Thread by @berkeleyside

Follow education reporter @allymarkovich here as she reports on the BUSD school board meeting tonight. Big ticket items on the agenda tonight include an update on the Title IX reporting process and Coaching Boys into Men.The board will also vote on a climate literacy resolution🧵

Public commenters come out in droves in favor of the climate literacy resolution.
"The lives of our students and our future generations depend on our willingness tonight to prepare them for their future," says Berkeley High student Ella Suring, who co-authored the resolution.

Jackson, a 4th grader at Malcolm X, says the school board should vote yes on the climate literacy resolution. And suggests they should try becoming vegetarian like him! 🥕🥦🧅
"I hope that my words mean something to you. We all need to do our part. Please vote yes," Jackson said

So many kids speaking with urgency about the climate literacy resolution. "I've had great teachers but I haven't learned much about climate change in school. That has not been a part of curriculum, but it should be in all grades," says 6th grader Zella Orr

Advocates & parents from @WalkBikeBerk turn out to the board meeting to speak in support of the climate literacy resolution, too, especially adding education about Safe Routes to School, a program that promotes walking, biking, and otherwise rolling to school.

"Transportation is the number one source of emissions in the city of Berkeley. I think it's absolutely critical that we educate our students on what they can do to help with climate change and global warming at the transportation level," said Jackie Erbe from @WalkBikeBerk.

First is an update about consent education at Berkeley High from Hasmig Minassian, who leads the Universal 9th Grade program. It wasn't until 2018 when all 9th graders began getting consent ed, though it was taught periodically and to some small school students before that.

She explains how consent is taught at the high school. As on example, teachers use the FRIES acronym as a framework to teach students-- consent should be Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific.

Another example teachers give, according to Minassian: consent in sex is similar to consent in boxing. If two people are punching each other in a boxing ring and it's consensual, it's boxing. If someone punches you on the street without your consent, it's a crime.

How do teens feel about the consent education? In student surveys after the consent unit, the vast majority of students report that they feel they understand consent so well that they can either teach it to others or at least understand it for themselves and think of examples.

Here are some tensions with consent ed, she says:
-Just because they teach it, doesn't mean students know how to use it in the moment. (intellectual vs. embodied understanding)
-Right to survivor safety and due process
-Positive school culture vs. what is just kids "having fun"

"I am proud and honored to be on the school board that enthusiastically welcomes this information and is not concerned about slamming it down, as many school boards across our country are doing right now," says @julie_sinai about the board's willingness to hear about consent ed

Student director Anjuna said that she doesn't see consent education translating into social interactions between students. Her theory about why? Students don't get this info early enough. "It's hard to teach students these values once they're already 14 or 15 years old," she said

What else can we do to make the information stick throughout students' four years at Berkeley High and beyond? Hearing it once, or even getting it at a few assemblies, as is planned this year, isn't enough, Anjuna said.

Next, Gabriel Lopez, who will run a new program called Coaching Boys into Men for high school male athletes, describes the program: his "vision is to deliver a trauma informed educational curriculum with an mentorship program."

Coaching Boys into Men is divided into a 3 units: power, conflict, and consent. In the program, students learn to critique toxic masculinity, rape culture, hyper sexualization, patriarchy. They myth-bust misconceptions about sexual harm, change the framework of consent, etc.

So far, Lopez has been working with the girls volleyball and boys football team, with other sports coming for winter and spring sports. (Not just for male athletes, sorry for the mistake). He's also meet with students from BHS Stop Harassing, the Women's Student Union, etc.

Coach Lopez said, from his experience, students are engaged in the curriculum, asking vulnerable questions, having important discussions.

The goal is to have all student-athletes go through this curriculum, but because he started a few weeks ago, he's not able to work with all of the fall sports. This might be tricky with larger team sports like track, which have 200+ students participating.

The workshops are mandatory in the sense that coaches tell their athletes that it's part of practice, and as of now, Lopez's contract is only for the year. Student director Anjuna suggests training the coaches in consent education too so that the consent ed can last.

