you prefer if you can enter and exit through the back door it's less the stack thing to the folks who are speaking up here but if you have to enter through the front door of obviously you can do that does anyone have in the audience want a broad package but not have one ok and then i'll make an announcement later on in the meeting too but just to let all of you know since i know all of you are going to come to every board meeting for the rest of the year this is our last board meeting in this location thank you taxpayers a perfectly our next meeting will be at twenty twenty a bone our which if you go all the way down university it's where the old adult school is it's where the administration building currently is it's i toured it today it is a beautiful facility it's not either too hot or too cold it's really nice not smelly and you would enter it from addison so again i me the new gavel and call the meeting to order at seven forty one we started closed session at five thirty six i'd like to remind everyone that we are broadcasting live on the radio at eighty nine point three f m and on t v on cable channel thirty three i'd like to ask our translator to please come forward introduce yourself please note that if no needs translation we will allow her to leave and no on site translation will be required at the available at the meeting w pal president daniel gave direction on staff with respect to individual employment contracts and we gave authority to superintendent with respect to administrative reassignment letters that are accurate s i would like to move since no one's talking i would like to move action number five approval of the twenty fourteen facilities construction plan to consent ok anyone want to move any items around in order i know we do so someone to say something as early as possible if we can do the cooking and gardening so we move discussion item one and i would like discussion item two to be the first items that we discussed tonight first is to remind us why we're here and so we begin by asking us to a member of the public someone here preferred to be a student to read the district's mission statement it's in the first couple pages of your blue book  so are there any volunteers any students here would be willing to come up and read it for us you can come up with your parents if you'd like changes to our budget the first interim second interim this is the second interim so it is it is actually a really important item and i encourage you all if you're able to stick around and check it out the people who present it present it in a really clear way so even if you don't turn it over to miss cleveland who is our deputy superintendent and she will be announcing who are we care warts recipients for this year it's my honor and pleasure to  more this year's week here recipients this will be the third group we care ward recipients we can stands for it's our districts customer service model it stands for the willingness that they have to go the extra step of the extra mile and their work every day they're empathy their input that they to their customers they're extremely consistent with the services that they provide their extremely knowledgeable in the areas that they work they try to do this for our students many of them are the unsung heroes in their school district so tonight i just wanted to award twenty three nominees in over three hundred classified employees that were considered i would li award nine of our employees with we care service awards the first person that i would like to award is the truman gambari who's an instructional system assistant at berkeley high school the next person session agenda in addition it's telling the words practice to hear first from our students on a particular issue speaking requests have been organized by agenda item and whether the speaker supports opposes or wishes that the board modify the item i'm going to rotate through th agenda items so they'll be here from at least one person and each agenda item and each position i fear name is called you may see your time to another speaker if you do so please rise when it is your turn to speak state your name and indicate to whom you are stating your time by sitting your time in for great opportunity to speak on tonight's board meeting on that issue and no one can later see their time to you just become the issue i went i mean we have almost all the comments are on cooking gardening  so i'm i think we'll get to all topics even those there are no comment cards that are on off agenda items so we'll do thirty minutes three minutes apiece the time is record on the to work clocks when there is one minute left the light on the election will turn yellow and when the time has elapsed the light on the election will turn red and you will hear beeping if you are still speaking when your time is up you'll be allowed to finish your sentence but please do not try to speak beyond that i know that are really important issues about which everyone feels very passionate but we really do need to keep things fair and keep things moving and i've not ever seen this done but please don't make me turn off your mike we will hear as many speakers we can and thirty minutes for each green card i pull i'll call the name of the speaker and the agenda item which they're speaking as well as they know the name of the following speaker to keep things moving i would ask the speaker who is next in line come forward and wait near the lectern this will allow things to keep moving well it will be able to hear from as many speakers as possible and i do apologize in advance if i pronounce anyone's name correctly finally under state law the board is only allowed to discuss agenda items at their designated times on the agenda therefore other than thanking each member of the public for speaking to the boy generally does not respond directly to comments or questions made during public comment i understand that this can be difficult for some speakers who find that the lack of a response is indication that the board is not interested or not compassionate on that issue but i can assure you that we all take comments seriously and that often times we wish we could respond directly board members can if they choose respond to public comments wait when we have board member comment and that occurs towards the beginning of the meeting a little a little way down our rights so we have so we're going to start with on agenda c one which is on consent paula phillips followed by stephanie good evening and director daniels and members of the school board and to our listening audience my name is paula philips i represent the berkeley council of classified employees union representatives tricks classified workers  don't see one is the human resources report for the district and it lays out hiring terminations leaves and things of that nature but what i want to bring to your attention tonight is that wow the district high owns makes me hires we have a vacancy list that has forty four vacancies on it and also that high school while we've equal there's no there's no leader to it's just we're all working together and that's what they're going to come out it's team and positivity it's it's something that i feel that if the advice school graduates independent study and has this positive impact from the garden then they might go on they might open a public garden they might i would just say about i believe that the garden holds many long term benefits and that money spent on the garden program or any gardening program is money well spent so thank you very much thank you so  grooms so it's just something to add to my list and it's just and i just find because you get to have like a class to learn how to make things that you never knew you had to make and then might turn out their wishes so you can you learn new things to  thing that now i'll like and then also sometimes i don't like him but it's just there's i know there's always going to be another thing that's going to come up so i don't have to be like oh that's just the end thank you a philips followed by stephanie mears a good evening i just want to say thank you school board members for making additional support during during the supervision that's a priority for the school sites i believe that this will add to a positive school climate it will help hopefully it will help our students in real time in order you know  room whereby they can get in and enjoy the food and then later get out on the playground we also have a concern with the use of these newly supervisors because we have heard reports that not only supervisors are so i would advise the district to please managed services closely monitoring a very closely to ensure that these this funding was used appropriately thank you plan number one basic services sound familiar we are fortunate to have a garden and every book lee school and in order for those garden facilities to be maintained in good repair schools need garden teachers number two common core standard implementation cooking and garden classes already meet many common core standards and work is underway to deepen that connection of cooking and gardening classes provide the real life tools and scenarios to practise and connect the common core concepts to reality and there's a lot of talk in time going into the new common core curriculum we as the garden cooking staff have been for many years already doing what is called scaffolding we have on previous knowledge with each grade level because we are lucky to be able to see most all grades in two week rotations another common core focus is nonfiction we are living and breathing nonfiction in the garden and cooking class we bring it all alive number three parent involvement as is evidenced by the attendance at board meetings when cooking and gardening are the subject wow that's fast and by the  amount of phone calls and e mails you received parents are already actively involved in this topic student achievement students are well fed and healthy perform better in school and in life better food equals better performance cooking  gardening also create another avenue for career readiness one of my first graders today after making a dinosaur kale salad for the salad bar at malcolm x she said when i get to make food with  hands and when i grow up i'm going to have a restaurant in berkeley that sells all vegetables thank you so much for that idea their school climate the cooking and gardening classrooms offer an environment where every child can succeed and often offer a chance for harder to reach children to excel and feel valued and valuable thereby reducing discipline issues thank you so after peter will be aaron terrelle the board members thank you for this opportunity to discuss this very important topic i'm glad i'm coming now in the program after having spent many very eloquent speakers in support of the program talking about all the benefits that we see in the program i missed parent of a student at willard middle school a seventh grade seventh grader and i came to talk about how i felt about our program and how important we saw  new teachers but tonight seeing the other teachers talking ice want to speak for all it's there an amazing presence at our schools they add something beyond the academic program and they and i think this is something that we've let it go reliving go something that's a coup or beautiful aspect of berkeley unified and if we let it die i think that the very sad thing for all of  as the as the i really am happy that you extended the scope of the other proposal that you put in since what we saw earlier in the in the year but i still feel as if it's not sufficient  our school be not would not be enough to really serve the students and provide the sort of program we have currently both in cooking and in gardening and the and we need to we need to have both of supports and i guess i just want to comment that in when i was in middle school we had cooking and i thought that was a really good thing at that time of life so i really support that i'm also very concerned that this could be a bit of a tipping point particularly with respect to willard in terms of equity relative to king middle school and i don't i certainly support the programs but i'm concerned that this could put us in and sort of stepchild type of position so without i i would conclude i hope that you can find the will the money the support to extend this program i guess i do want to mention one of the thing we are working as hard as we can to raise money so that we can keep this program going it's really hard as you guys recognized last year when you tried to do it the but we're trying and we'd like to have the opportunity to provide money so that our current staff could be supported through b u s d so they can maintain their their status in the in the in their their rather seniority and their benefits and so on so that they wouldn't have to choose between maintaining a program that they love and their careers and their livelihood so without health thank you for your he's a student  by the cooking program as well each of them have been given an opportunity in our urban setting to participate in a very hands on enriching activity that i had as a child in the suburban area in virginia and it's been wonderful to have them come home and have the highlight of their day been what they were able to cook in school what they were able to do in the garden to learn about you know different preparations of food different ways to grow different things to grow learn about the the nature of plants and how we prepare them and how we nurture our bodies i think would be a travesty if we were able to fund this program is at it full extent and i just ask that you continue to support you know part of what makes the u s d wonderful which is a rich art and activity filled environment for our kids in addition to the great academics we get  everything you can give them please do thank you love the garden because we get to learn about what we eat and if we can't learn about that what are we going to learn about if we don't have this garden where are we going to go for calmness and peace to sixth grade next year and i want to come back to my school and help out in the garden if i can't do that i would be devastated and how i would feel if there was no garden is how i would feel if i lost my house or a school or shut down because if there is no garden there's no community garden store community because the whole world is like one big garden we're all a tree we grow our leaves we fall off next year our children take our plates and if we don't have that what are we going to have thank you and my husband so i just wanted to echo what they said my child comes home with pockets full of onions and things that i didn't even know existed before the berkeley garden program we make massage all the time my kids eat frickin kale they asked for it so it's just an amazing program and it's berkeley and this is our responsibility to provide this as a model for the rest of the country i mean we started this movement and the fact that this is even under consideration that we can afford it or we don't that money for it is just  it's a travesty it's really terrible so i think you can see the support behind this program and i would love for this to continue because my life has been in my children's lives have been raised by it and every child deserves that so thank you you know the product the fruits of the labor but i'll give it a go we're distributing some letters i'm here on behalf of the berkeley food policy council and so i'm going to read some segments from the letter to put on the record since one thousand nine the berkeley food policy c has been actively engaged in the district supporting critical and innovative changes in its food service nutrition education we were involved in helping get the first pilot funding for the program and then ensuring repeated renewals as the program developed we laid the foundation for the school lunch initiative and supported the funding of necessary infrastructure and we are once again once again investing deeply in supporting the district to ensure that these amazing successes are not lost we're deeply disappointed to face the proposed reductions in service to our kids and community and we recognize that we have a great concern we recognized have a great concern about the loss of the critical elements of cooking and eating healthier foods in the classroom these cooking programs have proven through practice and academic studies to have significant impacts on a child's eating habits and general nutrition education and we also recognise the ongoing lack of deeper implementation and integration of the district's own food policy and wellness policy we've outlined both key elements and specific requests in the letter and so i'll skip over that segment for the purpose of time but we also want to strongly urge you to include the development of a pilot program project that would incorporate all the successes from previous years of the  d program both cookie and garden gardening focused that have been refined over the decade for over a decade to produce the great success in nutrition education for the child and for the whole family so we're grateful for all that you've done to continue these programs but in doing so we ask that you the board of education make this program a central plank for the school