2014 Election - Candidates Answers Summary

One of the primary roles of the PTA is to be an independent voice for families. (While SGCs also provide an opportunity for families to express their voices, it is more focused and limited given the structure of SGCs.) As that independent voice, PTAs provide both support and accountability for school administrations. A strong PTA is extremely important for the success of our students and to ensure that the school-level and district-level decisions are open, transparent, and legitimate in the eyes of the school community.
Of course, because of the lack of state support for education, another primary role for PTAs has been to provide financial assistant to the schools. As I have heard from talking both at the PTA Council and at school PTAs, that this financial support funds core educational services. Even though education is still woefully underfunded, the District is receiving “new” funds. (I write “new” in quotes because the “new” funding is only intended to restore us to 2007-08 funding levels.) It is imperative that with these new funds that the District take on more core educational services and free up PTA funds.

I prefer that along with its customary work to maintain the teaching program, it work using the analyses and goals I’ve described in one of my flyers and in my on-line ‘book’: School Is The Opposite Of Education, by Norma J F Harrison, a study to release us from our confinement http://normajfharrison.wordpress.com

The flyer: Norma J F Harrison for Berkeley School Director (school board) I have studied ‘education’ for 70 years. I’ve seen over and over the futility of the constant, always unsuccessful reform efforts.The reforms do not, cannot! begin to rectify the inadequacy that school is. The problem is school itself. The artificiality of school lessons, classes, is felt as insults by all concerned: students, teachers, and their families and communities, by forcing age-segregated routinization formations in place of self-respecting participation in society. Lesson plans, which are required, are, as time allows, inspected by overseers. They are, Common Core notwithstanding (same ol’), to presuppose students’ interests, and their abilities. Teachers are to tell themselves as well as the subjects, ‘students’ and parents, that the lessons are relevant for them, whether they are or not; that the lessons are time-appropriate, whether the student wants to study that lesson then or not.

The plans are actually to justify externally imposed classroom requirements; – classrooms created as a place for teachers and staff to earn a living, and for children to be warehoused as labor waiting until some artificially determined time to become a full participant in society.
These deformities have to come under discussion in order for us to begin to grasp together, the direction in which our struggle needs to go.

Continually expecting that the major aid to our oppression, school, be made useful, has got to be available for discussion; that, and what the choices are. (I'm a candidate for the Berkeley school board, again, 4th time, pushing the discussion - at least, from my standpoint.)

The choice obviously is us all doing our lives together instead of pretending that school equals work. Don’t make people pretend to do the hammering and sawing of living. Let us ALL DO it together. Classroom-like study needs to rise in situ. All the skills can be learned doing our work together, not isolated into 8-, 10 years of unlearning how to read, write, calculate. Learning the skills has been cast as needing remediation, instead of happening as the natural accompaniment of any study and work. We’re all geniuses given the chance. There’s no genius gene, hovering parents trying to be sure their child gets a good job, to the contrary.

We’re all artists.
We’re all teachers and students all our lives.

These however are stifled by the insistence that we fill classrooms and school desks, instead.

We all have content to teach and study all our lives, together.

But those are assigned to people according to their age, and according to their diplomas.
Teaching and learning needs instead to become us working together regardless of age, altogether because of communal and individual need and desire. Work needs to become for all OUR benefit, none for our Owners, the profiteers.

I offer the opportunity to enable the discussion of how to remove the present binding form and replace it with the living that will allow us all the joy! of education, the joy of work, of actually participating within our communities, not requiring our children to accept the deception that school equals work.

Read School Is The Opposite Of Education, by Norma J F Harrison, a study to release us from our confinement http://normajfharrison.wordpress.com
Norma 510-526-3968 normaha@pacbell.net Alameda County and State of California Peace and FreedomParty Central Committees member

As a former co-President of the Berkeley High PTSA, I believe that the PTA’s major role as being a forum for the collective and individual voices of parents and facilitation of parent/teacher/staff/central administration partnerships.

The Board has discussed the issue of out-of-district enrollment on a number of occasions, most recently in November 2013. We will also be discussing it as part of our deliberations to determine how best to respond to the increasing enrollment in our elementary schools. For instance, at the discussion on enrollment on October 8, the Superintendent stated that he has increased the frequency of bed checks and announced that he will be bringing a new policy to the School Board that would require each student to reenroll between elementary school and middle school and between middle school and high school. I also encourage anyone interested to read the BerkeleySide article by Mary Flaherty on this issue (http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/04/08/illegal-enrollment-is-boon-and-burden-to-berkeley-schools/).

