Board of Education — August 11, 2026

To call this meeting to order at 6.03, we will start with roll call. Vice President Hollihan. Present. Clerk Ayala Quintero. Present. Member Olson. Here. Member Wilson. Here. And I am here. Would someone like to leave the pledge today? Patty? Thank you.

Please stand. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. On to approval of the agenda. I would like to make a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility, pulling Ed Services Action Item 14, L and M. Do we have a second? I need to see what you're... New Board Policy 5010, First Read and AR 5010. I'll second that.

Second. You're pulling the first read of the board policies? Yes. That's what I'm proposing. Why would we pull the first read of the policies?

Wait, do we have a second? Did we have a second?

Sorry, I'll motion Patty second.

Okay. Melissa or Michelle did, so you second. And now discussion.

Okay, now discussion. Why are you pulling it? Because I believe that in light of the recommendation that we got, I would like to wait. Not saying that I don't believe that we need a parent notification policy, because I certainly believe that we do. But I think that no decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court or the Ninth Circuit have come out On AB 1955, they haven't invalidated it at all. So I think we're in a holding, sort of waiting. And the fact that we have a unique situation that we're subject to a stipulated judgment with this oversight by the Attorney General's office for three more years. I don't want to see the district... get more time added or anything added to our stipulated judgment. I'd like to get through it. I'm not saying I don't want a policy because I really believe that we need it. I just prefer to wait until we have more clear, concise guidance. before we consider taking action on them. I don't want anyone to think that I don't support a parent notification because I believe that parents and guardians have a fundamental role in their child's education and well-being, and they should be informed about matters concerning their children. Until their child reaches 18, I believe parents and guardians should have an opportunity to know what's happening to their child, subject to applicable law, of course. So my position is, given the current legal landscape and the district's unique circumstances, it would be prudent for us to wait for clearer guidance before moving forward. That's my opinion.

Okay, well, the parent notification policy that was proposed that was on the agenda until just now has nothing to do with AB 1955 and whether that's enforceable or not enforceable. In September of 2024, the San Bernardino Superior Court had ruled that the remaining provisions of Chino's updated policy requiring parental notification for changes to student records were constitutional and did not infringe on the student's privacy rights. AB 1955 was passed in July of 2024. This ruling in the Superior Court was on September 2024. The Attorney General Bonta's decision not to appeal the ruling by the legal deadline, the case officially closed, allowing the Chino Valley to continue enforcing the updated parental notification policy. The law is still the law. This is still a valid policy that several other school districts are using currently, and it does not violate AB 1955, and we shouldn't even debate whether or not 1955 is... currently enforceable or not because it has it's not relevant it's not singling out a protective class the uniqueness of our situation here in this district it's different than the other districts we're not allowed to lie to families or keep things from families because just because it's already a law that's already a law you can't lie to parents The law is still the same for us, whether we're being more scrutinized or not. We still have to follow the same laws. So if a policy is legal in five other districts and is working well, there's no reason that it would be illegal in our district.

Anybody else have anything they want to talk about? Jeanette, anything?

I'm just wondering, is it working now? Yeah. Okay. That while you're putting more weight on our stipulated agreement with the state, what impact do you feel this policy would have on that when it is legal?

I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's two conflicting things out there, AB 1955 and these policies. They conflict. Some of the stuff conflicts in them. And because we have the stipulated judgment, I'd like to wait. I'm not saying let's not do it. I don't want to scrap the whole thing. I'm saying let's wait until something gets clearer for us.

Well, this policy, unlike you just said, it is not in conflict with AB 1955 at all.

But I think that's what our legal counsel was advising was that it's a gray area. And so I almost feel like for us with a magnified lens on us, it would then cause whether it's Legal, not legal, it's going to draw more attention than we need right now. I mean, we're going through a lot, and we're trying to get through the stipulation, and I understand that this is something that you're passionate about, but it is still a gray area, and it could be interpreted in a negative way. So I think the advice from our legal counsel was... to wait and see how further guidance from people above us comes down.

Well, I find it interesting that, like, five districts off the top of my head can be using this policy just fine with no lawsuits from the state or bosses.

They have gone through lawsuits. I think that's the issue.

No, not— The verbiage is different. Not this policy.

Because this specific policy is different. So it's just a matter of how it's interpreted, and I don't see what waiting for guidance is going to do.

Because then we can hold people accountable who do not inform parents.

And you're saying that we're lying again. I didn't say that.

I did not say that. I said we can hold people accountable. For lying. Remember the book situation? You all said, let's trust all the librarians. We don't need any policies. And I still stand by that. We don't need any policies. We don't need any procedures. Remember you guys were all saying that all the time? And then look what happened. Do you see? So we do need some procedures so that we can follow, so that people don't just sneak in character porn into our libraries, right? So we need some type of standards to hold people accountable. Right. What's the number one thing? Oh, how did that book get in there? Well, was it against a policy? No, it wasn't against a policy.

Then maybe we should address expectations and ethics across the entire district, including the board. Because we don't have a code of ethics that we're supposed to adhere by. So I don't see why if we want to have the conversation about looking at all that, that would be fine. But to imply that we don't want people lying when... We're just saying they're not lying, but we don't want them to, so let's do this just in case.

It's a very standard procedure to have policies and procedures to hold people accountable when and if they go off the rails. Not saying they are. I'm just saying it's very standard. We can also talk about ethics. That's great. But having a policy in place that's perfectly legal is something I will always advocate for, and I don't think we should have to wait until something happens and then say, well, whoops, they didn't break any policy. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but we need something to have clear direction if something were to happen. And the argument that parents can just log into ARIES portal, parents rarely, most parents rarely log into the portal. I rarely log in. I was locked out for a whole year and didn't even bother me because I don't, I get my text messages, I got my emails, I get the notifications from the teachers. There's a lot of, there's almost no reason for me to have to ever log in there. So I see that parents can access their child's information when they log in, but saying that, oh, you know, that's a solution to it doesn't really make sense because most parents don't log into that routinely unless there's a problem.

I mean, I think most parents do. I mean, I know I do, and you don't get locked out of it. You can forget your password. Like, it's fixable.

Yeah, I did get locked out, and it did get fixed eventually. I'm just telling you, maybe you say most use it all the time. I see a lot that don't, and that's fine. That's debatable, but I'm just saying that's not a reliable method of keeping your parents informed.

I understand that, but again, we have ARIES, we have ParentSquare, we have texts and emails coming in. There's not an opportunity... Where someone can say, well, I mean, and I understand there's people that, you know, I mean, most of the time when I get four notifications about one topic, yeah, I might start to tune things out. But we're making every attempt to engage with parents and engage with families and keep everybody informed. So, I mean, just like your opinion is that that policy isn't harmful, mine is obviously the opposite. And so I think waiting for clear guidance is the responsible thing to do when we are talking about student safety and fiscal responsibility with the district.

That's the only thing I'm saying, but that's why I'm saying just to wait, pause, take a step back. Indeed. Go ahead. Don't get rid of it because it'll come eventually.

You know there's legal teams and law firms that would represent us, right? So this whole thing about being so terrified.

Do you want to bring that upon yourself?

I'm just saying, like, that's the big fear. But when a district goes through this, they become represented by a law firm that works pro bono.

What would be the harm in waiting a few months until something happens?

We've been waiting until the cows come home. It's just, you know, in the meantime, what happens? So that's my problem. In the meantime, we have no accountability.

Can I go? I just want to say we follow in this job. We are with the Office of Attorney Generals following the guidelines. We're doing really well compared. Our superintendent just told us we are finding our guidelines are great. We're doing really well. Why would we add one more thing?

Well, it doesn't affect the Office of Attorney General. We're still following the law. I don't know that. Sorry, Patty.

I just want to address a really quick thing. You're saying why wait, but Michelle is saying it's a few months. If something happened, has anything happened since we've been having this conversation? Has anything happened in the last year, minimum? No.

That's not a valid argument. It's just because something terrible hasn't happened or something tragic hasn't happened and therefore we shouldn't have a policy for accountability in place.

That's all I'm asking. If anything has happened in the last year, would anything happen in the next few months?

Excuse me, I think we've... Oh yeah, I was just asking. We've got our ten minutes. So we have to decide if we're going to do this or not. So we'll call for the vote.

Were you able to amend that motion?

Is it supposed to say pulling? It's supposed to say pulling. I haven't voted on this yet.

Tish, did you catch that? Yeah?

Okay. She's getting it.

That's good. Thank you.

Motion carries, three to two, with ayes for Board President Rundler, Board Vice President Hollihan, Board Clerk Ayala Quintero, and nays for Board Member Wilson and Board Member Olson.

All right, approval of the minutes. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes of July 21st, 2026, the regular board meeting? So moved. Second. Second. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Melissa. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor? I mean, we'll call for the vote. Old school. Call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

All right, moving on to association reports, starting with Redlands Teachers Association. Mr. Kipperton, are you ready?