districts programs toward achieving academic equity educational excellence and overall student success thank you cooking our link is strong to support students who among you will stand with us to support i challenge each of you how long you please stand with us good evening members of the boy my name is debbie by a las k and i'm the parent of a sixth grader at longfellow you've heard from many fantastic speakers tonight about the benefits of the gardening program and i would like to direct my comments about why i think it's important to save the gardening program at the middle school level one plant i did mention the issue of equity amongst the middle schools this is a huge issue for our school for a long fellow which in some respects is an under served school if there was only one middle school of the three that had a gardening program and the other two didn't get a gardening programme what message is that sending to our students i cannot raise the funds to be able to support a gardening or a cooking program we i think we are one of the more challenge schools in terms of fund raising o percent of our kids are on the free or the reduced lunch program as a p t a member we've had to make some painful decisions about whether we're going to fund the sixth grade and one year trip or a day great end of the year trip and there's there's no way at this point that we will be able to afford a gardening teacher but our kids deserve to have the gardening program as much as the kids in more affluent areas of the district and there's there's several other masons why this program is important in middle school i think everyone is aware of the growing obesity epidemic here the plan is to tie the sun coming program into an nutrition program what's different about middle school or stand up for younger kids is these kids are more independent now they're taking initiative thinking go back to their families and say hey what about an urban garden how about if i go to the store and buy some seeds or try and plant some facts to post that i learned about at school in our garden because i want to eat my food and i want to teach your family how to eat more healthy food i think another reason why increases exponentially in middle school and can we have the perfect that we have the kids outside we have that getting dirty dicking around in the soil it's also that tactile experience i think science in a tactile way and that can really enhance their learning finally oh i don't think i have to finally thank you so much for listening to so that concludes our public comment i want to encourage everyone to stick around as long as they can this item will be the first on the agenda but we have a few things before that including comments from our union reps as well as board member and superintendent comments so if you are able to stick around i encourage you to do so for those of you who came and were not able to speak you can always email the board directly at berkeley so i put of ed at berkeley dot net  each of the board members also have office hours and those office hours are listed in your board packet as well as online at w w w dot net slash school dash board so now we have an opportunity to hear from our are we ready already so give even dr evans esteemed board members thank you for being here again listening to the public again when it is starting to really fall i was a garden teacher at thousand oaks elementary for four and a half years and i'm now the organizer for b c c e my biggest issue with the gardening proposal that's coming back to you tonight is the decision to ask for one year of funding only cooking so let's we're finding only cooking and writing are core to the mission of this district and to the mission of the process they are not separate than to create a three local control and accountability plan that does not have a three year commitment to cooking and gardening education violates the basic trust that parents have put in view to prioritize their children's well being in addition some of us working very hard to pass a sugar sweetened beverage tax and berkeley to help raise revenue for nutrition education field i am i personally working very hard to not feel that by removing the multi year funding plan from this week's presentation you the board are saying that as soon as we successfully passed that measure you are going to discontinue your support and let the soda tax take over i for a time i'm not ok with that the district needs to fund gardening and cook it on an ongoing basis so that  funds raised can reinstate cooking classes our children deserve both and most of us working very hard to protect these programs and to raise much needed funds to supplement them deserve to know that the district is equally committed to this program success it's time to put your money where your mouth is i also have other concerns about this proposal if cooking was funded by schools it moves to be made explicit that that fund room should be in the form of a district paid instructional special list cooking teachers deserve to keep their well and benefits retirement and salaries we also need to be careful not to make a repeat of last year's layoff notifications are instructional specialist should be notified of any layoffs in may and should exercise and bump in minutes before we go out on summer break for clarity also the schools that do not currently have active gardens such as bam and jefferson should be allowed to spend their money towards cooking instead it should be made explicit that schools can increase after he has forgotten teachers also if they want to increase services for example for by keeping the garden open for supervise exploration which we are to herd is very popular at malcolm x or by adding gardening to the after school program or by lengthening the garden classes for certain grades preparation time is another huge issue again i ask that a simple ratio of one non instructional hour to one instructional hour be used to determine e s the budget as laid out for tonight is very irregular it does not offer it doesn't seem to treat each school fairly and i have copies of my interpretation my labs in many ways lab classes offer an integrated learning opportunity that compels students to think reach for understanding and find comic tippity in their lives middle school schedules are surprisingly complex within any given school day or week class periods range from twenty two minutes for tuesday homeroom to ninety minutes for double english after about half the garden classes currently taught at willard are those longer periods so pocket the cost of the program with a slightly increased f t e s i invite you to subtract that amount from the supervisory budget district wide program coordinator could fill the program out of moods but without directly supervising staff much the way extended a program coordinator is work with or after school staffs i believe by movement direct supervision to the principals you both allow for greater independence accountability and coordination at the school say it's but you can also cut costs by reducing the program managers f t e i am also very concerned that your staff whether i'm a director or from you or not has explicitly recommended in tonight's proposal the replacement of classified positions with parent or community volunteer c b s c c e you cannot and will not come to make use of volunteers in place of classified stuff either that's a program is important enough to pay for or it's not important and i think you know by now that and many many other think it's important enough to pay for thank you good evening my name is lisa kiley and i am a world class teacher i teach fourth grade at malcolm x and i've been there for three years and my time at malcolm x i've connected deeply with children and parents in my focused on kids who identify as mixed race adoptee and their allies i've been a model teacher for their teachers looking to implement reading workshop in their own classroom i've been in the arts and committee at my school i organize the schools can conflict man now also the state representative for b f t at my school so first i'd like to thank the board for the progress that has already been made in negotiations we do appreciate the efforts of everyone involved in this endeavor however i am here with a fair contract as quickly as possible it's vitally important to teacher so we can completely focus our energy on our learning our students learning and implementing the common core state standards we haven't been going on here in berkeley for teachers and for our students and i want to talk about some of the new things like a five teachers are working on this year all teachers are learning the new common core state standards and math through story of units this is taking own wrong time and all lot of wrong but it's also taking dedicated time and energy i mark and we continue to design r t a systems and structure to structures to help support our many students and this is all of course in addition to the hard work and effort we always put in to our students time the best education is possible we have teachers are committed to making berkeley a world class district achieving our goals requires and deserves our full attention but the longer we work without a contract the more an easy undistracted we become many people in education have devised trying to pick them out of teachers over the course of the school year on these tracks you will see that march is generally the low point in our morale people are tired of people may be disillusioned and feel like they can't perform but shortly after march is usually an upswing in morale and a period of rejuvenation a reflection that continues to build twenty suppresion of the work to come in future years as a teacher people begin to be able to see their growth and get excited again about teaching and evolving as educators however now because negotiations are not results for the current school year teachers are growing worried we worry about our ability to make ends meet in this community about the conditions at our jobs out about whether we will be able to transfer energy toward our teaching practice and our students wary is not a path toward reflection it's not a path toward rejuvenation and it doesn't help us and to support further teaching adventures that both has the power to trigger an upswing in morale that teachers mean you can provide this same boost amount for classified stuff by giving them a fair contract as well  toward making its implementation successful we need our heads in the game to reflect on how things went on how we can do better and how we can involve and grow our practice the board can make a better move to facilitate this by resolving negotiations now with a fair and respect for contract for frankly teachers and classified staff not only will this build partnerships that can better serve our students it will move us one step closer to being the world class district we all know we can be thank thank you so now is an opportunity will have one's getting seated to hear comments from our district committees that include members of the public the list of those committees is in your pockets and i really do encourage everyone to good evening my name is laura babbitt and i greet you as a representative of the parent of buys a recount so for the cat playing when i heard about the cat play and i was really excited as my expectation including having a real opportunity to direct and to move programs for most underserved students that is still my ultimate hope i'm here today because over the course of the cap process members of the p a c continue to ask out be sept  are going to be spent in relation to the new supplemental funding dollars it appears that the answer to that question has not yet been finalized from some of the preliminary funding requests that have been presented to the p s c it appears many of the positions currently funded by be said i've been requested to move over to the all caps binding playing my concern with moving these funds already funded positions to el cap is centered around equity and the fantasy council from my observations is a very diverse group of people that are also committed to serve for three years the sept is not currently offered that level of continuity or diversity within its current process asked such i think we should strongly consider the impact of freeing up positions funded by the big budget when the equity related to the be set process has been questioned annually by minority parents in fact in two thousand and thirteen i was the only african american parent member parents of the importance of their participation in the sept and the s g scene we had several parents who plan to run for these offices in the twenty fourteen school year and twenty fourteen with no vote it almost feels like a game of chess that we just can't win my observations on the berkeley high school be set committee in two thousand and thirteen current understanding of the lack of diversity racially and social economically at the district be separate piano committee level and comments from elementary and middle school parents around the lack of diversity on these committees makes me very leery about taking the district when the positions from the be set budget and including it on to the l cat plant in addition as these committees are meeting simultaneously the committee needs to be aware the community knows to be aware it be set will likely have more funds available for which we should i can see where the shifting dollars were allowed be set to be able to fund more programs for supplemental enrichment activities as more be said members including myself would have preferred to fund however until the district can ensure that the beset process includes adequate representation for all i don't feel comfortable that i can truly make an informed decision on the best outcome as such i asked that before the p c is requested to recall approved and kept funding plan that we are providing the necessary information regarding how this impacts be set funds and how be separate is going to ensure equity among its decision makers secondly i would like to say that the members are also thinkers and willing collaborators our past meetings have been extremely rest and have not allowed its members to fully discussed the topics presented as a solution i've had parents request that i share my ideas or concerns on the p a c share drive so they can have time to think about them and we can build a consensus opted not to do that as i didn't want my suggestions in writing to be misinterpreted i would prefer to communicate in ways that offer clarification as that can be reined in real time i also think we need more time as i remember being on the heist at the high school after two o'clock on a decision making day for b a h s b seven plan for twenty fourteen other s t c p t a meetings i know that parents need more time to discuss the solutions being provided to us finally it also helps to have people who work in the district available to broaden our understanding of what happens in actuality with these programs being recommended versus how they appear on paper alone we were given a survey to complete and after speaking with people who work directly with those current programs i was able to make a much better ranking of my al capp priorities will request that our district leaders provide us with the following clarification on the seven caps when i phones longer discussion times and professionals of various backgrounds that work with some of these programs being suggested to discuss them with the group so that we can make informed decisions thank you for your time and consideration good evening everyone to our audience out front of us and also to our viewing audience just have a couple of announcements i want to say congratulations to washington elementary school they are receiving a five thousand dollars bright ideas grant from p for educational solar projects the last regional nels today that they were one of thirty seven schools in california receiving funds for energy projects i understand that p g and e donated three hundred thousand towards the project that made washington be u s d in the first semester it's unfortunate that it coincided with tonight's meeting or some of us would have been there to celebrate with them we are truly truly proud of them and we're there in spirit and i received a finally i received some sad news last week our beloved dedicated assistant superintendent of education service services decided to retire this is been very very difficult for me because he has been my right hand and i truly do not know what i would have done without him as i transition into berkeley he's always been there he has shared his knowledge his expertise his experience with me and so many others and he has truly been the foundation of this district and he has served the district at least over some twenty five years that i know of and i just want to say personally thank you  that you will continue your services with us after you leave in some type of consulting capacity you would surely be missed and i just wan would you like to see a few words but i will say a couple of words you know it's it's it's been actually twenty five wonderful years here in berkeley and berkeley has been a very very good fit for me i'm excited about the next phase but i have been i