This problem has persisted as long as I’ve been involved with the schools – my daughter started here in 1978. The problems the school system encounters are caused by the system we live in, insoluble until we work to change it. Working to change it actually will change the behavior of all who concern themselves with justice, with high quality living for us all.

Data on out of district transfers was provided at a recent Board meeting and is available to the public. Fewer transfers have been awarded – most are for the children of District teachers/staff. Fraudulent enrollment data by definition can be estimated but not collected and is hard to determine due to the numbers of our students with split parental custody; that reside with a caretaker that legally does not have to be a guardian according to State law; are fairly transient; and/or are homeless (which includes students whose families are “doubling up” and/or those that “couch-surf” within an extended family). The Board has already directed staff to increase home visits as an equitable method of determining residency and to review the enrollment status of students with serious disciplinary infractions. In addition, the Board has publicly stated that a review of the District’s enrollment practices will be conducted as part of current Board discussions (publicly accessible by attending or viewing Board meetings) over enrollment issues in the District. I have already publicly stated that I favor having students separately enroll for elementary, middle, and high school and to institute (and publicize!) a program of random home visits as part of the enrollment process and am open to hearing other equitable measures to address this issue.

As Board President, I set forth a 4-meeting plan to the challenges we face from increasing elementary school enrollment. On October 8, the board looked at the data on each elementary school – e.g., how many classrooms were being used, how many classrooms were used for other purposes. We also looked at demographic trends, which indicate that we’ll need 4-6 new classrooms for fall 2015.

The second meeting – occurring on November 5 – will begin the discussion of options. We have already been soliciting input from the community on potential options and many have written. (I encourage you to do so by emailing me at joshdaniels@berkeley.net as well as the Superintendent.) The third and fourth meetings will include vetting the options and settling on one or more of them by February.

There were some at the October 8 board meeting who advocated for a much quicker timeline. While I agree with the urgency, I am a strong believer in ensuring open and transparent decision, especially when it comes to decisions as difficult as these. This 4-meeting plan doesn’t push anything off the table and ensures that the process through which the board settles on options will be made transparently and in public.

For more information, see the last item in the October 8 board meeting packet here (http://www.berkeleyschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Packet-10-08-2014.pdf) and the video of the discussion is here (http://vimeo.com/108847685).

We’ll look to finding the funds to hire enough personnel – teaching staff as well as support staff, - as always – as always not able to be made to accommodate the needs no matter how much the board, the candidates, and the other electeds and candidates say this will be a primary concern to them.

I believe that we should review the new staffing model that the Board adopted last year – based largely upon input from school site principals (and slightly modified this year so that the enrollment threshold of having a vice principal for an elementary school was lowered) to evaluate whether the expanded staffing that was enacted through the model met school site needs this year and adjust next year based upon this year’s experiences.

The contract between the District and our teacher’s union requires two full time special education staff at each site. While this was put in place many years ago for good reason, it also makes it difficult to allocate staff proportionally when there are limited financial resources. While we cannot negotiate in public, this is certain something that I will be looking at for the next round of negotiations.

Again, trying to adjust provision of equitable services gets limited by funding and availability. With the enormous abuse of teachers, starting with their pay, then with their position relative to the community, the students – the difficulty of maintaining a respectable relationship while being derided for undertaking this work – like much of work these days – high pay being the way to be respected, rather than content of the work done, it is unlikely that promising to rectify the imbalance will achieve that. The school board cannot change the social structure, --unless, of course, it commits to the long haul to do so. Doing the work to change the system we live in will allow us some joy we don’t presently access in our day to day working.

I agree that the special education staffing should be reviewed as part of our review of all of our elementary support staff needs. This year for the first time, all elementary schools will be provided with RTI staff from District funds by Board action and will be reviewing program implementation, including the nexus between RTI and special education resource needs.