All right, good evening, everybody. Good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral. As we begin a new year, the Redlands Teachers Association is continuing its dedication to ensure the safety of our students and staff. Two years ago, Cal OSHA required all districts to implement a system for recording, tracking, and mitigating incidents of workplace violence. This system has been a work in progress, and there are still many employees who don't report incidents, but we are finally getting a better picture of the conditions that staff are facing on a daily basis. Last year, there were 301 formal workplace violence complaints filed with the district, with the trend worsening as the year progressed. 74% of all workplace violence complaints were from students assaulting staff members. There were over 400 incidents of employees seeing the company nurse due to injuries sustained at work, and the single greatest cause of employee injuries was student on staff attacks. There were 145 cases of student assaults injuring staff members, and an additional 22 cases of mental stress and PTSD. The data is clear. The number one danger for RUSD staff is student on staff violence. I bring this data up not to lay blame on our students. They are far too often the victims of violence in our schools, whether they are the collateral damage when a student with aggressive behavior loses control or the student who loses control due to a lack of resources and supports that they need to properly support their education. At the end of the day, our students are also victims of the violence and deserve better. Enshrined in the California Constitution is the fundamental right to an education. However, we know that students cannot learn unless they feel safe. We also know that teachers cannot teach unless they feel safe, too. For the last two years, I have spoken about this issue to this board, the administration, and the community at large. It has been an uphill battle to get people to acknowledge the reality of what our teachers and staff face every day in the classroom. I applaud the decision of the board to table tonight's policy discussions. However, for too long this board has been unable to focus on the issues that matter. Instead of addressing the safety needs of our students and staff, its attention is often diverted by engaging in culture war discussions that are designed to split communities, create headlines, and divert attention from the real work of educating the students at Brethren's Unified. Tonight's discussion originally included a proposed parental notification policy. You may recall these policies were brought up in February and March of 2025 and were ultimately dropped because they violated California law. Despite a recent Supreme Court decision, California law remains unchanged. The merits of that case have not been decided, and a lengthy legal process will occur before it is decided. If adopted, this policy will drag the district into years of costly legal battles with uncertain outcomes. Precious resources of time, energy, and money will be diverted from our core mission. Also originally in tonight's agenda is a proposed revision of the professional standards for administrators. While I do not represent our administrators, I do and have worked closely with them over my 24 years in Redlands Unified. While we occasionally bump heads and argue, they are devoted to our students and staff and try to do their best with limited resources. They are consummate professionals deserving of respect. If I were an administrator, I would find the proposed policy insulting. By its very nature, it is implying that our administrators are dishonest and unable to exercise professional judgment, an implication that is wholly untrue. Again, this policy discussion distracts and draws attention away from conditions that actually matter and can improve student outcomes. Our district faces many challenges. With the recent layoffs, we have fewer resources than ever, but an ever increasing need for support. Now is the time for leadership to be creative and focus on mission critical solutions. I honestly believe Redlands Unified is a special place. We have a strong sense of community, proud traditions, natural beauty, and the capacity to be great. We must focus on the issues that unite our communities and ensure our students and staff have safe schools where children can learn and grow into leaders of tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.

Moving on to Redlands Educational Support Professionals Association.

Ms. Brewster.

Oh, hello.

Hello. Good evening, everyone.

Welcome back to school and work. We hope everyone had an opportunity to rest, recharge, and spend time doing what brings you joy. While school may have been out for the summer, RESPA has been hard at work. Several of our members and leaders attended conferences and trainings throughout the summer, bringing back valuable information, resources, and ideas to strengthen our association and better support our members. We are excited to kick off the year with our fall union reunion in September. This is always a great opportunity to come together, reconnect, build relationships, and celebrate the strength of RESVA. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been pleased to see training provided for several of our employee groups, including M&O. health techs, the safety department, CNS, transportation, and our clerical staff. Yesterday, there was also training for newly hired paraprofessionals. Seeing employees receiving training and resources to be successful in their positions is a positive step. However, we also need to acknowledge where we can and must do better. Our contracted campus monitors and paraprofessionals did not receive the same vital training opportunities. These employees work directly with students every day. They help maintain safe campuses, support students' learning, respond to challenging situations, and provide critical services throughout our schools. They deserve the training necessary to perform their jobs safely, successfully, and our students deserve employees who have been given the tools, resources, and preparation they need. Training should not only happen when someone is newly hired. Our experienced employees also need continual opportunities to learn, refresh their skills, understand expectations, and prepare for the challenges they may encounter throughout their school year. We can do better. We need to do better. Our students deserve it. RESPA will continue advocating for meaningful, consistent, and appropriate training for all our members. When we invest in our employees, we invest in safer schools, stronger teams, and better outcomes for our students. Let's start this school year united, informed, supported, and ready to make a difference. Thank you. Thank you.

Moving on to Redlands Administrative Personnel Association. This is Joy.

Good evening. President Rendler, members of the board, Superintendent Cavrall, our cabinet and community. I'm Jean Joy. I am a RAPA board member filling in for our new president, Heather Rendleman, who couldn't be here tonight due to a prior commitment. So I'm happy to report just some updates from our management team. Last month, our management team met for our annual admin advance, where it's a time to set the stage for the school year and the work ahead. We're able to work with our superintendent and our cabinet leaders to help support us in having that common vision setting the stage for this school year. I'm happy to report we also raised over $1,400 for our students receiving scholarships later in the year, and we appreciate our management team's effort for that, as well as the Board of Education. Last week, we held our first management team social, which is always a well-attended event. It's a time to get to know our new members on a more personal level, and to just build that collaboration time as we all are prepared to get this new year started. Looking ahead, we as a management team are building and forming our team that will walk and raise money for the upcoming annual Believe Walk here in Redlands. It's a great way for our team to support those that have been impacted by breast cancer and support our community. And last but not least, our entire management team across the district is energized and well prepared to welcome students on Thursday, August 13th, and we just look forward to to another fantastic year. And we always thank you and the community's support. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And lastly, Redlands Council of PTAs. Is anybody here? Nope. Okay. Moving on. Now it's time for public participation. Do you want to say something first about... Not having... Yeah.

YES, JUST FOR CLARIFICATION, IF ANYBODY SIGNED UP TO TALK ABOUT THE ITEMS THAT WERE PULLED, THEN YOU WOULDN'T BE CALLED DURING AGENDA ITEMS BECAUSE THOSE ITEMS ARE NO LONGER GOING TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE BOARD. HOWEVER, YOU CAN SWITCH TO PUBLIC COMMENTS IF YOU DON'T HAVE A CARD IN FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS. SO JUST MAKING SURE THAT IF YOUR NAME DOESN'T GET CALLED FOR AGENDA ITEMS AND YOU HAD CHOSEN THOSE TWO SPECIFIC ITEMS, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE CALLED, BUT YOU CAN LET the back know if you would like to switch to public comments, which at that time you can, of course, have your time.

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 the 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. How many speakers do we have?

Tonight we have six speakers with nine topics.

You'll get three minutes.

The first three speakers are Peter Hall, Joshua David Hall, and Catherine Appleby.

Welcome, Peter.

So just to clarify...

Items 14L and 14M were pulled, right? Yes. Okay.

So I'm going to speak about item 20A, the additional language for board policy. I forget what it is, but it's the controversial subjects. 6144. I was reading something in there about how regarding controversial issues, how equal time must be approved for topics that are controversial. Like if a guest speaker comes in and delivers a lecture on an issue, then teachers have to devote equal time to the opposing viewpoint of whatever it is that person talked about. And I just have to say that there are some issues that we should all agree are true one way or another, like take communism for instance. We should all agree that communism is bad and that to try and implement it would be wrong. I mean, people can, I guess, lobby for it and support it and stuff, but those of us who are sane should recognize how much death and destruction communism has caused in the past. Communism killed more people than Nazism did, in fact. Like, Hitler is only estimated to have killed, like, up to 7 million people in his concentration camps, whereas Stalin killed, like, tens of millions. Mao killed hundreds of millions with his policies. So communism is far more dangerous than Nazism was. In fact, some of our most celebrated generals, like Patton, said that we fought the wrong enemy. We should have fought the... communists with the Nazis rather than fighting the Nazis with the communists. And the communists became our enemies after we defeated Germany. So there you go. Also, I just have to... Another thing I want to say is that... regarding giving equal time to controversial issues. It should be well established that things like the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns that resulted from it, it should be well established that that was a farce. Fauci, his diary was recently just found and exposed, and he was publicly humiliated, although I doubt he'll actually face any serious legal repercussions for lying to the country, committing perjury in Congress multiple times.

Is this related to your topic?

It's related to the controversial topics issue, yes. Okay. So, yeah, like Fauci has committed perjury in front of Congress multiple times regarding like what he did during COVID. And he's never faced any serious repercussions for what he's done. And in his diary, he admitted that the only thing he cared about was his increasing popularity and power because of the pandemic and the lockdowns. Thank you, Peter.

I also want to talk about the controversial topics issue. Candy said something about having protected classes. I think the best way to impose tyranny on any society is to create permanent victim classes and then label them protected classes. It's okay to create a protected class temporarily, but we have permanent protected classes and They go around and use their protected status to bully other people, the LGBTQ plus community and Together for Red Ones. They're a prime example of a protected class using their protected status that was artificially given to them by the government and the media. They use it to bully the rest of society. So I think we should get rid of protected classes unless you can prove that said protected class is actually being discriminated against by another party or by society at large. And, you know, you can have a protected class. But we have, like, far too many protected classes in this country. And they have to stop. And LGBTQ, the idea that children can change genders, like a boy can be a girl and vice versa. Is this on a topic on the agenda? It's on the controversial topics issue. We shouldn't have transgenderism in public education or anywhere in society. We need to go back to the fundamentals, reading, writing, math, science, history, et cetera. Transgenderism is not science. They label it as science. It's not science. You can't change gender. Even if a man becomes a woman cosmetically, I mean, some men can look like women cosmetically and some women can look like men cosmetically, but there's still the gender that they were born as.

Thank you, Joshua. Welcome, Catherine.

So sorry that it took me a moment. Uh, Catherine Appleby area for resident of Redlands, parent of a R USD student, two items tonight, 16 E and 20 a. Um, so 16 E specifically items two and three, while you have pulled board policy and administrative regulation, 50, 10 from tonight's agenda, I would like to know, as a parent, how the parent guardian opt-in from 5010 will affect items number 2 and 3. For example, if I don't opt-in to notification, will an employee be investigated if they don't provide me with...

Excuse me, Catherine? Yes. We pulled them, so...

But this is on 16E, which you did not pull.

Okay.

Do you need a moment to get to 16E?