have valued the twenty twenty vision that we've gone into in the last few years where we're really looking to make a difference for every child in this district and i have appreciated the support that the community has provided here in berkeley it's wonderful as an educator to work in a community where people want to get out and support the schools and when you see that tonight even with the garden and cooking program and then the caliber of the quality of teachers district is really it's a very high caliber and it's a pleasure to work with them so i look forward you know the next four months i'm still fully here firmly working and i want and what work with all of you to ensure a very smooth transition because i am very vested in berkeley and i want to make sure you know we continue to move forward and continue to show progress in student outcomes so thank you donna very much that was very nice you so i also want to say a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to neil for your service over the years i didn't go to king i want to willard but my sister went to king and you were her principal i believe and she speaks very highly of you you know you have been here at the district since i started on the board particularly last year when you and i deputy superintendent helped you know really keep us pointed in the right direction at a time when we really needed it for the thousands who are watching that our board meeting in two weeks will be at twenty twenty bonior street it is the adult school it is well realm is it is where the administration building is if you go to enroll his second period and sixth period classes where i had the pleasure of talking to today they asked some really important questions they asked about spirit rally and spirit week  board had any say in that decision they asked about how the policy they asked about student evaluations of teachers and it was it was quite impressive to hear their thoughts and their feedback and it was a real pleasure to be able to talk to them and i just wanted to think them again i think it's going to go down but also thank you i think for me it's been about the instructional piece and how our classes and our instruction works in our classes and you've been a very good guide for us and for me especially so thank you very much n l i want to say yesterday i had a meeting and the first in the m building the new buildings very impressive very nice and i'm sure all the students and the teachers are totally enjoying there is plants in the ceiling and there is very very teachers already decorated their classroom so it's really exciting i'll just say been i'll be tomorrow two of us three of us will be three of us will be visiting hayward community day school this is a school that is run by the county and these are generally students who have been expelled in our county in our district in alameda county to go to the school and be educated in receive education and support and so we announced publicly announced a three board members will be joining us two of us two additional board members will be visiting our community school so it'll be a great opportunity for us to see i'm also increasingly interested in two because they also have an l cap process in terms of how we can be engaged as a district in the process with our county and our community school on tomorrow thursday from four to six said eighteen zero one some public us and i think i will have my office mean everybody's welcome will figure out how we can accommodate everybody so thank you neal i know donald would have loved you have stayed at least one more year and not happy about your retirement except for of course wishing you well as we all do i mean you've certainly given your career to our district and your heart and soul to our district and have dealt with several superintendents even being a co superintendent yourself and i really want to thank you for the work that you've done particularly as the district really began focusing on the fact that despite our reputation that we were not serving all of our students as well and with the data and evaluation office you know really being able to drill down and find that out as opposed to just being stories i mean the you know that the programs that you put together the systematic evaluation assessments the professional development around equity is something that i really want to thank you for and i think you know i think that the the party so i'm sure they'll be a party in which they'll be many more people saying all the kind words that you deserve to shift gears i am sorry that i'm not going to be able to make  the african american studies celebration of our african american students who have received at least three point zero g p a zur higher first semester at something that i've taken a lot of pleasure in the past  now i think that we rightly so spend a lot of time looking at where we are not meeting student needs but i think we also have to realize that some of our students even with what is being provided now or some of the obstacles they face either at home in their neighborhood or even a school that doesn't always believe that all of our students have equal opportunity equal ability to learn or will be a successful that we still have students that despite all that excel and i know that many of them it's because of family some of it's because a teacher or a counsellor or classified staff a coach you know helped spark that and that student as well and so when we when we celebrate those students i think we also need to celebrate this is what we want for all of our students and think those that help to make that so for those students mean to the construction oversight committee i think i inherited that from president daniels and it was a lively bunch and a very lively bunch and some good conversations and they spent most of the to all they approved some of the reporting audits but unfortunately because the meeting occurred too late to get the report in the packet for this board meeting it will be in the next board meeting and so i look forward to attending that group as as often as possible and lastly i was going to ask that i'm sure it's probably going to happen anyway but that the move to our new board location be prominently displayed on our website not just kind of burglary like if you clicked on to find the agenda but kind of front and center when you open up our home page because i think it's you know you know that floats right by because i because you know i would probably end up coming here i'm sure we would be honest and say how many of us did that but i think to be able to put that front and center on the web and the home page would be great thank you maybe we could send it out through the each trees all stuff yeah and also sorry and a big sign on the door  here well i'm not going to go on and on about you know because i'm sure we're going to do it again before you leave but i will chime in with sincere appreciation for your service to our berkeley kids and families and having known you at king and then when you came into the district office and then from working on the city side and really kind of stretching beyond our normal bands and working across jurisdictions i think you really set the bar and collaboration with with the community and with the city and moving the twenty twenty vision forward and we still have a tremendous amount of work to do and i actually probably think that you're going to enjoy being somewhat on the side watching it all unfold and courage you to continue to come back in whatever way you can so i look forward to the next four months of celebrating i also would like to announce that i have many appointment to the berkeley you commission i am pleased to announce that i've appointed nina siegel who is a junior at berkeley high and she's very excited and motivated to take her activism and leadership into the berkeley community and she will be able to attend the next meeting  i also want to announce that u c berkeley center for cities and school has a program called y plan and it stands for you of course it has to be an acronym youth plan learn act  now and they've been doing y plan for about ten years across the region they've been in emeryville they've been at richmond high they've been in oakland and they finally have come right next door to berkeley and they're going to be working with seniors in the berkeley high green academy to actually engage in the cap process and i've talked to them about connecting up with sherif and and they will be taking action to identify key priorities and strategies for the way be u s d a should allocate the local control funding formula to close the opportunity gap through why plan which is a civic led work based learning program developed by you see set a center for city in schools they will work each of them will be matched with the u c mentor and they will be doing community asset mapping they will be do surveying they will be doing evidence based proposals for change as a five step process of critical inquiry they're going to be going out in the broader community of berkeley high to get student voice in the process we've asked superintendent evans and myself to kind of be their clients to kind of be the sounding boards and take the recommendations that they have to the pack and they have identified for the stage of their work three priorities that they wanted delved deeper down into they have identified basic necessities student engagement and access to courses so they're going to be completely engaging with the goal of giving periodic reports to the pack as well as the board with a final report and presentation in april april mid so that's exciting also i want to share with the superintendent my colleagues  disappointment of not being able to go to berkeley high recognition for our african american students who are hitting three point zero or above and i think it's critically important that we highlight the students that are achieving in our schools and celebrate them because we all too often just talk about the bad data and with so much of the dynamic of stereotype threat it's really important to show that not all kids are the same in this district and we need to support all of our students and we have some very strong academically achieving kids in our african american community and i can only hope that our teachers and our staff and our community is at berkeley high are also making sure that there are three point zero or a thr requirements and really working toward being college ready in our community and career ready and lastly my next office hours because my office hours tend to rotate so you see they are monthly on the board website but they don't always have a time and place so my next ones will be april seventeenth from five thirty to seven and they'll be in west berkeley and i don't have a location yet but as soon as i do i will let jenna know so i can go on the website ok it's my turn neal so again i'm sure we will have many opportunities to to honor you and to thank you for all of your years of service and dedication to our students and so i will do that in a more serious way at another time but i think just wanted to also make sure that i had a chance to express to you personally how important it's been to have you as a leader in our district and how much i've learned from you over the past i don't know i think i first met you when my kid was and i think second grade and now he's in tenth grade that's a long time ago maybe first grade and just your dedication to all of our students and i think that that that really comes from the heart with you neal and i think it's really impacted each one of us and it's really impacted all of our students and so i just i just really want to thank you i feel it's been an honor to to now be a colleague of yours and and a friend and i plan on still continuing to meet you not here actually but on the trails until  of the parents and the students and the teachers in the classified to everyone who came tonight to testify about cooking and gardening as well as other items there's been a lot of passion as we've mentioned before particularly around the cooking gardening program i know that for everybody for members of the community for employees it's a lot to come here it's to come here and it's sometimes scary to get up and speak and people do it and people write their letters and communicate with us because of their passion for our students and for the work that we're doing to educate our our community so i really i just want to thank everybody and we hear you and it really does impact i know my thinking on my decisions up here and now you know i also wanted to congratulate the we care honorees we had a really impressive group of people here tonight and i each one of you serves our student it was a great representation because each one of you served our students in a different way and in order to get that honor you have to be serving doing your job with the kind of above and beyond quality service and care for our students and for the place where you work and for your job and in doing that you're really setting a great example for our students and i just want to make sure to acknowledge that because i i know it's involved in doing you know sometimes it's hard to do your job well day in and day out and i really appreciate that as well as congratulating the students who the students who are being honored tonight  also sorry we can't make it but i won't i don't want to restate what my colleagues have said but it's a it's a again it's a lot of work to get a three point zero and two and it's great that we're holding that up and recognizing our students who are achieving our african american students  our students usually go to high school students if they're expelled from berkeley so i feel a personal i feel it's unlike an obligation i want to go i want to see where we're sending kids so i'm i'm really all of our so or principals and then every principal was invited to bring a team every single school from preschool all the way through the high school had a good sized team there today and you know i tended to you on our friday no it's great to just even google his ted talk in eighteen minutes you get a sense of who he is and about one hundred twenty five people were there thinking that it might be good to bring him back to have more teachers more you know everybody else in the district here he's quite compelling and i know him i know doctors are going to die and he's really inspiring and the thing that i really was really great to hear that you brought him because he first well he's a great speaker and he really is he really talks about classroom culture and recognizing  serving in each student and he talks a lot about self esteem and academics us success among all of our students and i received i just wanted to say that i received some really great comments from educators who were there and the first one was that it was amazing inspiring and fun so i just wanted to say that's great that you brought him i do hope will be able to hear more about him because i think where he is heading and where he's trying to lead the educational landscape is consistent with my goals and my values so i want to also think i don't know who did that but thank you for bringing  finally were we are moving to bone are the vote in our street the new board and chambers as people has said i have said and i want to make sure everybody knows that there is an abundance of parking so if you drive well hopefully you ride your bike you there's also a lot of places if you ride your bike you can take the bus but there's also a big parking hi everyone i just want to start off by joining everyone and thanking you for all thank you neil for all of your years of service here in the district and also for helping make my transition to the board this year so welcoming and seamless so thank you and we'll miss working with you so i have a few updates of things that have been happening in berkeley high at berkeley high for the past few weeks so the first thing is that this past saturday the jobs program hosted its annual girls day which is a fabulous event put on by the director sarah kline which encourages young girls to get involved in the jobs program so it was really great  and march it was basically highs month of service so this is a really great event put on by the berkeley high leadership team which gives students the opportunity to see what opportunities are available to them to get back to their community and provide them with more opportunity there so last week we had our annual service fair where clubs in organizations with social justice missions came to present to the student  body and there's a huge number of service related clubs that berkeley hire everything from the red cross to body positive to the incredible programs put on by the health center and they were all there part to present and it's just a really great event  issues students at berkeley higher passionate about so that was really great and we'll have events going on throughout the rest of the month so if you're interested in that you can contact the leadership office at berkeley high  and just a quick note this is the week to register for a p tests if you're enrolled in a p classes and there are few opportunities to get reduced costs this year so if you qualify for free and reduced lunch  there's automatic