, which you all in your wisdom decide was how the policy should work. A committee reviewed it. The decision was appealed to the board. And then now we're here. If the board doesn't like how this policy works in practice, they should probably work on changing it because everything went according to the book today. If there's one thing I hope anyone takes from this situation, it's that there's only two members not directly responsible for the Bible being removed from shelves, and that's Patty Hallahan and Melissa Ayala-Quintero. Thank you.

Thank you, Aaron. Welcome back, Sue.

Thank you for having until this point. Point of order.

There's a side conversation going that's rather distracting.

All right. I'll try again. As I was just saying, at this point, I have looked at you pretending to listen to me. And that doesn't go for you, Melissa and Patty. Thank you for always listening to all of your constituents. We have an election coming up, and I think this is the time to show your constituents that you can stay impartial and be consistent in your decisions. So now that you've decided that the Bible belongs in the schools and you respected the committee's decision, I expect you to follow the committee's decisions moving forward. And, of course, I would hope that you would go back on your prior decisions since you now show that you do trust the committee. I look forward to seeing you keep your word. Either you agree with the reading committee or you don't, but that will show us whether you have integrity and not just become a laughable flip-flop pandering to your Christian nationalist tendencies. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue.

Bill Velasquez.

Didn't catch your name. I'm sorry.

Joe Velasquez. Joe, welcome. Thank you. I'm in Area 1 or Region 1. It's my first time at one of these meetings. I really just had a question in regards to an AR that was mentioned at the very beginning of the meeting. And then now I've stayed for all the rest of the fun stuff. The AR was AR 5125.3. There was a recommendation adopted. by the board, but it wasn't mentioned what the recommendation was. So I was kind of wondering what the recommendation was.

There are two actions taken with respect to I'm going to call them grade challenges. Both, and these were announced at the start of the meeting, both of those How do I say this? The board agreed not to make any changes.

At the recommendation of?

Of the panel or the committee that was convened for our policy.

Okay. So there will be no changes at the recommendation of the review panel? No.

Correct. The review panel reviewed the challenge per our policy and made the recommendation to make no changes, and the board upheld that decision.

The policy says that the recommendation comes from the superintendent.

A committee can be committed. The reason that I am going back and forth is because this has to do with an action item that was announced. And I know that you probably want to comment on the outcome of that action item. And I can assure you that what the board decided is to upheld the teacher's grade for both cases. So if you'd like to comment after knowing that, which was announced at the beginning of the meeting, you can go ahead and do that at this time.

I guess my comment would be that the policy says that the recommendation would come at the recommendation – I'm sorry, that the recommendation comes from the superintendent based on what the superintendent reviewed from the review board. But to understand it the way I'm understanding is that the adoption was – the superintendent's decision to adopt something that was information that he received from a review panel and then use that as

Yeah, what we could do that might help is I am more than willing to set up a meeting with you to go over the entire process, looking at the policy together so you can see exactly what steps we took leading to the decision that was made today. If I could have one of my cabinet members touch base with you immediately after this moment to get your contact information so that I can get that set up.

To clarify, prior to the review panel meeting, I made a request for the process. I was not given the process until the day of the meeting. And then I got kick the can response of, we'll decide later. I was told that I was going to be told ahead of time so I can talk to somebody, but then nobody It was just kick the can. Nobody told me about any decision process. And this is affecting a student that's set to graduate in less than, you know.

Correct. So if you are willing to meet with me, I'll get your contact info and set up a meeting with you as soon as possible.

I submitted a FERPA request moments ago to your office so that we can sit and discuss, I guess.

Okay. I'm more than willing to set that meeting up. We'll make sure to get your contact information. Thank you. Sorry. No problem.

Thank you, Joe.

Catherine Appleby, followed by Michael Paisner.