Next, we're hearing an update on Title IX, the office that handles violations based on gender and race and tackles sexual harassment. The update is from Megan Farrell, the interim coordinator, and Mary Keating, the high school investigator.

Farrell worked at Palo Alto Unified while they were under a resolution agreement with the Office of Civil Rights and has experience in higher ed Title IX as well.

Farrell details a number of ways that BUSD has made progress. Foremost among them is purchasing a database for storing and tracking Title IX complaints called Guardian, which former Title IX coordinator Mardi Walters asked for. This allows the office to track repeat offenders.

Other updates: new Title IX coordinator coming at the end of November. Listening sessions with community members starting in December. A separate budget item for the Title IX office so it's clear how many resources the office gets.

Some requests from the community, Farrell said, cannot be fulfilled. For ex, Farrell explains that Title IX law specifies that students cannot be disciplined before an investigation is complete, which makes avoiding putting burden on survivors difficult before investigating

There's also quarterly data on the cases coming before the Title IX office, from the start of the school year to now:

The Title IX office will also provide quarterly updates to the school board, which means the community should be getting more information and transparency from the office.

Student director Anjuna recommends that the Title IX expand office hours and better advertise them so the office is more accessible to students. It's also physically really hard to find, Anjuna said.

Farrell answers a slew of questions from Julie Sinai.
-There's currently no backlog of complaints (I've heard that COVID-19 and remote learning gave time to catch up).
-All historical files they could find were scanned...

-Complaints that fall under Title IX's current narrower definition of sexual harassment must be investigated within 60 days. Otherwise, in 90% of matters, the office gets 120 days to investigate all other complaints
-All employees will be trained in Title IX by Dec 31

The anonymous reporting hotline, WeTip, is coming early November to Berkeley High and will be advertised around the school.

Other information from Farrell: when do complaints involving teachers go to Title IX, and when do they go to human resources? Farrell said that all complaints would initially go to Title IX to determine whether they would investigate it or HR would

Farrell tells student director Anjuna that the Title IX office is not required to continue investigating complaints after students graduate, but they are free to continue such investigations if they choose.

The next portion of the school board meeting is devoted to an update on the ethnic studies curriculum, on which BUSD has long been ahead of the rest of the state and now continues to push the envelope: berkeleyside.org/2021/10/20/eth…

Berkeley Unified educators Joemy Ito-Gates, Dana Moran, and Lita Martinez all share their experiences with ethnic studies. One important caveat to the Berkeleyside article: Moran clarifies that ethnic studies was only taught consistently in the small schools between 2001 and 2015

Interesting question from @julie_sinai, who asks what Joemy, who's helping write a tk-12 ethnic studies framework, thinks about the impact of demographic shifts in the district. "How do we ensure kids don't feel lonely? And then be the one who's supposed to represent a culture?"

Ito-Gates responds by emphasizing community engagement in developing the ethnic studies program. She adds that, as a multi-ethnic mom and a longtime teacher, she's seen the population of multi-ethnic students in the school district grow. Something to keep in mind.

When the climate literacy resolution comes before the board, questions about financial feasibility come up. Given the potential for $4 million in budget cuts soon, @tyschoolboard and @julie_sinai express concern about the financial impact of committing to the resolution now

While Babitt agrees that the district's fiscal condition is a concern, she's also seen BUSD rebound from apparent deficits. "Oh, the sky is falling and then, oh, five months later were made whole again," Babitt explains. In other words, from her pov, $ has worked out in the past

Alper suggests only committing funds for the first year ($65k to teachers to develop the curriculum), with the intention of applying for grants to continue the work. Babitt, on the other hand, says that you have to devote $ to show the community long-term commitment

And that's ultimately the proposal that passes. The climate literacy resolution is unanimously approved with $65k to get it off the ground and a commitment to find more money to keep it going moving forward.

That's the end of tonight's school board meeting, which has been chock full of discussions on justice issues: ethnic studies, sexual harm & Title IX reporting, and climate literacy. Night folks! 💤👋🏼