As I mentioned in my response to Question #2, I have heard this concern from many school PTAs. (I have also heard the concern from the BHS Development Group and the Berkeley Public Schools Fund.) The District would not have been able to survive the cuts from the Great Recession if it wasn’t for the support of our PTA. Thus, as “new” (see response to Question # 2) money does come back into the District, we must use some of it so that the PTAs are no longer left shouldering the financial burden of these core educational services. To do so, we need to establish a baseline level of service and staffing that the District would fund and that the PTAs/SGCs would augment based upon the unique needs of that school community.

Please say ‘children’. People under age 18 are not kids.
Child is not 'kid'.
Kid is the happy-go-lucky, kick-up-your-heels, devil-may-care creature. Likely there hasn't been such a child.
Children are already inaccurately marginalized into being a different creature from regular people. I don't want to reinforce that abusive misconception.

Child is cradled - likely, as we all should be, but especially children should be.
Children must mingle with us equally. They must be included as workers; substantial, as important as all of us in production, decision making, guidance of our communities. No age limit; whenever a child has input s/he must be heard. We must change the education system to that children participate with us. Their participation then becomes like ours - input offered because the child has knowledge, concern. Like us - we raise our hand to offer our idea. So must they!

We must stop treating them or ANY person as less capable than any others of us.
We are all intellectuals, all geniuses. These are NOT genetic traits!
Children are not more - or less - happy than adults, more or less 'kick-up-your-heels' creatures in the corral.
As long as the strata exist, who deserves more - or less - we will not have peace

The funding you seek needs to come because we are able to tax properly, called ‘tax the rich’. As you know, we can’t. As it is when the Council seeks to adjust systemic injustice – us required to commit war on our fellows, costing enormous funds and anguish, if the board sought root causes of the constraints we’re forced to bear to serve our interests, to benefit from our work, to gain the fruit of our labor, we would be told how we cannot work for those goals, so we’ll back up and pick at little things, turning to regressive taxation, which doesn’t gain us enough funds to do what we need and like.

During the recession years marked by significant State reductions in public school funding, a lot of difficult decisions were made in order to balance the District’s budget – including having school sites take on more funding responsibilities or lose student support and enrichment programs/staff. With some of the lost funding now being restored (by 2020 will have base funding equivalent to what was received in 2007), the Board has taken steps to shift the responsibility for some of this funding back to the District. In addition, the supplemental Local Control Funding Formula monies mandated to be used for low income, English Language Learner, foster youth, and other under-served students, such as African American students will be targeted to expand the types of student support services listed above.

If done well, PLCs enable teachers to learn from each other and create a cultural and constant instructional improvement. The biggest challenge the District faces with PLCs is fidelity – i.e., whether PLCs are being fully implemented at all of our school sites. There are a many sites, particularly elementary school sites, that are utilizes PLCs extremely well. However, there are a number of sites that are not doing so.

During my time on the board, I have ensured that our professional development funds go support PLCs as well as other teacher support. Additionally, a single board member can also encourage the implementation of PLCs by raising the issue when the general issue of PD is discussed. For instance, at the April 30 board meeting I asked staff whether it would be more effective to do the cultural competence training through PLCs (like the CARE approach that has been utilized at Washington) as opposed to the three-day once-a-year approach proposed in the LCAP. Staff responded that the three-day once-a-year approach was to provide the baseline for on-going cultural competency training that would take place through site PLCs with the help of equity coaches.

As President of the board this year, I have attempted to develop a board president “PLC” with the board presidents of other school districts. While it is not as rigorous as the PLCs that occur in BUSD, I believe that the introspection required by the experience and the knowledge gained from other board presidents is important for my own grown as a board member.

See my discussion explaining that we are all teachers and students all our lives; that the people who know how to do things are doing them and need to be able to include community members, regardless of age, in the places – the work sites – where whatever it is THAT’S NECESSARY TO BE DONE is being done. These people have to keep up with the latest ways to repair a chair, to heal an illness, to gather shoes so someone can come in and buy a pair – all of which require reading and writing and thinking and calculating – for a few hours a week – 40 hours a week is NOT necessary to get the needed work done – especially with so many people available to do whatever work needs to be done.

These require changes to the rules of how we get together, how we fund ourselves as we do alternative living, what’s studied and how it’s done – I’ve described suggestions in my book, and implied ways in my flyer.

