Board of Education — September 22, 2026

To order at 6.05. Welcome, everybody. We're going to do roll call. Vice President Hollihan. Present. Clerk Wilson. I mean, Clerk Rayali Quintero. Present. Board Member Wilson. Here. And Board Member Olson.

Here.

And I am here. Let's see. I would like to call up Peyton and Kayden from the AVID program at Coke to come up and lead us in the pledge.

Please stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. Put 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, Peyton. Thank you, Kayden. Okay, our empowering positive moment, student highlights. Tonight we're featuring COPE's after-school tutoring, or otherwise known as CAST. Please welcome to the podium Wendy Kores, principal at COPE Middle School, and Alan Aceto, I believe, is going to come up too.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for having us. I'm Wendy Kores, the principal at Cote Middle School. I do have with me Mr. Asito. He is our AVID coordinator and teaches AVID all day long. And the stars of our show tonight are two of our eighth grade AVID students. They've been in AVID all three years at Cote Middle School. And... Peyton Dateweiler and Caden Gonzalez-Applegate are going to share a little bit about the AVID program and an opportunity that they provide to our students after school to help with academics, the CAST program. Come on up.

Good evening, board members and Superintendent Cabral. Hello, my name is Peyton. And my name is Kayden. And we are both three-year AVID students representing AVID's CAS program. Our AVID program has many events going on this year. This year, we will be attending a Cal State San Bernardino volleyball and basketball game, 66ers family night, and a family movie night with ASB. AVID helps me by keeping me organized, such as our three ring binders helping us stay organized and keep our work together, or other students, such as me, use a folder and organize their work by classes. Though most of all, the community in AVID has helped me most in our program. With our college tutors, teachers, friends, and our ambassadors, AVID has one of the most organized programs in our school. Because of this organized structure, we are able to also help ASB and Webb with their school-wide events.

We take notes in many different formats, such as Cornell notes, charts, doodle notes, and many more based on our learning styles. We do these notes how we feel it will help us grow. This doesn't mean copying down everything on the board, since that might not help my learning style. I can write my notes down by main ideas or main terms. I can even write my notes down in acronyms, as long as I can remember them. I write my notes down how I feel is best for me to learn. AVID teaches us how to use our notes to our advantage and prepare ourselves for the future. These notes will give me the confidence to pass any obstacle, pop quiz, or upcoming test, or maybe even a fun group project. In AVID, we get to tour various colleges. By the end of our eighth grade year, Peyton and I will have toured eight colleges and seen many different career choices as a three-year AVID student. In our classes, we are surrounded by many amazing peers that will help us if and when we are stuck. This year, we get to go to Chaffey College, UC Riverside, and University of Redlands, where we can explore many different careers and degrees for the future.

Our college AVID tutors that come from many different colleges help us in many different ways for our AVID community to strive in our academics. Our college AVID tutors help us most in the libraries on Thursdays for our TRF standing for tutorial request form. Speaking of tutoring and the reason we're here, our tutoring CAS program, which stands for COPE Afterschool Tutoring, is one of the brightest ideas in our program yet. CAS has so many benefits for students and is run by our eighth grade AVID students. When I was in seventh grade, there were days where I felt as if I needed to be tutors, and I was failing behind on a few of my classmates. In seventh grade, I would have been thrilled to hear about this program. Even now, I struggle with certain academic topics, and this is an amazing way that COPE students can benefit academically. And best of all, this program is open to anyone, even if they just want a quiet place to study.

We are opening this to any COPE student because sometimes people don't even have a quiet home environment or they need a place to work on homework or study. Maybe they're just busy quite a lot and don't have enough time to do their homework at home. We are here to fill the need for extra learning and tutoring to help our COPE friends, community, and because helping others at COPE is a very important goal for our CAS program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love that the CAS program, I love that it's open to the whole school and not just advocates. So are you letting that be known to all the kids that anybody can come? Yes. Yeah, that's good. Anybody have any questions or anything?

I had a question. So how do you coordinate the CAS program? Do the students coordinate at all in terms of matching tutors with students that need it, or how does that work?

On the Google form, we have, like, you could assign your name and what day that you want to be tutoring. And three students get to tutor, and then you have a teacher you're assigned to help with the tutoring.

I see. Great.

Now, is that your this year's shirt? No, this is last year's. Last year's? I have the other one. I don't have that one. And I wear it actually a lot. And it says Cope Avid, so it's the turquoise one that looks like a surfer kind of shirt.

Oh, I have that one too.

So maybe we can get one of those. That would be great. Thank you.

Keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Oh, Mr. Cabral. Oh, could you all come up for a picture?

Thank you.

Moving on to approval of the agenda, do I have a motion to approve the agenda with flexibility?

So moved.

Okay.

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

Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the September 8, 2026 Regular Board of Education meeting?

So moved.

Second.

Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Jeanette. Any discussion? I'll call the vote.

Motion carries five zero.

Thank you. This evening, we have a presentation on Garner Holt Education Through Imagination and the Rapid MOOC programs. Ms. Buckmiller, would you like to begin?

Absolutely.

Oh, you're over here already. I was looking for you.

I didn't see you. Yes. Good evening, Board, Superintendent Cabral, fellow cabinet members, and the public. I'm Patty Buckmiller, the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. And at the last board meeting, it was requested to explain a bit more about the Garner Holt Labs and Rapid MOOC. And since the picture's worth a thousand words, Christine Stevens and her team made a wonderful video for us. So we're gonna start out with that.

Headlands Unified School District. Students are not simply learning how to use technology. They are using it to create, communicate, and bring their ideas to life. RapidMOOC provides students and staff with an easy-to-use professional video production studio. With integrated cameras, lighting, audio and presentation tools, users can record polished videos without needing extensive production experience. Students can use RapidMOOC to demonstrate their learning, practice public speaking, produce presentations and share their work with an authentic audience. It also gives educators new ways to develop lessons and create engaging instructional content. The Garner-Holt Animaker Space offers another kind of hands-on learning experience, one that combines creativity, engineering, and storytelling. Inside the lab, students move from imagination to application as they design, build, program, and solve problems together. These experiences introduce students to concepts connected to animatronics, robotics, fabrication, and the creative industries. Together, RapidMOOC and the Garner-Holt Animaker Space create opportunities for students to become confident communicators, innovative thinkers, and collaborative problem solvers. Skills that reflect the district's empower portrait of a graduate and prepare students for what comes next.

Okay, so we have the Garner Holt Lab that you saw in the video. We have that at four of our schools. Victoria and Franklin are two of our elementary schools. This is the first year that they are not manned by a dedicated teacher on assignment, but instead teachers can bring their class in kind of like a STEAM lab. And then Clement and Beatty that you saw in the video, students can attend that through electives, and they're taking like Animaker Space 1 and Advanced Animaker Space are the classes that students take for that. 15 sites have the rapid MOOC machine that you saw in the video. They use them regularly, mostly for broadcast and journalism, digital storytelling that you saw. But I also do want to say that this is just a couple of the innovative measures that we have. It's not inclusive of everything. Many of our schools offer STEAM clubs. We also have Lego robotics, CSTEM math, zSpace coding, Ozobots, and digital storytelling in addition to that. But that's just a quick little glimpse into... A little bit about the RapidMOOC and the Garner-Holt. And the contracts that you approved at the last board meeting, that does include training for our teachers and support and maintenance for the machines as well. So thank you. Any questions?

Thank you. Anybody have a question?

When did we start this?

When did we start with? Garner Holt.

I remember the first one, I think, because Donna West was 17. Donna West, I think, was with us, too.

I think the 16th, 17th school year, but I can confirm that.

And which school size have that?

The Garner Holt labs, it's Beatty and Clement, and then Victoria and Franklin.

And some schools still, they do an animaker space themselves, they put together.

Yes, those are the four schools that have the actual, the lab.

So the RapidMOOC is the equipment?

The RapidMOOC is a little digital storytelling machine that you see, so it's like a little... booth that can make videos quickly for students.

I just learned recently that Garner Holt is a person and he lives right in our community. So that's pretty cool.

His world-renowned lab is right here in Redlands.

Thank you, Mrs. Buckmuller. And it looks like we don't have a representative from RESPA, so we'll move on to RTA. Mr. Caperton.

