 You're tuned in to the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab-A-Reno and today is Tuesday, June 2nd. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. The show airs live Tuesdays at noon and repeats at 5 p.m. this evening and also on Sundays. And you can listen online to catered anytime at kdrt.org. My guests today are Dr. Cindy Pickett, the outgoing president of the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees, and Anush Jajorian, coordinator of the Apoyolo Project. And we will get to our first interview in just a few minutes. It is hard to know what to say this week. For the past few months, I've been hyper-focused on bringing you information perspectives and insight into how our local communities are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while the pandemic is still very much in play and all the cautions about mask-wearing and physical distancing still apply, even as things are reopening, pretty much all has been eclipsed since the senseless and brutal murder of George Floyd last week, which acted as the catalyst to express grief and outrage about the many murders of African-Americans before that, and the systemic racism that plagues every aspect of our country and our culture. I just want to say to my Black family, friends, and colleagues, I love you. I fear for you, and I am committed to standing beside you. You don't need my words, but I will give you my actions and my solidarity to the best of my ability, and I will look to you to lead the way. For those of us not directly harmed by institutionalized racism, there is a tendency to breathe a sigh of relief when the news cycle shifts and something else claims our focus. But folks, our Black and Indigenous brothers and sisters don't have that luxury, and really I believe none of us do anymore. Both my guests today happen to be powerful women of color, and both are actively engaged in the struggle for change. I set these interviews up some time ago because a huge part of the mission here at Davis Media Access as well as my own personal mission with this show is elevating voices that we just don't hear in the mainstream media because they're local, because they're underrepresented for a variety of reasons. It's really fitting today that Cindy and Anush are here to share their work. I will move on with a couple of announcements before we start the interviews. Yolo County issued a new health order last week on May 28th that discontinues shelter in place but maintains the face covering health order, emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility, and continues personal health and safety guidance such as social distancing and hygiene. We're currently in stage two with in-restaurant dining, widespread retail and services such as hair salons and barber shops and some places of worship once again open. As the pandemic continues and activities reopen, the public is responsible for adhering to the rules or guidelines that are set by the state and county, and still businesses are also responsible for enforcing and specifying policies at their establishments for the public and staff to follow. If you are an older adult or if you have conditions that dictate that you should stay at home as much as possible through stage four, please do so. And again, you can find all the information about current health orders at YoloCounty.org. And later this week, the Davis Media Access Board of Directors will consider what our reopening looks like here. Staff and I have been working on a proposal that will phase in how we go about this. And my hope is that we can provide a way to accommodate those who are most vulnerable on site while keeping those who have adapted to remote production out of the facility for the near term. Finally, listener Jim wrote in to share an IRS alert regarding some recently delivered stimulus payments. While most receiving stimulus payments are getting them via check or direct deposit, some are being mailed as visa debit cards. Pay attention if you get a plain envelope in the mail that's marked Money Network Card Holder Services. This is not a scam, it's real stimulus cash. The envelope contains a prepaid debit card that is loaded with your stimulus payment. Do not throw this out. It can contain up to $1,200 for single taxpayers. The cards are marked Visa Debit Card and the back of the card has the logo for Meta Bank. If you need more info, visit IRS.gov and we'll be back in just a minute. For the past three years, Dr. Cindy Pickett has served as the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Equity and Inclusion at UC Davis. And she's also been a faculty member in the Department of Psychology. She also serves as the President of the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees. And she recently accepted an appointment as inaugural Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at DePaul University in Chicago, a role she starts on July 1. Hi Cindy, thanks so much for joining us today. Hi, thanks for having me. You bet. First, congratulations on your new position. Your work is direly needed. Yes, yes, yes, especially, you know, it's always been direly needed. Yes. The facts and the consequences of, you know, these issues of racial climate injustice going ignored. Right, right. Well, we're sorry that you're leaving us here in Davis, but I understand what a fabulous opportunity that must be for you. Thank you. So I wanted to touch base with you today before you do leave