One of the reasons, I am excited about our new Superintendent is his experience and commitment to professional development – particularly Professional Learning Committees. I believe collaboration is key to developing a great teaching and thus student learning environment. With Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, and increased need for differential learning to meet the students of various learning levels as well as how to integrate socio-emotional curriculum, such as anti-bullying and conflict resolution, supporting PLCs and other teacher/classified staff training is key. While I believe that the District (and Board) is extremely committed to PLC’s I am interested in ideas of how the District can expand release time for professional development even more in a way that does not decrease classroom teaching time.

The so-called “Blue Book” is the plan that was developed in preparation for the 2010 bond measure (Measure I). It was the result of two years of community outreach, feedback, and discussion. It was what was promised to voters as part of Measure I so we should deviate from that plan very cautiously. That being said, the plan needs to be adjusted to address how reality has changed since 2010, specifically the Transitional Kindergarten requirement and the increasing elementary school enrollment. The board has committed to doing so, and is starting the 4-meeting plan discussed in Question #4. Once we have a plan in place for next fall we can begin to consider longer-term solutions.

Here I don’t know what you mean – Facilities Master Plan; I presume it’s a specific program you’ve been party to for a while.

I have been a consistent advocate of the need for a Facilities Master Plan (including during the community discussions regarding our last school construction bond) and continue to speak out in favor of developing one – at Board meetings and as part of my campaign re-election. I believe that the plan should include at a minimum classroom, flex/enrichment, and outdoor space needs but also 21st needs.

The achievement/opportunity gap that exists in the District manifests itself in special education as well where African-American students are disproportionately identified as needing special education services. While the 2020 Vision does not have a specific indicator related to special education (the indicators are kindergarten readiness, third grade reading, ninth grade math, and high school attendance), this disproportionally is antithetical to the purpose of the 2020 Vision. This is way the board has paid close attention to this metric. In fact, information on the disproportionality in special education was presented to the board at the most recent meeting on October 22. (Start of page 70 of the agenda packet, which available here: http://www.berkeleyschools.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10-22-14-packet.pdf.) Simply put, we cannot address the inequities in our district without address the root causes of disproportionality in special education.

The way not to have an achievement gap is for everybody to do things – to see what’s being done, to do some of it – Please, read through my book. We’re all geniuses. There’s no genius gene. School is designed to suppress that so that we get the lower medium higher level of worker – to stratify us, to stratify jobs. We need all work equal to all work; no higher or lower pay. The work that needs to be done needs to be done. Much of it doesn’t. Get rid of it. Share – share our production so we all have sufficient material comfort because of our work. Share so we are all secure, so we all have plenty all our lives, guaranteed, unto our children’s children...

I believe that the District needs to address the disproportionality of students of color being identified as having special education needs – especially when there is not a clear diagnosable learning related condition such as autism, speech, or dyslexia. Students that are academically struggling should have early intervention through RTI and only be referred to special education for specific learning issues. Currently 25% of African American students are being classified as needing special education (non-GATE) which in my opinion is a misuse of the program and not in the best of interests of the students being served.

Differentiated instruction, if done right, should sufficiently challenge all students, including advanced learners. To do differentiated instruction right, however, required significant teacher support. For me, this relates back to PLCs more than anything else. (See my response to Question #7.) PLCs are the perfect forum for a teacher to receive support in ensuring that they are able to sufficiently challenge all students. By allowing teachers to discuss that instructional practice with each other, teachers can learn from each other how to ensure that all students are challenged.

Yes, end the stratification. Everyone work at the highest possible level of production – yes – ALL people work – regardless of age. All of us love to do our work – to make product people need and like and that we enjoy making because of that. Study arises as we do those. Testing is only asking oneself and each other if the work is being done satisfactorily, and correcting if it isn’t and being satisfied if it is.

As a parent whose son was GATE-identified and just graduated from BHS last year, I have first-hand experience of the absolute need for professional development in addressing the special needs of advanced learners as too many of our teachers have not yet mastered differential teaching (though my son did have teachers that did do this well) – which is critical for the success of the District’s policy of mainstreaming students with special needs. One of the reasons I was excited about hiring our current Superintendent is that he has a background in developing GATE curriculum and working with advanced learners and believe that he will bring that experience and understanding to our District. In addition, the new Common Core priorities on critical thinking and experiential learning is much more conducive to extending lesson plans to challenge advanced learners and much of the curriculum has extended lesson plans built in.