All right, good evening, board members, Superintendent Cabral, cabinet. Tonight's agenda includes a discussion of board policy 6144, controversial issues. This is my 24th year as an educator in Redlands Unified. During that time, I have served as a speech and debate coach and a special education social studies teacher. Throughout my career, I have had the privilege of teaching students how to think critically, research and develop their own viewpoints on a wide range of issues. I have always done this work with the understanding that my role is to guide, not indoctrinate. That is one reason I was proud of our association ratifying Article 25, Academic Freedom, into our collective bargaining agreement. I wanted to share a redacted excerpt from that article. Academic freedom includes the use of independent professional judgment in an academic setting. It is mutually recognized that academic freedom carries with it responsibilities, including a balanced approach to the discussion of controversial issues, A bargaining unit member shall not utilize their position to indoctrinate pupils with their own personal, political, and or religious views, and has the duty to maintain a classroom environment which is conducive to the free exchange and examination of ideas that have economic, political, scientific, or social significance, and to foster the student's abilities to express divergent ideas as long as the expression of their dissent is done respectfully within the guidelines of debate and discussion. I believe that our current contract language has a far better job of identifying our roles and responsibilities when discussing controversial topics than this current draft policy. The current proposed policy uses vague language that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to understand what behavior is prohibited. For example, paragraph 7 uses the phrase, that may be controversial. This language provides no real guidelines for educators. A small subset of the population believes the Earth is flat, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If I insist to my geography class that the Earth is in fact an oblate steroid, have I violated this policy? If a teacher wears an RTA t-shirt, have they violated the policy by impliedly sharing their views on unionism, which is also a controversial topic for some people? What about the teachers' rights of association and free speech, which still apply to public employees? The draft policy needs clarity. Otherwise, it will discourage educators from engaging in controversial topics with students. If that happens, we all lose out on something very valuable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Caperton. And is anyone here to speak for Rapa? No. Okay. Moving on to public participation. Community input for agendized items. This is a time for members of the public to address the board regarding items listed on the agenda. The Board of Education values the perspectives and participation of our community members. Public comment provides an important opportunity for individuals to share their view on district matters. If you wish to address the board, please scan the QR code provided at the meeting and complete the brief public comment questionnaire. Registration will close once the first speaker begins speaking. Staff will be available to assist with the questionnaire. Once registration has closed, speakers will be called to the podium in the order received. When called, please state your name and trustee area and proceed to the podium. Each speaker will be provided the amount of time announced by the Board President before the first speaker begins, and it will not exceed three minutes. Bless you. 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 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. Dr. Rudy Wilson, Assistant Superintendent of Compliance, can assist you with filing any such complaint. As a reminder, this is a public meeting where minors may be present, and we ask all participants to conduct themselves in a respectful, civilized, and non-threatening manner. The Board may enforce reasonable meeting procedures and time limits that apply equally to all speakers. How many speakers do we have?

Board President, we have three speakers with two topics each.

So you'll have three minutes.

So we have Erica Grossman, Catherine Appleby, and Mark Laird. Sir, I believe yours is for public hearing. Welcome, Erica. Thank you.

Thank you. So this is about the controversial issues in library material. I simply cannot understand why the board would spend so much time on this policy. There are far more urgent educational needs that deserve our taxpayer dollars. For years, teachers have worked incredibly hard to get students to read. Strong reading skills are fundamental to success in every subject, including math, and reading also enriches students' lives. However, for some students, simply getting them to pick up a book is already a big challenge. Maybe you and your children are all a big reader, so you all have never faced this problem. A book about Taylor Swift may be in the school library simply because students are interested in her, and that interest may motivate them to read. That does not mean the book is there to promote a political ideology. More importantly, what precisely does balance mean? Our librarians are trying to perform that task. It's not a school board's job. Talking about controversial, even Harry Potter has been considered controversial for some because it deals with witchcraft. And its author, J.K. Rowling, has also faced a big controversy because of her views on transgender issues. Most of all, I find it extremely troubling that after laying off so many librarians, the board wants to devote additional time and resources to this issue. Please focus our limited resources on what matters most, helping students read, learn, and succeed.

Thank you, Erica. Welcome, Katherine.

Thank you. Katherine Appleby, Area 4. My first topic is 15B, which is policy 6144, controversial issues. First, I'd like to state that I second everything that RTA President Caperton said regarding this policy and controversial issues, and I would encourage this board to take his words to heart. While there's a lot here that I know people are going to focus on, I do want to ask a couple of questions, simply housekeeping questions. One, why have all the cross-references been struck through? They are still visible on the digital copy of this board policy, but on the printed copy of the board policy that is attached to tonight's agenda, they all have been struck through and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it other than they're listed at the end of the board policy. I don't know, you guys, these are the questions I have and that I think you should be asking as board members. Moving on to number eight. When a guest speaker is invited to make a presentation related to a controversial issue, the superintendent or designee shall notify him or her of this policy and the expectations and goals regarding the instruction. There is no administrative regulation 6144. So there is no administrative regulation which says how, who, and when this board policy should be implemented. The question I have should actually belong in an AR for this policy, which is what is the timeframe for this? What is the timeframe between a speaker being scheduled, the superintendent and the designee being notified, the superintendent and designee notifying the speaker, and is there some sort of agreement between the speaker that they've acknowledged and read this and they are aware of this board policy? Again, an AR would solve this problem. When we get down to the next paragraph, speaking about comprehensive sexual health and HIV prevention education, it ends with students whose parents and guardians decline such instruction may be offered an alternative activity of similar educational value. Again, this could be answered in AR, but how will similar educational value be determined? Who will provide this instruction? And underneath that, it talks about that they can communicate directly with teacher and principal and or use appropriate district complaint procedures, except the appropriate complaint procedures are part of the two items that have been struck through underneath that. My second topic is 15C. I expect every single one of you sitting on this dais to have read enough board policies and enough administrative regulations to have the sense that administrative regulations do the work of the board policies. They do the heavy lifting of the board policies. They address the who, the how, the when of the board policies. And because they do that, they are at least as long or longer than the board policies that they reference. Administrative Regulation 6163.1, Library and Media Centers, is three paragraphs. It is significantly shorter than Board Policy 6163.1. And in fact, that first paragraph of this new administrative regulation is a what statement. It belongs in a board policy. The third paragraph is a why statement. It belongs in a board policy. In fact, the only thing in this administrative regulation that fits in a regulation is that middle paragraph, and it actually only addresses paragraph five of board policy 6163.1. An administrative regulation needs to address the who, the how, the when, of all the aspects of the board policy. This administrative regulation fails to do that. I can only assume that because this administrative regulation fails to do what an administrative regulation should do, that there are board members sitting on this dais who are unfamiliar with board policies, who are unfamiliar with administrative regulations, who are unfamiliar with how they should be written. This should be sent back until every single thing in here addresses every aspect of board policy 6163.1. This is a joke. This is shameful for those people who have been on this dais for a while and who know what administrative regulations should look like. And in fact, I would claim that's all of you, because after two years, all of you should be experts. And if you are not, you have been wasting the time of your fellow board members and everyone on this dais. This also reads more like it should be an administrative regulation for 6144.

Thank you, Katherine. Welcome, Mark.

Thank you. Mark Laird, Area 2. I'm speaking first on controversial issues. And what I will say is I do think that we should be listening to our RTA, that existing policy is sufficient. The more that we make it difficult to talk about controversial issues within schools in the appropriate way, and the more that we put tape around it, it's going to make it so that way both sides of the aisle have issues. And I don't think that that's right. I think the controversial topics are something that, unfortunately, we need to be able to address. In my school district, we literally had unity camp so that way we could address some of these controversial issues. We talked about the war in Palestine. We've talked about very difficult things. And we do it in a way that does not indoctrinate students. It can be done. I do think that the sufficient policies in place are enough. And I think you should listen to RTA. And if the concern is about certain staff members maybe not following the policies under RTA, then that's more of a union matter than that is a matter with us needing more policies, in my opinion. That's all I'm really gonna say on that piece. So I'll move on to the next one to save some time. I'm gonna talk about the library and media centers. One piece that I will say with this is this is a time when you've cut all of the staffing for the libraries. And now, and I feel this in my own district, it's always throw more work on the library techs and the librarians. You've already cut the staffing available to make it so that way balanced collections can happen. It's my understanding that staffing in the libraries, not all libraries, but in many of our libraries is pretty recent here in Redlands. And it takes time. We started staffing our libraries in my school district and we're barely getting to the point where we've weeded through our collections and we're now at a confident point where the collection is what we want to present to our students. That's what happens when you let staffing fall within the libraries, is the collection falls. I was gone on workers' comp for three weeks, I came back and I have so many books to put back that truly, normally I have beautiful displays on my shelves, My library is in shambles, but it is open. I am sure that that's the case that's going on with your libraries right now, where they're doing the best that they can with the hours that they have available, but The other piece too is there's no funding. There's no funding for buying new books. You're passing a policy about what books need to be in the library without providing any funding for the libraries. My understanding is that all funding for libraries comes through the sites. And I can tell you right now, if I had the increased workload that these librarians and library techs have within Redlands, I unfortunately, because I spend a long time, oftentimes outside of contract hours, because I love buying. I feel like I'm a pretty woman sometimes because I get to lay down the credit card and buy the things that meet the students' needs and what they're excited to read. And so I spend a lot of my own personal time collecting things. the collection within my library to make sure that it is diverse. And I know many of our librarians and library technicians within our school district here do the very same. My partner can back me up. There are Saturday nights I'm up till nine o'clock at night shopping at Frugal Frigate through the collection policy. We use collection development policy to guide our libraries, but when funding is not enough, we make sure that we're buying books the students are reading, so that way we can make sure that we're increasing literacy. While I do believe that a diverse collection is very important, I spend a very long time doing that within my own library. I buy books on both sides of the aisle. It's difficult when there's no funding available to do so, and it's especially difficult when there's no staffing available to do so. I will say that if I had the present staffing situation, I wouldn't be handpicking things. I would honestly be going through Follett, I'd be going through Follett and I'd be asking, hey Audrey, what are the top reads right now? Please pick me stuff because I'm overwhelmed. I would be asking Junior Library Guild to pick me things. And that's where you get to where, and it's not a bad thing to do that, but to where there's not as much diversity in your library. Please provide funding. Thank you, Mark.

