Recommendation to receive and file the report on the Thank America's Teachers Dream Big Teacher Challenge for Lafayette Elementary School.
And that's right now. And we want to get those kids home and parents and faculty home early. And next after item 12, we will take up item 11, which is commission appointments by Mayor Garcia, item 24, which is a request to draft an ordinance regulating unmanned aircraft systems or drones, has been withdrawn by the city manager and staff at this time. So I'd just like to share that. And then finally, I think we can do this somewhat quickly. We'd like to take three items up together. That would be item 18, 19 and 25, and we will take that after item 11. Madam Clerk, is that do I need to repeat that? Because 18, 19 and 25 was different. We're good. Thank you. All right. Item 12. Madam Clerk. Communication from Councilman Andrews recommendation to receive and file the report on the Thank America's Teachers Dream Big Teacher Challenge for Lafayette Elementary School. Thank you. Councilmember Andrews, was there a motion? Yes. Would you like to make it motion? Thank you. Great. Councilman Andrews. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think this is very exciting because the fact that these individuals who have been out on the I would call it the fine line in order to do things, which is very, very hard. And I think they've gotten it done. They did what they had to do. And I'm just the others are going to be left up to us as individuals who really know how important. Once I finish reading this so important, it is really be it. It'll be up to the community and to the individuals that do know that voting is of essence in order for us to get this grant. So one of the local teachers, Mrs. Katherine to Sarah, representing Lafayette Elementary School, which is located in the sixth District, is named as a finalist in the race for a $100,000 grant to farmers market to support the Lafayette School. What I am asking from the community is to help us with getting enough votes to win the grant. You can vote daily online before midnight, October the 31st and that is w w dad. Thank America teachers. Dad can. I want to personally acknowledge Kathryn Peseta for applying for this grant and putting our kids needs first. Catherine has been a Long Beach Unified School District teacher for 18 years, and as a teacher myself, I know the dedication it requires. So thank you so, so very much. And if you'd like to come down, would it be okay? Possibly with. All of the individuals who was involved and likely to come down. Thank you so much, Honorable Vice Mayor and Councilmember Enders. So, as you mentioned, we're here from Farmer's Insurance for our Dream Big Teacher Challenge whereby we are going to be giving out $600,000 grant to teachers across the country. As a company, Farmers Insurance is committed to making our customers smarter about insurance. And we also want to help teachers, our community, make our children smarter. So that covers our program. And as you mentioned, one of the finalists I'm excited to announce is in our community, and it is Catherine to say at Lafayette Elementary School. So without further ado, I'll bring her up and she can discuss the grant she's applying for. Good evening and thank you for having me here. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the proposal for the $100,000 and what it would mean to our Lafayette community, not only our teachers and our students, but also our families. As you may not know, there are over a thousand students that attend Lafayette Elementary School, and those thousand students do not have the access to digital resources that our student that our children may have. So without the access and creates this huge digital divide and equity and access is what my grand proposal is all about. At Lafayette, we are wireless. We have everything that we need foundationally to support the technology. We just don't have it in the kids hands every day, and that's where we need it. We have two labs, but in order for our students to become great digital citizens, to be college and career ready, we know how technology plays such an important role. And so the grant would bring iPads and Chromebooks into the classroom so the students could use it on a daily basis. Not only would the grant provide hardware, but it would also provide for generations to come that go through the doors of Lafayette. And it's not just hardware that's needed. We're so fortunate that we have teachers, technology, integration, teachers that are here and ready already crossing hurdles to get into the hands of students digital resources. Our Long Beach Unified School District gives us a lot of support through our technology leader, Vineeth Chandrasekhar and the technology department. And we are ready. And I brought two technology integration teachers with me here today, Dr. Velasco and and Mr. David Noyce, to speak a little bit from the teachers perspective and what this grant would mean for them. I'm I. Represent. My name is Dr. Velasco and I represent the the area that is not talked about. A lot at schools. Which is the parent involvement area and what our. Opportunity the farmer's insurance has provided for us and we're excited about is that we're not only going to provide access to kids, but actually entire families. And that's my role to get that technology into their hands. And so we can have their. Support. At home and make it a true village, which we currently don't have because of lack or lack of equity. So I'm really excited and we are expecting everybody to vote before they leave tonight. And so thank you for the opportunity to come and address you tonight. Thank you for having us. And a special thank you to Kat to say for putting herself out there and reaching for something that has everything to do with our students and our passion. Our philosophy in Long Beach Unified is every child, every day. And by raising the bar and with digital technology, we have the opportunity to meet the needs in equity and access for each and every child that walks through our door. In addition to that, and it gives us an opportunity to become more enhanced in our instructional practice and our passion. So thank you. Good evening and thank you for having us. Tonight, council members, vice mayor and the city of Long Beach is a really special opportunity. I'm Dave Gamble. I'm one of the local field leaders for Farmers Insurance in the South Bay communities. And I have to tell you, this proposal that Katherine Tisei has put together is really something quite special. And it's my job tonight to kind of frame this for you in terms of what we need to do at home, make sure that your community gets this money and that that money goes right to the school. So in nationally, we're going to give away six of these prizes for $100,000. And what's so special here tonight is