incredible discount and then also the ca is a middle income bracket which depends on your family income and the amount of people in your family but if you think you might qualify and you're taking an a p class you should look into that because that's a really great way to make that more affordable and as somebody mentioned earlier we moved into the new and building this past week which was really exciting for everybody involved i myself haven't made it up past the sect past the first floor yet but it's really wonderful i'm really enjoying the short i walk to class i haven't been haven't been late to a second or third period yet once which i've been late every day to both of those classes up until last week so that's a really nice change  and finally i am also making an appointment to the youth commission today i am appointing fame column he was a sophomore an academic choice and his dedication to social justice makes me certain that he's going to be a great addition to the commission thank you thank you very much just a quick note on the building that we're going to next meeting to the board we will probably have a thirty you can't make that which is fine try to schedule some time you know earlier than to kind of get your bearings well you have to know which by you get to shims you know how do you know it sounds simple but yet when you try to do a meeting there it's going to like you know be tough all right so we have a nine and nine fifteen time certain so let's do those  you consent at the end so we have eight public hearing nine p m action item number one opening public comments open the public hearing so anyone like to speak hearing on closing public comment we need to approve this is there any intro good evening you have before the initial proposal from local twenty one to the district and the one from the district to local twenty one and we need to sunshine this to give the public the opportunity to address the board with any the first one from twenty one except in your acknowledging ok and the second one is the one that we're presenting to them that's the one that needs the action ok so we accept and acknowledge to the consent calendar the consent calendar is as it is in the agenda packet with the addition of action item number five is there a motion to actually approve the consent as amended i'll make a motion motion by director w president josh daniels yes thank you it's approved for all of the thousands who are watching just to give a context to why we're goofing around here when you have a time certain item you can actually do with the time and i don't prefer that time it allows people to come and speak to us during public during a public hearing time and so it would be unfair some of the rocks for the next thirty minutes thirty seconds if we were to do it so we were just stalling so that we don't have to wait until ten o'clock to do the nine fifteen time certain people walk through the door to speak to you never you never know so we appreciate your are patients with us while we had a little hearing for item number two the approval of the initial proposal for a successor agreement with one of our unions local twenty one is there anyone here to address the board hearing none public hearings closed is there a motion to move the item so moved by director hempel is there a second second by dr signing about objection the item is approved director doctor questions i'm just not going to be a formal presentation like it was last time we're going to get right into it so i just want to remind the board before we discuss this i don't just a few things i just want to recap where we've been and hopefully you can give us direction in terms of where we should go so before the board begins discussing the cooking garden program i just want to let everyone know this is been a very very difficult process for all of us we acknowledge that this was a nationally recognized program but that was when we had two million dollars unfortunately we do not have two million dollars the federal funding state dollars that we received was cut so we no longer can retain that type of program but i do recognize the board gave us some gap funding about six hundred thousand dollars to be used over two years for two thousand thirteen fourteen and fourteen fifteen an additional fifty thousand dollars for a grant writer now there was only one hundred fifty thousand dollars left for next year two thousand and fourteen fifteen and there are no federal state hours available and we have not been successful in securing additional funding i also want to note that we've applied for several grants and we only received one and that was for about twenty five thousand and we had to come up with about eight thousand dollars of that and we did about you coking in guarding but the question is how do we retain this program knowing that we can't have everything that we had before so as we prepare our proposals we  want our kids to experience certain aspects of the program so we highlighted the gardening part of the program because it can be easily allying to a common core standards in our second generation or next generation science standards and we do have our preschool and elementary schools students working in the garden program and experiencing this program as well as are six and seventh grade students as were discussed in this program we do need clear direction and so i'm hoping that the direction that you give us tonight will lease answer some of these questions should we phone only regarding program what should we do with our monies that is raised by the p t a school sites for the purpose of supporting this cooking gardening program can they use this funds to support programs at other sites what grades should the district support the program is the funding that we agree to for two thousand and fourteen only or is it ongoing we need these answers were we need some direction tonight so that we can bring back to you a proposal that will  show you that we have heard what you said so that we can meet the needs of our students i also want to say that i know no one wants to hear this but we have a lot of things on our table right now and we have programs such as supervision school math teachers r t i coaches literacy intervention coaches we have a lot on our plate right now and so when we decide on what type of program we're going to provide and how much money we're going to a lot for this program to continue we have to keep in mind that it might impact something else we might have to take something off of our plate  but that being said i just want to open this up for discussion is so that we can get so direction in terms of us moving forward thank you can you reiterate the questions that you would like the board to focus on for our discussion tonight should the district fund only guarding program what should be done with monies that are raised by p t a s schools like the purpose of supporting this cooking gardening program should the site be able to keep those monies or should there be some sort of sharing program be and also is the funding that we agreed to for two thousand and fourteen fifteen only or is it ongoing so those are the questions really the answer  so i would throw out as as a possibility to the board that if you know the answer to one of these questions to see whether we can even just you know get it done with now if you want to discuss it ask questions let's let's go for it but if  you know if we know if we know our answer to any of these questions you know we can we can move on and focus really on the question of whether it's the most discussion director have i have a couple of policemen ery kind of questions before we kind of jump right in because i  think the something i shared with the superintendent is i think one of the things i'm struggling with is the fact that we are a lot we're having a lot of things come to the board a bit in a piecemeal fashion they're all high priorities that all have supporters for good reasons everyone loves cooking and gardening and though there's no one here that doesn't see the value of that program for many reasons you know for its alignment with hands on learning with it's alignment with our emphasis on the whole child in terms of nutrition and and making community so to me that's not that's not what is the discussion here the discussion is given the loss of two million dollars what can we afford on an ongoing basis and that's where i'm struggling a little bit because this is right now for one year but we're not you know i am interested in looking at what can we afford going forward as the foundation that we can then build upon as other money might become available or as we go forward and our base  revenue that we get from the state may change that we might be able to layer it isn't so that to me is what i'm struggling with right now is that i haven't seen kind of the whole ask because we haven't received the whole budget yet and so for me i almost want to kind of possibly just focus on direction for the staff on what to include in the proposed budget and then have a more for office staff for some of our schools like malcolm x a really increased in roman during a period where we've been cutting those kinds of positions because of the years of drought so to speak in terms of funding  i know that there's been similar issues that washington and other schools to around the need for more reading specialist you know so these are all things that i don't think any of us here would say are less important than cooking and gardening but yet they all are ongoing costs and so while i absolutely believe that the district needs to provide some funding ongoing that we can then scaffold on in the future it's hard for me to know exactly what that is that sustainable because we'll be right back here next year and i don't think that that's fair to the program i rather people know that it's maybe minimal but this is what they can rely upon and we go from there then to to believe that we're not going to be having to provide a foundation of effort for this program in the forseeable future again i don't think it's going to be all that i would hope the program would have but i think it needs to be what we believe we can afford on a sustainable basis well maybe other things come to play other questions comments thoughts of of a general nature and i also just wanted to add that i also think that as we discuss it my issues are that it needs to be accessible to all students there needs to be an equity be equity portion to it certainly we do have a school that is getting a lot of outside funding that's that's the reality that that's the reality of the reality but given that i think we need to have a fairly accountable program and i think it has to be a program that is that is aligned to standards but tickly since we're talking about a school a program that is primarily being done particularly about a program that's done within the school day i am interested to hear thoughts about what might be possible outside of the school day but i don't think we could have a program in which is variations of what happened during the school day i don't think that's at quotable and i don't think that's and i don't think when you're trying to align it to curriculum then that's that's the place to start that may be what you can do once you kind of know what the core is but i wouldn't want to start it that way so i agree with director him fill in the sense of really trying to figure out the baseline and i mean i think some of us have been saying that from the beginning is that we need to figure out what we need for all kids and i think jazz or that's what you've been trying to do with the community and with the staff and and so with the recognition that we don't have two million dollars i support however reluctant to focus on the garden for the baseline but i also support the flexibility of the revised proposal about allowing site funds to be used to diversify if you want to do cooking and i'm open to looking at whether that you know after school or  when that would be one of the things that i that i'm concerned about with the proposal though i am also conflicted about it is the fact that it is a one year proposal and the reason is there's been a lot of criticism that there hasn't been any fund raising for this program and i will just say from my own experience of having done fundraising for years you can't fundraise on a program that you don't know how to define the program and you can't fundraise on a program that says we've lost two million dollars just help us raise more you have to have a vision goals and a projection of what you want to achieve and i think that the program proposal we're now getting is to get there i could see taking this proposal and then shopping it now to other funders the concern that i have with the one year of funding is that if we don't demonstrate a district commitment it's going to be hard to go to donors and say or grants and say we're putting in almost half a million four hundred thirty what was it the total amount four hundred sixty three thousand now and maybe nothing in the future will you fund us so and it's hard enough i think for schools to get outside funding so i bet at the same time where i'm conflicted and i share your your perspective is  hard to say we're going to commit almost half a million dollars and in funding for a program when we haven't balanced it against everything else yet especially with the process that's going  on and so part of me thinks that what might be good and i'm just kind of thinking and i know you know supposed to do this but i'm kind of thinking out loud is you know focus what we need to do for next year with the budget and the proposal that's here but incorporate this i think is what you're saying in the budget process and in the process to basically say what is it compared to everything else that we need to balance this with and the part that i also feel it's important for us to think about is we've gotten hundreds of e mails and i really appreciate the families who have stepped forward to send us messages about this or have called us or have asked to meet with us and one of the things that i keep hearing frequently is that the garden program the gardening cooking is the great equalizer is the great equalizer for struggling students for students with special needs for students who have behavioral challenges and i know anecdotally people believe that very strongly especially if it experienced their child we don't have any data or any evidence that actually demonstrate that and i would actually like to spend and i don't think we have time this year but next year doing some evaluation and maybe working with the college of natural resources johnno jazzers reached out to to see if we get some students to do some evaluation because it's easy to say that anecdotally around a personal experience it's harder to take that to a program wide understanding and i would like to i would like to see how that really plays out because when we're making these really hard decisions what's the program that's going to be impacting our students we have to know that the garden cooking is an extremely valuable program to help students and families learn about healthy eating and healthy lifestyles but we also need to see how is it effective as a living classroom because anecdotally i think it is but i'd like to see evidence that that backs that up so i think that's kind of were i'm out right now and i do think with supporting other initiatives that are happening in the community that were mentioned in the diocese that we do have the ability potentially to see some other funding but there's no guarantee so if we want the program to continue we've got to try to figure out our baseline and then how valid says that with other things well i certainly appreciate the board members hempel and cyanide in their comments i've struggled you know i've gone both ways in my thinking in terms of what matters most and weighing all the other things that are our students are experiencing hearing families say to me both in supporting the cooking and garden program and how much students have benefit and also how enriching for not just in the short term but in the long term how it's been important to them i know i've taught my son how to cook at eight years old so i know it happens both in school and in home but we reinforce it i do like the commitment that we should  make and i see it beyond a year so i would like to have a baseline of commitment from the district because as a board member sinai you know we need to demonstrate as a district that we we believe in it also we believe in cooking and gardening we believe in nutrition and healthy lifestyles for young children that started a very young age but you know it's a board and i think it was raised also in terms of we do have students who don't have access to this on a regular basis on an ongoing basis and it is both a relief and also an experience and so i would like to have some kind of conversation or so or inclusion of making sure that the schools with have a higher population of free and reduce the something different happened for them in terms of funny because it's a different need it's a different experience so in looking at that both if it's at the berkeley technology looking at that or looking at what other school our experience if it's john new york so