Is that it? Thank you. We will now open the public hearing regarding the initial proposal for the 2026-2027 re-opener negotiation cycle from the Redlands Unified School District to the Redlands Educational Support Professionals Association, CTA, NEA, or RESPA. Is there anyone who wishes to address the board regarding this public hearing? Mr. Hall?

Okay.

So I don't have anything to say about like the paraprofessionals associations regarding their pay or their benefits and stuff like that. But what I do have to talk about is related to them because every meeting that we come to, the people from Together for Red Ones, always appeals to the authority of the people that you appoint or hire. And they always say that we should listen to them and respect them and implement whatever decisions they want to implement because they have so many years of experience or whatever. They're so knowledgeable. They have so many degrees, blah, blah, blah. So they're appealing to authority, but at the same time, they're undercutting your authority And Greg Britton always speaks about this. Every time he's here, he always says that we elect you. We don't elect them. We elect you. And you appoint and hire the people under you. So if they don't do what they're supposed to, we can't do anything about that. You have to deal with it. So we elect you. And if we don't altogether trust you, why should we trust them when we don't even know most of them? I don't even know any of the people that work under you at the school district. I don't know who you appoint. I don't know who you've hired. I can't do anything about them. That's your responsibility. So we elect you. We don't elect them. They are there to do a job. And at most, the most they can do is advise you. They are not there to implement policy. You implement policy. That is where the buck stops with you. It does not stop with them. And Together for Red Ones wants you to just rubber stamp whatever the so-called experts want to do. Well, I don't trust the experts. I haven't trusted the experts for a long time, but especially since COVID, my trust with the experts is long gone, and it's not coming back.

Thank you, Joshua. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Basically, everything my brother said I agree with. Authority is derived from the consent of the governed. Whenever people say trust the experts, you know that something bad is about to go down. Probably something bad that was pre-planned intentionally, but definitely something bad that might not have been pre-planned intentionally. But something bad is going to go down whenever someone says trust the experts. Like my brother said, I haven't trusted the experts since COVID, and I don't entirely trust experts. the people that I vote for except Candy Olson and Jeanette Wilson, but even so, I'm tired of trusting the experts. We need to trust ourselves and our communities, and we need to band together and implement common sense rules. Thank you.

Thank you, Joshua. Erica? I'm sorry, you should have been second. I'm sorry.

Well, since I started attending school board meetings, I have lost count of how many times I have heard the RESPA president urge you to give paraprofessionals the attention and support they deserve. Many years ago, when my daughter was in a special education classroom, I saw a wonderful paraprofessional with scratches and bruises all over her arms. She told me that was her everyday reality. Has anything changed since then? Well, just last year, I saw a pair of professionals being spat on, punched, and kicked by students. I was even kicked in the back while trying to protect a student. In classrooms serving students with behavioral difficulties, inadequate staffing means that students with disabilities may not receive the education and support they deserve. while the paraprofessionals who support them may not receive the training and compensation they deserve. And yet last year, the school board wanted to give these paraprofessionals no raise at all. The message you're sending is very clear. You're not prioritizing the students who need the most support or the educators who care for them every day. Last year, one parent said here that Candy was the only school board member who would listen to her concerns about her child's special education. Do you think that a parent is happy to see the board spending time playing librarian instead of addressing conditions in special education classrooms? Please support RESPA so every special education student receives proper education.

Thank you, Erica. Anybody else would like to speak on this hearing? Seeing no further comments, I'll close the public hearing. On to board committee reports. Anybody have a committee report?

I do. So Parks and Recs, we met and... I'm sorry, they met. I had to work at the very last minute. The chair, Doug, I did get a report from the committee, and Doug Gonzalez has put a proposal on the agenda for playground equipment to be built at the Smiley Park. I guess the community had been asking for a playground in that area. So there's a proposal there trying to recruit various community organization support for the project to try to lessen the burden on the city budget. So that will work its way up eventually through city council, and if they approve it, then it will move forward, and that park will have a playground, which I'm sure the community will enjoy. So that was on the agenda this time.

Just a little report on the Compact Club. The Compact Club has been busy recruiting new students through the different club brushes at their campuses. And I actually developed a flyer. from the steering committee for the students to use in their recruitment, and the advisors and steering committee were really happy with having an up-to-date flyer to use for that. And I think it's been going well. There's a lot of new students interested, and it's going to be an exciting year.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Now in time for Mr. Cabral, Superintendent Goals.

Yes, thank you. If I could have IT put up the presentation. Attached to the board agenda under my report are the goals for this school year. It is a comprehensive report that this presentation is more of a summary, but if you'd like access to that report, it is online and as an attachment to the board agenda. And the board does have a copy of that in front of you. I'd like to share the goals annually I shared with the board where we are, the targets that we are trying to make on an annual basis. If you could go to the next slide. This is a general overview of the main points of the roadmap. Student achievement, of course, is our number one priority. We do have a goal. 2% is the kind of growth that we'd like to see in all areas. And that includes metrics such as state testing, both ELA and in math, as well as our graduation rate and our attendance. Those are key areas for all of us, for all 18,000 plus students. We did have a goal of 2% last year, and I'm going to share kind of where we are now in the next slide. Our board priorities, of course, if you could go back, sorry. You're seeing a preview of the presentation. It's okay. Go back to the second slide, please. The board priorities, of course, are to make sure that we prioritize our board goals. And our board goals include literacy by third grade, which we are working towards that. And we also have middle school math, which is to provide intervention when a student is not meeting proficiency levels. We do that by trying to add extra support to our middle schools, which I'm proud to say that all four of our middle schools are doing a tremendous job with that. Dual language immersion, we are very proud to have started that this year, which is a full year ahead of schedule. We have four classes, and we'll see a picture of that a little bit later. Our compliance team has done a tremendous job in ensuring that we meet all of our mandates. We are now starting year three of a five-year stipulated judgment. We have been meeting all of our mandates. You get an annual report in May with the outcome. June, the OEG actually will submit a report, and you've been privy to that information. So our goal also is to ensure that all of our sites are following every mandate. Dr. Wilson's division has done a tremendous job at this point. Measure D, also ensuring that we are spending our taxpayers' money appropriately and that you can visually see the projects. We have a way for every community member to see that with the QR codes that exist at every single school site. If you go on that online, you will see the specific projects that are happening at that school site. And you'll see some pictures later of some of the projects that we've already completed. And then, of course, continuing trust within the community, which includes taking opportunities to be a part of community projects like Leadership Redlands, which we just hosted last Friday, which is through the Chamber of Commerce, connecting with community and letting them be aware of what we're doing, the good things that our kids are doing. Also taking advantage of invitations to go and speak to community events. We just went to the Rotary Club, for example, to just share the wonderful things that are happening in our district, and we're going to continue to do that throughout the year. Next slide, please. Where we are today, we're very proud of our graduation rate. We increased again this year at 93.36%. Growth that includes a starting point of 86% back in 23. It's such tremendous growth that we're extremely proud of. It was almost 2% growth from the class of 25. Not quite 2%, but close. CASP, we did not see 2% growth with our results in 2026, which we are not able to share with the public just yet because it's embargoed data, but I can say with confidence that we did not meet 2% growth. However, we are in the top five. with respect to school districts in San Bernardino County and Riverside County, which we're very proud of, not only in ELA but also in math. And so the goal is not just to stay in the top five but to creep into the top three, top two, as much as possible. And we will do a comprehensive report of the 2026 scores later this semester as soon as those scores are made public. Student attendance, we have a flat attendance rate. That is something that we really need to work on, is increasing the amount of times every single student comes to school every day. And so we're working hard towards that. I've shared about DLI. We're very proud to have started that a year early. Also our stipulated judgment and Measure D requirements. We do have a positive rating currently with our budget, which we're proud of. However, we are watching it very closely. We saw a presentation just last board meeting that is making it difficult to stay positive if we're not careful. And so we will be providing to the board updated reports. And so with respect to all of our goals, the plan is to provide a comprehensive update in December and then also in April so that the board is aware of where we are in our progress. Next slide, please. Empower continues to be our portrait of a graduate. We are focusing on awareness and making sure that we are talking Empower at every single school site. We do have lessons that were designed to directly impact students through teachers providing lessons. However, we have not implemented those lessons yet. We are really waiting to make sure that we have given teachers enough time to embrace what Empower is. But it is a TK-12 lesson planning that we have available that at some point we will implement. You will see this poster at all school sites and we're very proud that staff, if you ask them, they're beginning to talk more and more about it. But we do have some work to do still to make sure that It was a collaborative effort with our community, our businesses, our parents, our students, our teachers, our principals. And so it wasn't something that we developed on our own. It was something that we did. It took us about a year to develop it. And you will be hearing more about Empower. Next slide, please. DLI, this is a picture of the first couple weeks of school. It is going really well. We have two TK classes at McKinley Elementary School and two K classes. When we talk about maintaining our program, of course we want to see it grow. We are talking about is there another school site. Geographically, that can be opposite of where McKinley sits so that we can give more community members an opportunity to participate in DLI. There'll be more information forthcoming with that. Principal Castorena, who's on the left there, is doing a tremendous job. And then our director, Sonia Blingit, is instrumental in making sure that we were a year ahead of schedule. Next slide, please. These are just going to be a few pictures of what we have done Measure D-wise. The biggest picture I like to highlight because it is a priority for us to create safer entrances into our campuses. This is the picture of Beatty Middle School's single point entry. You now have to be buzzed in to have access to our schools. If you're familiar with our sites, this does not exist at elementary schools and at our other three middle schools. We are starting with middle schools first. I love the design. It is still welcoming, and it is not complete, this picture. There's still some decorations and some things to put up, but you'll see that it is a very welcoming way of coming into the school, and it is a lot safer. Our pools, not only did we finish the pool at Rev, we also fixed the pool at Citrus Valley, and I know we get a lot of questions about the Redlands High School pool. That also is on the list. Playgrounds, this is just one picture of many playgrounds that have been completed. Not only are we giving our students the most modern, but they're also the safest. We're also looking at different grounds These are still your wood chip type of safety in case kids fall, but there are other methods that we can use that would actually make it better for our students that are in wheelchairs, for them to be able to participate, and we are going to use Measure D money to upgrade playgrounds so that they can include all students.