No, I know what you're looking at.

because both of those, even though you pulled those, they will affect this policy. So what will happen when you go back to 5010, Where does it fall in regards to this policy? Will an employee be investigated if they don't provide me with truthful, accurate, and complete information about my student's official and unofficial record? I want to know, does this trump the opt-in, or does the opt-in trump this? And then 20A. These are your discussion items for the first section for additional language for BP 6144. I would like a definition of balanced. I would also like to know, how will the library budgets and the spaces reflect this language of balance, while also being responsive to the interests of students? That is one of the things that is in your documents for your school libraries, is that they are responsive to the interests and needs of students. if you do not provide an increased budget for your libraries, if you do not provide adaptive spaces for your libraries, and you require them to order materials that students may not be interested in in order to pursue this dream of balance, then you will be denying our students materials that they want to read. And they are the people that should matter to you. Moving on to proposed additional language or the new AR. Not all viewpoints deserve equal consideration. You can think of a viewpoint. You have heard viewpoints that have said this viewpoint does not deserve equal consideration. I want to know, will the materials that are selected be eligible for the same weeding policies as any other materials in the library's collection? Libraries follow a very strict weeding policy. It is primarily based on usage and relevancy of information. If these balanced materials are bought and they are never used, are your librarians allowed to weed them? Or must they sit there collecting dust because there is a policy that says we must be balanced. I also want you to define what can reasonably be considered is. As a parent, I would like a list of political and nature viewpoints and the opposing viewpoints provided to staff, students, parents, guardians, and community members. I would like to know if both the librarian and the site principal will be responsible for overseeing the balance, who is going to carry the weight of the reprimand when the balance is not met? Are you going to go after your librarians or are you going to go after your principals? And who decides what is and what is not controversial? You have already heard from speakers tonight with strong opinions on what they think is controversial, what they think is not controversial, and what they think should be black and white. We need a list. We need a definition. I know you don't want to commit to it because the gray area leaves you room to do what you want. But we as parents, the students, the staff, they deserve hard information.

Thank you, Katherine. Next, we have Michael Paisner, Aaron Fernando, and Greg Britton.

Welcome, Michael.

Thank you. Mike Paisner, Area 5. Let's start on a positive note for once. 16A, Superintendent Cabral's compensation, a modest 3% increase that is contingent on an increase in compensation for teachers and support professionals. I think that's classy. I consider it a small gesture that acknowledges the financial challenges our staff faces. But I have to ask, do all the executives have similar clauses? And if not, why not? I'll give you small kudos for a small step in the right direction. Next item, moving on to some less positive items. This board has a lot of nerve putting 16E professional standards on the agenda. Let's review some of the board's failings in the area of professional standards, shall we? Ms. Wilson and Ms. Olson failed to recuse themselves when a book challenge was brought by their largest campaign contributor. Is there any chance they are going to rule against their largest campaign contributor? Their failure to recuse themselves when there is a clear conflict of interest is a failure of professional standards. Ms. Wilson bringing up the topic of Nazi flags and then failing to acknowledge it's a hate symbol is not just a failure of professional standards, it's a failure of common sense. Was Ms. Olson adhering to professional standards when she posted on social media promoting Nazis, support for the KKK, slandering and promoting violence against the LGBTQ plus community? Not just likes, but posts. And no, none of that was photoshopped. Many, including myself, saw it when it was posted. Was Ms. Olson adhering to professional standards when she attacks school staff members on social media? And let me point out the plural there because she has attacked multiple staff members online. Or how about multiple instances of attacking community members on social media, including attacks against me personally, her constituent? Severe lack of professional standards. And no, Ms. Olson doesn't get a pass just because she did some of what I describe under her Awaken Redlands handle. She is the self-proclaimed founder and CEO of Awaken Redlands, so she is responsible for the discrimination involved. and hatred and lack of professional standards she demonstrates on that account. And Ms. Rendler, failing to hold Ms. Olson accountable is also a lack of professional standards that falls on you. It should be noted Ms. Olson's behavior follows a specific pattern called DARVO, deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. It's been mentioned here before. She foments conflict and then plays the victim. This behavior is actually a form of abuse and having engaged in abuse repeatedly, you now have the nerve to discuss professional standards. Titling a policy as no deception is just another example of this DARVO behavior. And even if the title no deception has now been removed, those paragraphs are permanently stained with the history of her abuse her abusive behavior towards our staff and our community. Professional standards, this board has a lot of nerve putting that on the agenda. You are not qualified to discuss professional standards. Moving on to 20a, controversial issues. Item 6, within the controversial issues policy states, the instruction shall not reflect adversely upon persons because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression. I need to point out Ms. Olsen previously violated this principle when online she called the LGBTQ community a cult. She's also on an email thread that advocates against normalizing the LGBTQ community. We are about to witness a discussion about how to discuss controversial issues by people who have engaged in hate speech. Seriously? I honestly cannot think of anyone in Redlands less qualified for a discussion of controversial issues than Ms. Wilson and Ms. Olson. And the community sees this. The community sees who they are. And there's no way you can have a valid discussion about controversial issues with those two sitting on the board and their behavior their social media behavior that maybe you're not aware of, but most of us are. And we've tried desperately to show you, Ms. Rendler, just how hateful they are. And you're going to have a conversation with them about how to deal with controversial issues after they have attacked teachers, they've attacked community members, they attack other board members. You really think you can have a serious discussion with those two and their history? Seriously? Grow up, Ms. Rendler.

Thank you, Michael. Welcome, Aaron.

Hello. Aaron Fernando, Area 2. I'm going to be talking on 20A. So doesn't it sound good in theory to make sure teachers present both sides of controversial topics to their students? I'd say that's good policy in a lot of instances. Unfortunately, a small basket of deplorables weaponize this idea in their quest to subject us all to their Christian-flavored Sharia law. Because some controversial topics are not actually controversial at all. Sometimes the two sides of a controversy are the cold hard facts that experts agree on on one side and bald-faced lies on the other. Their lies are not equal to the truth, and to give them the same focus serves only to dilute the truth. Let's look at an example. The theory of evolution by natural selection is a basic fact of life that all scientists agree makes sense and is supported by evidence. And really, anyone with at least two brain cells to rub together can see how a gene making it more likely for an organism to reproduce would become more and more prevalent as generations pass. Why should teachers have to present the other side that says, actually, my faith says otherwise? Which, side note, are they really saying that humans were able to create dogs from wolves but God can't do anything like that? But let's be real. The Christian nationalists destroying our country don't actually care about telling both sides of a story. In fact, they don't care when women and people of color are unjustly denied promotions while the dumbest, most incompetent white men in the country take over. They spew rage when minorities are represented on their screens and in their books, but when white supremacists whose biggest claim to fame is losing a war against the US have their statues put back up, they cheer. This policy you're discussing exists for the sole purpose of elevating Christian extremists' most backwards belief to the same level as the facts of reality. I can guarantee it won't be applied to defend a teacher for letting students know that all the credible medical literature supports transitioning as a treatment for gender dysphoria. Objective reality exists, and the opinions of some of the dumbest people you knew in high school doesn't change that. They try to conjure controversy to muddy the waters. But to use a completely random example, one Mar-a-Lago-faced Nazi retweeting school board member shrieking about demonic roadside memorials doesn't change the reality that the roadside memorials are completely innocuous. Or to put it in a way that even the simplest among us can understand, facts don't care about your feelings, snowflake. Hopefully in November, you'll see that it's not controversial to say that Redlands is sick of this board's BS.

Thank you, Aaron. Welcome, Greg.

Boy, it's going to be tough to follow the civility crowd in speaking here tonight. How many times have I said and explained and we see what was going on is that as Lincoln said, the philosophy taught in the classroom in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next. Or maybe if someone that the left over here better understands and better reads, give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever. That tyrannical regimes throughout history have understood the importance of indoctrinating the children into their ideology. And the same thing has been going on in this country for decades. And the evidence is right before us. So if materials are balanced, are they really saying materials should be unbalanced? and should express the point of view of them. Or if they are balanced, well, then we have a standard. And if they deviate from that standard, as Candy said earlier, there's a standard then to hold them to, that you have all of these materials here promoting the global warming scam. And then you have nothing on the other side.

Or we're going to have materials saying, how wonderful your life will be if you will just cut off your private parts, you'll be happy.

Without telling them the other side of all the people, that doesn't apply. And that if you go down that path, compared to a teenager that is diagnosed with cancer, the child that is diagnosed with cancer has a better chance of making it to age 30 than the child that is tricked and going down into the transgender path. Do you want to tell them that? I suppose they probably do not. And you look at the polling data. Millennials, they've gone through school, gone through college.

80% of them, just by one example, 80% of them are unaware

that communist regimes have murdered more than 100 million people in the 20th century. That's not balanced. That's not telling them the truth. Do they know what it's like to live in places like Cuba or Venezuela, where the average person under socialism used to be one of the, it was the third most prosperous country in the Western Hemisphere until the socialists took over, and the average person there lost 20 pounds. They didn't have enough food. Do they teach them that? Do they teach balance? And it's important that you teach balance, and this policy should be adopted.

Thank you, Greg. Is that it? All right, now time for superintendent's report. Mr. Cabral.

Thank you. Yes, I'd like to update the board regarding cell phone usage because we are ready to implement the new law and do want to ask for support from families because we have gone down this road in the past. If you're old enough to remember, we started off in schools not allowing cell phones. And it became very difficult because one of the consequences, if you refuse to follow our direction, which is simply you cannot have your phones out at the middle school level specifically at any time during the day. At the high school level, you can have them out during non-instructional time. One of the consequences is to confiscate that phone. And there is a sequential discipline, warning, for example, call to the parent. But at some point, if a student continues to violate the policy, the phone is going to get taken away. And what's different between now and when we did this before is that students, adults, anybody who has a phone, it's almost like a limb for us. feel like something is missing if our phone is not in our pocket, etc. Well, kids have that same pattern, that same feeling. And so I am urging all of us to embrace this law and asking for the support from families at home. Because when a phone gets confiscated, it will be returned to the student. It might include needing to be returned to the parent or some kind of conference with the parent. But if it gets taken during second period, for example, that means the student's going to have to go the entire rest of the day without a cell phone. Theoretically, they shouldn't need it because they shouldn't have it out. And so it should work theoretically. But like we learned in the past, in theory doesn't always work in practice. And many of the issues that we ended up having were because parents were not in agreement with the phone being confiscated for many reasons. And we've heard even from this board that part of the reason why they like their child to have their phone on is for the location to make sure that they're you know, at school and not somewhere else. Well, when it gets confiscated, it's not going to be on the student. And so I did ask Patty to prepare just a little bit, some details, just how it's getting implemented, and she can share additional details in case there's any questions.