looking at those populations and pockets of children where perhaps a little bit more is needed in supporting their program again goes back to the food program that be technology is being offered that's different and i feel it should be more looked at differently so i would like to see it i would like to see the freedom of the school site to determine if they want to have cocaine if they can provide that i'm concerned about the schools again the schools are of have high population of free reduced unable to raise the fifteen dollars or unable to raise that amount of money so again what are we doing to support those schools who don't have the same deep pockets resources as as are other schools knowing because of the population of families so they have so we again we can't treat all of our schools as much as we want we want them to be  equal in terms of the what's being provided to our students but the same time it's a different population it's a different community so how do we support those and all of our schools know and it's a different experience so i you know if a school site wanted to have their cooking program i think it's perhaps the principal would be the one who would be responsible for supervising those programs if it happens so a baseline i would definitely support that and i would hope that through the cat funding that we could see everyone can see where it aligns to all the other growing and emergent needs and new and current needs that we've had that we've been focusing on in terms of the academic achievement and i also like the idea very much of terms of how do we collect the data around those x real experiences that our students are having as a result of cooking in terms of the improvement of the kinds of food  choices that they are now making or the things that they're bringing home that now has changed the home so and also you know it's you we have a tremendous amount of opportunities that the voices that we've heard in supporting our cooking gardening are the voices that we need to hear when we're talking about taxes in part perhaps initiatives that can support a cooking aren't those of the same voices that need to come back to us when it's time for renewa be set funny and also so we need to keep this momentum of education educating ourselves in terms of how important it is to support our schools to support the kinds of things that are important to not just one family but our entire am i am basically in agreement with everybody else i would also support and funding a baseline for more than one year just to show our support for the program director of the vice president  yet so this is an issue that we have heard we've heard an overwhelming amount of input and passion on this and so that definitely it's helpful to hear so many voices and so many people who are so deeply committed and dedicated to the  to the cooking and the gardening program i think right now are mostly talking about a gardening program i think i really appreciate what all of my colleagues have said are the ones who've spoken so far and even the slight differences in a in kind of where we're landing and i think we've all struggled with exactly what to do about this because it is a large area large amount of resources that we're being asked to decide to spend on this program and at the same time it is so much less than what we have been spending and so when i think about it i think you know what is it that we are you know you want to ask what are well for me this is how i think about this whenever i'm spending money in my own life too like what am i what am i giving up kind of what else when i'm not spending what am i spending this on how much should i invest and what ca buy if i do spend this money and so we're in a hard place because i also support a baseline and we don't know we don't have the i don't feel like we have the bigger picture we're still developing the cap or the communities developing the superintendence developing the  so it's just the timing is just really difficult to make this kind of decision and i think everybody knows that i don't think anybody is in the dark about that so i also i also do support a baseline but i actually feel like we should come up with a consistent program and then we can as we've says people have said i think couple of people talked about scaffolding on a base a baseline program but i really do for me it's i don't want to have a program where we're just saying ok students are going to have eighteen lessons or forty five minutes a year  where there's not a consistency of quality and and richness in what they're going to receive and i feel like that has not been consistent throughout the district up until now i know my kids have never come home and all these kids who come home and rave about the gardening program my kids have never had that we were not at a school that had one of the funded funded programs so now we're kind of so i have that experience of something that where without this kind of highly richly funded program what that can look like at a school site and it was fine it wasn't a bad thing but it wasn't it wasn't this kind of incredible experience and i i just want to make sure that we're being really intentional in what we fund so that it really is aligned with the common core aligned with the next  coming never the new science student next generation thank you so star trek that i can't believe it's really called so so i feel that way and then there's another thing that's i think a little bit more controversial right now but i do feel i do believe that part of it's important for our kids to have a rich and kind of a granular experience in their school day and it's really important that we're putting a time and energy into the core subjects and that we're doing that well and i think we have great teachers who do do that well and i also believe that kind of getting out there and have in the joy of learning is also really important to our kids succeeding and i don't think that's an either or thing i think we can we can build the content through aligning with with the next generation with the with the science standards and at the same time i think there's value in that that i think it's almost it sounds kind of touchy feely to say and i think that for all students that's it's important but again it has to be done well and so i love really like the idea of doing an evaluation i don't want to over evaluate so i don't know how we do that i i do think we need to look at the budget to figure out to make that we're spending the money really smart  so i so i think i think there's support for a baseline and again i'm really going to be looking to the quality and if i'd like to do and i don't know yet whether it should be more than a year i think we really need to look at what the quality of  program is before we invest over the long term i think that there's there so i'm i'm going to say again i support the baseline and i couldn't i'm not sure about the one or two years i think we're going to come back i definitely support an evaluation component to that and i really think we're all looking to future funding sources so it's not coming out of general fund in the long term and like you say i really appreciate you just being out there with the tax measure because it's a way that we can support we can support this with there's clearly a value in our community for this work so that's that's where the rubber hits the road so i want to make a brief comment and then i'm going to go through the questions and see where we are it was made during one of the public comments but just that an organization called the healthy child coalition has approached the city council and has asked the city council put a november ballot measure that would put place a ta sugar sweetened beverages it would not just be soda sodas kind of like the easy acronym but it would be any sugar sweet drink anything with added sugar basically there's a few exclusions and things like that but everything from you know snapple iced tea to your  your i like italian sodas so you know italian sodas to you know your coke and pepsi and stuff like that and one not the only but one of the motivators behind that is to find a a permanent source of funding for nutrition education in the district in particular the cooking garden program we will know whether that is placed on the ballot by the end of june and we will then know whether we actually have money by november fourth which is election day tw fourteen so i put i put that out there for everyone to kind of just think about it is there are other tax measures like the set that you know that could be used to fund this potential in the future but that one is i specifically the coalition has specifically identified this program as something that it would like to see the money go towards some of the money that relation so has the language of the proposed ballot measure been submitted to technically it's not an initiative and initiative it's a measure yeah so ok so we're going to go to the questions the first question is are we comfortable with for right now funding only a gardening program if you don't have this is a excellent opportunity for us to disagree and we do not have to all agree but you know there are schools that are not being poor and they're not doing programs so you know there's two schools so i feel it's you know so i'm a little  conflicted in saying well we would want you we want you to do it you have to do a gardening program and they say well we're doing a cooking program so i do have a question for the two schools that don't have an active garden program  because i did have this question of what you just said remind me of it is that i know that there are plans for longfellow to have a garden as part of the cafeteria space relocation but for the two schools that don't currently have a garden would there be a garden to stablished as part of this was kind of what was that my assumption but maybe i should have asked the question yes all schools will have a garden that are in this program plan that is a sink to answer thank you so we don't always get to sing dance or some stuff i feel ok i just really think that if in order for this to work in the high quality we have to really there has to be professional development and direction for the staff who obviously not including king because clean king has its own program but at the other school so all eleven elementary schools all three preschools and at king middle well let and at longfellow i would like to continue t l i did have a question about about b tech and i do think that that that is a community of students that i think being you at what is not the same as being treated equally is not equitable and i do think that for both rb tech students or independent study students that they are a different population in the rest of the school i would really like to look into the but there's something but of symbolism possibilities perhaps that together some of that funding can be restored but also you know i felt particular all those years at the ecology center was right next to be tech that that was an incredible missed opportunity but they also generate profits or surplus funding from having a curbside collection program for recyclables in our city as well as from the farmers market and so in addition to whatever grant funding that they have they have independent funding that i think would certainly be in their mission to look at extending that to some support of of particularly the the program and then also i'm interested in the possibilities of of using r o p money or some type of career tech money to help support that program but having said all that i think we should include that garden into the program so the there's an e mail from the start of a letter from the berkeley food policy council identifies requests a twenty thousand dollars pilot program but but that would be instead of the current i don't know if you had a chance to review this or not but we're so that you're what you're suggesting is we keep be t basically at the at the same level as we fund all the other schools and the pilot program we would not necessarily that's a separate question that i found that a great suggestion whether we find twenty thousand some place as i said for a separate ok that's a separate thing of all make that additional but you know about the ecology center for french toast i know for a fact that they have reduced the amount of services in the community and community farm farmers market so it's been drastically reduced  so that there isn't any there so it sounds like we have kind of two at least so far who are interested in funding pre k through seven including and then plus p t a director sign a vice president have a president just and i'm sorry if i missed this and the revised proposal at one point one of the proposals talked about the fourth and fifth grade program being actually embedded or incorporated into the science classrooms is that still or is this is this budget including a fourth and fifth grade class with garden instructors this proposal is including all grades pre k through seventh we are going to be working with the science released teachers in the fourth five four and five grades to also implement the curriculum in addition to the guard instructors and four or five ok and the current budget as this is proposed tonight doesn't include the b tech garden no it doesn't include in the high school where i have a question i'm glad i'm sitting seeds away from director live about their assets so i'm just curious to know what the cost is to have the to have the program director morris probably supported that i would just also you know i expressed earlier in terms of the schools with more than you know fifty percent of our entire population there i don't know what could be considered differently but thinking about that for those schools so i'm not i'm none of the budgets here do i see the numbers for v t not going to ask them for you i mean i i definitely without a doubt support the garden program maybe take though i'm a little i mean i guess it's just direction and i don't know the dollar amount so i'm a little hesitant to just blankly say yes but i support it but i like actually the idea that you're talking about where we're really looking at programs that have high populations of free and reduced lunch because i think especially as we're looking at aligning and again i l cap is two point four million dollars and it will grow but it's also our baseline funding so it's looking at our overall priorities with what we're doing and so if we're looking at also in that context how we're working with our targeted population are free and reduced lunch i think that's something to maybe take into consideration when you're looking at formulas and i hope another couple questions requests can just go ahead so i just want to say when i say al capp i mean i my understanding is that the district is coming up with a  include other funds to the extent that we fund a program with supplemental and with something else i just want to because i think it's a whole other question of whether this would come out of supplemental funds so when i just want to be really clear when i say i'll keep on talking about all of the many needs of our district i don't i think the problem is great but i need to make sure we're spending the money in the best ways possible so initially the pozo was pre k through three and now we've added four five and six and seven  could would you prefer that that's going to pose or would you prefer getting rid of say four five and doing more time at the middle schools including eighth grade and i asked because you know the thinking would be a foundational you know start pre k through three and then you hit them again really hard in middle school and you know the four five period yeah you're not going to get it but they still have a garden at their site so if you want to you know i don't you could  and they would get even stronger at the middle school when decisions around life choices become more to the fore now i'm an educator i don't that's true but i thought out there as another way of my guess is it be about the same amount of money give or take you know maybe ten twenty thousand dollars  and so i don't want to necessarily be stuck on this you know pre k through seven approach so i don't if you have any thoughts about the benefit or drawbacks of one of the other options so i would speak to just the experience that king as we tried figure out what was where did the gardening program seem to be most effective and after a few years of experimentation the eighth graders were only taken to the garden i think maybe two or three times a year whereas it was you know sixth and seventh graders went every other week for at least a solid semester they went two quarters out of the four so they saw the seasons over the the two years they just seemed much more open to it and it seemed to be much more effective in those again it was just the experience that things could you know you could try it again i'm speaking from a school's experience and i believe that's still the case that king yes really yeah then initial proposal pre k through third was thinking about what we have existing without coming to the board with another ask and so that wasn't what i was hoping to present and so now i'm hoping to present you know the the pre k through seventh