Welcome back, Catherine. Good evening. Thank you, Consuela. So I'd like to talk momentarily about the use of Measure D funds to paint Citrus Valley High School. While we are all enjoying the new paint and it is glorious and beautiful and not quite done yet, this could have been used to create a stairway and ramp down from Pioneer Avenue to the admin parking lot. This would allow visitors to park on the street and have easy access to the front office. someone made the decision that painting a pretty brand new high school that really didn't need new paint, I know in your head you probably saw like a bit that needed new paint, but it really didn't, instead of increasing accessibility for parents, students, guardians, and visitors. Additionally, why were none of the colors that were offered were in CV colors? There was blue, which is RHS. There was red, which is REV. There was nothing for our black and gold. So as a taxpayer, I'm a little annoyed with that decision to spend Measure D funds that way. It is school library month, so happy school library month. And I would like to read from a non-controversial book. called The Cat Who Saved Books. Books teach us how to care about others. Books are filled with human thoughts and feelings, people suffering, people who are sad or happy, laughing with joy. By reading their words and their stories, by experiencing them together, we learn about the hearts and minds of other people beside ourselves. Thanks to books, it is possible to learn not only about the people around us every day, but people living in totally different worlds. Don't hurt anyone. Never bully people weaker than yourself. Help out those in need. Some would say that these rules are obvious, but the truth is the obvious is no longer obvious in today's world. What's worse is that some people even ask why. They don't understand why they shouldn't hurt people. It's not a simple thing to explain. It's not logical. But if they read books, they will understand. It's far more important than using logic to explain something. Human beings don't live alone, and a book is a way to show them that. That is all books. From the Bible onward. So let me get this straight. Board Member Olsen doesn't like CYBHI, and because of that, she proposed cutting the last line of Board Policy 514.5 that would have allowed RUSD to pursue often time-sensitive funding from students' mental health services that could have allowed us to recoup funds. And recouping funds is something that would have benefited our budget. So those of you that voted yay for that, thank you for demonstrating to all of us that you do not care for the fiscal solvency of our district.

Thank you, Catherine. Welcome back, Michael.

Thank you. For the record, that organization that Ms. Olson was having a fit about has the word equity on their webpage. So it's real obvious what her priority is, promoting her own agenda, not anyone else's. Heaven forbid we give money to an organization that includes the word equity. Yeah, we see you, Ms. Olson. What I came here to say was to talk about public comment. The website states the new format is intended to streamline the meeting process and provide a more efficient experience. Streamline? More efficient? You know what that sounds like? You don't like what the public is saying, so you want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Well, here's a suggestion. Rather than streamlining people's comments, how about focusing on issues people actually want to address? You also allow personal attacks against members of the community. So I'd like to repeat your instructions back to you, which you don't seem to comprehend. Members of the public may address the board on matters within its jurisdiction.

I don't think you understand what that means.

It means attacks on Together for Redlands or against me or other members of the public should be prohibited. I'm not asking you to evaluate truth or accuracy, Ms. Wilson. Are you paying attention? Obviously not. An attack on a person or group is outside the scope of the school district and not relevant to this board. But since you aren't limiting attacks against us, what's to stop me from talking about how a member of Ms. Olson's Awaken Redlands organization donated $400,000 to a school voucher initiative that would defund public schools? Such actions speak to both people's character and motivation and are much more relevant than the slop they throw at us. You've refused to shut down their attacks, which leaves the door open for us to do the same. Although, if you've noticed, we rarely mention them. Not that they're even here anymore, because they don't really care. They just came to make a show of things. But the people who do care are still here, because we care about the students and our community. It's absolutely pathetic. I don't think you appreciate every time I come to this meeting, I get peppered with questions. I get videotaped. I get harassed. Before I even walk in the door, I have been harassed five, ten times. And then I come here and listen to them disparage us and tell lies about us. And you, Ms. Rundler, don't have our backs. Ms. Olson made a video and put it on social media attacking me personally. I'm her constituent. I'm in her district. She put up a video about me, and you don't have my...

Thank you very much.

Feel thanked.

Next is Antonis Christodoulou. Sorry. Followed by B. Hamilton.