Okay, so for grades TK through 8, that would be elementary school and middle school. The allowed usage times are going to be before school begins and after school ends. That includes after school programs. The school day expectations for those grades TK through 8 is that the phones are silent and not visible for the entire school day, including passing periods, recess, lunch, et cetera. And for smart watch rules, they're only allowed if they're paired with a device that can go into airplane or school mode for their smart watch. For high school, for grades 9 through 12, allowed usage times are non-instructional times. Instructional expectations is that they're silent and not visible during instructional time. And then smart watch rules would follow that as well. I also wanted to note that there are some times when devices are allowed. That would be in an emergency. With staff permission, if it's granted by a teacher, perhaps they're using it for an activity. If there's a medical need, it's required for health or well-being, verified by a physician's note. And then if a student has that device in their IEP or their 504. So those are when devices would be allowed. So that's it in a nutshell. And Mr. Cabral already explained that. some of the confiscation and discipline procedures. And I did also want to add that we had a very successful launch. The law started July 1st, and we were in the middle of summer school and ESY, and the students complied quite well, and it was a great launch for that.

Questions? Yes.

I do. It's not so much a question, but I want to ask for your emphasis that we didn't have this discussion when we were drafting the policy, but I would like to remind parents that that does include metaglasses and not to be used during class. That would still fall under our policy, correct?

Yes. It goes for any device that would be connected to the phone in any way.

I've just seen that other districts have actually had to make calls out to families as a reminder that metaglosses are not allowed at any time. So I just wanted to, before we get into a conversation about, like, if this does happen at a site, that we are letting people know that that does include them.

Good point.

Anything else?

No?

Thank you, Patty.

Are you done? Yes. Okay. Moving on to business services consent items. Mr. Hill, any changes?

I think you forgot the board reports.

All right, board committee reports. Anybody have a report?

Crime Rapids Tomorrow.

We haven't met. No, haven't met yet with Compact Club. All right. Moving on.

Check. Okay. Mr. Hill, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions. All right.

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve business services consent items as listed under 11A through 11G? So moved.

A second.

Patty, thank you. Melissa? Any discussion? All right. We'll call for the vote. No, she's looking at Jeanette. Did she get kicked out? Yeah.

Motion carries 5-0. Thank you.

We have no business service action items tonight, so we'll move on to educational services consent items. Mrs. Buckmiller, any changes or additions?

Not tonight, thank you.

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve educational services consent items as listed under 13A through 13P?

I'll go ahead and make a motion, but I will be abstaining from B.

Second. Abstaining from? B. Isn't boy. Not me, Melissa.

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion?

Yeah, I wanted to mention item H, Linda, I'm sorry, the core intervention. We brought a lot of that on last year, and I never saw any data or results with that program. I mean... I'm happy to bring it on more of it. Again, we're doing a lot of training with core intervention, but our scores overall didn't improve at all using that for the entire year. So I know, I believe we only used it at seven schools, seven elementary schools. Do we have, is anyone keeping any data for that to see? Because initially I had really wanted Linda Mood-Bell to be our reading intervention because they are data driven and they have a lot of research and studies that have been published that it does work and core has nothing like that so it was just because everybody believed in it and thought it was a great program but now we've had a year of that at those seven schools do we have any data we can share data with you we can bring that to a future meeting do you have it regarding core intervention and how it's working

We can share, like, pre-data and post-data for that as well. It would mostly be around our CASP scores, our reading scores.

You know if they improved on those schools that use the CORE? Because not all of them were using it, right? It was the seven?

Okay, students were trained. I mean, teachers were trained in CORE, but these contracts are schools that want to bring CORE out to provide coaching. for the individual school sites.

But not all of our elementary was using that, right?

All of our elementary were using it, but some schools wanted to take it further and bring coaching to their sites. So the seven schools you were referring to brought on additional coaching.

I wonder if they did any better.

We can segregate that data for you.

Since we're spending a lot of money on that.

I had a comment on or question on E with the agreement with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools for the transfer policy inter-district agreement. Attendance agreement. I don't know why it's really called attendance agreement, but number 11 on there. I don't quite understand what that means. It sounds like a student has to be kept on an inner district transfer. Even if there are concerns with the student, if they're in grade 10, 11 or 12. At 199 and 200.

That agreement's in place because as you get towards those graduation years, shifting it usually results in a dropout. So all the districts get together and decide that in that 11th and 12th grade year, transfers that are taken can't be revoked. So we scrutinize taking in transfers at those grades just to make sure that they can graduate in time. So it's kind of a mutual agreement.

Well, I figured that's what it was, but it, to me, isn't appropriate if other students that are younger are held to one standard to maintain their inner district transfer, but an 11th or 12th grader isn't. I just wanted to question that because it doesn't seem... There.

Or equitable. Part of the rationale is that at the 11th and 12th grade level, if we own the student on a transfer... It isn't okay for us to then release the student back to their home school where that student may end up becoming a non-grad for their home school when we didn't theoretically do enough for the student because we had accepted them. And so it's a critical point for not only the student but also for the school districts. And so the agreement is mutual, meaning at that grade level, we won't rescind and you won't either. We will own the students that we have at that point.

So even with severe behavior problems. Correct. Yeah.

We hope that if there's a severe behavior problem with a student that's on an inter-district transfer, that we've addressed it long before that 11th grade year. Yeah. Yeah.

But also, you could recommend that they go to Orangewood or something to make up the

Correct. In theory, if a student is struggling and they're in the 11th grade level in the district, it's the district that they're at. The onus is on us to help that student graduate. And that's where the protection is that we're not trying to say, well, we couldn't do it, so we're going to release you now and you have to go back to your home school and then put it on the new district where we know our safety nets here as a district. That's in theory the way that it's supposed to work.

We do the same thing internally. So if a student transfers some school to school, we often scrutinize that 11th and 12th grade, sending them back to their homeschool.

How many does, do you guys know how many districts there are in the County?

35.

Okay. So this is all of them are almost all of them.

Yes.

that it for discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0 with Board Clerk Ayala Quintero abstaining from 13B.

My screen says zero abstained. Is my screen wrong?

It's because I can't. I'm voicing my abstention on that one item. Otherwise, there's no way to do it on just this. Like, I have to vote for all the other things.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Got it. Moving on to action items under educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Motion to approve the readmission of student 2024-2025-007, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year.

Can't do them all at once? Nope.

I'll make a motion.

So moved. Second. Michelle made the motion, so Jeanette would be the second.

Okay. Any discussion on this one? I'll call for the vote.

You can't do it all together?

We have in the past. However, my understanding is they should be individual when it comes to readmissions. I'm not sure that, and I can confirm one more time, but that's what my understanding is, that we have to do them one at a time, that we should have been doing them one at a time.

Motion carries 5-0.

A motion to approve the readmission of student 2024-2025-025 effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year. Do I have a motion? I'll move. Okay. Question. Call for the vote. You said 27? What? You're on B, right? Yeah, 2024-2025-25.

025.

025 is what I said.

Oh, I see the bottom one. Okay, so moved. I get it, yeah. So moved.

It was already moved.

Second?

It was already second.

Discussion? We're voting.

We already voted. Call for the vote.

We already voted. I didn't.

Motion carries 5-0.

Motion to approve the readmission of student 2024-2025-031, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year. Do I have a motion? So moved. I'll second. How do you think you can be? Any discussion? Oh, it was Melissa. Oh, heard it over here. Any discussion? Call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Motion to approve the readmission of student 2024-2025-038, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Second.

Moved. County second. Any discussion on this one? Call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Is there a motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-001, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year? So moved.

Second. Candy in my patty.

I wrote candy, but I thought it was going to be Melissa again. Any discussion? I'm going to call for the vote. Is there a motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-004 effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year? I'll move. Second. So thank you, Candy. Any discussion on this? Call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Is there a motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-009, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Okay.

Motion carries 5-0.

I have a motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-025. Wait, didn't we already do that one? Oh, no, that was 2024. Effective first semester of the 2026-2027 school year.

I'll move. Second.

So thank you, Patty. Any discussion? I'll call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

We have a motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-26, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year. So moved. Second. Thank you, Melissa. Any discussion? All right, we'll call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

A motion to approve the readmission of student 2025-2026-028, effective the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year. I'll move. Second. Melissa, thank you, Candy. Any discussion? I'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Do I have a motion to approve the Redlands Unified School District's 2026-2027 English Learner Reclassification Process and Criteria for students in grades K-5 and students in grades 6-12 and English learners with disabilities in grades K-12 as presented?

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? I'll call for the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Moving on to human resources consent items. Mrs. Bruick, any changes or additions?

No changes, thank you.

I have a motion to approve human resources consent items as listed under 15A through 15C as presented.

So moved. Second.

Thank you, Melissa. Any discussion? We'll call the vote.

Board President, who made the motion in the second?

Melissa.

Did we finish all the action items?

We're on human resources consent. We're voting on that.

Did we do these? No, I know, but did we finish?

We just voted on 15 A through C. Did human resources consent items?

We did the English learner reclassification. Yes. Okay.

We're waiting for Jeanette.

Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. Continuing on with Human Resources Action Items, Mrs. Bruick, any changes or additions?

No changes or additions. Thank you.

Thank you. Motion to approve the amendment to the Employment Agreement for Juan J. Cabral, Superintendent of Schools, as presented.

I'll move. Second.

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion?

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks. All right, we'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

I'd like a motion to ratify or adopt resolution number 4, 2026-2027, action regarding teaching outside credential authorization. I'll move. Second. Any discussion? All right. We'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. Motion to ratify The Memorandum of Understanding between Redlands Unified School District and Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. Second. I can't. Everyone's voice sounds the same. Any discussion? All right, we'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

Motion to adopt resolution number 7, 2026-2027, approving employment of Carissa Powell, effective the 2026-2027 school year, based on approval by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, waiving Ed Code section 44265.3 credential requirements. I'll move.

Are we on C? I apologize.

I thought we did B. We're on D. Okay, my bad.

I just moved.

Second.

It was you. Any discussion? All right, we'll call the vote. Is there a motion to approve the first reading of updated board policy 4319.21 professional standards first reading?

So moved. We're present. I don't get your last vote on the last item.

Oh, sorry. I'm sorry.

Motion carries 5-0.

I didn't submit it. Okay. Do we have a motion on this one?

I didn't.

Okay. Is there a second?

I think Melissa did.