I strongly believe that we must challenge all of our students. This is exactly what the new common core state standards are designed to do. By incorporating more reading into math and by requirement students to read more non-fiction and to write more argumentative essays, the common core is designed to encourage students to think rather than memorize. It truly will (and is) challenges all students. (The changes to the math curriculum are especially important to me because I have a background in math and I have always found our math curriculum to be woefully inadequate to teach deep mathematically thinking.)

As a result, the implementation of the common core is – as one district staff member told me – the biggest instructional issue we face. So far, the District has implemented it well. Our teachers worked on common core implementation for a year and then came to the board with a plan, which we approved. And the board has continued to support this implementation plan with sufficient resources.

As I’ve said, change the process and the objectives. This will take time. At this time, at all times, there is not and has never been a school boards seat anywhere that acknowledges what I’m talking about; that acknowledges the misery that school is, - ask the children - I know – they all – many – say – sure, I love school – But then as they rise in evaluation of their situation they come to realize they don’t – didn’t. Remember the child who was torn from their pained parent, screaming, crying don’t leave me!? Yes, people adjust to it, tell themselves we have to get used to the pains.

I strongly believe that each of our students deserve to have and be supported in having a rigorous education. I supported the establishment of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program; expanding advanced placement/IB classes; instituting a college prep program at BTech (including building the first science lab at the school); and establishing standards of expectations for rigor across schools, school communities, and classrooms – all grade levels including the various BHS small learning communities. I believe that one of the ways this can best be accomplished is through professional learning communities where teachers can share best teaching practices, how to differentially teach students of varying academic skill level, and how to motivate/interest students in learning.

As I mentioned in my response to Question #4, the board has begun a 4-meeting plan to address the challenges we face from increasing elementary school enrollment. The first meeting occurred on October 8 and the second meeting will occur on November 5 when we will begin the discussion of options. A number of ideas are likely to be considered, including building a new school, repurposing existing buildings, consolidating transitional kindergarten at one school site, increasing class size, adding portable, and many other proposals submitted by staff, the board, and the community. In addition, we also must consider increased staffing level.

Everybody works and plays all the time. Everybody visits far off places all the time. Everybody lives rich full lives all the time. These restricted ways to live, these accustoming ourselves to discomfort, - why! Are we to believe the church – that tells us we’re supposed to be miserable?, and the economics professors that tell us the same thing – scarcity! There needn’t be scarcity, if we’re permitted to provide all of us for us all. This system doesn’t permit that.

Next year? ...at the rate we’re going...never telling the truth about school’s role, about our lives lived in service to our Owners, the profiteers, we’ll NEver achieve comfort and security for us all. If we DO begin to work for it, it’ll be a long time coming. Our Owners will continue to beat and kill us as we rise. THEy cannot tolerate us living equitably, all well off.

The reforms – they don’t.

We have to make do with the system that exists while we work to make the huge changes I’m telling you need to be made. But we have to not say that we are able to fix any of these problems using the present configurations permitted us. The battle is to tear down the brutal formation – step by step, and then altogether replace it with the ways we come up with that serve us beautifully.

Increasing class size will, by definition, mitigate the impact of the surge in elementary school enrollment, but only as it relates to the need for classrooms. Increasing class size does not address other facilities issues such as insufficient cafeteria space, insufficient playground space, etc. (Increasing class size also creates other drawback such as increased workload on teachers.) In order to address the other impacts of increasing enrollment, we are basically left with two options – increasing the number of classrooms (e.g., portables, building new schools, etc.) or providing additional resources to help a school cope with the increased enrollment. In the short-term, we will probably have to rely more heavily on the latter but in the long-term we must do the former.

We have to make do with the system that exists while we work to make the huge changes I’m telling you need to be made. But we have to not say that we are able to fix any of these problems using the present configurations permitted us. The battle is to tear down the brutal formation – step by step, and then altogether replace it with the ways we come up with that serve us beautifully.

I don’t have a position on this yet as there has yet to be a discussion in our community about the relationship about current class sizes and impacts on student learning. This needs to be the focus of this issue.

I’m not exactly sure what is meant by an Elementary Student Bill of Rights. However, as I mentioned in my response to Question #6, I believe that the board needs to adopt a policy that establishes a baseline level of service and staffing per school site that the District would fund and that the PTAs/SGCs would augment based upon the unique needs of that school community.