your role as President of the Board of Trustees. At the top of, when I started this series, as you know, I interviewed John Bose, the superintendent, and we talked about some of the things that the district would be facing in the weeks and months to come. Now I'm circling back to say, how has that been going? How has the district been weathering the storm and what's next? And I think the big question is, will school be in person in fall or not? And if you know the answer to that. Yeah, I know it's been, you know, it's been a roller coaster. It's been a ride for the teachers, the staff, the parents, and the students. And, you know, first I just want to, you know, express gratitude to everyone who's been working so hard and to the families who have, and students are showing resilience and, you know, going through this as a group. And so what, I would say the last couple months, we're simply trying to roll out distance learning and to end the year in a way where students are still, you know, they're having the social interaction with their classmates, getting some instruction, working on assignments. So keeping the educational mission going while at the same time realizing that this is not a typical circumstance, right? And so it's not like homeschooling where there is, you know, where someone is dedicated to being able to teach a child or to help get them into their instructional classes. A lot of times parents are also trying to work, dealing with their own jobs and their own stressors. And so that's something to keep in mind in terms of just how this is really a very unusual situation. So what is the discussion on what the fall will look like for families in the district? Yeah, so, you know, we're hearing, you know, we're hearing from county health officials, from the governor, from the state superintendent and the California Department of Education. We're in contact with all of these sources and resources trying to get just input about guidelines, health and safety requirements, and then trying to look at what are the options for education and learning given all of that. And what's happening is we're getting a trickle down of information. And what we're struggling with the most is the fact that at the same time we're trying to ensure the safety and health of the students and the staff, we're also being pulled to cut $6.4 million from our budget. Right. And, you know, LA Unified and San Diego Unified recently issued a statement over the weekend where they called it out pretty clearly that, you know, taking money from the districts on the one hand and yet expecting them to be able to do more is just not going to be feasible. It doesn't match up. A few weeks ago I interviewed Senator Bill Dodd and he said, this is a direct quote, I think the hardest job over the next five years is going to be that of a school board member. And it's specifically, we were talking about the state budget and all the cuts to education. So, right, how do you extract 10 pounds of information out of a five-pound box that's, you know. Yeah. And so what we're trying to do is be strategic and invent in resources that will put us in the best position to be able to react quickly if circumstances change. So, for example, if we start the year with some sort of hybrid plan where there are some days of the week where students are physically present at the school site, can we change that in a matter of days if we get a health order that requires us to close down the school? Right. So ideally, you know, if we hear on a Friday that, you know, we have to close down the schools, it would be great on that Monday. We could just be up and running again remotely. And so one of the things that the district has been discussing is use of a learning management system. And so one of the problems that existed prior to the shutdown in March is that not all teachers were operating on an electronic platform. And not all teachers knew how to use them. And so there was this delay in terms of professional development, uploading materials, creating online materials. But if we start from that so that everything is going to be online accessible just as a baseline, then instruction could be in person or it could be a lesson over WebEx. But we're assuming that because there may have to be this back and forth, we have to be prepared and ready for both. You know, the CDC has issued its guidelines for what classrooms should look like moving forward. And a friend who's a teacher in another district commented to me, have they ever been in a classroom? Because the way they're talking about spacing the desk isn't the reality of our classrooms and how students and teachers interact together in learning communities. So that's a challenge right off the bat. You know, I was at Target just the past weekend and there were two young children and a parent yelling, don't touch things, don't touch things. And the child was happily running around, of course touching things, because that's what children do, right? Of course. So I think you pointed out a really important reality, which is administrators and people in the district office can think through these things, but teachers are the ones that see the kids every day and really know what's feasible and not feasible. So it's really going to have to be a partnership. And parents know their child. How many hours can a child keep a mask on without it being so adverse of that learning just isn't happening? That it actually interrupts