I'll second it. Okay. Thank you, Candy. Thank you, Jeanette. Any discussion on this?

I did have just a comment. I was a little thrown on... Number item or the added language number two, I felt like it was a little redundant to item three. I just felt like they were both essentially saying the same thing. If we wanted to move, you know, board policy or administrative regulation down to number three. But I felt like they were both essentially saying the same thing and I felt like we didn't need both of them.

Well, they're clearly different. One is refusing to provide information, and the other one is speaking right now. But what I was saying was one is refusing to provide, and one would be intentionally withholding, not as if someone hadn't asked you, a parent hadn't asked you something regarding their kid, but in a conversation you intentionally withhold information that you knew the parent would want to know.

I still say that's the same thing. Refusing to provide somebody with information is the same thing as intentionally withholding.

Well, I don't think it hurts to cover all the bases. I see the difference, but what does it hurt? We can just be thorough and make sure we cover all the bases.

Again, that was just my opinion. I was just saying that I felt it was redundant because I feel like if they needed to be combined to include what are required by law, board policy, or administrative regulation, it just felt like we were saying the same thing twice. And I know in other discussions about policies, you've wanted to streamline things, so I just thought that was streamlining it.

Oh, I'm sorry, Jeanette, go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to comment that several audience members have questioned why we even need this. And my response to that is the Supreme Court had to get involved in making this determination. So obviously there are a chunk of people who don't want to have a policy such as this. And so I think it's very important that we do put it into writing in that regard because it became a Supreme Court ruling.

Okay, I was looking at 3 and 11. Is there a way to put part of three into 11 because that one was in there? I don't know if that's even possible. I mean, I don't mind it being by itself. It just seems like there's so many.

Yeah, well, that's why I didn't even actually look at the first part of 11 with that much. I was really focused on the highlighted areas, but I guess you're right. It does kind of already address that.

It does include staff, though, in a different, kind of a little different... No, yeah, but if it had just said staff, it would probably be more thorough, but...

Being that it includes students, parents, guardians, staff, or members of the public, I feel like, again, it's still essentially restating the same thing over and over just in different verbiage.

Yeah, because the three is talking about that creative false or misleading understanding, and down here it's being dishonest. I mean, that's the same. I don't know. It feels like it has more information.

Number 11. That part was added at the end of number 11 because it speaks specific to employment records or other school records. And there was some guidance that we did not want to leave it out so that it also was specific to that.

That makes sense. You have to have it on both. That makes sense. Okay, but is there a real difference between two and three then? I'm not seeing it, so if I'm missing something, please explain.

The draft started with the language that we had already discussed. And so that's where two and three came from, because those were both on the original draft that we discussed at the last meeting. So it really is up to the board to consider this draft as a first read and then either alter or accept.

I like it the way it is.

All for the vote.

Mr. President, who made the motion and the second?

I did. Andy and Michelle. Andy and Jeanette.

Oh, that's right.

Andy and Jeanette.

Motion carries 4-1 with Board Clerk Ayala Quintero with an A.

Moving on to public participation. 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 before the first speaker begins and will not exceed three minutes. How many speakers do we have?

We have seven speakers, seven topics.

All right, three minutes.

The first three speakers are Joshua David Hall, Peter Hall, and Catherine Appleby.

Welcome back, Joshua.

I want to talk about the behavior of Patty Hollihan and Melissa Alcantara on July 21st, the meeting of July 21st. Patty Hollihan got up without asking for approval prior to the meeting. She got up after Melissa Ayala-Contarro put a hand on her shoulder and she left the meeting. It was done in an attempt to table the notification policy for children who identify as gay or trans or queer or whatever. notification policy. And this is a, this is deleriction of duty. It was a sedition against the community of the highest order that conspired to commit deleriction of duty as a partisan effort to benefit together for Red Ones to table the notification policy. And I've come out against the notification policy in the past for not going far enough. It's a bad policy, but doing it is better than nothing. And we've been doing this, we've been going around on this policy for three years, since 2023. So we need to vote on it and use it as a launching pad to go further in our efforts to combat transgenderism in public education and in society. I would like... In a perfect society, they would be removed immediately, but I would like for the Tea Party to write a petition for a call of no confidence, a vote of no confidence in the election to have them removed. What they did was, it was obviously juvenile and unprofessional, but it was also sedition and dull erection of duty.

Okay, so I was going to talk about... Welcome back, Peter. I was going to talk about what my brother just talked about, but I'm going to talk about the behavior displayed at this meeting, particularly during the last section of public comment. Like the last meeting, the speakers of Together for Red Ones came up, and they lied. They distorted facts. They, like Michael Paisner, for instance, keeps complaining, like every time he speaks, he always complains about board members Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson being Nazis and fascists, etc. and how Board President Michelle Rendler is enabling them and refuses to punish them, etc. And then he complains that he's being persecuted because videos of his public comments are being posted on the Awaken Redwoods social media pages. If you say something in public and people criticize you for it, you are not being persecuted. uh... board members have the right to freedom of speech to mike so quit whining you big baby you're not being persecuted just because they post videos of your public comments so um... candy olson and jeanette wilson and the other board members are Citizens of this country to their citizens of the state, their citizens of this community, and they are entitled to publicly share their opinions. In fact, I prefer it when politicians and the local leaders, uh, when, um, leaders at every level of politics, local to, um, federal, um, publicly share. opinions about things, regardless of how controversial they might be, because then we know what they think about things. I'm tired of politicians being milk toast and giving, like, non-answers to every question that's asked of them. And I'm tired that, like, some people are allowed to say what they really think, what they really feel, while others have to, like, walk around the issues without talking about what they really think because they're afraid of offending people. Why is it that these cultural Marxists can say whatever's on their mind, they can do what they want, they can say what they want, and usually they never face the consequences, whereas the rest of us have to mind our P's and Q's. Tired of it. It's nonsense. You guys are not being, and also they complained about how like, they're tired of being, the LGBTQ group is tired of being called a cult. They are a cult. They have this religiously fanatical devotion to the idea that men can become women and vice versa, boys can become girls and vice versa. Well, they can't. You are what you are. If you were born male, you are male. If you were born female, you are female. And like my brother said earlier, just because you change your appearance doesn't change your gender or whatever else. If gender is a social construct, then transgenderism is doubly so, because you're expecting us to validate your assumed identity. I'm not going to. Thank you, Peter.

Welcome back, Catherine. Thank you. Catherine Appleby, Trustee Area 4. Stated in the board agenda, the board claims that the board encourages comments, feedbacks, and input from all voices in the community, and also requests that when called, speakers may proceed to the podium, state their name and trustee area, and speak for the allotted time. Yet this board considers the public comments of people who do not state their name and trustee area with the same weight as people who state their name and trustee area. I am guilty of both. I have a simple solution for the board. I'd like to ask that you adopt the practice of letting speakers state their name and trustee area before starting our time. In fact, when you read the agenda, it is clear that that is how that is written. We are supposed to state that and then speak for our allotted time. This is going to allow you, the board, And both the in-person and virtual audience know which voices are truly from the RUSD community and which are from outside. Ideally, we're living in our ideal world. If it is discovered that someone impersonates and lies about being a member of the RUSD community by claiming a trustee area where they do not live, then the board should impose repercussions on them. My other suggestion is that I know that in order for you, the board members, to visit campuses and to interact with staff and students, you have to be accompanied by a cabinet member. But I was actually wondering if it would be possible for the board members to hold town halls at RHS, CVHS, and RHS during open house this year. only the board members who represent the specific high school and the students, this would not be a time for parents or guardians or community members, along with a cabinet member, who would be the host, would be in these town halls. Because our high school students are four years or less away from turning 18 and beginning their civic life, and you just passed the resolution celebrating America's 250th anniversary, which stated this board and the district commit to using the semi-quincentennial as a platform to inspire students to civic responsibility, these town halls are are a perfect opportunity for high school students and the board to engage in civics together. Thank you, Catherine.

Next, we have Michael Paisner, Greg Brittain, and Aaron Fernando.

Welcome back, Michael.

Michael Paisner, Area 5. So name-calling of people with opposing viewpoints is acceptable public comment now. Noted. Okay. Very good. Ms. Rendler, your instinct that the notification policy is legally problematic is well-founded because discrimination against the trans community is illegal. Sprinkling in phrases like unless prohibited by law doesn't diminish the illegal intent. And how do I know the intent is illegal discrimination towards the trans community? Ms. Wilson and Ms. Olson campaigned on it. In fact, their largest campaign contributor wrote an op-ed published in a local paper recently where he said it. The goal of the notification policy is to discriminate against the trans community. Discrimination against the trans community is prohibited by law in California. and the attempts to get around the law range from ridiculous to disastrous. The discussion at the last meeting of automating notifications for all record changes made it clear that approach would spam parents or cripple your IT systems. The current language retains the request phrasing, which means no automation, but it would require teachers and staff to act as big brother reporting on students that ask a particular question. And let's not forget that the absurd premise of this policy was proven to be a lie at the last meeting. No one is secretly trying to transition anyone. In a five-year span, there was only one request for this type of record change by a student, and in that one case, the parents were in fact involved. So let's bottom line this, shall we? The transitioning concern this policy is supposed to address doesn't exist, never existed. That lie was propagated to foment fear, outrage, and political gain. In order to avoid violating laws against discrimination, you have expanded the policy to include all record changes, which would cripple your IT systems if implemented in an automated fashion, and triggering this off a request for record changes turns your staff into Big Brother. This raises serious legal issues, detracts us from focusing on student success, and threatens the financial stability of our school district. And let me be clear, everyone agrees parents should be involved in their child's education. But this policy is intended to promote fear and hatred towards the trans community and has no place in our community or our school district. do not bring back this policy. Instead, focus on student success, financial stability, and the safety of our teachers as has been requested this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Welcome back, Greg.

