At today’s Board Meeting the Board considered several important items.
You can see the agenda with linked materials here. You can watch the video of the meeting here: English Spanish
The Superintendent first presented a Health and Welfare Benefits Update. Board Member Schmerelson successfully advocated to ensure the language clearly stated that District retirees WILL be able to select their health care providers.
Recommends authorization of the rescission of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement. Materials on p 177
Approval of this item means that:
- The District will cease requiring proof of vaccination for new hires, contractors, volunteers, third-party facilities users, and other service providers before they are permitted to provide instructional and other services to schools, students, and offices.
- The District will continue to strongly encourage vaccinations for employees, families and students. In addition, in collaboration with our communications team, our medical team will continue to educate our school community about proper hygiene practices and tools such as masking and testing during times of high transmission of respiratory viruses such as COVID-19, Flu and RSV.
- The District will continue monitoring the state of COVID-19 and other viruses. Should health conditions necessitate a revisiting of the COVID-19 vaccination requirement, the District will evaluate and bring any recommendation to the Board for consideration
RESOLUTION: Creating a Charter Schools Co-Location Policy to Mitigate Impacts Caused by Proposition 39, authored by Board President Jackie Goldberg and Board Member Rocio Rivas
Approval of this item meant that:
- the Superintendent shall report back to the Committee of the Whole in 45 days with a Proposition 39 Charter Schools Co-Location Policy
- the Policy, as operationally feasible and permitted by law, shall enumerate clear guidelines that prohibit co-locations on the District’s 100 Priority Schools avoid Proposition 39 co-locations that:
- (1) are on school sites with the District’s 100 Priority Schools, BSAP schools, and Community Schools, (2) compromise District schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children, and/or (3) result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending District schools, all so that the District can focus on supporting its most fragile students and schools, key programs, and student safety;
- the Policy shall guide District decisions related to all new school co-location requests and shall also be applied whenever existing co-locations change, for reasons including, but not limited to insufficient space, addition of grade levels, and other material revisions to their charter;
- the Policy shall, as permitted by law, modify the District’s existing Proposition 39 practices to ensure the following: more robust information-gathering, including a site visit to the District school before recommending a co-location, more frequent verification of charter schools’ average daily attendance, a Board vote on the approval of all Alternate Agreements, and monitoring, enforcement, and reporting of charter schools’ payment of facilities costs and overallocated space reimbursements;
- the District’s annual preliminary co-location proposals, final offers, and Alternative Agreements should all be accompanied by a report to the Board on how the Policy was adhered to in the process; and
- the Superintendent shall report back in 45 days with a clear plan and timeline for the creation of a redesigned Charter Schools Division page on the district’s website or a standalone website which, in addition to its current content, will provide a clearinghouse to the public for information about charter schools, including charter petitions, co-location requests and offers, reports to the Board, Local Control and Accountability Plans, average daily attendance reports, and other relevant data.
The resolution was amended as follows:
- the Policy should clarify the definition of an empty classroom for the purposes of co-location, and preserve District schools’ programmatic spaces that are essential to enriching instruction and student health and human services; potential examples include: music rooms, robotics labs and maker spaces, computer labs, contractually required spaces for itinerant staff to perform their work and provide direct services to students, intervention rooms (classrooms dedicated to regular and articulated academic intervention services for struggling students), and parent centers.