with the learning process, I hear you? Yeah. Is it one hour? Is it two hours? So this is why we've been issuing surveys and trying to get input. And, you know, because all of this is going to have to be informed from multiple sources. Yeah. So I'm glad you mentioned the survey, because I saw there's a big one up on the website, the school district website. So let's talk about that for a minute. What kind of information are you trying to get from family there? You know, that survey is designed to just get a sense of where parents are at in terms of their perceptions of risk, to what extent they would feel comfortable, even if schools were open to sending their child in person. And it's important to keep the temperature of the community before implementing something, because you don't want whatever is implemented to be misaligned with the community. And then there's also part of the survey that looked at growth in specific areas related to the graduate profile. And I know some parents thought those questions were strange. But one of the things that the district is trying to do is benchmark success. So how do we know if distance learning is effective? Is it having the intended educational outcomes? And so those questions weren't designed to imply that we expected the last two or three months to be this explosion of growth. But we have to know where we are in order to know whether the return on investment is leading to the outcomes that everyone is seeking. Sure. So there's a school board meeting this Thursday. Is that your last before you head off to Chicago? No. So we stacked a bunch of meetings in June so that we could have a full board, because we have, as you mentioned, very tough issues ahead, a lot of them having to do with the budget. And a board member really has to know the ins and outs of the budget in order to make decisions. So we have a series of meetings. We may even call emergency meetings at the end of June just to make sure that we have a plan in place. Because at the end of June, there's July and then August, and we're back in school again. So there's not a lot of time actually over the summer. I want to remind listeners that the school board meetings do happen on Thursday evenings and they're held in the council chambers. They're broadcast live on Comcast Channel 17. They also stream live on DJUSD.TV, which is the website that DMA manages for that purpose. So we're down to our last couple of minutes, Cindy. So I wonder if you have any parting thoughts you'd like to share? No. I think when things become difficult, and when I was talking about budget cuts, things are going to be difficult, but I think you see the areas where, you know, as a board, as a district, we have a gender trust and areas where we may not have done as good of a job. And so, you know, and as a school board, we recognize that. And again, transparency, communication are really important, and those are values that the board describes to. But at the same time, we sometimes don't know what the community is seeking. So it can feel like we're being transparent on our end, and then the community feels like it's not transparent, and we need to know that. And specifically, hey, we want to know, kind of, specifically, you know, what's on the table, specifically when will a decision be made? And we can share that information, because I know everyone is anxious. There's nothing, you know, like uncertainty and uncontrollable future to set off anxiety. And so we want to be helpful in that regard. And so, you know, again, even though the board meetings are televised, they are held via Zoom, which means that if people have public comments, they need to be emailed in. And so we're asking people to email boe.com. If they have any public comments that they would want shared with the school board. I'm going to repeat that just so we make sure people got it. Email boe stands for Board of Education at djuust.net. And that's if you want to make sure that your comments get entered into the record for the Zoom meeting. Yeah, thank you. All right, well, thank you so much for taking time. And thank you for your service while you've been here and Davis, I know you ran for office. You've taken it seriously, and you've been dealing with some really, really tough issues during your tenure. So we wish you all the best and please come back and visit us. Yes, thank you. It's been an honor. All right, thank you so much. Take care. That was once again, Cindy Pickett, the outgoing president of the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees. We're going to listen to just a little bit more of Insqueraldi while we wait for our next call. Thanks. The Yellow Interfaith Immigration Network, is a group of people serving and advocating for immigrants in Yolo County. Back in April on the show, I interviewed then President David Lichtenhan about their Apoyolo project here to update us on how that's going is the project's coordinator, Anush Chajorian. Welcome. Thank you, Autumn. Thanks for having me. You bet. My pleasure. Let's start by reminding everyone what the project is and what it's set out to do. Sure. The Apoyolo project began, it actually began before COVID-19. We were aware of some immigrant families in Davis specifically who were undergoing some hardships. And we were making a, there was a group of immigration advocates who were making a plan to work with the school district in order to support these families. And then once COVID-19 