Next slide.

That is a brief summary. Again, the more comprehensive report is available to everybody as an attachment on the board agenda. Are there any questions?

Thank you. It's great to see the DLI program.

And when will the CASP scores be available?

We're hoping that the October, the second meeting in October, I think we should have permission by then. Is that accurate? October 15th is when it becomes available to us, and then we can come to the board meeting. I think it's on the 22nd is our second board meeting. We can get that information to the board prior to that, though. It's just the presentation would be the second meeting in October.

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

No changes or additions tonight.

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve business services consent items as listed under 12A through 12G?

So moved.

Second.

Thank you, Candy. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? I'll call for the vote. Motion carries 5-0. Business Services Action Items, Mr. Hill. Any changes or additions? Oh, there aren't any. Never mind, there aren't any. Now moving on to educational services. Mrs. Buckmiller, any changes or additions to educational services consent or action items? And tonight, thank you. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve educational services consent items as listed under 14A through 14L? I'll move. I can't. Sorry, who was that? Melissa and Candy. Thank you.

Aren't you going to ask for discussion?

Oh, sorry. Is there any discussion?

Yeah, so regarding Elle and the trip to Carnegie Hall in New York, on the agenda it says we'll be funded, the $75,000 will be funded by the general fund and ASB choir funds. So I had clarified that. It sounds like we're using our general funds and ASB choir funds, but then for the public, do you want to elaborate what you said was different in the... email update that you gave us, that it's going to be ASB choir funds combined with something else?

Yes, thank you for the clarification. The funds are going to be ASB funds and booster funds, so student-parent generated fundraisers.

But does that need to be marked on the record? Because we're not using general funds for our...

I think it's okay to note it in the record. I believe the way that the action item is, I think this is a summary to help describe it. What do you recommend, Jason?

It's fine leaving it. It's just that if I don't have a budget listed there, and I use a county to cut the check, they'll check that budget. So it says general, which means if I were to cut a check, they'd accept it. If it didn't say that, I couldn't. But it doesn't hurt that it's there.

So it's booster, though, a combination of booster or ASB, right?

Yeah. That doesn't matter. It's district funds. Whatever budget you approve is the only budgets I can use. When I'm paying for it.

But we're not paying for it, I thought.

But booster comes out of booster accounts. It has nothing to do with the general.

The money gets raised, and then it is deposited. Deposited. And then we pay?

Yes. I see. ASB pays out of its own accounts. I understand. And Booster pays out of its own accounts. That money doesn't come through us.

Oh, I thought you just said that. I thought everyone was just saying that they pay the district.

I thought that's what you were saying. The money comes to us and then General Fund has to pay it.

No, what I'm saying is that if we were going to use General Funds, General Funds would have to be listed. uh... we're not going to use general funds so that it's listed his ambiguous it doesn't really matter booster funds i know but that just means if that was missing i couldn't use it but the it's it it doesn't matter if there's one thing is that you are just in case i'm saying it doesn't matter that it's there because i'm not going to use it think the concern is we want to make sure that i get to prove like this right at it general funds are not going to be yeah i mean you could modify it and scratch it.

I think what the concern is, if the board would rather take it off to ensure that general funds are not used, if for whatever reason general funds are going to be needed, then we would have to bring it back. for approval in that way. And that might be safer to meet the needs that I think is a concern.

Well, yeah, I think that's a concern because here it says that it's going to be general and ASB and then we were told it was booster and ASB.

In terms of booster and ASB, it's the same thing. In terms of the money comes outside of the district. Right. If you would feel more comfortable modifying this item and scratching out.

That's what I'm understanding.

Let's do that.

Okay, so change the motion to modify L. That would have to be modified on all of them because D lists the same funded by general and ASB advanced theater funds. Or is the concern only Carnegie Hall?

Well, the concern was because it was such a large amount of money. That's what was my concern. And I didn't know if they were going to be able to raise what percent of that with their funds. So I didn't know what percent of $75,000 we were going to be on the hook for. With the smaller amounts, I wasn't super concerned.

Well, is the theater class, are they using general funds partly? That's what it says. So I don't know. How do we find that out?

Which one are we talking about?

Deep.

Isn't that just how we, I mean, we don't use the general funds. That's just how it happens for every trip, correct?

The only trip that we confirmed is boosters and ASB is L. We would have to ask specifically for the other ones that have it listed that way. There are trips where the site has decided to fund ASB. and so partially funded by the site, and that would be considered general. And so I don't want to just blanket say we're not going to put general on all of them.

No, no, no, but that's what I'm saying. But we have up until this point this year, I mean, most things say general and ASB funds, general and choir funds, yes. And so to change it on this one, we would have to go back to all of them if that were the case.

But why do we have to?

We would need to go back to ask, but for tonight, what we know for sure is that L is being funded through ASB and boosters. So that means that L could be impacted in the way that you're suggesting, I believe. But the other ones, we'd have to go back and figure it out.

I guess to Jason's point, it doesn't really matter because we're not using it.

The reason we add general is because we don't want the trip to be canceled because they're short 50 bucks. So we always put general because it's a safeguard in order to protect the trip. Most of the time, ASB, fundraising, boosters, various revenue sources pay for these things. We leave that in there for a catch-all. If this is a large trip and a concern and you take that out, it just means I can't use it unless I bring it back. We leave that in there so that if I ever do use it, we can help fund. Because by the time a lot of the trips happen, it's too late, right? Because maybe there's a board meeting or something in the way. I'm not saying that is with this one. So we generally add general in there as a protection to ensure that the event still happens if we need it.

And maybe on the back end of these trips, If it says that, maybe we should follow up and find out how much we kicked in. But isn't... Don't we fund this through VAPA?

Or isn't there... No.

It depends on the trip. But because of our financial situation, we are not blanket... Just allowing folks to take trips, especially out of state because they're really expensive. We really are trying to use only permissions for special invites or if a team, athletic team makes it to a finals and it requires them to go out of state. Otherwise, and specific to Elle, if this trip needs to be paid for by ASB slash boosters or fundraisers, and I think what the explanation was and the question that was asked is if they don't end up raising enough money, then they won't go on this trip, and they will go on one that will be covered by what they raised. And that is a pattern that we will see throughout this school year because we really don't want to be using general funds because in the end, if they can't afford to go and they've already had everything lined up and now they're short five grand, we would have to use general funds for that, and we're trying to avoid that.

I wonder what each responsibility was for each student, what their breakdown is.

What they had to raise? My understanding is they were trying to do it collectively. Individually. Well, they had an individual goal, but they also knew that it wouldn't, like if somebody raised more than another, it didn't mean that one was going to be able to go and the other wasn't. They were doing it collectively.