and after doing an assessment and talking with teachers and students about the structure of the program because we could slash and burn you know as we see fit but as they were saying that you know if you skip a grade they lose it so whether or not we want to slash and burn it at you know third grade or fourth grade the next year is going to be a challenge and i think that what neil said about the older students being interested in other activities is definite concern but i think there's an opportunity for us to start piloting new ways of reaching some of those older students in addition to this baseline and that pilot would be a lot easier to fundraise for to write grants for because he's trying something new rethinking the way we're approaching education with these older students i know that currently looks different in high schools have pre k programs are only three hour programs how much of the time is in gardening and do children well when they're when they're going to guard me all twenty four go with or with the teacher they currently should be with a teacher do you have classes and this new proposal is following the law so they should be with the teachers moving forward correct they should be with a teacher that's licensed and has a permit i'm just concerned about how much you know the three hours that we do have with the children to provide that enrichment and provide we only have three hours of time so how much time is spent between the garden takes it's not every day of the week right it's how often is for the pre k you know we're currently working on a curriculum that works in batches every other week that focuses on particular grades  right so it looks like we've answered this question and what grades should the district of program be and we're talking about funding a garding program at all of our priest k through basically pre k to middle school not including eighth grade so that's plus p t a so that and most i mean that we want to fund well we're thinking about funding bta in the same using the same system as for right now at least you know funding the other schools that we like to know what it's go are comfortable allowing p t a s to fund as much as they want for whatever they want additional cooking additional gardening know ok i'm not there either but i sounded like this is where i feel that if it's an after school program go for it i think that additional gardening additional cooking funded by p t a groups after school variable site site depending upon the purdy the school site i think is a good thing i'm very hesitant about the amount of flexibility during the school day because i think it gets back to we want to have consistency we want to have a equitable and consistent standard of expectations of what the experience is like and we are right now developing curriculum for gardening but yet have not done so for cooking i'm not saying it can't be done for cooking but that's not what we're putting our time and energy in right now so i would be a lot more comfortable meal certainly there may be teachers who will incorporate some cooking as part of a science module and you know that is within the purview of the teachers ability to do so and no i think that's fine but i'm i'm really concerned about starting to have p t s and say councils make differential decisions about what happens as part of the academic day i think that's a slippery slope it's something that i think the district in some respects has done a lot to get back from i remember when my son was in elementary school it was a real issue i mean it was all done for very good intentions but some teachers literally we figured out were only with their students a couple hours a day by the time you add it all the wonderful extra curricular activities that were being added in you know for enrichment that there was very little time you know doing things aligned to the curriculum so i would have been more interested in that happening during the school day when the district has it had the time to kind of layer that in as part of a curriculum content i think i heard from the two of you saying that you were good with p t a spending it on cooking for  and i mean i think i agree with the director hemphill particularly around i mean i think the challenge where i'm at right now is i really want to establish a sustainable baseline and i want to do something that we can then build upon and so i supportive of the p t a doing it for afterschool programs i think the challenge comes in is if they don't have a garden but what i'm hearing is that next year they all will so and i know that a number of the garden teachers incorporate cooking into their garden or food prep their garden so i'm less stressed about having cooking during the traditional academic day but i'm also open to if they want to raise it for after school enrichment that that i don't have a problem with but what if they want to raise it for a cooking class during the day that's that i mean well you know i think we're all good with the p t a on the after school piece but but there will be school sites who want to raise money from their p t a for cooking class so i'm i'm hesitant to tell people what they can't do with their site fund but at the same time there was a comment made earlier about you know the shifting of decent money over into ok well cap money and the juggle of this and the juggle of that and my sense is that the school site councils right now are going through a pretty serious prioritizing and i guess this comes to me is the bigger budget question is i would like to support i think for next year a garden program a baseline program where cooking could happen in the garden or it could happen after school but as we develop our holistic budget and we look at what do we really want to do in this district and how does a balance against everything else the schools are in the same boat they're also looking at how to prioritize their funding so i guess there's a part of me that if the schools come forward in the say we want garden and cooking as part of our priority of our funding and we get eight schools that say that i'm a little hesitant to mandate other so i guess i want to hear it as part of our budget process well i mean i think that we need to give our experience last year was that when we did not give p t a s direction on how much they could fund have a cooking class twat you know once every two weeks you know for all their students you know k through five and so we need to decide i mean that's the question are we ok with that or are we going to say that cannot be done and birth the unified know for reasons you're going to that bad is the that is the question on the table it is i would say if you know of all the questions to be answered tonight this particular question is not as timely as the other ones but we need to answer it soon so they me the question about cooking in the gardening program because what i'm looking for is a consistent curriculum so if the consistent curriculum is confused because if a consistent curriculum includes cooking in the garden program then why aren't we calling it a cooking gardening program so i i guess i would i want to say what i want to know is that we are investing in a quality program that's going to be can have a consistent curriculum and that's what's exciting me about your proposal mean lots of things but that's one of the things that i think really exciting that i am getting a glimpse of where you're heading i think it's great i think the a question is a little more complicated and i guess i also want to hear from the principals on this because we've had some conversations about instructional minutes and i think that there's a question about you know it's a for me that's the question is is is what is the recommendation on the part of the principals also about because when you're pulling kids out of the classroom for an an extra forty five minutes every week and then you know i'm assuming it would be the same time of the week the same period that they would have at the same time slot that they would probably have cooking they alternate weeks that have that i mean gardening and the alternate week they'd have cooking that's how most places schools would do it and so i think that's that's where i would look for direction is actually from our educators and our principals about the again part of it is money and part of it is also what it you know what the what the administrators think we should be using those school hours there's also obviously questions of equity because not all schools are going to be able to afford that but i do have a little i think it's i think we have to i will have to think more about how much we want to mandate p t a s except for i want to hear direction for the prince william sound like you were you were saying  i just went back and forth but i do for me it's a question of instructional minutes and i think we can do after school programs that are cooking or some school some classroom teachers might do cooking but that seems like then different then students are getting different amount of instructional minutes at different schools across the district and repeated the same thing in different ways and reiterated the same questions that we have been talking about at the time you know instructional time in the classroom and i think that we have to remember as the leaders of the district our responsibility to define the instructional program and if we say to p t a is you know you can add or you can take away if you're adding in taking away time that would normally be given to social studies and science and language arts instruction you know that's that has to be weighed and i just don't know that we can say to some schools you can't i'm talking can't five i'm not talking about the middle schools now where perhaps in the subject area it could be fit in much more  easily i think if it becomes part of a release time and if it's associated with a release time period you know then then it's a different question but if we're looking at core instruction that we're defining i think that we have to as the leaders of the district take our role and say this is the core instructional program that we know everybody in this district will receive so i want to i just i just then would you clarify but this is still instructional time it's just not instructional time as you said on what we're defining as school instruction except for i'm sorry because we're not going to have a set curriculum for the for the cooking program so that well we haven't we haven't addressed that yet because under the current proposal well if we do allow p t a s to have you know instructional day cooking programs then we have to decide who supervises those people is that program supervisor is the coordinator is the principal and then that then is connected to do we have a district wide or some sort of larger you know  watching cricket that we expect each cooking teacher to perform even if the p t a is raised those funds so it raises i mean it you know just because we allow people to raise the funds does that necessarily mean that it want it to be every week not every two weeks so we don't care of cooking but we want to double the amount of time that we have for gardening would we be ok with that because that's going to have the same impact on structural time i mean it's the same question is that right now staff is developing a curriculum based upon every other week for forty five minutes that's the curriculum that's going to be aligned to the standards for next generation science and math we are not at this point developing a curriculum in which cooking and or gardening is going to you know that that garden would be that the garden curriculum is every week and we're not right now developing a curriculum that includes cooking as a major component now certainly cooking in the gardening can be part of a gardening program you know that you pick the lettuce and you put in a salad i mean that's you know you know you know i'm saying is that you are actually using the produce kind of to make something in the garden i mean that to me is part of a gardening program that you get to taste what you grow but different when you have i mean the cooking programs i'm familiar with it's brought food in most cases that you know the lesson is making a case a day or  the lesson is baking a brownie and so well it certainly can have some some academic components to it fractions and that type of thing volume that's not right now what we're developing in this district and so the question i would have is for it to be a line to be for it to be part of instructional minutes it has to be tied to a curriculum and the p t a fun aren't those aren't what p t a funds are used for  require the district putting in money to have to develop the curriculum and and and and then to monitor that the curriculum was be provided to students so that's my issue with it so i know there are a lot of other comments i'd like to question sure clarification question around the use of p t a funds for staff during academic day i know that there is or there was an art teacher at krag that p paid for but they were supervised by the principal right are there other examples there probably are a few other i know that in general it has been cut back more and more but there still are a few examples yes so i just i want to we do have a process for when p t a does fund a program that's during the day that it still has some requirements that it comply with district procedures or whatever and so i don't want if anybody and i get i'm not necessarily recommending that we have p t a fund cooking in the during the day but i don't want to go to the extreme to make it sound like it's the wild wild west if it did happen because i think you can do it within a constraint and a guideline within the district but i mean my tendency is to actually agree that we again my thing is we need to develop a solid base line and put our into making it and the cooking really is in the garden it's like a food prep and it is not the same as the cooking that happens in the classroom so i really really happy that you said that because there were also in a situation where we've lost so much funding that we've cut back on so many enrichment activities like art during the day and so i certainly don't want to imply that we wouldn't support some of those programs during the day as so i but if for this particular program i what i think we're trying to do is develop this baseline and then we can scaffold off of it so i think that know so i'm going to try to have a fish or cut bait moment heard that phrase or that in every like it so fish or cut bait p t a comes to the superintendent and says i want to spend the forty thousand dollars i raised over twenty thousand dollars i raised on a gardening you know once every two weeks starting program during instructional day well i want to double the amount of driving time and then structural day because it's been a crazy beneficial for our school site can i do it better yes i think it has to follow certain guidelines i think we need to have the guidelines the instructional leaders are here our present our superintendent in our teachers and our princip an order to do this instruction as long as it's structured i have another one little quote question can i just go down the list and get a yes or no yes we will yes or no i'm just i'm just trying to move on it's temporary you know we go we go we go i want to start with a baseline that is consistent and equitably done throughout the district where we have a defined curriculum that we can then build upon in the future and certainly for me that would include the kind ok director vice president if a p t a comes i don't think the p t a should come i think of a principal comes in to make an argument for it based on their overall vision of the school and how it fits into the other instruction that i think that i as much as i know that this is such a baseline program and that we all want much more and we would love to see cooking as a part of this program i would i would say you know ok do you want to go yes go ahead  i told him ok but my bigger issue around p t a fundraising has to do with the equity piece but i don't know if this is the time and the place to address it so i feel right now i'm going to say yes goes the principal says we want to do this pencil says yes the principal and the p t a come in superintendent except you so i'm saying that i would only suppose i would only say yes and that actually is coming out of the school site plan and the school site priority otherwise i would discourage it discourage it will or not allow it if it didn't come from a school site land that was part of an overall vision of the curriculum because i think our goal with the baseline is that it is instructional minutes is not enrichment it's actually part of the curriculum then if the principal with the school psych housel comes as part of their holistic curriculum then i would have a hard time saying no if it was just some innovative people who want to to have two and a half vote no including the director i don't i want to condition one more thing that because i'm actually talking about the pre k five because i think when we get to the middle schools we have a huge equity issue because unless we're going to add king into the dialogue then it's not fair so i think the middle schools are a