Lourdes Lopez

EDES 6359
April 2020
School Board Meeting: Culver City Unified

On February 11, 2020 I attended a school board meeting in the Culver City School

District. The meeting was held at 7:00 pm at City Hall in Downtown Culver City. While there

are five members on the Board of Trustees, only three members were present during this meeting

and one member called in from a remote location.

The open session began after the conclusion of the closed session that was held at 6:00

pm. After the roll call and flag salute, the members shared that the public announcements that

were discussed during the closed session. They began by stating that they had decided to lay-off

38 temporary teachers and 5 long-term substitutes.

From there, they jumped ahead in the agenda to the Superintendent’s Report where some

representatives from the school sites discussed the professional developments that the educators

had recently attended. They mentioned the student and athletic events that were going to be held

in the upcoming month and invited the members to attend. After that, the members of the board

recognized Tatiana Takahashi as the new Assistant Principal of Culver City Middle School. Ms.

Takahashi’s accomplishments were listed before the board and afterwards she thanked the board

and spoke briefly about her appreciation for her new role.

After Ms. Takahashi spoke, representatives of the student body shared the student events

that had been held in the past month. They also shared their concern on the cleanliness of the

facilities. The students said that the bathrooms were not clean and lacked feminine hygiene
products and asked for assistance in supporting this issue. The board made a note of the problem

and said they would follow up at a later time.

After the Superintendent’s report the members of the board opened up the meeting to

members of the audience. Kelly Wilcox, a representative of the Culver City Education

Foundation, shared that they had successfully received funding for a ceramic class that would

soon begin to be introduced to all the elementary schools in the coming months.

From there the members of the board talked about concluding the use of the term

“at-risk” and instead using the term “at promise” to describe the students who need more

academic support. One member of the board added on to this point and asked for the term

English Language Learner to be replaced with “biliterate.” By using this term, their hope was to

start focusing on the strengths of biliterate students instead of looking at their deficiency in the

English Language.

At this point the board paused for recess and I left the meeting. The board meeting was

uneventful but it was interesting to attend one and see how the community is given the

opportunity to speak at the meetings. There was a very low attendance there and I am left to

wonder if this is how all the meetings usually are.

Copy of Board Meeting Agenda