So what I guess my question is, what do you and Jason recommend? Because I agree to be approving something that expensive that could use general funds. Like what is the cutoff? Are we going to contribute $50, $500, $10,000? Like what do we do about this?

Patty wants to say something, but it's $26.78, Patty, per student. What was it? $26.78. Go ahead.

I did check with the principal on this and generals on a lot of them also because there's a cost of a substitute because the teacher's going on the trip. She didn't want to take that out of the student's fundraising money. So that's why general is listed on some of these to pay for the cost of the substitute. The school would use their general funds. Oh, so we do have to put it in there then? The school has general funds as well.

Uh-huh. So we have to leave it in there.

The school agrees to pay for the sub? Right. And that would be general funds. Okay, thank you. Correct. That actually helps clarify why.

Well, it would be nice to be notified later on if we end up paying for it. I wonder how many of these things we end up paying for and we don't even know it.

We can provide an after expense report.

That would be nice. Yeah, we can do that.

Yeah. Yeah, we monitor pretty closely.

It's about the same price when RHS football went to Hawaii. That was a big group and that was rather costly that they fundraised themselves.

That's a perfect example of a trip that we are trying to avoid from having because those are trips that are... Not by special invite, not because you made it to a championship or anything like that. It's unfortunate, but in those kinds of situations, we have to use general funds many times because you cannot exclude students. And if you've already paid a certain amount of money, it's kind of like if you don't pay the $5,000 to be able to go, you're going to lose out on $25,000. And those begin to add up.

Because it's all or nothing, because they place, you know, air flight or airline tickets in advance, and they have to know. So, yeah, I mean, it's everybody or nobody.

Okay, so is the consensus that we just leave it the way it's written? Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, so I'll call for the vote.

I think Patty piped up.

Yes, thank you.

Saved the day. So just to clarify, Jason, if a school allocates money from their school, it still gets routed and is called general funds. They've already had... It's allocated in their school budget for a certain amount for activities or events.

That would be general funds. I mean, they have LCAP. They have Title I. They have lots of funds they can use. General fund is the general pot. We always list... Anytime we're going to cut checks, we list the budgets that we can use to pay for them. So we add general... to pay out of general. So by only having general means they're not using LCAP or Title I for this trip.

This is pretty phenomenal to be at Carnegie Hall to perform there and compete. So you know the caliber's the same talent. It's very competitive and kind of historical too because they're going to be going to New York. So they're probably going to see the statue and be able to do a couple tour-y things.

Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the stipulated expulsion regarding student 2026-2027-001 through the first semester of the 2026-2027 school year with the expulsion order suspended for the second semester of the 2026-2027 school year? So moved.

I'll second.

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

Motion carries 5-0.

All right. Do I have a motion to accept the first reading of revised Board Policy 6144, Controversial Issues?

I'll move.

Second.

Thank you, Candy. Thank you, Jeanette. Any discussion?

One thing. We had talked about this before in the last discussion of this, but the strikeouts, that's just like a formatting problem, right? All of those reference policies will be going at the end like normal, right? Is that correct? Yes.

Yes. We're not deleting the references. It's just going at the very end.

It was just the way it somehow... Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, okay. Because someone mentioned it tonight.

Right.

Okay.

That was going to be my question.

Well, you asked that last time, too. I know. And we figured... I think that was the answer, right? I didn't remember the answer.

This is actually the recommendation moving forward on all policies that we update is for the references to go at the end.

Which makes... Yeah. I like that better. Got it.

Any other discussion? All right. We'll call the vote.

Motion carries 3-2 with Board Vice President Hollihan and Board Clerk Ayala Quintero voting nay.

All right, moving on. Do I have a motion to accept the first reading of new administrative regulations 6163.1, library media centers?

So moved.

Second.

Andy, thank you. Jeanette, any discussion on this one?

Yeah, I... Recall from our discussion at the last meeting, we were talking about, I believe it was, I don't know if it was Kanye or Jeanette, had mentioned that this wasn't supposed to be a one-to-one situation, but it does say that when ordering materials, if a book or media can easily be reconsidered to be political in nature, a book or other media presenting in a vozing viewpoint shall also be purchased. That sounds one-to-one to me. And I thought we had said when appropriate, not as appropriate.

No, we said as appropriate. But it was actually your suggestion. But regarding the one-for-one, it was not that it had to be super strict if you're down 9 to 10.

But that's what I'm saying. This kind of implies that it is.

No, it says that you need to make the effort to do so. That's what you need to do. If you really can't find one book to balance another, but you've got nine balanced, then it just makes make an effort that each book that is controversial or politically based has an opposing viewpoint.

I disagree, but I mean, and then being that this is an AR, I think we have a responsibility to be including what is what we're considering to be a controversial political or social issue, political movement or activists. I feel like that's everything. I mean, that's everything in history. That's everything in politics. I mean, just going off of the last discussion we had, I mean, even celebrities apparently are going to be included in that. So I figure... if this is an AR and we're asking our staff to abide by it, it needs to be rather descriptive.

I have just a suggestion to move something. After, if a book or media can be reasonably or considered to be political in nature, including material focused on previous or current presidents, presidential family members, controversial political or social issues, political movements, or activists, the school librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection of materials.

It says that in the... Make it available.

No, I'm saying move it down.

Oh, just move it.

And take out a book or other media presented at an opposing viewpoint shall be purchased because you can't guarantee you're going to be able to find another book. We can't guarantee that.

So you don't want to have them make a concerted effort to... No, put concerted effort down there.

The librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection.

Shall include materials. I understand what you're saying.

Move that sentence to be the last sentence. Is that what you're saying?

In between. You're saying...

I'm saying move that first one down to the bottom and take out... A book or other media? A book or other media presented as an opposing view shall be purchased. And maybe as appropriate, I don't know, take that word out too. And just say that the librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection of materials.

I think we should have a goal to keep it balanced. I really do think that it... I think we need to say that a book or other, you know, that we need to try to make it balanced. This thing has gone so far off the rails in our libraries, how it's either neutral or far left leaning the content. So I just think that if we make it so vague that there is no effort made to balance things with one for one, even though let's make the effort to do so, if they can't, possibly find something with the opposing viewpoint, then...

So then do they have to document that?

Well, we could make it there. We could add it.

See, but that's kind of my concern. Yeah, so let's make it... Because I would like to not have to purchase a book that might... I mean, again, from this, it does imply one-to-one, and I... Apologize if you don't agree, but from my understanding of it, it does read like it's one-to-one. So my concern is you're probably going to find more of one viewpoint than another, and then does that limit, because that's kind of what it sounds like, that limits...

I think it should be the goal to do... one-to-one on those types.

But even then, I think where it says school library collections shall include materials representing opposing viewpoints, I feel like it maybe doesn't need to be provided in a physical format, but even a digital access to something, even if I were to look up in the library, I don't know, Is the earth round? I mean, I don't know that we have to have a book about it being flat, but I think maybe providing some digital resource to that might be a balance.

Isn't that what media means?

Can I read this the way I rewrote it?

No, yeah, you're fine. I just thought we were talking about it.

If a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature, including materials focused on previous or current presidents, presidential family members, controversial political or social issues, political movements, or activists, when ordering these materials and reviewing available content, each school librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection. and leave that other line out. So just move that other one down and, I mean, we're saying the same thing. It's just...

The big difference I see, though, Michelle, is that first sentence in the second paragraph. It's talking about ordering materials and reviewing available content. Yes. Not just ordering.

No, that's what I said, and reviewing available content. If a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when ordering it and reviewing the available content, each librarian...

So is your concern that someone's going to get in trouble for not having an exact one-to-one replacement? Is that what the concern is? Because we haven't enforced our policy for decades.

But this says a book or other media presenting an opposing viewpoint shall also be purchased, that you're saying you have to do that.

Well, it says, okay, maybe you could say we'll be given a best effort.

Well, we already said concerted effort at the top, right? concerted effort to provide balance. That's why I said move that down.

Well, maybe if they can't find an opposing viewpoint for something that's controversial, then it doesn't need to be ordered then.

It's just that there may be something already available.

Oh, that's a good point. Doubtful, but good point.

Yeah.

The librarian or designee shall aim to make a concerted effort.

That's good.

Yeah, but we're already making the best effort to replace the book or other media.

The replacing implies that they have to get another one.

should take a concerted effort to purchase a book or other media presenting an opposing viewpoint. What about that? Then we combine both things.

Yes, that sounded good. That way it works. I think media, to your point, Melissa, media would include digital or...

But that's what I'm saying. Like if we have a book on one subject and we are expecting if, you know, just say one of us is going through a book list and we don't see the opposing viewpoint, how are we to know that there isn't some other source of media providing that viewpoint?

They're going to have their own opinion anyway. What they feel is the same as an opposing viewpoint.