You do well the first time.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening. Again, to begin, I think we need to move comments before the votes for all the items. For one, it's 1025. I don't know if parents can make meetings and stay the entire time to comment and be heard. And it's a little insane to ask on a school and work night for them to come out and come here and stay this long. Okay, to continue, I plead with you to listen to the Teachers Association and teachers that spoke here today and many times before. We need to protect our teachers, school staff, and parents and students. And I'm 27 years old. I grew up experiencing budget cuts. I have seen firsthand how laying off teachers and increasing the responsibilities of those that remain can harm students, teachers, and parents. While you discuss the importance of safety on schools, the solution is mitigating crime by educating and providing opportunity to our students, not just by paying a private company to bring drug-sniffing dogs onto campuses. Why are we finding money to pay private companies to bring these drug-stiffening dogs when we are making teachers into gig workers and asking for volunteers for positions that were paid workers before? While I fight to get federal funding for our schools in this district by diverting funding from war and by also taxing the billionaires, who don't pay their taxes, please defend our schools and communities. Also, for the two women on the right corner council member, I can't exactly, or the two women on this call, I'd really love to hear you guys talk. Keep fighting for the school district. I appreciate you both. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome back, Bea.

Thank you. I wanted to speak about something that just happened recently regarding our child and an IEP meeting and the software that they're using to manage the IEPs because it was a situation where I had specifically requested that the IEP be amended to have my child see a mental health counselor within the school district. regarding having been kicked by two other students and then also hit in the head with a chair by another student on a separate occasion in the classroom. That request was not added to the IEP. We asked them to go back and edit it. They said that they had and they sent it back to us to sign. was very challenging to read the document both times in the electronic format that was sent to us. And as a result, the second time, we were unable to identify where it was located in the document, and they were pressing us to sign it, so we just went ahead and signed it. And again, even after they said that they had edited it, it did not include that particular amendment. So I am concerned that the software that's being used to do IEPs is not working correctly or that the administrators are not trained properly or both on how to use it. And so that is very concerning because I'm wondering how many other families have been subject to the exact same issue as our family has been. um so i wanted that to be addressed to the board and to have the superintendent look into this issue because this is very concerning to me about the way that our family is being affected by the school's ineptitude at every level and so I wanted to bring that to your attention and to see whether or not that is something that you can pursue further and perhaps pass a policy that would ask the administrators of the schools to have a printed copy of the final draft of the IEP for parents to review and not to send them home and have them sign an electronic document. so that that way they can make that decision for themselves in real time and make sure that those edits are included and only allow for electronic signatures if a parent requests it and not because the school has decided that that's what they want to do for their own purposes. Because I think that would have solved this problem and prevented this from happening. Thank you.

Thank you, Bea. I think that's it.

All right, we're on to board comments. Anybody have anything they want to say?

A couple things. I just want to thank our negotiations team for RTA and RESPA for all the efforts and all their hard work that they worked on with both teams. I know it's a lot, and I appreciate everything that both sides did. So thank you very much on all that. Attended Smiley Elementary with all of us here on our little field trip. Everything was great. And the campus looked amazing, by the way. Campus was awesome. Attended the Optimist Games. And I want to say thank you to the Optimists and our high school athletes and cheerleaders for helping out that day. It was awesome. It was great. And Mr. Cabral, if we can please send a thank you letter to Optimists. showing our appreciation for continuing the efforts. And I thought it was nice that they were able to thank Martha Mendoza there because she was the founder of that, which was awesome. And I graduated with Martha, and she's retired now. And just to everyone on the Bike Classic Committee, just thank you for bringing 40 years of excitement to our community. It just puts us on the map. And fortunately, it rained on Sunday, but Saturday was great. So thank you.