little different ballgame then and how does that cut for you in other words or would you be more likely to allow the less likely to well i still feel it has to come as part of a school site plan but i would be more amenable to it at the middle schools if it comes through their school site planning i don't want to say that the school site plan for a lot of schools it's if this is hopefully it includes p t a funds too but some site plans are only really required to to include the beast and title you know so i don't know i just it depends on how the school runs we also i think it's more like that it has to come from the school well that's why i think it's the administrator because it depends we also heard the challenges we have in making sure that our school school sites and our diverse representative of the family play nobodies so and that's really my concern is that i you know if a principal saying there's this great curriculum that our that our teachers want to do it's like a cooking module but we need extra funding that the p t a says that they're willing to raise for me to do it well that's a different thing then what i have seen which is  supporting enrichment programs that are pull outs during the school day that haven't been aligned to the do standards and aren't really part of the instructional minutes and we've just had this issue on issues such as even universal breakfast which i'm very supportive of but for fifteen minutes those are students that are engaged in things that i think are very good community and helpful food in having a full stomach before spreading your day but it's but when you start having several of those during the day then the number of actual instructional minutes that are focused whether it be hands on in a garden or practicing repetitive multiplication tables or doing common core stuff is less so i think you guys have enough of direction because it sounds like we're you know it sounds like there's a it's in there's not consensus and there is some direction around what if we would allow it how we would allow it if you there's two questions i then have to follow up with p t a monies it's usually a one time deal what happens the next year do we then say they can continue to raise it sometimes they don't they can't raise it and they were in a problem supporting that staff person at that same level that the p t a was one supporting them which is kind of where we are now and then who manages the extra time the staff at that particular school as it aligns to the school site plan yeah i feel like this would be separate i feel like if we would allow it's separate then you're then i almost think it's a separate question because i think what you would be developing we would be developing as far as our gardening program well this is my opinion what i think we should be developing is this baseline gardening program that has a curriculum and that's what this what whatever the district staff is it's supervising with supervise that and the site level thing would be have to be administered so director signed i the  question just have been terms of logistics on the school site plan point school sites are planning their site plans now and we at the earliest we make a decision about this officially in two weeks twenty six more likely in april and which case they may have already gone through their prioritization process and would find it difficult to go back and put this in to their site plan if they wanted to you know talk to p t a to have say the p fund for purposes of next year and next year alone would you be comfortable having it not necessarily come to the site plans as long as the principals ok with it or would you even for next year want it to be in the site plan so i guess i don't want to get overly technical about the term site plan and so in the sense of direction to staff my feeling is it has to be part of the prioritization that the site has done whether it's been incorporated into the school site plan or whether it's been discussed but that i mean i think part of the challenge is we're going through this process where we're prioritizing the set and l cap and you know what frankly the garden cooking program should be part of the dialogue and this is now a program that's in motion you know and so where does it sit in the level of priorities when you're balancing that with everything else so whether it's in the school site plan or whether it's administrator who has the support of all of the key stakeholders on their site i'm not sure i mean i actually would defer to you guys on what would be the best way to make sure that it clearly wasn't just being driven by the p t a wants to do something during the day so i think on that i think that point we will probably have a majority board support for that if it is thought of as part of the instructional day and  forward by the instructional leader of the school site in that vein that my p t a or for that matter anybody else outside of the district could could use those funds or anything it wanted to is that and i mean i music and and for english learning students are thirty minutes a day of l d and you know and and you know i know elementary schools have been struggling to have ninety minutes or even sixty minutes of concentrated reading per day my concern is that if we allow that kind of variation in the school day they'll be children who will be getting exposed to more than the baseline and will be great for cooking but what happens to when they're not going to be splitting how to read in their cooking program the way they might in a curriculum that was based upon how do you then add academic language  i can see how you could do that in a gardening program we don't have that in a cooking program and that's my concern that becomes enrichment time and not instructional time so even though we have a formally approve this we need to get that message out to school sites so that they know you know  fourteen fifteen or are we funding ongoing you want to go down the road i on going one time and i support ongoing funny because i do believe that funders want to see that there is a commitment i think we should show our commitment at least for this next year and see also hopefully with that with fourteen fifteen and fifteen sixteen so that we can hopefully see it in the initiative support splitting the baby is that i don't know if we're ready now i don't i think what we're what we're being asked for today is really about two hundred thousand dollars in additional funds because we have two hundred  about five hundred that i know was violent and and and tell i've seen the entire budget that's not a decision that i feel that i can make right now and that may not be what we know what we believe can be baseline sustainable on going right one time money yes ongoing in the budget forever so to speak so i almost kind of think that we might need to do one time only for next year to give us a time to figure out what we can embed in the ongoing budget and i don't know if that can be done in time for the budget process for this year we don't really do two year we kind of do  projections for two or three years out so i don't know what that looks like if we built in half a million dollars it looks painful with everything else right and so i don't think we can we're ready to have that conversation yet but i do think we have to have a conversation about what can we do one going so i'm taking that as a splitting maybe but really for right now one time but i think you have to because yeah yeah we have to make a call at some point but for right now director signing so i support a commitment for the one time funding and a commitment that we look at how we're going to do ongoing funding in our budget cycle and  that be taking into consideration the through our entire budget cycle as were and you know what's the scenario if it was half a million if it was to fifty but because i think if we don't make the ongoing commitment not even necessarily with a dollar amount but a commitment that we're going to look at it in the context of our budget it's going to be hard to raise funds and i think we can raise some funds with the program that's being developed vice president apparently you know i definitely support th if i had to guess which of the questions would be easiest and hardest i was of thought that would be the hardest and the p p t a question would have been the easiest shows how good a good judge i am there are a couple other questions but i think for right now we provided some really good direction we have a couple of other big items that i want to move on so are we are we good are there anything else that oh  know it's find so for that for the thousands who are watching the question that was asked was what's my position so right now i support one time i really want to see what happens in november i think that if this measure goes in the ballot and it passes that's a huge thing and if it doesn't it's a really disappointing thing and it and i can't make a call on ongoing funding until i know what happen it was called the proposal yes ok just thank you very much so well i will work with staff on finding out when this can come back for action obviously the sooner rather than later but we don't  it over to i should thank you superintendent i was here before you were just about a year ago in april to give you at the time a brief overview of the importance of be sept funds to the district finances and  sketch outline of the planning towards the next piece that measure as you are nope perhaps not everyone knows this current measure was enacted in two thousand and six and will expire in two thought in the school year two thousand sixteen seventeen so we need to be planning for the next measure and to get really be moving at a good pace but as that is also deliberative it involves to a great deal of community input i have had some preliminary meetings with the superintendent with the directors daniel and daniel's and sinai just to try and flesh out the outline a bit more and that is in your board pocket the i don't think i need to reiterate again the importance of percent funding to the district other than to say that it does provide about over twenty percent of the funds all of our libraries our music for grade and about one four again in two thousand and four with the bridge measure and that in two thousand and six and in excess of the two thirds required to support a tax measure nonetheless it's something that we shouldn't take for granted and we also need to ensure that we do have a robust community process that builds on the kind of process that we're going through right now with el cowpie you've actually been hearing this evening about some of the hopes  and concerns that have surfaced during the al capp process if not before about desires for ways to expand decent funding or adjust besides funding in certain ways and so we do need to be ensuring that we do build on that process in a thoughtful way when i have a number of key issues that we need to look at in addition to the paying attention to a timeline and a process that moves us forward in an effective an appropriate manner there are also some shifting landscape issues that we need to pay i want to call particular attention to no one is the split role tax that again i believe all the board members are familiar with that have a problem with they felt that there was a an appropriate split in charging residential and commercial properties differently but this was taken to the appellate court which did uphold the suit and california supreme court did not review it suddenly with that decision does stand there's still some uncertainties around it turns out the alameda tax is structured somewhat differently from ours the be set tox charges currently about almost twenty twenty eight cents a square foot for for residential properties and just over forty two cents a square foot for commercial properties so there's that is not a uniform rate and so that is one of the phrases that is looked to is whether the  is uniform however on you know what they did was they did a flat rate hundred twenty dollars for residences and kind of per square foot for commercial properties and that the ruling is somewhat not entirely clear as to what the issues were when the appellate court decided that this was problematic there's also probably know that there have been some efforts in the legislature to deal with this and so far that there could be differential rates charged between residential commercial properties so we've done some back of the envelope calculations as to what might happen in a worst case in the worst case scenario which would be that we would have to  charge residential commercial rates on the same rate and you know essentially lower the rate of the commercial properties to the residential rate that would mean a loss of about two and a half million dollars out of the nearly twenty five million dollars so just about a ten percent loss to our revenues were we to flatten the rating keep it if it happened tomorrow which won't happen tomorrow we are able to keep the current structure through the measure it was done this ruling was not retroactive  except to the past and exists months prior and ours was already in place so that's about a two and a half million dollar loss and we and so we have done some initial calculations about what what it would mean in order to ensure that we had the same amount of revenue and that would mean raising residential rates about two cents a square foot but then as you've heard earlier there are lots of hopes to add into the next measure and every every couple of million dollars it's always easy to very quickly come to a song like that when it rains rates by about an additional about two cents a square foot and again that doesn't sound like much but it you know on a typical taxpayers bill that could be another fifty dollars a year maybe another ninety dollars a year if you increase it in when you add that to other taxes that might be in the bill that could be a concern so that's one place we're going to be having to pay attention to another piece of shifting as i think you're aware is that with the new local control funding formula the state class size reduction funds now rewards school district for kids through three class sizes at twenty four to one whereas before it had been twenty to one and the be might be something that we'll need to consider although it's not required twenty four to one would cost the district less but has many other implications we'll have to carefully consider and then meanwhile be of the looks like it's going to be about point eight six which is not much of an increase and the only other way i would might see an increase in revenues is if additional buildings come online and there are some properties i'm sure where they are being planned in the city that will probably seen a few years but it's probably not enough to make a substantial difference in our revenues so you've got the timeline here what the next point at which i would plan to come before you would be in august in the interim we would be a beginning to expand the planning group a bit and then in august bring to you an r f p for a consultant to help  us with the community and various key groups and stakeholders and to begin to look at some of the some commotion such as where we are with the legislation we'll also be looking at possibly january twenty sixth making decisions about the tax rate options and by then we would have gathered enough community and stakeholder input to have you be able to weigh in on the possible purposes of the next measure whether that might be the same as the current measure or whether they might shift and then we will conduct a public opinion survey as to both the tax rate and the educational purposes bring a draft measure to the board in april and it would go on the ballot in november of twenty sixt that or director senator want to add anything since you guys have also been involved with me in this process in the passions process the only thing i would add is that i think it will be interesting just one of the big issues we have to really think about as we think of our wish list is the threshold of what the berkeley voter can handle and the city of berkeley just did a poll for potential ballot measures that it will be putting on the ballot in november and so that would just be good as part of background to kind of look at what the voters are saying now is way early to anticipate how that might change but at least it's good to get this kind of a sense of where folks are right now and i just to reiterate twenty percent of our budget is be set up a third of our teachers are funded by be set up so the berkeley voters have really allowed the district to thrive in a time of major financial crisis so how we outreach and make known to the berkeley voters how valuable and important that the support that they've provided the schools has been over this really challenging time will be extremely important so any questions about beginning from now you know and they're off to that should always be part of the process because i think there's a lot of you know we should know where it where it is now and what we're looking at as we as it changes and evolves but i think it has to we have to be better and get in front of all of the kind of information about the beast if i mean what are the potentials what