Good evening President Bonta, Board members and AUSD staff - thank you for affording Alameda’s PTA Council the time to update you. I have been given the great pleasure of taking the helm of President for PTAC for the 2021-2022 school year. 

For those who don’t know me - I am Ryan LaLonde. My husband, son and I live near the Fruitvale bridge, and are super happy to call Alameda home once again. My son will be an 8th grader at Lincoln in the fall. We were previously an Edison family, where I was PTA President for a very transitional period at the school (3 principals in two years, racist hate graffiti and fencing & remodeling.) I was also a 2 term Treasurer for PTAC and just served as Auditor this school year. I look forward to working with you and partnering during what will be a very transitional period for all of AUSD.

But.. Don’t worry, Gretchen is co-leading PTAC with me as Executive Vice President - this will allow us to focus on many more endeavors to help our PTA units across the island.

I want to also let you know who else was elected into leadership at PTAC and will at different times be speaking to you representing PTAC. 

• President: Ryan LaLonde

• Exec. VP: Gretchen Hoff Varner

• VP Programs: Ashley Rogers

• VP Advocacy: Sandy Calloway

• Treasurer: Brett Metzger

• Secretary: Jen Bullock

• Auditor: Lyla Bradley

• Parliamentarian: Steve Mack

• Historian: Rachel Plato

• ASPED: Heather Padgette

• Mental Health and Wellness: Kate Rome

• Remote School PTA Liaison: TBD

CRITICAL YEAR AHEAD

It is a critical year to have… parents, students…. Working together

• Back to school - Safety

• Mental Health

• Addressing equity - being a gay father of a black student with an IEP - I have seen how the system doesn’t work for all students and will be vocal and active (along with ASPED and MOSAIC) in making sure all students not just belong here - but THRIVE here.

• Refocusing Special Education by not on just putting out the fires, but deep systematic change in how services are provided. We are very optimistic about the new faces at AUSD what will make that happen.

LCAP/Funding and focus

As someone who sat on the school site council, I understand the work that goes into each school report and want to thank the teachers and parents who worked so hard on the final reports - the emphasis on uplifting our students who are falling behind their peers was critical before COVID and even more so now. I encourage you to keep those students listed in red, orange and yellow centered in your budgeting process. 

LGBTQ Pride month

And in closing I want to reflect on the momentous occasion of item number 1 on the agenda tonight. It wasn’t long ago that we had board members actively working against the best interests of LGBTQ students - to come to this moment. As a student in my hometown in Michigan, I was tormented daily by bullies - some of which were my actually teachers, now I zoom before you at PTAC’s first openly gay president - thanking you President Bonta and members, Lym, Sweet, Williams and Little and the AUSD staff for this amazing proclamation. I look forward, proudly, to working with each one of you to implement policies and standards that uplift and protect our LGBTQ students and students with LGBTQ parents. Happy Pride Month.

Dear Board Members, Principals, Union Leaders, PTA Presidents, and Community Partners:

I’m putting this together just so we all have a common understanding of what the District (AUSD) is communicating to employees. In your respective positions you may be receiving inquiries and we want to be as calibrated as possible with our leadership partners.

Also important to note that we want to encourage our classified employees to set appointments, as well. These folks are as critical to our in-person operations as anyone, so we need to make sure we also keep them in mind.

We are consistently communicating updates through email, social media, and ParentSquare (text messages) to employees about daily availability of appointments at the Cal OES vaccination site at the Coliseum. AEA and CSEA are communicating with their members as well. As of this afternoon, we are making progress, and employees are beginning to secure appointments in good numbers. Please encourage employees to refresh the page repeatedly if they are having trouble securing an appointment.

Some general info that I believe will be useful for us collectively:

Remind folks that AUSD has no control over supply or appointment availability, but we continue to encourage people to try the MyTurn.gov website regularly. We are still working to confirm the schedule for those new appointments, but the pattern seems to be that they are released periodically.

We have received inquiries about whether education employees who live outside Alameda County can register for the coliseum. Personal reference: my wife lives in Contra Costa County but is a teacher in Alameda County (Berkeley Unified) and received first shot today.  No badge, pay stub, or employment verification was asked for. No indication was given during the electronic booking of the appointment that proof would be needed, so I believe we should still be encouraging folks to check daily. However, we are continuing to suggest that employees bring their IDs and a pay stub, however.

There may be some residential restriction on the county supply which we believe we will learn more about this week. But our limited info at this point indicates that you will not be turned away at the Coliseum (federal supply) if you are an educator that works in or resides in Alameda County.

We also want to continue to convey that the Coliseum site is the most readily accessible at the moment, but is one of three (3) developing channels to receive vaccine through.

AVAILABLE NOW: Oakland Coliseum Mass Vaccination Site (Run by California OES and FEMA)

Appointments have been made by AUSD employees over the last few days. We are working to confirm the fact that new appointments appear to be coming online daily. This is a federally assisted, state-run operation. The link that we shared previously  https://myturn.ca.gov/ is the portal through which appointments for the coliseum site are booked. Currently it appears that new appointments are added daily, so please check daily if you are seeing no availability. We will provide any updates we receive with you as we quickly as possible.

COMING SOON: County Vaccination Supply and Delivery (Run by Alameda County Public Health Department)

On February 8 AUSD submitted our employee list to the county office of education. The county in turn is working on prioritization letters that will be issued for our educators so that they can access appointments for the county supply (the vaccine available at Coliseum is federal supply). As of today we do not have specific dates or turnaround times regarding that supply or for appointments through this process but we will also be following this diligently throughout the week.

ELSEWHERE: Independent Clinics, Kaiser, and Commercial Sites like CVS

We, like many of you, are receiving lots of fragmented information about various sites, drug stores, and independent clinics that may have supply or appointments. While AUSD has no way of verifying this growing and very intermittent list of options we would certainly encourage employees who can access appointments through some of these venues to do so if that is a possibility and/or a preference. Again, if more substantive or reliable information becomes available on a single or independent local site we will pass that along.

Employees can also check AUSD’s Staff Vaccination web page for information. We will be keeping that as up-to-date as possible.

Respectfully,

Pasquale Scuderi

Superintendent

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