Katherine Tessier is the only finalist in all of Southern California. The only finalist? So as a community, my thoughts are we really need to rally together. And it doesn't matter if you're in Long Beach or in Carson or any of the surrounding communities in the Los Angeles community. I would like to see this money go right here to Long Beach. I don't have a choice this year to redirect the money to one of the neighboring cities. And that's why I think we have a real opportunity to all band together. So I want to make sure that everybody really understands that. And the way that this money is going to be granted is going to be granted through an outpouring of support demonstrated by the community. And that outpouring of support is demonstrated by voting on the website each and every day. We do have a very simple method for people that want to participate on a daily basis and vote. You can simply, simply send a text message to the number 81010 with the message out sign like in your email 100 K And this is a special site that we have set up for Katherine where she can send a daily reminder with a simple link to get right into that website to vote. I want to give a couple of other calls to action real quickly as well. This is not a one time thing for farmers insurance. This is our second year in giving away the big the Dream Big Teacher Award to several teachers around the country. But quarterly teachers have the opportunity to participate and compete for 20 $500 grants each and every quarter. And there's a lot of those grants that go around. There's about $400,000 available every year on a quarterly basis. And and Councilman Andrews gave our website and that's thank America's teachers dot com and people that are interested in learning more about how to obtain grants can find that information there as well as vote for Katherine every day . So with that, I thank you so much for your support. And we've brought some fliers to hand out for those that would like the reminders and we've left them at the table. Thank you so much for your time. Can you repeat the text number again? Yes, by all means. It is 81010. That's 81010. And the message is out. Sign like in your email. 100 k100k and that will get you a text message each morning. Compliments of Catherine and there's an easy to click link. I will give you just a very high level quick tip on this. You you do have to have a Facebook account to vote. And that's so we can make sure that members of the community don't try to stuff the ballot box with a thousand votes today. So that ensures that one person can vote one time each day. And again, this competition ends on October 31st. And I will tell you, we're very happy. We've been working on this very hard with our members of the former Southern California team. And as of this morning, Katherine is in first place in the western zone. Well, there you go. But for the community, realize what that remember is. There's five other teachers that now have a target on Katherine's back. So we really appreciate all of your support in voting daily to make sure that Long Beach gets this money. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Catherine, for all of your efforts and your team and for working as hard as you do for your kids and families. Kids and families. And thank you for mentioning parent involvement. That's wonderful. And, you know, it's such a collaborative environment. I don't think five other teachers are here gunning for Catherine. This is going to be a very supportive effort and I know each of us will put that out. We you know, we truly believe in our Long Beach schools and our Long Beach kids. And the fact that you brought them to number one so far is phenomenal. So we will push that out into our own social media efforts. Councilmember Andrews, did you want to say anything else? Just. Just vote. Just vote. Like the Nike commercial. Just vote off and absolutely. Council member, your anger. Thank you. I want to thank Councilmember Andrews for bringing this forward. And of course, I want to thank Kathryn for having the vision to apply for this proposal. And I wish you well. I'm sure that the community is rooting for you and will vote for you. With that old Chicago saying, you know, we'll vote often. Yeah. And now, of course, you know, this can't happen without the generosity of a farmer's insurance. And I want you know, I thank you for making this possible available because there's nothing that we are more proud of in Long Beach is our schools. And we really certainly want to support anything that helps our schools and helps our children, especially bringing them up into the 21st century. And although Lafayette's in the sixth District, it is in the Wrigley area of of my council district. So you know that I'm going to be getting that out through my social media and my newsletter to make sure that they vote for this project as well. Thank you again. Thank you. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Very glad that you came to council and that council member Andrews brought this forward because I think it's so very important. What you've done, both on the technology side and just an educational realm, is is so very important. Working for a large tech company, I can't even say firm corporation like Microsoft. It's I work a lot with the educational institutions and not many teachers do things like this. It's really very far, few far in between because, you know, I don't know if they don't see the value, but it's you don't see this often. So it's really great that you're taking it upon yourself to do this along with your technology team. And I hope you get it. We will certainly help you and support you in the first district. So you have our vote as well. Thank you. Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Andrews, what a fantastic idea. Katherine Farmer's Team. I know these are really important to teachers and what I heard earlier was the small micro classroom grants. Those are hugely important to teachers. And for example, in North Long Beach, the last year, we raised over $40,000 to target much of that to smaller, smaller classroom grants. $500,000 will go a long way in the classroom. And, you know, and I think it's fantastic that it's so easy to just pull up and vote. So have you? Probably can see I have it queued up right here. I'm pushing my red button that says, am I over 18 years old? I am. I am. And it says opt to receive communication from farmers insurance. I guess I'll do that too. And then. And then submit. So it was really easy to do. So I participate. I did my vote today. Councilmember. I thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of any other member of the public that wishes to address council on this item? Item 12, Seeing None members cast your vote. Motion carries. Wonderful. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Good luck, actually. Item 11.