split tax role you know i think that's very critical that we break it down and convey that to our parents to and to our community and i forgot to mention thank that in there and i thank you for bringing that up i actually kept that as a separate issue and i perhaps could have included that in the in this timeline but we do have a public awareness  subcommittee of the piano which is meeting next week the eighteenth there's been some preliminary discussions in the communications committee about how best to inform the public you know how far beyond your report but there's still a great number of people particularly those who aren't parents who aren't don't know about all the great things that the set does for the schools and then of course some of the finer points of split role you know people think you and i was going to be my commas i think that it's not it's never too early to start kind of reminding people just like be set brings to our district and i think that those kind of soft messages you know we can start now you know so so we're you know so when we start the formal process isn't the first time that people have been starting to think about this i am interested in knowing just what the city has to plan is planning to put on the ballot when as well as ballot measures because there certainly is a concern about voter fatigue i know th be a big push this november to get the measure be extended and if there's you know a few if there's two or three city ballot measures are initiatives asking for money as well as the county and what does that mean then for us going in two years from now i don't know what the length of time is before that people forget that they've been asked for money already in the last thing that i want to bring up is a bit of a sensitive thing  i was part of the last be separate your committee and for the first time there were precincts in the flatlands that always voted the highest that did vote to approve it barely over the limit and people may be surprised here but the heaviest concentration of yes votes for the separate been in the flatlands not in the hills and in fact if you look at some of the data from past elections it doesn't pass in the health it passes because the flatlands have come out in droves for it and where many of the strongest support has been has been in some of our lowest income areas until last time and i personally spoke with groups as well as saw the data and which there were people who are saying every year every election we vote for obese up but nothing has changed for our kids and so maybe we should stop voting for peace up now of course the answer to that is that's not going to make things better for your child but that sentiment has been there that our failure to close the achievement gap is voter fatigue in some communities and so i just want people to be now let's move that fact that you can't expect people to continue to vote when not all of us students are achieving and so i think that that makes our work an equity for some enlightened self interest as well as a moral imperative and it's part of that as we do our stakeholder meetings just as ms babbitt raised there's also some concerns in how is the money particularly at the site level being allocated in ways that really represent the interest in the needs of all students and yes it's near richmond but there's enrichment and there's enrichment there's added courses and there's added courses and i really think we need to struggle as a district in how we make sure that we all are paying into the set up but that the benefits that are coming back i mean some are universal you know class size reduction is universal but you know there are some questions i think about how we make sure that that the process is such that it is one that really  inclusive of all groups and recognizes that while you know we are one community we are one community that we're kind of a salad bowl of people and that we really need to look at kind of that as we move forward you know and not just that you know you have to have the sports as well as the art as well as the class size but also you know we need to look at you know some other issues as well i just i think we all know that this is one of the most important things and that's up that's going to be in front of us in the next couple of years and so i i look forward to helping out in any way i can particularly with the community process and in the interest of time itself the superintendent then i want one final thing to say yes i agree with that as well and i also want to echo what rusty hopeful had said with the sentiment that's out there in some of our communities but i do want to stress the fact that we're trying to get out in front of that we're doing everything that we can to it gap as well as dress many of the other issues and also as we planing as updating you on what we're doing right now is that our communication team is going to be meeting regularly to  about how we can get out in front of this and advertise what we're doing now and how important this is as we move forward so i just want to make a point about the timeline so obviously this is an organic timeline that will change as the need  as we need to but the closer we are you know as we move through the timeline the things that are coming up soon are more more fixed in stone and things later on so for example the r f p the consultant i try to make sure that at least right now that we tend as a board are comfortable bringing a consultant in at this point in the process obviously we have to vote in august not voting on it now but if there are concerns now we should raise them now so we can you know hear those out and decide how to move forward action item number three approval of certification of second interim report for the period ending january thirty first two thousand and fourteen we have set aside thirty minutes including a ten minute presentation i am hoping to cover because this will be a short presentation very quickly first of all we had a positive certification which means that we're going to meet our reserve for the current here in the subsequent two years our fund balance increased by one point three million dollars we went from four point two million at first interim to five point five million at the second interim and that was due primarily to increase in eighty and a reduction of contribution to special education and we also had a receipt of a one time prior state revenue in the amount of a three hundred thousand dollars and we discovered today that we're going to actually be paying that back so we paid  overpaid us and they're going to be taking it back so going forward is three hundred thousand so in light of our variance reports you're going to have to take that into account going for it's going to be five point too so and then the second interim is based on the governor's budget for fourteen fifteen and that in included funding levels for our year incorporated those changes into the budget and a very important second interim budget has no increases for potential salary increases so that's a very slides five through ten kind of takes us through that change that we talked about earlier and down the explanation is on slide eleven so we're not going to focus on that tonight we're going to focus on the multi year projection earlier multi year projections we're looking at three years a car era and the subsequent two years and in our revenue we're looking at r l c f a funding and the percentages at the top of the page talks about this is the percentage of gap funding that we're going to recess receive for the for the for these years the gap funding for a year or fifteen sixteen that's the amount that matthews that the first interim and we did not change our estimate at second interim because matt was saying it was going to be thirty three percent and at the same time school services were saying it was going to be something like eight percent so to be conservative we kind of went with the number in the middle and kept it where it was at first and from and you can see you are highlighting the base funding for each year and the increase you can see the increase in supplemental funding as well from one era to the next our revenue is other revenues remained pretty flat and our total revenues you can see that change was driven predominantly by the change in our l c f a funding highlights for expanded churches our expenditures it increases so much graduate from year to year but there are significant changes we removed one time expenditures from thirteen fourteen fourteen fifteen including including common core expenditures and x and expenses for achievement of the african american students and the reason why we had the common core adjustment is that when we adopted the budget we incorporated expenses at first interim a back to out but we subsequently learned that expenses prior to the board approval date the general fund would have to pick that up so we're picking up two hundred five thousand dollars in common core expenses based on these were expenses that we spent before the i know you don't want to include those in the play and the auditor came out and said that anything expanded before that actual plan and it cannot be included in that new funding even though we were trying to be proactive been by  our books and everything i had the time the state is not going to allow that to be put into the funding because it was done before the board approved the plan which i think was in either late september early october where was just right ok and i am in total sources in uses you can see that we had a reduction in fourteen fifteen and that's because in thirteen fourteen are actually contributing to the e and e i a let programs and it's designated in the reserve pending the approval by the board so our ending fund balance that we have available looks pretty robust as five point five million in thirteen fourteen seven point one and nine point four zero ever we have not accounted for potential is suffering losses and this is as an explanation of what we went through before and this is a graphical representation when we reach the target and the final slide talks about next steps so these are decisions that we need input on before developing the budget the cooking and gardening template based on board approval hollywood happens with the home school transportation funds it was in there that's in there but we have to continue to spend those funds on transportation for the next two years right during the year we oftentimes are asked to approve proposals whether it's for the safety officer in washington or additional office staff  melcombe and some of the other larger schools and received individually i mean there are all things that we obviously think are very important because we really speaking have we've we've approved them all but what i don't  get is kind of that running total but we're doing it right because sometimes it's one time only like the first year of the safety officer in washington but then it was included as an ongoing expenditure which i voted for i think it was the right thing to do but what i'm getting at is that i are you capturing all of those decisions throughout the year when you come up with this budget i mean obviously we're still in negotiations or on salary for our teachers in classified and there's still some obvious decisions to be made but i don't get a good sense of when we made a decision that's one versus when we made a decision that even if it's one time is going to be likely expectations that we continue to fund it i have provided to the board both that adoption and person in truman's part of the book it was a list of to remind us that every individual decision is part of a communal cumulative decision that we're making to add kind to our ongoing costs because i think it's not just that the board i was it forgets about it but it's not self evident at the time but i certainly think that's true of our community that you know that they don't have that understanding that along the way we have maybe added several hundred thousand dollars they're just focusing on that all right moving on to hope that i will move this item is there a second second by vice president appelle without objection it is approved unanimously moving on to for four of them so i i'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations i'm just going to read the recommendations that you sent because it was the same ones that i had so of the five were recommending that ballot we do we cast a ballot collectively is that how it works forget it we collect that the votes as a board we vote right so the recommendation is that we that we nominate or that we vote for i guess valerie arkin amy miller nancy thomas and jaime hinske jamie jamie hince could you know her ok there you go there any other comments anyone have any  this josh you can come back ok i guess we'll continue the last that we had that last item on the agenda is item number six in the action items which is the approval of staffing model for noon duty i think you have a presentation you know there's no presentation but i must be part of it so basically the district has been moving towards staffing formulas for quite some time and to address the issue of you know and roman creasing enrollment as well as safety at the same time we're coming to the dollars each year since and we also know that with that they still have exceeded their budgets so what we're proposing tonight is an amount of forty thousand dollars that will cover  that amount and site by just that's been used for new duty and add about additional fifty five thousand for next year so this year it will be forty five thousand for two thousand and thirteen basically we have we have been funding schools with a certain amount so we had a pretty much a little formula are ready however the form of that was not providing them with the amount of supervision that they needed so with that they decided that they needed to raise more money or be separate whatever and so even when you look at all the schools they have been going over about forty thousand so that has dipped into the general fun so and we look at it and as we're looking at it this year they're going to do the same thing so we have got either one way or the other we're still providing you know additional resources to them because they're dipping over the amount that we have allotted to them so i have a question which is not really about the formula but about finding people to hire because i know that that is sometimes a challenge so i'm wondering if this in any way because there are more hours do is there any anticipation that we will be less challenged in hiring in finding people who can cover these these because also i think in times of supervision is very important and i'm something i'm happy to invest in but i just want to make sure we have the people who can fill it across the board because there's also you know again the thing i like about this is it's an equity question so it doesn't depend on the p t a to be able to raise the money but i do want to make sure that we can we have the people dire so when it comes really comes down to the school is the school able to find the people to to do this yes this will allow the school to have additional staff and some of the staff that the schools can consider hiring because the time period that you need new to provision is limited then it's difficult to find somebody going to only work a few hours but when you with can then provide maybe a longer period because you're limited to what you're allocated so if you need let's say an hour and a half of coverage but you're finding only allows you for an hour then by extending the amount available then you may be able to recruit people who are already there part time whether there are special  who work in the after school programs so it will allow us to be able to offer if the schools schedule it in a way that we can provide the existing employees at the site some other opportunities also if the schools are able to provide additional support there and the other option is to then also ask parents if they're willing to work as a new directors because some of them are there anyway and so that's another source but because of the schedule and the pay which is twelve hours and eighty six cents then it's difficult to get people to do that yes a question is this is more hours for more people and the limited time for new duty right this is not that new duty folks are extending to a six hour a day or an eight hour  day just to be clear when because it is not if it's not people it's hours right and again like superintend haven't said if you have a staggered lunch period where it covers two hours you may be scheduling one person for one hour and another person for an hour those would then give you more hours to maybe that you can then have one person for two hours and so again it all depends on how the schools wish to use the time it will give them more flexibility and it will allow them to then use their own resources in a different way we all know when to vote the only thing i just want to add is to echo what director hemphill said around having a matrix of what the overall formulas are for the schools and coming back to some point in time maybe when the budget is to have a comprehensive picture of it because i agree that having it piece by piece is hard but i support