Yeah, I'd like to say a couple things. I'm really thankful for the tragic situation at Moore, that it was handled quite exceptionally well by our director, Yost, and I want to thank him for being a part of this district, and I've seen just in the very short time that he's been here that things have changed quite a bit, and I appreciate that, and also Principal Darley we couldn't have asked for a better team of people to handle that situation. So I thank you for everything that you've done, and I look forward to looking for solutions moving forward, what the community wants, what's doable, what's workable, and we've had a lot of talks on that. So more information will be coming out. And I want to encourage all of the parents, all of the parents who own guns, once again, just keep them locked up. Everyone needs vaults at home for their guns, so please keep your firearms locked up and have your children be aware that if somehow they get access to them, that the consequences are very severe. On to another couple things. I have been growing very tired of requesting agenda items that are not being placed on our agenda. And just so that my voters know where I stand, I have requested our bullying policy to be revised. It's not been placed on the agenda. Also, I've requested for a no-deception policy. which has also not been placed on the agenda and five times I've requested the parent notification policy that is legal and continues to be workable in place to this day with no lawsuits following after the original lawsuit that happened in Chino Valley and then the legal portion of that parent notification came out intact which is still in place today. It's gone through the court system, and many districts use it to keep parents notified of changes of their children's records. I requested it on July 16, 2025, April 6, 2025, December 22, 2025, January 12, 2026, and March 2, 2026. This is the only campaign promise that I've not been able to fulfill, and that's because I'm just one voice here, but I want my voters to know that I have tried very hard, and I will continue to try to move these policies forward because in no district should we ever be... keeping secrets from parents or having any type of policy involving parent secrecy. And I'm not saying that we do keep secrets from parents. I'm just saying that I think we do need to have a policy, either a parent notification and or a no deception policy. And I do think we need to revise a couple issues on our bullying policy because that's clearly a repeated problem as some of our speakers have pointed out as well today, but also we've heard through the community over time that this is a continued problem with the bullying. And that's it for my comments tonight.

Annette, do you have anything?

Yes. First of all, I just wanted to state, as well as other people have, that I'm very appreciative to Mr. Yost and Jenny Dyerly at Moore. All the staff there, the Redlands Police were very helpful with the safety issue we had at Moore. And just the whole... safety community working together. The actual lockdown was a little over an hour, is that correct? And that's just amazing to... search the whole property and facility and do it in such a quick and non chaotic manner, which is, it was very commendable. And then also I do thank everyone that worked on the negotiations for the upcoming year, um, regarding our budgetary issues and staffing and so forth. Um, You know, it takes a lot of planning and decisions and building strong base for our future needs, and that was something we just had to start taking care of, so I appreciate everyone's efforts. And regarding our book complaint process, I... I don't understand the thinking that when someone appeals a decision that the board has to still go along with what that decision was made or how that decision was made. Our role is to... look at the appeal, look at the process, and then make a decision. You can't be telling the board that they have to go along with the original decision just because the board went along with it one time. I mean, that defeats the purpose of the process. So I remain proud of the book complaint process. The rubric has reduced subjectivity and I think it has shown to be a better policy and more effective than the one we had before. And we also had a visit to Smiley Elementary since our last board meeting, and I believe, yeah. And we had a really great visit at Smiley. It was a very clean, organized, great site visit there. So I think that's it.

Okay, Melissa.

I just want to echo and thank the entire Moore community, not just, you know, Principal Dyerly or Matt Yost, even though instrumental in that, but, you know, RPD, the parents, students, And I will just again commend that student for stepping up and saying something. But also I would encourage parents to have conversations with their students that if they do see something, you know, as scary as it might be, it's always the right thing to let go. someone know, because you never know what situation you may prevent, even if anybody, it isn't as severe as a gun or a bullet, but even bullying, anything like that. So I feel like just a refresher conversation will be helpful. And I know I'll be doing that in my home as well. Again, thank you to Principal Slaughter and the entire Smiley staff. School looked great. It's always great to go back and visit, see lots of familiar faces. Pretty big highlight to my day. I do want to wish... The RHS vocal chamber and LC groups, good luck on their spring tour. They're going to Anaheim for the Heritage Festival from the 16th to the 19th. So you guys have fun, have a great trip, and I'll see you when you get back.