Well, what's your suggestion? Because the thing is, here we are with a situation where we've gone so far off lopsided for providing balance in our library. So we have to kind of try to fix it. No, I get that. Also, I mentioned this before, and you kind of snapped back at me like... What if it was all right-wing content in the library? And I don't think you would appreciate that, but I also wouldn't appreciate that. I don't think that we should have all right on the right side or on the left. I really think this is a problem we need to tackle, and so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do it because our families and our parents would appreciate that. We lose people all the time because we don't have balance in our schools.

What information do you have that that's true? What? The statement that you just... See, I'm not trying to turn this into an argument or a discussion about... I'm simply asking that it not say one-to-one. That's it. And it implies one-to-one.

I found another way for this to sound better. If a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature, including materials focused on previous or current presidents, presidential family members, controversial political or social issues, political movements, or activists... Each school librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection when ordering materials and reviewing available content.

That's what we have. I mean... How about that?

Okay.

They'll do the best effort that they can possibly find.

I do.

Well, I think they should say make a concerted effort to... include a book or other media presenting an opposing viewpoint so that there's actually specific guidance. And I think that we can say both. We can say they will make a concerted effort. I didn't hear you say a book. I didn't hear you say... If a book or media can reasonably be considered... No, I'm talking about the next book, the ending book.

Oh, I'm saying take that line out.

Yeah, I'm saying we could do both. You could say the librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection of materials by... Right there. Yeah, but you could also say by obtaining a book or media presenting an opposing viewpoint... So they're making a concerted effort to find a book with an opposing viewpoint. They're not totally pinned down to have to do it, but they've got to make an effort to do it.

I think that's what it says. Each school librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection of materials. So whether it's a book or media, digital, whatever, they'll provide a balanced selection. They're going to make an effort to do that.

Without putting the one-on-one.

Well, it should be an effort to put a one-on-one for controversial issues. But you've said multiple times.

But I thought we already talked about that, that we might not be able to find it.

No, because, no, yeah, so that's a concerted effort. If you can't, you made the effort, you couldn't find one, so you ended up with eight out of ten that are balanced. You know, you made the effort to do so, but at least you tried. I think being specific about trying, I think there is just so much vagueness and... So much lack of oversight regarding the way that these libraries have filled up. It's just ridiculous. The year and a half of books that I've looked through, there's nothing that represents the other side for controversial issues.

Don't you think that might be because you're looking for that? I mean, I've never... I've never had an issue where I've complained about something in the library because I didn't think it was balanced. I mean, I figure our librarians, if a student is interested in a subject, a librarian will make the effort to provide something on that topic. I mean, the whole goal is accessibility. And I mean, I completely understand where you're coming from. If you see, you feel that it's leaning a certain way, but I also feel like over-analyzing this is kind of having a negative effect. What, and this is just another topic I wanted to bring up, but if a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature, including materials focused on current presidents, presidential family members, okay, controversial or political issues, political movements or activists, how far are we going down with this? Because to me personally, I feel like it should end at controversial political or social, not issues, but topics, right? Because if we're getting in, I mean, everything could be considered political if we're talking about anything in history. Political movement, what movement? What is an example of a left, far left movement or an activist? I don't understand where, why it has to go into so much, why can't we just end at political or social topics? Because this gets back into my last question from the last meeting. Are we focused on authors or just the content of the book?

Content.

But this implies if it's an activist, how are we going to categorize an author as not being an activist?

It's the content, period.

I understand that. So why can't we just leave it at political or social topics that would be encompassing of that movement or activism?

And I would have to say that our librarians, they do put a conservative effort in their work and everything that they do.

How do you know that?

How do I know that they do?

Because our employees are awesome. They come to work and they give 150% each time. They do the work.

They hold degrees in these subjects. I mean... They're trained for this.

Like the box of books that's in one of our high schools that's all about gender fluidity. 35 copies of the same book that's just sitting in the back room handed out to everybody.

But that individual made an effort to get books. I didn't realize that librarians... The individual made an effort to come and purchase those books. Are you saying that the work that they do is unnoticed? That they're not doing any work?

You've got... We have... That is... Hold on.

You just made a comment that said basically...

There's a book, a box of books in there of the same book. 35 copies of it. Of gender fluidity.

Even if that is... Okay. Let's just say I believe you.

One school.

One school.

It's not OK.

But even if that were true, it is OK. Can I finish what I'm asking? Even if that were true, is that getting put into a child's hand or are they getting requested? Is it being requested?

Well, we haven't heard the report on that. Is there a report?

An AP book.

Those books were not handed out to students. No, it's not an AP book. They were not handed out to students. Would they have been? Maybe, but they were not.

But forcibly handed out to a student. We don't know.

No, they weren't in the library. They weren't put in the library. They were in the library and maybe would have been coded eventually. Not 35 copies. But they were not put in the hands of students.

Okay, all I'm asking is that if we're going to get into all these political and social issues, what if somebody writes a book on COVID? and we wind up a few years down the line putting it in our library, what is the opposing viewpoint on that?

There's plenty of opposing viewpoints we're talking about. That's easy.

But we would have to purchase a book on the opposing viewpoint of the COVID-19 pandemic?

It would be opposing viewpoints on treatment and how it came to be.

See, but that's not what we're supposed to be doing. Why would we be providing books on treatment?

I'm saying that would be an issue within a book that there could be an opposing viewpoint.

Wouldn't that already be covered under the original?

I think you know there was the government way that wanted everyone treated, and then there was the other way, right? So there's clearly different perspectives.

But is that something we're supposed to be teaching or providing to our students?

Do you only teach the government way of belief?

We're the government. We're the government. Yes, we are.

So it has come to light that there are many things about COVID that have not been true from the initial narrative. So that example.

That has nothing to do with what we're talking about right this minute.

No, but I'm asking about these topics because this, I mean, a political movement or an activist, I mean, this is, really far down the line of things that I don't know that we should be including. Anything, a topic of political or social nature, I understand. But this is getting really far down. You don't want any political movement? Again, excuse me, and if we're not including actual things, then I don't know a list of things. How is anybody supposed to? Because what's considered political or social, to me, is not going to be the same as it is to Candy. So I don't understand how our staff are supposed to abide by this when it's not very clear.

But answer me this. I'm super curious of your answer. We've already had policy that requires staff to make that determination. What determination? What's controversial. And if they need assistance, they go to their principal. We already have had that policy. We've already expected that of them for years.

The reason I have an issue is because it feels like micromanaging. And if you're going to micromanage, I need it listed out. Because with this, we're saying, yes, we know this topic is going to come up, but we don't trust you. We don't trust you as an educated adult that we entrust to educate our students. We don't trust you to make that determination on your own. So we're going to micromanage you and we're going to do it for you.

Well, have you brought up that concern about our current policies?

No, I have not.

Okay. We've already had the policy. Okay.

Yes, but again, this is amending a lot. And that's why if we're going to go into all of this, it needs to be clear. It is vague. And it does say, just like you were saying, it's like our prior policies were vague enough that stuff got in. Okay, you want to get really down to it, then fine. It needs to be listed out because I don't want you to come back and say, well, we have a policy, but somebody slipped something in. And I'm going to say it's because it's rather vague.

You just wanted to make it more vague and less specific. No, I want to make it more specific.

Okay, so what is now?

We've had 10 minutes on this already. So what do we want to do? Do we want to reword this, just move the words around a little bit?

I'm just saying I would like it to not be a one-to-one, but I would also if... If we're going to, you know, get down to political movements and we're going to leave that language in, it needs to be more descriptive. I don't think it's fair to our staff to leave it so, be so ambiguous about it.

All right, can I read this one more time? And then we'll see if this will work. If a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature, including materials focused on previous or current presidents, presidential family members, controversial political or social topics... our school librarians or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection when ordering materials and reviewing available content. How about that?

I'm good with that.

I'm so visual that could you say it again?

I sure can. She wants this first sentence.

If a book or media can reasonably be considered to be political in nature, including materials focused on previous or current presidents, presidential family members, controversial political or social topics, each school librarian or designee will make a concerted effort to provide a balanced selection when ordering materials and reviewing available content.

Well, a concerted effort for balance means one-to-one, so you could argue that anyways. The balance is even, so I'm fine with that if that's the only way to get it through. Okay.

Tish, did you get that? No.

I'll take your copy.

Hey! Okay. Okay. So, any more discussion on that? All right.