Thank you. Did the students that you all let back into the school learn their lesson from their semester or so being at home? I have serious doubt. Your union rep talked about it, and I was surprised he was that bad. 400 students. incidents per year of students attacking staff. And there's probably a lot more that just don't get reported. There's a push or something and it just doesn't get reported. So it's probably even worse than that. And when you don't have a disciplined place where people are safe, that undermines the education of everyone that is trying to get an education and the teachers that are trying to teach. And it doesn't do the misbehaving student any good to let them know that misbehavior is tolerated. It'll get worse and worse and worse until they get to a point where it's not tolerated and there are very serious consequences and they run into the long arm of the law. I'm very disappointed that we are not proceeding with the parental notification. As I've talked about before, it's a very important issue that parents and others in the community care very much about and it would be good to get everyone's on the record to see where they stand on that. As Candy pointed out, there are multiple districts around the state that have the record change policy in effect. It's not being challenged. In the Chino where the policy was challenged, it was ruled that you could do it, and even the state attorney general refused to appeal. So it is a legally safe thing, and you can't be totally safe and fulfill your duties in anything these days because of the nature of the legal system. And there's also, as you pointed out, that there are firms that will represent the district for free should that be challenged. But beyond that, that case came before the Mirabelli v. Olson case. And in that case, a federal district court judge ruled that the parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence. That's way beyond what you're talking about here. And that is a federal constitutional right that state law cannot override. And this, as I mentioned before, student with cancer, student that goes down the transgender route, the student with cancer has a better chance of living to the age of 30 then the transgender student. And you want to exclude? They want to exclude parents from that key area? And that's the only area that they want to exclude parents. You know, suicide attempt or discipline problems or fighting or whatever it is, got to tell the parents. The one thing is that it's wrong and you should bring it on the agenda.

Thank you, Greg. Welcome back, Erin.

Hello. I just wanted to thank you, Michelle Rindler, for pulling that horrible policy you pulled. Well, you took pains to reassure us you're still the evil, cold-hearted monster we all know and loathe. At least you can still occasionally listen to legal advice. Candy, it's really funny of you to say the potential tragedy of a parent not knowing their kid goes by they them is worth drastic action now, but the potential tragedy of trans kids killing themselves, well that's just the cost of doing business. Says a lot about your priorities and makes it clear that they are not with the student's well-being. And I just want to also point out the absurdity of someone who's, their big mission in life is making sure that transgender people have to go back into the closet or die, is expressing concern about them dying before 30 when he's part of the biggest reason why they die. Thank you.

Thank you, Aaron.

Next up is Jeff Pogge and Chris Clotis.

Welcome, Jeff. Thank you. I'd like to thank the staff who is staying on, and I'd like to thank the speakers. And I would like to reiterate, oh, sorry, Jeff Poggi, Area 1. I would like to ask the board a question, if I could, to start. Are speakers able to criticize by name somebody they disagree with? That's a real question. Can you answer it now or do I have to wait for an answer later?

We can follow up with you after. Pardon? We can follow up with you after the meeting.

This is disturbing, but my understanding was that you're not allowed to do this, and it's a matter of respect and observing the rules and regulations. But the same people who are calling into question, by name, people who they disagree with, want to, what, call the parents when they think... may be just possibly that somebody is having questions about their lives and where it's going. God forbid that we should allow that to creep into a private conversation with somebody or a quiet observation with somebody. This is a really disturbing policy, and I'm really glad that you removed it from the agenda. And I hope it stays off the agenda, because it's ridiculous. And you know it's ridiculous. And the moral posturing and the... Virtue signaling is disturbing. This is a board of education. You're supposed to be focusing on student success and student vitality within the system that is working, not running out of money. And I wish that somebody would take this into consideration. I cannot stand this. We're just going down this ridiculous path, and it's not doing anybody any good. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff.

My name is Chris Claudus, Area 4. I am a resident of Redlands, a retired public school teacher, a current school board member, and grandfather to four RUSD students. So I am heavily invested in what is going on in this room. I find it unfortunate that I have to remind you that your very mission statement says that diverse, multicultural democratic society, when it seems that all you're trying to do here is marginalize and vilify students you don't like. Students can be gay and still be good Americans. I know you don't believe that, but I think maybe you should. You do not define what is a good American. White Christian nationalism is not, contrary to your belief, the direction we should be going. I think we need to welcome all ethnic groups, all sexual orientation groups. They are all worthy Americans and worthy students, and they are all entitled to your best effort at improving their education only. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Okay. On to board comments. Anybody have any comments tonight? Who would like to go first? I'll go first. I'll go first. So welcome back to start a school year. This morning I went to the CNS opening year meeting. It was so much fun. We have a wonderful group of about 100 people serving our kids meals every day. For free. Kids get anything they need to eat at school for free. It's pretty cool. But the meeting went really well. These people are so dedicated. If you see them around, if you are at an event and they're there, just go say hi and tell them how much you appreciate them. what they do for our kids, because we do have a lot of kids in our district that if they weren't at school eating, they wouldn't get a meal that day. So I'm really proud of these people. It was great. Also, I just want to say, I want to clarify something. Patty, Board Member Hollihan did let me know before the meeting that she was going to be leaving. She did let me know. So that was a false statement that was made. And I don't want to start this school year out this way. I'm just tired of the back and forth arguing, calling this person a name, calling this person a name. Like, that's so childish. Like, everyone just be adults. So that's all I have to say. And welcome back to a new year.

Thank you, President Rendler. I would just like to say thank you to the Ed Services Department by Patty Bochmiller and all our other assistant supes who helped with the administrative advance. I was able to attend for both days, and everything went well. I think it's a great way to kick off the year. So thank you to everyone who was involved in all your hard work. I appreciate that. And just to wish all the staff, teachers, students a successful and a safe school year next year. And on a personal note, I'd like to thank all those who reached out to me during our unexpected tragedy of our family member. Thank you for coming to the service. Your presence meant a lot to me and my family. And to those who made comments about my absence in the last meeting, just to let you know, my family will always come first. Thank you.

Excited for a new year and can't wait to see the learning that's going to happen. I can't wait to see the PLCs in action and see what our academic scores can come with. I'm really excited. We should definitely see some concrete improvements. And if we don't, then we need to really figure that out because we've done everything we can to make that happen. I want to let the parents know that the Trevor Project hotline is now on all of the backs of the middle schools and the high school ID cards. So I would speak to your child in... If you disagree with them, going on the Trevor Project website, there are a lot of chat rooms available that are unregulated. And adults can interact with children on there in a lot of questionable spaces that you may or may not approve of. And I would speak to your child regarding that or even... Just discuss it so that you can always talk to your kids about everything that you want to warn them or educate them about these things so they don't go off wandering into some chat rooms that you might not approve of or that may be dangerous where there's a lot of potential for sexual predators. So that's something to be aware of this school year. Unfortunately, it's due to a law that was passed in our California legislature. And other than that, very excited for this coming school year.

I'll go ahead and go. I wanted to just let everyone know the admin advance. It was very well put on. It was a great event, but what was most important to me was the main keynote speaker gave excellent information on what the PLC, the professional learning communities, what the concepts are, what the premises are, and I really think that's going to help our students a lot when more than just one teacher is discussing the students and what their needs are and sharing some of their skills with other students, for example. I really think that's going to be great for our students. And I'm excited to start seeing the data that will come with that as well because it's very data-driven. I am disappointed in the parental notification policy getting voted to wait. It will be back, I guarantee you, because the Supreme Court is still in the midst of making a final determination on a couple lawsuits that will... that clear. I don't understand why the community in parts are not interested in parents' constitutional rights to information about their children. That is the crux of the parental notification policy. And so I am anxious to see some of these legal determinations made so that we have a clear road ahead of us to get that taken care of. And I am super excited Thursday morning to help welcome the kids back to school.

Okay. I don't have very much. I just wanted to welcome everybody back to a brand-new school year full of hope and promise and let everybody know that we have about 36 hours left, so make the best of it as you can. Make sure to practice your sleep, even though my kids hate that term, when I start asking them to practice their bedtime so that they're awake and refreshed for Thursday. Okay. I hope everybody had a great summer and welcome back all of our staff. It's going to be a good year and everybody's going to show up and we're going to raise our attendance. I am not casting away the importance of mental health days and me time, but at the same time, we want to make sure we have a balanced budget and that we have all the staff here that we need to to help our students thrive. So thank you.

Since Michelle left, item 19, superintendent's comments.

Yes, thank you. I wanted to highlight a very important Measure D project that is almost completed, and that is the first safety lobby over at Beatty. Hopefully you'll see some pictures soon on social media specifically, but one of our first goals was, was, of course, all the HVAC units. And there was a lot of probably not fancy type of projects that we needed to get done for our students to be comfortable in classrooms. And we're still working on some of those. But safety being the priority, putting up higher fence lines, and then safety lobbies at every middle school is the phase that we are really excited about. It's going slower than I'd like or than we'd like. However, Beatty, it's almost finished. I did send the board a picture. I went over there Monday. It looks even nicer in person. And it's just an example of what the other three middle schools are going to experience thanks to Measure D funding. Fencing is just about approved to put perimeter fencing at six feet, and so hopefully we'll see the dirt turning with that project here soon. We are going to have to work through the school year for some of our safety lobbies. Some of our middle schools are going to experience having to shift offices and things like that because we don't want to wait until next summer. We're going to start actually doing it this semester at some point. First day of school is always super exciting. I'm going to urge all students a quick challenge. There's only 180 days of school. And you get Saturday and Sunday off. And we even throw in, I think, six Mondays during the school year. And we also throw in three weeks at Christmas, a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at spring break. Plenty of time to go visit the happiest place on earth. So during those 180 days, we would like to see you every single day. It really isn't that many days if you think about it. There's 365 days in a year. We only need to see you 180 times. So we look forward to seeing you. First day of school, we are going to take groups. Cabinet's going to lead four different groups as we visit sites. And so hopefully we'll see you out there for day one. So welcome back, everyone.

Thank you. We're moving on to discussion items. We're going to discuss board policy 6144, controversial issues. Who would like to start this conversation?