Hope everyone had a restful spring break and the kids are back in school, ready to go. I really enjoyed the two school site visits we went on, Mariposa and Smiley. Both schools are awesome. Our maintenance ground crews, they are just amazing. And our teachers are doing such great things for our students. It's such a delight to go into the classrooms and see what's happening. I love it. The Council PTA brunch was about a week ago. And I want to thank all the leadership of Council PTA, putting on a great brunch all the time. All food is good. Decorations are good. They run a great meeting. We got to hear the Reflections winners. And hopefully in a couple meetings they'll come here and you'll get to see who they are. I'm excited to do that. The Redlands League held their last Cool for School event of the year. That's where we, I'm part of the league, and they give $100. Kohl's cash basically is what they get to go purchase $100 worth of clothes in the store, anything they want, clothes or shoes, whatever they need. It's a lot of fun. If you have a student or you know any students that could use this, this is for the elementary schools. Our middle and high schoolers, they have a different program. They receive Target gift cards, and they get to go to Target to pick out things that they want from there. that's a different program um and also what else oh and i also attended the walk and roll that was a lot of fun uh put on by the city of redlands um and septa pta helped with that one it was that was a lot of fun had fun walking the track with a bunch of kids and um spider-man was there and so that was really cool um The two Thursdays leading up to the Bicycle Classic, Brian Zander, who you saw tonight here with his students, hosted a clinic. They learned about bike safety and how to ride in a group, how to back away, let other people take the lead. And Rachel Wilson and Cyclery USA, they helped a lot with the clinic. The Cyclery USA came and checked everyone's bikes and their brakes and their tires, and it was a pretty fun two Thursdays. Today I had the privilege of attending the first principal appreciation lunch put on by the YMCA. Brandy, Tyler, and the rest of their team put on a fabulous luncheon program. The lunch was made by the culinary students at Valley College, and it was delicious. They had, like, little steak bites and baked potatoes and asparagus. It was really fancy. It was really good. And there was an elementary cheer team there, made an aisle with a... like a red carpet. And as the principals walked down, they did cheers for the principal. Uh, they had words like it was really fun. Uh, I even got to meet the actor, Tony plan. I think is his last name. Uh, he's been in many, many movies. Officer in a gentleman is one, um, three amigos is another. Um, anyway, he works with San Bernardino city unified school districts, um, bringing theater to kids, um, at some of their schools. So that was really fun. And I too wanted to talk about the bike classic. Um, we did 38 school assemblies in two days this year. We had 22 schools in Redlands, five area schools, some private, one was Micah House, seven schools in Yucaipa, and four schools in San Bernardino. So packed it all into two days. It was a lot of fun. I had a hard time getting around, but it was okay. It was fun. And also I want to thank our safety team for But incident at Moore, like just being spot on, everybody at that school just took care of business. And I really appreciate that. I know we have great leaders at all our schools. So that's all I have. Thank you. All right. Superintendent.

Yes, first I'd like to follow up on a comment that was made. We will look into the system, the IEP system. We're using SACE, which is relatively new within the last year, year and a half that we started using SACE. And so I'll double check how it's being done over at Kingsbury. And I'll ask Assistant Superintendent Buckmiller to help me with that. I won a bike classic, one of my favorite events. It was awesome. And so I'm thankful that I was able to participate in that. And then I went over to Citrus Valley by invitation to the newspaper group. I think they're called the Bird Box. And it was awesome. And they were ready for me. It was like a lunchtime, so they only got like 30 minutes. So as soon as they got there and as soon as I got there, it was like, No intros, questions. And they just started asking me all kinds of questions. And it was really, you know, we hear a lot of comments about our students. Sometimes it's really general about, you know, their levels and things like that. But I always say, you know, if you just talk to our students, they're so smart. And they are just wonderful, wonderful students who are doing such good things. and I know we're not perfect, and we have some things to do with some more academics, but I mean, we are doing really, really well, and our kids, I mean, all you have to do is walk on some of our campuses and talk to some of our kids and not focus so much on, you know, I see a lot of posts about e-bikes, kids all over the streets on e-bikes, Yeah, I don't like that either, but I bet you those kids are super smart because we have a lot of super smart kids. But if we don't focus on that stuff and focus on what the kids are actually doing, and moments like going to the Bird Box group and talking to them just really speaks volumes to how prepared our kids really are for what happens after they leave us. So that's all my comments for tonight.

One thing I was going to say, Catherine, I love your idea of the steps going into CV at Pioneer right there. I think that's a great idea. All right, on to discussion items. All right, who would like to start the discussion? We're going to talk about the proposed resolution celebrating America's 250th anniversary.

I had a question. I know Juan was going to be investigating this. What is already planned within the district? And one suggestion I had was to come up with some way to commemorate our 250th anniversary, some way to incorporate it into each graduation, because it's pretty cool that the graduating class is graduating in this very year. That is cool.