Why ask ME!!! For a change – let’s ask the students to ask each other, to ask themselves! Get out of their way. Tell them to ask for everything – no compromises with the system – no accession to not being able to do a way because it hasn’t been done. Figure out how to live and then work to make that possible. It won’t happen tomorrow.

I support development of a Master Facilities Plan which includes minimum and/or recommended guidelines for not just classroom space but flex/enrichment, cafeteria, and outdoor space as well as technology needs. I also support continual review/adjustment of recommended staffing levels for all of our schools to ensure appropriate support and safety of our students. Finally, the Board’s Policy Sub-committee has been reviewing District policies regarding safety and harassment issues. Many other student/family rights are established by federal or state laws/regulations (such as the right of students with special needs to a free and appropriate education).

I place a high priority on physical activity and wellbeing. My day job is as a staff attorney for the California School Boards Association, which is the organization that represents school districts throughout California. In that role, I have helped school districts ensure that they are abiding by the state requirement of 200 minutes everyone 10 school days for all elementary school students and I try to the same on the board.

In response to high school parents, I also worked with the Superintendent to create a Superintendent’s taskforce on the issue of high school student physical activity and wellbeing. This taskforce was discussed at the recent meeting on October 22.

My concern for physical activity and wellbeing is also why I have co-chaired the Berkeley Soda Tax effort (Yes on D!). Not only will Measure D make our children healthier but the revenue from Measure D can be used to support our gardening (and cooking) programs, which recently lost all $2 million of its federal funding.

Separation of content into subject matter is in line with the commodification of all aspects of our lives. So we have the products science, social studies, health, gym, art etc etc – when really they are a unity. That’s really difficult for people to envision – just living ....

PE was one of the programs that were cut across districts due to State reduced funding for schools. I consider physical education (and nutrition) part of fostering healthy, whole children that are ready to learn and would like to start a discussion around what it would take to have a consistent PE program in our elementary schools. The issue is that the current State funding isn’t so much new money as restored money – in 2020 the District will get to the same level of funding as in 2007 for its base funding so there is and will be a lot of competition for restoring programs as well as services that were cut. I believe that in addition to a Master Facilities Plan that we need a baseline for physical education, music, and art as well as student support services in order to be able to determine what are the necessary resources to achieve what we believe is important to provide to our students.

I have created a listserv of over 2,000 emails in my four years on the board and I use it to send regular updates on important District activities, meetings, and issues. I have also made it a point to respond to almost every single email or telephone call I receive. (My email is joshdaniels@berkeley.net and my phone number is 510-213-8683.) Many of these communications are from families in need of information and I am able to provide them the information myself or connect them with a district staff member who can. In other instances, the communications express concern regardless the quality of education services or programs. In response, I set up phone conversations, invite families to my offices hours (next office hours: Saturday, November 15 @ 1p at Take 5 Café), or suggest making public comment at a board meeting. Regardless of the specific focus on the communications, I always benefit from hearing from families because I gain insight and perspectives on the reality of life in the District that I would not get otherwise. If re-elected, I will continue to send out my emails and to be responsive to every communication I receive.

I’d still try to help us preach the alternatives at every turn. Until we can begin to school us to know we are permitted to think the other way, then to compose how else we’d live together, we achieve only repetition. I believe it’s called zombie – for having failed-died and constantly being resurrected although everyone knows it won’t work, again.

I was an early and strong advocate of having family outreach workers at every elementary school and believe the BHS Parent Resource Center should be expanded and that middle school needs must also be addressed. I also support having a student/family ombudsman at the central district office and continue to champion continual improvement of both one way and two way communication with parents/families. For example, I would really like to have the PTA Council and other active parents weigh in on how the District can more effectively disseminate information to our community. A lot of information, especially around student learning, school facilities, and student enrollment and even discipline IS publicly available by having been presented at a School Board or community meeting but the District needs to do a better job in making it easy to access. I have talked to the Superintendent of having a separate part of the District’s website just for PowerPoint presentations given at the Board and other communities for quick access – especially by members of our community that didn’t attend the meeting but are interested in the issue and am open to other ideas of how to make District data/information more readily accessible.