Sure. Since I brought this forward, I would like to advocate for this because it was a problem that I have recognized repeatedly since I've been here on the board, that library materials that are coming into our schools are often neutral, politically neutral, and they're about animals or sports or all the good things out there. And then frequently there's two to three, sometimes up to five, politically-based books per batch that I've reviewed. And I've reviewed every single batch of books that's come in since I've been here. For example, at one of the elementary schools, there's about six to eight, I forget offhand, it's been a while since I looked at it, but about, let's say, six Obama-based books. Obama's family, Obama's wife, Obama's Obama himself. And there's not a single Reagan book, Bush book, Trump book, any type of opposing political party president book. I find that unbalanced. I have no problem with the Obama books. I think they need to be there, but I also think we need a balance. If we have the expectation of producing critical thinkers and children who are taught a variety of information on all issues, then they can make better decisions and more informed decisions in life. You can't say we aren't influencing... uh... children in only one direction if we're not offering balanced curriculum so we already have this policy on controversial issues regarding topics so if a teacher is talking about a topic in the classroom we already have a policy that says they need to provide both sides to each controversial issue or political issue that's already a policy And we have the same thing goes for a speaker. When a speaker comes to the classroom, the teacher is to provide an alternative point of view for that one particular speaker if it involves something that's widely known to be a controversial issue. Balance is always good, and providing children who can see all aspects and all sides of every issue is the only way that we can produce intelligent thinkers, critical thinkers that can analyze the data from all sides and make a decision as to what they believe. So just the same as we have that policy in place, For speakers or for topics taught in the school classroom, our library books should be the same. We should not have it grossly imbalanced as we have it right now because both sides of any hot topic or issue should be discussed, particularly politics. And that's why I brought it forward.

Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple comments that I think it's a great addition to the controversial issues policies we've already had in our policy. Books, I mean our policy, our list of policies. This policy was last revised in 2015. So 11 years later, I think it's a great idea to add library books as well. That should be a fairly simple request of a librarian and pretty easily attainable to do a search. within each library of what books exist and um... submit requests when they see an imbalance of course it cannot be it's not one for one but it's when it becomes that obvious that there's not a balance i think um... it should be a pretty easy thing to do and now with principals seeing the books as they're being ordered they can also help make that type of determination and give suggestions or input on some other books that could balance out the information being provided for our kids to read and like candy mentioned critical thinking well i'll talk about we want our kids to learn critical thinking And that's really not possible if they're not being exposed to two or three sides to any particular issue. So we need to just provide that. And if it's not, I mean, there's no way to know that every book that's purchased is going to interest all kids. Obviously, they're not. But to provide the balance is our responsibility, in my opinion, as board members.

I do think that we should have balance in the library. I think that's very noble. We should be doing that. I just don't see the feasibility of how this is going to work. How are we expecting... a librarian or designee, and the site principal to be responsible to oversee this every day. Like, this is a big thing, and I don't know how to do that.

Well, I don't think they order books every day. And with our new form, they do have to type the book names into that form, right? So when they're bringing a book in, now they have to type it in, and the principal is signing off. So just right off the bat, you can see the title, and you pretty much know.

But who's going to say... like what political point of view this is and find the one that is different or find two that are different.

Well, like if it's about a president, for example.

But a book about a president isn't controversial, isn't political. That book itself about a president, you talk about Obama's family, that's not...

Okay, so...

But if you talk about his policies and what he believes in and all that, that book could be... Wouldn't you say Obama is a political figure? Well, he is, but... So why don't you just have a... But when you have a book about just his family, it says family members, a book about their family members, like you have a book about his kids or something?

I don't think it has to be that difficult. I think using some common sense would do the trick. I think it could be reasonably worked out. I don't think it would be that hard. I don't think it's an exact science. Yeah, there wouldn't be a perfect solution for every single book, perhaps.

And I get that with the political movements, activists and stuff. You always want to balance. You want to show both sides, right? A guest speaker comes in, they're showing both sides of an issue, right? A teacher's going to talk about the other side. I get that. That makes sense. I just don't see how this is going to work.

The best effort could be made because it is extremely lopsided right now.

Are you talking about like when books come in or when they get ordered? Yeah. When they get ordered. Right. Somebody's going to look at that order and go, oh, well, you have these books. Maybe we should get these ones too. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, to balance it. The other side? They have to write them all down and look at each title. I mean, they're putting it in a form.

You're not suggesting that somebody go through the whole library and go, this book, got to get one. No, I'm not suggesting that.

I'm saying from here moving forward, create a balance.

Okay. I had some questions, and I need to preface this with the fact that I am not intending to have an argument here. I just have genuine questions about how the – who's making the judgment? Because I have to – you mentioned books on the Obamas. I don't know that we have – books in our libraries about the Obamas because they are a political family. I think it's because I do think we're supposed to have nonfiction books. We have a huge district push for more nonfiction titles, and it's been that way for well over 10 years. And so I don't think having books on presidents is a controversial issue, whether it doesn't matter what side of the political scope they lie. However, I do think when we have books and there's probably I will agree that there is probably more on them than other presidents because they are the first African-American first family. And I completely understand that. So I don't think it's fair to say that books on Obama are simply because of his political affiliation, but more because it was a first in our country. I do have questions because it is very vague. And I understand you said it was from this point forward. What happens in situations, like again, who's to say it'd be, I would imagine it would eventually come here, who's to say what topics are considered political? Is it only politics? What other topics would be considered political and controversial? So what happens when there is no balance that exists? So if we're buying two books on a certain topic, what if the opposing viewpoint, even though it might be political in nature, is not something we would want to be purchasing books on. If we are going to buy a book about the Holocaust, do we have to, opposingly, buy books about Hitler? I mean, I think there's... a matter of perspective on what the opposing viewpoint would be. And I think this is a bit of a touchy subject and maybe we probably shouldn't get into that. I believe our teachers and our librarians have experience and they have received training in how to present these topics in a balanced manner. This isn't a new thing. They've obviously been trained to do this. But What happens when those same books, even if we did, say we purchased an equal number of books on each topic, what happens when one book is more used than the other? And then we have to reorder the one that's most used. Are you then going to look at that order form and say, well, you're purchasing one viewpoint. We now have to buy more of the unused copies.

That wouldn't make sense.

It wouldn't, but how are we supposed to know? It's the same title, though.

You're saying one title gets checked out more, so having extra copies of the same title doesn't seem like it would be a problem.

But I'm not asking if we need more titles of it, because then there wouldn't be a balance. What I'm saying is if you're looking at an order form and there are more books on a political side, it isn't necessarily because the librarian is favoring a viewpoint. They're replacing something that was prior... and you're not gonna see that balance in that order, is my question. As well as, would this opposing viewpoints then extend to religion?

We have a variety of religions, probably like 20 books for every batch of a million different religions.

Yeah, no, absolutely. But what I would suggest is, is that going to be, because I would say that some religions can be considered to have a political... Yes. There tend to be some biases towards certain religions. So then would we then have to provide a balanced viewpoint of that opinion?

I don't know. I see quite a variety. Like I said, I've looked at every batch, and they all have about 18 to 20 religious holidays. And Daval, Diwali, I could rattle off so many different religious holidays. Oh, I don't mean holidays. I mean on the religion themselves. Yes. So regarding that religion and their celebrated holidays. So I think we're doing a good job in providing a wide variety of balance for those type of topics. And... Regarding the Obamas, I just gave that example. That's just off the top of my head. And again, I have no problem with the Obamas being in our library. I just think that the fact that when you try to search up in the same library, there's not a single conservative family or conservative president that you can find in that library, I think that's off balance. I think that we need to provide our kids balance. And there is always some progressive activists in each batch. There's never some conservative. What about Tim Tebow? What about some other conservative activists? It's never in the batch. It's always the progressive ones. So you can say that parents always worry about indoctrination. This is like a perfect example. If we're not providing the full story... of both sides or all sides of an issue, then we're really doing our kids an injustice. It's not proper. It's like you don't want everyone talks about Christian nationalism, like as if we're pushing some agenda. Nobody wants that. We want a balance. We want a proper balance. We don't want to shove kids towards one way or another. We want them to have all information so they can make informed decisions on their own. And just right now, that's not the way it is. So I don't think it would be a perfect science. I don't think that it would be. something where it has to be exactly tit for tat and some strict rigid guidelines, but having a conscious awareness of when you're filling out that form and you're putting all these books in, think, oh, hey, just like our policy that we have, you're saying, well, how do we know what's controversial? We already have a policy here saying if you're going to talk about controversial issues, you have to provide both sides of the issue. We already have that here. Same with presentations and speakers that's already established. So why wouldn't library material just follow the same guidelines?

I'm sorry, really quick. I feel like even addressing this, again, presidents, yes, we should have resources that cover all presidents, regardless of their political stance. That's not the topic. But even in having this conversation, you're assigning politics to other figures. Like you mentioned Tim Tebow. I know there are books on Tim Tebow. I've seen them. They're Um, the ones that I can think of off the bat are who is Tim Tebow? Like there are, um, but since I've been here, Tim Tebow hasn't come across, but a lot of other ones, I also don't know what other, you know, things are out there, other figures that we are then going to assign. politics too. I just think that if there is an interest in a book, our students usually ask for something and I understand there might be some affiliation, but I don't think that is the, I don't think it's our job to assign that because you can look at somebody and assume, you know, they're left-leaning, right-leaning, when if they are a public figure and there is an interest, I don't see why there should be a controversial issue. But I go back to Patty because I interrupted her. That's okay.

Just a curiosity, where are the Obama books? Are they in the high school?

No, elementary, and I don't really feel like I can tell you in private what school it is, but I don't really feel like blasting that particular elementary school publicly and trying to make them feel bad about having an imbalanced selection. I'm just curious.

That actually goes under history, so that would be great. I have no problem with the Obama books. I'm not saying you did. I didn't say that. Don't be defensive.

I'm just saying, making a comment that... Yeah, history is great, and we need some conservative history, too.

That's all. And there should be. So I think our librarians do an amazing job in general, in my opinion. They always have. They're great. The work that they put in. Who's going to pay for these other books? I mean, I know Jason's probably going to have a fit over here.

Oh, my gosh. I can't believe you would bring up the cost. We want a balance.

It's my turn, though, Jeanette. I'm speaking. I'm making a comment. Who's going to pay for these other books that you want to do?

This is a discussion.

It is discussion, and I'm just asking these are questions. Who's going to provide the other money to buy the more books, the additional books?

Well, I would suggest that if there are so many left-leaning books that we can't afford the equal number of right-leaning books, then maybe we should just skip that part for that batch and just focus on sports or regular things.