As far as we do have pockets of schools, we did ask every school. There is no uniform celebration. I think the school that's celebrating the most is Mariposa. And then some, because we asked the question, started thinking about it. As far as graduation, we did have a discussion in cabinet about what we could incorporate and somehow tie it into at the start of every ceremony, for example, we have the national anthem and We had fireworks last year at one of the graduations, if you remember that. That's always fun. There's a pretty good cost to that, so I'm not going to say that we're going to have fireworks, but we are having discussions on what that could look like at graduation.

I definitely think this is a great resolution and I'm disappointed it wasn't an action item because now it has to go back again. I think that it's extremely important that we make a concerted effort to promote patriotism with our school and our kids and instill in them the values to you know, respect our flag, our constitution, the founding principles. And I would love to see this get passed. I left the week blank so that we could determine which was the best week if we wanted to move forward with it. So I didn't know if you wanted to, you had input on that. Do you have something to add?

I was just going to say the idea of a week is just the schools can choose within that week when they celebrate, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it needs to be hugely costly or time-consuming, but some way to help kids learn about the history of our nation, civics, get interested in the history of our nation. I know it did that for me the 200th year or so. I think, like someone mentioned, it's something they've always remembered and learned from, and that's what I would hope from it.

I like the resolution part of this. I like it all. I think I'd like it to look more like other resolutions that we have, clean it up a little bit, make it look like the other ones. And I would ask if we could just eliminate... where it says board member Olsen submitted the agenda item in accordance with board bylaw, and then down to fiscal impact. I don't think we need any of that in there. I'm not even sure how much of the background we have to put in there. Like, that's a lot for background. But I'd like to see it just cleaned up a little bit and take those things out.

So being that this is already decided, I would like to know how this has no fiscal impact because I don't know if you've ever paid for an assembly, but assembly is about $3,000 to $6,000 per assembly. And who's buying the curriculum? Because this is, I absolutely respect should a teacher decide that they want to do this on their own, which I'm sure they're planning on doing, but to mandate it as a week seems a bit excessive. And again, who's buying the curriculum? Because I don't know that we have it in the budget to expend this extra expense.

Where does it say we have to buy new curriculum?

It says that these activities will include, but not limited to, curriculum-based lessons on the founding era.

Well, we already have that material.

And we already have social studies classes and teachers that were going to do this.

Well, it's just a nice celebration.

But this mandates it.

I think this is just like saying Red Ribbon Week. We do a resolution for Red Ribbon Week, and it's a week. This mandates it. So does Red Ribbon Week.

But that's already something that's been pre-established. This is a new one.

Yeah, it was new at one point. Red Ribbon Week was new at one point.

Well, then, you know what? I'm going to stop talking because you guys have already made this decision. This is supposed to be a discussion. And I'm worried about the...

But you're attacking her saying, why are we doing this? Why do we have to do this?

I'm asking why it says there's no fiscal impact when there is.

I just said let's take all that out. Why does that have to be in there?

No, you're saying it doesn't need to be in there. I'm saying it does have a fiscal impact. And this is loaded with dog whistles.

Everything has a fiscal impact, I think.

It says none. What I'm saying is... Why is it that we are mandating that our teachers do this stuff when they probably are going to work something into it? And OK, just say, where is the opportunity for a student to opt out of this? Because we already provide a patriotic moment that they're allowed to opt out of. What happens in that situation?

If their parent doesn't want them to learn about the 250th celebration of their own country, then the parent can say that I don't want my child to be part of any of those patriotic exercises.

So what is the option? That's the option. So they lose out on instruction time because we can't work it in, let a teacher work it out on their own? So we have to mandate a whole week out of a year when why don't we just provide something, a video? This isn't a little bit. This isn't a little bit to do. This is you want respect for our flag, teachings on the Constitution. Like, there's a lot in here. That's not going to get done in a week.

The week is to allow flexibility so like they could do one day some celebration or throughout the week the teacher could teach a little bit about, they could all decide on their own things what they want to do during that week. Each school could decide, the teachers within that school could decide what they want to teach on, how to interweave it in.

So are we going to have discussions with them about what is less important that they are going to replace it with?

I have another suggestion for a change. In the very bottom, it says, be it resolved, these activities will include.

I got interrupted and ignored.

May include.

Well, what she's suggesting is based on what you're saying.