I'm sorry. I just wanted to say something regarding that. you know, that list that we had that sprung on us the last time that we weren't aware of any of those books and was asked to form an opinion on why they were controversial. Well, the prompt that I put in AI when I went back on the live stream and found those books up on the screen there, you just run it through AI and it took five seconds approximately for it to just say, would any of these books be considered controversial or progressive or left-leaning? And then each one has an explanation. Like one of them, for example, The Wings of Fire in a Middle School is a Dragon War epic with killing trauma. And in later books, queer characters identity themes, very popular but repeatedly challenged for violence in some volumes and inappropriate LGBTQ content at middle school level. And then there was some with common objections were two spirit themes, gender nonconforming. We've got they, them pronouns in very young ages. Like this one is like one character uses they, them pronouns. Story is framed around being misunderstood by family. Another one is dark fantasy with body horror, monsters, and violence. which is really bad for the elementary school. And based on the AI's conclusion, it said, the pattern on this list, heavy concentration of democratic political figures as picture book heroes for K-3. racial and gender identity framing for the youngest grades, and middle grade fantasy that mixes violence with LGBTQ side plots without an obvious balance of other viewpoints or traditional biographies. That's why these titles get grouped together in curriculum fights, even when the individual books range from mild to more pointed. So it's not that they were all so bad or... there's any problem with all of them it's just that they represent only coming from again there was a neutral set of books but then there's many in every set of books almost every single set of books had a lot of heavy concentration on progressive politics political figures and what not and positive viewpoints so that's it I'm done just because I didn't get a chance that list was sprung on us and there was no way to respond to it

All right. Call for the vote. Do you want this before you, because you're going to write it? Okay.

Mr. President, this is the first reading, so we can make revisions as needed.

I just need to be, that's why, because, so are we voting this one down and coming back with a first read? Because it changes. No, it's okay because it's not significant. Excuse me, I'm not asking you.

My understanding is that it does not change, like, conceptually. It's just wording. Or significantly. It's okay as long as everybody understood what the motion was.

Okay, then can we reset this?

With the approved changes, maybe to say with the approved changes.

Says that with revisions.

With the stated changes. Yes. With the stated revisions.

But I was under the impression that we were. Oh, I saw it. Thank you. We were voting down this one to then bring it back. We're just turning sentences.

Open session revisions.

Motion carries 5-0.

Now on to human resources. Mrs. Bruick, do you have any changes or additions to human resources consent or action items?

No changes or additions, thank you.

Thank you. Do you have a motion to approve human resources consent items as listed under 16A through 16D?

So moved.

I'll second. Any discussion? No? All right. Call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

We have a motion to ratify and approve the agreement between Redlands Unified School District and Hope International University for practice teaching student teacher placements. Effective September 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031. So moved. Second. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion? I'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

We have a motion to ratify the Memorandum of Understanding between Redlands Unified School District and Concordia University Irvine for school counselor and school psychology practicum and field work effective September 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2030.

So moved. Second. Second.

Who moved that? Patty, was that you? And Candy, was that you?

Yeah, either way. I second. Okay.

Any discussion?

I just had a question probably for Mrs. Bruick. I understand this is approving the contract. Do you already have knowledge of how many student counselors, et cetera, this might bring? Or is it pretty much what we've already been doing?

We don't have a set number of student people coming, so it's whomever they send to us that's interested in coming to Redlands.

Okay.

Anything else? All right, we'll call the vote.

Motion carries 5-0.

All right. Do we have a motion to ratify the Memorandum of Understanding between Redlands Unified School District and University of Redlands for Clinical Mental Health Counseling Practicum effective September 1, 2026 through August 30, 2028?

So moved.

Second. Thank you, Patty. Any discussion on this? Call the vote.

Motion carries, 5-0.

Thank you. All right, community input for non-agendized items. This is the time for members of the public to address the board regarding matters within the jurisdiction of the board that are not listed on the agenda. If you wish to address the board, please scan the QR code provided at the meeting and complete the brief public comment questionnaire at this time. Registration will close once the first speaker begins speaking. Staff will be available to assist with the questionnaire. Speakers will be called to the podium in the order received. When called, please state your name, and trustee area and proceed to the podium. I think that's backwards. Each speaker will be provided the amount of time announced by the board president before the first speaker begins, not to exceed three minutes. How many speakers do we have?

Board President, we have four speakers tonight.

All right, you will be allowed three minutes.

First up, we have Peter Hall, then Joshua David Hall, and Catherine Appleby.

Welcome back, Peter. And I'm sorry that I call you your brother.

Oh, it's okay. People do that all the time. So I want to speak about the increasing number of reports of yard signs that are being stolen from candidate D.L. Broom. I've heard about at least three incidents over like maybe the past month where like his yard signs have been stolen and apparently all signs point to supporters of Patty Hollihan, and this isn't the first time that this has happened. Valerie Savas at the last meeting brought up how Patty Hollihan admitted to being involved in trespassing on private property and taking private property in an effort to Disrupt Arrival Candidates Campaign. This was back when, and I don't know who this is, but this was back when a woman named Erin Stepien was running for the school board, and her yard signs are found in the garage of a campaign worker that was working for Patty Hollihan. So apparently Patty Hollihan has a pattern of... of directing her campaign workers or allowing her supporters to go around trespassing on private property and stealing people's yard signs for rival candidates. And the fact that she has never faced punishment for this is disturbing because the campaign worker who did this received white punishment, but nothing really happened to her. She was just jailed and then let go, but nothing happened to Patty Hollihan, and apparently anybody who runs against Patty Hollihan, their signs are going to be taken, and I think it's disgraceful that she's allowed to... disrupt other candidates' campaigns, or she looks the other way when her supporters do it. And this isn't the only thing that her supporters have been doing, because Together for Red Ones was implicated in the vandalism of the Ark Church, even though nobody was ever arrested or was ever even arrested, let alone formally charged. But we know that they did the vandalism against the Ark Church.

Thank you, Peter. Welcome back, Joshua.

I want to talk about basically what my brother talked about regarding Patty Hallahan. Liberals always talk about white privilege and frame it as something that... applies to all white people, especially white conservative males. But the truth of the matter is, white privilege will typically go in the direction of white liberal females. So there's your white liberal privilege right there, and female privilege too. She hasn't been charged because she's female and because she's liberal. It's a disgrace. And she admitted to, I just found out about Erin Stepien, but she admitted to directing her campaign director to take Erin Stepien's campaign signs. Why was she not charged or at least forced off the board?

Thank you, Joshua. Well, thank you. I mean, welcome back, Catherine.

It's okay. Thank you, Board President Rendler. Board Member Olsen, at the last board meeting, you admitted that in two years you've not read the RUSD Board Policies Table of Contents and instead relied on others to keep you informed. Does this also mean that in the past two years you have not become familiar with the board policies and the administrative regulations themselves? The lack of preparation and reliance on others that you have shown would not be acceptable behavior from any RUSD student. But as a school board member, your constituents and the community at large are expected to trust you with overseeing the education of our students, while you can't even demonstrate the behaviors we expect from every RUSD student. Also, during that discussion, you showed a blatant willingness to offload your own thinking by asserting that expertise doesn't matter because the internet and AI told me so. And we've heard from community members tonight that we shouldn't trust the experts. Board Member Olson, I imagine that it is difficult to provide care to patients who tell you that your expertise matters less than what the internet and AI has told them about their health. Our school staff have years of post-secondary education and training, training that has often been paid for by this district, plus years in education and an accreditation board that has shaped their expertise. These are exactly the same factors that have shaped your own expertise in your profession. Should patients in the ER treat your expertise with the same disdain that you treat our RUSD staff's expertise? Again, if an RUSD student engaged in your type of cognitive offloading and lack of responsibility for one's own learning, by trusting everything that the internet and AI tells them, we would claim that they have failed their education. After all, the point of education is to become critical thinkers. Yet your reliance on internet summaries and AI somehow makes you an expert that we should trust to oversee our children's education. Why are our USD students expected to be critical thinkers when board members refuse to be? Board Member Olsen, I know you won't want to believe this, but no school librarian is ordering 35 copies of a single title for the library collection. That sounds like an order for a class set of books or a box of books to be made available for students to choose from. While your concern might be valid, you've made it clear that you operate from a place of ignorance and have a refusal to learn the ins and outs of how schools operate. This is not what any member of the public should expect from a sitting school board member. I would like to ask for a presentation on RUSD enrollment from the past five years.

Thank you, Catherine.