happened, children stopped going to school, and then the chance of reaching out to these families through the school district basically evaporated. So, but with COVID-19, of course, we knew that these families were, a lot of the families either lost their jobs or had their hours drastically cut back. And a lot of those families didn't have access to a lot of the support that American citizens do. And so we knew that they would need extra support and services during this time. And we also knew that because of the language barriers, a lot of people were not getting good information about COVID-19. They didn't understand the county health orders that were coming out. They didn't know how to protect themselves. So we wanted to be sure that these families were getting good, accurate information in their own language. So that's how Apoyolo began. Great. And you said, I just want to clarify that the reason that immigrants have been more at risk, you went over some of the reasons why. But they're not, because of their status, basically they're not eligible for unemployment or stimulus benefits. So things that other people can take advantage of during this time have simply not been available to them. Exactly. So it depends on which families some have more access to services than others. But it's very uneven, and it's certainly less than what American citizens have access to. Right. So over the last couple of months, how's the project gone about meeting those aims? So basically since March, when the county ordered to shelter in place began, we've distributed about $20,000 in financial aid to 15 families, primarily in Davis. We've also provided non-monetary aid, such as helping navigate health care, help with accessing food assistance, and as I said, accurate information about COVID-19. Unfortunately, I mean, since that time, the project has grown, and we're at about 25 families, possibly 26, because I think another referral came in today. So the need is growing, and so we're trying to figure out how to cover all these families for June. Part of the, one of the most integral parts of our project, actually, is that each family gets assigned a bilingual volunteer who is that family's personal contact. And so the bilingual volunteer becomes a really trusted person that that family can turn to with questions or with needs, and then the volunteer can come to the group and say, this is what my family is going through. How can we help them? And then that volunteer has the benefit of the collective wisdom of everyone involved in order to help that family just get their needs met. So you touched on something. We're here on June 2nd. I know a lot of people have rent due on June 5th. I know that both the city and the county have eviction protection measures in process, but I've heard that people are still getting notices. They can't maybe actually be kicked out, but they're still getting notices. Are you finding that with the families you serve? That is absolutely correct. So this is also part of the problem for our families with the language barrier, is that they don't know or understand what the process is to invoke those eviction protections. And so we had one family where one of the family members was undergoing cancer treatment and already struggling with bills because their income had been drastically reduced. And on top of that, they received an eviction notice. And of course, they were terrified when that happened. And so luckily because they were already enrolled in the Apoyolo Project, our volunteers were able to help them make a good-faith payment, help them with the letter that they need to write to the landlord in order to invoke those eviction protections, and we were able to keep them housed. Excellent. So obviously you're an organization that's working to collect funds for the people you serve, and we're going to make sure we give a website where people can get more information about that. I'm wondering if other kinds of help are needed. Sounds like you may have people in place, but you may need more people who can help with legal issues, people who can help with feeding. So tell us what other kinds of help are needed. Sure. We have roles for volunteers who are bilingual and we have roles for folks who do not speak Spanish. So as I said, we're at about 25, possibly 26 families. We are at 16 bilingual volunteers, so we could absolutely use more Spanish-speaking volunteers who would be willing to be a point of contact for our family. In addition, as with any project like this, there's a whole bunch of other things that happen behind the scenes, such as trying to find if there are business partnerships who want to help sponsor this project, to do our social media in order to raise our profile and help people become aware of the kind of work that we're doing, simply administration work. This is an incredibly complex project and it actually takes a lot of behind the scenes organization. So we could always use help with that as well. So if anyone's interested in volunteering, there is a link you can go to, which is bitbit.ly and then it's slash up... sorry, A-P-O, capital Y-O-L-O, sign up. And that's the link in order to sign up as a volunteer. Okay, and we will make sure we share that out on the social media post we do after the show. I know it's hard to share links, but also let's share the main link for the YIN website too, so people have that. Right, so for more information, you can certainly go to yinyolo.org.