So that they don't feel like they have to do everything.

But we let the teachers choose. Not be limited to curriculum-based in the founding year. Okay, so they don't have to, sure, may.

Give them a night to have stuff to do, yeah.

May include, no problem.

And what I envision is.

It isn't to punish the teachers. Right. It's a wonderful celebration to be celebrated.

What I kind of envision, like it could be part of a morning assembly that instead of what they normally do, like we went to it at Franklin, it could be something there. It doesn't have to be anything. We're going to have a cage fight too? Pardon? Are we going to have a cage fight too?

I don't know what you mean. Yeah. This is just so silly. I mean, to the liberty, self-governance, and the unalienable rights of all, you don't think that we're kind of going through something as a country right now that maybe this might be upsetting to some? Some of our students' families are being kidnapped.

You know, none of us would be here if this country hadn't been established 250 years ago. What is wrong with celebrating that?

I'm not saying something. I'm saying I have an issue with mandating it. That's what I have an issue with.

We have a flag in every classroom that's patriotic. That's law. That is the law. Do you have a problem with it? You're saying people are getting snatched up and kidnapped, and so the parents are obviously okay with an American flag being in the classroom.

Because that is the law. It has to be in a classroom. But I'm not mandating anybody to learn anything.

You don't want our kids to learn the history of our country?

They already do in their social studies classes. They do learn about the Fourth of July. I mean, I'm not sure you know that, but they do.

This is just celebrating America.

I know. No, this is mandating it. I'm not saying we can't celebrate it, but what I'm saying is, why are we making a week out of it and making people hold assemblies and hold lessons and teaching them?

They're not doing it the whole week. It's a week of time. Like, pick a day. Pick a thing. Like, if you want to do an assembly on Monday, you're doing that for the week.

Who's going to pay for that assembly?

Schools will do their thing. The PTAs, the schools.

We're tied up. But that's the thing. You're asking the PTA. Well, we're asking the PTA. You know that.

They don't have to do an assembly. Do something else. Do like they do at Arroyo. She brings veterans in, and the kids get up and sing songs to the veterans.

Oh, yeah, that's great.

And that doesn't cost any money. That was a super cool thing. So, I mean, there's things they can do.

I'm going to ask our superintendent what's been done so far discussed on this. If anything. I'm sure there has been.

But before that, I don't know if we want to time this discussion, but I did time it, and we have a minute left. But we can extend it. It's up to the board if we extend it. We have pockets of celebrations throughout the district on an annual basis, sometimes during Veterans Week. or Veterans Day, I should say. We have a lot of history in our district with respect to the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance, and that gets celebrated on an annual basis. We've been at several different assemblies district-wide. Some of you have been there with me. Over at Victoria, we celebrated. So there are pockets. I don't... I don't think that it's all happening during the same week. And so if we are flexible with when the celebrations would happen, I think it would be open as far as the week would make it easier for our sites so they can incorporate it in something that already exists. And that actually would fiscally be... Like not expensive because they already have an assembly plan, for example.

You're going to hit testing and all the others?

If we do a specific week, then I would want us to really look at the school calendar and figure out what week that would be if we really want it to be a specific week. Otherwise, you know, leaving it kind of open to the sites to do it might be good, too, with a timeline. We could say a month. We could say just the month of. And if we're celebrating it 2026, then it needs to happen before December, for example, for it to be commemorated this year, if that's important to us. If not, at least during the school year. Leaving it more open is easier. But there are pockets of our sites that do celebrate in different ways.

Okay, that's what I was asking.

Are they mostly during June?

No, like Veterans Day. When is Veterans Day?

No, I'm just talking about when you talk to the sites about this particular, the 250th.

No, the ones that are happening now are doing it before May, before school gets out. Or in May, before school gets out. Because, I mean, technically July.

So maybe we should say May, the month of May. Because...

Next school year? Because doing it this year would be way, there would be not enough time for folks to plan something.

Mariposa's already doing it, though, right?

They have been planning it, though, which is sort of where we heard about it when we went on the side visit.

I mean, they should do something. They should, like, at least say something in an assembly or, I mean, it doesn't have to be big and fancy. Let's just say in the fall.