I would rather not look at books as being left leaning or right leaning. I mean, the whole point of nonfiction is to stick to factual information. I don't think if the content of the book is addressing a political nature, then we probably shouldn't have it. But if it is about, you know, talking about someone's, you know, Again, I'm not bringing up the Obamas. I'm using your example. I don't think it's going to talk about his left-leaning policies. It's going to talk about his life and how he got to his presidency. That's it.

But why not have that same type of book on other presidents, other recent presidents?

I said we should have books on presidents. I'm not saying that we can't have any on Republican presidents. I'm saying we should. If we don't, we need to. That is factual information.

Okay. Have all the presidents. So you agree that we need a balance? All the presidents. Okay. So you agree with this? Yes.

Well, possibly maybe change this to not just to be on the librarians and the principal, like you've got to get these balanced, blah, blah, blah, whatever. How about let's do something where we say in our libraries, we're now going to, try and get some books that reflect every single president, books that reflect every, I mean, let's do that.

But who would do it? The librarian and the principal.

Yeah, but I'm just saying instead of coming at it from this angle, we want balance and we don't want all left and we don't want all right, right? We want middle.

I apologize. Can we just direct our superintendent to, can you please verify that our libraries are complete in having, you know, books on historical figures so that we don't have to, so that someone doesn't look at our library at some point and assume there is a bias when we want to make sure we have a robust.

On its surface, the challenge for staff, whoever the staff is, principals, librarians, is determining what is the lean on any specific book. It's easy if it's Republican, Democrat. There's a clear line or any political party. It is not as easy if it's a. a figure or a topic that one person may consider to be left while the other may consider to be moderate and who's going to be the determining like who's going to determine that like it's one thing to say we want balance like it's easy for us to do a query right now where we can see buzzwords or keywords republican and democrat and see how many books of each of those specific topics exist in our libraries that's easy to do Less easy would be to ask somebody who's on the left to look at a list of books and tell me are those on the left, and ask somebody who's on the right to say are those on the right, and then determining the concern with a policy that is not specific. Like if we want a policy that says we want to make sure we have equal amount of Republican and equal amount of Democrat, that is easy. easier. It is less easy to hold our staff accountable to making sure there's balance on a left-leaning book and a right-leaning book when they probably haven't even read the book. Who's going to determine Who's going to determine that? That is a significant challenge. So then it becomes opinion. And is it going to be up to me as a superintendent to be the deciding factor on whether or not it's left or right? I just don't think that it's an enforceable policy with respect to that piece because there's too much question on where would one lie versus another one.

So we do have the policy, like I mentioned before, that already talks about controversial issues. And somehow we're already being okay with that. This language was passed for controversial topics. So someone of reasonable stature and reasonable common sense can make a decision regarding those things. If it's questionable, maybe not order it. If they... Don't know, maybe don't order it. If it's obvious, order an opposing view. I don't think it needs to be an exacting science. This is not exacting science. We have a policy already, controversial issues, and they must present a balanced manner addressing all sides without any prejudice or promoting any particular point of view.

I can speak to that because when we refer to 6.1, what controversies as far as lessons and discussions in class and what we present to students, that specifically speaks to not... A teacher specifically, not sharing one point of view over the other, that is significant because we have a set curriculum that we are to deliver, and we are to speak with facts, and we're supposed to teach the students to look at all sides in any kind of lesson. When you speak about books, which very many, many, many times are students checking out books, They're coming to the library to check out a book for a book report, let's say. It's not necessarily tied specifically to a lesson, but it's something that they're doing to help their reading levels. So we provide books. That is not the same thing as a lesson that a student is getting in class. this exists especially because in real time we cannot always predict which controversy is going to be next. And so if you're in high school specifically and something happened and now the class wants to discuss it because it is relevant to the history class or the economics class or the fill in the blank class, it is up to the teacher to provide a balanced discussion in real time. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have an equal amount of Republican and Democrat. That part is easy. But once we start to look at what is a left-leaning book versus a right-leaning book, You use Tim Tebow. Okay, Tim Tebow, let's say he's on the right. So somebody wants to read about Tim Tebow. Who's going to tell us what is the equivalent football player, I guess, figure who was on the left?

Then, you know, if that's too difficult and too challenging, then just keep it to presidents then. I mean, you guys, at the end of the day, it's like, oh, yeah, we're not indoctrinating students yet. You know, literally every batch of books that has come in, there's nothing conservative coming in. It's so funny, just like, yeah, it's only one side. It's only one side of perspective. And, yeah, so if you can't figure that out, then just do. Presidents or political parties. If one's about a certain political party, then offer the other. Somehow they have managed to, also with the presentation, they've managed to figure out whether it's controversial or not. Just off the top of your head, oh, yeah, that might be controversial. Let's offer the opposing viewpoint. It seems like it could be done pretty easily. But if it can't, then at least make presidential figures balanced.

Has anybody looked, or when you looked at the list, because you looked at them all, right? You've been looking at them. Have you found other books that you would recommend? Have you looked to see if there is one?

I've heard of a lot of different series. There's a ton of different series of conservative historical perspectives.

Because maybe the librarians don't have those on their list. I'm sure they don't. Maybe that fallout list or whatever. They're getting it from the ALA.

I thought Melissa was saying that most of the books ordered are requested by students. Well, how many do you think are requested by students?

Some are requested, I think.

I said nothing of the sort. I didn't even venture a guess. I said if a student requests a book. I didn't assign anything.

I thought you were stating in general that a lot of the books librarians order are requested by students.

No, my point is I would like to remove assigning, especially this board, assigning political bias to anybody. Tim Tebow was a football player. Barack Obama was a president. I would hope that a book that we are purchasing has no mention of their personal political affiliation outside of factual information. That's my point. Oh, okay. Got it.

I can speak to that a little bit. Ms. Wilson, librarians do have a process. I would call it high interest. Students have the ability to share with librarians what they want to read. And librarians' duty is to then find one in the library that fits that description. But if they don't have it, then they do add it to a list of future books they should order. Oh, I'm sure. And many times they will send out notices and then they'll get feedback that way from students.

I'm sure they do. But I mean, the common statement. is often that kids don't even read what is in the library. So I don't know how many are really requesting books. I think the onus of it would be on the librarian, and I just don't think it's, I think you're making it more complicated than what it needs to be.

It just says if library material can reasonably be considered political in nature.

And I think Candy's point is well taken, that our controversial issues policy trusts the teachers and the librarians to do the same thing with discussions in class, which I would guess is hard to enforce as well. I just don't see that it's that complicated. I have a

proposal, maybe just the first two that you said proposed additional language, those first two parts, the first two little paragraphs? What if we just put that in there and not do the bottom part because that's getting into the weeds of who's going to do it, how it's going to get all that. It's just so, that's so hard to figure out. I think, can't we just, is there an AR that goes with controversial language? Yeah. There's not. Yeah. Do we need an AR? We don't need it. We could just do the board policy that the board believes this. This is what the Redlands Unified School District encourages freedom of thought and intellectually exploring ideas and learn to think critically. As such, it is necessary that a balanced selection of reading materials be available to students.

And do you think that's going to change anything or anybody's behavior or the books coming in? I don't think anyone's going to even care about that. If you think it's so challenging to spot a controversial or a hot topic, at least put presidents. Presidents or political parties books. And then offer the opposing viewpoint. You can at least say that. And I'll concede because it's too complicated, apparently. Even though they can figure it out on the presentations that come. And they can figure it out on when they discuss something in the classroom. But...

Well, you're doing, you said you'll do presidents? Yeah, do presidents or political parties. But then you said presidents and then put the opposing view? Political parties.

Opposing political party.

Oh, I thought you said president, opposing view. I said, well, they're president.

No, just the presidents or, for example, let's say it's a book about... A libertarian party or a book about, you know, whatever, socialist party, whatever, Democrat, Republican, you know, you got to have some balance. So if it's about a political party or a present or past president.

Well, I can also see a political movement with the activists because many things happened and there's no opposing book about it. Or sometimes there is. They talk about the bad stuff that happened, right? Somebody else will bring something up. But I can see you needing those books in the library because kids need to see that stuff. They need to understand what that all is whenever there was some political movement, some big movement going on. I think, I mean, I would say that. I just don't think we can... Have the librarian and the principal and then the superintendent be responsible.

You don't think if it's specifically about a president, when they write that president's name in there, you don't think that they could easily just pick out a different party president?

No, they should have every single president. Presidents is easy. There should be a book about every single president.

So why don't we just do the presidents?

But I also think we need to do the... political movements that have happened in our country. I mean, you... I just...

I apologize. I have a quick question about that because I feel like this is going to get us into a gray area that might get us in trouble. Just because, say, we're talking about a political movement... we could talk about slavery. Does that mean we then need to provide something on the KKK? Are we providing something on the KKK that is in support of it or opposing it? Just like, do you see how maybe that could kind of be a little, it could be hickey. Um, I, and I like, I don't know that I want to go down that road because I, I just, I mean, factual information. Yes, absolutely. Presidents. Yes. I have no issue with that. Um, But I feel like we're assigning bias and we're then going to... I get you're trying to avoid that bias, but I think we're highlighting issues that can make so much worse. And that's just my opinion. And I'll leave it at that.

What is the direction we want to go with this board policy?

So you agree with... at least adding presidents or past-present presidents balanced, right? So why don't we bring it back with that language and add it into this policy that we already have?

Can somebody work on that changing, adding that in there somehow? Yes. How that will work and bring it back?

Yes.

For us to look at?

I apologize. Do we need a whole policy just to add in presidents? Can't we just direct the superintendent to make sure that that's something that we do?

I'm thinking of adding it into this controversial one. It's perfect for adding it into this.

Can we just add it as an example given? I don't know.

That's what he'll look at.

You can draft something and just share it with everybody. Okay.

All right. Anybody have anything else? Any discussion? All right, with that.

Yeah, I would just like to request in the future, can we look at moving the discussion items above the board and superintendent comments? I like it when we end the meeting with the comments. Okay. I feel like we're wrapping up the meeting and then we jump right into a discussion. I'm just talking about the order. Yeah, let me look at it.

Look into that.

I told you that last time. All right. This meeting is adjourned at 9.30.