Hi, Mark Laird, Area 2. Welcome back. Thank you, thank you. So I signed up to talk about library staffing, but I did want to talk first about Just to provide a little context on maybe why there might be a box of 35 books, I obviously don't work within the district, but one thing that I will say is I know when I purchase for my library, one of the vendors that I do use is called First Book Marketplace, and there are times where publishers will donate unsold books. I know that that's not a popular topic that would fly off the shelves, so it's likely that the publisher might have donated those books as a tax write-off, and that box of 35 books have been available at the price of probably the price of two books so in that case if I were buying books I might buy something like that just for the reasoning that I know that books on that topic are heavily defaced in my library or might need to be replaced and if it's the price of two books I'm gonna buy 35 books because it's a reasonable thing to do if it's a book that's in demand not necessarily on that topic but Definitely, I do that for my book club. When I buy with their funds, I'll look at what books publishers are donating that meet the content that they're looking for. And I'll oftentimes buy them what are called book banks. And so that might be the case for that, just to provide some context. But the big thing that I did want to talk about is library staffing. So on that note, I know we're talking about DLI. Love DLI. When I thought about DLI and I thought about the topic I signed up to talk about, I thought about that's twice the work for the library technician. When you're buying books, you have to buy for both English and Spanish. You're making sure that your collection is well-versed on all topics, political, not cultural, all those things. So DLI really does, it's an all-encompassing thing. And so in this time when we're reducing workload, I love DLI, but that's something to consider, is that that might be a school site that in the future might need more time for librarians to have hours. It's also a good idea probably to make that school, and I know it's already transitioned, transitioning this way, but into TK through eight, And so in that event, we need to think about where is the space going to be to provide a junior high library because we do oftentimes try to keep those separate from our elementary books due to the nature of what's available there. So those are things that we might want to be considering. But the big thing is, I'll be honest, I came back from this school year and I don't know how your library survived textbook season because I literally, like I said, it put me on worker's comp. I showed up, all of my math curriculum changed. Every single student that took math at my high school of thousands of students needed four volumes of consumables and it was 12 pallets of books delivered three days before registration. And I worked 13 hour days to get it done And it was long. It was grueling. And that was with a library that is well-staffed. I have a textbook click. I have myself. I have a librarian. And so I really was thinking of your guys' library technicians this year. So just please do realize that libraries can be revenue-generating if we collect fines and we keep books in good condition. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. All right. Thank you, everybody. Moving on to board comments. Anybody who would like to begin? I can do it. I'll go. I'll go first. Thank you all for staying and being here. Over the past month, I've been to 13 of our school sites, two high schools, three middle schools, and eight elementary schools. It's been such a pleasure to see what our principals, our teachers, and school staff do for our students every day. This includes the office staff, the custodians, the grounds crews, cafeteria workers, the support staff, campus monitors, and our paraprofessionals. It's evident that our employees genuinely care for our students and want them to succeed. I want to thank all the principals and assistant principals across RUSD and our teachers. I truly appreciate you all. Yesterday, two students in Mrs. Hedick's class at COPE, who, by the way, won last year's Teacher of Excellence Award, were working on projects in their CSTEM class. One was an IV machine that you could carry around with you if you needed it. The other was a prosthetic hand. It was really cool. She had... the little cords going down, and it was moving the fingers. It was really cute. Another student made colorblind glasses. They were all very well designed. I was quite impressed, and the students were really lucky to be in her class. This morning, I arrived at Child Nutrition Services Medley Station at 4 a.m. to meet with Dana Ashbaker, and she's the CNS warehouse driver lead, and Katie White, she's the CNS warehouse driver. I hopped in the truck and went on a delivery ride with Katie to Beatty, to CV, Smiley, Cope, Clement, Moore, RHS, and Rev. Wow, what a strong woman. She could lift those crates, and she was pushing them, and I could barely push one of them, and she was pushing it all over the place. So I just want to say, the people that work at Medley Station, they are the heart of what our students receive every day. These individuals are quietly in the background working so hard to give your children nutritious and tasty meals, sometimes three meals a day. I just want to acknowledge what they do and let them know that I appreciate them. A special thank you to Alyssa, Josie, and Sandra, and anyone else I might have missed for the wonderful meals that they prepare for the board for us to eat at each of our meetings. I also want to congratulate Nellie Aboitus, who is now Nellie Ray. A double congratulations to her. Nellie is a science and math and C-STEM teacher at Clement Middle School. She was just recently named San Bernardino County Y Teacher of the Year. And it was an honor and a privilege to attend with many other people from our district. We went to the ceremony celebrating this great accomplishment. I attended Rev's homecoming game last Friday, and although they didn't win, it seemed as though everyone was having a great time. I want to give a special mention to the senior who was a McKinley Bear, Gold McKinley. He was named homecoming queen. Congratulations, Luke Ramos, and congratulations to Rev's homecoming queen, Sarah Romero. It was a great night. This week begins Redlands League Cool for School program, where over the next month, the Redlands League will gift students in Redlands Unified and Yucaipa Cala Mesa Unified with new clothes and shoes at our family shopping event at Kohl's in Redlands. I hope to see all our counselors with the families there starting this Thursday. I'm really sad I'm going to miss the superintendent's awards next week for the first time, but I wish all the awardees a great night. I'm looking forward to the preview of Champions Band Tournament at RHS this weekend and the next APAC meeting in a few weeks. Until next time, thank you for coming out tonight. Anybody else?

Yeah, I had a comment, a couple comments. I did want to let the audience know that the board is very concerned about staff safety and student behaviors, and we have been discussing that and know that the cabinet has been working on various ideas. So I was just wondering if Superintendent Cabral, if you could just give an idea of some of the plans or ideas goals that you all have come up with to address some of those issues?

One of the most immediate plans is to provide additional training to current staff. We did hire many new paraeducators, for example, and not having had sufficient time to maybe give them more strategies to use with our students. We're looking to do that as early as next week. They will require paras to be available, and that's always one of the toughest things because we need them with students. But we do have a plan to provide more training.

Great. And I also just wanted to comment on judging the murals at Redlands High School was a very cool event to go to, and I look forward to doing that each year. And I also agree, Michelle, with your observations of what we see at the sites as far as, you know, cleanliness, organization, care, and concern for the kids. I went to a fundraiser Thursday night because one of my goals has been to try to bridge more of unity between the city of Redlands and Highland because we have so many students and schools there. And I went to a fundraiser and happened to sit by the Highland Chamber of Commerce director. And so we had a good talk about some ideas of trying to include the Highland students in some of the city council meetings and chamber events. So it was great.

That's good because we often think of Redlands Unified and just automatically just think of Redlands where we have students even in some parts of San Bernardino and Loma Linda, Forest Falls. Regarding my comments, that mural judging was excellent. I can't believe that those students were able to do that. It was really great. The artists, the work was phenomenal. Do they just stand on ladders and do that up on the wall? Is that how they do that? Because it's on the wall. It's incredible, but it made it really hard to judge the best one, of course. It was amazing. One thing I'm looking forward to quite a bit is there's a production being put on at Citrus Valley on Friday night that's called Godspell. and I'm going to be going to that, and I cannot wait. I think I've heard great reviews about it, so I'm really excited to go to that. It's a more current, modernized rendition regarding, I'm not sure exactly what the detailed focus is, but obviously it's regarding God and biblical teaching. So I can't wait. I look forward to it, and it was a great night. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate all your comments.

Okay. Thank you to Patty for her presentation and an update on Garner Halt. Remember when that was first installed, and it's going strong, so thank you for that. I, too, attended Rutherland's high school homecoming and participated in the mural judging. The freshman class was phenomenal. I have to give them a shout-out. It was just amazing. Usually the freshmen aren't as... nice as a senior class. This one was amazing, absolutely awesome, and the game was great, even though they didn't win, but it was fun. Attendant Teacher of the Year, congratulations to Mrs. Boite and to Ashley at Cryrop. She was our teacher there who won as well, and they will continue to to compete. Hopefully something great will happen. And then attended a rev homecoming briefly just for the game, um, close game, but you know, they didn't win either. So, um, that's it. Those are my comments for now. Thank you. Oh, there was great attendance at the game at rev. That was amazing. It was all the stands were full. So that's good.

I don't really have anything. I just wanted to say congrats to CV for being able to go to Carnegie Hall because that's definitely going to be memorable. And for parents that weren't aware, first quarter progress reports are out. So I apologize if you haven't gotten that notification yet because I did. We're okay. But, you know, got to keep an eye on those grades. So if you didn't know, now you know.

Mr. Cabral. Yes, some quick thank yous to our two COPE students who are here. They did a wonderful job presenting. This is another example of the leaders that exist at our school sites, and to their teacher who is here with them, and also to our principal. On Friday, last Friday, I started the Conversations with Students Tour. Last year, the focus was secondary. I spoke to every middle school and every high school. This year, I'm focusing on fifth grade. And so I was able to go to Victoria and to Kimberly on Friday. And so I want to thank the teachers, Ms. Farrell and Mr. Maloney at Victoria, and Kimberly and Mr. Hosh, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sandoval, because they let me interrupt their class for about 30 minutes. Kids are amazing. They had great suggestions. They were not shy to tell me what they don't like, which was good to hear because we want to hear the good and the bad. And they want to see more classes that, for example, pottery was an idea. They would love to see gaming. It was just good to talk to students. And then my favorite part was asking them, do they feel safe at their schools? And they were very confident in their answer and their reply, which was positive. And so that was good. I think Lagonia is next. I have to look at my calendar. But I'm going to every single elementary school, and I'll continue to provide updates. So thank you to staff for allowing me to do that.

Thank you. All right. Does anybody have anything else they need? Oh, we do?

Move to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Do I have a second?

Second.

All right. Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Candy. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned at 8.08.