I just don't want to put the pressure on the teachers. They've got testing coming up. Before you know it, I mean, we've got another week, two weeks left, one and a half, I guess, of this month or two weeks from this month. And then graduation is the first week of June. And to put that pressure so early.

To do something, to mandate something before this school year ends is going to be challenging.

That's what my point was. That's why I was asking. So could – I don't have a problem celebrating. Not at all. I remember – The bicentennial, I was a cheerleader and was one of our fundraisers of selling candles. And that's when I found out. And I was like, okay. And no one really knew what was going on. But everyone finally did. It took a year. I mean, for people to say, oh, yeah, bicentennial, bicentennial.

So maybe we could say within the month of September of 2026.

I think it would be best if the district celebrated it and maybe the teachers that want to and can work it into their curriculum, then they can choose to do something. I just don't see how mandating the entire...

If it goes in as like a may and not a will where it lists everything, it makes it easier because then we're talking about if you do an assembly, you know, it doesn't have to be a lesson. You can just do a little thing in your classroom.

Right, exactly. It could be so simple. It doesn't have to be a giant thing. Oh.

I think it makes it more challenging if it's like list everything as will, but you've already said you're willing to say may look like this.

Right. I think we should open it up to at least November because that's Veterans Day and people, a lot of schools celebrate. Maybe that's when they would choose to do their.

Yeah. So before November of 26th.

And I really hope we can do something at graduation, because we could have that kind of be the kickoff for what the other schools do, but for the students graduating during this.

That would be a really cool time to graduate. It would be a nice sentiment.

Acknowledgement of some kind at graduation is something we should be able to do.

I'd like to see this rewritten. A lot of this is just really abrasive and rather dog whistly, and I'd rather see it be rewritten. So if somebody could take that on, I would love that. I have no issue with celebrating the country, but this just... Why don't you say which parts you're talking about?

It's the whole thing. The whole thing is abrasive?

On July 4th, the United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary.

The founders, guided by faith and conviction, pledged their lives to establish a nation dedicated to liberty, for some, self-governance, and the unalienable rights of all.

That's what they did.

At the time that it was, it was not.

The only way to move forward with any kind of edits would be for folks to make suggestions. As a discussion item, bringing it back as an action item, as a resolution, you know, we sent to everybody in the SU for feedback, for comments. So, like, I could look at that and we can just start sending it with people's edits. Or we bring it back as an action item with some of the suggestions that have been made and then... either passes or doesn't pass with a discussion that we have at the dais.

Well, I'd say let's have a committee, but we all know how pointless that is. How what that is?

Pointless. If everyone could send in their suggestions.

Yeah, that sounds good to me. Suggestions to you?

To one? To clean it up a little bit?

I'll look at some of the ones that were discussed tonight and kind of start working on a draft and share it with everybody. Okay. And then we can get input with the goal of having it come back on the 28th as an action item.

Okay. Yeah, that way then PTAs and schools want to plan something and they can start it.

And I know the principals are already thinking about it because we did put it out there at the principals' meeting.

I would really not like to put that on the PTAs to fund something like that.

I think that was just an example. There could be a principal who has a connection with the American Legion that might want to help with an event.

No, I'm just saying PTA money is, they're already paying for most assemblies and programs on campus. To ask them to squeeze in another one is kind of, especially at this point, it would be a little bit extreme.

And it could be as easy as like morning assembly. Yeah. Just at the morning assembly, this is what we're going to do. And wear red, white, and blue. I mean, easy.

Is it by flags or something? Each kid can get a flag or a necklace or whatever. Just make it fun. Okay. So we're going to just go into closed session. I'm not closing.

Yeah, we need to take a motion to go into closed session and then a second.

I move. I move to go to closed session. So moved.

Sherry moved. I'll second. I'll second. You're second.

Okay, we are going into closed session. Do not know how long that's going to take. We will come out after closed session to report out if any action was taken. I will say, though, that there are no action items for the board to consider that we agendized. So we're going into closed session for discussion, and there will not be action taken because there is no agenda item for us to take action on. So when we come out at 1 in the morning, it's going to say no action was taken if you don't want to stick around until 1 in the morning.

12.07, back in open session. And in closed session, the board took no action.